I Shot the Sheriff

Glancing back every other minute or so, John took point and started running at a speed that Grace could maintain; as far as he knew, she was the slowest member of the party. There seemed to be no problems on that front; the two grayish blue blips on his map had kept up with them the whole time. It’s weird that their icons are a mix of blue and gray, like they’re not really allies?

Focusing back on the center of his vision, he noted they were at most half a kilometer from the exit. He also saw someone rapidly approaching from the front. “Somebody’s coming at us. Cherufe, Electric Eye, to the front with me.”

“I don’t take orders from you,” Elizabeth grumbled, but complied nonetheless when she saw who Cherufe was, joining them on the frontlines, “and I never told you the code name I picked?”

“Didn’t have to,” he winked at the redhead. “Mine is The Gamer, the Brit in the back is Joker. Speaking of, Joker, telescope sticker?” His hands went to his guns, and he felt the white-haired girl stick the telescope onto the back of his hand.

Abigail absently cracked her knuckles, fire rolling off her hands like droplets. She had been cockteased out of a fight once in the past hour, she was going to make sure it didn’t happen again. Elizabeth shared that sentiment, and rolled her neck, looking down at the figure in the distance as wiry, bright golden hexagons appeared in her eyes. They stood out against the amber irises.

His vision lurched forward, zooming in to show him… Valencia? Again? “Guys don’t worry, it’s just Valencia. Weird running into her again, but pretty lucky, more firepower is never a bad thing.”

Everybody lowered their guard, watching the panicked spear-wielder approach. She had an urgent look on her face, and John remembered when using Stellar Witness he watched Lucille attack, maybe even kill, Filaurel, Valencia’s teammate.

“Alright, I think her teammate may have been killed in front of her, so everybody keep that in mind and try to be nice,” John whispered as the elf neared them, clearly out of breath.

“John, Abigail, Grace,” the elf had to take deep breaths between each name, hands on her knees and doubled over, “Filaurel… dead…”

“What happened?” John asked, handing over a vial full of water to help the clearly distressed girl. She drank the small amount of liquid down immediately. “How did you find us?”

“Your teammate… the other elf… she appeared out of nowhere. I don’t know how she tracked us, but she attacked Filaurel. Shot her to bits. I watched the life leave her eyes as she cast her final spell, grass enveloping me. I didn’t know where I was when it had stopped, but I picked a direction and ran. You’re not with her, are you?” The elf managed to hold herself together, barely, but was clearly on the brink of a meltdown

“And you just happened to run into us?” Elizabeth was quick to doubt the story, this person being a stranger to her anyway. “Out of all the places you could have turned?”

“Give her a break, she’s been through a lot,.” John glared at the redhead, and turned back to their distressed friend, “No, we’re not with her. She betrayed us, though it looks like we didn’t get the worst of it. Where is she now?” Realizing he never had the chance to use Advanced Spy on the spear-wielder, he did so, and was confused by the resulting error.

Error! Target level too high and relationship score too low!

That set off alarm bells, and with a start, he realized something else. There was no way she could know Grace’s name. John had been referring to his teammates as their code names when in the presence of other people, and that included Valencia and Filaurel. His body went cold and his grip imperceptibly tightened on his guns.

“I don’t know! I never looked back! I didn’t want her to catch me!” ‘Valencia’ answered, rocking on her heels. If she had noticed John’s use of Advanced Spy, she didn’t mention it.

“Alright, alright. The important thing is that you’re safe,” John rested a comforting hand on the elf in front of him. Through the party chat he relayed to Grace, the only person in it he trusted not to visibly react, This isn’t Valencia. She never heard your name, and she’s too powerful. She fully resisted my scrying spell.

Shit! Sharp work! What’s the plan then? Grace replied, still at the back of the group with the invisible girl.

“What are we going to do?” the elf hysterically asked, jostling her spear around wildly. “She’s going to get all of us! She had no trouble with Filaurel and she was so strong!”

“Don’t worry, I think I have a plan,” John replied, finishing the sentence to Grace, I need to confirm that this is her. I need a distraction. If I’m right, I’m going to hit her with my strongest attack. That’ll be your cue to run away.

“Don’t worry about a thing! Johnny here is stronger than she is, guaranteed!” the Brit burst in, making her way through the small semi-circle of people surrounding the elf. “All your troubles are going to go away. Don’t even get me started on Abigail!” the sticker star continued, taking the girl by her arm and turning her toward the mentioned pyromancer. Simultaneously, she placed a sticker subtly on the back of the elf’s robe.

While Grace provided a distraction, John spoke Lucille’s name, barely more than a breath of a whisper to direct Stellar Witness toward her. Much to his dismay (but not to his surprise), he was given an aerial view of them, with ‘Valencia’ in the center. That being all the proof he needed, he charged a Fist with four hundred mana, Jumping behind the faker and slamming it into her back. As a result, the elf shot forward, sailing straight through four trees, deep into the forest. Noticing this, Grace joined the unseen teammate in invisibility with her last chameleon sticker.

“John! What are you doing!?” Abigail gasped, searching his eyes for any sign of mind control. Her plainly confused look only worsened when she couldn’t find any.

“That’s not Valencia. It’s Lucille,” John explained, rapid firing two full clips after her. The betrayer’s disguise faded away, fake robe and facial features falling in their illusion to reveal their former teammate’s outfit. She strutted back into view, blocking his bullets with a shield of mana.

“What gave me away?” the sentence began as the voice of Valencia, but ended as hers. Her pistols appeared in her hands at the same time, held high in a forward stance.

“You used Grace’s name. Valencia wouldn’t have known it. You also resisted my scry,” John wasn’t quite willing to reveal what had confirmed it, wanting to keep information on his spells, particularly the existence of Stellar Witness, out of her reach.

“You’re smarter than I gave you credit for.” Lucille’s stance widened and lowered as she looked to the three visible targets. “I didn’t want to hurt you, John, but my mission is more-”

The elf was cut off as an explosion rocked her, the bomb sticker placed on her back exploding the shirt it was placed on. The resulting blast compromised the capsules at her hip, and they too went off in a blast of shrapnel, their contents nowhere to be seen.

Thinking quickly, John invited Elizabeth to the party, merely saying, “It’ll prevent friendly fire!” He Jumped forward, intent on finishing what he had started. He charged another hundred mana into a Fist and activated Reflex Mode, aiming his punch at her head.

Lucille slipped past his guard and grabbed his arm. He tried to adjust his aim, but even in Reflex Mode it was as though he was moving at a snail’s pace compared to her, despite his best efforts. She twisted his arm cruelly, instantly breaking all the ligaments and tendons and some of the bones within as she bent it at his wrist and shoulder, bringing the Fist into his stomach. He almost didn’t understand as he flew back, slamming against a tree not quite hard enough to break through it. It rumbled and cracked behind him as he struggled to stand back up.

Abigail’s emotions swirled inside her as she watched the man she had blossoming feelings for ragdolled by the woman who had now betrayed them twice. “You bitch! We trusted you!”

The pyromancer surged forth, her flames filling out her massive aura once more. Her muscles bulged and rippled as fire coursed through her body, surging forward to envelop the source of her anger. An explosion unlike anything they had seen before rocked the ground beneath them, a sizeable crater forming at the epicenter.

For a moment, John allowed himself to be relieved. Surely, nobody could survive that. It was probably dozens of times stronger than the attack she had used on him when she was angry, and that had taken his whole health bar and then some. His blood went cold when he felt a weight pressing on the back of his head.

He Jumped as a bullet would have exploded his brain, looking back to see Lucille, who had dodged Abigail’s attack if her relatively unharmed state was anything to go on. He formed a shield in front of himself with Mana Construct as Lucille hurled a fireball at him. What the hell? Since when was she a pyromancer?

The flames exploded on his shield, sliding him back a couple feet. Lucille appeared behind him, given away by the sound of her feet hitting the ground. John turned and shot her point blank with both guns noting the disoriented expression on her face as she turned to face him. Apparently, when she teleported, she kept her orientation. Wait a minute… is she using Jump right now?.

His bullets broke the shield she formed out of her construct. One glanced off her arm, and wiring was once again revealed inside. The words The Hermit had said to him went through his head. Do not trust the girl with mechanical arms. Well thanks, would have been nice to know that she hides them!

Elizabeth, the only one who had been able to follow everything that happened, leapt into the air, electricity crackling over her arms. Trusting what the weirdo had said about friendly fire, she flung a ball of lightning at the both of them.

It hit the ground nearly instantly, as lightning in its purest form does. Lightning in its purest form does not, however, expand out into an electrical field as her attack did. Normally the mechanical arms the elf used were superbly insulated, but when shot multiple times by a superpowered gun, well, the surge of power to its wiring was enough to melt most of the internals.

“Everybody, to the exit! We don’t have to beat her, we just have to escape!” John shouted, drinking a Mana Potion while Lucille recovered, he used all of his mana in a single instance of Move to propel her into the air, more to buy them time than anything else.

This was just the opportunity David was waiting for. He could sense the fear in his master, but the air was his domain, and he would not be challenged in it. He made several passes at her as she rocketed up, unable to fight back due to both shock and debilitation. Though the bird’s attacks didn’t do much, his talons scraping over her eyes did momentarily blind her.

That instant of blindness was enough for Abigail to create a pillar of flame, launching Lucille up even further. The fire burst against the elf girl’s back, disrupting Lucille’s focus as she tried to use Move to get back to the ground.

As much as Abigail didn’t want to obey John’s order of retreat, she had to admit that the elf was on a whole other level. For the first time in her life regarding a fight, she felt a twinge of fear.

We’re way ahead of you! Grace called through the party chat, which was relieving since she would need the biggest head start. Not looking back, John sprinted toward the beacon of light. Within half a minute he noticed that it was actually a translucent pillar, a cylinder about three times the width of his house. He watched Grace step inside it; her invisibility falling away. After exactly three seconds she was gone. Elizabeth and her teammate followed at the same time. John entered it, Abigail following a moment later.

His guns were still at the ready, and he dismissed David so as to not lose him between Kingdoms. He could hardly even process it as, the instant before he was teleported, Lucille leapt toward him. She was interrupted by the pyromancer, both getting knocked out of the circle.