PreCursive

  Some of the soldiers reacted with visceral shock at the sudden attack against one of their own, while some had the fht to try and find cover. Still some others immediately tried to trace the path of my attack back up to me, with different levels of results.

  It didn’t really matter.

  I wasn’t alone in here, after all.

  At nearly the same time I took out the first soldier, a hail of other attacks rained down upon the insuffitly cautious soldiery. Arrows, thrown bdes, and energy and elemental attacks from the wide variety of powerful Agents that the Noe Division could field. While there were only a few truly elite cssers among us that could stand toe to toe with someone like General Longstripe, in general we were a cut above the rest.

  It showed.

  In moments, nearly a third of the Loyalist soldiers that had invaded our base had been sughtered. Seeing such rampah, a number of them immediately broke and tried to flee back through the doors that they had broken. We did our best to prevent them from making out, even if it was obvious that the garrison forces had to know they’d found the right warehouse.

  The screams of the dying had to clue them in.

  I had opped drawing arrows, infusing them with Grinding Crimson Sunder, and then loosing them upon the Loyalists. Arrow after arrot from my borrowed bow, some finding their mark, some not. I wasn’t quite a master archer at this point, and this was the first time I was using a bow in active bat. Some of my shots hit their target, and some didn’t. Even then, not every arrow I nded was a killing blow.

  But they always at least mao wound or maim.

  I coldly watched as my test arrow ly took off the leg of one soldier trying to flee out the door. I didn’t see what happeo him after that, as he tumbled through the shrapnel of the shattered door, screaming and bleeding.

  Things couldn’t remain this way forever, though. While the general soldiery weren’t quite as powerful as we were, they did have ohing going for them that was a staple of their profession.

  Discipline.

  The surviving troops below us rallied together, f a dome of shields both physical and Skill or spell-based. They huddled together uheir bined defensive front, surrounded by the dead or dying, and began to try and strike back. Attacks of their own began to sh out from their position, aimed widely at all areas of the warehouse they suspected we were attag from. Some of them were aimed correctly, f some of my rades to abandon their stealthed positions and dive out of the way, but from what I could see, none of us were truly hit.

  I myself had to dive out of the way of one jured and thrown rock the size of my head as it impacted the beam I was crouched upon. Throwing out my golden hand, I jured a Thrapple that shot out and attached to the roof. I used it to swing away from the colpsing timber and nd on another one. As I nded, I felt an impay back that caused me to stumble and nearly fall from my new vantage point. Reag behind me, I yanked out an arrow that my still active Thorn Cloak had mao stop in pce.

  I grimaced at the sight of it, but something else drew my attention before I could go bay sniping.

  Movement from the door.

  Advang into the warehouse was a rge cohort of Loyalist soldiers, protected by a domed bubble shield being projected by a pair of dedicated casters. I, along with a number of ents immediately tried to bombard the sed dome with attacks.

  It didn’t work. The shield was to.

  We couldn’t do anything to stop them before they linked up with the surviving force. Supported by the reinforts, their shield was even stronger now.

  I let out a breath at the sight of it. There was no way any of us were going to get through that now. I guess the easy part of this was over.

  Now we had to get up close and personal with the Loyalists. That struck me as just fine.

  I was more of a melee specialist, anyway.

  Twents appeared o me on my vantage point, as I slung my bow over my shoulder. As I drew my daggers instead, I saw one of my rades draw a long, curved bde, and the other a whip of all things. We each other.

  We knew what we had to do. The people maintaining those shields had to go.

  That shield…it may stop Skills, Spells and Arts. But…

  It wouldn’t stop people.

  This beam was almost directly overhead of the shield Loyalists, so the three of us simply stepped off the timber.

  And dove, ons first.

  In the split sed before we passed the membrane, I saw that we weren’t the only Agents to e to the same clusion on the phase of the fight. A number of the others dove out of the shadows in lunging blows to crash into the defending Loyalists. I actually saw Jangle and Sylvia w in ta or lure soldiers from the safety of the dome, usiher his daggers or her illusions.

  But I had my own targets to worry about.

  One of the casters maintaining the shield somehow thought to look up in the split sed before I crashed into him, daggers poised like the jaws of a serpent. I saw his eyes widen briefly in panic, but it was too te.

  My right Oninite dagger found his throat, while my left his heart. The weight of my impact drove the two of us to the floor as I used his dying body as a cushion to slide my way to a stht in the middle of the Loyalist forces. Instantly, I activated Sylvan Vigor at full strength, and sprang upwards using my hands, ripping my daggers from the corpse of the caster as I did so in a spray of blood. Good thing I did, because I saw several Loyalist bdes sink into the body of the caster I’d just assassinated below me, right where I’d just been.

  If he hadn’t been dead before, he sure as hell was now.

  I saw that one of the ents that had dove with me had been successful in taking out the other dedicated shield specialist, but not the other. She’d sawed his head straight off with her serrated whip, but the ent hadn’t been so lucky. Unfortunately, in the same freeze frame I saw the whip Agent, I saw the ent skewered on the end of several Loyalist bdes.

  He might have been our first casualty in this fight. Not…ued, from how risky this maneuver had been. But a loss, heless

  I grimaced, but threw out a hand and cast ahrapple blindly overhead to get me out of this mess.

  I’d done my job.

  I just barely missed getting skewered by a questing Loyalist spear, but didn’t mao escape the bde pletely. I felt it carve a bloody line along my left calf as I rapidly asded away from the Loyalist position. Thankfully, I didn’t feel the pain too badly in the depths of my battle trance.

  With the shield weakened and flickering from losing the main casters maintaining it, the barrage from those Agents still in firing positions resumed. It rapidly began to weaken from our attacks, flickering in the dim light of the warehouse.

  We didn’t get to enjoy ambit for long.

  The right most wall of the warehouse exploded outwards, sending debris flying across the length and breadth of our besieged base. I nearly fell off my vantage point with how the entire building shook from the blow. Below me, I saw huge ks of masonry and timber shoot across the spaderh, skipping along both the floor and the flickering dome of the Loyalist soldiers. My breath caught in my throat when I saw one of the Agents who had desded into the melee get skewered by a jagged length of support beam, s across the hall to get pio the far wall.

  The fighting paused for a moment, as everyone directed their eyes to the bree the warehouse.

  Striding through the smoke and debris cloud was the person we were all fearing to see.

  General Atticus Longstripe.

  The man had his massive fnged mace hoisted over one of his shoulders, as he surveilled the battlefield in an instant with a scowl under his massive mustache. After a moment of silence as the battlefield held its collective breath from the weight of his presehe huge man abruptly thrust his on into the air. “NO QUARTER!” He bellowed, his voice eg to all ers of the warehouse. “DEATH TO ALL COWARDS!”

  The Loyalist forces cheered, emboldened by the sight of their leader. But more importantly, they were immediately reinforced by a massive force that streamed in from the hole he had created, flooding the battlefield. These new forces began to take wild shots at every space of the warehouse they could see, filling it with holes in the walls and ceilings. More than a few support beams and struts were taken out by these both the attacks of the new arrivals, and the inspired forces we’d already been fighting.

  The warehouse began to creak ominously.

  It wasn’t safe to stay up here anymore. It wasn’t safe to hide anywhere in here.

  Unfortunately, that meant the time for stealth was over. It was time to join in with my rades on the floor, locked in a pitched melee.

  I dove over the side of the beam, extending both of my daggers at oo their short spear forms. As I did so, I activated The Stilnt Bde on both of them.

  I pinned one soldier to the ground with my left spear, while simultaneously shing out at another with my right. The bde of my enhanced on cut through his get like a khrough butter, as I stood up and yanked my other armament from the corpse of the soldier who had broken my fall. As I did so, I got into the odd bat stance I’d patched together for just this occasion, spears held under each arm and spyed out, pointed downwards.

  Time to see if this bat style was actually effective. Azarus had helped me workshop it, all the way ba Helstein, but I’d never had the opportunity to try it before now. He’d thought it was an incredibly odd thing, but said it was theoretically possible with Dexterity as high as mine.

  I shook off the pang that the thought of my dwarven friend elicited deep in my rings, fog otle instead.

  Out of the er of my eye, I was able to see through the masses of soldiers towards where the General had been. I wasn’t surprised to find that Serpent had made his move oher man, and was now locked in bat with Longstripe, barraging him with relentless blows from his twin longswords. Unfortunately, the General was more than capable of keeping up with Serpent’s blinding speed, shing out at every opportunity and bsting holes in the surrounding area with his destructive might. Serpent was able to dodge these, if only barely, but even I could tell that he was outmatched. I could only hope the senient was able to pull off a miracle. I took a deep breath and readied myself.

  Time to see if Azarus was right about my own dual-wielding style.

  I got to work.

  This style was a great deal mile than my usual o involved more sweeps and twirls using both of the extended spears than a usual spear style. There were still plenty of stabs and jabs involved, but for the most part, I was creating a zohat I trolled, using the length my ons provided.

  It was turning out to be pretty effective.

  Sure, more than one enemy soldier thought to try a in close to me. After all, a weakness of using long ons was that it was harder to deal with enemies when they got in close. And that would have worked, too, on anyone else.

  Not me.

  When someoried to dud get in up and close and personal, I just retracted the spears and used their own tactic against them. Suddenly finding two blindingly fast daggers closing in on yur, when only moments before they were spears, had to be a nasty shock.

  Too bad.

  I just re-extended my spears once I’d dealt with people who thought they were being clever.

  In fshes between oppos and fending off groups of soldiers trying to dogpile me, I occasionally caught glimpses of Serpent's own fight with General Longstripe. It was during one of these fshes that I saw something that caused my stomach to drop.

  With a bellowing roar of victory, Longstripe brought his massive mace down upon the head of Serpent in an unbelievably powerful blow. The head of the senient exploded into a cloud of gore as his body slumped to the floor of the warehouse, dead in an instant.

  I couldn’t help closing my eyes briefly in despair, as the Loyalist soldiers cheered on their leader for winning his duel. Longstripe himself brought his mace overhead once more in both hands and screamed into the air of the warehouse. “DEATH!” He howled.

  We were truly doomed, then. All we could do now was stave off the iable before Longstripe did the same thing to all of us.

  I steeled myself for a battle to the death, and readied my ons once more.

  We all had to die someday, I suppose.