Time until next Challenge: 10 days, 12 hours, 20 minutes

  “You did great,” I snapped. “But stay focused! We’re still in danger.”

  The heavily-armored electric Titan was still on its feet, but I could see that it was suffering. The crags on its back that had been draped with tire chains were scorched, with thin cracks evident. The borehole Micah’s laser blast had dug, and my subsequent lead delivery had been far more effective: a crater the size of a truck tire had been blasted out of the Titan’s shoulder armor, revealing blackened and scorched muscle below. My allies were already focusing attacks on that spot - no need to order them - and I saw multiple rods of metal driven deeper through the more vulnerable tissue.

  Ariel, is that enough metal to neutralize it?

  

  Electric Titan neutralized! Get back 30 feet, focus on acid hippo, avoid snake, and keep an eye out for twotwos! Speedster engaging in two seconds, take out paralytic tail!

  Of the four twotwos that had attacked us initially, two had been slain and one was struggling on the ground, missing a wing. Unfortunately, our situation hadn’t improved as much as that suggested, because four more twotwos had arrived, and I could see that more holograms had appeared in the distance as our spotter picked out others that weren’t far off.

  I’d finally gotten healing as Micah landed, returning my Panoramic vision and full range of motion, and I was taking full advantage of my enhanced ability to multitask.The burns on my arms and side remained, but that made sense: battlefield healing ought to focus on the most critical wounds. Anything that didn’t meaningfully hamper combat effectiveness or immediately endanger a life should be left to be healed more slowly, later.

  I’d resumed trying to help block the acid spray from the hippo. The monster contained a truly prodigious amount of caustic liquid, and the area at the base of the cliff had turned into a steaming swamp of dissolving plant matter, and the nauseating remains of one unfortunate body: still recognizable as human, but very, very dead.

  Nearly everyone else had evacuated the area, and I could see blobs of water controlled by hydromancers scouring the acid off the survivors. Twenty people had taken acid burns, three of them severely, but it looked like the hippo had caused one death so far.

  The hippo bunched its legs and I could see it planned to leave the cliff to chase its prey. In an instant, I dropped the car panel I’d been using to try to block the spray and grabbed a fallen sword, bracing it against the ground beneath the descending hippo, letting the monster’s own bulk drive it into its frame.

  At least, that was the theory. In reality, the mushy ground made my gambit less successful than it could have been, but the sword still penetrated several inches into the Titan’s blubbery belly, and a pulsing gush of moisture along the edges of the blade suggested that I’d pierced one of its acid sacs… although not enough to stop it from attacking.

  Still, the monster was now down on the ground, and for all the danger its acid posed, it could only spray in a frontal arc. Vince and Gavin were sprinting toward its rear, along with a dozen other melee specialists, apparently planning to leap across the acid swamp and onto its back.

  Why the hell are you bringing Gavin? I thought, but I didn’t try to stop him. I had to trust my allies, had to trust my husband, had to trust my kids. If they thought they could handle it, I had to let them.

  I still watched, sending some of my larger titanium plates along behind them to serve as shields and umbrellas against the spray, or to try to catch them or help them balance if they misjudged their jumps or footing… but most of my attention was elsewhere.

  The snake was continuing to thrash, pulverizing the ground and snatching up cars and individuals in attempts to crush them. It, too, had killed at least two people - I’d felt them fade at the edges of my Life Sense - but I thought my call not to prioritize it was the right one. It had already torn up the road and destroyed several our vehicles, and I thought that was the primary reason Hamlet had summoned it. It didn’t have the widespread damaging potential of the electric Titan or the acid hippo.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  My allies hadn’t been ignoring it, and it had several deep wounds, but it was still in motion.

  I left them to it, focusing most of my attention on the twotwos and using Analyze to determine their targets as they began their dives. Narrow-beam Announcements weren’t a perfect warning tool, since they alerted a whole wedge of people rather than only the targeted clump, but they were still extremely useful, and without the blinding electricity hampering my vision, three twotwos in a row pulled out of their stoops with empty claws and clean beaks.

  They were slower on the climb, and we worked to slow them further. Predicting their flight path sometimes gave me enough time to Telekinetically lift objects they’d be forced to crash through, and a plethora of Shockwalls and Force Shields did the same. We only had ten flight specialists, counting Anju, but if they managed to get onto the back of a twotwo, it was almost impossible for the monster to injure them without complicated aerial acrobatics to dislodge them first. They tried, of course, darting into the trees to try to scrape their unwanted passengers off, but the moment that a flyer landed on their back, it meant the eventual end of the twotwo as often as not.

  An intensification of static prompted another wide-area Announcement from me:

  Shield vision! Get clear! Electric attack incoming!

  I followed my own advice, this time ducking my head behind my shield and Cassie’s egg. The electric pulse shouldn’t reach us, and if it did, Micah would protect us. Blindness was the primary danger.

  Even behind my shield with my eyes shut, I could detect the flash of light, but I didn’t feel anything. When I lowered my shield and stood, I could see the electric Titan turning to smoke as the spears embedded in its injury carried its own blast straight to its internals.

  The hippo was still upright, but it was suffering. Cuts to its probiscus had reduced the force of its spray, and some genius had dropped a tarp over its head. I wasn’t sure how it was staying in place - Adhesive, maybe? - but the plastic material seemed resistant to the acid, and now the gouts of moisture weren’t getting far from the hippo. I was using Titanium plates to block as much backspray as possible, but I could tell that the fighter’s atop the hippo’s back were still taking damage, even as they cut through its blubber.

  I narrowed my eyes, then shot out another tight-beam Announcement:

  Get clear of hippo! Finish from range! You can’t fall into the acid!

  My orders brought instant obedience, the six people on its back jumping clear like a swarm of fleas. Vince had Gavin in his arms and jumped far enough that he almost reached our group again; he’d clearly activated his Enhance specialty, boosting his strength and durability. This, sadly, took them well away from the hydromancers that were clearing acid, but one of my bodyguards hurried forward, using Cleanse liberally to blast the acid away from their exposed skin.

  It left behind painful-looking pits and welts, but both my guys had Rapid Regeneration at nearly 900% synergy, and I could see immediate improvement as soon as the acid was removed. Analyze wasn’t even necessary to see them getting better: it only served to let me know that most of the injuries would be completely healed in six minutes.

  I was starting to feel tired, and distant holograms in the sky suggested that the main wave of twotwos was closing in fast, but I couldn’t help but feel hopeful: we’d weathered the first and most dangerous onslaught, and of my 208 allies, we’d lost only seven people. Importantly, not a single death had been to a twotwo, and twotwos were the majority of what remained. I thought we could keep that up, even as their numbers increased. They were a fast enemy and a dangerous one, but a lot of the threat they posed came from their stealth, and with holograms marking them out in the sky and my Announcements warning their targets, they were finding it difficult to make kills.

  Seconds after my guys had leapt clear, an ice crystal the size of a Christmas tree burst out of the hippo’s back. I almost glanced at Micah, but shook my head: that was too much ice, too far away. Clearly, one of my allies had taken advantage of the damage done to the monster to trigger a freezing Specialty that reached its damaged acid sacs.

  The hippo stilled for a second, then died, the crystalized and liquid acid vanishing with it.

  That only leaves the… oh, nevermind.

  Byron was on the back of the snake. I hadn’t noticed him getting there, but I’d been watching, and a quick review of Eidetic Memory showed that he’d gotten a flyer to drop him off. I couldn’t actually see Byron, but I could tell it was him from the blazing orb of now-familiar flames that surrounded him: his Specialty.

  The titanic snake was resistant to his attack, and tried to roll and smash Byron against the ground, but our friend leapt clear, dashing back in as soon as he could.

  He could keep up the orb of heat at close range for a minute every 24 hours, but a full minute wasn’t required: after seventeen seconds, he burned through whatever passed for its nervous system, and it slumped to the ground, jaws working uselessly. Three seconds later, the monster died.

  Right. One more big Announcement. You can do it, Meghan!

  I flared a basic hologram over the treeline across the hills to our north, a giant orange arrow.

  Area attackers down! Meet up at rally point for coordinated defense!