But what really drew Terry’s eye, was the giant hippopotamus bursting through a portal in one of the lower alcoves, her giant bulk pasting the soldier to the side of the rock before she leaped lightly to the canyon floor below.
When she hit solid stone, the entire ravine seemed to rumble.
Terry passed through his own exit portal, thankful that Roca was on their side.
Back at their staging area, sixteen entrance portals and sixteen exit portals were arrayed in neat rows. Sixteen, because whenever Terry felt a pull on a portal, he closed it down a moment later. This way, they knew which enemy had been dealt with and which was still breathing.
He doubted the system would hold up for long—the beast-men would either flee their alcoves to mass for a frontal attack or would hold their weapons at the portal exits to spear anyone that came through.
To counter that, Lupe was shooting her blood weapons through to clear the way, while Tajo was throwing a single sword with Duelist-fueled strength.
Roca simply bulled her way through and Terry felt sorry for whatever tried to get in her way.
As for Terry, he settled on only entering for the initial ambush, while the beast-men weren’t on guard. Now that they’d taken out the initial volley, Lupe, Roca, and Tajo would take on the next portals.
They didn’t wait for each other, since Roca had to run back, being too big to accommodate space for another portal. So Lupe speared through a second portal just as Tajo threw his sword through another.
Another two enemies were confirmed down when the both of them returned through their respective exit portals. But as Tajo passed through his third portal, he came back a moment later with a shake of his head.
“They jumped below.”
Terry nodded. “Phase two, then.”
Roca’s pounding footsteps grew nearer, dust and pebbles visibly vibrating from her approach. When she rounded the corner and came into view, Terry began to reach through space.
A single, pinprick portal provided a bird’s eye view down on the beast-men as they massed to attack. Seven of the soldiers remained, while six archers formed behind them. With a shout that echoed down the canyon, they began racing toward the group’s position.
Confident now in their location, Terry opened a second—much wider—portal. José whistled toward Roca, who let out a beastly roar as she charged toward them. In less than a handful of seconds, she was through the portal.
Terry watched through the pinprick portal as she crashed into the running beast-men from the hidden portal above them. She fell with all her bulk, smashing a handful of the archers before any of them had spotted her presence.
None of them stopped to admire Roca’s work, Terry cutting two more portals through space on either side of the enemy.
Tajo leaped through the first, silent as a thrown blade, while Lupe took a single, steadying breath, before taking the second portal.
Ellie, José, and Terry watched the three tear through the remaining enemies like a hot knife through butter. Roca danced around, and wherever her bulk went, limbs were crushed and mangled. Tajo carved like a buzzsaw, removing heads before the enemy could even spot him. Lupe wielded a chain made purely of blood, whipping it around her in a whirlwind of death that sheared through flesh and steel alike.
At his side, Ellie harrumphed. He looked over in confusion.
“It’s no fun just watching,” she pouted. “Why can’t I join in?”
José met Terry’s eyes behind Ellie’s back, casting him a look as if to say, ‘is she for real?’ Terry just shrugged in reply to the man before turning to Ellie.
“You’re our healer, Ellie. If you got knocked out of commission, we’d be screwed.”
She cast him a beaming smile. “Ahh, you do think I’m important.”
By the tone of her voice, he recognized that she was goading him and didn’t respond. Instead, he surveyed the fight and realized that it was practically over. Latching onto any excuse, he waved the others forward.
“Come on, looks like they’re just cleaning up.”
He passed through the portal and felt two tugs on his aura a moment later. With a flex of intent, he collapsed the remaining open portals and took in the grisly scene.
The smell of blood and exposed guts was a visceral reminder that this was no game. These creatures—whether manufactured or not—were flesh and blood, just like them. And they would do their best to finish off Terry and his group in the same way they’d been dealt with, if given the opportunity.
Gagging sounded behind him and he turned to see Lupe bent double, food and bile splashing across her boots. Tajo cast the woman a dismissive glance, but it was Ellie of all people who came over and started rubbing Lupe’s back.
“It’s okay, hon,” she said quietly. “This will help.”
Aura stirred from Ellie, entering Lupe before circling around her center. Lupe’s back arched one more time as if she were going to throw up again, but nothing came. A moment later, she shakily rose up.
“Dios mío,” she muttered, wiping at her mouth with a sleeve. “It’s so real…”
“Who’s to say it isn’t?” Ellie asked. “Who’s to say these aren’t people just like us?” Lupe met her gaze with open shock, but Ellie shrugged indifferently. “Does that change anything? Do we roll over and let them kill us if so?” She looked around, taking in Tajo’s indifference and José’s tight-lipped expression, before turning to Terry. Her voice was soft as she spoke, barely above a whisper. “It’s us or them, right?”
Terry couldn’t find any fault in her logic, yet there was a part of him that rejected it.
“Come on,” Tajo said suddenly. His swords dripped blood and gore in his hands. In a flash, they dematerialized, before reappearing as clean and shiny as they’d been before the fight. “We’re still on the clock.”
Terry watched Ellie give Lupe one more light touch, before turning to follow Tajo. When he didn’t immediately join them, his eyes lingering over the massacre laid out at his feet, she turned back.
“Come on, Terry. There’s nothing to be done for them.” Her eyes hardened, such a contrast to the fleeting compassion he noted there a moment earlier. “Like I said, it’s us or them.”
José and Roca followed a moment later. A wracking shudder took Lupe’s body, before she too moved to keep up with the others.
Only Terry lingered, taking in the eviscerated bodies one more time.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The next group went much the same as the first two. And the next after that. It was thirty minutes since they’d first entered the rift when the escort target’s destination came into sight.
The canyon opened up before them into a wide basin, stretching hundreds of yards across in every direction. Nestled in the center of the basin was a small encampment, surrounded by a wooden palisade. Four towers were positioned on the four corners of the wall, manned by two archers each, with a very visible alarm within reach.
A large gate dominated the center of the front wall, opened wide but guarded by four sword and shield bearing beast-men. Another dozen milled about inside the encampment, while four more patrolled outside the walls, circling the entire camp every few minutes.
In the center of the encampment, a wide pavilion shielded the target destination. They couldn’t see inside the pavilion from their vantage, but they assumed there were even more guards protecting there as well.
As they crouched on the edge of the canyon, hidden behind a rock outcropping, they discussed the plan.
Tajo opened the discussion. “I say we charge in full speed. Our Traveler’s shown he can catch their arrows.” He nodded toward the mute escort target. “Long as we shield it, we can easily get it to the pavilion.”
“Then what, genius?” Ellie asked sarcastically. “We’ll be trapped in the center of two dozen hostiles, literally walled in.”
Tajo bristled at her tone, but Terry stepped between them, cutting off the argument before it could crystallize.
“You’re not helping,” he directed at the woman. She opened her mouth to respond, but he turned away, locking eyes with Tajo. “But she’s not wrong. We can’t guarantee they despawn or go inactive just because we reach our target. We have to assume we’ll have to fight our way out.”
“Who says we can’t?” Tajo fired back, looking past Terry’s shoulder to glare at Ellie. “We handled way more than twenty in that last group.” He turned to look toward Lupe and José for support. “This rift has been easy. It’s obvious it was designed for the average C-ranker. Which we are not.” He turned back toward Terry, a fire in his eyes. “We are five minutes from finishing this thing in record time. Do you understand the rewards we could receive? I’m talking new Skills, gringo!”
Terry saw Lupe and José share a meaningful look and he sensed any hope of a cautious approach flying out the window.
“Let’s at least take out those towers so we don’t have magic arrows zipping toward us. Okay?”
Tajo pursed his lips tight, seeming to think a moment before finally nodding. Terry raised his eyebrows in question toward Lupe and José, who both nodded, before turning toward Ellie.
“Sound good?”
She shrugged, the face of indifference. “Whatever, s’long as you portal me out if things get dicey.”
He cringed jokingly, giving a half-shrug as if to say he would think about it.
“Ah!” she gasped, clutching her chest dramatically. “You’d leave your new favorite person to die!”
He snorted, shaking his head. “No, but I’m definitely saving Roca first. She’s a sweetheart.”
José chuckled at that, and even Lupe smiled, the nerves from earlier finally seeming to have faded.
Turning serious, he met Tajo’s eyes. “We’re gonna have to move fast. Luis said the escort dummy will chase after us if we get too far away. I’d hate to see it running across that open basin before we’ve dealt with the archers.”
Tajo nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face. “We have to take out each tower at the same time. But there’s only three of us.” He turned toward José, frowning. “We can’t use Roca though—she’ll bring the whole thing down. Do you have any smaller summons?”
José nodded. “I have a jaguar, but all my Skills are for improving Roca. Paulo’s Physical Attributes are closer to an E than anything.”
“Mierda.” Tajo sighed before nodding to himself. “Okay, I’ll take out three towers. I’ll have to move fast—“
“I can clear one tower.”
They all turned to see Ellie, her eyebrows rising humorously under the combined weight of their stares. “What? I took out plenty in the first ambush.”
“But you’re a healer,” Lupe said with a confused tone.
“So? Everything I can do with a body can be inverted. I can keep a heart pumping…or stop it dead.”
That statement spun Terry’s thoughts about and he suddenly remembered something from when they were first forming their group. He cast Ellie a shocked look, but Tajo interrupted anything he might have said.
“Okay, I can handle two towers.” He turned to Terry. “If you give me a portal to the second tower leading from the first, I can move in quick succession.”
“Let me handle the fourth tower,” Terry said. He nodded toward Ellie. “I killed just as many as her.”
Tajo narrowed his eyes, not quite as confident with Terry’s claim. Before the man could question him, Ellie came to his defense.
“Let him. Travelers can saw you in half, don’t you know?”
Lupe started, eyeing him with sudden fear, while Tajo seemed to consider the idea.
“Fine, that’ll give us four simultaneous attacks. José, you and Roca protect the escort target.” He summoned his swords with a flash of aura. “Once we’ve each dealt with our respective towers, Rosito will watch from his tower—we don’t want to lose the target to an errant arrow.”
“What will you be doing?” Lupe asked.
“You mean us.” His eyes flashed with flecks of red magic. “We’ll be clearing out the camp.”
Terry had already reached through space, finding each of the four towers with his mind in preparation. With that done, he started to type a System message—just to Ellie.
[Terry]: It was you, wasn’t it?
He watched her receive the message, studying her expression for the slightest tell. Her face remained uncharacteristically stoic, which felt like a confirmation all in itself.
[Ellie]: It was me, what?
She turned to him, raising her eyebrows in question.
[Terry]: You eased Lupe’s nausea when she was sick.
Ellie frowned, narrowing her eyes.
[Ellie]: Yeah, so?
[Terry]: You also said you can invert your magic. Whatever you can ease, you can cause.
[Ellie]: Where are you going with this…
He studied her face, watching like a hawk as she gave him a confused look. In this moment, he wished he had the skillset of a Hypnotist. His read on faces wasn’t his strong suit. All the same, his gut was one of his strong suits, and it was clanging warning bells about this girl.
[Terry]: You took our first healer out of commission, messed up his stomach to take his place. Why?
Her expression froze—it was the barest fraction of a second, nearly missed. Almost instantly, she was smiling in a disarming way. But that split-second spoke volumes.
[Ellie]: You caught me. I just wanted in on one of the groups. Plus, we were having such an interesting conversation!
She was saying all the right things to get his guard down. There was no denying that she’d been unusually clingy since they’d met. But he couldn’t help but feel there was more to it than just getting in with the White Rose’s son.
Before he could challenge her on that, Tajo gave him the signal.
He considered forcing the issue, but knew if he delayed a minute longer, he’d have to deal with Tajo’s impatience on top of Ellie’s dissembling.
Resolving to deal with it after the rift was cleared, he flexed his aura. Four simultaneous portals cut through the air and he was leaping through one without hesitation. His silver dagger was already materialized as he passed through. Using his telekinesis, he slashed it across the first guard’s neck before angling it into the second’s heart.
In less than a second, it was over. Despite how quick it had all happened, his heart was racing, his breathing heavy. His eyes found the others, spotting Tajo holding up his swords to signal he was done. Lupe had a whip of blood wrapped around the second guard’s neck and Terry watched in horror as it sawed through, decapitating the beast-man.
It seemed Lupe had finally become comfortable with the gore of it all.
Ellie was also giving them the signal, her two guards clutching tightly to their chests as they keeled over.
Tajo didn’t wait, cartwheeling over the tower banister to the ground below. The moment his feet touched dirt, he was off, his swords angled to cut. Terry cut a portal from Ellie’s position, sending her back to José and the escort target. With the towers cleared, there was no need for her in the thick of things.
He also cut a second portal, this one sending Lupe down into the fray. She held two living whips of blood, ranging around herself as she looked for lone targets.
Terry maintained his position on his tower, where he had the best vantage. His primary task was to look for arrows and redirect them, but he also surveyed the encampment, watching Tajo and Lupe’s back.
The main gate was still open and Tajo had raced out of it. Brief sounds of combat reached Terry in his tower, though he couldn’t see the melee. In the span of a breath, the sounds died down and he saw Tajo round the palisade, angling for one of the patrolling guards.
Below, inside the walls, he saw Lupe slinking along the edge, looking for lone targets. Terry spotted a single melee beast-man on a collision course for the woman and sent out a quick message.
[Terry]: Lupe, one incoming, around that corner.
He saw her receive the message, her body stiffening up in sudden anticipation. As the guard came into view, she lashed out with a single blood whip. It smashed against the soldier’s shield with a metallic clang, before her second whip sheared through its neck.
Cringing, he looked to see if anything had noticed the sound, when a terrible roar came from the pavilion below.
A massive version of the beast-men charged from beneath the pavilion, standing twice as tall and wide. A six-foot long great sword was in his hands as he scanned the surrounding encampment. In a single blink, his eyes found Lupe, who froze like a deer in the headlights, before he let out a second, rallying cry and charged the woman.
Yipping roars echoed out from all around the encampment as the giant beast-man raced toward the still-frozen Lupe.