Cortez stalked off. John shrugged and tried to shake his leg out. His knee felt stiff and he doubted his bone was back to a hundred percent, but it would bear weight. John staggered to his feet, but had to stay crouched to remain covered by the berm. His legs trembled, as much from the adrenaline and nerves as the load shifting as his mana worked.
Debbie looked horrified, “You were bleeding all over the place a second ago, and now you’re walking around.”
“In the briefing, when I said I healed quickly, did you think that was a joke?”
“No, I just didn’t know it was that quick.”
“Well here’s hoping I don’t need it again.”
Debbie and Dane chuckled nervously.
Dane scanned up and down the road. No one approached their position, so he turned to John, “What should we do?”
John grunted, “I don’t know. I think we need to keep at least a few mages per APC to ward against a break in the lines. Your magic would be really helpful for rushing that heat mage that’s keeping the fifties locked down. Go talk to the professionals a minute.”
Debbie looked at John, “And me?”
John pointed at the remains of the desiccant mage and his party, “Be ready to catch that gun in case I fumble it.”
Debbie was bewildered, but John was already reaching out for the pooling blood with his magical senses.
John’s senses found the pooled vitae easily before his mana thrummed and his mundane senses fell away. John spent some mana to swirl the blood around to look for the cronies’ guns. John had spent some time thinking about how to replicate Jen’s astoundingly useful ability to grab things with her magic. This would be the first test of one of his ideas.
Some of the blood encountered a rifled cylinder surrounded by a highly angular prism. John grinned. He filled the internals of the firearm with blood and had it ‘brace’ against the walls. Then he dragged the entire mass of blood towards him.
To Debbie, it looked like the pool of blood surrounding the corpses had suddenly animated, then launched a handgun at them. To her credit, she didn’t scream or shriek, but caught the gun with a grimace. John’s eyes faded back to their normal color before he quickly took the gun from Debbie. Blood started leaking out immediately, but Debbie’s petroleum armor kept it from soiling her clothes.
“Thank you! How is your armor staying on, by the way?”
Debbie shrugged, “I don’t know, honestly. Once I use my mana to manipulate the petrochemicals, I can go back to normal and still control it. It’s not as deft, but I can keep my armor intact or float a small mass around.”
“That’s sick. I wonder why it’s different for me.”
“Where’s your mana reserve?”
“My abdomen, why?” John tilted his head.
“Mine’s in my head. I’ve been too scared to check like you explained, but I think mana is saturating my brain tissue.”
John whistled low, “Shit. You feel ok?”
“Totally normal, other than y’know, magic.”
“Huh. Well, it’s gonna be OK. My heart had problems because the saturation was uneven and the muscle fibers desynchronized. Your brain doesn’t have to move!”
“Haha, thanks. Here’s hoping you’re right.”
John was at something of a loss. Debbie was remarkably cute, but several years older than him. He hugged her awkwardly and patted her on the back.
Debbie laughed, “John, I’m fine. But thank you. I’ll probably get a CT scan or something at the hospital, see what’s up.”
“Yeah, I bet we’re all gonna get some tests done.”
John withdrew behind the APC. A quick application of mana drove the rest of the blood from the weapon, which the national guardsmen frowned at. He ejected the magazine and counted the ammunition. Eight rounds left – hardly an arsenal but more offensive firepower than he could provide with mana alone. John didn’t have a holster, so hooked the handle into his waistband. He’d have to rely on his magic to heal him in the event of an accidental discharge. The guardsmen frowned at him, but none of them said anything. John shrugged and made his way back to Case and Jen’s position.
John found them unmolested by gunfire or mana, but Case was sweating as he maintained his barrier.
John put a hand on Case’s shoulder, “How long have you held this thing up?”
“Going on ten minutes,” Case grunted, “If you want to go murder that guy throwing rebar I’d really appreciate it.”
“I’ll see what I can do. You doing ok otherwise?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s mostly mental strain, my mana expenditure is basically nil. The heat mana does nothing and those rebar projectiles cause minimal damage.”
“Gotcha. Wh-” A length of rebar squealed as it skittered off Case’s barrier, joining a small pile on the ground. John coughed and continued, “Where’s Jen?”
“She’s in back, trying to dismantle the median barriers so we can stack them up out here and give me a break.”
“Cool. Is the fifty working?” John glanced up on the gun above them, manned by the same national guardsman as earlier.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Case shrugged, “Seems like it, but if the heat mage tags it’ll be hosed again.”
A plan bloomed in John’s head, “Do you remember what you did when we fought that explosion mage?”
Case’s strained expression turned into a wicked grin, “Yeah, I do.”
“Back in a jiffy,” John walked to talk to the squad of guardsmen.
Two of them were on radios, struggling to coordinate a counter-offensive in the face of unknown magic and capabilities. The rest were nervously holding angles on the gaps in their cover. John approached one of the former. The man waved him off, so John shrugged and turned away. He waved to Jen, who was apparently trying to find a way to lift the barriers, but it seemed fruitless.
“Hey, need you for a second. We need to move Case without breaking his concentration,” John called out to Jen.
John and Jen returned to Case’s side with one of the national guardsmen in tow.
John addressed Case, “Case, if Jen lifted you up onto the APC, would the shield drop?”
Case shook his head, “No. Do it slowly, though.”
“Jen, get started.”
John clambered up on top of the APC to talk to the gunner, “You think you know where the rebar’s coming from?”
“Yeah, there’s a little stand of trees up on that rise. I see little bits of heat haze and the rebar shoots out of there,” the gunner pointed through the transparent crystalline mana.
“If Case opens a hole, can you light it up?”
The gunner nodded, “For sure, but the hole would have to be a little large.”
John eyed the pile of rebar and hummed, “We’ll wait for the next piece of rebar, no way he could’ve carried much more.”
Jen’s vines deposited Case on top of the APC. John relayed the plan to Case, who grinned.
“Alright everyone, on three?” the gunner asked after another projectile landed fruitlessly.
John nodded, Case nodded, and Jen shot them a thumbs up from down below. She held her flak vest aloft, gripped by several vines. The plan was for her to cover the hole after the fifty fired, to give Case some time to repair the gap.
“One… two… three!” The gunner shouted.
A hexagonal segment of the shield fell away where the gunner indicated. The fifty caliber roared to life, and John felt his mana surge into his ears to repair damage to his hearing. John held his hands up, ready to heal the gunner and Case if anything went wrong. Gunfire ripped through the gap. John felt an aura flare in the grove of trees to no visible effect. The bullets kicked a great deal of steam, mulched flora, and dirt into the air. John felt the mages in the trees dive apart, but he sensed blood through the muck in the air. The two mages were outside the cone of fire afforded by Case’s gap, so he waved for them to stop.
A gesture indicated where Case should make a new hole. The previous aperture filled back in, and another one appeared. The fifty lit up again, and the left aura winked out, signaling that mage’s death. John’s face drew tight. He felt a grim satisfaction that his idea worked, but it was a pity that they’d taken no prisoners. John pointed out the second mage, and the gunner pivoted again. The organic matter on the left side of the hill had begun to smoke, and John suspected the heat mage was responsible. It wasn’t especially dry in North Carolina this time of year, but an under-irrigated stand of pine was always a tinderbox.
The smoke served to block the rebar mage’s view of their position, evidenced by one of the repurposed projectiles impacting the shield a few feet to the left of the final aperture. John winced. With better aim, the rebar mage could have easily speared the gunner. Instead, John felt him die under a hail of bullets.
Case tapped the gunner, and the fire ceased immediately. Case’s shield winked out too, and he heaved a breath.
The gunner jerked, “Woah! The shield!”
Case took one hand off his knees to wave dismissively, “It’ll be back soon, I need a breather. Besides, they were the only ones targeting us.”
Case’s message was somewhat undercut by him heaving for breath, but John agreed. Now that they were out from under suppressing fire, what were they to do? He and his friends could not rush about without backup from the National Guard, so John figured they’d wait for directions.
“C’mon Case, let’s get down from here,” John threw an arm under Case’s shoulder. There was no point to being exposed.
Case kept his head on a swivel, but John privately doubted how much mana his friend could possibly have left. That said, John had a poor understanding of how Case’s magic worked.
“How are you on mana?” John failed to keep the concern out of his tone.
“Seriously, I’m fine. Once the mana’s out there, it’s basically free to maintain. Moving it takes some, but nothing crazy. If you want a number, 70%.”
“Gotcha. That’s sick. Rest up so you’re ready for whatever the next thing is.”
Case laughed weakly, “Aye-Aye, Cap’n!”
Jen helped Case get down from the APC’s roof. Case leaned against the driverside door, keeping an eye out for any other mages or inbound mana.
Jen met John’s eyes with a pale expression, “So we just killed two people?”
John nodded, “Yeah, we did. I don’t think we can capture our way out of this one. You see what happened to me over there?” He jutted his head towards where he and Cortez had killed the ice mage.
“But he was going to kill you! That’s different!”
“Jen, those mages on the hill were going to kill us. I’m not happy about it either, but we have got to get out of here and back to our families, whatever it takes.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t have come along. I feel so helpless.” Jen shrank into herself, her shoulders hunching.
“Hey, buck up. You’re awesome, I’m sure there’ll be some opportunity here soon.”
“Opportunity to kill someone?”
John winced, “I hope not. Let’s just view it as keeping each other safe, ok?”
Jen sighed, “You’re right.”
John made a note to talk to Jen’s parents when the convoy returned. They loved to let their daughter be independent, but sometimes she needed more support than they gave. John wondered about how easily they’d signed off on her setting forth by herself.
Jen saw something behind John, “Oh, speak of the devil.”
John crouched and spun, expecting a mage about to blow both of them to hell. Instead, it was just Sergeant Cortez and a group consisting of some national guardsmen, along with the mages Samantha and Yan. Cortez looked worse for wear, but John could see his mana working in his wounds. He must’ve been fending off an attack at the head of the convoy. For their part, Samantha and Yan looked fine.
Cortez addressed John and company, “I need you three. Our forces on the other side of the hill are getting thrashed, so we’re going to take the hill. Dane, Debbie and Todd are going to stay back and play defense, but you three are with us. You have two minutes.”
John nodded. They busied themselves with re-adjusting their body armor, rehydrating, and psyching each other up. They all played rough and tumble sports, and John had jitters just like he would before a rugby game.
Case tapped John, “Gimme your knife, I just realized I haven’t sharpened it yet.”
John’s eyebrows shot up, “Damn man, that would’ve saved my ass earlier. Better late than never though.”
John passed his knife over. Case flipped it open before his eyes lit up with blue mana. The blade had no visible changes, but when John took it back and ran it up his forearm, it sliced through every hair with no issue.
John cooed, “That is cool as hell.”
Cortez returned with several more national guardsmen in tow, “Here’s the plan. Case is going to give us a shield, while Samantha and Yan get ready to throw up visual interference or blind any opposition. John, Jen, and I are going to be our hitters. I wish I could arm you better, but this is what we’ve got. The guardsmen are going to follow behind in a chevron and pick off any mages who reveal themselves attacking us.”
Jen nodded and manifested four vines. Three picked up individual pieces of rebar, while the fourth wrapped up a bundle with a dozen more. John had worried about Jen force-multiplying, but it seemed she had it well in hand. Her expression settled into a determined mask as the supernatural vines drew tight to her body.
John’s eye twitched, “So we’re bait again?”
Cortez made eye contact with John, “Yes, but we’ll be better protected. I’m sorry to do it again, but this is what I’ve got. I can’t risk the non-mages in good faith.”
John supposed that was fair, “Fine, but you owe me a beer or six after this.”
Cortez chuckled, “Deal. Everyone ready to go?”
The mage team each nodded their assent. John took a deep breath as they walked out in front of the APC. Case’s shield began to move forward, and John felt it seemed fragile for how much they were about to ask of it. He caught Case’s eye and nodded grimly.
