Daniel sheltered in the medical wing of the Hunter’s Guild, fearful of the distant explosions, and even more so that they’d stopped. To go from the pure victory of his plan with Tak working far better than he’d expected, to this? It felt like he was in the bunker again, staring at blank screens. Powerless.

  Ironically, that had somewhat helped. If the people of Eido had considered him a threat they might have locked him up after someone unexpected showed up on the island. He wasn’t sure what was going on, they’d taken the radios, and Lograve wasn’t in his head.

  His mother had more in her than he did at this moment, protesting once she’d heard the distant fighting until she was allowed access to the medical supplies. It was a safe bet that she’d have more patients soon. Emily had already required treatment, developing a panic attack and receiving something he’d always needed to get through flights. He might have needed something too, being stuck in here, but the company was helping slightly.

  Evalyn sat next to the bed, holding the hand of her softly breathing sister. She couldn’t speak his language and hadn’t made any serious attempts to learn like others had, but they didn’t need words to say everything on their minds.

  She saw his fear and nodded, first to the guitar and then to the door. Anyone they didn’t like coming through there would deal with her first.

  Daniel winced at the thought of the gift being smashed but agreed it’d be the right call. He walked back over to the other patient in the room and she called his name, practically the only thing that lined up between their two tongues.

  “Tak.” Daniel was hesitant at first but grabbed the spot on the wrist his mother had once shown him, before searching around for a few seconds and finding the pulse a bit more to the center than he’d expected. He gave a weak thumbs up, a win on Octyrrum-Daniel’s part for determining that crossed over.

  They both had to hope that all Tak needed was some rest before he would wake up, but even then it would be a question of how much remained of the avianoid. And that was something to consider as well. Avianoid. Another intelligent race in front of him. He’d seen them first from an unmeasurable distance, then from a more guarded one. There’s been Masika, but otherwise Daniel hadn’t interacted with too many of the Eido natives. The Commander had given them a pass, but that hadn’t changed that they were different.

  Tak was different. Familiar, but foreign, and in many ways. He looked down and saw how foolish he had been. There were no regrets, but still. Sending myself to another world, I thought I’d love the fantasy. At least one of us would get to experience magic, be something.

  There was wonder in it, he felt some in this moment, but mostly it was worry for a friend and dread of what the future would hold that his other self had doubtlessly faced a thousand times. Until recently he’d held just a pale echo of it. That the real thing was happening to him now? That was another source of the odd comfort that mixed into everything.

  It felt fair.

  Daniel, Evalyn?

  Lograve? Both he and the Bard instantly asked. Where have you been? she then added.

  The Arcanist’s mental voice was grave, troubled. He’d never heard the man like this, though he might have if he’d been able to overhear what had been said telepathically at the Origin Beast, and following the Slave Host’s reveal. Some of the force invading the island went after your sisters. They have been dealt with, but I fear they warned the rest.

  Are they ok?!

  Yes, Lograve replied shortly, and Daniel felt like he could breathe again. What is happening with the other ships?

  We don’t know, Evalyn took over, seeing that Daniel needed to recover a bit from that news. The Commander practically arrested Daniel and his mother as we were bringing Tak back. Gadriel chose to go and fight along with Masika, while I’ve been here. They took the communication devices and won’t answer my questions. I think my ‘sympathizing’ with your defiance hasn’t bought me any points.

  I’m trying to make my way back to the center so I can get in range of them. Blasted island, did you have to land on the opposite side of the wreck?

  The Commander told them to, Evalyn replied reasonably, frowning in concern as she saw Daniel had his head in his hands. What about that other man?

  Chris? There was a long pause, making Daniel lift his head to reveal the few tears he was trying to wipe away. He is fine as well. They could both sense there was more to it than that, but also that Lograve wouldn’t tell them if they asked. Stay there for now.

  It’s not like we have much of a choice.

  Fair enough.

  Who’s attacking us? Daniel asked, gathering himself enough to maintain a steady voice. Even mentally, it would carry the same inflections as his real one would, if not more.

  Your friend says it is some kind of mercenary force. Likely, there was something on that wreck valuable enough for them to come for it.

  You say that like it wouldn’t be the people. Daniel couldn’t look at Evalyn as she thought that. A mercenary group? You heard things like that existed but he’d always thought it was overblown, or at the least that they’d stick to war zones and underdeveloped regions. The middle of the Pacific? Maybe. But if one was here, he couldn’t imagine it would be for the prisoners. Someone coming for them would’ve announced themselves and tried for negotiations.

  What happens if the mercenaries win? Evalyn asked, more to Daniel than Lograve, though he couldn’t see her look.

  They won’t, he answered confidentially. Commander Marshall has level 5 endurance. No matter how fast these larger guns fire, they still can’t harm him. Regardless, you said Gadriel was there. When has that Heroic fool ever lost?

  Once, Evalyn responded, and though they couldn’t have seen him if he were standing in front of them, they could feel Lograve wince.

  …

  Gadriel and Masika moved carefully up the metal steps on the side of the black ship. Fighting was still going on around them, but the unified wall of sound that had first greeted their advance was no more. While it seemed to his ears that the defenders of the black ship were waning, their resistance grew fiercer as it centered on their stronghold.

  He tried not to think of the dead, both visible on the still-illuminated coast of the island and on the ship. It was for the living. His side had no command structure anymore, only inheriting the Commander’s last wishes and the will to avenge him. If the other side could put out a call to surrender, he knew most of the Blessed would honor it. They hadn’t become what they were to kill mortals thoughtlessly.

  Still, the journey to this point had been arduous. His leg had been wounded by the explosion just before reaching the wrecked ship, and several more wounds were taken from shots while on the approach to the black ship. Worst was a trap he’d almost detected too late, a small box that detonated once they were on the main enemy ship. That was the one time he was forced to summon a spectral armament, the shield, and he feared a small break in his bones from the strain of using it. Yet he persisted, and Masika was better off.

  Whether it was the chaos or their attributes, the two managed to make it to one of the external doors leading to the room where Marshall had thrown his stone. He could see why it had been targeted, it was the highest enclosed space overlooking the battlefield, but the Commander’s eyes must have made out something important if he’d chosen to stop rather than evade before he was unable to.

  “Ready?” he whispered to Masika, his heavily dented shield held in his sword hand. Most of the damage it had sustained it had also held, but a few holes now marked the surface that its enchantment would have wholly prevented had it been functional.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “You should have your sword out.”

  Gadriel thought for a moment on this. “It, it is a gift. It would be poorly done to sully it so soon.”

  She just shook her head and tensed, not willing to debate the point and potentially give themselves away before the point where they definitely would. Both looked at the large, oval-shaped door, and then charged it together. It could have been unlocked, but they weren’t taking the chance.

  Two Blessed of the Octyrrum, both with strength in the range of level 3, collided with a steel-reinforced bulkhead door of Earth. The door lost, though it required another kick to fully knock it loose.

  “Surrender!” Gadriel shouted in the foreign tongue, not trusting his grasp of it to say more than that. The two inside were already turning, guns of a design he hadn’t seen before in their hands. They were of a length to the ‘rifles’, but stouter. He saw the woman, still dressed in armor but in finer uniform underneath that would suggest an officer, look first at the tears in his leg, the dent in his armor, and the sorry state of his shield. Assessing his weakness, and so fast he began to wonder if the people of this region weren’t bereft of the Octyrrum’s gifts after all.

  He moved in front of Masika, knowing what would come next. Or, at least, he thought he did. From the front of each weapon came not a solid projectile but a plume of fire. The light was nearly blinding, and while he was able to protect his face with his shield, his body still burned. He caught flame in places, but it was worse for Masika.

  The fire could reach behind him, and her feathers were flammable. Level 3 provided some benefits, made them harder to burn just like how Lograve could briefly survive submersion with the lightning dragon, but this was a potent flame.

  The two in front of him didn’t immediately fire again as Gadriel hurriedly tried to put himself out and seek cover. Instead, they did something with the weapons that made a mechanical noise, but one was too late. Masika’s mace flew out of her hand as her feathers burned, embedding itself in the head of the second in command.

  The woman had resolve, at least, as she produced another gout of flame that Masika was barely able to avoid the worst of by ducking behind one of the metal tables arranged around the room. Gadriel charged at that moment, now aware of the elemental gun’s weakness in reloading time.

  His opponent was just as knowing, letting it fall from her hands as they quickly reached for a smaller gun at her side, firing it at his legs before having a chance to aim. A few hit, adding to the pain of the parts of his body still burning, but nothing compared to what bearing arms far above his level did and he pushed forward.

  Her hands flicked to target his head at the last, desperate moment, but he bashed it aside and swept her legs out, pinning her to the ground. “Masika, are you well?” he called over his back from the center of the room, the Cleric having remained by the door.

  “Fuck Gade, I’m halfway to being fried but I’ll live. What the fuck was that?”

  “We’ll find out later.” He switched to foreign words once more, encouraged by the fact that the enemy leader had stopped resisting once he’d brought her down. “Surrender.” Her eyes flicked to the side, to the clearly dead man, and Gadriel sighed. Not that he blamed Masika, she had been justified, but it was making this harder.

  She said a word he was unfamiliar with, though if he had to say what it sounded like, it would be: ‘Scorpion.’ What he didn’t miss was the shift in her gaze to the other side, to the corridor that led into the ship at the back of the room. It was something she’d tried to suppress, instantly putting him on edge, and he made out a man lying prone, blending into the darkness. Behind one of the longer guns that Marshall hadn’t withstood a shot from.

  As Gadriel tried to rise, she retaliated fiercely, managing to put her entire weight on his shield arm in an attempt to stop him. But, he had gone into this battle with defense in mind, and on his other arm the enchanted, level 6 shield sprung to life and illuminated the space with its glow. The woman stared in disbelief at it as he threw his left arm up and back.

  The first shot aimed at his head hit it at that moment, Gadriel registering the thunderous sound of the weapon the barest fraction of a second after. Its impact was heavy, though not as much as the force from the shield trying to drag his arm down. He felt it ricochet as another fired, though the archer was having difficulties controlling his weapon as it only clipped the edge of the summoned shield and punched through the window in the front of the room.

  Gadriel had gotten his other arm free at this moment and yanked off his broken shield, the other fading as he was unable to sustain it. The archer was bringing the gun back down to fire again, but his thrown shield impacted it hard. It jerked back, the tube at the front partially split from the collision, and the back slamming into the shoulder of the archer causing a painful crunch.

  The Hero ruled the other combatant as disabled and dragged the woman, now fighting with everything she had but unable to overcome his attributes, away from the opening. “Masika, close that door!” he shouted over, then paused as there was no reply.

  He turned and took the greatest wound yet, to his heart. It had to have been the first shot. He’d been intent only on guarding himself, a reasonable decision at the moment a trap had sprung. But Masika…

  Enough. Gadriel planted a bleeding leg onto the woman’s chest, adding enough pressure for a moment that she couldn’t breathe, before releasing it. Just a little. “Surrender.” There was darkness in his voice, implying he could defeat everyone else she had here if they came for him all at once. No, he would kill them. It was surrender or die, and see everything they had wrought reduced to ash.

  She spat in his face.

  Gadriel stomped down, one last pained gasp of life assisted by his foot crushing her lungs. He raised a blood-soaked foot and brought it down again, this time on the woman’s skull, as Murdon had done with the Tyrant he had bested but not truly taken care of. He would learn from his mistakes from now on.

  Gadriel took the discarded elemental gun and fired it again and again until her body was a scorch mark on the floor. A single discharge was all the attention he afforded the man’s corpse. Then he unsheathed the long sword and slowly walked down the hallway to the archer who had fired the shot. One arm was ruined, but there was still one the man could hold up as he pleaded for his-

  Gadriel jerked his head as he dispelled the thoughts before the impulse to act on them won. He… he wasn’t a killer. It did not conflict with his Heroic philosophy. He had not lost his class after his blade had taken Bennar’s life. Despite what the class should have meant, being a Hero did not mean you had to avoid taking mortal life. But he wasn’t a killer, regardless of whether he had taken a life.

  “Surrender,” he said again, a fourth time, voice defeated for all he had the upper hand on his enemy. He saw a recognition of something in the woman’s eyes, but still she shook her head. Spirited. Clever. Brave, if she thought the rest of her people still had a chance. Ruthless, though his side had attacked first.

  The Hero closed his eyes and, with a grimace, struck her across the head with a fist. It was enough to knock her unconscious, and whether she would survive the wound or not was a matter for the gods. That was all the mercy he had in him.

  Gadriel looked down the corridor and saw the injured archer had retreated. Pursuing him tempted Gadriel for a moment, but without his weapon, what real threat was he? These people, obviously well trained, we’re helpless against the weakest, suppressed level 1 Blessed without anything to give them an advantage.

  Burned, bones and heart broken, Gadriel finally made his way over to Masika’s body. The shot had hit her in the forehead, to the side exposing… Never would she sing again.

  Gadriel took off the cape that magic no longer protected and draped it over her head, though he hated to cover her face. The sounds of war still filled the air around him, but fading. If an enemy came here now they would find him unprepared for them, which would perhaps give them a chance. He would seek no more, however, not unless they came for him, and Masika.

  His vigil sat uninterrupted for, well, he’d stopped counting the time and had decided to wait for sunrise, when he heard a voice. Gadriel? Gods, what is going on over there? I just reached Eido. You’re at the end of my range and I’m having difficulty finding everyone. Where is Commander Marshall?

  Dead.

  What!? How?

  He is dead. Gadriel was in no state to explain. As is my heart.

  Gadriel, listen to me, you must remain conscious as long as you-

  The Hero cut him off, knowing the misinterpretation that had occurred. Masika.

  Oh. That was, oh. I see. There was a pause, perhaps the Arcanist was having difficulty composing sympathies or had moved on to assess the rest of the battle, but a hesitant voice returned to his mind. Gadriel, I can still sense her.

  It is the woman. I have captured who I believe is the leader of these people. She is near me, unconscious.

  No, I can’t find people who are knocked out or asleep, and it is her, Gadriel. Are you sure? He shifted in place, glancing over from his seated position to the body. He hadn’t checked, but the severity of the wound… Marshall could have survived this, and Gadriel was sure his head hadn’t been in much better shape before the blast that had delivered the fatal blow came, but Masika wasn’t Marshall’s level.

  He held out a hand, dreading and hoping what he would find. Took her wrist. Felt it, weakly. Lograve, I, I need aid! She is-

  Stay where you are and do what you can to keep her alive. I’ll tear apart the Hunter’s Guild if those fools won’t let me bring our healers. That last part sounded odd but Gadriel didn’t care. He was dragging his stained cape off of Masika, but she didn’t respond to the movement. There must have been just enough of her awareness for Lograve to find.

  He looked down at the wound, unsure what to do to preserve her other than strike down any that came close. Instead, trembling, he took Masika’s hand and said the only thing he could. “Stay alive, Masika. Gods, please, do not take her from me again. I love you, Masika. I cannot lose you again.”

  He stayed by her side as the fighting died, as what few prisoners who had surrendered or managed to survive were taken, as Marshall’s body was gathered by solemn warriors, until the very moment that he saw Daniel’s mother enter the room. He could see the disbelief in her eyes, having made the same judgment he had, but she acted regardless.

  The Hero waited, barely breathing, having finally forgotten his own pain.