The Daily Grind - Chapter 262 (Patreon)

And we're back.  Sorry there was a cliffhanger of sorts, I will try not to get sick ever again.

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“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” -Neil Gaiman, Coraline-

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James arrived directly in the Lair’s front lobby and spooked the hell out of a youth group that he landed in the midst of.  After getting free from the honestly pretty impressive reaction time of the camraconda, and learning that their six person pod of children had been told to stay put here by Sarah, James gave them a quick apology for shocking them and then hurried to get to where he’d been summoned.

“Hey again Tino, Midnight, sorry, gotta slip through here.”  He rapidly pushed his way through the swinging wooden gate that was about all the security the Order put on the stockpile of skill or species orbs they kept back here.  “Pardon.  Scuse me.”  He ducked through the middle of another duo who were moving too slow and started jogging once the high ceilinged room opened up.  “Hey, where’s Ben?”  He called out as he swept his gaze over the collection of desks and whiteboards that always had increasingly complex maps on them every time he came back here.  Sometimes because he was the one adding to the maps.  “Ben!  JP!”  Then, quieter and to himself, “Goddammit, the last time you assholes called me here we blew up at least two buildings.  I don’t wanna do this.”

He steered toward the largest cluster of people, maybe ten or fifteen that James didn’t really know milling around, and picked Sarah and Camille out of group.  Sarah because she was his best friend and hard to miss in a crowd, and Camille because despite being weirdly short compared to everyone near her except Sarah - James had never noticed that Cam was maybe five foot six at most - she was still wearing plate armor.  And even in the Lair, that was a fashion choice most people didn’t go for.  Usually the only crime against style James saw on a regular basis was Momo with the denim kimono that even she seemed to agree was uncomfortable.

“…sometime!”  Sarah was saying, rocking on the balls of her feet in front of Camille as the armored woman steadily watched James approached and raised a hand his way.  “We can get to know each other!”

“I do not believe I have time for that.”  Camille said in a stoically measured voice as James entered the range of their conversation.

“Ye… ugh.  Haaah.  Deep breath.”  James muttered as he took his advice and tried to force the lingering congestion out of his throat.  “Yes you do.  You can have all the time you need.  What does she need time for?”

Sarah spun on the toes of one foot to face him brightly.  “Showing us around her new place, and letting us bring her gifts!”  She told him.  “I wanna get to know Cam better, she seems cool, and like she needs it.”

“I do not.”  Now Camille’s voice sounded more like the embarrassed teenager that she actually was.  Even if only briefly before being dragged back to something forced into a professional cage.  “And I can’t get tethered in your power sharing web.  That would make me unreliable as a combatant.”

“Nah, veto on that.”  James said as he caught his breath.  “Your value isn’t cause you can mace things.  Also Sarah doesn’t share relationsticks with just anyone shut up Sarah not right now.”  He let his friend crack into a laugh as James kept going.  “She probably legit just wants to get to know you.  And if you’re willing, I’d like to as well.  But also, why are there a hundred people in here?”  He asked both of them.

“Power sharing web!”  Sarah said, holding up a book with a cover like black leather full of stars.  Her voice turned serious, and James could see the droop behind her eyes as her attempt to keep the situation out faltered.  “We might have a problem, and if we’re sending you in, you’ll have a reasonable chunk of the avatar ritual behind you.  More as more people show up.”

“Sir.”  Camille said to him knowing damn well James didn’t like that.  “Twenty minutes ago rogues tracking the loose Status Quo agents noticed them pulling out of their target area.  Their search of the forest and farmland for any sign of the species you have designated ‘chanters’ has turned up nothing, and at first look it was thought to be them giving up.”

“But?”  His own voice was professional now.  Quick words and simple requests for information.

Camille half-met his eyes as she reported.  “They’ve covered almost no ground.  They aren’t leaving, they’re changing tactics.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.  It’s… familiar.”  She said.

James looked at her, and am empathic weight pulled the corners of his mouth down.  Which was a terrible reaction to have because his lips were still cracked from his bout with whatever plague he’d fought off, and the motion hurt like hell.  “Okay.  You didn’t call me here…”

A voice interrupted.  “And us too.”  Alex said as she approached with a camraconda James absolutely remembered seeing around, but couldn’t place the name of.  He remembered them because they were, like, eleven feet long and legitimately as tall as most humans even when half their body was on the floor.  “Hey.  I’m being dragged back in.  Sorry, cut you off?”

Trying not to smirk and finding it easy as he realized how this situation wasn’t that funny, James continued, “…because you think they’re leaving.  You think they’re gonna do something drastic.”

“Yes.”  Camille said with a sharp nod.

“Okay.  Where’s JP, or Ben?  I know Nate’s on vacation, an astute teenager filled me in earlier.”

“Oh!  How’s Morgan doing?”  Sarah perked up.  “Is he earning your fatherly approval?”

“…we’ll talk about that later.”  James shut the banter down.

Camille didn’t so much shut it down as she utterly flattened anyone else’s attempt to speak.  “JP is on a delve.  Ben is the agent in command, and is currently in communication with our field agents.”  She took a minute pause as she steeled herself to ask something.  “I would like to be with you when-“

“Yeah.”  James nodded.  “You’re in.”

“…just like that?”  The soldier and the confused girl swapped places again.

He gave her a level stare.  “Are you good?”

“Yes.”

“Even though they killed your sister?  You can be a good knight?  Not a soldier, not an azure, a knight of the Order of Endless Rooms?”

“I don’t know what that means.  But I will try.”

James nodded once.  “Then you’re in.”  He looked over at Alex who gave a shrug and a nod to Cam, and then to the pale white cabled camracdona.  “Sorry, I know we’ve met but I can’t remember your name.”  Looking a camraconda in the eye without having to tilt his head at all was a novel experience.

“Hello.  Ink-And-Key.  I would say it is nice to reacquaint ourselves, but given the circumstances…”  They trailed off, and James was almost amused to find their androgynous digital voice was the first time he’d heard a camraconda be in a rush to speak.

“Right.  Alright, we’ll do a team brief in a sec, I’m gonna go find Ben.”  He moved around Cam and past the crowd of people that were just kind of nervously waiting there, circling a small folding wall thing to find Ben sitting at a bank of computers on the other side, speaking into a phone as his eyes flicked between a dozen different views.  “Ben.”  James said, getting the young mimic to look up at him without breaking off what he was saying.

Despite his friend having called him here in a serious hurry, Ben didn’t drop everything for James.  “Right.”  He said into the call he was on.  “I’ve got them moving.  Tell Yin not to follow.”  He set the smartphone on the desk and picked up another from a spread of four.  “Changes?   Okay.  Return to the Lair.  Yeah.  Yeah, I know.  You can ask him yourself.”  Ben dropped that phone, not ending any of the ongoing calls.  “James.  Status Quo has-“

Holding up a hand, James saved him a sentence.  “I got a quick brief from Cam.  Give me details on what Squo’s been up to in case I need context.”

“Falling apart, mostly.”  Ben said.  And then when James didn’t look amused, he cleared his throat awkwardly and moved to explain.  “They started bleeding membership almost instantly after we hit them.  We had a solid count of them at seventy people, with about half of them probably being field agents.  And we killed twelve of them and severely wounded five more with the trap.  After that, they called everyone they had to Yamhill to hunt down us, and the chanters.”  Ben looked up at James.  “I know we give you updates, but I dunno if we’ve had time to talk about the emotion behind it.  They’re so sure they’re saving the world.  Well, some of them.”

“Tough shit for them I guess.”  James scowled as he watched the hijacked camera feeds on Ben’s screens.  “I’m sure lots of people doing a genocide thought they were the good guys.  So what’s their current count?”

“Twenty four.”  Ben said.

“What?”  James looked at him with raised eyebrows, leaning a clammy hand on the edge of the cool wooden desk.  “Out of seventy?”

“A lot of their support staff quit.  Without the opportunity for ‘advancement’, they lost a few of the more psychopathic agents too.  We think they also killed two people who were planning to defect.”

James felt a pit in his stomach.  “To… who?”

“Us.”

“Fuck.”  He whispered.

Ben kept going.  “So right now there’s twenty two people, including that one guy who’s partly fireproof and who probably personally dislikes you for blowing him up.”  James didn’t bother saying that Nate had pulled the trigger on that one.  “They’ve been doing sweeps of the area.  Faked being federal agents, got the local cops to help them, a mix of going farm to farm and doing aerial sweeps.  Since no one there knows who the fuck we are, and the chanters are eighteen hundred miles away, they’re hitting a wall.”

“What do you think they’re gonna do?”

“No idea.  We’ve gone through maybe a third of their documents.  We know they have those second chance pills, we know-“

“Ben.”

Ben looked back at James, confused, and then saw the unamused stare he was being given.  “Oh come on, someone told you.”  James didn’t say anything.  “Someone must have told you! It’s been a week!”  James folded his arms.  “I don’t give a shit if you were on a nature hike, someone told you.”  James gave a tiny shake of his head, and Ben slumped.  “Alright, I’m sorry!”  He admitted.  “They have a supply of pills that if taken undo a death if it happens within three minutes.  No idea if they can make more.  That’s it.  We also know they have a bunch of dungeontech programs, including a laptop with one on it that’s containing an infomorph.  They can open the containment in specific ways to weaponize it but it takes time.”

“Are we trying to rescue them?”

“Non-sentient.  And given that their own documents don’t lie about the intelligence of the chanters, I think we can trust that.  Shoot any hardware of theirs you see on sight.”

“That… would let it out Ben.”  James said slowly.

“Planner’ll be on standby.  They’re readying now.”  Ben was back to giving information.  “Here’s the thing.  I don’t know what they think they can do.  There’s at least four other dungeontech programs, our investigation team thinks one of them is what infects their prisoners and why we’ve got people still recovering downstairs from that weird infomorph.  One of them they say is a spell for making lunch, and one’s for making music.”

James sighed at how worrying those both sounded.  “I can think of like eight hundred ways dungeon magic that makes music could murder someone.”

“Okay, but not this one.”  Ben insisted.  “It needs some kind of connection, or line of sight, and also dedicated ritual hardware.  Think of it like our resistance programs.  But they don’t have that.  They’ve got accounting records that show investments in communications and aerospace companies but no actual results from that aside from making themselves rich.  I don’t know what they can do.”

“So I’m here.”  James nodded.

“You and a few others.”  Ben said.  “Lot of knights on delves, vacations, or missions right now.  So I take what I can.  Because we don’t pull people off Response without a damn good reason.”

“I’m a little worried by that sentence, but yeah, Response doesn’t need to be co-opted into this bullshit.”  James snorted.  “Okay.  I’m gonna go check in with my team.  You’re keeping an eye on them?”

“I’m keeping an eye on everyone.”

James stopped with one hand on the little folding wall that cut Ben’s area off from the main warehouse space.  “…I’m not really sure I’m comfortable with that.”  He said quietly.

“Oh, I know.”  Ben admitted readily.  “It’s probably a terrible idea for us to have a surveillance apparatus this powerful, which is why it’s sorta gross to think that we didn’t build shit.  It was already here.  You guys did this before I was even made.  Humans, I mean.  Or Americans.  Whatever.  Put cameras on every intersection and every building and plugged them all into the internet and said the government probably wouldn’t sneakily use them.  You fucking idiots.”  Ben wasn’t even watching James as he kept his eyes fixed on a screen that changed as he flicked a few keys and cycled to a different view of a parked car.

“We’re gonna have to address this, sooner rather than later.”  James told him in a soft voice.  It was clear this wasn’t something he needed to yell about; Ben didn’t exactly seem comforted by the situation.

“I know we should talk about it.  I know no one likes the idea of being watched.  I don’t have a good answer for you, except that I’m not judging anyone.  I’m probably not a great option for it, but I’m not human, so maybe that’ll be comforting.  I just keep an eye on things, and call you when it matters.”  Ben sucked in a short breath.  “We can talk about it later.  Go get geared up, your stuff is here.”

“My…” James turned and saw a new group of arrivals.  He glanced back at Ben once, cracked lips twisting as he resisted the urge to get into a long discussion on the value of having cameras everywhere.   “Sure.”

He left the mimic and headed back toward where Sarah was still trying to make inroads to Camille’s heart.  Alex was in the process of strapping a heavy harness to Ink-And-Key, who was squirming against the girl’s hands.  The group of people who were Sarah’s emotional connections had moved back away from the space they were using, having been asked to clear the area and taken the opportunity to find some chairs and get some snacks from the kitchen before everything started.  A table had been dragged near where Alex and her camracdona friend were working, the new arrivals having stuck it there and spread out a selection of equipment.

James sort of recognized half the new people.  He’d hired them after all.  Members of the security teams that were being trained as a defensive force for the Order specifically first, and as anything else second.  Four young men and one woman, already in matching body armor.  “Paladin.”  One of them said as James approached.

“Hrrrgh.”   He’d been primed to think the guy was going to call him ‘sir’, but this was more like an actual title and James couldn’t just stomp on it now that he’d been caught off guard.  “Okay.  I’ll accept that one.  Now, why are you here?”

“To get you equipped, and to offer fire support.”  The kid looked like he was barely old enough to drink, and yet he spoke like a soldier.  “This is shield team five, we’ll be your backup.  We were told you’d brief us.”

“You’re ready for that?”  James asked before he could stop himself.

“Maybe.”  The professional attitude slipped as the kid smiled.  “Training every day, running drills and scenarios, six months of physical conditioning, it’s something else.  Never been in an actual fight, but we won’t let you down!”  He was like a puppy.  A very well armed puppy.

James knew, in the abstract, that the point of sniping recruits who were headed to military service was that they were already okay with being soldiers, and the Order could just make them better soldiers, in many different ways.  But it was still weird to see that bearing out.  “Okay.  Magic?  Also what’s your names?”

The kid cocked his head.  “Just the weird potions.”  He said, and then pointed to himself and then the other four in turn.  “Skyler, Shen, Mikha, Rhoda, Raul.”  The armored figures nodded at him with a mix of nervous and stiff motions.

“Nice to meet you all.”  James said, glancing over at Sarah who looked like she’d already not only gotten their names but a full biography for each of them, if her smile was anything to go by.  “Okay.  I’ll brief you in a second after I talk to the others.  We probably have some time before anything serious happens, so relax.”  It didn’t seem like any of them were likely to relax.

James motioned Cam over as he joined Alex and Ink-And-Key.  “Okay.  Why are you two here?”  He asked Alex.  “I thought you were out of the knight business.”

“Dude you know I’m super not.  Not when people need me.”  Alex laughed, covering her shaking hands as she strapped the backpack to Ink-And-Key.  “I’m here to help.”

“And… and I am here… because I am paired with Sarah.”  Ink-And-Key said with a vibrating anxiety.  “I know how I sound.  It is a nervous tic, do not worry.  I am a capable field agent and I will not falter and you will need a camraconda for this if you are going against people who are bulletproof.”

James met the white snake’s eye.  “You’re going to be the biggest target on the field and that’s counting Cam here.”  He motioned to the armor plated girl.

“Oh, am I large?  Thank you I hadn’t noticed.”  Ink-And-Key managed both nervous and sarcastic at once.  “I have thirty hours of avatar training, have blues slotted for move person, boil glass, sublimate wood, and create organizational chart, have two casts of pave ready, and am a passable shooter.”  They barely paused as they spoke, not even hissing over their digital voice like some camracondas did.

“I‘ve got blues for asphalt and move person too.”  Alex spoke up.  “Old Squo items on, fireball gun ready.”  She hoisted the portable artillery that was the bright yellow and blue nerf gun.  “Timing stat, some avatar practice but mostly I’m a source for perception.  Not bulletproof but a little harder to cut”

Without being prompted, Camille spoke up.  “I am harder to injure but not bulletproof.  My armor is resistant up to anti-armor ordinance.  I have two Senses that allow me to know if something is a risk to a person of my choosing, and to derive the direction of a fortunate opportunity and know if there are complications in the way of it.  I am trained as a squad’s tactical information officer, though not a leader.”

James thought about what exactly he had on him that was going to be relevant here.  He really, really needed to get a list of his own character sheet and memorize it.  He’d been maybe a little too focused on a growing crush on Anesh back when his now-boyfriend had been making those first notes of their skill gains on a legal pad.  “Okay.  About the same amount of avatar practice, manipulate asphalt, move person, and, like, two charges of separate alloy left.  Bonded pistol, aim stat at two, endurance at three, energy and agility at one.  Navigator who… is not here.  Fuck.  Lots of practice fighting with extra limbs.  I heal marginally faster than a human should.  Oh, skulljacks?”

“Ayup.”  “Of course.”  “No.”  Camille was the odd woman out.

“Want one?”  James offered, and she froze long enough that he shook his head.  “No, bad time.  Make the decision later.  Earpiece and radio, here.”  He grabbed the needed gear off the table and handed it over and she took it and set it up with practiced hands.  “Okay.  So.  Cam, Alex, Ink, and I are gonna be splitting and shifting a boost from everyone here, you get that, right?”  She nodded.  “Okay.  I’ll brief the new guys.  Alex, get armored, Cam, help Ink-And-Key with… herrrrrrs?”

“His.”

“His, sorry.”  James had just sort of gotten used to the largest and most dangerous person in the room with him at any given time being Alanna, so Ink-And-Key being an absolutely titanic camraconda made him assume.  He didn’t say that though.  The new guys looked at the four with a kind of anticipation as James moved back to them.  “Okay.  Ben hasn’t said anything yet so we’ve got a little time.  Squo agents are-“

“Squo?”  One of them questioned in a light Chinese accent, and got smacked by his squadmate.  “Sorry!”

“It’s fine.  Status Quo.  We don’t know their… actually we might know their actual name but I don’t care.”  James had a list of people who he’d put effort into getting the group name for correct.  It was pretty broad, but these assholes weren’t on it.  “So.  Their agents are bulletproof.  Your rifles are enough for non-critical hits, but they’re durable if they’re not wearing armor, just so you know.  If one of them closes to melee with you, don’t hit them or you’ll get electrocuted.  Actually, wait.”  James closed his eyes and sent a message over his skulljack.  “Okay.  We’ve got some orbs in the armory for you, they’re on the way.”  He tried not to grin at one of the squad making a tiny fist pump.  “Your role is support and backup, got it?  If we have to get into a fight, you go where Ben tells you and you suppress the shit out of these guys until we put them down.  If Camille orders you to move, you listen to her.”

“Which one is Camille?”  Skyler asked him.

“The scary one.”  James answered as a joke, and then realized the question was serious.  “The girl your age wearing full plate.”  He added, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at where Cam was clipping flashbangs onto slots that seemed custom made for it in the thigh plates of her custom armor.  “Any questions?”

“What’d these guys do, anyway?”  One of them asked.

James sighed.  “You remember when we brought the chanters through a month back?  The shelled elephant turtlely guys?  Status Quo is where they came from.  They were breeding and harvesting them.  And I know they might not look like it, but…“

“They’re people?”  The same guy asked.  “Alright.  I won’t feel bad about this then.”

“You wouldn’t have felt bad anyway.”  One of his squad mates jabbed at his ribs, which he ignored.

“Yes I would!  I just don’t have to now!”  He sounded as indignant as an early twenties guy possibly could.

James laughed, some tension draining.  “Okay, glad you understand.”

“Oh, Raul understands!”  The shorter woman next to him ignored any attempts to shut her up.  “He’s been trying to sleep with anything that isn’t human ever since we got cleared to be here!”  She yelped as the man next to her tried to put her in a headlock, in a move James found weirdly familiar and wholesome.

He met Raul’s eye.  “Successfully?”  He asked casually.

“What?  Er, sorry, what, sir?”

“No, nope.  Paladin is okay, sir I draw the line at.  And, you know, trying successfully?”

“Uh… no s- no, paladin.”  Raul said, face a rich shade of red.

James tsk’d.  “Well, better luck next time.”  He nodded to them.  “Anything else you need to know?  I’d give you more information, but we don’t even know where we’ll be engaging them if they try something horrible and stupid.  Or if we’re fighting today.”

“Is there a map of the area?”  Skyler asked.

“Check with Ben.”  James told him.  “Oh, and this might come up, but I hope it doesn’t.  If you have a choice, prioritize civilian lives over supporting us.  Got it?”  They looked like they had been trained explicitly by Nate to push back on that exact statement from James specifically.  But the squad still nodded.  “Alright.  Good.  Get your map, and make sure you don’t have to use the bathroom before we teleport.”

He was shaking his head when he walked back over to his own team, where Sarah was back and asking Camille about books she liked.  “How’s the kids?”  Sarah asked him as he approached.

“They’re… okay, first off, they are adults.  But yeah, wow, they feel young.”  James rubbed at his face.  “They’re fine.  I guess.  I’m not actually a military leader, so I don’t know how they’re doing?  I think they’re doing the thing where they’re acting eager to cover up being terrified.”

“You do that.”  Alex pointed out.  “Hell, I do that.  I’m doing it right now!”

“Of course I do that.”  James huffed out a laugh at her.  “Anyway.  Now we wait.”

“I’ve got a few people helping in the kitchen to make a little lunch buffet.”  Sarah told him, and James wondered how she’d managed that in the handful of minutes he’d been maybe twenty feet away.  “Six more benefactors are coming in-“

James stopped her as he did a little hop and planted his ass on a sturdy platform of one of the rogue’s planning desks.  “Is that what we’re going with for people who add to the relationstick thing?”  He asked, and she gave him a nod that splashed her hair around like ribbons.  “You’re not worried that’s gonna end up being a proper noun kind of thing like with the pillars or something?  Like we find out in five years that you named our helpers after some kind of weird alien overlords?”

Ink-And-Key arched their body sideways until the top of their corded head was pointed at the ground and the camraconda was shaped like a question mark.  “Is that likely?  Is that likely?  Are there not enough nouns in your language?  We could always use a different language, and I am very partial to the nouns in french.”

“None of what James said is ever going to…” Alex stopped as she patted Ink-And-Key on the back, and then sighed.  “Probably that won’t happen.  Things are weird these days, so maybe.  Alien invasion feels like the natural follow up to 2020.”

“I was kinda imagining the aliens already here.”  James shrugged.  He trailed off, and the group waited quietly for a while.  Then waited some more, the tension not fading.  “I really hate this part!”  James announced, as it started to get to him.

Camille gave him a tight smile that might have been her commiserating. “You sound like a crimson.”  She said, almost idly.

“…one of your sisters?”  Sarah asked in a way that made it clear she wasn’t pushing.

Cam nodded, one hand adjusting a clipped grenade as she stood stiffly while the others sat or coiled on their tails.  “Combatants and hunters.  I never spoke much of them, did I?”

James sighed.  “Honestly I think none of us wanted to make you feel like a prisoner.”  He told her.  “If it came up, someone would have asked, but until then you can go at your own speed.”

“Ah, yes.  The passive aggressive method of data collection.”  Cam’s voice was bitterly sarcastic, though it didn’t actually seem aimed outward.  “Crimsons have the shortest expected lifespan, so they are the most loyal.  Less time to question orders.  If anyone is sent to track me down, it will be one of them that I will contend with.  Very dangerous, very aggressive.”

“Good thing you’ve got backup then.”  James pointed out, and lightly pretended he missed Cam being shocked at the comment.  “Is this why you haven’t been leaving the Lair?”

“Yes.  I didn’t want to cause problems.  Or die.”

Alex nodded as she stifled a yawn.  “One of those is a good goal!”

James pursed his lips and exchanged a glance with Sarah before looking down from his perch on the desk at the younger woman who’d stolen the nearest chair before he could get to it.  “Alex, have you been hanging out with Momo?  Is that where this is coming from?  Actually, hey, what have you been up to? It’s been a while.”

She traded her own look with the coiled camraconda. “Filling in for you?”  Alex asked slowly.

“What?”  James held up a hand to signal a pause.  “Wait, sorry, before I forget; Cam, please don’t die, and let us know if you need help.  We really are here for you if you need it, even if you’re still slowly being sublimated into the Order okay?”

“That does not sound reassuring, but I will remember.”

“Great.  Now, Alex, what?”

She laughed and shook her head as she folded her armored arms and answered.  “You’ve been sick!  So I’ve been doing your job, kinda.”

Leaning over, Sarah stage whispered through the middle of the group.  “James doesn’t even know what his job is, kiddo.  You need to specify!”

“You know, just… stuff.  Whatever.”  Alex suddenly looked almost embarrassed.  “Uh… doing work down in Townton on trying to talk to the less stabby necroads, delivering this week’s load of cancer cure to our distribution group, going on a scavenger hunt for a belt…”

James held up a hand.  “I don’t do any of that.”  He thought about it, then added a small correction.  “I sometimes do one of those things.  But mostly that’s not what I do.  I just solve whatever problem is closest at hand at any given time and oh okay I see what you’re saying.”

Ink-And-Key leaned in to bump the flat top of his camera head onto Alex’s arm.   “No one is going to ask about the belt.  You said someone would ask, but they’re just nodding like that’s normal.”

“I assume Research lost something of phenomenal cosmic import.”  James waved a hand.  “I trust Reed to do about four things, and holding onto main quest items isn’t one of them.  At least you didn’t lose the crown again.”

“The crown!”  The camraconda was suddenly animated, wriggling back and forth as he tried to express anguish.  “No one likes that thing!  It is rude and it is obtuse and it is other mean words.  Davis wants to break it to see what happens.”

“Fuck no!”  Alex shoved at the long white noodle as Ink-And-Key thrashed into her.  “I love that thing!  Did you guys know it makes humans make pheromones?  That’s so rad!”

Sarah coughed lightly and raised a hand.  “Humans already sort of do that, just not in the same way as… moths?  It’s not a mating behavior.”  Then her eyes widened slightly and she put on a conspiratorial tone.  “Unless it is now?”

Ink-And-Key didn’t stop flailing as he answered.  “No, it mostly makes humans irresistible to moths.  And ratroaches, for some reason.  Though-“

“Jaaaaames.”  Sarah waggled her eyebrows at him.

“No.”  James pointed at her without looking.  “Please go on, Key.”

“-though the effect is limited to humans.  Camracondas simply smell like cherries.”

James tapped at his chin.  “You know, that’s still kinda sexy.”  He said.  “I mean, in the abstract.  Like, if someone smelled like cherries, I’d probably be more into them.”  Briefly, he wondered if Sarah found this conversation useful.  They didn’t talk about it much, mostly because they were both constantly working on different things, but she did directly benefit from learning about mating habits.

“Do not sniff me!”  Ink-And-Key abruptly recoiled from Alex who had found a new tactic to get her friend to stop thrashing into her.

“There’s a guy over on our new shooty squad who’d probably be into that too.  He might be straight though.  Or maybe that’s me just making an unfair assumption.”  James offered unhelpfully as Alex and Ink-And-Key intensified their bickering.  Then Sarah had to leave to organize something and greet some new people, and James just ended up sitting there quietly.  He didn’t know what to say, exactly, he was just… waiting.

Cam left them sitting there to go check in with Ben.  Sarah came back then left again.  And James felt himself having trouble keeping focus.  Time just drifted past him as he waited.

Soon he was going to be called upon to fight.  And for all that he joked about having done this before, he was still about to gamble with his life.  James liked being alive; he certainly didn’t want to be dead.  The thought of it terrified him, the idea of being shot at again made his stomach roil, and not even knowing what weird plan Status Quo were enacting and he’d be walking into added an extra layer of uncertainty.

When Cam came back with an update and told them that the Status Quo agents seemed to be doing their own waiting on the outskirts of Yamhill, it didn’t make things even better.  It was like a Mexican standoff where one side didn’t know they were participating.  Hopefully didn’t know anyway.

The others moved between quiet and conversation as the minutes stretched on, but at a certain point James realized he had forgotten something important.  “Hey, I’ll be right back.”  He said, standing.  “Yell if we need to go.”

“Sure.”  Alex waved once.  “Don’t start any other side quests.”

“No promises.”  James laughed at the joke as he stepped away to a quiet distant corner of the warehouse and pulled out his cell phone to dial a familiar number.

Anesh answered on the third loop of the ringtone.  “I’m literally on the way now, you don’t need to tell me you twat.”

“I mean, I feel like I should!”  James defended himself with a sudden wave of relief.  “Alanna got mad at me last time, but she’s in the dungeon now, so who am I supposed to tell I love them before I go march off to war?”

His boyfriend was silent for a few seconds, until James realized that the grunts he was hearing were probably from Anesh trying to shove his shoes on.  “I don’t know!  Arrush? TQ?  Zhu? One of six other copies of me?”

“You don’t all have the same phone number?”  James was puzzled enough that it further helped bury his tension.  “Also Arrush, TQ, and Zhu are all in Route Horizon with Alanna.  And one of you actually.  Holy shit, my whole harem is off without me having their own adventure.”  James grumbled.

Anesh’s laugh was still worried, but the sound of it was familiar and comforting and it warmed James’ heart.  “You told us not to use that word.”  He reminded his boyfriend.  “But seriously, I’m on my way.”

From across the planning room, a lot of people were looking James’ way.  One of them, Ben, was frantically trying to get his attention.  “Yeah, I think you’re out of time there.”  James told Anesh with the most casual air he could muster.  “Hey, I do love you.  Wish me luck.”  He started striding back toward the group before he hung up.

“…good luck.”  Anesh didn’t sound happy at all.  “I love you too.  Please be okay.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”  James said with a forced smile, before he hung up and slipped his phone back into his pocket and faced the mimic that kept throwing him into these problems.  “Ben.  Tell me they went home.”

“They went home.”  Ben probably lied.

James was prepared to believe him though.  “Cool.  Then I’m gonna go relax.”

“No”  Camille stepped up next to Ben, and her stare didn’t look amused at all.  “They have left the area.  After setting it on fire.”

“Setting what on fire?”  James felt himself ask the question on reflex, while his brain was busy trying to figure out how to get Cam to stop talking like she was always giving a report.  Even though she was currently giving a report.  “Wait, set what on fire?  Where were they?”

“On the western side of town.  And they set Yamhill on fire.”  Camille said flatly.  “Before they split their forces and moved out, presumably to regroup somewhere else later.  They are being tracked.”

“James…” Ben’s voice was dry, and he swallowed heavily before continuing.  “We don’t know what they did.  But there’s a thousand acre large wildfire currently in the process of getting out of control.  A lot of buildings are on fire too, but it looks like the nearby farms are infernos.”  He swallowed again.  “Response is… evacuating people that they can, now.”

James froze, eyes widening, one hand clenched into a fist.  “Oh, those monsters.”  He whispered.  “They couldn’t find the chanters, so they’re just going to burn everything down and count kill notifications.”  It seemed pretty obvious in retrospect, but nothing in their intel reports had shown Status Quo to be capable of fireballing a city.  The only question now was, “Where are they going?”  He demanded.

Camille answered with her report voice, in a way that James was half annoyed with and half grateful for.  “West.  We believe they are splitting up and heading into forested areas that they suspect are harboring the chanters, to repeat the process.”

James nodded, and looked around the silent warehouse to see that everyone had heard that.  “Ben.”  He ordered in the firmest voice he could manage without screaming.  “Get me the most isolated group, and give us telepads for an ambush.  Tell the rogues we’ll be moving in.”  Ben nodded and practically ran to get James what he’d asked for, while James turned to the two strike teams that were both watching him.  One of them practically normal humans, one of them knights with all the weirdness that entailed.  He took a breath so deep it hurt his lungs.  “Slight change of plans.”  James said.  “Our objective is to stop them from doing that again.  If anyone wants to back out, now’s the time.”

They just stared at him.

“Please be safe.”  Sarah whispered into the still air.

“I’ll try.” James told her.  “But we need to prioritize stopping this, now.”  He looked up as there was a wooden crash of Ben slamming into the edge of a desk as he ran back to them.  “Okay.  Sarah, get our benefactors ready, everyone, potions and coffee now.”  James reached out and plucked one of the two offered telepads from Ben.  A quick ping across the skulljack network confirmed he was connected to his own team, and could slightly awkwardly radio their backup.  “How far out is this?”

“Two minutes.”  Ben gasped.

James slammed back a cup of warm coffee, and then took an offered yellow orb from Sarah, who was passing them out to people.  Taking a deep breath, he focused on something he didn’t do very often, and pulled on the concept of how he used his time, while pressing the orb lightly against his skin.  A half second later, it slipped into him without protest.

[+.3 Operational Hours : Comfortable]

That was less than everyone else was saying.  James didn’t know what to thing about that, except that it was probably something Research had just forgotten to tell him again, and all he really needed was to be able to be his best for half an hour anyway.

“Okay.”  James reached out and felt Alex and Camille’s hands on his, while Ink-And-Key just placed his chin on the stack.  “Let’s go.”

He pulled the page and was in the woods.

Well, not exactly.  He was on the side of a pleasant forest road.  Slightly damp pine needles underfoot and enough poison ivy behind him to murder a yak and the smell of vibrant green nature all around.  It was nearly silent, except for the sound of a pop and five humans in body armor with rifles appearing on the other side of the road, exactly opposite the mile marker James was by.  “Spread out!  Firing positions!”  The security team’s leader ordered his people, and they moved to create a crescent out of their lines of sight.  “Face east!”

There was a bend in the road a thousand feet away, that James stood watching as he took another deep breath, feeling the reflex coffee thrumming in his fingers even as he smelled distant smoke.  A digital notification told him that he was being called, and he accepted it, hearing a quiet “Good luck” before Sarah started humming to him, and a starfield of connections opened up behind her that he could draw on.  He’d need to coordinate that with Alex and Ink-And-Key, but it would be enough.

It had to be enough.

He felt like he barely had seconds to prepare, as he pulled his gun and knelt among the trees with the others.  Two minutes didn’t feel like enough.  And all too soon, a pair of vehicles came down the quiet road, a grey sedan and a black SUV rounding the bend and driving like they were in no particular hurry.

“Freeze the lead car.”  James told Ink-And-Key, who signaled affirmative.  “In three.  Two.  One.  Now.”

Everything happened very quickly after that.

Ink-And-Key couldn’t fully stop the car.  Not by himself.  But there were camracondas in Sarah’s relationstick network, and one of them could share ‘gaze’.  Which meant Ink-And-Key fell into a state of calm as he did what he’d practiced a hundred times, tapped into that link, pulled power in, and opened his eye on the lead vehicle.

It stopped.  And the one behind it, not expecting their friends to turn into an immobile obstacle, slammed into the sedan’s trunk at sixty miles an hour.  The SUV deflected, shrapnel flying out in a fan along with a detached wheel as the driver fought to keep control while sliding sideways and missing one of the four important parts of a car.  Whoever it was almost got it, too, until James pushed something inside himself to a snap, and hit the undercarriage of the car with [Separate Alloy], sending two more wheels flying off along with ripping the SUV partially in half as matter rearranged itself.

It landed on its side about the time two of the passengers in the sedan kicked their doors open and leapt out of the frozen car.  Which was also when shield team five opened fire.  They shot like they were trained to suppress targets, short bursts alternating who was pulling the trigger so that there was never a pause in the violence.  Around them in the trees, a thousand birds fled the sudden noise of cracking guns, while one of the two who’d tried to escape the car died.  Suddenly and bloodily; they must not have been an agent, because they took one burst to the chest and went down.

The other one shrugged off enough hits to kill most living things and took cover behind the sedan, even as the shots kept coming.  Two of the shooters switched to the SUV as someone crawled out of that wreck, forcing them back into the overturned vehicle for cover.

Alex, James, and Camille sprinted down the side of the road, over the edge of the forested slope but still finding the footing for speed as they rushed where the cars were while staying mostly out of sight.  When they got closer, James and Alex held back while Camille rushed ahead, keeping his gun up and looking for any targets.  He saw one in the drive of the sedan, who had been dazed but looked otherwise okay.  James triggered the burst fire on his bracelet and started hammering bullets through the passenger window, and was mildly surprised to see his target jerk with a grotesque splatter of blood before slumping sideways.

“Ink!  Let the car go!”

“Yes.”  The camraconda’s digital voice sounded horrified, but he did as ordered and suddenly the sedan had all its momentum back.  It peeled away before skidding sideways and crashing into an ancient tree that had withstood far more damage than one petty human car could put out.  It also left the man taking cover behind it and in the middle of trying to get a weapon out of the trunk abandoned, and taking fire from the shield team.

When someone started shooting back at James, triggering his shield bracers twice as bullets came near his position, Alex zeroed in on the SUV and fireballed it with the nerf gun.  She didn’t go nuts with it, just hit it with repeat shots of overheated plasma until she had to reload with the bound bracelet and there was nothing moving that wasn’t on fire.

The last agent standing in the middle of the road reacted with admirable poise given what was happening.  Left without cover and under fire, he still twisted to run for the treeline, one hand taking pistol shots at the concealed positions of the people firing at him while the other hand drew a short knife.  James registered someone on their radio calling out being hit before Ink-And-Key froze the man mid stride.

Then Camille reached him, and struck him in the chest with her mace.  The weapon caved in his body, and as the camraconda let go of the pulverized form, sent him skidding across the asphalt with a smear of blood.

“Clear.”  Camille’s voice was like a harsh burst of static in James’ ear, covering up the sound of Sarah’s humming.

“Clear.”  The shield team reported in.  “Shen’s hit.”

“Clear.”  Alex and James said at once as they failed to spot anything moving amid the wreckage.  James wanted to vomit.  This hadn’t been a fight, this had been an execution.  But he had to keep it together; they had more to do.  “Sarah, we’re good.  Ben, mark… six Status Quo operatives as killed.  We’re teleporting back, have the next point ready for us.”

“…okay.”  The voice sounded tiny in James’ ear.

Two telepad uses were spent to move the two groups back to the Lair.  Time felt wrong as James got his bearings in the planning room; like things were moving too fast and he was moving too slow, both at the same time.  He registered one of their teammates being taken away to have a bullet dug out of his stomach where an unlucky shot had gotten through the armor, and he had an oddly detached intellectual curiosity about Ink-And-Key puking his lunch all over the floor as he realized that camracondas actually could do that.  But everything felt so far away; even the sensations on his own skin.

“Second ambush point.  Five minutes to contact, they haven’t reacted to the first strike.”  Ben handed him another telepad, the mimic’s voice shaking.

“Kay.”  James muttered as he nodded.  “Everyone ready?”

“No.”  Alex said as she spun the nerf gun’s chamber to make sure it was loaded.  “Key?  You wanna sit this one out?”

The pale white camraconda looked up from where he’d braced himself against a desk with the armament pack he was wearing.  “I can do this.”  The camraconda lied to himself.  “And even if I can’t… no, I am the one who has practiced this. I can do this.”

The second ambush went much the same way as the first.  Their backup reloaded between teleports, and then got into position with time to spare.  There was only a small scare when a battered and rusted pickup truck passed their position, and the driver definitely saw them all and looked like he really wanted to stop and ask what the fuck they were doing.  But nothing came of it, and all too soon, their targets came into view.

An augmented camraconda’s stare stopped the front car.  Bullets rained down like the world’s most deadly hail, and whenever an agent shrugged them off and tried to fight back, they’d meet either a fireball or a mace that ended their lives rapidly.  One of them actually managed to dodge both of those, but got caught out by James pulling hard though his connection to Sarah; turning the dodge of Cam’s strike into a trip, then flattening the agent into the gravel on the side of the road and stabbing them through the chest until they stopped moving.

Then doing it again when their death was reversed and they tried to get up.

They arrived back in the Lair with James feeling just as far from reality as before.  His hands stung.  So did his neck.  The agent had taken advantage of a mistimed approach and a blocked camraconda angle to hit him in the side of the throat with a strike so fast it had blurred.  Something had crunched inside him when it hit, but James didn’t feel anything but a mild ache, so it was probably fine.

He took a minute to wash his hands in the Lair’s upstairs bathroom, and felt a dizzy sense of confusion as he realized there were still normal people having a normal day here while he sortied out to kill monsters.

The simple act of washing his hands felt so normal.  Cleaning the splinters and bits of dirt and blood off to reveal scratches from where he’d planted his hands on the asphalt, it was all so mundane.

When James had been in college, he’d worked in a restaurant for some extra money.  And one of the things he’d always hated was having to go in and out of the walk-in for stuff.  Sometimes, if it was a really hot day, then it was a relief to take a minute searching for cheese or something.  But having to constantly go back and forth between hot and cold was almost a form of torture.

And now here he was going back and forth between violence and normalcy.

Swallowing hard and staring into the elaborately decorated mirror that the Lair’s bathroom had for some reason, he took the guilt and disgust inside of his thoughts, and did his best to obliterate it.  The people he was shooting weren’t some helpless innocents.  They were violent, genocidal, human-supremacists.  They were currently actively trying to burn down his state.  If Status Quo had known his home address, James was positive they wouldn’t have hesitated to try to kill him and his family in his living room and paid special attention to the dog and the iLipede while doing so.

He still felt wretched.  You couldn’t just will away your humanity like that.  A part of James was always going to be repulsed by the thought of killing people.  But really, that was for the best.  And though he still wasn’t feeling at the top of his game when he walked back into the planning room and took the third telepad to a deserted point on a logging road in the middle of nowhere, he did his best to project a collected confidence for the others.

“Ready?”  James asked as he held his hand out, the shield team having already gone ahead.

“Ready. “ Alex looked like she’d gone through a similar mental process to him.  Next to her, Camille just nodded, far too comfortable with this kind of work.

“No.  Please do it fast so I don’t need to think about it.”  Ink-And-Key shivered, the camraconda’s eleven foot length practically twitching in anxiety as he tried to steel himself for the last fight.

James pulled the telepad, looking up at the last second to see Sarah shooting him a nervous thumbs up.  Then he was staring into an acre that had been clearcut and was only just starting to regrow, bounded by the trunks of trees that had survived by luck alone.  Their rifle backup, who had been far more important than James had expected against the normally bullet resistant Status Quo, were already set up, facing down the road in the proper direction that their last targets would be coming from.

There was no way they wouldn’t be ready for them this time.  They had to know by now that fifteen of their number had been wiped out.  There were, if Ben’s count was right, nine people left in this branch of Status Quo.  And while James was glad that they’d attritioned members without violence after their operation had been shattered, he was fully expecting them to try to fight to the last.

His phone call went through, Sarah picking up just like the last two times almost right away.  But this time, instead of soft humming shared across the skulljack tactical network, James got a rapid burst of words from his friends.  “James, someone just tried to dive out of the Squo cars.  Half a mile down the road, they’re running from their own people.”

“Got it.”  He said, a cold calculation trying to take place in his head but getting outpaced by a hot rush of impulse.  “Start singing.  Alex, take the new guys and catch up.  Cam, with me.”

James didn’t know if this was smart.  Didn’t actually know how fast he could clear a half a mile, or what he’d do when he got there, didn’t know if he’d be in time to save whoever it was.  But while he had minimal sympathy for people who stuck with Status Quo just because of a fear to disobey, he already knew that if someone was willing to throw themselves out of a car to get away, then they’d made their choice.  And it put them on his side of the line, made them someone he was planning to protect.

Sarah’s voice, musical and light despite the circumstances, opened up a constellation of options.  And James tugged on all of them.  Even Alex and Ink-And-Key, even Anesh, who must have made it to the Lair and was waiting there for him.  Poise, grace, balance, speed, dexterity, pace, tempo, whatever words were used and whatever changes were actually made to his body, James pulled them in and made them a part of himself.  Mixed them with dozens of purple orbs and a bit of a Sewer lesson and probably some other magic he’d forgotten by now.

It felt like his foot should have cratered the cracked asphalt as he took his first step, going from a crouch to a sprint in a burst of motion.  But James had only a fraction of a second to consider that his life wasn’t an anime before he picked up speed.

This wasn’t like jogging with Alanna.  This wasn’t even like running for his life in a dungeon.  This was something else.  Putting everything he had into moving, as fast as possible, in a straight line.  The road sloped but didn’t curve, and so James could see the approaching point where the cars had stopped and a trio of people with guns were firing into the trees on the side.  One of the cars looked like it had crashed into a rock while two others were idling in the middle of the road.

Every footfall ate up thirty feet of distance.  He was moving at over twenty miles an hour.  Almost flying, barely keeping control of his own limbs and their contact with the road.  How fast, he didn’t know, but fast enough that he was sure that touching the pavement with anything that wasn’t his feet would be painful at best.  James pulled harder on the links through Sarah, pushed himself faster, and moved to close the gap.  He wasn’t a car, he might not even be spotted until he was too close, and he banked on that as he angled toward the edge of the road, and aimed for where one of the agents was standing over a downed figure with their pistol raised, like they were planning an execution.

James really, really, really hoped Camille had kept up.  The wind of his own making stung his face as he gave one last shove against the asphalt, pushing himself forward with an impossibly well coordinated use of [Manipulate Asphalt], manipulating his trajectory ever so slightly, and slamming into the agent who only realized James was both there and headed his direction at the last second.

James saw the man’s eyes widen just before his hand met the agent’s face.  And then, unloading the electrical discharge that he produced, James felt his shoulder pop as he carried the man off his feet and slammed the back of his head into the rough black surface of the road.  And held it there with his full weight as they kept moving for another hundred feet.  The agent made a muffled scream against James’ palm, the sensation almost tickling, until the friction of being dragged across the road shattered his skull and he abruptly went limp and didn’t make any noise at all.

As much as he hated them, James gave due respect to the other agents who didn’t hesitate to start firing at him even while he was still busy turning their friend into a long dark wet streak on the pavement.  A lot of their shots went wide, but some were close enough that bullets pinged off shield bracer panes, and dropped the already low count of charges even closer to zero.

Bolting for the cover on the side of the road amid the vegetation, James threw a wave of [Separate Alloy] at them.  His last one, just vaguely projected in their direction like a cloud.  It worked somewhat, peeling back their handguns along with their belt buckles, but it didn’t exactly stop them from acting.  One of them ran for one of the cars, probably to retrieve a larger weapon, while three more men leapt out of the van from different doors.  James ordered the road to stab one of them through the groin with [Manipulate Asphalt], but the agent actually dodged the attack, and James didn’t want to keep spamming magic that gave him a migraine.

Though he was feeling pretty good right now, all things considered.  The thrum of ability and strength coming through Sarah’s link, even limited like this, bolstered him and kept him going even as heavy machine gun fire started cutting the branches down ahead of him.

He threw himself to the ground and started crawling through what he was absolutely sure was poison ivy, his arm screaming in protest as he circled away from where they were trying to kill him and closer to their flank.

“Hold fire!”  A man’s voice barked.  Even after the roar of gunfire, it was familiar to James; he’d blown this guy up at least once by now.  “Keller, McAinsly, check for a body.  Murgot, go make sure our traitor is dead.”

James poked his head out of the mass of sticks and vines that was sheltering him, and took in the battlefield.  Two cars, one lane over.  Two men standing near the rear car, one of them with the machine gun that absolutely would kill him if he got shot with it, the other probably the boss.  Two more men approaching where James had dived off the road.  One more going back for the turncoat.

He didn’t see Camille anywhere.  Which wasn’t exactly worrying; Camille was probably at her most dangerous when unobserved.  Still, James had to act quick.

First things first, figuring out who was bulletproof.  His Aim gave him the perfect position to put his hand in when he pulled the trigger to put burst fire shots from his Walther onto all five of the agents in rapid order.  Two of them dodged, two of them ignored being shot entirely aside from looking like they’d been lightly slapped, and one of them went down with a wet choking gurgle as he pulled at the holes in his chest like he could somehow undo the damage James had just inflicted.

James turned and ran back into the forest as bullets chased him down, a lot of them finding his shields after the first one grazed it and lit up his position.  Eventually he felt like he’d gotten far enough away that he could press himself around a tree and start to edge back to try again on the two who’d dodged - the most likely vulnerable targets - but as he slipped around his cover, James came face to face with a scarred man holding an axe that looked really pissed at him.

James shot him.  It didn’t do anything, and then he had to fight for his life as the agent hooked his leg with the blade, punching into his calf as he yanked James off balance.  James countered by flinging the knife on his belt at the man’s face, forcing a jerk backward, and as he sprawled to the loamy forest floor, James rolled away.  Blood trailed from his injury as his opponent pressed the advantage and tried to hack him in half while he was down.

Then James remembered how strong he could be, in that moment, and tugged on everyone supporting him for a boost.  He caught the axe blade in one hand from a supine position, fingers clamping down on it and arresting the strike before it could cleave into his palm.  With his good leg, he kicked into the agent’s knee and was rewarded with a pulpy snap as something broke.

The man made the critical mistake of letting go of the axe, and James flipped it nimbly into his good hand before burying it in the agent’s gut with a backhanded swipe.  He scrambled to his feet and shot the man in the head twice just to be sure, but that still didn’t do anything.

Except maybe give away his position.  Gunshots sounded behind him, and James screamed as one of them hit in him the back.  He was armored, but his bracer charges had run out, and the shot pushed him into panic as he toppled forward onto the man who was bleeding out in front of him.  Scrambling against the dying grasp of the enemy agent, James turned amid the pine needles just in time to see a silhouette raise a weapon at him, right before Camille hit them in the head with her mace with a noise like someone detonating a jar of mayonnaise.

A series of detonations from the road announced what she’d done with the flashbangs that she’d brought along, buying them a few seconds as she offered James a hand up.  He took it, feeling a bit dwarfed by the heavy gauntlet she was wearing, and tried not to howl in pain as he remembered that he’d probably dislocated his shoulder.

He’d barely gotten his bearings when a thunderous roar of gunfire started again, the last agent with the machine gun bracing it on the hood of one of the cars and raking it back and forth over the area where they’d gone into the trees.  James flicked his left hand out, a needless but dramatic gesture as he pulled the road up in a wall between them and caught a half dozen bullets before the layer of asphalt got punched through and broke away.  The reaction was still fast enough to keep them from getting shot, and bought Cam time to bolt away again, circling the cars and flinging her mace overhand at the last agent.

And then it was quiet.  Mostly.  There was still a ringing in James’ ears, along with a rushing sound like a series of heavy thuds that he realized was his own heartbeat in an adrenaline fueled frenzy.

The fight had barely been a few minutes long.  Everything was over by the time the shield team caught up to them, and it was longer still before Alex and Ink-And-Key arrived; they’d had to hunker down when James started using them as batteries.

He realized he was still holding on to the borrowed power, despite hearing Sarah’s voice starting to get a little hoarse over their connection.  James tried to tell her it was okay to stop, but couldn’t form the words. So he slowly let go of his grip, pushing everything back to who it belonged to in a way that left him feeling like a raw nerve.

“This guy’s alive!  Raul, medic!”  Someone yelled.

“We’ve got bodies in this car!”  Another of the young support team yelled out.

James looked up, his vision swimming.  That was probably weird, but he couldn’t place why.  He did need to let someone know things were secure here though.  “Ben.”  He roughly croaked out.  “You there?”

“Yeah man, I’m here.”  Ben’s voice was soft and concerned.  “You okay?”

“Oh.  No.”  James laughed at the absurdity of that question.  “Not even a little.  Uh… there’s…” he counted off bodies.  Three in the car, for some reason, one he’d pancaked, one more in the woods.  Camille accounted for another three.  And then the last guy here with the machine gun that Alex was unloading. “Nine dead.  And one other guy who’s… well, still alive.”

“Ten.  That’s it then.”  Ben said with a note of finality.  “Let’s get you back here, and you can do nothing for a while, okay?   That’s it.  They’re gone.  All that’s left is unfucking as much as we can.”

“Right.”  James nodded to no one in particular as he watched Alex gently coax a laptop away from the bleeding Status Quo staffer who was sitting on the side of the road.  “Yeah.  Cause… the fire.”

“Not your job.”  Ben told him.  “Come back.  I’ve got rogues moving in to deal with the mess before the police arrive.  Not that we don’t have time; they’re a bit busy.”

“Right.” James muttered, taking stifled breaths of the fresh air that smelled too peaceful and fresh for a place that was painted in blood and the lingering hint of gunfire.  “Hey.  You okay?”  He asked Camille, who was standing next to him and running a gauntleted finger across a number of holes in the breast of her plate mail.  “Are you hurt?”

She looked at him with eyes that were far too young for this kind of work.  “I don’t know.  I don’t feel hurt.”  She poked one of the holes again.  “This one didn’t penetrate.”

“Good.”  James said with a sigh.  “Get the others.  We’re out of here.

Hot to cold and back again.  Suddenly, the violence was done.  There was no one left to shoot, and no one left to be a threat.

Now, and only now as they blinked back to the Lair with one wounded half-captive-half-rescue in tow, did James take the time to be angry.  He’d been a lot of things while he was fighting, but he didn’t let himself be angry.  Now, though?  Literally all the remnants of Status Quo had to do was go live their lives.  Not even without magic, just without murdering, without hunting innocent people, without setting towns on fire.  And they couldn’t even manage that.  And James couldn’t help but imagine a world where he wasn’t quite as strong, or where they were on the wrong side of the ambush, where these complete and utter bastards would have gotten away with everything.

He took a deep breath of the filtered air of the Lair.  Looked at the faces of the people who were filtering out of the planning room, looked at Sarah waiting to approach him, looked at Anesh rushing forward to wrap him in a terrified hug that was certainly going to be painful.  Looked at the people who wouldn’t have to keep looking over their shoulders anymore.

Letting go of his anger wasn’t too hard.  Letting go of his frustration was harder.  But afterward, all James felt for the moment was empty, and like his arm hurt as Anesh crushed him.

“Oh, uh… ow.”  He said lightly, causing his boyfriend to recoil.  “Yeah, sorry, that’s… my bad.  Didn’t talk fast enough.”

“Okay, downstairs, now.”  Anesh told him forcefully.

“For a bath, right?”  James asked, trying to pour some humor back into his day.  Anesh just glared at him and started tugging him into motion, pulling his armored boyfriend toward the door.  “Anesh?  For the bath, right?”  James felt the smile on his face, faked before, turn genuine as Anesh grumbled and muttered his way through shoving James through a crowd toward the elevator.

Alex, wavering on her feet, crossed paths with them before they left.  “Hey.  Uh… are you doing okay?”

“No.”  James admitted.  “Also your camraconda friend doesn’t look good either.”  He thought for a second.  “Not to make a habit of this, but, meet you at the baths?”

“No, James, we’re getting your shoulder relocated.” Anesh informed him bluntly.

James nodded.  “Right, after that.”

“Yeah.”  Alex exhaled, hands trembling.  “After that.  Okay.  Sounds good.”  She tried waving and ended up just making a flailing gesture as she went back to grab Ink-And-Key, and maybe also Camille.

This was, James realized, going to be the messiest clean win that he’d ever had.  But at least Anesh was here.

He was pretty sure he fell asleep in the elevator ride.  But his partner got him where he needed to go.