I had Rick show Griggs roughly where the lupin were held up. He wasn’t supposed to disclose his source, as that seems a bit too much for her to handle. This way she could hand off that assignment to someone that was responsible for that territory. While he did that, Will and I helped Katnessa get her things in my SUV. In less than fifteen minutes they were packed up and headed down the street to the other half of the squad. I felt bad for the other half of the squad. They had to move a dozen elderly people onto a bus and help them pack clothes and supplies. As luck would have it, everyone in the first half of the squad leveled up to at least level two. Somehow during the fights Katnessa leveled up to four, which is how we had 3 oversized cats terrorizing a goblin instead of two.
We had already begun to become a convoy. The guys came here in a big pickup truck which would stay with us for the rest of the day. We had my SUV and the two Humvees. We would collect another pickup truck down with the second half of the squad. Upon stopping, I got out to check in with the men. They seemed to be finishing up. From my spot I could see people packed on a school bus, with suitcases going on now. I found Clint, the man in charge of the second half of the squad, in a kitchen in one of the townhouses. “Clint, how are things shaping up?”
“Just fine Captain. Do you happen to have space in your dimensional pouch? There is an awful lot of food that is otherwise going to go to waste.”
“That’s fine. Put some of it on the kitchen counter. It has to be small enough to fit through the pouch opening.” He nodded and grabbed a bunch of smaller things before placing them on the kitchen counter. I was happy to load the food into my pouch as it kept me away from Griggs. I remembered to text Nora not to communicate via stones with me while we have our guest.
Soon enough we were off again to the next streets over and continued the process of getting people out of the area. I didn’t mind the rest of the day being a bit more on the boring side as I had little to be confronted over. Everything went smoothly until we reached the all-girls school Mary Anne Academy. Nobody should be here, but there were a few cars in the lot. We pulled up near the front entrance and everyone except Will got out. He was going to stay in one of the Humvees, so he had access to the turret weapon.
I gathered the top half of the squad and Katnessa, while assigning Griggs to take control of the other half. We approached the front door in two groups. The front doors were all unlocked. Nothing barred our entrance. I pulled the door open wide and we stepped inside. No one said anything as we tried to quietly step through the room. Boot scuffs echoed down the main corridor straight back and down both the left and right wings. I motioned for the other group to go down the left corridor, while we went down the right hand one.
After a few feet I motioned to Katnessa to come over to me. I whispered to her, “have all the cats scout ahead of us. Have them sniffing and looking for more the lupin, orcs, goblins, or any monsters at all.”
She then tapped on Rick who meowed at the closest cat before turning back and nodding, “They understand. They want hazard pay though.”
How the fuck do cats know what hazard pay is? Regardless, we inched forward and would open up doors just a small bit to allow cats to scout classrooms and further down the hallway. Everything was still quiet. I still felt like something was off. I don’t know what it was about the academy that made me worry about whether they had demons here. It wasn’t just cars, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
We cleared the right wing of the first floor and got confirmation that 2nd team was the end of left wing. We both went up stairwells at the same time. Nothing happened. We cleared both the second and third floors as well, we met up in the main wing and cleared rooms side by side all the way to the tall windows at the back of the hall. That was when I noticed it. Across the way there were very strange looking purple and blue lights lit in the building across the small quad. We spent all this time clearing the main building, and no one was even here. Despite that, we still cleared the remaining rooms and floors of the central wing that ran straight back from the entrance.
With the central upside down T-shaped building searched thoroughly we moved across the quad to what looked to an auditorium. Well that, and the sign that said ‘Auditorium.’ We began peering in windows, careful to not be scene. When I did, what I saw sickened me; a group of people were restrained in the middle of the room bleeding out and dying. Their blood was leaking onto 3 separate teleportation circles. Orcs were appearing every so often. I watched this carefully from my vantage point for over half a minute. There were already dozens of orcs forming into rows and columns. These would be a massive push to dislodge one or more of the portal defensive groups; I was sure of it.
I motioned for Griggs to come over to me. She crouch walked quickly between trees and shrubbery to stay out of sight. She was also careful to not make much noise. I whispered to Griggs, “We need an air strike to bring this building down.”
“I agree, but how do you plan on extricating those civilians in there.”
“I don’t. They are already bleeding to death. Their blood is what’s fueling those teleportation pads. If we try to save them, then we are most likely all dying. Save humanity, not every person.”
Those words stung her for a moment, but then she nodded. “I understand. I have what we need.” She pulled out a small device with an antenna. It’s a signaling device to allow our drones, fighters, and bombers home in on one spot. But it needs to be as close to the middle of the building as we can get it.” She looked at me, like someone was going to go inside there.
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“Will the roof work?” I asked, because it was a damn good question. She nodded. Ted motioned to me and pointed up at the side of the building. I stepped back and over to where he was to see what he was trying to show me, a ladder from the top of the covered walkway to the roof. Dan volunteered to go up the ladder to the roof and turn on the device. While he started climbing up as quietly as he could, we went about trying to sabotage the doors out of the building. Harry’s concrete shaping ability was handy as he blocked the doors by pulling as much of the concrete up and as thickly as he could against the door without shaking it. We then worked out way backwards to the T-shaped building.
One of Katnessa’s cats came around a cornered and hissed at us. Rick translated, “There are orcs coming out of the doors on the opposite side into the massive gymnasium attached to the auditorium. There are more than the cat could count quickly already in there.” I looked up to see Dan starting his descent down the side of the building. The Cat hissed again at Rick. “She can hear several of them coming this way,” was his interpretation.
I spoke across my walkie talkie, “let’s keep things contained and away from Dan. We need to at least give him a chance to get clear of the building. Griggs, call in the air strike. Dan should be away from that building in less than 60 seconds.” With that said we moved into action. Two of the guys fell back to set up a line of claymore explosives that we could trigger after we passed. Katnessa had already disappeared somehow. Keeping track of her was a full time job: for someone else. The first abyssal orc rounded the corner to be met Hank’s broad axe of armor bane to his neck. It sliced through all of the orc’s neck, yet the rest of the body continued to move for a few steps before falling down to its knees. Then the next 3 came around the corner. We opened fire. The cacophony of sound was deafening all over again. I really needed earplugs.
Hank started walking backwards away from the corner, and we made a point of blasting orcs that would try to get into melee with him. More orcs were emerging to face us, and it required combined fire to genuinely bring one down. We started falling back as soon as Hand was back behind the lines. We had to do it in pairs, starting on one flank to give everyone a chance to reach a spot behind the claymores. We could see Dan running across the top of the covered pavilion to get to a building much further away: He was safe from any initial blast. Someone triggered the claymores, and explosions rang out in a wicked line in front of us. The noise knocked my hearing out worse than before. With no sound, I simply stood there for a few seconds to appreciate what thousands of ball bearings travelling at well over 1000 meters every second into the face of over a dozen orcs. Their innate damage resistance was powerful enough to blunt the bearing individually, but in combination, the effect was devastating. Orcs had limbs ripped off, and chunks from their body tore free. When they weren’t punctured, the bruising was solid across swathes of skin. When those little balls found critical spots like eyes, mouths, and certain joints, the result was beautifully destructive. We really needed more of that, but we hadn’t been supplied with a whole lot.
Unfortunately, while it did clear a single wave of concentrated orc bodies, the next wave came right afterwards, and we started falling back again. Just as we were reaching the far side of the quad and a door that was closer to the front of the building is when we heard the sound of incoming Jets. I silently cheered inside. Several tear gas cannisters came from above down onto the second wave of orcs. This helped us finally get to the door as missiles struck the auditorium and the gymnasium. While I couldn’t hear the explosions, they were visually beautiful. Then the blast of air resulting from the explosion blew me through the doorway and into the stairwell near the front of the building. In the seconds that followed, I patted myself down to make sure I was still alive and in one piece. The pain from smacking against a locker was not what I wanted to happen, but I survived. I looked around and started counting people. We didn’t have Dan here, but he was going a different way. Rick and Katnessa were not in sight, but hopefully, they were the ones with the tear gas on the roof. I counted the rest of my guys and gals. I was missing someone. Griggs.
“Griggs, it’s Cassland. Where are you?” I spoke into the walkie-talkie. I needed to find her. I looked all around the stairwell and even stepped out into the hallway on the first floor of the building. My stomach dropped. I hoped she wasn’t still outside. I thought I was the last one through the door. I turned about and climbed around my team, who were getting back to their feet. I stepped back outside. Mana, blood, and smoke were everywhere. The massive explosion had blown apart the tear gas cloud. Nothing of the auditorium or the gymnasium still stood. The end of the building I just stepped out of didn’t look too good either. Fortunately, we were now up at the top bar of the T-shaped building, and not at the bottom of it. I scanned through the smoke for a moment, and then I stepped forward. After a few feet, I looked down towards the ground some more, and I finally found a human hand amidst the rubble. Concrete graveyard would be a fairly apt description if I were feeling poetic. I rushed to the hand to see if it was attached to Griggs. I was pleased when the hand gripped me back. I started clearing rubble, “I’m coming, Griggs. I am not leaving you behind.” A few others came out and helped me dig her out quickly. She was bleeding badly and had slipped into unconsciousness. I poured a little bit of an orc healing potion down her throat, and some more on a gash on her head. I didn’t think she was dead, but I got our EMT Jack, who used one of his healings on her. She was breathing rather shallowly, but at least she was stable. I still felt like I was breathing in raw mana from all the dead orcs around us, and I got a notification for a level up that confirmed that. Well, all the experience had to go somewhere, and the missiles weren’t magically linked back to the fighter jet. I guess Nora’s theory about the limited range of experience piggybacking was sound after all.
Harry, who had used his concrete shaping earlier, just picked her up princess style and carried her back into the building. The smoke finally started clearing, and I could see the damage. I could also see a fucking blue energy dome protecting a ton of orcs and one of their orc spell casters. There was debris on top of the magical wall, but it held it up like it was no difficulty at all. The Spellcaster, some shaman-looking orc covered in tattoos and feathers, locked eyes with me. He shouted in perfect English, “Kill that human. I want vengeance for our fallen brothers and sisters.” He pointed at me, and the surviving orcs screamed a massive waagh-like battle cry, and I knew I had better start running.
