The Chimera Summoner – Ch 38 – Traitor (Part 1/2)

Ch 38-

It was the middle of the night when we made it back to Bayloft. Luckily, it wasn’t the kind of school to enforce a curfew.

My heart felt full to bursting.

I’d barely had a free hand the whole trip home, someone always holding them, or pressing happily into my side. My bonds were thrumming with greater vibrance than ever before, a wellspring of goodness, of clarity.

It felt like home.

Jennie and Lucy whispered conspiratorially. Judging by the envious noises Lucy was making, I thought she might be getting details about possession and I had a feeling I would be seeing a bunny girl with blue hair very soon.

This.

This is what I want my life to be. These women at my side, anywhere. Doing anything. For as long as possible.

For once, Wayfinding… becoming great…being respected, the approval of my classmates and teachers… it all felt secondary. Still goals that I would strive hard for. But more as a means to an end, not the thing itself.

As we strolled back to Jennie’s and my shared apartment through the dim and quiet halls, I felt all my Familiars go tense at once, falling in around me like body guards. I crouched, automatically going into battle mode, dragging Jennie into place with enough urgency to signal that we were serious.

A second later, around the corner came two armed and leather armored men. They wore black armbands, and carried weapons casually free in their hands. They looked like they were maybe in their late thirties.

I blinked at the impossibility. They looked like soldiers or something, but I didn't see regalia or anything to identify them.

They caught sight of us. One pointed his short sword at us.

Did not like that.

“Hey! You need to come with us.” He declared in a lazy, authoritative drawl.

“Who are you, and why?” I shook my head, backing down the hall as we smoothly rearranged ourselves into optimal positions for a fight on a single front.

He smirked as they advanced on us. “I wasn’t asking, sweetie.”

Nope. Nope that is already one red flag too many. Everything about the eyes, the body language, the weapons, the weird little arm bands, the fact that they weren't identifying themselves… it all SCREAMED that something was very, very wrong here.

“I am going to call you Mr. one and Mr. two. Care to monologue about your evil plans, Mr. one?” I offered.

“I’m gunna explain this to you simply.” He started, condescendingly. “You do what I say or–”

I signaled my Familiars, through our bonds.

Violette’s first arrow smacked into the sword guy’s forehead, rocking his head back with the magical impact.

“Fuck it. You’re coming in bloody.” He snarled.

Then they charged.

Mr. two’s mace crunched into Serenity’s light shield, and the sword wielder crashed into Lucy.

But we had done nothing but train for weeks. Gone were the days that an unexpected attack would throw us into disarray.

The two dudes were over our Level. That was clear immediately as the mace wielder started smashing his way through Serenity’s shield, breaking pieces of light off with each vicious swing.

But they weren’t Wayfinders.

Compared to my classmates, their attacks were so clumsy and obvious that I assumed they were traps. But that wasn’t it.

They simply knew they had a power advantage, and sought to use it to smash us. They weren’t even using Skills, that I could tell.

We retreated in tight formation, letting them waste energy breaking Serenity’s shield, while Violette peppered them with arrows and Lorna worked her slowing hexes on them.

Jennie and Lucy revolved smoothly to occupy the short sword dude who'd been speaking.

I was proud to see our work together starting to shine. Not that this was the time. But I thought Valant would give us a decent grade if this turned out to be a drill.

I filled in the gaps when Serenity needed a moment to repair her shield by rotating in and attacking hard with [Tempest strikes] and then [Spectral waltzing] away before they could overwhelm me with sheer speed and strength.

By then, Serenity’s shield would be repaired, patched with new light from her halo, and we could once again hide behind it, launching attacks of opportunity when they over-extended trying to smash through it faster.

Which they did on essentially every strike.

I marveled at the sloppiness. If we had been on even levels, we would have demolished them. It was really pissing me off to have to give ground to these buttholes.

We were also making a huge racket. In the background of my mind, that was making me more and more uneasy. But I had to focus on the fight of the moment.

We were hard pressed. They took every arrow from Violette, not even trying to dodge once they realized that they did very little immediate damage. The burning flowers spread on them, but they seemed untroubled by the pale flames.

Serenity’s efforts were completely devoted to maintaining a bulwark between us and the full onslaught.

Lorna was applying layer after layer of slowing frost, which was starting to make a noticeable difference, but still wasn’t able to risk getting close enough to put her fear hex on them. The one with the mace had some weird aura on his mace that we were worried might hit her. And if it did, it could easily be a one-shot, given our level disparity.

Lucy and I buffeted them with [Tempest strikes] with near impunity, but they would just shake their heads and continue their assault. Jennie laced in slashes when she could, but had to wait for her ambush Skill each time, because they were still so much faster than us.

“You can see it’s useless.” Grunted Mr. One. “Stop struggling, and things will be better for you.”

“I don’t think what’s good for us has factored greatly in your thinking, buddy.” I said, grunting with the effort of a huge [Tempest strike], “How to get greasier hair. That seems to be most of what you think about. And let me tell you, it’s going great.”

Mr. One bared his teeth and made a series of such wild, flailing blows that Mr. Two was forced to pause and flinch away to avoid catching friendly fire.

They were the kind of blows that Valant and Brawly had already beat out of every first year, within the first couple weeks of semester. They felt great, they looked like they would be more powerful than proper strikes, but really they were just unbalanced, slow, and full of openings.

Lucy, Serenity, and Jennie were all able to take advantage, to land a few good hits. Serenity’s light sword scraped his ribs pretty deeply, and Lucy’s shoe to the face blasted him back a good couple feet.

Huh. Pretty successful taunting… I wonder.

“So, Mr. Two.” I said, addressing the disgruntled mace wielder. “What did you do to get stuck on baby sitting duty?”

He grimaced, and relaunched his methodical chipping away at Serenity’s shield.

“Ahhhhh,” I nodded with sympathetic understanding. “You guys drew straws, or something, and you lost, and they stuck you with Mr. one. Bet when he fucks things up, it goes on your record, too.”

Mr. Two grunted something that sounded suspiciously like agreement.

Mr. One exploded back into the fight, screaming and getting horribly in Mr. Two’s way. “YOU ARE NOTHING! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! NOTHING YOU HAVE TO SAY MATTERS, STUPID MOUTHY BITCH!”

Mr. Two stepped back and watched with increasing frustration.

Mr. One’s sword chopped into Serenity’s shield. She stopped even moving it. She just let him chop away.

The mace had been by far the more effective battering ram, having more mass behind it. The sword was chipping away, sending little droplets of shattered light to simmer and evaporate into the air. But it was much slower, now that he was taking up all the room in the relatively narrow battlefield of a hallway.

Violette kept her bow thrumming, sending arrow after arrow into them, alternating each shot. From this range, they had no hope of dodging consistently, and her flowers were really starting to pile up.

But I had figured out why the noise was making me feel such dread. It wasn't the prospect of more enemies. These guys were certainly not alone, that would be beyond insane.

It was the lack of response from the school.

The staff were mostly absent still, and must be unaware of what was happening, or Valant would portal them in and these dudes would be red mist.

The staff had been called away by the collective governing bodies of the southern city-states, and the Gott empire….

Hence our free time for dates in mirrolin.

So the people who'd called them away were looking either complicit…a chilling thought… or at least someone involved knew to let these guys know they had a window to assault a famously untouchable fortress/school.

That said ‘organization’.

That said ‘connections’.

‘Resources’.

Maybe these were the cultists we’d been trying to bait out.

If so, we were falling for our own trap. Making this partially MY fault, to top off an awesome train of thought.

This was BAD.

“Aw, jeez, bud.” I said, desperately eying them up and down for ANYTHING I could use, while trying to look and sound as smug and annoying as possible. “Look at your friend. He’s embarrassed of you.”

Mr. One was practically frothing at the mouth. He whirled on his companion.

“GET IN HERE, YOU USELESS–” He raged at his partner.

“YOU’RE TAKING UP ALL THE ROOM, SWINGING YOUR STUPID LITTLE SWORD LIKE A MADMAN!” Mr. Two shot back.

Yeah these two were absolutely not the masterminds of an invasion of Bayloft. They were now arguing with increasingly violent tones.

WHERE were the upperclassmen?? Some of the seniors were pushing level sixty. Could there really be a force here that could suppress them all?

But that was a problem for future Eir. Now, I had to survive this fight, by any means that would work.

Mr. One fully turned his back on us, stomping towards his partner with murderous eyes. Mr. Two backed off rapidly, shouting back angrily.

Lorna took the moment to slip in and touch her fingertip to Mr. One’s forehead, using her [Petrifying Reflection] hex on him. His shoulders slumped for an instant, then he stiffened.

“Brandon…?” Mr. Two asked, worried. “Brandon calm–”

“STOP LAUGHING!” Mr. One screamed.

I had thought he was mad before.

Now, he went ballistic. He lunged back and forth, shouting insensate at the flickering phantasms Lorna’s hex pulled from his mind.

“SHUT UP! I AM HUGE! YOU ARE NOTHING AND I AM GOD! I’M GOING TO BE A FUCKING GOD!” he screamed.

His wild, violent slashing was getting perilously close to Mr. Two.

We retreated steadily, backing away from the burning dumbasses.

Mr. Two was likewise backing up, shouting at his partner to get a grip on himself. But each thing he said seemed to further provoke the man. His random attacks became focused, and he was soon full on attacking his ally.

The mace wielding Mr. Two fended off the first few swings, still trying to talk reason. But then he ran out of patience.

We watched as the two intruders rapidly dissolved into a full on deadly fight.

Mr. Two was the more skilled. But Mr. One was doing the one thing that rational people simply couldn’t. He was fighting with no regard for his own safety.

“Keep watch around the corner.” I muttered, and Lucy dashed off behind us to check for incoming threats.

The brawl before us was rapidly becoming bloody. Where our attacks had been inconveniences, their own attacks were quite effective against one another. Mace crunched into bone, crushed ribs and pulverized muscle. Sword ripped into flesh, and carved skin away in bloody strips.

The screaming and shouting gradually died down, replaced with the dull, exhausted sounds of meaty death.

In a matter of moments, Mr. Two straightened from his dead companion, and turned on us with mad, violent eyes.

He made quite a sight, his mirrored eyes popping and still darting about following the fear hex’s illusions. Covered in blood. One side collapsed in a gruesome cave. Pale flowers sprouted from every inch of his body, burning him from the inside out.

He staggered, but started stumbling toward us with grim purpose.

I lifted a hand and snapped.

[Ember-blossom Harvest]

The flowers bloomed, and restorative energy rushed into us in a torrent. It was even more than when we had killed the floorboss, filling me back up to overflowing. It felt a bit like I had drunk too much coffee in one day, and I shivered as my body naturally dissipated the excess.

Mr. Two erupted into a pillar of pale fire and disintegrated.

Soon both of their bodies were going up in black smoke.

I felt the distinct surge of power in my soul that signalled a Level up! Level 12!

But we didn’t have time to celebrate.

“Let's move.” I said, immediately.

“Dorms.” Jennie said.

“Right.” Fuck, I did not like the idea of guys like these coming upon my classmates asleep in their beds.

We raced off down the halls.

But it turned out, we didn't need to sweep the dorms to find the students.

Commotion down on the campus green caught our eyes as we raced through one of Bayloft’s many windowed bridges.

The Netherim were being corralled by armed soldiers with black bandanas over their faces. A line of what looked like Bayloft students were standing in a ring between the soldiers and the Netherim. From body language, it looked like the students were getting ready to throw down.

More students were pouring out of every building, some watching from windows and doors, others dashing in to join the ring of defenders before they were fully surrounded.

Poor soldiers. Came to the wrong fucking school.