“Come on over Jholie; it’ll be fine.” The chief said from the other side.
It took a few more minutes of cajoling before Jholie eventually made her first attempt. Drew had to push her over the top of the wall, but she managed to get up without too much effort. She only let out a small scream as she jumped off the wall into Bill’s waiting arms. Drew backed away from the wall, and then with a running start activated gravitas, clearing the wall with ease and sailing over Bill and Jholie, and landing far more gracefully on the other side than his first attempt at the maneuver.
He turned around and realized that both were staring at him with impressed expressions. “Did you just jump over the wall?” Bill asked incredulously.
“That was soooo cool!” Jholie exclaimed.
Drew grinned back, “Yeah. Probably one of the most fun xatherite I have.” He turned and began walking up the road, the other two moving to follow him.
Drew saw a few squirrels in the trees. He wasn’t sure if it was due to the larger group or if they were leary of him having killed the pack that attacked him earlier, but they managed to get all the way to the hill leading up through HQ and to the exchange without being attacked. Jholie stayed quiet for most of the trip. About halfway there she had been looking tired enough that they took a short break while Drew cast refreshing rain. He also took the time to renew his protection spells.
The highway was relatively boring, but they were able to jump over a chain link fence and up a slight hill to get onto St. E’s campus. They passed through the gap between the headquarters building and the parking lot. Drew pointed out where they had exited and watched cautiously but didn’t see any Go’rai or wereghouls in the windows. The remains of the barricade looked like it hadn’t been fixed yet either. Drew wondered if the manaborn respawned, and if they did, would Chakri become his nemesis like in Shadows of Mordor? He hoped not, because that had been a pain.
As they climbed, Drew looked up at the exchange where he’d last seen Katie and saw that the walls were still up. He had been hoping to catch a glimpse of the attractive brunette as they came back. He hoped she wasn’t too mad that he was late.
Drew lead the others in his excitement to get back and get Sarah healed. As he went around the corner of the exchange towards the front door, he walked straight into what he could only call a swarm of hand-sized mosquitoes which glowed red to his mana sight. A quick fireball killed dozens of them, and he shouted a warning to Bill and Jholie. There were still many of the swarm left, and still more were being drawn in by the heat and light he’d just created.
He looked behind him and then blink stepped back 15 feet to be right in front of Bill, launching a frostfire ball towards the swarm that was now attacking his afterimage. A few dozen more died to the flames and others were caught by the flying ice, their wings shredded, causing them to smash against the floor, feebly attempting to return to the air. He raised his hands, waiting for the rest of the swarm to notice him, backing up slowly as the illusion bought them a few more seconds for fireball to recharge. When they came after him again he dual cast cone of frost and cone of frostfire, his arms spread wide to increase the coverage of the spells. The icy blast took out a large swath of the swarm, leaving only a dozen individuals that had been on the front edge where the cones hadn’t expanded.
Drew ducked as one flew towards his head but heard the smack of the crowbar hitting it out of the air as Bill took a swing. Jholie was screaming and had curled up into a ball, waving her hands around her head to scare them away. Drew launched lightning bolts as fast as he could; he missed often, but Bill was doing serious damage with his crowbar.
Seeing one latch onto Jholie’s back, Drew smacked it away with his hand. He could feel the proboscises break off inside the girl as he did, and her screaming became even louder. But the fight was mostly over at that point, and it only took a few more swings of Bill’s crowbar to drive the rest of them away.
Drew stomped on a few of the still moving mosquitoes while Bill pulled the proboscis out of Jholie’s back. She didn’t stop screaming until he hugged her, at which point she broke down, crying hysterically. Drew didn’t blame her; it was probably the first time she’d felt safe since the Advent began a week ago. He realized that she’d been hiding all the pain and fear underneath that thin veneer of normalcy her constant chatter had allowed.
Drew gave Jholie a minute while he walked towards the door, wondering what had gotten the mosquitoes to swarm there. The outer glass door had been broken open, and inside was what looked like a pure black, enlarged badger and several mosquito corpses. The insects had clearly drained it of blood as it had struggled and killed a few them, but the swarm had been far too much for it to handle.
He caught a bright red glow of mana from one of the mosquitos and realized there was the smallest xatherite crystal he had seen growing out of its back. He touched it, then with a very mild red glow, a blinking message appeared in the corner of his vision.
The summoned walls inside the exchange were gone, leaving a clear line of vision through the glass door to the back wall, and he could see glow stones spread around the place, but the bedding where he’d left Sarah was empty and there was no sign of Katie.
Chapter Twenty-Six — Reunited
“Katie!” Drew called out after having harvested the red xatherite. He frowned as he realized that his new mana sight xatherite was telling him there were blue and indigo mana constructs in front of him, even though his eyes told him that there was just an empty hallway there. He cautiously walked forward until a finger disappeared like it had been cut off in midair. There was no pain and he pulled his hand back, his fingertip reappearing.
Indigo aura. An illusion? He pushed his hand through the illusion, but he was stopped half an inch past it, where he could feel the solid surface of a wall. The blue aura must be Katie’s summoned wall. He pounded his fist through the illusion, shouting again, “Katie!”
Drew pounded his other fist against the wall, all his frustrations coming to the forefront of his mind. Another fist against the wall; he could feel the pain, but it was a dull and distant thing. He kept pounding, bringing the fleshy part of his hand against the hard concrete of Katie’s summoned wall. His hand came down for what must have been the tenth time and it felt no resistance this time; he just swung through the empty air, throwing him off balance. Then he heard Katie’s voice, “Drew?” He pushed through the illusion.
As soon as his eyes passed through the illusion he saw Katie. She had pulled one of the glass doors on the inside of the exchange open and unsummoned the wall, and he immediately pulled her into his arms. Grasping her as tightly as he could, “I thought…the wall…” He couldn’t speak in complete sentences as the adrenaline drained from his body his legs felt weak. Luckily for him, Katie seemed to be in a similar state.
“You’re late.” It took a minute for both to gather themselves together enough for the nonsense half thoughts to finally graduate to full phrases, but that was the first thing Katie managed to get out. Drew laugh-cried as she said it.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, but the mana storm hit and then I had to deal with the trolls and…” Drew finally opened his eyes and saw two men standing over Sarah, one of them carrying about ten pistols in various holsters around his body, while the other had a hand on Sarah’s forehead. Something inside of Drew snapped and a lightning bolt flashed from his hand to the one touching Sarah. The smell of ozone immediately filled the room. The man with the guns tried to push the one touching Sarah out of the way, but the bolt impacted along the right side of his back.