Chapter 50 - Preparations for War

  Once they realized what they had in front of them, the people occupying the stadium got their act together in a flash. Tom was there, passing along what information he had about the patients to a collection of doctors and medics. His patients were in good hands, now.

  I stood off to the side, where I wouldn’t be in the way, but I wasn’t ignored, A middle-aged woman with long, dark hair that was just starting to show sprinkles of silver came over and poked me in the ribs with a finger. “Them, I have a good feel for. You, I don’t. Who might you be?”

  “Cameron Castle, ma’am.”

  “Don’t ma’am me. My name’s Catherine Reynolds. I’m in charge of organizing this mess,” she said. "All these patients, they’re from MGH?"

  I nodded. “Tom said the doctors moved who they could, but these people were too ill to take along, so they were abandoned. I told him I’d help, and here we are.”

  “You helped by flying them here,” Catherine said.

  “Yup. One of my newer talents.”

  "You flew yourself and seven people, plus two hospital beds, a couple of miles to get here," she replied. She shook her head, "Ordinarily, I'd ask how. But since we all know the answer to that already, I'll just say thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  "How are things going, back there?" Catherine asked.

  "It's still a mess," I replied. "I'm assuming you heard about the invasion of giant crabs and lobster monsters, right?"

  She nodded, so I went on. "Well, we found someone who got a crystal that allows her to speak with them. That's enabled a sort of truce, at least temporarily. Things are quiet there for the moment."

  "That seems positive. What's the other part?" Catherine asked.

  I filled her in on everything I'd seen about the strange crystal-topped towers the lobsters were building, the earthquakes, the deluge of water flooding the streets, and the tide rolling in higher and stronger than it had any business doing.

  She came to the same conclusion we had, that the lobsters were trying to drown the city, and that their magic was somehow sinking Boston beneath the waves. "This truce then, it benefits them much more than us, eh?"

  I nodded. "That's my feeling, too."

  "And what do you plan to do about it?"

  I knew the answer to that by heart. I'd known it ever since I'd first learned an inkling of what their true plan was. "I'm going to go back there and stop them."

  She snapped me a sharp nod, as if the answer fully satisfied her. "I won't keep you any longer, then. I hope I'll see you again, Mr. Castle. But right now, I think Boston needs her hero back. Go do what needs to be done."

  "Yes, ma'am," I replied, flashing her a grin when she scowled at the word. Then I shot back into the air at top speed, soaring through the night. I knew what needed to be done, and I was the only one who could do it.

  I had to stop this invasion.

  How, though? That was the part I needed to consider carefully. I had a lot of hours of darkness still ahead of me before dawn. The big question was what to do with them. Where could I make the biggest impact? Part of me, and it wasn't a small part, wanted to go tearing into the North End. I was sure we still had hundreds, maybe thousands of people hiding there, waiting for some sort of rescue to arrive. I could do a lot of good by stepping in to save them.

  I hesitated, though. There were two thoughts holding me back. One was that If I did enough damage, if I annoyed the lobsters enough times, they might break the truce early and go after my friends while they were sleeping. At the very least, I needed to give our people a warning before I started stirring shit up.

  The other reason was a sense that I might do better investing these hours in making myself as strong as possible. I was already stronger than anything the lobsters had thrown at us, at least so far. But who knew what they had in reserve? Who knew how many more troops they might bring ashore tomorrow? The weight and responsibility I felt from having all these crystals felt crushing, but I didn't want to just let it go, either. If I wanted out, I could probably hand all of my stones over to Captain McGregor. He would in turn dole them out to his people. Maybe they'd pick some new person to be their magical guardian.

  For about three seconds, that was an appealing thought. But then I realized if I did that, and they failed to defend the city, I'd always wonder if I could have done better. If my choice had cost lives.

  I had to try. And that meant I needed to be as ready for the coming fight as humanly possible. All of that raced through my head as I soared above the river, returning to downtown. I decided my best bet was to stick with my original plan and go tackle that ant nest. I'd already collected a score of crystals from battling the ones in the courtyard. There had to be many more in the nest below.

  When I arrived above the courtyard, it was already full of ants again. They'd managed to break open the doors to the hospital at last, and now a stream of the creatures scurried in and out. The ones exiting were carrying something, and I realized quickly they must have raided the cafeteria. They were all carrying piles of dry foods.

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  I descended slowly, watching their movements. All at once, one ant standing near the entrance to the nest perked up its antenna and looked directly at me. It started clacking its mandibles together. That was a signal for the others, because every ant in the vicinity came rushing out of the building and the ground, pouring into the courtyard like a sea of chitinous bodies.

  There had to have been a hundred of the things down there. That was a lot, even for me! Fortunately, I didn't have to fight them, at least not hand-to-hand. I glided back to the rooftop. Below me, the giant ants retained their fixation. All of them stood there angrily clacking mandibles together in my general direction.

  "It's okay boys," I said. "I'll be right back. I'm just picking up a present for you."

  I landed on the roof and checked out my surroundings. There! That was exactly what the doctor ordered. I marched over to the massive compressor mounted on the roof and grabbed the edge. With a grunt, I heaved, lifting the corner higher. Bolts popped free from concrete as they snapped under the strain. I lifted more, pouring all of my newfound strength into the effort. With one last heave, the compressor came free from its housing.

  "That's the easy part done. Now for the hard one."

  Strength isn't just about pure muscle power. Leverage matters, too. The compressor was only about a ton, in terms of mass, but it was big and bulky. Hefting it up to the point where I could lift it wasn't simple, and I was sweating by the time I had it over my head. I'd done it, though! And now, it was time to throw a very large rock at a bunch of very dumb ants.

  I took off, the mass large enough that I immediately felt the drain on my mana. Fortunately, I had enough Will crystals that I could keep this up for a while. I wouldn't need to lift it for very long. I flew back out over the courtyard to find the ants still surging. There were easily a hundred of the creatures down there. I let myself drop about half of the height, so I was only about 30 feet above them. That seemed to drive them even crazier. Now, I had ants climbing each other, trying to form a mountain so they could get to me. It was pretty cool to watch, but it was also exactly the wrong tactic to use, since all that did was consolidate their numbers in one place.

  "Sorry, guys. Time for lights out," I said.

  Then, I dropped the compressor on them.

  The impact when it hit was like a bomb going off. I had aimed pretty well. The machine struck the growing pile of ants just off of their center. It collapsed their little mountain of bodies, crushing scores of them instantly. The inertia from the machine's fall kept it dropping until it smashed into the pavement and dirt beneath the ants. Then, it exploded into hundreds of chunks, some large, most small. Those went spinning off in all directions, causing even more damage to the ant horde.

  By the time I landed, almost half the ants were dead and the rest were dazed, disoriented, injured. I picked up a four foot long chunk of pipe that had snapped off from somewhere inside the compressor and held it like it was an enormous baseball bat.

  "Batter up!" I called out as the first ants came to their senses and rushed me.

  I swung for the fences, and I had a feeling the Red Sox would have been proud. The first ant I hit went sailing through the air to splatter against a nearby wall. The second, I just crushed flat with a single blow. More of them were coming after me, but now it was in ones and twos, not as a coordinated force. They didn't have a chance.

  Five minutes later, it was over. I was the only thing still moving in that courtyard. Collecting all the crystals took longer than killing the ants had, but it was necessary. I'd sent a few of them flying fairly high, and a couple had actually gotten stuck to the brick walls when they splattered it there. Those were easy enough to collect, thanks to my Flight. The mess underneath the compressor impact point was a lot more difficult to pick through.

  Also, gross.

  When it was done, I had managed to collect another ninety-one stones, all tier one, two, or three. That was in addition to the twenty-two I had gotten from the fight earlier. My pants were still a wreck, so I went inside the hospital and rooted around until a found a small backpack to stash them all in.

  I flew back to the rooftop to examine the stones. There were a lot of them! I’d found thirty-eight tier one stones, forty-four tier two stones, and thirty-one tier three. I poured them out and took a few minutes to identify them all.

  The tier one stones included five Strength, six Stamina, four Agility, five Intellect, six Will, four Charisma, and two Natural Armor.

  The tier two crystals were six Strength, five Stamina, three Agility, four Intellect, seven Will, five Charisma, six Natural Armor, two Regeneration, four interesting black crystals that gave something called NightVision, and two Move Earth.

  The tier three were just as cool. I’d found four Strength, four Stamina, five Agility, three Intellect, four Will, two Charisma, eight Natural Armor, and one grey stone for Sense Danger. I thought that last one was from the sentinel ant that first spotted me.

  It was an insane load out. I started applying as many of them as I could. First, I added a new Natural Armor stone, which hit tier six. Coupled with the tier seven one I already had, I was a tough nut to crack now. Boosting my Regeneration up to tier three helped, too. Ranking my tier four Will stone up to five let it merge with the other tier five crystal into a tier six stone, which opened an entirely new Point up!

  I debated what to put into that slot and opted for NightVision. At least for the time being, I figured that would help me out a lot.

  My Strength shot up as I merged more stones to rank the existing ones up, and added a new tier four crystal into the newly opened clear slot.

  Magical Stones

  Point 1: Clear Stone (Tier 7) - Strength

  Point 1, Second Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 7) - Stamina

  Point 1, Third Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Agility

  Point 1, Fourth Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Strength

  Point 1, Fifth Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Will

  Point 1, Sixth Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 4) - Strength

  +

  Point 2: Yellow Stone (Tier 5) - Flight

  Point 2, Second Ring: Yellow Stone (Tier 3) - Gust of Wind

  +

  Point 3: Grey Stone (Tier 7) - Natural Armor

  Point 3, Second Ring: Grey Stone (Tier 6) - Natural Armor

  Point 3, Second Ring: Grey Stone (Tier 3) - Regeneration

  +

  Point 4: Blue Stone (Tier 2) - Water Breathing

  +

  Point 5: Black Stone (Tier 4) - NightVision

  Spare Stones

  Clear: Strength (Tier 1) x1, Strength (Tier 2) x4, Stamina (Tier 1) x6, Stamina (Tier 2) x8, Stamina (Tier 3) x4, Agility (Tier 1) x 4, Agility (Tier 2) x 3, Agility (Tier 3) x 5, Will (Tier 1) x7, Will (Tier 2) x7, Intellect (Tier 2) x1, Intellect (Tier 3) x1, Charisma (Tier 1) x4, Charisma (Tier 2) x8, Charisma (Tier 3) x2

  Yellow: Air Elemental (Tier 2) x1

  Grey: Natural Armor (Tier 1) x1, Natural Armor (Tier 2) x3, Regeneration (Tier 2) x1, Sense Danger (Tier 3) x1

  Blue: Create Water (Tier 1) x2, Water Breathing (Tier 1) x1

  I felt… More prepared, at least. I still didn’t know if I felt ready. How could anyone ever be ready for something like this? Maybe there wasn’t any way to be fully settled with the idea of rushing off into battle against a horde of lobsters, crabs, and whatever other monsters they could bring into the fight.

  But now I was in better shape than I had been, and some of those new stones gave me an idea of where to start. I knew the lobsters were dragging victims into the ocean. I’d seen it myself. But why? Now that I knew there was such a thing as Water Breathing crystals, those people might still be alive, captives of the enemy.

  Now that I could breathe underwater and see in the dark, it was time to pay them a visit.