Anything Else

  Right before the break of dawn, they arrived.

  Ty had been standing at the northern edge of the forest, having been on watch for an hour when shadows appeared in the distance.

  “Ah. They’re here,” spoke Kor nonchalantly, walking up to Ty only to lean on a tree and cross her arms. “Eve just sent me. The primary group has begun attacking the south.”

  The tactician nodded, watching as the speck of shadows turned into a larger formation. “Did she say anything else?”

  “Anything else, anything else, anything else,” droned the chemist, following Ty’s gaze over to the growing mass of soldiers. “You’ve been saying nothing but that to her for the past week. It’s kinda gettin’ stale.”

  “So, did she?” she responded detachedly, pulling her hands out of her pockets and rubbing her fingers against her palms to bring feeling back to them.

  “She advises you to stick with the assigned formation and to meet back up at their camp once we’re done.”

  Ty clenched her fists. An even ten cavalrymen in the front, followed by roughly thirty foot soldiers, and then an unknown number of large, armored units in the back. If there were the predicted fifty, then ten was an apt guess.

  Calculating some more numbers in her head before pulling her hood over her head, Ty retreated into the forest. “Come. Let’s get back into position.”

  “Yes, lead,” smiled Kor before slowly dropping her arms and following suit.

  Leisurely, as if this wasn’t her last exam with her class, Ty returned to her position near the center of the group, where Darius and Theo were waiting on a tall rock formation she had erected to get a wide vantage point of the area.

  Ty sighed once she saw them. “Come down from there,” she gently chided.

  “What did Kor say? I saw her pass by,” called Theo as he slid down and watched her with a peculiar brightness in his eyes.

  She gave Theo a once-over, and then briefly glanced up at Darius sitting peacefully by himself on top of the stone with his feet dangling. “Meet back up at camp once we’re done. Were you going to stay here or go with Callie’s group?”

  Theo adjusted his cloak and put on his hood, mirroring her. “As much as I’d like to stay, I think I’d better take this seriously like it’s meant to be.” And then adjusted Ty’s hood, pulling it back a smidgen so he could see her a little better. “You take care of yourself now, tactician.”

  In return, Ty pulled Theo’s hood lower, so it covered him more. “I should be saying that to you, caster. Don’t worry about me.”

  Sighing with a melancholic smile, he stepped forward and gave her a quick kiss before turning around to leave. “See you on the other side.”

  Ty forced a smile even though she knew it would be unseen. “Yeah. See you.”

  Watching his slow walk turn into a brisk jog, and then a run, Ty effortlessly made it up her anima-made tactician’s point and sat beside Darius.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked first, looking out past the branches and seeing the advancing mass in the distance.

  “I am uneasy.”

  Though she did not understand, Ty nodded anyway. “Hey. Can I ask you something?”

  Hesitantly, he nodded. “Yes?”

  Eyes trained on the distance, counting the seconds in her heart before they would engage the enemy, she whispered the words of her nightmares. “What’s your name?”

  “Darius amo’tyri Arkehi.”

  She could not continue.

  “Are you going to return me to the Earth Mother now?”

  “They’re here.”

  Ty swallowed the rest of the words she wanted to say and focused her mind on the task at hand. “Thanks, Sel. Remember to stay ranged. You got this.”

  An anxious minute later, the botanist’s reply could be heard—short and sharply punctuated by quick gasps of air. “Good. Got it. Three.”

  She gazed to the west, where the other half of the enemy’s forces were trying to breach the forest. That entrance point was closer to the community, but it looked like an even split.

  “Kor?”

  “Faris is working on the third spell. Alex and I are ready at the front.”

  “Callie, are you prepped?”

  “Yes, tact.”

  “Okay, I got one on the eastern edge,” interrupted Theo slightly breathlessly after having rushed into position. “Waiting on you, Sel.”

  “I can’t shoot arrows that fast while moving away,” complained Sel bitterly within a single breath. “That one—that one’s getting away.”

  One of the cavalry soldiers swerved and entered the forest near the center, dead ahead of where Ty was currently sitting with Darius. At the rate they were going, they would cleverly evade both teams—but not her.

  “I’ll get them, don’t worry,” Ty dismissed lightly, calmly watching the soldier continue into the forest unimpeded. “East, focus on the rest. Faris, you’re behind. Cyril, cast a Quickspell on him if he’s not done in the next fifteen seconds.”

  While she waited, Ty propped up her head on the palms of her hands, her elbows on her knees as she looked down at the soldier arriving on horseback.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked again, this time under her breath.

  Before Darius could even process the words, the lanced man stopped abruptly in front of the tactician’s towering throne.

  “You two!” they bellowed, pointing their weapon at them. “Ancients, come with me! You must not be caught up in—”

  “Fuck,” cursed Faris, speaking over the Eletian soldier. “I’m done, for Graces’ sakes. It’s hard when they’re moving. Calculations get all wrong.”

  “That’s your cue, Alex. Cyril, start a nullification barrier,” ordered Ty as she kicked her legs on top of her seat.

  “Are you listening to me?” yelled the soldier now, directing their weapon straight at the halfling instead of Darius.

  “But where will you take me?” the tactician protested innocently, her steely eyes unwavering.

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  The false front appeared to work. “Back to town. We are from Eletia to liberate you—now come, before I have to use force.”

  Temporarily distracted by Elias’s eastern group, which was now surrounded by soldiers, Ty dropped the pleasantries and issued another order instead of answering the imminent question. “Selene, switch over to defensive, trigger the field. Theo, focus on weakening the backline for now. I think I see the end of it; they’re armored, so they’ll require concentrated fire spells. Try to chip away at them instead of blowing them up, and Callie, switch to your spear.”

  “Why, you—”

  Ty refocused her attention on the soldier and caught the lance flying right toward her chest, the barrier she had applied onto herself nullifying the sharp edge of the weapon against her bare hand. “Force?” she laughed, throwing her enemy’s weapon back up in the air before using her anima to send it back at them at a rate so fast she couldn’t even finish her sentence. “You mean before you kill us, right?”

  As she intently watched the soldier convulse and breathe erratically on the ground, playfully liberating her lance to release a well of blood from the center of their chest, she suddenly felt a poke on her arm.

  Her smile fell, eyes meeting the true Ancient’s almost pitch-black irises. She took in his thin lips, his wide, dilated pupils and turned to where he was pointing.

  “You,” she mumbled, staring at the loyal white steed still beside its late owner, its pitiful, beady black eyes staring back at her. “Go.”

  It did not move.

  Patience wearing thin, she sighed and annihilated its existence with an unceremonious wave before looking west, where there was now an immense cloud of black smoke. “What’s happening over in the west?”

  “Faris is prepared to burn the entire forest down,” replied an out-of-breath healer between coughs.

  “No,” protested the caster. “It’s something about their armor, I—”

  “Backline armor reacts to magic,” added Theo dully. “Maybe it’s a signal or something. Probably don’t have much time until reinforcements come.”

  Ty swiveled her head to the other end, where black smoke also appeared. “Kor, cleansing pot over your area, and then prepare for warp. Cyril, get back so you can safely cast.”

  “Got it,” spoke both students in unison as Ty stood up in her spot to check how far the smoke had drifted.

  “Okay, this is hurting now,” grunted Elias. “I—there’s—”

  The nerves were finally settling in. This was something she hadn’t been warned about—she didn’t even know it was possible. Armor that reacted with magic? There must have been a catch.

  “Theo, stop with the backline and help Elias. Sel, refresh the healing field; Kor will be there soon. Callie, stay.” She turned to the west, where the smoke was spreading. “Faris…” she began, her mind running through all school test scenarios. Cases. Classes. Nothing.

  What else do you remember?

  They need you.

  Do you remember the fight where I killed him?

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Frostflurry. It’s Frostflurry.” Her eyes refocused. “Cyril, is the warp done?”

  “Frost-what?”

  “Yes, tactician. Where next?”

  Head turning to Darius, the mild-mannered Ancient beside her who could not defend himself, Ty bit her lip. “Kor, use a cleansing pot over them as well, and then help Elias. I need a Frostflurry before the cleansing runs out, or an equivalent—Theo, Em didn’t give you one, right? And Alex, are you okay?”

  “Not for long,” called the duelist loudly over the communications, voice scared and trembling. “I—I can’t see. But I-I got this. I think I do.”

  “You know,” laughed Theo despite the situation they were in, “If I knew this would happen, I would have brought one. I know the words. No book.”

  The tactician gritted her teeth and resorted to her backup plan. “Cyril, come to the center—prepare to warp me over to the west.” She dropped her hand and turned to Darius.

  Before any words could leave her lips, Darius nodded. “Yes. Do not worry.”

  “Faris, I need you to cast a Galeburst to the east—Theo, do the same toward the west. I’ll knock it out at once. You two need to work on as many of the armored enemies as you can while I do it, or else it’ll trigger again—okay, I’m on my way.” She took a deep breath and hurried down, about to ask Cyril to start the warp when her senses shut off, and the darkness flashed.

  She saw herself lying in a pool of her own blood, with bleeding cuts and gashes all over her body. Hair torn, eyes bulging, mouth open. The burden of her friends on her back. Alone.

  “Come on, Ty. Ty.”

  The tactician blinked and swallowed, feeling both of her healer’s hands shaking her. “I’m here, I’m here,” she breathed, shoving his hands off her and rushing to the smoke—it looked denser than it was from far away. “How are the Galebursts?”

  “Done,” chimed both casters simultaneously.

  Once she arrived at the thick cloud, she held out her left hand and recited the words slowly and purposefully, watching as the minuscule, gray granules that made up the smoke transformed into icy, white shards.

  Ignoring the blood dripping off her middle finger with the tactician’s ring that only grew bloodier by each word that left her mouth, Ty walked forward at the same pace as the flurries disappeared, focusing on her students’ words to figure out when to stop—it wasn’t the best plan, but it had to do for something as impulsive as this.

  “Okay, Ty, we’re done here.” It was when she heard Theo’s voice that she finally steadied herself on a nearby tree, watching her friends fight in the distance—Faris, doing his clean rotation now that there were fewer enemies, Alex living up to her role as her team’s duelist despite having one eye closed, and Cyril, keeping them company because they were alone when they fell.

  What does that have to do with it?

  Her head pounded. She was seeing stars.

  I’m coming for you, spoke the bad voice.

  “Stop it,” she yelled, forcibly pushing herself away from the tree and quickly making her way over to her classmates.

  The next few minutes passed by in a flash. Somewhere between when she had stopped casting and reached her classmates, she had unsheathed her sword and easily sent the rest of the foot soldiers on their way back to the imminent Earth Mother. The remaining three heavily armored soldiers, burdened with the icy prison that once was their protection, quickly shattered after a few more spells. And then she could feel a veil of Cyril’s healing wash over her, getting rid of the fuzziness, but not the blood on her hand. Not the pain.

  Letting her classmates rest and sprinting to the eastern group, she saw that there were no more souls to collect. Only her classmates sitting down among the bloodshed, one holding their arm, three helping them, one standing on the side.

  “Darius, confirmation,” she asked when she remembered to breathe.

  “Clear.”

  She stabbed her sword into the ground and looked into the distance where the squadron had come from. Two hooded shadows remained. The shorter one, with their right arm raised.

  Now, the important part.

  “That’s a pass. Good job, everyone. I will see you back at our main camp. Under no circumstances will you enter Eve’s domain—I will confirm with her and return.”

  She closed her eyes and breathed in. “The contract hereby ended, relieving all from duty.” After the last word left her mouth, feeling some of her anima return to her, she ripped her tactician’s ring off her bloody hand and handed it to the approaching figure who had stopped attending to the one holding their arm by the tree. “I’ll be back.”

  And then she collected her sword from the ground and the vial from her physician’s hand before turning back to the south.

  * * *

  One.

  Screaming, they fell.

  Two.

  The gold shimmered in the midday sun. All according to plan.

  Three.

  Right through their official black cloak. Barriers didn’t work against her; she wasn’t sure why they were trying to defend themselves.

  Four.

  This one, she recognized. They gave her some resistance and used spells from all three of their tomes, but none of them landed. Especially not when they were bleeding from every orifice.

  Five.

  She didn’t recognize this one. They even tried to run—wait, was that disappointment she felt? Where was the fanfare, the noise?

  Six.

  This one used weapons, just like the pathetic soldier she had left on the ground. Why did they think that was going to work against her? Didn’t they know who she was?

  Seven.

  A melded trigger spell. Dangerous enough to get you expelled, no questions asked. Large enough to wipe out the Ancient community beside them. This infuriated her, so she crushed them without moving a muscle or even uttering a single word.

  Eight.

  This was the quieter one. The nicer one. She regretted it for half a second, but only that. And then she moved on. She knew who was next.

  Nine.

  She savored this one. Her screams were piercing, but no one else could hear them other than the last person. Her voice wasn’t as stony when she was begging for her life. She made cuts in her skin like the ones that she had seen on herself earlier, during the flash of darkness where she was all alone again. Somehow. It’s your fault, she blamed her while punishing her with the Earth Mother’s hand. It’s all your fault.

  Ten?

  The tenth one was the reason she was here, so she stopped.

  “Those kids were going to die even if we did help. If we made a special case for everyone, then we’d be running an orphanage. I know you don’t want to hear that, but we don’t have unlimited resources, and MATS provides us with only so much. We see kids like that all the time, on their last legs, begging to die. We’re doing them a favor. Please. Listen to me. They’re better off dead.”

  “…Anything else?”

  “Th-they were runaways—I tracked them from a nearby town. I recognized them. They were taken from Eslah a whole year ago, a-and then they—they show up battered and bruised, asking to be taken back! You’re not going to integrate them back into the community after that long, you’re not bringing them back into town, you’re not going to save them, so you give them back to whatever Mother they believe in, and then that way they’ll be at peace when they’re dead—you should believe in her, shouldn’t you? The all-loving Earth Mother, the one who tells you not to kill? Of all people, you should understand, right? Righ—”

  Ten.