The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

Pfft, pfft, pfft! Silver rounds kicked out from Lady Florentine, and the shooter up top had a rather surprised final day.

I stepped out from behind a crate as the startled were-rats on the ground thirty feet away all looked away and up at the office, six Shards swirled and crystallized into existence, rippling with the polymorphic-silvered hues of Shapechanger Bane, and I let them have it.

They weren’t undead, but that was fine. They were still taking 7d6+13 each, which was more than enough to take out some Threes.

The jetsilver impacts smashed them back into the doors, liquifying their insides, and they collapsed awkwardly to the ground, wondering what exactly had hit them.

Helix popped out, Shocking Ray ready to take down any survivors, finding none, and hurrying up with me as Sir Pellier went in through the glass panel he had shot through, the Disk popping out of existence behind him, and made his way to the window there.

They built the windows to the door low enough for the wererats, who tended to be on the shorter side, lucky me. Helix bent down next to me as we looked at the heavy SUV’s drawn up out there. I wondered how they managed to afford something like those and get them here when the peninsula was only accessible by water or air, and just shrugged.

-If you are in position, the Warlocks are here and getting out. Sir Pellier will take a shot when they are all out of the vehicle.-

I was watching for it, and saw the very faint pulse and tease at the edge of magical sight as the Interdiction went up, and the Veil suddenly got a whole lot stronger. Dimension-hopping and Summoning were now not on the menu.

-Anytime you want, Sir Pellier,- I /mouthed.

-Got it,- he /replied shortly. I could picture the large shell being cycled into the large-bore rifle Lady Florentine probably looked like now, a .50 BMG silver-tipped tumbler made for liquifying the flesh of things vulnerable to silver.

Which not only included werefolk, but Hellbound Warlocks!

They were getting out of the cars. I grabbed the door as Helix built up his charge for a strong Ray...

That looks like an important Warlock...

As Sir Pellier fired with a sound like a bell from Heaven tolling, I heaved open the door, Helix levelled his Staff, and let the Ray fly.

He wasn’t looking at hitting anyone, as he probably wouldn’t kill them. Nope, he was going for the fuel tank of the main transport SUV for the Warlocks.

The Ray bored through the metal, conducted nicely, and found something worthwhile to ignite in the gas tanks.

Sir Pellier’s shot was a glowing line of silver that ignored Damage Reduction and hit like a brick. His target lurched as a hole blew through his chest, too much kinetic energy to take. One of his bodyguards grabbed him and got in the way, automatically following the silver bar of the Smiteshot back to its location, and raised his gun, glowing with hellfire, to return fire.

Sir Pellier basically ignored the threat. His next shot went right through the bastard and his body armor, just as the SUV next to them exploded as all the gasoline lit off.

Now, gasoline isn’t supposed to explode like in a movie, as it isn’t rich enough, not enough oxygen, blahblahblah. But when you add magic to the mix, and pretty much all of it detonating as air-attribute magic pops onto all of it at once, well, it’s pretty big.

The bodyguard wasn’t dropping, because he was flying into the wall of the warehouse behind him with his boss, crushing him against it while shrapnel and flames did their thing. His attempt to return fire was thus a little bit more difficult...

Sir Pellier was used to following jigging and jagging ghost and spectres around... and his Smite wasn’t done, so he took the third shot at the Warlock clinging to life over there, and emphatically blew his head apart in a spray of silver holy flames, and red-black hellfire rising up to take its due.

Helix had dropped flat to the ground, my hand on his back harness, aiming his Staff like a gun, out of the line of fire from the ducking shooters out there. His second Ray slammed into the back of the second SUV in a crackling line, and POOM! Another car detonated much too explosively to be real.

His grin was pretty broad at the moment.

“It’s locked! It’s locked! Get inside!” screamed the Warlocks who couldn’t shadow-jump away. Silver rounds followed them POWPOWPOWPOWPOW as Lady Florentine chased them with flashes of silver lightning, the Smite done, but his Gun Spirit up and adding a nice Blessed flourish to every shot, just for them.

The rats standing guard were plinking back at him as everyone scampered inside, but their marksmanship wasn’t quite up to that of a Wall Archer-Paladin of the Gun. He sent two crouching at the corner spinning to the ground, one with a shot right through a head that was starting to morph, and the others hurriedly ducked back.

“We’re out!” he called, as Helix sent out his third Ray, and another SUV decided it was time to go away loud and flaming. The Paladin came charging out from up above, vaulted the railing to hit the floor ten feet down without batting an eye, rolling as I heaved Helix back, using my legs as he pushed with both hands, getting him over the threshold as the door banged shut, and shots began to punch into it.

He got up with the speed of a dancer, and all three of us booked for the back door, crunching a few dead rats flat as more squeaked at our presence. Sir Pellier shouldered the door open, and we didn’t return the way we’d come, heading directly back for the fence ringing the yard.

Helix would conjure another Disk, we’d use that to basically bounce over the fence, and we’d book for our vehicle. The rest was up to Warlock Fred.

------

Fred dropped the big wererat to the ground, the short form of his Sword having nearly decapitated the fellow, while the were’s companion slumped to the ground, absent his brains via the big holes in his skull, now burning with lightning, holy fire, and hellfire.

He strode towards the door at the far end, hearing the shooting going on beyond, and the excited chitter of the rats all around at the commotion, already building into swarms as the wererats instinctively called for reinforcements.

He had already expended the effort to Interdict the area, so he couldn’t move by Light or Shadow at the moment, not that either really concerned him. He flexed his knees, barely bouncing, and easily hopped up to the top of a line of heavy crates from Amsterdam stacked up for shipping out. With long, easy strides, he moved towards the doors, clearing ten-foot gaps as if they were lines in the sand, and bringing his Grit up as he saw his targets.

The wererats were all furry now, so the Warlocks were pretty obvious. He allocated full Wrath to his Grit, acquired, and fired.

Once, he’d had to buy ammunition and reload regularly. The Hall had noted his ammunition expenditure was pretty high, and sprang for the Infinite Cylinder now in his Grit. Every six seconds, one of the ten chambers would be refilled with a standard .50 Magnum Nickelback round if he desired, an alloy of blessed silver and cold iron effective against things resistant to normal weapons.

The rest was up to his Grit and him. 5d6 of Wrath carried with the round as he pulled the trigger. The draw weight was much higher than that of a normal gun, but given he was four times stronger than any normal man, that was to be expected.

There was no sound. The Silence around the barrel of his gun completely muted the supersonic clap of the bullet, but there wasn’t much hiding the Wrath it trailed, making it look like a multi-colored tracer as it sped out and unerringly blew the back of one Warlock’s head off.

His second shot got off before anyone could even scream, and he took a second one in the throat. There were six of them that he could see, all the people not growing fur, muzzles, and pink tails, and when they finally realized they were being shot from behind and couldn’t Shadowjump away when they instinctively tried, they screamed and rounded on him.

Most Warlocks preferred handguns for a Weapon, mostly because they were easier to carry and conceal. The wererats weren’t so restricted, and had both some automatic weapons and shotguns... but the first thing they did was hunt cover, and the second thing they did was notice he wasn’t shooting at them.

The third Hellbound went down when he instinctively tried to Shadowjump and failed. The remaining three tried to jump for cover... he hopped twenty feet across a corridor of crates, keeping his height advantage, and blew one’s leg off before he got out of view. He turned, and caught the fifth one square in the buttock, under his armor, and ripped out meat and bone in an explosive hit, dropping the man screaming.

The last one screamed and shot at him, lances of hell-red flames following the bullets as he sprayed and prayed... and watched, to his disbelief, as the closer shots veered off just enough to miss as Fred turned sideways, took careful aim, and blew the sixth Warlock’s head off with One Shot.

The rats had all scampered to the other side and were in tight cover, trying desperately not to be seen by him. He kept his Grit levelled, covering them as they bobbed up and down, centering his position, and fired another shot at the Warlock he’d shot in the ass, who hadn’t died quite yet. His head blowing apart and spraying flaming brains in the area helped the process along.

“Just go!” shrilled a high-pitched voice a breath or two after that, as the first of the dead Warlocks burst into hellfire, the ghostly images of their souls materializing within. The hellfire latched onto them like burning chains as they struggled and writhed, and began to drag them inexorably Down. “You’ve got what you came for! Just go!”

Had he, now...

He flexed his legs as he exerted Angel Walk to a third of normal gravity, promptly soaring to the top of a thirty-foot rack stacked up by hi-loaders, giving him an unimpeded view of some of their positions as they gaped at him.

He shot twice more, without remorse. One shotgun blast tore at his flesh, but his Damage Reduction took out half the force, and his Soak dealt with the rest with just a shift sideways. The shooter dropped as the Magnum tumblers made a mess of his furry chest, right next to the first target, who didn’t have an intact skull.

He wasn’t hunting them, per se, but he didn’t have any sympathy for people who would work with Dark Warlocks, so this was him setting an example. Sure, they’d be pissed at him. Sure, they’d go hunting for him, or barring that, other Heavenbound.

But that was the life of a Warlock, always a target of someone hoping to kill them before they got stronger.

He felt the air magic gathering on his Stormpact, his only warning. Without even thinking about it, he dropped flat.

The crackling, jet-spraying violet Lightning Bolt raged by overhead, and blew a nice big hole in the front of the warehouse. Residual electricity crackled over him, doing nothing as his Stormpact piffed and ate it, while he rolled, sat up, levelled his Grit, and fired.

Nearly two hundred feet away, the figure in a formal tuxedo was glaring at him after he dodged the attack. Without even thinking about it, Fred sent three shots down that way, while the person lunged to the side equally quickly to get out of his line of fire.

One shot clipped him, and a spray of black flew forth from the Wrathfire ringing the bullet.

Undead. Given the power of that lightning, that was the Baron...