Trouble With Horns

“Wait, I know how to get some money!” Kimberly exclaimed, leaping up out of her seat.

“Is it legal?” Dawn asked mildly.

The healer’s brows furrowed adorably for a moment as she seriously considered my girlfriend’s question. “I think so?”

“What do you mean?” I laughed, sipping idly at my coffee. “It’s either legal or it isn’t.”

“We’re going to steal,” she said, her grin going full gremlin, “and technically, it’s from a mercantile house. However, they won’t be able to complain, because if they do, the authorities will find out that it is actually a Pagutum intel operations base.”

I leaned forward. “Oh yeah, and what are we stealing?”

“The decl—” Kimberly began, before she burst out laughing at her own aborted joke. “N-no, okay. We should steal the gold from the local Pagutum spyhouse. They operate as just another bunch of wealthy commoners, but that’s where I got that mission to… you know.”

“To kill me and Dawn?” I snorted, glancing at my lover as she sat beside me, watching the back and forth between our healer and me. She and I were still a little mushy after last night. It had been a hell of a ride.

She nodded, fighting to keep her cool. “Yeah. They uh, they have pretty high walls, but since you two can just fly now… it shouldn’t be too hard. You’ll have to hit hard though and get out before the town guard turns up.”

“We’ll still need some sort of plan,” Dawn interjected. “We want to constrain Tami’s natural talent for chaos and destruction as much as possible.”

I pouted and swatted her gently on the arm in indignation. “Hey! I’m not that bad!”

****

The sky cracked beneath my fist and I rocketed down towards the compound far below me at terrifying speed. The Pag spy house was made to look like a merchant house with high walls and an opulent garden both in front and behind it.

I was aimed right at the outer wall of the compound where it bordered the high end street that led to a bunch of other houses just like it. In my fist was a boulder almost as big as I was if I’d curled into a ball, currently under the effects of my body slam ability.

Cold moisture buffeted my cheeks and cloud roiled around me as I pierced a low hanging cloud. My eyes were spared from the barrage of misted water, thankfully, because we’d gone and found me a new helmet. It had an enchanted crystal visor that made me look like some sort of corporate mercenary enforcer. Dawn had made a comment to that effect when we got it, but I secretly loved it. It made me look intimidating as hell. Plus, you know… I needed proper eye protection when I was using myself as the first stage of a low orbit kinetic kill vehicle.

Closing in on three hundred meters, I released the boulder from my hand and flared my wings to get away. I did give it a parting gift, though. Massive amounts of magical kinetic energy is just what the big boulders want when you’re ending a date with them. Trust me.

To avoid joining my ex-boulder as it plummeted towards the earth, I cast my momentum shifting ability and pointed myself straight up. My inertia bled away rapidly as gravity got its sticky paws into it, and pretty soon I was diving again at a much more manageable pace towards the spot I was going to meet the other two at.

A cataclysmic boom shook the city as my rock impacted the target, sending disguised Pagutum guards and chunks of masonry flying in all directions. Windows within forty meters shattered, spraying perfectly trimmed rose bushes and lawns with razor sharp glass.

I grinned. It was pure carnage down there, and just as we’d hoped, the guards from the mansion all came running, expecting an attack. Time to dip before they saw me.

I swooped low over the rooftops and spotted them in the service alleyway behind the house, where Dawn was already lightsabering through the gate with her white hot flaming sword. Flaring my wings, I dropped into a crouch beside them and flipped my visor up.

“Distraction worked like a charm,” I grinned.

Dawn matched my smile with one of her own. “I knew we’d given you the right job.”

The door fell inward off its hinges before I could reply, and it was time to roll. We pushed through the door with weapons raised, eyes searching for enemies who might block our entry. Lucky for us, nobody was around. There must be something really interesting on the other side of the property. Maybe a big warm rock or something? I guess we’ll never know.

We sprinted together across the back lawn and made directly for the large stone rear wall. This was definitely going to lean into the break in breaking and entering. Taking two skipping steps forward ahead of my comrades, I reached back with a fist and poured magical fuel into the rockets in my gauntlets. A growling, whining noise began to build, which was joined by the crackling of lightning across my skin.

God damn, I loved this game.

All that built up potential energy was released in a single, blazing instant, and I crashed into the stone wall like a freight train that’d jumped its tracks. It wasn’t just the one wall, though. Oh no, I went through that first one like it was barely there, then the next one like it was made of balsa wood. The third resisted my efforts, but it fell before the lightning just the same.

Winded and smiling like a pious man meeting Mr Peter for the first time, I knelt to catch my breath. Whew, what a rush. I wasn’t sure if I was winded from the excitement or the action itself.

“Wow,” Kimberly remarked, stepping over what had once been a barrel full of potatoes. “I knew you liked breaking things but…”

“This is pretty tame compared to some of the shit I’ve pointed her at after she made impact,” Dawn commented wryly, brushing dust out of her gently curling hair.

The healer snorted and placed a friendly hand on my shoulder, pushing energy and healing into my body. Oh, I’d taken damage. Why hadn’t I noticed that? “Follow me, girls,” Kimmy said. “The gold gets kept down the hallway beyond that door there.”

The room we’d ended up in was some sort of food store room, which was now covered in the obliterated remains of the food it had been housing. A rattling drew my attention to the wooden door and my small blonde friend as she struggled to open the door.

“I think Tami busted the frame,” Dawn laughed, placing one hand on each hinge. They melted under the heat of her magic, and when they were dropping down onto the floor, she stepped back and kicked the door in.

An explosion rocked the house, or should I say, another explosion, and we all paused, trading confused looks. We’d only planned the two big booms. The first with the rock, then me going through all those walls. What was this third one?

“That came from the front,” Kimmy said quietly, still listening. Another tremor shook the house, causing flour to rain down on us from where it had made a new home on the ceiling.

“Not our concern yet,” Dawn said, making a snap decision. “Lead the way, Kimmy.”

Nodding, our native guide led the way carefully out into the hallway beyond. It was a servant’s passage and so relatively unadorned, but rather conspicuously, there were steel frames at regular intervals where it looked like something could be fitted. Something to keep raiders like us from getting to the treasure. They weren’t in place, though, so we kept going.

Kimmy pulled to a halt against another stone wall and tapped it with a finger. “One of these bricks is a button. Help me find it. Should be fifth row up.”

Dawn and I silently did as she asked, although something had me frowning. When we’d met her, I’d gotten the impression that she was just a lackey. Some random staff-for-hire who’d taken a job for the wrong people. How did she know about a secret room full of valuables? Either the Pags weren’t very good about opsec, or she’d been someone way more important than she was letting on. Either way, I guess if I trusted her now it didn’t really matter, but the thought got caught in my mental teeth anyway, like a stringy piece of meat.

Kimberly was the one who found the button, and she gave a squeak of excitement when she did so. The brick slid into the wall about an inch, then caught. A moment later, the wall drifted silently backwards a foot, then slid sideways to reveal the room she’d promised would be there. Gold, silver, and even a few platinum bars were stacked in neat piles on a high shelf, while those below it held rows of simple leather pouches.

Little signs on each shelf explained what they were about. Ready-to-go money pouches for agents to grab so they didn’t need to waste time counting out coinage. They could just grab a bag from the shelf that best made sense for their job. The pouches also explained why Kimmy knew about the room, at least in part. The purse she carried around on her person was exactly the same as these ones.

“There’s a chest up against the wall over there with the loose coinage,” she said urgently, rushing forward to start dragging bags into her inventory. “Tami, since your carry capacity is the highest, you should grab them.”

“Righto,” I grinned, stepping into the small and plain wooden room. Robbing imperialist bigots was pretty awesome, I have to say.

Everything inside the room was plain and very tidy, except for one of the chests. That one was all fancy, with the type of gold swirling leaf designs that you saw on every rich person’s furniture. The other two chests in the room were downgrades, with a heavy, sturdy, and serviceable one sitting between the ornate one and another ratty, simple chest. Different chests for different jobs, I guess?

A crash sounded far out inside the house, and suddenly there was screaming and shouting, plus the clash of steel on steel. What in the fuck?

“Who…” Dawn began, poking her head back out the door. “Nobody directly outside, but there’s definitely fighting towards the front of the house. Did either of you two call for any backup without mentioning it?”

“Who the hell would I even call?” Kimmy said with a touch of self depreciation. “You are my only friends now.”

“Not me,” I shook my head.

Giving our healer an absent pat on the arm, Dawn shrugged. “Seems like our distraction might have sparked something. Let’s head out as fast as possible, eh?”