Chapter 29: The Siege Of Ohio III

Cassie very nearly dropped everything to gawk at the devastation the angels had caused but then he noticed something. The back row of cyborgs were pulling out bizarre firearms he'd never seen before. They didn't resemble any gun he'd ever seen before the Invasion and they didn't have the elegance of the firearms Jeanne sold either, but as the cyborgs raised their weapons Cassie's blood froze in his veins. Everything inside him was screaming that something terrible was about to happen.

He gritted his teeth and loosed the spell he'd been preparing just as the cyborgs pulled their triggers.

Instead of proper projectiles beams of Darklight shot out of the weapons, their blackness so absolute that even the afterimages their trails seared into everyone's sight was dark, their sheer nothingness burning away reality and leaving bitter cold in its wake. And just as the beams were about to hit a wall of solid ice sprang up in front of the soldiers of Project Divinity. But it wasn't just any ice. Normal ice, even magically created ice, wouldn't have given Darklight even the slightest bit of resistance. While crystal could refract and redirect it, ice just melted before it could disperse the deadly power. But not Cassie's ice.

Cassie's ability to repel Darklight with ice spells worked just as advertised and, though even those few seconds of keeping the spell up against the onslaught nearly exhausted him, he managed to not just keep his comrades from dying but to then also send the beams back at the attackers, searing yet more of their cyborgs with their vile power. Unfortunately the uneven nature of Cassie's ice wall meant that while scores of cyborgs died, almost none of them were the ones firing the Darklight guns so when his shield finally collapsed the gunner cyborgs aimed once more and pulled the triggers again.

Cassie was about to try and summon another wall of ice, knowing that tanking another volley would make him keel over, but then a sphere of purple flames struck the battlefield and dispersed the Darklight before burning the cyborgs that had gotten too close. He glanced around to see the mech with the purple flames locked in combat with some construct or other so who had...?

And then, a moment later, he heard Alexis' voice ring out:

“Dominion of Eternal Summer!”

The cute blonde appeared in a flash of light magic, right in the middle of the battlefield, and sunlight exploded out from her. It wasn't mere light magic, either. Alexis' ability was warmth and comfort and sheer, divine power, all contained in a wide sphere centered on the cute blonde. In short, it was the antithesis to Outsider abilities. She summoned her magical spear and then began sending out light spells. Instead of her previous laser beams, however, the spells were now lances of pure sunlight that seemed to spike outwards from the sphere of power she was enveloped it, as if her spells were now nothing more than an extension of the power she had surrounded herself with.

Cassie swallowed as he watched her tear into the hordes of cyborgs, so captivated that he almost missed Ophelia's entrance.

A pool of inky black shadows had begun spreading outwards from the vampire, unable to find purchase inside Alexis' sphere of sunlight but saturating the area around it, flowing across the ground underneath the enemy's feet. When a massive area was covered Ophelia made a grasping motion in front of her and then drew her fist up, causing the puddle of shadows to erupt in hundreds of iron stakes that impaled anything standing atop the shadows.

This might actually work out, Cassie thought as he prepared to charge into the fray.

**

“She didn't find anything?” Lieutenant General Hayworth asked.

“Well she found tracks,” Nurse Rachel said.

Hayworth had been busy writing reports when Nurse Rachel had come into his office to tell him of Jeanne's attempt to catch the spies sneaking around outside the compound. He wasn't quite sure why Nurse Rachel of all people had to be the one to come tell him and he honestly could have done without the distraction.

Nurse Rachel was competent but she was also so very maddeningly attractive that it drove him wild. And lately something about her was just... off. The woman just oozed sensuality from every pore under normal circumstances but the last few days Hayworth had always felt as if someone had cranked the thermostat up a couple notches whenever he had to talk to her. And somehow she also managed to find more and more reasons to talk to him in private. He was fairly certain she was doing it on purpose but he couldn't quite tell what exactly she was doing to make herself seem so much more appealing.

“And those tracks belonged to...?” he asked.

“She says they belonged to four bipeds and a quadruped, so probably four people and a pet. They seem to be very good at staying hidden though,” Nurse Rachel said.

“Good enough to not be human?” he asked.

“Humans can be very good at staying undetected,” she said, her tone a touch waspish.

He winced. “I'm sorry. I have no idea what other species are capable of. Eight months ago I didn't even know other sentient species even existed.”

She gave him a rueful little smile. “I'm sorry. It's easy to forget how new all of this must be to you. You've been adapting quite well so I shouldn't hold it against you that you're lagging behind.”

He gave her a nod. As he'd thought before, she was surprisingly competent and compassionate when she wasn't being lewd. But those were dangerous thoughts. It was easy enough to ignore her charms when he thought of her as nothing but a vapid nympho but he knew that competence and intelligence were attractive to him so her being unfathomably hot as well as smart and competent was a dangerous combination for him.

“To answer your question,” she continued, “they could be human. While Jeanne's senses are much better than those of a human I'm pretty sure she's better at straight-up fights than guerrilla warfare so I'm sure a very competent team of humans could outmaneuver her. But we're talking the kind of competence that I would only expect of a Spec Ops unit so unless we're dealing with rogue soldiers I doubt they're human.”

“You bring up a good point,” he said. “They could be rogue soldiers trying to take over this base.” He wouldn't even judge them for it much if they were. Out there it was every man for himself and it was entirely plausible that a unit cut off from the command structure would assume there was no command structure left and that they had to fend for themselves. “But either way, that isn't a very comforting thought. Either competent soldiers or something even worse lurking out there.”

“We'll have to wait to deal with it until the cadets are back,” she said. “Once they're back we can start properly looking for those spies. With thirty-six people scouring the countryside they'll either have to show themselves or scram.”

He nodded. “Speaking of the cadets, how are things going?”

“They are doing very well right now,” she said. “If you want, the mermaids said they'll brief you in person if you come around.”

He glanced from her down to his report. He'd made a lot of progress on it and could do with a break and a walk. “I think I'll take them up on that.”

“Good,” she said. “Otherwise I would have had to act like a nurse and tell you to take a break.”

He chuckled and got up from his desk. She was standing in the doorway, holding the door open for him.

Goddamn but she looked amazing, standing there... Had she always been this short? He could have sworn she'd been almost at eye level with him before but now she was more than half a head shorter than him. But people didn't just change size in the blink of an eye, did they? Maybe he was just getting so used to her presence that he wasn't seeing her as such an imposing figure anymore, making her seem smaller.

Or maybe his libido was getting the better of him. He'd always thought it would be amazing to just bend her over the nearest couch and fuck her and she seemed so small right now that the urge was almost unbearable.

He came closer and closer to the door and she was making no move to get out of the way. He should have asked her to. He knew she wanted him to squeeze past her and he knew it wasn't appropriate. He kept telling himself he just didn't want to make a fuss but he was just kidding himself. He wanted to squeeze past her, wanted to feel those supple curves against him.

So when he walked through the doorway he may or may not have leaned against her slightly harder than was strictly necessary. And just as he'd suspected, the height difference between them was enough to drive him wild. She was short enough that she could bury her face in the crook of his neck without even leaning forward. And as he squeezed past her Rachel let out a small, obscenely sexy little moan and whispered:

“You're so big and strong, daddy...”

His breath caught in his throat and he rushed to see the mermaids as quickly as his feet would carry him, his cheeks beet-red and his cock straining against his uniform pants.

**

Rachel only barely kept herself from laughing as Francis all but ran away from her, sporting a raging hard-on.

She'd been trying to find a crack in his armor for months and finally she'd found one. Francis had a pronounced kink for daddy-dom. He liked women younger and smaller than him calling him 'daddy'. And so she'd been taking a slightly younger form around him, changing her body to be a bit shorter, a bit thinner and a bit lankier, looking more eighteen than her normal twenty-one. She'd affected a slightly more immature tone of voice and in general she'd done her best to appeal to his specific kink.

It wasn't a weird kink, really. It was rather common, actually. But Francis was so ashamed of it. His wife was a decade younger than him and they'd started this roleplay long before they'd ever even thought about having kids. But now Francis had two beautiful baby girls and was terrified that, if his kink was ever discovered, people would think him a pedophile. In truth Francis Hayworth was as morally upstanding as they came and had absolutely no interest in harming any children, least of all his own. It was simply that women younger than him calling him daddy got him going like nothing else.

Rachel also knew that he'd had precious few opportunities to indulge this kink the last six months. His wife was at one of the refugee camp, together with their daughters, and they only rarely managed to have video calls.

Rachel knew they'd had fun on some of those occasions as Francis had been noticeably more relaxed after a few of those calls, but still. He was terrified of ruining his reputation if he indulged his desires.

And now Rachel had hinted to him that she not only knew what he liked but that she was perfectly willing to help him indulge it.

And the best part about all of it? she thought as she stretched like a cat in the sun. I already know Jeanne's not the jealous type.

**

Abigail was really starting to get the hang of this whole magic thing. After Elaine had praised her for her results of training her bow she'd begun messing with her other skills. Skill Copy was a crazy skill she'd been neglecting but the last few days she'd been focusing a bit more intently on it and now she could see the potential. Especially abilities that had a limited number of uses per day were valuable as her using them didn't lower the uses for the owner of the ability. As such, between Cassie and Evelyn, Abigail had access to two powerful healing abilities she could copy. She had also tried copying Evelyn's Deva arms in order to play her lyre while shooting her bow but unfortunately she'd found that the archery stance interfered with the projection of her voice, so that was a bust. Flinging spells with the two spectral hands while she strummed her instrument with the real ones worked perfectly fine, though.

And so, once the guns had become useless and the melee began, Abigail started strumming as she sang a driving song to motivate her allies. It wasn't just a way to cheer them on, though Abigail was sure her voice and the sound of her lyre, which came out as that of a powerful electric guitar, lifted more than a few spirits. No, Abigail's songs were magical and they sped up and strengthened all of her allies, every one that could hear her singing. The louder she sang the more people her songs reached and thus the more people fought with a speed and ferocity they wouldn't otherwise have been capable of.

Elaine hadn't been wrong. Abigail was most valuable when she strengthened the people fighting all around her, acting as a force multiplier. But at the same time Elaine hadn't been entirely right, either, because here Abigail was, doing all that and still flinging fire and light spells with the spectral arms she'd borrowed from Evelyn.

She understood her role as a force multiplier but she wasn't going to let herself get chained down to it.

**

Being under the effect of Abigail's song was an incredible experience and Cassie was sure he'd never get used to it. His body was so much faster, so much more responsive, and his slashes all but bisected whatever cyborg body he struck. But even so he couldn't get complacent. He was stuck in a massive brawl and had to pay at least as much attention to all the crazy abilities flung out by the other cadets as he did the enemies he was facing. And even then, just holding his own wasn't his only priority. Cassie had a very specific skill set and he needed to use it properly.

Cassie was a tank. It wasn't a skill set he particularly enjoyed playing in games but now he could see the appeal. He had a magical sword and a personal shield generator on his wrist and just a day and a bit ago he'd bought an ability that could let him teleport near any allies in danger. And in this situation that definition applied to everyone on the battlefield. So every time he had a little room to breathe he looked around, trying to find someone he needed to help. And when he saw a cyborg with a weapon that looked like a cross between a buzz-saw and a motorbike bearing down on another cadet he reached inside himself for the ability called Protector of the Innocent.

His vision lurched and suddenly he was between the cadet and the cyborg, his shield already activating and throwing up a dome of hexagonal shards to block the attack.

The barrier caught the blow, not quite absorbing the impact but dispersing the blow across its surface area and thus making it much more bearable to block and before the cyborg could react to his attack having been stopped Cassie already stabbed out with his sword and skewered the thing.

Before the battle had begun properly he'd been scared he might hesitate to kill humanoid enemies but one good, close look at these cyborgs and his worries had evaporated. The hollow, soulless expressions on their faces, the dead eyes and the black, viscous substance they oozed in place of blood, all combined to create beings that squatted in the very depths of the uncanny valley and destroying them felt more like a mercy than a deed that might haunt him.

He yanked his blade out of the cyborg and then looked around to find another cadet in need when his eyes landed on Alexis.

**

Alexis had always felt a bizarre sense of freedom in battle. She was an introverted nerd who loved crunching numbers and futzing with gadgets but somehow, from the first time she'd gone out on a mission, she'd felt at ease in battle. It always felt like a choreographed dance to her, even more so once she'd grown strong enough to stop relying on her gun. But somewhere between the last few level-ups, the knowledge that Elaine had survived her Oath, and all the training they'd done Alexis had become so much more capable.

She'd flashed into the fray and from then on she'd waded into the cyborgs and started carving her way through them. Wherever her spear flashed, something died. Whenever a group approached her she'd use her new gun to launch buzz-saws of pure force magic at them, often from weird angles so even if they dodged or pulled out shields they ended up bisected. Any scratches she suffered she healed as soon as she got them due to a combination of Highlander and Unbreakable, allowing her to shrug off non-lethal damage and healing at incredible speeds so long as she kept on killing.

And then there was the Dominion of Eternal Summer. The summer warmth saturated the area around her, giving her practically limitless stamina and making her magic almost too easy to cast, letting her cast light spells so quickly and so effortlessly they appeared to be nothing more than extensions of the aura of light surrounding her. She'd already noticed that Ophelia was almost incapable of casting shadow magic into the Dominion, so saturated with light was it, but that wasn't much of a problem. It just meant the two of them had to stay out of each other's ways. Once she'd noticed that Ophelia's magic wasn't able to pierce her skill she'd been worried about Darklight but then it had turned out that Darklight apparently suffered catastrophic failures upon hitting the area, fizzling out to the point where Alexis could bat the beams away with carefully timed backhands that left nothing more than spots of rime on her armor.

She'd never shied away from battle but now she felt like a goddess of the battlefield and as she fought a serene expression settled over her face.

**

Ophelia hated this new ability Alexis had. She had to admit it was a really damn useful ability but not only could she not send shadow magic into its perimeter, she also couldn't physically enter it without the thing inside her screaming bloody murder at her, telling her that they were burning alive even when they weren't. The sphere emulated sunlight to such an impressively accurate degree that it actually made the bundle of instincts inside her go mad with a need for self-preservation.

But it also meant that Ophelia had to pick a different corner of the battlefield to go wild on. And go wild she did. Her part of the battlefield had half a dozen inky puddles of shadow magic spread around them that the cyborgs had already learned to steer well clear of because walking into them put them at the mercy of Ophelia's shadow magic. And after seeing the Outsiders and the horribly distorted formerly human siege engines Ophelia wasn't very inclined to be merciful. Iron stakes shot out of the shadows at anything that got too close, paradox flames stopped any Darklight the cyborgs in the back tried to fire, and then of course there was Ophelia herself, wielding her new knives.

They had started out as knives, ornate and relatively long as far as knives went, with blades nearly a foot long. Now, though, the blades were four feet long, made out of blood that glistened and swirled, and neither the cyborgs' body armor nor their metal parts offered any resistance to them. They simply carved through everything. And between Ophelia's superhuman speed, her ability to dip in and out of shadows and these knives, nothing was safe from her.

**

Between Alexis and Ophelia a huge swathe of the battlefield was entirely lost to the enemy. Evelyn had always known that those two were powerful but seeing these two goddesses of war carving their way through scores of enemies while other cadets struggled to even kill individual cyborgs really put things into perspective. But Evelyn knew she wanted to keep up with them, didn't want to let them overshadow her. And she was doing a damn fine job of it.

She threw out bolt after bolt of lightning with her Deva Arms even as she swung her Vajra through huge arcs, crushing cyborgs and sending chain lightning through them, electrocuting five for every one she crushed into a pile of broken bones and metal scrap. The only enemies that gave her even the slightest trouble were ones wielding bizarre spears that looked like they were made of metal spinal cords and even then only because they out-ranged Evelyn's Vajra so she had to deal with them via magic instead of hitting them.

After creating her own swathe of destruction the cyborgs started to wise up to her fighting style and sent more of the spear wielders at her. Just as they were about to swamp her Cassie showed up in front of her in a flash of space magic, blocking the spears with his personal shields and then freezing their weapons together, allowing Evelyn to electrocute them all at once.

“Thanks,” the redhead breathed.

“Always,” he said, then looked around for a moment before flashing away again to help another cadet in need.

Her fighting style was maybe a little more reckless than that of Alexis or Ophelia but if she had allies like Cassie along that didn't really matter, now did it?

**

Elaine reveled in her newfound power, as well as that of her... Well she couldn't really say 'her girls' anymore now that she had Cassie along, could she? But at the same time everything inside her balked at referring to Alexis, Ophelia, Evelyn and Cassie as her harem, even more so because Abigail was giving just as good of a showing but she most certainly wasn't part of that harem. Her pantheon, maybe?

Elaine shook it off. Cassie would probably be flattered if she included him in a group she referred to as 'her girls', even if just in her own head.

Either way, they were doing incredible work. To her surprise her group was among the most powerful of Project Divinity. Jordan's group was giving a pretty good showing but of the other teams only one or two each were as impressive as Elaine's entire team.

Alexis was an immovable rock in the tide of the battlefield. Nothing made it past her. Every foe that tried was stabbed or sliced apart by either her spear, her gun or her light magic. And those foolish enough to try and avoid Alexis ran into either Evelyn or Ophelia.

Ophelia had drowned an entire chunk of the battlefield in deep, dark shadows that grasped and tore and sliced at any foe that stepped into them and no foe managed to find a way out before Ophelia had done something nasty to them. Her bloody daggers flashed again and again and the only things that managed to leave her shadowy playground were dead bodies and paradox flares aimed at Darklight constructs.

Evelyn, meanwhile, was thrashing her way through the enemies like a berserker, downing scores of them with every one of her rapid blows. Her fighting style was the most risky and reckless but she made up for it with sheer devastation and every time she made a mistake Cassie was there to save her.

Cassie, for his part, was flashing around the battlefield, blocking lethal blows wherever he appeared. He wasn't racking up the kill counts the other three were managing but just from Elaine's brief glimpses he'd already managed to prevent a dozen casualties, which was far more valuable in the long run.

And behind all of them stood Abigail, bellowing out a song of courage and martial pride that made everyone that much deadlier. Not content to just be a buffer, she also kept flinging fire and light spells at the foes, contributing to the carnage in multiple ways at once.

Elaine couldn't spend too much time being impressed with them all, however. She had fighting of her own to do. It was a protracted battle and so she didn't dare to draw on her Higher form for fear of passing out but that didn't mean she was useless. Far from it, in fact, because even without that boost she was now stronger than she'd been even when she'd managed to hold her own against the Professor's onslaught.

The enemies Elaine took on didn't stand a chance. Even those few tough enough to block her attacks couldn't do so because Elaine never attacked them from the same angle twice. Her crystal swords stabbed out of the ground, hurtled down from the sky, curved around to hit foes from the sides and once they'd started wising up and guarding their sides and backs she just cut them down with a frontal assault. Her blades didn't penetrate through armor the way Alexis' and Ophelia's did but her mind was working so fast now it felt like she had all the time in the world to line up her strikes to hit the enemies where they were most vulnerable.

If the Professor's mind worked as fast as this or, god forbid, even faster, then he hadn't just held back when fighting Elaine, he would have to have gone out of his way to not harm her too badly.

It was a terrifying thought but at the same time it was also elating, knowing that those were the heights Elaine could soar to now.

She smiled and readied another swarm of crystal blades.