Chapter 196: Dick Move

Mason heaved a sigh of relief as they dragged him away.

Never had anyone try to cut my head off like that before. The thought sent a shiver of dread down his spine.

“Why didn’t he see you?” He whispered as quietly as possible to avoid detection in this fort full of people with superhuman hearing.

“I can make myself any color I want.” Bee replied into his ear. It still felt weird having people he couldn’t see all around him, whispering in his ear and peering through his eyes, but he’d get caught quick if he showed any reaction so he muscled down the goosebumps.

Mason took a deep breath and focused on his mission

Priority #1: Find out where Caddock had stashed his cursemongers.

Priority #2: Find out what kind of ambush Caddock was planning on creating.

Priority#3: Cause as much damage as possible.

“Alright, this way.” The tired-looking Climber brought Mason up short in front of a doorway carved into the sandstone.

Mason was marched down a stone staircase, the Charge-draining chains clinking on the stone steps behind him.

A moment later they were in a surprisingly well-appointed office, with a  thin man sitting beside an inkwell and a stack of papers.

A Contractor.

“Sit there, please.” The thin clerk said, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.

“Don’t try nothin’.” Mason’s guard said, putting a firm hand on his shoulder as he sat.

“Name?”

“Mason Lanover.”

The man’s eyes flickered blue, as some kind of Truth-telling Ability or Relic must’ve informed him that Mason was telling the truth.

“Alright Mason, before we start,” The man said with a bored expression, adjusting his glasses as he read off a list. “…do you have any concealed weapons or delay-triggered Abilities that might cause us harm, hidden drugs, consumeables, Allies waiting for a signal, retributive curses, or any general plans to violate a peaceful surrender?”

“…Yes.”

The hand gripped his shoulder tighter.

“And which of those would that be?” The bored contractor said.

A hand erupted from Mason’s skin and grabbed the one on his shoulder and dragged the guard into his torso.

Before he even had a chance to scream, a monstrously elongated limb speared out of Mason’s chest and shoved itself down the clerk’s throat, silencing his voice before dragging him over the desk and into Mason.

“Bit of everything, really,” Mason muttered, standing.

“I’ll clean up here,” Bee said, wearing the man’s clothes and face as she emerged from Mason’s chest. Out his back, Bee emerged, wearing the guard’s equipment.

“And I will ‘guide you’ to your cell.”

Bee interrupted herself by speaking in Mason’s inner ear, her voice a perfect match for Will’s.

“Still no cursemongers?”

Mason shook his head.

“How about their food stores?” Will asked.

**William Oh**

“What’s it look like?” Will asked.

“No sign of the cursemongers yet.” Anna said as they overlooked the map of Caddock’s main fortress. “They’re taking us to an underground prison…thing.”

“Are you really gonna go to a meeting with this guy?” Jason asked, his expression concerned.

“What?” Will glanced at Jason with a scoff. “No.”

“Then why set a meeting?”

“I needed an excuse to deliver…” Will glanced at Anna.

“Two thousand.” Anna replied.

“Two thousand Bees directly to his doorstep.”

“Two thousand Bees they could take out at the drop of a hat.” Jason replied.

“If they got their cursemongers on them, yeah. That’s why we’re looking for ‘em. The instant those two sniff out where Caddock stashed those cursemongers we’re going to smash him with everything we’ve got.”

“And I asked for a meeting I don’t intend to go to because he’s got to spend at least some of his resources to create an advantageous stage to meet with me. All I have to do to make sure that effort is wasted…is not show up.”

Will’s win condition was to stay alive another three days, not to win in a climactic final showdown between good and evil.

“…offering a meeting and then not showing up seems kind of like a dick move.” Jason said.

“Dude’s trying to kill me! Should I care about his feelings?” Will asked.

“We’ve replaced their Contractor.” Anna said. “And the guard overseeing the contract.”

“Okay, still no cursemongers?”

“No.”

“How about their food stores?” Will asked, turning his attention to the map, where Anna was switching out two ‘enemy’ pawns with two ‘bee’ bishops.

“I smelled salted meat and grains on the way in,” Mason’s voice came out of Anna’s mouth as she shapeshifted her voice to match his. “I could find it in minutes.”

“Do so, and then steal all of it.”

“The Phantom Thief will strike again!” Bee said.

Will watched as Mason and his ‘guard’ separated from the ‘Contractor’ and began meandering towards the food storage.

Meanwhile, the Bee who had assumed the Contractor’s identity finished cleaning up and began wandering around the fortress, quietly isolating individual Climbers and replacing them until she had expended all twenty three Charges.

They made their way to the food storage and came to a halt.

“Bad news,” Mason said through Anna. “It’s decentralized, so we’re not gonna be able to get all of it at once. Good news, this should more than last us however long we need.”

“Okay, Bee has replaced a considerable swath of the northwest side of the fort. Search there first, there’s less of Caddock’s men to spot you.”

“Roger.”

They were playing a dangerous game.

If Caddock was hiding his cursemongers at his main base, then the minute Bee got spotted, Mason would be on his own, which had a good chance of getting him killed.

Will was betting Mason’s life that they could either locate the cursemongers first or verify that Caddock had stashed them somewhere out of the way.

Will was willing to bet the latter was the case. The main base was an easy place to guess, and a big target for Will, why hide them somewhere so obvious?

As soon as they were outed, the plan was for every Bee to split off at once and create as much chaos as possible before they got taken down, while Mason ran like his ass was on fire.

Will knew that it could happen any second, which was why he and Loth were sitting around the map, lingering on each report with bated breath as the minutes ticked by.

Outside the fort, June and Travis were hidden, waiting for their orders. The others sat around the map and watched.

“Northwest clear. I’m going to check out the barracks to the south.” Anna said.

Time ticked by slowly, until-

The sky lit up for a brief instant, followed by distant explosion as an enormous lightning bolt touched down in Caddock’s fort.

“One of the Climbers got me before I could replace her.”  Anna said said, Bee’s scowl crossing her face.

“Mason’s bolting to the eastern wall.” Loth said, her voice clipped.

“Send June east for extraction.”

“Bees, do your thing.” Loth said.

Phantom Eye

45 Charges remaining.

Will sent his eye up and over the city, needing a first-hand view now that the music was playing in earnest.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Massive bolts of lightning fell down all across the Fort, glassing large swaths of the stone buildings as Maybin Glasswind entered the battle.

Will was slightly relieved that they had managed to set her off somewhere far away from him. The lightning bolts she was raining down were exceptionally powerful.

Will was exceptionally tough, so it would even out and only be as bad as getting hit by a normal bolt of lightning.

“Don’t break character. Take hostages if you can.” Will said as his eyes flew across the map. The figures couldn’t do it justice, as the two thousand bees erupted out of Mason and immediately began splitting.

“The lightning bolts aren’t particularly precise.” Loth said. “Latch on to one of Caddock’s men and take them down with you.”

Will watched from above as Bee began flooding the streets, adopting the faces and bodies of different members of Caddock’s army, donning whatever clothes they could find to sell the illusion of genuine members rousted out of bed by the alarm.

Others simply grabbed actual soldiers and dragged them up to Maybin so the Nuker was forced to vaporize both of them or die.

It was an absolute shit-show…for Caddock.

Where are they, where are they… Will thought, his Phantom Eye locked on the fort below.

There’s not that many places they could -THERE.

Will spotted a stream of familiar faces emerging from a hidden door on the northern side of the Fort.

I guess he just hid ‘em real good.

“North Bees bail out!” Will shouted, mentally crossing his fingers. “Everyone else head south and fight your way out of the Fort.”

All these cursemongers needed to do to turn the entire engagement upside down was get eyes on one Bee, so Will intended to deny them that possibility.

Will let out a quiet breath of relief as all the Bishop pieces on the north side of the fort toppled over while the rest began retreating further south, exceeding the pace set by the cursemongers.

Okay, you won’t get eyes on a living one.

“June, cover Mason’s retreat, and if you can tag a couple of those cursemongers, more the better. Just don’t let them see you or make it a prolonged engagement.” Loth said.

June shot into the sky and blazed across the east wall of fort, five custom snake-arrows whipping through the panicked defenders and clearing an easy escape for Mason.

She tagged three of Caddock’s cursemongers before the Paladin himself joined up with them and increased their defenses through his sheer presence.

June wisely ducked out of sight and rejoined Mason and Travis, with the illusionist covering their escape.

“Well, they’re at the main base.” Loth said, glancing up at Will. “We succeeded at drawing them out. We know where they are, and by extention, where they are not.”

“…That we do.” Will glanced at Jean, who was sitting beside Jason, keeping herself as calm as she could, not knowing when she might get hit with a devastating psychic attack.

“Tell Ria to tear all of his other forts to the ground, please.” Will said, meeting Anna’s gaze.

Anna nodded.

With a mental command, Will shrank the view of Caddock’s main fortress and expanded his view to cover the other six of them.

Through his Phantom eye, Will could see Ria’s emerge from every nook and cranny around these forts, swarming up the sides of the walls like ants.

Flashes of light glittered brighter than the afternoon sun as Abilities took out one or two Ria here and there, but there were simply too many of them.

Makes sense caddock kept his anti-Tangled group close enough for him to protect them. I guess it was an obvious place, but if he lost them that would be the end of things.

After this, It was just going to be Caddock, his cursemongers, and a small contingent of his toughest Advanced Classers.

Sure, you can keep your Cursemongers. In exchange I’ll take all of your other forts.

…I wonder if he’ll be more amenable to a meeting if we manage to take all his forts.

Will still wasn’t going to actually show up, but if Caddock felt pressured, he might try act in good faith, which Will would reward with, as Jason would say…a ‘dick move’.

Will was counting his chickens far too early, because the cursemongers that he was observing were propelled up into the sky by some sort of Ability, massively boosting their sight radius.

Shit.

Will glanced over and spotted Jean’s eyes rolling back in her head as she began to twitch.

“Jason!” Will barked at the kid watching the battle instead of Jean.

Jason jerked in place, then looked up at Jean and put a hand on her forehead, muttering backhanded compliments.

“Everyone on the attack needs to bail.” Will said.

The next few hours were a tense tug-of-war to decide the battle.

Caddock tried to have his Cursemongers abscond with one of the copies in order to keep all of them fully incapacitated.

They had a lot to choose from as there were hundreds of Bees across the city. some of them bailed out, some of them were dispatched by June from a distance. Still more were killed by Alicia, and the last few were saved by Travis concealing them.

In the end, they got away clean, but just barely.

“How many did we get?” Will asked at the end, resting his back against the cool sandstone, arms on his knees as he watched Jean resting.

The last of the grey in her hair is beginning to fade.

“We killed about twenty percent of the troops their main fort. Ten percent of each of the other fort. And we stole a quarter of their food before they managed to neutralize Brianna.” Loth said.

Aw man, I was hoping to get rid of them all.

“That good?” Will asked, glancing up at Loth, who had taken over the cleanup phase of the battle to give Will a chance to rest.

“Good? That’s devastating.” Loth replied.

“Have one of our hidden Bees leave Caddock a message that I look forward to seeing him at the meeting.”

“Are you actually going?” Loth asked.

“Fuck no.”