Isekai-eh Chapter 27 (Patreon)

Thunder ripped through the air, announcing the arrival of yet another threat.

Despite what he had thought were ample stores of ammo, Jed and Gwen were running low.

They’d killed so many warp demons, Jed had lost track. The bottom staircase wasn’t much of an obstacle for them anymore, the bodies having gotten so thick they could simply scramble up over their dead.

If they got out alive, it was going to make a great story.

Too bad it was such a big if.

“This place isn’t going to stay standing much longer,” Jed said from his position across from Gwen, who was watching the stairs for the Screachers that were being true to their namesakes as they slowly made their way up the lower stairs.

“Not my fault these things keep exploding,” Gwen snapped back.

“Not saying it is. Just thinking we might want to take our chance up top, maybe see if we can’t jump to the next,” Jed said, waving upwards.

“Yeah, right, sorry. Good idea,” Gwen said, letting out a sigh as she raised her rifle. “Let’s go.”

Jed nodded, jogging towards the collection of junk under the hatch leading to the roof.

They’d been hoping to stack it neatly, but the demons hadn’t exactly been cooperative, what with the explosions shaking things loose and disrupting them every few minutes. “Mythlyn, you go first. We’ll assume it’s immune, but feel free to try to fry it before we get there if possible.”

“Even if it will not burn, I can at least distract it,” Mythlyn said with a serious nod.

“Good. Gwen, you want to go next?”

She shook her head. “You’re heavier. It’ll be easier for you to haul me up.”

Jed nodded, climbing up on the dresser and hauling on the pin holding the hatch in place. It cracked as he pulled it free, raining splinters down on his face, making him extra glad for the goggles.

Mythlyn pulled herself up past him even as he was steadying his balance, then she was on the roof. Gwen was there half a second later, giving him a boost upward as Jed grabbed the edge of the hatch.

He could sense Mythlyn and the flier moving about each other just out of sight. He didn’t even wait until he was all the way up. As soon as he had himself wedged into the corner, Jed pulled his new revolver and fired into the bat-like thing. The narrow beak kinda ruined the comparison, but Jed wasn’t too concerned about what it looked like as it let out a yipping cough and stopped chasing Mythlyn, struggling towards the edge of the roof instead.

That was another thing he’d discovered. Despite their urge to rush towards disturbances in the warp, if he clipped one bad enough, they liked to run away. Well, most of them. Screachers were suicidal to the last.

With the bat-thing on the retreat, Jed hefted himself the rest of the way onto the roof then turned back and helped Gwen up.

Just in time for the Screacher to make its appearance.

Leaving it to wail its twisted little heart out, they made their way to the edge of the nearest building.

“That’s a bit more of a jump than last time,” Jed said, staring at the gap. It had to be at least twelve feet, plus a drop of a story. At least the other roof didn’t have too much clutter on top. Plus it appeared to be completely free of warp demons.

“We need to go. Whatever that is, it’s getting closer,” Gwen said, clearly referring to the high pitch whine that split the air every few seconds.

“Right,” Jed said, nodding to himself. “Better than an airplane.”

Before Gwen could ask, not that he expected her to, Jed took a couple steps back then threw himself off the roof. It was a very different experience compared to free fall. A lot less time to adjust to the fact he was falling, for one.

He’d also had time to think about his landing, an unusual boon. The roll wasn’t as smooth as he’d been planning, the rifle across his back digging into his spine.

Still, their month of practice paid off. Nothing too important was broken as he pushed to his feet.

“Huh, that wasn’t too- whoa,” Jed said, stepping to the side just in time to avoid getting bowled over by a rolling Gwen.

An explosion from the building they’d just come from had him looking back in time to see Mythlyn faze through the wall, easily clearing the gap, wings spread wide as she landed lightly in front of him.

A secondary explosion sounded, and the building collapsed, crushing the warp demons who remained inside.

“What do you say we put some distance between us and that mess?” Jed asked, pulling off his goggles, which he’d somehow managed to crack both lenses of during his roll.

Gwen’s response was swallowed by a thunderous crack on the street below, the edges of lightning visible over the edge.

Despite himself, Jed found himself taking a step closer to peer over the edge at the latest demon to find them.

It wasn’t until he was looking down at Sotas atop the monster hunter buggy that he realized he hadn’t sensed a warp demon, but a pair of hunters. He blamed the fact his warp senses were feeling overworked, like keeping his eyes open without blinking.

The driver’s side door popped open, and a very angry woman emerged from the side, guns blazing as she cleared all the smaller warp demons from around the buggy’s wheels, at least a dozen dying in under a second.

The orgy of death only increased as Sotas swung what seemed to be a warp-lightning gun back and forth, vaporizing a pack of charging hound-like demons.

With the gun as cover for distant threats, Metsa was a storm of violence up close, throwing shimmering blades with one hand, firing constantly with her other. In less than a minute, there were no more warp demons within range of Jed’s senses.

“You two better be alive!” Metsa yelled out into the silence as she stomped towards the ruins of the hotel. “Because if you’re not, I’m going to wade into the warp and drag you back to kill you myself.”

Mythlyn floated up beside Jed, a smile on her face. “It would seem the cavalry has arrived.”

“Can we go back to the demons?” Gwen asked, face more pale than it had been all night.

“Up here,” Jed called, drawing the attention of both professional hunters. He caught the matching smiles on their faces, though Metsa’s was there so briefly before morphing into a scowl, he wasn’t certain he’d seen it.

“Let’s not keep them waiting,” Jed added to his companions with a glance over his shoulder as he moved towards what he hoped was a hatch leading down. “Be a shame for our rescuers to be the ones who took us out after a night like that.”

They made their way to the street where Metsa was waiting, gun resting on her shoulder. Sotas was using the lightning gun on anything that so much as twitched as they approached, spitting warp-lightning every few seconds.

“What sort of message was that?” Metsa spat the second they stepped out of the door, eyes boring into Jed.

“Hey, wasn’t me,” Jed said, gesturing towards the women just behind him.

“Throw me under the buggy why don’t you,” Gwen muttered, pushing his shoulder.

“How in the warp did you expect me to know you were talking about where we found you?” Metsa demanded, grabbing Gwen by the elbow and hauling her towards the buggy. “Do you have any idea how much time we spent running around Vaskerville hunting down your old haunts?”

“My… haunts?” Gwen asked even as she climbed up the side of the buggy.

“Poked our nose in every spot we could think of. Don’t worry, we didn’t root around,” Metsa said as she climbed up the other side. “Though I was getting tempted. You’re lucky Sotas-”

Her voice cut out as she slammed her door down, locking her fury inside with Gwen.

That didn’t seem like a fun time to Jed.

Sotas took a break from firing his lightning gun long enough to help Jed climb onto the back, Mythlyn disappearing back into the revolver at his waist in a flash of warp-fire. “You have found much excitement since we last saw met, I think.”

“More than enough for one day,” Jed said in agreement as he slumped down on the edge of the platform.

“Not more than you could handle, though,” Sotas said, punctuating his sentence with another discharge from the lightning gun. “Am proud.”

“Huh, thanks,” Jed said, head lilting to the side. “That’s an interesting use for lightning in a bottle,” Jed added, staring at the glass container that appeared to contain a repeatedly building storm. Every time Sotas fired, the storm faded to little more than a flicker.

“A remnant of a living storm,” Sotas said, firing off the weapon into a nearby building. “It is quite fun.”

“Looks like it.”

“Could be convinced to let you try,” Sotas said, grin wide as he swept the large weapon over Jed’s head.

“And what would that take?” Jed asked, tilting his head as he tried to figure out where Metsa was taking them. It wasn’t towards the familiar parts of Vaskerville, that was certain.

“The greatest challenge of your night,” Sotas said, chuckling. “You must stand.”

“You ask too much,” Jed said with a matching laugh. “Far too much,” he added even as he grasped the rail. No way was he going to not try out a literal lightning gun. Even if the effort of standing did prove to take a lot more than he’d been expecting.

So much so that he had to just stand there holding the railing for half a minute before he nodded at Sotas, who was somehow managing to stay in place during Metsa’s crazy maneuvers with just his feet wedged against the sides.

Jed couldn’t imagine the strength that must require. It had him doubting whether it was even possible to try the gun without going flying.

“Here. A good experience, yes?” Sotas said, handing the gun over to Jed. “You will need two hands, I think, but Sotas will not let you go.”

As Jed accepted the weapon, Sotas wrapped a hand around his duster. Sure enough, Jed felt more secure than when he was holding himself up. Also a little out of breath, since Sotas had cinched his shirt up around his throat. A quick finger in his collar solved that and allowed him to focus on the gun.

Inspiration struck him, and Jed raised the luminance of his display just enough to see it. Sure enough, it had a full breakdown of the gun in front of him. “Huh. That… I don’t think I could build that sort of reaction chamber. Is it… yeah, that’s a single use chamber.”

“I advise you fire it soon. The storm, it does not like to be contained,” Sotas said, getting Jed to point the weapon ahead.

Following the large man’s advice, Jed fired the weapon, crackling lightning splitting the air ahead of him.

He let out a mad laugh as he mowed down a pack of Screachers, causing them to pop instead of explode.

After a few tests, he discovered the weapon had a slight delay. It fired a lead shot that drew the lightning after it, twisting a path through the warp. Or maybe just through the air.

“Clever,” Jed said, handing the weapon back to Sotas. “How long does it last?”

“Until the chamber is no more than slag,” Sotas said, smiling as he fired the gun once more. “It will be many hours. Unless we allow it to overheat, yes?”

“So… unlimited ammo until it explodes, basically?”

“This is so,” Sotas said, clapping a hand on Jed’s shoulder while firing the weapon one handed. “A most wonderful weapon, on a night like this.”

Jed nodded even as he brought the schematics up again. It was a relatively simple design, but the tools for the reaction chamber… even on the station, he doubted he could have made one.

Just how expensive had their rescue been?

He was too tired too worry about it, slumping down in the corner.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to realize that Metsa was circling. It was only after they passed the collapsed buildings for the third time that he noticed. In his defense, somehow, Jed had nodded off, arm wrapped around one of the bars on the side of the deck.

Only as the sun was coming up did Metsa pull into their final destination. At some point Sotas had stopped firing the lightning gun. He kinda wished he’d seen the man ejecting the storm chamber, but Jed was glad he’d gotten at least a little rest.

Especially since their adventure didn’t seem to be over quite yet.

“It’s one of the barrier pylons,” Jed said after a second of staring upward.

“This one is in best shape, we think,” Sotas said, helping Jed down from the deck.

“And as a bonus, it’s one of the last places anyone will think to look for you two,” Metsa said as she popped out the door of the buggy.

“Yeah, because we’d have to be insane to hide inside a demon-lure,” Gwen said as she followed, interrupting herself with a giant yawn halfway through. “Didn’t recognize it at first, but that’s what it is, right?”

“This one is, yes,” Metsa said, an evil grin stretched across her lips that sent a shudder down Jed’s spine. “Not many demons left for it to lure, after last night.”

“A most glorious hunt,” Sotas said, clapping his lover on the shoulder. “I do think I feel stronger.”

“Because you are,” Mythlyn said, appearing in a flash of purple-black warp-fire. “I helped smooth off the rough edges as you two drew in the warp. You should find yourselves invigorated for days, if nothing else.”

“Good,” Metsa said, turning towards the barrier pylon. “Cause I don’t think this is gonna be quick.”

Jed fell into line behind her and Gwen as Metsa led the way into the barrier beacon. The contrast with the rest of the city was stark, the dark grey metal of the beacon reminding him of how the door he’d found had stood out against the stone wall back on Earth.

Here most of the city was built out of wood, which made the metal structure even more unique.

The insides were normally sealed off from the outside but something had cracked one of the thick metal panels. Whatever that something was, it had left a jagged rend in the side. Accepting the easy way in, they crawled through, Sotas barely having enough room to fit.

Once inside, Metsa led them towards the heart of the structure.

As they walked, Jed realized the place was still active.

“Huh. No wonder it’s working like a lure,” Jed said as he looked up at the crackling sparks of warp lightning. “Someone set it up to do so.”

“Why would someone want to turn a city into a demon infested deathzone?” Gwen asked as she stepped over to stare up at the lightning with him.

“No clue, though they might have some ideas,” Jed said, gesturing towards Sotas and Metsa, who were both frowning.

“Lots of thoughts about who might’ve wanted to, no way to know who did,” Metsa said, shaking her head.

“This thing, it is not simple?” Sotas asked, following Jed’s gaze.

“I mean… it’s not too hard, if you know what you’re doing,” he said, waggling his hand back and forth. “But honestly, figuring out what you’re doing… might be tricky. Let’s see if I can find a control panel or something.”

They nodded, continuing deeper inside. There weren’t any controls in the lower section, at least none that were intact enough to use, but after nearly an hour of searching they came across what seemed to be a collection of patched together parts.

“Yeah. They might not have known the math, but whoever did this, they knew what was going to happen when they turned this on,” Jed said as he looked over the now fused together components. “They wanted this district to go dark in a bad way.”

“A long time ago,” Sotas said, looking out over the district from the nearby porthole, the window barely as big as the man’s head. “But not so long, I do not remember.”

“Lotta panic, that night,” Metsa said from the metal steps where she’d plopped down, finally showing signs of fatigue. Steps, Jed noted, that seemed to lead into a blank wall.

“Grams didn’t really talk about it much, but I heard a few rumors. Usually there’s more warning before a district goes dark, right? But eleven went down overnight?” Gwen asked from where she was leaning up against a broken console near Jed.

Jed was still looking over the components, seeing if any were worth salvaging for his own use, only half paying attention to the conversation.

“Yeah. Usually you’ll get a few demons popping up, little ones,” Metsa said, nodding. “Around the edges. Then you’ll get bigger ones, starting to push deeper.”

“Safe spots remain, but not all are able to go there,” Sotas said, voice heavy in a way Jed wasn’t used to, getting him to look up from his work. The man’s face was half in shadow as he stared out through a small viewport. “Many are lost in those days. In a way, this was better. Entire city went dark, entire city fought to escape. Many helped.”

“Was still a mess,” Metsa said, letting out a long sigh. Then she stood, moving over to Sotas’ side and taking his hand.

Jed and Gwen traded a glance, then looked away.

Returning to his efforts, Jed realized most of the components could be scavenged. In fact, he could probably repair the cobbled together interface, with just a couple parts. Whether he’d be able to use it to get things running again… well, he wouldn’t know until he tried.

Still, before that…

Catching Gwen’s attention, Jed gestured towards the blank wall. She creased her brow, but followed him over, watching as he set his hand against the surface where one of the invisible panels should be.

When he didn’t immediately disappear, Jed thought it had failed.

Gwen’s gasp informed him just before he was whisked away, that it had simply needed time to warm up.

Jed appeared inside a pristine control room, which must have been placed atop the very top of the tower, because it had a commanding view of the district, even more than the one below had had.

“Was wondering how long it’d take you to find your way up here,” Mythlyn said, startling him.

“Thought you were exploring downstairs,” Jed said, turning to find his friend at a large pair of windows, wings spread wide, hand against the glass. Just behind her was a couch that looked like it had come straight off the station.

“I was. Then I noticed a door with no handle, and decided to see where it led,” Mythlyn said, voice soft.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Jed said, coming over to take her hand, ducking under her wing to do so.

“I’m afraid we don’t take your primitive coinage here. This is the Empire,” Mythlyn said, chin in the air. Then she let out a small scoff. “At least, it was once. I blamed her for this. For parts of the Empire falling into ruin. Then, in my rage, I attempted something far worse.”

“And you failed.”

“Only because of you. Had you not arrived, they would all be dead,” Mythlyn said, waving a hand downward.

“They would’ve been fine. Their children, if they’d had any…”

“Technicalities,” Mythlyn said, waving his words away. “The point is, I would have done far worse than the Empress. Have done far worse. I’ve killed more people than any warp-demon those hunters have slain.”

“And now you’re making amends. Can’t change the past,” Jed said, resting a hand on her shoulder.

“You can’t die,” Mythlyn said, looking over at him. “Not just for my sake. If you want them to live… I do not know if I can retain who I have become. Without you, I’m afraid I’ll go back to being… her.”

“Guess we need to make sure you make more friends then,” Jed said, stepping away from the window, pulling her along. “Simple physics. More anchors you have, the easier it is to weather the storm.”

Mythlyn rolled her eyes but she followed him.

As she always had, since the day he’d appeared from the warp.