Dashing Devil Omnibus 2: Books 4-6, page 113
Tinker’s brilliant mind and knack for invention would provide invaluable support, ensuring they were always one step ahead of their enemies. And then there was Mindy, an empathic soul who Lilith had wronged by asking her to enter hell in search of her Dearest. Again, it was not worth the price the pretty goth had been required to pay, but Lilith was more than pleased she’d been the one to find him. Mindy’s Power allowed her to salve her Dearest’s soul better than any other could and made her a formidable member of his team in her own right.
Hope was a rather unconventional angel, to say the least. She served as the family’s shield and mender of wounds. It was obvious how much her Dearest cared for the innocent looking woman. It was clear as day in any footage in which they appeared together. The fact that she had not lost her Powers with her virginity and had become the first angel in Od’s history to have a halo was a hot topic.
The fact she’d obviously wanted more than anything to take a demon as her lover was a scandal. It was something else that made Lilith giggle. Leave it to her Dearest to lead one so pure into temptation.
Then there was Laura, his trainee. She was someone who could teach Crimson Paw his own value, even as he imparted to her the skills he had picked up over his short but difficult life. She seemed to be a determined and dedicated woman, unless Lilith missed her guess. She knew much less about the former trauma nurse than she did about the others.
But there was another she knew even less about, the fairy Daisy. The demoness had high hopes for her, if only because of the nature of her Change. One such as she would aid her Dearest greatly in the trials to come.
Each of them brought something to aid Crimson Paw as he faced those trials. But Lilith wasn’t convinced it was enough. Which is why she’d prepared two more that she hoped her Dearest would take in as his own.
Stepper had always been an eager and dedicated student, with a heart that burned fiercely with the desire to protect and defend. Her admiration for Crimson Paw was matched only by her own ability as a warrior. Lilith had become her mentor and trainer precisely because she’d recognized Stepper’s potential early on. The ancient woman had honed the dark elf’s skills carefully for the battles that lay ahead. As she grew in strength and experience, Stepper revealed a sharp mind for tactics and strategy, making her a natural leader of the Wardens.
The demoness had put her through many tests, each of which Stepper had passed with flying colors. She pushed herself beyond her physical limits to safeguard those she held dear and had earned her position as third-in-command of the Wardens. Stepper embodied the fierce determination and unwavering bravery of a true guardian.
The teleporting elf could be absurdly stubborn and aggressive when she thought she could set something right. Lilith did not know where she got it from. The demoness had done her best to ensure that her trainee was not exposed to such traits. Where she’d learned to behave in such a manner was a true mystery.
Lilith had originally only planned to direct one woman towards her Dearest, not wanting to interfere with his choices overly much. She didn’t count Mindy as that one, because that wasn’t her intended purpose when the demoness had asked her to go undercover. But then she’d met the mountain nymph he had clearly made quite an impression on. And one became two.
Sinoe didn’t want to accept that she had been pulled into Crimson Paw’s orbit, still grieving the loss of the man she had loved. But there was no doubt she had been; that much had been clear to Lilith when she approached the young woman after she’d visited the satyr clan Silas hailed from. As was proper, she’d returned to tell them of his death in person and had suffered their ire for leading one of their sons away from his people. Despite having done nothing but love the woman’s son, Sinoe had held her head high when Silas’s mother had vented her grief on the mountain nymph.
Lilith knew what it meant to grieve, so decided that she could postpone having words with the suffering mother for a year, though she would pay her a visit. She clearly needed an education on how to speak to a grieving widow who had just lost her husband.
The demoness had planned to visit the young woman, eager to hear her tales of Crimson Paw, and to ask the questions others wouldn’t think to. Instead, she comforted the girl and offered her a shoulder to cry on. After Lilith had dried the girl’s tears, Sinoe confessed that she planned to wander Od alone. She didn’t dare risk her uncontrollable aura around other men.
Lilith had offered to train her on how to control her aura, just so the young woman wouldn’t have to shun the company of others during her time of mourning. The demoness had learned much while coaching the passionate nymph in restraining that aspect of her nature, having learned the trick of it from a forest nymph with similar problems at one point. It only cost her a couple of hours of effort a day at first, with occasional check-ups to ensure Sinoe was practicing what Lilith had taught her after that.
Once she had the knack of controlling her aura, Sinoe had trained with the Unyielding Yew bow that was all she had left of Silas. Thankfully, when she’d tried to return it to his family, Silas’s father had passed it on to her. Unlike the man’s mother, Silas’s father knew how to treat a grieving widow. He would not require a harsh lesson in compassion in a year’s time.
Silas had once told her his greatest wish was that a generation would be born who wouldn’t have to fear that particular menace coming to finish what it had started three hundred years ago. The nymph was now fueled by a newfound sense of purpose. She had not forgotten her late husband and first true love, but she had found a way to honor him by taking up his dream of one day being free of the threat The Authority represented. With that driving her, she threw herself into training.
She proved to be a quick study with the bow and had even started incorporating her Power into the arrows that she shot as she focused on combat training. The mountain nymph’s skills with the bow impressed Lilith, who saw great potential in her. So did the Warden trainer the demoness had assigned when the girl had asked about more training than the de facto leader of her people had the time available to provide.
All the progress reports Lilith received showed that, with some polishing up and the right team, she would make a fine Warden. The way she seamlessly integrated her Power into her shots showed a genuine talent that could prove invaluable in the battles to come. That, mixed with her previous positive contact with her Dearest made Sinoe uniquely suited for a role that Lilith knew would be important. Soon, Crimson Paw would journey into the Wilds, and to ensure he came here, he would need a guide.
The demoness helped the girl mourn her loss, and when she was ready to find a new purpose, she’d started dropping hints. Once she judged the time was right, Lilith did something she probably should not. Each time she visited the girl, she shared stories of Crimson Paw. She painted a vivid picture of the man and what he would accomplish. She waxed eloquent in the hopes and dreams he carried on his strong shoulders. She emphasized the unwavering support he would need to bear his burdens and often spoke of how he would cherish those who provided it.
Sinoe’s admiration for Crimson Paw grew, fueled by Lilith’s tales of his bravery and kindness. The young nymph found herself captivated by the image of this man that Lilith carefully crafted to embody everything she had lost and longed for. Each story painted him a hero, a savior, and a beacon of hope in dark times.
With each passing month that Lilith knew her, Sinoe grew in strength and determination. As Sinoe trained with her bow, her shots became more precise and her movements more fluid—a testament to the dedication she poured into her practice. She’d honed not only her physical skills but also learned to control her innate power even better, weaving it more creatively into her attacks. It was as if the bow became an extension of herself, something she channeled her determination and grief through.
Lilith watched as Sinoe transformed from a grieving widow into a formidable warrior, ready to embrace her new purpose. The demoness knew that the time was fast approaching for Crimson Paw to return to her, and she wanted Sinoe to be fully prepared to fulfill her role as his guide.
The task at hand was originally intended for Stepper, as her Power made her the perfect candidate to complete it in a timely and safe manner. However, the girl’s stubborn insistence on trying to ‘rescue’ him shortly after they’d learned where he was had ruined those plans.
It was hard to imagine where she had learned to be so aggressive.
The stubborn dark elf had undone much of the damage of her first encounter with Crimson Paw when she’d met him the second time. But Stepper was hardly someone her Dearest would trust, not as things now stood. Which made Sinoe the only remaining candidate.
Fortunately, the nymph was no longer stuck in the past and had started looking to the future by the time Lilith judged it appropriate for her to re-establish contact with her Dearest.
Chapter 1
Boyd sat back at what was now officially dubbed the breakfast bar and beamed at the viewscreen that was tuned to Glorith’s News2. On it, Hopewing stood with her wings spread wide as she held a golden barrier between a green wyvern and some of Glorith’s citizens who were hurrying into a shelter. Seconds later, a darkly burning streak dove on the wyvern and drove it into the ground, breaking its back and ending the threat. Dashing Devil, shadowy fire dripping from his extremities rose from the thirty-foot-long corpse and scanned the area before leaping back into the sky.
“The Devoted once again saved the day yesterday, this time protecting Glorith from a flock of Galewyrms that attacked the city,” Jill, the head anchor of News2 said with her characteristic cherry brightness. “With support from Pinnacle Watch, they were able to keep all but a few of the superfast predators outside our walls and prevented any fatalities, with very little property damage. But I’m told it was The Devoted under Dashing Devil’s leadership that won the day. I understand you’ve run an analysis of the incursion, Phil?”
“Right you are, Jill.” The camera zoomed in on Phil’s big grin as the News2’s Hero analyst replied before panning back out to include both him and Jill. “I’ll start with what makes Galewyrms such a threat and why we weren’t able to prevent this incursion. While air manipulation is their primary Power and is only given a B-Rank, they use it in conjunction with their physiology to achieve S-Ranked flight speed. So, while Silver and Crimson Contender were able to stop most of them at the wall, a few did manage to slip by them.”
“Fortunately, they are about as strong as they look—which is still strong enough to tear through concrete like it’s nothing, but not enough to be considered above D-rank Powered strength. However, they travel in groups called flights of up to a thousand or as small as fifty and are known to be pack hunters. That means they are smart enough to cooperate to face stronger threats. We were lucky that this was a pretty small flock; there was only seventy-four of them.”
“They migrate from time to time, with large flights breaking into smaller groups. They’ll split up as food becomes scarce in their breeding grounds. Glorith isn’t on any of their normal migratory paths, but a tropical storm whipped up by a Storm Bird to the southwest of us made them divert from their normal flightpath and brought them to the city. Their speed made it impossible to forward deploy our Heroes—at least not if they wanted to have time to beat them back and still be in place to defend our citizens from any that slipped through their net. Director Davis made the call to face them at the walls and the results speak for themselves.”
The pair of nicely dressed news anchors shrank into a frame in the lower left corner to show a clip of the flight of Galewyrms approaching the Glorith’s massive walls at top speed, which wasn’t all that much slower than Silvie’s. They flew in a complex formation, something like the classic V-shape of long-range migratory birds but in three dimensions. They constantly swirled around each other, changing positions in a manner that had been determined to take advantage of their Power to control air, allowing groups to fly further and faster together.
The camera drone captured a clear veiw of a silver blur zip out to meet them. It even got a great slow-motion shot of Silver as she reached the flight and began a rapid barrel roll with her arms extended. Boyd’s sun-bronzed love was a sight to behold as she spun through the air with her long main of silver hair twirling around her—especially in her intentionally eye-catching Hero suit.
A deluge of silver energy balls and eyebeams spun out from her as she rotated, slaughtering the large wyverns wholesale. Dozens fell from the sky in her wake, either sliced in two or missing large chucks of green scales and flash. They were too fast for her to target accurately, so she’d deployed to engage in a very effective example of the classic ‘spray and pray’.
Very few people really prayed to anything on their new planet, but the old phrase had stuck.
“That was so much fun,” Silvie bubbled at the breakfast bar with a bell-like giggle from her spot next to Mindy on his right.
“Silver took out fifty-three of them with this maneuver alone,” Phil said with enthusiasm. “That was more than seventy percent of the threat gone in a literal flash. Here, let me play it at full speed so you can get a feel for just how quickly she got it done.”
The scene was rewound and played again at normal speed—which took less than two seconds. All you really saw was a bunch of green streaks flying toward the walls and then a silver blender flew through them, leaving wyverns and parts of wyverns to crash into the ground or splat against the thick stone and metal wall of the city.
“I was in the building’s shelter and almost missed it all together during the live feed,” Jill added with just a bit too much cheer. “It truly was a masterful move.”
The frames shifted, with the two anchors and their ‘Glorith City News2’ desk filling most of the screen. As the channel had gained popularity in other cities that had existing branches of News2, they were sure to prominently display the name of the city for the viewers’ convenience. With News2 being the primary news source for Glorith and the city being home to one of the three candidates for World Hero, Boyd wasn’t all that surprised. Especially since that candidate was both one of the youngest and the first Changed to be placed on the official docket.
“Well Jill, that’s the thing,” Phil hedged. “I would normally harshly criticize a stunt like that.”
“Why is that, Phil?” Jill asked, surprise evident in her tone. It seemed someone had been getting some coaching.
“It worked in this case because Silver managed to take so many of them out,” Phil agreed before continuing on in a sterner tone, “But—it was a gamble. What if Silver only managed to take out half of them? That would have left thirty-seven of them making it past her, with the city’s heaviest hitter out of pocket to address the rest of them.”
For once, when Jill frowned, it didn’t seem like acting.
“The main problem with Galewyrms,” Phil continued, “is how fast they are in flight—almost as fast as Silver is. With her flying through them like that, she wasn’t able to beat them to the city.”
“But Silver wasn’t alone out there,” Jill noted.
“True. Which would have left our second line of defense, Crimson Contender, to deal with thirty-seven instead of twenty-one wyverns. As you can see here, he took out another twelve of them.”
A clip showed the red-suited, middle-aged Hero launching a barrage of his exploding cubes in front of the remaining flight.
“That was fifty-seven percent of the remaining Galewyrms, and I’ll be generous and keep that ratio. If Silver had only taken out half of them originally, Crimson Contender would have taken out twenty-one of the remaining threats. This still would have left sixteen of them entering the city. But because Silver was so successful, there were only nine that made it over the wall. A difference of seven may not sound like much, but it’s forty-four percent more thirty-foot-long flying lizards with razor-sharp teeth and claws among our civilians—many of whom were still entering the shelters.”
“You’re saying it was luck that prevented any civilian casualties more than skill or strategy?” Jill asked, managing to get a close approximation of the surprised skepticism she was aiming for.
“No, I’m not.” Phil shook his head and grinned. “That’s why I said I would normally criticize such a decision… because it would have taken luck for it to have worked out. What happened next, though, proves that it was a calculated risk and the odds of more making it through were properly factored in.”
He tapped on the datapad in front of him on the desk. “Here, I drew up a map with icons to demonstrate what I’m talking about.”
A three-dimensional map of the city with buildings that got taller the closer they got to the center appeared on the screen. Icons that featured small head shots of each Hero on the field as well as well as the Galewyrms were in their starting position.
“Some context may help here… I’ve seen a report that confirmed Director Davis has turned joint team operations over to Dashing Devil’s command—starting with this operation. The Director was quoted as stating he made the decision because he got tired of laying out plans only for Devil to suggest better ones after politely listening to the Director’s strategy. Here, watch how Devil’s plan played out on the macro scale at a quarter speed.”
The symbols representing the Powered wyverns started to shift across the map, breaking apart from their original formation of nine and dividing into four smaller clusters. Each group headed towards a specific position that was already marked by a Hero icon. They aimed for juicy targets—the shelters that people still streamed into—that somehow already had defenders in place.
Three headed for a position marked by Hopewing’s beautiful face, with Boyd’s devilish guise positioned not far away atop a nearby building. Three went for a position being defended by Turbine and Gold-Fist. Two went for the shelter that Boyd had ordered the Pulse Brothers to protect. The last zipped up to the last shelter the demon thought likely to be attacked, which was defended by a pink-visored Tinker.
