Lottery King 10, page 15
“We arranged this mission in quite a hurry, your majesty,” Ena added. “I spoke with the shadow nymph in charge five minutes ago. He said they were securing one last edge of the perimeter. It shouldn’t be long.”
“Okay, I’ll get changed while we wait,” I said.
Ena nodded and returned to the back side of the cabin while I picked up my battle clothes. I figured she was going to check in with the shadow nymph team we were meeting up with.
By the time I finished changing into my thick cargo pants, black shirt, and lightly-armored canvas jacket, Ena had returned to stand beside Kage.
“We’re ready, your majesty,” Ena said.
“Great, let’s go,” I said.
We headed down the rolling steps at the side of the jet and into the quiet of an early summer night in New Zealand. The serenity of the night encouraged me to stay quiet as Ena and Kage led me toward a large mirror waiting near the edge of the tarmac. An army of shadow nymphs melted out of the darkness and moved through the mirror as I approached.
As usual, Ena stepped through the mirror portal first, and I followed a few seconds later. The rush of warm light carried me across the ocean to the small volcanic island of Taveuni, Fiji, and I stepped out to a tropical land that wasn’t what I’d expected.
“Huh,” I huffed in surprise.
“Are you alright, your majesty?” Kage asked.
“Yeah, I guess I expected more… lava.” I shrugged.
“Taveuni is considered dormant,” Ena explained. “But there is an area that’s active near the eastern shore. We’ll hike there from here. It should only take a few minutes. It’s become active very recently, and that’s where our intel suggests the lava and lightning elementals are gathered.”
That made perfect sense. My soldiers always set our arrival point a short distance away to ensure a safe arrival and departure.
I nodded and gestured for my shadow nymphs to lead the way.
More and more shadow nymphs popped up around me as we hiked east from our arrival point, and about ten minutes later, the crashing sound of ocean waves told me we’d made it to the spot.
I tapped into my mirror magic echolocation skill, and my mind was suddenly filled with the presence of paranormals. Hundreds, if not thousands, of magical auras popped up in my head. The lava and lightning elementals had very distinctive signatures that were fairly uniform across the landscape of my mind. They swirled through the air and along the ground like mist.
Then we walked beyond the treeline along the shore, and I got my first look at both kinds of elementals’ physical appearance.
The lightning elementals were pretty much what I expected. They looked like bolts of lightning turned into a liquid. They seemed to exist in a range of sizes, from a large rabbit to a medium-sized dog. Their bodies wobbled slightly with excess electricity that arced away from them like Tesla coils.
The lava elementals were not what I’d envisioned at all.
I’d pictured them sort of like sludge monsters. My imagination had conjured a blobby shape with arms and legs, but the real thing was much simpler than that.
The lava elementals were more like large slugs than anything else. Their bodies glowed like molten rock, and the outermost layers turned dark as they cooled and sloughed off. The lava elementals left a trail of cooling volcanic rock behind them like slugs left a trail of slime.
Then a wave of different paranormal auras approached from the coast further north from our position.
“The Rising is here!” I hissed.
“Yes,” Ena replied in a no-nonsense voice. “We’re ready, your majesty.”
Then I watched as all hell broke loose.
A team of flying paranormals moved in first, and they held several huge nets between them. They looked like ordinary fishing nets until the lightning elementals noticed and tried to evade them.
The lightning elementals tried to rise up and fly around the nets, but instead, they seemed to get sucked directly into the fibers.
That’s when I realized the nets were made of some kind of highly conductive wire. Based on the color, I guessed it was copper wiring, and it pulled the lightning elementals in like a vacuum.
The Rising had come prepared, and about a quarter of them rushed forward in pairs. They held large boxes constructed of rubber between them as they moved into position at the far end of the copper netting.
More of the lightning elementals rushed toward me through the air in an attempt to flee from the sudden assault of paranormals from The Rising.
The air crackled as they flew past, and others who’d been corralled under the net sent out painful-looking zaps of electricity at anyone within their range.
Several of the lightning elementals managed to escape out of the rubber containment boxes before The Rising members were able to slam the doors shut. The lightning elementals that managed to escape bristled with angry energy, and they zapped the paranormals who held the rubber cages.
“Aaah!” one enemy siren screamed as he was electrocuted by an escaping lightning elemental.
At the same time, other members of The Rising rushed close to the edge of the ocean to try and intercept the lava elementals as they tried to flee. The enemy paranormals hauled large boxes that looked like metal cages wrapped in insulating fabrics. It made me think of an oven wrapped in a huge oven mitt.
The lava elementals moved pretty fast for creatures that resembled slugs so much, and many of them escaped into the water without issue. The ocean steamed violently as a few dozen lava elementals dipped over the rocky edge and disappeared into the salt water.
I wondered what happened to the lava elementals when they went into the cold ocean water, but I wasn’t going to get an answer to that question at the moment.
All of this happened in a matter of seconds before my shadow nymphs materialized out of the darkness behind the line of The Rising members, and then the chaos became a hundred times worse.
I tried to keep track of everyone’s movements, but it was impossible to track it all.
My shadow nymphs moved to kill as many of The Rising members as possible. The Rising members were working to try and capture as many elementals as possible. Electricity and steam were shooting out everywhere, and the air sizzled with energy.
I scanned the battlefield and gave input on where I thought my forces should focus.
“There’s a pocket of enemy paranormals there!” I pointed to the left side of the line. “They’re capturing more lightning elementals there than anywhere else!”
Ena nodded as another shadow nymph disappeared to relay the message to my soldiers. The pocket of enemy fighters was targeted twenty seconds later, and a dozen rubber containment boxes fell to the ground.
My shadow nymphs appeared in front of them and broke the doors right off the boxes. The frightened lightning elementals zapped wildly at whatever and whoever they encountered as they fled from inside the rubber cages.
Concern for my shadow nymph fighters ripped through my heart as the dark night lit up from the sharp zaps of electricity. Thankfully, it looked like my shadow nymphs had been prepared for exactly that reaction from the freed elementals, and they popped in and out of the shadows between the rubber cages as they evaded the electricity.
There was so much chaos swirling around, the elementals didn’t seem to know who was a threat and who wasn’t. They lashed out at anybody who approached them, even as my shadow nymphs tried to free the ones in cages. A few of my shadow nymphs suffered what looked like minor burns as they worked to free the slug-like elementals from the cages.
Most of my shadow nymph guards fought directly against The Rising members, and as their bodies dropped to the ground in soul-death, the elementals seemed to understand there were two sides to this battle.
From my vantage point near the back, and behind a line of shadow nymph guards, I watched two of my soldiers free a particularly large lava elemental from a cage. As soon as the lava elemental was free of the cage, my shadow nymphs turned on the wingless fae and werewolf holding the containment box.
The lava elemental didn’t have facial features, but its body language clearly displayed confusion followed by immediate understanding. Then the pitbull-sized creature lashed out at a nearby paranormal who tried to force it into another insulated box.
The paranormal, who I suspected was a witch, tried to shove the lava elemental into another cage with a flat plate of steel on a long handle. He growled at the lava elemental as he tried to push the large creature back.
My mouth dropped open as the lava elemental consumed the metal plate with the front part of its molten body like it was eating it. The slug-like creature whipped its body around to the side and tore the long handle from the witch’s hands.
“Ah!” the witch shouted in shock.
Then he stared at the lava elemental in disbelief for a long second like he was trying to figure out how to capture it, still. He started to come at the lava elemental with his bare hands before he realized that was a terrible idea.
Finally, he decided to pick up the metal box and drop it on top of the lava elemental.
But one of my shadow nymph guards got to him first and pierced directly through the witch’s chest with his shadow blade. The lava elemental watched with its head tilted to the side like a confused puppy as the witch turned gray and dropped to the ground.
Then it turned back to look at my shadow nymph guard. The shadow nymph prepared to defend himself if he needed to, but he demonstrated a non-threatening stance at the same time.
The lava elemental watched the shadow nymph for a long moment before it seemed to decide he was no threat. Then the creature made of molten rock turned and darted after a member of The Rising who was holding another of the rubber cages.
As if they’d been watching, three more lava elementals followed the larger one’s lead, and they began to attack The Rising with more ferocity.
I couldn’t help the half-smile that formed on my face as I watched the elementals collectively make the decision to fight alongside my soldiers. Soon, the lightning and lava elementals were attacking The Rising members with as much force as my shadow nymphs.
The tide of the battle turned quickly at that point.
The lava elementals began to suck the lowest edges of the copper netting into what I thought of as their mouths, and they yanked on it until the fae and witches flying above were forced to let go or risk being torn out of the sky.
The majority of the airborne paranormals chose to let go of the net, but six of them were yanked out of the sky. One caught herself with a hard flutter of her dragonfly wings before she hit the ground. Two more managed to duck and roll onto the ground with harsh thuds, and the other three slammed hard into the ground.
Those three had been closest to the ground, and I suspected they hadn’t had enough distance to right themselves midair. The one with bumblebee wings twitched unpleasantly, and it was pretty obvious the fae wouldn’t live long. A hard injury seemed likely from the angle at which he’d gone into the ground, and I wondered if he’d gotten caught in the net somehow.
I turned my gaze away from the sight as more lightning elementals whizzed through the air, and the crackling sounds they made converged as they gathered like a swarm of angry hornets.
Tiny arcs of electricity shot off their bodies as they surged through the air toward a large group of The Rising’s members.
The enemy paranormals realized too late that they were doomed, and I grimaced as the swarm of lightning elementals consumed them in a cloud of electricity. It was like a swarm of venomous jellyfish meeting the lethality of an electric chair.
The screams were horrible.
But what was worse was the smell of electrocuted flesh, hair, and wing membranes.
“They seem like they’re…” Kage tilted his head in confusion. “Helping?”
“They are,” I said. “They figured out who’s trying to harm them, and who’s trying to help them.”
As if it could understand my words, a small lava elemental nearby looked right at me, and I realized they had distinguishable eyes in their glowing molten faces. Two bright spots stared at me like a big puppy, and I could almost envision the lava elemental growing a wagging tail out of molten rock.
“It’s kind of cute,” Ena said.
“Not the most cuddly creature, though,” Kage countered.
I grinned for a second before the carnage of the battle took my attention again.
My shadow nymph guards had rushed around in the dark of the night to kill the majority of the enemy paranormals. The dead, gray bodies were illuminated by the irregular light of the lava and lightning elementals.
“How many are left?” I scowled over the battlefield that was caught between a tropical forest and the ocean.
“Roughly one battalion,” Ena replied. “At my last count.”
I started to nod, but a sudden light off the coast caught my attention.
“Oh, fuck,” I said as I recognized the shape of a mid-sized ship in the water. “I thought they were further up the coast?”
“They must have moved in when the capture mission started to go awry,” Ena said without worry. “We knew about them, and I was prepared for this possibility. I have three hundred shadow nymphs already boarding. In fact, that might be why the lights–”
Before Ena could continue her sentence, screams of pain echoed through the night from the ship.
“Well done, Ena,” I said.
“Thank you, your majesty.” There was a touch of pride in the shadow nymph’s rasping voice.
My eyes couldn’t see anything that was happening on the ship, but I could still watch the progress of my shadow nymphs through my mirror magic echolocation. I closed my eyes and let my magic guide me through the battle on the ship.
There were more enemy soldiers on board than I would have expected for an elemental capturing mission. I guessed The Rising had learned not to underestimate me or my forces after the centaur rescue. But there weren’t nearly enough soldiers to even have a hope of defending themselves against my shadow nymphs.
I watched one shadow nymph in particular who moved with a grace that made me think he’d been trained personally by Nyxx. His magical aura climbed up the walls of the ship and dropped down on the essence of enemy paranormals from above. His shadow blade silenced the magic of enemy soldiers quickly and decisively.
The rest of the shadow nymph guards followed behind and killed the rest of The Rising members who were left. Their dark, geometric auras washed through the ship like a death wave, and no one was left alive in their wake.
My jaw slowly went slack as I watched the number of paranormals on the ship quickly drop in half.
“Holy hell,” I breathed.
“Your majesty?” Ena asked. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” I said, and I opened my eyes to look at her. “I was watching the shadow nymphs sweep through the ship. It’s amazing to watch through my mirror magic.”
Two shadow nymphs materialized out of the shadows a few feet in front of us, and they closed the remaining distance in a few steps.
“Your majesty,” one addressed me directly before he nodded at Ena. “The ship is under our control.”
“Good,” I said. “And The Rising members on the shore?”
“Eliminated, your majesty,” he reported, and he shook his head in disbelief. “The elementals… they seemed to help us.”
“Yes,” I said.
Dozens of lightning and lava elementals started to drift and crawl their way over toward me. They seemed curious about the shadow nymphs who’d come and killed the paranormals attempting to capture them.
“I think they might be more intelligent than we thought,” I said. “What about the ship? Were there any paranormals or elementals imprisoned on board?”
“No, your majesty,” the shadow nymph said. “It appears they came prepared to capture as many elementals as they could.”
“Good,” I said. I’d already been pretty certain of that, but it was good to get confirmation from a soldier who’d seen the ship with his eyes. “What about documents, research, journals… anything like that?”
“Yes, your majesty,” the shadow nymph said. “There is a lot of paperwork and research. There are also many rooms that look much like the experimentation rooms on the centaur prison ship.”
“And holding cells, I assume?” I scowled into the distance where the prison ship rocked gently in the waves.
“Yes, your majesty,” the shadow nymph said. “Counting the containment cages they brought to the island, it appears there are roughly three hundred in total.”
“I wonder how long that would hold the goddess,” I scoffed in disgust.
“Probably not long,” Ena said. “A few weeks, maybe a few months, at best. What were they going to do when they ran out of elementals?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I still don’t even know how they intended to capture the goddess in the first place.”
Another shadow nymph appeared before us, and I guessed he’d come from the ship because he spoke with urgency on the very topic I’d just mentioned.
“We actually might have found some answers to that, your majesty,” the new shadow nymph said in a hurry.
Chapter 10
“Answers to how they’re planning to capture the goddess?” I asked.
The words burned like acid on my tongue as they left my mouth, and I fought the urge to spit on the ground to rid myself of the flavor of evil.
“Yes, your majesty,” the shadow nymph said. “We thought you’d want to see it for yourself before we began deconstructing the labs to bring back as evidence.”
“Yes, I do.” I frowned.
Ena and Kage remained on the shore to oversee the process of cleaning up the containment boxes and copper netting The Rising members had hauled up from the ship. The shadow nymphs who’d come to give me the reports led me down to the shore, where a small dinghy was waiting for us. They rowed me across to the ship and to a collapsible ladder that hung down the side.
I hauled myself up the ladder, and the shadow nymph led me through the carnage of the ship’s battle to a deck three levels down.
