Kingdom Evolution: LitRPG Gamelit Fantasy Kingdom Builder, page 37
Togashi instantly regretted not having purchased more spells, especially one that could deal with multiple targets at the same time. He was in over his head, boxed in, and the lights from the gunships above were stealing half of his shadows.
He was about to make a hasty, and likely bad decision when the doors to The Silver Chair burst open, and a mad beehive of activity unleashed itself upon the scene. Windows broke to each side, and blaster fire spread out, mowing down the soldiers who’d yet to turn around. A figure emerged from the madness, lifted a long rifle, and set to work destroying the searchlights from the hovering gunships. There were too many bolts flying about for him to move, so Togashi dropped to a knee to make himself a smaller target. When the dust settled, the streets were lined with glowing orbs, and the figure who’d shot at the gunships sprinted his way.
At first, he started to lift the moonblade, because the figure was wearing ProCor armor. It wasn’t until they removed their helmet that he lowered the weapon, but he did so out of shock, more than as a precaution.
“Welcome back, Togashi,” Keenie said in a plain, formal tone as her gloved hand reached down to him.
“No,” he muttered and shook his head. “No. You’re not Elasha’s spy. You’re not!”
“I owe you a long explanation, and maybe an apology,” she replied with a nod as the roar of more engines echoed off the walls. “But not here. Not now. Please, pull yourself together, and let’s move. We can’t stay here.”
The battle wasn’t over. Some were using the recessed doorway as cover while they fired up at the gunships, while others hurried about to deal with the remaining soldiers. It wasn’t sitting well with his stomach, especially when the woman he’d sacrificed himself to save was reaching out to help him stand. More gunships were closing in though, and slowly he drew the conclusion that now wasn’t the time to question the actions of his goddess.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” he growled, but refused her hand as he rose to his feet. “Let’s get going.”
39
Sumara shook her head as she stared at the map, disbelieving what her eyes were telling her. The number of evolved Asmir soldiers had plummeted an hour ago, and reports of a bright purple and white beam of light had been in the mix.
She wouldn’t dare. Elasha wouldn’t dare send that little whelp into battle. He couldn’t possibly be ready. You were meant to watch, little sister, not interfere with my plans.
Sumara was still seething over the reports when a call came in. After checking the map, she let the air slip between her dark lips, then pressed the button to accept the call.
“Rayden, it’s about time,” she growled when his image appeared on the screen. “Please tell me that you didn’t get lost along the way.”
“We’re approaching the city now. We lost a few ships though, due to fueling issues. Flying to and from Stone Garden…”
“Do not call it that!” she hissed with a sneer. “The name no longer applies. This is Sun Guard. Now, and forever.”
“Yes, goddess. I’ll be on the ground in a few minutes.”
“It would seem that Elasha has sent her champion to thwart us.”
“A champion, so soon?”
“He is no match for you, I promise. Finish him quickly. I’ll allow my sister to select a new champion, so long as she learns from this mistake. When he is dead, go to the temple and deal with Lavora. The soldiers can show you the way.”
“You want me to…”
She ended the call before he could finish.
40
While he’d never been stupid enough to waste his credits, or time, in The Silver Chair, he doubted it looked like this. All of the tables had been shoved against the windows, or moved toward the door to make it more difficult to get past. Smoke came from a hallway to his right, and he turned to find Keenie staring at it with her helmet tucked under one arm, and the rifle in the other.
“Someone wreck the bathroom?”
“There may have been a little accident in the office,” she sighed and set the helmet down on a table. “With Mr. Soto still inside.”
“You killed your boss?”
“In all fairness, he had his goons shoot at us once we quit dancing and pulled these suits out of the storage room he didn’t know existed. Oh, and there’s an escape tunnel too, which is where we’re heading.”
He was about to ask how long it’d taken to build everything without Soto knowing when a meaty hand clamped down on his shoulder. He turned, then looked up to find San smiling down at him, wearing ProCor armor that must have been tailored to fit his massive frame.
“About time you got into this fight,” he chuckled, then smacked Togashi on the back. “And good job taking the fall for our leader here. This little rebellion would be nothing without her.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking I know why they call you Star now,” he sighed while staring at Keenie. She had two looks about her, like her emotions were fighting to overtake the other. She looked broken, like all the lies she’d told him had her entire body twisted in guilt. At the same time, she looked pissed, like he was intentionally delaying her plans, and was about to smack his face to get him moving.
“We need to go,” she stated, then turned and raised her voice. “That goes for everyone. We need to get to the temple.”
“It’s still standing? We thought that Sumara would have taken Lavora’s goddess stone with her.”
“Still standing, so it’s here, and we need to get to it,” she growled, picked up her helmet, and stormed to the back without bothering to offer further information.
San clapped his back again, then hefted a rifle that had to weigh as much as Keenie against his shoulder. He wanted to know where the armor had come from, or the weapons, or how long they’d been planning on keeping their rebellion a secret. It all seemed like relevant information, which was why he had to remind himself why he was here.
“We should be out on the streets, protecting the people,” he growled as he hurried past the row of rebels moving down the hall. Keenie was standing at the end, pushing a hidden doorway open that had blended into the wall itself perfectly a moment ago.
“We can’t take on all of ProCor by ourselves,” Keenie called back as she handed off the hidden door and started down the stairs. “We risked everything to get you off of the streets. Which reminds me. I’ve got a few choice words to say to Elasha, given that she sent you here way before you were ready.”
“Hey, I’m a champion, and you don’t even know what I’ve been doing since you saw me last.”
“Don’t I?” she called back over the seven bodies between them. “Keep quiet for a bit. There are areas of these tunnels that carry noise to the surface, especially the storm drains.”
That explains where the tunnels came from.
Keenie was right though. As they hurried from the tunnel to the storm drains, he could hear the hover cars overhead, as well as the stomping of armored boots, and the occasional engine from a gunship. He could hear the screams as well though, and being beneath them wasn’t sitting well with his stomach. Not one bit.
“I need to get up there,” he growled when he couldn’t stand the screaming any longer. “I can’t hide like this.”
“We’ll need you at the temple,” Keenie replied without bothering to slow down. “Sooner or later, those freaks are going to get off a lucky shot, and you’ll be dead. You can’t save anyone if you’re dead, by the way.”
“I can’t save anyone down here either!”
Keenie let out a growl, then pushed her way back to him, bumping and shoving the others from her path. He couldn’t recall ever seeing her so angry, but, considering the circumstances, it was difficult to blame her.
“Listen, champion…”
“Crap. Don’t tell me that you’re mad because I was picked…”
“You weren’t picked. You were sacrificed, like a stupid little sheep to the slaughter,” she hissed, grabbed his chest guard, and tried to jerk him closer, only to have her hand slip away. “Okay, you’re a bit bigger than I remember, but still. Well, a lot bigger. Wow, you really beefed up.”
“Hey! Weren’t you scolding me, or something?”
“Oh, yeah, right. Look, I know you want to help people, but you’ve got to be smart about it. We didn’t suffer in the shadows just so we could die here tonight. Which, it’s almost morning, so you need to either listen to me, and get moving, or crawl your way up to the streets and probably die. Make a choice.”
“I think I liked you better before.”
It was the last thing he said before he motioned for her to lead them on, although he did occasionally speed things along by running ahead, forcing them to keep up. His increase in stamina left him feeling like he could run all day without growing tired, but he knew his body would eventually wear out, no matter how many orbs were spent on it.
“This is it,” Keenie announced with a nod at the markings on the wall next to the metal rungs leading up. “This will bring us right into their stomachs.”
So the tunnels are its asshole?
“Really not sure that’s where we want to be.”
He understood what she meant by ‘stomach’ as soon as his head popped out of the tunnel. The structures before him were far too familiar, and he looked down the row, taking a mental inventory of the kingdom. There were four barracks, an evolution center, and modern housing that were stacked on top of one another, leaving him questioning how he could save space by replicating their layout. There were also elevators at the far end, which he assumed they would have to take to reach the surface.
“We’re five stories below the ground, with the temple right over our heads,” Keenie announced while motioning for the others to get moving. “We don’t know where they’re keeping Lavora, but we must get to her.”
“They’re probably guarding her though, right?”
“We can assume that, yes,” she sighed as San moved past them. “Look, Togashi, we’ll do our best to get you there, but we both know that not all of us are going to make it.”
“Then just tell me where to go,” he grumbled and started toward the elevators, only to have her cut him off.
“Togashi, we’re sworn to protect you, which means there’s nothing you can say that’ll keep us from following you to the end. I know you’ve always felt like you were watching out for me, but, in truth, I was watching out for everyone.”
“We don’t have all night to argue this,” he groaned and started ahead again. “Fine, you’ll come along, for now.”
“Funny, I was going to say the same thing about you.”
The elevator ride felt like an eternity, with his adrenaline slowly draining. All the while, he watched the numbers for the floors change, knowing that each moment he wasn’t fighting would see more Asmir perishing.
I never should have stopped moving. I could have run, I could have picked off the soldiers here and there, then led them to where I wanted to fight them. This doesn’t feel right. Keenie shouldn’t be here, or any of these other people.
The highest floor number lit up, then the doors opened. A guard stood on the other side, requiring several weapons to be aimed at their face while they held out their hands to show they were unarmed.
“Keenie, it’s me.”
“Nearly shot you, big brother,” she laughed, clapped his armored shoulder, then hurried ahead with everyone else in tow. Togashi stared at him for a moment, knowing that it was Devo’s actions that saw him surviving until the temple was underway. He couldn’t say if Devo knew what was going to happen, but he suspected that the brother had a clue.
They didn’t roam the halls of the temple for long. Dozens of soldiers swarmed them, pouring from doorways and hallways, filling the air with blaster fire. A rebel fell right in front of Togashi, who took their arm and dragged them to an open door, only to have Keenie bat him away.
“She’s dead, and she’s slowing you down. San, clear the hall.”
The news of the death broke a nerve in his brain, which allowed Keenie to shove him into the doorway while San stepped into the open. The large brute lifted his heavy weapon and unloaded it on the hallway, freeing the others to duck for cover. Another rebel was shot before they could jump into the doorway, leaving Togashi to watch as they turned into a fiery orb before his eyes. San would follow if he didn’t do something, proven by the two shots that had just slammed off of his shoulder.
“No,” he muttered, yanked his arm away from Keenie, and walked out into the open. “No!”
He could hear Keenie screaming, but he was done taking her orders. After grabbing ahold of San, he shadow jumped to the next room, let the brute go, and stormed back into the hallway. As soon as he found a shadow behind the soldiers, he jumped into it, then darted about, slashing through their armor with the moonblade. The soldiers redirected their fire, which left them open to the rifles that picked them off from behind. Togashi took a few shots in the process, but he shrugged them off and stormed down the hall.
Keenie was shouting for him to come back, but he was done listening. A shadow jump here, a slash there, and soon he turned a corner to find where Lavora was being held. It had to be the place, because there were twenty soldiers waiting for him.
He never gave them a chance to lock on. The idiots had lights on the walls, which offered him a shadow for every soldier. He jumped from one to the next, slashing, hacking, jabbing. Two fell, then four, then eight. Sometimes they shot their fellow soldiers, because he’d shadow jump just before they squeezed the trigger. By the time Keenie’s voice registered, he was standing in a mix of orbs and bodies, staring at the console to the door.
“I can get that,” Devo announced and charged past them, offering Togashi a slap to his shoulder along the way.
“I can’t believe you just did that. You are so reckless, Togashi! Hasn’t Elasha taught you anything? I know I should be thanking you, but…”
Something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones, in his skin, and in his core. At the same time, the familiar tingle he felt whenever Elasha touched him had returned, but it was different, painful, like electricity, and it was all focused in his skull.
“Someone’s here,” he muttered and turned to look back down the hall. “Someone powerful.”
“Damn, Sumara sent her champion,” she hissed and ran over to her brother. “You need to hurry.”
“I’m going as fast as I can,” he growled and pulled her hand off of his shoulder. “It’s a long code and I’m doing this from memory. So, if it isn’t too much to ask, kindly shut up.”
Togashi looked over at his old friends, recalling all the dinners they’d shared, along with the stories, the laughter. He didn’t know if they’d faked it all, but, in his heart, he swore it was the real thing. At the moment, he didn’t care if they’d kept secrets from him, because he had to accept why they left him in the dark. He wasn’t one of them at the time. He wasn’t a rebel. He was just a factory worker who happened to live next door to one. They needed time. Lavora needed to be freed, then she could choose one of the rebels to become her champion. White Vale would be safe, so long as that happened, which meant that they needed time to get into the door.
“I’m going to buy you some time,” he muttered and started down the hall.
“No, Togashi…”
He was done listening. With three quick shadow jumps, he was gone, following the feeling that grew stronger with each leap. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw when he turned the corner, but neither was the strange man walking toward him.
“Back off,” the man ordered to the soldiers before him. “This one is mine.”
Togashi knew it was Sumara’s champion, but he wasn’t expecting to see an armored elf with a trimmed beard, glowing gold eyes, and an enormous sword hanging from his back. He looked older, if Togashi squinted, yet familiar at the same time.
“You must be Togashi, Elasha’s champion,” the man announced as the soldiers spread out to form a line that blocked the rest of the hallway. “I must say, I was expecting someone a bit…”
“Bigger?”
“Older, actually. I should introduce myself first though. Manners are important, after all. My name is General Rayden Dakima, former head of ProCor, newly appointed champion of Sumara, the sun goddess.”
“Whipping boy to a monster, you mean,” Togashi chuckled as he tried to figure out how he was going to get out of this mess. The power resonating from the man made his knees weak, and the moonblade shaking in his hand certainly didn’t improve the situation any.
