Washington, D.C., November 2056

  “Faster, kitties! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

  Ranger Kyatra hissed and snarled all over the comms.

  Dastardly glanced at the young man out of the corner of her eye.

  She sighed and turned her attention back to the fancy mansion in the middle of a perfectly mowed lawn.

  Lots of fancy plants and fancier shrubs.

  Even had the fanciest birds roaming the place… well… had.

  The poor things had taken off as soon as the shooting and explosions had started.

  Probably monster food in the surrounding woods by now.

  The mansion sat in the middle of a lot of acres a short distance outside the city.

  Bunch of rich shits in their mansions and acres doing all sorts of rich shit, like smearing their shit all over each other or something. It wasn’t like she knew what rich shits got up to in their deviant shit-related activities.

  Her company’s Quest was to rescue the victims of said rich shit stuff and, possibly, kill the rich.

  Dastardly’s Daughters.

  That was her company.

  Not her idea.

  Terrible name.

  For one thing, she was too old to have daughters.

  Her ovaries had to have dried up by now… God willing.

  And if she wasn’t about being a breeder, then she sure as hell wasn’t about to mom up for a bunch of crazy rangers.

  Secondly, they weren’t all women.

  It was a good, diverse mix of men, women and other.

  “Go for his eyes, Violencia! The throat, Clawgamuffin! The throat! Rip and tear! Raaarrrggh!”

  “Jesus-fucking-Christ!” Lt. Nightknight kept his words off the comms. “Captain… I think Kyatra’s getting worse with the… the whole cat thing.” He wiggled fingers in a vague, possibly, cat-like manner.

  “Hrrmm… the class changes us,” she mused.

  That sounded profound to her, so she nodded with smug satisfaction.

  “Queen of Mean! Simbacules! Combination Cattack: Ballcutter X-Cross!”

  Dastardly cleared her throat.

  “Lieutenant…”

  Nightknight trudged over to Kyatra.

  “Ranger, don’t forget the civilian staff.”

  Kyatra turned with a hiss, but had the decency to look ashamed an instant after.

  “Sorry, sir! Of course, sir. We wouldn’t forget. Approved targets only.”

  “Good job!”

  Nightknight ambled back to her side.

  “Was it just me or are his eyes getting way more slitted?”

  “I think so, captain. His fangs are getting more pronounced as well.”

  “Cat-holic the sausage is yours! Rend it to nothing! Take his pride before you take his life! Hahahahaha!”

  She exchanged a look with her lieutenant.

  “So… status on the other mansions?”

  Nightknight sent out a request over the comms.

  Replies came in almost immediately.

  “Progressing within projections. We’re the ones lagging.”

  “Understood.”

  Dastardly’s squad for this mansion was smaller than the other squads hitting the other places on account of their high levels and the opposition within.

  There was a reason that she let Kyatra cut loose.

  “No, Joshua! No! Bad cat! Not him!” Kyatra laughed sheepishly. “Sorry, sirs. Found a butler hiding in a bathroom.”

  “Mind the noncombatants, ranger.”

  “Yessir! Absolutely, sir!” the young ranger nodded. “There. Joshua’s dragging the old man to a window.”

  “First floor?” Nightknight raised a brow.

  “Yeah… totally… first floor… Joshua! Use a first floor window, Joshua!” he hissed. “Stop it, Cat-tastrophy! Kill and move on! Do not play in guts!”

  “Are we committing war crimes, captain?”

  “No, lieutenant. Cats are independent, free thinking creatures out of our direct control.”

  “Well, yeah. You don’t lay war crimes on the nuclear bomb, but on the people that ordered the button pushing.”

  “I’d hardly draw even the remotest equivalency between Kyatra’s cat squad and a fucking nuke. You’re better than that, lieutenant.”

  “I try, captain.”

  “So… five more minutes?”

  “Five minutes, Kyatra! Then you call them back, you got me!”

  “Copy that, sir!”

  It turned out to take less than five for the cat kill squad to de-live the mansion’s above ground floors of American soldiers and the senator’s private security forces as if they were pestilential mice in a barn.

  “Instant Recall.”

  Kyatra took a knee as his cats popped out of thin air around him.

  “Great job, my friends!”

  “Do they look bigger to you, lieutenant?”

  “I believe so, captain.”

  “Good…” she shrugged.

  The cats were cats.

  A variety of domestic breeds.

  Except, they were noticeably more muscular than the normal pet cat.

  About twice the weight on account of increased cellular density.

  Somehow, Kyatra had turned his cats into the feline equivalent of the old American supersoldiers.

  “Goddamn yoked-ass cats,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Alright, great job, Kyatra. You too, kill cat squad. Way to brutalize those scumbags. Now, get back to the staging area and regain some stamina just in case we need you later.” She turned to Nightknight. “Check with the Raynarizard. Let them know we’re about to move. Make sure they’re ready for the kids.” She turned to the rest of her small squad. “Alright, y’all aren’t gonna let a herd of super cats show you up, are you?”

  “No, sir. I promise to commit even more gruesome acts of carnage than the literal Queen of Mean and, uh, Joshua,” Ranger Morphinox said. “All in your name, captain.”

  “Goddamnit, Morphinox! What’d I tell you about trying to get me apotheosis after I die?”

  “Don’t know what that is, sir. I’m just trying to turn you into a god. You wouldn’t be worse than those golden shitcakes.”

  “God of Dastards? Does have a nice sound to it,” Ranger Fannypack said. “What would you be the god of?”

  They laughed.

  Daughters?

  More like pains in her ass.

  “The god of boots up your asses! Now, lock in. We’re going.”

  She pulled a dull gray, metal case from one of her compartments of holding.

  Like drawing a short sword.

  A special, singular bolt that she made herself.

  Well… technically, she had a whole team helping, but most of the work was her and her Skills.

  She could create one bolt every six months.

  The string of her sleek, dark gray arbalest drew back at a press of a button.

  Load.

  Sight.

  Squeeze.

  The bolt zipped across the expansive lawn and into a broken front window.

  “Wait for it.”

  When it reached the center most point of the mansion it exploded.

  Not with light, fire or any other element.

  In fact, the only sign that the payload did anything was the faint expansion of visible air.

  Like an almost gentle shockwave.

  One that utterly disintegrated anything that wasn’t living organic tissue in a large radius.

  The mansion vanished, including the floors. Followed by the enchantments on the thick, steel doors leading to the underground bunker. Then the doors themselves.

  Dastardly drew the string back with a touch and selected the next bolt by looking at the icon in her HUD.

  Gentle Starburst.

  Her name for it.

  A bright flash of light that stunned without lasting damage.

  She wasn’t about to use Starburst on a bunch of kids.

  “Go! Kill ‘em all and let God sort them out!”

  Her rangers knew what she meant.

  Nightknight banged armored fist on large, spiked shield.

  “Form up on my ass. I Carry My Team In My Wake. Stampede Charge.”

  The ranger knight had his armor painted with the blackest black to look like a deep void.

  Like a wound in the night or a doorway into some unknowable abyss.

  Dastardly closed the arms of her arbalest flat against the stock and tossed the slim weapon over her shoulder.

  Magnetic tech sucked it into its holding slot.

  Out of the way. Out of mind.

  She loved how convenient everything was.

  Dual pistol-style crossbows fed by a drum-style magazine were in her hands in a flash.

  A Skill to skip the drawing process from one of her armor’s compartments of holding.

  She hopped into Nightknight’s wake.

  Her boots pounded the grass at a rate beyond what was humanly possible.

  Didn’t even hurt.

  Nightknight’s charge carried the squad up the lawn.

  A few armed men climbed out of the hole in the ground over which a disgustingly opulent mansion once stood.

  These ones were strong enough or had the right kind of counter to her stunning light flash.

  They blinked like the cave-dwelling, degenerate troglodytes they were at their core.

  Nightknight hit a soldier like a truck hits a bug.

  Bloody explosion.

  Then the rangers were jumping into the depths of a depraved hell.

  Ranger Bacon Nuggets pulled shuriken from the pouch of holding at the small of her back. Four between the fingers of each hand.

  “Lighting Shuriken.” She flicked them across the large bunker room.

  Soldiers seized up as the shocking stars punctured their exposed faces or throats.

  Her fingers danced in an intricate pattern.

  “Violent Clone Technique.”

  A puff of smoke.

  Six Bacon Nuggets bounded out and began killing with weapons or hands.

  “Darkness.” Morphinox pointed at a room of armed men scrambling for their weapons. He gestured to his work with a satisfied bow.

  Dastardly rolled her eyes as she filled the darkness with explosive bolts.

  She served up two-fisted justice without hesitation or regret.

  Soldier fired back.

  Bullets, even armor-piercers bounced of her fancy armor.

  A fireball exploded in her face, knocking her back to the grass.

  “Taunt!” a deep voice boomed.

  She felt the sudden urge to shoot the speaker, but shook it off.

  Level difference.

  “Commanding Presence.” A different voice.

  She pictured a snake dipped in honey.

  “Compelling Words: Lay down your weapons and let’s discuss this. I’m a very important and powerful senator. You know that you don’t want to get on my bad side. The same way you know that I can provide you with what you want.”

  Harder to shake off, but… what did she want again?

  Why was she here?

  “Why are we here, rangers!” she called out as she rose and searched for the speaker.

  “To kill a bunch of degenerate pedophile rapists!” Bacon Nuggets said.

  “To save innocent children!” NightKnight said.

  “Same!” others echoed.

  “I wanted to try my new spell,” Morphinox said. “And to save the kiddies, of course.”

  “I also want to save the kids and I’m going to stick things in all your holes, Senator Pedo,” Fannypack said flatly.

  “Jesus-fucking-Christ… why did I get all the psychos?” NightKnight muttered.

  “You heard my daughters.” Dastardly chuckled. “Ranger Captain’s Command: Kill them all and save the children!” She made a mental note to not allow Fannypack to do a war crime.

  “Taunt!”

  “Weak,” NightKnight snorted at the heavily armored soldier. “This is how you do it. Taunt.” He slammed the edge of his spiked shield into the floor.

  Every soldier and private security in the first floor of the bunker charged the ranger knight or turned their fire on him.

  “Knight’s Bastion.”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Behind shield and armor, NightKnight tanked everything.

  “Seems unfair?” Fannypack said as she took careful aim with her recoilless assault rifle and started shooting.

  “They shouldn’t have been pedo rapists if they wanted fair,” Bacon Nuggets, six of her, cut and slashed, blurring from target to target as she carefully stayed out of the firing lanes.

  “Noxblade.” Morphinox sent three soldiers to their eternal sleep with one slash of an impossibly long blade of darkness. “Agreed.”

  “Y’all are enjoying this too much.” Ranger Ramentime blasted men to chunks with her quad-barreled automatic shotgun. A personal design and build that looked impractically large and bulky, yet she swung around like a submachine gun. Despite her words, the wide grin never left her face.

  To be fair…

  Dastardly enjoyed putting down monsters.

  In human form or otherwise.

  She popped tough guys in the face with bolts that punched like heavy grain rifle rounds.

  The kind one shot big-ass animals with.

  “Captain.” A soft whisper tickled her ears somehow, despite her wearing a helmet.

  “Son of a—” she jerked and almost spun into a snap shot. “How many times have I told you not to do that, Solo-L?”

  The shadow scout had creepily slid up out of her shadow like a weirdo, then posed for some weird reason.

  “Never mind. Tell me you have good news.”

  “Sorry—”

  “That word never leads good news.”

  “The children are in the third sublevel. There are wards preventing communication or I would’ve used the comms and got in position to try to save them.”

  “Hold up? What do you mean ‘save them’?”

  “Our evil enemies are preparing to sacrifice them in a foul ritual to provide them with the magical power to punch through our blocking spells.”

  Damn.

  She had the secret exits down near the road at the base of the hills and out in the nearby woods leading to a helicopter locked down with rangers.

  The only way out was through magical means, which she had been counting on to be blocked.

  “Alright. Now’s not the time to shit talk our enemies. Back to comms only.”

  “I heard, captain.” NightKnight said. “Take everyone. I’ll deal with these weaklings and catch up.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “Not enough to fight our way through the traps and soldiers in Sublevels 2 and 3,” Solo-L said.

  “Perfect.” She absentmindedly shot a soldier chopping away at NightKnight’s armored knee through the eye. “Listen up. We’re doing a tag out switch. You got that, Baconator?”

  “Copy that, captain.” The shinobi of the four elements sighed and dismissed her violent clones before popping up with an arm around Solo-L’s slim shoulders a second later. “So, everyone, but NightKnight?”

  “You got it.”

  “Let’s go, Solo-L! Shadow walk with me!” she giggled. “I know it’s tough, but try to resist sneaking a feel of my twin nuggets.”

  “You’re wearing armor. And I’m gay.”

  So said, the shadow scout took the shinobi’s wrist and melted into the shadow.

  “Ten seconds! Be Ready! I’m activating squad coordination the moment we’re out!”

  Five seconds.

  One second.

  The switch with the clones came with an unpleasant clenching around one’s guts, but they were used to it.

  Dastardly thrust one crossbow behind her back and fired at the mage with a hand wreathed in dark green flames poised to strike her.

  She kept her eyes on the juggernaut clad in thick plate armor so that Ramentime could blast a hole through his chest, while rolling under the sweeping sword of a warrior.

  She did for Ramentime what Morphinox did for her.

  Rangers swept through the dark chamber with the perfect efficiency of perfect teamwork.

  They could see through each others eyes and hear through each others ears.

  Each one a part of a machine.

  A killing machine.

  She spotted the senator behind heavily armed and armored guards using Solo-L’s eyes as he lurked mostly within a shadow on the ceiling.

  The pedo rapist was in a fancy suit with a fancy looking chestplate in sculpted gold.

  Her HUD told her that it was heavily enchanted.

  The perks of selling out to an outworld invader.

  She fired an exploratory MIRV bolt in the senator’s direction.

  The bodyguard intercepted the individual split boltheads with a mix of spells, Skills and a shield with a snake-haired creature carved into its rounded surface.

  She didn’t like how the eyes on the thing seemed alive.

  “Watch the shield? Medusa-type enchantment likely.”

  “She can’t stone what she can’t see,” Morphinox said as he plunged his blade of darkness through a soldier’s armored chest. “Hmm… this has been too easy.”

  “Do it.”

  “The curtain falls.” He cast a fluttering wall of darkness around the senator.

  “C’mon, man!” Ramentime snorted. “You’re such a drama princess. ‘The curtain falls’? Like we all don’t know that it’s just a wall of darkness spell.”

  “Presentation matters. It intimidates and confuses the enemy.”

  “You confuse yourself.”

  “That… doesn’t make sense.”

  “See!”

  “Curse of Greed!” An enemy mage smiled, blasting Fannypack in the faceplate.

  The smile faded as Fannypack merely let her recoilless assault rifle drop in its sling to draw a long, stiff dagger.

  She leapt on the mage and stabbed repeatedly as the man cried out for help that didn’t come.

  “Weren’t you listening? What I most want right now is to stab things into pedo rapists!” She cackled. “Gonna stab you all! You hear me! Stabbitystabstabstab!”

  “Fire Clone Technique.”

  Six fire clones.

  Three to form a barrier between the cursed Fannypack and the next closest set of enemy soldiers and noncombatants.

  Three to attack said soldiers and noncombatants.

  Bacon Nuggets relied on her HUD to pick targets that deserved death versus the ones that didn’t.

  Not many of the latter.

  The people that made it to bunker during their initial attack had been the senator and his closest personal friends, allies and cronies.

  In their haste to preserve their safeties they had forbidden most of their servants from joining them in the hopes that they’d slow the attack down as human meat shields.

  A fire clone took a burst of assault rifle fire.

  Bullets turned into molten slag as they passed through her body.

  The soldier took a flaming knife hand to the throat.

  Fire and crushing equaled a dead soldier.

  A fat man tried to use a voice-type Skill.

  A fire clone didn’t technically have ears.

  A bacon-like smell filled the chamber.

  Ironic, but Bacon Nuggets couldn’t smell it at the moment.

  “Gonna eat—! I mean, gonna stab the rich!” Fannypack’s cackling made them tremble as they pushed themselves up against the dark-tiled wall. “How much are they paying you? Is it still worth it?” She focused her mad gaze upon the armed men.

  “It’s our job—” a soldier snapped. “Patriot Rush!”

  A combo Skill.

  Melee and ranged.

  The soldier dashed forward on suddenly sure footing.

  Carbine burst to a fire clone before she could dive on top of his fellow soldiers. Dive roll under a pair of crossbow bolts. Rise up into a burst to the armored chest of a mad ranger with a stabbing dagger.

  Stab.

  Parry.

  Stab.

  Low kick. Rifle butt smash. Burst.

  Darkness blade.

  Bob and weave.

  Draw knife.

  Low kick. Switch kick.

  Stab.

  Counter stab.

  Parry.

  Cut.

  Stab.

  Clinch knees.

  Slash.

  Duck under.

  Suplex.

  Grenade.

  “Crazy bastard.” Fannypack rose. She tapped her armored chest. “Thanks. You knocked some sense into me.”

  The soldier choked and gasped.

  His face and neck were charred black and wept red.

  “That was brave. You got a name?”

  He gurgled.

  “That’s a shame.” She regarded his name tag. “I’ll take that and maybe try to find some ID on your body after this is done. Can’t say I admire a man that follows orders to protect pedo rapists. You got what you got because it’s what you earned.” She ended his suffering with a swift stab.

  “The children,” Solo-L said.

  They were gathered in the middle of a large ritual circle behind the senator and his best bodyguards.

  Shimmering walls of magic light separated them from the rest of the chamber.

  A man in a crimson and black robe methodically cut a child’s wrist and pushed her into the circle to join others.

  Strangely, all the children stared glassy-eyed at nothing as they allowed themselves to be arranged into position by other men in crimson and black robes.

  Dastardly fired a bolt into the magical barrier.

  The explosion shook the chamber and made it rain dust, but the barrier remained stable.

  Which was weird because she hadn’t used an explosive bolt.

  “That was an anti-barrier shot.”

  “It’s drawing power from years of blood sacrifice. It’s seeped into the tiles,” Morphinox said.

  Ramentime tried it with her shotgun to similar non-effect.

  The senator smirked behind his armed men and barrier.

  “Thought Provoking Statements.” He nodded to Dastardly. “Nineteen under-aged men and women. An insignificant number in the calculation of our society. A number easily replaced because there will always be more. Are their lives worth the expense of your time? You are clearly high level and your gear is expensive beyond what even I’m used to. I can see how much each of you costs. And the sum total of you dwarfs the value of these simple orphans.”

  “Fuck you, fuckwad!” Fannypack spat. “You can’t call them that when you had their parents killed in the first place.”

  The senator’s smile didn’t slip an inch.

  Dastardly thought he was something that only wore a human mask.

  Handsome for his age.

  Distinguished.

  But it didn’t go past the skin.

  “Captain. I’ve got an idea. Let me use my new spell,” Morphinox said. “There’s a sliver of a gap around the barrier’s edges. If I can get the mages—”

  “Do it.”

  “Hungry Fingers of the Empty Night,” he whispered.

  Dastardly shivered.

  “More like creepy fingers of the creepy night,” Ramentime muttered.

  “Do you want my enmity in the future? the senator continued. “All you have to do to avoid that is to leave. Just walk away right now.”

  His statements might have provoked more thought in her and the rangers had it not been for their focus, her command Skill and their levels.

  Senator was a powerful political class-type, but he was lower level than all of them.

  Plus, they weren’t part of his country.

  Any oaths she might’ve sworn belonged to the America of the pre-spires days.

  One that no longer existed for her, despite what Rightful Destiny tried to convince her with the barrel of a gun pointed in her face.

  It had even less weight with the younger members of her squad.

  Most were born after the spires.

  America was just a cautionary history lesson to them.

  The odious senator couldn’t sway them with his words.

  “In fact, I’d like to tender offers to each of you on an individual basis. Employment. A blank check. Whatever you desire is yours—”

  Words of a corrupter.

  “I’m gonna stop you right there. Your words of corruption shall find no purchase. For we are armored with integrity,” she intoned in her most pompous voice. “You’re a filthy copy of a man. A piece of excrement, really. Your passion is a harem of prepubescent boys and girls. Mine is ridding the world of your kind.” Truth was that her artisinal crossbow work was her number one passion. However, killing rapist pedos was up there on the list after the crossbows. And it was climbing by the second.

  “I’m a powerful man with many powerful friends—”

  “Not these ones!” Fannypack called out cheerfully from the other side of the chamber. “They dead!” She waved her red-slicked stabbing dagger while standing amidst fat corpses and burned corpses.

  Bacon Nuggets fire clones stood with her.

  At least she’s not cackling anymore, Dastardly thought.

  The senator continued calmly.

  “The president—”

  She raised a brow.

  “The eidolons—”

  She raised it higher.

  “Demigods—”

  She couldn’t go higher.

  “Suiteonemiades—”

  “Won’t survive the night.”

  Probably, she crossed mental fingers.

  “So, clearly, you are worthless.” She made her faceplate clear with a thought. “Look into my eyes. You’re finished. Only question left to answer is alive or dead?”

  The senator laughed.

  “Damn! I thought you were some kind of peak warrior. Look at you. You’re old and wrinkled. Wait? Were those your cats? Are you a literal childless cat lady?” he sneered. “Well, that’s one way to turn a useless passion into something with, admittedly, some use.”

  “I’m not a cat lady. Nor am I childless. I say that those children you’re trying to sacrifice are my children now. So keep in mind that you’re standing between me and my babies.” She turned a cold stare at the bodyguard, catching each of their eyes with a technique honed from decades of wrangling rangers of all ages. “That goes for all of you.”

  “Very well. You shouldn’t have rejected my generosity. I will be a terrible foe for all of you. None of you will ever be safe. I will find your families and I will own them,” the senator said with the same tone that one would use to discuss pleasant weather. “Now, would you open my gate out of here.” He glanced back to the ritual circle.

  Fingers of darkness had wrapped around each crimson and black-robed mage.

  Their bodies shook as they slowly desiccated.

  Only the head mage remained strong enough to slash at the black finger wrapped around his body like a snake.

  The strange claw dagger glowed with an eerie green light that grew brighter with every slash.

  Morphinox allowed his faceplate to go clear.

  The better for the Americans to see his eyes go completely black.

  A blackness that spread miniature fingers across his dark brown face.

  “Their souls are mine.” His startlingly white grin seemed to spread too wide across his face. “You shall join them in my darkness eternal.”

  Ramentime sighed.

  “See, I told him he was a drama baroness.”

  The senator cursed.

  Unflappable no longer.

  He snapped, exhorting his stunned bodyguard to action.

  “Bodyguard: Grizzly Bear Strength. Bodyguard: Steelskin. Bodyguard: Spell Overclock. Protect Me With Your Lives. Blood of Patriots!” An American flag coalesced in the senator’s hand. He stabbed the pole into the dark tile.

  Stars spangled, red rockets flew and a bald eagle cried.

  “Look at it waver,” Dastardly sneered. “Belief is strength for that kind of Skill. You just can’t lie your way past that.”

  “It doesn’t matter. They’ve done most of the work. I just need to finish the sacrifices.”

  The senator rushed to rip the claw dagger from the struggling mage.

  “What are you doing? Help me out of this?” the mage’s eyes widened just before the senator stabbed the dagger into his throat.

  The yellow barrier wavered then fell.

  “Solo-L!”

  The ranger climbed out of the senator’s shadow, shooting and cutting.

  Enchanted breastplate and clothing saved the odious man.

  “Get Away From Me, Filth!” the senator snarled.

  Solo-L backed away only for an instant, but it was enough.

  “Damn shame,” Dastardly muttered. “Didn’t want to use this, but sometimes you got to do war crimes.” She switched out the bolts in her pistol crossbows with a Skill. “Meh… not like he’s a real person anyways.”

  She aimed carefully and activated another Skill just in case.

  Her margin for error wasn’t great.

  He was close to the kids and Solo-L.

  “Back off, Solo-L!”

  She staggered the trigger pulls.

  Left bolt zipped past the senator’s back to his left side.

  Right bolt zoomed toward his right shoulder.

  “Boom.”

  Both bolts activated at the same time.

  Vortex Bolts.

  Mini vortexes, kind of like a black hole, not nearly as scary.

  Scary enough to rip limbs off, though.

  She sighed with relief as the senator screamed.

  “Got the radiuses right.” She nodded with smug satisfaction. “Secure him, Solo-L. Don’t let him pull some last minute bullshit.”

  Sadly, the senator didn’t die right away, which meant his Skills were still in effect.

  His remaining soldiers and bodyguards split.

  Half went to save him, half continued to fight her squad.

  Not that it was much of a fight.

  “Water Clone Technique.”

  Six Bacon Nuggets in water form replaced the fiery ones.

  Five splashed into enemy mouths open with rage.

  The enemy fought.

  The enemy drowned.

  Ramentime grinned as she punched holes in armored bodies with her ridiculous quad-barreled shotgun.

  “Come… embrace the total darkness of death!” Morphinox intoned. “Feel the sweet caress of the night’s fingers.”

  Yeah… she was going to have to schedule a few talks.

  Get them re-centered.

  A little crazy was fine, but one didn’t go full crazy.

  At least Fannypack had reined it in.

  She seemed to content to shoot with the recoilless assault rifle rather than stay stab happy.

  As for the enemy rushing toward the senator?

  Dastardly just shot them in the back.

  “Damn shame that…”

  She shrugged.

  “Oh! That’s right.” She almost forgot. “Yo, NightKnight, you good?”

  “I’m hanging in here, sir. If you’re contacting me then I assume you’re done? Kids alright?”

  “Yup. Senator pedo raper is down a few arms. Kids are about to get portaled up to the Raynarizard.

  “Great to hear!”

  “Sounding a little out of breath there.”

  “Well, if you’re done there then… not that I can’t hold out for longer. These guys aren’t exactly the greatest. Thinned them out a bit already. Figure I can finish them all myself in another ten or so, but I wouldn’t be opposed to some help.”

  “I’m sending Solo-L. He hasn’t had to work as much as the others. Clear out your mobs and head on down. We’re skipping the rest of their guys on Sublevel 2 and getting the fuck out of this shithole.”

  “Copy that, captain.”

  She dispensed orders.

  Solo-L to go help NightKnight.

  Morphinox to block the door leading up to Sublevel 2 and the rest of the senator’s fighters.

  Ramentime and Bacon Nuggets to handle the stoning of the children. They were the least crazy looking of her squad.

  The two quickly and efficiently activated portal stones and placed them in the listless children’s hands.

  She ordered Fannypack to—

  “Captain. I made a promise with that pseudo man.” The ranger nodded toward the writhing senator. “You know… I kinda have to stick things in his holes…” She grinned sheepishly.

  — stand in the farthest corner.

  Dastardly ambled over to the senator.

  “For crimes against humanity…”

  He sputtered something about due process and trials.

  “Pffttt.” She aimed. “You’ve got thousands of hours of videos. Oh, don’t worry about them. I destroyed the copies you had on site, but your own spies took and kept more and we’re probably going to be getting those. So, relax, your place in history is secured. Senator Rapist Pedo. Burn in hell.”

  The bolt pierced his forehead.

  The attached spell boiled his brains a few seconds later.

  One had to make sure about these things.

  Which was why she took a glass flask from her compartment of holding and poured its contents over the corpse.

  It melted quickly into a red slurry.

  One last thing.

  She pulled a small device with blinking lights and placed it in the middle of the senator soup.

  It would explode after they left.

  Had to make sure there wasn’t going to be any necromantic shenanigans.