The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (34 page)

“They’re attacking the Sylvan.  They’ve never done that before.” Yazadril stated, and turned unerringly toward the children.

“Helemia, can you show me where the Sylvan are?” he asked.

Helemia nodded, she and Reggie concentrated, and tiny yellow lights began to appear on the table marking the Sylvan’s locations.  “Povon, could you help us with this?” she asked.

Povon joined their Link and their efforts.  The yellow lights appeared more rapidly for a moment, then they stopped appearing, and more white streaks began to be seen as the Sylvan’s counter-attacks against the demons were shown.

“Sweet Mother, there must be thirty thousand demons out there!” Mark cursed as the situation became apparent.  “They’re all over Hiliani!”

Ten seconds had passed since the beginning of the attack.

Alilia cast a Revealing high above the table, showing what was happening in the village.  Most of the demons there were systematically destroying the village, starting with the gardens and the water delivery system.  Those demons were protected by greater demons, who were also counter-attacking the surrounding emplacements.  The place was a maelstrom of spells, fire, and missiles, and the greater demons seemed to be holding out against the surrounding cross-fire coming from the top of the ridge around the village.  She moved the Revealing’s focus to the unicorns’ valley, where the grass was burning, then further out where the demons were setting the forest alight, then to the nearest channel, where the demons were dumping huge stone containers full of a green liquid into the water.

“They’re scorching the land and poisoning the water.” Alilia declared bitterly, even as Yazadril psionicly commanded all his fighters to move to the emplacements surrounding the village, and to concentrate their fire on the demons there.  “They mean to starve us out, if they can’t kill us directly.”

“If this is a drill, Quewanak’s going through a lot of trouble to convince us that it’s not.”
Equemev declared as she pointed with her horn to four lights high above the village, one blue and three red. 
“That’s him there, fighting three enemies.”

Alilia moved her Revealing up to show that battle.

“Great source!  What
are
those things?!!” Talia exclaimed as they saw what Quewanak was fighting.

“From the descriptions the Triax gave us, those are DemonLords.” Mark grimly opined.

Like all demons, they were reddish-brown in color, and of no uniform shape.  Some vaguely resembled humanoids, some were quadrupeds, others seemed to be distorted versions of insects, or dragons, or sea creatures like crabs or squid.  Many didn’t even bother with being symmetrical, and had extra limbs seemingly stuck on in strange places.  A few of them even seemed to have placed their heads in random positions on their bodies.  Their eyes were fire and numbered from two to eight, and they all had an abundance of teeth, claws, horns, spikes, and spines.

A typical fighting demon was anywhere from one-third to three meters in length or height, while the Greater Demons were three to six meters.  In this attack, over half the demons were Greater Demons, some of which were a match for Mark in single combat, and Mark was the most powerful individual in the community, with the exception of Quewanak.

It was obvious to everyone around the table that the enemy force they faced was far more than they could hope to defeat without Quewanak’s assistance, and he seemed to be fully occupied with the three DemonLords he was fighting.  Each of those were larger than he was, and he was over ten meters long.  They seemed to change shape constantly, and like Quewanak, they were using a lot of short-range Translocations.  The four combatants were often hidden by the holocaust of power they were casting at each other.

“This is an exercise.  It’s not real.” Reggie stated with assurance.

“How do you know?” Yazadril demanded with some impatience, even as he directed re-deployments all over the islands.

“Everything that the simulated demons have learned to counter in your exercises isn’t working against these ones either.” Helemia explained.  “We just tried most of ‘em, including Alilia’s Circle, and they’re not working.”

“It’s almost completely improbable for real demons to already know how to counter everything the simulated demons can, but not your new stuff.” Reggie continued.  “If these were real demons, at least a few of the things the simulated demons have learned to counter would still work.”

“Ha, that’s good thinking!” Mark laughed with relief.  “I doubt any of the rest of us bothered to try anything that had already stopped working in the exercises!

“That being the case, let’s go give Quewanak a hand.”

He turned to his children.  “You stay here.” he instructed, then those around the table disappeared even as they deepened their Link.  They left the spells at the table running, including the Revealing.

The youngsters watched as those who’d just left joined Quewanak in his fight against the DemonLords, and they were soon joined by Kragorram, Silaran, and the rest of the senior fighters.

Valentia stepped out of the privacy screen around the table and called out to all the non-combatants; “In case you were wondering, you can stop worrying.  This is just an exercise, those aren’t real demons out there.”

This announcement was greeted by a wave of relieved exclamations throughout the room.

Talia appeared back at the table. “Damn, I’m dead.” she cursed, and joined her children and Karzog in watching the displays.

Their forces, as well as the Sylvan, were being swiftly decimated.  Silaran was the next to appear at the table in defeat, then Povon, then Alilia.  The Greater Demons near the ground were swiftly finding the emplacements, digging them out, and killing all within, while the regular demons concentrated on laying waste to the islands, burning everything down to the bedrock.

“Get ready.”
Reggie psionicly warned his sisters and Karzog. 
“Now!”

The four of them Translocated to high above the village, a half kilometer from the battle with the DemonLords, and cast a mighty spell.  Then all the demons died over the next two seconds, starting with those who were closest to the children.  An expanding ring of demon deaths seemed to propagate outward from the four youngsters until it reached the coast in all directions.  Demons fell from the skies like rain, impacting the ground with heavy crunching thuds.

“Whew!  Now
that
was a spell!” Karzog laughed.

The next moment, as cheering began to be heard from the surprised victors, all the damage on the islands was either suddenly Restored, or more likely the Illusion of the damage was dismissed.  Only Quewanak and Ria knew for certain which was the case.

“The exercise is over.”
Quewanak announced. 
“You can put the children back to bed.  The rest of you meet me in the gathering hall for debriefing.”

There were so many people Translocating into the gathering hall over the next few seconds that Reggie’s little team flew down, rather than risk a traffic accident in the hall.

Initially, only their parents and Silaran realized who had killed the demons.  And Quewanak, of course.  But the news spread through the still-active command Link in a second, and by the time they flew into the hall, everyone was cheering them.  They waved and smiled as they alighted near the center of the room between Quewanak and their five parents.

Ria the person manifested as Quewanak handed Ria the sword back to Talia.

“Well, that didn’t turn out quite the way we planned, did it?”
Ria chuckled to Quewanak. 
“And to think we were thwarted by these four babes!”

“How did you do that, anyway?” Mark asked as Talia and Alilia hugged him from either side.

“We’ve been working on that for a while, and we finished it yesterday.” Helemia grinned.  “The demon’s psionic Shielding blocks almost everything, but one thing they don’t block against is someone simply projecting their awareness inside their Battle Shields, but outside their bodies.  Like you would if you were going to Translocate there, for instance.”

“But what good does that do?” Dalia asked.  “You still can’t get any spells past the Battle Shields they use to block physical and magic attacks.”

“Ah, but one thing their Battle Shields don’t block is sunlight.” Reggie stated, with a grin that matched all of his team-mates’.  “If you blast ‘em with enough light to cause some damage they’ll block that, but they don’t block the sun unless you do, not the light of it, or the heat of it, or the Source, or the warlock’s Source.  And if you’re really careful, when your awareness has been projected inside their Battle Shields, you can cast a spell
from there
, using the power that’s already in there from the Source and the warlock’s source that’s shining on them from the sun.  It’s not much, but it’s enough to cast a tiny Translocation on a ball of stuff about two centimeters wide inside their heads.  You only move it over a centimeter and you don’t cast displacement, so there’s a space left on one side that causes a little implosion, and on the other side there’s too much stuff all of a sudden, so it explodes because of the extra density.  And just to make it both easier and more dangerous, you under-power the Translocation.  That’s why a few of them lost their whole heads; the messed-up Translocations release some energy from the Translocation medium, and it causes a lot of damage.”

“It took all four of us pooling our awareness to do it to that many enemies that quickly.” Karzog pointed out.

“And it takes all four of us to cast the spell, too, even though it’s all automated.” Valentia added.  “It’s a pretty hard spell.  We call it the Brain Bomb, because it makes a bomb in their brains.  Even if they grow their brains somewhere else in their bodies, we always target a few centimeters behind their eyes, so it’s pretty sure to mess up a lot of important stuff.”

“And you don’t think you should have announced that you were going to join the exercises before you did so in the middle of one?” Quewanak asked, sounding slightly miffed.  “Perhaps I was trying to make a point with this one?”

“We waited until the outcome was pretty much decided before we intervened.” Reggie pointed out.  “Everyone here knows that if it had been real, and if we four hadn’t been able to do anything, everyone would’ve been killed.  The demons weren’t having much trouble finding the emplacements, so they’d have probably have found the shelters soon, and if they didn’t, they’d have starved us out, like Alilia said.”

“Hm.  Perhaps it wasn’t a complete waste of time then.” Quewanak nodded.  “Do you realize what point I was trying to make?”

Reggie shook his head.

“Anyone else?” The green dragon asked as he looked around.

“We need a plan to escape from Hiliani in case we get overwhelmed here, and we don’t have one.” Mark stated immediately.

“That is correct.” Quewanak said with another nod.

“Oh, don’t be so growly, you old lizard!”
Ria teased with a big smile.
  “They all responded extremely quickly to a drastic escalation in the immediacy of their enemies’ attack, and all of them were Translocated to shelter before any were injured.  None of them got hurt until they took the fight to the demons.  They kept their heads when they all thought the attack was real, and you and I never thought to make our simulations vulnerable to some of what had become ineffective before in order to protect the deception.  Not to mention that what these children did was brilliant in it’s creativity and execution, and as far as I can tell, it would have devastated real demons as thoroughly as it did our simulations.  From what the Triax told us, I doubt even the DemonLords have any defense against such a thing, and they have power to rival a god.”

“Because they’re still physical.” Mark mused.  “They may have the power of a god, well a god of the Triax at least, but unlike gods they’re still dependent on their physical bodies.”

“How can we make a plan to flee from Hiliani when we’re confined in here by the time-bubble?” Talia asked.

“We will assume that the time-bubble protects us as thoroughly as it confines us.” Quewanak announced.  “It’s a logical assumption.  We can be reasonably certain that the demons cannot attack us through the time-bubble, so if we’re actually attacked, we will assume that the time-bubble has fallen.  If we are no longer protected, we are no longer confined.

“Therefore, if you attempt to escape from Hiliani during a training exercise, you can assume that we are no longer confined by the time-bubble.  If I judge that your attempt to flee would have been successful, those who fled will then be out of the exercise, in the same way they are when they are ‘killed’.”

“All right.” Mark nodded.  “We’ll maintain readiness to Translocate all of our non-combatants to Hilia at the first sign of trouble from now on.”

“And I will first check to confirm that Hilia is still a safe place to send them.” Povon stated.  “If we’re truly attacked here, there’s no reason to assume that Hilia wouldn’t have been attacked first.  If it’s unsafe there, I’ll find a safe destination before we transfer our dependants.”

“Should we simulate the Translocations, or can you deal with it if we truly cast them?” Alilia asked.

“As with the other spells you cast during the exercises, do what you would truly do if it were a real attack.” Quewanak instructed.  “I train you for battle, not for games, so you need to be trained to cast spells and attacks, not simulations of them.  I’ll deal with the limitations of the time-bubble.  Those who Translocate away from Hiliani will be re-directed to the main shelter below, and will not be attacked or perceive any simulated demons, even if the shelter is attacked in the exercise.”

“That’s a neat trick, re-directing a few hundred simultaneous Translocations!” Yazadril exclaimed.

“All of us are being trained and are learning new skills, and I’m no exception.” Quewanak revealed.  “I’m still exploring the abilities I’ve gained since I was Healed, and learning to apply much of what I learned during my long dream.”

“And I know your secret for sure now, newest of the Draconian Gods.”
Helemia told him in a tightly Shielded Speaking, with a bit of a mental giggle.