Chương 50: External Motivation

The landscape had been marred with craters similar to the one he'd fought Vak in. Cole staked out a good one for them to wait and observe the fort a few hundred meters back from the line. Within the barrier, a new chem paper didn't show any signs of toxic gasses, so Cole authorized a reprieve from the masks. While they took turns watching the fort, they rested, ate, and went over the loot from the demons.

"Holy shit," said Howie. He was hefting a new gun—an ornate magazine-fed gun that looked like it took twenty-millimeter cannon rounds.

"We ought to be killing more demons. This thing infuses elemental ammo with hellfire." Cole pulled out the handgun he'd pulled out of the crater and tapped his analyzer on it. < Average Envenomed pistol of Betrayal – Analyzing Has a 9-12% chance of inflicting a target with a paralytic venom, dealing additional poison damage over time. Deals 20% increased damage to friendly targets. > Questionable as to when he'd ever want to use the second part, but it was still an otherworld sidearm.

Cole melted the otherworld Welrod's silenced barrel into the gun, causing the muzzle to grow and expand to accommodate the new part. He slotted one of his magazines, the armament shifting in size slightly to accommodate the ammunition. If nothing else, he liked the idea of a silenced poison pistol. Like a tranq gun and a regular gun at the same time. Put someone to sleep and death.

Roxy watched them as she pulled a new pair of greaves on over her boots, strapped them down, and kicked the ground to see if they would shift. Between the shield and the leg covers, Vael had been good for her armor. Seeing as she was their front line, that was fine by Cole. Besson was on watch now, and they hadn't found anything he'd wanted except a belt of demonic ammunition. Not all the loot had been worth taking, as usual.

A submachine gun and a carbine got melted down for parts, and Cole still hadn't found a bolt-action rifle. Howie juggled his old and new launcher, finally stowing the new one.

"Until I get some practice," he said. Nona had refused to take any of the guns, but she'd taken a dagger with a hand guard that looked a bit like a mouth swimming in tentacles. It let her hear if someone within 150 meters of her said her name—which she said would help with the part of her abilities she couldn't talk about. Roxy scoffed on hearing that, raising a hand toward the other woman.

"Are we serious? She still won't tell us? We're supposed to trust her to watch our backs, despite not even having a gun. Despite always being somewhere else when the fighting is going on, and despite being creeper supreme." Nona glared back, but Cole cut her off.

"Leave it for now, Roxy. You don't have to trust her, but I'm asking you to trust my judgement. Can you do that?" Roxy huffed and went back to her gear. Close enough. Cole checked himself, as well. He'd hit level twelve, which meant his Arquebus Engineer class should have evolved. And it had, though the results felt somewhat underwhelming in the moment. Though once he got back it would definitely be a boon to other Kickers.

< Arquebus Engineer (2) – class evolution detected, updating Parts produced by Field Strip are minor quality at minimum and have a 9%-12% chance to be average quality and a 2%-3% chance to be above average quality. >"Something is happening," said Besson from up on the lip of the crater. Cole stowed his analyzer and climbed up beside Besson. He checked his timepiece.

"Still an hour and forty-five minutes until we're supposed to coordinate attacks."

"I don't think it's us." Cole angled his rifle at the Vaelian fort and peered through the optic. Sure enough, the battlements had a lot of activity. Soldiers ran back and forth, relaying orders or passing out armaments. In the courtyard, many of the reserve soldiers were pulling on armor and equipment. Two bright flashes erupted against the outer wall of the barrier, and the tower laser swept with a beam much more intense than it had previously shown. In the distance, Cole heard an otherwordly cry begin to mount.

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"Demons," he said.

"Scarred musta' got the message back through," said Besson.

"Looks like the news about Leon made it to the line."

"That was fast," Cole replied. Then he chuckled.

"Must be confusing for them. The demons in a sudden tizzy about the mire. No idea what just happened right under their noses." Still, this could be a blessing in disguise. The fort was mobilized, true. But now all of their attention would be focused on the demon army storming across the deadly mire of no-man's-land, empowered to brave the myriad monsters and flooded pitfalls by the knowledge that the hero was on the other side of these walls. He slid back down into the crater.

"Alright, go time. Just like we talked about. Roxy, you're with Besson and Nutmeg. I'll get Howie sorted and then come in from another angle. Your signal to go in will be when he starts his attack. This is our fallback point. Secondary to the trench, and we're cross-country out of this hell hole. Masks." The rest of the team pulled on their masks and pushed up over the lip of the crater toward the fort. Cole approached Nona.

"Nona, there's an old wooden watch-tower about a hundred meters north of the fort. Can you get to it?" She swallowed and nodded.

"Am I going to be the one shooting this time?"

"What?" asked Cole.

"Hell no. I need this rifle to get into the fort. The last thing I want is an untrained shooter firing at my back. Just observe and radio enemy movements. Anything you think we might have missed." Nona looked visibly relieved. Cole dropped a hand on her shoulder. She flinched but didn't move to push him away.

"When we get back, if I decide to put you on this team—and that's a big fuckin' if, then I'll train you up to my standards. I don't know how you managed to become a Kicker without firearm proficiency but you'll learn the right way and you will practice until I'm comfortable with your proficiency. Only then will I put a rifle in your hands and expect you to support me with it. Until that point, you're intel and observation, got it?" She nodded.

"Then get moving!" Nona scrambled up the slope of the crater and then vanished from sight. Cole blinked, heart skipping a beat. He went up to where she'd been climbing and looked at the mud, half-expecting to see invisible hands and feet kicking up mud and dirt. But her footprints just ended. He shook his head and clambered up himself. He spotted Howie about fifty meters away, behind an old set of outbuildings that had been hit with something big at one point. He crouch-ran over and then slid in beside the man.

The marine was fitting a thick tube onto a heavy plate on the ground.

"Should have figured you were a stove-pipe boy," Cole said. Howie grinned.

"They say our classes are influenced by our experience, right Airborne?" he asked, finishing the mortar setup with practiced hands. He concentrated, light coalescing in his hands into a thick shell, many times larger than the forty-millimeter grenades Cole was used to seeing him conjure.

"You know the data collectors logged my callsign as Howitzer, right? I mean, yeah, field artillery is indirect, too, but still. Hold this." Cole accepted the mortar before he could even think about what he was doing. The chilly blue round roiled with freezer vapor and the cold almost immediately numbed his fingertips right through his gloves. Howie adjusted the dials on his rig, "Funny thing is, with my LF enhancements metrics, I don't even need to have an observer walk it in anymore.

My brain just does the math on its own. Hell, I don't even need the aiming stakes. I just know. Drop it in, then cover up. That's a multi-charge munition, and it's spicy."

"On the way," said Cole. Fitting the back fin of the conjured mortar into the tube, Cole let go of the warhead, then ducked to the side and opened his jaw. The mortar blasted up out of the tube with a vengeance, and even with his enhanced perception, Cole had trouble tracking the little blue dot until it burst against the underside of the barrier above the fort. A white mist began to disperse and drift toward the ground. Oh, hell. Did Howie just gas the entire fort?

"Jesus," said Cole.

"I thought you were limited to elemental concepts," said Cole.

"I am," said Howie, winking.

"One part ice to ten parts air."

"You made a snow mortar?" Sitting back on his haunches, Howie admired his own handiwork.

"Looks plenty convincing, doesn't it?" Cole clapped him on the shoulder.

"Keep hammering them, then fall back to the trench." Leaving the marine to his mortar, Cole pushed up toward the fort. It didn't take the soldiers long to notice that the gas shell was on the wrong side of the barrier, and everyone in the garrison scrambled for gas masks. The Vaelian version looked closer to an old, leather World War One mask with tiny crystal lenses. A nightmare to fight in. Barely enough to discern whether what you were looking at was a human or a demon." Moving up," called Roxy.

The team on the south flank wasn't easy to spot against the dark landscape without NODs, but Cole caught a flash of light from the beam tower flashing off Roxy's shield. But it didn't matter. No one in the fort was even looking back. Their entire focus was on the line in front of them, and Cole could make out distant whistles, seeing other distant strongholds coming to life. What the hell kind of hornet's nest did we step on?