Chương 39: A Sudden Yet Inevitable Betrayal

You've got bad news," Spur snorted, sheathing his sword and shaking his head. Before he could say anything more, an angry guardswoman stormed into the room, glaring at Vin before snapping a salute at Spur.

"Apologies Colonel! Despite your orders, these three managed to get past us. Please allow me to remove them from headquarters." Abby looked like receiving the order to physically remove Vin and his group would bring her nothing but joy. But to her disappointment, Spur waved a hand lazily, leaning back against one of the tables.

"Abby, first of all, how many times do I have to tell you to relax? You know your orders to keep people out were in regards to Patty's people, I just couldn't say that on the record. Second, do you honestly think you could remove any one of these three?" Spur shook his head, pointing toward Scule.

"That guy's the size of a sandwich, and I'm pretty sure he could kick either one of our asses." It took Shia a moment to translate, but once she did, Scule burst out laughing, flexing his tiny biceps and doing his best to look intimidating. Abby merely frowned at the tiny man while Spur rolled his eyes.

"Case in point. For now, would you mind heading back out to Greg and continuing to keep an eye out for Patty's people? I have a bad feeling things are about to get serious."

"Sir!" Abby said, saluting Spur one last time before heading back to her post outside. She clearly wasn't happy, but she confirmed Vin's suspicions about her being military by following Spur's orders anyway.

"Sorry about that," Spur said, giving Vin a weary smile and walking over to clap him on the shoulder. Only then did Spur's eyes flick to his missing arm, and the colonel froze. Carefully, he stepped back, fully taking him in from head to toe. Vin didn't know what he saw, but after a few seconds the colonel whistled, slowly shaking his head and dropping himself heavily onto one of the wooden seats.

"Damn… you look like you've been through hell and back these past few days. I'd offer you a drink if I didn't get the feeling your news is going to require us being sober."

"We've got a big problem, and not a lot of time to prepare," Vin said, skipping over the unspoken question about what had happened to him.

"I already spoke to Phil. He said he'll get the council together."

"Oh? Did he now?" Spur groaned, rubbing his temples.

"Of course he did. Must have decided whatever emergency you brought us this time was bigger than the current emergency we're dealing with."

"What emergency?" Vin asked, frowning at the exhausted colonel. Spur looked like he hadn't gotten more than a few hours of sleep since the last time he'd seen him. The man had dark bags under his bloodshot eyes, and while they didn't exactly have functioning plumbing for a shower, he looked like he desperately needed a dip in the nearby river.

"Patty," was all Spur said, rubbing his eyes and sighing.

"Shortly after you left and we moved camp to this location, the woman took that as an opportunity to make her move. I don't know how she did it, but she somehow managed to get a sizable chunk of the combat classes on her side. Even a few people from the military half!" Spur exclaimed, as though the mere thought of any of his soldiers breaking rank was unthinkable.

"I swear, the woman was born with a silver tongue. When you take into account the crafter and support classes already under her, the camp is split almost perfectly in half now, with her half refusing to follow any of my orders."

"Okay…" Vin paused, waiting for Spur to keep going. But when the colonel failed to say anything else, he frowned." That's your emergency? Some squabble over who's in charge of a hundred people? Are you serious?"

"It's far more dire than that," Spur said, shaking his head.

"As the initial wave of people from Earth, we've gotten a jump start on leveling compared to everyone who comes after. Few have managed to even hit level 10 just yet, but with their new attributes, nearly any one of the combat classes in camp is still strong enough to snuff out a normal human's life without even trying. Without their guns, a dedicated squad of us could slaughter the thousand people making up the second wave before they even knew what hit them.

Now that Patty has amassed enough followers, we think she's planning to make her move sometime tonight, taking over right before wave two arrives and setting herself up as some sort of empress of this new world."

"Fine," Vin sighed, rubbing his eyes.

"Why not go after her then? Arrest her or whatever?"

"We can't find her," Spur admitted, grinding his teeth.

"At this point, I'm pretty certain she's hiding in the nearby forest or something. She pops up now and again to sway a few more people to her side every so often, but by the time I hear about it and respond, she's long gone. She's certainly slippery, I'll give her that. The people we've identified as hers and interrogated have all refused to give up her location, but we don't exactly have jails or anything built right now, so I've had to let them all go."

"Spur, I understand the problem, but we've got a much bigger one heading our way-" Vin started, before the door flew open and Phil stepped in, cutting him off.

"She's agreed to a council meeting," Phil said, unable to hide his surprise.

"What? She's refused every council meeting we've attempted since the first one. Why now?" Spur replied, sitting up straight; his red eyes widening at the clearly unexpected news.

"No clue," Phil shrugged.

"Her people said she'd be joining us shortly. What's the plan?"

"No time for an ambush," Spur muttered, having seemingly forgotten about Vin and his companions entirely for the moment.

"I doubt she'll try anything with you here, but better safe than sorry. Have Abby find as many of our people as she can and instruct them to wait fifteen minutes before surrounding headquarters. Nobody leaves without my say so." Nodding, Phil turned to relay the news to Abby before stopping in his tracks. Preventing him from carrying out Spur's instructions was a tall woman with shining eyes and a commanding air about her standing in the doorway.

Stepping into the room, Patty flashed them all a blinding smile filled with perfectly white teeth.

"Well now, it's been far too long since we've had the five of us under one roof," Patty said, her words seeming to hang in the air as the quiet woman appointed as leader of the crafters entered right on her heels. Vin couldn't remember her name, and he didn't think he was going to get the chance to ask as he felt the tension in the room skyrocket.

"And whose fault is that Patty?" Spur said, getting to his feet and crossing his arms.

"You and your lapdog there have dodged every attempt we've made to hold a second council meeting. If I recall correctly, forming the council was your idea in the first place! Rather strange of you to field the idea just to abandon it the next day."

"It just didn't feel right holding a meeting without all five of us being here," Patty said, finally turning her bright eyes toward Vin. Despite her attempts at giving off an unshakable air, she couldn't help but pause as her gaze swept over him and his companions, her eyes widening slightly at the sight of the elf and tiny man standing beside him. Managing to tear her gaze off them, her eyes finally landed on Vin's missing limb, and her lips pursed.

"My my, seems like you've had quite the interesting adventure, haven't you?" A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Yep, nothing but kittens and rainbows," Vin drawled, frowning at the unexpected sensation he was feeling every time she opened her mouth. Glancing at Shia, he noticed the slight frown on the elf's face as well, confirming his suspicions. He briefly contemplated confronting the empress-wanna-be, but decided it could wait. They had bigger things at stake after all.

"Now that you're here, can we start the meeting? I've got some news that would qualify as DEFCON 5 or whatever the hell you say in the military."

"The higher the number the better actually," Spur said, not moving his glare off of the still smiling woman in the slightest.

"DEFCON 5 means things are normal, no danger. DEFCON 1 is an impending threat of nuclear war."

"Fine, DEFCON 1 then," Vin said, exasperated.

"Can we just start the meeting?"

"I don't know, can we?" Spur replied, practically spitting the words at Patty. Vin was shocked to see the colonel acting like an angry child, but a single glance at his bloodshot eyes and hunched back was all it took to remind him that Spur probably hadn't slept in days.

"Please, by all means… take a seat," Patty said, her tone almost musical as she waved her hand at a nearby table. If Vin had any doubts about his suspicions, that simple order was all it took to dispel them as he watched the colonel's exhausted body turn and move toward the table so suddenly Spur seemed to surprise himself.

"Vin…" Shia whispered, grabbing his arm before he could join the rest of the council.

"She's-""I know Shia, I can feel it now," Vin whispered back, shaking his head slightly.

"But I don't think now's the time. It sounds like she already has half the camp under her control, and we need every single person if we want any chance of surviving through the night. What if killing her puts them all in temporary comas or something?"

"What are you two muttering about?" Scule asked, leaning so far forward he nearly tumbled off Shia's shoulder, saving himself from an embarrassing fall at the last moment with a quick grab of the elf's long braid.

"... and does it have something to do with the fact that I suddenly find myself wanting to steal one of those wooden chairs for seemingly no reason? I mean, look at them! They're not even all that well made!" Snorting at the Rogue's interpretation of 'take a seat,' Vin pulled Shia's hand off him and joined the rest of the council before anyone could start throwing punches.

It was interesting that Patty's strange power seemed to work on people that didn't even speak the same language as her, but he didn't have the time to analyze her magical ability right now. Despite not knowing exactly what Patty was doing, it seemed Spur at least was picking up on the fact that something was wrong as well, as his glare had only grown in intensity since Patty had first walked in.

"Well, we finally have all five of us together again," Spur started, tearing his eyes off Patty long enough for his gaze to sweep around the room.

"Whoopty freaking do."

"Colonel," Phil said curtly, frowning at their leader.

"Yeah yeah, sorry," Spur said, rubbing his eyes and waving at the warrior.

"I haven't gotten a ton of sleep lately. I've been busy balancing both running the entire camp while leveling my class so as not to be left behind. And if that wasn't enough, for some reason people keep coming to me with benign questions at all hours of the night, to the point I had to waste valuable manpower placing guards at my door. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, Patricia?"

For the first time since she walked in, a frown flickered across Patty's face before quickly being replaced with the woman's usual smile.

"My, sounds like poor leadership if you ask me. Perhaps if you-""For the love of God!" Vin shouted, slamming his one fist down on the table, causing everyone to jump at the loud noise and turn toward him. A small part of him noticed he'd cracked the solid wood table thanks to the bonus strength he had from Alka, but that wasn't important right now.

"We do not have time for this! What is this? Middle school? We have an army of monsters only hours away from slaughtering everyone here, and the two of you are both too busy with your own agendas to get off your asses and do anything about it!"

"Now hold on-" Spur started angrily, but Vin talked right over him, not willing to give up the room now that he'd finally gotten a word in." You," he said, pointing at the camp's official leader, causing him to flinch as though he expected a bolt of lightning to shoot out of his finger tip.

"…need to focus less on leveling and more on organizing the camp! Of course you're going to fall behind in levels, that's a sacrifice of putting the camp's wellbeing before your own!"

"Well said," Patty smirked, before flinching herself as Vin rounded on her, shoving his finger in her direction next.

"And you," he continued, glaring at the cause of most of their problems. The warning he'd just given Shia already forgotten in the face of these two idiots openly fighting with one another.

"… you need to stop using your magical voice to take over the camp! What are you, some sort of knock off Disney villain?!" The moment the words left his mouth, the room went deathly silent. Spur's angry sputtering faltered, and Phil's gaze spun toward the Siren or whatever her class was as he grabbed his sword, his other hand gripping the edge of the table so hard the solid wood began to splinter.

The appointed leader of the crafters remained unfazed, as though she wasn't actually listening to their conversation, which was far from Patty's reaction. Patty stared at him with wide eyes, her mouth hanging open in shock. Vin realized it was possibly the first time he'd seen the woman's true emotions on her face, and he snorted at the thought.

"Yeah, I've gotten pretty good at feeling magic over the past week," he said, seeing the unspoken question in her wide eyes.

"Spoiler alert, I'm betting your trick doesn't work on people with high magic and focus attributes. Or maybe it's just the difference in our levels."

"Nope, definitely the first one!" A small voice called out from the ground. Vin glanced down to see Scule trying his damndest to shove one of the wooden chairs into his magic bag. While he'd managed to fit an entire leg into the bag, it seemed the artifact wouldn't open wide enough to fit the rest of the chair. Realizing his problem, the petian frowned, planting his hands on his hips and looking up at the rest of them.

"Anyone happen to have a tiny saw, perhaps?"

"Phil!" Spur shouted, pointing at the still shocked Patty. Not needing any more instruction, the battle loving warrior ripped his sword free of its sheath and stood up. But before he could launch himself at the woman, Patty finally recovered from her initial surprise, glaring at them all as she spoke." Freeze," she commanded, the very air inside the headquarters seeming to halt as the word left her mouth.

Vin felt his muscles tense and lock up as Patty's order wormed its way into his head, wrapping itself around his body as though he were bound by bands of iron. Her words seemed to have the same if not a stronger effect on the rest of the table as Phil halted, falling back into his chair, and Spur turned into a statue, his eyes bulging at his inability to move.

In an instant, everyone in the room had fallen under the power of Patty's magical voice, and the woman let out a cackling laugh as relief flooded through her." Finally!" She said, wiping a few beads of sweat from her brow and grinning at them.

"Now it's my turn!"