Dragon Royale 2: An Urban Fantasy Adventure Read online

  “Shit!” I yelled. “Go for broke!”

  I pushed Echo through the opening of the front door without slowing down, but I held up at the last second to make sure Tex got out OK. She’d run a bit wider than Echo and I, so it took her more time as she crouched and jogged.

  “Come on!” I said to Tex.

  “Aye aye!” She gave me a tiny salute on her way through the doorway.

  Jo was on her broom about ten feet above some crates with her pistol at the ready. I felt proud of how she’d set herself up to defend the rest of us, but now was the time for all of us to find safety.

  “Come on Jo! Get out!” I spoke it over the link, doing my best to keep calm like a leader.

  She spun around in place, then swooped by in a blur. I expected gunfire to track her, but none came out of the boxes.

  Banger was still at his post, so I scooped him up as my final act of escape.

  “We only want to talk!” a woman shouted from behind the crates.

  “I don’t fucking think so!” I yelled back.

  ***

  I should have made those my final words and then run off into the night, but that would only leave their team intact for a future encounter. Somehow, we’d managed to get an enemy team right where we wanted them.

  “Jo, go over the roof and watch the back door,” I said, fully aware I was sending her right back into danger. “Don’t go inside but take shots if you have them.”

  I’d learned my lesson about letting people live.

  I crept back up to the door opening and set Banger on the ground behind me. If those enemy players fired at me, I prayed they would shoot high, because I laid on the concrete and spoke through the gap.

  “I’m not allying with you,” I shouted. “I have to kill you.”

  “I would expect nothing less,” the woman replied dryly. “But to show you we only want to talk, we’re going to walk into the light with our weapons slung. It isn’t allying if all we are doing is talking with each other, right?”

  “This is dangerous,” Jo replied as she saddled up on her broom. Her sweaty thighs seemed to grip the wooden handle in a most satisfying way.

  “Yeah, I don’t want the witch police showing up again, Matt.” Tex sounded way more concerned than Jo.

  “Not a problem,” the Korean gamer witch added, “HQ gave me approval to mediate this battle, should one be needed.”

  “That was fast!” I replied.

  “I think it’s all automated,” Jo said on the link as she lifted off the ground and went over the top edge of the front wall. “I happened to be listening at the right time.”

  “We’re coming out.” The woman’s voice was much closer.

  “Banger, check around the corner for me.” I was flat on the ground by the edge of the door, but wasn’t going to risk a look-see when the voice seemed so close.

  He immediately jumped on my back, ran over my shoulders and head, then jumped into the opening. He padded a few steps into the breach and looked inside.

  “Aww,” the woman gushed. “It’s so cute.”

  I rolled my eyes wondering how much of this was staged so I would give myself up and walk into their trap. However, when I tuned into the Banger channel, I saw three humanoids standing next to the doused campfire in the middle of the floor.

  “Should I trust them?” I said, mostly to myself.

  All three girls replied that I should not.

  Tex added something additional. “Matt, you become attached to people. Once you talk to them, you aren’t going to want to do the deed on them. I think they are counting on you being like that.”

  “Jo has them covered from behind. We have them up here. This is our show, not theirs, right?” I tried to sound like I believed it. My heart was back to rib-breaking mode because I was faced with such an impossible choice.

  No one answered.

  I stood up and brushed pavement crumbs off my shirt. Once again I was struck by the pleasant-smelling campfire smoke as it drifted out the door. It felt so out of place with life and death at stake, but I pushed those feelings out of my mind. There was no choice but to stay in command of this shit show. “Let’s just see what happens.”

  I peeked around the corner, then pulled back my head like a clown fish at the anemone. The air didn’t erupt with gunfire like I feared. The three warriors stood among the fires with the typical gaming armor and helmets, but they had lots of leaves and mud caked on them. Out in the woods they were hard to see because of the camo, but not here.

  Taking one last breath, I spun my rifle so it was on my back, then I stepped halfway around the corner. If it came to blows I could throw myself sideways and be out of their field of fire.

  “You didn’t seem like you wanted to talk a few minutes ago. You almost killed us.”

  Jo and Tex had both played their parts in keeping me alive, but this was all on me.

  “It took us awhile to figure out you weren’t Leftovers, but are royale players. Nice touch wearing civilian gear.” The leftmost woman gave me a polite wave as she spoke. She kept her rifle over her shoulder, creating an easy target if I wanted to drop her.

  The tallest figure stood in the middle of the trio and must have been the knight. He carried the giant sniper rifle that had targeted us in the woods. I fought to keep from stepping around the door and unloading on him for doing that to us.

  The squire on the other side of the knight carried a bow and arrow on her back.

  “What do you want?” I shouted across the twenty or so yards between us. “I have other eyes on you, by the way.”

  “I’m sure you do,” the left woman spoke with seemingly little anxiety at our meet up.

  “Why did you come to this building? Did she tell you to come here?”

  The woman laughed. “Our reasons are our own, but look around. This whole area is an ammo dump.” She shifted her feet a little and also changed the direction of conversation. “I must say, your methods are very unorthodox. I don’t know how you got a witch to join you, but I only want a word with your squires, if those women are yours?”

  I sensed a deeper subtext to her words, as if probing for something. I didn’t dare tell her my squires had a few extra abilities.

  “These women travel with me willingly. We’re a team.” Jo and Tex were supposed to be my pair of squires, but no one had a program with the names and positions of my teammates, so it felt just as accurate to say they were all co-equal squires on the squad.

  “Jo, you in position?” I asked her through our connection. Her purple cord stretched from my wrist to a point over the heads of the other team. Jo had to be close to the back door by now.

  “I can be ready when you need me,” she replied. “It’s kind of crazy outside.”

  “Get inside the back door and sneak up on these guys. They are facing me.”

  “Roger,” she said simply.

  “I offer the hand of friendship to all the women on your team,” the woman cried out.

  “I don’t think my friends are interested.” There was no fucking way my girls would want to be friends with such an oddball.

  “My name is Suze.” The woman on the left removed her helmet. She was the one who had attacked me by the shipping container. She’d retrieved her katana because it was sheathed at her waist. “We are with a special group that is recruiting young women like the ones you travel with.”

  “Sorry, lady, but the recruiting is done before you join the royale, not after.” I tried to laugh it off, but something told me she already knew that.

  She spoke as if I wasn’t there. “Each woman will be relieved of the burden of serving a knight and will gain the protection of the likes of us, and several others back at the stronghold. If you make the choice to join me now, I will make the death of your knight quick and painless.”

  The squire on the right removed her helmet and spoke with an English accent. “I’m Dian. I was recruited from the British team several weeks ago. I can attest to the truth of which she spea
ks. Come with us and be free of the knight-fool’s errand.”

  It upset me I’d even consider my girls would abandon me for someone like them, but a lifetime of doubt allowed the tiniest cracks in my otherwise solid faith in their reliability toward me.

  “Jo, are you inside? I need you. Three are here, but not the fourth.”

  Suze and Dian seemed to have no idea they were being surrounded. I was going to ensure they couldn’t hurt me or my girls, no matter how skilled they thought they were.

  The knight in the middle finally pulled off his helmet. At first, I thought it was one of those dudes who liked to pretend long hair made them look like Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, but the dirty blonde flung the wild hair back over her shoulders to reveal herself to me.

  “Master, we have a new threat approaching.” Banger spoke evenly, so it was hard to gauge the level of pain headed for us. I stayed focused on the threat in front of my face.

  “I’m Tissy. I’ve organized these women. I protect them.” Again she spoke around me. “Ladies, this is your last chance to join me. Abandon your man and find refuge with all the squires we’ve rescued.”

  “You are three women? Is the fourth in your group the knight?” I asked because it seemed important, but I also thought of those bodies we found earlier. “And do you cut off the heads of those who refuse?”

  “Ah, you must have found some of our handiwork,” Tissy replied in a grave tone. “Sometimes it helps if the man is dispatched first, as the squires have fewer choices, but there are those who fight to the death no matter their chances.”

  “They sound like my kind of gals,” I deadpanned.

  On the link, I tried to find Jo. “Where are you? I want these guys disarmed, now.”

  “Coming through the crates. Still no sign of their fourth.”

  “Where is your fucking knight?” I asked the woman in the middle.

  The tall woman was pretty enough, but her devious scowl would make the devil look friendly by comparison. “It’s just like a man to assume we have to be led by your kind. The next time we meet, you’ll see what a mistake it was to underestimate me.”

  “I could get it over with and kill you now,” I said, remembering all the mistakes I’d made that lead up to loosing Jo the first time.

  The pretty blonde smiled instead of shrink in fear. “You could.”

  It seemed like I was being played.

  “Jo!” I shouted on the magic connection. Her pointy hat emerged from the boxes as I was knocked to the ground.

  A deafening boom hit me from the right, and the wall over there exploded. Dust and debris shot into the room, making it hard to see the three women.

  They apparently knew the attack was coming, because they ran right toward the new hole in the crumbling wall.

  Jo came out of the boxes almost as the smoke consumed the middle of the room. I raised my weapon to fire some shots at the fleeing women, but I couldn’t be certain I wouldn’t hit Jo.

  “Fuck!” I cried out. “They are heading outside,” I said on the link to all three of my women.

  “Master, I recommend we abandon this facility. The parachute flares suggests an imminent military attack.” Banger never left the door and still sat at my feet.

  I turned backward to look outside. A few deep purple clouds lingered from the sunset to the west, but the real show was to the south of us. It looked like a dozen tiny suns floated through the sky under little umbrellas.

  At the edge of the warehouse complex, almost at the same clump of trees where me and my friends watched the buildings this afternoon, a tank popped out and drove onto the grassy field with the typical squeaky sounds from its tracks.

  “Well, damn it all to hell. The war has caught up to us.”

  THE CUBE

  “Master, I must report there is too much movement data to collate. Shall I relay the biggest threat?” I was happy Banger’s senses still worked because my eyes watered with dust, my ears rang from the explosion, and my sense of smell was overwhelmed by the construction materials I breathed in.

  I coughed on the smoke. “Yes!”

  “A living cube approximately fifty feet to a side is now arriving at this location.”

  I anticipated he’d say the tank was the leading threat, because it was the main thing visible outside. There was only one thing that large.

  “Did Merkur escape?” I replied on the link I shared with the little fella. “Show me the approaching cube, quickly!”

  I tapped into Banger’s eyes and watched as he walked along the front side of the huge sliding door until he peeked around the corner. The kitty looked to the sky, but his whole field of vision was overwhelmed by Merkur’s green cube-shaped body.

  “Fuck! It’s really her. A gelatinous cube!” The six-sided bitch slouched up to our hangar from the side, out of our field of view at the front door.

  The slime-lady’s laugh was unmistakable. She’d been able to catch one of the fleeing women with a pair of tentacles. The woman hopped around and resisted with the help of a friend, but that wasn’t going to be enough.

  “Suze!” Tissy shouted. The tall woman was easy to identify because she still didn’t have her helmet on. Her blonde hair flung wildly from side to side as she used both hands to keep her friend from getting sucked into the slime.

  “Run, you guys!” the trapped woman screamed to her teammates.

  Tissy looked right at Banger, so I pulled him back around the corner.

  Jo ran up from out of the smoke. “I’m sorry. I advanced as fast as I could through the boxes. I was sure there was someone else waiting to get the drop on me.”

  “There was someone, but now they are being eaten by her.” I pointed inside, to the breach in the wall. Tissy thrashed back and forth, still trying to save her friend. They stood in front of a barrier of the sickening green color. “Merkur is here.”

  “No shit?” the witch replied. “I thought she’d die from all that bullshit coming out of the water.”

  “If she’s out, maybe Anton made it, too.” I tried to sound upbeat, but it came out with tons of doubt in my own words.

  Jo and I stared at each other for a few moments.

  “What do I do?” Echo asked.

  We stood at the front door, so I pushed them inside to get some cover.

  “We go out the back and put as much distance between us and that big fucker as we possibly can. With a little luck, the tankers over there will put a stop to her.” I felt a little bad for not running to help Tissy and her friends, but she screwed herself when she tried to kill me.

  “Banger, to me,” I called out.

  “Master, I regret I am unable to comply. I am approximately twenty feet off the ground and rising.”

  I stuck my head out the front door and saw the black cat rise in the air, held by one of the long, green tentacles we’d seen earlier. Now it was attached to the side of the cube, so it appeared like a giant cubic elephant picking up a small piece of food.

  Another huge tentacle ripped open the corner of the building, which made even more smoke pour in our faces.

  I crouched as the wave of debris surged over and around us, but I realized I now had to do something to save our cat, or at least wait until Merkur got slaughtered by the tank. Not only was he my friend, but he was one of the most useful weapons in our inventory. Without him, we’d have no early warning system.

  “Banger, are you OK?”

  “Affirmative, master. There is a corrosive element present, but my synthetic fur can resist for up to four hours, twenty five minutes. Plus or minus thirty minutes.”

  It was all I could stand.

  “Jo, put a grenade on that bitch. Keep it away from Banger for sure, and Tissy, if you can.”

  “Protecting your would-be killer, huh?” the green-skinned warrior replied as she unhitched one of the soda can-sized shells that hung on the belt around her waist.

  “No,” I said with a bit of hesitation, “but I do want the fancy gun she’s carrying.” I pa
cked away my guilt at killing a person for a weapon, but it had to be done.

  “Ah, good.” She slid the barrel of the grenade launcher forward, stuffed the gold and green round in there, then pulled the barrel backward. “I’m not going to let that bitch get the drop on you again.”

  I stopped her as she moved toward the door. “Hey. You stopped her, right? Thank you for that.”

  She relented a little. “I’ll do better next time. She won’t get away.”

  “There’s no doubt in my mind.”

  Jo stepped outside where there was less smoke and aimed her weapon upward. She pulled the trigger on the grenade launcher and the round left the barrel with a loud thunk. I turned to watch the grenade go into the monster about forty feet up the face of it, but when it exploded inside her skin it hardly registered on the outside.

  “Is it really you? Magic Matt the magnificent motherfucker. Isn’t that what you people call yourselves?” The voice came from multiple directions again, but it wasn’t as easy to hear as it was before.

  “Not exactly,” I replied out loud.

  “Conflict was right to put out a warning about you. I wish she’d sent one of your friends to protect me, now that I know what you are capable of doing. My control portal is in shambles!” Merkur sounded pissed and sad at the same time. “She will not look kindly upon me, thanks to you.”

  “Tell me where she sent them!” Lucy and Nora were out there with one of the other power players of the Dragon Royale world, but I had yet to find them.

  “Don’t worry about them. I’ve slurped up a couple of other females just now. Maybe they will be my shields from further aggression from you?”

  I almost told her off by bragging that she’d plucked two women I was happy to see taken, but that wouldn’t serve my long-term goal of staying alive very well.

  “If you don’t hurt them, I’d consider it. Can you give me my cat back so we can go?”

  The parachute flares wavered and winked out even as the soldiers launched others to replace them. It made it difficult to see any one thing, but I did see a body inside Merkur’s green jelly that I did not expect. The reflective chrome of the toaster was unmistakable.