Chapter 28 — Reunited (Patreon)

Part 2: Safety

Drew had just stepped back into the St E’s exchange having fought off a swarm of giant mosquitoes outside with the help of Chief Bill Sykes and a teenage girl named Jholie Patrick both people he had rescued from trolls on JFB Bolling across the freeway. There were still a few hundred more people to rescue on that base, but he had promised Katie he would get help for the unconscious Sarah, and Bill was a healer.

During the mosquito fight Jholie had a mental breakdown and he left Bill to comfort the teenager. Inside the exchange he found the recently killed corpse of a mana-twisted badger, and a tiny red xatherite growing from a mosquito the badger had killed before dying to the swarm. However the walls Katie had put up to keep the exchange safe were gone, and Sarah was no longer on the nest of clothing they had left her on. He was late, it should have only taken him a few hours, and he had been gone most of a day. The mana storm, nightfall and then the necessity of rescuing the food gathering group had delayed him considerably.

“Katie!” Drew called out after having harvested the red xatherite. He frowned as he realized that his new mana sight xatherite was telling him there were blue and indigo magical constructs in front of him, despite the fact that his eyes told him that there was nothing there. He cautiously walked forward until a finger disappeared from sight, like it had been cut off in midair. There was no pain and he pulled his hand back, his finger tip reappearing.

Indigo aura? An illusion? He pushed his hand through the illusion but he was stopped half an inch past it, he could feel the solid surface of a wall. The blue aura must be Katie’s summoned wall. He pounded his fist through the illusion, shouting again, “Katie!”

Drew pounded his other fist against the wall, all his frustrations coming to the forefront of his mind, another fist against the wall, he could feel the pain but it was a dull and distant thing. He kept pounding bringing the fleshy part of his hand against the hard concrete of Katie’s summoned wall. His hand came down for what must have been the tenth time and it felt no resistance this time just swung through empty air throwing him off balance. Then he heard Katie’s voice, “Drew?” He pushed through the illusion.

As soon as his eyes passed through the illusion he saw Katie, she had pulled one of the glass doors on the inside of the exchange open and unsummoned the wall, he immediately pulled her into his arms. Grasping her as tightly as he could, “I thought… the wall…” He couldn’t speak in complete sentences as the adrenaline drained from his body his legs felt weak. Luckily for him Katie seemed to be in a similar state. 

“You’re late.” It took a minute for both of them to gather themselves together enough for the nonsense half phrases to finally graduate to full phrases, but that was the first thing Katie managed to get out. Drew laugh-cried as she said it.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, the mana storm and the trolls and…” Drew finally opened his eyes and saw two men standing over Sarah, one of them carrying about ten pistols in various holsters around his body, while the other had a hand on Sarah’s forehead. Something inside of Drew snapped and a lightning bolt flashed from his hand to the one touching Sarah. The smell of ozone immediately filled the room. The man with the guns pushed the one touching Sarah the bolt impacting along the right side of his back.

“Drew stop!” Katie shouted in his ears and he turned to her confused. While the gun wielder had pulled out a pistol and held it ready. “They’re friends!” 

Drew clenched his fists, the emotional rollercoaster of the last minute and a half having completely spent his body, adrenaline racing through the overly stimulated muscles from the mosquito fight, and then the fear of losing the Katie and Sarah. He realized just how dangerous what he had just done was, he could have hit Sarah, the bolt could have conducted through the man’s skin to her unconscious body. He swallowed and his legs gave out, landing with a painful thud of his knees contacting the tile floor. 

Katie moved to stand between him and the other three people. “Drew, it’s okay.” She said putting her hands on his shoulders and pulling him into another awkward hug, his forehead against her clavicle. “It’s okay Drew, we’re safe.” 

The sound of the lightning bolt must have alerted Bill, and the chief’s voice could be heard calling out in the hallway behind them, “IT2 where’d you go?” 

Katie pushed him away for a minute a confused look on her face, “In here Chief, there is an illusion.” Drew said, his voice that seemed drained of all emotion. 

Bill’s hand, followed by the rest of his body appeared a few second later he was leading Jholie. All three groups stared at each other for a few seconds while Drew managed to reclaim his calm. “Katie, this is Bill and Jholie, Bill is a healer.” 

Katie hugged Drew tight at that, “You did it.” She murmured in the crown of his head. Everyone else looking on awkwardly as the two Coasties had their reunion. Finally Katie pulled away, looking at Bill and Jholie then back to Drew, she gestured behind her, “That’s JP and Robbi. They came here looking for food.” 

Drew looked at the two men. JP was the one with all the guns and to his mana sight his aura was almost purple with a strange intermixture of red and blue. Robbi on the other hand was the one sported a large burn mark across one side of his body armor and his aura was a weird indigo, green and yellow that reminded Drew of a half healed bruise. He was probably the source of the illusion on the wall, another layer of protection added against the monsters. Glad that JP hadn’t opened fire on him, the gun he had pulled out was back in its holster. Drew realized for the first time that both men were wearing blue police uniforms under their body armor and while he didn’t carry as many guns as JP, Robbi had a few of his own. The armor had probably been enough to save Robbi’s life, a large black scorch mark on the back of the vest showed that his aim had been true despite JP’s attempt to save his partner.

“I’m sorry about that lightning bolt thing.” Drew said hesitantly. Robbi opened his mouth to say something but was stopped when JP laughed.

“Shit bro, it makes sense, Katie told me you’d gone out there alone.” JP said, walking over to Drew and Katie leaning down and extending his hand to shake Drew’s. “I can’t imagine that walking around out there alone is good for a person’s mental health.” 

Drew took the hand and shook it, then putting a hand around Katie’s waist pulled both of them to their feet. Letting the brunette go as soon as they were back on their feet. “Still, I’m really sorry…” 

Bill spoke up then, “Sorry to interrupt, but maybe I should heal Sarah.” 

“Oh right, Of course Bill, she’s right there.” Drew said gesturing to Sarah’s body. The big chief walked over to the girl and kneeling down he began to hug her.

Katie tugged on his sleeve and gave him a questioning look, “Bill’s healing requires he hug the person.” He answered. Meanwhile Jholie was staring around at everyone nervously. JP and Robbi were watching Bill curiously. 

Katie squoze his arm, watching, and both of them held their breath as Bill used his daddy’s embrace. Nothing happened at first but then they saw Sarah wrap her arms around Bill in response. Katie’s grip on Drew’s arm became tighter and when he looked over she was crying. He put his arm around her waist again and she released his arm long enough to give him a side hug as she watched her friend move on her own for the first time in days.

When Bill finally managed to extract himself from Sarah’s embrace, Katie ran over and hugged the ensign herself. Drew clapped Bill’s shoulder, “Thanks chief.” Bill just shrugged and went over to stand near Jholie.

Drew walked over to where the two cops were standing, “I’m really sorry Robbi… just a little bit on edge I guess.” Robbi shot him a bit of a glare but didn’t say anything as he grabbed a sprite and stalked over towards Bill and Jholie.

“Give him a bit, it’s not every day you are almost killed.” JP said then shrugged, “Or I guess, it wasn’t every day. It kind of is every day now isn’t it?” 

Drew laughed and nodded his head, “Yeah. For me anyway. How did you guys get here?”

“Well, we were sent out to recruit people, we’re set up in Nat’s Park about a thousand people total. There were five in our scouting group when we set out, but we lost two on the bridge to a massive squid that pulled them into the river, and another to what Katie called Orcs as we were travelling through the new mental hospital.” 

Drew frowned, “I’m sorry to hear about your losses.” They stood there in silence for a few minutes while they each contemplated those of their companions they had lost.

“Where did you find these two?” JP asked, as he nodded towards Jholie and Bill, “Katie said you left alone.”

“I did, I went to Bolling. The DIA building on base has turned into a dungeon like the HQ here has, but it has troll-like creatures in it. I managed to rescue about 20 of them, and brought Bill back up this way to heal Sarah. Plan is to take Sarah and Katie down there and rescue the rest of the prisoners.” Drew answered truthfully, hoping the man would join them.

“Robbi and I will join you.” JP said immediately to the unspoken request, “That’s why we came out here after all, to bring back as many as we could. The guy in charge was a senator before advent but he’s alright, kept a lot of people alive and we’ve got running water, and showers up again, should be plenty of food once we get the five or six people with magical botany type skills working the playing field. Housing is in the stadium for everyone and we have enough reds to keep the place safe from the monster attacks.”

Drew blinked, JP was certainly trying to sell the place hard, “That sounds…too good to be true.” 

JP laughed again, “Yeah, I know what you mean especially after what Katie told me of ya’lls experience. We’ll go rescue those people of yours first and then you’ll see. I’m not sure how we’ll get so many across the bridge but hopefully there will be some abilities we can use to get everyone safe.” Drew nodded his head, if the dungeon was going to continue sending out raiding parties having a safe place across the river to keep people was going to be important. 

The two girls were mostly back to normal and Drew nodded to JP, “I should talk to Sarah.” JP nodded in response and Drew walked back to where Sarah and Katie were, Sarah smiled at him as he sat down next to her.

“I hear you saved me.”

“Well, I think Bill’s hug did that, I was just Katie’s gofer boy.” Drew said and Katie punched his shoulder. 

“And you were late too!” Katie said with a frown, “I don’t know why I was worried, you have a way of coming out of impossible things intact. I feel like we should start calling you Ethan Hunt.” 

Sarah smiled at the two, “Well, I’m glad to be awake, Katie has told me a few things that happened while I was out, thank you both for saving me.” 

“Of course, can’t let a shipmate down.” Drew said and Katie nodded in agreement. As all three of them thought about Mitch, Juan and Rob and the others that hadn’t made it out of the dungeon alive. Sarah saw his bloodied hands and frowned, “What happened to your hands?” She said grabbing them and looking at the split skin.

“Nothing really, just...hit a wall.” Drew responded, as Sarah sat up enough to cast her spell, managing to target it far enough away that it hit everyone in the room.

“I haven’t told Katie yet, but there is some more survivors down at Bolling, they were captured by trolls. I managed to kill a bunch who were sacrificing humans and then rescued twenty people from another dozen trolls. But there are still a few hundred more people stuck in the DIA building over there. Bill and Jholie came to help me get you two and then we’re gonna try and rescue all of them.” 

Sarah reached down to take the splits off her legs, “Well, I’ve been laying around long enough. It sounds like we have work to do.”