Super Genetics

Perched high above on the warehouse roof, wrapped in his Master of Light Skill, he was both nearly invisible to the naked eye and completely invisible on the infrared spectrum. For the sanguine, who primarily hunted via infrared, he was virtually undetectable.

And now, with his Mask Signature talent, even his use of aura didn’t give him away as he created a small viewing portal into the warehouse below, just large enough to stick his head through and glance down at the hundreds of sanguine milling below. Using his Master of Light Skill, he bent the light away, leaving only his eyes free to observe the scene.

If any of them had looked up, they might have spotted a floating set of piercing blue eyes illuminated by the faintest light.

But none of them did.

So he watched unperturbed as Whipvine approached the elder, his casual disregard for the mass of sanguine around him obvious in the set of his posture. But Terry couldn’t miss the man’s hands dangling over his namesake whips—the revenant was practically vibrating with pent-up bloodlust.

The mood between the revenant and the elder soured quicker than Terry expected, but his preparations were already in motion. He sent a quick message to the others with a flash of a micro portal, then launched his opening salvo.

A perfect simulacrum of himself, portrayed lifelike through an invisible portal in conjunction with his Master of Light. It had only taken a couple minutes of testing, but he had quickly discovered that he could open a full-sized portal emitting light from his side so that he was visible from the exit side of the portal. Then, by reaching through with his aura, he could bend light away from the edges of the portal until the evidence that a portal existed at all were gone—at least visually.

The result? A pretty decent two-dimensional image of him cast from the warehouse roof down into the nest itself—almost like a hologram. It wouldn’t hold up to any serious scrutiny, but in the near-perfect darkness, and angled in such a way that it faced both Whipvine and the elder, it was enough to fool them into thinking he was standing right before them. Since his head was sticking through a second portal, he had to bend light around his hologram’s head to fudge things a bit, but he was banking on neither of them noticing in their surprise.

The only piece he didn’t have a good solution for was projecting his voice. He hadn’t figured out how to send sound through the portals yet, so he was forced to compromise on that bit by yelling down from where his head was sticking through the first portal.

“I heard someone calling for my head. Ask and you shall receive!”

The elder flinched in surprise at his arrival and he smiled to himself.

“Terry!” Whipvine hissed. “What are you doing, son? Get out of here. Quick!”

He couldn’t move naturally to turn toward the revenant without giving away the ruse, but he shifted slightly to acknowledge his old friend.

“Sorry, Whip. I decided eviction isn’t good enough for these scum. Their new sentence…death.”

He couldn’t see through his projection down below, but from his vantage above, he saw Whipvine frown. Before he could reply, the elder’s booming laugh echoed out across the warehouse.

“The payment of your life is accepted. Give your Emperor our regards, revenant. Do not interfere or we will drown you in bodies.”

Whipvine leaned in close to his projection, his voice low.

“Terry, flee! I can’t handle this many…” He trailed off, perhaps sensing that the Terry he was talking to had no heartbeat or smell to him.

It was Terry’s turn to laugh as he addressed the elder.

“It is your people who will drown, elder.”

Terry flicked his hand, opening a portal exit inside the warehouse. Unlike his other portals—which were mostly invisible—he let the blue-silver oval appear with a flash of light. At the same time, he extended his senses high above, summoning a large light-emitting portal above the warehouse entrance. Light filtered in through the open door, causing the sanguine to screech in panic. Another portal opened on the far side of the warehouse, and those few sanguine lingering outside began to burn. Two more portals opened around the building, until it was penned in on four sides by brilliant golden light. Sunlight even flickered through his decoy portal, singeing a nearby sanguine who had been edging close to the simulacrum.

Within moments, Terry had created a prison of sunlight, trapping the sanguine inside their own nest.

“Kill him!” the elder shouted, his aura blasting out to command his underlings.

Bodies leaped at the portal emitting his decoy, fuzzing the light as they passed through and bounced off the invisible portal. He felt a pull on his aura and let the portal go.

But the second portal he had opened inside the warehouse—the one emitting blue-silver light—remained active. Water had been trickling through, unbeknownst to the elder. As the sanguine realized that Terry wasn’t actually among them, the trickle of water turned into a veritable flood.

The sanguine ignored the rushing water, turning about in an uncoordinated panic as they searched for a target. Since they couldn’t find Terry, they turned to the Emperor’s revenant.

Which was a costly mistake.

Whipvine’s weapons cracked out too fast for Terry to see, the sounds of their passage echoing painfully loud in the warehouse. They cleaved through bodies, clearing a handful of sanguine spawnlings with each strike.

But Terry wasn’t concerned for Whipvine—the revenant was an A-ranked Duelist and one of the most deadly Awakened at any rank. Instead, he had eyes only for the elder, who had slinked out of the throne like a shadow, edging toward the back of the warehouse.

As Terry followed the sly elder with his eyes, he heard the sounds of the first spawnling to touch the water that was gushing from the portal. A terrible cry of pain filled the large room, then was amplified a moment later as more and more of the sanguine landed in the flood.

He smiled as the panicked horde turned into a mewling blob of incapacitated foes.

They hadn’t been able to get their hands on that much silver, so Terry had worried the concentration would be too low to hurt the vampires. But judging by the squealing cries of pain, he shouldn’t have worried.

The colloidal silver they’d created and fed underground near the warehouse had been a smashing success. As a Water Elementalist, Alan had been more than up to the task of funneling it through Terry’s portal.

With the ground soaked in the colloidal silver, Whipvine and the vampires began playing a game of the floor is lava—only, Whipvine marched through the lava like a vengeful god, his whips tearing through clumps of the fleeing monsters with contemptuous strokes.

The horde dispersed, edging away from the water, but found themselves boxed in by the sunlight ringing the warehouse. They pressed their backs to the walls, then began to climb desperately as the water approached.

Where they were complete fodder to Whipvine’s long-range strikes.

Only those that made it to the very ceiling were safe from the whips, but the revenant simply leaped into the air, clearing enough height to reach them with swift strokes before dropping back to the floor. He continued culling the spawnlings like fish in a barrel, and Terry turned his full attention back to the elder.

The sneaky sanguine had reached high up in a corner of the warehouse, clutching one of his underlings to him like a body shield. Pulling a hood up high, he prepared to breach through a window—presumably to fly to safety outside the range of Terry’s sunlit portals. He held the spawnling before him, angling to hide inside its shadow for a respite.

When the elder quietly breached a window and slipped out, he had the dead spawnling held up high above him, like an umbrella against the sun.

And Terry was there to greet him.

The plates of silver wrapped around his waist lifted into the air, snapping around the elder’s head like an iron mask. Panic seized the sanguine and he threw the spawnling away to claw at the metal enclosure. He screamed in pain as his claws raked against the silver, risking what must have been utter agony in order to free himself.

But Terry held the silver mask tight with his aura, resisting the elder’s considerable strength as he watched him struggle. Glancing through a peephole portal to assess the fight below, Terry saw that Whipvine was cleaning up, throwing dead sanguine like baseballs at those clutching to the ceiling above.

On the north side of the warehouse, Tania, Peter, Tristan, and Katie were ranging among the sunlight, skewering sanguine who had fled the silver water to risk the light, only to find the pissed off members of Feed Wichita, armed with silver-coated clubs and swords. On the south side of the warehouse, he knew Crunch, Burg, and Bloodstain were doing the same, but with flesh-rending claws and overwhelming strength. And on the west and east side, his portals emitted powerful sunlight that shred any vamps desperate enough to risk a breakout.

It was a complete rout and Terry turned his attention back to the elder.

With a thought, he opened a full-sized portal to the warehouse floor. Flexing his aura, he hoisted the elder up by the silver mask, causing the creature to screech in renewed pain. He ferried him through the portal, then followed closely behind.

As he stepped through with the elder held hovering above the ground, Whipvine whirled, poised to attack, then laughed at what he saw. The elder’s feet dangled, kicking at open air comically.

“God damn, boy. If that isn’t the most satisfying thing I’ve seen all decade.”

He walked over and poked the handle of a whip into the elder’s side. The sanguine stopped clawing at the mask to swipe viciously at Whipvine, but the revenant dodged casually.

“You think this is good? Keep watching.”

Terry forcibly turned the elder with his Metal Telekinesis until they were facing each other. With a subtle use of Liquefy Metal, he let some of the silver drain away until the elder’s eyes and mouth were visible.

“Elder, for the crimes of terrorizing my city and murdering men, women, and—”

The sanguine snarled, spitting caustic fluid that Terry dodged easily.

“You’ve doomed your city, spawnling!” The elder’s voice was tight with clearly agonizing pain. “My kind will swarm you and the lord of bones!”

Terry laughed, summoning up his aura to create a portal ranging high above the darkness. The exit portal flashed into existence right in between the small gap he’d made in the mask.

“Then I’ll burn them, too!” he growled.

Light blossomed from the portal, filling the silver mask with golden-yellow rays. A blood-curdling scream echoed from the mask for a moment, then cut off suddenly. The elder’s body convulsed for a heartbeat more, then went still.

Righteous anger filled him as he thought about all the innocents these monsters had killed. He imagined the family of three he’d saved from such a fate. Thought about Vlad bleeding out in his arms.

A portal materialized above them, stretching wide enough to fit the elder’s entire body. Light streamed down, sizzling on contact with his skin. Terry watched as it blackened, then smoked, until the sanguine elder was as dark as coal.

Finally, he opened one last portal and shoved the elder’s body through, depositing it miles into the air where the sun reigned.

The elder’s body would fall to the earth—eventually—but only as ash and dust.

He stared at the blue-silver portal, his blood pounding in his temples.

It wasn’t enough. A thousand dead sanguine who would never taste human blood again—yet that was little consolation to their victims. An elder silvered, burned, and ashed—yet there would be more where he came from.

A city held hostage, finally released—yet their captor remained in power, ready and able to maintain his hold by any means necessary.

No, it wasn’t enough.

But it was something.

A hand settled on his shoulder, pulling him from his melancholy. He looked over to see Whipvine’s scars twisting into a sad smile.

“You did good, lad.” He barked out a tight laugh. “It’ll cause hell for the Emperor and those who serve him—” He raised an eyebrow to include himself in that designation. “—but you did good.”

He wanted to resent the revenant—Whipvine clearly supported the Emperor both by compulsion and by choice. But the mischievous twinkle in his eye, the hideous scars on his face, and the strength in his hand reminded Terry too much of the man who had been his lifelong friend and teacher. Despite everything, he still found himself thinking of the man as his friend.

“To what end, though, Whip? My grandfather seems hellbent on sabotaging his own city. It started with the draugr on the gates and continued with the sanguine. Not to mention the food situation.” He shook his head in defeat. “Why, Whip? What’s his endgame?”

Terry thought he could see the indecision in Whipvine’s face. A hopeful feeling welled up. Maybe he’d finally turn against grandfather and do the right thing.

But before he could reply, the front of the warehouse burst open. Tania charged through, a silver-edged sword held before her with wicked intent. The others followed behind her—a touch more cautiously. Terry felt the three ghouls ranging around outside and sent his aura toward Crunch, holding him back.

It would be better if Whipvine—and by extension, the Emperor—didn’t know of their involvement.

“Aw, man!” Tania complained from the entrance. “You guys didn’t save any of the fun for us!”

They sloshed forward through the ankle-high water. Tania greeted Whipvine cheerfully and the man simply scowled in reply. The others seemed intimidated by the revenant and stayed behind Tania as they neared.

He wondered if the man were poised to chew them out in a way he hadn’t with Terry, but after a tense moment, he simply grunted and shook his head.

“Since you’re all here,” Whipvine said. “I’ll inform you that the Emperor is obviously aware of your operation and intends to seize it.”

Shocked expressions passed around the team, but it was Tania who spoke up first.

“And what’s our magnanimous leader intend to do with our farm?” She crossed her arms defiantly. “Cause if he plans to destroy it, it’ll be over my dead body.”

Whipvine scowled at her tone but shook his head.

“No, girl, he doesn’t have plans to destroy it. I’ll personally make sure it’s distributed and receives the necessary upkeep to continue feeding the hungry.”

Terry felt a bit of doubt welling up at that.

“How can you guarantee that, Whip?” He left the rest of the question unsaid: what if the Emperor just compels you?

Whipvine eyed Terry with a determined look.

“He won’t compel me on this, son. You’ll just have to trust me.”

A wave of tension settled over the team and Whipvine regarded them all with an impatient look. But Terry did trust the man, despite everything. If he asked for trust, he would give it to him.

“I trust you, Whip.” He looked between them all, giving them a steady look. “Come on, guys. Let’s head back to the warehouse. From there…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the Emperor will hire you on to keep the farm going.”

They shared dubious glances, but no one argued, which Terry took as a small victory.

After such a battle, he felt like his aura should have been nearly drained. But the biggest pull on his power had been the swimming pool of water pumped through the portal. For his D-ranked aura, everything else had been relatively trivial.

He wanted to marvel at his power, let a sense of pride well up after all they’d been able to accomplish. But the uncertainty of the next few hours put him on edge.

And when it really came down to it, he wasn’t anywhere close to being able to challenge the Emperor—couldn't even give one of his revenants something to think about. Until that day, the amount of good he could accomplish would be limited to subterfuge and planning.

That feeling humbled him and reinforced that he couldn’t flaunt this raid on the sanguine in front of the Emperor. His grandfather might see fit to punish or even restrict Terry’s movements and that could not happen.

If he wanted to free the region from the tyranny of his grandfather, he had to remain circumspect, only striking from the shadows. A guerrilla fighter against the rule of Emperor Necroton.

But first, he needed to bring light back to Wichita.