Sara looked down at her clipboard as Glandalf teleported away.
The battle had shifted.
They were on cleanup everywhere except the Battlewagon and Craig.
The Shafted had fought hard and cleared the way for her. Now they were trying to get inside the fucking rolling death machine. They had almost cut an entire section from its side, but it would take another few minutes.
Spells flew from reinforced windows and struck anyone who got too close, forcing the Shafted back again and again.
Craig’s Draggin waited farther out.
Its armored cock was too long to bring anywhere near the parking lot without destroying half of it.
No way was she inviting that thing inside.
“You ready?”
She looked over at Mark.
He had been beaten, tortured, and thrown back into the fight, but somehow looked more confident than he had before any of it.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Let’s end this fucker.”
Sara set her clipboard down.
They walked toward the Spear Bitches, who had been buzzing with energy since the fighting started.
Sara scanned the line and noticed one extra Veiny Cluck.
She hoped they didn’t expect her to ride that thing.
“You’re almost up,” she said. “As soon as they get it open.”
“I don’t think they can,” the lead Spear Bitch said.
She pointed toward the Battlewagon.
“They keep getting pushed back. They almost have the hatch, but something keeps locking it from the inside.”
Sara and Mark watched the fight.
She was right.
The Shafted had nearly forced the hatch open, but every time they gained space, something inside dragged it shut again.
Before Sara could think of another plan, Mark spoke.
“I got this.”
He blinked out of existence.
A second later, he appeared in the Battlewagon’s crow’s nest, which the Shafted had cleared earlier.
What was that crazy motherfu—
Mark shouted something down to the Shafted.
Everyone pulled back from the hatch except the two dwarves holding the lock open.
Then Mark jumped.
Sara’s eyes widened.
“What the fuck?”
His body flashed.
Before he hit the roof, Mark transformed into an iron golem.
He crashed into the hatch with enough force to tear it from the frame and drive it into the Battlewagon below.
The Shafted poured through the opening.
Within a minute, the Battlewagon stopped moving.
The spells stopped firing.
The Shafted finished their cut, and an entire section of the outer wall collapsed into the dirt.
“Go!”
The Spear Bitches charged.
Their Veiny Clucks stretched into full, angry strides.
Owlbears larger and meaner than the others poured through the opening in the Battlewagon.
Tons of them.
Craig had been using it as a Trojan horse.
The Spear Bitches stood on the backs of their Veiny Clucks, gripping their necks until the first rider leapt.
She drove a spear directly into an owlbear’s chest.
The others followed, spearing anything that made it past the Shafted.
Sara searched for Mark.
She couldn’t see him.
Craig’s Draggin started forward.
Fuck.
It was time.
Sara ran toward the Battlewagon and dipped through the chaos. She reached the open side and climbed inside.
The layout was almost exactly how she remembered it.
Just worse.
She ran toward the section beneath the destroyed hatch.
“Shit.”
Mark was pinned beneath several owlbears.
More stood around him, preparing spells.
Sara swung her guitar into position and struck a chord.
“Song of Horror!”
A shriek tore from the strings.
Most of the owlbears dropped to their knees, clutching their heads.
Sara slung the guitar behind her and charged.
She hit the nearest two with a double lariat and cleared them off Mark.
He was already getting to his feet.
“Hold on to me.”
Mark placed one hand against his own chest.
“Empower. Enlarge. Enhance. Repeat.”
He gave her his crazy-fucker smile.
“Enlarge Person!”
Sara threw both arms around his neck.
Mark grew.
Fast.
His shoulders tore through the ruined roof as he rose from the Battlewagon. Sara held on until her feet left the floor, then until the roof dropped beneath them.
He kept growing.
At the apex, his enlarged body crossed something invisible.
An indigo flash burst around him.
The spell collapsed.
Mark snapped back to his normal size and fell toward the ruined Battlewagon.
Sara lost her grip and dropped into the crow’s nest.
She landed hard and grabbed the rail.
Below, the Shafted and Spear Bitches had already cleared most of the remaining owlbears.
But that indigo flash was what she had been waiting for.
Now she knew exactly where Craig’s protection began.
Sara climbed quickly from the crow’s nest and crossed the field.
The fighting behind her was dying down.
Ahead, Craig landed his Draggin.
Its armored cock carved another trench through the dirt.
Something else she would have to deal with later.
Sara walked until she reached the edge Mark had revealed.
Craig dismounted and approached her with the arrogance of someone who believed arriving late still made him the most important person there.
“You thought you could take over my empire, Sara?” Craig snarled. “When you escaped me the first time, I almost ended your little game right there.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
She was already tired of the conversation.
“Losing people slows me down,” he said. “You were just a scrub.”
Sara nodded.
“Didn’t you tell me they aren’t people?”
“They’re not!” Craig shouted. “Humans come from Earth. They’re the only ones who matter!”
Sara looked past him.
The Shafted fought beside the Spear Bitches. The Brandersnatches dragged injured people clear. Clams pressed forward. People from all over Etokuso defended the place they had made together.
Craig followed her eyes and sneered.
“Look at them. You figured out how to manipulate the game better. That’s all.”
Sara looked back at him.
“That’s the difference, Craig. You think they’re mine, but I’m theirs.”
His expression tightened.
“Why aren’t you scared?” he demanded. “Attack me!”
Sara sighed.
She looked past him at the Draggin waiting to eat her and pulled Cody’s device from her pocket.
Craig stared at the casual movement.
She wasn’t casual.
Her heart was beating so hard it hurt.
“You mind taking two steps forward?” Sara asked.
“What?”
“Two steps.”
“No. I’m going to—”
Sara shrugged and pressed the button.
BOOM!
A flash exploded above the canopy.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The chain reaction ripped across the treetops.
Craig flinched and looked up.
The massive leaves and branches cracked.
A thin ring of sunlight broke through.
Then the canopy came down.
Craig saw it falling and stepped toward Sara twice without thinking.
The collapsed section slammed into the Draggin behind him and buried it beneath branches thick enough to crush buildings.
Sunlight flooded through the opening and spilled across the Forest of Nihilism.
Sara still held the device in front of her.
“Always wanted a sunroof.”
Craig stared at the wreckage.
The Draggin moved once beneath it.
Then stopped.
“You lost,” Sara said. “Join us, or we send you back to Earth.”
Craig turned toward her.
Fury burned through his face.
“That’s it. I’m not stopping you anymore. I’m going to fucking kill you!”
He raised both hands to cast.
Sara pressed the next button.
An arrow launched from one of Cody’s plants.
A red veil flashed around Craig and stopped it.
A cone of cold struck immediately after.
The red veil shattered.
Craig paused.
Sara pressed another button.
Melf’s Acid Arrow streaked toward him.
An orange veil flared and absorbed it.
A gust of wind followed and tore the orange layer apart.
His fury shifted.
For the first time, something desperate moved underneath it.
“What are you doing?”
Sara rolled her eyes.
“Do you think you’re the first swinging dick who tried Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil on me?”
She pressed two more buttons.
Magic flashed around Craig in different colors, each attack drawing out another layer before the prepared counter stripped it away.
Craig scrambled to finish a spell.
Sara lifted one hand.
“Magic Missile!”
A glowing dart drifted lazily toward him.
The blue veil appeared.
The dart touched it.
The veil dissolved.
Craig sneered.
“You can’t beat indigo, bitch. It stops any magical—”
Sara crossed the remaining distance and drove her elbow into his jaw.
His head snapped sideways.
Before he could recover, she grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face into her rising knee.
Craig hit the dirt bleeding.
“You’re not supposed to do that!” he shouted as he pushed himself upright. “You can’t use Earth moves—”
Sara drove another knee into his stomach.
She grabbed his hair.
Once.
Twice.
Then another rising knee to the face.
Craig fell backward and scrambled away.
Sara followed.
He was ready this time.
“Hold Person!”
Sara failed the save.
Her body locked.
Craig stood slowly.
He walked close enough for her to smell his breath.
Then he spat a thick glob of bloody spit onto her face.
She couldn’t wipe it away.
Couldn’t move.
Couldn’t even shudder properly from the sheer grossness of Craig spit.
“What now, Sara?” he asked. “They’re too far away to reach you.”
He pulled out a narrow dagger and held it against her throat.
“You want to play Earth games?”
He lowered the blade.
“Let’s play Earth games.”
The first stab entered her stomach.
Sara couldn’t move.
She couldn’t scream.
She could only feel it.
The blade came out.
Then went back in.
Again.
Again.
Craig’s perm shook loose as he stabbed her over and over with the small blade.
The pain became everything.
By the seventh or eighth strike, her vision had started going dark.
Of course.
She had helped make one place where men like him didn’t get to decide everything.
And he was going to cut it out of her.
Then something moved at the edge of her vision.
A Veiny Cluck charged across the field.
Its rider launched from its back.
Raven.
Still beaten.
Still barely moving right.
She flew through the air and speared Craig directly in the chest.
The impact broke his concentration.
Sara collapsed.
The pain finally tore a scream from her as blood poured across her stomach.
Mark slid beside her and pressed both hands against the wounds.
“Heal!”
He worked quickly, forcing pressure against the worst of the damage and sealing what he could.
The bleeding slowed.
The wounds closed enough to keep her alive.
The pain stayed.
Sara dragged herself upright.
Cody, Simone, Kaori, Muffin, and Chadwick had already piled onto Craig and forced him facedown against the dirt.
Sara stumbled toward Raven.
Raven lay on her side, one arm wrapped tightly around her ribs.
She was smiling.
“I love you!” Raven laughed through the pain. “I love you, Sara.”
Sara lowered herself beside her and stroked her cheek.
“I love you too.”
Then she looked toward Craig.
He was finally secure.
“Time to go home.”