Chapter 27
Levi picked himself up with a groan. His body ached all over, which didn’t surprise him—he had gone bouncing down the catwalk like a fumbled football. He searched for his cane and snatched the silver focus up, then twisted to look up, searching for more enemies. The Director’s attack appeared to have wiped out a wide swath of the enemies, though the ones that remained looked larger. He noted Flix flying protectively over him, so he clicked his tongue to her in invitation. The dragonet settled down on his shoulder as he jogged back to the others. He was relieved to see that none of them were hurt, even Darren. They all looked worse for wear, however, and Darren’s magic armor hung by a few sparks of energy at best. He rolled his neck in an effort to clear his head and Zuzan leaped back onto his shoulder with a worried chitter.
“No, Zuzan, I am fine, really. Just sore and tired,” he reassured his friend. He took a moment to give both animals a scratch, refilled their water and set out food for them. Flix began to gulp down pieces of meat as soon as she landed on the wall, and Zuzan squeaked in indecision. When he finally set her down among the nuts, she stared up at him with huge black eyes and he sighed. “Seriously, I am fine. Eat.”
Glint’s barrier popped, sparked, and then faded away. The imp was cursing as he adjusted his staff; the shaft retracted down so he could reach the lantern easily and he began using tools from one of his pouches to twist the top off. Vapor whistled as it was released and some of the catalyst bubbled, but he got the bronze shell open and revealed the empty prongs that should have held a mana crystal. “Used the charge up. I do have a spare but it isn’t as good,” he muttered as he began to carefully replace it.
Levi glanced in Darren’s direction to make sure the bully didn’t take the chance to shove Glint or do something else that might cause him to fumble the mana crystal. If it was dropped into the catalyst without the tongs to control the reaction, the result would be energetic… and unpleasant. Seeing the canid was staring at the battle flashing above them, Levi looked up as well. The night sky was alive with swarms of light as the Director continued to shed their own starfield and send them after the remaining Horrors. Streaks of light raced after swollen shadows, so Levi shifted to stand near Elizabeth. When he went to see through her perception spell, he looked in time to see her cry out and collapse.
Levi caught her as she started to fall and held her up, keeping his hands under her arms as her knees collapsed. Her forehead was coated in sweat, and a few drops of blood had begun leaking from her left ear. “Are you—” he started to ask, but then a hand hit his shoulder and shoved him back and away.
“Get away from her!” Darren roared as he struck Levi again, this time a backhand to the chest. Levi caught himself on the stones of the wall and kept himself from falling, but his crimson eyes flared with power—he felt rage surge through him. The fatigue he had been feeling vanished as the new energy traveled through his limbs and he straightened up.
“What the fuck is your problem, dog-face? I caught her from falling!” Levi demanded. His eyes narrowed as he raised his hand to settle his glasses once more. His lips flattened, and he resisted the temptation to snarl and show his teeth. His power began to swirl around his cane in a black-and-red aura and he knew, absolutely knew, he could flatten Darren if the man let his guard down. Darren’s fish guy stepped in to stop what appeared to be a growing promise of violence.
“Wait, wait! Canids can’t control their response to someone touching the person they perceive as their mate—it wasn’t an attack,” the guy said while waving his hands and stepping between them.
Levi was impressed the guy was willing to move into the position he did. It would be easy to blast both the Crane House students with the same spell he had been using to kill Horrors, and he felt the impulse roiling within. He took a moment and stepped back, his nostrils flaring as he breathed in slowly. When he let his breath out, he had calmed slightly. “Darren, you put your hands on me like that again and I am going to kick you so hard you leave the dimension,” he said in a flat tone. His eyes were narrowed, and for a moment Darren looked unsure. The canid’s ears drooped and then shifted back, but he recovered himself to growl as he settled Elizabeth down on her back.
“Sorry,” the wolfman muttered. His uniform had been shredded by the Horror he’d gone toe-to-toe with, and Levi was surprised to see he still had an intact potion in his pocket. He didn’t recognize the rippling green fluid the canid trickled down Elizabeth’s throat.
“A recovery potion. Expensive,” Glint murmured to Levi as he finished snapping the lantern back together. He adjusted the knobs so the tool would be ready to create its barrier again, but he didn’t engage the vapor engine yet. “The perception spell is high level, but not particularly draining. I’d guess she doesn’t have a great deal of endurance if she’s passed out from holding it that long—might be why people say she’s had trouble in her practical exams.”
Levi nodded, it made sense. He took his waterskin out of his satchel and drained it. Then he took out something to eat. He had grabbed a blue fruit shaped like an orange; biting into it was just, weird. Habit made him want to peel it, but this rind was edible and added a spicy note to the tender berry itself. The whole thing tasted weirdly of clove and vanilla, but he liked it. Well, Tawny can’t be pissed, since I managed to avoid blasting Darren to chunks, he thought. His eyes went back to the fight and he saw that the Director had burned up even more of the larger Horrors. The huge one that had been attacking the airships remained, however, and the pair were exchanging blasts of energy that collided to form nebulous clouds of greenish vapor. Levi frowned, wondering why it looked so much like the steam that emerged from Glint’s vapor engine.
Levi squinted as he took in the way the weather seemed to be changing—each time a magical attack struck, more power dispersed around the pair. Clouds were starting to form around the battlefield, and he saw sparks of electricity dancing among the growing moisture. “Glint, is this weather going to be a problem?” he asked his friend.
The swamp imp looked up, and his goggles whirred as he cycled through a few different lenses—then his ears wilted. “It’s a mana storm. The battle is interacting with all the mana vapor released by those airships exploding. Whatever comes out of those clouds is going to be dangerous,” Glint offered. He began turning knobs on his lantern as he adjusted the staff again.
Whatever comes out of the clouds? Levi thought with a frown. He turned his head and saw the Crane House students were helping themselves to food and drink. Elizabeth looked weak, but she took a moment to give him a nod. She even seemed grateful, which was more than he could say for Darren. The fish guy kept glancing up at the sky and whispering to Darren, but the canid didn’t look to be listening. Levi was about to interject, but then the emblem on his forearm produced a sharp, burning sensation.
All students return to their Houses immediately—The Director
The message flared across his vision and he blinked several times to disperse it. “I’m never getting used to that,” he muttered. He looked to Glint and saw his friend was shutting off his lantern and inserting the disk that would keep the catalyst away from the crystal. Levi turned to the students from Crane House to make sure they had gotten the message. “You guys going in?”
Darren waved away his words and picked up Elizabeth. She didn’t seem thrilled to have him carrying her like a helpless damsel, but she didn’t fight it as the three of them ran toward an entrance farther down the wall than the one Levi and Glint had originally used. The night sky was growing darker, and the clouds thickened. Thunder rumbled and the sparks became full-fledged lightning. Levi picked up Zuzan and whistled for Flix, the dragonet landing on his shoulder with a series of sharp chiming calls. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.
Zuzan stared wistfully at the snacks he was leaving behind, but Levi didn’t feel like lingering to reclaim them with a magic storm brewing. Lightning arced down and slammed into a high tower across the building—the world flashed with violet light, confirming his choice as he ran in through the door and slammed it behind them. He looked to double check that Glint was there, and then he slid the bolting mechanism. He was breathing hard from the adrenaline and he saw Glint was doing the same. Flix chimed several more times and a slender tongue flicked his neck insistently; she only stopped when he scratched between her horns. “You did great, Flix,” he whispered to the dragonet.
Zuzan curled into his hair and seemed to be relaxing, so Levi took that as a good sign. He looked at Glint and his friend stared at him expectantly. “Right, let’s get the hell back to the common room. I need a damn shower,” Levi said. Glint smiled wide and the pair started descending to get back to the ground floor. Levi noticed that the one thing the Academy seemed to lack was any kind of elevator. He didn’t mind it so much, but it did make him curious. “Glint, why aren’t there vapor-powered lifts or something, to help people move between floors?” he asked.
The swamp imp looked over at him as they went down a staircase, then let out a laugh. “People would get pretty lazy if they had something to just lift them up and down, wouldn’t they? Some rich people have vapor machines like that, also some races who have mobility issues. Sometimes sapient life has to remember that short-term conveniences can have long-term consequences. Most worlds with good healers teach people that they need to move around to stay healthy, but not all. The Academy would rather help people with problems moving on a case-by-case basis, instead of taking away the exercise for everyone,” Glint said. Levi could hear the mockery in his tone.
“So, basically, it’s so we have no choice but to run up and down these stairs all the time and tire ourselves out?” Levi asked, shaking his head as he jogged down the hall.
“Exactly, the school doesn’t want you getting fat and lazy,” Glint replied.
Zuzan let out a series of squeaks and chirps, and Levi rolled his eyes. “What do you mean I need more exercise—you ride around on my shoulder all day!” he protested. Her chittering came rapid fire and she patted the top of his head as though she were comforting a child.
“Smart-ass squirrel,” Levi muttered in a good-natured complaint as Glint snickered. Flix lifted her head and let out a series of chimes, and then she flicked her tongue off the side of his face. Levi eyed Flix, trying to figure out what she wanted to tell him. When the message came through, he groaned.
“What? What did she say?” Glint demanded in amusement.
“As far as I can tell? Flix said that a dragon never hurries, it arrives when it chooses and not before. Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup,” he added, ending the translation with a quote from his own world. Glint looked confused for a moment, then he snorted in laughter and his ears waggled. Flix twisted her neck until she stared at him with an upside-down head. She blinked her eyes lazily and then let out a series of rising chimes as she flexed her wings. Levi took that as approval. Then the dragonet curled her neck around his and rested her jaw on his shoulder, letting herself nap.
Levi promised himself he would make sure that he’d get a fresh animal kill for Flix, as well as a good variety of nuts and fruit for Zuzan. They had done wonderfully while they were out on the wall, so he wanted to reward them. It did get him thinking, though—he hadn’t really gotten into studying the spells to boost his bonds with his companions, nor to transfer energy into them. He was worried the destructive nature of his Demon Lord power would harm them, yet it was something he needed to focus on. He looked down at his forearm and the raven tattooed there, then he touched it as they jogged through the halls. 26 Lesser Horrors, 1 Minor Horror, was displayed on his emblem.
“That big one was only a Minor Horror? How brutal is it going to be running into the ones that qualify higher on the scale?” he asked himself. He saw Glint looking, so he relayed the information and the imp checked his own raven. His ears shot out to either side, then drooped.
“I only killed six of the Lesser Horrors. I wasn’t very useful at all,” Glint said sadly.
Levi stopped dead and looked at his friend, then shook his head and took a moment to clap the imp on the shoulder. “Glint, you thought it was a miracle when I killed four of them, now you’ve killed six in a single evening without knocking yourself unconscious. How can you think that is anything less than amazing?” he asked.
Glint looked at him, opened his jaws for a moment, then closed them once more. Levi watched as the imp’s ears shifted through a dizzying array of positions before they settled flat against his skull. His friend lifted a hand to raise the goggles off his eyes and over the small horns on his forehead.
“You’re right, Levi, we’re both pretty badass,” he said finally.
“Damn right we are.”
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