Celias quest (2)-2 (2/2)

Celia fought down a wave of impatience. “I'm listening.”

“Let's check to make sure he's still on the ship first!”

The cannons belched, and bees disintegrated, trees going with them. Cannister shot mowed them like lawn. But they cared not, and swarmed upwards regardless, parting to flank the airship.

After what seemed like long moments finding calmness, Celia nodded. “Do it Cagna, please. Quickly.”

The dog woman turned and put her hand over the side of her mouth, talking to the air. And after a second, she turned back, ears straight up, eyes wide. “He's not in the ship. He's in the tunnels under the town. He's trying to get Anne and some crew out of there alive.”

“What? Why would he...” Celia realized she was shouting, and fought to get back to some vestige of calmness. “Okay. We can disregard the ship. Tell him we're coming to save him, and we'll go from there.”

Cagna tilted her head. “Wait, he's giving more... okay. Okay, I'm just relaying things here. And you're not going to like it, but what we do with this is your call...”

And as she explained, Cagna was right. Celia didn't like it, not one bit.

But...

After Cagna was done, Celia knew that the choice was hers. And that helped. Gave her a bit of clarity to fight back the demons in her skull that were shouting at her to just go and do it, get it over with, fucking end this nonsense for good.

She'd done that last time. And she'd almost gotten people killed. No, no. This time she had to trust her best friend. And even if it didn't work out like he hoped, then at least they'd be working together, not against each other.

WIS+1

That sealed the deal and settled it. She popped open the cockpit of Kindness and started clambering inside. “Right. Threadbare said this Stormanorm fellow was manning the ship?”

Cagna nodded. “Unless he's dead. But he's pretty tough, so probably.”

“Okay. Take Thomasi and infiltrate the town, go try and help Threadbare and the others escape. Fluffbear, hop into Cagna's cloak pocket and pop out if she needs healing or backup. Also, Cagna, put up party whisper before you go, please.”

“Will do.”

“Everyone else, we're going to go defend the ship. Strike over that ridge, it'll protect us from stray cannon shot unless they elevate. Wizaard, you're tag-teaming with me on muscle.”

Bastien smacked a fist into a palm. “Ooooohhhh yeahhhhh! I can do muscle!”

“Zuula, fight as you can, do crowd control with vines, and heal.”

Zuula grinned wide. “So typical shaman shit. She can do dat.”

“Kayin, you're on reserve. Go quiet, pick off outliers if you can do so without risk, and cover our southern flank. Whisper if trouble comes.”

“Got it, boss!” The catgirl bounded off, pulling a cloak around her and fading from view as she went.

“Madeline, you're our ace in the hole if the pirates decide to turn on us or kill us. Light them up. Until then, stay here and be in reserve.”

“Gaht it! Good luck, Celia.”

“Let me lead the way,” she said. “And let's go save that ship!”

And one by one she invoked her Steam Knight's activation skills. The last time she'd done this she had been pissed beyond belief, so angry and frustrated she'd belted them out with fury. But now she sang them with hope. Now she knew this was the way, this was what she needed to be doing. Yes, the plan had changed and it was frustrating, but everyone was on the same page for once.

Besides, there was a viable target for ALL of her frustration, just right over THERE.

And that ridge looked like a pretty good ramp, now that she thought about it...

“Wind's Whisper Stormanorm. We're allies. Fire on us and Anne will kill you.”

Then she screamed “Boosters!” and felt the frame of her mecha shudder, as two ports opened on its back and blasted her forward on twin pillars of flame. Forward and up, as she let her feet graze the surface of the ridge and guide her into a high jump, shooting up into the smoke...

...and down to fall like the fist of an angry god onto some very surprised ground bees.

Their surprise didn't last long, and she rose from her three point-landing in a haze of red numbers, drawing forth her wrecker blade and leveling the repeater cannon that was her mecha's left arm with the other.

“Sorry,” she said, her voice amplified through her armor's vox. “But you are all fumped.”

As battle cries went it wasn't impressive. But the bees cared not, as several dozen insects the size of hounds turned from their swarming advance, and leaped at her, twisting to bring their stingers to bear.

The first one ate her blade and died.

Letting his corpse pull it to the ground she locked her cannon over her forearm and fired, grapeshot shredding the next three.

Then the four after that struck her, and she staggered as the round, heavy bumbling bodies slammed into Kindness, but the gyros held firm and she braced as stingers rattled against her hull.

Nothing. No serious damage, she judged.

One probed at the viewing slit, and she smacked the bee away with her cannon, pulled her blade free, and got to hewing.

“Up top!” shouted Bastien, and she started to bring the blade up, thinking it a warning...

...then remembered that this was a code, that they'd discussed this, and she froze.

Two booted feet landed on her mecha's helm, and the Muscle Wizaard boomed “Off the Top Rope!” and launched himself into the next wave, crashing bodily down. Red numbers rose, and not all were from the enemy. And the bees that hadn't been crushed scattered to the sides, and started fighting back. For a second she debated going to help him.

“Call Vines, Call Thorns!” shouted Zuula, and a surging carpet of vegetation cut off the swarming reinforcements. “And oh yeah, Fast Regeneration!”

Bastien straightened up, pulled a stinger out of his chest as the wound sealed, and started beating the nearest bees to death with it. All while keeping a chokehold on a larger one that was very, very confused with the whole situation.

Celia judged he had matters under control, and stomped forward, reloading her cannon and scything down the bees trapped in the vines with bursts of grapeshot. More and more of the swarm drew her way, and more and more of them fell. The bees brought poison skills to bear against her, and it did nothing to her armor. They tried to knock her over, but Kindness was too squat and low to the ground, and had strength proportional to a bigger Steam Knight, so it went nowhere. They tried to surround her and attack relentlessly, but her metal shell was just too tough, and all Celia had to do was throw the occasional Mend in between swordstrokes.

Bastien covered her flank, Zuula healed and worked crowd control, and presumably Kayin did what Kayin did because the swarm stayed off her flank.

But there were just so many of them.

And as her sanity ebbed from throwing mends, just as she was starting to get worried, the message she had been waiting for came.

Cagna: We're on the ship, everyone's safe. Get on and we'll leave!

Celia: You heard her, everyone on the ship! Madeline, make yourself known but don't approach yet.

A dragon's roar in the distance told her that her order had been obeyed.

Celia fought her way to the Wizaard, hacking down bees as she went, bulling through clusters until she'd gotten to him. Vines wrapped the path behind them as they fled together, and Celia could only trust that Kayin and Zuula were following.

“Boosters!” she screamed and grabbed the Wizaard as she crested the last ridge, shooting up in the air and carrying them both down to land on the deck... this time a bit more gently than the last landing. Though she was certain the wood was a bit scorched, that wasn't her problem right now.

No, her problem was at the wheel, barking orders as the engines thrummed to life. Her problem leveled tired eyes on her armor's viewing slit and froze mid-sentence.

And though Celia didn't know it and wouldn't find out until later, for the second time this day, Anne Bunny was rendered speechless.

“Take off, get us out of here,” Celia told her, her voice amplification doing nothing to hide a small bit of smugness. “And once we're safely away you can try to give me some really, really good reasons why I shouldn't piledrive you into the earth from two miles up.”