"We're being attacked by Wu Peifu's shamans," Spade snarled into the phone. Joyce blanched.
"Oh, shit! Dude," she said. "Should I go help?"
The shamans lying in wait chose that exact moment to hurl a literal tornado of fire at her.
"Oh fuck! Oh my god!" Joyce screamed. "Han Gai, we're getting the fuck out of here!" She booked it down an alley, covering herself and Han Gai in shoddy but overpowered wards.
They ran and got attacked a few more times before Joyce ran out of breath. Ducking down her seventh alley of the night, Joyce tripped over a bag of trash and awkwardly flung herself onto a dumpster to stop from hitting the questionable liquid on the floor face-first.
"Chairman!" Han Gai said, not even panting a little. "We should just fight them!"
"You mean I should fight them," Joyce grit out. Han Gai winced.
"Yeah, that's over 200 shamans, I won't be of any use other than hacking anyone who gets too close," he said apologetically.
Joyce groaned. "Bro, physically I could probably take them on, but emotionally? Imagine the toll. Also, PR. I'm literally going to be spraying guts and charred flesh onto residential buildings."
Han Gai grimaced awkwardly. Seeing that Joyce was no longer panting as much, he hurriedly pushed her to start running again. They ran around for a few more minutes, Joyce banishing every tracking spirit in a twenty-five-meter radius wherever they went.
'Spade! Where the hell is you guys?!' Joyce wailed over the mental-link.
'I'll be there with back-up in ten minutes! We're being held up by plague-spirits and a very suicidal group of shamans,' Spade sent back grimly. 'Hold on until then, no matter what, okay?'
Joyce let out a small whine and went back to running away as a giant ball of fire started swooping around the block.
"Chairman, you suck at running, please just fight them!" Han Gai pleaded as they rounded the corner, straight into a team of five shamans. The two groups stared at each other in shock for a few milliseconds before the shamans started flinging fire, wind, and lightning towards them. None of the attacks made it past Joyce's shitty and ridiculously overpowered ward.
"Oh my god," Joyce groaned. She promptly flung a swathe of wind-spirits smack into the middle of the team, where the spirits started a cyclone that threw three of the five shamans against a wall of some kind and put them out of commission. The cyclone then began chasing the other two, who ran away screaming as the cyclone sprouted lightning-tentacles.
"The lightning is a little creepy," Joyce said with a frown. "Did I fuck up?"
"Let's get out of here, Chairman," Han Gai said firmly, pulling Joyce away before she could do something about the lightning.
A chunk of a building exploded above them.
"Holy shit!" Joyce shouted, her ward spinning like a helicopter's wings, sending rubble and dust spraying into the other buildings around them.
"Chairman!" Han Gai screamed, hacking down a wind-spirit that was trying to circle around the wards. Joyce looked at the spinning rubble apprehensively.
"Fuck it, I'm just going to target them with extreme prejudice," Joyce snarled. Han Gai looked at her in shock.
"Chairman, being racist towards them won't help us!"
"No! I meant I'm going to target them!" Joyce said. "Just…cover me for a bit, ok?"
Han Gai nodded uncertainly. Joyce closed her eyes, hunching over her clasped hands as she dug into the web of spiritual energy around them. Wuhan had much less spiritual energy than Canton, but that just made the shamans all the more noticeable.
She easily spotted the Flying Dragon shamans. They had a distinct vibe to them, thanks to Mohan's incredible foresight.
Mohan had been worried Joyce would have to go for search and destroy operations at some point in time and didn't want her to accidentally off one of their own guys. He'd made sure that all the shamans were exposed to the presence of the Vermillion Bird, and just in case Joyce was stupid, that they also carried talismans that had mini-wards imbued with Joyce's energy.
Ignoring everyone who had a similar vibe to her or Mohan, Joyce easily grabbed onto the shamans who didn't. They were in small pockets of energy that seemed to be in constant communication via a steady stream of tracking spirits.
Joyce sucked in a deep breath. "Ahhh…screw it," she snapped. Joyce grabbed on the pockets of energy and yanked, dropping spiritual energy on them like a Looney Tunes anvil. She waited for a few seconds before dragging squirming wind-spirits into tangled messes and dropping them right over the shamans. Between their destroyed wards and the sudden appearance of mini-cyclones, Joyce didn't think they had anything to worry about for the next five minutes or so
"Chairman, are you alright?!" Han Gai shouted. Joyce opened her eyes, giving him a thumbs up. Han Gai sighed in relief, letting go of the iron grip he had on her arm.
"I've got them occupied for a little bit, so let's go meet up with Spade first," Joyce said. Her phone buzzed insistently. Now that she had some breathing room, she leisurely opened her phone to read the 37 messages from Kajio.
'What the hell is happening over there?!'
'Joyce'
'Joyce, what the hell?!'
There were a dozen more variations of that before Kajio got into work mode.
'All of Wu's shamans are occupied right now, right?'
'Jia Xu and Taeyun are attacking from the South.'
"They're really opportunistic, huh?" Joyce grumbled. Han Gai gently steered her away from walking into a brick wall.
'Wu Peifu's engaging in the Southern side, he's too occupied to deal with you guys right now.'
'Ruohan just screwed you over, she's pulled out completely.'
'I'm tracking her down right now. I'll take care of her before she can turn to Jia Xu or Taeyun.'
"Wow, that's hella metal," Joyce muttered, ignoring Han Gai's concerned look. She kept reading, eyebrows raised so high they almost hit her hairline.
'Jia Xu and Taeyun have retreated outside the city.'
'Wu Peifu is pursuing them.'
'They've ambushed him at Hesheng Bridge.'
'Wu Peifu's losing big time.'
Joyce cackled, sending Kajio a smiley face.
'Btw, don't kill Ruohan just yet,' Joyce sent. The auto-translated message looked a little off but Joyce could hardly tell what was wrong with it, so she sent it anyways.
"It's definitely been more than five minutes now, how are we still in the clear?" Joyce asked Han Gai. "Is that a good thing or is that really bad?" Han Gai shrugged helplessly.
They both stiffened at the sound of fast-paced footsteps from down the street. Han Gai quickly shooed Joyce behind a phone booth, peeking out warily with his sword held like a baseball bat. Joyce squinted through the dark street.
She smiled. "Oh, it's Sp – " There was a flash of metal as Han Gai swung his sword like a batter about to make a home run. Two swords clashed together with a loud clang that could've woken the dead.
"Spade!" Joyce greeted, pulling a trembling Han Gai back by his sleeve.
"Oh my god, Vice-Chair, I'm so sorry!" Han Gai gasped. Spade ignored him.
"Joyce, you alright?" Spade demanded.
"I'm fine, where's the rest of your group?" Joyce asked.
"I left them behind to get you," Spade said. Joyce winced sympathetically. Spade could sprint like an Olympic runner on steroids, the swordsman could probably outrun a race car if he really wanted.
Spade clapped a hand onto Joyce's shoulder with a strange look on his face.
"Joyce, do you want to kill Wu Peifu's shamans or get them to surrender?" He asked seriously.
"Surrender, duh," Joyce said. She frowned slightly at the weird question.
"Then get rid of all your cyclones," Spade said. Joyce flinched at the edge in his voice and hurriedly complied. She wiped at the cold sweat that had joined the normal sweat on her face.
Spade let go of his bruising grip and patted her arm gently. He fished around his sleeve and pulled out a pack of napkins, holding them out to Joyce until she numbly took one.
"Um," Joyce began. She stopped, drawing a blank as to what she wanted to ask. All of a sudden it was like she'd forgotten how to feel or think.
Spade sighed and took the napkin back to dab at the sweat on her face. "Normal shamans don't have the ability to banish spirits at will," Spade reminded her. Joyce pulled back.
"Shit," she gasped. "Oh shit! I totally forgot about that part!"
Spade shrugged, passing the napkins back to her. "I figured. I thought it wouldn't be good if you killed them by accident," he said. Joyce winced.
"Yeah, thanks bro," she said appreciatively. Spade nodded.
"Anyways, our guys are tracking them down and tag-teaming them. With Wu Peifu set to lose and random cyclones from nowhere, I'm pretty sure they'll surrender," Spade said.
"Right, awesome," Joyce said. She gestured helplessly. "So do we just stick around with like, 200 handcuffed people until the other two arrive and we have to convince them this isn't kinky?"
"Yes," Spade said, ignoring the more ridiculous parts of her question. "Well, I'm going to do that. You're going to go take care of the Ruohan thing."
"Yeah, I should do a public apology for that colossal fuckup," Joyce said, cringing at the thought. "Bad idea." Spade shook his head.
"I doubt anyone would let you. That was a fucking disaster, but it broke the stalemate and we won. Taeyun and Jia Xu would rather barricade you in a supply closet than let you say it was a mistake at this point in time," Spade said. "They want this to be seen as a well-planned attack rather than everyone being as opportunistic as they can."
Joyce cringed more at the thought. "So I can't apologize for the shitstorm because it had good results," she sighed. "I'mma bet Ruohan was betting on that."
"So go get her before she can take any credit. The tracking spirits got a location already, so go and take responsibility," Spade said firmly. He turned to Han Gai. "If any of Ruohan's people so much as look at Joyce funny, take that as a signal to attack. Wreck 'em."
"Y-yes sir!" Han Gai said. He immediately clenched a fist to his chest, seemingly trying to give himself a silent pep talk.
Joyce sighed. "Anyways, I'll get going then," she said. Spade nodded. A car pulled up behind them, Joyce's favorite driver who didn't purposely drive into every pothole in the road sticking his head out.
"Chairman! Vice-Chair!" the driver called out. Spade patted Joyce's arm.
"Take the Chairman to meet with Ms. Hu," Spade ordered as Joyce and Han Gai clambered into the car. Joyce waved at him as the car pulled away before slouching into her seat with a sigh.
This was really turning out to be a bad night.