When the sun was setting about half of the way down the sky I was once again sitting on the warehouse rooftop looking out over the short surrounding mileage. For a little while now I had been seeing what looked like bodies between three and file miles away not far from the watering hole. They were moving about dark shapes in a familiar manner.
Finally, one of the bodies got in the middle of their gathering and a minute or two later there was the small light of a flame and thin smoke rising in the air. A few minutes later, my so-called rescue team had a proper fire burning boldly with a healthy plumage of smoke rising in the air. It was almost like they wanted the injured people they were sent for to see them and struggle out to them through the night.
My opinion of this trio immediately plummeted and a quickly whistled for Si-Pon. When the bird simply APPEARED landing lightly on the sheet metal roof beside me, I say, "Fly out over them and check out their camp, find out what kind of baggage they have with them if you know what to recognize yet. After you pass over them, keep going for about one minute then circle back the long way. Stop by Lucinda and Bernard first to let them know we have company."
Si-Pon wordlessly nodded and disappeared into a vague blur that stretched for a foot or two away and up before vanishing entirely. I could not help but wonder what kind of speed or magical ability was capable of something like that while watching the actual after-image fade away. It really was a new experience for me.
Because I still had the night to prepare, I waited until it was completely dark before taking Poniard to the edge of the property. From their camp they were most likely to approach my location from its literal front and so I decided on a meeting spot just inside. Finding a few hiding spots for Poniard, I use my short swords to chop up the ground into a large shallow grave among some ruined cars or behind a bush.
In the event that whoever remained after the first shots were taken simply decided to run away instead of attacking me, I set up some trip wires within the property to slow down their escape. The two most like escape routes had trip wires preceding car doors run through with jagged pieces of metal. It was a simple but decent plot.
Would it penetrate most D and C grade armor? Not really. Would it make a person freak out and spend extra time in their escape? Most definitely.
Once these basic traps and hides were set up, Poniard and I briefly rehearsed the handful of different approached for dealing with an enemy. As my literal ace in the hole, I tried hard to repeatedly emphasize the fact that Poniard needed to make one sneak attack and gain distance no matter what. Even if his grade was once again higher than mine, he was still just a first stage evolution.
It took an hour before I felt confident in our ability to silently and swiftly carry out a combined killing stroke depending on attacks and retreats. By then, it was closing in on midnight and it was time for us to get some brief sleep. However, while Poniard and I slept I asked Si-Pon to keep watch in case our rescuers decided to sneak up in the night.
Si-Pon awoke me with a non-alarming coo and shaking of my helmeted head before the sun had even peeked over the distant horizon. I sat up and started looking around while reaching for a revolver lying near where I slept until a gender neutral and melodious cooing said, "No-o-bo-ody her-re. Left camp, tho-ough."
"There are birds on this planet called parrots," I tiredly inform the bird after a morning yawn and stretch with my gun in hand. "They can mimic at least ninety percent of words and languages. Without chortling and cooing when they talk. Why do you coo?"
"Because it gives people a more benign impression of me," the bird replies in pretty much perfect English. "If you met a talking animal that spoke like this a few days after getting together, you would fear it as what the biology director called an 'evil genius'. The 'coo' calms and disarms people."
"Good point, but I suspected you could talk normally," I inform the bird almost gratefully. "Thanks for letting me know you can talk. Stick with whatever you're comfortable with when only us are around, though."
"I see," the bird says simply and somewhat cryptically, giving away nothing about how it would speak from now on.
After waking Poniard I sent Si-Pon to check the progress of the rescue team before bagging up some of my camp. When I found out they were just casually walking over, I sent Si-Pon to swiftly and sneakily inform Lucinda's hidden camp while the early morning light still matched his coloring. Then I set to work.
Making a fake bed area with my bedding and shitty lean-to back a camp as quickly and discreetly as possible, I transport most of my wood and the remains of last night's fight to the fake bed area. After making a fake fire and lighting it up to attract attention, I stretched out on the fake bed and pretended to prepare breakfast while Poniard hid in the closest hide.
Of course, breakfast was merely some beef jerky and hot water but I made a show of making a shitty broth with jerky and water in a steel cup. By the time the rescue team came within a few hundred yards and 'in sight', I quickly raised my cup of super salty meat water to show I saw them. I was briefly acknowledged by a single man in front waving back.
The trio actually seemed to slow down for a few moments as if talking among themselves. It seemed they were surprised to see that I was alive and now needed to rethink their plans. They were probably planning then and there whether or not to kill me and make it look good!
Si-Pon simply appeared with blurred surroundings in the low hanging branch of a tree no far from my fake bed. If I did not know any better I would say the elemental had been waiting until a moment like just now to appear. I was still grateful for his presence, regardless of when he was here so long as he was here in case he was needed.
The group soon picked their pace up to twice what it was before as if they had decided on handling things in a normal and professional manner. Too bad for them. The kill order had already been put in motion and it was hard to resist looking toward the sniping hill in the distance.
As the trio neared the edge of the perimeter the mission was suddenly set underway. A few hundred yards in the distance, two loud 'pow' noises sounded out from off to the side. The team team had just enough time to turn toward the sound before the bullet arrived roughly half of a second after firing.
The rescue team leader was caught in the side of his turning head and he body was faintly jerked to the opposite side when the bullet exited. At the same time, one of the other two who were both turning toward the sound suddenly had their shoulder blown back behind its previous position. After taking in the sight of two companions hitting the ground, one dead and the other screaming like a little girl, the final guy for some odd reason was looking at me.
It was not until after witnessing the team leader rag doll to the ground that I actually reacted, lurching up and forward from my prone position while reaching for a revolver. The man seeing me get up with no problems at all and reach for a gun started running. The wounded rescuer was also watching me draw my gun as he ran out of breath.
Switching targets when the injured man reaches for a much larger version of my revolver, I quickly and easily fire three shots into their chest. After the fleeing man turned to run he ran in the wrong direction, passing close enough to Poniard to draw him out from under a bush while rushing toward a trip wire. Looking back at Poniard, the man never saw the bicycle cabling stretched across the junk path before him.
After tumbling into a partial wall from a truck bed, the man fell onto a truck hood on the ground with a dozen small spikes sticking up to greet him. His armor and hands were originally enough to stop himself from taking more than superficial damage, but then Poniard landed on his back between his shoulders. He did not even attack with his poniards, just ruthlessly slammed onto the man's body so that he was driven down on the spikes.
Then he briefly punched both daggers up into the back of the man's skull for the finish.
Still breathing and howling through clenched teeth with pink tinged bloody spit frothing at the corner of his mouth, the man I shot simply lie on the ground glaring hatefully up at me. After taking nine C grade rounds to the upper torso area, even with leather armor over a C grade combat suit, the man was in no condition to do more than lie there and wordlessly hate me.
Unsure of what to do or how to feel in this situation, I simply turned my gun down toward him and asked, "What choices did you make and what actions did you take that led you here? These are the things you should hate and regret, not me," I inform the man somewhat emptily as I find myself emulating Eliza's emotionless behavior. Then, I pulled the trigger.
One eye simply popped and two hole appeared in the man's nose and forehead right after the shot and right after those hits from less than twenty yards away the back of the man's skull was spraying out in every direction but forward.
As the man simply went limp and all the air left his body I was suddenly reminded of shooting another group of three in a portal entryway. Just as quickly the first two had simply ceased to exist but this time the one Poniard killed went fairly quickly and even more easily. There were less people around to watch, though.
I suddenly found myself faced with a very serious problem as Poniard and I gathered the bodies together. Poniard and I both set to work stripping the bodies of their armor and weapons since there were no clean-up crews for this mission but the entire time I kept wondering the same thing. What do I do if Poniard goes for the heart?
Aside from some light rucks, the rescue team did not have much on them besides their armor and weapons and the two I did not shoot were wearing standard proto-suits. Finally, though, the bodies were stripped down to their basic clothes and Poniard just started staring at me as I went through their pockets. It was time to make a decision.
When their pocket contents and other personal belongings were in hand, I simply sat back and looked at Poniard who simply continued staring back at me. Looking at the lines on his face I could not help but think about the possibility that human hearts had been one of his magic factors. Plus, he was obediently waiting for orders even though he killed one himself!
Deciding that I needed to test this out for sure, I simply wave my hand across all of the bodies and say, "Enjoy."
Poniard needed no further urging and set to work hacking the bodies open in order to get to their hearts. To avoid watching the gruesome scene before me, I made my way up to the nearby storage building roof. From there, I started checking the surroundings for any signs of unwanted attention.
Of course the subhuman canine or rodent people were up on the two sides of their hollowed hill and scanning our part of the world like hawks. They were dying to know what had happened here and what they could get out of it. Especially after a total of six shots were fired in general.
By the time I climbed down from the storage building, not only had the kobolds sent a scouting party in our direction but Poniard had also finished all three hearts. Scaring off a small group of kobolds would be easy even if I was alone, but dealing with the whole social order that was less than an hour away? I might have some trouble.
"Si-Pon, could you go tell Lucinda and Bernard that the kobolds are coming?" I request of the bird that had yet to leave its perch in the nearby tree. It cooed once and then vanished with another blur of space and color. I honestly could not tell if it was flying away or teleporting in that direction.
"Poniard, clean your face and come with me," I inform the goblin who was cleaning its hands with one dead man's ruined shirt. They simply smeared their bloody face with the shirt and started following after me. Once he caught up, though, I took a canteen from my belt and started pouring it out over Poniard's head and face.
Poniard did not even react, he just maintained his current stride and stayed under the water with only faintly narrowed eyes. We had showered together enough times that he was used to me cleaning him in such a way. However, one canteen simply was not enough to clean his face.
The two of us waited just outside the property for the scouting party of kobolds who could be seen running in the distance. Kobolds were not much different from goblins in size and shape besides short snout-like faces and canine ears, but they were notably faster and more agile. Goblins were more well rounded persistence predators while these guys were definitely pursuit predators.
It only took them about ten minutes of running to approach the property from their hollowed hill, but by then Lucinda and Bernard had already arrived. The two of them were waiting in the property, though, remaining out of sight to remain out of the scouting report. There were only five kobolds in the scouting party, anyway.
Seeing only two people walking out to meet them, the already jogging bodies quickly broke into full runs when they were only a hundred yards away. They were a mixture of brown and black colors with some gray spotting or lines in their fur and they were the skins of other animals for partial clothing but they wielded no weapons. Their sharp fangs and long curving claws were the weapons they preferred.
Larger adult kobolds and other evolutions, though, were known to use weapons of different types but usually they were the big and heavy kind like hammers and poleaxes. I could not tell from the previous distances but I think the few adult kobolds used spears. Or they were simply using some form of pole tool at the time.
*