Chapter 7

Jules looked up startled. “What?”

Mike stomped towards her, his anger palatable. “What were you thinking?”

Suddenly Jules’s eyes went hard.

“That magic! You aggroed almost the whole infestation.”

“You told us to use our magic to kill them at range, so I did.” Any wounds she had taken were long gone, so she straightened and poked Mike in the chest. “I was doing what you said.”

“That was stupid! Any idiot knows better.”

“I did what you.” Another poke. “Said.”

“That little stunt could have killed all of us. Even a kid knows better than to cast an area of effect lightning.”

Jules grabbed Mike by the neck and lifted him one-handed her face furious. The rest of the group instantly went on high alert, moving forward to peace keep.

Adrian didn’t. He remained on the ground like he had been ordered. “Stop,” he snapped at everyone. Tiny wind gusts blew into Charlotte, Andrew, Beatrice and Felicity, warning them back. It took all of his discipline not to move like Omala had ordered. “Jules, put him down.”

She dropped him and he fell to his knees, gasping for breath.

“You are a psycho and you almost killed us...”

Adrian wouldn’t put up with this and nor should Jules.

Wind gust.

Mike went flying, tumbling head over heels to land in a heap five metres away. He looked banged up, clutching a potentially broken arm.

Adrian did not care.

Charlotte had stood, but to her credit had made no move to interfere.

Jules faced Charlotte. “He’s out of line.”

Charlotte nodded in agreement.

“You are all crazy…”

Wind gust.

Mike was thrown further back, landing heavily.

“Adrian!” Charlotte said warningly.

“You are all power high—”

With a thought, he had a sound bubble collapsing around Mike, silencing him.

“He is being an arse,” Adrian told Charlotte.

Charlotte shook her head. “He was just worried about me. You don’t need to hurt him.”

“No,” Adrian disagreed. “He is out of line. He should be apologising. I heard him tell us to use ranged magic to take the meerkats out. There was no warning about range. This is the second time he has screwed up and almost got us killed—”

“To be fair,” Charlotte interrupted. “It was pretty obvious sending a lightning cloud out over a hundred fifty metres was stupid.”

If Jaracol had not told him he needed to travel as a group to maximise his chance of success, Adrian would have been very tempted to walk away.

“That was Mike’s fault. You don’t need to defend him.”

“He’s a good man.”

“He just called Jules a crazy psycho for doing what he told her to do.”

“She aggroed meerkats that were two hundred metres away.”

“I get it,” Adrian said. “With a bit of computer game knowledge, what she did was a dumb as fuck.” Jules glowered at him at that comment.

“It has been months. She should know better.” Charlotte interrupted again. Mike was saying stuff, but thankfully no one had to listen to him.

“She only just got a ranged ability, and we are not in a computer game. Different monsters act in different manners. We’ve all seen it and our amazing battle strategist told her to do something. No,” Adrian said aggressively when Charlotte went to argue. “He has system help and knows the monsters and our skills. Who should she trust? Two months of experience? The imagination of nerds programming computer games or the expert.” Even though he did not want to label him so highly, he pointed at Mike. Charlotte hesitated, clearly wanting to object but not finding a logical argument. “He stuffed up. Not Jules.”

“She should have applied common sense.”

“Common sense,” Adrian said incredibly. “Charlotte how is common sense a consideration with magic? I know he is your boyfriend, but he screwed up, then instead of owning it, he blamed others. He owes us all an apology.” Adrian glanced at the man; it was clear with a bit of lip reading that Mike felt differently.

“I—” Charlotte started.

“You can see it, can’t you?” Adrian interrupted gently.

Charlotte hesitated and then nodded. She looked apologetically at Mike who was still silenced but had moved up next to her. “He has a point.”

Mike just pointed at his mouth, glaring at Adrian as he did so. With a shrug, he released the power. “That was a stuff up.”

“You can start by admitting fault.”

“I am sorry that I didn’t consider…” Mike stopped talking having caught sight of Jules’s indignant face.

Adrian firmly grabbed Jules before she reacted. While Mike might not have finished the sentence, they all knew what he had planned to say wasn’t pleasant. “Stop,” he warned Mike. “Stick to the facts.”

Mike looked annoyed. He breathed heavily and seemed to shrug off his irrational anger. For some reason, the other man seemed unable to see that his actions were out of line. “I should have been clearer in my instructions.”

It was not an apology but Mike, despite the fact Adrian could crush him, glared defiantly back. It was the best he was going to get. “There Jules he said he was sorry.”

“No, he didn’t.”

He hadn’t and she must have seen his grimace.

She smiled and raised her hands in defeat. “You are right, not worth it.”

The tension still hummed over all of them. Both Galan and Felicity had taken their ranger duties as an excuse to clear out of the immediate area. Andrew, the two healers and Beatrice their fire mage looked like they wanted to be elsewhere too.

“We are good, yeah?” Adrian said finally. Jules nodded first and only then did Mike incline his head in agreement.

For the life of him, Adrian did not understand what Charlotte saw in the other man.

“So, Mike,” Adrian said, pivoting. “Is the plan still good?”

“Yes,” the other man ground out. “Don’t use ranged magic beyond sixty metres.” He challenged Jules.

She smiled sweetly. “Of course, I won’t.”

Adrian sighed heavily. They were certain to keep acting like children, but he liked intact ribs so he was not in any desire to point that out to Jules. “Do we need a break?” Across from them, the cute but deadly meerkats continued to poke their heads up from holes on the plains in front of them. They had moved out from the other areas to re-populate the area they had cleared. There were lots of them.

“No,” Jules said firmly. “I need to hit stuff.”

“Charlotte?” he asked.

In response, she shook her head.

“Mike?”

“Providing you are not aggressive you will be fine.”

Adrian shrugged. “Let’s go bash-bash.” Omala and the others went to follow, but they stopped when Adrian shook his head. “We’ll be careful.”

They started walking slowly on the designated line that Mike had set. Internally, Adrian rehearsed what he could do better. His magic was the best option to stop them and then if he timed it right he could deflect them away. Providing only one was targeting him at the time.

They left more room than during the first time, with the meerkats barely reacting to their presence. Every now and again, one would commit suicide without additional provocation, but most ignored them. Clearly tagging them outside the territory they needed to defend.

As a result, the bulk of their kills were generated by Jules shooting out weak lightning balls. It would roll out about fifty metres and fry five or six of the stupid monsters. Then another ten to twenty would suicide into them over three to six waves. Small enough numbers for them to deal with easily and then they would keep moving.

“Maybe I should’ve known better.”

“Maybe,” Adrian agreed. “But you were still only doing what you were told to do.”

“I wanted to experience casting that spell at full bore.”

“And was it good?”

“Awesome, so powerful, till they started rushing. Then I felt stupid. I should have figured out it was a bad idea.”

“You were just following instructions.”

“Still.”

They kept walking together.

“Is it terrible that I enjoy being known as a berserker?”

He grunted.

“I like the way it puts people on edge. Does that make me a bad person?”

“That’s a serious topic for a casual afternoon of monster eliminating.”

She laughed. “I am going to be Jules the Barbarian.”

“Lightning barbarian,” he suggested. Nodding significantly toward a clump of meerkats.

Zap!

Most of the nearby ones chose to retreat, scared away from the sparking electricity. Out of the twenty, they could see only five associated the magic with the intruders and all five immediately suicided at them. Triple blade took three and their weapons intercepted the other two. Neither of them broke stride.

“I really love this.” She waved her hand with residual electricity, jumping upon it.

“Apart from the death and worrying about Em and the kids, so do I.”

“It’s fun playing the hero, isn’t it?”

He nodded in agreement. They continued walking. A hundred acres was a massive distance to cover when you were walking around it.

“Do you think we were needed here?”

Adrian looked speculatively back towards Springhurst. “Probably not, but it’s a small town. It might have taken them a couple of months or even years to control the infestation, but they would have got there. Of course, people would have died.”

“We almost died.”

“Because we were stupid.”

Zap.

More suicidal bodies got converted into a red mist.

“Bam,” Jules said, laughing. “This is fun.”

They were getting close to their starting point. “Can you apologise to Mike?”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

He looked hard at her.

“Yeah, I’ll apologise, but if his grin is too smug well, I am a barbarian and I can’t be held responsible.”

He laughed.

Zap!

Suicidal attacks hurtled at him and he needed to dodge, and then dodge again as they shot back from the new angle. Providing there were under six attacking they proved little risk to the two of them. Not having the healers or Charlotte in their group made it easier.

“I wasn’t ready,” Adrian complained.

“I know.”

“You are crazy.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I know.”

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