The alarm blared across the settlement and jerked Irene rudely from her sleep. She stumbled from bed and scrounged on the floor for a pair of pants and shirt, tripping through the door with her left foot in the right pant leg and her head through the right sleeve of her shirt. She promptly fell into her living room where Arnold was already pulling his boots on. He laughed despite the seriousness of the situation. The alarm only sounded if they were under attack. And the only one that would be attacking them at this point would be King James.

“Boy, if you have time to laugh at me, you have time to help me!”

Arnold blushed as his mom, who didn’t see the need for modesty, fixed her clothing right there in front of him then dashed out the door with him in tow. They wound their way through the quickly waking city, passing other community members, all armed and headed to their assigned alert posts. Irene checked her pistol for ammo and reloads as they approached the wall, her son was a kind of fire mage that manipulated states of plasma, so he didn’t have need for a weapon.

They climbed the main parapet that looked out over the south eastern approach to find Dan Jameson standing with Srookimal looking out over the area of the former city they cleared to form proper sight lines. Dan was her military commander and Srookimal was a refugee from another planet, he looked like a weird kind of fish man but he was incredibly polite and competent, two traits Irene appreciated.

“Sroo, Dan, what’s the situation?” She asked while looking in the direction she’d seen the two men had been as she climbed the ladder. She saw a gathering of what must have been five hundred men and women, armed to the teeth and anticipating a fight.

“Well, Irene, as you can see, King James has sent his people to talk with us, they want to know what we know about the failed assassination attempt on the King’s life.” Dan gave her a knowing look. He’d never approved of the attempt, but Irene felt that if left unchecked Mr. James "King" Wakefield would become the biggest threat to her people, and she wasn’t about to let that happen if she could help it.

“Fuck!” Irene cursed and Arnold flinched, “Sorry, son, I just… anyway, who’d they send.”

“Kameron Jones, King’s best friend. Maybe the only person he actually trusts.”

“You think they know what I did?” Arnold asked, fear in his eyes. He was a gentle child before the System. Simple. Not mentally deficient, just simple. God I fucked up! Irene thought to herself.

“No, if they did, he wouldn’t have sent his lap dog. They’d have sent that bitch assassin of his. And we’d all be dead or in chains.”

“Your mother is right, young Arnold, also, nothing passes the waterways without my people knowing. And nothing swam up the river since the change.” Srookimal comforted the young mage and his mother. The Change as they were calling it happened previously in the day when they had all received the message about Mana Over-saturation. Then the earth beneath their feet shook violently for what seemed hours and the landscape changed in the distance. The mountains ringing the Valley rose high enough to be capped by snow, and according to Srookimal the Lake had deepened. The Agua Fria widened and collapsed the dam which created a flood plain straight through the middle of King James’ territory. New resources were unearthed and everything within five miles of the rivers were beginning to look like the Amazon Rainforest with large leafed trees and ferns sprouting up quickly to overtake the desert soil.

Irene shook her head and returned her focus to the conversation she was having with her General.

“Ok, so we can assume they’ve been grilling everyone across Phoenix about the attack.” Dan offered as they watched the small force at the edge of their firing lines.

“And that they still don’t know that it was us.” Irene scowled as she watched two men and a woman walking the last quarter mile of cleared streets and buildings to approach the gate. She instantly recognized the man in the lead as Kameron, though she didn’t have intel on the other two with him, probably just muscle. They both casually carried rifles in their arms while Jones walked forward without a care in the world, no obvious weapon on his person. From what she understood she knew he didn’t need any weapons, he simply liked to punch things and people. His class supported that behavior.

“Irene Hanson! Is that you? We’re here to ask some questions.” Jones yelled up to her on the wall.

“Yeah, you sure brought a lot of people to ask questions? A lot of people with guns.”

He looked around smugly and then back to her, “You have quite a few yourself.”

“Helps keep everyone honest. What do you want, Jones?”

“Need to know if you know who tried to kill my best friend. The little punk ass that killed his woman.” He spit on the ground at the last and looked up at her expectantly.

Irene grit her teeth at his demand. “You know we’ve maintained our neutrality. What makes you think we have anything to do with that little piece of sordid business?”

He looked at his compatriots and smiled, “Mmm, mmm, mmm.” He began pacing back and forth in front of the wall. He spread his hands towards his friends and spoke again, “She must have misheard me? Yeah?”

Jones leaned his arm on the shoulder of the man to his left looking up to Irene, pointing a finger at her. “I didn’t ask if you had anything to do with that, I asked if you knew about it. Which I now think you know more than you’re letting on.”

“Jones, we know nothing about that, and we didn’t have anything to do with that attack.” Fire lit Irene’s eyes as she denied her people’s involvement in the assassination attempt. Someone had to try to do SOMETHING, damn it.

He looked at her long and hard as the gears turned in his head. Then he whispered something to the man he leaned against, who then started walking back to the assembled army at the edge of the no man’s zone.

“You know, I’m starting to think that you may have actually been involved directly, Irene.” He spoke into the air as he postulated to the assembled fighters. “Let me see…. Yeah, you knew that King James was going to visit his woman, so you sent someone to take him out. I get it, you know we would eventually turn our attention your direction. Honestly, I have been pushing for it for weeks now. I mean, look at all that sweet ass you’re hiding up there!”

Everyone on the walls tensed as weapons were checked and brought to their shoulders. Anyone listening knew exactly where this was going. Arnold shifted nervously and his mother clenched her fists in barely contained rage. She looked at Dan and nodded her head, he slipped off to prepare the rest of the settlement for the impending attack.

“What, nothing to say Irene?” Jones stalked forward a few paces, “I think. I think you have something to say. I think you have a confession to make.”

Irene glared as the man pranced around making a show of tormenting her and her people. She looked to see that Dan and Srookimal were mobilizing the defenses, waking every person that could carry a gun or cast a spell. Jones glared at her and she at him as the two sides readied for the pending bloodshed. Then he delivered the final blow to her psyche.

“In fact! I’m pretty certain you sent your own sweet young boy to do the deed!” He thrust his arm out to point at her son behind her. She looked back at the wide eyed boy who was sweating buckets despite it being a cool night. His eyes widened and his large Adam's Apple visibly bobbed as he gulped down his fear. The gangly teenager looked as if he were about to bolt on the spot. “Yeah, I see it in your face. You tried to fucking take out my Boy! You vaporized his fucking woman. And you know what? That’s not even the worst part of it. She had that man balls deep in her throat when you vaporized her.”

Any other time Irene would have laughed, everyone assembled would have laughed at that admission. But she knew what was coming. They all did. Somehow their involvement had gotten out. She didn’t know how and at this moment it didn’t matter. Though, if they survived, she was going to make certain to find out.

“That’s right, don’t nobody fucking laugh. You all know exactly what happened. And so, I’ve been tasked with finding the one who did this and bring him to the King to pay for his crimes! And judging by how your son looks like he’s about to pass out, I think I’m in the right place.”

Jones’ smile had long since left his face and he just glared expectantly at Irene and Arnold. Irene only stared, realizing what a mistake it was to move against King James, and reeling with the thought that her son would be hunted for as long as he lived if he stuck around Phoenix. FUCK! FUCK THAT!

“You know what, you and your boy are a bunch of fucking thugs.”, Irene spoke with an odd calmness that defied the situation she found herself in, “You can all go to hell, Pleasant Lake will never bow to you assholes.”

Jones looked at her with an angry stare then broke into a too white grin, “I was hoping you’d fucking say that. I’m going to enjoy this!” Jones curled the fingers of each hand into the shape of a gun and twitched his thumbs forward.

On that signal a pair of .50 caliber machine guns opened up on the settlement from within the rubble of the old city. The head of the woman next to her who had been readying herself for battle exploded in a spray of red mist. Irene ducked and screamed as Arnold fell backwards in shock. Soon the guns stitched a bloody path back and forth across the city wall, tearing holes through the various materials used in its construction. Screams of the dying and severely wounded cried out into the night and Irene looked on in horror as more of her people were cut down by those infernal machine guns.

While she was too stunned to react to the scene of chaos, her General had the presence of mind to order supporting mages up to begin erecting barriers to stop or slow the violent projectiles. Arnold was muttering unheard apologies to her while he clutched his knees to his chest and covered his head with his hands in a corner of the tower. He may have recently killed someone and was capable of delving in a dungeon, but a real fight like this wasn’t in him.

A barrier sprung to life around her section of the wall and she quickly scurried over to comfort her teenage son. They grasped each other's arms and he began to profusely apologize, “I’m sorry momma, I was sure I wasn’t followed! I was so sure!”

Before the System, Arnold was considered to be on the spectrum. While he was never very social, he earned good marks in mathematics and physics and was something of a prodigy. He was also always a very gentle boy and easily scared. The System had sought about correcting and balancing his brain chemistry, but he was still what one would call socially underdeveloped. And he still wasn’t very good in stressful situations, especially when there was nowhere to run to. Coupled with a very vivid imagination on what would happen if Kameron Jones got his hands on him, Arnold was very much losing his shit.

“Shhhh, shhh, we need to fight back. There’s nothing else to it.” She attempted to calm the boy and get him back into the fight, all the while feeling incredibly guilty for what she had done and would do in the future, “It’s really my fault, I put you up to the assassination, I shouldn’t have. Now, get up and help defend the city, that's all we can do now.”

He looked at her bleary eyed, sniffed his nose as another tear rolled past it and across his lips, then nodded. “Ok, ok, I understand.”

He wiped his nose on his shirt and stood up and inched towards the edge of the tower as the tracers from the .50 caliber machine guns stitched their way across the wall. Irene, having calmed down her son enough to get him and his magic in the fight, scooted to a corner of the tower and reviewed an urgent notification that was persistently attempting to get her attention. Alright, alright already. It’s not like we’re about to get fucking wiped out or anything!

Attention! The First Battle of Pleasant Lake has commenced, automatic quest distribution has been initiated.

Would you like to expand quest notifications to include a distress call? (Yes/No)

What the hell? It’s a long shot, but fuck it, might get lucky. With that thought she pressed ‘Yes” and turned to begin directing fire from her position as Arnold charged up a great ball of hot energy in his hands, he was now attempting to determine just where he could throw the sphere so that it would cause the most damage.

The machine guns ceased firing a moment later and a hundred men and women charged straight at the wall that was starting to look like gray swiss cheese. At Dan’s direction her people that were still able to fight stood and began firing into the charging attackers with rifle and magic. Dozens of the attackers fell under the return assault and the settlement's front line fighters readied themselves for any stragglers that made it through the defensive fire. Irene grabbed her rifle from her spatial inventory and added her fire to the charging enemies.

When the attacker’s numbers thinned the machine guns started up again firing over their heads. Having been on the receiving end of this treatment before her fighters ducked at the first sound and only a couple were taken from the fight. Jones and several of his fighters leapt onto the wall under the cover of the oppressing machine gun fire.

The ensuing melee was probably the most brutal and violent action Irene had ever witnessed. Jones’ men and women fought with savagery while her own people barely held their ground. They were in a fight for their very existence and they were losing. Jones caught a man in the chest with his knee then struck down viciously into the back of the man’s neck when he doubled over. Irene wasn’t sure if the man was dead or still alive, but then Jones turned his attention to her and Arnold.

“You can stop all this right now, Irene. Just tell your people to stand down and surrender your boy.” He walked forward with his hands behind his back.

Irene stood her ground despite the bile rising in her throat, “I’ll never do that! I’ll die first!”

Jones smiled and blurred forward. Irene barely had time to raise a personal barrier when his fist connected with her diaphragm and stole her breath. Irene didn’t have a combat class, she was a caretaker and a teacher. Her barrier absorbed enough of the impact that she didn’t die outright and tears began rolling down her cheeks as she gasped for breath and tried to gain control of her limbs.

“MOMMA!” Arnold screamed from the other side of the room.

“Just wait right there Junior. I’ll be done with your moms in a minute.” Jones leered at the boy and he flinched, then he reached down and grabbed Irene by her hair and brought her face up to his own, “You done fucked up, Irene. And you know it.”

A roar erupted from Arnold’s throat and Jones looked over in irritation that was quickly replaced with surprise. He dropped Irene and brought his hands up to block a searing hot blast of plasma. He was lifted straight off his feet and thrown into the middle of the empty field in front of the city wall.

Jones made to regain the wall when a beautiful woman with one arm appeared in front of their line facing the angry black man. She was wreathed in shimmering pink energy and Arnold found himself speechless in her presence. He flinched when the machine guns turned their fire on her, yet she didn’t even register the devastating rounds that struck her magical armor harmlessly.

A moment later the machine gun nests exploded in the brilliant white-green fire of plasma. Everything within a hundred meters of the attack ceased to exist. Then the beautiful girl screamed and Jones clutched his head in severe pain. He looked across the battlefield and saw his remaining fighters squirming on the ground against the unexpected mental assault. He looked up at the woman then to Irene and Arnold.

“This isn’t over, Irene!” A man ran up and helped Jones to his feet and the pair retreated into the blasted city towards Litchfield Park.

The floating woman hung in the air and watched the attackers leave the field, when she was satisfied the threat was removed she floated over to the wall where Irene and Arnold stared in awe and introduced herself as she landed in front of them, “Hello, I’m Sam. My dad and his company should be along in just a minute.”

Before Irene could respond, a tear streaked Arnold lunged forward and embraced the new woman with a sob, “Thank you! Thank you for saving my Momma! Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

The woman startled for a moment and then blushed as the young man blubbered in her shoulder, she returned the embrace then gently pressed him back with her good hand and smiled.

“Arnold! Manners!” He quickly realized what he was doing and disengaged with a sharp blush.

“Sorry, I just thought we were done for, and then you showed up, and saved my Momma, and you’re so pretty, the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen I’d say!” His nerves and lack of social awareness had him dumping all of his thoughts without filtering them first.

“Arnold! Shush boy, let the woman speak, I’m Irene, by the way. We are very grateful for your assistance, you said something about your father and his company?” Irene stepped in front of her son and shoo’d him away while the mystery woman blushed furiously and smiled when Irene offered her hand in greeting.

“Yes, uh, he should be right-” She began to respond despite her embarrassment, then Irene’s own General came running up to the group.

“Irene, there’s tanks coming in from the north!” He stopped short and looked at the one armed woman and realization dawned on his face, “Are they with you, miss?”

“Yes, I’m Samantha, or just Sam. My father is the commander of an armored company, we got your request for assistance through the system. I’m sorry we didn’t arrive sooner.”

As she spoke her fathers alien tank pulled up in front of the gate and oriented in the direction the attackers had fled. The rest of his company began pulling up as well and oriented them accordingly. As the tanks pulled up, the gathering of people on the wall increased and when they thought the spectacle was complete, the Bradley’s pulled in on the left flank . Then the Artillery pieces pulled up behind the tanks. And finally the supply train pulled in and set up rearming operations. Through it all the people of Pleasant Valley stared in silent relief. They had faced a far worse fate than death today, and they knew they would have to stare that reality down again. But today they were alive and safe.