The next several days were both interesting and mind numbing for me. Since I was ‘just a summon’ rather than one of the students, I didn’t really have a whole lot to do unless there was something going wrong. So while the girls were taught the expectations of a mage supporting foot troops in a large engagement or defending a locale, I usually ended up relegated to training myself or relaxing with them.
Since it didn’t make sense for me to just bum around, I spent a fair bit of time back on Earth working on my new home. That’s not to say I didn’t get to spend time with the girls, since they’d use any excuse to summon me for training, and Valda enjoyed sparring with me.
Since Valda was bunking with us and also the de facto leader of the Juneau contingent, I also got the benefit of being kept up to date on the current goings-on for the front.
We’d arrived during a lull with these raids, but the first night there, the fort’s patrols caught a small raiding band trying to sneak over the wall.
Valda’s people were brutally efficient though, eliminating the threat and driving off the raiders before the student mage that was on duty even made it to that end of the wall.
Several days passed before the girls heard anything more of the supposed enemies, but this time it was actually while one of my girls was on duty.
The mental message from Jane woke me out of a dead sleep, accompanied by the flashing of light around the edges of my vision.
We’d originally planned for me to simply be on-duty with them, but after the first night of that and apparently how distracting I was to Kassandra while she was supposed to be on watch, they’d changed it up to just letting me sleep and the girls would call me if I was needed.
Being treated like a normal summon for once rather than a portable bodyguard was a sharp change and took a bit of adjusting, but it also was more efficient since this wasn’t pitched fighting.
I’d spent the night back on Earth, since I wanted to spend the time further expanding my new ‘den’ built into the hillside, so I was alone in my bed when the flashing red light woke me. Since I’d been training my mind finally to make the most of my increased intellectual scores, I went from dead asleep to fully conscious within a bare second.
Mentally hammering the option even as my skin began to itch then harden to a chitinous shell, I took a bare moment to observe the situation before I was slamming the option.
As colors and light enveloped me, I continued to mold my body to the proper shape that would be needed for this fight as I thought over what I’d seen.
Jane was up on the wall, with roughly a dozen of the lizard-folk guards spread out around her. Nearly four times their number were arrayed on the far side of the wall, at least that was the count I got in the light of the smattering of torches held by the number as they rushed towards the wall with ladders.
I ignored the sights that flashed past me, my mind singularly focused on getting to the petite scholar who was waiting on the other side as my body finished its transformations.
Slamming into the dark stone parapet behind Jane, I was immediately immersed in the shouts and clangor of battle. Arrows whistled in both directions, while the of fire rose from in front of us in response to spellcasters amongst the enemy.
“Liam!” Jane yelled as I scooped her off the ground with my left hand, the armored shell that covered the back of it providing shelter for her tiny form as I pulled her to my chest while my right hand drove forward to smash into the top of the rough wooden ladder that had just clattered into place.
The wood construct rocketed away from the wall, crashing flat on the ground below and crushing several enemy fighters as they screamed in surprise.
“Liam, let me down!” Jane shouted in protest, her little fists hammering on my chest.
I immediately looked down at my summoner questioningly. I wasn’t able to respond verbally at the moment, but it wasn’t needed. Jane knew what I was asking with that look.
“I need you to support the guards! They have a weird fire mage down ther—”
Exactly what the fire mage had that was strange interrupted Jane right then, and I was glad that I had her in my arms.
The roar of fire accompanied a billowing jet of flame that swept the air above the enemy forces. The jet engulfed two of the guards on my right, sending them screaming to the ground as they rolled frantically to put the fire out. Reacting on instinct, I twisted in place to put my back to the fire and felt the chitinous shell that covered it heat in response.
Half a second later, the jet of flames cut off, leaving small puddles of liquid flame on the wall while below I heard someone cackling like a lunatic.
“Liam!” Jane’s shout over the roar of the fighting and the clanging of alarm bells from the town drew my attention down to my little scholar.
Jane’s eyes were glittering with anger as she wriggled in my grip, but the anger wasn’t directed at me. Instead, it was focused on the threat outside, and Jane had her spell rod in her hand as well. My little scholar was also a mage, and had tested herself in fighting monsters before.
That warrior side of her was showing now as she slashed her spell rod through the air and sent a cutting blade of wind into the mass of enemy soldiers below. Screams of pain and anger rose in the wake of it.
“I need you to drive them back, and deal with that fire magic user!”
The message flashing over my vision told me that the System recognized her request for what it was, a mission that qualified for my summoning.
“Stay up here and stay safe,” I growled, setting the petite mouse woman down on a stone parapet.
“Keep yourself safe too!” Jane said with far more authority than would have been expected for someone her size.
It was only then that I remembered there were supposed to be two other students from Juneau up on the wall right now. A quick glance told me that Jane was the only one, which told me the others were either slacking off, hiding, or had run away.
That, coupled with the next of fire jetting from the attackers and barely missing us, told me that I needed to be quick.
Turning towards the parapet, I launched myself over the edge with arms and legs spread wide.
Given my girls’ penchant for jumping me in my sleep, I’d started just going to bed naked rather than leave any pesky clothes in the way that might stop or slow them down. That meant that I didn’t need to use my Dimensional Pocket
The armor shifts that I’d put into place to defend Jane when I arrived flowed as I let my Shape-Shifting
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I landed feet-first on one of the leather-clad barbarians, my tendons and bones strengthened to absorb the landing while the chitinous armor increased in density to make the impact as grievous as possible.
The man’s collarbone broke under my left foot, and I felt his chest cave in when his back hit the ground and my entire weight slammed down onto his ribcage as a result. But I was already moving and shifting.
My torso lengthened and musculature shifted to accommodate the second set of arms that sprouted from my chest. The two arms coiled tight to my chest like the stumpy limbs of a tyrannosaurus, but rather than ending in little claws, these arms terminated in the rounded dactyl clubs of a mantis shrimp, but sized up to fit my body.
One of my new limbs fired off even as I straightened, pulping the head of the injured man I’d landed on before he could even scream in reaction. His companions were already turning my way, but they couldn’t react in time.
My normal two arms had already flowed, the mass rearranging and shifting into new weapons for me, the two limbs segmenting and sprouting a wickedly-sharp, curved spike at the end of the six-foot-long limbs.
Both arms launched forward, each precise strike driving into the chest of a warrior to either side before flicking upwards to toss them away and into their fellows even as the carapace armor on my body shifted colors to a mixture of black and brown to camouflage me against the ground.
I bellowed a challenge to the raiders, opening my mind to Shape-Shifting
From the looks in their eyes, I must have been a terrifying sight.
Slamming into the group in a whirlwind of limbs and organic blades, I cut a direct path towards the source of the fire jets.
Shape-Shifting
Not hesitating, I grabbed control of my Shape-Shifting
The injured I’d left in my wake were not so lucky, screaming as the fire caught their clothes and armor, leaving a group of wailing injured to writhe under the flames.
My arms shifted just when I reached the apex of my jump, the bladed tail-arms sprouting long wing-fingers and a thick membrane that caught the hot air, and I flapped twice to change my angle of attack before tucking them in and dropping towards the caster even as he furiously adjusted something on his strange spell rod.
It was as I descended towards him that I finally realized what the caster had in his arms, and it was definitely not a spell rod.
My gut clenched as the man swung the archaic flamethrower up towards me, his eyes glittering with malice as he yanked on the thick brass trigger to produce another wave of flames.
Shape-Shifting
Eyes closed to protect them, I struck out rapidly with my remaining weapon, the dactyl club arms on my chest, and was rewarded by a and a gurgling noise before I threw myself into a roll to frantically put out the flames that still clung to my body. Even with the scales of the volcano snail to protect me from the fire, some heat was getting through.
Snatching with my Manipulate Element
A glance down told me that my opponent was dead, his chest cratered inwards from multiple thunderous blows from my dactyl clubs. A glimmer of firelight on brass revealed where the flamethrower—, I thought quickly—was laying discarded.
The thick cable that ran from the back of the four-foot long wand curled back to a stubby brass tank covered in dials and valves sitting on the ground a few feet away. At a glance, I could tell that it was far and beyond more advanced technology than what these folk should be able to create, but nowhere near the level of modern tech from Earth that I’d seen in war movies.
Not sure if it was safe to destroy it, I instead batted at the wand with one of my blade-arms that were surging to replace my wings and banished the whole thing into my Dimensional Pocket
That done, I turned my attention back to the enemies at hand.
I’d plowed right through their ranks in my single-minded pursuit of the man with the flamecaster, and now stood at the back of the formation of raiders. Many of them were injured, and I saw at least a dozen bodies lying on the ground motionless, only two of which had arrow wounds.
Spreading my arms wide, I bellowed a threat to them and prepared to charge when a familiar voice cut through the night air.
“Surrender! Or I’ll let him take each of you apart with as much ease as he just showed!” Jane shouted from on top of the parapets.
The little mouse girl standing defiantly on the top of the wall with a glowing spell held ready that I recognized. It would launch a storm of cutting wind through the air, ideal for dealing with small and unarmored enemies. Against these leather-clad raiders it wouldn’t kill anyone, but it would make them bleed and hurt like a bitch.
To punctuate her statement, I used Shape-Shifting
It started with those closest to me, the enemy raiders throwing down weapons and backing up to the wall in fear. Within thirty seconds or so, the remaining thirty-odd soldiers had surrendered and were standing with their backs to the defensive wall with hands held high.
“Liam, down boy!” Jane ordered and I shot her a long-suffering look that brought a smirk to my smaller lover that I could see even from the ground. “All of you stay right there. If you move so much as an inch, he gets to eat you if he wants!”
<><><>
The surrender only took minutes to process, as Valda led a force of over a hundred of her clan’s soldiers through the gate further down the wall to quickly secure the captives and get them back behind the wall. A quick search of the dead produced nothing useful before Valda pulled Jane and I aside.
While the entire town was now awake, the fight was over so Valda only pulled us into the mouth of a small alley not far from the gate while her soldiers secured the captives. She’d had to order the other Juneau students back to bed, but I’d spotted my other three girls in the crowd with their weapons, apparently ready to jump in if needed.
“What happened,” the scaled woman was wearing only a pair of sleeping pants and her scale and leather armor over what looked like bare skin, but she was alert as she studied the two of us.
I’d long since returned to my human form, pulling my ‘backup pants’ out of my Dimensional Pocket
“I got an urgent summon from Jane to come and help,” I explained, figuring I could tell my part while Jane got herself under control. “I arrived in time to see two people hit by the jet of fire, and Jane asked for my help in neutralizing that threat and stopping them.”
“You certainly did that,” Jane said with a watery laugh, her arms giving me a squeeze. “You can put me down now, Liam.”
“What if I need the reassurance?” I asked plaintively, and got another little laugh from Jane. The mouse kin woman gave me another squeeze, but didn’t mention being released again, just clinging to me instead while I supported her weight.
“So you neutralized the caster while wreaking havoc on the enemy forces enough that they surrendered within seconds of your arrival?” Valda asked dryly, one eyebrow rising curiously.
I hesitated for a moment, debating if I should produce the odd artifact or not to show her. A quick glance around showed that there were more than a few people watching us, both the soldiers and the civilians. I couldn’t really blame them, since I was standing there bare-chested with one woman in my arms while the half-dressed commander was interrogating me. I hadn’t exactly been around much for the locals to recognize me, so their suspicious looks were understandable.
“Yes, that is accurate. I was able to neutralize the one shooting the jets of flame at people and captured his equipment to ensure it couldn’t be used by someone else,” I said at last, and Valda’s eyes narrowed, telling me she knew that there was more to it than I was saying.
“Liam?” Jane asked curiously and I glanced down at her for a moment before making a decision.
“I need to talk to my contracted summoners first, but there is a bit more to it. But not out here in public, Valda,” I said, keeping my voice low.
The lizard-folk woman continued to stare at me for several more moments, weighing me with her gaze before she finally nodded once.
“Fine,” Valda said sharply. “I need to check on the prisoners first, and once we make sure they aren’t the scouts for a larger force then I will speak with you in private.”
“I’ll be in the bunkhouse with the other girls. Jane needs—”
“Carsan, you are relieved of watch duty,” Valda interrupted me, directing her words at Jane. “You did your duty for the night. I’ll have someone else replace you for the rest of the watch.”
“What happened to the other two that were supposed to be with you?” I asked Jane, remembering the moment of thought from earlier when I’d realized she was missing her backup.
“Dunno,” Jane said with a shrug. “Last I saw them, they were both kicking back in the watchtower and refused to actually walk the wall as it was ‘getting too cold for that.’ ”
The little scholar's nose wrinkled in disgust as she repeated the statement and Valda growled in irritation.
“I’ll sort them out as well, then,” she said. “I was wondering the same thing, but wrongly assumed they’d gone for help or something.”
“See you in a bit,” I said and got a nod from Valda. That done, I carried Jane back toward the bunkroom where the other girls were no doubt waiting.
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