RTA Book 2: Against Ruin's Fate - Chapter 7

The firebase's tunnels echoed with battle—the sporadic gunfire from the pillboxes had turned nearly continuous, only pausing to reload, punctuated by the occasional concussive thump of shoulder cannons. 

Len's footsteps added a steady rhythm as he jogged through the rough-hewn passages connecting the western defensive positions.

Len felt the vibration of impacts through the stone around him, debris occasionally showering down from the ceiling where construction had yet to be completed. The smell of fresh-cut stone mingled with superheated air and the tang of hot metal.

Two engineers rushed past him, carrying empty crates of ammunition. They nodded respectfully but didn't slow.

The tunnel ahead branched into three passages, each leading to different groups of pillboxes. Len took the leftmost route first, following the sound of concentrated fire. As he climbed the short staircase to the defensive position, the noise intensified—spitters firing in long controlled bursts.

He emerged into Pillbox One, a reinforced chamber with three firing slits facing the forest. Four soldiers occupied the positions, rotating between firing and reloading with practiced efficiency.

"Status?" Len asked, moving to the center position.

Lance Corporal Davis glanced back, surprise flickering across his face before recognition set in. "Holding so far. Three wounded, nothing serious. Franco, Ellison, Tyrell!"

The men indicated themselves without ceasing fire.

Len quickly assessed the pillbox as he moved to Ellison the closest. 

Empty magazines and ammunition crates littered the floor, and the air hung heavy with heat from the spitters. 

Through the firing slit, he could see creatures swarming at the base of the mountain—strange amalgamations of animal forms twisted by mana, their bodies featuring everything from chitinous armor to glowing appendages.

The injuries were indeed minor—shrapnel wounds from when something had struck near one of the firing slits.

“How’d this happen?” Len asked, taking out the stone chunk lodged in Ellison’s side.

“Agh! The barrier flickered—taking a pounding, one of their spells hit the firing slit and blew out a chunk—some of it got stuck in me.”

Len pulled out another piece, the Ellison grimacing in pain.

“That’s that,” Len said, pinching together the skin and using Mend Flesh, healing it together.

"That'll hold you," he said as the wound closed. 

“Thanks,” The Ellison grunted and continued firing bursts into the creatures.

Franco was next to Ellison and had been hit with stone shrapnel as well.

He winced as Len turned to him and pulled out the shrapnel.

“Fucking ow,” Franco complained.

“Better out than in yah,” Len slapped him on the shoulder.

“There’s a joke in there that I’ll make later,” Franco yelled back as he continued firing.

Len slapped him on the shoulder and moved to his last patient.

Tyrell had broken fingers and was using his ring finger to pull his trigger. 

Len let them get back to their duties and tracked down Davis, slapping him on the shoulder.

The man glanced over but kept shooting. Len looked through the firing slit as he yelled to be heard.

"How's your ammunition?" Len yelled. Scanning the five occupants of the pillbox. 

"Got the engineers running us loads. Spitters aren’t penetrating!” Douglas kill that fuck at eleven o’clock!” Davis barked.

“On it!” Douglas shifted his shoulder cannon’s aim—its muzzle out of the firing slit.

He fired, the shoulder cannon sucking all of the air out of the pillbox—giving Len that odd feeling of needing to cough and breathe at the same time.

He got in a breath, the others firing throughout, they’d got used to the shoulder cannon’s shots.

The large creature of six limbs with a tusked face was struck in the chest and side by shoulder cannon rounds—carving into its body, it staggered and dropped, blood coating the boulder it collapsed on. 

Other muties rushed around the boulder, like a river finding a new path.

“I’m more worried about the guns! We’re shooting them a lot some of the stone is cracking! Thankfully I got a few guys who know how to fuse stone back together!”

Davis fired a burst into a creature—the rounds detonating in black puffs. The creature shouldered the rounds and kept coming.

Davis kept firing with others joining in, cutting into the creature’s skin and hitting vitals underneath.

“Cycle people in twos to use their spells. Eat the meat jerky we got from the creatures we killed the other morning. That’ll boost mana recovery. You have to keep an eye out for mana poisoning though!”

“If your mana stat is higher than your body stat, you’re having a shit day!” Daivs summarized. 

“Douglas, kill that yellow fuck!” Another soldier called out. 

Len clapped Davis on the shoulder as Douglas tracked a new target.

Len exited back into the tunnel and headed for Pillbox Two.

The air in the corridor contracted in two different directions as Douglas fired his shoulder cannon and someone else fired theirs off in pillbox two.

Len forced out a cough to get breathing again and kept moving, walking into Pillbox Two, dust had been thrown up and swirled around, creating and after effect from the shoulder cannons’ fury.

“Nailed the fucker!” Peter let out a short laugh.

“Wooh!” Aidan howled as he reloaded his shoulder cannon—feeding another shell into the rear of his weapon.

“Well fuck, doesn’t look like you need me!” Len laughed as he walked into the Pillbox.

This one had been built at a slightly lower elevation, covering a different arc of the perimeter. "Look what the cat dragged in!" Lance Corporal Jenkins called out without looking away from his firing position. "Come to join the party?"

“Ammo!” Harrison yelled.

Len grabbed a box that had been thrown into the room and ran it over to the man, pulling out a magazine.

Harrison tore out his, and Len slapped a new one into the feed. “Loaded!”

“Back in!” Harrison yelled and kept firing.

As soon as Aidan was reloaded, he raised his shoulder cannon-shoved it through and fired again.

“Well I couldn’t have you having all the fun!” Len yelled. He pulled all the heat that he could from the weapons and inside the pillbox gathering it into a thermal lance he shaped as a long line ahead of the pillbox—creatures ran into it, bisecting themselves into smoking sections as they collapsed on the ground.

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You have earned: 1,336

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“Give me targets!” Aidan yelled.

“Big fuck at two!” Jeremiah manning a spitter called out.

Len pulled magazines out from the crate and dropped them with Harrison before he moved to the other positions, dropping off magazines, he reached Jenkins last.

“Awwe thanks Len, you shouldn’t have,” Jenkins laughed—the edge of a man holding on by the short and skinnies and knowing it.

“Be ready to take cover when I say so!” Len called out, crafting a spell.

“Down down down!”

Everyone dropped and on the third ‘down’ Len activated the mana combust spell he’d crafted.

Len felt like he was thrown from the wall by the spell going off.

The barrier around the pillbox flared with light and air blew in through the firing slits as sound violently cut off.

Len’s ears were pierced with pain.

Fuck magic battles—hearing takes a fucking beating.

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You have earned: 6,816

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A touch of accelerated healing on his ears got him back in shape.

“Everyone pop a spell!” Len yelled. Healing himself reminded him of the mana poisoning.

Everyone was getting up slowly.

Len got up, feeling surprisingly spry for everything he’d gone through.

Being young is fucking great. May I never get older!

He used Mana Sight to see through the dust throw up by his explosion some three hundred meters away.

Creatures that had been thrown into the pillbox by the force of the explosion were starting to get themselves up.

Those in the pillbox were getting up and putting their spitters into the firing slit and firing.

Len used Thermal Lance again—there was enough thermal energy running around. He created a lance ten meters long and ten centimeters thick, and scythed it across the frontage of the pillbox.

He created a lance that he used to scythe through waves of creatures.

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You have earned:4,010

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Others used spells, carving up the creatures.

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You have earned: 3,782

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“All into body gents!” Len barked.

There were grimaces and Aidan stomped his leg as they increased their body stats. Each of them raised themselves up and rejoined the fight.

Their frontage was pushed back a hundred and fifty meters, they were re-engaging quickly, but it wasn’t with the kind of desperation they’d had before.

Len checked the remaining ammunition—they were burning through it faster than the first pillbox. He'd need to arrange for resupply soon.

"Jeremiah, remember what I taught you about target selection?" Len asked, kneeling beside the Corporal.

"Joints and sensory organs first" Jeremiah recited, sighting down his spitter at a creature with multiple eyes clustered along a ridge of bone.

"Good man," Len said, briefly squeezing his shoulder and moving to Jenkins. "I'm checking the other positions. Hold fast."

“Got it, Sergeant Edwin is in the next pillbox!” Jenkins called as he changed magazines.

"We've got this, sir," Harrison called back. "These ugly bastards aren't getting past us."

Len grinned at their confidence despite the situation. "I know you've got it. That's why I assigned you here." He headed back for the door, adding, "Just try not to use all the ammo before the real fight starts."

"Real fight?" Aidan asked with exaggerated offense. "Sir, I'm working up a proper sweat here. Round going out!"

He fired out of the pillbox.

“I know you did that just so I’d forget your smartass comment!” Len yelled.

He walked out of the pillbox a smile on his face as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, not wanting to use up his mana unless it was for something completely necessary.

Their laughter followed Len back into the tunnel. Gallows humor—the universal language of soldiers under fire. It was good to hear.

Len had a grin on his face too as he moved for the last pillbox.

He was halfway to Pillbox Three when the world turned white. A searing wave of heat slammed into him from behind, the air suddenly superheated to the point that it scorched his lungs on inhalation. The shock wave knocked him forward. He threw up his hands, hitting the floor and skidding.

He picked himself up—the heat filling the corridor.

For a moment, everything was silent except for the ringing in his ears. Then, horrifying realization dawned.

His entire body chilled as he turned back to Pillbox Two, his stomach churned and then braced.

Fuck. Len ran even as he knew what he’d come to face.

The tunnel leading to Pillbox Two was filled with smoke and dust. Len dove into it, the acrid scent hit him first—melted metal and caustic stone. Then came the smell that turned his stomach—cooked meat.

He covered his mouth with his sleeve and pushed forward, ducking through the damaged doorway into what remained of Pillbox Two. 

The interior was scorched black, equipment melted into unrecognizable shapes. At the firing position, two figures remained—Jenkins and Harrison—their bodies fused to their weapons, skin blackened and peeling where it hadn't melted entirely.

Len gritted his teeth so hard that they creaked.

Against the back wall, Aidan and Peter and Jeremiah lay curled in fetal positions, still alive but horribly burned. 

He couldn’t tell who was who in their burned state. Their armor and uniforms had partially melted into their skin, and their exposed flesh was blistered and charred.

Wrath filled him as he drew upon the heat throughout the entire space—drawing it out of their very bodies so that their skin would firm up.

He grabbed his sound talisman. “Medic! I need a medic down in Pillbox Two!” Creatures were rushing the pillbox now there was no one firing out of it. They ran over the craters that Len had created just a few short minutes ago.

Len drew in mana, power swelled as he pushed beyond what his channels could take—pain was a faint distant thing as his body was torn apart by the power he barely controlled.

Frost spread in a wave towards Len from outside the pillbox—till his breath came in visible clouds.

The approaching creatures faltered in confusion as the sudden cold hit them. 

Meanwhile, the heat energy coalesced around Len's hands, condensing into a visible crimson aura that distorted the air with its intensity. The space between his palms filled with concentrated thermal energy, growing brighter until it hurt to look at directly.

"Fucking die," Len growled, he thrust his hands forward, and destruction answered. A beam of pure heat energy—white at its core, bleeding to orange and red at its edges—erupted from between his palms. The air in its path instantly superheated, creating a pressure wave that preceded the beam itself.

The lead creature had no time to react. The thermal lance struck it center-mass, punching through chitin, flesh, and bone as if they were paper. The exit wound fountained with superheated bodily fluids that vaporized on contact with the air. It didn't even have time to scream.

The beam expanded to be five meters across—plowing through the center of the oncoming charge.

Where it touched the ground stone liquefied instantly as the beam passed. It was a torrent of fire carving a path through the boulder strewn decline.

The beam carved a perfectly straight line across the battlefield, leaving behind a strip of glassy, smoking earth. Heat shimmer distorted everything behind it, making the forest waver like a mirage. The surviving creatures made unearthly sounds of panic and fled back toward the trees.

When Len finally released the spell, the accumulated cold rushed back to balance the area's thermal equilibrium. The resulting wind whipped across the clearing, carrying the acrid smell of melted stone and vaporized organic matter.

Len turned from the destruction he had wrought, he’d bought himself time and space. He tore out healing potions from his belt pulling off their tops as he cast Diagnostic over the men in the pillbox.

He moved to those in the worst condition and poured the potion on their nose and mouths. New skin started to appear out of the mottled remains of their faces. 

Pulling the heat out of the room and reducing the heat of their skin had stopped it from further sloughing off and solidified it.

Their airways would be compromised from the superheated air—that was the immediate concern.

Len made sure he got the potion down Aidan’s throat. His only identification the proximity to the deformed shoulder cannon next to him.

Aidan coughed and wheezed. Len checked him with Diagnostic again. He was far from healed but he’d moved from Pri-Bravo to Charlie.

Len moved to the next man and repeated the process with the potion. His fight was against time. Giving them enough for aid to reach them.

He found potions on one man’s hip, and used them up.

He grabbed out his sound talisman again.

“Clear channel! Pillbox Two, Three Pri Charlie, Stretchers required, Enemy incoming.” 

Len used his will to wrap around the closest man and moved him out of the pillbox into the corridor. 

"Len!" Medic Herrera came racing up the tunnel, medical kit bouncing against his hip. The young man's tanned skin paled visibly as he took in the man’s condition.

"Fuck," Herrera whispered, freezing momentarily. He gritted his teeth, pulling his quick-kit—a messenger bag filled with medical supplies. Len set the man down and Herrera skidded to a stop next to him.

“Taking healing potions,” Len pulled off the man’s larger backpack. He shrugged out of it and his rifle, tossing his magazine bandolier to the side as well.

Len opened up the bag, revealing the bandages tools and healing potions, placing it next to Herrera. The man worked as if he was possessed, pulling from the bag without pausing.

Len tucked the potions into his belt and threw the bandolier over his shoulder and checked the rifle, he slung it as he ran back into the pillbox.

He gritted his teeth against the smell as he dropped next to the worst man and gave them another dose of healing potion. They writhed on the ground in pain, Len gripping his blistered shoulder.

“I got you,” Len said and wrapped up the man in his will to be as delicate as possible in the situation and carried him out.

“Pri Bravo,” Len put the man against the tunnel wall and ran back to the pillbox.

Creatures hissed and yowled as they walked through the cooling landscape that Len had remodelled.

He pulled the spitter around, putting his left hand into the sling and wrapping it around his wrist—a movement that had become instinct he’d done it so much. He gripped the stone barrel and raised the rifle—his stance set as he cast Weapon Enhancement on the rounds in the magazine, a tricky spell form that he did without a second’s thought as he levered his shoulder against the butt of the rifle and pulled the trigger. Rounds tore across the pillbox—out the firing slit and into the creatures that pushed past pain for their maddening hunger.

The spell strengthened the round, enhancing its penetrating power. The enhanced and enchanted bullet punched through armored plates that had previously deflected standard rounds. The rounds detonated, dropping the creatures instantly.

Len’s burst were cold—controlled and focused, his aim flicking from one fallen beast to another as he stalked forward.

With his will he pulled out a potion on his belt, cut off the top and poured it into the mouth of the man on the ground, standing over him and against the creatures that would do him damage.

Two creatures drew in mana and unleashed fire-based spells.

Len yelled with pain as he pushed his mana channels past their limits once more—a  wave of frost expanding in front of him as he stepped forward—shooting the creatures that cast the spells. 

He would not allow these men’s bodies to be sullied. He drank in deep from the world—from the mana that sought to corrupt him. A barrier covered the firing slits that Harrison rested against still.

The fire spells shrunk as they passed over the frost, leaving clear paths from their heat—the second creature joining the first—the rounds having eaten into its head and blowing it apart into shards.

The slightly blued barrier took the spell’s impact. The pillbox shuddered with the impact as Len tore out the magazine in the spitter and replaced it with one from the bandolier, mana draining from him as the barrier stopped darkening and began clearing.

Len braced up against the firing slit, standing next to Harrison’s body.

The barrier cleared as he pushed his spitter through the firing slit and dismissed the barrier, heat washed over him—drying his eyes and singing the hair from his hands, filling his lungs with harsh acridic smoke.

The carved valley was filled with spitter tracers, as two shoulder cannon rounds and spells rained upon the creatures trying to attack Pillbox Two.

Len wasn’t the only enraged man in the firebase.

Len had been gathering the thermal energy—drawing out what was left by the twin attacks. He turned into compressed lances, tasting blood in the back of his throat before he hurled them into the mass of creatures—staggered to maximum effect as they bloomed into pockets of heat which melted some creatures, and super heated those at the point of impact—causing them to explode.

Len fired bursts—cutting down the creatures as he heard movement behind him.

“Get on the wall!” Len yelled.

Urdan ran up to the other firing slit and joined Len.

Len was about to call out firing arcs as Urdan fired in a way that Len knew meant Urdan had the right arc.

“Reloading!” Len called out, tossing his magazine.

“I’ve got them!” Urdan called as things calmed down. “Get our guys out!”

Len slapped in a new magazine as he turned and slung his rifle, will wrapping around the last wounded Diagnostic showed he was in rough shape but breathing.

Len carried him out of the pillbox by will alone. Herrera had moved through the wounded—leftovers of medical supplies around them and him as he worked. Two others had stretchers out next to one of the wounded and were loading him up on a stretcher.

A third ran potion bottles to Herrera from his open bag.

Len put down the last man. Herrera taking one bottle from the man running up to him and dipping a needle into the bottle to draw it up as he moved to the man Len put down. 

Herrera’s eyes glowed with some spell as he looked for something before he slid the needle into the man’s neck and started injecting healing potion into him.

Len pulled his spitter around and ran back into the pillbox.

Urdan was taking cover—reloading as attacks hit around the pillbox.

Len raised  his spitter and joined the fight, taking some of the attention Urdan had gathered.

Len continued methodically, reinforcing each round before firing. The creatures fell one after another, their numerical advantage meaningless against precision and experience. He didn't waste motion or ammunition, every shot calculated and placed.

Behind him, the tunnel filled with movement—reinforcements arriving at last. 

“Coming in!” Joe Xinta growled.

The large civilian engineer and other volunteers entered the pillbox—there were hissed words and curses at their entrance.

Xinta carried a crate of ammunition under one arm, his calloused hand gripping the barrel of a spitter in his hand.

There was a determination in his eyes, that only one that knew the full weight of what they charged into, and accepted it, had. 

“Up on the wall!” Len barked—focusing and drawing their attention away and to the firing slits. 

“Back in!” Urdan yelled, firing at the creatures.

"Aim for the eyes and joints," Len instructed without looking away from his targets. "Short bursts." He demonstrated his words—keeping his voice level and sure.

The engineers opened fire, their shots less accurate but enthusiastic. Len silently thanked his past self for insisting everyone receive basic weapons training regardless of their role.

For several minutes, the battle continued unabated—creatures swarming the slope only to be cut down in waves. Gradually, the pressure began to ease.

"They're breaking!" Joe called out, pointing to where creatures had begun retreating down the slope.

Len nodded but didn't cease fire. "Keep at them until they're out of range."

The defenders-maintained fire as the creatures scattered back toward the tree line. Those too wounded to retreat were systematically eliminated. Finally, when nothing moved on the western approach.

“Cease fire, I want your sit reps,” Rick’s voice came through the sound talisman on Len’s hip.

Len surveyed the battlefield through the damaged firing slit. The western approach was littered with creature corpses, the ground blackened in places from spell effects. The firebase had held—barely.

“Urdan hold things down here, report into Rick with your sitrep. Pillbox two down, two kia, three wounded under care. You’re reinforced and low on ammunition,” Len went through the contents to help the man out.

“Copy!”

“Lets get some sheets on these lads,” Joe said.

Len turned and moved back into the tunnel, two of the wounded were gone and Herrera was working on the last.

“I got him,” Len said.

Herrera got up, administering some more aid. “His mana poisoning is advancing quickly—his body is falling apart.”

“We need to get an IV into him,” Len said. He wrapped the man in his will.

“The injection into his arm?”

“Yeah.” Len took off at a run through the tunnels to the central cavern—he lost Herrera at some point.

“Clear a path!” Len barked, people shoved against the wall as Len raced on.