Rise Of The Worthy [LitRPG System Apocalypse]

I shove the relocation coin at Lament's chest. She raises a hand and screams, but only the first moment sneaks out. The city steals the signal before she can trade places with the coin in my hand and forcibly changes the endpoint to the same place as the reactor heart. I roll my shoulder and grimace as the bathroom door opens.

"Was that really such a good idea?" Call asks warily.

"I could ask you the same damn thing," I mutter and step out of his suit. "We could've still played this off. You project your voice from the mask, project my voice from inside the bathroom, and we keep the charade up for a few more minutes."

Call shakes his head. "She was onto us. I'm not going to pretend you weren't at least a little aware, but now we've got another problem… where the hell did you send her?"

"Somewhere unsafe."

"Ha-ha. Seriously, I can't trace her location, and if I can't, there are a dozen other people who can't either. If there aren't alarms going off right now then there will be once they're done dealing with Lizzie."

I raise an eyebrow. "I thought you said she was innocent."

"I said she didn't do this specific sabotage; that doesn't mean she's innocent," Call sighs and steps into his armor. "Even if the psychics can't extract a confession for this one, they'll ask about her allies at some point. My name will come up and I'll be done for–all this work'll be for absolutely nothing. So we need to set me up to take the entire fall."

He taps his armor's chest. A soft ping echoes against every corner of the room, filling the air with magic that's tinted the colour of artificial blue raspberry candy. It doesn't feel like it's coming from Call, but from something else he's got in his armor. Something I very much doubt is regulation.

"What if they don't question Lizzie?"

Call turns at my question. "They will. I promise you."

I shrug. "That depends; if they already know how everything went down, they won't need to question her. Especially if she might say something that contradicts what they want to get out."

"You… you think the Preservation did this to themselves?"

"Maybe. Or maybe they've got an idea of who'd actually stoop to endangering thousands of people just to give them a black eye," I suggest as I sit down on the corner of the bed. "Either they know Lizzie is innocent, or they'll try to link her to something she actually has no idea about. I'd say that probably gives us a few days to work before they catch on."

Call snorts and holds out a hand. "Relocation, please."

I summon a coin and put it in his palm. He squeezes his fingers around it before handing it back.

"You want out of here?"

He shakes his head. "I just want insurance. Lament needs to think I did this alone, or at least with someone's help that isn't you. I'll get into the records and alter the profile the Preservation is already building up on you while you go… do whatever you have to do to her. If you both come back, then I'll keep a little hope. If only you come back…"

"Then we have bigger problems," I agree. "Alright. Now about those coins you handed me earlier; they good to be relocated now?"

"Better now than any other time," he confirms. "Good luck, Shelby. We're going to need it."

I nod and drop a relocation coin keyed to me on the floor, then activate a coin I have at the resort. The pull of the city grasps for my spell, and I let it take hold strong enough to change the endpoint. It's a change I didn't even know existed until the reactor heart, but I'm damn glad it works this way.

The world shifts. My feet touch down dangerously close to the beating heart still encased in shields, and before I can breathe, winds wrap around my body and press thin blades to every inch of exposed skin. I crack a purification coin and slowly turn to face Lament. Her armor's shaking with every breath.

"You…" she trails off in disgust.

I raise my hands as non-confrontationally as I can. "Me. Do you know me as Shelby or the Gambler? I bet the Preservation has a high price on my head after the whole party debacle."

"High?! Do you even… do you understand what kind of reward the person who finds you gets?" Lament laughs shakily and tries to pull her winds in closer. With Pearl's empowerment, my purification is far stronger. "You, or any of the other Resort leaders, are worth a small island and enough Class Coins to start an army. If I'd known who you were, I'd… I'd…"

I slowly bear my teeth and take a step forward. Lament squeaks and steps back in turn.

"You'd what, Lament?" I ask with a smile. "And if I were you, I'd choose my next words carefully. Right now I'm in the mood to chat. You wouldn't want to change that, would you?"

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She gulps and shakes her head. "God, no, I wouldn't."

"Right you are. Take down the annoyances and we'll talk," I motion at the winds around me for emphasis. "We might have more in common than you think."

Lament takes a shuddering breath and lowers her arms. Pearl clears her throat to warn me about the time limit, and when the winds finally die down, I give Pearl the okay to separate. It's an odd feeling having her remove herself from me, and it comes with a wave of fatigue that almost knocks me flat on my ass. Any longer and I would've passed out right here and now.

Instead, I turn the wobble into a lunge and throw my arm around Lament's shoulders. "Perfect, perfect; so you're probably wondering why I saved your sorry asses from that mech. Or maybe you aren't, since I hope you're smart enough to understand why Speak didn't instantly come and help us."

"I know," Lament mumbles. "It's always a test."

Her words were so quiet that I definitely wasn't supposed to hear the bitterness in them. But I did. I wonder why, if she knows what's happening, that Call wouldn't trust her. There's more to this. Probably won't be that hard to get out.

I pat her shoulder and turn her away from the heart. "Well, if you know what was happening, then I'd like to know why you're still happily working with the Preservation. A good woman like you doesn't seem like the kind who'd happily stand working with horrible tyrants."

She tries to shrink away from me. I pull her back as close as I can.

"No running, Lament; you must know at least a little about where we are. You don't know anything about how dangerous it really is for you here. Fleur."

My brooch sparkles with magic. Salt condenses in the air in a matter of moments, then crystallizes into Fleur's form. She looks at Lament, who looks back at Fleur with as much terror as a blank visor can manage.

"Who's this?" Fleur asks. "If you needed me to kill someone, you could've done it without teleporting them all the way here. The others are coming as well; do you want me to call them off?"

I shake my head. "Just make sure they don't interrupt us for a few minutes. I don't want to give away too much info if we decide to let Lament live."

"If?" Lament squeaks.

"Yes, if. You're our enemy, Lament," I pat her on the back and offer her a smile. "Unless there's any reason you wouldn't be?"

Fleur turns her chin upwards towards the heart. "Slice is insisting that she take a look at the heart. Is that a good idea?"

I wave my fingers at the reactor. "Go ahead. Maybe she'll have some idea of how to disarm it."

"You heard her; come by whenever."

A wall opens up the moment the words leave Fleur's mouth, revealing a bustling headquarters for the constructs and ex-stonestep people for a brief moment before Slice steps out. Lament audibly gasps at the sight of the radioactive paindne construct, her faceplate now completely locked on Slice.

"That's a paindne," she says, dumbfounded. "How'd they… how'd you…"

Fleur snorts. "Magic."

Lament whips her faceplate to look at me for confirmation. "Pretty much. Don't have many paindne in the Preservation, do you?"

"No, we don't. Not yet, anyway."

"Ah, right, the stonestep solutions deal. Might want to talk to your leaders about that," I chuckle ominously. "The details could've changed a little since the last round of negotiations."

Slice shakes her head with a sigh as she kneels next to my shields. "The radiation is strong, but not strong enough to get past me. It's safe to lower the shields."

"What? NO!" Lament cries as I do exactly that. "The radiation will kill us… all?"

The heart beats once. Slice puts a hand directly against the reactor and digs her claws deep into it, extending the armor I made for her around the heart. It shudders a few times before a sickening crunch condenses the reactor down to the size of a baseball and messily glorps it up through Slice's half-liquid arm. The thing eventually comes to rest right where her own heart would be, lighting her body with power that amplifies her own destructive abilities.

"Hm. I never thought I'd have one of these again," she muses as lines of magic pulse down her chest. "If you get any more of those, Shelby, send them to the computer room. I'll find some way to tap them into the city's power source."

I snap off a two-finger salute. Slice smiles in recognition and turns back to leave exactly where she came in from.

"Wait!" Lament calls.

Slice turns and tilts her head to the side. "Who are you exactly?"

"I-I'm Lament. From the Preservation. Your, um, mortal enemies," Lament says with an audible wince.

"Oh. That's news to me. Shelby?" she raises a radioactive eyebrow in my direction.

"I guess you could say we're mortal enemies. I'd like it if they stopped existing, and they'd like the same about us."

Slice hums to herself in thought. "We could just obliterate them, if that's what you want. Heck, just teleport me into the middle of their base and it'll all be solved without having to involve the actual nuclear option."

A proud snort touches the edge of my mind. Illumisia's listening in on this somehow, but I'm not really surprised. Hell, nothing she could do would surprise me anymore.

"No, not yet; too many innocents. If we can get them away from their base, then maybe I'll consider it. Until then, keep doing what you're doing."

"Understood."

Slice repeats the salute I gave her and opens up the door in the wall, then disappears. I turn to Lament, who seems more convinced that we're on the same side from the fact that Slice exists rather than anything else. A devious little idea pops into my mind, aided by a few pushes and giggles from Pearl.

"Lament, my current enemy and possible future friend, how would you like to meet some paindne?"