Sank to the bottom with the body.Didn't want to waste the time to find it, not when I didn't know what else might be going on up here.
Hopefully it stays down there.The others are in the practice fields, outside the inner ward but within the outer ward.
Lancelot raced in that direction, though at his size, it didn't take long.As they reached it, Gawain threw himself off Lancelot's head and right into the fray, landing amidst a bunch of canon fodder in a burst of blinding, fiery light.
Turning his attention to other parts of the battlefield, Lancelot swatted and snapped and clawed at the rest of the shadow forces.At the far end of the field, a golden dragon and black gryphon fought with Ethelfleda, who'd taken the form of a black and purple dragon, venom dripping from her fangs, the underside of her wings flickering purple fire.Morgan was on Arthur's back, countering every bit of shadow magic Ethelfleda tried to use on them.From the pallor of her skin, she was fading fast.
He roared and the water came, the earth trembling with the force of it, and everyone unable to get to higher ground was swept away, dragged downhill back to the river.
Ethelfleda lunged, getting her jaws around Dred's throat, but she was thrown off by their flames in the next moment.Bleeding heavily from wounds that wouldn't close, Dred withdrew.Entrusting them to the others who went rushing to their side, Lancelot joined Arthur, the water rushing all around them.
Arthur's blinding sunlight, the rarest form of earth magic, filled the area.Lancelot struck with his tail, the deadly barbs sinking into Ethelfleda's body, making her scream.Like her sister, she could not seem to retreat.The wards were holding; he'd given them enough time to see them through.
He just wished he hadn't doomed Scrob in the process.
Snarling, bitter and angry and furious with her and himself, Lancelot wrapped around her, twisting and binding, ignoring biting and stabbing and clawing, the way chunks of him were ripped and torn away, tosqueezewith all his might, until she weakened enough to stop thrashing.
He clamped down on her throat, flooding her body with venom far more potent than anything she could muster as Arthur came lunging in to rip her head off.
Ethelfleda's body collapsed, thrashing around in its death throes, and then went still.Lancelot slowly unwound from her body, though it took some effort to free his coils from her dead weight.
Once he was free, the water steadily receding once more, he shifted back down to his human form, the pain diminished by the last rays of Arthur's golden sunlight.
Galahad caught him as he fell, keeping him from faceplanting in a pool of bloody water.Lancelot clung to him, tears streaming down his face from overexertion, pain, and grief.How many people had died because he'd been so stupidly fucking arrogant?They had just meant to have a bit of fun while they stalled for time.None of the other gamers should have been caught up in this.
War never cared about innocents.But even assholes like Scrob didn't deserve the unholyhellthat he had suffered as Amphelise destroyed him from the inside out just for the pleasure of it, for the delight in their torment.
"Did— Did we succeed?"Lancelot managed.Hehurt.He wastired.He'd spent his entire past life fighting this battle, and now it felt like he was headed for the same fate in this life.And he wouldn't even get the fleeting joy of Galehaut at his side first.
Merlin appeared in front of them, grabbed them tight."We can leave the game, and we have to gonow—"
Everything went black, freezing cold, and Lancelot realized they'd been kicked out by the game itself.The wordsServer Emergency Maintenanceflashed in lurid red letters across the darkness.Before he could compute all the ways that didn't make sense, the darkness vanished.
He gasped, alert in a way he hadn't been for days, and stared groggily around at his surroundings.The interactive booths in Merlin's house.His entire body ached, and his head was fuzzy from the disorientation.
The door opened and Merlin, looking as awful as Lancelot felt, yanked him out of the box, ignoring all the cables and tubes that were unceremoniously jerked free with the motion."We have to go.We've gotone fucking chanceat this, and almost no fucking time to do it.Move."
Lancelot followed as best he could, stumbling more than walking, clipping corners and slamming into walls, until they were all but falling into a waiting car.It was him, Merlin, and Dred."Others?"he croaked.
Merlin didn't answer immediately, fumbling with the seats across from them, finally yanking out a back cushion to reveal a hidden storage area.Yanking out a dark red case, he punched in a code, opened it, and then tossed Lancelot and Dred each an injection pen.It was orange with white and black stripes.A special adrenaline shot, only permitted for use by the military and a very short list of civilian exceptions.They were called TGARS.Adrenaline-Rejuvenation Shot manufactured by TG Medical.
He slammed the injection into his thigh, and damn near threw up from thetoo fucking muchof it all."My heart is going to pop," he said hoarsely."Where the fuck did you get these, asshole?"
"I fucked somebody, obviously," Merlin said wryly.Some of his color was coming back, though not much."The others are getting Arthur and everyone else not already at my house.A house we'll probably never see again, so hope you have everything that matters with you."
Dred grunted."I hate you right now.So what are we doing, now that you've made me feel both drunk and high as a kite and like I just got run over by a fully loaded cargo truck?"
"You'll be fine, it'll even out," Merlin said."We're going to retrieve Scrob's body."
Anguish ripped through Lancelot, and he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes in a futile attempt to stem the pain."He was a stupid, arrogant brat playing a stupid video game.He didn't deserve any of that.Not me humiliating him, and certainly not being ripped from his own head and killed by that stupid bitch."
"It wasn't your fau—"
"Yes, it was," Lancelot snarled, barely noticing as Dred and Merlin recoiled."I am Captain of the Knights of Camelot.The only people with bigger targets on their backs are Merlin and Arthur.I drew attention to myself on purpose, but I shouldn't have dragged innocent people into it.Other ways could have been found.Instead I harassed some stupid fucking kid just because he was rude and flagrantly cheating.I showed off and made a spectacle and humiliated him just for the fun of it, toteach him a lesson, and that put a target on his back because of course Maleagant and his rotten sisters would prey on him to get to me.My behavior was inexcusable."He swiped angrily at tears."How many people died tonight because I wanted to show off?Leave me alone," he added when they tried to speak."Just leave me the fuck alone.Why do we need Scrob's body?"
"Because his brain will have pieces of Amphelise in it, and we may be able to scan them for information.The kind of information that could change everything.I scrambled as much data as I could to slow down them knowing where Scrob is, but it won't take them long to undo my mess.This is ouronechance to get information on that bastard.He's just been a fucking shadow so far, and always ten steps ahead of us.But we got him on his backfoot today, and now we just need to push."
"Hence this nightmare injection," Dred said with a grimace."I can taste the ten years it just took off my life."
