The Legion of Nothing

“For right now,” Vaughn said, “I’ll be happy to keep everyone here in the air and uninfected—extra bonus if I can also help the city, but I’m not holding my breath there.”

Sean’s name blinked, “I’d be holding my breath if I didn’t know I just fall unconscious. Do you guys have more of your suits?”

“I don’t know if they’ll work for you,” I said. “I designed them to resist electromagnetism, but any suit on you will be at ground zero all the time. We might have a suit that doesn’t use nanotech back at base. There’s probably a way to get it out safely. Nanotech suits should work for everyone else if we have enough.

“If we don’t have enough, we need to get you guys far enough out of town that you’re safe.”

“I’m not afraid,” Sean said, “I want to help. We’re supposed to be helping.”

Even though I was flying over the city with Amy, Izzy, and Daniel, I could imagine Sean back with the group by the park and feel grateful I wasn’t there.

This was a better version of Sean than I remembered, but still irritating. Trying not to let any of that be heard in my voice, I said, “I know you want to help, but we’re going to have to first figure out where the second brain is. Until then, if you’re at risk of being infected, your first duty is to stay free. I don’t want to fight magnetic mushroom zombie Sean, but for all I know, the fey will have some charm to keep fungus away.”

Dayton laughed, “Exactly. I don’t want to fight mushroom zombie Sean either.”

“About that,” Adam said as his name blinked, “do you want me to call them in now or do you want me to wait?”

“Uh…” I thought about it as I passed over a neighborhood covered in with fuzzy spores, “will it take a long time?”

Adam laughed, “It’s not much more complicated than if I said, ‘Duke of the alabaster halls, duke of the mountains of skulls. I, the giver of aid, ask you to make good on promises made’.”

“Did you just do it,” I asked.

“No,” he said, as if it should be obvious, “there are a few more verses to go.”

Haley’s name blinked, “The mountain of skulls? Who is this?”

“Look,” Adam said, “I’m the champion of fairies loosely associated with the Unseelie court. They’re not the cute fairies and they’re not friendly. They’re scary and I did a favor for Duke Metzul of the Alabaster Mountains—which do happen to look like skulls. It wasn’t anything bad. I retrieved a few items of his that mortals had stolen over the years.”

“Metzul?” Amy responded in the group, but looked over at me, shaking her head, “He’s no one I’d want to help.”

“Right,” Adam said, “but we had a common interest in getting him his stuff back. He wanted it back, but had no agent capable of moving around in the mortal world. Meanwhile, I was fighting occultists that I couldn’t take down because they were siphoning his essence into themselves through his tools. You’re going to have to believe me when I tell you that it’s better when he has his stuff than when mortals are using it.”

Amy nodded slowly, “I believe it. We can do without occultists turning into little warped copies of him. As for this favor, how much control do you have over it? Can you talk with him or do you have to put it into verse?”

“I only need verse to summon him. We talk after that,” Adam said, “and I’m told he likes me as much as he ever likes mortals—which means he’s not going to try to deliberately pervert it.”

“Good,” the blood red gems in Amy’s armor shone a little brighter, “then make sure he knows not to kill the fungus infected humans. Whatever he does to stop them can’t be permanent. The effects need to end when Paladin kills the fungus. Oh, and if you can work in a charm to stop fungus infection for our team, that can only help.”

“We’ve got a good working relationship,” Adam said, “I think he’ll go for it.”

Amy mouthed the words, “Good working relationship?” at me, but said, “Great. The sooner his army appears, the better. Maybe he can help us find the second brain. Oh, and whatever relationship you have, he’s still a major lord of Faerie. Don’t trust him.”

“I get it,” Adam said, “I’ll call him now, okay?”

Then he dropped out of the conversation. He still showed up on the GPS with Haley and most of Team Hidden, though.

Samita’s name blinked and she started talking with rapid fire speed, “I called the NAWC. They’ve started setting up an anti-fungus barrier around the city.”

“Wow,” I said, “that was easy.”

The levels of Samita’s voice turned even, “I don’t think they want it to spread either.”

I was about to respond to that when Hal sent a message to the group chat.

[Based on the pattern of expansion of tendrils and spores, I have a range of possible locations where the second brain might be based. They are all downtown Grand Lake within a block of City Hall.]

Daniel added, “I think we should try City Hall first.”