Ruthless V6Ch1-March to Orlando

James performed his daily ritual quickly and almost without hope.

He attempted Summon Divine Helper to bring Alan back to the Fisher Kingdom. Mana built up, ballooned, was discharged—and once more, Alan did not appear before him. Yet James sensed, again, that his advisor was still alive. He could feel Alan’s life force when he reached out for it with this power, even as something kept it from being pulled to James’s side.

Was it just Alan choosing to remain on his own? Or was something compelling him to stay in place? It seemed likely that the situation was more complicated than James had thought previously—more complicated than the captain choosing to go down with his ship.

Regardless of the specific reason for its failure, James had tried this same thing every day since Alan was captured in the former City of Orlando. Weeks had gone by with no change.

No change except for in James’s readiness—and in the increasing proximity to the World Leaders’ Summit.

Only two more days now, he thought. That meant limited time to act. Soon, James and his most powerful allies would be absent from Florida. Who knew how much would change during their absence? Or whether the captive members of the Fisher Expeditionary Force would still be alive at that point?

James left the bedroom. Mina was just outside, sitting with the children and Yulia. Mina looked James in the eyes expectantly. He shook his head slightly, and she gave him a sympathetic look in response.

This attempt had been mainly a formality. The only effect was to confirm that Alan was still alive. Even if he had been successfully summoned back, it probably would not have changed what James had set in motion already. A status update had already been given to the whole Kingdom, a short speech made, a large force gathered.

The Army had returned from the Atlantic coast. Zora was now a Ruler in her own right, and she had arrived with followers in tow—who promptly swore loyalty to James and the Fisher Kingdom.

The majority of the Fisher Expeditionary Force, who had not gone into Orlando, along with the Dungeon refugees, further bolstered James’s numbers.

Even the Panther Queen and her army had been called back from where James had initially sent them—to South Florida, where he had hoped they might run across Fjalar, the red rooster who James was sworn to defeat, to stave off Ragnarok.

The invasion of Orlando was a more urgent task, now that James had personnel missing there but known to be alive.

James and Mina walked out of their apartment together, Yulia trailing just behind holding Junior. The other children were gathered behind her.

The courtyard in between all of the apartments was full.

Thousands of figures of many different Races had gathered, some of them to see James off, but most of them to accompany the Ruler to war. The Panther Queen stood in front of her own force, looking slightly nervous to James’s eyes. Perhaps it was being surrounded by the Royal Fisher Army, which outnumbered hers by more than two to one.

But she was among allies, of course.

James gave her a nod and the ghost of a smile, and she seemed to relax a bit. James turned to move to the head of the group, his expression growing more serious.

But then Mina placed a hand on James’s arm. He looked down at her, and she tilted her head to indicate everyone else who had gathered.

Right, I should acknowledge them in some way.

Luna had reunited with her wolfpack and stood proudly at the front of the wolves, posed proudly. Samuel and his alligators were similarly standing in rigid formation, almost as if expecting to be photographed. And the other combatant Races under James’s command—the Goblins, the bats, the squirrels—were doing likewise.

Most intimidating looking of all were Dave and the main army, many of whom wore new armor generated from the remains of enemies they had killed—giant lizards and rattlesnakes and creatures of the sea that had engaged them at the beach, before Dave managed to make a treaty with the Shallows King, a Merfolk.

James’s expression softened. All of his people had earned some recognition. He had given them public praise after they arrived, but there was no harm in a little more acknowledgement. They had conquered half of Central Florida for him, after all, and they stood ready to help him seize the very heart of the region.

He made a quick walk around the gathered forces, inspecting them—or trying to look like he was inspecting them, at least. He still didn’t know much about military affairs. His knowledge of fighting was almost exclusively limited to knowing how to kill other people and nonhumans himself, whether with his own hands or a weapon.

It was fortunate that he had others who were more experienced in those matters in his service.

But James did know how to walk around, look at individuals and groups appraisingly, and give approving nods. He made use of those skills and tried to convey to each group that they all met or exceeded expectations. It was easier because it was true.

Like the visibly hardened humanoid members of the Army, the nonhumans were experiencing their own forms of growth.

Several of the wolves had become Command Forest Wolves, the two-headed Evolution that put them just below Romulus, Luna’s mate, in the hierarchy of power and seniority. Goblin Overlord Duncan had evolved, too, becoming a Brag—a sort of Goblin, still, so he didn’t look very different, but he had informed James that he could now use Shapeshift. Samuel’s offspring were growing nicely, moving closer to their father’s titanic size. James didn’t know if that was an Evolution or just a growth spurt, and he did not ask. Bat Lady Evangeline had evolved, and she now looked a bit closer to the Bat Queen who James had killed to take command of the entire bat population. All Evangeline’s time in the Dungeon seemed to have paid off.

On the whole, it was easy for James to look on these groups with approval. They were clearly taking their growth—and hence their role in his military—seriously.

He gave them nods, occasional smiles, a word or two, and moved on. The process took perhaps ten minutes.

Then he marched to the front of the host, his expression stony again, his mind back on the task at hand. It was a grim situation in his view. He didn’t like risking more lives to recover the fragment of the Fisher Expeditionary Force that had been trapped within the ruin of Orlando, but he saw no other way to accomplish the task. He could smash through the city himself, but he had no special means of actually locating Alan and the others. His eyes in the sky had been unable to spot the Healer or his comrades despite repeated flyovers. And with so many Rulers around, even James would be at risk of being overwhelmed if he just charged in.

He had learned his lesson from fighting Rostov and his cult. Deception or significant numbers of his own troops were the best ways of dealing with large numbers of enemies. He could not cast an illusion over the entirety of Orlando, and his Dreamwalk Skill had been blocked from reaching Alan somehow.

The Army was the last resort he had available. He just had to try not to lose too many people and hope that the capture of Orlando and the return of his lost citizens would be worth mobilizing such a large number of soldiers.

[All appears to be in order. We march. We will recover our hostages and purge the enemy from the city. When it is part of the Fisher Kingdom, we can use the infrastructure there to begin rebuilding our civilization. This will be another grand step forward for our new country!]

There was a loud sound of cheering from the gathered civilians, though their number felt small relative to the size of the host that James had assembled. James’s words felt a bit hollow to him. He had spoken mainly to avoid leaving his army in complete silence. But at least he hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true, as far as he knew. Better that the Army should be thinking of the constructive end goal than just worrying about the fighting to be done.

It’s too late to change our minds now.

[The Chief of Police and Secretary of the Council will maintain order in my absence. Please go to them with any urgent issues.]

Both Leo DaSilva and Jeremiah Rotter looked a bit dismayed at those words, but not surprised. The burden of responsibility would be only slightly heavier while James was gone. He had already offloaded most of his governing responsibilities onto these two men and the other members of his Council.

The march took place over a day and half a night. James had already cleared a path with Dominion and the strategic application of violence and threats, securing a path from his territory to the eastern periphery of what had once been Orlando. The task was not as difficult as he might have expected. He had developed a bit of a reputation in Central Florida, it seemed.

Most of the Rulers in the region chose to give his land—and its apparent directions of expansion—a wide berth.

This meant the only obstacle to reaching the city quickly was the slow and frail physical bodies of those James brought with him—slow relative to him, at least.

Still, they crossed the ground quickly enough. They arrived in the early hours of the next morning—with enough time for those who needed a rest to have a nap before the assault began.

While the Army rested, James and his top military subordinates began a final council of war.

First, James transformed the Soul Eater Orb into an ax, used Lightning Strike to increase Roscuro’s cutting power, and chopped down a great tree, wider across than any that had existed in Florida pre-System.

By cutting straight through the body of the tree, he felled it and made a flat, almost perfectly round table for his advisors to sit around. With gravity magic, he temporarily reduced the weight of the body of the tree—it was too heavy for James to lift using his Strength alone, despite his continued growth—and chucked it off somewhere into the border region of the city. Hopefully it would land on an enemy.

“So, how do you want to do this, sir?” asked Dave Matsumoto, sitting down and opening the meeting. Everyone else began taking their seats on the ground around the great tree stump as well.

“That’s really what I have you guys for,” James said, smiling benignly. “I don’t pretend to have any expertise in these matters other than a great personal capacity for destruction.”

“Is it possible we can maneuver in secrecy?” Duncan asked, swallowing.

“I think that’s out,” said Samuel quietly. “We brought an entire army into the periphery of this place.” He gestured in Orlando’s direction. “Even if the King had not just thrown a massive log toward the city, anything with ears will have heard thousands of feet marching toward it.”

“So we go in hard and heavy,” suggested Evangeline, crossing her wings in front of her chest. She sounded eager to prove herself.

Zora sighed. “What about the hostages? The people we’re actually here to save?”

James quietly nodded along with his mother. That was his top priority. If the captives from the Fisher Expeditionary Force were caught in some cross fire and killed, this whole invasion would be almost pointless.

“What about a two-pronged strategy?” asked the Panther Queen. “One group goes in loudly with great force, but very slowly—advancing at such a rate that anyone who wants to avoid us can do so easily. Another, smaller and stealthier group penetrates into the city and searches independently for your hostages.”

“That sounds like it would work,” Dave said with a look of approval. “The only thing I’m uncertain of is how the stealth group will actually find our people in the city. Orlando isn’t a massive urban center by any means, but it’s not a village either. Hundreds of thousands of people lived there before the System, and some of them will still be there even now. How many of us can even identify the targets for extraction if we run across them?”

“Well, if we find any humans, we’d want to try and save them, I think,” James said. “The city is clearly dominated by the nonhuman Races, from my brief visit, and considering that Alan and the others were taken captive during their visit, I doubt that the nonhumans are living in peace alongside humans.”

“Peaceful coexistence does seem to be the exception, outside of the Fisher Kingdom,” Mina agreed.

“That raises another issue,” said Ysabel quirking her head to the side. “We’re about to turn the city into a hot warzone—I mean, to the extent that it wasn’t already. Usually, monsters don’t get along that well if they have to live in close proximity to others of different Races unless they’re specifically in a situation where they have to rely on each other, or they come to some understanding. There are too many creatures in the city for that to have happened broadly. So…”

“So the city is in turmoil,” said the Panther Queen. “What is your point, squirrel?”

James suppressed the urge to chuckle at Ysabel’s uncomfortable look.

“We need someone who’s both stealthy and tough to do the infiltration,” Ysabel said finally. “So they won’t get killed by enemies or even friendly fire while they’re searching.”

Luna’s tail thumped heavily against the table as all three of her heads locked eyes with James.

“I believe we have a volunteer,” James said, giving Luna an approving nod and smile.

I was about to propose that I do it myself.

Luna nodded. “Yes, my King. I know the Healer’s scent already, and the wolf pack is strong and quick. We can avoid danger effectively while we look for him and the others.”

“I can go in, too,” Evangeline interjected. “I can be your eyes in the sky so that nothing surprises the wolf pack.”

“Excellent,” James said. “With the two of you on this, I can rest easy. Please avoid getting into any unnecessary fights while you’re on this mission. The top priority is getting out alive. As for the rest of us, the plan is violence. So much violence and aggression that no one will be worried about a few bats and wolves running around behind their lines.”