Chapter 39 – Accelerate

Lyca looked out his window at the dusky sky as he stroked Eliza’s delicate hair. Full moon had come again. Eliza had come specifically to watch over him again. She fiddled with the box of sleeping pills Anassa had given him. “There’s just three left.” She whispered quietly, her voice like a soft breeze as to not disturb the two of them. “Take two today, you’re building up a tolerance to them.”

Arascus tapped the report detailing the conclusion of Operation SkyStealer. Iliyal stood before him, his uniform formal as always, a black suit with a sword on his belt, dressed much like Arascus apart from the God’s lack of needless weaponry. “Good thing you stayed before going off for training.” Arascus said slowly. A thousand deaths were a statistic, a single death was a tragedy.

Today, he had to explain a tragedy to Iliyal.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” The elf replied, he knew Arascus too well. The God nodded slowly as he leaned back in his massive seat. His office was once a storeroom, remodelled and redesigned to hold a massive desk oversized for humans and a chair which would have made an emperor brush. Arascus slowly nodded to Iliyal’s question. “Ilwin?”

“It is. The other teams succeeded and brought their planes back. The Pepayel heist got three planes off the ground. One crashed shortly after take-off. Another developed a fuel leak mid-air, the first one to set was the only one which made it.” Iliyal stood there, unfazed and shook his head.

“Do we have confirmation of what happened?”

“It’s most likely going to be on the news. Videos have appeared on the internet already.” The internet was the single greatest change Arascus had to deal with. Before, it was only the most advanced magics which Anassa had to weave herself to allow for instant communication, now every fool could send whatever blabber they were thinking to everyone else.

“What happened?” Arascus flipped open the report and pulled out a picture. It was zoomed in and low-quality, but it said everything that needed to be said. A massive blue and white 77T transport plane, it’s bottom torn open, its wheel missing resting on a runway like a ginormous beached whale. In front of it, a woman in a simple dress. There was a puddle of vomit at her feet. “Leona.” Iliyal’s mouth twisted as if it was trying to force an anvil.

“Leona indeed.” Arascus confirmed. He could be asleep for ten million years and he would never forget Lady Luck.

“Then there was nothing to be done.” Iliyal said. “I was worried my grandson had made a mistake but against her?” He shook his head.

“We do have a problem however.” Arascus continued. “And that is the security of this base.” Iliyal’s face grew darker.

“We gave them suicide pills.” Iliyal said it because it needed to be said, they both knew the answer already.

“Even with the pills, we can, at best, assume maybe half took them. We’re dealing with Leona so the worst case scenario happened, no one took it.”

“Then we have a problem.”

“How long would you give us before they find us?” Arascus asked and Iliyal chuckled. His blue eyes carried no mirth though.

“We could have an expeditionary force going down on us right now.”

“Then it’s time to accelerate plans. You’re no longer tasked with training troops, delegate it to someone else. Go assist Mikhail on the war-planes.”

“I should help him with what exactly?” Any other man would crumble in fear before a God, asking him to clarify a question would be simply unheard of. That was the exact reason Iliyal had been a general in the past and now was Arascus’ right hand.

“Make sure everything goes smoothly for the man. If he needs test subjects, you will get him them. If he needs materials, you’ll get them. If he needs more planes, you’ll get them.” Arascus tapped the report again. “It’s not glorious work, but it has to be done.”

“It has to be done, so it shall be done.” Iliyal replied. There was no hint of dejection or annoyance in his voice. “

“I’ll have plans written up for dealing with Leona. She has to go.” Iliyal thumbed the hilt of his sword.

“We made this mistake last time.” He said.

“We’re not making it again. If we cannot defeat Leona, then we cannot win. There is no point wasting time playing at war when one side has Lady Luck. If we lose.” Arascus shrugged. “Then we’ll have saved ourselves a century-long hassle.” Iliyal saluted, made a move to leave and then stopped himself mid-turn.

“There is one more thing.”

“What is it?”

“My grandson chose the men well, none of them know about this location. The only one who could leak the secret is Ilwin himself.” Arascus gave the elf a slow nod. Ilwin was the man’s family, of course Iliyal would trust his own grandson. He had known the boy for just over half a year, he had no faults, but there was nothing exceptional about him either.

“Then let’s hope he does not.”