Grey had once heard someone joke that if the United States declared war on a country, the next day there would be a military base there, craters, boots on the ground, and a Mcdonalds. They had a truly astounding amount of resources in what they needed to rapidly deploy troops and infrastructure; and were apparently using it right now to help save as many lives as possible.

  Walls, turrets, sandbag barriers; the northern half of the heartland was being turned into the city-states that they would remain if things failed. The countryside was being abandoned; the monsters being allowed to fight it out, under the idea that soon, weeks before the first big freeze, they’d start using the infectious plague; but in the meantime…

  Grey had yet another meeting. He’d hoped to just ride on more Clearance flights and then get back to El Paso; but that wasn’t in the cards just yet.

  At least it was just a… video call? It didn’t matter. He needed to discuss the bribe attempt, and his actions, with his boss. And hopefully get a bit of privacy so he could inspect the loot the man carried.

  He settled down in the conference room… empty, at present, even with a pair of soldiers guarding the door.. And watched as someone on the other side chatted for a few seconds, not looking at the screen… and then walked out, before the Secretary sat down.

  He started abruptly, matter-of-fact. ~So, Grey. Someone from the Empire tried to bribe you to sabotage our efforts. And you killed him on the spot. Care to give me your thinking?~

  Grey focused on the camera for a moment, then the screen. “The individual was interested in preventing us from saving lives, in having me neuter my contributions to the war effort; while at the same time advising me of superior methods they themselves use. I used his bribe offers to feel out the level of resources they were willing to commit to it, and to determine whether I was right to be suspicious of the Chosen.”

  He inhaled, and rapped his fingers on the table. “Having determined that they weren’t interested in a compromise that preserved our civilians while still creating their objective, and that they considered the Chosen to be allies, I felt that allowing him to leave with the information thus gathered and go attempt to bribe others would be counter-productive. I pretended to shake his hand, secured his location, and fired on him until he was dead. His corpse then vanished, likely recalled by some form of emergency teleporter.”

  ~.... Well. On the one hand, I’d have preferred capture. But its fully possible a refusal would’ve been followed by an assassination attempt, either directly, or him hiring it out. What do you mean about the Chosen being their allies?~

  If he could turn the military against them…. “The Committee; a group of powerful nations that included the Empire; dragged hundreds of people from earth to a private, time-accelerated training ground. They spent an unknown but significant amount of time training them and powering them up, then sent them back to ‘help’ us; with advice to work on turning earth into a series of small, armed, camps.”

  He tapped his claws on the table again. “The Empire knew how to, relatively safely, cleanse the world of monsters. If we can get someone to take a mutagen that makes them vulnerable to daylight, or get a level 21+ Necromancer and find a light-weak monster for him to copy, we can get undead that become helpless in both cold and daylight… and have troops carrying UV lamps to clear them from buildings. We scatter them at dusk to swarm over and clear areas of monsters… then fly through as the sun rises to wipe them out, aside from a sample to drop off the next day.”

  He glared at the camera. “They’ve had the system for thousands of years. This can’t be the only highly efficient way to cleanse a world; its just possibly the cheapest, and involves using a class they advised all of the Chosen to avoid. So… the whole organization wanted Earth to fail. And sent us the Chosen to make us think they were our friends… and become the leaders when we inevitably failed.”

  The secretary gave a slow nod. ~Explain about the level 21+ bit.~

  “There’s a high-level Necromancy power, under Animation. Right now, I can imbue undead with any power I have. Once I hit level 21, I can take one that lets me copy a power from any undead I animate… and give it to any others I make from then on. If we could find a vampire, or something else that was hurt by daylight… we could make expendable swarms, stack vulnerabilities on them that will let us easily kill them, but not make them weak to monsters… and just walk behind the swarm. A single Kaiju swarmed by hundreds of tiny monsters…. That all die when the sun rises, leaving either the Kaiju weakened… or if it dies, it becomes helpless itself at sunrise.”

  This suggestion should hopefully both work… and give the Secretary incentive to help him push levels to a point Nightfire would be easier to handle. And maybe, if he worked things well enough, he could have not just a swarm of fire-resistant undead; but a squad of high-level soldiers helping him.

  The man blinked, staring at Grey through the camera. ~.... I think we’ve got a level 20 Necromancer already. I’ll need to run you on a few clearance flights, have them run him through one more… Grey. You fill me with enough anxiety to give me a heart attack, and hope that we can actually get through this thing. Go on some clearance flights. Get staffed up. If I can find any light-vulnerable monsters.. Or anything else with specific weaknesses… I’ll have them sent to your new headquarters in El Paso.~

  He rose to his feet. ~Godspeed, director. One of our people is already working on turning the interstates into spell conduits. Between that, the drones, the dogs… its like a whole bevy of miracle-workers are coming out in our darkest hour.~

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The camera shut off. Grey looked at it thoughtfully. Dogs? Spell conduits? Anything he could make use of?

  It didn’t matter. The secretary might not be wholly buying into his anti-Chosen thinking. But he didn’t come out against it, either. And, well. If Grey had troops of his own in his department? With the Chosen not picking Necromancer for any of their classes, he wouldn’t have any as his prime employees. He could easily foster an anti-Chosen aura there.

  Now…. hopefully, the next Clearance flights were as productive as the first.

  ***

  Arrival back in the United States was a bit hectic; and strange.

  A vibrant red and purple spider, roughly four feet long, wearing an orange vest, was sitting on the tarmac, somehow communicating with a group of soldiers; and gesturing in Grey’s direction as they landed; with Kylie standing beside it.

  He studied the two of them; Kylie was wearing a dull grey tight version of the system-generated Light Armor, and seemed to be helping the group talk, even as Grey approached… looking at the men… then Kylie.. Then the spider.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you, or you, here. I’m supposed to be setting up a headquarters in El Paso. Shouldn’t you be there?”

  Kylie glanced at them… and nodded. “I will be… Director. But if I’m going to fulfill my assigned task as a Dimensional Mage, I’ll need a few levels; and they’ve been attaching your future staff and anyone willing to become a necromancer to half the flights heading out… even bumping a few senators.”

  The soldier standing beside her gave a brief nod. “Joint chiefs are prioritizing getting a high-level staff at each of the agencies we’ve setup. We want a handful of folks who aren’t Chosen over level 20 in every given class, make sure that we aren’t dependent on them, or any other outside help. Each agency will be responsible for helping with local threats, as well as its given area of expertise… so for example, if a horde of Undead pops up in Sacramento, the Ice magic agency will deal with it until you show up, and if a 30-meter-tall Ice Giant pops up out of the Rio Grande and tries to eat you people, they’ll respond in kind.”

  Grey nodded. “Seems reasonable. We can replace what the Chosen are currently doing with our own forces, and then some.”

  “There’s just flat-out too many monsters for us to just wipe out right now. But apparently… our current job is to clear paths for evac; all the small towns in the heartland are going to be emptied out, and we’re temporarily consolidating into a few dozen core heavily defended locations. I don’t know the details, but apparently we’re going to be doing… something… to clear them out in a few weeks, and in the meantime… this will be the last run we make north of the Mason-Dixon line.”

  Grey nodded for a moment… then frowned. “How exactly are people going to keep evacuating if we pull out?”

  “There’s some sort of steam-roller truck they’ve got imprinting spell sigils on the interstate, with wrecking crews clearing it in front of them. Whatever sigils they’re putting on, monsters want to avoid; so it’ll be fairly safe for people to pass. The area’s only about a hundred meters from the sigil though… so its not gonna save all the little towns they pass through.”

  “...Interesting, but that can wait. I’m assuming I’m riding with her?”

  “For the rest of the day, we’re going to be making runs until we’re too tired to keep going, then another crew will take the chopper and go. If you want to take her, we can; I know it’ll slow down your own progress.”

  “Lets do it. We have a grenade launcher around so she can rack up enough ranged kills to let us up our flight ceiling fast?”

  The soldier glanced at her. “You ready to try a grenade launcher, little lady?”

  She focused on him for a few seconds. “I’m ready to kill however many I need to, soldier, with whatever weapon you give me.”

  “Good answer. Wheels up in five.”

  ***

  After an hour’s flight at a speed no helicopter should be able to make, they started to drop low over the forest outside a small town… the visible signs of gunfire and various magical attacks coming from a collection of trucks and buses.

  “Alright, people. Fire out the right side on the first pass. Left side on the second. We will be sweeping the cornfields, or whats left of them, taking out any monsters within range, to take pressure off the convoy. Don’t worry about stragglers; unless there’s an overwhelming swarm, the stuff they’re putting on the road keeps the solo beasties away.”

  Kylie was hanging from a hook, looking at the soldiers around her; one glanced at her, and clapped her on the shoulder.

  “As you kill more things at a distance, how far away it works grows. Don’t pull the trigger til we give the signal. Understood?”

  She nodded…. As the chopper got lower…. Lower… soon, the treetops were almost touching the chopper. “Here we go! That thing’s got six fragmentation grenades. Fire all six, as fast as you can, at the middle of the swarm!”

  For his part, Grey was steadfast; the Multi-rifle in hand, he could see swarms of some sort of giant insectoid moving in on the highway… and gunfire already sounding from other choppers.

  He didn’t see the results of the grenades; and neither did Kylie; though he could see the faint glowing effect… as she gained levels, rapidly. She seemed unfocused as she reloaded. “.....That was… immediate. I hit tier 2 on the ranged title, we can lift higher.”

  She glanced at Grey, then at the crew. “If anything’s coming at us, let me know. I can warp space around the chopper now to make it miss.” She gave Grey a thumbs-up.

  He frowned. He wasn’t sure what that signal was. But if she’d leveled up multiple times… did that mean she already had something to lock down dimensional travel?

  He’d have to ask later. He loaded a magazine of incendiary cartridges into the Multi-Rifle… and as they pulled up for a better angle, joined the soldiers in sweeping fire across the swarm. Millions of monsters of various sorts to kill, thankfully almost as interested in killing each other as the soldiers or civilians.

  If he did well here, today….. He might be in position to kill Nightfire as early as tomorrow.