Wolf of the Reef

Diana was tasked to keep watch over the south, where they had come from, and the east, with nothing but the great lake and a bit of forest coastline, while Eli had his eyes glued to the north and west. However, the survey had bored Diana; she did not even want to peer her head over the window and check. Instead, she continued scribbling down math in her notebook undisturbed.

“Nothing,” she lazily responded from across the hallway, knowing Eli wasn’t in view of her. “How much longer you thinkin’?”

The sun was just beginning to sink behind the horizon. Eli made one last survey across the ancient urban ruins before finally answering, “I think we should be good.” He began to pack up his laid out supplies.

Diana did the same, “So what are we after?”

He shook his head with a cheeky grin before repeating the same answer for the past week, “You’ll see.”

As he was packing his things, Diana could not help but wonder why he was being so cautious in a vacant city. Up until this last job, which he swore was the last, they had never spent more than a couple of hours preparing for a hit. He was normally quite rash yet effective in his execution, wounds be damned. Spending a whole day for reconnaissance was outside his modus operandi.

As soon as they reached the ground floor, Diana firmly planted her feet, “Hey!”

Eli stopped and turned around, “What?”

“You’ve been giving me the run around for a day now, and I want to know at least what we’re after!” she crossed her arms and lightly tapped her foot.

He chuckled, “All right, Dancin’ Queen, calm down.” He averted his eyes for a moment, “Look, it’s meant to be a surprise. And, if my intel is correct, I swear it’s the last thing I’d need to open my bar back up. In case something were to happen, and I’d need to lie low for a bit. But this ain’t something that no amount of glimmer could create or trade for.”

Diana folded her arms defensively and quietly judged his demeanor, looking for any of the tiniest tells of dishonesty.

He raised his hand, “On my life. It’ll be worth it. Trust me?”

She continued glowering for another long moment, before turning her head away, “Fine. But this is the last one, yeah?”

Eli nodded plainly, “As I promised. Once we’re done with this job, this very job, I’ll help you search for anything your heart desires.”

Several artifacts listed themselves in her head. “Anything?” she pressed.

He nodded, “Anything.” Whether he understood the limits of what that entailed in her mind or not, hopefully he’d try to keep his word. “Any other questions?”

“How much further away?” Diana cocked her head to the side to peer around him. 

“Mmm, depending on the resistance, maybe a day or two of walking.”

“Okay, and finally, why are we being all quiet and slow?”

“What we’re looking for is fragile cargo in a facility that can only be transmatted away by our ships, so we’re gonna hav’ta clear the area, and because we don’t really know who’s out here, it’s not worth drawing any attention at all.”

“Sorry, one more. What kind of resistance are we looking at?”

“I dunno. Been seeing stray shots in the sky here and there. Looks like some fighting’s goin’ on, but it’s best we don’t get involved ‘til we get there.”

“Right.” Diana nodded, satisfied, “Thanks for the info.”

From the few records she managed to scrounge, the only thing known about Old Milwaukee was its fame for beer and cheese production. Like some of the other city ruins she had seen, the atmosphere felt deeply vacant. The dark age collapse had somehow managed to leave minimal damage on the infrastructure and buildings themselves while driving out the remaining humanity. Even before the two had entered South Milwaukee, they could hear the faint pops of gunshots and squeals of energy guns off in the distance, denying hospitality to any who would dare call this cursed city home.

They stopped at an intersection before Eli pulled out his night vision goggles, “Looks like fighting’s going on in the northwest. We’re gonna go to the coast and follow it north to the river. And to keep everyone in the entire neighborhood from converging on our position, we’re going quiet. Don’t shoot unless I say so.” 

Diana rolled her eyes. She was not exactly subtle with any of her previous jobs, but that did not mean she was incapable of following orders.

Night vision revealed nothing but neighborhoods stuck within an overpowering forest under complete darkness. Old Milwaukee was no longer a city in ruins. It had become a jungle growing inside the city, with a variety of trees sprouting through the dilapidated streets. The canopy was thick enough to blot out any light coming from the moon, creating a pitch black environment as dark as deep space. Each footstep, no matter how light, produced a soft squishing noise, caused by the swamps slowly reclaiming the land.  

However, what sent chills down Diana’s spine was the eerie absence of animal sounds. Not a single bird chirp nor any foliage rustling from the wind.

Instead, the silence highlighted a different noise: energy shots being fired. It would not be long before night vision could register the streaking shots crisscrossing. The canopy was even dense enough to prevent most upward shots from penetrating through. Diana instantly recognized the sound as Eliksnii weapons, triggering a long repressed, deep seated hatred.

“Hmm,” Eli thought out loud to himself as he narrowed his eyes.

“What?” Diana asked impatiently.

“Nothing. Just that I may have underestimated the scale of this battle.”

The barrage of guns firing from all over and in all different directions was loud enough to drown out their whispering, “Oh really? What gave you that idea?” Diana remarked sarcastically as she reached for her hand cannon.

Eli instinctively and firmly placed his hand over hers and her weapon. “Don’t.”

This time, the wit in his voice was gone.

“Why? It’s not like they’ll even know.”

Eli looked at her blankly for a minute before explaining, “Don’t matter. Fire a shot, and you might reveal our position. Kill one of ‘em, and they’ll absolutely come searching for us. And I don’t need anyone following us to our destination.”

Diana glowered, “Why? What’s so special about this cargo?”

“Nothing in particular,” he replied dryly, “only that it’s fragile and can’t be bought in large quantities.”

She hated the way he was still concealing his little secret, but she finally relented and holstered her hand cannon.

Quietly, Diana followed Eli as he weaved from block to block, stopping for at least fifteen to twenty minutes in each abandoned house to recon the next area and chart the next path forward. Soon, they were close enough to see the Eliksnii scurrying about, firing into the darkness somewhere to their north. What they were shooting at was still a mystery. For all the pair knew, they could be fighting among each other.

They entered a single storied home with half of the kitchen and living blown away. As Drifter busily surveyed the area for shooting and charted the next path, a sudden shot startled both of them.

Through an opening on the roof, Diana spotted an Eliksnii sniper taking potshots from above, his concentration casted onto a battlefield far away and completely oblivious of the company below.

No one’ll know, she thought to herself as she drew and raised her hand cannon. They deserved it, she justified to herself as she lined the sights up. Eli would disapprove, but this would all be over before anyone was aware of what happened. Some cathartic vengeance for herself.

For Azure.

Suddenly, Eli’s hand forcefully shoved the gun, accompanied by a threatening look and a knife tilted to the side of her throat. 

What the hell are you doing!?

She glowered back at him, Mind your own business.

Neither of his hands budged, You pull that trigger, the deal’s off.

Diana scowled and felt her heart race as she faced Eli’s authoritative stance. Even though her blood was rushing through her veins, she managed to control her breath calmly and quietly. Finally, she holstered her weapon.

Eli withdrew his knife and tilted his head, beckoning Diana to follow him once again. It was not long after exiting the house that the chaos of shooting started to fade into the distance. The quiet only brought disturbing thoughts to Diana’s head as she was processing the very dangerous decision prevented by Eli.

Once the shooting was far enough away, Eli felt comfortable openly walking through the streets unperturbed without the need to stop for recon. They continued eastward past the neighborhood areas and into the deep woods, following as best as they could. The moment Diana heard the splashing waves off in the distance, it was a matter of tracking the sound to its source, through the thick and damp forests, until they reached a ridge nearly hidden by the trees.

Eli checked his watch. “Oh lucky us, right on time,” he removed his night vision, “you’ll enjoy this.”

Diana had not stayed on Earth long enough to pay attention to any of the planet’s beauties, at least not for a while. This was something she had forgotten some time ago.

At first, she was unsure why he would remove his goggles, but seconds later, the first rays of light began to peek over the great lake. This time, from the perspective on a rotational planet, it looked like the sun was the one crawling up into the sky, shedding light indiscriminately upon all within its path, bathing its recipients in soft heat. The sunlight only intensified with the reflection upon the lake, coating the Earth with warm colors.

Now she remembered from centuries ago, when she was reawakened. Memories long kept hidden away. She used to wake up to the heat of the sun bathing her face until her eyes flickered open. She was not in the European Dead Zone, but it felt like Azure was beside her all the same. As though she were showing him the sunrise for the first time again.

“I didn’t realize…” she trailed off, the vague image of her brother still clung to her hand.

The statement caught Eli off guard, “About the sun?”

“No,” once Diana recognized her mistake, the small presence began to fade away and left her back to reality. Still, the sensation left her breathless. “That it had been this long.”

Eli looked back out into the distance before studying her features again. His expression softened and he approached her like a friend this time.

“Where did you arise from?”

“Somewhere in the EDZ. Old Barcelona, I think,” she envisioned the mountainous, urban landscape with vines covering the bygone infrastructure, not unsimilar to her current environment, but with narrower streets and older architecture. Even centuries of decay could not completely wipe away her homeland’s cultural identity.

There was a long silence between the two, “Also on Earth, but I couldn’t tell ya what part, but I can tell ya I didn’t follow the Traveler’s Light to the Last City.”

“Pff, oh yeah?” Diana pulled herself forward, turned away, and started walking without him.

“Hey, hold up!” Eli called after her as soon as he noticed the growing distance between them. 

They headed north. Diana let the sun warm the right side of her face against the crisp morning air. The pair traveled through the dense woods in silence until Eli told her to follow him down the upcoming road.

Suddenly, every small bird that was hidden in the forest, driven to silence through the sheer force of natural selection, fled for their lives as a bone-rattling shriek filled the air. Despite its distance, the cry of the thrall could startle any veteran Guardian and grab Eli’s attention.

“Huh. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to deal with Hive,” he pulled out a submachine gun, “but I did prepare for it.”

Diana was about to pull her gun out before Eli started again, “We’re still going quiet. Definitely don’t need them following us.”

She glared back at him, “We need to kill the wizard leading this brood.”

Eli made a sour face and groaned. If they didn’t, every Hive in the area would descend upon them after killing the first thrall. Hive broods were always too numerous for them to continue without being seen, and encountering at least one was inevitable. 

“You’re right.”

The road led to a huge bridge stretching over the Milwaukee river’s connection to the great lake, elevating the two of them dozens of meters above ground. This gave them a great vantage point to scout ahead. 

It was a shame there wasn’t enough time to enjoy the view, for the unstoppable force of nature had reclaimed all land as far as the eye could see, with only a few skyscrapers and an old stadium poking through the thick canopy.

Initially, all they could really see were untamed trees stretching far into the horizon without break, but after a few minutes, their eyes began to pick up rapid movement below. The smallest gap revealed the creeping thralls moving southward. It was a matter of following their paths back to their source, north of the river on the other side of the bridge. Somewhere in the midst of a convoluted network of structures and skyscrapers, there was a Hive wizard hiding in the fifteen square kilometers of an urban forest.

“There,” Eli pointed at the nearest box-shaped tower, bearing the name “US Bank” at the top. “Hop on over there and meet me on the roof.”

Diana nodded and used her Light to gently float across the gap between the edge of the highway and the tower before landing on one of the floors about two thirds of the way up. With papers littered all over and collapsed cubicles obstructing every way to the elevator, the floor of offices was an absolute hassle to cross.

Her foot caught a small metal drawer as she climbed over a desk, making a rattling sound that drew the faint hiss of a thrall. She rolled off the disorderly pile of furniture and landed onto a clearing before hearing the footsteps from another pile of office tables ahead.

Carefully, slowly, and fighting every urge to draw her hand cannon, Diana backed away from the incoming thrall. While it could not see her, she was hoping the thrall could not pick up her throbbing heart. She watched for any loose objects that could reveal her position as she drew closer.

The thrall climbed up to the area from where the rattle was made, moving its eyeless head around to pick up more noise.

Diana silently sighed a breath of relief as she snuck out of view and continued making her way to the stairwell unnoticed. 

When she opened the door to the roof, she was met with another pleasant view of the horizon. The blinding sun distracted her from the fact she was the first one to make it up. A few minutes had gone by before Eli finally arrived, to which he was greeted by a huff and a pretend impatient raise of the eyebrow, “Took you long enough.”

“Hey,” Eli’s radiant smile easily wiped away her smugness, “that’s my line!”

Diana leaned over the edge, observing the north west of the city, “So where do we go from here?”

Eli pulled out his binoculars and held up his finger before beckoning her, “This way.” 

They leaped northward toward a shorter yet equally magnificent skyscraper. As they traveled from building to building in this manner, Diana could observe from above the movement of the thrall running wildly toward the Eliksnii raiders.

It was not long before Eli whipped out his binoculars and pointed, “There she is.”

In the middle of an old park, surrounded by tall structures overtaken by ivy and an old cathedral, the aura of the Hive Wizard’s protective shield could be seen moving back and forth.

“How are we doing this?” asked Diana.

“Hmm,” Eli scratched his chin and passed his binoculars to her, “I just need you to keep the Wizard in place somehow. Then I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Somehow?” scoffed Diana.

Eli shook his head and rolled his eyes which caused Diana to cross her arms.

“Hey, I don’t have time to memorize all your fancy spells. However you get it done is fine by me.”

Diana stared back at him, waiting for an actual plan. He always had a plan. 

“All right then, how ‘bout this;” Eli threw his hands on his hips, “can you try to keep her in place without leveling the whole city block?” 

Diana tilted her head and gave a few short nods in approval. It would be difficult but manageable. 

Suddenly the snarl of a thrall from behind startled them, followed by a long, unnatural howl. Eli quickly silenced the cry, but it didn’t matter anymore. It was already too late.

The response began with other thrall shrieks acknowledging the call, and it quickly grew to a chorus spreading in all directions kilometers away. Every single Hive in the Wizard’s brood, acolytes, knights, and all, were about to converge on the area.

“Do it! Now!” Eli frantically yelled and took off for the ledge.

Diana turned around and summoned a vortex grenade and threw it into the utility stairwell, the only entryway to the roof. She needed time to conjure a vortex bomb. The challenge was not the concentration of Light energy building in her hands, but limiting its destructive capabilities. Annihilation comes easy.

Her eyes shut tight as she drew out her super spell and released a half nanometer wide singularity toward the center of the park. The atomic sized orb floated quietly over the cluster of trees with an uncanny silence. Now the primer awaited detonation.

There was a bright flash followed by a sudden darkness, a loud boom followed by the rush of air billowing towards the center. The singularity sucked everything into its hungry center; from all the leaves of the trees below to all the loose glass laying across the city. 

Diana smirked as the slippery Wizard howled in defiance, struggling to break free of the powerful gravitational force.

The Wizard had desperately clung to the branches, but it would not be long before the singularity would pull her above the canopy and render her immobile.

With a second rush of wind, Eli was on the other side of the grove in midair with solar flames radiating from his back.

The gun in his hand radiated with taken energy and glistened in the light. On his way down, Eli placed three perfect shots into each of the Wizard’s eyes, vaporizing the head.

Without any more resistance, the Wizard's body fell into the black hole, sucked and crushed into conjoinment with the singularity.

The effect lasted only several more seconds, until the last of the dense solid in the center degraded into atomic vapor.

A unison howl erupted into the air. A chilling cry of despair. Hundreds of directionless Hive were now at the mercy of their own worst instincts. Kill; even each other if need be, or be consumed by their own worm. The whole area was about to erupt in a frenzy.

Eli landed with a soft thud right next to Diana, “We gotta get outta here fast, follow me.”

The next moments were a blur as Eli guided her across the city. They bolted from building to building, shooting any Hive in their way. Ravenous thralls were still dangerous, but at least they wouldn't chase or swarm the pair. 

Dashing through empty towers and leaping across the gaps, they traveled this way for another thirty minutes before Eli stopped at a small bridge. He checked his map and compared it against his surroundings. “This way,” he said before crossing.

Resistance was light. The lone thrall here and there was such a small problem, they simply ignored them as they traversed the streets.

Eli halted before a giant conglomerate of buildings, like many structures built for different purposes at one point but combined later as their needs expanded. The miss-matching of colors and materials were now a common sight. 

He pulled out an old paper which crinkled beneath his fingers. Looking up, he studied the enormous complex structure that sprawled across the entire street block. With a river of freshwater flowing nearby, this part of the woods had grown so tall and thick that very little light was able to penetrate through, and many different species of vines had grown all over the buildings, making the man-made structures difficult to distinguish from the natural ones.

Confused, he continued staring at the odd building and searched for any detail that would clue him to its corresponding mark on the map. The concentration of trees made it much harder to distinguish. It took many minutes of him walking around the block to get a different angle to confirm the hidden location’s position, as well as their own.

‘Does he even know how to read a map?’ Diana watched with a frown and her arms folded over her chest.

Finally, he cracked into a wide smile, “We’re here.”

“O-kay,” Diana observed her surroundings with as much skepticism as Eli had initially, “what’s special about this place?”

Eli’s grin never went away as he sized up the building in front, “Oh, you’ll see.” He skipped ahead a bit before adding in softly, “hopefully..” 

“Hopefully?” Diana groaned, “Eli, you’re killing me. Just tell me what it is already.”

“Why? We're here, just a bit more til you find out anyway. Why ruin the surprise?” Eli shrugged.

Diana folded her arms again and grumbled, “Because I hate surprises.”

Eli disarmed her defensive gesture with a cheeky grin and a soft hand on her shoulder, “Last thing I'm gonna ask you to do, is to clear the perimeter around this block…”

“Oh. My. God,” Diana reloaded the hand cannon Eli had entrusted to her.

Eli scrunched up his face in a way that pleaded for forgiveness, “… quietly.”

Diana scowled at him, her green eyes piercing from under her tilted brow.

“Great!” Eli chirped as he clasped his hands together, “You take that side, I'll take the other, and let's clear the area til we cross paths.”

Holstering her weapon, Diana angrily swore up and down this would be the last time she ever did something nice for others as she drew her knife. She began her route around the brick warehouse and kept a watchful eye out for any enemy that was unfortunate enough to lurk in her path. 

What used to be an empty lot was now a forest with roots planted through asphalt and concrete. Yet despite the rich habitats for the local fauna, the air was too quiet.

Diana had to tread extra quietly without the ambient animal noises. There were but a few stray thrall, easily dispatched with a stab through the skull from behind. The city block containing the overgrown, plain yet mysterious building stretched across about a hundred meters, but by using the tree canopy to scout ahead and avoid detection from below, Diana was able to mop up her side of the perimeter within an hour before spotting Eli lurking in the woodsy shadows.

With simple eye contact and a nod, they rendezvoused, trusting each other that their end of the job was done. Eli then led Diana around the block to the largest facility’s front entrance. And before he opened the metal doors, he unholstered his hand cannon, encouraging Diana to do the same.

The two peeked inside, revealing a giant, cluttered room behind the doors with only several windows available to let sunlight through. 

“All right, last stretch. Just clear the room with me, and then we’ll go look for the prize.” 

Diana nodded in return.

Smoothly sliding through the doors, they split up, taking opposite perimeters of the building and silently traversing along the walls. Scanning high and low for any signs of possible enemies, Diana spotted mostly empty shelves that towered high towards the ceiling, counters with broken electronic equipment, and desks that had been ravaged. No signs of either hostiles, or anything of value for that matter.

By the time they had finished converging towards the center, Diana’s patience was at its limit, “Don’t tell me you dragged us all the way out here for nothing.”

Eli looked around as if it were obvious, “Well, no, this ain’t where the score is.” He tilted his head in the direction of a hallway. “Come follow me this way. I found a service elevator.”

Diana followed reluctantly, “So what kind of building is this? An old living quarters?”

“A distribution warehouse. Or that’s what the folk back then used to call this place.” Eli stopped before two large sliding doors. “Could you, uh, kindly ask your Ghost to hack into the terminal?”

Diana slowly placed her gaze upon him, “You can’t ask yours?”

“We’re uh… not on speaking terms at the moment.” He averted his eyes.

Diana’s nose scrunched up as her eyes narrowed, “So?”

“Trust me. You less so than me.”

Diana let the moment last a little longer before she held out her hand with the palm facing up.

Without saying a word, her Ghost materialized and began working the electronics.

After only a couple minutes, the dormant machinery behind the steel doors suddenly came to life, bringing loud bangs and clicks closer and closer. Then, a bell rang, and the doors slid open, allowing Eli and Diana to enter an empty cabin big enough to hold large cargo.

With more noisy clinks and rumbles, the cabin descended down the shaft. Diana fiddled with her duster to take her mind off the anticipation of not knowing what was awaiting them underneath the ruins. Eli still insisted on not revealing the surprise.

When the door opened, it was completely dark. Diana’s ghost, Halo, immediately searched for a power source while the two combed through the area using the flashlight from Eli’s helmet. 

The basement floor of the warehouse contained wooden crates stacked neatly on the metal shelves. The back was lined with barrels labeled with numbers from distant years. 

Eli bent down and broke off the lock on a crate a few rows down. His eyes went wide and he looked like that of a kid receiving a long awaited present. 

“Jackpot.”

Diana ran over to see what had grabbed his attention; what all of this was worth.

Just as Eli lifted an object from the crate, the power had come on. Bright, fluorescent light from the ceiling lifted the darkness from the giant underground warehouse, revealing the scale of the entire room and sheer volume of inventory packed within.

Finally, Diana saw the rectangular bottle in his hands and the rich, brown liquid inside. Everything suddenly made sense.

“Genuine Jack’s whisky! Aged for centuries!” Eli shook the bottle with an unerasable grin, “Told ya it'd be worth it!”

At first Diana stood there, taking it all in and asked herself if he was right. However, Eli truly had struck gold. There were no distilleries that produced liquor in industrial quantities anymore. Outside of the Last City, alcohol was particularly rare. She could see why he took painstaking measures to avoid attracting any hostiles here.

He broke open the top and offered the bottle to her first, “Come on, take the first sip.”

Diana was taken aback by his gesture, “What? This is your dream and your score!”

“Nah,” Eli lifted the bottle closer to her face, sweet oak emanating from the rim, “I don't see it that way. Besides, couldn'ta dunnit without ya.”

She lowered her face in an attempt to hide her flushed cheeks. He smiled at her embarrassment. She hated that; or so she would tell him. 

Slowly she took the bottle from his hands, and downed a doubleshots worth. He laughed and imbibed an equally large amount.

“Man, I never thought I'd taste a Kentucky bourbon again!” He savored the taste for a moment longer before loudly patting his knees and standing up.

“Alrighty, What say we bring our ships around and transmat our haul?”

credits to:

The moment I saw her it was love at first sight. A terrible curse I would have to carry through all eternity.

When I first met her on the Reef, it was hard not to be enamored by her beauty and grace. Her power and majesty. Our glowing eyes met and that was that, my fate was sealed. Not hers though. I knew from the moment that she took my heart that she did not want it. Her own heart already belonged to another.

And that's how it always was, how it always will be. I grieved her loss and celebrated her return, but never once dared to push past the crystalline wall that stood between us. So long as I could see through that wall, speak through that wall… I told myself it would be enough.