Wrath of the Extra-Chapter 35: Entrance Exam XV

Valeria and Cossa enter a mad scramble on the firewatch tower floor.

There’s a commotion outside, but I ignore it. If we’re going to do this, there’s no room for hesitation.

Valeria has control of his back. She’s already under his chin for a rear-naked choke while also squeezing his flailing lower body with her legs like an anaconda.

For a moment, I think she has it handled.

Then black wisps begin to manifest around Cossa, as if he’s absorbing the shadows in the room’s corners.

"Bastards!" Cossa bellows, his voice abnormally unimpaired from being choked out. He’s breaking free.

I toss the table aside to create space. Empowered fuels my approaching fist—only a tad, I’ve learned my lesson.

My fist slams into Cossa’s defenseless solar plexus.

"Guhh!" All the air rushes out of his mouth.

The tangible shadows disperse around him as he chokes on absent air. Cossa’s face turns red as a result of Valeria’s tightened arms, his eyes rolling to the

"The collar," Valeria grunts out. She’s the strongest physically at the Dim and has Cossa dead to rights, yet he’s still giving her a run for her money.

I was going for the collar anyway. I didn’t need her to tell me that.

I take hold of Cossa’s collar Artifact. Warm Essence flows from my chest, down my arm, through my palm, and into the collar. Then I count the seconds.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, it feels like an eternity, eight, nine, ten.

The collar glows a bright white. Sebastian Cossa has been captured.

"I command you to listen to every command from our team and cause no harm to anyone unless commanded by our team," I set the tongue-twisting command as quickly as possible. He’s pacified now. It ensures there aren’t any ’genie loopholes’, so to speak.

Valeria releases, rolls out, and bolts up to her feet. Cossa is left desperately gasping for air.

Holy fuck. I take back what I said about Valeria being a good guard dog; she’s gone rabid. She seems to have taken the ’Cossa needs to be on our side by any means necessary’ line to heart.

It was the right choice in the end. We need this cooperation now, not later. It’s clear he wasn’t going to be convinced in a single meeting, and merely having ’friendly relations’ wasn’t going to cut it. We’re quite fortunate that I managed to scare off his two allies. It’s a bad blunder by them.

"Let’s go," she says.

"Something’s happening outside," I raise a cautionary hand and make my way toward the exit door.

Outside, the air is ashy. I peer over the tower railing and am met with chaos.

"Leara Mateiko sends her regards!" a masked assailant in leather armor cries out.

The masked maniac shatters Jack of Cloutier’s jaw, the previously unnamed boy who greeted up at the foot of the camp’s palisades.

Jack crumples to the ground, his protection Artifact activated. At least he earned my respect in the end by adhering to my astute observation—breaking his very breakable jaw.

Half a dozen masked men enter the half-built palisades. Another half dozen have already entered, having torched most of the tents and sheds with makeshift Molotovs.

It’s pandemonium. Gabriel and Maximillian are nowhere to be seen. The two sides clash out in the camp’s open air.

Spells of yellow, blue, and red elements paint a chaotic scene. Sparse arrows fly between the colors. Metal weapons clang together.

Two masked attackers fly shabbily crafted House Mateiko banners on long wooden poles—a downward-pointing sword held with bleeding hands.

The attackers, meanwhile, shout very loud expletives like ’Glory to Leara!’ or ’For House Mateiko!’ like baboons. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Who the fuck are they fooling?

This is the most obvious false-flag operation since 9/11. Leara obviously wouldn’t do this... comically awful raid on our potential ally.

It’s the Landeskogs. But they’re not only mentally delayed, but they’re literally delayed. It’s too late. Cossa is ours.

My educated guess—which at this point should be taken as gospel with how frequently accurate they’ve been—is that the Landeskogs, frustrated with the lack of progress towards courting Cossa, manufactured this raid.

If they destroy everything Cossa has, blame it on Leara, then proceed to give him all the support he needs to take revenge on the Mateiko faction, then Cossa will have naturally aligned himself with the Landeskogs.

A very simple and sound last-resort strategy. Unfortunately for them, our last-resort strategy activated first. They thought they had time to play the long game, evidently.

Despite their heavy disadvantage, the Cossa crew is putting up a decent fight. They’ve set up devastatingly coordinated magic fire in the back of the camp.

But they’ll be flushed out in no time. They lack the numbers, and their Essence reserves will dry up sooner rather than later.

A realization dawns on me as I stare around the camp.

Shit. Where the fuck is Nicklas?

I told him to scream if anyone touched him inappropriately, but I forgot to tell him where to stand, how to breathe, how to walk, etc.

I’m a terrible mule owner.

I shake off my nonsensical thoughts. He either swims in the deep end to meet up with us or he doesn’t.

Going back into the tower, I watch as Cossa lays flat on his face, his muscles spasming and seizing.

Valeria stands over him, dumbfounded.

"The hell is happening here?" I ask. "We need to go. Now. Get him walking."

"That’s the thing!" Valeria snaps. "I picked him up, commanded him to come with us, and he fell over and started doing this!"

I crouch down to the seizing Cossa. There’s a buzz coming from his neck. For fucks sake.

"He’s resisting," I look up at Valeria. "The collar is shocking him for disobeying." I crouch even further down to Cossa’s glossy eyes. "You stubborn bastard. Your friends are getting massacred by the Landeskogs, and instead of helping, you’re drooling on the floor like a retard!"

I look back up at Valeria. She eyes me like a dolt.

"Carry him. Let’s go."

In my humble, future-telling opinion, we’re royally screwed.