Blink ignored him and pressed it into his hands. “This has a spell of strength and a stoneskin charm on it. You don’t need to be a warrior, just hit things until they stop trying to kill you.” She paused, her silvery eyes piercing him. “If you get in trouble, I’ll teleport you out of the way.”
The writer nodded, the sudden and unfamiliar rush of magic from the weapon leaving him breathless.
“There are more of them this time,” Blink continued as the professor finished charging one of the batteries with a final flash of energy from the borrowed sword. “Four, maybe five. If we can’t stop them, we need to lead them to your Knight Wardens before they can do any damage to your city.” She lowered her mask, feeling her heart turn cold in her chest. “If it comes to it, I’ll let them take me. They’ve done enough damage to my world, they don’t need to cause havoc here.”
She turned around as the air began to darken and ripple, her blade drawn in one hand and a shining dagger in the other. A smile came to her lips as Baird stepped up beside her, his new hammer raised and ready.
“If they take you they take me too,” he said breathlessly, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and determination. “They dragged me into this the moment they chased you on to my patio!”
The reapers were there, as suddenly and silently as shadows. A telekinetic blast rocked the workshop as they attacked, sending equipment and notes flying. The push barely slowed Blink as she responded in kind with a shout, knocking one of the dark soldiers to the floor and rocking a second back on his heels. Baird and the professor, the writer protected by the hammer and the old man safely ensconced behind a steel table, attacked as well, yelling. In another circumstance, Blink might have laughed as Baird charged at the fallen reaper, shrieking maniacally as he swiped with the hammer, knocking the man’s weapon from his grasp more by luck than by skill. The professor hurled curses and absurd threats, his face quickly turning purple with rage as he used his charged battery and a pair of iron rods to launch searing bolts at the invaders, the unexpected show causing them to dance out of range from the stinging sparks.
She had little time to regard her friends however and popped out of existence for a moment to reappear behind the reapers, her shining dagger finding a gap in her prey’s armor. The reaper, a woman, bellowed in agony as the dagger’s charm sapped her strength. She tried to wrench away, pummeling Blink with telekinetic blows. Blink growled savagely and twisted her blade, feeling a satisfying crunch as it cracked a rib. In the next instant she was gone, avoiding a second blade as it hissed past. The reaper at Baird’s feet grunted, stilled by her heavy boot as she passed. The writer’s hammer came down at the same moment, finally breaking through his weakened guard to cave in his breastplate.
The deaths of two of their number set the remaining reapers back on their heels, though it was the professor’s impromptu lightning that truly doomed them. Blink, with her new power as a reaper added to her potent teleportation ability, attacked the first in a fury, blinking in and out of existence as her lethal blade tore strips from the man’s armor. The reaper raised his hands, raising a spinning sheet of flame as a shield. To his horror, Blink appeared inside of the flames, her blade biting hungrily into his throat. The last reaper ducked away from the professor’s searing bolts, diving through the dying flames to tackle Blink. The man’s jaw worked and Blink felt his grip weaken, but it was too late. The workshop was fading away. A new room, horribly familiar, began to appear. More reapers, at least two, loomed over her like horrible shadows. She roared with anger and the roomed vanished, replaced by her own familiar home. The reaper hit the floor as Blink twisted furiously, losing hold of her blades as she put her knees in the man’s gut. The powerful reaper hit her with an open hand, the blast of power shredding Blink’s armor and spraying blood from her shoulder.
Blink’s eyes blazed beneath her mask and she raised her hand, a bright corona of fire building around her fist. The reaper raised his hand again, but the elf was quicker, crushing his iron mask with a vicious punch, blackening the crumpled metal with the ferocious heat. Blink remained where she was as the reaper died, staring at the man’s burned and ruined face, her chest heaving with exertion. For just a moment she could feel the mind’s of the other reapers in the city, recoiling as their brother’s spirit left his body. Vaguely she realized that they were suddenly wary. She was safe, at least for the moment. A small sound caught her attention and she stood up and turned around.
Baird was in the corner of the room, still holding his bloody hammer, his eyes wide and confused. His mouth worked silently for several moments before words came out. “Blink… how did I get here? Did you bring me?”
Blink shook her head, struck dumb. She shook herself and looked around. “The professor? Where’s he? Did they bring him too?”
“No,” Baird said shakily, sliding down to the floor. “I was right next to him. I thought the reaper was going to get through to him, but he turned around and went after you instead. You two vanished and suddenly I felt like something grabbed me and pulled me along.”
Blink swore and sat down beside him, gingerly examining her wounded shoulder. “So if I go home, you get pulled along with me.” She groaned. “And I’m just betting that if I take you home, and try to come back, you’ll be right back here with me.”
“At least you’re home,” grunted the writer. “That’s all that matters isn’t it? Now you can save your city.”
“But what about you? Your work, the professor?”
A fat lip from the fight gave him a lopsided grin. “I write about adventures all the time, but I’ve never been on one.” He tapped the hammer on the floor. “Just think about the stories I’ll write once this one’s done!”
End
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