Shovels In Spades

Emma had quietly listened to Daz's offer as she lay there on her bed, no emotions showing on her ashen face.

Once the reaper was done, Emma managed to leak out a small smile of resignation. "I don't care. Fight the Truthians and die, take me back to your kingdom to live on Master Sorola's life support, abandon me and my few remaining people. None of it matters."

She closed her eyes and added, "Kill me, even, if you wish to. Perhaps it will help you vent some of that anger you hold towards your father?"

Daz shook his head. "No, it wouldn't."

"You won't know until you try..." Emma exhaled deeply then sputtered out an ashy cough. "I'm glad I was able to give you your oxygen filtration system... It's a shame that I can't fulfil the other part of our alliance since I have no more troops that I could possibly loan to you. Haha... Have you put the stupid thing to use yet?"

Daz shook his head again. "Unfortunately, no. I need a few more items for my little pet project to really get its feet off the ground."

"... I see." Silence befell the room.

A few sombre moments passed before she said, "I'd wish you luck, but with only one guy who has a single offensive Ember and you who can only move some needles around, well, you need more than luck. You need divine intervention. Heh... Divine intervention... Ironic, really."

Daz frowned. "We'll see. You said you do not care what I do, yes?"

"Huh? Yeah," Emma responded, a bit surprised at the hints of anger in Daz's voice.

"I will win. One way or another, the Truthians will bend and break under my attacks, of that, I assure you. Perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but they will eventually kneel. Even if I'm forced to retreat and hide away in my little kingdom, even if my kingdom crumbles, I will survive and I will crush all that stands in my way as I unite this miserable blue blob of ours that we call home," Daz said with more conviction than both Mu and Emma had ever heard in their entire lives.

"... I hope so, but I won't be holding my breath," Emma replied.

"Good. Holding your breath would be rather unwise given your current situation," Daz stated. "Mu, let's go. We have scouting to do."

"... You're leaving now? It's already dark," Emma pointed out.

Daz chuckled. "We're reapers. We don't need sleep and we can see souls. You said their range of system and esper cancellation was 50-meters, didn't you? So long as we avoid any souls within that range, I trust we'll be fine."

"... I see. Well, as worthless as it is, have a 'good luck' anyway. If you can kill even one of those bastards then I'll die happy," Emma said with perhaps the most worn-out smile she had ever made strewn across her lips.

"Y'know, Mu, something I never take advantage of with this car is that it actually has a stealth function," Daz said as the two flew through the skies of New York, heading to the nearest Truthian encampment.

Mu looked at the many buttons on the dashboard with scrutiny. "Why does it have such a feature? Is it not a luxury vehicle? Also, why do you not use it?"

"It's a luxury utility vehicle. Honestly, the only things it's missing is enough speed for space travel and weapons. I guess that's why it's an SSS-ranked item and not a God-ranked one," Daz answered. "I never use it because it drains the rechargeable-battery 4-times faster than going at Mach-4 does. Seems pointless to use if it isn't needed."

"I see. So are we invisible right now, Brother?" Mu asked.

Daz shook his head then pushed a small button that had a little design of a transparent vehicle on its surface. "Now we are. With this, we don't have to worry about being spotted from far away."

"Hmm... Very useful indeed, Brother. Now, we must discuss strategy. I have some assumptions for our battle plan, but you are typically wiser than I regarding such matters," Mu said.

"It's simple, really. We stay in the car and I kill everyone I can with my needles from range. I need to maintain eye-contact with the crystals I'm controlling if they move more than 20-meters away from me, so we'll hover 51-meters above the camp with the Ridomochi facing downwards. Once I'm done killing them all, we land and scavenge for supplies, useful info and maybe captured victims," Daz said coldly.

Mu nodded. "Reasonable. And what if we find supposed non-Truthians as you suggest may exist? How can we trust they are not acting? To get close enough to use your lie detection powers on them we would have to be in the range of their sealing power first."

"Hmm..." Daz hadn't considered that angle. "... I would rather not murder innocent victims, but you make a lot of sense... That's a huge risk."

"Indeed. And it would be for the best if no one knows we are the ones attacking. Powerful as we may be, with a single skill and a single Ember between us to fight back, I do not think we would survive a full-on assault," Mu commented.

"My worry is that the system will force me to declare war before letting me attack them. If they have over 10,000 members, then its leader - this Mother Danielle person - is a king too or something else of equivalent status. I can only wage war on high-kings and above with no restrictions," Daz explained. "It's annoying how fair the system is with war, really."

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"That governor who killed himself. Do as he did. Employ the system to mask your war declaration. We do have other options, though. We could always locate their headquarters and kill the leader directly. Perhaps that will dispel the brainwashing," Mu suggested.

"Maybe. Hell, maybe they don't even have access to the system. It doesn't like people messing with its access without its express permission. My gut tells me they didn't get a free pass, and seeing how unforgiving the thing is, I wouldn't put it past the system to strip all Truthians of any ability to use it," Daz said.

His eyes narrowed as a collection of lights in the distance came into view. "We'll soon have an answer to a handful of our questions. For now, we stay as far away from their leader as possible. Hope for the best, plan for the worst."

"Caution is never a bad thing. Now is as good a time as any to draw from that overwhelming paranoia of yours," Mu answered as he too locked his eyes onto the settlement in the distance.