Apocalypse: Fairy System by Macronomicon (fox in socks read aloud txt) 📕

heads, hitting halfway up the stone wall of the courtyard with a dull thud. Rather than fall, the bastard stuck to the side like Spider-Man and began scrambling his way up to the top.

“Shoot him, please,” Jeb growled, trying to redirect his Myst from the wasted shield.

Colt obliged, reaching into a bag of steel pellets and flinging them up at the keegan crawling up the wall. Each throw broke the sound barrier, but none of them did what they were meant to do.

Colt only got three shots off before the man disappeared over the top of the wall. Two embedded themselves in the wall and one bounced off the man’s shoulder. Jeb’s Myst came woefully short of snagging the keegan’s ankle and tearing him off the wall.

Jeb and Colt had a moment to sit there and silently contemplate failure.

Shoulda just stabbed him in the throat.

In Jeb’s mind, if he didn’t get the names of the nobles involved, he’d be missing the root of the problem, and his attempt to get those names had given the keegan the extra second he needed to get away.

Fuck. Jeb hadn’t been expecting him to be that tough. It seemed like the trafficker might be dipping into his own supply of kids intended for nobles.

“Did a steel ball that embedded itself into rock just bounce off of him?” Colt asked.

“Go round up your friends, make sure they’re not dead,” Jeb said, pointing over his shoulder toward the fourth-story roof where several heads poked over the edge to watch them. “He’s not coming back right this second.”

“You gonna be okay, old man?” Colt asked, glancing down to where Jeb sat flat on his ass in lube-mud, one-legged and sans crutch.

Jeb assessed the situation, glancing over at the empty spot where the judge had disappeared from. He heard the rattling of broken-ankle-lady’s carriage in the distance. Zlesk looked like he’d been put through a meat grinder, limping up to them.

He’d failed to catch the main culprit. He’d failed to catch any of the people funding him. He had a consolation prize of a dozen or so hapless servants restrained by Zlesk. And he had squishy mud slowly invading every orifice.

“I think I might cry a little.”

“I think I see your foot,” Colt said, pointing to a little dot of white in the hedges under the eaves.

Jeb reached out with telekinesis and grabbed the errant foot, sliding it on and strapping it down good. Welcome back, traitor.

“Grab Ron’s bed on the way down,” Jeb said as Colt turned away. “Don’t carry him directly. And get rid of this damn lube so I can walk.”

Colt complied, and the mud in his ass crack turned to sand.

Insult to injury, am I right? Jeb thought sourly, climbing to his foot and thinking about what could have gone better.

I was unacceptably sans weapons, Colt needs some boot camp, Zlesk needs more support. Ron needs a bodyguard….

Jeb glanced up at the castle.

At least we got the kids.

“Are you all right?” Zlesk asked, limping up to them. The former sheriff’s clothes were shredded, and he was leaking trace amounts of keegan blood all over.

“You’re asking me?” Jeb asked, raising a brow. He touched the scrape over his ribs. It burned and oozed a little blood, but it wasn’t bad.

“We should hire a bodyguard. Maybe more than one,” Jeb said, rubbing the blood between his fingers. Injured like this, Jeb and Zlesk wouldn’t be able to stop someone from setting fire to the orphanage. Or worse.

“We angered the wrong people today, didn’t we?” Zlesk asked.

“Pretty much.”

“E’choken’is, Jebediah Trapper, you have some talent for putting me on the wrong side of the wrong people,” Zlesk said, glaring at him.

“Hey, look at that: a bunch of children you helped save!” Jeb said, pointing at the front door, where Colt was leading a stream of children between the ages of four and ten out into the courtyard.

They were carrying three twin beds between them, with Ron on one, and six wounded children on the other two. Seeing this, Zlesk stood just a little straighter, his chest puffed out, and Jeb knew he’d managed to distract him.

“Good afternoon, children,” Zlesk said, wincing as he bowed. “My name is—”

“AIII!” A girl shrieked and dropped the corner of Ron’s bed to hide behind Colt.

“He’s gonna kill us!” another boy shouted.

“It’s okay, Mr. Zlesk is a nice bone-head,” Colt said, pointing to the tattered sheriff. “He helped us get to you.”

Try as he might, Colt couldn’t make the children warm up to Zlesk, and they mostly avoided his gaze or hid behind Jeb or Colt when he was near.

Jeb hadn’t ever seen the sheriff look so hurt. Even with all the battle damage, being shunned by children was what got to him.

Jeb found it hilarious.

There were six children who were badly wounded, but they seemed to be stable, so they formed a train and brought the kids back to the orphanage.

The teachers were alarmed and shot Jeb accusatory looks when he made it back with the injured around dusk, as if it was somehow his fault the kids had been hurt. They bundled the children up in bandages and immediately set about making sure they would recover.

The bad guys were gonna kill the kids. How could I have done any better?

Jeb wanted to collapse into a puddle on the floor, but he had some issues that needed addressing. First was the lack of ass-kicking potential around the orphanage. Jeb was wounded, Zlesk was wounded, Colt was a teen, the teachers weren’t fighters, and Eddie wouldn’t come out of his shop except at swordpoint.

Frankly, Jeb didn’t think the roboticist would notice if the orphanage burned down above him.

I need fighters until mine are back on their feet. Which meant Jeb needed