“You probably should have taken more driving lessons.”
Brath pulled hard to the right, swinging the ATV around the canyon’s corner. “I don’t see anyone else with anything close to driving experience!” Brath shouted as his face went red. “Anyone who has that is more than welcome to get up here and start steering.”
Alex and Gill snickered from the bottom of the ATV as Brath continued to mutter under his breath about how underappreciated he was. “So, why are we doing all of this, Gill?” Brath shouted.
The ATV shuddered as Brath tried to guide it toward the canyon’s walls, where the slope was low enough for him to start climbing. “We are doing this as part of a diversion,” Gill explained. “We need to get the soldiers out of the facility so we can access the dragons.”
Jim, who was staring out the window, jumped as Brath shouted, “Shift! Then speed up!”
Once the team had changed gears, Jim asked, “How does becoming an A/V team help us to get everyone out of the facility?”
The ATV started to climb the canyon. It instantly began losing speed, its wheels churning through the gravel as Alex panicked and hit her pedal, causing the ATV to speed up. Brath shouted, “Clutch,” and Jim slammed down on the clutch while Jollies screeched, “Shift!”
They continued on in this way, the ATV a collection of shouting voices: Brath trying to direct what action needed to be fulfilled, Alex trying to stifle her nervous giggles, and Jollies cursing under her breath in Pixie.
As they climbed the mountain, Gill went further into the plan. They were going to draw out the soldiers with a ploy. Over in the canyon, where they had battled the trolls, there was plenty of material to work with.
A second attack by the trolls would light a fire under the asses of the soldiers at the facility. They wouldn’t be able to ignore it. It wasn’t as if the soldiers were going to help Roy and Toppinir since the facilities’ resources were already low.
Alex thought the idea sounded far-fetched and hard to believe. Why not just start a fire in the facility? When Alex pressed Gill on the details, he merely shrugged and said, “Outside the facility is better. We have more control and a longer window of time to work in.”
So, Alex accepted that it was going to be out of her control. The more she thought about it, though, the more she was all right with it. She’d been calling most of the shots since they left on their mission, but she knew her team was capable.
Why not find out their strengths?
After another twenty minutes of fighting with the ATV (and each other), Team Boundless arrived at the bloodstained battlefield. There hadn’t been enough time for the trolls and vrosks to start rotting. Still, Alex was taken aback by the scene. When they were fighting, she had been in the frenzy of battle, and she hadn’t really thought much about what she had done. There hadn’t been time, but now there was.
The canyon was quiet, the only sound a breeze rustling through. This felt like a solemn moment, and Alex tried to take it all in. It was different than in Middang3ard; after the battles in VR, players had cracked jokes, and there had been an air of levity. Nothing like this.
They weren’t standing in the middle of a virtual battleground. This was a field of death. Vultures were already starting to descend on their oddly winged brethren, lying dead on the floor of the canyon.
Jim whistled. “Man, those dragons can really tear things up.”
Alex started heading toward the field to get a better look at the carnage the dragonriders had left in their wake. “Yeah, that’s an understatement,” she replied. “Seriously, those beasts are powerful. Extremely powerful.”
A thought crossed Alex’s mind, and she turned back to face the other dragonriders. “Hey, if dragons are this powerful, what the hell does the Dark One have up his sleeve that’s causing so much trouble for the rest of the dragonriders?”
Jollies was flying back and forth, looking at all the bodies. “That’s a good question,” she answered. “As far as I know, dragons are the be-all and end-all of creatures. The wisest, the strongest…you know, pretty much the top of the line.”
“Yeah, back in VR, dragons were mostly end-game. Nothing you took lightly,” Alex agreed. “But if you could take down a dragon, you could take down anything. What is this guy using that could take down dragons?”
Gill was already farther down the canyon, walking among the bodies. Jim was with him and they were talking quietly, Gill pointing to places where he wanted Jim to set up a camera.
Brath came up behind Alex and stood next to her. He didn’t say anything, but Alex could see that he was watching Gill and Jim closely. She thought it might be jealousy since she’d noticed that Jim and Gill seemed to get along very well. Brath probably felt threatened. Alex leaned over to Brath and nudged him.
Brath looked up at Alex, annoyed. “What?” he growled.
“Jealous much?”
“What? Of what?”
Alex tilted her head in the direction of Gill and Jim. “You know you can go over there and help them.”
Brath scoffed loudly and folded his arms. “If Gill wanted my help, he would have asked for it instead of asking Jim.”
“Or maybe he just assumed you knew he’d like your help. You two already know each other. He’s probably just trying to help Jim feel like he’s part of the team. He hasn’t known us as long as we’ve known each other.”
Brath threw his hands in the air as he walked off. “I don’t need any advice,” he shouted.
Alex noticed that Brath was heading in Gill and Jim’s direction. The gnome had gotten the point. Now she was free to wonder about the vast complexities of the universe, especially the part where she was unlucky enough to have a crush on two guys
