Chapter 25 – The Mountain comes to Badgelor

The shade flinched examining the two holes in her chest.  She learned new things about War Badgers, they would not leave anyone behind, but you could grab one if you were really dedicated to the bit. She’d managed to steal one of the young war badger cubs, they were small and easy to carry.

Also, they were protected by several very angry War Badgers.  Also, all of the other cubs.  Her quick snatch and grab turned into a running battle with more than a dozen War Badgers, several of which could turn into full out War forms.

Two of them nearly got her.  The shade’s survival had run down to luck.  She fled by a pack of Drop Bears, and when the two War Badger’s boxed her in the one accidentally destroyed their nest.  The they had been swarmed even as one of them prepared to use purple glowing eyes to obliterate her.

In the resulting cataclysm, the cub Maggie stole escaped along with the other cubs into the nearby forest, led by the lead War Badger.  Maggie figured she might be able to reclaim the cub, but the War Badger was having none of it. Unfortunately for the badger, the cub chose the wrong direction to flee. That was her one bit of luck.

The little one went into the mine, and Maggie knew that place was suicide.

She was debating going inside anyway when the General came out of the forest heading straight towards the mine.  That knocked suicidal straight up to sheer insanity which was over her pay grade.

Besides, with the General gone maybe the army would be a little more cooperative.  After all, there was about to be a gap in command.

***

This couldn’t keep happening.  It was all his fault again.  All he had to do was kill a monster but could he do that, no.  He couldn’t kill any of the real monsters when they actually needed killing.

A more charitable soul would have blamed Jim.  They could have killed the Behir before they entered the dungeon, but that wasn’t how Badgelor operated.  A healthy dose of self-loathing always made everything worse.

Pillow was at least smart enough not to even try to soothe him.

Badgelor was still not sure about her.  He could still remember the little girl whose mother wanted her to be a perfect little copy and a father that all but ignored her.  She wasn’t bad, just ignored for not being what other people needed her to be.

And how could she, she was a child.

Badgelor couldn’t ignore a cub and Bashara and he had played for a time before she grew up and got bitter.  So very bitter.  She seemed to be coming around though, and she had minor problems compared to his, so he ignored them.

They had been going for nearly half an hour now, each step had Badgelor wondering where the next horror would emerge.  If he was lucky, it was just a drop puma.  The handful of those that remained after his people had fought a bloody war to get this far.  A bloody war that Badgelor had been left out of, again.

Badgelor had leveled up his evolution control again after the Kaiju incident.  That had not been any fun, and the aftereffects were unpleasant at the minimum.  The perk allowed far greater refinement of his evolved states, like now.  He was in his massive Apex Ultimate Form, but with his upgrades this was even easier to manage than his Ultimate form had been. Evolving was like tensing a muscle, there was still a limit to how long it could be managed but now Badgelor could stay in his evolved forms for extended periods.

Badgelor had also managed a high-speed War Form.

Basically, he was as close as he could manage to being a horse, and if Jim saw him like this Badgelor would quietly die.  He was thinner than his usual Ultimate form, with longer legs and better endurance.  That was less effective in combat but let him move far more quickly than usual and over a longer distance.

“Hurry,” said Bashara, “I sense something, drop pumas getting murdered.”  She was no Shart, but he could have kissed her at that moment.  Somehow his people had followed his old markings right to the cave, unfortunately the cave was still on the edge of Drop Puma territory.

Badgelor realized he’d been wrong as soon as he got into the clearing.  He hadn’t only run into a handful of wounded drop pumas because they’d killed all of them.  The drop pumas were attacking the rear of the column and had been doing so their entire retreat.

There were fourteen surviving war badgers at this point.  Fourteen of his people were in a desperate battle, yet they were not overwhelmed yet.  The war badgers pushed back, shattering the massive cluster of drop bears but even so one of the younger females got pulled into the mass of creatures and another of the young males got his throat torn out as drop bear after drop bear swarmed them.

Badgelor charged, bellowing a mighty war cry as he came upon the rear of the drop bears.  None of the other war badgers was in their ultimate form, and a few of the younger ones couldn’t even manage a war form.  That left Badgelor as the largest combatant on the field, and by far the most dangerous.

“Form up on the entrance,” someone yelled as Badgelor’s claws swiped through two drop bears.

“I think I found the exit portal,” said another.

“It's clear,” yelled a third.

They had a way out, Badgelor just needed to delay the drop bears for a few moments and his people could escape.  But a smattering of magical blasts told him they were still there.  He’d given them a chance to retreat, and they had instead chosen to hold the line at the entrance of the cave, a small force of hardened warriors against an unspeakable horde of evil.

“I’ll hold this, retreat through the exit,” said Badgelor in his most commanding voice even as he shrunk down to his war form.

“I do not know you, sir,” replied a war badger.  Badgelor checked, his name was Captain Honroar.  Honroar examined and dismissed him. Badgelor had one thing in common with Julia, there were a lot of Badgelors in this world. Used to be, at least.

There was a time where every adventurer had a war badger, and most of them were named Badgelor. That time ended slowly, with his people becoming rarer and rarer until the current age where people remembered the legend of Badgelor, but not the war badger himself.

Let me remind them.

“I can hold here, alone,” said Badgelor, pulling back to the line of war badgers.

“We are still examining the exit,” stated Honroar as Bashara took Jarra towards it.  A single badger in war form named KaiLyne spared a moment to examine the humans, but as neither was a shadow creature, they didn’t merit much attention.

KaiLyne concentrated for a moment and her forehead began to glow, suddenly the space in front of her tore open revealing a portal.  Badgelor remembered that very well.

“Captain, there is something wrong with the egress point,” stated KaiLyne.

Bashara nodded as she examined the now obvious portal, “This is an artificial exit, whatever was used to lock it is failing.  The whole thing is collapsing.”

Honroar looked at the other war badger.  KaiLyne nodded slightly.

“How long will it remain opened,” asked Honroar.

“Quite a while if it is not used,” said Bashara, staring transfixed at the portal out of here.  She turned slowly back to Badgelor.  “But it will grow increasingly unstable the first time someone passes through it, when that happens it will last a few minutes at most.”

“What happens if one of those Behir get to it,” asked Honroar clinically.

KaiLyne thought for a moment, “They are high level monsters who gain a lot of power when they feed on life force.  Plus they are huge.  If one travels through it will tear open the portal allowing for permanent access. Wherever they end up on Ordinal will be in a lot of trouble.”

“What’s on the other side,” asked Honroar.

“An old lab, it's in a cave west of Windfall just north of the road,” said Badgelor.  “There is a mechanism for closing and sealing the portal there.  If we can make it through, I can close the portal again.”

“We will hold here, then,” said Captain Honroar. “We have survivors inbound.”

“All or None,” said Badgelor, remembering the phrase from his youth.  A group of War Badgers was not called a pack, or a pride.  They were called an army, and an army did not leave anyone behind.  Mountains would turn to dust and the seas would empty before they left anyone behind.

“Incoming,” yelled a war badger.  It was another horde, larger than the last one and there were fewer war badgers remaining.  Honroar inhaled sharply and then swelled up, first to a war form the size of a polar bear and then, with great effort, into Ultimate form.

None of the others could manage that.  There were still twelve of them, and aside from Honroar, the best any of them could manage was an evolved war form.  Against any normal force it would have been enough, against the horde that approached them it was a feeble showing, but none of the war badgers would give an inch.  They would meet their deaths proudly.

Lord of the Badgers.

Badgelor expanded into Ultimate Form, matching size with Honroar, then expanded past Honroar as he pushed into his Apex Ultimate Form.  He dwarfed the other war badger in this form, though while he was slightly taller Badgelor was nearly double Honroar’s mass.  The army looked away from their approaching death to Badgelor.

“You seem to have me at a disadvantage, sir,” said Honroar uncomfortably.  The rule was simple, the largest war badger was in charge and that was now clearly him, but Badgelor wasn’t through yet.

· Badger’s Roar:  Lord of the Badgers Legendary Ability.  Badgelor has used his racial ability to call forth the might of the War Badger.  All hostile targets are stunned.

Each war badger twitched as the ancient roar filled them.  Each use of the ability ate half of Badgelor’s stamina pool, but it was worth it.  Honroar swelled, expanding into a smaller Apex Ultimate form.  KaiLyne and two others shifted from Evolved War form into their Ultimate forms.  The remaining war badgers each grew in their own way, the least experienced of them found that she could hold onto her regular war form without spending stamina.

“You cannot be, he died centuries ago,” said Captain Honroar in a whisper.

“I am Badgelor, Lord of the War Badgers, and I will hold until the mountain breaks and the seas boil.  My companion will find your people.”

Captain Honroad looked at him, “Our people, sir.”