Chapter 40: Attacked on All Sides
When I came back to Brecksville I noticed that the South-West side of the city seemed to be on fire. I immediately rushed to see what was happening.
When I arrived I saw the corpses of civilians and some of my Militiamen littering the street and many wounded bleeding out.
I saw Ian about to die, I rushed to him and made him drink the healing potion. His wounds stabilized and I asked, "What happened?"
He wheezed out, "It's that group of roaming bandits, they attacked after you left. We managed to drive them off killing one of their members but a lot of fell in the process."
"Mary is leading some of our members to deal with the fire. They need your help boss."
I nodded and left him there for a moment and headed to the heart of the fire. I could see mages surrounding it trying to contain the blaze.
Katy in particular was finding success using her wind magic to put out some of the weaker flames. But now that I came I kicked the air creating a massive wave of air that smothered most of the fires.
I dropped down to the group and found Mary, "I hear d the situation. Are our healers on the way here I've seen a lot of wounded on the way here?"
She nodded, "Yes they're already here and starting to heal the wounded. How did the battle with the New Imperium go? Do we also have to worry about them attacking?"
I shook my head, "I have dealt with them. They are no longer a problem."
For the next 3 hours were damage control so we put out fires, found any survivors, and counted the dead. Then we all gathered in the Militia hall for a meeting.
I asked, "What happened? How many losses do we have?"
Mary spoke up, "I have counted that 30 have died and 12 have crippling wounds that would prevent them from ever fighting again, the rest of having been healed are physically functional."
I said, "How about civilians?"
Mary sighed, "There were around 50 deaths and 23 permanently crippled."
I grimaced, those were terrible numbers, I had only around 150 members and now around a third were just gone. They were also my combat division primarily nearly halving my effective fight force.
As for the civilian casualties those were also terrible. Right now I had been trying to build a brand for being a great protector of the common man and this would put a massive dent in that.
Not only that I had noticed that among the dead were Zack and Donald and Dustin was crippled losing his left hand. He could still fight pretty well but it was definitely a major detriment.
I know that some of my mechanics can make robotic limbs so hopefully, he and the rest of my crippled members should be back to a functional state soon.
I asked, "How about the band of bandits? I heard we managed to take one of them out, did we manage to hurt any others?"
This time Micheal spoke up, "I managed to kill the illusionist. Mary pointed him out to me and I killed him in a single blow."
"I also believe that Ian managed to gravely wound the electrokinetic, if they have no healers then she will be out of commission for at least 2 weeks, given her seeming low vitality scores."
I nodded, "So we managed to kill 1 and heavily injure the other. Do you think that they will attack us again anytime soon?"
This time Wilbur spoke up, "Nah if they're smart they'll retreat and when they do come back I make sure that this place is so defensible that even a fly can't get through."
Mary then interjected, "Although they themselves might not attack soon they can still use their portals to send enemies into our city and we can't really stop them."
I nodded, "That is true. Wilbur, how long do you think you will need to get this place defensible enough that nothing like this ever happens again?"
He grunted out, "I need at least a month before I can make this meet the bare criteria of what I consider defensible. And another year till I would feel safe calling this place impenetrable."
Ok, so that was going to be a long-term solution. We need a way to deal with this hidden danger now. I looked at Mary, "How much of the town can you survey at any given time?"
She said, "I can only survey maybe around half of the town, and when I fall asleep then that range is probably halved and I would be much slower to respond."
I nodded, "Wilbur if we only want to set up some cameras that would survey all of the town how long would that take?"
He said, "I could have it done by the end of the day."
I nodded, "Make that the priority I want to know as soon as possible if they come back to attack us."
So we would probably be able to respond faster next time but not prevent whatever it is they are doing. I sighed in frustration.
"Ok," I said, "I know that we don't really have the time for this but Micheal and Ian you did admirably in the fight."
I handed Micheal the Seastone Sword and Ian the O Wazamono. I said, "Here are some of the best weapons I have found during my mission use them well."
They both nodded their heads in thanks. We soon discussed more countermeasures but nothing we discussed really seemed feasible.
The next few days we quiet as we dealt with the immense damage caused by this attack. I had to reassure the police and governor that I would stop another attack like this.
I had to visit the grieving families and offer condolences and reorganized our group. Luckily making a prosthetic could be done relatively quickly already half of my crippled soldiers were back in fighting form.
My reputation of what I had done to the New Imperium had also spread around and I was soon feared as one of the strongest warriors on the continent.
I think that the reason why the bandits hadn't attacked once again is they know I am back. They must have known I was leaving and attacked when I left this place undefended.
Then after another few days of rest, they attacked once more in the same area as last time. A swarm of enemies rushed through a portal armed with futuristic weaponry and Mary quickly notified me.
I noticed that it was the same type used by the New Imperium that I had just crushed. Were they the remnants? No, if they were they wouldn't have the courage to step into my city.
I immediately rushed there quickly and I noticed that poison was also wafting out of the portal now and the grunts seemed unaffected.
Mary's voice sounded in my ear from our new-made earpieces, "That poison it's incredibly powerful none of my bugs, even those I specially bred to be poison resistant, can last even 1 second in it."
I nodded and brought out my laser rifle, I shot into the portal trying to kill the person who made it, I heard the explosion of my shot, and then the portal quickly closed.
I looked at the 50 grunts that had managed to come through and gunned them down. They didn't even have armor to protect against my blast.
I then looked at the poison. It was continuing to spread quickly killing everything in its radius. I immediately noticed that this was the actual threat.
This is what the goal of the portal was, to gas our town, but then why not open it somewhere else, not the already abandoned and burnt part of town?
No time to think of that, I called Mary, "Send Katy, Dustin, and anybody else who can deal with poison here right now, I killed the men sent through but his poison won't stop spreading."
I then landed close to the expanding cloud of poison and continuously blasted it back and into the air to prevent it from continuing.
Katy arrived floating in chunks using the Chop-Chop Fruit and lift the cloud of poison slowly into the air. Dustin arrived shortly after on a broom.
He threw potions around slowly dispelling the noxious gas. After a few minutes of our combined effort along with that of our other potioneer and a few mages, we managed to clear up the poison.
I sighed in relief. I knew making Dustin make a bunch of poison-removing potions was the right call. After I saw how effective Dustin's was I was pretty paranoid.
We grouped and I said, "Did anyone die?"
Mary responded, "No signs of any of our men or civilians dying."
I nodded in relief. Ok, so we managed to deal with their first attack with no issue. I also managed to shoot into the portal. I hoped that managed to damage that sorcerer.
I said, "Let's regroup, we need to discuss what happened."
Everyone nodded and we headed back to base. There were many questions still left unknown.
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