Page 66 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

When Milo put this plan in order, he arranged for Chicago to authorize the arrival of over a hundred support witches from the Global Guild. A private military couldn’t simply roll in and offer aid; bureaucracy wouldn’t allow it. Hell, Milo had to file seemingly endless forms just to gain approval for his casting in California under the discretion of the Global Guild.

The entire force of witches brought in didn’t stand here, surrounding The Sisters Three, which meant the remaining forces must already be positioned inside.

A low rumble came from the MDC, followed by a violent shutter of silence. Then an explosion of magic from inside that impregnable facility. Suddenly, every ward carved onto the walls securing the Metropolitan Detainment Center cracked, their radiance of protective magic fizzled away instantaneously and suddenly the minds of thousands of inmates within raged.

Chapter Nineteen

Fortunately, Enchanter Diaz appeared more than capable of handling himself against The Sisters Three with Priscilla and nearly fifty Global Guild witches at his side. Because the instant the protective symbols lining every inch of the MDC failed, I barreled inside, drawn to Milo’s mind.

The Metropolitan Detainment Center was a maze of highly secured corridors, layers upon layers of warded checkpoints to prevent infiltration or escape. I understood the layout entirely from the Doppler’s time spent here. There were two huge buildings that separated the men’s and women’s facilities. In fact, the two buildings only connected in three places: the central checkpoint by the parking lot, the correctional officer’s locker station, and the underground solitary confinement cells.

I followed the trail of unconscious correctional officers, beaten and bruised but breathing despite the carnage everywhere. Broken enchantments, stray magic, rubble from the crumbling building. In a matter of seconds, every single inmate inside the MDC had been released, and within minutes, the entire facility had transformed into a battlefield.

While the MDC was divided into multiple cell blocks, keeping over two thousand inmates from both facilities separated as a way to prevent rioting or revolts, those blockades were littlemore than concrete walls, which no longer proved effective since every defensive enchantment and dampening ward had been deactivated. Holes had been blasted through the two buildings, throughout every cellblock. Inmates from the men’s and women’s facilities coordinated their chaos, ganging up on correctional officers in an effort to escape.

My magic, my curiosity, my concern all reeled me through the long, white corridors of the facility, drawing me closer to Milo, and ignoring the chaotic minds that rioted. Not that it did them any good. As fast as I moved, the blur of my psychic energy darting through this place, paled in comparison to the sheer indomitable force of Gladiatrix who whipped from one end of a room to the other, leaving a trail of fallen foes in her wake.

She shifted between guards and inmates, blocking conflict and separating them. She caught magical strikes mid-propulsion. Literally held magic aimed at destroying something or someone between her hands before smothering it with telekinesis. She prevented battles before the idea was even fully formed.

Each movement held this majestic calculation where Gladiatrix took the entire Metropolitan Detainment Center into account, dividing foes, dropping threats, and protecting the unaware whether they were employed or an inmate. The magnetic pull of Milo’s mind simmered as I lingered close to Gladiatrix, watching her unravel Enchanter Evergreen’s plan with perfect precision. I had faith in Milo, but goddamn, I had noidea Gladiatrix really could unleash such tremendous strength without breaking a sweat.

One punch shattered steel barriers. A single kick from across the room rippled with the force of a gust to knock down an entire gang. The simple act of squeezing a shoulder with her index finger and thumb dropped men three times her size to their knees. A clap of her hands created a cacophony of echoes to distract crowds. Every step, every movement, every technique used held a purpose.

Her enhanced senses allowed her to hear battles across the MDC, her eyes scanned every room she darted between, her skin radiated with telekinesis sensing the slightest vibration of danger. Gladiatrix worked as an army of one, squashing the riot before a single inmate reached the exits.

All the same, she had a sense of urgency sitting as a heavy pit in her stomach, it churned with the anxiety in her gut. “Too much time. I need to move faster.”

Milo’s plan required her to drop the number of inmates by half if she hoped her reinforcements stood a chance at stopping this jailbreak in its tracks without a single escape or fatality.

She needed reinforcements? Doubtful.

Someone in a black cloak leapt from out of nowhere. The slight creak in their bones was the only indication Gladiatrix sensed before a sickle’s blade swiped past her face.

Crimson washed over everything, filling my sight with a bloodthirsty aura of the witch that attempted to hack through Gladiatrix. She’d spun around, cape whirling, barely escaping the blow, then countered the blade with a backhanded swing containing a powerful blast of telekinesis. The impact knocked the cloaked witch several paces away.

“You’re one of the pillars in the Celestial Coven,” Gladiatrix said.

“They call me Grim.” He swung his sickle, hacking and slashing at Gladiatrix in a continuous motion like the weapon was an extension of his arms.

“I need to keep him here.” Gladiatrix easily evaded Grim’s careless strikes but had to shove others out of the direct line of the sickle’s blade. “I should’ve apprehended more of the inmates. This room should’ve been cleared before he stepped inside.”

Gritting her teeth, Gladiatrix weaved back and forth, dodging the weapon while telekinetically removing the injured, the unaware, and those still fighting for the sake of violence.

With her focus split onto both goals, Grim took that singular opportunity to lunge forward with his sickle raised. The slice moved so quickly that even Gladiatrix barely evaded, losing a few strands of her hair as she bobbed out of the blade’s slash.

Composing herself, Gladiatrix reeled back a fist empowered by her branch and enough telekinesis to level this entire building and struck Grim directly dead center in his chest. I gasped the nonexistent air from my lungs, suspecting the impact had a similar effect on the broken witch that’d come to kill Gladiatrix.

A collection of crackles and breaks popped in the air, signifying the many bones a single concentrated strike had shattered. The sound traveled throughout Grim’s body like the webbed cracks of an icy lake before everything collapsed.

Grim flew back, hurled into a wall where the crash led to more breaks. Not the wall, though. No. Gladiatrix used telekinesis to soften the impact against the building and redirected the propulsion of magic. The ricochet of strikes barreled into Grim with waves of honed telekinesis, not unlike a tsunami destroying a city. He lay on the ground with his cloak wide open and body snapped apart into crumbling pieces.

I shuddered at the sight of his body made of bones scattered about the floor. No skin. No blood. Nothing but bones and a fewfoul organs tied together with twine and attached to the spine. They dangled like hooked meat in a butcher’s shop. He appeared to be the most perverse iteration of a grim reaper, the organs dried and losing their color, oozing pus, and leaking magic from his insides.

“Well, that’s not very nice.” The skull rattled, jaw moving up and down like a talking puppet. Piercing, bloodshot eyes fixated on Gladiatrix. The way they floated in the empty sockets of Grim’s skull sent a sickening nausea through me. His bones wriggled and trembled on the floor. It created an eerie tippity tappity of clicks and clinks, followed by a horrifying bellow of laughter that came from the head. “I heard you were tough. How fun.”

Cracks, splinters, and breaks mended together. The skull floated at height level as the bones pieced in proper order. He extended a bony hand, staring at the missing index and middle finger. I suspected he’d lost them to the white dust on the floor created from the single hit Gladiatrix had landed.

“If I had to wager, I’d say this is the one Enchanter Evergreen predicts will target The True Witch’s staff,” Gladiatrix thought through all the variables of Milo’s plan.

---