Page 54 of Elven Prince

Rebecca’s back thumped against what felt like the edge of a table, making her snarl before she regained her bearings. “Take them down!”

It was more of a reaction than a necessary command, and her small team recovered quickly as a vortex of kinetic force flashing with spiderwebbing white lightning bolts crackled through the doorway and straight for them.

Tig and Maxwell threw themselves sideways to avoid the backlash of the next attack buckling part of the barricade in half before they propped themselves up on the rubble to return fire.

Rebecca’s arms already ached from the incessant kickback of her automatic rifle as she sprayed an endless stream of augmented rounds through the doorway. With zero visibility through the smoke and sawdust filling the air, backlit by glowing magitek rounds and the hissing crackle of more purple flame and green bolts of energy streaking into the house, she could only keep shooting and hope to eventually hit her target.

An orange lance pierced the doorway, heading straight for her.

She ducked, heard it thump into the side of a bookshelf behind her with a final jolting quiver, and returned her finger to the trigger to continue the defensive assault.

Amidst the clatter of constant weapons fire and the roaring whirr of magical blasts rushing closer and fading like crashing waves, a scream outside ripped through the air.

The ground shook with another toppling thud on the front porch.

Two down, and no clue as to how many others remained to further press the attack on Bruce’s home.

An incomprehensible bevy of angry shouts beyond joined the noise, though one of the voices faded until the muddled argument ended. But the assault through the battered doorway remained.

Rebecca’s team fired back, dodging pellets of blue magic streaking inside and thumping into the barricade disastrously close to the operatives. But not close enough for a direct hit.

There was no telling how long the firefight continued before the low rumble of another explosion shuttered through Bruce’s bungalow. More shattered glass tinkled onto the wooden floor and peppered the walls somewhere behind the barricade.

“Shit.” Maxwell set down his weapon and rose from his position, still doubled over behind the barricade but now on his feet.

“We’ve got a breach,” he snarled over the deafening chaos. “Cover me.”

“Copy that!” Tig shouted over his own return fire.

Rebecca paused long enough to glance toward the shifter but found him already gone from behind the barricade as more splintered wood and cracked plaster rained down all around them. The clomping footsteps on the porch between volleys of blistering magical attacks proved their enemy was still hitting them hard from the front.

Maxwell had, however, left his shoes behind with his weapon.

She couldn’t help a tiny smirk, even through the gunfire and the pain squeezing around her chest while he moved farther and farther away from her.

This was almost over.

She gave him thirty seconds of constant defensive fire from all three of them behind the barricade while Bruce cowered in the rear, yelping every time an enemy blast hit another piece of his furniture.

Then Rebecca signaled for a ceasefire.

Tig and Lerrick responded instantly.

The ear-splitting roar of exchanged magic, the whine of augmented weaponry, the staccato of automatic rounds firing into the darkness—all of it stopped.

The only sound now came from somewhere at the rear of the house. A quick series of scrabbling clicks across the wood, a short-lived scuffle, a grunt and collapsing thump, then silence.

Rebecca slowed her breathing and watched the doorway. Two seconds later, a pair of slow, cautious footsteps whispered across the wooden porch slats, eliciting creaking groans at the shifting movement.

Tig and Lerrick held their weapons at the ready, waiting for their commander’s next move.

She expected the enemy targets out front to be relatively suspicious, but they were also surprisingly impatient.

The first guy stepped slowly through the shattered doorway, peered around, then stepped farther inside to investigate.

The second his associate stepped into view, Rebecca fired a burst of lethal rounds into his face, then swung her rifle by two centimeters to cleanly pick off the first guy before he had any idea what had happened.

Their bodies hit the floor almost simultaneously.

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