In the former state of Ohio many factions fight to claim the land as their own. For one rebellious Wyld, she too battles internally in order to maintain some semblance of her previous life while struggling to adapt to what she had become. Can a negotiator from the Northwest do the impossible and peacefully resolve the conflicts on the battlefield and within this young Wyld's heart?

(Author's note: Since this is the climax of my story, this will be in two different parts, in the eyes of both my protagonists. This one will be in Ian's PoV. Scott's will be posted a few days later.)

The Heart of it All
A Wyld Universe Story
Part 10A
By AoifeM

Hitching a ride from a Military escort, Trish and I were taken south, just outside of Silverwisp’s military encampment. It was dreadfully quiet; not a single person at the facility it felt like it was practically abandoned.

Without any prior notice Trish grabbed my hand and took refuge behind a worn wooden fence.

Obviously a little confused, I blurted, “What’d you do that for?”

“Shhh!” She signaled to me. At a whisper she replied, “Look over there.”

Motioning me to look around the fence I peaked a glance at the scenery beyond. It was a group of twenty, maybe thirty Confederate soldiers. What the hell were they doing here? Was our plan compromised?

I was able to listen into the soldiers’ conversations, and picked up some of what they were saying.

“I can’t believe those Laker boys would leave this base so unguarded,” said one of them. Guess they grew yellow!”

“Maybe there wasn’t any profit to be made sitting around here!” Another soldier said, chuckling to himself, lord knows military equipment doesn’t sell!”

“Just a bunch of dumbasses,” Claimed another, “Have to appreciate Sammie finding this out for us!”

Sammie? Did he mean Sadiq? I turned to Trish hoping she could help sort my thoughts.

Worried, I asked, “You don’t think Sadiq…”

I didn’t finish my sentence when I heard the sound a gun, firing. It came from a roof directly overhead from the troops, and the bullet connected, assassinating the oblivious soldier.

It was an ambush, and they were like flies to the candle. Like chameleons, swarms of Laker troops magically appeared out of nowhere, surrounding the hapless soldiers. Whatever soldier training the Confederates had was thrown out the window as they fought frantically to remain alive. There was some sort of respect there, that even though they were outnumbered they rather die than surrender.

They had no chance however. It was almost alarming watching them die. There’s a point where respect turns into recklessness, and I was hoping and praying that these soldiers had the common sense to give up. I never been involved in something like this, and the fact that I’ll see more scenes like this in the future didn’t sit well with me.

All of a sudden the remaining soldiers were caught in a magic golden bubble. Suddenly they shrunk to pint size. Fluttering down to the ground, Silverwisp picked up the entrapped miniature soldiers.

She giggled a little bit, and teased, “Awww, they’re so cute! I wanna take ‘em all home and feed them and hug ‘em and luff ‘em!”

Seeing the coast was clear I immediately rised to greet our fairie friend. “Silverwisp!”

Seeing me, she waved. “Hi there guys!” She cheerfully cried. “Did you see that? Sorry about that, hehe!”

“Not really a fan of seeing so much useless deaths,” I commented, trying to hide my overall queasiness of the situation.

“Yeah,” She sympathized. “War is definitely not in my character. I’d rather have a nice pretty place, deep in a forest, in a little grove, in a little house carved high on a hanging tree.”

Staring at her now baseball sized golden orb, holding the remaining soldiers, she remarked, “Yeah, I’m not a fan of senseless murder either. I hope that maybe these little guys here will think different of me, seeing I had shown them mercy after all.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “Maybe if we win back Toledo you can grow your forest, and have a home of your own, along with many other Wyld like yours.”

Her pointy little ears perked up after hearing that, “Really? Really, truly? I would like that.”

Five minutes later Sadiq made his way into Silverwisp’s barracks, where we were waiting. Wearing his Confederate uniform, he greet us with a bow.

“Master Ryan, Miss Adams, Miss Silverwisp,” He began, “I am glad our little ambush worked well as planned.”

“You know it Sadie!” Silverwisp exclaimed.

“You know I don’t like being called ‘Sadie’,” he whined.

“So that ambush was your doing then?” I assumed.

“Correct,” he replied, “Being a major base of Confederate control, there will be many soldiers. It would be wise to pick as many off as we can and divert their attention from our primary goal. I hear my brother’s party has been doing the same. Many of their soldiers are heading southwest of the city to investigate the happenings of their base at the Four Windmills.”

“I see,” I affirmed.

“However, if we are going to strike, we must do it now,” he answered. “I trust that the Doge’s response was positive?”

“We’re good to go,” I responded.

“Locked and loaded!” Silverwisp exclaimed.

“If you wouldn’t mind, Miss Silverwisp,” Sadiq continued, “I would like to take a small group of your soldiers across the front gate. I can hide them within my magic lamp, and release them. My goal is to get the gate forced open, and from there, your troops can enter.”

“It would be dangerous,” she stated, “We’d have to it before the sun is down.”

“The sun is down?” I wondered. “Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to hide at night while waiting for him?”

“As you saw earlier,” Sadiq explained, “Silverwisp has control over the powers of light, refracting energy, which allowed her soldiers to hide without any trouble.

“Like a chameleon,” I quipped.

“Yup yup!” She answered. “Unfortunately, that means my strengths are primarily limited to daytime hours. I need the sun to cast it.” She stared at her golden orb. “Even these little guys are just refracted light, making them look tiny and us gigantic through our own eyes. They’ll have to be imprisoned shortly.”

“It is early evening now,” Sadiq confirmed. “And as well, the other group is on standby, outside town. They are not in the most enviable of positions. We need to go now.”

“We’ll volunteer to join you taking out the gate,” Trish offered, not even giving me the opportunity to decide myself.

“Of course,” Sadiq agreed, “It would be very poor tact for us to fight without the Great Leader Scott Ryan at our side.”

Staring at me, I rolled my eyes. Why did I ever decide to do this?

So it wasn’t long before Trish and I were back in Sadiq’s magic lamp. Joining us was three other soldiers. Obviously we had to be discrete. Plus, it wasn’t like there’s a whole lot of room in here.

One of the soldiers was Wyld in nature. He was about six and a half feet tall, and bulging in muscle. I looked at his pale, nearly grey skin. He obvious didn’t take my staring very well.

“What?” he growled.

“I was just wondering what you did,” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t get too offended.

“I am called Eel,” he claimed. He then proceeded to send electricity throughout his gigantic body. “That is my power.”

His ability freaked Trish out. Jumping, she cried, “Cut that out! I can’t deal with that!”

“Huh?” I said, dumbfounded. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you know I’m a Cyber right?” She answered, “An electrical charge like that and I’m out like a light. These nanomachines can’t take it.”

“Forgive me, my lady,” The imposing Eel replied, “It was not my intention to cause you harm.”

She sighed. “Men…give them Wyld powers and they play with it like it was a toy or something.”

“So why are you here?” I inquired.

“The gate is electronically bound,” he answered, “However if you had her with you perhaps it would have been wise if I remained.”

“No,” Trish countered, “You will be of great service for us. It will make my job much easier.”

“I appreciate your vote of confidence,” Eel said, “It will be an honor to work with you.”

Trish gave him a slight smile. Meanwhile the other two soldiers were loading their guns, their minds obviously focused on the task at hand.

I followed their example. I was actually kind of nervous. I was trying to be two people at once. Sure, I’m a man. That makes me the perfect candidate for being “Scott Ryan.” But there’s one thing the real Scott had that I didn’t: Battle experience. She had a very strong demeanor to her. She was trained, physically as well as mentally. The whole point of me being a negotiator was to use my words to fight my battles. Now I replace my words with a gun. Being Scott Ryan the man, isn’t the same as being Scott Ryan, the soldier.

I felt my body turning numb. I knew the time had come. He successfully made it to the gatekeeper, who resided with a small legion of bodyguards on the top floor of the sentry tower, which overlooked the gate below.

Now with us out in the open, his legion was totally caught offguard. One of the guards yelled, “Shit! Sammie’s a traitor!”

“WYLD!” was the cry as his throat was punctured by one of Sadiq’s bullets.

It was too late however. The alarm was sound, and we were noticed. With the guards finally defeated we quickly took cover close to the doorway. Reloading, Sadiq cried, “We’ll cover you! Miss Trish! Eel! Please get the gate open, quickly."

“Give me just a second!” Trish implored. Putting her hands on the control panel she began to close her eyes. She looked almost unconscious as the nanomachinery siphoning her fingertips invaded the control panel below. It seemed as if she was analyzing its functions, trying to find access to the gate controls.

Meanwhile the rest of us defended her, taking out soldiers as they ran up the stairs and through the door. However it didn’t seem like there was any sense of urgency from them. I wouldn’t be surprised if Scott was in the other end of town, making a mess of them.

Finally, Trish was able to lower the gate. “There!” She cried.

“Eel,” Sadiq commanded, “Take care of the rest. I suggest we make our way out of here.”

Quickly we agreed, and ran down the stairs to meet with Silverwisp’s army. Once outside Eel decided to cut the power from the tower forcefully, using his electrical charge to fry the terminals, and cause a major explosion, causing the tower to collapse. There was no way to raise the gate now, and the Laker troops were able to swarm into the city.

Driving her customized Humvee Silverwisp came to an abrupt stop. Looking over at us she smiled and praised, “Looks like you handled that A-okay!”

“Yeah,” I replied, “The soldiers weren’t all that overwhelming.”

“They most likely are fighting the other group on the other side of town,” Sadiq confirmed, “Chances are if that’s the case they won’t last much longer. We’ll need to rejoin the group.”

I agreed. Time was on the essence. Without thinking I jumped in Silverwisp’s vehicle. I just pray that she don’t kill me before then.

It was well known at this point. The city was under attack, and the Confederates were caught by surprise; the distractions, the ambushes- anything that could separate their forces provided us the advantage we needed. Now with the Laker military on our side the forces were heavily in our favor. Sadiq, Trish and Eel decided to head onward towards the command center. With Silverwisp’s heavy artillery the plan was to totally demolish the place. Anyone who would try to flee from there was either caught or killed. My hope was for the former.

And in the middle of the city was Scott, leading her troops as she was pinned down by gun fire. Luckily for us the Confederates weren’t paying attention to us coming from behind, and as a result we surprised them. Under Silverwisp's command we opened fire, spraying the opposition with bullets as Scott and her army immediately ducked for cover. Like a swarm of bees the bullets finished the soldiers off before they could react.

Now the coast was clear, Scott rushed over to me and gave me a big hug. She didn’t even realize how girly she was acting until she noticed her leg bent upward as the sole of her foot pointed to the sky.

She immediately let go. Beet red, she nervously tried to divert her embarrassment. “So…um,” She stuttered, “How’s things on your end?”

I couldn’t help but blush a little myself. I answered. “Looks like everything is working as planned. Their base is being bombarded, and Silverwisp’s troops are taking the power plant as we speak. Shouldn’t be too long until we cut the power.”

“…Silverwisp?” Scott said, seeing she never met her. I pointed at my diminutive little friend as she gave a little wave.

“I feel kinda awkward,” Silverwisp began, “I mean, you guys seem to be all lovey-dovey with the hugs and stuff…”

“We aren’t a couple!” Scott snapped, obviously not thrilled at the suggestion.

“Oh!” Silverwisp exclaimed, “That makes me feel a little better! Hehe!”

All of a sudden a soldier came up to debrief us. “Ms. Silverwisp! Ma’am!”

“Yes?” she asked. It was so adorable how she tried to change her demeanor from super hyperactive sprite to serious war captain.

“We have successfully cut the power from the enemy’s base. The command center has been bombarded and destroyed. Their soldiers are disorganized; many have escaped or gone into hiding.”

“So I take it we won?” She eagerly queried.

“It seems to be the case, ma’am,” the soldier responded.

“All we need to do is some house cleaning then!” She exclaimed. “Alright, go scout around for some stragglers. Try to keep them alive if possible!”

The soldier saluted her and ran off to follow her orders. Scott and I smiled. We won. Toledo was ours.

“I can’t believe it,” She said, exhaling in relief. “We finally have a place to call our own. This is so overwhelming.”

“Well, you better believe it,” I replied. “Maybe we should check out the command center. Or at least what’s left of it.”

With Scott nodding in agreement, we hitched a ride in Silverwisp’s vehicle, and headed to our new home. The battle was over, but I fear that the war hasn't even reached its apex. We still had a long road ahead of us.