Rheba scratched her long face just behind her nose. Odell and Hal had gone off to the resort's hotel area and left their Needaimus behind to avoid appearing suspicious. Now all the giantess could do was worry. Kerra and Blenda rolled their eyes in unison as she glanced their direction. The young warriors didn’t seem to care about much of anything going on.

  “Can we just go and start smashing skulls already?” Blenda groaned. Kerra didn’t add anything, but nodded in agreement. Rheba groaned.

  “You wish to start an incident when we don’t have much information?”

  “We can figure that out as we take down the enemy,” Kerra said. Her voice was devoid of emotion, but the pointed ears on top of her head danced back and forth.

  “Yeah, waiting here is sooo boooring!” Blenda added. “First, the Netzian and Hobusian ran off and made us watch their Needaimus, and now the Tote women scurried away.”

  Rheba frowned at her young trainee's use of Tote to describe Harlan and her companion. Even the stoic lizard woman might have shown some anger at being called that. The giantess was partially surprised that she was taking offense on behalf of Harlan. She would need to speak with Zenith about what would be appropriate to do later. It was too new an experience for the warrior.

  “Be… be that as it may, we are to wait here until we know more. Hal is sure to return with his sisters without causing too much trouble, and once we have everyone accounted for, we can make our move.

  Harlan was sure to get good information, and Hal, with Odell, would scout out the hotel area well. Rheba felt at ease knowing she could trust them. Unaccounted for was the masked girl, the green-haired boy had brought with him, but the furred warrior felt that she was the type of free spirit who might show up whenever.

  That gave her time to think. Why were the invaders taking over a resort? Why now? And what could have happened to Gwyn and Fiona?

  Why the resort made sense to Rheba. Before becoming a resort, the location was considered the perfect foothold for Bentalousians to attack Zenototes, or Zenototes to attack Bentalousians. Seasonal battles for either side to take control of the land were constant all the way up until the third Bentalousian-Zenotote war. Clearly, their new enemies were hoping to take the foothold once again.

  Rheba shook her head. She might have been wrong, but it made too much tactical sense. Yet they weren’t at war, and some organization like their foes couldn’t seriously invade one or two nations. It was a puzzle. One that led into the second question.

  Why now? The answer seemed clear enough to the warrior. It was finally time to make a move. Someone up above was getting ready to make a big play, and this was a prelude. She really hoped she was wrong, but Bentalosians were famous for saying ‘a warrior's intuition is never wrong’.

  Which meant it was critical to find Gwyn and Fiona. If they were cut off, they could have very well been captured by the enemies. Rheba was hoping to wait, but her train of thought began to nag at the back of her mind. She couldn’t just sit around and do nothing! Action was needed. If only there were someone higher-ranking who could make that call.

  “Rheba,” Kerra said gruffly. The brown-furred woman snapped out of her thoughts and looked to her pupil. “Those guys are looking at us.” Kerra didn’t point, but twitched her long face slightly in the direction she wanted Rheba to turn. She could sense caution in Kerra’s tone, which meant it probably wasn’t the usual Netzian trogladites who wanted to see if one could have a good time even with all the fur.

  Rheba snapped her index finger out and back to signal her Needaimus, still sitting on the table, and turned to look without any attempt to hide that she was doing so. She wasn’t sure if her prior desire to move to action affected her decision.

  Three men in black armor approached with clear intent to start a fight. There was no subtlety in their movement, and no attempt to hide from the tourists, as one even knocked a woman over as he rammed through with his shoulder.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Rheba’s warrior intuition told her the approaching men knew exactly who they were, but she had no idea how that could be.

  Her purple Needaimus wrapped around her arm, and a set of numbers appeared in the lower left of her vision. 142. Barely anything, but she expected she wouldn’t need much for such weak-looking opponents.

  “You two bond and grab the other’s Needaimus. If I don’t take them down in two seconds, run.” Blenda groaned from behind, but she got the sense that both followed her orders without deviation. It was always best to be cautious. She slowly walked to the approaching men.

  There were three, all Netzians. Two had swords drawn, and the one in the back seemed almost plastered as he swayed and followed after. A rookie might think him the least threatening, but Rheba knew better to let that thought win.

  Some other guests yelped as the armed men raised swords and charged the giantess. They were short and sloppy. She smashed their helmets together before blades could even be dropped. The number in her vision went up by five. One second.

  Pressing her foot hard into the ground, Rheba lunged forward to the third man and punched her hand straight through his chest. Sand exploded out of his back. She growled and tried to pull away, but the hole clenched on her wrist. The man's color faded, and a sandy monster tried to clasp her neck. Her hand went into its head like a hammer, and the body collapsed back to the beach. Two seconds, but it wasn’t over.

  “Get away!” Rheba shouted. She looked back, sure enough, a bulge in the sand was chasing her fleeing pupils—at least they listened when it counted.

  “I will approach that bulge quickly,” Rheba said as she burst into a sprint. The number 18 floated above the grand total. She grunted to deny it. That low cost meant it was easy, and she soon stomped down on the bulge, blasting it into sand. Something metal seemed to clang before vanishing into the sand.

  “OMC! You totes aren’t going to let me get away!” An annoying voice rang out.

  Screams came from the onlookers, and sandy cages formed around them as they tried to flee. The cages lifted into the air. More sand swirled around.

  From underneath her feet, sand started to cave, and Rheba was quickly sucked into the ground, then hoisted up in a sandy wave. The grains consumed her body. She flattened her ears on her head and held her hands over her mouth and eyes as best as possible until she was dumped out onto a solid, sandy surface. She looked up and beheld a sandy throne room. In the kingly position sat a Netzian-shaped yellow Needaimus. “I thought I was getting like false info. Super sus stuff, you know? I mean, you have no idea like how hyped up you were!”

  The Needaimus crossed one leg over its other and rested an elbow on the throne so that it could check non-existent fingernails at the ends of its fingers.

  They were high up, how much Rheba didn’t know, but the back of the throne room was broken up by a series of sandy columns rather than a wall, and she could see the tops of trees at least. More pressingly, sandy cages of captured tourists appeared to orbit the room. Their screams faded in and out along with the sight of them.

  “Let the people go!” Rheba barked.

  “Like, really? You don’t get your whole deal, do you?” The yellow Needaimus swapped which legs were crossed, “Like I could end you in an instant, but I thought we could totes have some fun! You still gotta live up to the hype, ya know?” The Needaimus stood up from the throne with a dramatic push and sway of its arms as it stepped down.

  “So, like, we’re gonna have a serious battle, and if you win, I’ll let them go!”

  “I suspect if I knock you out, the sand fails and they all fall?”

  “Oh, you catch on like super quick!” The yellow Needaimus clapped its hands together. Rheba was blasted to the side by a sandy fist shooting out of the floor. “You totes got it! I’d love to keep you, but the boss girl says you’re too dangerous to be left alive.”

  Another burst of sand uppercut Rheba’s jaw. She took a step back and shook her head, but didn’t fall.

  “Anyway, I love using sand, ya know. It’s like course and rough, and cuts up everywhere!”

  Next came a slash of sand across Rheba’s unbonded arm. She winced as it ground across her thick skin. “Like, you better start fighting back! Otherwise, the cutie New Moon is totes going to kill all the hype! And, like, the people and you!”

  Rheba grunted.

  “I wanted to give you a moment to get your hits in, since you won’t get any more.”

  The Needaimus, who must have been called New Moon, didn’t have a face to go cold, but shoulders stiffened and posture locked.

  “You like, think you can be so bold in this situation?”

  Rheba leaned to the side so a blast of sand sailed past her head from behind.

  “No matter how powerful the ability, if it’s all the mortal relies on for combat, it won’t make a difference. Now what to do when it’s just a Needaimus? The last one I knew about wasn’t so bright either. Did you know a Nighthawk?”

  The yellow Needaimus’ head twitched.

  “Like, I’m going to kill you!”

  “You’re going to try,” Rheba replied. She hoped for her own sake that she wasn’t really bluffing.