The Protagonist System

I handed Jenkins another piece of paper with a question about if he had alerted anyone inside if someone was coming and he shook his head no. I gave him a thumbs-up and then put my finger in front of my lips in the universal sign of staying quiet. He nodded and I moved off to the side and along the wall. He didn't turn his head to watch me, while also keeping me in sight, so I couldn't go full stealth until I reached the corner of the wall surrounding the town.

Once I was out of sight, I made myself invisible and made my way along the wall to a good spot. Going by my memories, I was behind one of the larger houses and I was sure there was enough cover for me to enter and not be seen. Just in case, I cast a human reveal spell and nodded that no one was within my range.

I had to assume that the bandits or whoever had taken over, had gathered everyone together in the middle of the town, probably at the only place that could hold them all, the community centre. I knelt and did the trick I learned back in Harry Potter and transfigured a doorway in the wall and stepped through. I let the spell lapse, because I didn't want any patrols or anyone else to find it.

Now that I was inside, the difficult part was going to start. I was still invisible, so I carefully made my way around the house and kept an eye out for people. I didn't really have to be so cautious, being invisible and all; but, it was better to stay in the habit instead of relying on luck or everything going my way.

When I finally reached the main street, I held in the curse I wanted to let out at the sight of a resistance truck and an entire team of people dismantling the communications tower. What were the odds that they would arrive during the time we would be out of communications range? Depending on when they took over, they could have easily waited for Sandra and Tammy to stop talking to their friends and then started taking the thing apart.

No, that wouldn't work. Tammy's friends would have alerted her using their emergency whistle code, so that meant they had only been here for a week or less. It just didn't make sense, though. I had configured the signal to not be registered by any other device except another CB radio on the same network. There was no way for them to track the signal back to either source, which meant... fuck. Someone told them about it.

I made my way over to the large cargo truck and tried to not laugh at the work crew cursing and having a very difficult time trying to take out the nuts and bolts holding the tower together using normal wrenches. There was barely any room to turn the bolts normally, which was why Jenkins and I used sockets.

Unfortunately, there were too many men working on the tower to take any of them out without at least one of them seeing it and alerting the rest of the work crew, and possibly the whole town. I would have to rethink my plan of knocking them all out and letting the townspeople deal with them. Then again, since one of those townspeople had sold them out, that wasn't the best plan anyway.

After thinking about things for several minutes, I left them working and untouched as I went into a nearby building. I had to make up a few new ward stones and change their configurations to add silence and then add the illusion of them still working when seen from outside. I would have to erect a quick earth barrier and add in a second illusion to the inside of the ward to hide me working, too.

Thankfully, they were having a lot of trouble taking the tower apart and I had some time to figure things out and get them to work. It was going to be a hasty job and I didn't like that; but, it didn't have to last long, just enough for me to take them all out and to hide the bodies.

Twenty minutes later, I very carefully made my way around the truck and the tower to drop two sets of ward stones to surround the workers moving between the two places. When I had everything in place, I had to wait for just the right moment where all of them were not looking at the community centre or out at the street.

It took a few minutes before I had my chance and powered the pair of hasty wards up with my strongest boost. They snapped into place with a crack and the sound dampening runes caught it before it escaped the small walkway I had left for myself between the inside and outside of the ward lines.

The walkway was where I very quickly raised a solid dirt wall to catch any stray bullets that would be flying when I opened fire and they fired back. I transfigured it into concrete after rejecting changing it into metal. None of them had high powered weapons, so I didn't need anything stronger and the ringing of the metal might propagate enough to break through the silencing spells.

I made a temporary doorway in the ten foot tall wall and stepped through, let it lapse, and then took out both my handgun and my shotgun. I knew how crazy a shootout with desperate people was going to be and I was not going to give them much of a chance to retaliate. I also doubted my stealth spells would last long after I started shooting and took aim at the two men closest to me.

*BANG!* *BOOOM!*

Both men went down with holes in their chests and confused looks on their faces. I actually felt the notice-me-not spell snap as the remaining six men turned their attention to me, shocked at someone just appearing out of thin air right in front of them.

“I'm sorry about this.” I said and lifted both guns to aim at the next two and pulled the triggers.

One of them had flinched and my handgun only hit his shoulder while the other one had tried to duck and took the shotgun blast in the face. I had to ignore my disgust at his face disappearing and started to move as I changed my aim to the remaining four still clinging to the tower.

“Shoot him!” The guy closer to the top said and started to climb down.

The guy shot in the shoulder fumbled for his gun with his off-hand, because I had shot his right shoulder, and I changed my aim again and shot him in the leg with the shotgun. He screamed as he fell to the ground, bleeding heavily. He wasn't going to live long, so I stored the shotgun and took out my wand to cast lubricate on the tower.

I mentally kicked myself for not thinking of that earlier and had to wait as the four men lost their grips on the slick metal and tumbled to the ground.

*BANG! BANG! BANG!*

I let out a sigh at the waste and walked over to the only man still alive. I immobilized him and added three drops of truth serum to his tongue and I asked him about how he ended up here in Jackson and why. His answer did not make me feel any better about having to deal with him and his buddies.

Marius had discreetly contacted a member of the resistance in the last FEDRA patrol that had passed through the town and had given them my information about what I had done in town and that I had bribed my way out of having the attention of both factions, which set the Fireflies on coming after me instead of fighting the FEDRA patrols for killing their scientists and leadership.

That pissed me off, because I had worked hard to frame the feds for the raid on the resistance's main base, and now both factions were going to be after me again, only for much different reasons than trying to make me into a miracle serum that might not even work. They wanted me for my technology.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I thought and put a bullet into his head. There was no point in trying to keep them alive, because they didn't matter, not anymore. They had already sent word out to everyone that Jackson had a long range CB radio that no one else had and now both the feds and the fireflies wanted it to try and copy it.

There was another group of resistance fighters inside the community centre that had the entire town held hostage. Unfortunately, the guy I just killed didn't know where they were or what they were doing. He also didn't know who had the walkie-talkies, assuming they didn't already send them off.

I levitated the bodies into the back of the cargo truck and saw the CB radio there that had been torn out of the mounts it had been in, damaging it. The coils of wires annoyed me as well, because they had cut it up into sections, not realizing that reattaching them would severely reduce the signal quality it carried. Even the satellite dish had hammer dents in it from them being frustrated while trying to take the thing apart.

Idiots. Goddamn idiots. I thought and stored the pieces. I dropped the concrete wall back into the ground, not bothering to transfigure it back. I also left the partially dismantled tower, because it would show anyone coming there that they no longer had the radio or the capability to use it.

Now I just had to figure out what the hell I was going to do to get inside the community centre without setting off all the resistance fighters inside. I left the illusion of the workers up and spent several minutes trying to come up with a way to infiltrate the building without getting the townspeople hurt. A few human reveal spells let me know that everyone was inside the building and nowhere else in the town.

My eyes roamed around the area as I looked for inspiration. They soon landed on an old and slightly torn cardboard box in the back of the truck that the work crew had used to hold the nuts and bolts they took out of the tower. I let a crooked smile show on my face at the ridiculous idea and held in my chuckle. For some reason, I knew it would work and started casting a few spells.

*

The leader of the resistance group was getting tired of the attitude of the guy that called them there. It wasn't necessarily the smugness on his getting revenge on their target named Eli Williams, it was the gloating about it being worth betraying everyone in the town to do it. That just rubbed the leader the wrong way. He was definitely executing the traitor as soon as the target showed up.

“Boss? I'm going out to check on the guy we left at the gate.” One of the guards said as he walked by a few of the tables and chairs that were set up for the prisoners to gather around.

The leader glanced at the man and nodded. “It's getting close to feeding time, so bring him back with you and lock the gate down.”

The man smiled. “It's nice having real food for once.” He said walked towards the front doors. He holstered his gun and opened the left door, only for it to hit something. He pushed on it and it moved a little. He opened the right door and looked out and saw a large cardboard box with a note on it.

“What is it?” The leader asked.

The guy bent down and picked up the box. He struggled a little with the size of it and carried it over to his boss. “It says it's a priority delivery of bull's testicles and semen samples for breeding.”

A few townspeople around them made gagging sounds.

The leader's face gave away his own disgust. “Get that thing away from me.”

“S-s-sorry, boss. I'll just... uh... leave it over there.” The guy said and carried the box across the main room and set it against the far wall and out of sight. He walked away and left through the front doors of the building and promptly forgot about the box he had just delivered.

With no one looking at it, the box shifted slightly and then slid away from the wall and moved along the closest table. None of the townspeople noticed, because they were too distracted by the people with the guns holding them hostage.

The box moved along the back wall and came to a stop when one of the guards came into sight and he walked by the box without paying it any attention. The box turned slightly to see the guard walk around the closest group of townspeople and out of sight. The box moved on and seemed to check up the next row, then moved to the next table and paused.

After a moment, the box moved towards the larger group of townspeople in the middle of the room. It paused as another guard near the front turned to look over the people he was holding captive. He frowned slightly, as if he was looking for something and didn't find it, then he shrugged and turned back around.

The box moved again and approached a group of women that were huddled together. It waited as another guard passed by the group and didn't move. When the man walked around them and made a rude comment at the next table, causing a ruckus, the box lifted slightly.

“Psst! Janine!” A male voice whispered under the cover of the noise.

Janine stiffened slightly and was smart enough to not turn around, then her eyes widened when she recognized the voice. “E-Eli? Wh-what... where...”

“That's not important right now. How many of them are there?” Eli asked her in a whisper.

“There's six of them and the leader. I don't know their movements.” Janine whispered back.

“Thanks. I'll take care of them.” Eli whispered. “Don't worry, this will be over soon.”

Janine felt a gentle hand lightly pat her thigh and she slid her own hand over to it and held it. “Be careful, Eli. They won't hesitate to shoot everyone if you're caught.”

“I know.” Eli whispered and gave her hand a light squeeze. “I overheard they're sending for Jenkins and they're securing the gate before coming here to eat.”

Janine let out a soft sigh. “Then you only have twenty minutes.”

Eli chuckled under his breath. “Only? That's more than enough time.” He whispered and let her hand go.

Janine was only slightly disappointed that he didn't caress her thigh when he had the perfect chance. She had to wait a few seconds for the front guard to look over, see nothing, and turn away before she took a chance and glanced down and behind her, only for no one to be there. That surprised her more than finding out Eli was there to save them.

Eli had already moved several tables over to rest and observe. He needed to spend a few minutes figuring out the guard patrol routes and their limits. It also let him find the perfect ambush locations that would be out of sight of everyone. Well, everyone except that annoying front guard that kept turning around to look over the captives.

His pattern would be the most important to figure out. Eli could only take care of the four moving guards when he wasn't looking. Like Janine had said, if any of the guards saw him, then all of the townspeople were expendable because he was there.

*

I followed behind my first target to the spot near the bookshelf where the kids listened to Tammy reading. I waited for him to repeat his pattern before I could strike. The man looked over the three adults huddling around the five children in the little reading nook and scoffed at them being afraid of him brandishing his gun. He turned away from them and stepped just past the bookshelf.

I sprung up from inside my expanded box and grabbed him by the mouth and plunged my big Bowie knife into his throat. I didn't wiggle it or pulled it out, so the blood didn't gush and just ran down his skin. I pulled him backwards and out of sight of the rest of the people in the room as I held him for almost a minute until he stopped moving.

I tucked him next to the wall and took out my wand to cast a notice-me-not charm on the body before I ducked back under my hiding box and moved on to the next guard. I didn't have to follow this idiot and just stayed right where I was. He liked peeking through the gap between the books on the bookshelf to admire the two women protecting the kids.

The guard practically swaggered as he strode right up to my box and then bent down to peer through his favorite spot. I leapt up and gripped the back of his head and my knife sank deep into his neck and through his voice box and cut off his windpipe. His shocked face faded as he lost consciousness and I slid him back to where I stashed the other body and stacked him on top with a sticking charm.

I was sure the notice-me-not covered his body; but, I didn't want to take the chance it might fail with too much attention, so I cast another one on the second body and felt the two spells combine and expand the area. I could have another body concealed there if I wanted to and chose not to. The next guard was too far away to drag the body back there.

I hid back under my box and moved along the wall to where the next guard would pass by. This was the most difficult one, because it was almost out in the open and the front guard could turn at any moment to see both myself and the guard if I attacked.

I had to waste almost five full minutes before the guard passed by me and the front guard had just turned away from observing the captives. I sprang up without hesitation and stunned him before pulling him inside my hiding box with me. It was too dangerous to kill him with so many people around, so I dragged him over towards the fourth guard and used my knife on my prisoner as I waited.

The fourth guard did his watch pattern twice before the front guard turned to look. The man frowned and spent several seconds looking at something, then he turned back to face front. Luckily, I had a feeling in my gut and didn't jump up to grab the fourth guard when I should have, because the front guard turned around again and kept his eyes on the other guard for almost ten full seconds before he turned back to the front.

I let out the breath I didn't realize I was holding and lunged for the fourth guard and killed him in the same way as the other three. I tucked both bodies next to the wall and cast sticking charms and a notice-me-not on them, then moved along between tables and apparently out of everyone's sight. I snuck right up behind the front guard and came to a stop just as he turned around to stare at the captives.

The frown on the man's face was turning into a scowl and his eyes darted from left to right, searching for something, then his eyes widened. I realized he had just figured out that he couldn't see any of the other guards moving around and lunged up out of my box to shove my knife up through the bottom of his chin and into his brain. I put a hand over his mouth to stop his gurgling and his wide eyes quickly glazed over as he died.

Surprisingly, none of the people behind us made any sound and I turned to see that Janine had come up behind me and she had her finger over her mouth to hush everyone. She turned to me and gave me a beautiful smile and nodded at the body I held. I smiled back and handed it to her and she dragged it back between the tables and it disappeared from sight.

I mentally checked the time and I had only another few minutes before the guard and Jenkins returned, then decided I could wait. I hid back under my box and moved over to the front of the main room and the hallway where the leader stood. Not paying attention to his surroundings in a hostile area was going to be the last mistake he ever made.