World of Women - World of Women – V4 – Chapter 32
Cornelia shot me a fearful look. The door burst open and women began to storm into the office. Most had guns, but the primary weapon was a long baton that seemed to be powered by some kind of electrical current.
“You’ll regret this,” I said calmly.
The prime minister smirked. “How is that?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.” I fished a coin out of my pocket. “That’s the problem with your lot. You really do think you’re better than us.”
“What is… stop him!” As I poured power into the ring, grabbing Cornelia and pulling her toward me, the woman realized what was happening.
There was a flash of light, the feeling like we were falling, and then my feet hit the ground with a thud. Cornelia stumbled but I managed to keep her from falling to the ground.
“That was…” She muttered.
“Teleportation.” I nodded. “Quite a distant one. If I hadn’t borrowed Lilith’s power when making it, I never would have managed.”
“You had prepared for this ahead of time?” She asked. “You knew?”
“I didn’t know. However, I’ve walked into far too many traps not to have an escape plan. The second I decided to meet with that woman, I prepared for the possibility she was corrupt as well.”
I was mostly just glad that it worked. They probably had some kind of barrier that kept people from transporting into the council office. After all, if someone could pull that off, assassinations would be all too easy. However, for the same reason, I predicted it wouldn’t block people from leaving the office. After all, if a government official were backed into a corner, a short-range teleportation could be the difference between life and death.
Such a spell was extremely rare. Other than me, Lilith, and sometimes in the fiction of this world, I had never seen a teleportation spell used. It would be a wonder if they’d expected some random person to have one set up to escape their office. The fact I was a man had only made her that much bolder. Even if they knew about my magical prowess, I was just a man, after all. I had anticipated that they’d look down on me. Likely, the prime minister even believed that the time I revealed magic in the peace talks was just some fluke or something that a woman had done and all I had to do was reveal it.
In my former life, I wasn’t a politician, but I was a businessman. It meant that I was pretty good at reading people and situations. The older I got, the more I grew back into those old experiences of mine, which had probably been a bit suppressed from the memories of my new life, hormones, and the vitality of youth. Well, I was still a young man in this world, and I would hardly say I was perfect, but I was going to get better.
“So, was all of that pointless then?” She asked.
“Not exactly,” I spoke quietly. “I’ve learned something very valuable.”
“What? That the Amaryllis government is corrupt to the core?”
“There is value in that.” I chuckled.
“Why are you so calm about this?” She snapped, grabbing my shirt. “Even the prime minister wants us dead. We’re wanted people. We’re vigilantes.”
I blinked; a bit surprised at her emotional outburst. She had tears streaming down her face and was trembling now. I realized I had been taking her relative calm for granted. I thought she had been coping with the events of the last few days well, but it was only weighing down on her more and more. This seemed to be the final straw, the point when she became helpless since the world was against her. Slowly, I put my arms around her. As my hands touched her back, she jerked slightly, but then she let her head rest on my shoulder.
“You don’t need to be afraid,” I whispered.
“How? How can we continue … they are… we are…” She sobbed into my shoulder.
“Just trust me. For once, I know what I’m doing.” I reassured her.
This only seemed to make her weep harder. I held her close as she worked it out of her system, regaining the cool demeanor she was best known for. She finally pulled away after about ten minutes, wiping her eyes and sniffling.
“What now? Where did you send us? Are we on the island?”
“No, my transportation isn’t that impressive.” I laughed, waving my hand. “Rather, we’re only a dozen or so blocks from the council.”
Cornelia finally started to look around, a frown forming on her face. “We… we’re on a roof?”
I nodded. “This is our pick-up spot. She was supposed to be here already… ah… there she comes.”
“What? An airship!” Her eyes popped open as a ship suddenly flew down.
Normally, this would have been a crime. Buildings were kept pretty low. This world didn’t have skyscrapers. A four-story building would be considered close to the limit. Thus, for flying vehicles like airships, it wasn’t difficult to stay out of the way of the buildings. That said, airships weren’t allowed to fly above the city because of the floating islands. They had very specific paths, and the airship yard existed on a floating island at the very edge of town.
Thus, seeing a ship come flying down the road was certainly eye-catching. If all the forces in the city weren’t currently focused on the newly formed island, then this ship would have been a spectacle bringing out police.
“This is insane!” Cornelia gasped. “Who would be crazy enough to pick you up in the middle of a city currently under siege in an airship?”
“Well, there is one…” I responded flatly.
I could hear her laughing before I could see her. If I were voting for the craziest person I knew, it would probably be the demon-infested Rebecca, but if we were talking second place, this woman took silver.
“Clyburn! What a lovely day to see you!”
Her skin had grown tanned again, but the braid she had used to wear was undone. She had a bandana on her head with her wild auburn hair dancing in the wind. She was controlling a large wheel to steer the ship. Most airships didn’t have the old wheels as the helm. They were controlled by a complex algorithm of magical runes which were controlled on an inner bridge section of the ship. For this crazy woman to be steering this ship like an old pirate ship, and even be on the deck doing it, would have been a type of ship she’d have had to go out of her way to find.
“Who is this?” Cornelia asked in wide-eyed wonder.
“Captain Angela Critchen, at your service!” she declared, making an extremely formal bow at the ramp while the ship slowed down.
I was relieved to see there were other women on board. One woman had grabbed the wheel as Angela had casually abandoned it to greet us on the ramp. She shot Angela an annoyed look, but the other women had her eyes on us, all smiles. The other sailors didn’t look like the disreputable band of pirates that she had once used to attack my ship. If I had to guess who these people were, I’d say they were members of Alyssum. They had the look of gang-members turned revolutionaries.
“This is our ride,” I responded dryly.
“What? No kiss?” Angela asked. “Do I need to dress you back up as a girl for you to play with me? Or… would you rather I dressed as a boy.”
Cornelia shot a look at me. I shrugged, slightly embarrassed.
“We have history.”
“Critchen… Critchen… isn’t that the outlaw? I heard she was dead.” Cornelia frowned thoughtfully.
“Many have tried, they had also failed. I’m not so easy to kill with only that.” Angela responded with a cocky laugh.
Cornelia looked back at me.
“Come on.” I coughed. “She might be crazy and a murderer, but she has her uses.”
The group of us walked up the ramp which was lowered down automatically. As soon as we were on board, it rose back up, and the ship started to rise into the air.
“To the island!” Angela bellowed, pointing her arm out.
“The island is over there.” I pointed in a different direction.
“R-right!”
Thankfully, the people were doing their job , not seeming to listen to Angela all that much, so they were pointing the ship in the correct direction. We continued to rise into the sky, making a direct line for the island. I looked over the edge of the ship. I could see the building, where I had fled from the prime minister, growing more distant by the second. I almost had a feeling like the prime minister was looking out of one of those windows, staring up at me. I felt a chill run up my spine, finally breaking my eyesight from it.
In some way, it felt more like breaking my connection to Amaryllis entirely. I had tried everything I had to make things work. This was the country I was born in. I felt a bit of attachment to the foggy streets and the floating islands. I had always considered this place to be in a better shape than the majority of the world. Despite its small size, this was a place that had everything I needed.
However, over the last five years, this place had turned into poison. The WRA had corrupted it completely. Perhaps, it has always been corrupt, and they only now decided to show their fangs. Either way, it was clear that I could no longer remain in this place. However, it wasn’t just me. It was all of the men who lived in Amaryllis. They were all under the same oppression. Except, unlike me, they didn’t know a life where they weren’t under the thumbs of women. They likely didn’t even know what fairness and freedom felt like.
I felt a heavy weight on my shoulders as I considered this. The future of the males on that island was being decided at this point, and I had to be there to make sure that the decision fell in our favor. I was probably the only person alive who could do it. At least, that’s what I felt. I reached in my pocket and felt for a coin. I had one last magic trick to pull.
As the island grew closer, I could start to see the level of damage. Besides the crater below, the island itself looked like a hand had slapped down on it, collapsing dozens of buildings. In all honesty, this poor district was already filled with old buildings that didn’t meet the code. How could they survive when the island launched up into the air?
The island itself didn’t look all that much different from the other islands. Any dirt that wasn’t attached to the outer surface of the floating platform had already fallen and rained down onto the city. Most of it had struck the crater below, so the damage to the city shouldn’t have been that bad. The fires created from the broken gas lines were far more dangerous. Thankfully, none of the fires had spread to the island itself, or there might not have been anything left.
The only thing that separated the island from the other islands was that it rode a bit higher in the air. This was because the typical rails and chains that attached islands to the ground were absent from this one. That’s when I saw two Amaryllis airships dragging a chain up. It was extremely heavy, and their movements were slow, but they were slowly hefting the chain up to the island to chain it down. What were they trying to do? Out of everything important right now, was chaining the island down really what they should be wasting their time on?
Did they plan to drag the island back down by that chain? If it were like other islands, there would be a metal scaffolding through the entire island, and if they locked that chain onto the scaffolding, then they would be able to slowly pull the island back down to the ground. The island wouldn’t be able to go anywhere.
“Go… anywhere…” I voiced that last thought out loud.
“Huh?” Cornelia asked, the only one close enough to me to hear and not busy with her own work.
“Go… anywhere!” My eyes flashed and I looked around to see that Angela had moved to the other side of the deck, barking orders at a sailor like she was her personal servant.
The other girl only deflected her, seeming to be following this crazy pirate because she was asked to by someone else, probably Faeri. I ran up to Angela quickly, grabbing and pulling her to get her attention. Cornelia followed behind me. She was out of her element here, and was staying close to me was the best she could do at the moment.
“We need to get to those ships down there.” I pointed to the ships and the raising chain.
“Huh? Why?” Angela frowned, before gesturing to the island. “My orders are to get you there. The sooner I’m done, the sooner I can deal with the other airships.”
Our ship and the ones lifting the chains weren’t the only ships in the sky. At least six other ships were floating around the island, trying to get close. They weren’t attacking recklessly though. There was a smoldering wreckage on the island from one ship that had gotten too close. Every once in a while, a lightning strike shot down from the clear sky, threatening to cause another ship to crash. This was what was keeping Amaryllis at bay for the moment. No one wanted to recklessly cause their ship to crash, causing even more damage to the city below.
“We need that chain.” I explained.”
“The chain? Why? You want to hook the island up to a pully?” She had asked the question with an amused expression on her face.
“Yes.”
She blinked. “Uh… what?”
“That island contains 90% of the men in Amaryllis. They want to tether it, and those men, to the city. Once that chain gets connected, we’re going to be stuck here and there is no way of saving them all.”
“Saving them? We’re…” She blinked. “What are you planning?”
I took a breath. “Amaryllis is no longer a safe place for men. We only have one choice at this point. We need to leave this country.”
“Leave the country? With several thousand men? In the middle of a battle?” Cornelia cried out, seeming just as confused as Angela.
“How many ships do you think you’d need to pull the island?”
“Pull… you want to move the island like a tugboat?” Angela’s eyes widened in shock.
“If we can pull the island out of the country, there is a chance we can get away with the men.”
Cornelia shook her head. “Even if we could do that, the Amaryllis forces would just chase us. There would be nowhere we could go to obtain safety. No other country would stick their neck out for us!”
I bit my lip. She was right. Even if we could leave the country, we wouldn’t be in any better situation. If we broke into the sovereignty of another country, they would probably arrest us and then extradite us back to Amaryllis without a word. Meanwhile, if went into international waters, they could continue to chase us and cause problems. Unless…
“Angela, I need you to commandeer those two ships, break the chains connecting them to the ground, carry them up to the island, and then use the fleet of ships to pull this island into the waters.”
“Is that even possible?” Cornelia asked.
“It should be. It might be slow at first, but it’s not like there is anything but air resistance. We’re not trying to pull it against the engines like they are, we’re just going to move it.”
Cornelia shook her head. “Okay, even if we do this, the men will still be on that island. If you haven’t forgotten, it’s a giant sacrifice circle to summon demons. I’m worried if we provoke them enough, you’ll be giving them exactly what they want.”
“I’m going to break it.” I declared. “Once you get us up there, that’ll be my job. Your job is to pull that island away from the mainland, head as far west as you can manage. With luck, we’ll turn a device intended to end all men into a device that will be their saving grace.”
Angela had grown quiet as Cornelia voiced many more complaints. She was staring at me with her hand on her chin, an expression in her eyes that was very difficult for me to read.
“Who do you think I am? You expect me to risk my life attacking ships filled with Amaryllis soldiers. Then you expect me to land in the middle of Amaryllis to detach a massive chain. While possibly under fire from other airships, because they are bound to notice we’re not one of them by that point, you want me to carry the chain up to the island, attach it, and then pull the island to safety, all while a dozen other airships try to turn us into a charred heap!”
“That…” I looked down.
It was the best plan that I had. We had the entire country against us. I never said this would be easy. Once I was on the island though, I would recruit anyone I could to try protect her ship and help them succeed. I also had a plan for that one, but how long it would take before we could help and how successful the magic the people on the island could offer was hard to say. With luck, Lilith would be there by now, and it was possible that together, we could erect a shield to protect the entire island until we were out at sea. I realized it was a lot to ask though, especially from someone who had no invested interest in any of this.
“I’ll do it.” She declared.
“You will?” Cornelia’s mouth fell open.
“Ladies! New target! We’re going for that chain! They’re too slow to escape. It’s a perfect opportunity to attack them while their panties are down. Then we can shove it up their cunts!”
To my surprise, the girls who had been ignoring her before were letting out cheers, and took her orders this time. It seemed like she could show a commanding presence but only when she wanted to. I turned, heading back into the ship.
“You’re not helping?” Cornelia asked.
“I’ll be out to help them take the ships, but first, I have a call to make.”
If we were going to do this, we needed all the help we could get, and there was someone I hoped I could depend on who might very well be the difference between victory and defeat. My mission had started as just saving the lives of all the men on this island. I had learned something from the prime minister. I learned that just saving their lives wasn’t enough. My new mission was emancipation. I had once hoped this would passively happen over time as the male population grew. Now, I knew it was impossible to accomplish this without a more aggressive approach. I would free all men from the tyranny of women. It was time to end this age where the world was ruled by women.