It was almost relieving when demons finally showed up. We were only a block or two from the base at the time, and everyone had been very quiet and cooperative so far- mostly due to already having some clear leaders willing to help me with managing everyone- so of course I was just waiting for anything to go wrong. I’m just of the opinion that if something goes worse than expected, it was probably just something you underestimated, but if something goes much better than expected, you’ve completely overlooked something major.
“Looks like the next wave is hitting a bit earlier than projected,” Carlos informed me, “I think we could probably get everyone to safety before things get too bad. I’m pulling the lures into a closer but higher-coverage pattern. Keep up your obfuscation, it's working well.”
Breaking away from where I was just ahead of the civilians, I replied, “I’ll trust you on that. Anything nearby yet?” Muting myself on the call, I loudly announced to the group, “a wave’s coming so we should speed up a little. We’re close to safety, so stealth matters a little less than it did- make sure no one gets left behind.”
“Nothing just yet, but that won’t last. Just keep going,” Carlos said at almost the same time the de-facto leader confirmed, “we should be able to handle going a bit faster- albeit not too much.”
Blind to ULE as I was, it was nerve wracking contenting myself to only passable thermals and another person’s assessment of the situation. Every time I entered a new room not yet filled with gas, I was tempted to turn on my lantern again, but that would only risk ruining all the effort put in to get this far.
“Heads up, the demons are here,” Carlos said over our call, which I quickly relayed to the group. That got most of them understandably agitated, but to their credit, they didn’t freeze or slow. A few seconds later, I once again heard from Carlos,“damn. The base is almost completely surrounded. The defenses are working properly, but there’s no safe route to get in anymore.”
After a moment of thought, I said, “I don’t like keeping everyone in a random room at all. Is the wind blowing towards the base from where the route ends?”
“Give me a sec,” He mumbled, then through the open mic I heard him ask the aides, “who has the weather forecast up? And what direction is the wind blowing?”
I couldn't hear what the aide said, but Carlos passed the message along, “it should be blowing perpendicular, but why does that… Ah, I get it. Please prioritize everyone’s safety over getting a path cleared sooner.”
Humming in confirmation, I filled the last room before the base with a bit more gas than usual. The sounds of gunfire and various screeches forced me to talk a lot louder than I liked as I informed the civilians of my plans. I would go help kill the demons with the goal of creating an easy path to cross. Failing that, my help would at least get the entire area safer sooner. Ultimately, it was up to the leader-guy to make the call of when and who would cross- with me ready to help when it was time. Not really the safest plan, but it was what I could do.
Instead of just walking out, I cracked open the door to the street where the fight was happening so I could stick my horns and tail out to get a better idea of what was going on.
The situation was certainly chaotic. It wasn’t a massive swarm of demons, more like a constant and slow flow from various side streets and buildings. All in all, the various armed people within the fenced off area were just about holding off everything- which made me realize that getting people through was much more manageable than I initially thought.
Tamping down nerves, I stepped out, immediately spraying either side of a mostly straight path to the popup fortress' gate with my glue. My actions- or more likely my ULE- drew the attention of a good portion of the demons, taking pressure off the defenders.
I didn’t have time to make any fancy containers out of polymer to throw my chemicals, so I settled for direct application. I really would have preferred not being limited by how far a stream of liquid can remain coherent, but with how many demons there were, I wouldn’t have been able to make enough projectiles anyway.
Surprisingly, my mind was very calm. I could feel other signs of adrenaline: heart beating hard, faster breathing- but the usual anxiety and nerves were missing. To be honest, it was a little disconcerting, like there was a growing gap between my mind and body. When a demon I hadn’t been focusing on swooped down at my head, I found myself only realizing I ducked and blasted it with a silane cloud a fraction of a second after I did so.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
As another tried to move into a blind spot behind me, the tip of my tail with the weird universal-plug-liquid-metal thing morphed into a blade and flicked out to slice through the demon’s throat- which I had no clue it could even do until a second after the fact.
Still trying to figure out what was wrong, I found myself using a flickering lance of flaming ClF3, flaring out to just the right length and width to completely annihilate an important joint, nerve cluster, or sensory organ with pinpoint precision beyond my normal capabilities.
Whenever a demon came within ten feet of me, a burst of explosive gas or jet of fire would efficiently put them down. When one was able to squeeze by my longer range opinions, the previously set glue would hold them in place for an easy kill with my tail.
My ability to kill so many demons on my own must have agitated something in them, drawing almost all of them away from the normal defenders. The only thing that changed on my body’s end was an increase in speed. Individual movements became faster, time between actions decreased to the point it became one continuous performance.
And my thoughts lagged farther and farther behind my body.
Everything that was going on was theoretically possible for me to do- which made sense since I was doing it- but would have required weeks of hard practice to do this consistently or comfortably, or in the flowing strings of destruction that my body was demonstrating. As the lag between action and thought increased even more, I deliriously joked to myself that this was like watching a cinematic trailer for some high budget game or movie while half asleep.
As soon as I noticed this, a bell started ringing somewhere in the back of my mind, and I was suddenly back in control of myself with startling clarity.
After an initial stutter as I shook off the weird feeling, my body felt more responsive than before the dissociation episode. I must have been still in the tail end of it, since I wasn’t feeling any panic from being thrown into melee with a horde of snapping teeth and claws. My attempts at rationalizing what I was experiencing landed me with the admittedly horrible idea to ascribe my sudden fighting prowess as commitment to my act as Devil.
Of course that character would take an opportunity to show off in front of a somewhat literally captive audience. Any doubts of my abilities were not their doubts; Devil should have self confidence bordering on narcissism and the ability to back up that personality quirk- except when extra drama or comedy was needed to keep the show interesting.
Riding the thin line between consciousness and relapsing, it only took a minute more for the stream of monstrosities to reduce to a trickle. The leader-guy must have judged it was safe to move as I heard him call out they were going- a message I passed on to the people at the gate with a little more flare.
My glue trap had built a small wall of bodies, nicely plotting a path to safety that protected the civilians from the attention of any lingering demons. One by one, the group I had escorted rushed by me with looks of horror or amazement, and once everyone was accounted for, I followed them into the fenced off area.
Before anyone could start trying to thank or ridicule me, I slipped away. The second I was out of sight, I collapsed on to the wet ground and mentally asked Cleo, “what the hell was that just now?”
More quickly and maybe a bit defensively than normal they shot back, {what was what?}
Confused, I clarified, “the whole fit of dissociation? Being able to do tricks I had no practice with? Still being able to move like that when I was back in control?”
{Uhh, let me see…} they tapered off, then started hesitantly offering, {it looks like another issue caused by our initial problems and solutions when getting you integrated into the system?}
Not quite buying it, I probed a little more, “so it wasn’t some ‘reflex refinement’ or ‘battle instincts' perk randomly getting bought?”
{No… I don’t think so?}
“So is there a chance this happens again, but not to my benefit?”
Sounding much more confident, they replied, {very little. In fact, let me resecure our connection to everything. There we go. Now even if the system as a whole wants to do something, it has to make me aware of it first- at least when it comes to you.}
Fatigue and lingering duties pushing me to accept that, I tiredly sat up and begrudgingly said, “I guess it was helpful. I normally would have gone much slower and tried to not be in biting range in exchange for taking longer. That doesn’t excuse the creepy and overly personal feeling it was. I feel like I need a shower.”