Todd’s eyes widen in surprise as he pulls open his status menu.

Name Todd Kalogeropoulos Level 5 Race F - Human Alignment Human (Earth)   Titles Chosen (+5 all attributes)   Strength 11 Dexterity 11 Endurance 11 Vitality 11 Intelligence 13 Wisdom 12 Luck 9   Nexus Coins 1240 Free Points 6

Three levels gained, over a thousand nexus coins, and plus five to every statistic? That’s insane! On the other hand it explains how Todd has managed to fight so long and so well. He’s dodged strikes he was sure would land, hit harder than he thought he’d hit, stayed up and running when he should have been floored and spent. But as glad as he is to be alive, the gap between his capability – the yesterday versus the today – feels like enough room to fit an obituary into. Todd chooses to tuck that little thought back into the trauma vault; to focus on the now and deal with it in the never.

Following the plan, he skirts the long way round the circle to collect Teo. As he goes he supplements the defenders, doling out a judicious strike here, and advice on cosmic energy there. About two radians round the way, he finds Mister ‘Godly Gift Aspen’. Standing a stride or two out from the safety of the others, the older man swears something about someone’s mother and then chops a paddle hatchet of a weapon down on a bug with an executioner’s finality.

Noticing Todd wave him down, Teo greets him magnanimously. >grunt< he says.

“Hey gout-sack! Wanna kill a big one?” Todd shouts.

The ruddy faced man turns and an American flag and eagle t-shirt peeks out from under his gi. He slaps the flat of his weapon against the palm of his hand, and confirms his commitment to the common good. “Yea? How big?”

Walter turns out to be easier to find, an ephemeral purple orb flashing around him as he gleefully cackles and swings a rod shaped like a baseball bat. “Todd! There y’are boy! Get over here while the getting’s good!”

“You alright?” Todd asks uncertainly.

“Haven’t felt this alive in decades!” Walter grabs Todd by the front of his gi and yanks him in close with a shocking, skeletal strength. “You hear me? Decades.”

“Uh-huh.” Todd pulls the wrinkled grip off him, then points a thumb back the way he came. “Drew needs help to kill a superbug.”

“Superbug!” Walter spits on the body of a fallen arthropod. “If these ain’t super, what’s super?”

“I don’t – I guess these are pretty big. I don’t really know?”

“Trick question! Answer is: the sum’bitch’ll’ve regret bein’ born soon ‘nuff.”

Teo laughs heartily and the two men step forward then slap each other on the biceps, completing a circle of expired testosterone. Todd looks helplessly from one man to the other. “I didn’t catch that, what?” Walter and Teo start off back round the circle, stopping only to smash anything nearby with legs in excess of two. “Seriously, what did he say?” Todd begs them, chasing behind.

“Hey kid!” Walter shouts as he slows down for a particularly vicious swing. “I got to thank you.” He stops and stares Todd right in the peepers, which freezes the young man uncomfortably in his steps. “You saved my life yesterday. I wouldn’t have seen this, been here, if it wasn’t for you. I was at Vitality one, you get me? Now I’m at eight, and it’s ‘cause of you.”

The old man jabs his blunt weapon into Todd’s chest, leaving some viscera behind on his robe. “No problem, Walter,” he nearly gags.

“Whoo! I’m gonna go marry me a girl 30 years younger!” The old man cackles loudly, and now Todd really does gag. “Come on then, whatcha waitin’ for!”

The three turn the last bend round the fight to rejoin the battle’s knifepoint and Todd plods after them, looking somewhat conflicted. The Cultivators here on the curve closest towards the center of the plaza have begun to overextend again, a line stretched thin and assaulted from either side. It looks like the only thing this appendage is meant to do is to provide cover for Drew, who is pushing ever more recklessly towards the source of the infestation. But the cost of that support? It’s pulling their most talented fighters away from the defense of their most vulnerable, and leaving their backs unguarded at that.

“Drips! Nice timing!” Joe bleats hoarsely, voice near gone and looking like he’d gone a cycle through the washing machine. He addresses his elders: “you gentlemen ready to do something stupid?”

“Sure, what the hell,” Walter chuckles.

“Mm,” Teo elaborates.

“Who else is coming?” Todd asks.

“Huh? No. Drips, I’m not asking you to go. I don’t think Drew would want you along.”

Todd looks over the four other men. “So you’re just sending a hundred percent of our toxic machismo.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Smirking, Joe pats a hand on Todd’s shoulder and winks. “Can’t be a hundred, I’m not going either.”

“Can we pull back now?” Bernice gasps – angry, impatient and with a severed insectoid jaw hanging stubbornly onto her sleeve. “Let these nuts get themselves killed?” Her expression softens. “No offense, Walter.”

“Aw, don’t you worry. I’ve killed mosquitos bigger than this,” The old man waves her off and starts jogging.

“I like your sword,” Teo mumbles, blushing all the way to the top of his pate.

“Thanks big guy. Really not the time,” Bernice evades, shaking her head and raising her saber overhead to signal the retreat. Teo reluctantly lopes off to follow Walter. “Gross, that guy’s so old,” she mutters. “Hey, greaser goes to college,” Bernice signals Todd, pulling up beside him as their group falls back towards the crystal.

“I assume that’s... me somehow?”

“Yep. You see who needs help?”

“Soup Nina looks like she’s having a rough time on the right side,” Todd points. “And Donnellson’s picked up a couple more hurt guys over on the back left.”

“On it.” Officer Bernice and Fireman Ian swing hard right, Market Mike falls back to the center, and a few others scatter to fill in where needed. Todd and Joe simply take their position up front and settle in to blunt the next redburr wave.

“You’d think this would get easier.” Todd stumbles back, his body loaded heavy with motions overdue to become memories. He raises his foil, and though the tip wobbles, he drives it forward. The danger of it skids off a hard scale and catches in a soft joint, punching through and scraping along the inner side of its exoskeleton.

“Right?” Joe breathes heavily, whirling his iron in an arc that crumples one bug’s legs into its side; several more duck though, flattening their bodies to stay under the comfortable reach of an upright human.

“Like you’d get a groove going,” Todd pushes his aching muscles, his stance and grip trembling. The flailing skewered bug has been spared a vital wound and threatens to rip the weapon out of his hands.

“Right?” Joe kicks one of them in the face, then hops back hissing in pain.

“I just –” Todd tries to slide his foot out of the way but his knee buckles. “Dammit.” The crab thrashes violently, tearing a section of shell away from its soft inner body. In that moment, the sweat-slicked handle of his [Mercury Rod] pops from his grip, and the evil little thing contorts its body vengefully. “Ow!”

“You okay Drips?”

Todd flushes with anger, kicking back his right leg and ripping out an inch of stinger. He plods back a few more steps, then clutches at the bindings of his chest guard. Roughly, he drags them up and over his head, pulling them off with the protective wooden plate. Then he raises it over his head and smashes it into the wedge shaped body of the redburr. It’s antennae whip at him ineffectually as it dies.

“Damn, dude. Very metal.”

Todd grabs his weapon up, extracting it from the corpse and immediately taking retribution from the thing’s little friends. He looks down at his shin and sees a dark red dot and a blooming scarlet ring. “Crap. I think it got me.”

Meanwhile, Drew and his babysitters have cut a path of crustacean ruin nearly to the entry mounds. Their contest couldn’t have looked more lopsided ‘less they’d brought a side of butter. Finally it becomes too much to leave the three Cultivators unchallenged, so the Elder Redburr Stinging Crab belches out from the largest, earliest tunnel in a shower of gray dirt. Its nine foot body shoves the displaced tile further out of position, and it’s lashing antennae unfurl threateningly into the air.

Only now, with the appearance of the elder, does the creature’s name become clear. The larger specimen has the same triangular face, the same flat wedge shape. Its ten legs are longer and sharper but otherwise the same, same with its heavy tail and sword-long sting. But the sides, the flanks, along where its breathing spiracles constrict and relax: are ridged by a line of sharp, bristly keratin in a bright crimson.

Todd lifts his foot up high, and Joe grimaces as he inspects the puncture. They both turn as the huge F-Class beast saws its mouthparts together in a hideous high pitched cricket chirp. Todd drops his foot down and stares.

“Lucky them, huh?” Joe whistles, as he hammers out a clear zone around them.

The elder redburr surges, its sharp claws a thicket of spears slipping against the tile as it charges Ranger Drew.

“I dunno, are they gonna be okay?” Todd shakes his leg, trying to clear a rising, painful cramp.

Pivoting, and skidding to a halt, the creature whips its antennae out in front and they crack! with a flesh shearing sharpness.

“Are they gonna be okay,” Joe scoffs. He ends another bug with a crunch. “Jesus man. Are YOU gonna be okay?”

Drew wheels through the air, his sword lashing out and chopping one antenna off at the middle.

Todd limps forward, testing his weight on the leg. “Sort of feeling like no,” he admits guiltily.

Roaring in a chirping, rackety wail, the beast rears back on six legs. The other four it raises like scimitars, and Walter backpedals furiously to escape its scything advance.

“It’s okay Drips, I got this. You’ve been crazy helpful already, and look,” Joe extends his weapon arm and sweeps it out to demonstrate. “Bugs are almost cleared out.”

Walter collapses to his knees, the barrier shield he’s raised around his body nowhere near enough to stop the full fury of its claws. As the shield deflates, his weapon deflects the first strike, and the second cuts a deep bloody score along his lower ribs.

“I just…” Todd sighs, then slaps the side of his leg to distract himself from the spreading pain. “I know it’s dumb. But I thought I’d be the one to fight the boss.”

Bellowing, Teodore Alamilla leaps at the monster, heedless of his own safety. He raises his weapon overhead, then brings it to his side as a thick tail thuds against him, raking him with jagged burrs. Rolling with the fall as he hits the ground, and leaving a blooded track where he lands, he spins and chops side-ways with his paddle axe. His biceps bulge, and his neck veins throb, and a severed leg segment sprays ichor as it tumbles across the floor.

Joe raps his fist congenially against Todd’s chest. “Nothing to be ashamed of, Drips.”

Ranger Drew bares his teeth in a maniacal jeering grin, his sword shaking as it bites into the outstretched saber-claw. Teo looks up, dumbfounded at the deadly tip that was meant to cut him down, restrained by Drew’s force of will and arms. Whistling wind marks the strike of the venom barb, but Drew has already flung himself away, kicking off of Teo’s chest and launching the other man to an undignified safety.

Todd hesitates, looking across the square and wincing. “You know, I could probably shoot it from here.”

Walter ducks underneath the swinging tail, dashes in from the side and lands a bone breaking blow near one of the lower hips.

“Dude, don’t.”

Landing on it’s head, Drew slashes down but his sword glances off the chitinous armor.

Todd raises his left hand and limps a few increasingly difficult steps forward. “It wouldn’t hurt if I just pop off one [Water Spear]...”

Surrounding the beast on three sides, the warriors batter against its defenses. Its tail and arms are deadly, true; but its sides and belly are soft and broad. Teo clubs at a stabbing thrust, deflecting its aim. Walter clashes against dancing blades, drawing out the elder redburr’s attention. In that priceless moment of opportunity, Drew slides through a slick of gristle and goo, on his knees and under guard.

The soft scales of its underbelly are pale and exposed, he hefts his sword. And sputters as a spray of bitterly cold water smacks him in the face.

Todd slumps to the ground, his cosmic energy depleted. “Sorry guys,” he squeaks.

Joe, Walter, Drew, Teo, and the Elder Redburr turn and face Todd in what one should and must assume is indignation. Energy drips wetly from the cracked leg that had taken the full brunt of the attack. It drips from Walter’s face, and from Drew’s beard. The water falls and vanishes as it remembers it was never quite water at all.

Drew frowns. Then he stabs the redburr elder up through its mouth and into its brain.