Riley skipped alongside me, his fluffy tail bouncing. “And then I punched his helmet over and over!”

“Did it hurt him?” Spoolie asked.

The little raccoon dashed ahead and hopped on a rock. “His health didn't go down but I think he was really annoyed.” He sat on his haunches and chittered.

He'd been doing that a lot and I wondered if it was his version of a laugh.

Duh, he replied.

I smiled then stopped as my thoughts turned serious. Are you going to be okay without training?

The first Zix didn't have training so I should be okay until they… Riley paused, then made eye contact with me. Train me.

That was weird, didn't he want to be trained? When I caught up I gave him a small pat. Do you have a plan on how to transfer yourself to another device?

I'm working on it. He jumped down and strutted alongside us. You humans have been studying the implants for years but there's not much information on our software or hardware.

“I gained six levels!” Spoolie yelled. A barely hearable whistle came from him.

“Did you just whistle?” I asked.

It happened again. “I think so.” This time it sounded like a flute rather than a whistle. “Whoa cool! This is so weird and gross too.”

He'd managed to coat the whole left side of my shoulder in slime; which had dried and flaked off periodically. Gross stuff like that didn't bother me. My whole “regular shambler” outfit clung to my skin in the same way so it wasn't too different from what I was used to.

“So we're going where?” Spoolie asked.

Raziel grunted. “What are you all talking about?”

“Want in the party?” I asked.

He groaned. “Fine.”

I sent him an invite.

A moment later I checked my interface and he had joined.

You cut her in half! Spoolie said. That's crazy! What did that even feel like Azerail?

My sensation slider was still stuck in place and when I thought back to the sensations I'd experienced I didn't come up with much. Just pain mostly.

What the hell? Raziel said. You have your pain slider on? Are you sadistic or something?

Can't turn it off, I replied.

Spoolie spun his little eyes toward Raziel. She has problems with her implant.

Everyone knows that, Raziel replied. I just didn't know she had other problems with it too.

A new message came in; it was Molly. Hey, we are in position.

Raccoon kept our discussion open making it so I didn't receive pain from the interaction. It appeared to be working.

Raziel and the majority of the newbies had followed me. Molly, Morgue’n, and the rest of our group had split off.

You're at the bubble already? I asked. We were on another mission further northeast to create another graveyard. We'd left the fog a while back. Chardance loomed in the distance barely in view. We'd reached an area that was sparsely littered with trees.

We are, should we attack right away? she asked.

I nodded, sending my approval through our link. I'll check in once we find a good spot where I can be better defended.

If the Enlightened had access to a spyglass they could probably spot us where we were. Molly said Koffer rarely used them and that he would more likely use a runner instead.

Everyone had weaknesses.

“Molly and them are ready. Let's find a good spot so I can help,” I said.

Raziel took the lead. “You know the place I wanted to show you is about half a day's walk, that way.” He pointed further north toward a fogged area where the trees became thicker. It was a part of the Plagued forest that reached North of Chardance.

I sighed. “After we take Chardance we can explore it.”

“There were hostile skeletons there,” he explained.

Would he ever stop talking about that stupid place? “You told me about it already. Besides, aren't you worried about ‘her’ hearing?” I pointed to Lunaveil.

“Luna? No, we go way back,” he replied.

Lunaveil was a ghost and one of my many Lieutenants. She just so happened to have access to clerical magic. We were going to test if she could also lay our dead to rest.

It would make my job much easier if she could.

She looked at me and shrugged. She was an Elven poltergeist, slender with long ears poking out of her white shoulder-length hair. People of her race always had an ageless twenty-something appearance, similar to how everyone in smart cities looked. Her outfit was a mix of leather and metal military fatigues with an upside-down red cross displayed on her tabard. She took the whole ‘Unholy Cleric’ thing seriously.

I’m working on a way to transfer all of my program to the home server so you can get your other Zix back, Riley said as he caught up with the more fast-paced lead of Raziel. I don’t know how we’re going to get around the whole stabbing another Zix thing though.

That was going to be a problem. I asked in party chat, How are your feet, Riley?

He dashed ahead a few steps, sat down and raised his blistered hands toward me and I gasped.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Don’t worry, because I’m bonded with a Hexed I get a regen buff, he said.

Spoolie tooted. Does it hurt?

Want me to pick you up, so you can heal? I asked.

Riley shook his little raccoon head. No and no, I’m fine on my own.

“You’re falling behind,” Raziel yelled. “Hurry up.”

We stopped playing and focused on the journey. Raziel didn’t have us run but his pace was fast enough that I needed to focus on controlling the shamblers so they didn’t exhaust their stamina.

After around fifteen minutes of traveling Raziel stopped. “You should be safe enough here to oversee the battle.

I was just getting into the groove of our journey so I grumbled in disappointment. I brought the shamblers close to us in a makeshift barrier. They were all people controlled but I felt better with them nearer.

Raziel gestured to a flat rock next to a tree. “Don’t be too long, we have a few hours left to go.”

The look I gave him must have disappointed him because he rolled his eyes and turned away.

“Feel free to relax. I’ll be back soon,” I said.

As I closed my eyes I focused on Molly and felt her and the undead under her control. I took control of a shambler close to her knowing that she would probably be in flight.

The press of bodies against mine was intense. As I suspected, Molly flew above the mass of the dead.

Report, I thought to her.

There was silence for a moment, then a mental scream from her wracked my brain. These assholes won’t coordinate with me!

You can’t control the shamblers? I asked.

She flew low and I transferred my consciousness like a row of dominos following the path she made as I observed. For a brief moment, she paused. Then she let out a horrifying wail. It caused the shambler I was controlling to fall on its knees covering its ears.

Fuck, I thought and released control of the shambler and was back with Raziel and the rest of them.

“Change of plans, I’m going airborne,” I said.

As my consciousness rocketed above everyone, the anticipated pain came along with a brief look at my body.

Jennifer sat in a chair next to me, a tissue in her hand. She noticed me and said, “Come home Az.”

My heart broke a little as she disappeared and I found myself high above our group. Despite it being a battle mode it was quite peaceful up there.

I would have to talk to Raccoon about—

You can practically teleport anywhere you want in town, he said, answering my thought before I had it.

That was good. Can you show me how to do it later?

As long as we can talk about that hairpin some more, he said.

Did I even need to answer? I didn’t have any issues with talking about—

Okay, go kick their asses then, Raccoon replied.

When I concentrated on Molly my overview shifted and I was suddenly above my Lieutenants. What is the problem? I asked.

There were over a thousand shamblers in the area. Two of the Lieutenants were keeping a few hundred occupied on the outskirts of the battle by using each of their forty to corral them as Rufus had suggested. It was working extremely well. However, the tangled shit show occupying the town was a different matter altogether.

Heated emotions and memories blasted me as I let my Lieutenant’s thoughts hit me. It was nearly impossible to understand until I focused on each one. I reached toward Ponter, and he and his shamblers lit up. Then Molly, Morgue’n, Tinky, Jack, and Hoppins. I could see any of them I thought about. It was rather intuitive.

My brain somehow made sense of what they were projecting as they spoke. It was as if I had sudden clarity.

Each of them was getting in the other's way.

The solution was easy. I backed Molly’s Hexed up. She complained but as soon as the melted back everything loosened up. Ponter suddenly had room to start raiding buildings and Jack was able to start work on destroying their graveyard.

What the hell! Molly screeched.

She was being a glory hog, trying to do too many things at once. She had lingered in the fight after the front lines had been broken when she should have retreated. We all have a purpose in this fight. I showed her the consequences of her actions by displaying the positions people were forced to take because of her continued advance.

A scream followed by racing thoughts flushed over me. It was Bastion. I selected him and his group was being overrun.

I zoomed into the action and the defenders stood over him half a dozen spears protruded from his body.

An Orc made a battle cry as he ripped a spear out of Bastion’s rotting corpse.

The settlement was bigger than I had anticipated. It was the first time I could see it so close. Then I saw the problem Bastion was dealing with.

After a quick thought to Etherea who was one of the two newbie Lieutenants corralling the shamblers, I had a hundred undead positioning themselves to take Bastion's place.

Bastion had died because of my orders. I sent him new instructions to meet up at the location of the new graveyard.

I dropped down into the area of the fresh batch of shamblers and took over in my preferred grounded attack mode. Seeing through a hundred eyes was much different than twenty, and I was initially disoriented. But I quickly adjusted to only utilizing the undead I needed to use for directions.

Ten Kobolds blocked our path. Instead of stopping and examining the situation we overwhelmed them, keeping them trapped and unable to move. The majority of us passed them and we left some of us to watch over them. They were tall so we transferred the biggest of us to further subdue them.

Half of our problems were solved by them making a single mistake. Those Kobolds in the open were just what we needed.

We flooded into a courtyard where the Ork from earlier had people replacing barricades.

Without hesitation, we grabbed the half-built barricades and destroyed them. Most of the men defending were human and we began feasting as soon as we separated them. They weren’t ready for such a quick attack.

Bastion and his attributes were more focused on defense and he must not have used his abilities to their full potential.

The other half of the problem showed itself. A dozen gremlins poured from the surrounding buildings. We knew what we had to do and rushed them.

Pain wracked my right arm as the Orc thrust his spear into the shoulder of a shambler. Like with Sandra and Auden, he made the mistake of holding onto his weapon as we pushed forward allowing the spear to sink deeper into our flesh. The sheer number of us caused him to back into the side of one of the houses.

He screamed as we held him in place.

The gremlins attacked, their smaller swords cutting us in a dozen places at once as they retreated. We grabbed one of them and passed the small creature behind us.

One by one we grabbed them and repeated the process. I took direct control of a Giantine shambler and grabbed the Orc, leading him in the same direction we sent the Gremlins.

We flooded the buildings and invaded their homes. None of the remaining humans in this portion of town resisted. Some even surrendered. We ended their lives quickly and feasted.

By the time the Gremlins, Kobolds, and the Orc made it to where we were guiding them we’d stripped them of their weapons. They probably had more in their inventory but they didn't bring them out.

The Orc was the last to make it. He was pushed out of our midst and fell to the ground.

Then I swapped to controlling a female Elven shambler and joined the man.

“What is this?” the Orc demanded as he examined his location.

We’d taken him and the other neutrals to the edge of the settlement. Wide open space was behind them allowing them to leave.

“Go,” we said.

He backed up, eyes darting wildly at us. “Go where? This is our home!”

“Iron, your people are expecting you there,” we replied.

Without another word, he backed away with the other neutrals following suit. He probably thought it was a trick.

“Go!” we yelled and they scrambled away, breaking into a run.

We'd brokered a deal with Iron and its neutrals. Part of that deal was to send any other ones we found to them. They'd relinquished their thirty or so Enlightened which we fed to our newbies.

Maintaining our hunger was one of our biggest issues.

Steel, the town before us fell. The energy from the assault was gratifying as it streamed into me. I still hadn't streamed our attacks like I intended to. Perhaps in another town.

Copper was the last settlement on the West side and that was where Molly and Morgue’n were headed next.

If we did this right, by the end of the night the whole West side would be pure fog and belong to us.

I was beginning to understand why royalty back in the day were carried by their people.

This region would soon belong to me.

***