I’m jolted awake by a distant crash and a salvo of gunfire. My heart races as I climb to my feet, and my head pounds from the inadequate amount of sleep. I don’t have a watch to check the time, but I’m sure I only got an hour or two in at most.
Emily jumps out of bed, the backpack already gone into her inventory. She hits her head on the upper bunk and lets out a short “ow”. Jessica is already gone, not a trace of her presence left behind.
Guns bark again, and screams erupt outside. Emily looks at me, the question thick in her eyes.
“I’m going,” I say.
She nods, pulling out her bow as we leave the cell. Officers rush out of other rooms as we pass them, guns at the ready. More and more of them gather around us on the way to the exit, so many that they clog the doors.
Everyone’s shouting, trying to push through the crowd. Emily grabs onto my shirt at some point as I wade into the chaos.
“Make room, god damn it!” I yell, but my voice is drowned out.
I can’t see why we stalled, at least not at first. William is in the doorway, his wide frame lit from behind by the sun. He’s shouting as well, with as little success as the rest of us.
I’m ready to turn around and look for another way out, but then my skin prickles with the electrifying sensation of outside mana. It washes over the crowd like a wave, followed by a familiar voice.
“Quiet!”
All mouths snap shut as Karen’s skill takes hold of us. For a few long moments, the only sounds are the distant gunshots and monster howls. William clears his throat, thanks Karen, and then starts dishing out orders.
“I want to see some God damned discipline! Walk out neatly and form up outside!”
The officers obey, and we all make our way outside. William stands by the entrance, flanked on either side by Karen and Jessica. Polly is back with the latter, perched on her shoulders and squawking every so often. William whispers something to Jessica as we near them, and the bird takes off.
Something weird happens to Jessica, leaving me staring for longer than I should. Every patch of exposed skin on her body bristles up, sprouting down and feathers. The already tight tracksuit she’s wearing fills out even further. When she catches me looking, she gives me a tired smile. I think. It’s hard to tell with how her face changes, elongating ever so slightly to gain an avian edge to it.
The crowd pushes me to move from behind, so I can’t stop to ask her about it. The sun blinds me for a moment as I exit, but after my eyes adapt, I can see why we had trouble getting out. The street in front of the station is filled to the brim with people, all trying to get inside.
They make room for the officers to form up, but I don’t join them.
“William? What’s going on?”
“Tom is at the western barricade,” he says. “Go to him, he’ll fill you in.”
I nod, and William nods back. Emily and I leave as he starts giving orders to the officers.
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Downtown is thrown into chaos, with people fleeing every which way. A lot of them hurry to the police station, but the majority just scramble for higher ground.
Stelver’s police force was never too big — only around fifty employees, including the support staff and other personnel with little to no combat training. Out of that already small pool of authority figures, only about three quarters made it to the downtown area. Which is all to say that they’re woefully unprepared to handle this crisis and the panicked masses.
William and Pops enrolled a few civilians into their efforts, like Karen and Jessica, but it’s not enough. We come across some trying to direct the crowd, but no one listens. I know I shouldn’t stick my nose in it, that I should let the officials work, but if I don’t, people will die before the monsters even breach our defenses.
“You!” I snap, grabbing a random man by the collar as he runs past me.
“What?!”
“Get a few pals and start directing people! Tell them to form up in the center of the safe zone so the fighters can protect them!”
“I…I don’t…” the man stutters.
“Get to it!” I yell, pushing him away.
He looks uncertain, but I don’t linger to see if he’ll do it. I keep going, giving the same order to others. It only takes a few to start the chain reaction, then herd mentality will kick in and everyone else will follow. I just hope that William will roll with it.
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All of that slows me down, so it takes almost twenty minutes to reach Pops. He’s at the western barricade, like William said, up on a building with a few other gunmen. They’re busy shooting into the horde of monsters outside, but the barricade itself is compromised.
It wasn’t much to begin with, just a row of cars and small trucks that they piled junk on top of. Things like furniture, fridges, TVs, basically anything bulky that wasn’t bolted to the ground. Said junk is now spread everywhere, letting in a steady trickle of monsters.
Close quarters fighters are on the street level, beating back the horde the best they can.
“Emily! Get on a roof and cover my back!”
She nods and takes off, disappearing into the closest building. I take out the sledgehammer and crowbar and jump into the fray. It’s utter madness, everyone letting off on skills with little regard for their neighbors. I dodge a shockwave that cleaves a monster in two, and I swing at another one, breaking a leg as I send it flying backwards.
A cluster of earth spikes shoot out from the ground under my feet, growing rapidly and impaling more monsters. They launch me into the closest wall with enough force to crack the solid brick.
“You idiots will kill each other!” I yell as I push off the wall, dislocated bones slowly shifting back into place.
“Watch where you’re going and you’ll be fine!” The guy that cast that earth spike skill answers.
I run up to him, grab his shoulders, and push him back. He yells at me, but I don’t waste my breath arguing with him.
“Those of you that have ranged skills, fall back! You’re support, not front liners! Call out your skills so the rest of us can get out of dodge! We need to kill the monsters, not each other!”
They look at each other, then at me. A few protest, but I follow up my rant with a stern, “shut the fuck up and get your asses into gear! We’ll argue later!”
A few of them listen and pull back. Earth spike guy screams “fuck you!” and rushes into the thick of it. He lets loose on that skill two more times, killing a bunch of monsters but injuring some of the other fighters and forcing them to retreat. I run after him, slashing left and right with the crowbar to wound the monsters I pass.
Each successful hit gives me a bit of frenzy, slowly filling up the meter. Not enough to give my attributes a boost, but enough for the bloodlust to return. Earth spike guy casts one more skill, pulling rocks out of the ground that taper into points. He swings his hands at the monsters and the chunks of earth fly off like cannon balls, turning some into paste and compromising the barricade even further.
Then, as suddenly as he started, he stops. I figure he’s out of mana since he used his skills all willy-nilly. He tries to retreat as he pulls out a weed machete, but he trips over his own spikes and tumbles to the ground.
The monsters set upon him as he screams in pain. I fight my way towards him, gaining more and more frenzy. The bloodlust whispers to me, causing my whole body to tense up. Let him die, he deserves it. He does, I think for a split second. He did this to himself.
But then the man screams again. He fights tooth and nail, cutting into the monsters as they overwhelm him. I shake my head and push those thoughts out.
No, I tell the bloodlust. I won’t let a man die if I can help it.
I run up one of the spikes, using it as a ramp to gain height. It creaks under my feet, pebbles coming loose as it falls apart. I jump just in time, soaring through the air for longer than I thought I would. The sledgehammer comes up, held in both hands, and I slam it into the pile of monsters as I activate ground pound.
The shockwave spreads out like an earthquake, pushing the monsters back. A few even get stunned, and I hear the gunmen on the rooftops taking them out. My frenzy shoots up a good 30% from the stunt, as each and every monster in range sustained a little bit of damage. Not enough, but it’ll do.
Earth spike guy is sprawled a little distance away, full of cuts and missing big chunks of flesh on his arms and legs. My attack affected him too, stunning him as well. I grab him and hoist him up on a shoulder, trading the sledgehammer for the crowbar as I retreat.
“Do we have any healers?!” I yell.
He’s not yet dead, but although I can’t see his health, I figure he’s not far from it if the bleeding doesn’t stop. The system healing is weird like that, it has a natural healing rate that can be overcome by wounds. Keep your overall condition in the green and you’ll heal from anything, even if it’ll be very slow. But let it slip into the red, and you’ll die faster than you can heal.
“Over here!” Someone answers.
I lash out at a monster and take it in the neck. It doesn’t die right away, but it starts suffocating as blood floods its lungs. Another one lunges at me, but it falls dead at my feet with an arrow sticking out of its skull. I look up to find Emily on a rooftop, nocking another arrow.
The healer, a woman wearing a surprisingly clean nurse’s uniform, is all the way in the back. I race towards her and deposit earth spike guy not so gently on the ground. She gets to work right away, putting her hands on his chest as her fingers start glowing.
“He’s in critical condition,” she states the obvious.
“Do your best, I need his stupid ass back in the game asap.”
She nods and does her thing, pulling out gauze and bandages to stem the bleeding. I help her undress the man down to his boxers and I hold him steady as she wraps his wounds. The clean bandages turn red right away, soaking blood by the pint. To the nurse’s credit, though, she doesn’t lose herself to panic.
After she’s done applying the bandages, she waves her hands over the man’s prone body. Flecks of diffuse light fall off her open palms, coming down on the man like gentle snow. The bleeding slows but doesn’t stop entirely.
I don’t linger to watch any further, we still have a wave to beat back.
“Anyone that can create or alter matter with your skills, focus your efforts on the barricade!” I give orders as I go back in. “Reinforce the thing and make a chokepoint! Any walls or spikes go on the outside of the barricade, not on the inside where it will trip us up! The rest, form up on me! We’re the first line of defense!”
This time they comply, racing around to carry out the new orders. I trade the crowbar for the sledgehammer and I go to work.