The team we end up with isn’t big, as we need most fighters back in the safe zone to help guide the non combatants to the apartment buildings. It’s just me, Emily, Pops, Jessica plus forty odd of her pets, and a handful of others with ranged classes since we’re not planning to get into melee range.
We talk to William before we depart, and we decide to wait until around twelve in the afternoon before we set off the wave. That should give them enough time to prepare back here. If everything goes right — which it most likely won’t — the horde should hit a couple of hours later.
We shake hands and, after William wishes us good luck, we take off.
----------------------------------------
I don’t have a watch to tell the time, but I think I was pretty spot on with my twelve in the afternoon prediction. We cut a straight line through the open countryside, avoiding roads and buildings as we plant the mines along the way. That takes a few hours by itself, and we get attacked by stray groups of monsters as well, which only slows us down more.
We stop about half a mile out from the clearing, and after a quick check of the surrounding area, we get to work. I tape all ten boom rods to some of Emily’s arrows, and she pulls them back on the bow to check the weight.
“Will it work? Can you launch them far enough away?”
She contemplates it for a moment, then she shakes her head.
“Shit.”
I was hoping she could manage it, but it looks like the two of us will have to get closer. Pops wants to join, as does Jessica, and I waste a few minutes arguing with them. I want them to stay behind and guard our backs.
“I still think I should go,” Jessica complains. “I’m the one that controls the pets.”
“Which is why you should stay behind,” Pops says. “If anything happens to you, we lose our transportation. And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t think I could beat the monsters in a race.”
“Both of you need to stay back,” I argue. “I’ll go.”
“I’m a higher level!” Pops explodes.
“And how good are you in close quarters combat, mister Enforcer?” He goes to say something, but he closes his mouth a moment later. “Exactly. If anything happens, I can at least let loose on a ground pound and stagger the monsters to buy time.”
The others watch us arguing, but they don’t intervene. They all probably picked ranged classes specifically to keep away from the monsters, so they’re none too eager to get up and personal with a horde of this size. As for us, we don’t make any progress. In the end, I’m forced to compromise.
Emily and I go ahead, riding on Luna. The others come up a couple hundred feet behind us, fanned out in a loose V formation. This way, they all have free lines of sight and they’re close enough in case they need to lay down cover fire. The pets guard our flanks, while Jessica herself is relegated to the back of the group.
She’s not too happy about that, but she doesn’t have to be. She just has to do it.
Since she’ll take the shots, Emily is riding in the front. I’m right behind her, trying to peek over her shoulders as we near the horde. Even though it’s not been a full day since we’ve last seen them, the number of monsters has easily doubled. The skunk thing is still in the middle of the clearing, squealing and waving its front paws like a displeased conductor trying to keep control of an opera.
“Get about a hundred feet closer than you think you’ll need,” I whisper to Emily. “Better to leave yourself some room for error.”
She nods, though as I hold onto her, I feel her tensing up. But I understand. We’re spread too thin. The horde is too damn big. Too many things can go wrong. I’ve been dragging her from one dangerous situation into the next, not stopping to consider if she wanted to come because I was thankful for her help. Because I’ve been relying on it — on her — to have my back and keep me alive.
I make a mental note to talk to her about it as soon as we get back, but for now, we have to focus on what’s in front of us.
Emily stops Luna about five hundred feet away from the edge of the clearing, and I raise an arm to give the others the signal to stop as well. She pulls out five of the boom rod arrows and lays them on the bow.
“Try to hit the boss with two of them,” I say as I take out a lighter. “Aim the other three at the far side of the horde. That should push them towards us and make it easier to hit the rest.”
She nods, so I bunch the fuses together to light them all at once. We both take a deep breath in unison, her to steady her aim and me to steady my nerves. Things are about to get real chaotic real fast. I strike the lighter and press the flame up to the fuses, which start sizzling and burning right away.
“Fire,” I whisper.
In a quick, fluid motion, Emily pulls the arrows back the rest of the way and releases them. They fly away in the blink of an eye, whizzing above the heads of the monsters. I can feel the ambient mana around us converging into her, forming tethers between herself and the arrows as she controls their flight paths with her skills.
The first two arrows hit close to the boss, embedding themselves in the ground as the others keep going. Those hit the back of the horde, and moments later, all five boom rods explode at once. The silence of the countryside gets shattered by the powerful shockwaves washing out, nearly knocking us off of Luna’s back.
Plumes of smoke, debris, and monster bits rise in the air. The horde goes wild in a heartbeat, breaking up into smaller groups that run every which way. My ears ring so bad that I can barely hear, and a quick peek at my health bar tells me that I’ve lost some from being so close to the explosions.
“Next batch!” I yell.
Emily trembles, but she complies. She pulls out the other five arrows and nocks them as the majority of the monsters head towards us. I light the fuses again, and I yell, “fire!”
She hesitates, and I don’t know what’s wrong. The monsters will be on top of us in seconds, she has to fire the arrows so we can run away. I go to say something, but I stop as chunks of charred earth and flash cooked monsters pelt us like hail. It’s done in a couple of seconds, and Emily sends the arrows flying.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
She didn’t want them getting knocked out of the air and detonating prematurely. Smart.
“Now run! Go go go!”
Emily puts the bow away and wraps her arms around Luna’s neck as the puppy turns abruptly. I grab onto her for dear life, but as Luna bolts, I slip. I can’t right myself in time, so instead of dragging Emily down with me, I let go of her and take the fall alone. I flail my arms as I hit the ground, trying and failing to grab onto Luna’s tail. My fingers only graze her fur, and then she’s gone, bolting down the countryside.
In the next heartbeat, the other boom rods detonate behind me. I’m much closer to the explosions this time, and the shockwaves rattle my bones as they slam into me. The world goes silent as my eardrums rupture from the pressure.
I jump to my feet and start running, but the monsters are still coming. They’ll catch up to me. There’s no getting away from them, and they’re too many for me to fight. If I don’t do something and don’t do it fast, I’ll die. Then the others will die as well trying to reach me. I can already see Pops and Jessica turning around to do just that.
I gulp and stop dead in my tracks, pulling out the sledgehammer.
“Keep your distance!” I yell. “Give me cover fire, but be ready to book it!”
The monsters are nearly upon me. I have enough mana for exactly one ground pound and two dashes, and I need to make them count. The ranged fighters start firing into the horde, thinning them out, so I ready myself. I charge a ground pound into the sledgehammer and I activate dash, then I take off.
The world turns into a blur around me, and I still can’t control the massive acceleration. I plow into the first monsters, flinging them aside as the dash ends. The remaining momentum carries me right towards the wave boss, and I take a downward swing at it with the sledgehammer as I let off on the ground pound.
A bunch of things happen in quick succession. The wave boss tries to swipe at me, but I catch it in the shoulder. The shockwave from the ground pound explodes like never before, covering a wide area around me as it eats up nearly all of my momentum. The monsters get staggered, and with the massive force behind the swing, the sledgehammer cleaves all the way through the boss’s shoulder.
I take off one of its limbs just like that. Then I bounce off of it, throwing both of us away in different directions. The stunt breaks a lot of bones and drains nearly half of my health, but luckily, the frenzy I gathered keeps the brunt of the pain at bay. My legs still work, so I get up. I look around, dizzy and disoriented, and I see the skunk scurrying away.
Before it gets out of range, I manage to use analyze on it.
Acid Skunk - Level 5 Wave Boss.
Besides that, I also get a health bar over the boss’s head. It’s down by a quarter, and the rage brought on by the frenzy screams at me to give chase.
We can end this, we can kill it.
I don’t listen. That wasn’t the plan. Even though they’re running around in confusion, there are still too many monsters in the area. I need to retreat while I still can, so I turn around and activate dash again.
“Run!” I yell at the others.
I start doing so myself, and despite the numerous wounds, I run even faster than before due to the attribute enhancements from Battle Frenzy. Dash ends in a blink, but the remaining momentum carries me right past the others. I focus all of my attention on keeping control, but I trip over the first bump in the terrain and go tumbling through the fields.
That I’m still alive by the time I stop is a small miracle.
The others catch up, and Pops stops next to me. He says something, but I can’t make out a single word.
“Can’t hear,” I croak as I climb unsteadily to my feet, my head filled to the brim with nausea.
Pops leans down to help me, and he pulls me up on the pet’s back. The others pass us one by one, none except for Jessica stopping. She pulls up next to Pops and they exchange a few words, then we take off together.
----------------------------------------
We search for Emily and Luna for about fifteen minutes, but we can’t find them anywhere. The poor puppy got scared real good. I’m far from healed, but at the very least I can hear again and the world doesn’t tumble around me anymore.
We stop at some point for the pets to take a break, and Jessica taps into Luna’s mind with her Hivemind skill to locate her. She changes again, growing a layer of short, white fur as her body morphs. She gets a little taller, leaner, and her muscles fill out ever so slightly. It looks a little bit like a werewolf transformation, just not as grotesque.
“Where are they?” I ask.
Jessica looks around for a moment before she answers. “They’re nearby. I’ll get Luna to come to us.”
“Is Emily okay?”
“She’s spooked, but she looks fine.”
I sigh in relief. They had me worried, so this is a huge weight off my chest. The others spread out in the immediate area to keep watch, leaving only me and Jessica. She takes a look at my wounds, probing and prodding the various cuts and scrapes. We didn’t bring a healer, but she has some bandages on her to help with the bleeding if need be.
I can’t help but stare at her as she works, wrapping up some of the nastier wounds.
“What?” She asks, putting on a rueful smile. “Never seen a furry chick before?”
“Did I grow feathers when you linked me with Polly?”
She chuckles and punches my hurt shoulder, which makes me let out a short yelp. “No, of course not. This only happens to me because of my race.”
I raise an eyebrow and, remembering I have the analyze skill, I use it on her.
Jessica Harper - Level 5.
Race: Human-Zoankin hybrid, Female.
Titles: None.
Class: Broodmother (master).
“Zoankin hybrid?”
She shrugs. “Some alien race, I don’t know. I needed to pick it to gain access to Broodmother. Nothing changed at first, until I tried to use Hivemind and…well, you can see the results. I think it helps with the mental strain of the connection somehow, cause I can barely feel it.”
“Interesting.”
We fall silent until she finishes bandaging me up. The others trickle back in one by one, and Pops pulls out a set of extra clothes for me to change into.
“That skunk thing is gathering them back up,” he says. “It lost a whole bunch of monsters, but it still has well over five hundred of them.”
“And it’ll gather more on the way,” I add. “Are they moving towards us?”
Pops nods, but as he goes to speak, Emily and Luna appear from a nearby patch of forest. The pup races over to us, where she promptly falls to the ground, panting. Emily drops next to her, looking shaken up.
I go to check on her, but besides a bit of blood from her ears and nose, she looks fine.
“You okay?” I ask, offering her a hand to help her to her feet.
“Sorry.”
“Not what I asked. Are you fine?”
She nods and takes my hand. I pull her up, and after she dusts herself off, she takes her place at my side.
“Alright, everyone!” I speak up. “I’d say the first part was a resounding success!”
Pops shakes his head to hide a smile, and Jessica snorts, “resounding success?”
“No one died, and I took an arm off the boss. That’s about as good as we can ask for. Now let’s move on.”