This wasn't my first monster fight. I have often exercised my right to bear arms, and to carry guns. In the early days, I was at a disadvantage using only blunt weapons—that disadvantage being that I'd end up completely gore-covered. I'd used an ax for a bit, and it was cleaner in some ways and worse in other ways. The gore didn't always end up on me, but it always ended up somewhere. The same was true with guns, except that the 'somewhere' was almost never on me, and even more importantly, the danger to me was significantly reduced. Then again, it was no surprise to me that guns made killing easier. That was their primary function.
With a flick of a finger, I disengaged the safety, raised the shotgun to my shoulder, and pointed it at the shifting creature, "Well, if you really want to play, I'm happy to oblige. Personally, I'd much rather have a conversation. Your cal-"
The mouse-man-turned-Hyde grinned wider just before leaping toward me. I pulled the trigger, and the mouse-man took a shotgun blast to the chest.
"Shit," I swore, though my words were lost to the echo of the blast and the ringing in my ears. I spun around to check out the front entrance of the lobby. The concrete building would muffle some of the sound, but I doubted these glass windows would dampen much, so the concrete walls might end up funneling the sound right out the main doors.
As much as I hated the idea of everyone carrying a gun, I couldn't deny that they were effective tools against some individual monsters. Oddly enough, it was my pacifism that led me to use the shotgun more often than not, even in situations like these—especially in situations like these, really.
Of course, the disadvantages couldn't be ignored, the main one being the noise drawing the attention of other monsters. We were only steps inside the front lobby of the hotel; the noise would undoubtedly carry out past the courtyard, and whether or not there were monsters close enough to matter was always the risk. It was also the main reason I hadn't used one with the bar crew. For their sakes, I'd kept it quiet in the hopes we'd avoid attention, not that it had worked.
In most situations, the shotgun let me end a fight with few lasting effects across the time loops—not none, but it was better than being beaten to death with a bat or hacked to death with an axe. It was still violent, but that seemed unavoidable without more sacrifice than I was willing to accept.
My eyes scanned for movement as I reloaded, but when it came, it came from behind me. With my ears still ringing, a reflection in the glass was my only warning.
I spun around to see handfuls of monsters streaming into the room from the three wings.
"I'm just here to talk," I said again, without taking my aim from them. Between that and the dead mouse-man at my feet, that could be a hard sell. Still, I at least avoided looking like an easy target.
For one reason or another, they did slow their advance as the separate handfuls of people joined together into a unified front. There were more than a dozen in all, and among them, I saw the pointed-toothed smile of the Hyde, their form flickering from one body to another in the span of a heartbeat. "You want to talk, but I want to play; and look, I've brought some friends." The creature said, and for an instant, every face in front of me split into identical sharp smiles of tiny pointed teeth.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
"Fuck 'em, boys," the Hyde said. Presumably, it was a figure of speech since his mob wasn't all male let alone human. Then again, as a hive mind, he shouldn't even need to speak, so it could be a misdirect or distraction. Either way, the group immediately charged in to attack, and the semantics stopped mattering.
If any of them had had guns, I would have died almost immediately. Instead, like the bar crew, they carried a hodgepodge mix of found weapons like crowbars and fireman's axes, as well as make-shift clubs like stool legs and broom handles. Two held pillowcases filled with something, probably rocks. Others were empty-handed, apparently choosing instead to rely on their claws or teeth. It was these last that clued me into something I hadn't registered yet. The Hyde's monsters weren't a single type like Crowseph's swarm. Some were hybrids like the mouse-man and Nia. Others were more animalistic, like Hands and Crowseph. One big guy was a dead ringer for Smokey Bear if Smokey was a black bear who'd lost his hat and had too-human-looking eyes. Its green eyes and long black lashes would have fit better on a stereotypical redhead, even if they did glare with abject rage.
As the inbound monsters merged and charged toward me as one, I even saw monsters that reminded me of the Gremlins; two of them at the back grew into giant forms and hunkered down to guard the passageways further into the hotel. Hopefully, that meant that they wouldn't be getting any more reinforcements.
The next moments were a blood bath. I only had so many shells, which I supposed was the other drawback of the weapon. Fortunately, I'd come in expecting a fight, and I'd long since started stocking up ammo in my shadow. Of course, anything I used now would have to be restocked manually in the next loop, but I wouldn't go down easily if I went down at all.
The Hyde flickered away from my first blast, replaced by some reptilian humanoid that was torn apart by my near-point-blank shot. Elsewhere in the group, the Hyde emerged from a gremlin-like form. Rather than be distracted by it, I instead aimed at the next nearest threat and fired again. I backed up as I used my second shot, and it gave me a chance to do a quick reload.
It was long moments of shotgun blasts and cries of rage and pain from my attackers. They charged as a group, but every time I took out the lead attacker, they lost a step while their hierarchy was reestablished. Or maybe they were just torn between their attacks and the unsettling carnage I was administering to them one shell at a time. It was a futile attempt, and if I was really holding onto my pacifist ideals as much as I wanted to pretend, I should be quicker to retreat and less defensive of my own immortal life. Instead, my frustration at this default response made me want to punish them, to take as many with me as I could. My back hit the glass as I loaded new shells, and by reflex, I glanced over my shoulder.
Sure enough, some behemoth was charging down the street right towards us. It was comparable in size to the Gremlins in their giant form, if another shape entirely. A familiar shape, if one I couldn't quite place, it had teeth and claws and splotchy fur, as though it had mange, and the white and black coloring common on a lot of monsters. I was too distracted by the people running in front of it to focus too much on its appearance.
Luke, Alice, and my other allies were in a dead-on sprint from the behemoth. A second glance confirmed that it was a smaller form of the Kaiju, and it was right on their heels.
I turned back to my immediate threat and was surprised to see them retreating. They weren't just falling back; they were vanishing like roaches before a light.
Behind me, the behemoth roared, and indecision overtook me. If that behemoth was the Kaiju, it wouldn't go down easy. But if it did go down and if we collected its memory crystal, we might be able to keep it from coming back. Without that threat, we could focus on evacuating the town one bit at a time.
Swearing again, I stepped back out of the hotel lobby and began to circle around my fleeing allies.