I drew a small baton from my belt, dropping into a defensive stance as the weapon extended into a full-length staff. Insects launched at me like fuzzy grenades only to be swatted aside with machine-like precision and speed. Each impact rang out like the crack of a whip followed by the skin-crawling sound of cracking carapace. None of the insects made it through my [Staff Defense]. No matter how quick they were, I’d tempered my skills against faster opponents. I had literally deflected bullets.

It didn’t matter. The giant, fiery wasps didn’t need to connect. Once they were within range of my staff, they were close enough to explode. Shockwaves constantly pushed me back, even as a thick layer of the oily ichor the insects bled began to coat my body. The ichor proved to be flammable, keeping a constant layer of flames with only a thin, depleting layer of mana between the flesh-melting heat and my own exposed skin. I considered retreating to get a better understanding of the situation, but doing so would only leave my defenses open and put the scouts back in harm's way.

Instead, I used mobility to mitigate the advantage the bugs gained through their lack of self-preservation. The centrifugal force caused by me spinning through the battlefield coupled with the stability added by my conjured limbs allowed me to keep my footing through the barrage. It also put out the majority of the flames, but I felt like an abused, dented ball being thrown around an arcade pinball machine.

I suspected I could have ended the battle before it had ever begun. I had the ability to shape the eldritch energy in the air — and there was plenty of it — into any shape I could image. I could have conjured a hail of knives or a globe of spinning blades to surround me. I chuckled as I imagined playing a game of whack-a-mole with an oversized mallet. None of these options, however, were practical if I wanted to prevent collateral damage.

No, that was only the excuse. I told myself prolonging the battle was to protect the scouts and train some neglected skills, but, in reality, I relished the violence and the first real sense of danger I’d felt in weeks.

I continued to play defense as I launched a few experimental spells against the swarm. Most were useless, as they were only capable of taking out a single insect out of hundreds, perhaps thousands. [Venom Spray] and [Lighting Arc] were both somewhat effective, but the insects were too fast and spread out for the limited area of effect to take out more than two or three of them at a time.

Only [Arcane Missile] seemed to really give them trouble. The spell had been a staple of my offense since nearly the first day the system notifications had informed me, and the rest of the world, that things like magic and “leveling up” was even possible. This constant usage meant that the spell had grown stronger, and at its ninth level it allowed me to conjure five bolts per cast — each with the ability to track an individual target. I had the mana reserves to let out dozens of barrages, with almost no time between castings. How many of the wasps could there be? It would be like using a machine gun before the invention of trench warfare. It was just so … uninteresting.

I sighed, twisting through the air as I avoided another barrage of explosions. I was beginning to feel nauseous, either from the constant spinning or from what smelled like burning hair and overdone barbecue. I was growing bored. Tired. Best to just end it.

I leaped, spinning as the momentum carried me upward. As my jump crested, I threw my staff into the middle of the field. It sat there, silently quivering, as a cloud of bugs formed around it, hungrily waiting to meet my descent. I hung motionlessly in the air, trapped in that almost timeless millisecond of complete weightlessness before the world came rushing back to meet me.

My most powerful abilities were the [Class Features] I had gained through what was basically a Faustian bargain with the Fisher. Of these, the most useful, or at the least the one with the most utility, was Eldritch Mimicry. I used it to duplicate the staff that was still quivering as it stood upright in the center of the field. This filled the field with hundreds of shadowy, partly-real copies of my staff. They were each placed an even distance from each other, and other than being made from black and red energy, were exact duplicates of the original. From above, the hexagonal shapes the staffs created looked like the pattern of a blackened honeycomb that was burning from within.

I reached forwards and mana flowed through my fingers, creating arcs of lighting that launched downward in forking streams, striking the original staff. The bolts of electricity multiplied and split, each new fork jumping to a new staff before arcing again, and again. A single cast of the spell could arc through as many as five staffs, killing everything between them. Dozens of insects fell from the sky, some exploding and others raining down as scorched corpses. It hardly slowed them, as more rose seemingly from nowhere.

I cast the spell again, this time duplicating it ten times over using [Eldritch Mimicry]. Black and red arcs of lighting joined the blue-white bolts to fill the entire field. The electricity took on the properties of water as it flowed over the rolling hills, devouring everything it touched. Finally, as my mana dwindled, I relented.

A few of the blood-red wasps clung to life, some flying above the reach of the arcing lightning, and others rolling wingless and barely clinging to life on the cracked, crystalized earth that lay below. I prepared to spend the rest of my mana to finish them off when the world seemed to stand still. Everything became clear and I was filled with the feeling that something was wrong. I knew that I should spare the insects, but it was just a feeling, raw emotion, void of reason or evidence.

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There had been a few instants in my life when time had seemed to stand still, as it did in that moment of hesitation. These moments didn’t seem to follow any particular pattern, not coming when I need them the most, or consistently appearing in moments of high emotion or danger. They are each burned into my memory, however, like glowing checkmarks on the roadmap of my life. There was the time in sixth grade, before my growth spurt, where I had stolen the ball during a game of basketball and made a basket after running under the legs of an older kid. There was my first kiss, and the first time I wrecked a car. I remember locking eyes with an old woman watching me from a bus. There were my father’s final moments, and the words he spoke to me before. There was the day I stared into a fiery eye as the world crumbled around me.

Why were these memories so strong – what linked them?

It felt similar to the connection between gods and worshipers, like those strands of belief corrupted by Liv or the simplified version I had created between Captain Smith and the inhabitants of the Yorktown. The feeling wasn’t the same, but it was similar. And powerful.

I slowly fell to the ground, allowing the jointless tentacles that had grown from my torso to retract into the shadowy flesh of my right arm. Lines of dirt and grass appeared in my footsteps, as I cracked the thin sheet of glass under my feet. I bent down to examine one of the wasps, grabbing it as it struggled to move away from me. Its wings were gone, completely disintegrated, while its body was cracked and charred. Thick, oily blood fell to fill the cracks in the reflective surface below.

I glanced behind me, waving my hand to dismiss the protective barrier surrounding the rescued scouts. I could feel them running forward. Their shouts reached my ears, but I didn’t register the words as I stared at the insect. It moved, vibrating and expanding in my arms. What remained of the rest of the injured insects, either in the air or squirming across the ground, turned into drops of red light that shot towards me like expanding meteors.

“That’s …,” I said while looking down at the bundle that was taking shape in my arms. “Unexpected.”

“We were trying to warn you,” Worthy said, as he placed his arm on my shoulder. “She’s been hunting us for the last two days. We didn’t want to hurt her. We tried …”

I pulled at the eldritch energy around me to create a blanket that I wrapped around the child in my arms, her long, red hair flowing over my arm and into the ash and blood below.

“How?”

“We don’t know,” Bridgette said.

The tall blonde came to stop beside Worthy, her hand slipping into his. He looked up at her with a quick nod before turning back to me.

“We encountered her about a day to the North. We tried to approach her, but she screamed at us and attacked without reason — shapeshifted into that swarm you saw. She said something about a sister, but I know shit all besides that.”

“Shapeshifting,” I asked. “A skill?”

“Fuck if I know,” Worthy ignored the cold stare from Bridgette as he continued his explanation. “What other option is there, though? Has to be system related. Never saw any shit like that before everything else went to piss.”

“All right,” I said. “Did you get what I asked for?”

“What … yeah man. It’s over there,” he pointed over his shoulder toward the remains of the Jeep. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a cold motherfucker?”

“Daily,” I smiled. “I do have a reputation to uphold, after all.”

“Look here, ladies,” Bridgette said. “You’re both pretty, but how about we finish this little tiff later? That jeep is done and it’s at least a day’s hike back to the Yorktown.” She turned to look at me, before continuing. “Anything you can do about that?”

“I can carry the girl,” I said. “Once I get her safe, I can escort you the rest of the way. Not much I can do about the Jeep. You’ll have to hoof it the old-fashioned way.”

“Fuck off,” Worthy said. “You’re faster than any jeep on these shit trails, you saying you can’t carry a few of us at a time?”

“Do I look like a fucking horse to you, Worthy? You wanna fit me with a feedbag while you’re measuring that saddle?”

“Just calm down, both of you.” Bridgette tucked her sweat-stained hair behind her ears as she shook her head at us. “Finn’s right. Getting the girl safe and … contained, should be our first priority.”

“Look,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do. Gather up the supplies and see how much of the Jeep is salvageable. When I get back, I think I can tow you the rest of the way. It’ll be slow going, but faster than walking.”

Worthy just grunted, but Bridgette thanked me before turning to walk back towards the rest of her group. I sighed, trying to suppress the anger I felt at Worthy. Something about him had always rubbed me the wrong way, but even I had to admit he was right to be annoyed in this situation.

I looked down at the girl in my arms. Where had she come from? How did a child survive in the wilds alone? It wasn’t the time for questions, I reminded myself as I walked towards the twisted heap that remained of the jeep. I set it upright, doing what I could to twist the frame back into shape. Worthy was going to have his hands full just getting it stable enough to pull behind me.

I poked through the bags and boxes that were still intact. Most were full of canned food. There were also clothes, blankets and some ammo. Truth is, we had more bullets than we could use in years, but the leadership thought it important to have a steady stream of new ammo to replace what we used during the nightly raids.

“There we go!” I exclaimed as I found what I was looking for.

Inside the backpack was an assortment of goods and toiletries, but it was the three yellow plastic bottles with red lettering and twistable caps that caught my eye. My toes flexed instinctively as I fought the urge to rip my boots of immediately and apply the powder.

My willpower won out, if barely, and I began my run back towards the Yorktown, child over one shoulder and a bag full of Gold Bond over the other. At least, in that one small way, the mission had been a success. I’d take what I could get.