Level 6 endurance was making itself felt today. It was a subtle thing that I hadn’t thought about until after I’d spent a good minute going at a dead sprint. At a glance, nothing felt entirely out of place; my limbs operated just fine, the weight of my weapon remained the same, and yet it was as if I’d barely warmed up. It wasn’t that my movements were more efficient, but that the cost of exerting myself had been lowered.
Definitely appreciated.
Which came in handy against the new flavor of G-class to show up today: peckers, which was rather odd, all things considered.
The monster was, basically, a pair of gray meter-long feathered wings with a tiny ball-like body in the middle. They were both more dangerous and more harmless than other G's, but it was mostly due to how their method of attack was through electric discharge. Their wings would gather up charge and, upon impact, unleash it. If it hit a leg or an arm, the worst you’d get would be pain and numbness, but getting hit in the head or chest would be… maybe not instantly lethal, but definitely bad.
I’d thought fighting them would be a nice change of pace, but by the third splattered pecker, I was starting to hold a particular level of loathing against them. Every time I smacked one, I’d get a jolt that left my arm achingly numb. After killing four in a row, my whole body tingled as if it had fallen asleep and was waking up again. Then I had three more.
“How are…” I paused my words. “Goddess Bunga, how are these flying monsters here?” I asked, speaking gruffly into the mic so as to 'stick to character' for the stream.
Typically, flying monsters had very short but aggressive lifespans. They showed up, made a beeline for the nearest human they spotted, and would get shot down. But these ones had just been sitting around the Well, doing… nothing? How had they gotten here? I could’ve imagined Crawlers just going through drains without encountering humans, but peckers? They would’ve flown over the streets; they should’ve encountered something by now.
“They tend to show up after a lockdown, not sure why. We had a partial one yesterday,” Vesper explained. “Doesn’t seem there are any more left.”
“Annoying things,” I growled, fully aware that they’d be seen as potentially lethal to a human if they got hit in the wrong place. Thankfully, they’d shown up only after we had dealt with the F’s and not in the middle of the fight.
Now that they were done with, I was rather enthusiastic about the other thing I’d picked up. The scent of three stronger monsters… “What else is on the menu?” I asked the drone.
“Our perimeter ping spotted three E’s coming this way.”
I suddenly got flashbacks of my brief foray into the badlands. The Bulstra was on my hip, but even if it was rated for E-class, it was in the sense that it could kill an E-class, not that it would. Not that it mattered, I was itching for a proper fight.
AP 55 / 150
The system agreed with me, happily pointing out I had much more room for AP. "What type?" I asked.
"You can't be serious," Quinn called out.
"I just want to make an informed choice, even if that choice might be to retreat." Not that I wanted to. With the scent growing closer, my hands were itching. "I already had an E double-team not that long ago."
Rather than correct me and remind me to stick to character, Isia barked out a laugh. "Oh God." She quickly devolved into a fit of giggles.
"Three spinners, not picking up any other company," Vesper spoke up.
I bit my lip.
As far as E-class monsters went, the apparition was near the top of the range, dangerous enough that I definitely could not handle it in my base form without ordinance. They were the sort of E-class that could wipe out a whole platoon if anything went wrong. Meanwhile, on the lower end of the Es, were monsters like the hellcat that were dangerous, but very straightforward to handle since they could be safely engaged at range. Spinners were somewhere in between those two, though leaning closer to the hellcat. Easy to handle, but only so long as they weren’t allowed to set up a trap.
It would be a very risky fight with two of them, but three? Me and my improvised melee wasn't going to be enough.
Reaching up to my earpiece, I tapped it twice to signal I wished for a moment of privacy from the stream. "God Unga and Goddess Bunga demand a moment of rest. Do not worry, for the slaughter shall continue after these messages from our sponsor FRUIT: Shadow Flavors, an epic collection of unique taste-texture combinations right in your mouth."
I suppressed the heavy sigh until I got the beep-confirmation sound.
"You're clear, what's up?" Vesper called out.
"I’d like to take the trio on, but with a bit more gear than just my Bulstra and some crowbars," I declared. "Not sure how viable that would be, though, especially if the stream hasn’t gathered enough viewers."
Isia shrieked. "I’VE GOT AN-" She was cut off even as I flinched from the intense volume. "Ahem, right, sorry. I have an idea."
"Does it involve changing Axel’s costume? Because we didn’t bring materials for that."
There was a long pause. "Fuck," Isia muttered, petulantly. "But we can adapt. I think we should let him cook."
She instantly earned several points; I nodded enthusiastically but waited for the others to chip in.
"You’re insane," Quinn replied without missing a beat. "Let’s assume we agree to this, the margins—"
Isia cut him off. "Oh come on! We both know the stream’s—"
Only to then be hurriedly cut in by Vesper. "There wouldn’t be a problem if he went over budget on a trial run," she said. "Seeing the upper limit of what he can do when actually using weaponry would be good for us. Better just assume we're going at this as a team, but... well, let's try and keep the help from being part of the stream."
"Fine," Quinn let out a long and suffering sigh, finally turning towards me. “What are you looking for?”
I grinned, discreetly pumping my fist in victory. “Just an incendiary grenade and something a bit more protective than my bare chest.”
The others shared looks amongst one another. The silence a telltale of the silent communications being exchanged. "That’s… it?"
"I don't want to call you out on this, Axel, but I don't want this to be a snuff film," Vesper stepped forward, looking at me seriously. "Walk us through this plan of yours. If it isn't workable, I'll have to insist you properly gear up for a serious fight."
Maybe my sense of danger had been skewed. Thinking about a few Es kind of made me giddy; just one of them would be a challenge to be sure, especially in my human form. But at the same time, there was this little thrill at the thought of pushing myself to kill these monsters—a feeling the system was all too happy to agree with. Shame the system also thought that firearms and weaponry were a form of "cheating," because if I could ever get my hands on the sort of high-end weaponry that would fit into monster-me's hands... that would be awesome!
That was a thought for future Axel, though.
"Well…"
----------------------------------------
“Sorry for the longer-than-expected pause, the God Unga and Goddess Bunga have blessed me with great gifts for the upcoming fight!” I proclaimed with my forced gruff voice, trotting through the ruined, roofless factory, careful not to step on broken glass or shards of metal.
I was thankful that I was wearing a mask that hid my face, and that the gang was using something to tweak my voice. I don’t think I would’ve been able to hold out and follow along with the exuberant “acting” required for this. It also helped to mitigate the fact that I didn’t have an acting bone in my body.
“These gifts are for a special mission.” I made sure to look at the camera drone, patting my fireproof clothes: a simple full-body weather-gear, sans helmet. For the helmet, I was still wearing the plastic skull.
Tucked on my hip were two incendiary grenades, my Bulstra, and a crowbar. Also, I was wearing the loincloth on top of the overalls… because I had to “stick to character.” But truth be told, I was feeling a mix of excitement and trepidation now that I was looking to fight the E’s.
“Thread to your left after the next corner,” Isia warned through my earpiece.
I slowed down to more carefully watch my step. The spinner monster was more indirect in its approach to their prey, and me getting changed and geared had meant the trio of monsters had a chance to set up as well.
“Now we must be cautious,” I said to the camera, slowing down and lowering myself slightly. “Spinners create ambushes and traps.” As I moved closer to the corner, the drone began to move back and away, giving me distance.
Carefully, I leaned to peek into the corridor to my left, and just as Isia had warned me, there were four hairline threads leading from one wall to the other. They were nearly invisible to my gaze, but they reflected infrared, meaning they’d practically glow for a drone’s sensors.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to pick out any signs of the monster. The monster’s scent was all over the place, fresh and heavy. It was a warning of its presence in the area, but otherwise useless; I couldn’t detect anything else through my other senses, either. The debris-filled corridor stretched onwards and deeper into the abandoned factory, while…
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Wait. Debris?
I frowned, staring at the torn concrete and rebar littering every inch of the corridor, then up at the ceiling. Everywhere else there were signs of wear and tear, dust, dirt, and graffiti scribbles mixed in with scratch marks and water damage. Yet the ceiling was in mint condition, slightly cracked, but otherwise untouched. The sort of detail I would've missed had I not been paying attention. “There you are,” I whispered with a grin. Holding the crowbar with my left hand, unholstering my Bulstra with the other, I prepared myself.
Reaching towards the thread with the crowbar, I poked it and backpedaled. The corridor’s ceiling above instantly exploded downwards, a mass of chitinous hairy legs thrusting in between the fake debris, lunging towards a spot I’d already vacated. The spinner looked like a hairball that had had the hair replaced by thorny chitinous vines, one with dozens of beady red eyes and twice as many legs, each limb as thick as my arm.
BANG
The Bulstra’s deafening retort was followed by the monster shrieking as a chunk of its misshapen skull exploded into bits of green, sizzling gore. It recoiled away, limbs flailing as I took the initiative, lunging forward and swinging the crowbar to finish the job. The monster sacrificed four of its limbs to slow my blow, legs shattering and oozing green goop.
“Shit.”
With a sharp thrumming sound, its body puffed out like a balloon, and I had to backpedal before I got caught up in its spines. In that split second of breathing room, the monster’s beady eyes locked onto me, and it shrieked again. It was like nails on chalk, a bone-shaking shudder that left me cringing as I bolted the way I came.
“The other two are changing locations, flanking in either direction and closing in,” Quinn warned me through the earpiece.
I was too busy bolting to the end of the corridor to prevent the murderous bleeding thorn-bush from reaching me. The instant I turned the corner, I halted to a stop and took a full swing, using the shriek to guide the relative height of my attack.
This time it didn’t get the chance to block.
CRACK
SPLAT
I winced as the inertia carried through, thorns slashing at my face even as the monster collapsed. Its body immediately began to sizzle and boil, filling the corridor with rotten steam as it evaporated.
E-class monster “Spinner” defeated!
+5 AP Pick your Reward!
+10 AP / ‘Prickly’ / A: ‘Webbing’
"A"? "Active"? If that was-
"Twenty seconds!" Vesper screamed into my ear, snapping me out of my thoughts and back into the fight.
I could hear the shifting rubble from my left and something approaching fast. "Long corridor nearby, take a right, then a left. They're both hot on your tail," Quinn instructed, his voice cracking and strained.
Following their guidance, I kept running, even as I heard the monsters getting closer. They weren’t quite as restricted by the partially collapsed structure as I was, so funneling them into a long roofed corridor would be the easiest way to finish them off. First, a right, boots slipping through sand and dust, then a left, and-
"This is a dead end!" I called out, a wall just a dozen meters in. Ambush points didn't work well without an exit plan! There wasn’t time for alternatives; I could already hear the two monsters rounding the corner. Even if it was a dead-end, it was better than having to engage one of these things up close. I bolted towards the wall to get some distance and a cleaner shot.
"No, I cleared it, it's-"
There was the faintest feeling of something touching my ankle, and right as I registered this, the wall to my left burst open. The hairy limbs thrusting at me proved that we'd all made a mistake.
There had been a fourth spinner.
A mass of thorns and limbs sought to skewer me, and my Bulstra barked out as I shot twice. The revolver kicked like a mule, the first shot clipping into the monster’s open maw, the second tearing off against the top of its skull. Right as my gun hand pulled out, I swung down with my crowbar, but my blows had not managed to stun it hard enough; its limbs rushed to block. Each hairy chitin-covered limb cracked under the impact of metal, splattering monster ooze, but not breaking all the way through. I pushed harder down, while the monster attempted to counterattack, finding itself too injured to do so. We were both left frozen in place, eight bleeding limbs pushing up as I gritted my teeth and shoved down, hammering at its face with the butt of the Bulstra every other second.
If the monster faltered, I'd cave its skull in. If my grip faltered, its thorns would turn me to shreds.
"DIE!" Changing tactics, I loosened the crowbar just so I could properly kick its skull from underneath, my boot hammering up against the shattered jaw. It lacked the power to break anything, but it stunned it for just long enough for me to get past its faltering strength and bring the crowbar down at an angle. I shoved the piece of metal straight into its skull, piercing through the chitin and through its brain.
There was no time to celebrate; my back exploded in pain as I was flung forward and beyond the sizzling corpse. I didn’t hit the floor but landed on webbing. It cushioned my fall, but at the cost of snagging my limbs and clothes. I struggled against a hundred threads, snapping at them as the other spinner moved in. "Well fudge you too!" I shouted, tearing my clothes to break free, reaching for the incendiary grenade... except it was not there.
The bright orange explosive can was now lying on the ground halfway between me and the two monsters.
I froze as the two monsters regarded me.
I could transform, I'd finish them easily; they lacked direct-combat capabilities, relying on ambush. But... no, I just needed to get to the grenade first. I tensed my body, preparing myself to-
"Axel, hit the floor!" Vesper commanded through the headset.
There was a distinctive metallic click of boots. I didn’t hesitate, lunging away from the grenade, twisting to face the end of the corridor. I barely caught sight of a weather-equipped figure taking aim with a rifle before they fired.
BANG
The shot was followed by an explosion of heat and fire behind me, and though the monsters roared, the rifle barked out five more shots, then five more. The figure stood firm, holding her firearm at the ready, finger on the trigger. It wasn't until the roaring had stopped and visibility cleared enough that she lifted the muzzle. "Whew." Vesper sighed, looking down at me with a concerned expression. "You ok?"
"I… yeah." Scrambling to my feet, I looked back at the burning dead monsters, the prompt confirming their deaths.
3x E-class monster “Spinner” defeated! (2x should not be here. Cheater)
+15 AP Pick your Reward!
+30 AP / x3 ‘Prickly’ / 3x A: ‘Webbing’
“I could’ve handled it,” I snapped at the system, confused over why it would've counted the kill as mine even when it had complained about it. Maybe the qualifications for it to “count” weren’t very stringent? Probably something else was going on under the hood.
“You don’t need to take needless risks to prove a point,” Vesper replied flatly, and I flinched in realization that I’d said that out loud. “We cover each other’s backs.”
“I…” Looking back at the burning corridor, I then looked at Vesper. Though she was fully clad in weather gear, her breath was short, shoulders heaving. How far away were we from the meet-up point? Had she run all the way? “Thanks for helping, and... sorry.”
“For what? Not knowing there was a fourth fucking monster? That’s Quinn’s fault.”
“Agreed! What the fuck, Quinn!” Isia piped through the headset.
The fourth member remained quiet for a moment. “I’d checked,” their voice was surly and full of guilt before they went silent again.
“Sorry for snapping,” I said a bit more calmly. “You’re right, thanks for the help.”
Taking a deep breath, I mentally glanced over the system notifications. I briefly considered taking the ‘prickly’ trait just to push the advancement of the trait into F class. On the other hand, the “A” in the ‘webbing’ option had caught my eye, so I picked that instead.
Active ‘Webbing’ Grade: [G] [8 / 10]
Cost: [10 AP]
Effects: Create… webbing?
“You ok?” Vesper asked. “You got hit pretty hard, your back alright?”
“No, yeah, just… catching my breath,” I muttered, trying to query the system as to why it seemed so confused about the skill it had given me. I got this odd sense that it was usable, which seemed to surprise the system. But it was also apparently trying to tell me there was more to the skill than merely the creation of the webbing. Though it, like me, appeared entirely confused as to the details, even sending me a mild little rattle of curiosity through the pop-up. “I… need to pick up my gun, do you mind if… I got a moment? I sort of need to put my thoughts in order.”
“I’ll wait outside. Though the flames won’t go out any time soon, that thing’s going to last an hour or so,” she nodded along, marching off towards the non-burning end of the corridor. “Shout if you need anything!”
Thanking her, I just took my time, waiting for her to leave, breathing in, and turned my focus to the system. A quick check of my surroundings confirmed I was properly alone, so I glanced at the system's growing persistent curiosity, and asked it to trigger the 'webbing' thing. Whatever it was, it surely couldn't—
AP 75 -> 65
There was an immediate bloating feeling deep inside my gut, followed by a churning and twisting of my insides as something uncomfortably solid climbed up my throat. I covered my mouth as quickly as I could, but the pressure mounted too fast, too soon, and within barely a second, I had hurled out a singular large mass of white sticky silk. I bent over, hacking, trying to catch my breath, eyes wide as I stared at the mass of white goopy silk roughly the size of my head. It was hard to believe that had come out of my mouth barely a second ago. A jolt of paranoia made me look around again, just to make sure no drones were watching.
“What the fuck. What the fuck!?” I whispered harshly under my breath.
“Everything ok?” Vesper called out from further down the corridor.
“Yeah!” I rushed to answer, picking up the sticky mass and throwing it into the flames.
For a fraction of a second, right as the webbing flew through the air and into the flames, a sudden but weird feeling coursed through me, of alertness, of intrusion. Of something happening to the webbing, as if a voice in the back of my mind were warning me that a part of me had been altered, somehow.
Then, it was gone.
But the system was satisfied, happily updating itself, showing me a new prompt.
Active ‘Webbing’ Grade: [G] [8 / 10]
Cost: [10 AP] [½]
Effects: Create x1 Gob of Webbing.
You will be alerted if the webbing is broken, destroyed, or disrupted.
My eyes widened, and my mind spun with questions. Was the “one half” meant to mean I could use it only twice? Was there some other requirement? Or—
“Hey Axel!” My earpiece chirped with Isia’s voice.
I shrieked, jumping into the air and slamming against the ceiling before collapsing right back down on the floor. This was the second time, dammit. “What is it?” I groaned out as I scrambled back to my feet, rubbing the back of my head.
Isia was considerate enough to tone down the cackling. “After the doc checks those wounds, we’ll go party! Time to officially join the Sewer Saints!”
“Oh.” I considered the proposal for a moment, looking back at the burning corridor, then at the others. “I guess that would be nice.” Nodding at myself, I felt a little happy to repeat the words internally. Vesper and the others seemed like an alright group; officially joining them felt like the proper next step after today.
Still, my mind wandered toward the webbing skill.
Maybe it could prove useful against the Shadow... something to consider later.