Damn. Logan didn’t like this.

Trepidation sloshing through his stomach, Logan came to a skidding stop and stared at the entrance to the subway.

Every weekend, for years, Logan would head over to Lara’s with a six pack of beer, and they’d kick back and watch zombie movies. It had turned into a tradition.

Some of the movies were garbage, low production, laughable. And yet in all of them, there was a consistent theme. Eventually, the characters would get into trouble, they’d go somewhere they should have avoided. Somewhere that made sense for a horror movie but was ridiculous in reality.

The power was out.

The subway was underground.

Shoot was leading him towards an underground tunnel that could be full of hell knows what. So far, the zombies had stuck to the lake, but how could he trust that they hadn’t spread? For all he knew, he was about to enter a zombie swarm.

And yet, if Shoot were following the rats and they were in the subway, that also meant that Lara and the kids could be down there.

In the dark.

All alone.

“Fuck,” Logan whispered.

Licking his lips, he scanned the street, trying to see signs of the rats, signs of anything. But other than the fires and the explosions off in the distance, he might as well have entered an actual apocalypse.

Talk about movies. When he thought of the end of the world, this is what he would have expected. His heart racing, Logan paced, clenching his fists, his talons creaking.

There was nothing for it.

He’d come all this way to find Lara and the kids, and that was what he was going to do. Hell, if he needed to activate [Portal Generation] and teleport into the depths of hell to find them, he would. The possibility of not doing that didn’t bear thinking about. He’d been through torture and came through a better man for a reason. He refused to believe that the System had given him a Save Humanity Quest that would allow him to save billions of people, and yet he wouldn’t be able to save the people he cared about.

Cracking his neck, Logan considered a way forward.

He didn’t know what he was going into, but at least he had tools at his disposal that might give him an advantage.

First, [Mimicry Armour] would let him turn invisible if he activated the mirroring effect. The pouch on his back was an extension of that skill, which meant that he could also make it invisible. Not to mention that Ernie had an intrinsic ability to mirror his surroundings. Even though the skill had gotten harder for him since he’d turned into a Liche, he could do it with a bit of effort.

So, Logan could turn invisible and creep into the subway, blend into his surroundings and pass by unnoticed. As far as the perception issue of going into a pitch-black tunnel, he had [Life Fabricator] that let him sense the world around him. Even if he couldn’t see with his eyes, he could scan everything for life. Not to mention that he’d been in a dark tunnel before and managed to make it out on the other side.

Back in the tactician trial, he’d sculpted a tunnel that went miles into the earth. A pitch-black tunnel. But he’d solved that problem with a torch. Inside of his spatial collar, he still had towels and a barbeque lighter. That wouldn’t help with subterfuge, but even having the option made him feel less claustrophobic.

However, there was a problem.

Although Logan and Ernie could make themselves invisible, Shoot couldn’t. Either she’d follow them into the tunnel and give them away, or he’d have to part ways with her here.

Logan cleared his throat. “Shoot,” he said, swallowing and pointing to the subway. “Are the rats down there?”

Shoot flicked her tail, a white flower shedding petals onto the dirty asphalt, her green eyes alight with satisfaction. “The tether inside of my head is leading me here, mother!” She reminded Logan of a dog that had done a good deed, looking at its owner and waiting for praise. An uncomfortable sensation that Logan suspected was guilt sloshed into his stomach as he stared at her.

She jumped up in excitement as if she couldn’t help herself, her thorn claws clacking against the ground. “I know this is it! I know!”

Logan held back a smile. For someone who’d barely been alive for an hour, she sure had grown on him. Somehow, he’d lost his distrust when confronted with her pure joy, her eagerness to please. And yet… she was only level five. If he told her to leave, how long would Shoot last? He’d yet to see her kill anything, and other people might think she was an easy XP gain. Despite his protests that he didn’t want to be called a mother, Shoot had ingratiated herself on him because of it.

Logan already had enough on his conscience—Asthea, the mistakes he’d made with the rats—to be willing to abandon Shoot to her fate. Just thinking about it made him sick to his stomach. And yet, what was the solution? She had no way to disguise herself like Logan and Ernie. She didn’t have armour! There was no…

Huh.

Logan glanced from his armour covered arm to Shoot, from Shoot to his armour covered arm. His armour wasn’t stationary; he could sculpt it into whatever he wanted. After all, he’d already extended it into the Ernie pouch on his back.

Logan had a ton of sand inside of his spatial collar. [Mimicry Armour] cost Karma to activate, but by now, he had such a large Karma pool and a rapid regeneration rate that he no longer had to worry about depleting it. That meant that he had material and Karma to spare.

He’d never tried this before, but hadn’t he said before that he only had to will it, to have it? It was more wizard-shit; in this new world, anything was possible. And even now, [Mimicry Armour] was still only level 2.

What if he extended his armour to other animals?

“Shoot,” he said. “Ernie and I need to go into the subway, but it could be dangerous. You’ve helped me a lot already, and if you want to go and find your own way, you’re more than welcome.”

Shoot flicked one of her green ears, purple flowers rustling inside of her ear canal. Then raising one of her paws uncertainly, her green eyes grew twice as large. It was like looking into a pool of sparkling green water. “Mother…? You don’t want me anymore?”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Ernie made a sound of distress and twitched one of his tentacles.

“I didn’t say that. Only that I’m not going to force you to stay with us.”

“She’s just a baby, Logan!” said Ernie with his mental voice. “You’re hurting her feelings.”

Logan sighed. He didn’t know how he’d managed to go from running away from Shoot to feeling guilty.

“If you want to come with us, you can, but… well, you can’t go down there like that. Do you have any way to disguise yourself? A skill?”

Shoot looked down at her green shoots in confusion. “I can take any form I wish! Is that what you mean?” Wagging her tail, a vine suddenly shot out of her body, and the rest of her form collapsed before reforming into the Ernie-tentacles he’d seen before. Her green eyes remained as her body morphed into something new.

Shoot paid particular attention to his expression. As Logan twisted his mouth in distaste, Shoot shot out a tentacle in alarm. Just like that, she morphed again, reforming into the same cat body as before.

He had to wonder if she’d kept that form due to Logan’s reaction. A tentacle monster just made him think of a monster, but he could relate to a cat. Logan had never had strong feelings about cats until his ex-girlfriend. After that relationship, he’d avoided them like the plague. But even now, he couldn’t help feeling a frisson of heartache when he thought of Buttercup, Eleanor’s cat. He’d been wearing swim trunks with the damn cat’s face for a week.

But still, even if Shoot took the form of a tentacle monster, it wouldn’t help her disguise herself. If she accompanied Ernie and Logan into the dark, she would draw too much attention, defeating the purpose of having invisible armour in the first place.

Oh well, there was no use stalling. Logan already knew what he was going to do.

Taking out a bucket of sand, Logan clenched his fist. Deploying [Mimicry Armour], he raised a handful of the material into the air, forcing it to hover and swarm over to Shoot.

Her green eyes widened, and she shivered, but it was a shiver of excitement rather than trepidation. Panting, her green vine dropping out of her mouth, a green shoot twitching as she watched the sand, Logan clenched his teeth as he willed the material to obey.

Forming the armour around his own body was as easy as breathing, but what he was doing felt unnatural. The sand kept wanting to come back to him and to latch onto his existing exoskeleton material rather than forming around Shoot.

Furrowing his brown, Logan forced it to submit to his will. Sand grain after sand grain, he latched them onto Shoot. With another moue of concentration, Logan forced the sand into a patchwork quilt, merging it into the flexible sandstone material that was around his own body. Plate after plate, he sculpted it to Shoot, from her back to her side, to her belly.

And finally, Logan did the delicate work of forming the armour around her legs, from her forelegs to her paws.

Shoot yipped in excitement as Logan formed the material underneath her paws, jumping half an inch in height. A bead of sweat trailing down his forehead, Logan completed the cat-suit, forcing it to mold around Shoot’s tail, covering her green shoots and the white flowers at the end.

Lastly, with one more clench of his fist, Logan commanded the sand to spread to her head, covering her ears and her face.

Ding!

[Mimicry Armour is level 3!]

But he wasn’t done.

Gasping, Logan did one more thing. Thinking of his own armour, Logan forced the sandstone to fluctuate and take on the mirroring effect, blending Shoot into her surroundings.

Logan blinked.

“Aww,” crooned Ernie, preening. “Such a good mother! You gave your daughter a fancy cat suit!” Ernie paused and then cackled. “Like that cat woman character in one of the tomes in the underwater—”

Logan turned his head and shot him a glare. “Don’t go there.”

Logan didn’t know how an octopus could grin, but somehow, Ernie managed it.

Turning back to Shoot, Logan crouched and gave her a careful look. “How does it feel, Shoot?”

To Logan, it was odd looking at his armour from the other side. Although he could see her body shimmering if he concentrated, it would be easy for his gaze to glaze over. As long as the armour wasn’t covered in blood and guts, it effectively made you invisible.

Logan looked down at his own exoskeleton. Come to think of it, he needed TLC. “Off my shoulder for a minute, Ernie.”

Ernie obeyed and jumped down, sliming towards Shoot, one of his tentacles twitching in excitement.

With a blink, Logan collapsed his armour, letting the blood-soaked sandstone drop to the ground before reforming his suit with a fresh scoop of material. By now, in less than a minute, he could collapse and reform the whole thing, even his talons and the pouch.

When his armour was fully deployed, Logan made sure to activate the mimicry effect, turning himself invisible.

Ernie gave Logan a considering look, his mouth in a thin line of concentration. The horns on top of his head jumped up and down, turning red. With a grunt of effort, he activated his own mimicry effect.

“In the pouch, Ernie.”

Logan waited until he’d returned to his shoulder and crawled inside before approaching Shoot. In the back of his mind, he could sense the link from his own suit to this one. So far, his Karma had kept up with the strain:

2,700/2,808

2,740/2,808

2,760/2,808

Logan whistled. Without Shoot, he never would have thought of this possibility. But if he could spread his armour to an animal, could he spread it to other people? Logan felt a trickling of satisfaction. That meant that if he found Lara and the kids, he should be able to give them a degree of protection.

“What do you think, Shoot? Do you like it?”

Even though it was difficult to see her clearly, if Logan concentrated, he could make out her tail, jerking side-to-side like a cat on catnip. “I like it,” she whispered, quivering.

“Good,” he said, looking back at the subway entrance. Logan debated taking out his sword, but there was no way to disguise the weapon. Even worse, the blade glinted with an aura that was off the charts. In the dark, he suspected that it would glow like a glowstick.

Instead, Logan took out another handful of diamond dust and then lengthened his talons. They were part of his armour, and if necessary, he could also give them the same mirror effect.

“You’ll be hard to see down there. Almost invisible. We need to be stealthy when we enter, which means that you’ll have to be quiet, understand? Stick with me, but try not to kick anything, nothing that would make noise.”

“Yes mother!” chirped Shoot.

“It’s Logan,” he grumbled, but at this point, did it really matter? Lara would tease him to death if she got wind of this, but wishes were horses. For now, he’d settled for just finding her.

Logan looked at the sky, hesitating, and then took out his phone from his spatial collar. Just as he suspected, it was getting close to dusk. With his heart in his throat, he toggled to his text messages and checked for anything new. But his phone had zero bars.

Nothing.

It didn’t matter. There was only one way, and that was forward. The fire was getting closer, a heat radiating down the street that made his clothes damp with sweat. He could smell burning plastic and electrical wires; a stench that went deep into your throat. If this continued and Lara and the kids were down below, who’s to say that a firestorm of air wouldn’t travel underground?

He needed to find them. He needed to rescue them.

He needed them to be alive.

“Let’s go,” he said, holding his talons out like weapons as he streamed towards the subway stairs.

***

Darkness.

To go from an inferno and explosions to pitch black nothingness was jarring. A jittery feeling in his belly, Logan flexed his fingers and twitched his talons.

Two flights of stairs took him far below the city. Normally, the subway would be full of light, the white tile walls sparkling, spotless. The city prided itself on being a tourist destination, which meant that as soon as graffiti went up, workers cleaned it or painted over it.

There was never any garbage around for long; they picked up everything.

And yet, although Logan couldn’t see clearly, his perception was high enough to tell that the white gleaming walls were no more. In fact, something dark covered the white surface, something that he suspected was blood.

Graffiti was everywhere: GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT.

THE RATS LIE.

And worst yet, garbage was overflowing from the garbage cans, a noxious odour making him wrinkle his nose. Logan deployed [Life Fabricator] and scanned the area for life, but other than Ernie and Shoot, he couldn’t sense anything. It was as if he were in a void.

A void of death.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Logan said to Shoot.

For a being who was less than a day old, she’d already picked up on a lot of cues. Instead of chirping back at him in a loud voice, she sidled up to him and murmured, “Down there.” Shoot gestured with her head, motioning in front of them.

Into the dark.

Curling his lip, his shoulders raised in tension, Logan crept forward, feeling like he was walking into the depths of hell.