The night passed eventfully and David had perched fully atop Claire’s head and cheered along with everyone else as the timer visible only to the Hatchlings ticked down to nothing. They wouldn’t be getting a special evolution, but they didn’t care, and one by one they began to droop and sag on their feet as their eyes glazed over with the now-familiar evolutionary trance. Herold and the Hunting team were giddy with excitement, and even Leo joined in the fun as they celebrated, though Betty earned herself a few rude looks when she suddenly howled, ‘Monster mosh pit!’ and slugged Thomas in the face with a claw. Thomas hissed in pain and swatted at her ineffectually as she attempted to headbang with no head, pushing and shoving at the others as they exploded with laughter at her eyestalks bobbing up and down forcefully to a heavy metal riff only she could hear.

In moments the Hatchlings had begun to vomit up the mysterious rainbow liquid, the kaleidoscope of energy reforming their bodies, and everyone stopped partying immediately as the sound of grisly rearranging bones filled the warehouse with a sound like a million knuckles popping all at once. Claire gagged at the noise, and David laughed uproariously at the roller-coaster sensation that accompanied it as he clung to the top of her armored head and she swore at him between retches. When the light finally settled and everyone began to cheer again, David realized that their evolutions seemed a lot more linear than his own had been, most appearing as upgraded versions of whatever they had been before.

He noted with a grin that the long-haired walrus had gained a few hundred pounds and sported a long sharp horn from the middle of its forehead, mustache bristling grandly as they lounged on their side and waved at him. He waved back before both he and Claire had retired to the corner of the warehouse with the small group that had agreed to tackle the boss and David explained the Combo system patiently. Kai had backed him up on the effectiveness of it, sharing that he had managed to rank up a lagging ability in the single hunt he had accompanied them for earlier that day. Plans were made to repeat the process, and Kai agreed to take the others out hunting to shore up their ability ranks and maybe get a few levels.

The next few days were a blur for David as he plotted the Area Bosses' demise with the help of both Claire and Dallas; who had been present for the initial assault and was eager to contribute anything he knew about the beast. When he wasn’t scratching maps into the dirt like a crazy person, he made a few more nocturnal assaults on the local wildlife, slowly improving his skills and gaining levels of his own, all the while learning to listen to the budding predatory instincts he had developed. It wasn’t long before the Hunting party hit a wall, and that wall proved to be their tenth level, with massively increased xp costs becoming a roadblock to casual progress that nobody had expected.

David had quickly caught up to the rest of them and despite his happiness at the increased stats he leered at the steep xp requirement for the next level grumpily while he perched halfway up one of the many ruined office buildings in the downtown area of Riverport, cool night wind tugging at his mane and wings while filling his nose with the smell of warm concrete and rust.

User: David Fisher

Species: Twilight Seeker Ω

Rank: E

Health: 165/165

Stam: 390/390 (++)

Level: 10

Exp: 23/1500

Special: Echolocation D

Traits: 4/4

Nocturnal E: +12% Damage, Stam Regen, Exp Gain at night.

[3/10]

Echolocation D: Manipulate high-frequency sound waves to see with more than just your eyes. Multi-stage ability: Repeated uses against the same enemy builds Combat Expertise, and may trigger an Echo.

[6/10]

Flight D: Allows for flight and gliding. Mild Stamina drain. (stam+)

[2/10]

Small: Your form is small, weighing no more than 115bs. (stam+)

[n/a]

Abilities: 4/4

Screech E: You emit a loud screech, damaging enemies in a cone. Low Stam consumption.

[4/10]

Glare E: You fix your target with a baleful gaze, inflicting Fear. Small chance to cause the enemy to flee. Variable Stam consumption.

[2/10]

Gloom C: Your wingbeats spread Dusk powder with every flap. Enemies under the effect of Gloom are inflicted with visual hallucinations. Stacks up to 8 times.

[4/10]

Nocturnal Strike C (4pts): A quick, lunging attack that steals a small percentage of the target's Stamina.

[5/10]

Mutagens: 4/5

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Unnerving Mutagen B: Your appearance is unnerving. May cause enemies to reconsider aggressing you.

Atavistic Mutagen D: Form becomes primal, strengthening your body.

Soporalytic Mutagen E: Your attacks have a moderate chance to inflict paralytic sedation, inducing muscle spasms and rendering targets unconscious.

Secretive Mutagen E: You become more elusive, making you harder to track and detect.

Empty:

Holy shit that’s a lot of xp for one level. I think that’s almost as much xp as it cost to get to level ten, and that took…I dunno…nine days? Maybe a little more, while fighting almost constantly? Shit, I wonder if it does that every ten levels? I think we were all hoping to grind out another special evolution before we had to tackle the boss, but that's just not possible right now. We’re gonna have to do it sooner rather than later too, otherwise we’ll be here forever. Quests are starting to look more mandatory after all…who set this up? God I’d love to bite Omega in the face. Hit them with a Gloom and watch them twitch while I make faces at them…

David minimized his status and derailed his cathartic train of thought to stare at the entrance to one of the main subway terminals just outside the downtown proper. It was quite large, though something had done a bit of renovation and widened the entrance, huge chunks of concrete and rubble piled up around the stairs. David snarled to himself as he had the last few days that he’d come here to observe the location, disgusted by the piles of bones and refuse scattered into the road where the Area Boss had simply shoved them out of the tunnel like trash and forgotten about them. Despite its raw aggression, the creature didn’t seem to be discerning in its tastes, and he saw that along with the skeletons of those that had been part of Herold’s raid, dozens of animal carcasses were mixed in.

“Yeah, I don’t like it either.” Dallas buzzed as he simply walked up the side of the building, tiny clawed feet gripping the dilapidated building tightly.

David slowly dialed back the snarl, “I want to get a look inside there, but I also don’t want to trigger the Quest. You said it showed up within a minute or two of the notification appearing?”

“Yeah, maybe three minutes or so? That seems to be a theme, but there wasn’t any countdown. We were getting into position when it came rolling out.” Dallas tapped his stinger on the wall angrily as he stared down into the street.

He nodded a few times before shooting Dallas a side-eye that spoke volumes. The wasp seemed to understand and simply shrugged with his antennae and vibrated his quartet of wings anxiously. David unfurled himself from where he hung and dropped, beginning to drift down towards the street as Dallas called after him.

“I know this is why we came here tonight, but if anything starts looking weird just bail. We have wings for a reason, David!” The insect’s buzzing voice was swallowed up by a rush of wind and faded away quickly.

Oh, don’t worry. If I even smell anything weird I’m out. I’m only here to cheat a look at the inside a little bit. Even I’m not dumb enough to try sneaking up on that thing while it’s asleep, even if I happen to catch it with its pants down. No way I’d be able to get through the armor myself, I just don’t have the stopping power someone like Claire or Herold has.

He drifted close, slowly descending below the tops of the rusted and useless streetlights that still lined the sides of what had been one of the busiest roads in Riverport only two weeks ago, landing in almost total silence on the shattered pavement. His talons tapped softly against the hard surface as he slunk carefully around the dried bones, gritting his teeth as he noticed they’d all been gnawed upon and cracked for the marrow.

–WARNING–

–Entering Area Boss Territory–

–Quest Available: Buried Secrets–

–Reward: Fusion Token, Unlocks Territory Challenge System–

–Bonus Objective: Claim Boss Trophy–

–Reward: Special Evolution Bloodline–

David goggled at the rewards for a brief second before carefully minimizing the readout and refocusing his attention on the darkened stairway that loomed closer with every passing step. He began to chitter silently, the waves and pulses of Echolocations rolling down the ravaged tunnel to send a macabre collection of images back to be collected by David’s sensitive ears as he gleefully abused the increased range.

Piles and piles of bones were scattered about the stairs, trailing down to the bottom of the staircase where the concrete had been covered in heaping piles of wet dirt. The ceiling had cracked and seemed only seconds away from collapsing, though the waves of Echolocations proved it to be sound and sturdy. David crept close, descending the first two steps in an attempt to push it just a little further, to learn anything at the last moment before their carefully planned assault that might provide some insight into the Bosses’ weaknesses. He found nothing but fresh corpses of feral monsters that had wandered too close and were unable to escape, their flesh torn and broken by blunt trauma, limbs crooked as they lay shattered just at the bottom of the stairs.

God that smells rank, whooooo. Maybe this thing doesn’t like fresh food? It seems like the bones only get cleared out when they start to get in the way - What the fuck was that?

David retreated quickly as the leading edge of his Special finally detected something, and for the very first time, David saw a new notification.

–Echo–

He gasped loudly as his head suddenly ached with the intense flood of complex information that filtered back to his ears and a huge area was revealed to him. David experienced a moment of sheer panic as he perceived the distant boss beginning to move towards the exit, huge shovel-like nose twitching eagerly as it heaved its armored bulk through the remains of a shattered turnstile, paws the size of David himself swinging forward to drag the beast toward him. Its claws casually crushed small divots into the concrete with each step, and it opened a cavernous mouth to reveal huge rodent-like fangs as it chittered curiously in the direction of the stairway to the surface. He barely had time to register the almost shell-like armor of the beast bending the metal of a rusted handrail like aluminum foil before he lifted off in a storm of wingbeats.

Yep, that’s fucking big but I think Claire can handle him as long as we don't fuck it up. Did that piece of shit use some sort of sonar back at me? It made my ears feel weird, and the Echo map went all blurry when it started doing the same thing I do with my mouth. That’s a little weird, no wonder it knows if people are outside or not, it’s got better Echolocation than I do! Looks like this entire thing was worth it, after all, we can lure it out!

A series of high-pitched screeches followed him into the night sky as David heard the beast emerge from the subway and blanket him in a wave of sonar that made his ears ring faintly as he continued to climb. He landed with a sharp sound as his talons simply dug grooves into the crumbling brick while he clung tightly to the masonry, fixing Dallas with a wild stare, his smile all fangs and wicked anticipation.

“It worked, I did manage to learn something about it. C’mon, we’ll make a couple of adjustments and then that’s it. That fat fucker goes down first thing in the morning.”