"Single file lines everyone, things aren't gonna stay this quiet for long, so we need to get movin!" Nianshi yelled as I walked outside to see what the situation on the street was. When I had looked earlier, it was a nightmare down here, the streets packed with entities. Now, I could see that while the myriad of soldiers around here were still picking off certain entities, everything seemed a lot calmer, mostly due to what seemed like giant green walls blocking off parts of the road. I looked a little closer and realized they weren't walls, they were plants. As I did, I heard a voice behind me.
"Admiring my work? It's always a hassle trying to get through the concrete, but I make it work." I turned around to see a woman who looked to be around the same age as me and Arc Angel, with long blue hair and slightly pale green skin. She was wearing an oddly revealing outfit, consisting of a dark black top covering up her chest while exposing her stomach and back, and a baggy pair of white pants.
"Oh, hey! I'm Inari, I assume you're the mystery Guardian who refuses to be named?"
"That would be correct, but as long as you don't tell the other Guardian we're about to go help who I am, I can tell you about myself. Name's Blossom, Jasper Tier Guardian. If you couldn't guess already, I can control plants, among other things." She said, and suddenly her whole outfit made a lot more sense.
"I see, I'm guessing you can get energy from the sun or something like that?" I said, and she looked at me surprised for a minute and smiled.
"Wow, not bad, you catch on quick. Now, we need to focus on getting this convoy more secure. We're going to draw a lot more attention with all these civilians coming with us. I can clear out the streets pretty well, but the air is really where we're lacking right now." She said, and I turned to take a scan of the whole convoy. There were a ton of armored trucks the civilians were loading into, as well as some separate attack vehicles with turrets on the back, and the soldiers seemed like they could handle their own. Still, I didn't want to leave much to chance, so I took a look in my catalogues for a minute.
"Well, I can grab an AOE spell to help with that, and I already have a few drones to help, but we'll probably need more than that. How about some automated turrets? We can place them on top of the vehicles."
"Sounds good to me. I don't dip into tech much, more of a friend's specialty, so I don't have many good options there."
"Don't worry, I have a catalogue for it. You can focus on clearing out the actual path." I said, scrolling through my robotics catalogue. Thankfully, they didn't separate drones and turrets into two catalogues, so I quickly grabbed two of the best looking option. It was a turret that used magnetism to somehow generate it's own ammo, and it could also lock itself in place on any metal structure, which would hopefully reduce the kickback on the people inside the vehicles. While I was there, I also grabbed the AOE spell I had been looking at earlier.
Mag Lock Turret x2 Purchased for 600 Points, New Total: 155
Firestorm Purchased for 150 Points, New Total: 5
As I bought the two turrets and they appeared in front of me, a few soldiers walked over and picked them up, looking at me expectedly.
"Oh, uh, place one on that truck at the front, one on the truck at the tail end. Make sure they're locked in place correctly." I said, and the soldiers nodded and followed my orders. The feeling of someone actually listening to what I was saying slightly made up for the heartache of spending every single point I had, but it was worth it to keep these people safe. I went to turn back to talk to Blossom more, but as I did, I heard something rumbling beneath my feet. I instinctively ran forward and grabbed Blossom, shoving her out of the way as something burrowed out of the ground underneath us. It looked like a giant worm with two pincers on either side of its mouth, and it was easily over twenty feet tall.
At this point, most of the civilians were already inside vehicles, and the ones who weren't were being quickly corralled by some soldiers, while the rest of them began firing at the giant creature in front of us. As we both recovered our balance, Blossom looked up at the thing and swore.
"Fuck me, I must have led it here by moving my plants so much. I can take care of it, but I'm gonna have to use the plants from a wall, so you take care of anything incoming!" She said, leaping forward while stretching a hand out. The vines that made up a major portion of the north wall lifted up, whipping out and slamming into the giant creature before it could take a bite out of one of the larger vehicles. As the wall opened, a horde larger than one I had ever tried to kill charged forward. It wasn't nearly as bad as what I saw earlier in the streets, but it was still massive, with numbers nearing the hundreds.
"Everyone, pull the vehicles forward, as far from the horde as you can get!" I yelled, the soldiers following my orders and pulling forward. I lightened myself and jumped in the air to get out of the way as they did, and immediately gave the go ahead for all of my drones and turrets to begin unloading once I saw there were no civilians in the line of fire. From one end of the wall to the horde, we had a couple hundred feet before they actually reached any vehicles, but I wasn't taking any chances. I charged up my new spell as the battlefield erupted into chaos, and as I unleashed it, a patch of fire about thirty feet wide erupted from the ground, spreading out and lighting a decent portion of the entities on fire.
I dropped back down to the ground and pulled out my own rifle, focusing on shooting the nearest targets, and as I did, I saw something that severely complicated matters. One of the giant gorilla creatures from before had picked up an abandoned car, and suddenly hurled it forward towards us. I traced its path and saw it was heading for one of the guards from the shelter on the top floor, who was too busy shooting to notice it. I sprinted forward, not sure if I would have enough time to help, but before I could reach him, I saw Mia shove him out of the way as the car barreled towards her. She whipped her head around to stare at the projectile, her eyes stuck on it.
Panicking, I shoved as much mana as I physically could into my hand and used my gravity manipulation. I felt the velocity of the car pull against my hand, but before it could reach Mia, it stopped in midair. I was incredibly relieved and went to turn back to the horde, when suddenly I saw Mia explode. Not like she would have if the car had hit her, but instead in white light, exactly like I had when I first agreed to my contract. Just as suddenly as this happened, Mia vanished from thin air. I was baffled, but I heard Celeste yell in my head.
"I'll explain what happened later, clear out the horde for now!" She said, and I managed to snap myself back into concentration, looking back at the horde. It was mostly thinned out now, save for a few very large entities. The giant worm from earlier was currently being strangled by two giant vines, so I wasn't worried about that. I took the car I was still psychically holding and launched it back at the gorilla, and it screeched before the car slammed into it, caving its head in. One large entity that looked like a mix of a crab and a spider had managed to make it farther than the others, before Nianshi rushed past me, faster than I had ever seen any regular human move.
I noticed now that she was wearing some sort of metal exoskeleton under her armor, and as the crab went to step on her, she caught its leg and ripped it to the ground, beating its shell with her fists. So, new idea, don't fuck with the captain. I focused my efforts back on blasting the last few entities in the horde, which was already starting to grow back as more entities came from around street corners. Thankfully, a vine slammed into the remaining entities as Blossom rebuilt the wall from earlier. It seemed like we had managed to get through this without any casualties, which was a win in my book.
73 Entities Killed, New Total: 984 + 1 Tier 1 Gem
"Everyone okay?" I yelled out over the crowd, and I heard mostly affirmations with a few people yelling about injuries. As I sprinted around healing up whoever I could, I already felt exhausted. I really needed to get a second to catch my breath. Thankfully, my turrets were still taking care of any smaller flying entities who tried to poke their way around the wall. I spoke to Celeste as I finished healing the last of the majorly injured people while Blossom focused on getting ready to move her walls so we could get to Arc Angels building.
"So, you want to explain what the hell just happened to Mia?" I asked her, but before she could answer, there was another flash as Mia appeared back where she was standing earlier, dropping onto the ground.
"Why don't you ask her yourself?" Celeste said as I ran over to her, lending a hand. As she stood up, I realized she looked way different than before. Her hair, before just brown wavy locks, now looked like floating gel, constantly shifting in color. The markings on her eyes and cheeks were now much more pronounced, and there were quite a few other small adjustments here and there that made her look much younger than before.
"What in the absolute hell happened to you?" I asked her as she dusted herself off, and she looked up at me just as confused as I was.
"I was about to die, but then there was this voice, and it talked about a contract? Next thing I know I'm going back in time!" She said, her voice sounding almost like she was underwater, and I suddenly realized what had happened.
"Well then, welcome to the team Mia! Or wait, I technically met you first, so I get to help you pick your Guardian name! Ooh, I see why Arc was excited about this!"
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"Yeah, guess that's why your contractor said not to tell me about that weird vision or whatever. Hey, what the hell do I look like? The only thing I can tell changed is this weird ass new voice." She said as Blossom walked over.
"What's going on over here?"
"Mia's a Guardian now!" I replied.
"Dibs on naming her."
"Too late, already called it." I said, and Blossom swore under her breath. She proceeded to pull out a mirror for Mia to hold, and as she looked at herself, she went from confused to pleased rather quickly.
"Wow, I look ten years younger! The hair is a bit weird, but not bad!" She said, appreciating her new looks. I was glad someone actually enjoyed their transformation. Eventually, Nianshi walked up to us, looking very tired.
"As much as I like knowing we have another Guardian to help us out, this is a real bad scenario for us to be standing around in, we need to move." She said, and I nodded looking at Mia.
"Come on, we can ride on top of one of the trucks, I'll explain some stuff on the way. Blossom, you got the road covered?" I asked her, and she nodded. I hopped on top of one of the front trucks with Mia, who seemed less then excited at the prospect of riding on top of a moving vehicle, as Celeste popped out next to us.
"I'm sorry I couldn't inform you of what was happening, but Mia's current contractor notified me that his previous Guardian had passed away in this invasion, and he was considering her. One of our main duties is making sure no one interferes in the contracting process." Celeste said, and after a moment what looked like a small sea creature popped into the air next to Mia. I had never seen the creature before, but it looked similar to a cephalopod. A deep voice rang out from it.
"Yes, thank you for not saying anything. I am Mono, Mia's current contractor. If you could handle keeping her safe as this vehicle moves, I will explain to her the basics of being a Guardian." He said, and I gave him a quick nod.
"Nice to meet you Mono! Mia, this is going to be a long conversation, so don't worry about trying to fight. I can take care of things. Alright then, everyone ready to head out?" I yelled to the crew. After everyone confirmed they were prepared to go, Nianshi turned to Blossom as she stepped inside on of the larger vehicles.
"Flower girl, lift up the walls and let's get movin!"
"Not my name!" Blossom yelled as the plant wall in front of us lifted up and another surge of entities made their way towards us. This time, they didn't last very long, mostly due to a giant vine sending half the horde into near orbit. Alright, guess the rule is don't fuck with the captain or Blossom. As we rode through the streets, I focused on shooting down anything in the air, which now that we were moving was a lot. Along with the cats from earlier, there was a flock of giant birds, more of the big wasps, and I got severely scared by what looked like a flying jellyfish before it just passed over us. I also managed to get another look at Fortress, who was still flying around in that mech suit. He must have spent an absurd number of points on that thing.
35 Entities Killed, New Total: 1487
Eventually, we made it in front of the building Arc was stationed at, which was just a rather large office building. The entrance was oddly clear, but I assumed Arc must have walked around here earlier and cleared it out for us. As we pulled up and Blossom raised up some more plants to wall off the area, I walked over to the entrance and saw Arc leading out an absurdly large group of people. Nianshi hopped out of her vehicle and took over for Arc as she walked up to me. I saw she was wearing the most sensible outfit I had ever seen for a Guardian, just a cool blue jacket with a white undershirt and jeans.
"Inari, glad I can finally get a better look at you. Extremely glad in fact. You're a lot taller than you looked on the call." She said, giving my outfit a once over as I blushed.
"Wow, already flirting with other women? I'm starting to question if I should have even come." I heard Blossom say walking up behind me, and as I turned around confused, Arc gasped, sprinting past me before pulling her into a hug.
"Petal! What are you doing here, I thought you couldn't make it!"
"Appointment got cancelled, so I figured I'd hop in early and surprise you and Fortress. Don't worry, I kept myself safe. Your new friend helped a lot with that actually." She said, giving Arc a quick kiss on the forehead before the two looked back over to me.
"Oh, you must be so confused! Inari, this is Blossom, my girlfriend! Normally me, her and Fortress do our invasions together, but she was supposed to be busy this time!" Arc said, and I nodded, still decently confused.
"Right, yeah. And Fortress is..." I asked, hoping they would fill in the blank.
"He's our partner, and yes, I do mean that in both ways." Blossom said, and now everything made much more sense. So, they were all just in a poly relationship. Cool! Although now I was slightly upset that Arc had been flirting with me for that whole time while she had two partners, but I suppose that was my problem, not theirs. I was about to ask some more questions when I noticed a lot of the people walking out of Arc's building were rather injured, so I simply walked over and began healing people one at a time while the other two talked. After people began getting packed into their vehicles, I noticed it was going to get pretty cramped, so we would have to be extra careful on the way back to the safehouse they had set up.
"Hey, uh, think we might have a problem here!" I heard Mia yell from across the street. I looked over and saw she was sitting on top of a pile of something. As I walked closer to her, I realized it was some type of foam or something similar. How she had gotten it I had no idea.
"What is it? Also, what's with all this?" I said, jumping up next to her.
"Oh yeah, I can make gel. Part of my abilities, I guess. Haven't exactly figured out what to do with it yet, but that's not important. You see that?" She said, pointing out in the distance. Her gel pile was big enough to see over the wall, and I quickly noticed what the problem was. A couple blocks away, I could see a towering figure, at least forty feet tall if not taller, covered in green shaggy fur. It had two horns on either side of its head, closer to antlers than anything else, and its face was incredibly bony and disgusting. It thankfully didn't seem to notice us, and it was moving incredibly slowly.
"Hey, you two! We definitely do have a problem, get over here!" I yelled back to Arc and Blossom, who both took a second to realize what was going on before rushing over. A crack in the ground opened up as Blossom made a large stem that the two stood on to reach our height. They each took a moment to survey the situation, realizing it was probably bad.
"Shit, I don't think I've ever even seen one of those things before. We are not taking the chances of fighting that thing, we'll have to go back the way we came." Blossom said, a worried look on her face.
"Isn't the way back swarmed? How the hell are we gonna get through?" I asked her, and she took a minute to think.
"Alright, two of us will go and clear out the way back, and the other two will stay here and stand guard. I have to be here to keep the walls up, and Mia isn't ready to handle that, so that leaves you two." She said. Arc nodded, while I was a little more worried.
"Yeah, I'm already kind of low on mana, and I'm not exactly as strong as you two."
"Oh, why don't you use that skill? You said it makes you stronger right, and even if it's dangerous we need all the help we can get." Arc said, and I thought about it for a moment. I supposed this was a good moment to test it, but I figured I should check with Celeste about it first.
"I see no reason why now would be a bad time to test it out, go ahead. Just make sure the other Guardian with you keeps a good eye on you." She said, and I nodded before thinking about the skill. It seemed like all I had to do to activate it was to try, so I simply thought about using Metamorphosis. As I did, I immediately regretted it. I felt fire run through my veins as I fell to my knees, the other girls around me saying things I couldn't understand through the pain. After a moment, everything shifted. The feeling like my blood was boiling didn't hurt anymore, it felt incredible. I stood up as the rest of the crew backed up, giving me space. I looked at myself to see what had changed.
The most obvious was, I now had a second tail next to my first one. On top of that, both the fur of the tails and my hair had shifted in color, looking more red then yellow now, and I felt hot to the touch. While those might have been the only appearance changes that I noticed, I felt absurdly different. I knew I was massively stronger now, and the mana in my body had shifted into a raging tide of violet, yet I still felt like I had just as much control over it as before, maybe even better.
"Uh, Inari, you alright?" Arc asked me, putting a hand on my shoulder. I looked over at her and grinned, which for some reason caused her to recoil. Huh, odd, wonder why. You know what, it doesn't matter! I had a job to do.
"I'm way better then alright! Whoever kills more entities owes the other anything under two thousand points!" I said, sprinting towards the back of the street and leaping over the wall, clearing the twenty foot tall bramble of vines without even lowering my weight. I heard Arc shout something as she ran after me, but I didn't have time to wait around to respond. This was about to be fun!