Lucian was hunched over in agony, his face being eaten away by the snake monster’s poison. Pain was his world now, and death would soon follow once the poison reached his brain. A distant war sounded like it was raging on with the Man Hunter and the others, but he was in no position to do anything about it. Horrific screams from William and Penelope boded ill for their chances of survival. Yet, Lucian couldn’t focus on them at all, trapped in a world of pain, in an existence of melting away inch by inch.
Merlin came to his mind, the bastard responsible for his predicament, and then the thought of murdering him surfaced. With that dark thought, his Inner Trait activated.
[Demon Eat Demon]
His emotions were extinguished, even his panicked response to his face falling off from poison. Lucian tried to wipe away what was consuming him, but it was no use—his skin continued to be eaten away. However, the Master System rewarded triumphing over tough odds, and by overcoming his own excruciating pain, it triggered Lucian’s potential grade.
A message popped into existence from the Master System: “Magic Art: [Mimicry of the Wild] has been activated. [Poison Resistance] has been copied from [Naga Cutter]!”
Another message: “Magic Art: [Mimicry of the Wild] has been activated. [Corrosion Resistance] has been copied from [Naga Cutter]!”
Then another message: “Magic Art: [Mimicry of the Wild] has been activated. [Naga Venom] has been copied from [Naga Cutter]!”
No longer did the venom or its corrosion affect him; now it was just a sticky substance that felt like snot. With a wipe of his hand, Lucian threw off the venom and bounded toward the battle, aiming for payback against the creature that had nearly killed him.
[Goblin Bash]
Leaping through the air, fists glowing white, Lucian fell like a meteor upon the monster with a crash, cracking the ground below.
“Y-you!” Merlin stammered, pointing at the large man with red eyes and spiky hair. “The venom should’ve melted you!”
Still steaming, with raw flesh exposed on his face and a bit of white teeth visible between gaps in his skin, Lucian didn’t bother reacting to the Man Hunter and kept bludgeoning Scissor’s head until the snake monster became motionless. A scuffle ensued, and leaves flew up; Merlin could be seen trying to make a run for it.
[Naga Venom]
A purple liquid suddenly splashed against his back, eliciting a scream as he tumbled and dove into the dirt. Steam rose from his body as the purple substance began to melt him, akin to the fate of the Wicked Witch of the West. Disbelief painted Merlin’s face as he witnessed an Anointed producing his own tamed monster’s ability—an unheard-of feat, copying a monster’s moves.
Lucian burst through the clay shell entrapping Two Tap. Smoke was the first thing that appeared—Elysium crystal smoke; Two Tap had been smoking to calm herself. Upon gaining freedom, the Wastelander girl ran over to Dougy, though her mind was now in the Elysian Fields—high as a kite. The sight of her armless brother kneeling on the ground unsettled her for a moment, until her drugs assured her it would be alright, and she started to heal him.
What she couldn’t perceive was that it was too late. Dougy was too far gone to be ripped from the Grim Reaper’s cold hands.
Dougy looked up to see the familiar bits of green herbs flashing and vaporizing into healing. He saw the familiar face of Two Tap, but once he blinked, he found himself transported elsewhere. He had become enveloped in a sudden vision. He still saw his sister. Yet, she had transformed into a young girl again and was hopping from square to square, playing hopscotch. Despite the wind and dust the Wasteland brought, the girl never ceased to have fun.
“Come play with Two Tap, Dougy!” She cheered, a gap filled smile on her pudgy child face.
“You’re name’s Tulip,” Dougy corrected, his mind in a daze, his body unstable and about to fall, the blowing wind whipping his blond swoop of hair wildly. The world began to fade away in his vision as if he were about to sleep.
He then muttered, “Tulip… someone, anyone, take care of my baby sister…”
Dougy fell into the dirt with a thud, eyes open, body still. Two Tap trembled. Still, her drugs told her mind that it would be alright. She just needed to heal him more. When he didn’t rise, she rested her head upon his shoulder.
“Two Tap hungry,” she muttered, eyes unfocused, Elysium crystal smile painfully stretching her face. “Dougy take Two Tap for burgers.”
“Wastelander,” William cried out, distraught, “Get over here!” Blood flowed from the stumps of his legs, color draining from his face, yet he still clung to Penelope and didn’t bother worrying about his own health.
“I’m tired,” Penelope said softly, her doe eyes, sunken in from overusing her Skill, stared up at the windy treetops. “Carry me, big bro…”
“Two Tap!” William rasped, his voice cracking. “We need you!” Two Tap was plopped down next to him, Lucian having had to peel her off Dougy’s corpse. As was her habit, Two Tap started to heal at the sight of injury. William’s wounds closed and stopped bleeding. The mercenary was saved.
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“Not me, damned druggy!” William hissed, gripping Two Tap’s chitin armor. “Heal Penelope!” The mercenary saw a wide hand, thick with muscle, rest upon his arm. He looked up to stare into Lucian’s red eyes, eyes filled with remorse.
“She’s gone, William,” Lucian said solemnly. He thought he would make it in time to save everyone. But no. Only in movies did the hero stop the villains before it was too late. “That Skill she used, it took everything from her.” He looked away as William began to scream for Penelope to rouse. Two Tap ran off back to Dougy, pipe in hand, ready to escape this reality into a world where her brother was only just sleeping.
[A Wizard’s Gambit]
Life drained from Merlin’s face as he sacrificed his own life essence to refill his Mana reserves in order to conjure a Spell. They had called him the best Base Anointed in the Wasteland, and he aimed to prove the reputation deserved.
[Knitting Flesh]
His only healing Spell in his repertoire fought against the poison feasting upon him, threatening to eat through his back, into his body, and kill him. Unfortunately for him, his magic couldn’t outpace the poison. Naga—snake monsters found in Monster Gates like Scissors—their poison was inescapable once it began to take effect. That’s why a Naga could only use the attack once per day. Furthermore, that was why Merlin had bought a tamed Naga, given its ferocious attacks and unbeatable poison.
Never would he have thought the poison would one day be used on him, and by another Anointed for that matter!
Footsteps alerted him and caused Merlin to look up, finding a hulking nightmare of muscle stalking toward him, red eyes staring through a mask of melted skin, focused entirely on him. “Fucking shit, man,” Merlin rasped, fighting to stay conscious under the pain. “All this for a fucking slave that died anyways! You fucking piece of—”
Lucian kicked dirt in his face, silencing his words. He watched the Man Hunter struggling to survive, giving his all to a healing Spell.
“Your type is always the most desperate to live,” Lucian remarked, looking down upon Merlin as if he were a rabid dog about to be put down.
Spitting out dirt, Merlin hissed, “I’m the best Base Anointed in the Wasteland! You don’t know me, bitch!”
The Gladkid Orphanage staff came to Lucian’s mind. “I knew people like you,” Lucian remarked, circling Merlin’s corroding body with slow steps. “The type that would sacrifice others for their own gain.” A humorless laugh emitted from him. “I swear, you all are always better off dead.” After the orphanage staff, the drug sellers came to mind. “I never once regretted killing anyone, especially monsters like you.”
He knelt beside Merlin, who was beginning to groan, the poison reaching the Man Hunter’s stomach. “I’m surprised you all don’t spawn from a Monster Gate. Can you believe I used to think that? That all the evil came from Monster Gates.” He got up to let Merlin die alone. “But no. Monsters had always existed here long before the Monster Invasion. That’s why there’s a Wasteland. The monsters didn’t blow up the world; people did.”
He kicked more dirt into Merlin’s face and spat on him. “Fuck you.” He then went back.
William lay next to Penelope, gently stroking her hair off her withered features, his mind reeling. “Cynthia…” he whispered, feeling broken. “Not again…”
Two Tap remained with Dougy’s body, plumes of smoke rising from her blue glowing glass pipe.
Lucian returned, carrying his gym bag of monster materials.
“I’ll do the MHS stuff,” Lucian announced. Neither of the people he was addressing had noticed he had spoken. “Just wait a minute. We’ll be out of here in a minute.” He looked to Penelope and Dougy lying in the grass. “They’ll get good funerals. I swear it.” They’d have the money for it after selling the materials.
A sense of pressure came from the sky above.
Lucian’s head turned upward to see an energy vortex swirling into existence. Though usually windy here, the weather turned turbulent, a storm beginning to form. Hair dancing in the gusts, he watched as the energy in the sky started to stabilize.
His eyes widened in realization, and he gasped, “Is that a Monster Gate?!”
William was stirred from his remorse as Lucian suddenly picked him up. “What’s going on?” William asked, confused.
“A fucking Monster Gate is forming above us!”
“What the hell are you on about? A Monster Gate within a Monster Gate? Are you feeling well?” William didn’t need to speak more when the Monster Gate in the sky came into his view once they moved past the obscuring treetops. “Holy mother of God…!”
“Two Tap Hungry,” Two Tap reiterated to Dougy’s body when she was suddenly swept up into Lucian’s arm.
Lucian pushed his [Angry Gremlin] body as hard as he could toward the Monster Gate they came out of. Through the forest and over any obstacle that would slow them down, he ran.
A screeching voice shook the air above them, “Desecrator!”
“What the hell was that?” William muttered, his eyes searching the skies.
Lucian felt his blood run cold as something emerged from the Monster Gate in the sky, something that sent a visible tremor throughout the space.
“That feels like a Mid-Tier Anointed,” William sputtered. He had worked as a mercenary for ten years and knew how powerful higher-level Anointed felt. How humans felt around Anointed was how Anointed felt around those with levels above them.
The mercenary watched as the Monster Gate in the sky was breached, and a bird creature stepped out, feathers of a deep blue, beak golden and sharp. It was thin, yet its clawed feet were massive, along with the wings tucked at its side. Aura and Mana flooded the air as the creature looked down on them like a wrathful god. Its intelligent eyes stared out from its crown of feathers, directly at Lucian.
“Desecrator!” it screeched, the air warping around it as if its power was too much for this gate to hold.
“Did that monster just talk?” William gawked.
The bird began to descend like a missile before it disappeared. Lucian hiccupped, meeting its blue predatory eyes a moment later. A beak penetrated his chest and nearly hit his heart when he finally was able to dive into the Monster Gate and escape.
***
Penelope opened her eyes to realize she was no longer in the Monster Gate.
She could've sworn she was talking to William when she found herself in a vast, entirely white landscape. She could only conclude she had fallen asleep while he was carrying her. The thought of joining his mercenary company instilled joy and fulfillment in her. Penelope the Great Mercenary, that’s what they’ll call her in the future. Her pigtails whipped back and forth as she shook her head. She’d leave the nicknames to Lucian.
Penelope stilled when, in the distance, she saw an old woman sitting comfortably in a big chair. The theme song to Penelope’s favorite show was playing. She rushed over, and sure enough, her ears did not lie to her.
“Hey, that’s my show!” Penelope enthused. She’d become a fan because her grandmother would often watch it.
In the chair, the old woman turned and smiled at her.
“Grammie?” Penelope said in a quiet voice, recognizing the old woman. Tears fell from her eyes as she grabbed hold of her. “Grammie! I’ve missed you so much!”
“It’s time to come home, dear,” her grandma said and led her away down a path of light.