As Razor is trying to get into The Underground Tavern and escape from the serpent monster, a woman gets out of an RV.

“Hey, where are you going?!” The person driving the RV yells.

“You find a place to park this, I’m going to go do my job,” the woman says as she walks towards The Underground Tavern. She enters and begins walking down the steps until she finally reaches the bottom of the stairs. She turns on the light causing both Razor & the monster to stop moving.

“You, get behind me,” the woman orders.

Razor complies as the monster watches the woman in curiosity. The woman proceeds to take out a tiny brown pouch with a yellow ribbon out from her pocket. She then unties the ribbon and pours the contents of said pouch onto her hand.

Now in her hand is a pile of sand. She lifts it up towards her face before blowing on it, sending the sand flying outward. Except, the sand begins to move back towards her hand as it expands and morphs into a sword which she is now wielding.

“Keep your distance, because things are about to get messy,” The woman states.

The monster screeches before lunging toward the woman, ready to devour her. However, the woman uses her sand sword to slice the monster from the mouth down. The monster’s lower half falls to the floor while its upper half is still flying around; now shrieking in agony.

The critter slams into several walls before flying towards the woman once more. However, unlike before, the 44-year-old runs towards the monster. Just as the two are about to collide, Anastasia slides under the flying beast.

Now getting a full look at the monster’s exposed insides; she begins to search for something. That’s when she finds it; a giant red orb in the monster’s body. One that’s attached to several other veins and muscles. Before the monster can move out of the way and without a single ounce of hesitation, the woman slams the sword into the orb causing the monster to scream out in pain.

It tries to wiggle away.

The woman shoves the sword deeper.

The monster tries to escape.

The blade pierces through the other end of the monster.

The monster goes limp.

The woman takes out the sand sword from the creature, sending the beast to the ground. And then in one swift motion, getting the blood off the sword before it dissipates. The sand then floats back into the woman’s pouch which she ties back up.

The woman then glances over to Razor, who’s sitting on the steps stunned.

“You okay kid?” She asks.

“Uh, yeah,” Razor responds while standing up.

As the two stand there, they begin to hear a pair of footsteps entering the tavern, the two look to see that the person walking downstairs is a scrawny teenager with white skin, long brown hair that’s spiked up, blue eyes, and Frankenstein-like stitches all over their body below the head. The scrawny teenager is wearing a black and yellow hoodie, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes.

“Oh hey, you took care of the monster,” the teen states matter-of-factly.

“Glad your vision’s all good and it’s nice you finally showed up,” The woman replies.

“Hey, I suck at parallel parking!” The teen defensively answers before his attention goes to Razor, “Who’s the kid.”

While Razor wonders why he was called a kid by someone younger than him, the woman replies with, “He’s a civilian, doesn’t seem hurt either.”

“Good, the last thing we need right now is to worry about another injured person,” the teen groans.

As the teen and the woman are about to leave Razor begins to speak up, “Um, sorry to interrupt but you work for the military, right?”

The two stop and turn to look at Razor.

“And what if we are-” The teen asks before the woman lifts up her hand causing the teen to shut up.

“Yes,” The woman answers, “We’re monster killers to be exact.”

“Thought so,” Razor says before beginning to explain, “Look, all of this is kinda my fault.”

“Oh is that so?” The woman remarks before instructing the teen, “Get the handcuffs.”

Razor lifts his hands up in defense, ”Wait just listen to me first!”

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The teen and the woman both stop as Razor explains, “There was this guy- Maksim Abdulov- and he said he’d give me some money if I helped him do something.”

“Judging by how that monster tried to make you its meal, I take it things didn’t go well with him,” the teen suggests.

Razor nods before explaining, “He had me open this door thing and next thing I know, all those monsters got let out. I know I have no right to say this but I…”

Razor takes a deep breath.

His face fills with determination as he shouts, “I want to help!”

The teen starts to chuckle before he snickers, “Sorry to break it to you bud, but why would we ever let you help?”

“I…I don’t know but I can’t just stand back doing nothing when I know I can help stop this!” Razor explains.

The woman walks over to Razor and asks, “Are you sure you want to help us? You do realize you’ll probably die?”

Razor looks down at the ground before looking up at her, giving a thumbs up, and cockily remarking, “All I gotta do is stay alive long enough till this is over, right? Sounds easy enough for me.”

After taking a look at Razor and contemplating what to do, the woman smirks, “Alright then kid, you’re coming with us. Just know that if you mess up, that’s on you not on us.”

“Thank you,” Razor says. “I won’t let you down, Miss…”

“Anastasia Petrova, but just call me Anastasia,” The woman says, “and you are?”

“Razor Smirnov!”

The Teen glances at Razor, then at Anastasia, then back at Razor, and then back at Anastasia before asking confused, “Are you for real?”

Anastasia begins to walk up the stairs and replies, “Relax Tire, if things don’t go well, I’ll take responsibility for it. Okay?”

The 16-year-old, Tire Bosch groans and grumpily replies, “Alright.”

The three exit the tavern and enter out into the city streets. The streets are pretty much empty now with a ton of debris as everyone who was running is either far away or suffered a worse fate. Tire takes out a set of keys and unlocks a nearby RV that looks like it’s weathered through many storms. However, when he tries to get the key out of the keyhole, it gets jammed so he has to wiggle the key out.

While waiting for that, Razor decides to make some small talk and asks, “So…your name’s Tire?”

“No, it’s just a nickname,” Tire replies as he tries to wiggle the key out of the door.

“So then, what’s your real name?”

“Oh it’s-”

Tire is interrupted by finally managing to get the key out and the RV door is swung open. Tire looks at Anastasia as he enters the RV.

“You should probably replace this hunk of junk,” Tire Bosch tells Anastasia.

“It still works fine, Tire,” Anastasia Petrova responds as she enters the RV.

Razor looks down the street and sees the road is cracked and ripped apart, cars are strung all over the place, and the–

HONK! HONK!

Razor turns to look at Tire who just pressed the horn on the RV.

“Get in already!” the impatient Tire Bosch yells while slamming on the horn.

“OKAY, I WILL!” Razor yells over the horn of the RV.

Razor takes one step into the RV and before he gets the chance to close the door, the RV drives off at full speed.

Making sure he doesn’t fall out of the RV, Razor goes to grab the door and slams it shut as he stumbles back into the RV.

“You couldn’t wait a second?!” Razor angrily shouts.

“Nope!” Tire yells back with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Razor gets back up and looks around the interior of the RV. The inside is a mix of beige, white, black, and red colors with a small kitchen area next to a pair of two couches while the back has a giant bed and a tiny bathroom. At the front of the RV are the driver & passenger seats where Tire and Anastasia are sitting respectively, and a storage area above them that has a hatch that leads to the roof. Razor walks up to the front and pokes his head in between the two seats.

“So…how did you kill that monster?” Razor asks.

“I went for its core - y’know that orb thing - if you don’t destroy a monster’s core then it’ll continue to live,” Anastasia explains.

“No, I meant how’d you get that sword,” Razor explains.

“Oh, that.”

As they’re chatting, Tire swerves in the road to avoid a giant pile of rubble. Razor falls down, hitting his face on the dashboard, before getting back up.

“Could you drive any better?” Razor groans.

Tire flips him off while ranting, “Could you drive through a destroyed street trying to chase a set of monsters and a rogue military member while not leaving a single scratch on the RV…Oh, what’s that? You can’t? Then shut the fuck up and settle down you pissant!”

Razor is too stunned to speak after hearing that.

Anastasia coughs to break the silence and explains, “Sorry about that, Tire gets a bit aggressive when he drives.”

“A bit?” Razor replies before going back to the original subject, “But yeah how’d you form that sand sword?”

“That is an effect of my blast,” Anastasia says as she lifts up her pouch of sand, “My blast allows me to turn any particle of sand, dust, or grain in this pouch into anything I want. I just have to blow on it for it to work.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Razor says.

“And as for me,” Tire interjects, “I can screw off my limbs from my body.”

“That’s pretty…” Razor begins to say.

“Pretty freaky, right?” Tire asks.

“Yeah.”

Tire suddenly takes a sharp right turn and in order to not have a repeat of last time, Razor holds onto the end of the two seats.

“Most people actually have these powers called blasts, you probably have one too,” Anastasia explains, “Only reason you can’t access that is due to the chips the government’s placed inside all the regular citizens so they don’t manifest them. Only issue is that those monsters do have blasts, and you can’t exactly turn off a blast once it’s awakened.”

“So only people who can use their blasts are those in the military,” Razor says as he thinks about someone, “What’s Abdulov’s blast?”

“Yeah that ‘Abdulov Guy’ A.K.A. our former boss has the ability to manifest fireworks into existence and shoot them out,” Tire explains while driving, “Sounds pretty until you’re on the receiving end of one of those. Not so pretty anymore.”

“So he’s your boss? Man, this must suck for you guys then,” Razor says.

“Not really,” Anastasia states.

“Yeah fuck that guy, nobody liked him. Bitch stepped on my brand new shoes and never apologized,” Tire groans.

“Well okay then…” Razor says, “Guess that explains why he needed my help.”

As they continue to drive, Anastasia suddenly gets a call from a coworker, Anastasia answers it and puts the phone on speaker before saying, “Talk to me.”

Over the phone, a familiar voice says, “Okay so Abdulov is on the roof of Central Bank hall with a lion-looking monster.”

“We’re on our way,” Tire says.

Over the phone a different yet also familiar voice says, “I called dibs on naming the monster, I think Mane’s a good fit.”

“What about the other one?” Razor asks.

Over the phone, the first voice says, “What other one? Also, who is this?”

“He’s just a civilian that’s helping us for the time being,” Anastasia states, “and what about the other one?”

“There were three monsters total; that lion one, the serpent one, and some rock thing,” Razor explains.

Over the phone, the first voice replies, “Yeah I don’t see it with him, that one’s probably somewhere on the street so keep an eye out for it.”

Tire brings the RV to a screeching halt as it stops right outside Central Bank Hall.

Tire puts the RV in park before saying, “We’ve just arrived.”

The second voice over the phone says, “Gotchu, talk to you in a second.”

As the phone call ends, Anastasia & Tire unbuckle as they exit the RV. As Razor is getting ready to exit, he reflects on how much has happened on just this day alone. Earlier he was just having a normal day; failing to get a job, drinking his miseries away, and going through life one day at a time.

But now? He’s about to do one of the craziest things in his life; help take down some monsters.

Whether it’s insanity or stupidity, he can’t figure out the reason why he’s doing all this. But it’s too late to turn back.

Because he has a job to do.

See You Next Chapter!~