The Bullseye didn't have as much as we might have hoped, I wasn't sure if someone had hit the store first or if people had just panic bought all the non-perishables ahead of the Event. Either way even with five people searching the store it was a struggle to find anything that hadn't rotted to high hell. In fact, what they were describing was so bad in there that I suggested that we just give up on the store before some sort of mutant super mold took root in their lungs. Will had acquired himself a nice leather jacket from the store and Rafael had somehow managed to find a tank top so large it sat loose on the man sized harpy eagle. Kyli also brought out something I didn't even think about, a bicycle. You ever seen a sasquatch riding a bike? Something about it had me laughing so hard I was struggling to breathe. I did admit it was a good idea and would let Omar move much faster if needed, letting him function as a scout if needed.

After that we had another hour of walking back to the apartment complex. Nothing bothered us this time and we only briefly stopped to load up the jackal-snake things we'd killed.

"Man I am sick of these things," Will's left head grumbled as we loaded the corpses into the trailer currently being pulled by Rumi. His right head chipped in, "We had to fight like three groups of those things on the way to the store."

"And I had to fight off a pack of those fuckers almost as soon as I left the damned store," Omar grunted, easily pitching one of the dead animals onto the cart with one hand, "If not for the wack ass regeneration shit we all got I doubt we'd have made it."

"And it's a good thing it doesn't seem to be very calorie intensive," I mused, "Otherwise I doubt there'd be any leftovers back at our base." I really should have been almost driven mad with hunger from that regeneration, I'd healed a lot of damage and didn't feel like I had the fat reserves to support that. Even if we were all some specially crafted war beasts with highly efficient regenerative properties, we should have been famished afterwards. Even standard humans tended to get hungrier from our natural healing process. So that energy had to be coming from somewhere...

"What? You get attacked by these things at your place?" Rafael asked.

"Nah, we had a large enough group they didn't bother," Rumi stated, grabbing the last of the ones glued to the ground by Matilda's webs and pulling it, and a modest amount of asphalt, free with a short grunt, "I think Joe got injured while fishing."

"It was a big fish," I said with a defensive tone, "It was almost this big!" I held my tail about four feet away from my nose.

That got a couple snickers from everyone and a bit of light ribbing about a worm being hurt fishing. The teasing stopped when Matilda politely scolded me for being modest and revealed the real size of the fish.

"God damn, we got real ass monsters in the water as well as on land." Omar shook his head, "Glad I didn't try to go fishing."

"At least we haven't been attacked by anything in the air yet," Rafael mused. Omar, Kyli, and I all immediately turned our gazes skyward and began scanning for threats. Rafael rolled his eyes, "Oh cut it out, we aren't in an anime or anything stupid like that so we aren't about to get jumped just because I said something."

"You don't know that Rafael-san." I quipped. It was hilariously disturbing watching a bird try to contort its wing in such a way as to flip you the bird.

Somehow, despite Rafael running up multiple death flags for us, the rest of the trip back to the apartment complex was completely uneventful beyond some general chicanery. We got back roughly around the time everyone was finishing up loading up everything they didn't want to leave behind, and were ready to help load up what we'd grabbed and start loading it onto the truck trailer. While they did that, Rumi, Kyli, Matilda, and I scattered to go collect our own things to take with us.

Slithering back into my tiny apartment again I felt a bit shocked to realize it hadn't even been a full day since I'd left it. Good lord, it couldn't be later than four, and more had happened today than I was used to seeing in most weeks! And the day still wasn't over yet! I slithered over to my bed and began to pray.

Dear Lord in Heaven, please don't let every day be like this or my lazy ass will be dead inside of a week. I vented a bit before getting serious. Forgive me for that weakness Lord God. Your humble servant is thankful for the strength and mercy you have already given him this day. I pray that you will continue to protect both me and those you have put in my care in these coming days. That we may face these trials put before us by the pretender and stay firmly upon the true path you have laid out before us. I also ask that you watch over my family and the families of my friends until we are all together once again. May all of my friends make it through their trials and humanity return to its rightful place by your side. In your name I pray. Amen.

It was a little thing, but it helped remove some of the weight of the day as I raised my head and began looking around my apartment. What would I be taking with me? Most of the important stuff was in my bug out bag, but even most of that was fairly worthless to me now. The gun's ammo was now worthless, the stove's fuel rendered near worthless, did I even need the sleeping bag and bedroll anymore? I supposed that some of the smaller people in the group would appreciate them so I packed them up. But the spare clothes? I supposed I could replace them with towels as the ability to get dry was still useful.

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I cast my eyes around my apartment, my computer? Worthless. My guns? Worthless. Art supplies for drawing and making costumes? Rotten and worthless. A lion's share of my book collection, while enjoyable reads were now little more than worthless dead weight, though I did load up the copy of the family cookbook with recipes going back to before the depression. The various costumes I'd made? Not worth taking along. The boxes of documents for tax purposes, thankfully worthless, and I'd happily set the lot alight in celebration had I the time. That was one silver lining at least. Was it really worth taking any of my pillows and blankets? I suppose I could take one of each, though they'd be fairly small for me now. All of those toys and statues I'd held onto so that I might someday pass them down to my own children in turn? Well, that hardly seemed likely anymore, so why bother with them?

No. My eyes locked onto one of the stuffed animals among the crowd at the top of the bookshelf, that one would be coming with. With gentle care I gently picked up the now fifty to sixty year old stuffed dog and lovingly stroked its white hair back to reveal one still shining blue eye peeking out of its fluff. A sad smile wobbled onto my face as I looked down at one of my oldest toys and the first Christmas gift I could remember getting.

"I miss you so much Granny," I whispered, softly embracing the old toy. I couldn't help but wonder, if she could have held on but a few more months, would she be like Matilda? Made young and vibrant again? Free of her aches, her withering, and failing body?

Would she be able to remember me again?

I found myself lamenting this new body's inability to cry. Such thoughts should be accompanied by tears. I knew such thoughts were selfish. Wishing my Granny had suffered that horrible pain and confusion for months more just for the possibility of seeing her face light up again upon seeing me again. She was happy in heaven with all of her brothers, her family, and all the many friends she'd lost along the way. It was better this way, she'd hated snakes after all.

I still missed her terribly.

Placing the old toy in a place of safety, carefully wrapped in the blanket and away from all the metal objects in a corner I zipped up the tightly packed bag and began loading up all the water bottles and my largest cooking pots into another bag. Looking along the wall I decided to take down and pack both my old dreamcatcher and the old painted crucifix that had been following me around for as long as I could remember. And with that, I was done. All of my worldly possessions, reduced down to two carry on bags. It left me with an oddly morose feeling as I grabbed the handles in my mouth and slithering out the door. I considered stopping to lock the door behind me, but why bother? There was nothing of value to me here anymore.

With everything loaded into the back of the disconnected trailer, we spent five minutes hooking up the lengths of chain to it and gave it a few test pulls. Thankfully, between Rumi, Will, and I pulling the trailer was hardly any harder than backpacking through the woods leaving Kyli to tag in whenever someone started getting tired. Omar and Rafael volunteered to be scouts using the speed and maneuverability the bike and their wings gave them to find the easiest paths around pileups and wrecks from people who had been ignoring the shelter in place order. Matilda and Nolan both volunteered to go with them, but I managed to talk the pair into keeping overwatch on the group.

The trip proved fairly uneventful, with nothing more than a couple groups of jackal-snakes that approached, and quickly backed off upon seeing a large group of waiting people. The closest thing to trouble we encountered was a rather large pothole that we failed to maneuver around, but with a dozen people and a little leverage we were able to get free after a couple minutes. Morale was high and people were getting excited as we began to see the dome of the stadium beginning to poke up over the treeline.

So of course something had to go wrong.

Omar and Rafael returned from their scouting sweeps with a rather grim look about them and waved me over. I swapped out for Kyli and slithered over.

"Okay, we got a major problem." Omar informed me, "There's something already living in the stadium and I don't think we're going to be able to deal with it."

"You going to tell me what it is or just keep trying to raise dramatic tension?" I asked, using a bit of levity to cover my growing worry..

"An absolutely massive scorpion," Rafael said, his wings ruffling nervously, "Like the main body was the size of the trailer and its claws as big as minivans, thing also had two tails and came with its own warning announcement, title, and ominous sounding quest."

"Area boss and Death's Cauldron respectively." Omar nodded, "The thing seemed to know we were there almost as soon as we got the warning pop up. About a minute after the warning, the thing burst out of the stadium and started coming after us, thankfully it wasn't fast enough to keep up with the bike and wandered back home."

"Any sort of range capabilities?" I inquired, my tone clipped as I began to strategize how to deal with our latest obstacle.

"It spat a big ol' glob of something at me while I was flying over it trying to distract it while Omar ran." Rafael stated grimly, "It left a lingering line of mist when it passed and seemed to burst into a massive cloud when it hit the ground, didn't seem to be doing anything to the plants or buildings around it, but I was hardly going to investigate it personally."

"So any ideas on how we're going to beat it?" Omar asked expectantly.

"We can't fight that thing!" Rafael squawked indignantly, "We're just going to have to try somewhere else."

I let the two bicker as my eyes roamed over the area. Taking in what I knew of our group and its abilities, while running them against what little I knew of scorpion biology, and what the two were describing I began running through potential scenarios. My gaze lingered on the construction site and its crane where a new hotel or some other building had been mid construction come the Event. Gears turned and plans began to form.

"Rafael's right about one thing," I said slowly, "We can't fight this thing, if we fight it, I'm certain we're going to lose some people. However, I think we have a fairly good chance of simply murdering it."