So it turns out that mixing Focused abilities results in a far larger boost than I had calculated, by a relatively minor margin. I'd so far cleared about three blocks and was finally starting to lose altitude, playing it by eye I'd likely clear another block or two before my final landing. Which looked like it would put my landing position near the Wall2Wall-Mart. Well, I had been planning to come here later in the day, so I'd at least save the trip.

Actually no, scratch that, it looked like my trajectory would have me landing in the store! Remembering the crater my earlier Leap had made this Leap might just erase the store in its entirety. That was already a rather big problem, but add in the fact there was a fair sized T-Rex lounging outside implying that there were people potentially inside it turned into a massive problem! Time to decelerate hard!

Firing off several Lunges tailward was certainly slowing me down and deepening the angle of impact, reducing the chance of me bouncing into something. Unfortunately it seems I was still going to hit the side street near the store that was stuffed full of big rigs who's riders had likely been sitting there catching some sleep on their journey when the Event happened. Dang it! Uh, that one seems the least important, if I've got to hit something might as well hit that one!

I managed two more Lunges before I slammed into the truck's cab hard enough to not only reduce it to shredded scrap but completely flip its load. Sadly this was woefully inadequate to stop my momentum, leading to me hitting the road and blasting a minor crater in it, before spiraling over the drainage ditch separating the road from the parking lot.

Screaming over the parking lot I smashed through one cart return without slowing and skipping off the ground again. Both the T-Rex and I seemed to simultaneously realize I was barreling right towards them. They began to awkwardly try to stand themselves up with their tiny arms scratching at the wall in an attempt to pull themselves up faster. I tried to wrap myself around one of the lot's light poles only to rip through the thing and achieve little beyond putting myself into a wild spin.

I need this to stop! How do I stop!? Stop! Wait didn't I just figure out how to-? YES! Focused Bunker Down!

My body curled itself into a defensive coil and everything slammed to a jarring halt as I found myself looking into the wide reptilian eyes of the T-Rex a meager two feet from my own head. As I hung in the air staring at each other for a moment just looking disbelievingly at each other in a frozen moment my tongue flicked out.

Huh, I can literally smell fear? Neat.

Dropping my Focus, my body plopped to the ground with a heavy thud. Pulling my head away from the smaller dinosaur I gave him a cheery smile, "Top of the morning neighbor! How's your day been going so far?"

"What in the God damn...?" I'm not sure the guy(?) even meant to say it. My appearance seemed to have really freaked him out.

"Bones," a voice like a grinder gargling gravel called from inside, "You okay? What was all that noise?" A hunched desiccated cross between a man and squirrel poked its head out of the door into the store and looked up at me in shocked confusion.

Is that a Chupacabra? I wondered before pushing on, "Howdy neighbor, y’all doing some early morning shopping too?"

"Bones," the little chupacabra man didn't take his eyes off me, "Where in the Goddamn did this pendejo come from."

"This hombre literally just dropped out of the sky and bounced his way over here Spider," the Bones stated, seeming to finally recover himself. "Fuck damn near made me shit myself."

Hrm, that sounded like gang names, that certainly didn't bode well for this interaction ending peaceably. No reason not to at least try for it though, "Sorry 'bout that partner. Still a bit new to flyin', still workin' on the landin'. No hard feelin's right?"

"Nah, nah, nah, ain't happening snake boy." Bones said, stepping forwards and poking me in the chest with his snout, "We're using this place and we ain't in no sharin' mood comprende?"

I looked down my nose at the far smaller man who was trying to intimidate me. It felt like getting threatened by a toddler with a knife, potentially a minor threat, but more an annoyance. I let the affable friendly drawl drop away and the full deep rumbling voice of my new body take its place. "Strike one chupamedias. Continue at your own peril."

Bones seemed to recoil a bit at the sudden change in attitude, but Spider seemed to step forward to take his place, "Oh? What ya gonna do gringo? You feel tough jus' cause you're a little big?"

He looked directly into my eyes and I felt fear spike through me. My blood was already starting to get up from these two so the sudden spike of fear nearly made me swing at the little brat. I quickly realized this for an effect like Daphne's hiss which burned away the false fear with a fresh rage.

That inner monster in my soul that was always eager and willing for violence, that longed for battle and bloodshed, was chomping at the bit. It wanted me to tear these vermin apart and laugh over their bodies, and oh how tempted I was to give into its whispers. They hadn't quite crossed that line though. I would hold to my vows until then.

"What I will do iss usse hiss asss to beat your asss," I hissed, my anger making talking a tad difficult, "If you're sstill dumb enough to sstart sshit again I will ssimply kill you. Sstrike two by the way. Want to keep tessting me tiny?"

"Spider," Bones rumbled in a sad attempt of a whisper, "I think this maldito is the real deal."

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"I don't care who he is!" Spider snapped, "Tango Blast don't back away from some rando who thinks he's hot shit!" Spider whirled to shout into the store, "Yo! Newbies! Get your asses out here and-"

That was clear enough intent of violence for me to declare strike three. Leaning down and engulfing half the tiny man's body in my mouth I leaned back and, using my entire body as a poor substitute for an arm, whipped the little turd through the air. He flew like a screaming frisbee, but due to the poor throw he didn't even make it to the end of the block.

–Grappling Strike has leveled up!–

–Gained 3xp–

Glaring down at Bones I simply told him, "Fetch. And don't come back."

Bones seemed to hesitate as he looked up at me, then his eyes widened as he looked at something behind me and thundered over to his friend. Looking behind me I saw the outline of Matilda, Raphael, and Daphne in the sky closing quickly. I guess even a dinosaur with a brain the size of a walnut can figure out four is a bigger number than one.

"This isn't over gringo!" Bones shouted from a safe distance, "The Foritos don't bend over for no one! Will be back and fuck up you and your gili friends!"

I seriously considered using a Lunge to zip over into his face or maybe even a Focused one to simply impale him. However the bonehead carefully scoped up his weakly twitching friend in his mouth, running off before I made up my mind. If those two decided to make good on their threats I'd make good on my promise.

Raphael landed nearby while Daphne hung back and seemed to be investigating the truck I'd flipped upon landing. Matilda fluttered down to land on my head, several of her miniature clones fluttering off her to flit around the area. She cocked her head at me, speaking in a slow scolding tone of someone dealing with a troublesome child, "Joe. Would you like to tell me why in the five minutes it took us to catch up with you, you somehow got someone to declare war on you?"

I coiled a bit reflexively at her tone, "They were a couple thugs trying to claim the entire store for their own and not being willing to share. They decided to push me and I pushed back. Turns out I can push a lot harder than they can and apparently they took exception to that."

"You know I wasn't really looking to be part of a gang war," Raphael said with a shudder that produced a sound like leaves in the wind.

"They'd have been an issue eventually." I reasoned, "By at least making a strong showing we can hope they will consider us too strong to tangle with right now."

"I somehow doubt it," Raphael sighed.

"So what do you want to do about the four that are still inside cowering by the door?" Matilda asked.

"They haven't done anything to me so I'm willing to let them leave peaceably." Turning to the door I called out, "Come on out you four. I swear to God and on my honor that we aren't going to hurt you unless you do something unimaginably stupid." I slapped my tail on the ground for both emphasis and to get a nice strong reading with tremorsense.

–Tremorsense has leveled up!–

–Gained 3xp–

As they huddled inside the store, I examined the aardvark, cockatrice, deer with wind chime looking antlers, and ram. Huh, the ram guy kind of looks like the critters from my bloodline vision. All of them were holding themselves with far less confidence than the thugs I'd run off and seemed to be conversing amongst themselves. They didn't seem to be willing to come out.

Matilda suddenly jerked as if struck, "Joe, please go deal with Daphne over at that truck. Me and Raphael will deal with coaxing these four out.

"What's she doing?" I asked curiously.

"Go!” Matilda fluttered down to the ground and had several of her smaller moths start harassing my face, "Before that girl gets herself killed!"

"I'm going! I'm going!" I said slithering away and throwing back a weepy wail of, "Why are you always abusing me!?"

Matilda waved me off, or perhaps she was jokingly threatening me with her fist, hard to say with bug legs. Turning my attention to the flipped and half shattered trailer across I'd impacted. I could just make out several scattered metal, plastic, and wooden crates bleeding onto the road. The plastic crates tickled my memory as looking familiar, the metal boxes I recognized instantly from the times my friends in the service had managed to get me some time with some particularly fun guns. Those were military ammo boxes.

Picking up the pace of my slithering, a slow and ponderous process, I began trying to spot our new bat girl among the clutter. There were a lot of places someone as small as her could be hiding, but spotting one of Matilda's mini moths fluttering its wings and pointing I finally spotted the bat. She was perched behind one of the wooden crates that was cracked open and was trying to drag out its contents. All I could tell from here was it involved a tube large enough to fit a soup can down.

Using a Lunge to skip over the drainage ditch, even if it caused me to skid across the road and crash into another eighteen wheeler. Now getting a VERY good look at the 20mm autocannon the woman was trying to pull free of its packaging, I felt my heart skip a beat. Looking over the many remaining wooden crates spilling out of and still inside the trailer, many of which were bigger than the one Daphne was playing with, it might be a good idea to find out what was in those.

Focusing on my tremorsense I gave the road a hard slap. Then my heart stopped as my breath caught in my throat.

Those are rockets!!! Why is this random eighteen wheeler full of rockets, bombs, and cannons!?! Oh Jesus! I crashed into a trailer full of bombs and rockets! Why is a random trailer full of military grade explosives!? Good Lord thank you for your mercy today.

A squeaky yelp broke me out of my building panic attack to see that the four foot tall woman had managed to tug the ten foot cannon free of its crate enough for it to fall on her and pin her to the ground. Bending down to tenderly grip the weapon in my teeth, I lifted it off the bat and returned it to its home.

Daphne turned to glare at me only to pause and ask, "What's got you so spooked?"

"That cannon you were just playing with is one of the smaller things in that truck," I said as steadily as I could manage, "We are all very lucky that no one else found this before us, because that could have been very very bad. I know last I checked you weren't officially part of our group yet, but can you let everyone at the stadium know we need the trailer emptied and brought over as soon as physically possible and that we won't be back until we've loaded this up?"

"Can I keep the cannon if I do?"