Now, Earth
Remy rounded the corner and almost ran into Hanna’s blade.
“What happened?”
“No time to explain. We need to run,” Hanna said as she swerved around Remy.
More men and women streamed around Remy.
He saw the three cultists’ cars turning down the street to continue south.
Remy shrugged and he joined the people running. He counted twenty-two men and women, some were injured. He looked back and saw Captain Hamill bringing up the rear, so he slowed down until he was running stride for stride with the captain.
“What happened?”
“Detective Ordonez is going to try to take the wounded out of the city.”
“How? Both bridges have to be swarming with fishmen and cultists,” Remy said.
“Going south.”
Remy noticed that the Captain was breathing hard. After almost ten years he had forgotten what it was like to have human physical limits. He decided to stop asking questions to give the captain a break.
The force they came in was much diminished. Over half down.
A guilty thought entered Remy’s head. He could run much faster for much longer than everyone else around him. He could slip away while the larger and slower group drew all the attention. He could probably be home with his family in a few hours.
He rejected it, but the thought lingered.
Remy focused on listening for any signs of pursuit. To his surprise there was none.
The soldier, Jimenez, Remy remembered, ran next to Hanna, whose long legs made her run look easy, effortless despite the weight in weapons and armor she carried.
Jimenez struggled to keep pace with Hanna from the looks of it, but she was still able to give Hanna directions via hand gestures.
Good.
At least they had a plan.
Remy remembered that they had planned several different exit routes in the event of such a scenario.
They just needed to lose their pursuers and avoid populated areas.
Maybe find working vehicles along the way.
In fact it might be worth it setting up an ambush of their own to get their hands on more cultist vehicles.
Remy dismissed that option. One look at his allies told him that they weren’t in shape for another fight. They were low on ammo and needed rest to replenish their mana and energy. Spells and Active Skills had a cost.
The more Remy thought about it the darker his assessment of their chances became.
They had come to rescue people.
Now that they were the ones in need. Who was left to rescue them?
He longed to fly up and leave it all behind, but he couldn’t.
He feared the pain he felt when he used his powers in full.
Dread grew in Remy.
Little did he know that it was deliberate and with fell purpose.
----------------------------------------
Tessa sat in the dark. She wore her best Dad-made armor and had a hand on her precious, Dad-made kanabo.
The dining table chair groaned in protest as she shifted a bit to wake up her legs.
Her dad had left her mother’s and sister’s safety in her hands while he was away on his mission.
Tessa wasn’t planning on sleeping until her dad came back.
Three hours past midnight and all was clear.
It was about time for a quick check around the house.
Tessa went upstairs and looked in on her mother.
Sleeping soundly.
She checked on Veronica next. Her sister had shot up like a twig in the last couple of years. She looked like a gangly antelope. One leg was wrapped up in her blanket and the other hung of the bed and rested on floor.
Veronica was already taller than Tessa, which secretly pissed her off.
“No, no, be the adult that you are,” Tessa whispered. She was almost out of her teens. The big two-zero loomed. It was ridiculous to be jealous of your fourteen-year-old sister.
A soft squeak drew her attention.
Twinkle Star’s eyes glinted in the moonlight shining through Veronica’s window.
The guinea pig was like seventeen or eighteen, yet he was still going strong. The only sign of aging was a bit of gray near his nose and muzzle.
She knew that the average guinea pig’s life expectancy ran about five years.
Her Uncle Eron had been right. Something weird was up with Twinkle Star.
The guinea pig looked at Tessa for a moment before continuing to munch on the lettuce in his cage.
“We stay on watch,” Tessa nodded at Twinkle Star.
She checked her own room, just in case. Nothing, but silence.
She had left her curtains open. The moon was bright. Her neighborhood was mostly dark. Much of her neighbors from before didn’t survive the early days after the spires. Many of the ones that did moved into the vacant homes and apartments closer to the center of where the council and the Watch had set up base.
She wondered if there was also a harbored, secret fear of her family involved.
Ungrateful.
Tessa sighed.
That wasn’t fair of her.
People had a right to live where they felt safe. She couldn’t take that personally. She needed to work so that people wouldn’t be afraid of her.
Tessa moved down to the ground floor.
The darkness didn’t hamper her. Superior vision meant that the moonlight was enough for her.
Everything was clear.
She walked out the garage side door and around to the backyard. Their old childhood play gym was long gone to make space for sparring.
Clear.
She moved around to the right side of their house and out to the front yard. She laid eyes on the stump of the oak tree that once held a rope swing. They had cut it down so that the gremlins, mutant squirrels and mutant birds didn’t have a place to lurk so close to their house.
It made her a little sad.
Tessa stood out in her front yard and listened to the sounds of the night.
Silence.
Gremlin numbers within their controlled territory had dwindled to almost nothing. It was the same with the animals, normal and mutant. Not much of the latter anyway. Most of the wild animals turned mutant. Most pets had died along with their owners.
That lack of insects bothered her mom to this day.
For some reason her mom kept herself willfully ignorant of the fact that there were plenty of insects outside of the city. Granted, they were mutated versions, but Tessa figured it was close enough.
A soft breeze rustled the leaves of the trees further away from her house. Tessa smelled fresh, clean air. It was like she was out in the forest even if she was deep in the middle of a suburban housing tract.
Less pollution was a good thing, but was it worth all the dead?
Tessa didn’t think so.
A strange scent hit her nostrils.
The ocean?
----------------------------------------
“Why can’t he just fly us out of here.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah! I saw an F-350 back down the street. I bet we can all fit. He can just carry us out of this shitshow.”
“That’s a no go,” Captain Hamill said.
“Why?”
“Thought he was supposed to be a superstar.”
“Our entire plan hinged on him rolling over the fish fucks.”
“If I knew he was going to be this useless—”
Hushed voices in the living room. Angry and desperate.
Remy sat in the kitchen with Hanna.
He was tired, which was a problem. He had gotten used to not getting tired.
Now he felt like he had just gone through a Spartan Race, like he used to in the old days. Expect this time the exhaustion wasn’t one of happy satisfaction.
“Don’t hold it against them. They’re scared,” Hanna said.
Remy wasn’t. He was barely listening.
“Can you do it though?”
Remy shook his head. “Something is messing with my powers. Can’t do big, sustained stuff beyond an arm-length away from my body without getting shut down.” He didn’t mention the pain and nausea.
“That is… alarming.” Hanna sat down at the table and started the process of cleaning and sharpening her swords. “I’ve got a skill that keeps them sharp, but,” she said at Remy’s questioning look, “I don’t need to waste the energy when I can do it the normal way.”
“Burn through your skills back there?”
“Nope, just used one. There was this guy that had, like, sea shells or corals growing out of his arm. Couldn’t cut through it. Had to use a Skill. Ever see anything like that? I haven’t been fighting fishmen like you.”
“The fishmen use shields that look like giant shells. I haven’t taken on any cultists. Seems they can mutate people with their magic.”
“Right, read the report. Made their muscles bigger, stronger. This was different,” Hanna frowned. “There was more. Others had tentacles, spikes, spines… scaly skin as strong as armor.”
“I try not to think that anything is impossible,” Remy sighed.
“Me too, except it’s hard when you’re crossing blades with them. Reminds me of the stories I read.”
Captain Hamill walked into the kitchen.
The big man loomed over Remy in a violation of his personal space.
Remy didn’t bother getting up. He’d have to crane his neck back to look the captain in the eyes. He just didn’t have the mental energy for a pointless dick-measuring contest.
Hanna, however, got up and stared the captain down. She was a tall woman and athletically built.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Captain Hamill wasn’t a fool. He had seen her work with her swords. He knew that she was the second most dangerous person in the room. He relaxed his stance and moved back half a step.
Hanna sat back down and went back to her swords.
“I need to know what’s going on with you.”
“Something is interfering with my ability to use my powers to their full potential,” Remy said.
“So, no flying us out of here?” Captain Hamill’s face showed that he already knew the answer.
Remy shook his head.
“Well, fuck then,” Captain Hamill let out a breath. “Mission’s boned. Our people might be in fucking Atlantis for all we know. Ammo’s low,” he closed his eyes for a moment, “so’s spell mana and skill energy.”
“Ten years in and you still haven’t bought int all the way,” Hanna smirked. “Don’t you have a class? Skills?”
“Yes.” Captain Hamill didn’t elaborate.
“How bout we find a gun store or sporting goods store?” Hanna said.
“We mapped those out and that is a possible option, but I have to operate knowing that they are likely to be guarded. I’m not afraid of another fight, but this time we’ll be at a distinct disadvantage.”
“What if we bait another ambush?” Remy said. “I’ll do the heavy lifting. The rest of you can stay back.”
“Risky. If the enemy is smart they’ll remember what happened back there. They’ll avoid the possibility,” Captain Hamill countered.
“Let’s just keep running then,” Hanna shrugged. “Seems like we’ve lost them. That or they’ve lost the stomach for more. I certainly cut a bunch of them down.”
“We did bloody them better than they did us. It might take some time before they get hard enough to try us again.”
“See, so we should put as much distance as possible before they get it up again,” Hanna said.
Captain Hamill shook his head. “As much as I’d like that. My guys need a breather. At least an hour.”
“That’s probably the best plan. I’m not going to be able to take everyone out of here and I doubt that’ll change anytime soon,” Remy said.
Captain Hamill gave him a tight nod. “One hour, then we move.” He turned and walked back into the living room.
Hanna raised a brow.
“You took him down a notch. I’m impressed.”
Hanna rolled her eyes. “The captain’s not a bad dude all things considered. I’ve dealt with worse.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“Speaking of which… I noticed that you didn’t kill anyone back there. Look, I just want to raise the point that perhaps one can no longer be considered a human being when they start sprouting corals and tentacles as probably a product of selling their souls to a fucking fish cult.”
“We don’t know what’s going on for sure,” Remy said.
Hanna gave him a flat stare.
He had to admit that his take was a weak one. All evidence so far backed Hanna’s view more than the counter. Granted it was also circumstantial.
“I know you don’t actually believe that, but I’ll drop it for now. What about those werewolves?”
“More like were… dogs.”
“Whatever, same difference… I didn’t see them in action, but I overheard from a couple of our buddies. Total monsters, tore through a lot of our allies. You planning on going lethal with them? Cause I’ll tell you now that I’m not too confident about me taking them on. Which means if they show up again it’s all on you to keep the rest of us from becoming bloody chunks.”
“No,” Remy shook his head from side to side, “yeah. I mean, I’ll have to go all out or I might end up dead.”
“If I had your power…” Hanna trailed off when she saw the dark look on Remy’s face. She concentrated on sharpening her swords for the next thirty minutes.
Remy sat in the chair. Drank from his water bottle and tried to rest. The ever present feeling of dread didn’t let him. It only grew stronger.
He was about to ask Hanna if she felt the same thing when a shout from the living room called for him.
Remy walked into a living room of hardened soldiers and fighters that looked at him with a mix of distrust and fear. He tried to ignore it, but found himself looking down at his feet as he walked to the large front window.
The curtains had been drawn and Captain Hamill carefully peaked out the side.
“What is it?” Remy had the sense to whisper.
The captain held a finger to his lips and stepped back to give Remy room to look.
There was a dog in the middle of the street staring right at him. It was a golden retriever with a goofy smile. Except there was a problem. The dog was enormous. It looked about as big as a lion.
Well… shit, Remy thought.
“Jimenez?”
“Yes, captain.”
“What’s the number at?”
“Strong seven, sir?”
The captain barked out orders in hushed tones. He split his forces. Most he sent up to reinforce the lookouts on the second floor. The rest he sent back into the kitchen with Hanna. He kept Jimenez close to him as he took up a position near the hallway behind the stairs.
Remy noted that it was as far away from the front window while still being in the living room.
He was being uncharitable.
The captain was obviously placing himself in a central location for better command and control.
Obviously.
“Cruces, I’m counting on you to hold down the living room,” Captain Hamill said.
Remy gave him a curt nod.
The minutes grew long.
It was a painful wait.
Remy kept checking the giant dog out front. It still had that goofy look on its face. Tongue lolling out.
“Do something, already,” Remy muttered.
A series of deep barks sounded from what seemed like all sides of the house.
He had jinxed it.
“Eleven! Eleven! Eleven!”
Jimenez’s high-pitched voice was drowned out by several large crashes.
It was like several cars had simultaneously hit the house.
----------------------------------------
Tessa heard movement. Sharp claws or nails scrabbled against the asphalt.
She spun and ran for her front door.
Air whistled all around her.
Thin shafts, like animal spines flew past Tessa and stuck deep into the front of her house.
She grabbed a handful of nuts and bolts from a pouch at her belt and flung them out in a wide spray behind her.
A loud crack split the quiet night as the projectiles stormed across the street and raked the roof of the house on the corner.
Tessa caught a glint of scales in the moonlight as dark shapes dropped over the back end of house.
She didn’t have time to unlock the door. She broke the lock and pushed right through in one motion.
The next thing she did was to hit the alarm button on the wall at the bottom of the stairs.
That’d get her mom and sister up. As well as let anyone else in earshot that there was a serious problem. They wouldn’t help though. It was more for the other people’s safety, so that they knew to stay away.
Tessa belatedly realized that she felt wetness on her back and a bit of a sting.
She took off her dad-modified motorcycle jacket and was surprised to see three of the fishmen’s weird spinebolts had managed to pierce through the thin, dense, but flexible, metal outer layer and the original kevlar and leather below. They hadn’t gone through that much, but it was enough that spines pricked her practically bulletproof skin.
“The fuck,” Tessa muttered. This was new. The fishmen must’ve upgraded their weapons. Magic?
She pulled the spines out and put her jacket back on. She hurriedly went back to the kitchen and grabbed the much more heavily armored vest and tossed that on. Followed by a Spartan-style helmet. Everything was dad-made, which meant that the metal was a lot denser and heavier, without being bulky, than what a normal human was capable of wearing.
Tessa had several hundred pounds of armor on her, but she moved without apparent effort.
Seconds had already passed.
The piercing shriek of the alarm had drowned out all sounds from outside.
A dangerous oversight.
Tessa didn’t hear the fishmen infiltrating her backyard.
A spinebolt pierced through the kitchen window.
It struck the bottom of her helmet and somehow deflected down past all of her armor into her collarbone.
More spines peppered through the window.
Most bounced off her chest plate.
One stuck right in her chin. It was only stopped by bone.
The fishmen had to reload before another volley. Unfortunately, that didn’t give Tessa much time. They were extremely strong. They didn’t need cranks to draw back their weird crossbows, despite being more powerful than the strongest human crossbows in history. They could do it by hand.
Tessa pulled the spines out with a grunt. It hurt. Blood gushed down her neck and chest. She didn’t have time to see to the wounds.
“Fishy bastards!” Tessa shouted in frustration as she dived for cover behind the nook counter.
Another volley of spinebolts shattered what was left of the window.
“Tessa! What’s going on!”
Her mother shouted from upstairs.
“Fishmen! Stay with Vee!”
“What should I do!”
Veronica’s voice.
“Get Mom out of here!” Tessa thought frantically. She was scared, but more for her mom and sister. One spinebolt could kill her mom in an instant and Veronica wasn’t as tough as she was. “Escape Plan A!”
“Got it!”
“We’re not leaving without you!”
Her mom again.
“No arguing! I’ll keep them busy!”
Tessa had stacked neat piles of 2.5 and 5 pound weight plates all over the house for just this situation. It had been a pain having to go back to the Big 5 a bunch of times while waiting for the stocks to replenish. Her dad had thought she was being paranoid, well, who was paranoid now?
She reached around the counter and grabbed a few plates.
The fishmen fired another volley.
Tessa waited then hopped out of her cover and magnetically shot the plates through her kitchen wall at several times the speed of sound. The collective boom shook the entire house and blew out every window.
“Oops.”
Her mom wasn’t going to be happy about that.
The front door exploded inward.
A fishman came charging through behind its shell shield.
Tessa grabbed a 5 pound plate and shot it at the fishman at near point-blank range.
The plate pulverized the shield and crushed the fishman out back the way it had come, knocking aside several others right behind it.
More fishmen jumped through the ruined living room window.
They were significantly stronger and faster than the best humanity had to offer.
Tessa was superhuman.
She flipped her kanabo up from the ground to her hand with a flick of her foot. In the same motion she thrust it forward into one of the fishmen.
It blocked with its shield, but was violently driven back into the couch.
The second fishman thrust at Tessa with a spear that almost looked organic. The shaft looked like coral or bone. The spearhead was some kind of serrated tooth. From what animal? Tessa didn’t know.
She dipped to one side and let the quick thrust pass harmlessly over her shoulder.
The fishman had a shield but it was on the wrong side.
Tessa swept her 50 pound kanabo, one-handed, low to high.
She crushed the fishman’s side as she sent it up to hit the roof hard. She heard the ribs shatter. She hammered the kanabo down on the fishman’s back before it was even halfway to the floor.
She didn’t need the audible crack to dismiss the fishman as a threat. It wasn’t going to be getting up.
The first fishman leaped at her.
Tessa swatted its spear aside with a wave of her arm. The jagged edges near the spearhead scrapped against the metal panels on her jacket sleeve. She grabbed the spear shaft and ripped it from the fishman’s hand.
The fishman tried to jump back out the window, but Tessa broke its head with one swing of her kanabo.
Tessa eyes widened as she looked out the window.
A line of fishmen had their weapons leveled.
She dived to the side just as the crossbows twanged.
Spinebolts ripped into her living room.
Pictures, paintings, toys and decorations that had survived the apocalypse were ripped to shreds.
“My nutcracker prince,” Tessa whispered in horror as the venerable wooden doll fell in pieces from its honored place on the shelf. It had been a gift from her grandmother, passed down from her great-grandmother.
Tessa remembered how her mom had been a little salty that it had bypassed her.
“Fuckers!” Tessa roared as she grabbed more plates and readied to smash the fishmen. “Huh?”
The line of fishmen on the street weren’t reloading. They were on the ground having violent, painful-looking seizures.
She heard an engine roar to life and tires screech as her mom’s truck ran right over the fishmen.
“C’mon, Tessa!” Veronica beckoned from the passenger side window.
Fishmen came crashing through the back of the house.
Tessa snapped the plates back in their direction before running for the truck.
Spasming fishmen covered the driveway. She noticed that many of them had tire marks on their scaly skin.
More fishmen came after her from around the corner of her house on her right.
“Bang! Justice!” Veronica pointed a finger gun at the fishmen and scrambled their brains with an electromagnetic burst to their brains.
The flopped to the ground, like, well, fish.
The mental image brought a smile to Tessa’s face. She gripped her kanabo and moved to finish the job her little sister had started. She was going to turn the fishmen into sushi for making her ruin her house.
“Tessandra! Get in the truck! Now!”
Tessa froze in the way only her mother’s voice could make her.
“Damn it,” Tessa muttered.
She ran over and hopped into the truck bed. She held on tight as her mom cut a sharp U-turn that was definitely more dangerous than she had seen her mom do before.
The truck screamed down the neighborhood streets. The headlights cut through the thick mist. The blaring alarm from their house dwindled with the distance.
“I can smell the ocean!” Veronica said.
“Wait a second?”
It had been a clear night just a few minutes ago.
The truck turned down the last street to get out of the tract and onto the street, but came to a screeching halt.
Tessa had to grab the side of the bed to keep from slamming into the back window.
The mist was almost an opaque wall in front of them. It swirled around as if something was making waves inside. Something big.
“Mom?” Veronica said.
“Back up! Back up! Back up!” Tessa heard breathing. Definitely big.
“Oh my god!” Megan whispered as she shifted into reverse and whipped her truck back the way they had come.
They barely made it just in time.
A huge tail swept through where they had been.
“Mom, stop!” Tessa pounded on the roof.
The thick mist was all around them now.
As were the unmistakable sounds of movement.
The three Cruces women almost, almost didn’t notice the loud chime that came from nowhere and everywhere.