Now, Manila

Phillip noticed that the fog had lightened some. If one could call it that. A bit less opaque. Less of a thick, creamy soup and more of the liquid-y type.

He could also hear the people behind him. Their steps echoed in the eerie quiet of a dead city once home to millions, then tens of thousands and finally, around a hundred. Boots scraped against the asphalt. It wasn’t just those in his immediate vicinity, like Hanna a few feet behind him, but also of those further down the formation.

“Stop,” Hanna said.

“What is it?” Phillip scanned the swirling mists for threats.

Nothing.

Which set him on edge.

Where were the shades, as Eron had described them?

He dreaded it.

Seeing, speaking to his relatives even if they were only fake copies.

The inevitability of an encounter had dogged him across their entire trip. It could happen at any time and he was torn between wanting to get it over with and delaying it for as long as possibly.

A commotion farther back drew his attention.

The fog swirled around Hanna and several rangers as they made way for Demi and Jake.

“We’ve got a minor problem,” Jake began.

The big Techmage eyed Demi, who waved him on.

“Lost connection to home base. I wouldn’t be too concerned because with all this weird crap,” Jake gestured at their surroundings, “it’s to be expected that there’d be connectivity issues. I wouldn’t really start worrying unless we couldn’t get them back in, like, an hour or two. Except…”

Jake held up his magical energy signature scanner, which to Phillip looked like an old smartphone. “At about the same time that we lost the connection, this detected a pretty powerful spike. Now, I’ll admit that its directional capabilities are crude… just a general direction without accounting for elevation until you get really close—”

“Get on with it,” Hanna said.

“Well, it’s kinda hard to tell where exactly we are right now in relation to the hotel, but the energy spike detected was in that direction.”

“You made three of those things. Did the other two detect the same? From the same location?” Phillip said.

“Max’s and Two-toes’ devices picked up the same exact thing mine did,” Jake nodded.

“So, what? An attack on our base?” Hanna smirked. “That might be a good thing. If this fog entity is tangling with Cal then it’ll be too busy to deal with us.”

“I had the same thought. Might account for the lack of shade monsters and…” Demi glanced at Phillip, “others.”

“You can say it,” Phillip waved her concern away. “My relatives… along with other people,” he added.

“Let’s keep moving forward,” Demi said.

They moved out of an area filled with high-rise buildings and into one with shops and restaurants. They passed what were obviously slums, haphazardly built homes out of whatever materials the people could find. That was the thing about this place. One side of the street could be lined with all manner of fancy boutiques while the other was home to those who could never afford to shop at those places.

Phillip thought he caught glimpses of shapes across the rooftops on one side and more in the cramped alleys of the slums on the other.

“Hanna, did you see them?”

“I think so and if you haven’t noticed the fog is getting thicker. Moving faster, if that makes sense,” Hanna said.

“We’re still a few miles away from Eron’s main base,” Phillip said.

Concern that the fog was stirring was confirmed a moment later when several shouts went up from multiple points along their formation.

It was a simple call, echoed by several people. One that they had learned to dread, but relied on for so much.

“Danger sense!”

Phillip’s eyes darted to the shapes in the fog, but found nothing.

“Where’d they go?” Hanna said. “Where’s the danger coming from!” she called back.

“All around us!” Jimenez cried.

Phillip noticed it then.

An enormous shape. Darkness in the gray expanse.

It reminded him of the time he and his wife had gone whale watching once. It was hard to describe the immensity of the ocean giants as they swam just beneath the surface. This was… close.

The thing in the fog circled over there heads. A dozen or more feet above the highest structures on either side of the street.

“It’s—” Hanna began, but she lost her words.

The dark shape encircled them completely. As in the entire formation was inside it.

“The eggs!” Smores shouted. “It’s the eggs!”

Phillip frowned.

Then the pieces fell into place.

The ibingan eggs without their mother. The gap in the fog around the nest.

“We ate her babies,” Hanna laughed. “Of all the ridiculous…”

The dark shape suddenly veered away toward the direction the group had been traveling. It moved with surprising speed for its immense size.

Phillip realized that it was more like a train than a whale.

“There’s no way it just left,” Hanna said.

Phillip nodded in agreement.

“Keep on alert!” Demi barked. “Danger sense hasn’t gone away.”

On cue the dark shape returned. This time it was bearing down from directly ahead, high above.

The fog swirled away from the ibingan to reveal its true form.

Shouts of alarm filled the silence.

The shade monster undulated through the air as if it was swimming through water.

It approached with terrifying speed.

“Like a train with teeth and magic powers,” Phillip muttered.

He tensed a moment, then took off at a sprint.

Superstrong muscles in his legs churned up the asphalt, digging deep footprints and throwing up debris in his wake.

A hundred miles an hour in less than a hundred yards.

He leapt.

The ibingan opened its fearsome maw and spat.

A giant globe of swirling water flew at Phillip.

It hit him like a solid boulder, but he was stronger.

It barely slowed him as he took it on one shoulder.

The ibingan opened wide enough to swallow him whole.

Phillip threw everything into an uppercut, clocking the shade monster on the bottom of its jaw, snapping it shut.

More powerful than a locomotive. His children joked.

He didn’t have time to savor his work as gravity took hold of him.

The ground grew closer until it didn’t.

Suddenly he was spinning, crashing into the slums.

Belatedly, he realized that something had hit him hard.

One guess was enough for him.

He pulled himself out of the wreckage of dozens of homes only to see the ibingan diving toward the team.

Phillip plowed through more ramshackle homes in three long bounds before shooting toward the ibingan.

Maybe not quite faster than a speeding bullet, but two out of the three wasn’t bad.

He cocked his fist back, aiming for the shade monster’s plate-sized eye.

He never got to pull the trigger.

The ibingan’s head snapped to face him with impossible quickness for being so large. The dragon-like head shot forward like a striking snake. Its maw opened wide and snapped shut in the blink of an eye.

“Oh fuck! It ate Mr. Cruces! Fuck, fuck, fuck! Kill it!” Mouthy screamed.

The ibingan turned in mid-air and dived.

“Get down!” Hanna roared. “Vibrating Blade,” she thought as she rolled to the side and came up slashing.

Her sword hummed in her hands as she fought to keep it in her grasp. The tip of the blade bit into the ibingan’s scales and dragged along a great length of its sinuous body as it flew just above her teammates prone bodies.

The ibingan suddenly jerked upward taking Hanna along for a short flight before her blade slipped free.

Blood showered down on everyone along with her as she crashed back to the ground.

“Hanna!” Amber rushed to her side. The young woman was covered in an aptly-colored mage armor and bearing Hanna’s Threnosh-made shield.

“I’m fine,” Hanna grunted.

“Alien armor is the best,” Amber said.

“Didn’t even hurt… much,” Hanna agreed.

“We’ve got to do something. It ate Phillip,” Jake said. He tapped at a smartphone. “Damn. You’d think something that big would be giving off something we can track.”

“The fog subsumed it. Then it stands to reason that it is no longer a fully independent being. It’s just as if it was the same as all this,” Smores gestured to the swirling fog.

“We can’t worry about him. He’s tough. We need to move,” Demi said.

Hanna nodded. “I cut it, but it was barely a scratch. Not enough to drive it away. Not enough to make it take off like that.”

“What are you thinking?” Amber said.

“That Phillip is fine.”

“We’ll reassess our plans once we get to the sanctuary,” Demi said. “I need a body count.”

Thankfully, the count came back complete.

No one was missing. Only scrapes and bruises.

It was a miracle as far as Hanna was concerned.

She had seen and faced a lot of impossible monsters, but nothing nearly as large. The only thing that had come close were those prehistoric-looking monsters the fishmen liked to ride.

She could only trust in Phillip’s immense physical strength to keep him alive even if he had been… eaten.

Now, if only they could hold on to their luck until they reached safety.

As it turned out, they would get close.

----------------------------------------

“I think I see a light,” Hanna pointed down the gray-shrouded street.

The fog had thickened after the ibingan had swooped down and taken Phillip away, but now it was noticeably lighter. Several turns and an unknown number of minutes had brought them close to their destination, if they could trust their ability to follow directions.

“It must be the sanctuary,” Jake consulted his copy of the map.

“We must be close,” Demi agreed.

The Watch Captain glanced back and was relived to find that she could now see all the way back to the end of their formation where Rino warily watched their rear.

“Let’s hurry up. Maybe it’ll be easier to regain contact with base camp when we’re in the protected building. Once we get situated we can figure out how to find Phillip,” Demi said.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell Cal that we lost his dad,” Jake said.

“My helmet’s saying we’re about fifteen hundred meters from that light. Just a straight shot. Although, this fog has been messing with the display, so no promises on the accuracy of the reading,” Hanna said.

“For what it’s worth, my helmet is giving me something similar,” Demi said. “We’re almost there. The target is just down the street. Stay tight,” she called back to the rest of the group.

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Hanna kept her round shield up and her sword in hand. The former was a plain wooden one. She had loaned her Threnosh-made shield to Amber. The young woman had become somewhat of a protege in the art of sword fighting over the last several months even if she was a mage and Hanna wanted to give her more survivability.

Yet, as the gray around her seemed to press in with every echoing step toward the faint light, Hanna had cause to second guess that decision.

An urgent beeping sound startled Hanna, but she was a veteran and kept her attention focused on the space in front of her, trusting those behind her to cover their assigned zones.

“Oh shit,” Jake muttered. “Getting a big spike on my magical energy detector.”

Hanna realized that the beeping sound was coming from multiple spots in their formation.

“Mine’s doing the same thing,” Max rasped from his spot in the middle of the Watch contingent.

“Same here!” Two-toes called out from farther back.

Hanna frowned.

The ranger wasn’t that far back, maybe only twenty feet, but her voice sounded like it had come from much farther away.

“Where?” Demi said.

“Uh…” Jake’s voice shook, “here.”

“We need to get to the sanctuary,” Hanna said.

Demi nodded. “Double time!” she barked.

Hanna went from a cautious walk to a still cautious jog. She itched to sprint for it, but that would’ve strung out the rest of her team and risked separation.

Risked giving the fog a chance to pick them off in smaller bite-sized groups.

Hanna cursed.

She saw them out of the corner of her eyes first.

Shapes forming just outside the edges of her perceptions.

Swirling wisps of mist and shadow.

Then they were directly in front of her.

Hanna stopped and signaled the same to the rest.

The light was behind the indistinct figures.

It felt so close, but at the same time seemed too far away to reach.

Hanna focused on the glow. She saw it then. It looked like a letter written with incomprehensible geometry.

Hope and warmth.

Somehow she knew this to be true.

“You see them right?” Jake whispered.

Hanna could only nod.

“I see that sigil, ward thing, but I thought it was supposed to be painted on the side of the building,” Demi said.

Indeed, the glowing symbol was suspended in midair.

There was no hint of any sort of building.

Just the fog in front of them. As opaque as a steel wall.

“It’s got to be the fog. Messing with what we can see. I’d bet my life that’s the sanctuary,” Jake jabbed a finger at the glowing sigil.

“What’s the distance to the target in your helmet, Watch Captain?” Hanna whispered.

“Just over two hundred feet.”

“About the same,” Hanna said. “We just have to get through.”

The figures in the fog, the shades, coalesced.

“God damn, they look just like normal people,” Jake whispered.

“We’ve been briefed on this possibility. This changes nothing. Like Hanna said, we go through them.” There was steel in Demi’s voice.

“I’ll start it off then.” Jake put his detector smartphone away and pulled out another one. “Sorry, ghosts, nothing personal.” He pointed the smartphone at the large crowd blocking the street. “Chain Lightning.”

One of the shades in the front rank pointed at Jake at the same time and spoke. “Counterspell.”

The bright arc of magical lighting vanished with a soft pop.

Jake stared dumbfounded for a moment. “Wait, what?”

“We’re the ones who are sorry,” the woman said. “We don’t want to doom you to our curse.”

“Then don’t,” Hanna said.

“It isn’t our decision,” the woman shook her head with a sigh.

“I’ll cut us a path.” Hanna switched to the comms so only Demi could hear her. “Stay out of my radius.”

“Copy that,” Demi replied. “We’re pushing through them to the sanctuary!” she called out to the rest of the team.

Hanna dashed toward the human shades.

“Cover her!” Demi raised her recoilless rifle and liberally sprayed projectiles across the enemy.

The mage woman raised a magic shield to protect herself, but several of the other shades went down and slowly dissipated into the fog.

“They aren’t invincible!” Demi said.

More gun fire and spells flew past Hanna on either side.

A big man in armor made from police riot gear and metal plates stepped in her path and struck with a fireman’s axe. “Power Strike!”

She blocked the blow, but it shattered her shield. The axe blade clanged off her gauntlet.

The man recoiled. His eyes grew wide. “What kind of armor is that?”

“Alien,” Hanna said.

Then she stabbed the gawking man in the throat. The surprise in his eyes didn’t vanish even as he returned to the fog.

She discarded her broken shield and snatched the man’s axe out of the air.

Hack through a woman coming in for a wild machete slash.

Thrust into the heart of a man with a glowing spell forming at the end of his finger tips.

Hanna carved her way deeper into the mass of shades.

The few blows and spells they managed to land didn’t penetrate her Threnosh armor.

“Ten-fold Cuts.” Hanna whirled her sword around her.

A split-second later a multitude of cuts appeared on every shade within a sizable circle around her.

“That’s amazing,” the woman mage said from behind a flickering magic shield marred by dozens of cuts.

Hanna dashed at the woman.

“Invisibility.”

The shield and the woman winked out of sight.

Hanna held her sword two-handed in a guard and scanned her surroundings.

She located the glowing light. She set her jaw. It appeared to be farther away than she had initially estimated. The shades kept forming in the way.

“Push forward!” Demi called out.

Hanna abandoned her search for the woman mage. She needed to keep moving toward the sigil. Had to keep killing the shades in their way.

Max raised a wall of thorns to block off an alley before the shades could pour out of it. He promptly staggered and would have collapsed had Rebekah not caught him.

“Overdoing it, aren’t you?” Rebekah said between bursts of her submachine gun.

“Have to help,” Max rasped as his eyes fluttered.

“Yeah… if you pass out it’s going to be a pain to fight through this with you like a sack of potatoes on my shoulder,” Rebekah grunted. “Suppression Fire.” She forced a small clump of charging shades to stop in their tracks and take cover behind a wrecked minibus.

There was a dull thumping sound and a split-second later the shades and the minibus were engulfed by a deafening explosion.

Rebekah regarded Cristos’ carbine, specifically the attached grenade launcher, with covetous eyes. “Why don’t we have proper battlefield weapons again?”

“Cause we refuse to be absorbed into the government’s forces,” Max muttered.

Rebekah eyed one of the new recruits, Jovita, who had placed herself on the right flank. “Two sticks… not proper weapons,” she muttered with a shake of her head.

Cristos moved forward while taking out shades with bursts of controlled and accurate gun fire. He seemed to be keeping an eye on Ginessa, who was sticking close to Jake and Demi.

“Danger sense from there!” Jimenez’s voice has high and tight as she pointed at a fog blocked alley.

On cue shades poured out

Unfortunately, Max wasn’t going to be able to block this one.

“Chain Lightning!”

Bright, white-blue arced and split through several shades. They were thrown back, burning and convulsing before they disappeared.

“Counter that!” Jake laughed.

“Santi, I want that alley blocked!” Demi barked.

“On it, ma’am,” the teen handed a bottle filled with a glowing liquid to Trevor.

“Sinker.” Trevor threw the bottle up.

It soared until it suddenly dropped like a rock right at the mouth of the alley.

A wall of fire sprang to life. As tall as a man, it blazed and showed no signs of sputtering out.

“It’ll only last a minute or two,” Santi said.

“Damn it Trevor,” Del shook his head.

“What? Watch Captain said to block the alley. I put it in the perfect spot,” Trevor frowned.

“Except you left bad guys on our side of the flames.” Del fired his pistol at the charging shades. “Jimenez, get back here! You’re out of position!”

A baseball bat-wielding woman rushed at Jimenez.

“Vanish!” Jimenez squealed.

The woman hit air. She looked around in confusion.

A look that remained on her face as she disappeared back into the fog courtesy of Trevor’s stone striking her in the forehead.

“I feel really bad about this guys,” Trevor said. “They don’t even have tentacles or lobster claws or other weird shit.”

“They disappear. I don’t think they’re really alive,” Santi said.

“Keep moving!” Demi urged.

Ginessa was doing her best to keep up and stay out of the way.

“Oh my god! That was so close,” Jimenez said.

Ginessa screamed at the sudden appearance of the small woman.

Eyes turned her way for a moment before focusing back on the threats.

“How did you do that?” Ginessa said. “I didn’t know you where there.”

“My Level 20 Skill. It’s better than Del’s Hide,” Jimenez beamed.

“Jimenez, you have a gun. More shooting, less chatting,” Demi said flatly. “You, vampire girl… now would be a good time to use your abilities,” she regarded Ginessa for a moment before blasting at a cluster of shades.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but my magic doesn’t work on them… I’ve tried,” Ginessa looked down at the ground.

“Well… you have a gun too,” Demi considered, “wait until they get really close.”

Ginessa didn’t have much experience with shooting.

She had been run through a basic firearms safety lesson and a few practice rounds. Ammunition was a scare resource.

Ginessa looked at the Glock in her hands like it was a strange animal and nodded at Demi.

The Watch Captain was already moving forward while putting projectiles into shades.

Spells struck her in answer, but didn’t seem to do more than singe the Threnosh armor.

Close to her, Jake fired bolts of lightning into the shades even as the blue mana shield lining his body flashed whenever a spell struck him in return.

A shade blocked one of Jake’s bolts with a magic shield for a moment before the shield broke, which allowed Rebekah to put a burst into the mage.

However, the shade had done his job in protecting a handful of his fellow fighters.

These shades charged through a clear path to Rebekah and Max.

Max’s head lolled uselessly.

Rebekah emptied the rest of her magazine into the lead shade.

The huge man was unarmored and went down quickly.

“Max! A root would be great!” Rebekah called as she struggled to reload. Having the semi-conscious Max leaning on her shoulder made it difficult.

Jovita leapt in to block the three charging shades. “Sinawali,” she said with a snarl.

Her hands and arms were almost a blur as she wove her two sticks in front of her.

The shades struck with their weapons, but Jovita’s defense was impenetrable.

Again and again the three shades attacked, but each blow was intercepted by one of Jovita’s sticks.

A machete-wielding shade stumbled back.

Jovita took the opening and struck like a snake.

She trapped the baseball bat-wielding shade’s arms with one of her own. Snaking her stick and arm around her opponents.

At the same time she aimed a strike with her other stick to the axe-wielding shade’s wrists. “Doblete.” Her stick flashed as she rotated it around twice for a blindingly-quick double strike.

Two loud cracks.

Two broken wrists.

The shade lost his hold on his weapon with a pained shout.

Jovita finished disarming the bat-wielding shade with an almost contemptuous slap of her stick. She then trapped the woman’s neck and broke it with a vicious twist.

The shade flopped to the ground before vanishing back into the fog.

The shade with the broken wrists backed up, but Jovita lunged, thrusting the end of her stick into his throat. The man choked and disappeared as well.

The machete-wielding shade charged her with a roar. “Decapitate.”

Jovita blocked the blade with both sticks.

The shade’s eyes widened as his blade was stopped cold, only biting a fraction into the lightweight wood.

Jovita pushed the blade toward the ground with one stick, while snapping a down angle strike to the side of the shade’s neck. She snapped her other stick at the shade’s wrist. Breaking it and his hold on his machete.

Her weapons were a blur as she struck the shade all over his body.

Face, throat, elbows, knees, groin. Every vulnerable spot was targeted.

The shade dropped to the ground and vanished.

Jovita spun her sticks with a flourish.

“Uh… thanks,” Rebekah said.

“He actually nicked my baston,” Jovita frowned. “That must’ve been a pretty powerful Skill. These are as strong as steel.”

At the front of their formation a woman shade stepped forward with a resigned look on her face. She threw her arms out wide and yelled. “Taunt!”

Jake cursed, but turned the smartphone he had been aiming at a cluster of shades in his zone.

Demi turned her recoilless rifle away from the shades charging her and sent a burst at the woman shade.

Cristos did the same.

Jovita, Rebekah and Ginessa took several steps toward the woman shade before Jake’s lightning and Demi’s projectiles blew her away.

At that moment the invisible mage suddenly appeared in the middle of their formation, near Ginessa. “Cloud of Confusion,” she smiled sadly.

It took only a few moments for the spell to take effect.

Demi fired her weapon at empty space, ignoring the shades attacking her.

Jake shot a barrage of magic missiles that struck Demi and the shades.

Luckily, the Threnosh armor kept the Watch Captain safe.

In turn, Cristos sent a burst of gun fire at Jake, which was blocked as the Techmage’s mana shield flashed.

Trevor beaned the side of Jovita’s helmet with a smooth stone.

Jovita staggered on wobbly legs before being forced to go down to one knee.

Santi jumped on Trevor’s back and tried to choke the life out of his friend.

The entire front portion of their formation was falling apart.

“Guys! Stop!” Amber called out, only to have to duck behind the Threnosh-made shield as Cristos fired on her.

“It’s that mage lady!” Alexa snapped. “Eldritch Dart!”

The woman shade blocked the pinkish streak of light with a magic shield.

“Eldritch Dart! Eldritch Dart! Eldritch Dart!”

The shield flickered, but slowly solidified.

“Shit…” Alexa huffed, “she must be high level.”

“Do something!” Amber was crouched low to the ground behind the round shield as Cristos continued to strike it with accurate fire.

“We need to bring her down, but I’m not strong enough.” Alexa looked back at the rest of their team for help.

She found none.

Rayna’s Rangers and the Spear Unit behind them where dealing with their own fights.

More shades were closing in.

Demi’s armor was keeping her safe, but for how long?

Jake would run out of mana for his shield eventually.

The rest where considerably more vulnerable.

Amber and Alexa couldn’t think of anything to do.

When all hope appeared to be lost, Ginessa struck.

Her tongue lanced like a viper. It covered the three feet distance between her and the woman shade. The needle-like protrusion at the end sank into the woman shade’s neck.

“How?” the woman shade gasped. Her eyes flashed as she focused on Ginessa. “Of course… Aswang: Mandurugo… you’re resistant to mental manipulation.” The woman shade smiled. “I didn’t notice you. Otherwise I would’ve kept my shield up. You see, it’s hard to maintain the confusion and the shield at the same time… drains mana quicker.”

A frown etched Ginessa’s perfect forehead.

“No blood?” the woman guessed or maybe saw what Ginessa was thinking. “I suppose that truly answers the question on whether I’m alive or not. How can something live without blood?”

The woman shade collapsed and vanished back into the fog.

With her death the confusion spell disappeared and the team was back into the fight.

“Keep moving!” Demi roared.