Now, Manila
“… and so, I punched the monster twins in each of their beautiful faces—”
“How can monsters be beautiful?” Lilah said.
“I dunno,” Eron shrugged. “These ones were. Like that whole, don’t judge a book by it’s cover thing.”
Lilah looked at him expectantly.
“Like that movie with the hunchback, but he’s like a great person even though he’s deformed.”
Lilah blinked.
“The elephant man?”
“Like a werewolf, but an elephant?” Lilah’s brow wrinkled.
Eron felt sad. He remembered that Lilah was young. She didn’t recognize any of those references. Not even the Disney movie.
“When this is all over, I think I’ll have to introduce you to some movies.” Eron figured that somewhere out there someone had a magitech’d up laptop with movie files. If not then maybe they could do the same to a TV, a DVD or Blu-ray player. The easiest part was probably just going to a store and grabbing the movies. “Anyways… back to the story. And thus, with beautiful, but evil faces no longer beautiful on account of being punched-in. The evil magic was thus dispersed. The thralls freed from their servitude were much confused and scared, though later they became much grateful to yon hero… uh, me, in case I lost you.”
Lilah laughed.
“To be fair, I was covered in blood and guts. My hands in particular were quite disgusting. Bits of brain and eyes and teeth, so many sharp teeth,” Eron shuddered.
“Ewww,” Lilah grimaced.
“The fog is actually not nearly as gross as some of the stuff I’ve dealt with out there.” Eron resolved to never tell Lilah the story about the skin monster or person that was his first true introduction to the horrors in the world. They never did get an answer on whether that had been a human turned into a horror by a Class or a plain monster.
“What happened next?”
“Nothing much. Helped the survivors get back on their feet. Helped them set up a defensible community, get levels, supplies, gear, the usual.”
“And they’re still doing good?”
“Last time I checked,” Eron nodded.
Lilah smiled at that. “I hope we can—” she clutched her chest and shut her eyes tight.
“Lilah! What is it?” Eron sprang out of his chair. “I’ll get the doc!”
“No, I’m fine,” Lilah said.
“Is it the portable ward?” Eron immediately thought of Madalena. She had been away for hours. Much longer than he would’ve estimated even if she had gone to the farthest southern sanctuary.
Lilah shook her head. “I can still feel that… this feels closer.”
“Maybe you should get some rest.”
“I’m already in bed,” Lilah frowned. “Feel so useless,” she pouted.
“Seriously?” Eron raised a brow. “You’re the only reason we’re still alive,” he said firmly.
He regarded the girl for a few seconds as she settled back into her pillow and closed her eyes. He made sure that she was still breathing before he walked over to the window.
The fog had thickened beyond the aegis of Lilah’s wards, if that was even possible.
An opaque gray wall was the only thing Eron saw.
There was nothing out there.
No hints of half-formed shapes swirling in the mists.
No feeling of being watched.
Nothing.
Except…
Why did he think that he had heard gun fire and spells going off? And angry, desperate voices?
“Tricks,” Eron said as he went back to his chair and his vigil.
----------------------------------------
Phillip analyzed his situation.
Well, it was more of a predicament.
The ibingan’s mouth was wet with disgusting smelling saliva. Its breath stank of rotten meat.
Phillip thought he had seen some bits of some dead animal in the dragon’s curved, sword-like teeth.
How did that even work?
It was a shade. Some kind of copy of the real thing after the fog had subsumed it.
Did it remain in the same state that it had been taken in?
The fog even replicated the smells.
That seemed impossible. Even in a world where magic and superpowers had become real.
Phillip pressed one hand on the wet roof of the ibingan’s mouth. His boots were planted on the sides of the inner gums, while he used his other hand to pinch the enormous tongue to keep it from forcing him down the throat.
It was like wrestling a tree trunk-sized sausage.
Like with any problem, he had to deal with it one step at a time.
He had his goals.
Short-term was to help his sons with the fog.
Long-term was to get back to his wife and baby girl.
Rayna would’ve been annoyed if she knew that he still saw her that way.
Phillip was unapologetic about that.
The first step was to get out of the ibingan’s mouth.
To that end Phillip dug his gloved fingers into the roof of its mouth and into its tongue, while pulling, tearing.
A roar emanated from its throat washing that foul breath over Phillip, nearly causing him to gag.
Daylight, well, gray gloom appeared as the ibingan opened its mouth.
Phillip sprang out and fell.
He belly-flopped onto the street and cracked the asphalt.
The ibingan was a dark shape in the fog as it undulated through the air as if it was in water.
Phillip dived through a building’s wall to avoid the striking dragon.
He found himself in some kind of office building.
It shook from a violent impact.
“That thing is almost too powerful.”
Phillip spun at the voice, but saw nobody.
The fog seemed to be thinner inside.
He walked deeper in as it shook again.
At least it seemed to be sturdy enough to handle the ibingan’s attacks.
He hoped that it’d hold up long enough for him to come up with a plan.
Fight and kill the dragon? Or try to get away and get back to Eron’s sanctuary?
The problem with the latter option was he had no idea where the ibingan had taken him and he suspected it’d be difficult to get his bearings with the thick fog outside.
The former presented its own set of challenges.
“It’s barely controllable.”
Phillip spun.
The dreaded moment stared him in the face.
“Long time, Philly Boy,” Tito Novy smiled.
“I heard about you. You look good,” Phillip said softly.
His mother’s youngest brother looking good was an understatement. The last time Phillip had seen him the man was in a wheelchair. Bare skin and bones. Now he looked a few decades younger and was strong and fit. Closer to his prime days as an amateur boxer.
“Blessings and curses. When the world changed I was secretly happy. I thought I had a second chance at life and even better, I had superpowers, like some superhero! I was strong enough to throw cars and break monsters with my hands. Bullets bounced off me. I’m ashamed to admit that even with all the death and suffering I wouldn’t have changed anything,” Tito Novy sighed. “And then the gray appeared. All my strength wasn’t enough. Now I’m trapped like this…” he gestured to himself, “forever.”
“I don’t want to fight you, Tito. I don’t want to fight any of you. Help us free you,” Phillip pleaded.
“I can’t.”
“But what about now? You aren’t attacking me? That must mean something. You’re fighting it’s control!”
“No, never. I can never harm it. Sometimes, it gets… distracted. Too many things to control. Too much it has to suppress. Sealing one great power was difficulty enough, two? It’s finding the second a struggle, which allows me to speak more openly. I have the freedom to do… nothing,” Tito Novy smiled. “Your boys are strong. You should be proud.”
“I’d rather they, us, weren’t in this situation,” Phillip admitted.
“You can only deal with what’s in front of you,” Tito Novy nodded sagely.
“Then tell me everything you can about this fog, while you have the chance.”
“Children are everything, aren’t they? You’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe,” Tito Novy mused.
“Yeah, so help me keep mine safe.”
“Would you harm an other's child for yours?”
Phillip set his jaw and said nothing.
“Thought so. It’s a hard thing. Part of me is glad that I never had children. Thought I had plenty of nephews and nieces followed by grandnephews and grandnieces. You know that Madalena’s the last of our family, aside from your own. At least as far as I know. You and yours are all that’s left.”
“Rynnen, Evelyn’s son is with us,” Phillip said.
Tito Novy looked thoughtful. “Ah, Evelyn. I remember her. Never met her son… and you would’ve said Evelyn if she was still alive. So, she’s gone too and her little boy’s an orphan.”
“He’s not alone. He still has us.”
“For how long? You and your sons are going to end up trapped just like the rest of us. Those are just the odds as I see it. No matter how I’d wish it otherwise.”
“Wishes mean nothing. Actions are everything. I remember you always telling me that,” Phillip said.
“You know, I’m glad that all my sisters, your mom, didn’t live to see this world,” Tito Novy said.
“The Tito I knew, know, wouldn’t have gone down without punching. He wouldn’t have rolled over like you have. Maybe you aren’t you… maybe you’re just a poor copy.”
“I never rolled over for anybody,” Tito Novy grunted.
“Then fight!”
Tito Novy’s face twisted and every muscle in his body tensed. He took deep breaths as if he was straining to lift the heaviest weight in the world. “I can’t…” he sagged. “All I can do is talk and only because its expending a lot of power right now. Suppressing your sons, keeping the ibingan from going berserk and controlling the fight against the people you brought. They’re so close,” he whispered. “Leges Servitae, Pax Fiat.”
“What?”
Tito Novy held Phillip’s gaze as he repeated the words.
“Remember.” Tito Novy’s voice was thick with emotion. “It’s the best I can do. I’m sorry. The next time I see you be ready for the fight of your life,” he took a deep breath. “You’ve got a long walk to where Eron is. The ibingan took you to somewhere in Makati. Good luck, Philly Boy.”
Phillip recited his uncle’s strange words until he was certain it was secured in his memory.
“Sounds like Latin. What does it mean?”
The building had stopped shaking while he had talked to his uncle.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Perhaps the ibingan had gone elsewhere.
His uncle had been correct. It was a long walk from Makati to where he needed to be.
However, Phillip wasn’t going to walk.
Why walk when he could run as fast as car and jump several city blocks in a single bound?
----------------------------------------
Alexa pulled Amber along as she struggled to keep up with the others at the front of their formation.
“Incoming!” Del pointed up toward the roof of a building mostly shrouded by the thick fog.
Amber reflexively turned her shield in that direction just as a rock the size of a beach ball came crashing down on her and Alexa.
It shattered against her shield, but only knocked her back a little. The mage armor around Amber’s body flickered from dozens of small stone shards.
Alexa touched the small cut on her cheek and took a deep breath. “That was close. We’d be pancakes without Hanna’s shield,” she shook her head in awe. “Why don’t we have more of those?”
Wide-eyed Amber could only shrug in response. She couldn’t quite believe she had survived.
“Hurry up!” Del beckoned the two women.
The front group had grown difficult to see in the fog, even though they were only a short distance ahead.
Amber noticed the fog clearing from rooftop where the giant rock had come from. “Alexa…”
“What—” Alexa followed Amber’s gaze. “Shit!”
Two shades were revealed. One man and one woman.
The latter has unarmed, but was wearing the kind of makeshift armor common in the post-spires world. A mixture of protective sporting gear, police riot gear with strapped on pieces of crudely-worked metal plates.
She jumped down to the street.
Two stories without a sign of pain on her face. Just a resigned look that many of the shades carried.
The man on the roof top pointed at the woman. “Stone Armor,” he sighed.
Stones appeared and coalesced around the woman’s body. Pebbles and small rocks already on the sidewalk or on the street, including the shattered remains of the giant rock flowed to the woman as she charged.
“Eldritch Dart!”
Alexa’s spell blew a sizable chunk from the stones covering the woman’s chest, but the woman barely slowed.
Amber emptied her pistol to no effect before throwing it aside and trying to draw her sword.
She was too slow.
The stone-covered woman knocked them back and barreled into Rayna’s Rangers.
She dipped her head and tried to trample Ambrose, who nimbly vaulted over the woman’s back while striking with his Igorot axe.
Sparks flew where the sharp blade skidded off the tough stone.
Hardhat and a couple of the new recruits weren’t as quick on their feet.
The former was sent flying by a glancing glancing backhand, while the latter desperately scrambled out of the way.
“Fin! Lock her down!” Sgt. Butcher called.
The young man grimaced as the stone-covered woman pounded on his hastily conjured magic shield.
“I can’t. Not without dropping the shields,” Fin said.
Sgt. Butcher glanced at the other shield keeping more shades penned up in a different alley.
She cursed.
How many alleys where there?
Too many threats coming from every direction.
Two-toes and Aims were next to her. The two fired spells and bullets to thin down the shades before they got into melee range.
Mouthy, Smores and Rai were behind her in the formation.
Smores had sealed off as many avenues of attack as he could with multiple walls of ice, but had drained his mana supply. Now he was reduced to his pistol.
Rai had said something about the lack of spirits he could use, which meant that he too was left with a pistol.
Mouthy and a handful of the new recruits guarded the pair. Hacking with their machetes and axes at the shades that got close.
Sgt. Butcher looked back to the Spear Unit and Rino.
She grunted in frustration.
There’d be no support from them. They had their own problems.
“Aims, do you have a shot on that rocky woman?”
“Not at this angle. The eye holes are too small. Even for me,” Aims said.
“Fin needs a moment or we risk getting left behind.” Sgt. Butcher saw that the Watch was getting farther ahead by the second.
“I think I can give him a few seconds, but Aims will need to cover my side of the street.” As she spoke Two-toes sent a pair of arcing magic missiles burning through the foreheads of a pair of charging shades.
“I can do that,” Aims turned one revolver toward Two-toes’ side of the street. Now he covered both sides of the street. “Don’t take too long.”
Two-toes pointed at the stone-armored woman. “Light Orb.”
The bright spell appeared right in front of the woman’s face. She recoiled and flailed blindly.
Sgt. Butcher rushed forward and pulled Fin by the back of his collar while firing her gun at the woman. “Now! Lock her down!”
“But the alley—” Fin began.
“We’ll deal with those shades after we deal with the woman!” Sgt. Butcher snapped.
Light flared beneath Fin’s armored chest.
Ghostly chains appeared out of the ground, wrapping themselves around the woman’s limbs and holding her firmly in place.
“Aims! Tell me you have a shot, now!”
“Sure do, Sarge,” Aim’s aimed one revolver at the woman’s eyes.
“That magic is… different,” the mage on top of the roof called out. “Here’s one for you. Stone Explosion.”
The shade’s spell went off at the same time that Aim’s pulled the trigger.
The stones covering the woman in armor exploded in all directions.
Jagged shards filled the air.
Ironically, the massive explosion hurt and helped the team.
No one escaped getting hit.
Not even the other shades. Those closest to the once stone-covered woman were instantly killed and returned to the fog.
Which was fortunate for the rangers since they had been forced to dive for cover.
“Sarge is down!” Fin was pressed beneath Sgt. Butcher’s motionless body. He could just see over her shoulder to the dozens of small stone fragments embedded in the back of her armor. Blood leaked.
Fin felt for a pulse.
She lives. Remove the stones and you can heal her. Her survival is beneficial to your growth. Prioritize her health.
Fin blinked. “She’s still alive! But we need to get the rocks out of her back so I can heal her!”
The other rangers felt an overwhelming wave of relief. So much so that they had momentarily forgotten about their own injuries.
Crucially, they failed to notice that the once stone-covered woman was still on her feet. She was a bloody mess. The explosion hadn’t spared her. Thousands of tiny shards were embedded in her skin. “I thought this Skill was dumb,” she rasped bloody bubbles. “What good is a Skill you can only use once right before you die. I guess the spires showed me. Spiteful End.”
She pulled out a knife and walked toward Fin and the Sgt. Butcher.
Alexa hit her with an eldritch dart.
She shrugged it off.
“That should’ve gone right through her now that she doesn’t have armor,” Alexa gasped.
Amber dashed at the woman shade. “Lunging Thrust!”
Picture perfect form. Back leg strong and straight. Arm fully extended with her blade angled up to go underneath the ribs and into the heart.
Even though Amber had attacked from behind it wasn’t enough.
The woman spun with unnatural quickness and grabbed Amber’s blade. She pulled Amber toward her and slashed with her knife.
Amber’s mage armor flashed as it shattered.
The woman struck again, but this time Amber was able to raise her shield to block the stab.
“You should’ve let go of your sword,” the woman sighed before hurling Amber through the windows of a restaurant.
“Amber!” Alexa hurried toward the young woman.
The woman shade regarded Alexa for a moment. “Not a high priority,” she whispered. “You two are,” she turned back to Fin and Sgt. Butcher.
Bullets and spells assaulted the woman as she walked inexorably closer to the downed rangers.
Ambrose darted in with cat-like quickness, but even slicing the back of the woman shade’s hamstrings didn’t slow her down.
“Her Skill is giving her what she needs to complete her last wish before she dies,” Smores called out. “Strength and ability to take damage is far beyond what they should be.”
“Not my last wish, kid,” the woman shade said as she reached Fin and Sgt. Butcher. She raised her knife and plunged it down.
It shattered Fin’s hastily cast magic shield.
Bang!
The woman shade’s head rocked back.
When she looked back down at her targets one eye was a ruined mess
“No way!” Rai aimed his pistol and squeezed the trigger repeatedly. It took him a few seconds to realize he was clicking on an empty magazine.
“I know I hit her brain!” Aims snarled.
“Shitfuck! Can’t let ghost zombie-woman kill the sarge. C’mon!” Mouthy and one of the new recruits, Maribel, rushed from the back line.
“Power Strike!” Mouthy hacked the woman shade’s knife hand off at the wrist. She sneered as she pulled her machete back for another.
The woman shade punched her stump into Mouthy’s chest and knocked her into the ground.
The brawny ranger felt it through her steel chestplate as she struggled to gasp for breath.
“Fuck— ribs—”
“Power Strike!” Maribel chopped at the woman shade’s side.
The shade blocked the axe blade with the side of her arm. She ripped the axe out of Maribel’s hands and grabbed the young woman by the throat.
“I’m sorry,” the woman shade said.
Maribel pulled her knife and stabbed the woman shade in the throat.
The woman shade gurgled something as she squeezed.
There was a crunch and Maribel went limp.
The woman shade threw Maribel across the street where the young woman’s body wrapped around a power pole with a sickening crunch.
The rangers’ only consolation was that Maribel was already dead. It was a poor one in all respects.
“Die!” Two-toes sent a barrage of magic missiles into the woman shade’s head.
When the smoke cleared the woman shade’s face was no longer recognizable as one. Charred flesh and muscle mingled with visible bones. Lips turned to ash revealed blackened teeth in half-burned gums. Her eyes were gone, yet she still looked down at Fin and Sgt. Butcher.
“I— I need to conserve my energy if I want to heal Sgt. Butcher.” Fin’s voice was almost plaintive.
The woman shade picked her knife off the ground and raised it once more.
“Power Strike!” Mouthy hacked into the back of the woman shade’s neck.
The woman shade kicked back.
Mouthy tried to dodge back, but the woman shade’s boot just caught the front of Mouthy’s lead knee.
The ranger winced as it was hyper-extended.
Still, it was better than a broken one.
Mouthy stepped forward again as her knee buckled, but held.
The woman shade raised her knife as her eye-less sockets fixed themselves on Sgt. Butcher’s back.
“Power Strike!” Mouthy roared.
Her bloody machete blade fell on the woman shade’s neck.
The woman shade staggered forward.
“Why won’t you die? You crazy bitch!” The blade rose and fell again while Mouthy screamed.
This time it cut all the way through.
The woman shade’s head toppled.
Her body stood there with knife raised.
For a moment it almost seemed as if she was still going to complete her goal.
Then she toppled and began to dissipate it mist.
“Why can’t I get a Skill like that?” Mouthy snapped.
“You want something you can only use once and then you die?” Rai looked aghast.
“Seems useful,” Mouthy shrugged.
“Guys, we have a problem.” Aims snapped off a few shots at the male shade on the rooftop, but the shade had disappeared.
“We’re cut off,” Smores said in a small voice.
“Shit, does anybody see Hardhat!” Two-toes called out.
“I’ll get her,” Ambrose said as he rushed to the left side of the street.
The desperate battle had increased the gap between the rangers and the Watch.
More human shades were coalescing.
But what was worse were the other shapes forming.
Larger, inhuman.
They began to hear growling, snarling, bleating.
“This is some shitty taint shit,” Mouthy muttered as she limped over to Sgt. Butcher and lifted the unconscious woman off Fin and onto her own shoulders.
“We have to get the stones out of her, so I can he—” Fin began.
“Yeah, yeah. Heard you the first twenty times. Since when did you care?” Mouthy eyed the young man.
“We can’t get through that,” Two-toes whispered. “What do we do?”
“Take cover in one of these buildings,” Smores gestured toward the right side of the street. “I haven’t seen any shades inside them.”
“Could be they’re waiting for us?” Ramira, another new recruit, said.
“At least we can fight inside. Smaller space, funnel them in. Tanks up front. Pew-pew guys behind. We’ll get swarmed out here. Plus… the sarge is kinda fucking heavy and my knee is throbbing like a diseased pig-fucker,” Mouthy said.
“Inside,” Smores said.
They moved just in time.
The shades charged. Human and monster together in perhaps the only way that was ever possible.
The suddenness of it threw them into disarray.
“Wait! Ambrose!” Rai called out as he was pushed toward what looked like a real estate office.
Ambrose and a few of the new recruits at the front of their formation were closer to the left side of the street and they were now cut off from the rest.
“They’re on their own for now. Keep moving!” Aims revolvers barked like a machine gun. He was the last of the rangers into the office building.
“The fog appears to be more… insubstantial… in here,” Smores said.
“Fin, Smores… some kind of wall would be nice,” Aims said.
The shade monsters were seconds from crashing into the glass front.
“Ice Wall,” Smores said and promptly passed out.
Rai caught the young mage before he hit the ground.
“Right,” Aims nodded. “That should hold long enough to take care of Sgt. Butcher. Two-toes—”
“I’ll get the stone out of the sarge,” Two-toes said as she directed Mouthy to place the sergeant on a desk.
“Fin, do you have enough mana to fix Mouthy’s knee first?” Aims said.
Fin shook his head.
“I’m fine, probably just tore an ACL or something,” Mouthy bounced on her toes with a grimace. “I can fight. Just don’t ask me to run.”
“We’ll hold out here,” Aims said.
“No choice,” Mouthy snorted.
Aims shot her a glare, but continued. “Hanna and the Watch will reach the sanctuary soon, if they haven’t already. Rayna’s brother is there. We can use Sgt. Butcher’s communication device to contact base and relay our location to the others. Then they can come get us.”
“If it even connects,” Mouthy said.
“It will,” Aims said.
“What about the spears and the werewolf?” Ramira said.
“Don’t let Rino hear you calling her that. Bitch is sensitive about that,” Mouthy said.
“I thought I saw them being forced back to the buildings, like us,” Rai said.
“Hardhat’s still out there,” Two-toes said as she hurriedly pulled bloody stone shards out of Sgt. Butcher’s back.
“When you’re done there you can do the rest of us,” Aims said.
“If you can reach them then you should probably start pulling the stones out of yourselves. From the sounds out there… I might not have enough time to do first aid for the rest of you.” Two-toes didn’t look up from her grim and desperate task. “Stay with me, Sarge,” she whispered.
“You have time,” Fin said flatly.
The others stared at him.
“So, fucking weird,” Mouthy muttered.
Time wasn’t on their side.
They could hear the shades outside chipping away at the wall of magical ice with a frenzy.