Now, Philippines
Congratulations!
You have freed the Metro-Manila Territory.
Rescued Survivors: 105
Reward: 30000000 Universal Points
Individual Reward: 276314 Universal Points
Individual Bonus Reward: 1 Free Generic Skill (Active or Passive). Claim at the Spire.
Individual Bonus Reward: 1 Free Sword Skill (Active or Passive). Claim at the Spire.
Individual Bonus Reward: 3 Free Points to Base Attributes (Distributed at Your Choosing). Claim at the Spire.
Hanna reviewed, then dismissed the Quest notification before stepping into the Spire.
The ethereal, mist-like interior was as unsettling as always.
Her heart began to beat faster despite her wishes.
The spire had always been a safe space.
She knew that there was no danger in here, yet… the memories of recent events replayed themselves as they had done often over the past several weeks.
The mist… the fog… desperate fighting… death.
Shadows in her mind followed her with each step.
Time passed or didn’t, as it was wont to do in the spire.
She found herself in a room with a terminal made of ethereal mist.
It responded to her thoughts and showed her what she wanted before she could give voice to the request.
Lesser Enhanced Stamina.
What use was her best ability if she could only use it once?
How many died because of that weakness? How many of those could she have kept alive to share in the rewards?
Hanna confirmed her choice with a thought.
She wandered the spire for a time. Walking through wide and narrow corridors, up spiral stairs, down straight ones.
Another room. The same. Different.
Empty except for a terminal in the center.
There were more Sword Skills available to her now that she had leveled up considerably.
Many of the Skills, whether simple or advanced, were things that she could perform on her own. Useful to the lesser fighters, but not to her.
Even the higher level ones didn’t call to her.
“Show me the highest that I qualify for.”
The terminal obeyed.
Most of the Skills were just stronger versions of what she disdained.
There were a few exceptions.
She read the description of each one carefully and took time to visualize how she would use them.
“It’d be useful if there was some kind of demo.”
“The cost to try out a Skill is 10% of the purchase price.”
“No, I do not,” Hanna laughed. “Cheap bastard,” she muttered.
It’d cost her almost 5000 Universal Points to test out the Skill that caught her interest.
“You know what, fine. I’d like to test out Energy Field: Sword.”
The room changed in an instant.
A plain blade rested in the air within arm’s reach of Hanna. It was almost exactly like her Threnosh longsword.
“Take your weapon and activate the Skill when ready.”
Hanna did so and took a few practice swings.
Almost exactly the same.
“Energy Field: Sword,” she said.
A shimmer formed around the blade. Distorted air, like the haze over a hot road in the desert.
Curious, Hanna slowly moved the blade close to her arm.
The shimmer disappeared from the area as it got within a few inches.
She was able to touch her bare flesh without issue.
“Practice will begin in 30 seconds.”
Forms began to take shape out of the mist. Some humanoid, some not.
Her heartbeat spiked. She reminded herself that the danger wasn’t real.
Her breathing steadied and her heart calmed.
This was her art. So, Hanna began to paint.
Time passed.
Fast.
Slow.
The empowered blade cut through thick chitin like it wasn’t there. Forcefields gave more resistance, but ultimately were sliced and pierced.
Her foes had been copies, but she was certain that the spire had created duplicates so close to reality that it didn’t matter.
The choice was an easy one. The Skill hadn’t changed anything about how the sword felt in her hands. It had simply and exponentially increased the blade’s cutting and thrusting power.
One last thing to do.
“Yeah, um, spire… I’ve got 3 free points to add to my base attributes,” Hanna had never heard of anything like this, so she didn’t know how to proceed, “how do I do that? Do I do it through my Personal Account thing? Or…”
Her page appeared floating in front of her.
From discussions with others, she knew that the forms varied with each individual.
For her it was a set of pages, simple and easy to ready.
“Make your selections when ready.”
Hanna Gozen.
Swordswoman, Level 35.
Her attributes were also listed. Along with all her Skills. A record of the Quests she had undertaken, successes and failures. Universal Points and other pieces of information.
She had already given her choices much thought.
2 to endurance and 1 to strength.
For the future she needed to be able to use her most powerful Skills more often and she wanted to close the gap against superhumanly strong opponents.
“Hey, so, how do I get more of these free attribute points?”
“You may purchase that information for 150000 Universal Points.”
Hanna cursed. “Pay to win crap!”
She couldn’t even get others to pitch in since only the purchaser could access the information. All attempts to share it would’ve failed. The others simply wouldn’t hear anything spoken or see anything written.
They had tried that in the early days.
With her business done, Hanna exited the spire and walked across the street into the airport.
It had been a tough battle to claim the entire place from the monsters.
The Cruces family and others had previously held it, but when the fog entity had killed them the airport had reverted to an encounter challenge.
It had been one of the first places the living Cruces claimed in the aftermath of the fog entity’s destruction.
Phillip, Cal, Eron, Madalena and a few others that Eron had flown from other parts of the country had taken the multiple sections all at once.
Eron had handled one on his own, as did Phillip.
Cal, in badly damage Threnosh armor, Madalena and the rest took care of the last.
There was a story there.
Hanna was struck by the damage Cal had taken. Her own armor hadn’t suffered nearly as much and that was against superpowered shades.
The battle with the fog entity must’ve been terrible. She had tried to ask him about it, but he had demurred, citing all the things he had to take care of… a baby, of all things.
Hanna made her way to the eerily empty airport terminals until she reached one of the restaurants that Demi had claimed as command center.
It had a clear view of the tarmac and the plane that they were working on.
“How was it?” Demi said without looking up from the papers spread out on the table.
Hanna gave the report.
“That’s a shame. We need to know what it takes to get attribute points for free,” Demi said.
“It’s obvious that it was tied to my contribution to the Quest. Aside from Rino, I was the only one that fought and beat Cruces shades in what can be considered one on one fights.”
“Rino isn’t talking to anyone about her rewards. All your effort and you only got 3 free points,” Demi shook her head. “So many dead, everyone hurt.”
Hanna didn’t want to think about that. “I haven’t had a chance to ask, how many Universal Points did our entire group get. 30 mil and I only got about 275k of that.”
“Oh, that… I gathered that info a couple of weeks ago, with one exception,” Demi said.
“Cal?”
Demi snorted. “About 8 million split among our entire group, minus whatever Cal got. Phillip got 2 million and he’s offered to give us half to share or spread to next of kin. Word is Cal and him flew up north and took care of our local recruits’ families. They and Eron have been flying people down if they want to live here and become part of the rebuilding process.”
Hanna didn’t want to think about her dead teammates. “That’s good. They won’t be exploited anymore.”
“It’s only a good thing if they can be kept safe,” Demi said.
“So, 20 mil… I’m thinking Eron, Cal and that Lilah kid got most of the rest.”
Demi shrugged. “Can’t argue too much. Individually, each person that made it received more Universal Points than they got over the last ten years, multiple times.”
“It cost us a lot…”
“Yeah… yeah it did. It’s not much consolation, but their families will get their share,” Demi said.
“All things considered, we got off lightly. The spears and the rangers got torn up.”
“One is too much,” Demi said. “He was with us from the beginning and now he’s gone.
Hanna thought of Ron.
She walked behind the bar and grabbed a pair of glasses and a bottle from the top shelf. She sat back down at the table with a sigh and poured.
“To all those that died so that the rest of us might have a chance,” Hanna raised a glass.
Demi clinked hers after a moment. “To Ron…”
“Keisha…” Hanna downed her glass in one.
Demi stared at her glass. “Regular people aren’t meant to fight such monsters.”
“That’s why we have to become more,” Hanna said after a moment.
Heavy steps entered the restaurant.
“Uh… am I interrupting something?” Jake said.
Demi gestured for the big man to take a chair.
“So, finally got the results…” he began.
“And?” Demi regarded him with interest.
“Well… he’s a human baby. At least as far as we can tell. Nothing weird about him. The instruments were calibrated against a sample size of practically everyone currently in the city. So… do either of you know why Cal wanted us to do that, cause I’m dying to know.”
Hanna was a bit lost so she asked for clarification.
“Cal wanted the baby he found in the city checked out,” Demi shrugged.
“Why?” Hanna said.
“I’m pretty sure you had to be in one of those sanctuaries to not get turned into a shade,” Jake said. “Don’t you have, like, Skills to find out the truth from people. Detective Ordonez has interrogation ones,” he eyed Demi.
“That’s the problem. He was being truthful, rather I couldn’t detect any hint of deceit. The story is that Cal found the baby in a building after they took care of the fog entity,” Demi said.
“Lucky baby,” Jake shrugged.
“Sounds suspicious,” Hanna said. “But, what’re you even looking for?”
“I don’t know, beyond what you just said. It’s suspicious” Demi echoed. “It’s out of my hands,” she shrugged.
“How’s the work on the plane going? I’ve been busy with baby stuff,” Jake said.
“We’re a month away, maybe a month and a half,” Demi replied.
Jake’s face broke into a broad smile. “It’ll be good to get home.” He faltered. “Not looking forward to telling Hillary about Ron, though…”
“Grab a glass,” Hanna nudged Ron toward the bar.
“She has us,” Demi said.
“Next time it could be one of us,” Jake returned with a glass for Hanna to fill.
“Until then we can only do our best for everyone,” Hanna raised her glass.
----------------------------------------
Sgt. Butcher’s pen hovered over the blank piece of paper.
This was the last letter of condolence to next of kin that she had to do. It had taken her the better part of a month to do the previous three. Death was always on table for the rangers, but something about them dying so far from home made this time tougher to swallow. Like ashes in her mouth or shit.
This last one was to Smores’ parents.
“Too young…” she muttered.
She slammed the pen down on the table and stood up.
“Sarge?” Hardhat said from a table on the other side of the airport restaurant.
She waved her ranger’s concern away and walked to the front of the restaurant and stared out the terminal’s huge windows.
A huge flying thing, some kind of mutated bird swooped low over the tarmac.
Gun fire erupted from the people defending the mechanics and R&D people working on the their ride home.
“Fight!” Hardhat said.
The rangers in the restaurant scrambled from their chairs.
Sgt. Butcher held up a hand. “They’ve got it covered.”
The mutated bird crashed into the ground and the fighters moved in to finish it off.
The Ranger Sergeant idly wondered why the sight of that had barely raised her pulse as she listened to her rangers’ conversation. What was left of her original squad and the new recruits that were going to go back with them discussed official handles for the latter.
“Useless?” Rai said with dismay. “But… why?”
“You didn’t do much,” Hardhat shrugged.
“But, I disrupted the shades for that split-second,” Rai looked to Ambrose for support.
“Yeah, helped me kill one,” Ambrose said.
Hardhat held up a finger. “That was one thing.”
“There weren’t any spirits,” Rai tried.
“Don’t feel too bad. Half the handles we hand out suck. It’s part of the charm,” Aims said.
“Why can’t I pick my own?”
“Not how it works,” Hardhat shook her head. “Anyways, that’s my suggestion. You got one, Aims?”
“Nope… I second your choice.”
Rai’s groan was accompanied by the thunk of his forehead on the table.
“Great! So, Rai… you are now officially Useless, even without Mouthy’s vote, it’s a majority with me and Aims,” Hardhat grinned evilly.
“What about Sgt. Butcher?” Rai tried.
“The squad chooses,” Aims said as he rose from the table. “I’m going to get a beer, anyone want one?”
“Yes, please,” Ambrose said.
Hardhat nodded.
Rai raised a defeated hand.
“How old are you two?” Aims’ eyes narrowed.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Eighteen,” Rai said.
“Er… the same or seventeen… I’m not sure,” Ambrose said.
Aims frowned.
“Don’t be a dick!” Hardhat threw a crumpled up napkin at Aims and missed by a fair margin. “They fight, they drink.”
Aims shrugged and went behind the bar nearly running into Fin.
“Food,” Fin said as he came out of the kitchen with a tray. Burgers and a pile of fries. He plopped the whole thing down in the middle of the table.
“Really?” Hardhat eyed the pile of fries on the middle of the tray.
“I cleaned it first,” Fin said flatly as he sat down and started eating.
“Terrible service,” Hardhat said.
“Not… paid…” Fin said in between bites.
Aims returned with beers.
“Okay, do me next,” Ambrose said.
“Creeper,” Aims replied immediately.
“Reason?” Hardhat said.
“The kid gets abilities from the heads of his victims… sort of reminds me of an old movie.”
Hardhat shook her head. “I say Squirrel or Chipmunk.”
“What? Why?” Ambrose said as Rai snorted.
“I saw you had a couple of their heads on your belt, plus you sorta move like one in a fight… all quick and jittery.”
“I didn’t get that impression at all,” Aims said.
“Looks like it’s an impasse. Gonna have to wait for Mouthy,” Hardhat said.
They ate and talked eventually going back around to the ranger names.
“We called Smores that because he hated those things,” Aims smiled sadly.
“Catscratch, you never met him, got his cause a cat swiped his face, like, five times in two seconds,” Hardhat laughed, “it was hilarious! Big man getting combo-ed by a tiny cat.”
“Almost lost his eyes,” Aims nodded.
“Thank God for healing magic,” Hardhat added.
“Yes, that is humorous,” Fin said.
Rai and Ambrose exchanged a look. “What about Chains? I mean, we only met her briefly before—” the latter began.
“Sorry,” the former continued as the smiles fell from the rangers’ faces.
“Not your fault,” Aims said.
“It was her smoking pipe magic,” Hardhat said. “She was like a chain smoker.”
“Turned it into a mage class,” Aims said.
“And Two-toes? Did she only have two toes?” Rai said.
Hardhat’s laughter was more subdued this time. “You want to tell the story?” she nodded to Aims. When he shook his head, she continued. “It was in the early days of Rayna’s Rangers. We didn’t have the best equipment and she had to wear boots that were a couple of sizes too big. So, there are these things, landsharks, basically amphibious sharks with legs.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen those before when I went to a beach once,” Ambrose said.
“So, one of these things, chomped right down on Two-toes’ boots, both of them. She got lucky and kept all her toes,” Hardhat finished.
“That’s it? You gave her that name because she almost lost her toes?” Rai said.
“Yup,” Hardhat said.
“Your names are obvious, as is Mouthy’s, but what about Sgt. Butcher,” Ambrose said.
“That’s her actual name,” Hardhat shrugged.
“It’s also a fitting one, if it wasn’t,” Aims said. “At least that’s what the stories say of her days before the rangers.”
The newly-minted rangers turned to look at their squad leader.
Sgt. Butcher had her back turned to them as she continued to stare out the windows.
Mouthy appeared walking with a purpose and an angry scowl on her face, stopping in front Sgt. Butcher.
They couldn’t hear what the two said, but the conversation lasted a few minutes, before Mouthy stomped over to join them at the table.
“Where’s my fucking burger?” Mouthy said as she crammed a hand full of fries in her mouth.
Fin sighed and stood, but Aims waved him down.
“I’ll take care of this one. You did ours,” Aims said.
“Thanks,” Fin mumbled.
“Grilled onions and grilled tomato,” Mouthy said.
“You’re getting the same as the rest of us. You want fancy, you do it yourself,” Aims raised a brow.
“Fine, whatever, dickhole,” Mouthy muttered.
“Bad time at the spire?” Hardhat poked Mouthy in the side, hard.
Mouthy slapped her hand away and grumbled. “Class changed.”
“That’s different,” Rai said.
The others, even Fin, eyed the brawny ranger with interest as she continued to shovel fries into her mouth. “Beer me!”
After a moment, Ambrose got up with a sigh.
“Well? What’s your Class now?” Hardhat poked.
“Stop doing that, bitch,” Mouthy said without heat. “Ranger of Grief…”
“The fuck is that even supposed to be?” Hardhat said.
“Dunno… like I fight better if I’m sad or whatever—” Mouthy downed half the glass of beer Ambrose had just handed to her. “It’s straight shitsack.”
“Smores would’ve loved this,” Hardhat said softly.
Mouthy said nothing as she stared at the glass in her hands. “Yeah… he would’ve,” she said after a moment.
----------------------------------------
“You sure about staying?” Cal said.
“Yeah, your brother needs someone he can lean on,” Phillip replied. “He blames himself for everything that happened here. For all the deaths and your fight.”
“He feels bad about it?” Cal scoffed. “I’m the one that should be mad. He ruined my Threnosh armor. I can’t just go back and get it fixed.”
“It’s not anger. It’s guilt. I’m sure he would take it back if he had the choice. I’ll talk to him. Get him to see that he’s not a bad person. Desperation drove him to it.”
Cal agreed with his father’s words in principle. During the fight with Eron he had seen enough of his youngest brother’s thoughts. He was certain that Eron truly believed that he had been doing the right thing to spare the world from the fog’s potential. Even though Eron knew that it would’ve killed something inside of himself had he succeeded in killing the baby.
This was why Cal knew that he had done the right thing in preventing that. A man with Eron’s level of power needed to be good, otherwise everyone else would suffer.
“I tried to talk to him. Just to let him know that I understood and that I didn’t hold any hard feelings. He wouldn’t even look at me,” he said.
“Anger, shame and guilt,” Phillip said. “Give it time.”
“Those last two are, like, the same.”
“Are they?” Phillip raised a brow.
“Yeah,” Cal snorted. “So, how long do you think you’ll stay? You can’t just buy a plane ticket whenever you want.”
“I can swim or row a boat if I have to,” Phillip laughed.
“I don’t know about that. Who knows how far the Deep Azure’s reach is?”
“I’m kidding. Eron said he could fly me home when I wanted.”
“Do you have anything you want me to tell Mom?”
“Just tell her and Rayna that I love them. I’ve already sent them spires messages,” Phillip looked to the dark sky. “I’m not only staying for Eron’s sake. This place needs a lot of help. I need to keep an eye on Manila while Eron’s busy flying around the islands looking for our remaining family and bringing back others in bad situations. We have to build a force capable of keeping the encounter challenges from turning into spawn zones. As well as fighting random monster attacks.”
Cal laughed. “The nerdy things that are coming out of your mouth,” he shook his head.
Phillip smiled. “Can’t call it nerdy when it’s real and serious.”
“True… damn it!” Cal tried to shush the baby in his arms. The laughter had woken the small human.
“Are you sure about him?”
“That was part of the deal. I have to keep an eye on him for potential fogginess, even if I don’t think that’s a possibility. All the tests, medical, magical and a combination of the two came to the same conclusion. So, he’ll be staying with me for now. I hope I can find some people to adopt him.”
“What did Nila say?”
Cal shrugged. “She was… fine… with it at least according to her message.”
“You do know that you’ll have to tell the adoptive parents the full truth.”
“Do I? I mean, what’s wrong with sticking to the official story. I found him when the fog entity was defeated. All basically true. Like, I tried to tell Eron, since the baby is human then you can’t really draw a direct line to the fog entity. It’s not like water turning to ice or steam, that’s still water in different forms. This is completely different.”
“Try to put yourself in the prospective parents’ shoes. Wouldn’t you want to know the full truth?”
“Honestly, probably not.”
“Well… it’s your responsibility, so the choice is yours,” Phillip sighed. “I just don’t want you to have regrets that’ll add to your burdens. Speaking of which—”
Cal raised a hand. “It’s fine, Dad. I don’t need to talk. Save it for Eron. I’m pretty sure he needs that more than me.” He stared at the private jet and the people boarding and loading luggage and equipment in order to ignore his dad’s patented look of concern. “Not looking forward to flying on top without my Threnosh helmet,” he adroitly changed the subject. “It’s going to be loud using this thing,” he nudged the motorcycle helmet next to his foot.
“Who’ll watch the baby while you’re outside the plane?” Phillip said.
“Ginessa will… speak of the…”
The young woman, aswang, in question came out of the airport and approached quickly.
Cal discreetly used his telepathic abilities to mute the effects of Ginessa’s supernatural charm and beauty for both him and his dad.
“Hey, thanks so much for taking care of him,” Cal said as he handed over the baby.
“No problem, it’s the least I can do for everything you’ve done for me,” Ginessa said.
“I didn’t do much,” Cal demurred.
What he had done for her had amounted to taking her from one dangerous situation to a more dangerous one.
“You’re giving me an opportunity for a new start in a place where I can be more accepted despite my Class. Watch Captain Lawrence and Rino promised me that it won’t be like Ilagan,” Ginessa said.
“Don’t let them make you fight or do anything to dangerous if you don’t want to,” Phillip warned. “You can always send word if you need help.”
“Yup. You won’t be alone. You’ll meet a Vampire, he’s a good guy,” Cal said.
“Goodbye, Po,” Ginessa dipped her head to Phillip.
“It’ll be better for her there. There isn’t that automatic animosity like there was here. Get her away from Cristos, even if he didn’t really want to kill her on the datu’s and that priest’s orders,” Cal said as they watched Ginessa board the jet with the baby in her arms.
“Well… if Eron has his way and I don’t see why he wouldn’t, most of the datu’s people will be in Manila soon,” Phillip said.
“It’s a better deal. They won’t have to scrape and bow for scraps. If they can hold Manila and keep the monsters at bay they’ll have freedom and more than enough food, medicine and whatever else they need to live comfortably… minus the monsters of course.”
“I’ll do all I can to get them started,” Phillip said.
“Do you think I should give the baby a name? Or leave it to the adoptive parents?”
“Give him a name, but don’t tell the adoptive parents, so they can name him themselves. Easy.”
“Phillip 2…” Cal mused.
Phillip snorted.
“Raynard? Ray? Rayna Jr.”
“You might want to ask your sister first.”
“Meh,” Cal shrugged. “I’ll make list and then roll dice. That way it’s left to fate and none of you can get mad at me.”
“I wonder if they think it was all worth it. Coming here, I mean,” Phillip said.
“To varying degrees,” Cal replied. “They gained more levels in a few weeks than they had in multiple years, but the friends they lost hurt and will continue to for as long as they live. For some it’ll fade in time, but for others it’ll be a chain around their necks that’ll only get heavier as more links are inevitably added in time.”
“Jeez, Anak… are you sure you don’t want to talk about your… struggles?” Phillip said.
“Thanks, Dad, but I’m fine right now. I’ve got plenty of things to focus on. Find the baby a name and parents. Keep my promise to a dead man. Find a torture elf. Plus a few other things to look into.”
Father and son watched the rest of the boarding and loading process in companionable silence until it was time for the latter to join it on their way home.
----------------------------------------
Eron flew over a fight in progress.
A trio of people struggled to keep a giant monster from continuing on her path toward the city.
The fight had started about a half mile from the tree line, judging by the visible swath of destruction through the rainforest.
He took a moment to assess the situation before deciding on intervening.
The monster vaguely resembled an obese woman going by her physical features, which were on display thanks to the fact that she was naked. Her skin had the color of charcoal, as did her long, scraggly hair. Two thick, stumpy legs, like an elephant’s shook the ground with every step. They rang loud in his ears despite being over a thousand feet above. Over-long arms that nearly reached the ground swung out in attempts to swat aside the people harassing her.
Two of the people were unfamiliar to him.
A big boned, muscular woman with light brown skin and wild black hair darted between the giant monster’s legs, slashing with claw-like fingernails.
Eron caught the sight of sharp canines as the woman smiled with undisguised glee.
A feral-type, he’d come across several over the years. Sometimes it was the product of natural, if you could call it that, biological changes, superpowers. It could also be a result of a Class. He wondered how fast she could heal. That seemed to be pretty common to the power set of the former.
The giant turned with a snarl and pointed at the feral woman. It uttered a guttural curse as it pointed a finger.
The feral woman instantaneously staggered and shook her head.
Eron watched as her eyes grew heavy and her head lolled.
The shadow of the giant monster’s arm fell over the feral woman before the monster brought it down like a falling tree, aiming to flatten the feral woman like a mosquito.
The second person he didn’t recognize leapt forward.
A young man with sun-darkened skin caught the giant monster’s hand with his own, while kicking the feral woman out of danger. The young man’s curly black hair hung heavy with sweat as he grimaced while pushing up against the giant.
A not insignificant amount of superhuman strength and all that entailed, Eron decided.
Superhuman durability was needed when the giant changed tack and closed over-long fingers around the young man’s hands and arms. She slammed the young man on the forest floor twice in quick succession before a pair of loud pops drew a splash of red from her wrist.
The young man went flying as giant fingers released their hold.
The third member of the party was someone Eron recognized, though he couldn’t remember the middle-aged woman’s name. He had encountered her briefly a few years ago in Indonesia. Nothing bad, nor good from that interaction.
The woman pointed finger guns at the giant and fired again.
A power not a Class. The woman generated projectiles that were roughly analogous to 9mm pistol rounds.
Two bloody pinpricks appeared in the giant’s naked chest.
Not bullet proof, but too much fat and dense muscle for the small caliber-equivalent rounds.
“Big as an elephant, but much tougher,” Eron muttered.
The earth shook under the giant’s stumpy feet as it charged the finger guns-wielding woman.
Faster than an elephant.
The feral woman gave chase and leapt onto the giant’s back within a few strides.
It was an impressive leap.
The feral woman snarled like a jungle cat as she clawed at the giant’s face and eyes.
The giant ignore her as it leapt as well.
Eron’s brows rose.
Something so big and heavy shouldn’t even be able to get off the ground and yet this monster was in the middle of a passable imitation of an Olympic long jumper.
Every thing moved in slow motion to Eron, which is why he as content to watch for now. He knew that the middle-aged woman would be able to scramble back to avoid being flattened by the giant’s enormous butt.
The middle-aged woman continued firing her finger guns as the giant landed with an earthshaking thud.
The strong young man appeared shouting. He dragged a small tree behind him as he ran toward the giant.
The feral woman leapt off the giant’s back just as the young man spun and smacked the giant in the face.
The giant rocked backed as the tree shattered and sent splinters flying in all directions.
A few of which found homes in the feral woman.
Eron had seen enough.
The sky shook in his wake as he flew down.
All eyes, even the giant’s, looked to the sky at the multiple booms that shattered the quiet air.
They had no hope of tracking him.
He swooped down and grabbed the sides of the giant’s head before flying back up just as quickly.
The giant’s spittle splashed against Eron’s face as the pungent odor filled his nostrils.
He judged that he was high enough, so he looked the giant in the eyes.
Beady eyes, oddly small in proportion to the large, broad face.
They burned and boiled as Eron looked through them and into the giant’s brain.
The giant’s futile struggles ceased in a few moments.
He hurled the corpse away.
The city of Davao was set in a bay and it wasn’t a hard throw.
Eron watched for the tiny splash in the distance before he flew down to the three people.
“What’re you doing all the way here?” he addressed the middle-aged woman.
She stared at him with with eyes. Her fingers twitched, but she conspicuously kept them splayed at her side with palms facing forward. “I heard you were stuck in that fog stuff that took Manila, Relentless.”
Eron cringed inwardly. He blamed Wytchraven for putting the fear of being too free with his real name in him.
“My question,” he said.
The other two had stiffened upon hearing his… other name. They had taken a half-step back behind the middle-aged woman.
“Not much to say. Things went bad back home. We had to leave.” She jabbed a finger toward the young man.
Eron noticed that he had what looked like gills on the sides of his neck.
“He’s a good swimmer, so we tied a rope around him to a small boat and he pulled us across the Sulawesi Sea. Ended up in Davao and got a job with the datu… we strictly fight monsters that the normals can’t handle, like that fat woman giant… we don’t do anything to the normals, we’re being very professional,” she hastily added, “thanks by the way.”
“A lot of dangerous things in the ocean,” Eron said.
“I’m fast,” the young man challenged.
“And strong.” Eron regarded the trio.
“Hey, man,” the middle-aged woman slowly raised her hands, “I swear we don’t get involved with anything unless it’s monsters. We work for food and housing.”
“And money,” the feral woman growled.
“Yes… and that,” the middle-aged woman nodded, “but fair wages. So… uh… please don’t beat us up…”
“I’ve barely said a word, why would you think that?”
“You’ve got a rep,” the middle-aged woman shrugged.
Eron slowly began to rise up.
The trio shrank back.
“I don’t know if any of that is fair or accurate, but if you three would like to learn the truth then you can go to Manila. Similar arrangement that you have here. Fight monsters, clear challenges and zones, defend the people… work with the people. Everyone has the right to a relatively safe and comfortable existence. No exploitation.”
He left them as he flew toward the city. He had already scanned it on his flight over and had seen much that he didn’t like.
It was the same old story. The strong taking from the weak. The datu and those on the top reaped the fruits of everyone else’s labor. Nothing outright as heinous as open slavery, but he knew that he’d have to give the city a thorough search to find any secret torture prisons that the datu used to hold people that didn’t submit. Perhaps, he could just ask the man. That’d be quicker.
It’d upset the datu, but Eron didn’t care. He was going to upset the man immensely. After all, he was going to take any willing individual in Davao and move them to Manila.
Sure, he could’ve physically replaced the datu with someone more aligned to his ideals, but that had never been a bloodless process and was often tenuous.
Manila had plenty of room.
The thought a less violent solution was appealing.
The image of Cal’s blood-bathed face staring up at him from within the broken helmet flashed through his thoughts.
Nearly two months had passed from that moment. In that time he had been forced to reconsider his position.
The more he had observed the baby from a far distance, the more he had watched and listened to it do baby stuff, the more his certainty had turned to doubt, which gave birth to shame.
It would take a lot of effort on his part to ferry people by the bus load from the largest southern island to the largest northern island of the Philippines. It was going to take many trips and days. Buses weren’t built to travel at supersonic speeds.
Sometime later that night Eron arrived in front of the burned out restaurant and apartment building that had been their main sanctuary.
He carefully lowered the bus he was carrying to the ground.
He went to the doors and directed the people inside to the apartment building on the other side of the street.
It had survived the fierce battle with the shades with broken windows and minor surface damage and they were using it as a temporary staging area of sorts for new arrivals. The first bus load of which stepped out on shaky legs.
Eron sympathized. “Sorry, I know, buses aren’t planes.”
The people insisted that he had nothing to apologize about as he directed them to the building.
Madalena stepped out of the door and waved them over with a smile.
“Is my dad here?”
“Tito Phillip is clearing a mega mall,” Madalena said.
“Which one?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Seems like he’s been doing one a day. Are you going to go back right now?”
“In a minute.” Eron wasn’t tired, he didn’t get tired unless things were really going bad. “Thanks for taking care of this part.”
Madalena gave him a flat stare before she followed the last person into the building.
Eron trusted that his cousin would make sure that the people would understand what they were trying to build. His gaze drifted to the burned remnants what was once Cherry’s restaurant.
A whisper in the wind drew him forward.
He stepped inside, boots crunching on broken glass and charred detritus. He looked to the empty bar and away toward the front.
“A drink?”
He looked back.
Cherry stood behind the bar. Sensibly and modestly dressed to his relief.
“Ash whisky?”
“Surprisingly, a lot survived,” she plopped a bottle filled with dark, amber liquid on the scorched bar top.
“Sure, but just one. I’ve got to fly back.” Eron walked to the bar and stood. The stools hadn’t survived. “So… how’ve you been?”
Cherry shrugged. “Can’t complain too much. I’ve got plenty of free blood.”
“I’m surprised you stuck around. Even more surprised to hear that you’ve been helping fight.”
“Well, I thought about leaving, but where would I go? I’m chained by that which gives me my strength.”
“My brother set up a hospital and homes for a group of Aswang: Mandurugos up north. I could take you there?”
“Yeah, no… I definitely don’t want to be surrounded by… lesser relatives,” Cherry snorted.
“Huh? I was thinking you could, I don’t know, keep them from getting off course.”
“Nope…” Cherry sighed at Eron’s flat stare. “Fine, if you want to bring them here I can maybe keep a loose eye on them. I’m not here to play master.”
“Something to think about for the future.”
“You ask too much. I’m already dirtying my hands for you people,” Cherry teased.
“Is it working?”
“It is, slowly—” Cherry cleared her throat, “the people that see me, know me, are losing their fear of me.”
“That’s good!”
“Mixed feelings for me. It’s nice to walk openly and for the first time in years I don’t sleep like an animal with the fear of death being visited on me in my burrow.”
“Er… progress.”
“Well… hero, finish your drink,” Cherry clinked her glass against his, “you’ve got many more trips if you want to refill this city with blood bags, I mean, people,” she grinned like a devil.
Eron’s laugh trailed off as Cherry gazed at him with unblinking eyes.
Her sudden, lilting laughter was like music in his ears. “The look on your face…” she shooed him away.
“You shouldn’t hang around in here,” he regarded the charred interior. “You can pick any other place.”
“I already have. This is— this is just for nostalgia. One last drink in the closest thing I had to a home,” Cherry’s wan smile made Eron’s stomach dance.
“Well, I’m out of here,” he said hastily.
Ash swirled in his wake as he zipped out and into the night sky.
Cherry regarded the cloud of ash in what was once her restaurant. A reminder of what they all had survived. She didn’t leave until well after the ash had settled back to the floor. She looked out the ruined windows and down several blocks.
“Hmm… what to do with myself? There are monsters out on my streets, in my night,” she murmured.
There was a bare whisper of motion.
The burned and hollowed out interior stood silent and empty.