Alexa watched in horror.
The armored mountain of a man had just probably killed Jake after stomping Rebekah. The latter was spitting up so much blood, but she was still trying to get to her feet, while the former wasn’t moving.
And now Del stared up at his own descending death.
Max was trying, but more of the Slaver King’s men had decided to jump in and he was hard pressed to keep them from simply running over everyone.
“Mr. Bigglesworth, we have to try it,” she whispered.
Dangerous? her familiar gave her a quizzical look, only chance! though he couldn’t hide his eager excitement at the prospect.
“Two becomes—” Alexa started.
—one, Mr. Bigglesworth finished.
Nauseating pink light flared around the two until it became impossible to see them.
As quickly as it appeared the light vanished to reveal a walking nightmare.
Half pink-haired woman, half hairless demonic cat familiar.
Much bigger than either had been.
The twisted eldritch abomination shrieked, touching the primal part in the human mind that feared the unknown darkness.
The armored mountain spun, the whites of his eyes large and visible through his helmet’s eye slit.
Alexa and Mr. Bigglesworth hit him like a pouncing tiger. Their claws tore chunks out of the thick armor like it was paper.
Pink light manifested around their wicked claws striking through the armor to cut the man’s essence, his very soul.
Dagger-like fangs plunged through thick bracers and into skin and muscle almost as tough.
The man had saved his face with the hasty block.
The clock ticked down on their ability.
Fun! Fun! Fun!
Her familiar’s excitement bled over into Alexa’s thoughts became her own.
She tried to focus.
To rein him in.
She risked losing herself.
They both did.
A ham-sized fist pounded into their side. Spiked gauntlets split their flesh and broke ribs.
They fought like a crazed animal, biting and slashing.
He slammed them to the ground, kicking them a dozen feet away.
“Eldritch Tendrils,” their discordant growl reverberated deeply.
Pink tentacles lashed out of their outstretched hand, pulling them back into a grapple with the armored mountain.
Kill! Kill! Kill!
His voice or hers?
Both?
They continued to rip into the mountain, cutting it down, piece by bleeding piece.
Until he roared.
“I am the left hand of the king! Duty Before Death!” he swelled with power, striking them down with a single blow. He grabbed them by the throat, lifting them up. He clenched his left hand. “Fist of the King.” His punch caved their face in.
Cast aside, they inched quickly toward death.
One becomes two… say it!
Mr. Bigglesworth?
Hurry and say it with me! One becomes—
—two, she finished.
Familiar’s Sacrifice, I die for my master… goodbye.
Alexa came to, injured, but alive, reaching out for Mr. Bigglesworth, but he vanished in a flash of pink light.
She called out, but only heard silence in the void.
“Max!” Watch Commander Lawrence cried out as she cleared the group of king’s men trying to hack their way through his thorny vines with a sweep of her recoilless rifle and a grenade. “Stop the bastard!”
The armored mountain stomped toward Del, who had backed all the way up to the broken remnants of Max’s first wood and earth wall.
Max tried.
Vines wrapped around legs and arms like a snake. More vines stabbed into the floor to anchor him against the Left Fist of the Slaver King’s strength.
They struggled for what seemed like an eternity.
The Watch Commander knew that her people were still alive, if barely, with each labored breath bringing them closer to death. The linking Skill erased any doubts she might have had. Any hesitation.
She dashed toward the armored mountain, scaled him using the stirrups and hand holds that other fist had used to cling to the broad back. She jammed the muzzle of her recoilless rifle into the gap in the thick armor at the back of his neck and squeezed the trigger.
The man roared, breaking the vines and taking half of Max’s arm with the thorn-covered tendrils.
He whipped the broken wood and earth down.
Del was already moving, forewarned by his danger sense pushed to its limit.
Unfortunately, his body wasn’t quick enough to follow the warning.
The crack of his back breaking was like a stab to the Watch Commander’s heart.
Her rifle was wrenched out of her hands.
A crushing hand around her wrists flipped her over the armored mountain’s head.
He held her out at arm’s length like a trophy bass.
“It’s finished,” he touched the back of his neck and came away with blood-stained gloves, “you got close, but as long as my king lives and my loyalty remains you cannot kill me.”
“Fireball!”
The smartphone fixed to her stomach fired it into his face.
His grip slackened enough for her to free one arm.
A drawn blade, thin, stiff and enchanted for potency lanced into his eye slit hidden by the fire and smoke.
He roared again and punched, breaking the smartphone and bruising her internal organs even through the Threnosh-made armor.
The smoke cleared.
The blade stood like a flag planted in his eye.
Her heart sank.
Despite the enchantment it still failed to penetrate far enough to bring the armored mountain down.
She reached out in a desperate attempt to push it deeper.
He caught her hand, twisting it back.
The armor held, but her elbow and shoulder failed.
She grit her teeth against the spike of pain.
A cybernetic thought triggered the spike in her boot as she brought it up to his chin.
He wrenched it out.
“Not enough.”
Demi knew his words to be true.
She thought hard.
Are you there? We could use your help? One of those last minute saves?
Silence.
He punched her.
Her face-plate held, but the impact rocked her head.
Vision blackened for a moment.
Please?
She was alone with her thoughts.
Just her and the ticking clocks.
Rebekah was the closest.
Followed by Alexa.
Then Jake.
Max would be okay assuming he could get away.
Del was crippled, not that it’d matter. Once the armored mountain killed her, he’d crush Del like a bug.
“I still have to give it to you though. Ain’t no quit in you. Any last words?” the armored mountain rumbled.
“Just a few,” she took a breath to steady her resolve. “I name my successor. Upon my death, Rebekah Court, will be the Watch Commander.” She locked eyes with Rebekah. Bloody tears flowed down Rebekah’s face.
“Looks like it’s going to be a short reign.”
She ignored him.
Mortality’s fingers had strengthened their hold on her thoughts in recent years.
Though her Watch had grown, not a year had gone by where she had lost people.
Sure, not many of those that had been with her since the earliest days.
But, the thought of losing them, her family, touched something within her, became too loud to push aside with hope and proper planning.
She knew that sooner, rather than later, their time would come.
If only there was a way she could cheat their deaths.
At least once.
And the spires, as was their wont, responded to her subconscious desires with her Level 40 Skill.
“Watch Commander’s Last Command, give me your wounds.”
Watch Commander Demi Lawrence died instantly.
“What the hell?” the armored mountain scowled at the lifeless body in his hand.
He dropped her and kicked her aside like a broken puppet.
There were a few more he needed to make sure were dead before—
Crackling pain struck the back of his neck.
The lightning claw scorched his flesh, but more importantly sheared through the thick straps holding his helmet in place.
He lashed his arm back, meeting the crackling blue-white magic surrounding the big man’s metal and plastic hand.
“Bear’s Strength!” the big man growled.
One of his smartphones glowed, casting the spell and giving him enough to hold.
A weight landed on the armored mountain’s back. Rough hands grappled his head, struggling for a moment, but succeeding in pulling his helmet off.
“The Watch stands united!” Rage and anguish colored the soldier’s voice. “Together we can kill the strongest monsters! Watch Commander’s Commands: Stand Your Ground, Know No Fear, Surpass Your Limits!”
“Get back, Commander Court!” the pink-haired woman fingers twisted, pointing toward the armored mountain, “Lament’s Chains of Corruption!”
Hooked chains glowing with nauseating pink light erupted out of the woman’s fingers, lashing around his head.
Hooks sank into his eyes.
They dug into his lower and upper lip forcing his mouth open.
His skin bubbled and blackened at the touch, like a slowly spreading cancer.
“Unstoppable Force of the King!” he roared.
The chains began to break as he pulled his head forward.
The big man wrestled his arm, trying to twist it behind his back. All while the crackling lightning filled his nose with the scent of burned bacon.
“Immovable Object of the King!”
Chains broke.
“Suppression Fire!” the soldier had taken up her dead commander’s strange rifle.
The stream of projectiles painfully urged him to stop moving. Though, it was only a suggestion this time. One he overcame.
The sad-eyed man shot him in the face with one of those so-called spell guns.
The fire blinded him. Hot liquid dribbled down his face like tears.
They had pushed him to his own limits.
He was taking serious wounds and they weren’t healing quickly enough, if at all.
“Max, go internal!” the soldier, the new Watch Commander screamed.
The Left Fist of the Slaver King looked down with his one good eye.
A hand of wood and earth speared into his mouth.
The taste was bitter at first then it became tinged with the iron tang of his own blood.
Splinters and thorns cut the inside of his mouth.
The vines grew, snaking in the only direction they could go.
Downward.
He choked.
“This is for Demi!” Max snarled up into his face. “Thorn Explosion!”
He bit down, severing the hand at the wrist.
He lunged forward, shattering the chains of corruption.
His fist crashed into Max’s hasty wooden shield.
He kicked back, breaking the big man’s mana shield with one blow and knocking the air out of him.
He reached out and—
Stopped moving.
He fell to his knees, slumping over as though in prayer.
“Fuck! He’s dead!” Max snapped. “He was already dead when I porcupined him from the inside!”
“Guess that confirms that rumor,” Jake gasped for air.
“High levels can keep fighting for a little bit even with death wounds,” Alexa said.
“No, it’s more than that. He kept fighting after he died,” Rebekah said softly. Her eyes fell on Demi’s body. “Mourn later. This fight isn’t over. I’m taking her armor, unless—”
“You’re our commander now,” Del said.
“She’d want you to wear it,” Max said.
“What are we going to do?” Alexa’s eyes seemed to stare at nothing.
“Amber’s somewhere in this mess,” Max gestured to the melee.
“Hanna too,” Del added.
“This ends with the king. He dies,” she knelt down to begin the process of taking Demi’s Threnosh-made armor off, “I’m sorry, commander,” she whispered, “I can’t promise that all of them will make it out of this… but, I guarantee that I’ll be first to go and join you wherever you are now. You life for ours, mine for theirs.”
----------------------------------------
Spear Captain Doran gazed out over his spear wall.
The hotel lobby floor was carpeted in corpses oozing blood, guts, piss and shit.
Monsters, mutant animals and people.
Some of the latter had been his own before they had been dragged back, but most were from the slavers.
A partially unpleasant thought. Not all of the slavers were combatants. Some had appeared to be regular people whipped up into a mob-like frenzy.
Still, better them than his troops.
The majority of his forces held the lobby, turning it into a killing ground.
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His individually stronger fighters patrolled the rest of the hotel, dealing with the monsters that tried to invade from above street level.
Their allies, the Golden Eagles, had taken the responsibility to defend the smaller entrances at the sides and rear of the hotel.
A few stragglers from the other mercenary groups had joined them in the lulls between attacks when they had realized that it was their best chance to make it through the blood-drenched night.
“Don’t like the look of that red lightning,” he muttered.
“But, he’s on our side—”
He waved Marci away. “I know, just an old man griping. Ain’t natural, is all.”
“The rain’s keeping morale up. We’re wet, but warm,” she pointed to the broken skylights letting the drizzle inside. “Sir, it’s been awhile since the last attack, maybe it’s time we do what we were supposed to do?”
“Negative on that.”
“But— we’re meant to engage the bulk of slavers’ regular forces in this sector. Now that they lost control of their slave soldiers it’s the perfect time. We can outright smash them, instead of just tying them down.”
“I don’t want to run into more mobs. Civilian blood isn’t what we’re here for.”
“If we don’t then they’ll be able to rally to the king’s castle.”
“What do you see, lieutenant?” he gestured to the foul carpet covering the expansive lobby and even out into the parking lot and street.
“Disarray,” she replied after a long moment.
“That’s right. The slavers, former slaves, monsters and everyone else, are fighting out there. It’s a shit soup and I’m not going to jump us into that. Besides, if there was a problem, we’d have gotten word by now,” he nodded to the Rayna’s Ranger sitting on a plush chair she had dragged over to be close to his command staff.
Ranger Sudden stared out into nothing.
He recognized the look. Had seen it in his own men and women. In the mirror.
Traumatic loss.
“Huh? What?” Sudden blinked.
Marci scowled down at the young woman.
“Anything new to report?” he said.
“World isn’t ending last check-in. Although, with all that shit in the air, comms aren’t working that great,” Sudden shrugged. “Relax!” she snapped, forestalling the words on Marci’s tongue. “Proximity comms are fine. Aerial overwatch on this location is fine,” she muttered.
They might not have night vision, thermals or any of the old optics he had used back in the marines, but Skills were just as good or better in some cases. Just had to level up enough.
Minutes passed in relative silence.
Close to two hundred spears and half as many ranged tried to relax while maintaining their defensive formation.
A sudden shout went up across the three hundred fighters.
Danger Senses had triggered.
“Yellow!” the sergeants barked the alert level.
Doran felt the lack of his best early warning system since Jimenez was up closer to the roof. She had been pulled up there by instinct about half an hour ago and he knew better than to question her. So, he had sent most of his elite fighters along.
He glanced at the ranger.
Sudden was already speaking into her comms.
He waited patiently, even as Marci shifted in place like an impatient leopard.
“We’ve got problems. A bunch of mercs tried it. They ran into a mess between enslaved and king’s fighters about half a mile to the northeast. An angry mob joined in. Then monsters. Long story short, a couple of mercs are headed back this way, what’s left of the rest is right behind them. And I’ll let you guess where all the monsters are,” Sudden said.
“We’ve got minutes, get on it,” he directed his command staff.
The fleeing people almost made it inside.
Sudden gave him the play by play as relayed from her eyes in the sky.
Monsters ran them down one by one as the blocks between them and the hotel shrank.
“First rank! Volley fire!” he barked.
The spell attachments near the end of their spears fired.
Fire, lightning, magic missiles, acid and other direct damage spells nailed the first group of monsters that came snarling through the shattered windows and broken walls.
Courtesy of R&D team, namely Jake and two kids, the attachments only had enough stored mana for a few shots at a lower power tier, but it gave the spears extra damage at range.
“Fire at will!”
The spears emptied before the first monster met the wall of spears and shields.
Orders flowed.
Skills activated.
Monster died.
The collars the slavers had put on them hadn’t made them smarter.
In Doran’s opinion it made them easier to fight.
Gone was whatever cunning they once had, replaced by simple directions.
His ranged fighters stationed on the walkways overlooking the lobby joined in with thunderous intensity.
Bullets, arrows, spells poured down into the greater mass of monsters bottle-necked just outside of the entrance.
“Are we getting any spill over anywhere else?”
“Negative, sir,” his communications officer said.
“What do you mean?” Sudden’s voice went high.
Doran opened his mouth… and was silenced by Sudden holding up a finger.
“C’mon, Ophrys, how can you not see something?” she paused to let the other ranger on the comms elaborate. “Great. Just great,” she sighed, turning to Doran. “Incoming. Something flying. Possibly more than one. We have, like, a minute or two. Dark shadows, bla, bla, bla. That’s all I got.”
“Tell the team on the roof to get inside. Tell all the teams inside to get away from windows and prepare for incoming,” he directed his comms officer.
They came through the skylights from within shadows that felt like the flapping of dark-feathered wings and with the cawing of the largest murder of crows in history.
Black feathers like daggers rained, shredding those that were too slow or too occupied with ground bound monsters to get their shields up.
The flying monsters landed in the midst of their formation.
Toothed-beaks snatched heads off shoulders, while taloned hands cut through shields and armor.
The spears stabbed back, only to be rebuffed by the steel-hard feathers hanging from below their long, gnarled arms and covering their bodies.
Doran’s eyes widened.
He had seen things in the past.
These two weren’t even top five in horribleness.
They looked like humanoid vultures. Enormous in size, despite being thin, even hunched over they towered over his fighters.
“Skeksis! I knew it! They’re real!”
“Stow it!” Doran silenced the voice. “You’ve seen one monster, you’ve seen them all… and we’ve seen many.”
He barked orders.
His spears responded.
Driving a wedge between the two monsters and encircling each.
“Another one’s on the roof!” his comms officer said.
“Valentine and Ophrys are gonna help out with that one if you want to let your people know,” Sudden raised a finger before disappearing deeper into the hallway.
“Appraisal, now!” Doran regarded the two monsters as they swatted at the stabbing spears and fired those feathers into shields.
“30 to 40 threat!”
He saw the battle play out in his mind’s eye.
The majority of his spears were in the tier below that, which meant they’d take more casualties than he’d like in the killing of the two vulture-like things.
His elites were closer, but most of them were probably heading up to the roof.
Rowen and Selena were sticking to Jimenez per his orders, which left him with Marci.
This was also a leveling opportunity and possibly, steps towards a class upgrade down the line.
“Lieutenant.”
“Sir,” Marci tapped spear shaft to round shield’s iron edge.
“Assign Temporary Champion,” he murmured, “Expert Spearwoman Marci Brown.”
With the boosts Marci cleared over a dozen feet with one mighty leap.
The vulture-like monster raised a curtain of steel-hard feathers over its face.
Piercing Thrust parted it like fabric.
Down the spear went into the toothed beak.
Marci deflected a taloned strike with a perfectly angled shield.
A second spear slid into her hand from a spearman behind the ring.
She thrust up, angling for what she guessed was beneath the monster’s ribs.
This time the point barely penetrated the feathers.
She danced back, deflecting quick strikes.
The monster snapped the shaft in his mouth.
She took the opening to ram it with her shield while stabbing at a knee.
Success!
She drove the broken spear deeper into its throat, while causing it to stumble to one knee.
“Collapse!” Doran barked.
Marci back flipped, armor, shield, spear and all, as the ring of spears closed on the vulnerable monster.
Skills activated.
It took some time and a few casualties, but the monster ended up like a pincushion.
Marci had already engaged the second vulture-like monster.
She weaved through its strikes, deflecting with her shield when necessary, all the while thrusting her spear.
Dark blood leaked from dozens of pin pricks in the tough feathers.
It shrieked.
Marci ducked behind her shield and triggered a Skill.
Those behind her caught in the cone fell to their knees with eyes and ears bleeding.
She could barely hear, felt the wetness in her own ears.
The monster charged.
Deflect a taloned strike just enough to avoid a splintered shield and broken arm.
Dance back at an angle to avoid the second.
Wait for the beak to open—
There!
Spear Flurry down its gullet.
Her spear blurred.
She left it after the Skill finished.
Blood fountained as the monster stumbled and sagged.
“Collapse!”
Doran’s order was muffled, but she leapt out of the way as her fellow spears converged on the weakened monster.
A medic hurried to her side, ushering her away from the fighting.
The front line continued to hold the lobby from the dwindling number of monsters and mutant animals coming in from outside while the ranged fighters poured fire from above.
Healing warmth spread from the medics hands.
It’d take awhile, but she was glad that she wasn’t going to be permanently deafened.
“Sir, Jimenez reports that the third monster is dead. It was a close thing, but Rowen tricked it off the edge and with its arm-wing feathers ruined it couldn’t fly properly. The ranger drake fucked it up on the way down and apparently it’s a bloody pancake now. Heavy casualties. Five dead. Tre got mauled and Xing lost an arm, but they should make it,” the comms officer said.
A Skill told Doran that they had suffered similarly with the two down here.
“Tell Ranger Sudden that I want more warning for the next attack,” he said.
He couldn’t afford more attrition.
The straggler mercenaries were poor substitutes for his highly trained and disciplined men and women.
----------------------------------------
It took some effort, but Britt kept control over the hungrier members of her team.
That leadership Skill she had gained from advancing in the tournament paid dividends.
It was tempting, but the rational part of her brain overruled the eater.
The Meat Parade didn’t have any friends back in the great dining hall.
In fact they had many enemies.
Not them specifically, but the greater movement.
There weren’t many communities out in monsterland USA that hadn’t been graced by the parade and the blessed sacrament.
Many survivors.
All refusers.
“We’re missing out on a lot of powerful meat,” Randall growled.
He was already partially transformed into his flesheater form. Lean, wiry, almost emaciated. Much larger mouth and jaw with sharp teeth in two rows.
“Too powerful for us,” Michael, ever solid and stable, for a flesheater, said flatly.
“We grab our gear and put distance between us and this place. Then we’ll talk about the possibility of going hunting,” she said.
“I smell blood in the air,” Charlie said.
Sarah grunted assent.
“What do you think the others are doing?” Michael said as they hurried to their gear check-in station.
Randall snapped out at a passing person.
Nobles and other VIP’s had mostly streamed out of the great hall when things had gone to shit.
Only a few stragglers remained.
Some fought with the suddenly freed slaves.
Most, on both sides, ran for it.
“Grab him!” she snapped.
Sarah partially grew into her large, muscled form, snatching Randall back by the back of his neck.
The attendants and guards had either joined the exodus or had rushed into the hall, leaving their gear unattended.
Charlie ripped the curtain aside and began breaking the lockers open, quickly distributed their weapons and heavier pieces of armor.
They had just finished when a shout filled the mostly empty hall with fire.
“Cannibal filth!”
A young, fair-skinned woman with her hair on fire pointed a flaming sword in their direction.
Britt narrowed her eyes.
“You’ll burn for what you did to my family!” the young woman snarled.
“Us? Specifically?” Britt smiled and batted her eyes. “I’m not saying it’s not possible. We’ve done some stuff to families. I’m sure some survived. Escaped or hid. Those things tend to happen.”
“You’d be surprised how often,” Charlie shrugged. “Even when we’re warned about it.”
“It’s a thing,” Randall sneered.
“There are inherent difficulties in keeping an eye on details for us when we’re eating,” Michael said as he nocked an arrow.
“Well… good,” the young woman’s voice went cold in contrast to the heat haze around her. She began to stalk toward them, flames trailed as she slowly swept the flaming sword from one side to the other. “I was never going to forgive you, but it’s been drilled into my head that I need to be careful. That I shouldn’t take pleasure in the act. Not let it consume me. Kill you quick and clean to prevent future atrocities. Not kill you for myself, but you’ve just made it easy. No guilt. As someone said… this will be a conscience-free killing.”
“Young lady,” Britt sighed, “we have no conscience. We are flesheaters of the Meat Parade. We exist to partake of the blessed sacrament… and if that’s so wrong, then why do we keep getting stronger for it?”
“Gonna… eat… you… up…” Randall’s words slipped into incoherence between the jaw, the teeth, the snaking tongue and the hungry slobber.
“Randall, wait—” Britt sighed.
He bounded toward the fire-haired young woman in a zig-zag pattern, transforming into his full flesheater form. Lean, agile, quick, he leapt on check-in tables and even skittered across the wall like a nightmarish spider.
“Michael, see if you can eat her flames!” Britt barked. “Before he—”
Too late.
Britt sighed.
Randall sprang off the ceiling with a shower of splinters and broken lights down toward his prey.
The fire-haired young woman pointed her flaming sword lazily.
A great gout of thick red-orange streamed up to engulf Randall.
She dodged to one side, avoiding the falling meteor that was Randall and Michael’s arrow.
The projectile skimmed just past the side of her unprotected head, sucking in her flames.
Eyes widened, then narrowed.
She slashed her sword in a horizontal arc.
Britt met the half-moon shaped arc of fire with a sickly yellow light wave.
“Pin her down, Michael!” she snarled.
His arms blurred.
A dozen arrows loosed in an instant.
Fire billowed to meet them.
Once again the arrows ate holes through the thick cloud.
Devouring Arrow.
Michael’s Skill that could eat almost anything.
The fire-haired young woman had already rolled behind the curtains of one of the check-in stations.
Britt shredded it with a hail of light needles.
The sprinkler system chose that moment to activate.
Smoke and steam obscured the grand space.
Britt tapped into multiple abilities to find their flaming opponent. Standard hunter’s senses and Skills that came with being a flesheater and the ability to sense magic from the mage part of her class.
“Michael, you’re better than me at this. Where is she?”
He nocked an arrow. “She’s trying to be mobile, but I’ve got her. Say the word.”
“Keep her busy. We need to get out of here.”
“What about him?” Charlie gestured toward Randall.
The water had doused most of the flames, leaving him a charred mess.
“He’s still alive,” Charlie continued as an afterthought.
“You and Sarah go grab him, while Michael keeps flame bitch’s head down.”
“I don’t have a lot of arrows,” Michael warned as he loosed one into the smoke and steam.
Sarah went into her full flesheater form. She grew from an average-sized young woman into a mass of twisted muscle that made the biggest normal human bodybuilders look quaint.
Britt activated her Skill to keep Sarah from rampaging out of control like Randall had.
She didn’t anticipate the same problem. Randall was an out of control bastard when he was normal. Sarah was much better at keeping her hunger in check when necessary.
“I’ll only transform if absolutely necessary,” Charlie said before following behind the mountain of muscle.
“Thanks.”
Britt appreciated the gesture.
It was easier on her if she only had to worry about keeping one of them from going berserk.
“Ads! Watch out!”
Michael’s warning wasn’t in time.
A bright, blue-white flash seared their predator eyes.
Sarah bellowed in pain from the lightning bolt to her face.
Britt clamped down on Sarah’s rage. “Grab Randall and get back here!”
Charlie cursed, dashing around Sarah.
Her raised shield caught the next bolt.
Gritting her teeth against the splash damage, she reached down and grabbed Randall’s leg, hurling him back to Britt with inhuman strength.
The acrid stench of burned flesh filled her nostrils.
She had always found it telling that the cooked flesh of normal humans smelled divine, while a flesheater’s made her gag. It was merely one more piece of evidence in the litany that proved the universal truth of their blessed sacrament.
“We’re leaving!” she snapped, hefting Randall over one shoulder.
“No you’re not! Monsters!” a voice struck back from a distance. “You killed my family!”
A high-pitched young woman.
Distinct from the one on fire.
“What is it with all the angry young women?” Britt scoffed.
A lightning bolt arced out of the smoke and steam.
Michael ate it with an arrow.
“Two today. That makes six total that have gone after as for revenge,” he said.
“Lucky for them we aren’t stupid and reckless,” Charlie said.
She and Sarah had fallen back to join them on their retreat toward the front doors.
“Taunt!” a deeper voice.
“Fu—” Britt cursed, suddenly finding herself turning despite her wishes.
She felt her leash on Sarah pull, fray, then snap in a second.
The behemoth charged into the smoke and steam.
“I’d rather have her than Randall,” Charlie said through grit teeth, fighting the urge.
“Agreed,” Michael sighed. “Although, again, I’m running out of arrows. Just a few left.” His arms vibrated, holding his bowstring taut.
“Bulwark!”
Sarah roared in response.
A great bang, like an explosive filled the cavernous space.
Smoke and steam cleared with the shockwave.
Two new prey stood revealed.
A tall, young man cowered behind a cracked round shield, driven to one knee by Sarah’s massive strength.
The second was a young black woman, aiming a finger—
Britt’s reaction was a beat to slow.
Lightning crackled across her body, locking her muscles tight and filling her nose with that acrid stench.
This time she couldn’t blame Randall.
“Transfer Damage.”
Blessed Charlie.
Britt’s mind cleared instantly.
Charlie snarled through grit teeth. “Close— losing it—”
“Calm,” Britt used her Skill.
She always strove to do unto others… as the saying went. Wise words to live by.
Spells struck across the entry hall.
She responded in kind.
Shields absorbed attacks until both shattered.
Back and forth.
Britt dueled with the dark-skinned mage.
“Shit, I recognize them now,” Charlie said. “It’s the rangers. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize the fire one at first. She was that bitch that tried to cut my head off!”
“Not your fault. All normal humans tend to look the same,” Michael shrugged.
An arc of flame scorched the air.
Britt blocked it with the bolt of lighting with a yellow dome of light. “I can’t rein Sarah in while blocking their attacks.”
“Stupid dead weight,” Charlie kicked Randall’s weakly-moving form.
Michael sighed.
He knelt down and took a bloody baggie from a belt pouch, jamming the fresh human meat through Randall’s cracked, blackened lips.
The young man chewed and swallowed instinctively.
Meanwhile, Sarah had kicked the ranger tank into a wall, before turning her attention to the other two.
Hesitation on both sides.
Britt took the opportunity to leash Sarah once again.
“We. Are. Leaving,” she sent a rain of yellow light needles across the far half of the entry hall, forcing the rangers to dive for cover or cast a magic shield.
“I’ll take Randall, since I’m out of arrows anyways,” Michael said.
“I’m on point,” Charlie said.
Britt went next, followed by Michael, bow in one hand, Randall’s slowly healing from on one shoulder.
Sarah brought up the rear, breaking the door way on the way out.
The meat parade team emerged into a war zone.