The Nightclaw Queen abandoned her assault on the soldier behind the boulder and renewed her charge against the two soldiers still peppering her with pulse fire.

A primal roar erupted from the creature, shattering the ground in front of her. A fissure expanded through the earth toward the retreating soldiers who dove to the side in a rolling tumble to escape the panther’s wrath.

Seth’s drones were on the move, high over the battlefield as they buzzed along. Targeting beams narrowed on the Queen and initiated a target lock. The high-pitched whistle of their firing weapons announced the arrival of Calvin’s group.

Calvin instructed the five soldiers with him to accompany Marshall and meet up with the retreating soldiers they’d spotted. Marshall would pass the message that they were here to save the day.

Calvin’s boots tore shallow depressions in the ground as he pumped his legs, sprinting toward the enraged beast. His Resonant Charge was crackling with an unbridled energy, the arcing tendrils hungry for new prey.

The Nightclaw Queen readied herself for the approach, now beset by attackers from multiple angles. She paused briefly, focusing her bright, slitted, amber eyes on Calvin. Her gaze pierced through him with assured finality. The fur on her spine bristled up into a ridge, while a low growl issued a warning to Calvin’s group.

The warning went ignored. Freya was angling off to the right while Sasha angled off to the left. Amy was already under cover moving up toward the sharpshooter on the rocks. She’d meet up with them and then move in to strike from behind. They didn’t know who these three soldiers were and certainly didn’t want any misunderstandings in the heat of battle.

The Nightclaw pounced toward Calvin with lightning-quick ferocity. Her muscles had only briefly tensed before firing her away from the ground with the force of a freight train. That brief signal was all Calvin needed to warn him of the attack. He rolled quickly to the side as the panther slammed into the spot he was just a fraction of a second before. Her claws tore up the earth as she spun around to catch him in a swipe. Calvin ducked under the murderous swipe and stabbed up into the creature’s shoulder.

The piercing jab landed solidly, digging the tip of the spear deep into the panther’s flesh before releasing the built-up charge. The explosion of flesh from the Nightclaw Queen forced her to leap backward before she followed through with a devastating swipe of her tail.

Calvin had not seen this coming and the tail caught him squarely in the chest, smashing him into the ground hard enough to potentially crack a few ribs. He scrambled to get his feet under him as the Nightclaw renewed her charge. She slashed once, just narrowly missing, and slashed again, this time tearing a small slit in Calvin’s armor. Calvin could see the energy building on her claws and feared another one of those windblade strikes coming up.

Calvin was working hard to keep the creature’s attention on him as Ian unleashed a quarry’s worth of Rock Shots on the beast. The impacts caused shallow wounds but were otherwise a minor annoyance for the beast. She continued her slashing advance. Her head snaked to the side of repeated spear thrusts as she worked to snatch Calvin up in her powerful jaws and end him in one quick chomp.

They’d known that these alphas weren’t going to be an easy kill. Of course, the system wouldn’t just feed them loot and power on a silver platter, but the amount of punishment this creature was simply shrugging off was unreal. Dozens of high-power pulse blasts impacted the Nightclaw, spells were striking it in a near relentless assault and so far, the only major damage had been done by Calvin’s spear and the high-powered shot from the soldier across the battlefield.

Calvin readied himself for the creature’s next strike. He’d predicted the incoming slash would be the same skill it had used before. He planted his feet and just before the slash would have impacted him, he slammed down his spear and activated Phalanx. The barriers instantly came to life and blipped out again as the windblade-empowered slash absolutely obliterated the barrier. The shield stopped a significant amount of the damage, however, enough of the skill made it past the barrier and tore a deep wound on Calvin’s body, sending him sprawling yet again.

The barrier’s usefulness did not end there. See… there was that neat little bit about what happens after the barrier expires or is destroyed. All three barriers had absorbed the full damage from the slash and promptly delivered a concussive blast directly in front of them. The earth heaved upward like a bomb had gone off underground, sending soil and stones directly into the face and body of the Nightclaw Queen. The shrapnel shredded the Queen as the blast sent her rocketing back nearly 30 feet. She quickly got to her feet and took a careful posture as she scanned the battlefield. She dodged the incoming pulse blasts with minor movements of her body, as her gaze settled back on Calvin.

Calvin could see Freya and Amy stalking in from behind, readying their strikes against the target. Calvin leveled his spear and prepared to charge. Just then, the entire ridge of fur along the Nightclaw’s back illuminated in a brilliant golden radiance. With a bellowing roar, the fur shot out from the back of the creature like hardened spikes straight up into the air. Calvin followed the spikes with his eyes, quickly trying to understand the new attack.

The spikes stopped at the apex of their flight and oriented themselves point first toward Calvin. Calvin understood then. He was about to be skewered like a pincushion. His brain worked on instinct. He summoned his Arsenal, marking the panther. The incorporeal spears sprang into existence on his flanks. He immediately fired both spears at the Nightclaw, just as her spikes blasted toward him. Just fractions of an inch before he was impaled, he activated Riftwalk and arrived in the space just in front of the panther before his spears impacted her. Both incorporeal weapons slammed into the Queen, burying themselves nearly halfway before they vanished.

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Calvin was a projectile himself. He kept the momentum of the traveling spear as he’d arrived and dug a deep slash across the panther’s face and neck as he sailed past her. His landing was rough, however, he quickly gained footing and continued sprinting away from the monster. It turned to charge after him and caught a slash to the face from Freya.

It swiped furiously at Freya, throwing her back against the hillside in a crash. All of the humans were collapsing on the Nightclaw now. They’d begun moving in as soon as her spike attack had ended and they began to encircle her. Another powerful blast slammed into her neck from the boulder on the hill. The soldier who fired the shot lined up to take another.

Amy threw two daggers up near the back of the creature’s head before sliding underneath its hind legs, slashing twice with her shadowthorn dagger before slamming her sonic edge into the creature’s belly. The eruption sprayed gore from the now gaping wound, causing the panther to fall down onto its belly briefly. Amy dove away from the monstrosity as it thrashed in agony and desperation.

The powerful matriarch of the Nightclaw clan was losing, her strength waning as her opponents closed in. Her tired swipes were becoming both fewer and less fearsome. The approaching humans laid into her with everything at their disposal. As the encirclement tightened, the Queen’s hope for a retreat dwindled. She frantically darted around like a caged animal. Her hind legs suffering from the paralytic shadowthorn toxin would not find the strength to propel her over the advancing humans. With her sights set on the apparent weakest point of the circle, she propelled herself forward and made a desperate attempt to bite. With her powerful six-inch fangs, she intended to crush the skull of the poorly armored fighter in front of her, clearing a path for her escape. Instead, the impact of Sasha’s shield shattered those fangs from her enormous maw. The Queen simply fell over, heaving for breath as the fight left her completely. Numerous wounds oozed blood, as gore and entrails spilled out onto the dirt from her body.

Calvin approached the dying beast and ended her reign for good.

Calvin’s lungs heaved like bellows as he sat down hard, leaning his back against the now dead panther. He’d essentially been in a solid sprint for the last several minutes and the exhaustion had run him over like a train once the adrenaline of the fight wore off.

He sat for a few moments before standing again to meet the approaching soldiers.

The two approaching men who they’d seen coordinating a retreat across the field were dressed in similar gear. Their armor appeared to be some sort of composite plastic material that was obviously extremely durable. Over this armor, each of them wore a standard-issue tactical vest from Earth. One of the men extended his hand toward Calvin. The patch on his chest read ‘Sanders’.

“Well met. I’m Tank, this here’s Crash, and the death dealer up there is Reaper.”

Calvin shook the man’s hand. “The same to you. I’m Calvin. Who’s ‘Sanders’?” he asked as he indicated the patch.

“Caught me. John Sanders, Staff Sergeant. Tank’s just a nickname. You guys showed up just in the nick of time.”

“I’d say. What are you doing out here?”

“Looking for you, I think. Are you from the settlement that way?” Tank indicated the direction of Olympus.

Calvin gave him a suspicious glance, “Why would you be looking for us?”

“First, to see if you’re shitheads or not. By the way you defended us out here, I’m going to assume not. Second, we got fucked.” Tank gave a whistle and a moment later people started to filter out from the trees.

Calvin saw the people filtering out. They were mostly equipped for combat but certainly not at the level these three were.

“What happened?” Calvin asked.

“What didn’t happen? That message popped up about the halfway point. We saw your town light up across the lake. We’d planned to send a party over to get dialogue set up between us before we were set upon by monsters. We were doing fine, our defenders were holding the walls, and then about two days in, two people showed up. They didn’t say a word to us. A big beast of a man slammed his club into the ground and brought down a section of our walls, and just walked away. It wasn’t long before the next waves hit and poured right in. Our First Sergeant was killed holding them off, he sent the others with us to find you.” Tank said.

“Two people? Was the other a caster?” Calvin asked, feeling a deep dread in the pit of his stomach.

“… it was… how would you know that?” Tank asked. His hand briefly moved to his weapon on impulse.

“We had a pretty bad run-in with him. He’d been in control of a town over a day’s march back. He had been preying on people and forcing them to work in his camp. We put a stop to that bullshit and got everyone to safety behind our walls. I failed to kill him in our fight.” Calvin was feeling incredible guilt as the realization hit him. These people were in trouble because he’d failed to put Knox down.

“Look, that dude was fucking strong. Easily past level 20 by my guess. The fact that you survived an encounter with him says something. I hate to impose, but we’ve got nowhere to go and I need to get these people somewhere safe.”

Calvin looked back at Amy, considering their options.

Tank spoke again, “They’re all fighters. Some of them are pretty damn strong. The three of us were on combat patrol together in the sandbox before getting sent here. We can provide.”

Calvin had no doubt about their combat capabilities. Their precision tactics in engaging the Nightclaw were evidence of that.

“Alright, come with us. We’ll take you back to Olympus and get your people settled in. We have monster waves of our own right now, so we’re going to need all hands on deck for that.”

“Olympus… like Zeus?”

“Heh, yeah. We put it to a vote. It beat out Fort Kickass, so there’s that.”

“I like it. It’s strong. Thanks Calvin. We’ll help fight. Put Reaper up on your walls and ain’t shit getting through.”

The march back was frantic to say the least. Knowing that Knox was out and about, hitting other settlements put a huge sense of urgency in the group’s pace.

Unfortunately, that urgency was about to be tested as they closed in on the settlement.

Sounds of battle rang out through the jungle, reaching Freya’s ears. The group broke off in a run back toward Olympus.

What greeted them was abject chaos. The monsters had all charged the walls. At once.