Ramona knelt there, cradling Julius. Her mind was a mix of terror, grief and anxiety. She didn't know what to do now. She had lost friends in the hospital but never like this. No one had bothered talking about what to do if Julius died.

As she stared down at her one-time teacher, she paused as she looked down at his injury. It didn't look right. His blood was too thick and felt oily.

"What?" she whispered

She wiped away the blood and stared. Julius … he was … why was Julius's insides made out of crystal?! Was he even human?

"WHAT?"

She pulled a water canteen and poured it into Julius' gaping chest wound so she could try and get a better look. Julius's insides were almost as alien as the Alnune. Past a thin layer of human-looking skin, his internals were anything but. While the organs looked human to Ramona's inexperienced eye, they were made out of some kind of red crystalline. It was smooth, almost like glass, like someone had made a perfect replica of a human body out of artificial rubies.

"What!"

As she stared at Julius's inner workings, she noticed his heart, it was still beating, and even the bleeding had stopped. He was still alive!

"How are you still alive?" she asked as she stared down at him.

"You had a massive spike in your chest a few seconds ago. How durable are you? How durable am I? Questions for later." she shook herself.

Ramona's elation was quickly quashed as she realized they were still in the Alnune nest with the nuke.

She didn't actually know how long Julius had set the timer for, but she figured being quick couldn't hurt. Picking up Julius, she slung him over her shoulder, his weight barely affecting her with her enhanced strength.

Standing up, her eyes went back to the pools. Julius had been really excited about those. She hesitated before running over and shovelling a couple of handfuls of the green … gems. Nector, Amber? Whatever, she filled her pockets with as much loot as she could before rushing for the door.

She didn't know the way out, but she could feel it. It was almost like the plants were calling her, first this way, then that. Before long, she emerged from the hive and into the massive underground forest.

An army of Lurkers milled around the hive along with a dozen Alnune. What looked like a cross of a praying mantis and a squid were casually flying overhead.

"Oh shit," Ramona said.

Immediately the weird things in the sky fired off some weird-looking, slow-moving balls of energy at her as the Alnune started to telepathic scream orders at their troops.

Ramona took off, dodging the balls of energy, but in the next instance, the Lurkers swarmed her like she was in a zombie movie made by Lovecraft.

Ramona reached deep down into her center, where her mana lay just like Julius had shown her. What she did next was expressly what Julius had told her not to do. Grabbing as much mana as she could, she flung it out ahead of her. For a long moment, nothing happened, then roots erupted from the ground,

Like writhing tentacles, the roots wrapped around anything and everything as they ripped through the dirt and grabbed hold of any Lurker or Alnune in range and dragged them back into the dirt.

"Yes," Ramona cheered.

Then her smile was wiped off of her face as the roots wrapped around one of her legs and tried to drag her down.

"Why are you attacking me?!" she screamed at her creations in panic.

She yanked her leg free, tearing the root out of the ground as she dodged a Lurker, trying to slash at her. She leapt onto the Lurker's back and used it as a springboard to jump to another Lurker and then another and another all the way until she didn't have any more lurkers to jump off of, and then she was on flat terrain again, and she took off running at a full sprint.

None of the remaining creatures were able to touch her as she zoomed into the forest at almost 50 kilometres an hour.

She easily spotted Dick easily enough by the heavy sound of gunfire coming from his position and started to run towards them.

Ramona felt her heart stop as an ominous buzzing entered her ears. She froze midstep as she turned to look back just in time to see the hive discourage millions upon millions of the horrific locusts into the air until they bloated out even the artificial light on the ceiling.

Ramona realized she was shaking as absolute terror gripped her heart. Her breathing came fast and rapid as memories of being eaten alive came back to her. The sound of their buzzing was deafening, drowning out the sound of a nearby gunfight.

The locusts descended on the forest with a frenzied fury as they consumed everything in their path. The Lurkers, the Alnune, and even the plants were torn apart and consumed.

Ramona felt her fight-or-flight response kick into high gear. Her legs turned to jelly, and her breathing became shallow and rapid. The overwhelming sight of the locusts triggered a primal fear that seemed to paralyze her every rational thought. Unable to withstand the terror any longer,

Without hesitation, she turned and bolted, running away from the swarm as fast as her legs could carry her. Every fibre of her being screamed for escape, and she followed her instinct to preserve her own life, seeking to put as much distance between herself and the gluttonous swarm as the nightmare descended upon the forest.

🜄🜍🜮🜿🝀🜥🜑🜢🜦🜜

Dick watched as what seemed to be hundreds of Lurkers charged up the slope toward his team. He and his men kept up the rounds of suppressive fire, holding the horde back as they held their position as they waited for Julius and Ramona. A second flying creature that looked like a cross between a squid and a praying mantis had flown over their heads and started raining spells before making a short-range teleport between attacks, making them annoying to deal with. Charlie had claimed they were called Warpers.

Despite the apparent danger the Lurkers and newly dubbed Warpers posed, it was the slight buzzing that was steadily getting louder and louder that concerned him.

"Sir, we've got the Lurkers pinned down, but we're going to run out of ammunition in a minute," Oak said

"Are the civilians out?" Dick asked as he blasted one of the Lurkers to pieces.

"Yes, sir," Oak said.

"Good. If Julius and Ramona don't show up in the next five minutes, we’re leaving. Understood?" Dick asked.

"Yes, sir!" Oak nodded as he went back to his troops.

Dick pulled out a grenade and tosses it into a group of Lurkers that were getting too close. The explosion killed six of the lurkers, immediately blowing their bodies apart. The almost dozen other lurkers were crippled and were sent tumbling down the slope, their blood staining the already purple-stained ground.

Pulling out his submachine gun, he followed up with mowing down the horde of Lurkers further down the hill and giving all of his people a little more breathing room.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Come on, Julius," Dick muttered. "Where are you?"

Just as he was muttering, he watched as the locusts exploded out from their hive in the middle of the underground jungle and began to consume everything.

"Shit!!" Dick growled. "Oak, that's our cue. It's time to go. We need to pull everyone out and blow the tunnels, now!!"

Dick kept up his rate of fire as his men started to retreat through the tunnel. All the while, the locust swarm was growing larger and larger as they consumed the underground forest and all of the aliens within.

"Sir!!" Charlie called out.

Dick turned and spied Ramona racing up to their location like a bat out of hell with Julius slung over her shoulder.

"We hold the line until they get through," Dick ordered.

Dick was very concerned as he watched the Locusts devour not only the foliage but any Lurker, Alnune or Warper that came near them.

"Come on, Julius, come on," Dick muttered as Ramona got closer and closer.

The Locusts were barely a mile behind her as Ramona finally came in a range of their shouting.

"Get --" he started, but Ramona ran past him without a second glance as she raced through the tunnel.

"Alright, everyone out!!" Dick ordered, following behind his men as they left their positions and ran up the tunnel

The lurkers followed after them charging in on them like an unorganized mob as they followed them up the tunnel.

Dick pulled out the detonator and pressed the button blowing the entrance to the tunnel and blocking off the lurkers streaming in after them. Despite the blast, Dick could still hear the buzzing even through the wall of stone.

"RUN FASTER," Dick roared as he chased his people up the switch back every second. The buzzing kept getting louder and louder.

They reached the smaller cavern and then raced up the tunnel towards the exit and out onto the freezing mountain slopes.

The night sky sat overhead, contrasting with the bright white snow under their feet as they stood on top of the mountain.

"What the hell are you guys standing around for?!" Dick roared, "We just tossed a Nuke down there. Get off the fucking mountain!!!"

That got people sprinting down the mountain at full tilt, giving a full display of their enhanced strength as they made twenty-foot leaps down the mountain without breaking any bones. Dick looked around and found Ramona having outstripped them all as she ran down the mountain in a full sprint.

🜄🜎🜘🜢🜬🜶🝀🝊🝔🝞

Aza'methet kept his water barrier up as the endless swarm of Heuschrecke Locusts tried to break through his defences. That moron Zuztax had somehow lost control over the hive. And now the Heuschrecke would scour their entire beachhead at the very least. They would have to start over completely.

As he floated into the portal chamber, he discovered something. A box with numbers. He stared at the numbers for a moment. They seemed to be counting down … aah, it was a bomb. He decided it was time to leave through the portal now!!

Aza'methet flew down to the portal. He levitated Zuztax's smashed head up to his mouth and began to feed on his inferior's brains. Hopefully, he would learn how this fool had managed to screw up their plans so much.

He slid through the portal and disappeared from the earth. Aza'methet failed to notice the small robotic insect that Julius had placed there earlier. The little bot diligently followed its programming, leaping from the archway and latching onto Aza'methet's cloak of seaweed, following the Alnune through the archway and off the planet.

🜉🜓🜝🜧🜱🜻🝅🝏🝙

Ramona collapsed in the snow, dropping Julius by her side as she threw up on the ground, utterly exhausted. She didn't know how far she had run, but she knew she couldn't move. The sound of snow crunching echoed behind her, and she felt strong furry hands pick her up.

"Jesus, girl, what happened?" Dick asked as he picked her up.

"Why is Julius passed out?"

"He got stabbed-stabbed through the chest," she stuttered out. "Gi giant icicle"

"Ah, yeah, that would knock him out." Dick muttered, "he really can't deal with the cold."

Ramona looked up at Dick like he was crazy.

"He had an icicle the size of a lance sticking out of his chest, and you act like it's nothing?"

Dick shrugged.

"I'm a lycan lord; I consider getting disembowelled is a minor injury. And Julius is actually more durable out of the two of us."

Ramona shook her head.

"When did my world stop making sense?"

"Give a few seconds. It's going to get even weirder," Dick said with a grin.

"What do you mean?" Ramona asked.

Dick pointed to the mountain they had just exited.

"Wait for it, three, two, one, zero," Dick counted down.

The mountain pushed upwards and then collapsed like a giant stone souffle imploding in on itself. Then there was a deafening Boom.

"What the hell was that?!" Ramona asked as Dick moved away from her.

"That was the nuke, just a small one. Probably going to be coming out of our salary." Dick said as he pulled a potion out of Julius's coat and poured it on both his injury and into his mouth.

Julius's body jerked as he started coughing.

"God dammit, that hurt … why am I not irradiated and or buried under a mountain. Ramona, did you get me out of there?" Julius asked as he stumbled to his feet, his injuries disappearing.

"Um …" Ramona was dumbstruck at seeing Julius rise from the dead.

"Yep," Dick cut in. "the rookie did good. She carried you out of their fireman style. It was pretty impressive. Though maybe next time, tell her about your revival potions."

Julius winced as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Julius moved his shoulder like it was causing him pain.

"They're not revival potions," Julius said with a grimace. "If you tried to feed that to someone other than me, they would immediately die."

Julius then turned to Ramona.

"Good job with getting me out, kid. Not everyone can keep that clear of a head when things go to shit."

Julius took a long draft from his cigar. And Ramona noticed they were surrounded not only by the werewolves but also by a group of large regular wolves as well, or were they also werewolves?

"Where are we on a headcount?" Julius asked

"Sir. We’ve managed to retrieve almost two-thirds of the research team. The Alnunekilled the rest during our exchange with the enemy." Oak stated

"Do we have Doctor Winters?' Julius asked.

"No, sir," Oak said.

"Was he one of the ones that died?" Julius asked.

"No sir, as far as we can tell, he was separated from the group earlier on," Oak said.

Julius grimaced

"That's not good. Usually, I'd just write him off as dead, but there’s a chance that he might have been taken through the portal. By the way, what can the research team tell about this Puck? He and Winters were somehow involved in this entire episode?" Julius asked. "The only Puck I know is from Shakespeare, and I'm pretty sure this isn't that."'

"According to some of the research teams, they were ordered to study and experiment on the rift in the mountain. This Puck showed up a week before the site went dark. No one can say who he was or why he was here, though. However, we were able to confirm he escaped the attack on the base." Oak stated

"I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this," Julius muttered as he chewed on his cigar.

"You're just saying that because you got your butt kicked, and the rookie had to save your ass," Dick said.

"No, that's not. Ok yeah, that is bothering me, but that's not what’s wrong. One of the Alnunes in there asked us why we had come to the Alnune beachhead. A beachhead is a precursor to an army." Julius pointed out.

"You think they're gearing up for an invasion?" Dick asked

Ramona felt her stomach twist into knots at the thought of more of those bugs.

"Alnune on one side, Puck on the other. A war is coming. I can feel it in my bones." Julius said.

"So what do we do about it?" Ramona asked as she stood up with the two of them.

Julius smiled at her.

"First things first, let's head home … where is the sled?" Julius asked as he looked around.

"Yeah, um … we left them up on the mountain," Dick admitted sheepishly.

Julius narrowed his eyes at Dick.

"You're telling me you wasted one of my super expensive self-revival potions just so you didn't have to carry me back to the plane. You do remember I would have been fine in a few weeks, right?"

"Well, we should get moving. Not going to get anywhere by standing around," Dick said as he marched off.

Ramona chuckled as Julius chased after Dick.

"You asshole, I am sending you the bill for that. Those things are bloody expensive."

Ramona walked after them. Somehow the arctic wind didn't feel nearly as cold against her skin now. She looked up and observed the sky as it lit up with the northern lights.

"Hey, Julius?" Ramona asked

"Yeah?"

"Are all of the BPA jobs like this?" Ramona asked.

"Oh hell no, today was weird even for us," Julius said. "Today was just a total cluster fuck."