Chedderfield
Chedderfield couldn’t see the enemy, only the bodies that were falling from the sky. He and the group headed back toward the children’s area, taking the bridge instead of going through the mud as they pushed their carts, Archimedes helping Emma carry her turret. Even though they still hadn’t been attacked yet, Chedderfield could feel his anxiety growing. He wondered what was going to attack them. The Aussies, who had started moving first, were ahead of them, their heavy footsteps testing the ground as they cut through animal enclosures, leaving a clear path where the earth could hold their weight and where the dirt was firm enough for the carts to cross easily.
As Chedderfield watched, he could hear the crunching and cracking of leaves and trees being broken in front of them.
“What is it?” Chedderfield asked as he turned toward the noise only to be greeted by a monster they had already passed before: the train made of the bones and meat of man and animal. Its large lidless eyes glared at them as it charged, thin-clawed hands reaching for the monster corpses that they carried in their carts.
“NO! OUR DAMN FOOD!” Archimedes yelled as he leap-frogged over the Australians in front of them, jamming his spear right between the eyes of the train. The shockwave from the energy discharge rippled through the air. However, the train remained unfazed as it just looked at Archimedes with its creepy eyes, its long clawed hands reaching for the spear jammed barely an inch through the stretched-out skin that covered the bone of its engine face.
“Give . . . me . . . bodies . . .” the train said, the tongue in its mouth hanging loosely out of its lipless mouth as it spoke.
Archimedes backed up, a shocked expression on his face. His attack did nothing. He saw the monster reaching up for his spear and leapt, grabbed the shaft, and kicked off the monster's face as he activated Leap Rush. The arms shot out and tried to snatch Archimedes from the air but missed him as he zipped away. The locomotive abomination whistled in annoyance, grabbed one of the carts of corpses, and began loading the meat into one of the bone and flesh cars that made up its body.
Chedderfield was wondering if they should just abandon the carts of food when a loud buzzing sound behind him made him turn, and he saw a half dozen giant insects flying toward them through the trees, which snapped as the gargantuan bugs barreled through them. The red- and black-striped fifteen-foot-long creatures were nearly identical to giant wasps except that they had large crab-like claws on each of their two front legs. Following the six large flying wasps were hundreds of football-sized beetles flying in an ever-shifting group.
“Corpse-eating beetles,” Nguyen said as she pulled out her rifle, dropped to a knee, and took aim.
“What?” Chedderfield asked.
“Those insects are mutations of the cicada killer wasps and corpse-eating beetles,” Nguyen replied as her eyes glowed. She held the side of her head like she was using a scouter in an anime. “They’re called stingclaws and necroshields. The giant wasps and the stingclaws are weak against heat, so Danielle and I need to focus on them. Those necroshields though . . .”
“What? What are they weak against?” Archimedes asked as he landed next to Chedderfield.
“WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE FUCKING INSECTS?! THESE GODDAMN, GROSS-ASS, WASPY MOTHER FUCKERS!” Lucy screamed as she fired her laser pistol.
“W.A.S.P.-y? What’s religion got to do with it?” Emma snarked from behind.
Nguyen gave the two women an annoyed side glance before she answered Chedderfield. “The exact opposite of the stingclaws: ice. Is there a point to even knowing that though?” Nguyen’s agitation was clear in her tone, but she still managed to shoot the wing off one of the large stingclaws, causing it to crash into the ground. The huge grounded insect got up and just shook itself. The loss of a wing seemed to be a minor issue. It crawled sideways in a diagonal crab walk, its belly raised out of reach over ten feet off the ground and its pincer claws snapping as it approached.
As it got closer, Danielle’s laser fire raked the side of the downed insect, burning off one of its four legs, causing the thing to tumble over as its weight was no longer supported on one side. The creature struggled to right itself on the three remaining legs as it used its claws to try to push itself off the ground. The necroshields flew past it, and the pincer-mouthed insects started to swarm the train, forcing it to curl in on itself like a large centipede, the corpses that had been stored in its cargo carriages tumbling out. Like iron filings to a magnet, the necroshields turned almost as a single unit, left the curled-up train, and started to tear up the tumbled monster meat. As it was no longer under attack, the twisted train uncurled and fled east, right toward the rugby team.
The Australians responded to the threat in an instant. Their upgraded bone armor, shields, and maces appeared on half of them, and the other half had bows at the ready, arrows nocked and prepared to fire within a split second. The transformation was instantaneous as they grouped into a battle formation. Then, not even a second later, the group members with shields began to glow blue, and then they zipped forward, charging the horrific train. They slammed into its side, metal shields crushing into the bones and flesh of the train, the force of the attack nearly pushing the flesh train onto its side with a single hit. As it was struck, however, the abomination’s arms snaked out, and the sharp-clawed tips dug into the concrete path, keeping the unholy locomotive from toppling over as its claws tore out chunks of concrete. The locomotive righted itself and turned, its horrible stitched face grimacing angrily at the team, who were already backing away. The train gave an angry whistle and raised its clawed hands to swipe at the armored Australians, but glowing arrows fired by the team’s archers rained down on it before it could strike.
As the Australians fought the train, Emma, Nguyen, Danielle, and Lucy fired like crazy at the stingclaws. Their barrage had managed to kill three and ground one, but the remaining two stingclaws pulled up, mere feet away from the four women, hovered in midair, and pointed their stingers at Danielle and Nguyen.
Chedderfield saw what the giant insects were doing and immediately had a bad feeling from the way their abdomens were swelling up like they were preparing to shoot their stingers. He activated Meat Slam immediately, the translucent rocky exterior from the skill covering his body as he rushed forward and pushed Danielle with his entire weight, knocking her out of the way just in time to take the stinger in her place. The foot-long barb struck his outstretched arm with so much force that it sent him spinning through the air to land face first in the dirt. As he crawled to his feet, Chedderfield did a quick body check and found that though the stinger had hit him like a freight train, it hadn’t pierced into his arm thanks to the combination of his armor, the rocky protection of his skill, and the natural resistance that seemed to come from having a high constitution. Instead, the attack had covered his whole left arm in a thick layer of blocky ice that stopped it from moving as it stuck to his body. The exposed skin was rapidly turning blue.
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“Fuck!” he cursed as he broke the block of ice with his right hand, freeing his arm, and looked over to check on Nguyen, only to see her being princess carried in Archimedes’ arms as Leap-Rushed her out of danger. Their scout still had her rifle in her hands, and she managed to blast the insectoid bastard that had shot Chedderfield. The laser fire burned a fist-sized hole in the abdomen of the towering creature, dropping it from the air.
As Lucy shouted a challenge at the last flying wasp, Emma’s turret fired into the sky, and Nguyen and Danielle recovered and retook their firing positions to add their laser fire to the fight.
With the large flying insects handled for the moment, Chedderfield surveyed the rest of the battlefield and saw that the bone train was still fighting the Aussies, picking up speed as it made a beeline toward the archers shooting at it. The Australians had clearly learned from their encounter with the emu cavalry and were still firing shots from their bows, their feet glowing blue from a skill Chedderfield had never seen before as they rapidly created distance from the train to avoid its terrifying charge.
Though the locomotive hadn’t crushed anyone beneath its many feet, it had split the line of archers and shield warriors right down the middle, a situation it immediately began to leverage by making a wide circle around the three archers and shield-bearers that it had isolated. As it began tightening the circle enough to force the six people to make an awkward triangle, its long arms began to slash at the encircled group. Though the shield users were able to protect the others at first, the creature's claws cut away at their armor with every pass, and soon blood was pouring from wounds.
The archers that had been left outside the circle launched arrows at the train, and Chedderfield added fire from his pistol, but his hands were still-shaking from the cold, causing his shots to miss, and he ended up nearly striking the Aussies.
“We need some help!” Asim yelled from the half of the rugby team that had regrouped outside the train circle, and though Chedderfield wanted to jump immediately into the fight, he didn’t know what he could do. He felt his entire body struggling to overcome the growing chill spreading from where the stinger had struck him. He wondered momentarily why the cold debuff hadn’t been cleared by his Purgator skill, Self-Cleanse, and realized that it only cured hell-cursed debuffs and that, by keeping the class, he was taking extra damage while fighting the insects.
Chedderfield heard a roar and looked to see Archimedes, who had set Nguyen down a moment ago, Leap-Rush into the air, his spear glowing as his jump landed him on top of the moving train. He raised his spear and was about to stab down when the train made a sudden turn, its compartment twisting in a way that bought the Aussies time, the centipede no longer able to circle in at them for one more round, but at the same time sent Archimedes flying off.
As the man flew through the air, wings appeared briefly on his back that slowed him down enough to land safely next to Chedderfield, who was still fighting the chill as he ran closer to the train. “Why do you keep running out like that? No plan, no talking, just leaping into action,” Chedderfield asked through chittering teeth, switching his class to the warden and designating Arc as his ward.
“It’s better than just standing around, Queso.”
The words struck a nerve, and with a frown, he grabbed Archimedes by the lapels of his fireman’s jacket and then spun on his heel and threw his friend like he was a shotput. The moment Arc left his hands, Chedderfield gritted his teeth and, ignoring the frost’s influence, used Meat Slam to speed after him, and the two crashed into the side of the train together, grabbing the bony edges of the train car to secure their position on it.
Archimedes must have been surprised by the maneuver, and as he looked back at Chedderfield with a grin on his face, he asked, “What now?”
“No idea. I just thought I’d try to think like Arc, and this is the shit that happened.”
Archimedes shrugged and climbed on top of the train, Chedderfield following behind. The train tried faster turns and altered its pace as it kept circling around the trapped Australians, but it neither managed to shake Archimedes and Chedderfield nor continue its deadly rampage on the people within its circle.
Chedderfield wasn’t sure how long he could hold on as his stomach heaved from the dizzying motion, but the situation reminded him of an attack that didn’t need him to use his hands. He swapped out the borrowed gold tier I’m Not Dead Yet for Acid Breath, leaned over the back of the car he was on, and shot out a stream of bile at the fleshy joints that connected his car with the one behind. The acid wasn’t well aimed, but its broad spray hit true, and the train screeched and hooted in pain as parts of it melted, the flesh peeling away, and the sinew making loud popping noises as it snapped.
Just as it looked like the train was going to recover from the attack, Archimedes blasted his Fire Breath onto the acid. The subsequent explosion not only destroyed large parts of the train, but also blew the back cars, which were barely hanging on by a few pieces of sinew, clear off the monster. The cars’ legs curled up like dead spiders’ while they rolled.
“Woah!” Archimedes shouted as, instead of crippling the monster machine, the loss of the back cars only seemed to let it move faster. Chedderfield yelled as the sudden increase in speed sent him tumbling off the back of the train car they were on except that Archimedes grabbed on with his hand, leaving Chedderfield dangling like a loose booger at a kids’ party.
“That didn’t work the way I wanted it to,” Chedderfield said as he tried to find purchase with his feet on the back of the car.
“How about we regroup? We’ve distracted the train enough to give the Australians a chance to heal up a little.”
“I agree—” Chedderfield replied as he saw the train weaving back and forth, no longer maintaining its rigid circle with its erratic pathing and missing carts now leaving plenty of room for the Australians to run through. Then, he felt himself flying through the air as Archimedes activated Leap Rush and leapt off the train. The two landed in a roll half a football field from the train and immediately turned around to see that the corpse-eating beetles had stripped the rotting flesh and bones from all the dead bodies the train had tossed out at the start and were already halfway through eating the pieces of the train that had been knocked off by the blast.
Some of the necroshields weren’t satisfied with the train though and had started to split up. A few of them went toward the half-empty carts that held the group’s monster meat, and the rest went toward the still-moving engine of the bone train and its forward cars.
Seeing the beetles coming straight for it, the train, which had for a moment looked like it was going to continue its deadly rampage against the injured Aussies, instead shifted focus and began to flee at full throttle, taking advantage of its incredibly fast speed and reduced length as it tore through the wooded area and ran away. The corpse-eating beetles, even the ones that had initially come to fight Emma and those guarding the carts, now chased after the train instead.
“Is that . . . Is it over?” Isla asked as she and Hugh, both covered head to toe in gashes from the train’s slashes, breathed a sigh of relief. “Did we live?”
“For now,” Asim said as he walked over and tossed a piece of meat toward one of the bloodied archers that had, the moment the fight was over, collapsed onto his back. “Heal up. This calm won’t last.”
Bicky nodded. “Got that right. Where there is one insect, there is a swarm. Let’s get out of this before we become the main meal on bloody Christmas.”
“Got that right,” Hugh said. “Since those damned beetles cleared our stash out, throw the injured archers in the cart, and let’s get moving. We’ll follow you lot this time.”
“Fair dinkum,” Chedderfield said in his best Australian accent, doing his best to not let how cold he was feeling affect his speech. The Aussies nodded at the attempted colloquialism as he and Archimedes took point this time, moving as quickly as they could down the exact path they had come in through, their eyes peeled for any potential prey. With the heavy armor users and their group members' lack of movement skills, Chedderfield wished they had some way to move faster. Then he recalled the group skill buffs speed buff from one of his available classes, Manager, but he’d been focused on leveling Purgator and Warden. He was determined to grind all of the classes available when he had a chance. He thought about how close they’d come to losing Emma and Danielle and that even a slight edge from one of the many classes available could have changed the outcome of the fight. As the groups made their way back towards the bunker they’d napped in earlier, Chedderfield doubled down on his resolve to grind all of the classes he could if it meant increasing their chances of survival.