Chedderfield
Chedderfield used Meat Slam to run over the piles of dead zombies that had been killed by the ring, arms outstretched to pick up all of the cards he could, until he crashed into the front of the zombie hoard that threatened to overwhelm them. His momentum knocked back the zombie he’d targeted, but Chedderfield was quickly surrounded by the other monsters and immediately felt their grasping hands, biting mouths, and striking feet make contact. If not for the translucent rocky protection from Meat Slam and his upgraded armor, he would have been in trouble. As it was, he only felt the weight of the blows and the press of so many bodies as he slammed his hands onto the ground and activated Stiff Defense. A white haze came over his vision as the skill prompted him for information.
Please enter a defensive structure design. Available bone material: 130 ft^3.
Chedderfield, being in a rush, didn’t bother with anything complicated. He erected the most basic yet deadly design he could think of, one Michael had used, and modified it to stretch as long as possible with the materials he had available. With a flash, the white haze disappeared from his vision, and he felt the protection around his body crack and then shatter. But it had been enough. A thin white line spread out from his hands to either side, extending to the ends of the street and the houses on either side. Then, with a grinding snap, a sharp picket fence sprang from the line on the ground like it had been springloaded. The tops of the pickets, razor-sharp, cut through the zombies that were attacking Chedderfield, severing arms, legs, and heads with equal ease, and the few zombies that had surrounded Chedderfield from behind were torn to shreds by turret and laser fire.
You have exceeded the maximum distance allowed from your Ward. You will take 25% increased damage. The [Guardian Angel] passive will not function again until you are once more 10 feet or less from your selected Ward.
Before Chedderfield could even dismiss the notification warning him that he was out of range of his ward, he heard Lucy’s angry voice shout, “Damnit!” He turned his head to see her already running toward a flying ball in the sky—Archimedes—that had soared past his line of vision, over the houses and out of sight as he was knocked clear into another part of the neighborhood.
Chedderfield heard shouts from Danielle, Nguyen, and Emma and turned to see them already on the ground and running after Lucy. He didn’t wait for them to catch up and activated Meat Slam once more, choosing small targets across the ground, zipping between houses as he rushed in the direction Archimedes had gone.
Knocking over cheap wooden fences as he cut through yards and shooting between houses, Chedderfield was able to finally get to where Archimedes and the monsters had crashed. The dirt and asphalt were broken in a straight line that led to a large red hemisphere covering a half dozen houses. Through the transparent dome, he could see Archimedes, his face and clothes covered in blood, swinging his spear as he jumped backward to avoid the attacks from two glowing crystal hulks. Arc’s spear parried a powerful haymaker from one of the hulks and pushed the creature into the path of the other, giving him a second to exhale a blast of fire at the tangled monsters before retreating to create more distance between him and his foes. He then used a free hand to shove some food in his mouth.
“We got you!” Chedderfield shouted out to his friend as he activated Meat Slam again. He sped toward Archimedes, but the moment he crossed into the red dome, his speed disappeared, and he found his body moving forward without any control. He tripped over a loose chunk of asphalt and tumbled. Chedderfield rolled for several feet, and as he came to a stop, he found himself sitting, dazed, some part of his mind wondering what had happened, another part realizing that his skill had completely fizzled out.
He heard panting and the sound of pounding footsteps and hurried to his feet, his macuahuitl equipped just as Nguyen, Lucy, Danielle, and Emma crossed into the red field.
“What the fuck?!” Nguyen exclaimed. “I can’t— I can’t use movement skills!”
“You have movement skills?” Lucy asked, showing that Chedderfield wasn’t the only one who was surprised.
“What scout wouldn’t have a way to run away?” Nguyen shook her head. “Just . . . stop talking and run faster. Our movement skills are disabled . . . and Arc is so fucked up he isn’t even fighting back!”
The turret that Emma carried fired into action. It was so sudden as it roared to life that when it first opened fire, Emma hadn’t braced herself at all and was sent tumbling backward onto her ass as a spray of bullets from the turret peppered one of the gleaming brutes around its forearm before drawing a straight line up and into the sky before finally cutting off as it fell and could no longer keep shooting.
“Screw this!” Chedderfield shouted after seeing Emma’s attack. His sword disappeared as he switched to his laser pistol and started opening fire on the eight-foot-tall figure.
The moment he fired his first volley of shots though, one of the crystal hulks, who were practically immune to lasers, immediately dashed over to block it. Since the hulk was so far away, and it looked like their movement was penalized, he didn’t make it in time to block the shot. The first laser connected, leaving a small black burn mark on the flesh where it struck, and the black-suited monster hissed in pain. His second shot missed, and before Chedderfield could fire a third, the crystal golem had already placed itself in front of the cane-wielding bastard.
“It’s called a director!” Nguyen shouted to everyone, and then she turned to Danielle. “Flank that thing’s right. I’m going left,” Nguyen ordered as they saw the crystal golem perfectly blocking the remaining four shots from Chedderfield’s salvo.
“Got it,” Danielle replied, running as fast as she could to the left while Nguyen sprinted in the other direction.
“I got Archimedes then,” Chedderfield said as he sprinted toward his friend, who was holding off the remaining crystal brute with quick strikes of his spear and desperate leaps to avoid counter attacks.
“Don’t you dare die yet. I’m not putting up with Lucy again!” Chedderfield yelled out to Archimedes as he ran as fast as he could, his feet cracking the asphalt as they pounded with every bit of force his system-enhanced stats could muster. Even though he felt like the world’s fastest man, he couldn’t help but feel he still wasn’t running fast enough.
“Not planning to,” Archimedes shouted back as he swung his spear to parry another attack—but, suddenly, the golem that had been attacking him stopped mid-swing, turned mechanically, and rushed back to the cane-wielding boss creature like a dog that had been called by its master.
Chedderfield turned his head just enough to see what had caused the monster to flee and saw Nguyen, Lucy, and Danielle working together to attack the director from multiple angles. Even though they weren’t on opposite sides, they were still far enough apart that one brute couldn’t stop all of them at the same time.
“There. Now they should be interrupted enough for you to go play a HoT cleric,” Danielle called out as she dropped to a knee, aimed her rifle, and fired a second and third shot, pinning the crystal golems in place, while making a pun with the abbreviation for Heal over Time.
“Some man-on-man HoT action . . .” Lucy remarked with a laugh as she ran straight at the director in the middle. She hadn’t even reached the enemy though before Emma, face covered in blood from a broken nose caused by her turret’s earlier recoil, finally caught up, and her mechanized weapon kicked into action. This time though, Emma had set it down. The barrel spun to life, and each round cracked and chipped one of the crystal hulk's hardened rock exterior. The boss-like creature in the middle raised his cane and created a yellow aura around them. It only lasted a few seconds, but in those few seconds all of the damage done by Emma’s turret was completely negated.
“Fuck! Bosses aren’t supposed to heal unless they’re switching phases! THEM’S THE RULES!” Lucy shouted out as she got close enough to cast No Brainer. The black wave of energy was enough to fully stun the two hell brutes and disrupt the yellow healing aura.
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“Knock away the cane! He’s channeling through it!” Archimedes shouted.
Lucy leapt between the two stunned golems and came face to face with the creature leading the hell-cursed army. It stared down at her with lidless red eyes and a sneering expression. It took a step toward her, but she was already moving, her sinuous glowing shortsword slashing upward at the boss’s cane wielding hand. The creature's pale wrist was nicked, but the boss was fast enough to use the hard shaft of his weapon to block Lucy’s slash, and even that small wound healed up a moment later.
“Fuck!” Lucy cursed as she jumped back, a mad look in her eyes. She seemed to have been struck with an idea.
At the same time, Chedderfield reached Archimedes and slapped his shoulder. Archimedes stumbled at the friendly gesture and Chedderfield noticed just how pale Archimedes looked and just how much blood covered his clothes. He switched out the warden class to become a healer and cast Healer’s Touch on his friend. It was the only heal spell any of the group had that could be cast on another party member, and as the yellow glow suffused Arc, he knew it wouldn’t be enough to completely restore his health, but at least he didn’t look like he had just been run over by a truck and then thrown down a fifty-foot cliff.
“Let’s go help them,” Archimedes said as he took a few deep lungfuls of air to catch his breath.
“Not yet, hermano,” Chedderfield cautioned as he raised an arm to stop his friend. “You’re still in no condition to fight. You’ll just be a burden until you get your health back up.”
“Fine . . . Fine!” Archimedes responded. “One more Healer’s Touch then, and we go.”
“Deal.”
Even though he’d agreed to wait to help Arc, standing around was hard. Hell, it felt like torture as he was forced to wait instead of being in the center of the action. But he knew that if he leapt into the fight now, Archimedes would follow him and likely get even more injured with some reckless attempt to save someone.
Chedderfield could only watch as the four others in his group fought the crystal brutes and the boss monster. Lucy had managed to put some distance between her and the boss and two evolved brutes, who had come out of their stunned state.
A wicked grin spread across Lucy’s face. “You dirty band-camp poser, trying to play conductor when we both know what that fucking cane is actually used for, you piece of shit. Why don’t you and your wannabe rock group get the fuck over here and try to do something, huh?!” The red glow permeating the battlefield momentarily glowed darker around the three enemies as the two evolved brutes fell victim to her taunt skill, abandoning their defensive posts and charging straight toward Lucy.
The moment they did, Nguyen and Danielle were there to capitalize on the opening, each of them firing at the eight-foot monster at the same time. One laser blew off the arm holding the cane, and the other one ripped through the creature’s jaw. The evolved brutes, realizing their mistake, turned around hesitantly just in time to see their leader devastated by the next pair of shots as Nguyen and Danielle, realizing exactly how weak the creature was to laser fire, steadied their aims and blew the creature’s head clean off.
“BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE!!!” Emma cheered triumphantly from behind her turret as the machine gun’s bullets, no longer being healed by the now-dead director, started to tear through the stony creature’s exterior uninterrupted, one tiny chip being knocked out of the crystal brute after the other.
As the crystal brutes stared at their dead leader for a moment, not even turning toward the turret shooting at them, Lucy exploited their momentary distraction and drove her sword through the back of the neck of one of the brutes. It went in only a few inches at first, jamming into the spine of the creature to the point that, even as Lucy let go of the blade, it was still stuck there, wedged inside the evolved monster’s flesh. The creature stood there, the shocked look on its face frozen in death.
As Lucy tried to pry free her weapon, grabbing it from a different angle and yanking it back and forth as she tried to get it to budge an inch, the other brute attacked her, forcing her to duck her head before backing away from the blow as she dodged the incoming punch.
“See? We had it,” Chedderfield said as he cast a second Healer’s Touch on the injured man. As the yellow energy spread through Arc, he let out a relieved breath, stood up straight, and stretched his arms.
“Oh, that’s the good stuff,” Archimedes moaned like a smoker lighting up after a fourteen-hour flight as Chedderfield’s second Healer’s Touch restored all the color to his face. He now looked like he had only been beaten up and not barely survived a face-to-steel encounter with a wrecking ball. As he spoke, he equipped and swung his spear in a figure-eight pattern and smiled. “Let's go take care of the last crystal golem. We can’t let the ladies do all the hard work.”
“It’s a crystal-variant evolved hell-brute,” Nguyen corrected, “and we can finish this without you guys.”
There was a groan and crack, and Chedderfield turned his head and saw through the alleyway that the wall that he’d created was starting to break from the force of the zombies pressing against it. “Zombies coming. Let's save the posturing for later. Kill the brute quickly so we won’t be overwhelmed here. Ranged shooters to a roof if you don’t want to get caught up in the melee fight.”
Without another word, Chedderfield sprinted toward the hulking crystal creature, his black macuahuitl sword appearing in one hand as he ran. He knew taking down the brute quickly would be the key to surviving the zombie army. Otherwise, it would just tear down whatever defenses they built or shot from.
There was a chuckle behind him, and Chedderfield turned his head slightly to the right to see Archimedes right on his heels. “You’re not as fast as you used to be, Queso. Let’s see who can take down the golem first.”
“You’re on, Arc!”
Chedderfield redoubled his sprint, his shoes breaking the soft grass as he ran over shaggy lawns. He reached the last brute, his finger hit the activation button, and his sword began to vibrate. He swung. The black razor-like edge of the exotic weapon cut into the back of the monster’s knee, nearly severing it, as Chedderfield ran past. The monster that had been chasing after the weaponless Lucy roared in pain as the attack registered with it, and it turned and tried to stomp on the man that had injured it. But, as it raised its left leg, the lower half came undone and dangled like a pre-cut chicken leg. The creature nevertheless brought its full weight down on the half-severed limb, snapping it off with a loud crack. Archimedes crashed into the monster, his glowing spear stabbing into its back. An explosion blew chunks of the creature in all directions. The monster stumbled forward from the blast, and Chedderfield swapped out his Meat Slam ability for Acid Breath and activated the ability, spewing a stream of fluid that hit the crystal brute in the face just as a gout of flame hit its head from behind. The two skills mixed, melting and burning the creature for a moment until a powerful boom knocked Chedderfield backward.
Chedderfield stared at the sky, his ears ringing. Then he heard familiar shouts and sat up and saw that his armor was singed, and he was covered in sharp crystal shards.
“See? Told you I’d get the kill,” Archimedes said with a cough, a triumphant smile and an arrogant look on his soot-and-shard-covered face as he turned to Chedderfield.
“What?! No!” Chedderfield exclaimed, his hearing clear again. “That was my kill. I was the one who did all the work.”
“A kill isn’t a kill till the final hit happens, so technically . . . I think I’m siding with Archimedes on this one. Last hit matters,” Nguyen said.
“Archimedes was clearly a kill stealer here. I saw it myself, so Chedderfield should get the credit,” Danielle disagreed as she walked toward the group.
Lucy, who was busy whacking and hammering on her sword as she tried to free it from where it had gotten stuck in the monster’s spine, looked over and laughed. “You want to go with gamer terms? They both lost. I aggro’d the monster first. Therefore, my kill.”
“Well, I mean, technically, the first one to engage would have been—”
“Oh, stop taking his side so hard,” Lucy shot back before Nguyen could even finish her sentence.
“Alright, we have two for me, two for you, and one who is crazy enough to think she did all the work too . . . so fine. Let’s let the little one tie-break it,” Chedderfield said, confident that Emma would side with him, especially since she often liked to mess with Archimedes and Lucy, poking fun at them for their age or other small things to get on their nerves.
“Well, I’m going to have to say it was— AHHHH!!! FUCKING HELL!!!”
Emma’s scream of pain drew the group’s attention to the hellcat that had come up behind and nearly bitten her in half. The seventeen-year-old’s body was trapped in the creature’s mouth as the large mountain lion skull began to glow red like it was about to activate some skill with Emma still in its jaws, even before her turret could turn in time to shoot it, but just before the creature unleashed its attack, it was ripped into the air—still gripping Emma—and eaten alive by a massive version of one of the hairless molepedes, this one as long as a city bus.
“What the—” Chedderfield was at a loss for words. Emma, rather than simply falling skull-first to her death as the creature was eaten, was instead caught by the molepede before her head could crack open on the asphalt beneath her. Her injured body was gently laid on the ground as a strikingly tall, strange-looking woman walked over and placed her hand on the severely injured girl. A yellow light glowed out from the point of contact for a moment before the teen, who had previously looked like she had already met the Grim Reaper, looked perfectly fine.
“Woah,” Emma said, touching the part of her torso where the mastiff’s teeth had gored her. “I . . . This is . . . What is . . .”
“We thank you for your timely arrival and your destruction of their forces and their commander,” the woman said as she helped Emma stand up. “This is the least I can do as repayment for saving us from the hell-cursed.”