Nguyen

Nguyen couldn’t help but feel wary as she walked beside Archimedes through the camp that had been thrown up outside the nuclear plant. For the third time since she’d arrived, she studied the neat rows of tents, the ground laden with building materials, the old diesel jeeps parked inside the metal walls that surrounded the plant, the soldiers patrolling the walls with rifles, and the heavy caliber gun emplacements that dotted the thirty-foot-tall walls, noting that the colonel had chosen manually fired guns instead of the more expensive automated ones. Her eyes combed over each group of soldiers she passed, double checking to make sure they were all registered with her Sight Beyond Sight skill as ‘human,’ and didn’t have some growth, parasite or alteration inside of them.

She also couldn’t help but notice the occasional waves, hat tips or nods from the people on the walls as they looked over at her. One even gave her a whistle before getting jabbed with an elbow by the soldier next to him. One of the people closest to her though was much less kind, scowling back at her as she glanced over at him.

“Your eyes are glowing,” Archimedes said as he looked down at her.

The words sent a shiver up Nguyen’s spine and caused her brain to freeze up for a moment. She looked up at him. His long, curly locks intertwined with his luxurious beard, and even though they were together often, she was usually far enough away from him that she rarely noticed exactly how tall he was, but here, walking close enough to bump arms, it was a lot more evident.

“Thank you,” Nguyen replied to his observation, smiling shyly as a warmth spread across her cheeks before she went back to looking around, trying to make sure that everyone was, at the very least, human. Not that it made them any less likely to be monsters, but being human at least made them less likely to explode next to her, eat her in her sleep, or summon a horde of hell-cursed minions.

“Is that the skill you like? Sight Beyond Sight?” Archimedes asked, causing her mood to shift a little as she realized he wasn’t talking about how pretty her eyes were; he was just noting that the skill made them glow.

“Yeah, it’s Sight Beyond Sight,” she answered, stiffening her face to not show her annoyance at being robbed of a compliment.

“How does it work?” he pressed. “Does it give just the species name, or could you identify my name specifically with it? Does it tell you stats or skills . . . or maybe my weight?”

“At first it was just the species name and a few basics,” Nguyen replied, looking up at him with the skill he was so interested in still on as she read out his information. “Now, it shows me your weak points, your strengths, and it even tells me your condition to a degree.”

“My weak points? Are you telling me that I have weak points?” Archimedes asked with a hammed-up Austrian accent as he curled his arms in a body builder pose and flexed in front of her, the fireman jacket hiding his muscles but his tights failing to do anything more than show off every vein and muscle in his legs.

“Yup. Bulging ones that, when struck, could leave you heavily wounded,” she answered, staring at the most obvious spot for a moment.

“Oh . . . yeah,” Archimedes replied, relaxing his muscles as he figured out what she meant. “So what do your other skills do?”

Rather than answer, Nguyen just looked around for a moment and then put a finger to her lips. “They help me stay very, very quiet when hunting wabbits. A thing we both need to be doing so we can hear anything coming.”

“Ugh, you’re just like Leap Frog was,” Archimedes groaned. “She was always telling me to be quiet anytime we went hunting.”

“And you still didn’t learn?” Nguyen couldn’t help but shake her head. “It’s a good thing you’re—” She had to bite her tongue. She had nearly given him a compliment that might have crossed a line, one she knew she’d had no right to venture near from the moment she chose to follow Brad instead of Archimedes inside the hotel on the first night of the apocalypse.

“Fine, fine,” Archimedes grumbled in a very hushed voice. But it wasn’t just his voice that got quieter. Nguyen noticed he changed the way he walked too, causing the sound from his footsteps to dampen as he began to place the outer edge of his foot down first, roll the rest of his sole inward until his whole foot was on the ground, and then repeat the motion with his next step. The movement was so seamless that if Nguyen hadn’t been listening for sounds she wouldn't have noticed it.

“Sorry, it’s hard to walk any quieter than this in these clunky boots you gave me even with that agility milestone ability, the Noise-Canceling Walk,” Archimedes said. “But, if worse comes to worse, and we get found, I’ll just kill whatever found us or fly us both away with Leap Rush.”

Nguyen was silent for a moment as she looked up at the towering walls, “Makes you wonder how long it will be before some of those monsters get some kind of jumping skill like yours.”

She felt a hand on her shoulder and saw Arc looking down at her. “I know you think about all these weaknesses and stuff, but you have me and the rest of our group by your side. You don’t always have to worry about the worst-case scenario.”

She felt the tension in her shoulders melt away at his touch. He always had this effect on her, and she didn’t think that she’d have survived this long without someone like him looking after her and reassuring her that things would be okay. Otherwise, she would have gone crazy from all the terrible shit she’d seen.

The two reached the gates that led out of the plant, and the guard let them out with minimal hassle. A chill breeze cut through their clothes as the heavy personnel gate closed behind them with a thud, and the two were left outside the walls, mounted flood lights illuminating the grassy field and the gravel path away from the plant. The lights, though bright, only shone about eighty or so feet out, and beyond that, the world was only lit by the full moon in the sky. Nguyen could almost feel the gazes of all the deadly monsters she imagined waited out there.

Though part of her just wanted to run back into the safety of the base, she forced herself to move forward. The gravel crunched beneath her boots as her walk became a light jog. She heard Archimedes’ heavy boots beside her, but that was the only sound the man made, and she was glad he knew that the time for banter had ended.

With a quick swipe, Nguyen equipped her Monocle of Sensing, one of her most treasured pieces of gear, and the world blurred for a moment. Then the inky black night of a world without light pollution was overlaid by shades of purple, orange, red, yellow, and occasionally white. To her sight, Archimedes burned like a torch against the cold landscape, and the river to the south was pitch black as it absorbed all the heat around it. This way of seeing provided an interesting combination of stimuli that had taken her days to master because she had to still differentiate between the ground and objects as she moved. But seeing the heat signatures of monsters had saved her more than once while scouting.

Nguyen led the way, and as they crept farther south, finally reaching the shore of the river, Nguyen’s heart froze for a moment, her hand moving out quickly to stop Archimedes from moving forward.

He didn’t say a word, but he leaned forward to the point she could feel his breath on her neck as she pointed to what she saw: four dead bodies. Each of the bodies still radiated some heat even after death, and that was the only reason she’d been able to spot them in the high grass. As she got closer, she saw that the bodies’ military attire fit the description of what they were given, and each of the scouts was peppered with bone arrows that had pierced chests, backs, legs, and a neck in one case. A pool of still cooling blood surrounded each of the corpses, and a card floated above each head. Archimedes quickly used his skill to pull the cards toward him even though looting might expose their position.

Archimedes whispered the question that was running through Nguyen’s mind. “Why were they standing out in the open if they were supposed to be scouts?”

It didn’t take Nguyen more than a second to realize exactly what had happened as she looked over at the river and saw the masses of hell-cursed moving, their bodies dull orange and purple to her infrared vision. They were working together on something that extended across the water, flashes of white coming from several of the creatures as she watched.

“It’s a bridge . . .” Nguyen mumbled as she pulled out her sniper rifle, using its scope to enhance the magnification of her vision, and tried to figure out how they were doing it. Sure enough, on top of the usual spawn and hell-cursed brutes, there was a new type she hadn’t seen before: the flesh-shaper. It looked exactly like a regular hell-cursed except for the fact it had a little more muscle and was slightly taller than average. It would have blended into the crowd if not for Sight Beyond Sight, which allowed her to identify it, and she wouldn’t have even known where to look or which of them to identify if it weren’t for the fact the hell-cursed were being sloppy in their attempts to camouflage the engineers, not even fully surrounding the two such monsters. The flesh-shapers activated a skill very similar to the one Chedderfield took from Dicky and began stacking dead bodies like bricks before smashing them together, the melding skill creating enough heat to appear in her infrared vision.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Across the river, right there.” Nguyen dropped the scope from her eye and pointed to the bridge even though she knew Archimedes wouldn’t be able to see it so far away. “There are two flesh-shapers, basically hell-cursed engineers. They’re working with the other hell-cursed to fuse bones and flesh of corpses into a bridge. I don’t know how stable the structure is, or how long it’ll take them, but they’re already a quarter of the way done. It looks like the scouts might have tried shooting them before getting picked off by the archers along their side of the riverbank.”

“Damn,” Archimedes replied, “what do we even do? If I try to fly over there, chances are they’re going to turn me into a pincushion before I get halfway across the river.

“Our mission was to find and aid the scouts. We can’t do that now. I think it’s probably best if we return,” Nguyen said, wanting to shut Archimedes down before he did anything reckless. She was sure that the fact that he wasn’t dead already was a true testament to his miraculous luck. No amount of talent could make up for how reckless and suicidal behavior his good nature led him to, or at least, how good natured he was before he came back from that other world.

“If they’re building a bridge, they’re building our coffin. I do not want to wait around until they’ve hammered the last nail,” Archimedes stated firmly, abandoning a whisper as he stood tall. “You’re the scout and the tactician. I’m trusting you to help come up with a way out of this scenario. If you can’t do it, that’s fine, but the Nguyen I know has never failed to get anything she wanted.”

“Anyone ever tell you flattery won’t get you everywhere?” Nguyen sighed. She didn’t want to deal with this.

“Sure, but I just assumed it was a lie to cover up their weakness,” Archimedes said with the type of mischievousness that perfectly matched a devil’s.

“Fine,” Nguyen caved. “We just need to make it back across first, and you need to keep me safe. I’ll do what I can from there.”

Archimedes shrugged. “That’s easy enough, I was going to do my best to keep you safe anyway.”

“Well, be prepared then. The moment I pull the trigger, whatever killed those four scouts is going to try to kill us next,” Nguyen said as she looked around her for a high enough spot to get a clear angle on her target.

There were several trees around her, mostly oaks and a few willows, and the remainder being the tightly packed evergreens that were stuffed near the roads by the government to dampen sound. She picked a tree with branches low enough to climb and made her way up about ten feet, straddled a bough, and equipped her laser rifle. She normally had no problem aiming and shooting the weapon, but she was going to be making one of the longest shots she’d ever taken and would likely only have one attempt. Nguyen steadied the barrel of the rifle between two overlapping branches and tore away the ones that obscured her scope's sight. Through the scope she was able to find the flesh-shapers, the heat-producing skill they used flashing as they continued to work. She switched to the operator class and used the inherent skill it gave her, Hide and Seek, which marked her target and let her highlight where that target was looking. She doubted it was meant to be used from so far away, but she didn’t care. It would let her track her second target for the next twenty seconds.

She settled her shoulders and waited for the breeze to pass before she placed the crosshairs directly over the first creature's head. She waited for the natural pause in breathing right after she exhaled and then pulled the trigger of her rifle. A thick beam of energy cut through the dark, blinding her for a second as she looked through the scope. But when she looked again, the flesh-shaper was missing half its head, and it staggered a few steps before collapsing to the ground.

The moment the body dropped, the hell-cursed scrambled like a kicked anthill. The spider-like conscriptor began waving its arms, reshuffling the dumb zombies more quickly than she imagined possible as the last of the two flesh-shapers was tackled to the ground by the mindless hell spawn around him. But it was too late. Nguyen already knew exactly where the shaper was thanks to her skill and could still clearly see his line of sight. Steadying her aim, making sure that the shot was going to land exactly where she wanted, she waited for that moment right after she exhaled before pulling the trigger, this time twice in a row as fast as the gun would allow. The first shot hit the target, killing it as the laser beam burned a hole through its head, but she didn’t know that until after the second shot had already been fired and burned another hole through the creature. She was able to confirm the kill as her Hide and Seek skill disappeared from the target.

“Done,” she told Archimedes, using her Graceful Gall skill to drop silently to the ground like an ephemeral wraith. “I’ve killed the flesh-shapers.”

“I knew you could do it,” Archimedes said, congratulating her with a pat on the back as the two of them looked across the river at the chaos, spawn scattering as they searched for what had killed the flesh-shapers.

The momentary pride Nguyen had in her abilities and the skill she had shown off in hitting both targets from such a distance was overshadowed by panic at the sound of a high whistling like a hundred people trying to hit the highest pitch possible at the same time. The sound was their only warning before dozens of arrows rained down on them. Nguyen twirled and pressed herself behind the trunk of the tree she’d leapt from, hoping it would shelter her and then felt Archimedes’ muscled form press against her as he protected her with his body.

Archimedes Phidias has selected you as his Ward. It is recommended that you stay within 10 feet of Archimedes.

She dismissed the notification with a thought as the arrows fell. She could hear a series of thuds hit the ground and a grunt from Archimedes, and when the sound died, she peeked around him and saw that hundreds of arrow shafts stuck out from the ground and two sticking from his back. She sucked in a breath at the sight, but before she could do more, she felt herself being picked up by Archimedes' large hands.

“Hold tight.”

It was all he said before she felt herself flying through the air. As she clung to his neck, she forced herself to search for their attackers using Sight Beyond Sight. Its usefulness was limited by range, but combined with her infrared vision equipment, it let her quickly comb through the enemies on the other side of the river. She saw plenty of scrambling hell spawn, several brutes, one of the flesh catapults, and a conscriptor but no archers. This confused her until she recalled the angle at which the arrows had landed. They were nearly vertical. Her gaze shot up, and she realized exactly why the scouts had been caught off guard, why they had died clumped up without even bothering to take cover: the arrows were coming from the clouds, specifically the clouds that were several shades warmer to her infrared vision—the clouds that had tentacles and were moving ever so slowly toward the nuclear plant against the wind.

“Shit! They’re shokushu goukan!” Nguyen exclaimed into Archimedes’ ear as she held tightly to him. The wind blowing against them almost stole her words, but he looked up, and in the moonlight, she could see his piercing blue eyes searching for the creatures.

As his enhanced jump started downward on its parabolic arc, he turned his head and half shouted, “Are you sure it's the flying jellyfish?”

She only nodded, and that was enough for Archimedes, who grunted in annoyance.

They landed with a thud, finding themselves farther south along the riverbank than she liked, and as he put her on the ground, he asked, “Why hasn’t the army blown them out of the sky?”

“They probably don’t know they’re there. I only noticed while we were in the air, and even with my infrared vision, they were hard to make out with everything being so dark.” She paused as another thought occurred to her. “The bigger question is, why haven’t they attacked already? I mean, they’re essentially floating troop carriers. They’re the perfect way to cross the river with an army.”

“I don’t know—”

Familiar whistling cut through the air, and he grabbed her and spun.

There were thuds all around them, and Archimedes grunted again as he ran for cover. Nguyen felt a burning sensation in her right arm, and when she looked, she saw a line where an arrow had grazed her. She wished she’d invested in better armor than the bone breastplate but she only had two equipment slots and usually fought from far enough away that she hadn’t seen the need.

They seemed to have outrun the arrows as they entered a copse of trees, and the attacks petered off, but Nguyen understood already that something on those giant floating jellyfish in the sky was tracking them, and they should not stay still.

“I need you to take me as high as you can. Leap-Rush straight up.”

“What? Why? We should be heading back to the base to warn the army.”

“We will. But I need to check something first.”

He hesitated. The struggle between his need to protect her and the request, evident from his facial expression.

“Trust me,” she said softly, placing a hand on his chest.

And that was enough. With a nod, he picked her up in a princess carry, bent his legs, and built up enough energy that his legs glowed orange. Then, with a burst of force, the two shot up into the sky like they’d been launched from a cannon. The air felt like rushing water pushing against her, trying to force her back down to the ground where she belonged, but she resisted and forced herself to look around as far as she could. Her eyes scanned south, then east, and then north, and for a moment, she thought that she was mistaken—that she was just being paranoid again. Then, as her gaze turned west, she saw it. Off in the distance, barely perceptible even to her enhanced vision, a line of orange that seemed to be drawn across the landscape, orange that meant burning, moving bodies of the biggest army she’d ever seen.

“An army. An army is coming from the west,” she breathed in a hoarse whisper, a shiver running through her that had nothing to do with the cold night air.