Along the way they had to dodge the odd Vintaric or other bird like monster. They did so systematically and perfectly and avoided detection at all turns. It was with this methodical movement that they made it all the way back to Angel Heights and its broken neon sign.
“Still don’t see the need for the consoles. Don’t you have games on your phone?” Amadeus said.
“They’re not for me, Am,” Victor replied.
Then he walked up to the entrance and quickly put in the knocking pattern.
“Back from the job. Let me in, Umer!” Victor asked the guard. A moment later the same bearded man greeted him.
“So soon?” he asked.
“Stuff’s getting easier by the day,” Victor admitted. He handed over the map but not the bag.
Umer eyed it suspiciously but shrugged. He moved back into his spot and Victor took the bag upstairs.
“Going to tell me now or do I have to wait some more?” Amadeus asked.
“Patience, Am,” Victor replied before bursting into one of the side rooms. Inside were a flock of awaiting children, all of whom looked proper and behaved. Which is how Amadeus immediately knew something was off.
“For them, really?” Amadeus said.
“Really.”
Herding the little critters was Elsa, who looked like a giant among them.
“I’ve been trying to keep them quiet, Mr. Amadi, but they just won’t listen!” She complained as the other kids rushed up to Victor and Amadeus. In response, Amadeus snatched away the bag and held it high.
“Now, wait a second! Stop! None of you are getting this until you make me a promise,” Amadeus said. The entire herd paused and nodded at the same time. A chorus of yeses and agreements went out, though he knew it was all in the pursuit of what he had in his hand.
“These things are loud. And I’m serious about that. I want you to promise that you won’t turn up the noise. Can you guys do that for me?” Amadeus asked.
Slowly but surely they all nodded.
“And I want you all to behave too. If Elsa or one of the adults says something, you have to listen. Understood?”
Another round of nods.
“Then, I’ll start handing them out,” Amadeus told them. For each of them that he gave away, he charged it and taught them how to use the thing. It was with such practiced precision that Victor didn’t know what to think.
For someone their age, it should’ve been a gimmick at best. But taking away all other entertainment made them better appreciate what little they could get. Elsa, Victor and Amadeus schooled the children and stopped them from getting too rowdy, but a little allowance was made.
And it pleased him to see those smiles. The outside wasn’t getting any better, but in here, it was a bubble of pure happiness. Even Elsa, who he’d seen moping around before, had joined in on the fun. He wanted the kids to savour that. Grim though it may be, it was only because Victor knew such moments would be hard to come by in the future.
Amadeus was tired by the end of his rounds of charging. He sat down beside the door and indulged the kids that jumped around and played with him. Some of the others even learned how to connect their Gameboys together, which Victor hadn’t even accounted for.
Finally, once a few hours had passed, the small charge on the devices went out. That’s when the grumbling began, and where Victor had to lie a little bit.
“Amadeus is real tired. But I’ll bring him around later to charge the consoles again. If you don’t let him rest though, he might not be awake enough to do it!” he scared them straight.
Everything he said was a lie. He, Isabelle, Lillie and Amadeus would be leaving tomorrow. The fuel was already here, Victor had just wanted to do a little kindness beforehand. A gift in a certain sense.
Victor left the room holding a tired and yawning Amadeus. Outside waited Audrey and her husband. They looked a bit conflicted, but happy overall. And beside them was Isabelle.
Victor sighed. I guess I was wrong.
“I’ve brought you some supplies as well. If you’re going to the other end of the country, you’ll need them,” Audrey told him.
“Thanks,” Victor said.
“Th…tha…” Amadeus tried to pour out but kept stopping to yawn. For Audrey, she just rubbed the boy’s head.
“Thank you too, Amadeus. You’re a good boy,” she told him and he nodded slightly.
“There’s enough supplies in there for three people. Toothbrushes, soap, new clothes, whatever else you’ll need. I’ve taught Lillie some survival skills, so call on her when you need,” Audrey told him. Victor nodded along, reminiscing of the first time he had such a conversation. His mother had been reluctant to let him go so far away from home, so she’d made sure to pack a house’s worth of things just for him.
“Thank you, Audrey. That’s more than I could’ve asked for,” Victor told her.
“I still think you should stay here, boy.”
“Maybe. But I need to find my family. And Amadeus his.”
He could tell she was holding back words. If it had gotten so bad in just a week, there was no way they could’ve survived, right? But Victor believed. That his family was exceptional. If he could survive this long, so could they.
“Then I bid you luck, Victor.”
“You’ll be staying behind then, Isabelle?” Victor asked, turning to her. Shyly, she nodded.
“I like you and Amadeus, I do. It’s just… they need me more,” she replied. He could accept that.
“We’ve put your car in a garage we’ve marked. Here are the keys to it. I suggest you don’t leave till tomorrow though, Victor,” Audrey said.
“I’ll take the advice.”
He moved to take Amadeus to one of the beds, passing by the three of them he’d been talking to.
“And take care not to bruise yourself, lad,” Dean added.
He nodded as he continued.
****
Tomorrow came faster than he would’ve liked. A second ago his eyes were closed and now he could hear birds. How they’d even survived this long was a mystery to Victor, but they had. On a separate bed, Amadeus lay snoring.
“Am! Wake up!” he told the man, but Amadeus kept snoring. Even after a few more calls he looked to be in deep sleep. Instead of continuing the charade, Victor just threw his pillow at the man.
Even that didn’t deter the man, which forced Victor up. He shook awake Amadeus himself.
“Ugh, what are you…. Vic, it’s the crack of dawn…” he said in a whiny tone.
“The exact time we were supposed to go, don’t you remember?” Victor told him.
“No, I was conked out from charging all those Gameboys. I swear, you people treat me like a living power bank,” he grumbled. Victor couldn’t believe it. The powers of electricity went to a man without the energy to even pull himself out of bed in the morning.
He couldn’t really blame him, per se, but it still annoyed Victor.
“Fine, stay in. I’ll go get the supplies ready,” he told him. Amadeus gave him a lazy thumbs up before collapsing back onto his bed.
Victor opened the door to the rooms and crept outside to an eerily quiet apartment complex. The only lights he could see were the ones shining down from outside, so he quickly made his way down and out of the place.
Even outside, he could feel the city quiet. But it didn’t give him any peace, only unease. Victor came towards the garage and made sure to double-check his surroundings before opening it.
He had to give Audrey credit where it was due, she’d picked a great spot for the vehicle. This was possibly the only street in the entire city not flooded with cars or other obstacles.
He found the sight of the Beetle nostalgic in a weird way, even though they’d only been apart for a few days. But those days had halted his progress towards what he really wanted.
Victor popped open the gas cap of the car and started dumping fuel inside until he was sure it was enough. Then he checked the tires and controls. When he turned it on, the fuel read full and that was good enough for him.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
But then a strange noise distracted him. Victor left the Beetle and followed that noise. He could almost recognize it. It was…. wings. He ran over and turned the car off before it could attract any of the Vintarics.
The wings grew closer until they were right over him. Unease gripped his heart but the swarm seemed to pass him by. Victor took a glance outside at the hive of flying bugs. He wouldn’t have given it a second thought until he heard an ear-piercing scream come from them.
The hive paused in the air far away from Victor, but that didn’t help erase the fear. Because he knew the location they were currently over. He knew Angel Heights was right below them.
No… It was the middle of the morning. No one was making any noise. What could possibly have attracted them?
He didn’t have time to think. The Vintarics screamed only once more before diving down. Broken glass was the only thing Victor could hear but it was enough. He ran from the garage at full sprint.
His enhanced strength carried him far with every leap. He ran and ran without a care for getting caught himself. Knife in one hand and pistol in the other, he popped out in front of the building where the hive swarmed and infused his pistol.
Wait, think… he couldn’t take them head on. But he did have another way.
Victor ducked behind one of the more decrepit buildings and touched the ground. He searched deep within his Weaponsmith Heart for the Trap Ward and pushed. Energy left his body but with a feeling foreign to Victor. It’s working!
Though he knew he had to wait, Victor was impatient. He kept glancing back at the hotel worried for the people inside. Every minute, he’d hear an explosion or something else that worried his mind, but he hoped it would be enough.
When the Trap Ward finished, a mark was left. Victor jumped and immediately rushed back to Angel Heights. His stopped mid-breath and fired with the same arcane bell ringing. It immobilized one of the Vintarics there but also alerted the others. Good.
The monsters let out an ear-piercing screech and ran for Victor. Some of them weren’t the grasshopper looking bugs he’d gotten used to, but instead a mantis like enemy with a triangular head.
They flew towards him in a swarm, following as he ran back. Finally, Victor made it to the mouth of the alley and deftly stepped over the mark left in the dirt there.
And then he fired another shot onto the approaching swarm. The first of the bugs crashed into the Trap Ward and triggered it. Victor had never been near an explosion but his ears popped at the sound.
And though it seemed a forceful one, the explosion itself was rather small. He didn’t mind it so much as long as it did its job. And he knew it had when he heard cracks spreading across the two buildings that pressed the alley. Those cracks spread quick as a wildfire and caused a cacophonous crash of brickwork.
The rest of the hive hadn’t the time to react, being buried under the rubble in but an instant. Victor stepped over their twitching wings and bodies without a word, just as another notification popped up in his view.
[Ability Unlocked: Structural Sense Boost]
His bestiary had also been updated [2]. He dismissed both of those and ran towards the door leading into the apartment complex. Smoke was rising from the top of the building and Victor grew even more worried.
“Umer! Open the damn door!” He shouted as he banged on it. But no one answered from the other end.
“Damnit, someone open this door!” He tried again to no avail.
Screw this, he thought as he looked up. Victor jumped off a windowsill and onto the second floor. He kicked in the window and jumped through the shattered glass to the inside. There, he found a Vintaric eating a corpse and almost vomited.
It’d been the same scarred woman he’d seen herding the kids. Now she lay before his eyes as nothing but a meal to the disgusting Vintaric. It looked back at him with such innocence, as if the horrid act it was committing was nothing more than a simple meal.
Blue flames burst open around the dagger in his hand. He ran towards the Vintaric with a scream and stabbed downwards. It might’ve died on the first hit but Victor didn’t realize that. His screams continued with every stab until he finally grew tired enough to stop.
He was huffing. The corpse before him might’ve not bled as true as a human, but the body was just as mangled as the other. Damnit, how much time did I… He ran out of the room. There wasn’t much to be done for the woman.
There he found people he could actually help.
“Victor!” Leo shouted for him. His arm was encased in cracking stone and stuck in the jaws of another of the mantis-like Vintarics. He punched it with the other while Ashley put a gun to its head. She clicked and the bug went down.
“What happened?!” he shouted angrily. How could they have let this happen? He hadn’t been gone that long, so how could they possibly ruin it that badly?
No reply would come, as more people ran up the stairs. Following them were Vintarics and Victor wouldn’t let them have their prey. He shot one on its hide, finding it harder than usual. That Vintaric peeled away from the group and tried to pierce Victor with its piercing claw.
The man was ready, however, and he ducked under it. He swiped his fire dagger through the piercer and found it cut through smoothly. The Vintaric launched its other piercer and cut into Victor’s skin.
The man grunted butt held onto it with one hand. with the other, he charged his gun with Infuse Attack and fired once more. The Vintaric’s head was blown clean off and Victor advanced.
Leo and Ashley were guiding away the other monsters while the civilians cowered. Victor jumped in and help them clean up the whole mess.
“Thanks… I didn’t think so many of them would make it here…” Leo said between gasps. It reminded Victor acutely of how tired he was. Already he could feel the malaise drifting into his bones.
“Where are the others?” Victor asked.
“Upstairs. There was a big one that Amadeus led away. I don’t think any of us could take that one. Not in here, at least,” Leo said. He sounded afraid of the creature.
Amadeus? No… He thought about running for a moment. It wasn’t as though Victor was the one who’d offered to distract the monster. But that thought was quickly thrown away when he heard a lightning bolt echo down the stairs.
“It’s not just that….”
“Who else is up there?” Victor asked.
“The kids…”
Damn it, damn it, damn it!
He started running. Not away from the top, but towards it. On every floor that he passed he saw more people fighting for their lives. And he was helpless to save them. Some had Seeds while others only their guns. Victor just hoped that Leo and Ashley could help where he could not.
His eyes and ears were on the top, where the sound of thunder was only growing quicker by the minute. There was a crash not dissimilar to the one he’d caused in the alley moments before Victor arrived.
And moments after, Victor reached the scene of his nightmares.
Half of the floor was collapsed, burying the bodies underneath. Only Amadeus and a monster stood atop the wreckage, facing each other down.
Amadeus looked horrible. A bleeding wound ran from one side of his face to the other, traversing one of his eyes in the process. His arm was mangled and he took ragged breaths against his opponent. The only reason he was alive was because Lillie was by his side. But even she looked stretched to her limits. Her hand was dripping blood onto the concrete and she had a nasty bullet hole in her left leg.
Their opponent was the biggest Vintaric Victor had seen yet. He thought he was staring at a bipedal rifle at first. The way its insectile face looked like the barrel, with holes over its green mottled body and an abdomen resembling the magazine. It was a living amalgamation of weaponry and reminded Victor of the kind of death machines he’d only seen in sci-fi.
The bug turned its head methodically towards Victor and the man found himself stuck in its gaze. It could pounce at any moment and have him killed; he knew it. Its black beady eyes bored into his soul but it did not move.
How could he fight against this thing? And what would he even be fighting for? The kids were…
“Victor, help us!” Lillie shouted for him. there were tears in her eyes. The instant she spoke, the bug launched back into action. It jumped quicker than Victor’s eyes could track, right at Lillie.
Before it could impact, a red lightning hit its shell. The bug recoiled and went sprawling on the rocks, but even then it didn’t cease movement. It twitched and writhed and inspected the three of them coldly.
“The kids are safe! They’re on the other side!” Amadeus shouted for him without taking his eyes off of the monster.
Victor snapped out of his daze. They were alive! He looked behind himself but the doors were closed. That was for the best. All he needed to do was focus o-
“Childrennnn….” The dark green monster exclaimed. It had a voice like a radio lodged in its throat, thick and gargly.
“Your childrennnn… will not sssurvive,” it chuckled a shrill alien laugh.
Victor shot it with an infused bullet. The bug recoiled once more and glared in his direction.
“You… How dare you!” he spat at it. “You disgusting monster! Why? Why are you doing this?”
The bug soothed its wounds with one of its thin arms.
“Forrrrr Nirvannna,” was its only reply.
Victor gripped the pistol so tight he thought he might break it. He and the monster raised each other up at the same time. and then they both ran at each other.
Victor fired off a few shots before the monster’s shell. Without his enhancement, the bullets just ricocheted off. The Vintaric opened its mouth and a barrel appeared there within.
Victor tried to dodge but the monster’s head followed. A light came up its throat and he knew what was coming next. But before the blast could hit Victor, a plane of light blocked the bullet. The fist sized hunk of metal was just barely contained by it.
Victor panned over and Lillie was raising a hand in protest. Her eyes were straining but she nodded towards him. Victor sidestepped the pane and fired off a few more blasts before going in for a stab. Just like before, he dodged the piercers and stabbed at the monsters. But the blade didn’t sink in as deep.
Victor was about to activate his Infuse Attack when he was knocked sideways. His ribs roared in pain and he went rolling across the building. His body stopped at the edge, where he got a clear view of the city.
Even a single attack had knocked the breath out of him. Sane people would’ve taken that as a sign and just run. But he was beyond sanity. Monsters had invaded the world, he was holding a flaming dagger and he’d just seen a man shoot lightning out of his finger tips.
If this turned out to be a bad fever dream, Victor only hoped he’d wake up before dying painfully.
He put both hands down onto the ground and stood back up. Amadeus had covered for him but wouldn’t last forever. When the next blast of the monster came down, Victor charged his Infuse Attack.
It hit the roof of the monster’s mouth and made it halt. The bug shook its head as the pain hit it. An idea formed in Victor’s head when he came in again for another stab.
He infused this one too and felt it sink in more easily. As the blade stopped in the Vintaric’s skin, Victor slammed a palm into the butt of it. That got it a few more inches but forced Victor to step backwards. Another pane of light saved him from a slash across the ribs. The piercers of the monster stabbed into the floating pane and ripped them apart in the air.
The light disappeared and Victor shot off a few more infused bullets. They cracked the shell of the monster but nothing more. All the while Victor felt like he was being hollowed out from the inside.
He switched in with Amadeus again, but it was only a temporary reprieve. He watched as the other man sent out waves of lightning towards the beast, growing lethargic with each powerful burst.
They’d grown in these past few days, further than any time before, but it still seemed to underperform in the face of something so massive, so cruel. Victor knew he had to formulate a plan, but he couldn’t with the weakness eating away at him.
He tried to push through only to realize he didn’t need to anymore. Lillie pressed a hand to his back, from where a warm and nourishing light spread. Victor felt the weight on himself lighten at least a little. And then again and again until he felt only winded.
The cost was apparent to him, however. Lillie collapsed to the floor on her knees. He tried to help her
“I don’t want to die…” she begged. It twisted his heart to see. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
“I really don’t want to die, Victor. Please don’t leave me…” She said before even her arms gave way. Victor caught her moments before her head hit the floor.
“I will,” he promised.
But even he didn’t have the time to be gentle. Amadeus was struggling for them both, and he wouldn’t hold out forever. Victor laid her down as carefully as he could and rushed over to where Amadeus was, brandishing both dagger and pistol.