~~~Stanley~~~

Stanley woke from a dream of clawing darkness that dragged him away from the light no matter how hard he struggled. He was sweating and shaking when he opened his eyes into a pitch black room. The darkness didn't go over well.

The bank blew up... and out. But mostly up.

Light bloomed in the destruction's wake, and Stanley saw Caffeine standing on his chest and staring down at him. Then he saw the building's roof coming back down.

Stanley hit it again and sent the roof falling away from him. All the small pieces still rained down, and he curled up around Caffeine as his power built a wall around them. He felt the small impacts against his mind, but it was all insignificant. It probably wouldn't even hurt his F-grade body. Though Caffeine wasn't F-grade yet...

When the rattle and clatter finally stopped, Caffeine bounded excitedly to the meat bag and then stared at Stanley expectantly. "Yes, Caff. It's breakfast time." That set Caffeine zooming in excited circles.

Stanley smiled at the sight as he unpacked the food and let the sweat dry on his skin. The activity also helped his hands stop shaking, and watching Caffeine's pure excitement soothed the rest of his nightmare away.

They ate together, briefly. For all of two seconds, maybe. Then Caffeine watched Stanley eat.

Stanley ate more slowly as he observed their surroundings with some confusion. Not because he recognized nothing about where they were; he didn't. It had been too dark the night before. Instead, his confusion was in the complete lack of monsters anywhere in sight. Animal or human. It was even quieter than the day before.

He eventually finished his food, with help from Caffeine, and took both of them back to the skies. As he flew, a few monsters appeared occasionally, but nothing like he expected. He did not know what was happening until he chased down some rodent-like things the size of grizzly bears.

He killed two of them with a knife through their heads, and the rest ran inside a building.

Stanley followed.

You have entered a Lair: [Burrow of Tooth and Claw]

The three-story apartment building didn't seem nearly large enough to house more than a handful of the huge creatures, and apparently it wasn't. Stanley killed only a few more before he found the tunnel leading into the earth. The dark tunnel.

It was bad enough inside the dim building, but the regularly spaced windows at least let in enough light for him to see. Going down into a pitch dark cave with giant rodents was not happening.

Stanley killed the few bear rodents above ground and flew away with his cores. He checked more buildings whenever monsters ran inside, and he found more of the same. Not every building was a lair, hardly any of them were. But every smaller building that had turned into a lair was now sporting a pit underground.

So Stanley went back to the skyscrapers; at least those weren't dark holes, and he started with his old favorite one, the first place in the city where he almost died...

He wasn't expecting much of a response, if any, after the slaughter the day before, and he flew inside on that assumption. It was a good assumption, and despite seeing the message that he was indeed in a lair, not one pigeon showed itself as he flew through the building. He went down level after level but still found nothing.

Of course, the peace couldn't last.

Halfway through one of the higher floors, Stanley felt a twinge of pain in his chest. Only for the barest instant. Then Caffeine barked another of his deafening barks, and Stanley felt the force of the sound actually push them backward in the air.

He also saw what happened at the other end of that bark.

A pigeon appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. It was smaller than expected, what used to be regular size, and flew at what had to be over a hundred miles an hour as it shot towards Stanley's chest like a bullet.

Until Caffeine's bark hit it like the invisible hand of god.

The sleek gray missile flattened out against the shockwave, blood and feathers flying, then shot back the way it had come. There was a distant thud, and then the only sound was Caffeine panting.

Something poked Stanley in the back, a piercing needle of...

Caffeine jumped from his lap and the kickback sent Stanley crashing into one of the floor to ceiling windows with bone-breaking force.

Debuff: [Concussed]

Stanley's head pounded, and he heard another loud bark as he struggled up off the floor. He turned in time to see another tiny gray missile approaching his face.

He slapped it out of the air.

The bird didn't feel very heavy when he hit it, but it felt fast... and sharp, like a knife stabbing through his mind... It still went down, though. He didn't get the nice splatter Caffeine did, but the bird still plowed into the carpet and tumbled violently across it.

Stanley was already turning to look when he felt the twinge on the side of his head, and just barely caught a flicker of motion inbound. He slapped at it and felt the stinging impact as another bird died.

Then his chest hurt... and Caffeine appeared right in front of him, jaws closing around the pigeon hard enough that Stanley felt the shockwave against his face. The most surprising part was how the pug's normally small mouth now gobbled up the bird completely, and with room to spare.

Caffeine was bigger. A lot bigger. In fact, now he was the one that looked like a grizzly bear... a black grizzly bear... a very cute black grizzly bear. I wasn't imagining it...

Debuff Removed: [Concussed]

Debuff: [Hungry]

Caffeine was abruptly regular size once more and spun around to bark at something.

Stanley didn't see what he was barking at, but put his own back to the window and pushed out in every direction across the wide room.

Small forces punched through the weak pushing effect, but each one told him where to look and Stanley slapped them down before they got too close. Mostly. A large rush of the birds came all at once, and he missed one.

Caffeine handled it with his same tactic of eating the entire thing in one bite, then shrank down and stood in place, growling at the shadows in between heavy panting breaths... He blurred and appeared right next to Stanley, his giant mouth slamming shut on the rear half of a pigeon. The other half of the bird punched into Stanley's side and blasted the air from his lungs while pushing him a dozen feet along the window.

Debuff: [Bleeding]

Before he even stopped sliding, Caffeine had shrunk back down and shot away to take a bite out of another bird.

Everything so far had happened in seconds, from the first attack until the present moment, and Stanley was only falling further behind as he struggled to pull in a breath. The pigeons were too fast and too many to keep track of... so he stopped trying to track them and instead slammed his power against everything on the entire floor, pushing it down with the same crushing force he'd used in the store.

Cubicles collapsed, useless computers shattered, and desks crumbled into little more than metal pancakes. Six sharp objects fell down with everything else.

Unfortunately his wide attack fell short of the power necessary to stop the birds and they never reached the ground.

Wings flickered as they stabilized, and all six shot towards Stanley once again with deadly intent.

Caffeine barked, and two birds spiraled into the carpet.

Stanley was already pushing against the others, trying to catch and crush them. He slapped one down... and was out of time.

So he moved himself instead.

Stanley didn't need conscious thought to move his own body, as he'd learned in the last couple days. Sure, it helped occasionally, but often he moved simply from the desire to be somewhere else. This time, he added a bit more effort.

He dodged the last three birds, moving faster than he thought possible, and... they swerved back on target with only a flicker of flapping wings.

That was unexpected, and Stanley didn't have time for anything else, his mind still recognizing the threat and not ready to block. He tried anyway in a useless...

Caffeine appeared in the last instant, his fur stinging Stanley's nose as it brushed past at impossible speeds. He was big again, and his mouth closed over one pigeon while the rest of his body blocked Stanley's view of the other two entirely.

In nearly the same instant, he crashed sideways into Stanley, slamming him back against the windows... and crying out in pain.

Not again...

Caffeine pulled away, staggered a few feet, shrinking with each step, and then collapsed on his side in a spreading pool of blood that soaked rapidly into the carpet.

Two birds fell from his flesh as he shrank, neither moving.

Stanley sat frozen in shock. He was still struggling to keep up with the lightning quick pigeons and it took a moment for the reality of the situation to catch up to him.

It was good and bad. Good, because Caffeine had taken the hits meant for him. Again. Bad, because of the same reason. Plus, the holes in the pug's flesh looked so big...

He would heal. Stanley knew he would heal, and if Caffeine's healing worked anything like his own, which Stanley was sure it did, then he just needed some food... or a lot of food.

Stanley found the pack at a glance, and yanked it over, pulling food out in the process, and straight to Caffeine's mouth. He arrived next to Caffeine at the same time as the food, his hands pressing down over the two massive holes, one in his chest and the other in his stomach.

Caffeine whimpered from the contact of Stanley's hands on his wounds... and he didn't eat the food in front of his nose.

Eat! Eat, damn you...

Wings fluttered faintly in the distance, and Stanley's confusion and frantic terror finally shifted into a more useful emotion. Rage.

It came easily, and Stanley felt his power grow along with the anger. He noted that tidbit as monsters zeroed in on them, but the thought was distant... unimportant. He had a more pressing issue. He had to protect Caffeine.

Stanley was pissed, and he wanted nothing more than to tear every fucking pigeon into little pieces while they screamed and begged for mercy... but... he wanted to protect Caffeine more. The pug had just fought and defended him without hesitation. Willingly taking wounds that might be... No! He would be fine after some food and rest.

Which meant it was time to leave.

Unfortunately, they were too far from any open windows. Stanley had brought them too deep into the building like an idiot, and now unbreakable glass trapped them inside the deathtrap of a lair.

Had the pigeons planned this? It sure felt like it. A trap just for him, and he'd flown right into it. The question was, how fast could he fly back up the stairs... or did he need to?

Stanley had tested the windows the day before, and actually chipped one with his knife. He hadn't been F-grade at the time either... So Stanley threw both of his knives at the nearest floor to ceiling window and put all of his helpless rage into the strike.

You have attacked a Lair structure. All Lair residents notified.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The glass cracked as Stanley pounded his will against it. One knife shattered, but the other dug in and sent cracks shooting across the window in a massive spider web of breaking glass. But it didn't actually finish the job. He pushed harder.

Fucking break! The flapping wings were getting louder... and Stanley screamed wordlessly at the window.

The web of cracks spread further, stretching out to the very edge... and then shattered in a beautiful spray of twinkling shards.

Stanley was outside before the glass started its descent to the ground below. He was hundreds of feet above the building a second later, and it was nothing more than a small rectangle far below when he stopped thousands of feet higher. Caffeine rode in his lap, and Stanley was still putting pressure on his wounds, though he didn't know how much that really mattered.

It was an immense relief when Caffeine finally started eating the offered food.

Stanley had brought the only food bag along, and he doled out everything to see what Caffeine wanted. He just wished he'd had more...

Caffeine wanted anything and everything, and Stanley wasn't stingy. What Caff wanted, Caff got.

They could go shopping again... even if the idea of going back into the store made him sick. Stanley would do it. He would go back a thousand times if that was what it took.

Luckily, none of the pigeons seemed willing to chase him this high, and Caffeine ate uninterrupted. He also ate everything they had and then passed out. Stanley didn't even eat any himself. Which he was perfectly fine with. How could he not be? He just needed to restock, and they'd be good to go.

When he dropped back down, Stanley found himself further north, closer to the truck stop he'd started this whole shitshow at. In the rushed escape, he'd flown off target from the intended straight up. It worked out better than expected, though, because he saw another supercenter nearby. Which meant he wouldn't have to go back to the last one... He really didn't want to go back there.

Unlike the previous store, this one had a real crowd outside. Dozens, at least, or hundreds...

Stanley landed at the edge of the parking lot, hopefully before anyone saw him. While it was unlikely that psycho bitch had made it this far to spread rumors about a flying man, he didn't want to risk a fight with Caffeine still out of it. A little walking wouldn't hurt.

Caffeine was limp in his arms as he walked. Completely limp. It was unnerving... and a little scary. If it wasn't for the lack of wounds, and that Stanley could still hear and feel his heartbeat, he would have been much more terrified. Still, he hadn't ever seen Caffeine this tired... Even the voices growing in volume didn't cause the slightest stir....

"...store has been claimed by the Iron Fists," a voice was saying when Stanley got close enough. "If you really want something from inside, then you have two options. Pay with cores, or join up with our group."

A lot of people didn't appreciate the offer, Stanley included. Though he was much less vocal than the others. The name of their little group didn't help inspire confidence either...

The original speaker let the shouting go on, but another voice chimed in after only a few seconds, yelling, "We killed the monsters in the store. None of you fought for it. We did. So shut the fuck up or I'll make you shut up!"

"He's right," the first speaker said. "We fought for this. If you don't have the class or skills to fight, then you would have probably died in there. If you can fight, then pay with a core, or better yet, join us."

More muttering followed, this time with less yelling. Still, it wasn't looking promising as a source of food. At least if he didn't want to fight a bunch of people for it.

"You've all seen the monsters out there," the first speaker said. "Don't think they're gone just cause you don't see them now. They went into the lairs, and you can bet they'll come back out."

Stanley wormed his way through the crowd, senses on full alert for a knife in his back, until he could see the speakers guarding the front door. The force comprised only a few men, all armed with knives and large blades, and they stood with those blades bared before the crowd.

"If you have a useful class, or even just a skill, you can join us. Our leader is already an F-grade, and the rest of us will be there soon."

Only one of them was F-grade after all this time? Was the guy scamming them? Honestly, it sounded suspiciously like they were looking for people with skills worth killing them for. Sure, it was possible they weren't that murderous. The whole crowd was still alive, so that was something.

Unfortunately, Stanley had grabbed none of the cores from those fast birds. He could probably fly off and find something real quick...

"How bout you, sir?" the first man said, staring right at Stanley.

"How about what?"

"Do you have any good skills? Or did you want to trade a core?"

"I'm not telling you my skills," Stanley said, though he considered it briefly before ultimately deciding against the idea. It wasn't like he would join them, and showing off might simply make them want to kill him like the last group. "Are you hoarding the dog food?" he asked instead. It wasn't an ideal solution, but he wanted to have something in case Caffeine woke up hungry.

"That might be okay..." the first man said while looking at Caffeine with an expression lots of people used when seeing the pug. Caffeine was adorable.

"Dog food's extra," the second man said. "Two cores for one bag."

Stanley stared at him in shock. What the hell was his problem? Did he hate dogs or something? Or were people already desperate enough to eat dog food? That couldn't be right... sure, the supply chains were broken, which meant shelves would be empty in a few days, but it was only the second day.

While he stood there considering whether to start a fight or go somewhere else, Caffeine's head flopped to the side limply, and Stanley gently caught it and pressed the pug back to his chest. Sleep well...

"That's not..." the first man said while glaring at the other guy.

The second man interrupted. "I'm in charge here, Ethan." He shifted the glare from Ethan and back to Stanley. "You know what? Now you don't get shit. You're banned. So take your dead dog and fuck off!"

Stanley flinched and looked down at Caffeine with a suddenly racing pulse. He wasn't... he couldn't! No... the guy didn't know what he was talking about. Caffeine was fine. He was still sleeping. Stanley closed his eyes and hugged him a little tighter.

Then his brain replayed the man's words and saw them in a new light. His eyes snapped open. It wasn't a mistake or confusion. The man had just threatened to kill Caffeine!

~~~Ethan~~~

The angry mob yelled and bitched at them, but Ethan didn't know what they expected him to do. He was just another pawn here, and he needed to survive, too. If any of these people didn't like it, they could complain to Carl. That was the best way for them to understand the new reality they now lived in. It was hard to deny the truth when someone wrapped steel bars around you like they were play-dough.

The man asking for dog food wasn't shouting or yelling, but he was bloodied. Then again, who wasn't these days? He had a scruffy homeless look to him, with torn clothes and a limp dog in his arms. Poor bastard.

Dogs weren't doing well these days. Ethan knew all too well about that. His own pit, Daisy, had saved his life, saved his whole family when the rats came through the door... and she'd paid with her life to stop the tide. Too many of his neighbors had the same story.

"That might be okay..." Ethan said. They could let him through. If all the guy really wanted was dog food, then it was no big deal. Someone would watch him inside, anyway...

"Dog food costs extra!" Dan said. "Two cores for one bag."

Ethan winced as the dog's head flopped sideways before the man caught it with a hand. Poor bastard indeed. Maybe he'd met the rats too. Though it was kind of a shitty move if he was using his dead dog as a ploy to steal food... Still, he'd give him the benefit of the doubt. "That's not..."

"I'm in charge here, Ethan," Dan said. "You know what? Now you don't get shit. You're banned. So take your dead dog and fuck off!" Dan really was an asshole. The dick was drunk on power, and he wasn't even powerful! Just because Carl put him in charge, he thought he was somehow better than everyone else.

As for the other man, he visibly flinched at Dan's words and looked down at the dog in his arms. It was a pug, Ethan always loved...

When the man looked up from his dog, his eyes had changed. Gone was the tired and disheveled man, and in his place stood a monster wearing human skin. Dan knew at that moment, and with absolute certainty, that everyone here was going to die.

+1 Wisdom

"Are you threatening my dog?" the man asked, and Ethan could hear the promise of death in those words.

"I'm telling you to fuck off or I will do more than threaten your dog!" Dan yelled in his face, then looked back into the store, still yelling. "Carl, we got another..."

Dan was truly an idiot. How could he not see what stood in front of them? Carl wouldn't be able to save them from this. They needed to run, now! Only... he couldn't move. He couldn't breathe! Something was crushing his throat. I should have punched that idiot when I had the chance...

"I'm going to give my dog anything and everything he wants to eat," the man said quietly enough that Ethan strained to hear over the blood roaring in his ears. "Then I'm going to take whatever I can carry. If any of you try to stop me... if you look at me wrong... if you look at my dog again... I'll fucking kill all of you!"

The man was growling by the time he finished, and he floated up into the air as he spoke, crossed his legs, and set the pug gently in his lap. Then he flew past them into the store.

Ethan didn't want to die like this... but the world was going dark as the grip around his throat only tightened. He shouldn't have joined up here... Hooli had wanted to hunt the rats in their neighborhood. He'd even invited Ethan to go with him... that would have been...

Then, abruptly, he was free. He and all the other guards fell to the floor, gasping for air and choking as they pawed at their necks, but they were still alive...

"Carl..." Dan screamed in a hoarse voice, and Ethan punched him as hard as he could in the jaw. The pain in his knuckles was completely worth it to see that idiot flop to the floor.

Then he ran for his life.

This damn job wasn't worth it; he would be better off hunting the rats in the lair near his apartment. At least there he had a chance to survive, a chance to get stronger. This was just suicide.

Ethan was halfway across the parking lot when Carl went sailing past him, bounced a few times off the pavement, then fetched up against a signpost. Ethan didn't slow. His former boss was wheezing and bloodied, but surprisingly, not dead.

Ethan ran faster. Maybe Hooli would still be willing to team up. While he wasn't any kind of genius, his neighbor knew when to talk shit and when to keep his mouth shut. He wouldn't have insulted that monster.

~~~Stanley~~~

Stanley dropped the door guards when a man came flying toward him with a glowing fist. While the attempted punching was a nice change from people trying to stab him, it wasn't much better.

Luckily, the guy wasn't a strong F-grade, and his head bounced nicely off the ground. Stanley was about to spin that same head around a few times when he glimpsed... was it Ethan? Whoever it was, he slugged the shit out of the asshole at the door and took off running.

The sight of that prick getting punched out cooled Stanley's rage enough that he hesitated to kill the man before him. Sure, he'd attacked him... but that might have only been a defensive reaction. Plus, he was already unconscious...

Stanley threw him out the door and then went shopping. He wasn't planning to be greedy before, but after that reception, he felt no qualms. He loaded up.

The whole claimed building shtick seemed to have collapsed while he was shopping, and there were no guards when Stanley left. The crowd was gone too, though some of them had run inside despite the show.

He flew into the sky with two new backpacks on top of his original, and all three stuffed with food. Caffeine was awake and eating the chicken nuggets eagerly. He'd perked up almost immediately after they went inside, which was one reason Stanley hadn't killed that fucking idiot who attacked him. At least, he didn't think he'd killed him... a little throw like that shouldn't hurt an F-grade.

Caffeine ate three more boxes before he'd had enough and then passed out. Stanley stroked the sleeping pug as he gazed down at the building he'd run from earlier.

The fuckers in there had hurt Caffeine, and he would not let it go so easily.

Stanley could see the window he'd broken through to escape, and he didn't want to make it that easy for the damn pigeons... so he went to the opposite side of the building, and hovered outside the nearly unbreakable glass.

He'd noticed something earlier. His power didn't care about solid barriers like those super windows the lair had. He could reach right through the glass without issue.

So Stanley did just that as Caffeine dozed in his lap. He sent his power inside the building in a relatively gentle sweep and got exactly the response he was looking for.

Fuck you!

As soon as something moved in his touch, Stanley crushed down on it, squeezing hard enough that even the stupidly fast pigeons couldn't escape. He squished multiple things he couldn't see but guessed to be the birds as he went floor by floor down the side of the building. On a floor two down from where he'd escaped, Stanley found much greater numbers, including an unusually large bird that resisted his power even more than the rest.

It still broke when he twisted its head around a few times.

Stanley went on from there, all the way to the ground, and then made another sweep back to the roof. When nothing else responded, he finally went inside.

Still nothing attacked him as he descended back through the building, and he collected the few cores he could spot easily. He wasn't about to go searching through the whole building.

When he got to where the big bird had been, a new message popped up.

The Queen is dead, but the eggs remain, and a new Queen will rise if they are not destroyed.

Stanley could see the eggs. There had to be hundreds of them covering the floor. Maybe even thousands. What the fuck...

He smashed them all.

Lair [Winged Citadel] Destroyed.

Lair structure may be claimed by new occupants for the next (23:59:55)

The Queen pigeon had dropped a core, but it wasn't any different from what the little fucks dropped. However, the core he found in the doorway after he'd killed all the eggs. Now that was different.

Skill Shard[F-grade]

Winged Slash (Uncommon)

User generates a powerful gust of wind from their wings and unleashes it forward into a cutting slash.

Requirements:

Winged Physique(Requirement Not Met)

Wind Aspect Mana(Requirement Not Met)

Adapt to Skill(-50% Adaptable) Y/N?

Adapt Skill(-1% Adaptable) Y/N?

Destroy and Consume Shard to gain +2 All Base Attributes

It wasn't terrible, aside from the cost to learn it, but it had greater implications beyond merely the skill. First, there were the requirements and the adapt to skill bit he’d seen before... What was weird was considering what would happen if he chose that option. Would he get a winged physique if he chose it. Would that give him wings? Turn him into a bird? Birdman? Not that he would actually take the option, but the fact it was there...

Secondly, and more helpful for his current needs, was that lairs dropped loot if you destroyed them. Or so it seemed.

Stanley held off on destroying the skill just yet. He wanted to consider it first. A cutting attack, depending on what it turned into, might be better than a knife.

While he thought about it, Stanley went looking for more lairs inside skyscrapers. He had a new strategy now, and he wanted to get Caffeine to F-grade today. Ideally, with no injuries to slow them down.