~~~Arthur~~~

Arthur huddled low and once again questioned the decisions that led him to this place. He glanced behind him at Samantha, who met his gaze with wide, terrified eyes. Jerry, beside her, looked better. Stoic in the face of their impending doom. All three of them had stuck together since this started. Arthur, to protect Samantha, as for Jerry... he didn't know why the man had stayed. Or why he'd followed them out here.

He turned away from them to look back at the sky where a battle of titanic proportions was taking place. A flight of dragons. What else do you call giant scaly monsters breathing out streams of incandescent steam? Especially when one of them was the size of a jumbo jet. Even now, the temperature in the alley was climbing and he could feel sweat running down his back.

The dragon's opponent, if you could call it that, was a huge ball. A ball that hung even more impossibly in the sky than the dragons and shot them down with smaller pieces of itself. It was a riot of violence and destruction, and cowering in the alley below, they were just ants hiding from the storm.

It wasn’t until one projectile crashed into the wall of the alley that Arthur realized what they were. Engine blocks. The flying ball of death was made out of engine blocks... That made no sense. What the hell was happening up there!?

He pushed further back against Samantha, trying to shield her with his body. For all the good it would do. Arthur had never felt stronger, not even in his youth, but he doubted it was enough to take a flying engine block to the face.

More debris landed in the alley and the street outside, chunks of metal and dragons alike. The dragons looked rather like owls when their crushed bodies smashed into the ground. Owls covered in scales rather than feathers, and their bodies radiating heat.

Somehow, nothing landed on them, and the fight above wound down as the numbers diminished. Blasts of noise and superheated steam still sent shockwaves thrumming through his bones, and they were all drenched in sweat when only the giant owl-dragon still stood against the ball of metal.

Arthur wasn't sure who he wanted to win... The dragon might eat them, but he didn't know what a ball of metal would do. Then he could only curse silently as the battle loomed closer and closer. His meager magic was pointless in the surrounding cacophony. What good was muffling their sound in this environment? They would all cook before the monsters even noticed. He kept humming anyway.

He missed the finale of the fight, his head down and eyes squeezed shut as shockwaves and nails on a chalkboard screeching made his teeth ache. Impacts struck all around, and he waited for the inevitable and sudden crushing pain that would signal the end.

It was only the ensuing silence that led him finally to open his eyes. That, and the small sound of something... whimpering.

"It's a puppy!" Samantha's cry sounded simultaneously too faint, and also deafening in the ringing silence as she pushed past him.

"Wait..." Arthur belatedly scrambled after her. There were no more puppies in this world. It was no doubt a horrifying monster that would tear them apart. Only... it was a puppy... or at least a small dog. A pug, by the looks of it, and it was crying over the corpse of a half-melted man.

"Hi, puppy. I'm so sorry about your friend..." Samantha spoke in that same bubbly voice that served her so well with customers in the restaurant what felt like a lifetime ago. All the while, she tried to comfort the incessantly crying dog.

Arthur only stood frozen in place as he stared at the corpse and the engine blocks scattered all around them. It was a human. That flying orb fighting against the dragons was a human. It was impossible. Humans weren't that powerful. They couldn't be!

Jerry pushed past him, breaking him from his stupor as the man headed for the mouth of the alley and the massive corpse that now blocked it.

"What... where..." Arthur's voice came out hoarse, and he struggled for words as his mind grappled with impossible realizations.

"Meat," Jerry said. "Dog saved us. Gonna feed it. Keep it happy."

That... made no sense. Had Jerry cracked? The pug saved them? What was he on about? Motion caught his eye, and Arthur turned his head before freezing in place. Not because he wanted to, but because he could no longer move.

A crushing weight had descended onto him. Suffocating pressure squeezed him tighter and tighter, and the corpse rose slowly into the air, its stark white spine and ribs showing brightly from the ruined flesh and he thought he could see organs in the burned and melted flesh of its lower back.

Arthur could only stare as blood pounded in his ears and the zombie turned slowly to face them. It had half of a face, only a hole where one of its eyes should be. The remaining eye blazed with a baleful violet light that promised only death.

The dog cried, barely audible over the roaring in his ears as his skull threatened to implode and his ribs creaked. The dog was licking the corpse's ruined face... and then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The deadly light winked out as the eye shut, and the corpse fell to the ground.

Then Arthur could move again. Could breathe again.

He was still gasping for air when Samantha's voice cut through the shocked silence. "He's still alive! Arthur, we have to help him!" Help him? The corpse? How? Why... what? "It's okay, puppy. We'll help your friend."

Arthur climbed back to his feet with a herculean effort and forced numb legs to move as he approached the girl. He froze again when his eyes landed on the pug. The pug that had been licking the floating corpse's face. The face that had been a good ten feet above the ground at the time... The dog had been huge... or maybe he was losing his mind...

His gaze tracked slowly over to Jerry, the man working to carve flesh from the giant corpse, and seemingly unbothered by what had just happened. Along the way, Arthur again noticed the scattered engine blocks that carpeted the alley. They spread evenly across the ground in all but a couple of places. There were gaps around the not quite corpse of a man, and the small corner that they'd been cowering in.

"Arthur!" Samantha's shout brought his attention back, and he trudged robotically closer. She wanted to help the... man? He was mostly sure it was a man... or had been. But what could they do? The guy looked like a lobster. An overcooked lobster at that.

Samantha gently and gingerly rolled him over, and Arthur saw that his chest and stomach were relatively unblemished. The skin was pink and likely burned, but nothing compared to the melted flesh of his back and face. She aborted the attempt and lay him back on his stomach, turning his head so he could breathe. If he even was breathing...

Arthur swallowed the bile in his throat as he stood above the duo and marveled at her ability to touch the thing. "We can't help..."

"Sing him a song," Samantha whispered, her voice barely audible over the dog's whining. "Something happy... something to tell him that his dog is okay."

Arthur realized he was still humming, and he shifted the tune at her request. He never could deny her a song. How she knew what the man would want, Arthur didn't question. Samantha had a knack for people. As long as he'd known her, she could always read the room, and always knew the right song to cheer someone up or calm a rowdy group. His best guess was that she'd probably guessed his relatively undamaged chest and stomach had been where the dog was during the fight.

He was still trying to come to grips that this man had been fighting that monster. That humans could even be powerful enough to do something like that. But Arthur sang him a song while Samantha pet the pug and gently stroked the man's head where a patch of dark hair remained.

The smell of roasting meat came from behind him, and Arthur prayed it wouldn't attract more monsters even as his mouth watered. He didn't question how Jerry got a fire going so fast. The man had been a wizard in the kitchen before the apocalypse, and he was even better now. Even without an actual kitchen...

Jerry didn't offer any food to Arthur or Samantha, which was fine with Arthur. His stomach was still in knots. Instead, the man offered it to the dog, who accepted the food eagerly... then dropped it on and in front of the not quite dead man's face and nosed it toward his mouth.

"You'll have to wait for him to wake up, puppy," Samantha said. "Don't worry. I'm sure he'll be fine. He's getting better already!"

Arthur blinked in surprise and his singing stuttered as he realized she was right. The undamaged flesh on his chest was spreading around the sides and creeping onto his back.

Jerry brought more food despite the dog's refusal to eat, and it piled in front of the man's face as the dog continued to shove it there.

A new worry crept into Arthur's mind as he watched the impossible healing speed. What was to stop this person from killing them if... or more and more likely now, when he recovered? "Samantha, I think we should..." His voice choked off when one still boiled and burned hand shot up to grab a fistful of roasted meat. It vanished into the man's mouth, followed rapidly by the rest of the pile.

Then that blazing eye opened and locked onto Samantha. A hand shot toward her before Arthur could react... and the pug seemed to appear between them, his body blocking the reaching hand.

What followed happened in a blur that he only caught glimpses of.

Snarling, bestial sounds of hunger and rage.

Hands reaching for Samantha, Arthur, and even Jerry as the formerly dying man shot through the air.

A black pug that always seemed to be in just the right spot to intercept the grasping hands... a pug that grew impossibly larger or smaller as it shielded them from each strike.

The blindingly fast attack ended when the injured man plunged both hands into the bloody hole Jerry had carved into the scaled owl. Then he ripped into the corpse, shoveling fistfuls of raw carrion into his mouth as fast as he could. The entire giant corpse shook and shivered as the man dug deeper with gory enthusiasm.

Jerry took the skewered meat from the fire, setting them on an engine block next to him, and then backed away rather than going for more. He left his knives next to the meat. A choice that Arthur was of a mixed mind on. Jerry was probably the best suited to defend them, even if his class wasn't actually combat focused, but it was also unlikely any of them had a chance against this monster of a man.

So instead, they all waited nervously, trapped in the alley, while the ravenous man went to town on his meal of raw, bloody meat.

~~~Stanley~~~

Stanley relished in the most delicious food he'd ever tasted. Until it lost the savory flavor and started tasting like blood.

Debuff Downgraded: [Starving]

He stepped back, nearly climbing out of the bloody carcass with only a little nausea. Caffeine was waiting when he emerged, looking up with a wagging tail and only faint whimpering. "It's all yours..." Stanley froze when he saw the three humans staring at him. Then his gaze darted around the alley.

There was a crackling fire, cooked meat on the engine block beside it, and knives glittering sharply beside the food. One of the trio was humming... an annoying sound... and one with magic in it.

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"Stop that!" Stanley's voice sounded raw, and each word clawed at his throat.

One man flinched, and the humming cut off, only to start up again immediately. Stanley grabbed all of them, squeezing... Caffeine bounded between them, huge and blocking his view of the humans. He was also licking his face with excited and happy noises.

It hurt.

Stanley really looked at the pug then. Looked for damage or lingering wounds. He found nothing. Not even a patchy spot in his fur where an injury might have already healed. His arms went up and wrapped around the pug as Caffeine shrank to fit in his embrace. He ignored the pain signals coming from... everywhere and held the pug close. All the pain was completely worth it. "Good boy."

Caffeine made more happy noises and refused to settle down, eventually forcing Stanley to let him go. That left him staring at the trio of humans still held immobile in his mental grasp as his stomach growled and Caffeine bounced around excitedly.

A graying older man, a blonde bimbo, and a greasy looking dark-haired younger man. All of them were filthy and looked scared. Well, the younger man just looked annoyed...

Stanley's gaze wandered to the meat beside the fire, drawn by his still growing hunger and the healing injuries that were fueling it. He let the others go and snatched up the meat, trying and failing to not devour it like he was starving. One man immediately started forward, the greasy one.

He paused at Stanley's glare, but still didn't look scared. "You want it cooked or not?" he said. "Or you can just keep eating the raw shit. I don't give a fuck either way."

Stanley watched him for a second as the last piece of meat vanished down his throat. It tasted good... and he was still starving. "Cooked."

The man shrugged and continued his approach, snatching up a knife as he passed and then heading for the corpse. He didn't react to Stanley floating into the air and keeping his distance, only went to work cutting meat and sticking it onto the skewers.

"See," the woman's voice said behind him, "I told you he would be okay! Who's a good boy? You're a good boy!"

Stanley turned to see her crouched and petting Caffeine as he squirmed happily and tried to lick her laughing face. It was suspicious... Why was she smiling? Did she have an ambush waiting!? Stanley pushed his mind out, spreading his mental touch through the alley, then inside the buildings and onto the neighboring roofs.

He crushed and squeezed anything that felt suspicious... but nothing reacted to his probing. Only the people in the alley reacted, mostly when everything around them shook and or flattened into the ground. The older man stiffened and stopped humming again. The cook grunted and kept working, and the woman smiled up at him before looking back at Caffeine. "You must have your little paws full with taking care of him all the time, don't you, puppy?"

She stood up with a last smile and a pet for Caffeine. "I'm Samantha. What's your name, and what's this little cutie's name?"

Stanley stared at her, trying to figure out what her angle was. What all of their angles were. They'd clearly had the opportunity to do... something. He couldn't quite remember the end of the fight... just a lot of screaming as he pummeled the shit out of that thing.

He had clearly been unconscious for a minute following the fight. They had weapons... though Caffeine wouldn't have let them hurt him. Especially considering how weak they all were. Plus, they had to have seen some of his fight with those fucking birds... A given since he'd apparently crash landed almost on top of them.

Caffeine was being... friendly. Not an unusual sight; the pug loved everyone and anyone, especially if they had food. But the end of the world had changed things... It was a good sign that he wasn't growling at any of them. Maybe they'd fed him? Caffeine had always been susceptible to bribery with food.

"Caffeine," Stanley finally said, and the woman's face lit up.

"Caffeine! Is that because you are super energetic or because you like naps?" she asked the pug, crouching to pet him again.

Stanley didn't actually remember where Caffeine had gotten his name; another thing lost on that day. But... Caffeine did love his naps... "Why are you here, Sam? Why are you all helping me?"

She frowned up at him, hands stilling on Caffeine, and Stanley saw the older man wince behind her. "It's Samantha, not Sam."

"I don't care what your stupid name is. Why are you here?"

Samantha sighed and stood. "You dragged that monster on top of us... and honestly? I thought you were dead..." Her voice trailed off as she studied him with a look that didn't match the dumb blonde vibe he'd first attributed to her. "I wanted to help Caffeine." She smiled down at the dog, then shifted her gaze back to Stanley, her smile growing even more brilliant. "But the fact you could survive those injuries is wonderful! I can't imagine how sad Caffeine would be without you..."

Was she hoping to steal Caffeine? Maybe she'd seen his strength and wanted to lure him away... that would be a smart move on her part. Aside from her inevitable death when Stanley caught up.

He turned away from her to glare at the older man, who had been silent the entire time, aside from his incessant humming. "Stop fucking humming! Your magic won't work on me, and if it starts to, I'll fucking kill you!" The man stiffened as his humming cut off.

Caffeine whined.

Samantha opened her mouth, but a voice behind Stanley spoke first. "Lay off the old fart. He can't help it when he's nervous, and he's always nervous. Especially since he followed our little tree-hugger Samantha out here to die. Oh, and don't call her Sam. She hates that."

Stanley turned on the cook, now back over the fire. "What's your deal, then? You aren't nervous?" He tried to glare at the man, but his eyes stayed locked on the roasting meat.

"Jerry. I cook, and no, I'm not nervous. We were dead for sure before you showed up, and we'll probably die once you leave. Nothing I can do about it either way."

It was an accurate statement. "Is that why you're cooking for me? Hoping I'll save you?" Stanley had no intention of making his own group. He could cook his own meat, and worst case, he could eat it raw... which he was more and more tempted to do as the healing itch crawled over his body behind the fading pain.

"Nah," Jerry said, glancing up and pointing toward Caffeine. "Your dog protected us when you dropped a shit ton of fucking metal on our heads. Figured I'd thank him for that... also, didn't want to get on his bad side if he decided to eat us... or if you did."

He looked back at Stanley. "Not that I would say no to some help... but don't expect me to grovel and call you master or some shit like that." He glanced back at the others. "You take us with you and I'll cook anything and everything you want... though I could do a lot better if you have an actual grill setup in your base. Wherever that is."

"No." Stanley yanked the meat from the skewers in case the guy decided to throw it in the dirt or something. It was still beyond rare... but sooo good! Maybe they were spies sent to find out where he slept?

"Figured," Jerry said, seeming not at all put out as he went back to carving meat from the corpse.

Stuffing more food into his mouth, Stanley remembered... the hunger. He had actually tried to eat them... but Caffeine kept getting in the way... blocking him until he ended up eating the bird instead. Good boy. Caffeine really was the best dog. Stanley was also beyond relieved that even in his ravenous state he'd never seen the pug as food... that would be... too much.

He forced those thoughts from his mind and sent the last skewer back to hover over the fire. It tasted like blood…

"So, Sam, how are any of you still alive? Is the old fart hiding some powerful magic? Or are you the muscle?"

She narrowed her eyes at him and then glanced at Caffeine, who was now sitting attentively at Jerry's feet. He must have decided his human was okay and was now ready to eat as well. "No," Samantha said. "Arthur's a Musician, with a voice like an angel. And I'm an Arborist, not a tree-hugger."

"You control trees?" Stanley asked, glancing around to make sure there weren't any nearby. There weren't. They were in an alley... but just in case, he floated higher above the ground and pulled Caffeine into his lap. She might only be biding her time while sending roots through the ground.

Samantha watched him and shook her head. "You've met some terrible people, haven't you?" Stanley stared at her. He wouldn't fall for whatever trick she was planning.

"We're not all like that, mister..." Stanley waited, gaze jumping over the others just in case. She sighed. "No, I can't control trees. But I can communicate with them. It's how I got..." She turned toward the back of the alley, gaze on the ground as if she was looking for something. Then she tapped on an engine block. "Can you move this?"

She watched it fly up to hover above her head in a clear threat, but only smiled sweetly at him. Too sweet. She was definitely hiding something. Her smile faded when she looked down. "Aw, you broke it." What looked like a wooden spear was in her hands when she stood up. Broken in half.

"I'm not apologizing for that," Stanley told her, yanking the meat back from the fire as Jerry set up more skewers. "It's not my fault you are too weak to protect yourself from a mere chunk of metal."

"Oh, it's okay. I can get another one." She smiled at him with that same suspicious innocence.

"Mind if we eat some of this, too?" Jerry asked. "I can always roast up more if you don't mind waiting, and it's been a long day."

Were they trying to delay him? Maybe the ambush wasn't ready yet? Did they need to bring in more people after seeing how powerful he was? Maybe Caffeine had made them more wary... "I want those." Stanley nodded at the fire. "You can have the next."

They had seen him eating under the Ravenous debuff, and healing from heavy injuries. They might have guessed that he needed food from that alone. It didn't track that they would keep feeding him if they had an ambush coming... unless they were just buying time for the actual attackers to show up.

He flew to the rear of the alley and pressed his back to the wall, pushing his mind out in a wide sphere in all directions. He wouldn't be able to feel everything he was touching, but if anything moved, he would notice.

Samantha watched him, looking... sad, but said nothing. Instead, she turned to the older man. "Come on, Arthur. It's okay. Why don't you sing us a song?"

Arthur only glanced at her before looking back at Stanley. "I use magic to affect sound. It shouldn't do anything to you..." He finally spoke for the first time.

Stanley watched him warily. He had an unpleasant history with sound magic and the mere suggestion of it set his teeth on edge... but maybe it was better to just get their attack over with?

He nodded once at the so-called musician, his mental touch hovering around the man in preparation. Arthur would die the moment Stanley saw the debuff...

Arthur shivered and looked away to stare at Samantha instead. Then he sang. "If I could save time in a bottle..."

His magic didn't quite add music to his singing, but it did something close.

Stanley closed his eyes. Samantha was right. Arthur really did have the voice of an angel, and he almost lashed out when he felt tears welling up... but there was no debuff. It wasn't magic. Not the magic of this new world, at least. It was just the old magic of good music. How he'd missed this... It felt like an entire lifetime ago that he'd last listened to anything...

He opened his eyes, blinking away the moisture, and renewed his attention on their surroundings while the man sang. It might be another trick to distract him. Extra noise to drown out the sound of people approaching.

Still, nothing moved in his mental touch, and Stanley found himself watching the man as he crooned.

Jerry eventually waved, and Stanley took the meat as the man set up another batch over the fire.

Caffeine was more than happy to share.

Meanwhile, Samantha stood with her eyes closed, smiling and dancing slightly to the song. Oblivious to the danger all around her. Idiot.

Arthur watched her as he sang, a look on his face that Stanley couldn't quite place. Either he was pining after her... or maybe the affection of a father... or grandfather. Hopefully, he wasn't just an old pervert.

Stanley distracted himself by finally checking his notifications. He was pleased to see he hadn't almost died this time. Sure, it was a lot of damage, but none of it had been at the level of his more dangerous misadventures. He even earned another free vitality out of it.

Those fucking things had jumped him out of nowhere... even his engine armor hadn't been quite enough. Especially against the big one... None of that mattered, though. He'd won and kept Caffeine safe while doing it. A little pain was nothing compared to that.

There was a new notification he hadn't seen before...

Title Earned: [Titan Slayer]

[Titan Slayer]

You have defeated a Sky King in solo battle. Hunt more King ranked creatures to increase the effect.

+10% All Base Attributes

Not too shabby. Extra points were always nice, and it would help make up for his negative physical attributes. It meant more hits he could take to keep Caffeine safe.

The song ended. Samantha clapped and begged for another. Stanley ignored them and flew to the mouth of the alley, searching for the big monster's core. It wasn't another useless skill, but a core that offered more attributes than he'd seen before.

+1 All Base Attributes

That was... huge. He tried not to think about how far along he'd be if not for the debuff nerfing his cores... of course, he'd probably be dead without the regeneration that came with it. He just needed to find more giant monsters... though this whole recovery downtime was a huge waste. He probably could have hunted another hundred more of the more normal monsters in the time he'd wasted here...

Engine blocks flew up to encircle him as he gathered up his armor, and three pairs of eyes locked on him when Stanley looked down again. "Thanks for the food," he said. Jerry and Arthur looked away, understanding where this was going. Samantha continued to stare up at him, eyes glistening as she opened her mouth. Stanley wasn't about to fall for whatever game she was playing. "Bye."

He flew away.

Stanley only made it a single block before Caffeine's screeching whine forced him to shield his ears. It didn't help. The pug barely even paused for breath as his head swiveled between Stanley and the alley they'd left behind.

"God damnit, Caff!"