~~~Stanley~~~
"I wanna join your team for this alone! I don't care if you can fight or not! Flying is awesome!"
Stanley ignored the chatter. He'd slept terribly, and now his tired mind was on the souls coming into view ahead. His hands were aching where they wrapped around the spear in a white-knuckled death-grip and his fingers felt weak... slick. A cold sweat that wasn't drying fast enough in the wind of their flight.
He dropped everyone a good distance from the warehouse he'd fled the day before. Then he took himself and Caffeine higher. The pug wouldn't be fighting these things... not until his attributes were much, much higher. Or preferably, never.
It was far easier to pinpoint a target with Soul Sight, and he used it to pick out one of the two monsters just inside the open bay door. That they looked like guards waiting in ambush for someone to enter was not lost on him...
The first one he touched with his mind felt like a praying mantis. A ten foot tall praying mantis... in line with what Nate said. It also shifted at his touch, head turning.
You won't hurt Caffeine... I won't let you touch him! I won't let you even get close! Stanley felt the fear twisting his stomach, and he forced himself to face it. To imagine what his weakness would cost. To fuel his rage. Never, ever touch him!
He snatched the mantis with his power and immediately knew Nate was right about them being E-grade. He dragged the immensely heavy thing through the door before it could react and threw his spear.
A scythe-like claw deflected the spear, and long legs kicked the ground to launch the giant bug into the air directly toward him.
Stanley screamed as he tried to restrain the monster, then dodged aside as it flew through the space he'd been hovering.
There was a noticeable shift in how heavy the thing felt as it entered his domain. Stanley used that increased power to immobilize the flailing limbs and twist its head around repeatedly until it ripped free of the body. The mantis resumed flailing without a head.. and it continued flailing as it crashed back to the ground.
Despite the thrashing, Soul Sight told him it was dead. Then he saw the second monster charging, now well past the door, but it ran after Nate instead. The closer target.
Nate leaned aside from the scythe blow that sent a blade of light carving into the dirt and blasted a glowing fist through its front leg.
At the same time, orange light bloomed around the mantis with ghostly tendrils wrapping around and through it, and Stanley saw its motions slow considerably.
It was James... orange streamers trailed from him to the circle of light beneath the mantis.
Nate took it apart like it was standing still, which, compared to how fast he was moving, it almost was.
No one else got to engage before the monster died. Though it didn't flail around like the one Stanley decapitated, not that it had enough limbs to do so.
It was... quick and easy. Too easy.
Stanley breathed rapidly, his pulse pounding through his head as he watched his flailing mantis finally go still. That... wasn't so bad.
Nate picked up the core and tossed it at him. He didn't even hesitate.
Core Chip(E-grade)
+10 Dexterity
Only a single attribute—literally, in his case.
Stanley paused, his eyes scanning over the souls he could see inside the lair. Not nearly enough to get him even close to E-grade... he'd need hundreds. Whereas someone like Nate...
His hand shook. Then clenched tight around the core.
Nate hadn't attacked him last night. He'd had his chance and not taken it. That had to mean something... had to mean he was trustworthy... right? Caffeine liked him well enough...
What if it was all an act last night? He only wanted my help with...
Except he'd just seen them kill the mantis without his help... So Nate didn't even need him. He could have come here without ever telling him the lair existed.
Stanley pocketed the core and then did the same with his own kill. He didn't need the points just yet... he could think about it.
Then he sent the spear inside and put everything he could into punching it through a mantis' head.
It dodged at the last second. Though he still clipped it. He would have nailed it with the old skill...
The mantis didn't rush for the door this time, only chasing the spear as it looped back around. Stanley didn't want another parry since he didn't know exactly how durable the spear was... Samantha's spear... So he flew it away and headed for the door, leading the mantis outside.
Orange light wrapped it up before it got very far past the threshold, and Nate let the others take shots this time.
Stanley watched and didn't interfere. He wanted to see what they could do.
One man summoned and threw what looked like crystalline spikes. Or glass shards...
Another summoned whips of fire and lashed them against the mantis with a nice snapping sound when they connected.
What looked like white lasers burned holes through the creature, not quickly though, and not cleanly, with the way it was moving around as it charged closer.
Nate punched one of its spindly legs off when it got too close, and the monster turned to attack him instead of chasing the others. He just danced back while weaving around the swiping blows until it gave up and pursued the people still attacking it. Then he did it again.
Stanley waited until it looked almost done before sending his spear after the next one.
He again failed to get the kill, but this time did some real damage by aiming for the larger body and not missing when it tried to dodge. He also drew out two of the creatures instead of just one.
"Low mana!" James yelled as soon as they emerged, and Stanley stared at him in disbelief.
"Going to need help, Stanley!" Nate called while his entire body lit up. He ducked under a scythe-like limb and his fist blurred like it had with the teleporter. The attacking limb flew away mid swing, and then Nate had to dive away from not only the other arm but also the two additional blades coming from the second mantis.
Stanley's whirling spear came in from the rear, and the second bug jumped into the air. His spear went up right after it and shredded the thing's legs in a spray of yellow ichor.
It screeched with a high-pitched sound right before Nate took its head off—a barely heard sound but still extremely irritating. Worse, Stanley saw more motion in his peripheral vision. A glance confirmed what he feared. They were coming. All of them.
"Time to go!" He grabbed everyone and pulled for the sky. The heavy fucking people... "Stop resisting!"
Nate stopped glowing, and it all got a lot easier. Then the monsters boiled through the door. Including one twice again as large as the others...
It swiped at the air... and glowing crescent blades of silver light shot into the sky after them.
Stanley nearly dropped everyone right then... instead, he just dropped lower. Under the attack.
More followed in an almost constant stream of flying blades.
Cursing, Stanley dodged and weaved, descending more than climbing as he traveled further away. Eventually, he dropped below the treeline and veered off to the side.
He heard the destruction in the distance, but none of the attacks made it all the way through the woods to reach their location. So that was nice. Still, he kept moving until the souls were almost beyond the range of his sight.
"Who the hell runs out of mana after two attacks!?" Stanley yelled when he finally dropped everyone what he hoped was a safe distance away.
James glared at him. Along with some of the other casters. "Who doesn't?"
"We didn't all get lucky with a great class..." someone else muttered.
Stanley blinked and looked at Nate. "Seriously?" He'd seen that Tony guy throwing spells way more often...
"No idea how your class works," Nate said. "But lots of people didn't get a combat class. We've scrounged most of these skills from monster cores, and... well, just cause you can learn a skill doesn't make it cheaper to cast."
"Casters," another man said while shaking his head. He was the guy that loved flying... "Everyone wants to do magic instead of just hitting shit the way god intended." He smacked a pipe wrench against his palm for emphasis.
"You're an idiot, Edward," said one of the two women on the team. "Those things would cut you into pieces without James' magic. Probably with it, too..."
"Hey, it was Nate's idea to punch above our weight class like this!"
"Easy guys," Nate said. "We can do this... though having them all charge out en masse was... unexpected."
Stanley frowned at the man. Wasn't knowing the unexpected like his whole deal?
Nate guessed what he was thinking again. "I'm not infallible, Stanley. I knew this would be difficult. Think of that as our warmup run. Now we just need a better strategy for how to deal with them going forward." He looked at James. "Don't we have a silencer at camp?"
This is stupid. I was scared for nothing. Stanley flew a short distance away and reached into the ground. He met far more resistance than usual when trying to pull up enough dirt for a shield. He thought it was just his lower stats at first... until he tried to uproot a tree. It barely budged.
It was an old tree, and he could feel the extensive root system as he pulled on it. He got mad and... let go of the tree. They were still healthy out here... not like the withering ones Samantha had used for her spear...
The trees didn't like them. She'd told him that. Which meant trees could... like things? Or was she just projecting on them?
"Everything alright, Stanley?" Nate said.
"No." Stanley flew up and spent a few moments checking for souls in the direction they'd fled from. He could just make them out, and they weren't following.
Then he flew to an open patch of the woods where a road ran through and ripped it all up. Dirt, rocks, and the mess of crap that made up a road.
He didn't want to kill the trees... He wasn't about to start hugging them like Samantha... but if he didn't need to kill them... He could remember her smile when she made that first spear... by talking to the tree.
"Stanley, wait!"
Her broken smile after he hurt her. Her decapitated head with a slack and bloody face that would never smile again...
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Stanley ignored the man sprinting after him and followed the road, ripping up more and more of it. Until the gathered mass started to feel heavy. Then he remembered Caffeine's pain and sorrow... He picked up more.
He flew back toward those same glowing souls he'd run away from. Toward them, only much higher.
They'd retreated inside already, but that was fine. The first rock shattered on the roof, and the souls boiled into action again, surging for the door.
Stanley made it rain, and the first raindrops hit like boulders, because they were boulders, and they touched down right as the first mantis spilled through the door.
It dodged the first two rocks and got clipped by the third. Likewise, for those that followed it out. None of the rocks hit quite like Nate's punches, but there were a lot of them. Tons of them. Along with a shit-ton of dirt.
Crescent blades shot up at him, and Stanley simply drifted aside the few that punched through his avalanche of descending ruin. He had plenty of time to see them coming from his height.
Then he flew away to gather more.
This time, the mantis leader didn't retreat. Probably because he'd just buried the whole front half of its warehouse lair. Along with all of its minions. He suspected it was the one who'd known where he was when the rocks fell. A smart bug. The worst kind.
Stanley changed his plan as it pursued him across the ground. He led it toward Nate instead.
The guy had his intuition. He would know it was coming, right? The team should have had time enough to regenerate some mana. Maybe they could still do something useful.
He saw Nate's soul sprint out ahead of the others to intercept the incoming monster, and the magic blades stopped flying into the sky.
So Stanley flew down, spear leading the way, targeting the bright green soul that smelled like sharp leaves...
Orange light sprang up on the monster before he reached it, and Stanley smiled. Look at that! They can do something right.
His spear blasted through its back in an explosion of that same yellow ichor, then buried itself in the dirt below.
The impact staggered the giant bug, and Nate capitalized on the momentary lapse to take off one of its scythe-like arms.
Spells flew in while he did that, and Edward charged in with his wrench...
"No!" Nate bent over backwards to dodge the scything claw, then spun sideways to avoid the stabbing leg that followed.
Edward came in from the side missing a claw, which was smart, and took a leg straight through his gut, skewering him like meat on a spit. Which wasn't smart.
Stanley grabbed the leg and only the leg. It was heavy, but nowhere near trying to restrain the entire creature.
Without his old Psionic Weapon skill, he'd lost the spear when it went into the ground. So he grabbed a rock instead and threw it at the leg joint.
The rock exploded into dust... with no visible damage to the mantis... which explained why his earlier attack failed.
Caffeine decided he wanted to play next, and Stanley had to focus on keeping the pug from jumping down. You are not fighting that!
He dragged the man off the leg and set him down with the rest of the group. One of them was supposed to be a healer... Then he ripped the dirt out from under the mantis with as much force as he could.
Nate back-flipped away just ahead of the exploding ground, and the mass of dirt hit hard enough to launch the giant bug into the air. It also brought his spear back into his perception... below the mantis.
Stanley snatched it and took off the monster's legs in a blurring spin before it reached the ground. The spear was definitely more durable than the rocks...
It still had the one claw, and the orange tendrils were fading... but Nate came back in fast and took its last weapon. Then it tried to bite his head off... and Nate blocked its jaws with its own severed limb.
The spear was enough after that, and Stanley stabbed it repeatedly until it finally stopped twitching.
Nate was giving him a look, but said nothing and only ran off to check on the wounded idiot.
Stanley took the core and flew back to the warehouse, where a couple of barely surviving bugs were digging themselves out of the dirt pile he'd buried them in. Tired and wounded, it was easy to finish them. Then he had to dig out the cores... A process simplified and probably only possible because Soul Sight let him see the cores through the dirt.
That done, he flew inside.
You have entered a Lair: [The Swaying Scythe]
An odd name... but fitting enough.
The Queen has surrendered. Lair defeated.
He didn't destroy the queen or the eggs. They might spawn more E-grades... hopefully weaker and easier to kill. He still sought them out to see what they looked like in his Soul Sight.
The eggs glowed... faintly. Not enough to spot through the lair walls, but bright enough once he was inside and got a little closer. The light was close to the green leaf scent the mantis souls looked like, but paler and not sharp.
There were also hundreds of them...
Stanley left them all there and went looking for Nate. Grabbing the surrender core on the way out the door.
Skill Shard(E-grade)
Mantis Bite (Common)
...
The skill was crap, but it offered points to all his attributes instead of only one. So, that was something.
Maybe Nate could have someone checking on the eggs to see when they hatched... How long would he need to wait to get another surrender? Assuming the new bugs still gave core chips.
He found the group where he'd left them, Edward still lying in the dirt... Didn't they have a healer?
"Could you fly us back, Stanley?" Nate asked. "We need to get Edward to Zeke." His voice sounded off... was he plotting something? In fact... all of them were looking at him strangely.
Stanley still picked them up, but kept them at a distance as he flew. He watched Caffeine as much as the others, watched for a growl or bark, any sign that something was happening.
Nothing did, and Stanley dropped the others outside the building, then took the wounded man right to Zeke, that golden soul standing out as plainly as ever.
Eve was with her brother, tinkering at a nearby table in the dining room. She lurched to her feet and nearly fell over while scrambling closer to her brother the moment Stanley flew through the large, broken window with Edward.
Stanley ignored her reaction, his attention on the giant from the night before. His soul was a mix somewhat akin to Nate's, with an ugly bruise-like purple that felt exactly as it looked, and a dark red that towered up into an infinite brick wall... Weird.
The man also moved upon his entrance, only toward Stanley instead of Zeke. A bodyguard...
It was obvious once he made the connection. Nate would absolutely want to protect Zeke. Which reminded him of another conversation... Constitution. This had to be the guy with the bonus attribute, and who better to protect someone than the toughest person here?
There were more people in the room, spread out in an almost relaxed manner. All of them reacted to his entrance exactly as the giant did. So a bunch of bodyguards.
Dropping Edward on a table next to Zeke got things rolling without him having to say anything. Golden light filled the room, and Stanley watched the gaping wound shrink smaller and smaller until only unblemished skin remained. It happened much faster than his own regeneration.
The formerly wounded man scrambled to his feet with a delighted laugh. "God damn if I'm not glad we found you, kid! That is some wicked good healing you got there! Up top!"
Zeke stared wide-eyed and nervous at the raised hand before hesitantly reaching up to tap it with his own.
"Hell yea! Down..."
"Edward," Nate said, walking into the room and interrupting the far too excited man. "Take a break. Get some lunch. We'll head out again if you're still up for it."
"Damn right, I am! Thanks to Zeke here."
"Stanley." Nate turned to him, and he had a look in his eye... was he mad? "Can we talk privately?"
Stanley touched the cores in his pocket; he still hadn't used them... Did Nate know that? Was he hoping to claim them after the fact? His first assumption that Nate didn't need his help rang a little hollow after that shitshow out there.
Or... Stanley looked at the people in the room with him and felt some anger of his own stirring.
His gaze settled back on Nate. "Sure. Let's talk." Then he floated backwards out the window, watching the other man as he went. "Privately."
Nate caught up in the woods. "What the hell was that, Stanley?"
Stanley met Nate's glare with his own but drifted backward for each step Nate advanced. He wasn't an idiot. "Great question, Nate. What the hell was that?"
The other man finally stopped advancing, his gaze inscrutable as he stared at Stanley.
"After your little speech about not fighting alone," Stanley kept ranting. "About having an army at my back... and that's what you fucking brought me!? A bunch of weaklings that can barely fight!?"
Nate plopped onto a fallen log and rubbed his face. "Can you come closer so we don't have to shout? I'm not going to attack you."
Caffeine still wasn't growling at the man... so Stanley dropped a foot closer.
"Seriously?" Nate sighed. "Okay, yes. I didn't bring the best today. Instead, I left them watching over Zeke because... Well, you know how important he is."
Sure, the undead invaders wanted him, but they wanted everyone. Obviously, Zeke was a healer and far more valuable than a lot of these losers… plus the whole blocking miasma deal.
"You don't know... do you? He purifies his surroundings without even trying. The entire building is already free from miasma and it's not even a lair yet. We can bring headless corpses in and he removes the corruption before they reach the cooks. The mindless zombies won't approach anymore, and they burn if we drag them inside. And the effect is spreading!"
Nate's voice grew more passionate as he went on, and he moved as if to stand before settling back down and lowering his voice. "He is anathema to the undead. To the invaders."
He stared intently up at Stanley. "You nearly died saving him from them. Saving him from being recruited. What do you think would happen if they got hold of him? Never mind simply killing him and taking away our sanctuary. What if they could turn him into one of them? What would his... power become? His aura?"
Stanley wasn't stupid. He could follow the logic. It was obvious once Nate laid it out like that... "The miasma."
"I whole-heartedly believed what I was saying when I sent you that way and said it was the only way any of us survived. I believe it now more than ever. I also believe that they won't let this go. They will come for him."
"So you lied to me, and..."
"No! I didn't lie. I brought you people willing to step up. People willing to hold the line." Nate tapped the side of his head. "I hand-picked each of them specifically to be on your team. Admittedly, they haven't fought together much before, and hitting an E-grade lair was beyond ambitious for the first test..."
Nate sighed, rubbed his face again, and stood up to pace. "I'm ready to fight at your side, Stanley. But I can't leave Zeke undefended while I'm gone, which means we'll have to split our forces. That is assuming you want me at your side... though I suspect together we'd be overkill on anything below E-grade."
That was true...
"As for the others, I trust James with my life. Edward is... definitely too eager. But all of them can help you. Even if only to gather your cores..."
Stanley hadn't told him about any of that. Arthur or Jerry must have blabbed.
"Yes, I talked to Arthur about his experiences... No, I can't read your mind. But I can recognize when you're suspicious."
That was very suspicious. What if he found a skill shard for telepathy...
"Give them a chance, Stanley. Take them to some F-grade lairs while we look for more E-grades. Watch over them if you can... They should do fine... but please keep in mind that Zeke's healing is beyond anything any healer I've seen can accomplish. Your own regeneration is also abnormal... so... just keep that in mind and try to keep them alive. Please?"
Stanley felt a little disillusioned after that speech the night before. An army of people like Nate would change things. But those people—he didn't even need core gatherers anymore. Soul Sight made the process simple.
He was also feeling embarrassed about his meltdown the night before... He needed to be stronger than that. Lee was counting on him. Caffeine was counting on him. He couldn't afford weakness! So much was riding on him. He needed to be strong. Needed the rage. Never again! I won't fail you, Lee! I will kill...
"You don't need to fight alone. Please take them with you."
"I don't need weak..."
"Arthur told me everything. How you and Caffeine went down from something they never saw. How they fought all night to protect you. If that happens again..."
"It won't happen again!" Stanley stopped keeping his distance and got in Nate's face. Screaming. "Because I won't be too fucking weak!"
"They can protect you," Nate said with aggravating calm. "Edward has a skill that he can use to call for help. Silas can make a shield out of those crystals. Serenity can heal small injuries. James can slow the attackers, and Olivia can shine those lights clear across the city. If necessary. Plus, they will only get stronger."
Caffeine was sitting up by then and trying to shove his head between their faces with small whining noises. Nate obliged the pug by taking a step back and sitting on his log.
Stanley was angry. He wanted to scream, rage, and tear something apart. But Caffeine wouldn't like it... So he closed his eyes and pet the pug.
Arthur had betrayed him... told all his secrets... all his failures...
Samantha.
That one hurt. Did Nate know all about her now? Did he know what Stanley did to her? When she was only trying to help... how she died to save him, even after everything he did? Tears welled up...
No!
Stanley clenched his fists. He had to be stronger.
He remembered last night. All those happy faces. All those damn fools! Why should they be happy when they were all still trapped in here? Why did they deserve to... except it made Caffeine happy. Caffeine deserved all the happiness he could get.
Nate's words... about supporting each other. He'd wanted that... still wanted it. He wanted to not be afraid... to smile again. He didn't deserve to smile after what he'd done... but Caffeine did.
They were so weak. But if something happened like before... if he left Caffeine alone... maybe they could help him. If only to call for help... Would Nate come if they called? Would he bring Zeke? Or would he hoard his precious healer... No, he knew Caffeine was special. Nate would want to save him. Right?
That thought finally did it for him. Another layer of protection for Caffeine. Maybe some more friends to make him happy. He could drag them around for Caffeine's sake alone. Maybe they would actually get stronger... maybe they wouldn't die. "Fine."
"Thank you." Nate was smiling again. It looked smug. "This is a good thing, Stanley. Trust me."
Trust? What's not to trust?