Chương 23: 21: Dark City

The small convoy had been moving through the undeveloped, bush and rock-strewn plains to the west of the city when something ended their attempt to flee the area. The truck at the front had been struck from above, most of its chassis blown apart while the wheels and part of the engine block that were still in one piece were blackened and half-melted. The car following it had been crushed by the same explosion, its front half reduced to a twisted lump of metal and all of it burned.

The RV in the middle had survived the explosion, but not being shot so full of fist-sized holes it looked like a nightmarish honeycomb. In contrast, the school bus bringing up the rear was mostly intact, the only damage being its completely shattered windows and the slashed up seat belts and seats as if a whole squad of crazies had hacked at them for hours. They were far from the first destroyed vehicle group I'd found in my flights around the city limits.

They were not even the hundredth, so more signs that something had systematically taken out every attempt to either escape the affected area or come to investigate from outside did not have me clenching my fists or punching craters into the pavement in anger. There was no point.

While the stench of burned plastic and rubber, the tang of gasoline and the more natural smells of ash, burnt undergrowth and baked soil lingered still, the remains were neither smoking nor warm and were slick in condensed moisture from the fog. All the signs pointed towards their being several days old.

My exploration flights around the city had begun hours before at the thought Jerry and Mandy might not have wanted to follow the road from the school to the suburbs, the complete lack of cover and potentially high number of monsters pushing them to go around. There had been no sign of my friends, no indication that my guess was right, and I'd been ready to get back to the road when I'd stumbled to the burnt remains of fleeing vehicles.

Two hours later and having flown most of the way around the whole city, I was tired, angry at the obviously organized butchery, and perplexed at the total lack of human remains. The flapping of wings in the mists high overhead broke through that train of thought, and I braced for incoming fireballs. It wouldn't be the first flight of Imps I'd stumbled upon here in the outskirts and experience had taught me letting them get close was far less annoying than trying to hunt them through the fog after they scattered.

The wing beats grew louder, then louder still and the discrepancy between the speed, size and sounds of the incoming flyer got confusing, especially since they weren't close enough to see.. Three giant metal darts striking out of the blue then exploding like grenades kicked me out of the air like a giant's boot. Except for my eardrums, the trio of explosions were nowhere near as painful as cosplaying a meteor against the mutated plant-monster had been.

Most of the black metal fragments had been stopped by my suit, only two of the projectiles' spike-like heads penetrating where they'd impacted then been pushed further in by the explosions. One bit into my right leg a couple of inches above the knee, the other had stuck between two of my lower ribs. Pulling them out left me gasping, especially the second one, but there was no time to catch my breath. Another flap of wings above was followed by more metal spikes getting launched.

I could feel their rapid passage through the air even if I couldn't see them and knowing what to expect I managed to dodge. The new enemies were not imps; tanking their shots until they got closer was not going to work at best, would end with me turned into a pincushion at worst. Aerial battle it was. Finding the target proved far easier than doing the same with imps.

The turbulence they caused as they flew around disturbed the fog for dozens of yards, but despite comparable size to the smaller fighter planes they weren't nearly as fast. The shadow of their profile glimpsed by my new awareness several times as they tried to bombard me with more darts had me thinking second World War airplanes, but once I got close enough that expectation was shot down by a far weirder reality.

The giant bird could be said to resemble an eagle, if eagles had wingspans of forty feet and feathers of a glossy black substance between cast iron and obsidian. Its legs were longer, more sinuous and lizard-like with claws longer than my forearm, its head was serpentine with two eyes glowing like lit coals on either side, its black as midnight beak was two feet long and sharper than a sword.

Even as I watched, a couple of its feathers shot out faster than arrows, barely missing as I dodged and drilling into the ground below before exploding. Molten metal hissed through the gaps in its plumage where the missing feathers had been and in a second or two had formed into replacements. Great, just great. Someone out there must have thought my name was Heracles, because they were cribbing straight out of Greek mythology with their monstrous Stymphalian bird.

Unlike almost any other monster I'd fought so far, striking the bird did not feel like striking flesh. It was as solid and unyielding as a wall of steel, heavy enough I couldn't easily push it around despite my strength. With an indignant, too-loud squawk at the mid-air collision, it retaliated with its claws and beak, both of which proved capable of cutting deeply into my super-suit. We tumbled through the air as I rained punches at it, shattering feathers that regrew almost as quickly as I could break them.

Its strength was less than mine but its damn beak kept aiming at my head and as the painful slash across my left ear proved, it was still dangerous. Meanwhile, its claws were slashing repeatedly at my guts about as violent and dangerous as a demented cat whose tail I'd stepped on. We crashed on the ground hard enough to make a crater, the bird's right wing now bent in... I'd say an "unnatural" angle, but there was nothing natural about the monster.

Especially as instead of squawking in protest it spewed thick, billowing flames all over me. Being bathed in magical incendiaries was not pleasant and the damn thing kept it up no matter how many times I punched it. Fed up with its bullshit, I grabbed its head and twisted. It might be strong, larger than me and almost as tough, but it didn't have arms to block the maneuver with and its neck was its most delicate point. After only some token resistance it suddenly snapped...

then every one of its metal feathers exploded simultaneously. Turning away at the last moment saved my face and chest from turning into pincushions but did little for the blast itself. I was thrown through two buildings, crashed a Jeep into a ball of twisted, mangled metal and spent the next several minutes pulling iron darts out of my ass and back, cursing all the way.

Name: Maya Wennefer Bio: female human, 17y3m8d Powers [3/30 pts] Force Adjustment III, Force Awareness II, Forced Acceleration II, Immutable Force II, Progressive Regeneration III, Proximakinesis II, Super Suit I Attributes [1/30 pts] Might 16, Agility 10, Reason 3, Vigilance 5, Ego 10, Luck 2 With the giant bird of doom's death, my abilities were pushed through another power-up, the third since my battle with the mutated monster-plant.

I was beginning to wonder whether more than just monster kills were involved with gaining more power. For one thing, I'd left Tomio and Liz alive and still found more points waiting for me by the time I'd calmed down enough to notice the difference. For another, Tomio himself was the one to explain how it all worked and given all his other lies... maybe pushing powers to their limit helped? Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Whatever the case, the attribute points had gone into Ego to get used to my unplanned increase in Might, while power-wise I'd spent some to cover a glaring weakness to my previous abilities. Force Awareness II: sense the application and distribution of forces in your surroundings. More accurate than normal hearing, less than sight.

Hunting imps down without a way to track them through the mist had been an exercise in futility, and since they seemed to have some means of seeing me through it, the inverse had been a must. Three power points for a sense not even as good as sight would have been a bad investment... if not for it completely ignoring any sort of impediment.

Physical objects might still be vague blobs, but the mist did nothing to block the awareness, and neither did walls or even the ground because both sewers and buried power lines became noticeable if I got close enough. It was a good way to avoid ambushes though, especially from monsters hiding close but out of sight and would grow with more points.

I was still undecided on whether it, Forced Acceleration or Proximakinesis would get an upgrade when there were enough points for it, but that decision was future-Maya's problem. Here and now I didn't like how fighting the giant bird had felt like grappling with an angry cat complete with bleeding claw-marks, so I put another point into Might for both extra strength and durability.

There was some minor feeling of stiffness, less control over my strength, but with an Ego of ten it was something to work through and get used to, not a real body image issue. xxxx xxxx Flying over the suburbs, I was greeted by fewer gutted buildings than I'd been expecting. Just below, an uncontrolled fire had reduced several blocks to still-smoking wrecks. Ahead, several houses had been torn into, half-demolished really, by something larger than a human that must have possessed strength close enough to my own.

Seven out of ten of the little suburban homes were still whole however, and though many were abandoned the majority were still occupied. Unfortunately, there was no way to tell whether the occupants down there were monsters or survivors. I'd seen hundreds of common zombies roaming the streets during my short flight so even if survivors still existed, I didn't know what to do with them.

Trying to fly out of the city would almost certainly provoke an attack like the convoys had and fighting while carrying normal people would not end well. Trying to get them to safety... was there even a safe place anywhere below? I certainly wasn't going to move them to the school, not after a few survivors with powers had turned it into a toxic environment with their bullshit.

Maybe Julia was doing a better job than Tomio in the aftermath, but she was still a manipulative girl whose go-to attack had been a mind-affecting power. That wasn't even dealing with the issues of actually transporting any significant number of survivors. Frustrated at having to deal with more and more problems without a break, angry at what my home had been turned into by monstrous invaders, worried at my still-missing friends, I launched myself at the nearest zombie throng milling through the streets.

Just flying through them as I'd done back at school turned about a quarter of them into a bloody mess and a second passage killed even more. It felt surprisingly cathartic, like hunting roaches with bug spray after finding one in your bed, or shouting at the idiot who'd kicked a pizza box under the fridge and forgotten about it, thus inviting the roaches in the first place. Wings flapped in the air six blocks to the South, another mass as large as a small plane coming out of the city's center.

Another iron-bodied, exploding, oversized chicken? Smiling, I flew up to meet the new target for all my frustration that had just volunteered itself. Halfway there, a strange tingling across my skin and my new awareness both made me stop. Looking around and seeing nothing, feeling the hair in my nape rising, I was about to turn around when something hit me harder than any other enemy so far.

A flash so bright it was seared into my retinas came a split second before my every muscle flexed and contorted wildly, agony like a thousand knives slashing out from my gut to my limbs making the iron bird's impact with me seem insignificant. I saw drums, smelled purple and heard the smell of bacon, then found myself in a crater, twitching feebly as the bird landed on me. The thing opened its beak and spewed fire and there wasn't a single thing I could do about it because my limbs were not responding.

I felt as if every nerve in my body had been seared to a crisp, which was obviously untrue because I could still feel pain and heat, and jagged pieces of asphalt pressing against my back. All my efforts were rewarded with uncoordinated wiggling, blinking, and my tongue feeling too thick in my very dry mouth. The metal bird kept spewing fire. The sensation like a warm bath turned into warning tingles of pain as my toes curled and one leg rose... more or less under control.

The monster didn't seem to need to breathe like dragons in stories had, so its flaming jet remained undiminished. Heat seeped through my sizzling suit and deeply through muscle and soft tissue, the too hot bath making each breath a struggle as I dangerously overheated. I started punching at the thing with slowly returning strength, trying to throw it off my hips but it was damn heavy.

The bird itself was glowing red-hot, its flesh softening and my fists digging deeper into its body with each subsequent blow but it doggedly held on, turning the crater into a furnace. Half-submerged in boiling asphalt, I finally dealt enough damage that the monster died, then exploded, pelting everything with superheated metal fragments. The explosion pressed me down into the puddle, the asphalt burning as it mixed with tons of molten iron. Everything hurt, the bath so hot it left my skin red and raw.

I fumbled for the cold water, failed to find the shower or its controls, splashed around some more. Why was the water glowing? Why was my skin so dry? Were those rivulets of sweat rolling down my face, exploding when they touched the bath tub? Was I on drugs? I turned around, gagged, saliva and stomach acid exploding the moment they touched the water. That wasn't right; I had to get out.

Limbs as weak as boiled noodles, I crawled out of the bath tub that was trying to kill me only to stumble on a pair of heavy iron boots. Looking up, I saw heavy black and red metal plates in vaguely oriental style, with an open-faced helmet sitting on a skeletal face. Someone must have taken their dieting too far, because the armored figure had empty sockets instead of eyes. Bare teeth instead of lips, too. That didn't stop them from stabbing me with a huge-ass spear.

It didn't hurt, more like giving paper cuts against bare skin. Was it still a spear if its head was a curved sword instead of a pointy bit? I didn't know, and neither did the dozen or so near-identical dudes alternating between stabbing, cutting and trying to bash my head in with the hafts of their weapons. Didn't they even know how to use the things? Plus, you know, rude. They'd invaded my fucking bathroom.

Getting up despite their annoying, slightly painful attacks, I grabbed the first guy that had started the whole thing, then slapped him for all I was worth. His head was knocked off his shoulders, helmet and all, and he kept stabbing except even less competently. A punch and a kick crumpled his armor and must have broken something important because he collapsed.

Nodding in satisfaction, I turned to the remaining seven or twenty seven friends of his and started slapping and kicking just why you don't barge into a girl's bathroom and poke her with spears into their ugly heads. That took... way more out of me than I'd been expecting but I persevered and emerged victorious. Then I flew off in search of... whatever I had been searching earlier. The breeze against my skin, the fog sizzling as it touched me made my vision swim less and less.

Then something tingled and seconds later I got blasted by an incredibly bright, painfully loud... blast. Yeah, let's go with that. I crashed through several somethings, probably walls or maybe cars? Then I came to a stop in a living room with thick, soft carpets and lots of old wooden furniture. For some reason they started smoking but there wasn't much I could do. Several minutes later I was on my elbows and knees, trying to think straight and mostly succeeding.

My whole body still tingled in near-pain, regeneration doing nothing to lower my core temperature and not managing as well with the full-body damage done by the heatstroke. My brain... had probably regenerated several times in the past minutes, as had most of my nerves. Lightning. I'd been struck by lightning. Whatever had caused it had been so bad it made tasers look like cheap toys in comparison, but had fortunately not killed me or scrambled my brains beyond healing.

Worse, the timing of the attack and the big bird of doom grounding me and trying to fry me were both carefully coordinated and planned, as had been that death squad of armored undead with the glaives. Someone had just tried to kill me and whoever they were they had some control over the monsters...