Chương 6: Don't split the party

"This is totally your fault!" Stepping back from the most hideous attempt at a hug ever, my kick sent the five-foot murderous would be glomper bouncing down the stairs with a series of stomach-turning squelching sounds. Immediately my foot begun to itch and burn, complicating my already iffy balance. Advice for fighting on a staircase? Don't, if you can help it.

"They're just zombies, you said. We can handle zombies now, you said." A disgustingly slimy arm grabbed at my right leg then recoiled before it could take hold as if shoved, spattering red ooze that unfortunately wasn't blood everywhere. A quick stab with my metal spear pierced through the thing's head, the stone chisel of a spearhead digging into what passed for its brain.

Unlike a zombie, the stomach-turning, red-oozing thing did not die; its blind swing struck with bruising force against my raised arm more akin to a baseball bat than a fleshy appendage. Red goop clung to the point of impact and began to sting like taking hold of a jellyfish and not letting go.

"How was I supposed to know these things even existed?!" Jerry protested then threw a pair of walnut-sized, eerily glowing condensations of energy at the nearest enemy, gouging fist-sized holes in its slimy, unnatural flesh.

"They just burst out of a pile of corpses as we got close!" A blow glanced off thin air a few inches from his face, making glowy, translucent cracks through the previously invisible dome around him. Right then I couldn't decide whether I should feel relief Jerry had some defense against the things we were fighting or annoyed that he hadn't revealed the 'skill' earlier.

"Just stop throwing blue balls at them and try to shock them so Mandy can finish them off!" I settled on annoyed before demanding hurriedly, because dealing simple wounds didn't seem to be working and fighting those things was like fighting man-sized blobs of acid. How the hell did you fight something you shouldn't touch? I ducked under another attempt to grab me, this one far too close, and grabbed the railing to avoid following the kicked monster down the staircase. They were much faster than zombies, too.

"They're magic missiles! Magic missiles, not blue balls!" Jerry complained then threw another pair of azure, round, glowing projectiles that definitely weren't blue balls at this new, revolting enemy. In retrospect, we should have realized when we got out of the music classroom and towards the closest staircase to the ground floor, that the pile of fresh-looking corpses next to it had been very suspicious.

They'd been neither walking around, nor had been gnawed upon by walking corpses, which had also been curiously absent. The moment we got closer to investigate, the corpses' clothes and skin had begun to melt, revealing emaciated, grotesque, skinless bodies that oozed caustic goop, were highly aggressive, and failed to keel over when stabbed. A deformed face with patches of skin still clinging to its half-melted features appeared out of nowhere at my side, crowding my personal space faster than I could react.

Its jaws distended enormously, revealing a gaping, raw, toothless maw almost a foot wide before biting at my midriff. The bite itself wasn't so bad but the slime melting through my shirt was like a dozen curling iron accidents. I gasped, flailed at the monster, which got my arms burning as well. Falling over, I screamed, bucked, kicked out and screamed some more, swinging blindly with both spear and fist, then blacked out.

xxxx xxxx I woke up to pure torture from my left elbow to the tips of my fingers, a less intense throbbing along with extreme itchiness at my side, an overwhelming full body exhaustion and moderate cramping, sizzling and slurping sounds from somewhere nearby and the stench of burning meat.

Name: Maya Wennefer Bio: female human, 17y3m3d Powers [1/4 pts] Force Adjustment I Progressive Regeneration I Proximakinesis I Attributes [1/4 pts] Might 6, Agility 4, Reason 2, Vigilance 3, Ego 4, Luck 1 Oh, and a blue box glowing at the center of my field of view. I blinked away the intrusive illusion and looked around, finding the staircase landing scorched and goop-strewn but otherwise empty except for the zombie chewing at my left arm with abandon.

This must have been happening for some time because dozens of deep bite marks cut into skin, some deep enough to bleed, others shallow, some brand new, most scabbed over and looking days or even weeks old. They probably weren't; regeneration along with increased durability meant everything must have healed almost as quickly as the zombie could damage me while I'd been unconscious. Observing the clothed, small, female corpse, I tried to recall if I'd seen her before.

There was time; if it hadn't managed to kill me for however long I'd been dead to the world it was unlikely to do so now, and I just didn't feel like moving at the moment. The staircase was pretty nice and cozy, except for the blast marks, the gore, and the half-melted remains of an emaciated, skinless monster. Huh... was the oozing monster's head over there by the corner? What was it doing six feet from the body and where were its buddies? Come to think of it, where were my own buddies? Did they...

think I was dead and left me behind? Were they dead themselves? Had the other melting monsters eaten them and moved on? Jerry could be an arrogant idiot at times and Mandy was too passive for her own good so I didn't have high hopes of their survival against the skinless fuckers but hey, I'd been the first to be knocked out and had spent the time since being gnawed on by a zombie.

"You're so screwed, Maya," I muttered to myself before turning around and punching that zombie off my arm. Or at least trying to. Halfway through the turn my side exploded to new agony, a wound scraped raw and salted over... because it was. The red goop still clinging to me had to be worse than salt anyway. Gasping I fell back, taking small, quick breaths and focusing intensely on not passing out again. The zombie ignored my antics and went on chewing. Love this novel?

Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. OK, no punching for now. Time to use some actual superpowers. In a sense I already was, my attacker failing to bite through again and again being a passive use of one. Halving the force of incoming blows hadn't been that useful against the melting monsters' corrosive slime but my arm at least was very happy to be whole and not picked-clean bones. Wait, could arms even feel happy? Well, in a roundabou- no, focus on the zombie, Maya.

First things first; I halved the pull of gravity on me and lying on my back on the staircase became much more comfortable. Then the zombie's grip of my arm got halved to match its bite, going from 'steel vise' to 'uncomfortably clingy jock'. After that came its weight down on my arm, making it effectively lighter as long as it leaned on me. Then the telekinetic force was doubled. Which telekinetic force? The one from my second active power that I mentally kicked the zombie with.

The dead thing reacted exactly as from a normal kick, its loosened grip breaking and its small and now doubly-light body hurled off me hard enough to slam in the side of the stairwell... then go tumbling down the stairs. I got up. The pain didn't exactly become bearable but being lighter helped. My side still felt like a dozen red hot pokers were being stabbed into it and looked worse than it felt.

The red goop had burned a foot-wide hole in my shirt and almost an inch into my jeans then messed up the skin beneath like some deranged mobster had taken a blowtorch to it. The whole thing stank; that it smelled so bad after my getting used to the sickly sweet stench of walking dead and the sharp tang of far too much spilled and drying blood should be a good indicator to how revolting it actually was.

'Fortunately', I hadn't eaten anything for at least a day so I wouldn't be puking my guts out. There was no point going anywhere then and there; I was in no condition to fight more zombies without some stairs to throw them down, so I sat down, back leaning against the railing, and tried to relax. Smoke stinking of charred meat wafted up my face and intruded against the less pleasant smells as my regeneration slowly, very slowly, removed bite mark after bite mark even as it strained to fix my side.

Even scaling to my injuries it only seemed like... half a pinkie's worth of regrown flesh every second? That sounded fast, it certainly was compared to natural recovery, until you started bleeding or took damage over time such as, just a random example really, got slathered over with flesh-melting goop.

Recovery would take time and with no enemies around except a small zombie with too many broken bones to crawl up the staircase, no pressing business and no tools, weapons, or anything to distract me all I could do was think. I went through the powers list, not just the few I'd short-listed the night before but others, reading descriptions at random or calling specific instructions and seeing what the list responded with. Trying to find a cheat power to solve all my problems didn't work.

Every option started out no more powerful than what I already had, its limitations or drawbacks fairly balancing even so-called cheat abilities at least by themselves. Obviously you either had to spend more points to get to the good stuff, or accept a more situational power. Just for fun, I spent some time bringing up the most situational and useless abilities I could think of.

A power to teleport a cat at least ten parsecs away at random, then accelerate it to sufficient velocity its relativistic mass exceeded Jupiter's. One to turn things you touched to gold as long as you genuinely didn't want to do so. Another that if you were trapped in a painting or got into any equivalent situation, anyone that wanted to take advantage of the situation could not and had to get inside the painting to interact with you in any way, even indirectly.

In the end, the better option was to wait and improve my regeneration the next time I got a point. Not only could it save me during a fight but never again would I need to lay down in pain for hours, unable to do anything while my friends were who-knew-where and in mortal peril. A more immediate concern was what to do with the attribute point. I really, really wanted to put it into Might, grow stronger and tougher and call it a day but I couldn't...

and not because growing in size even a little would make me burst out of my much abused clothes at this point. During the fight I couldn't keep up with the melted monsters. Some of it was having to fight on a staircase, some was facing multiple opponents, but those things happened. They would keep happening as long as the world kept being crazy and chaotic, and while strength and toughness were great, sometimes they weren't enough. Superman had super-speed for a reason.

Plus there was a score to settle with the rest of the skinless freaks, wherever they'd run off to. The next time I stumbled upon them I'd need more than trying to tough out their hits. But was that really the right option? The memory of a gaping, oozing maw biting my side and knocking me out with the sheer agony of its touch sent shivers down my spine. Wouldn't it be better... no. I opened the blue box and put the point into Agility before I could start second-guessing myself.

Name: Maya Wennefer Bio: female human, 17y3m3d Powers [1/4 pts] Force Adjustment I Progressive Regeneration I Proximakinesis I Attributes [0/4 pts] Might 6, Agility 5, Reason 2, Vigilance 3, Ego 4, Luck 1 Immediately, a full-body shudder went through me as everything minutely... changed. I didn't grow taller, broader, or more muscular as with Might increases. A bit of the reverse actually, muscles condensing, getting compact and streamlined even as the changes went deeper, all the way down to the bone.

They must have done the same before of course, but the differences hadn't been so obvious, at least to me. My limbs felt both lighter and looser, every joint gaining in flexibility even as the bones themselves felt more... supple was a good word. No less solid yet less rigid. The kinks in my spine straightened out, stiffness both from the recent fights and countless hours of training was not just gone but replaced by the kind of sprightliness I hadn't had since I was a little kid.

My balance shifted, improved but subtly different yet a change I instinctively felt accustomed to as if I'd trained with it all my life. Even my fingers became both faster and more nimble. I'd never been good with the piano and my typing speed had been nothing to write home about; I suspected trying both out now would show major improvement. More speed not because I was inherently faster but because I could control more of the speed I already had.

The final change was more in an awareness of space, an instinctive grasp of angles and direction that would make cheerleading stunts I'd struggled with easy. Wounds mostly healed, corrosive goop dried and fallen off, I got up with renewed confidence and went after the trail of my best friend and the idiot nerd that had grown on me over the past day.