Chương 8: Unexpected Complications

Before the skinless monsters could react, we fled at a dead run across the foreign languages classrooms, then down the stairs to the first floor where we found collapsed masonry and what looked like tons of dark, foul-smelling soil that blocked access to the ground floor. Where did it come from? With monsters after us I didn't have time to ask. Fortunately, my rescuer seemed to know of another way down; a maintenance shaft torn open from within.

He had to struggle to go through and even I fit a bit snugly, a reminder that size and reach did have the occasional drawback beyond merely not fitting in your clothes. I resolved to consider future stat allocation carefully as we exited into a corridor covered floor to ceiling by eerily wiggling black roots that might or might not have been the Administration and offices wing.

The alien growth reacted to our passage, a few tendrils reaching in our direction but as they proved harmless and the older boy didn't comment we just moved out in silence. That brought us to the biggest obstacle on the way to the kitchens; a dash through fifty feet of open ground between buildings under the dead eyed stares of the several hundred zombies milling around the school grounds. We waited for a larger group of the dead to vacate our path in their aimless wanderings then burst into an all-out sprint.

Most of the zombies still around didn't react but we had to leap over or bowl through several that did notice and attempted to bar our passage. By the time we were closing in on the kitchens, I realized I was pulling ahead of my my rescuer even in my beaten up condition and had to slow down or leave him behind. Instead of entering the food court, the tall, bulky boy shook his head at me then circled around towards the less conspicuous personnel door to the kitchens.

There we finally came to a stop - or collapsed from exhaustion in my case.

"Thanks for the save," I told him between heaving breaths then looked up at his admittedly striking, if vaguely familiar face. He looked more like a Hollywood actor or model than a student yet that odd sense of familiarity struck even harder when I tried to match his voice and face to someone familiar.

"Do I know you?"

"Gee, Maya, did my face change that much or are you too drunk to tell again?" He wasn't even out of breath after our long sprint despite not being able to catch up, which meant physical powers, high physical stats, or both. Then what he said added to how he'd said it just clicked.

"Tommy? Is it really you?" Because the height and bulk definitely weren't. The lines of his face somewhat fit but his nose wasn't crooked, the acne was gone, the mouth was wider and sat on a stronger chin and the eyes almost seemed to sparkle like some special effect or reflective colored contacts. His too-straight, too-white teeth were like a real-life toothpaste commercial and his hair were longer, slicker, and a glossy, silken black.

"Wow, magical makeover much?" He'd shot from a four to a solid nine, maybe even higher.

"Look who's talking." He took my own changes in from the legs up and whistled.

"Amazon chick fits you. What's your charisma score?" Joke was on him, I didn't have one at all and had been too busy surviving to waste points on better looks.

"Shut up and open the door, I'm famished." Plus sitting in the open, even if the zombies weren't very aggressive from a distance, was not safe. Better hole up in the kitchen, which almost certainly still had food. It's wasn't as if the undead could have eaten it.

"Not just yet. You caused quite the problem when you killed the two fat zombies." His eyes were fixed on the main building, fingers tightening around his bat until the handle creaked.

"Now you get to help solve it."

"What are you talking about?" Problem? What problem? I'd been trying not to get killed.

"Killing those fat fucks was good. Less big scary monsters for everyone, more power-ups for me."

"Yeah, we thought that's how things worked too..." he sat down and trailed off. After nearly a minute of silence I couldn't wait any more.

"Well? Don't just say something like that then stop," I demanded. In my defense, slowly healing bruises all over my body had made me cranky. Next power-up it was faster regeneration or bust; at the current rate it would take hours to get back to top shape.

"Still a bitch, I see." He gave me a glare over his shoulder then got back to watching the main building. I rolled my eyes. If he didn't feel like sharing info for some reason he should have just said so. Eh, no skin off my teeth. If he wanted my help he had to explain what the problem was. Still no clue about Mandy or Jerry's location and that worried me, but when the big oaf got talking I'd get him to tell me what he knew. If I pressed him now he'd probably clam up and we wouldn't get anywhere.

Until then better to use my time constructively; getting down to fixing the messed up tangle my hair had turned into. There was quite a bit of dust, some dried blood and something with the consistency and appearance of mud but was probably something ickier all caught up in it and I'd had enough of that. Being thrown around and oozed on by monsters was bad for your looks, news at eleven. On one hand, there was neither a comb nor water to be found. On the other, superpowers baby!

All the friction, static charge, stickiness and any other force keeping that crap on my glorious golden tresses? Cut down by a factor of five. All other forces applied by me to them? Multiplied five times over. Thinking about it for a second, I extended those effects from my hair to my whole body then did a few standing backflips in a row. Just about every bit of grime, dirt and ickiness was kicked loose by the rotation, abrupt landings or their own weight, falling off like sand sliding down a glass sculpture.

Drops of sweat, gunk and even some actual mud went flying too. I stood up with a final shake, brushed my hair a few times with Proximakinesis then scraped stubbornly sticking bits with the same across my skin like using a form-fitting spatula, then I was... not really clean but I didn't look like a mess either. All in all that took less than a minute and Tommy was already twitching.

"You wanna know what happened? Fine!" He invaded the hell out of my personal space, using his new height to look scarier... but I'd just faced a pair of eight foot tall bloated corpses and come out alive.

"When the portals opened, Coach and half the football team were in the gym. Josh toppled a weight stand on a zombie, killed it and got super strength. The rest of us copied him, cleared the zombies easy." He laughed harshly.

"Boy, was that some freaky shit. We all got some form of strength like Josh and about half of us got stats and numbers. Then you know how it goes. We had powers, we'd save the school. We'd get to be superheroes and it'd be awesome." He spread his arms wide, gesturing at the school grounds.

"Look around you. Does his shithole look saved? No, because we screwed up. Thought it would be simple, like a game. We marched towards Administration, killing zombies as we went, telling everyone else to flee. Then zombies from the floors above came down the stairs. Over fifty, with more coming by the minute. We thought we could handle them, that they weren't that many... until they started to change."

Just like the first trio of corpses I'd stumbled upon with Mandy and Jerry, or the others after my fight with the two fat ones. I wasn't seeing why Tommy would blame himself, though. I certainly blamed whoever had opened the portals and/or any higher powers for the things existing to begin with.

"First some larger zombies. Then once we killed them, a few normal zombies started changing into the melted red ones. Still manageable, we thought." He laughed again, hoarse and a bit mad.

"Coach noticed it first; new mutations started every time we killed a few monsters. They only affected the monsters closest to the killings, too." This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"What?" A chill crawled down my spine at the implications.

"Funny thing, isn't it? All those zombies out here all looking normal, but in the buildings you got all those monsters? We got the answer to that, too." He swung his bat at a bit of broken concrete, launching it all the way across the field. Where it landed in the distance the closest zombies went crazy for a few seconds, looking around for the source of the disturbance. Finding nothing, they slowed down to their usual aimless shambling.

"We tried to cripple the monsters instead of killing them after that, of course. That's when one of the skinless red monsters turned on the cripple and killed it. It grew, mutated more, and we barely managed to kill it. Of course, that caused more mutations." He sat back down.

"Coach and I were the only two survivors. With only a few fat zombies left and the upper floors mostly empty, Coach sacrificed himself to lure them upstairs then collapse the staircase, trapping the mutants away from most of the standard zombies, too weak to get out."

"You're blaming me for killing them and causing more mutations? I couldn't have known any more than you could have." Plus we had been trying to survive. If we hadn't slain monsters and grown stronger, my friends and I would be dead.

"What, you thought you'd be the only ones growing stronger? They'd be a crappy invasion force if they only powered-up their enemies." If they were an invasion force, that was. Deliberate invasion was just one theory.

"We have to kill the new mutants the moment they get in the open, before they can start farming the normal zombies."

"How do you know they're trying to get out and not, say, kill the zombies still in the building?" There weren't many left after me, Mandy and Jerry's efforts but they still existed.

"Because they're simple minded and caught your scent. Us going through the maintenance shaft will confuse them but not forever. They're looking for an exit to get at you," Tommy explained, his striking eyes sizing me up once more and making me feel a bit self-conscious. Plus it didn't explain how- "Also, I have a skill called Hunter's Mark. Once I mark a target, I can track them even from a distance or through walls." Yeah, that would do it.

"Why not kill a few of the zombies out here, power up more before facing them?"

"Haven't you been listening? Killing a monster spreads some of the released energy all around to-""Every monster nearby, yes you explained so." Not entirely sure I bought into everything he'd said without proof, but that at least was seemingly supported by my own experiences.

"But you have those disabling blasts. Why not stun a couple of zombies, drag them away from the rest and then kill them? I'm faster than you are and we're both much faster than zombies."

"Too dangerous," he immediately shot down without even thinking about it. He was willing to face a dozen skinless, skin-melting mutants but not abduct a pair of zombies at a time? What was wrong with the boy?

"Fine!" I crossed my arms under my breasts and glared at him an his obstinacy.

"Any ideas on how long our little problem will turn up?"

"At the rate they're going?" He looked at the main school building again, eyes focused on things hidden beyond the cover of its walls.

"Five more minutes, maybe ten." Fuck! I wouldn't even be fully healed by then and had spent most of my points too. Name: Maya Wennefer Bio: female human, 17y3m4d Powers [1/6 pts] Force Adjustment II Progressive Regeneration I Proximakinesis I Attributes [0/6 pts] Might 7, Agility 6, Reason 2, Vigilance 3, Ego 4, Luck 1 With only a single power point none of my existing powers could be upgraded. Regeneration or Proximakinesis needed two while the third rank of Force Adjustment cost... four points?

Huh, the costs doubled for each rank then? The only available option was a single, first-rank power but those were either weak or situational. Worse, all the options in my shortlist were entirely the wrong types to deal with the skinless freaks. The skin-melting horrors were quick, sneaky, damaging on touch and could keep fighting through normally lethal wounds. Jerry, Mandy and I had killed one, just one, and it'd taken effective decapitation to do it.

The worst sort of opponent for a melee warrior build that relied on slow healing and attrition. Maybe look into a quick and dirty ranged attack? Spear Throw: conjure a temporary force spear you can physically throw. Unbreakable, vanishes after each use. Force Missile: force orb that moves around obstacles and can't be dodged. Damage and speed as a slingshot. Shockwave: thirty-foot cone-shaped blast extending from any point within reach. Damage/knockback as strong kick. No, those definitely wouldn't work.

Not damaging enough to take down one of those freaks. Maybe something to stop their corrosive goop from affecting me? Insulation Field: millimeter-thin, weak skintight film selectively repels harmful gases, liquids and particulates. Chemical Nullification: break molecular bonds to decompose dangerous chemicals, up to 1 lb per second of use. Hygrokinesis: telekinetically control free liquids within 20 feet, up to a total 50 lbs worth of applied force.

The insulation field looked about perfect if not for the 'weak' qualifier. How weak? Would the monsters' slams break through it? How about their bites? Nullification was interesting, especially its definition of 'dangerous'. Considering how powers so far tended to follow my way of thinking, it would make a great counter to firearms and bombs, especially since it didn't seem to have a range limitation. Hygrokinesis, which was not a typo of Hydrokinesis, was like water-bending but for all liquids.

Its power was kinda anemic but its versatility ginormous; oil, gasoline, ink, paint, chocolate milk, acid, even magma - because magic and my luck meant that someone, somewhere would throw magma at me sometime in the future. Even if it could deal with their goop, this still left the twin problem of our enemies speed and actually killing the undead horrors. I doubted there was a single ability that could deal with all three at the first tier but looking some more before making my pick was-"Get ready, they're coming."

Alarmed at Tommy's warning, I turned around and saw the wall at the side of the main building forming cracks near the ground at around the point the end of the corridor would be on the inside. Every couple of seconds there were puffs of dust and powdered concrete coming out and the cracks grew in number and size. Crap, just one final attempt then.

Let's find the most useful offensive power for when outnumbered by fast, tough enemies I really couldn't afford to get grabbed by, if I'd had the time to go through the list and make comparisons. Forced Acceleration I: boost internal forces at all levels, speeding actions and internal processes by up to 50%. Wait, that was it? Before I had time to fully consider this new ability the already cracking wall collapsed and fourteen skinless, oozing, crimson monsters came vaulting out of the hole.

For a split second they stood still, a terrifying group standing fifty feet from us in broad daylight as they looked around. Then the monsters sniffed the air, turned towards me and charged as I frantically scrambled to pick the right power...