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25. Bringing it Home
🕑 Added 2024-03-03 03:44:53 +0000 UTCHooves pounded. The horses charged toward Central City, stampeding toward the glittering skyscrapers and perfect streets.
Levi looked over his shoulder at the raging herd of monsters behind him. He nodded to himself. Provoking is good, but too much provoking is dangerous. Given how reclusive Alpha has been lately, this much should toe the line. He should send his dogs, but I’d be surprised at an in-person appearance.
He watched the churning bodies, bouncing in time with the horse beneath him. They charged dead ahead, racing for the city ahead. Levi turned around, nodding to himself. “It’s about time for me to pull a disappearing act. Let’s turn this herd into a proper stampede.”
Levi reached into his backpack and drew out his cloak. Raising his dagger, he slashed the cloak in half, then tied the two ends together. He gripped one end in either hand and went to turn on the horse’s back. His hand snagged on the mane, still held by the strange hairs. Wrinkling his nose, he slashed his hand free of its mane and turned again, facing backward. He took a deep breath, blowing air into his cheeks, one-two-three, then jumped, pushing backward off the horse so he leaped out in front of it. As he jumped, he turned his body, pointing his shoulder just to the right of the horse’s right ear. The horse startled as he flew by, ears flying back. It went to bite him, but too late. He swung down under its belly and out of its reach.
The cut and tied cape, looped around the horse’s shoulders, went taut. He swung up under the horse’s body and latched onto the sides of its belly with his feet, holding on with all the strength his legs could muster. “Pulling an Odysseus. First time I’ve done that.”
His hands slid into the horse’s front-leg-armpits. Sweat enveloped them. Levi grimaced, then regretted it as sweat dripped onto his face, stinking and thick. A drop dangled from its belly, directly over his eye. It swayed with each step, dangling longer and longer.
Levi eyed it with mild terror. “Please no. Come on. Please. We can talk things out. We can—”
Unmoved by his desperate pleas, the sweat dropped from the monster’s belly directly into his eye. Levi cursed under his breath, blinking the sweat away. “Yuck.”
“Still, better than getting insta-gibbed for being the guy clearly in charge of this racket. I don’t want to die that fast. Shit stings.” Levi craned his neck, looking ahead of them. The shadow of the skyscrapers loomed over them. Under the horses’ hooves, worn, cracked, graying asphalt became fresh, smooth, black.
“Come on. Supers! Someone! Surely you aren’t going to let me charge in the front door?” Levi murmured, half to himself.
A swift shadow whooshed over the pavement. A loud blast sounded out behind him, and the horses screamed as a wave of fiery energy blew through their legs.
Levi snorted. “There we go.”
Twin beams of red light scythed through the horses not far behind Levi. A hole opened up in the ground beside him, and a horse vanished into a stony tomb with a startled cry. Ahead, a wall of sharp rocks erupted through the asphalt, barring the charge’s route ahead.
“Come on. Don’t be a pussy!” Levi muttered, kicking his horse faster.
The horse monster charged up to the rocks, and Levi held his breath. Come on! Jump!
Whinnying, the horse balked, turning back into its fellows.
Levi shrugged. “Oh, well. It’s not like I actually wanted to destroy Central City.”
Levi released the cape wrapped around the horse’s body and dropped to the ground. He jumped up and rolled over the stone wall, only to immediately whip around and face the Outbreak. He threw his fist into the air, urging on the supers still hanging back, not sure how to help. “Come on! Let’s get them! All together, now!”
On the far side of the wall, at the back of the herd, the hunters and Old Town supers who’d chased the monsters from the Gate attacked, keeping the monsters from retreating and thinning their numbers from the rear.
A few of the horse-monsters leaped the stone wall, charging wildly toward the city. Levi ran to meet the first one, slicing it across the chest. The thin cut barely bit through its hide, and it shoulder-checked him, sending him flying away.
The other heroes closed ranks. A man in a pirate costume swashbuckled a scimitar at the monster. It flinched back, startled, giving a butch woman with furry, muscular arms the chance to grab it by the chest. Her legs grew burly and furry as well as it rushed into her, feet digging into the asphalt. Deep furrows dug into the road, a pile of rocks and tar building up behind her heels.
The pirate slashed at the horse-monster’s flanks. Levi ran up from the other side, cutting away at the monster’s hide. A man with quills growing from his arms ran up behind the woman and raised his hands, firing the quills into the monster’s face. The monster struggled, but couldn’t break free of the furry-limbed woman’s grip. Under the onslaught of all three of them, it finally went down.
Levi let out a breath, running his sweaty hair back from his forehead. He nodded at the other three. “You guys aren’t half bad, for supers!”
The woman frowned at him. “Why are you shirtless?”
Levi looked her upside down, then frowned. “Why aren’t you?”
The woman raised her brows and nodded.
“Hey. Don’t give Bear Arms ideas,” the pirate man warned Levi. “She’s an exhibitionist at the best of times.”
Bear Arms wrinkled her nose at him, making a rude gesture with her bear arms. “Nudist, thank you.”
The pirate shrugged. “What’s the difference?”
“One of them wants to be seen naked, and the other one would rather not wear clothes,” Levi summarized.
“Right. I don’t want to be seen. Or to be more accurate, the being-seen is immaterial to my desire to wear no clothes,” Bear Arms agreed, nodding.
“Heh. Immaterial. Like the clothes you don’t want to wear,” Levi said, chuckling.
Bear Arms grinned. “I like this scrawny kid.”
The pirate sighed, then nodded at Levi. “Stay back here on this side of the wall with us ten-pointers. We’ll take care of the scraps that get past the hundred-pointers.”
“The hundred-pointers and the ones with skills that don’t suck,” the quill-shooting man pointed out.
“Yeah, yeah. Quit whining, and get grinding. It doesn’t matter what your skills are if you have a hundred points,” the pirate grumbled.
“If it was easy, we’d all have a hundred points,” the quill-shooter complained.
“Yeah. I’m not sure I’ll hit a hundred points in anything before I hit the level cap,” Bear Arms said, crossing her namesake.
“There’s no such thing as a level cap,” Levi said cheerfully.
“I mean the soft level cap. The point where you can’t realistically grind enough enemies to level up any more,” Bear Arms pointed out.
“Oh. Well. Yeah. Then you go to Extractors!”
Bear Arms snorted. “And risk death for a single skill point? No thanks.”
“Can’t trust Extractors. You never know when they’re using a super instead of a monster,” the pirate said, narrowing his eyes.
“Nah, it’s easy. When it’s a super, the liquid stings more, and you get more skill points in one go. Plus, it’s more likely to have weird side effects,” Levi said.
The supers stared at him.
He cleared his throat. “Or so I’ve heard. From a friend…ahem. An enemy. Yep.”
“What’s your name? I don’t think I caught it,” the pirate asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at Levi.
“Night Sparrow,” Levi said, lifting his arms ominously and hooking his hands like wings.
Bear Arms waved her paw in front of her nose. “Put those flappers down. Yikes! When did you shower last?”
Levi lowered his arms. “Don’t ask questions unless you want to know the answer.”
“Yikes,” Bear Arms repeated.
Turning away, Levi nodded at the sky. The man from the Gate floated in the sky, firing laser beams down into the raging monsters. “Do you guys know his name?”
“Who, Blasterman?” the quill-shooter asked, squinting.
“Blasterman…got it.” I’ll have to check my favorite blog later. Levi nodded. “Thanks!”
“First, let’s take care of these monsters,” the pirate said, turning back toward the stone wall.
“Right,” Levi agreed, raising his dagger. Together, the four of them faced the mob.
