Chapter 78 – Party Time

  Watch the left. What was so hard to understand? It was a simple instruction that was not at all being carried out. Matt dove forward to avoid a hail of antlers that came from that direction. He popped up a moment later and fired a long burst into the offending deer, dropping two of them.

  “Need me?” Van asked.

  Matt was about to say yes but the grass next to the remaining three deer rippled and an after image of four claws hung in his vision as the remains of the flanking element turned into smoldering shreds. “No, I think we are good.” He said back to the radio and repositioned to act as better support by fire for Ash.

  He could also see in the party menu that she was mostly ok. She had drained some resources but not enough to worry him. She had been quite enamored with the party process and had immediately forked over some System credits to get her own version.

  He once more was impressed with the power his familiar displayed. He knew it was a choice the drake made and that it was limiting but also could be flexible like in the above situation. Echo’s path was that of hard-hitting ambushes and takedowns, so he often didn’t handle large groups well.

  “Ash!” Matt yelled. “I’m on your right.” He called out as he approached the position where his companion was currently fighting for her life.

  He circled around to see Echo take down another of the deer and then disappear into the grass once more. Ash had holed up behind a boulder and was trying very hard to gain fire superiority, but the deer were not having it.

  Matt crested the small rise and sent a long burst into the deer’s skirmish line from its flank. The rapid-fire skill drained his magazine in a second, but he had taken down 7 of the remaining deer. That was enough for Ash to get her feet back under her and poke out from behind her cover.

  She worked the lever on her rifle as fast as possible, putting a dozen rounds toward the last few stragglers before having to stow the rifle and drew a revolver. Matt was impressed with how fast she could run that rifle but was not impressed with the caliber.

  It hit hard up close but was not so great at any significant distance. It appeared to be analogous to some of the older Winchester rifles from Earth but was bottom loading rather than using a side gate. It also ejected cases almost vertically but not with very much force.

  Taking aim, Matt put down one of the last few while she popped out and fired two rounds at another. Both hit which stunned him due to the range being nearly a two hundred meters. He would happily admit that she was a great shot with shitty guns.

  He was just taking aim at the last one when it vanished under a pile of black scales that appeared from its side. Scanning the open grass lands, there was no sign of any more of the creatures. He once more scanned one of the carcasses just to be sure of its identity.

  Trunked Brown Ruminant. Level 40

  It appeared to be a variant of the ones he had encountered long before finding the city. He briefly reminisced about those worry-free times before walking over to where Ash was stuffing rounds through the loading gate of her rifle.

  “If you don’t have the ability, then don’t accept the job.” He said in a stern tone.

  “I had the fucking ability but wasn’t expecting to get swarmed by two dozen of them all shooting antlers at me.” Ash spat back. “There weren’t any of these in the delta so I had no idea that they would fight at range and refuse to close with me.”

  “So, your whole strategy is to bait them into a melee?” Matt asked while beginning to store bodies and pointedly ignoring the sounds Echo was making while eating his latest kill.

  Ash took a deep breath to calm her temper before replying. “That was the strategy of everyone in the tower. The guns were too slow to reload so fights always came down to melee. Almost every encounter had four stages. The long range, mid-range, short range and melee. As you can see, I am only equipped for mid-range and in.”

  Matt hummed and looked over her equipment. “Yeah, we are fixing that shit as soon as possible.” then he thought of something. “Did you want any of there?” he held up the deer-like creature by its neck and waved it. “I was just going to cook some and turn the rest over to the crafters.”

  “No, its fine.” Ash said. “Can we look for some more melee fights for me? Nothing against you, but I can’t match you in the range department.”

  “Yeah, there are some good opportunities in the islands.” He said and turned to face Van who had come walking up.

  Ash tilted her head and looked at him. “Islands?”

  “Come on, it’s easier to show you.” Matt said.

  Once they were buckled in, Matt began to run. The long strider skill making the kilometers literally vanish as he began crossing back over the sea of grass, passing some of the smaller tree islands. He was going to try to find a bigger one along their route so the beasts would be of an appropriate level.

  Ash was glued to the display in front of her, eyes scanning everything they passed. She had taken to the enhanced visual display with a startling ease, adapting far faster than the commando teams. She was also quite enamored with the thermal overlay, having declared it the best hunting tool she had ever seen.

  “I see what you mean by islands. With the wind moving the grass, it almost looks like a sea.” She commented after a couple hours of travel. “How long will it take us to cross?”

  Matt thought about it for a moment. “If I went flat out, I could probably make it in two days. But I plan to stop in a couple of the larger islands for some exploring and we also have the dragons to deal with.”

  “Dragons?”

  “Yeah, wyverns. Bastards are persistent and tough.” He began filling her in on the details before just pulling up the recording for her. She watched the two encounters and even replayed them a few times.

  “Do you record all your fights?” She asked.

  “Actually, pretty much everything is recorded. I tend to dump the waste files like when I am setting up camp and things like that but every fight I have had since upgrading my helmet is on there.” Matt answered as he singled out one of the largest groups of trees he had seen so far.

  “What do you do with them?” Ash was wondering why he would bother with the practice.

  Matt had to think about it for a second before replying. “Well, it is one of the favorite pastimes of the classers back in Krad. They always like watching the footage. Actually, this one time in the bath house…” He began telling her the story of when he was still new to the city and tried to make friends with Rohm dragging him into a public bath to socialize.

  “You have public baths?” Ash seemed curious about them. “We had them back in my home. They were actually one of the few holdovers from human culture that we kept.”

  “Yeah, we have at least one. I don’t know if any others have popped up since I have been gone though.” Matt stopped at the edge of the trees, waiting for his detection field to fill in. “Anyway, we are here.”

  Crouching, he and Ash dismounted and began creeping into the trees, pushing through the brush at the edge. They silently stalked forward until they found the first creature they could actually hunt. This was a species that Matt hadn’t seen before and quickly identified it.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Rock Crusher Ape. Level 53

  Waiting and watching the two-and-a-half-meter tall creature, Matt also picked up a few more returns on his detection field at the extreme range. Likely more of the apes and he compared the image he had to the one he detected with Van.

  “Do you want him?” He asked Ash.

  She looked the creature over a little as it fussed over something it had pulled from the dirt. “Yeah, I got this one.” She stepped out from behind cover and shuffled to flank the creature. Matt could see she was positioning to be directly behind it when she…

  The ape suddenly turned and whipped its arm out. There was crack-zip before a loud smack echoed through the woods. The ape had pivoted on its short legs and used its overly long arm to fling a stone at remarkable speed toward Ash.

  Matt saw her duck, dropping back and to her right as the creature turned and threw the rock. The tree that had been behind her suddenly had bits of shattered stone poking out of it from where the rock had impacted its trunk.

  Ash popped up from the other side of the tree she ducked behind and fired a trio of shots, two of which went wide but the first one had hit the ape in its shoulder. The big monkey screeched in pain and frustration before grabbing another rock and winding up for a pitch.

  Ducking back into cover, Ash circled around, moving farther from Matt and using the trees as cover to hide her darting movements. After a half second, the ape threw its second stone and she popped up farther away to fire another trio of rounds at it. This time all three hit, stitching up its side from a much closer range.

  The ape decided that it couldn’t quite match her in ranged so it would try for melee and summoned a stone club from the ground. Matt watched with morbid curiosity as the club materialized from the soft, loamy dirt.

  While the ape had stopped to get its club, Ash emptied the remainder of her magazine tube into the creature’s chest, hoping to get a lucky shot but failed. When he thought she was going to draw her revolver, she actually pulled out a strange, long handle short bladed weapon.

  It looked to Matt like a Zulu spear but with a cross guard and a more sword shaped blade. He then watched in fascination as she used some sort of lunge ability and swiped a cut across the ape’s biceps, cutting to the bone and making the arm go limp.

  She didn’t stop and continued past the creature before pivoting and slashing at the back of its knee. Once more, the strange blade easily parted the tendons and the ape suddenly dropped to one knee as she grasped the long handle with both hands and drove the point upward into its skull, just under the ear.

  The ape twitched a few times and fell forward where it spasmed on the ground. Ash the kicked the side of the cross guard, forcibly rotating the weapon in the wound before yanking it out. The kick, and accompanying crunch preceded the System notification and left the ape a spasming heap on the ground.

  “Well fuck me.” Matt said after watching and saw her head whip toward him. Her eyes glowed a yellow-orange as she focused on him. That glow then faded a moment later and she huffed a breath like a sigh.

  Ash was just about to open her mouth to speak when a spear the size of a signpost ripped it way through the clearing and glanced off her armor. “Shit.” She said and turned to face the three new threats rapidly closing and pulling down tree branches that morphed into spears.

  Wood Forger Ape. Level 54

  Wood Forger Ape. Level 50

  Wood Forger Ape. Level 52

  Another spear hurtled toward the space that Ash had the good sense to vacate after seeing the apes. Matt knew this was his time to step in and raised his rifle. He put a long burst at the leading one, stacking four rounds in its face and sending it to the ground as smoke rose from its thrashing form. He followed that up with a little green ball of fun that landed right next to it.

  The resulting grenade explosion shredded the already weakened ape and caused the others to flinch. He fired the rest of his magazine into a second one as it dove out of the way, trying to use the trees as cover from him imbued rounds.

  While he was chasing that one down, Ash was firing her revolver into the third that had rushed her with an axe shaped branch that seemed to glint like steel. All five of the 12-millimeter rounds smacked into its chest and arms but didn’t penetrate deeper than skin as its muscled hardened.

  Ash could feel her other side now. It was pushing, wanting to enter the fray and take its own pound of flesh from the creatures. She was holding out though, keeping it at bay as she fenced with the ape that was double her height. She knew she was fine as long as Matt could be heard an….

  Whap. The ape feinted with its axe and she braced her sword to deflect the blow that never came. Instead, a foot came arcing up from the opposite corner and caught her in the ribs, folding her over it and launching her like a child’s kickball.

  She soared through the air and came to rest after glancing off a tree. The sight of another rock passing over head told her that the monkeys has back up. She tried to sit but a lancing pain in her ribs made her black out for just a second. A second of time that was more than enough for her other side to seize control in her moment of pain and panic as the instincts surged forth.

  “Oh, Fuuu…AAAAAWWWOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  *****

  A little over a hundred meters from where Ash had been punted like a football, Matt was having a hell of a time. Not a bad time but a very hectic one. He had dealt with his two apes but quickly found that the ruckus they caused had brought more to their little shindig.

  “Trade.” Matt called as he dodged a rock and threw his own back at the ape. It just happed that Matt’s rock was roughly the size of a baseball and green in color with yellow writing on the side.

  Boom. The explosion was followed by a screech of pain which was followed by a short burst of rifle fire which was followed by the sound of thrashing. Matt had managed a combo to force the creature out from its cover so he could shoot it. Now he just had to deal with the other four.

  He quickly teleported backward and right into the path of another wood forger that was rushing at him with a lance leveled for his chest. He tried to dodge but was still smacked by the shaft and sent flying into another tree. The wind was knocked out of his lungs and he fought to take a breath as he felt something in his chest pop back into place.

  Just as he tried to level his rifle at the passing ape, it ran under a low hanging branch. That branch then grew another limb that shot downward and hooked the ape under its chin with razor sharp talons. That limb then turned into a black scaled arm as Echo yanked upward, taking the monkey into the tree limbs where it then proceeded to make awful noises.

  While he would very much like to sit and recover, a shape looming in the trees looked like it had just thrown something. He turned and braced against the tree he had just impacted to fire a few shots when he heard a blood chilling howl. Echo apparently could see what made the noise since a moment later, images flashed in his mind.

  Matt watched in equal parts amazement and surprise as Ash rolled to her knees and hunched. She then kicked her legs backward where they elongated and turned into digitigrade wolfs feet. Her whole form lengthened as swelled, becoming fur covered and packed with dense muscle that rippled just beneath. Her clothing and equipment seemed to merge with her body at some point, just fading and being replaced with bulk.

  A second later a werewolf stood where a human had previously. Matt inspected her for a moment, but the image was quickly lost as he heard more apes thundering through the woods. He looked up to see another trio of the wood variant ones rushing toward him through a gap in the trees.

  Summoning his rocket launcher, Matt took aim and fired. The rocket rushed out, racing to meet the oncoming monkeys. One of them tried to throw something at the projectile but Matt made it jink upward before once more correcting its course to slam right into the first one before penetrating its torso and detonating amidst the two just behind it.

  A muffled ‘crump’ was followed by a meaty rain a moment later in a now slightly charred section of woods. Echo raced off to intercept another couple apes that were converging on Matt, taking both with its plasma slashing ability.

  Matt once more tried to get out of his current position and teleported once more, headed mostly in the direction the apes came from. He hit the ground just in time to fire a burst into the back of an ape, killing it as its friend lashed out with a stone club and knocked his rifle from his hands, tearing it right off the sling.

  Teleporting and leaving a wave of super-heated plasma in his wake, Matt broke contact and tried to reorient on the fight. He drew his messer and pushed plasma into the edge just as a rather crispy ape wielding a stone club burst from the trees.

  He managed to parry the blow, sending it into the ground but missed his repost. At that very moment, he regretted not taking the skill but began to generate a mana construct to help in the fight. Echo sent him an image of that being the last of the apes and Matt readied himself to get the show over with.

  The ape sized him up for a split second before it charged, hurling a rock at him. Matt was forced to dodge, choosing to teleport out of the way. He was just about to close with the monster when a midnight black shape streaked out of the trees and slammed into his stone wielding opponent.

  Ash had finished off her monkeys and had come to help with the cleanup. He watched carefully, backing away from the fight slowly as it progressed. He had seen and done a lot of very brutal things in his time in the System but what Ash did was a step above.

  He saw a snarling face and flashing claws as the two got into ta rolling, tumbling brawl on the forest floor. Matt also noted that he could feel her emotions now. Not that there was much besides unbridled bloodlust in her aura at the moment, but it was an interesting fact.

  The fight was short lived as Ash clamped her jaws around the ape’s throat and bit down hard before shaking. He could feel a skill being used at that point and wondered if her skills crossed over or if she had different skill selections.

  There was a sudden pop-snap and the monkey quit flailing, hanging limp as Ash continued to shake it, slamming it into the ground a few times. It reminded Matt of the few times he had seen bird dogs retrieve ducks and doing a shake to make sure they were dead.

  The werewolf suddenly dropped the limp monkey and stood to her full height. She slowly turned and leveled her gaze at Matt, locking her yellow-orange eyes with his own blue ones behind his helmet. The two stood there, facing off amongst the aftermath of their fight, both waiting for the other to make a move.