Kaia the Argent Wing

After fixing the squirrel tooth to Ben’s staff with a few well placed bent nails, we parted ways. They promised to head back to the high school once they’d picked up Steve’s bow, and tell anyone they saw about the plan too. Then, I continued on my circuit of the suburb.

Throughout everything, the distant or even nearby sounds of gunfire could be heard. A lot of gunfire, too. The odd thing was that each time another burst sounded in the distance, it would start with one or two shots, then quickly escalate into a fusillade, until it cut off.

I soon found out why.

A few streets over, after I sent another family on their way inwards to Edgewood, I found a police cruiser. It’d rammed right into a ledge that sprang up in the middle of the road during the earthquake.

This area was particularly wrecked by the earth’s heaving, with several cracks ripped in the ground, which were then filled with dirt and sewage from the burst pipes.

Approaching the cop car, I found a scene of carnage that could’ve been pulled directly from a slasher film. I had to keep my stomach muscles clenched just so I wouldn’t vomit.

It looked like initially, the police officers had stumbled out of their car and tried to call for backup, since the radio mic thingy was hanging unhooked inside the cruiser. Something must’ve spooked the cops, though, because they closed one door and moved to one side of the car. Whatever it was—and I could definitely make a few guesses—it didn’t drop to a few bullets. There was blood everywhere on the monster’s approach, but it made it to the cops and… tore them to pieces.

I had to walk fifteen metres away after I took a look at the cops and just sit down. It… I began to shake. It ate their insides.

Swallowing bile, I closed my eyes for a second. Except, oh fuck, I could see their ruined bodies on the inside of my eyelids. Something about the images twigged in my brain, and I stood back up as analytical thoughts overrode my revulsion to seeing another human torn apart like that.

What was different? What was my subconscious seeing that I wasn’t?

Wait. I was so busy looking at the gaping chest cavities I missed the more intact areas. The claw marks were way too big to be squirrels. This was done by something bigger and meaner than the enemies I’d faced so far.

…I really needed to level up.

But the weird game system we’d been saddled with had no pop-ups or anything to tell us if we were gaining experience. What if I look at my class itself…?

Concentrating—while moving away from the corpses—I found that when I looked at my class, I could feel a sort of container similar to the abilities. Except, rather than filling with mana like the abilities, this was full of something else. I didn’t even understand what it was, it was just… heavy and full of potential. My container was around half full right now, but the funny thing was that I could feel three distinct blobs in there that when I inspected them, reminding me of the squirrels. Strange.

It looked like killing monsters filled up my experience container, at least, so maybe I should do more of that? Oh, and was there anything I should loot from the cops…? Ah! Don’t cops usually keep shotguns and other guns in their car? I could grab one and test it on the next squirrel, see what happened.

Sure enough, when I checked inside the passenger-side door of the car, I found what I was looking for. I was not a gun person, so I couldn’t even tell what type it was, other than this was definitely a shotgun. The stock had a whole bunch of types of ammo in it, and the door had a belt with more. There were lots of colours, and none of them made sense to me.

What did make sense were the tips of each cartridge. It was very easy to tell which was a slug, because you could actually see the slug. I decided that I would use that, because buckshot would probably just piss off the average giant squirrel.

Okay, I saw this done in camp once… you flick the thingy, or maybe you… crap. I had no idea how to work this thing.

Fuck it. I'll stow the shotgun and give it to someone else to test. Time to move on.

The next block over, I found evidence of more death, but no bodies… or at least, not enough of them to be considered a full body. The world was getting very morbid, very quickly.

Experimentally, I activated my aura, just to see what might come running. At first, everything was quiet. Then in a frenzy, three squirrels came rushing out from various hiding places along the street. They barrelled towards me, jaws glistening with blood from their recent kills.

The first one lunged at me with jaws held wide but I was ready, I had a game plan. Dodging to the side, I brought my axe down in a savage blow that severed its spine. It collapsed into a tumbling heap, still gnashing its teeth in fury.

The next one came in low, surprising me with an attempt to get its jaws around my leg. Metal teeth still drenched in blood missed me by a hair when I stumbled desperately out of the way. Holy fuck, that was close. I was screwed if they could hamstring me.

I didn't have time to deal with the one that appeared to be smarter than the rest, because its fellow came in to press the attack.

Deciding that the weight was slowing me down, I shed my pack, letting it land with a clatter of tools down on the smart squirrel's head. Now free to move, I dodged a swipe from paws that were almost hands, and with a flash of sparkling silver, caved the backup's murderous little skull in.

Extricating itself from under my pack, the smarter monster scrambled back and hissed at me. Initially, I didn't think I had time to dig the axe out of the other one's head, so I ducked down and scooped up the shotgun.

Like a symphony of elderly master musicians, my memories blazed with adrenaline and I remembered what the camp man said about shotguns. With a quick motion, I pulled back on the pumpy bit and pulled a slug from the bandolier. Cartridge goes in the funny hole. Pump goes forward again. Point at squirrel. Pull trigger.

The boom of the shotgun going off rang in my ears, and if it weren't for my inhuman strength it would have gone flying out behind me. My hold on the shotgun was not what you'd call professional, that's for sure.

The slug took a chunk out of the sidewalk, scaring the squirrel further. It backed away, baring its teeth at me in fear and warning. For a second, I considered sparing it, but then I saw the gore still splattered over its face.

I chambered another round, almost fumbled the whole gun, and finally got it up to my shoulder. This time, I actually aimed.

The bullet hit the squirrel square in the face, and it stumbled and flopped backwards with a howl of pain. A howl of pain that demonstrated that the giant slug didn't kill it. What the fuck?

One of its eyes was pulp, and I think a whole piece of its jawbone was gone, but that only galvanised it into attacking again. So, flipping my hold on the shotgun to use it as a baseball bat, I swung as hard as I could right when its feral charge reached me.

The stock snapped off, the barrel warped just a tiny bit, and the squirrel flew sideways. Oh my god, why was it so tough? Why was it alive?

I needed my axe again. To that aim, I turned and rushed back to the dead monster and pulled my weapon out of it. My living enemy was still dazed from my hit, and didn't see me coming in its new blind spot. I put it out of its misery with a solid blow to the back of its head.

Holy fuck, what a mess.

I stood there, chest heaving for a moment, then wobbled over to my pack and grabbed a bottle of water. Taking a long swig of lukewarm water, I poured a bit more on the dead head of the smarter squirrel to clear some blood away and bent to look. I wanted to see the gunshot wound.

A little more water, and I was able to see what happened inside it when the slug hit. For starters, the flesh bore a lot more of the impact than I'd have expected, and then it came in and glanced off a ridge of the skull. It took the soft eye with it, and then was stopped by more flesh before it could exit.

In contrast, the second squirrel I killed had a normal looking wound. Its skull was fragmented by my axe normally too.

Huh. I wonder…

Taking my woodcutting axe in both hands, I rolled up to the still paralyzed first squirrel and took a swing right at the top of its skull… and bounced off it. Interesting. Sorry, buddy… this is definitely animal cruelty, but I need to test some shit. Next, I took my hammer and did my best to crack its skull. Nope, I bounced off.

Finally, feeling a little awful for putting it through pain like that, I killed it with my squirrel axe. Easily. What was it about monster bits that made them able to kill other monsters? This was going to require more investigation. Still, I had more work to do.

Since they were obviously useful, I took the time to cut the teeth out of my kills. I also decided to take their armoured plates this time too. Maybe I could rig them all up into a nice set of useful gear later.

Once I had time to sit down and think, that is. Wait—

A gentle mental pressure was trying to get my attention, like a persistent, polite child pulling on my arm. When I focused inwards, I saw that the mental container for my class was full now. Experimentally, I poked it, and was surprised when it burst and a rush of power flowed out into my body.

Fallen Angel Level Two.

Level up! Yes! I wonder what cool perks I'd get, or maybe I would get a new ability? I waited with bated breath, hoping… but nothing else happened. What? What bullshit was this? Ugh. More shit that needed time and safety to study properly. Groan. I guess I would figure it out later then.

For now, though, I needed to search for more survivors.