Chapter 20: CHAPTER 18

Ray

The fireball lit up the entire bridge, blinding Ray and causing him to look away. The shockwave was minor, however, one Goblin found a way to fall off the barricade. Gale seemed unperturbed and Grok simply whooped into the air in excitement. The fire was cool after all. At least if you weren’t on the receiving end.

The blaze had an immediate and immense effect on the undead horde. Hundreds of flaming bodies were flinging themselves around. The creatures were both instinctually aware that fire was bad and lacked the mental abilities to put out the flames. Stop drop and roll is not a concept the undead understand.

As the basic undead flailed, Ray saw that they caught others around them on fire as well. He was so enraptured in watching the middle of the bridge burn that he was completely taken by surprise when Grok jerked him to the side. A long barbed spear whistled through the air where he had just been. Three feet of sharpened bone bounced off the car barricade and clattered to the ground.

“What the shit?” he gasped, looking for the origin of the attack. Unfortunately, he found it.

The white figures that had come across the bridge with his Nemesis were tearing zombies apart and fashioning their bones into makeshift projectile weapons. Even as he puzzled out just what they were doing a second spear was flung his way, one that Grok was not prepared for.

With a wicked overhand smash, Gale cut the boney projectile right out of the air with her broad blade. Turning an eye briefly in his direction she said, “Thou must not lose focus in battle. Concentrate, both of ye.”

Grok shrugged and turned back to the line. Smashing skulls was more up his alley anyway, he wasn’t a bodyguard. Ray on the other hand took a step back to observe the overall situation. The center of the bridge was blocked off by flames, and flaming undead, for now. There was several hundred undead at the barricade that Grok and the Goblins were taking care of. Then there was Gale, who was watching the white undead closely for any more bone javelin throws.

Without any warning, the Drakling raised her hand and said a word that sounded odd to Ray. With a bright discharge smelling of iron and earth, lighting pealed out from her hand and struck several of the distant white figures. The one she hit directly burst into flames, while the others that the lightning branched off into dropped to the ground and began twitching.

Gale huffed and continued to watch, even as Ray stared at her dumbfounded.

“Was that … did you just throw lightning?” he wondered aloud.

His advisor shrugged, “Twas but a low-level incantation. Even thou could use it with enough practice. As the old saying goes, Practice Begets Mastery.”

Ray was about to ask another question when a roar split the din of fighting and fire. The roar split the fire and bowled over dozens of undead, creating a path directly to the barricade. How something like a roar did that, Ray was unsure, but he suspected it was more shenanigans from the System. It just had to make everything far more difficult than it had to be.

His tank-like adversary burst from the center of the undead, sprinting on all fours directly at the barricade. Ray’s eyes opened wide as he turned to give a warning, but it was too late. The Nemesis had built up incredible speed, and even as the first word came out of his mouth, it struck the barricade.

The cars that had been placed sideways were simply not reinforced enough to stop such a creature's momentum. The Skinwalker struck the middle section between two vehicles, slamming them sideways into a spin. The Goblins and Orkin on top of that section were flung away like they were nothing. One enterprising Goblin held onto a spinning car and rode it with enthusiasm, squealing the entire time.

The nemesis slowed its charge, having punched a massive hole into their defensive line. Cursing, Ray gestured at Gale to follow him even as he yelled out behind him, “Grok, light up the second line!” Without waiting for an answer, he charged the tank like monstrosity his Nemesis had grown into.

Hefting his hammer as he came within range, Ray brought it down on the disoriented creature's back. To his dismay, it simply bounced off. The thing whirled with deadly grace, catching him in the chest with the side of its tail and flinging him away. Gale caught him mid-air and set him back on his feet.

“Thou must not charge into this fight without further planning. Thou must take one side, I shalt take the other. We shall pinch this monstrous being between us!” she said, taking charge.

Ray couldn’t find any fault with the tactic and began circling around one side of the Skinwalker as Gale took the other.

They both struck at the same time, and to disastrous results. Finding that Gale was easily the more dangerous opponent, the monstrosity spun to face her while swinging a massive clawed hand at her. Parrying with her sword prevented her from being eviscerated, but launched her through the air with such force she deployed her wings to prevent from being tossed off the slope next to the bridge.

Ray continued to hammer away at the Skinwalker's back, grinning in triumph as pieces began falling away from what he was rapidly understanding to be a shell of some kind. The thing didn’t stay still long, however, as it spun back towards him. It's one remaining beady eye locking onto him with single-minded hatred. He could feel the fury coming off the damn thing in waves.

Bringing its tail up, not unlike a scorpion would, it struck out with blinding speed. He threw himself sideways to prevent being skewered but was only partially successful as the tail opened a hairline cut in his side. That was far too close for comfort, and what remained of his suit hadn’t protected him at all.

“So much for this being a protective suit,” he grumbled.

A massive wall of fire bloomed into existence behind them, rising into the sky and completely blocking off the horde for now. For whatever reason, not even the undead enjoyed being burned to death.

The massive flowering flames fluctuated fantastically, casting silent shadows across the battlefield. As the flames rose, the area lit up causing the undead monstrosity in front of them to flinch backward. Gale was not one to let such an opportunity pass.

With a roar that would have put any dragon to shame, and made Ray’s sphincter clench, she dove down from where she was hovering and swing her massive blade. It caught the Nemesis in the front shoulder, shearing through muscle, bone, and the chitinous shell as if it were butter. Her blade burst out clean from the other side, separating the limb from its body entirely.

Her forward momentum brought her to the ground, where she slid into a spin and came back up and around to face the monster in a guard position. Ray nearly cheered but quickly sobered when the creature simply hissed, almost as if in amusement, before rushing him.

“Oh fuck!” he cried out, running horizontally to the Skinwalker's path to him.

Gale cried out, and even as the thing leaped into the air Ray realized he wasn’t going to escape. He blinked his eyes to clear them of the smoke, even as he tried to force himself to move faster. But it was in vain. Just as the creature was coming down on top of him it was slammed slightly to the side, causing it to miss.

With a hiss of fury, it went into a tumble, coming back up on its remaining three limbs in time to see Grok, who had procured a massive chunk of concrete on a piece of rebar from somewhere.

“Get fukked you’ze mahnsta,” he grumbled before letting out a war cry and charging the thing. Gale and Ray looked on in amazement as the Orkin went toe to toe with the creature for nearly a dozen blows before he was forced back by its scorpion-like tail.

Grok stumbled back and took up a fighting stance next to Ray and said, “Boss, ya gots to getz me an axe.”

Ray didn’t disagree. Grok was already a force of nature without a weapon that suited him. He couldn’t imagine what the Orkin would be capable of with some armor and a decent weapon.

His Nemesis tumbled through the air and landed on its remaining legs nimbly like some nightmare-fueled feline. It opened its maw, which Ray now saw was full of hundreds of inversely bladed teeth and roared at them. This close the sound paralyzed him, dropping him to his knees. Gale hardly seemed affected but Grok seemed worse for the wear, his ears bleeding freely down the sides of his head.

He didn’t have time to worry about his companion, however, as the Skinwalker charged again. Only this time it seemed to have thought about its actions. Perhaps losing a limb caused it to be more cautious. Lashing out with its trident tail at Gale, it coordinated the assault by pouncing at Ray. Grok intercepted the attack while he circled around as he pounded on it with his makeshift hammer multi-tool.

The tank-like undead ignored Ray and continued to focus on taking down Gale and Grok, both of whom were having trouble holding off the creature. Its tail seemed to have a mind of its own as The Drakling fenced with it, while Grok went with a brute force approach, each strike of his impromptu hammer being deflected carefully by the Nemesis or outright missing.

Ray grumbled with frustration, unable to contribute. As the fight wore on, the fire holding back the rest of the horde grew smaller, eventually letting several through in twos and threes. The Orkin and Goblins on the line engaged them as they were able, but he had no delusions about them being overrun once the fire died out completely.

Not to mention he would be blind by that point, as it was now pitch black out. There wasn’t even a moon.

It was at this moment in his processing of events that Gale fucked up. Deflecting yet another tail strike, she chose to go on the offensive. But the attack had been a feint, as soon as she hefted her sword it wound around and struck the winged woman in the back. With a cry, Gale went down as the tail slammed her into the concrete road face first.

Ray cursed and charged in, only to be met with a return swing from the tail. This is not how it was supposed to go down. Fight off the horde, kill the Nemesis, and survive. Not difficult. But the System never did things in half measures. Apparently, everything was do or die.

Yelling out as he swung, the tail came up to block. But Ray altered the course of the hammer mid-swing and instead of striking the base of the tail where he had been aiming initially, he connected with the knee of the undead's back leg. With a sound of tearing cartilage and breaking a bone, the knee gave way as the Nemesis let out a startled yipping noise.

“Critical hit mother fucker!” screamed Ray as he continued to attempt to bludgeon the thing into submission.

The Skinwalker, however, was having none of it. With another deafening roar, it shifted position drastically, catching Ray, Gale, and Grok with a massive spin attack, hurling the three away from it. Ray crashed into a nearby car. Gale slammed into the flaming barricade. Grok flew off the bridge.

“Grok! Shit!” Ray cried, scrambling to his feet. In his worry about his big green friend, and more than likely due to his budding concussion, he completely forgot he was in a life-or-death battle.

The Nemesis pounced as Ray stumbled over to see what happened to Grok. Landing directly on top of him, Ray was driven into the hard concrete beneath him. As all the air was driven from his lungs, he began to panic. Flailing wildly he hit the leg holding him in place ineffectively, causing the Skinwalker to hiss with what he suspected was amusement. Its eyes glinted with sadistic amusement at his feeble attempts to survive. They both knew what was going to happen.

The monstrosity opened its slavering jaws as it descended to end him. With a brief flash of inspiration, Ray yanked his handgun out of his inventory and pointed it directly into the thing's mouth just as its mouth clamped over his forearm.

Ray pulled the trigger.

The evil thing paused, unsure of what just happened. So he pulled the trigger again. Then again. Then kept pulling until he felt, rather than saw, the slide of the firearm lock back. Empty and useless. The Nemesis stared at him intently in shock, but only for a moment as they locked eyes. It was almost as if an invisible battle of wills was happening. But it wasn’t. Ray was mistaken. Because then it bit through his forearm.

As Ray screamed in pain and tried to roll away, the creature held him in place. Chewing his arm to mush, it swallowed as if savoring a delicacy of sorts. It then smacked its lips and, with a sadistic grin, turned back to finish his meal. It opened its mouth wide and came down for another bite.

Only to have a blade erupt from the center of its mouth.

The Skinwalker attempted to roar, but all that came out was a raspy sound as the blade coming out from its neck had neatly severed its airways. Ray made the full realization at that point that the Skinwalker wasn’t fully undead. At least, not like the other undead.

As he pondered this in his pain-filled delirium, he watched the blade be withdrawn. With little to no ceremony, it was swung through the air, with massive and devastating force, to take the creature's head off at the shoulders.

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Ray blinked as the thing crashed down beside him and began pumping vile blood all over him and the ground that he was on.

As his Nemesis’s blood pooled with his own, he felt tingles go down his spine. With the absurdity of what he was now seeing, and at the person who had just rescued him, he couldn’t help but laugh. With no ceremony at all Josephine walked over and yanked him up. She ripped off a piece of her suit and tied it tightly around the stump of his arm.

“Stupid man. Stupid, stupid man,” she muttered under her breath.

Ray’s eyes widened in realization as he finally understood he wasn’t hallucinating. “You’re real?” he wondered aloud.

“Stupid man!” Josephine shouted, causing him to flinch. She finished tying his bandage off and leaned him up against the recently deceased Nemesis. “Stay here. Do. Not. Move,” she growled before picking up Gales's blade and running at the barricade.

What followed next made Ray almost feel bad for the undead. Almost.

Josephine moved through the remaining fire as if it didn’t bother her in the least. Then she moved through the horde as if she were death incarnate. Utilizing a speed, strength, and grace that Ray hadn’t known she possessed she carved through dozens of undead a second. Even the remaining Orkin were taken aback by her unrestrained fury as swathes of the shambling flesh-eating monsters simply ceased to exist.

In a matter of minutes, the horde was vanquished, Josephine having annihilated them with seemingly very little effort. As soon as the last one fell the enraged woman immediately turned back in his direction and ran over to him. Dropping the blade next to him she leaned over and began to fuss with his bandages.

“Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die,” she muttered over and over.

As his vision began to grow dark around the edges he saw Gale limp over while supporting Grok Ray was immensely glad that they were ok.

“…fukkin hate bathz,” grumbled Grok. ‘Cant swim, so waterz no fun!”

And with those last words of wisdom Ray’s eyes decided to examine the back of his skull, and he passed out.

***

RAYMOND ‘RAY’ FINNEGAN
RACE	HUMAN				CLASS		NONE
NEX	CALCULATING				LEVEL		1
PHYSICAL STATE			EXHAUSTED		MENTAL STATE			OUT COLD
ATTRIBUTE		BASE		CURRENT		NEX TO INCREASE
STRENGTH		5		11		50
AGILITY		3		9		30
POWER		0		3		100
WISDOM		4		9		40
LUCK		2		5		400

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