by Ramy Vance
“When are you coming back?” Suzuki asked.
“Soon. I’m going to see if I can find any tech for Chip. See if she can hack it like she did that last datapad, so we can find out more information. I still feel like we’re just shooting in the dark. All we’ve figured out is the Dark One is doing some kind of weird experiment with his genes, but we don’t know the end goal. We don’t know what he’s planning or how he’s planning it. I fucking hate being in this kind of situation. I want to know what I’m up against.”
“All right, well, try to get back here before sunset.”
“Gotcha.”
It was nearing dusk when Beth arrived back at the Mundane camp. By this time, the tents had been set up and the Mundanes were talking softly as they finished their meals. Beth grabbed a bowl of chili and, without saying anything, took a seat next to Suzuki. She leaned her head against his shoulder and blew on her food to cool it.
Suzuki wrapped his arm around Beth and kissed her on the forehead. The two of them listened to the conversation around them, eating quietly, Suzuki thanking whoever had watched over Beth.
After Beth finished her meal, she started to speak. “The place is huge,” she said. “Same deal as the last one we checked out. There weren’t any of the sprouts, though. This one was even creepier. You know, the whole dead bodies thing is pretty terrifying, but this was worse. Nothing. Just those fucking angels behind the glass. I’m so glad they didn’t know I was in there. It would have been fucking terrifying. But I did bring back some fun reading material.”
Beth reached into her bag and pulled out a datapad. She tossed it to Chip, who caught it and exclaimed, “Right on! Let’s crack into this bad boy and see just what secrets its holding.”
Chip’s fingers split and cables snaked out of her fingertips, locking themselves into the datapad. Her eyes went white and displayed binary code. Then they returned back to normal, and Chip started to scroll through the data. “Looks like the reason they don’t have any sprouts is because the angels are grown somewhere else.” Chip pointed to the sky as another UFO flew over the facility. “Little angels came from space, it seems.” Chip turned the datapad around and passed it to Suzuki.
The datapad had a diagram of the UFO route. There was a large, moonlike object thousands of miles above the facility. From the diagram, it looked like the sphere was in space, outside the planet’s atmosphere. Suzuki hadn’t really thought about what space was like in Middang3ard. He had vaguely noticed the constellations he was familiar with on Earth weren’t here. That hadn’t unsettled him much before. He had never been a big space kid. Now it was starting to get a little bit under his skin. This realm was similar to Earth but also so different. Suzuki was surprised at how this place could still make him feel out of place and far from home.
Home. Middang3ard felt more like home now if he was honest with himself. His family was here. Still, he couldn’t wait to take care of the Dark One, but then would he just be going back to his old life? How the hell was he going to be able to do that?
Diana stood and stretched. “Are we planning on checking out the facility?” she asked.
Suzuki shook his head as he answered, “No, I don’t think it’s necessary. I’m going to go over Beth’s photos, but I don’t think it makes sense for all of us to go down there. We gotta figure out what we’re going to do about it, though. We can’t let something like that just sit there. But at the moment, if we do attack, I’m pretty sure someone will be notified. Those ships are hitting the spot every fifteen minutes on the dot. How long did it look like the Dark One’s been sending angels to the facility?”
Beth rubbed her cheeks as if she were trying to keep herself from falling asleep. “It looked like for years. You’ll see in the pictures. There was literally nothing else in there except for angels. The whole place must have been built just for them.”
Stew spoke up for the first time in a while. “We could blow it up?” he suggested.
“Anyone here have demolition experience?”
Chip raised her hand, grinning as if she were already anticipating what the explosion was going to look like. “If the occasion calls for it, I am capable of making many big booms with minimum assistance needed.”
Diana yawned loudly. “Well, if we’re done with a theoretical demolition discussion, I believe I am going to retire. I am exhausted.”
Suzuki caught Diana’s yawn and suddenly realized he was tired as well. The daylong ride had really taken it out of him. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. I think I’m going to head to sleep as well.”
He kissed Beth again and said goodnight to the rest of the Mundanes before retiring to his tent.
In his sleeping bag, Suzuki thought about whether he wanted to go home. It had only been a passing thought earlier. Now it came back, louder and stronger than before. There had been nothing going on back at home. Just work and playing video games.
True, he had friends and family, people close to him who loved him and probably missed the hell out of him. But that wasn’t enough. Suzuki wasn’t sure if he could ever experience a normal life again. Waking up to go to work? Clocking in at some bullshit pizza place?
It just didn’t make any sense.
Suzuki drifted off to sleep without realizing it. His head was full of thoughts all night, and his dreams were a mix of those anxieties. He couldn’t tell which was which. In his dream, he was in a tent, but he didn’t know why. Beth was gone. She had been gone for a while. Then he heard her screaming. It horrified him, and he tried to find her, but she was nowhere to be seen.
When Suzuki woke up, he was drenched in sweat. He felt Beth’s side of the tent. She wasn’t there. Suzuki grabbed his axe as he tried to remain calm and stepped out of the tent.
Sandy, Stew, and Beth were all around the fire. They had fallen asleep next to the warmth. Sandy and Stew were in their sleeping bags. They had probably already decided they wanted to sleep outside. If sleeping was all they had planned. Beth was just lying on the grass. She must have fallen asleep without realizing it.
Suzuki came over and knelt beside Beth. He thought about waking her, but she looked like she was sleeping peacefully. One night sleeping by himself wasn’t going to kill him. Maybe he’d even sleep outside too. It was a warm night, and it had been a long time since he had slept under the stars, watching them watch him.
There was a sound in the darkness. Past the light of the fire, something large moved. Suzuki thought it could have been one of the battle cats. But then he remembered how quiet the creatures were. And he had seen them all gathered in a pile sleeping when he first walked out of the tent. Whatever was out there in the dark moved again. It was getting closer.
Suzuki shook Beth and she sat bolt upright, her eyes still closed, drool trailing from the corner of her mouth. “Not tonight, Suzy, I’ll fuck you tomorrow.” She groaned. “I’m real busy right now. There’s this cake. It’s huge. Someone has to eat it. I’m gonna eat it all. You can’t stop me. No one can.”
Suzuki shook Beth harder until she came out of her dream state. He didn’t say anything, just pointed to the direction the noise was coming from. Now that it was closer, Suzuki could tell it sounded almost like a lawnmower, a mechanical contraption whirling to life. And it was even more obvious now that the thing was closing in on the Mundanes’ camp.
“Wake up Sandy and Stew.”
Beth leaned over to shake Stew and Sandy awake. Both of them opened their eyes slowly, but Beth put her finger to her lips and then pointed to the source of the noise.
In the darkness, two bright eyes opened.
They were at least twenty feet away and watched the Mundanes closely. Then they disappeared. A few seconds passed and they opened back up, the groaning of some awful thing accompanying the eerie, yellow floating eyes.
Then the noise stopped.
The eyes disappeared.
It was as if there had been nothing to begin with.
Suzuki rose slowly, pulling out his axe and the rest
of the Mundanes did the same, preparing themselves for whatever was in the dark. They were at a major disadvantage. Whatever had tracked them to their fire was obviously built for the darkness. Suzuki could hardly see anything a few feet from the fire. Diana would have been able to see due to her SD card upgrade, but she was asleep, and taking the chance of exposing his back to an enemy was not something Suzuki wanted to do. They were going to have to figure this one out on their own.
Suzuki scooted close to the fire and whispered, “Get around the fire. Sandy, do you think you could cast—”
Sandy shook her head as she brushed against Suzuki, trying to get to the flames. “No, I can’t cast any elemental magic,” she grumbled. “Still don’t know all of the how I can be useful.”
Something large and fast moved overhead. Suzuki could have sworn he heard beating wings. “All right, all right, we’re going to have to improvise then.”
Suzuki scrolled through his inventory as he tried not to be distressed by the flapping wings above. He found exactly what he was looking for. Four torches appeared in his hands. He handed each of the Mundanes one and then plunged his torch into the fire. The four of them spread out a little bit more, casting more light in the dark. It was unnecessary, though.
A creature nearly as tall as a troll flew into the clearing. It had the head of a chicken and the torso of a lion, a snake for a tail, and chicken’s feet. Its eyes were bright yellow, and it clicked as well as roared as it scratched at the ground, its snake tail rising and hissing in the direction of the Mundanes. “Oh fuck,” Stew muttered. “That’s a fucking big chimera.”
Suzuki quickly appraised the situation, looking over the different parts of the animal’s body. “Are you sure it’s not a cockatrice?” Suzuki asked.
The snake tail struck at Beth, who dodged to the side and shouted, “Do you guys really think right now is the best time to be arguing about this?”
“No! I’m not arguing! It’s important. You can’t look a cockatrice in the eyes or it’ll turn you to stone.”
Stew drew one of his swords and slashed at the snake’s head. “No, it’s not! Cockatrices have a rooster head and they’re mostly dragon. This thing is most definitely a chicken head. Look how fucking stupid it looks. Plus, it’s got three different animal pieces. We’re definitely in chimera territory.”
The chimera didn’t seem to care either way and it roared again as its chicken head came crashing down toward Beth, who was still on the ground, scrambling to get out of the way.
Suzuki ran his hand over his axe as he leapt forward, flames covering the blade. He hit the chimera in the chest, took hold of it, and tried to wrestle his way on top. As he reached over, nearly on the chimera’s back, the snake head snapped and hit him in the back of the neck. Suzuki felt the snake pump venom into him, and his whole body went numb. He slumped off the chimera as Sandy dove forward and dragged him to safety.
As Sandy touched Suzuki’s wound, the venom drained out, floating to Sandy’s fingers, and remaining on her fingertips as she looked down at her hands.
Feeling flooded back into Suzuki’s body as he sat up. “Thanks. Hey! Mundanes! That snake head is venomous. Don’t get bit!”
Beth had pulled out her daggers and was circling the chimera with Stew at her side. “None of us are dumb enough to get bit by a giant fucking snake, dude!” Stew shouted as the snake head lunged for him, the chimera bounding forward almost as if it were dancing, stomping the ground with its talons.
Suzuki tossed his axe at the snake head, which narrowly moved out of the way as Suzuki recalled his axe, hoping to nail the snake on the second go. The snake still managed to get out of the way, and Suzuki realized his aim might not be good enough for such a fast-moving creature. He was going to have to risk getting up close and personal like the rest of the Mundanes. As Suzuki prepared to run off, Sandy grabbed him by the wrist. “Wait,” she said. “Let me help first.”
Sandy touched the side of Suzuki’s face with her poison stained fingertips. Suzuki felt the spell instantly and he didn’t need to be told what had just happened. He took off toward the snake’s head as Sandy followed. Suzuki wasn’t sure it was the wisest decision for Sandy to be throwing herself in the middle of a fight. Last time might have been a fluke. She still didn’t seem to have a good grasp on what she was capable of doing.
Suzuki leapt onto the chimera, holding onto its fur as it tried to buck him off. Below, Beth and Stew were still contending with the creature’s talons. Even though they had both managed to land blows, it didn’t look like they had done any damage.
The snake head lunged forward again too fast for Suzuki to do anything about and sank its fangs into Suzuki’s shoulder and his whole arm was set on fire with pain. But it wasn’t his axe hand, and that was all that mattered. Suzuki swung his axe, cutting halfway through the snake’s head. He raised his axe again, ready to cleave the head off completely when something sharp flew through the snake’s neck, severing it. A couple of other sharp objects flew through the air past Suzuki, landing in the chimera’s back.
They were sharpened bones. Suzuki turned to see Sandy holding her hands up, her palms facing the chimera. A bone slowly forced itself out of her palm and flew as if fired from a gun. Suzuki leapt off the chimera, hoping to give Sandy better aim.
The chimera roared loudly as it tried to turn around and stop Sandy. Sandy levitated off the ground, bones protruding out of her skin, covering her in armor, two large goats horns pushing themselves out of her forehead as her fingers stretched, the bones cracking and the nails stretching into razor-sharp bone claws.
The chimera pounced on Sandy, who brought her arms into her chest, the bone armor fusing together. The chimera brought its beak down on her, trying to crack into her but to no avail. Sandy cackled as she reached up and slashed at the chimera, who grabbed Sandy with its talons and slammed her into the ground. Sandy shut her eyes as it prepared to slam her again, and bones shot out of her body, obliterating the chimera’s talon. Sandy managed to roll away and join up with the rest of the Mundanes.
Stew stared at Sandy with a look of shock and awe. “Sandy, you’re practically naked,” he murmured, staring slack-jawed at her, her body almost completely covered with bones but still leaving enough to the imagination.
Sandy looked down at her new form. “Fuck, you’re right. I look pretty fucking hot.”
Beth tossed her daggers, bringing them back quickly and tried to circle the chimera. “Flirting later, killing now!” Beth shouted as she flung herself at the monster.
Stew cracked his knuckles, and his body began to swell as he entered into berserker mode. He roared as he ran toward the chimera, now only a little smaller than the creature, and tackled it to the ground as his shoulder cannon fired off a blast of hot plasma that tore through the chimera’s side. Sandy came up from behind Stew and volleyed off his back, tucking her arms and legs in together, sharp bones bursting out of her body. Stew leapt into the air and grabbed Sandy like a baseball and flung her into the chimera’s head, smashing open its eye and beak.
The chimera struggled to its feet, and Suzuki saw Beth was coming in hard from the left. Suzuki took the right, leaping onto the chimera and driving his axe deep into its neck. On the other side, Beth was hacking at the chimera’s neck, blood spouting in her face, her eyes wide with blood lust. Suzuki pulled his axe out, and with all his strength, struck again.
Suzuki rolled off the chimera. The rest of the Mundanes had managed to avoid being stuck under their dead foe except for Sandy, who was knee-deep in gore, having continued to rip open the chimera with her bones. When she realized the creature was dead, she stood up, not even bother to wipe the blood off. She went to chimera’s head and picked it up, staring at it. The chimera opened its eyes, and they locked gazes before the chimera closed them for the final time.
Suzuki looked around at the Mundanes and shook his head. “Now, that was some fucking teamwork,” he congratulated them. “Glad to see we can still take care of business
without Chip’s and Diana’s help. I was worried we were going to start getting sloppy, with such a big party.”
Stew returned to his normal size and pulled out his butchering knives. “Dude, the only one who has ever been sloppy is you,” he teased. “I’m glad you’re finally starting to pull your own weight.”
“Dude, I fucking decapitated that thing.”
“With Beth’s help. I was the one who tackled it and set you guys all up for a stellar finish. I’d say I definitely win MVP of the fight.”
“Do you even know what ‘stellar’ means?”
“I know how to use it in a sentence, and that’s ninety percent of communication.”
Suzuki wanted to say something back, but he was stumped. Stew had out-thought him this time around. “Anyways, losers.” Stew chuckled. “It’s cockatrices that are poisonous, right? Chimeras are just different kinds of meats.”
Sandy nodded as the bones in her body started to withdraw. She scrolled through her inventory and selected a set of robes to wear. “Yeah, cockatrices are poisonous. Fuck, I’m going to have to figure out this whole clothing thing. I don’t want to shred my robes every time I get in a fight. Stew, how come your clothes never rip when you get all yoked?”
Stew motioned for Suzuki to come give him a hand. “Oh, I got them custom made. They grow with me. And you, get your ass over here. You never help with the butchering, and you eat nearly as much as me.”
Suzuki groaned as he caught the knife Stew threw him. “It’s fucking gross,” he whined. “I don’t like rolling around in animal guts.”
“We’re battlefield to table, dude. You gotta start lending a hand, starting right now.”