Stepping out of the school was like walking into a bad postcard of the apocalypse.
The air was cold and smelled weird, like someone had mixed cheap chemicals with rotten meat. They all filed through the nasty, sizzling hole Leo had made in that gross purple wall, trying not to touch the edges.
Chloe was in full class-rep mode. "Move it, single file! Watch your step!" She was herding everyone through, her new little shield looking official on her arm.
Leo was last in line, his nerves buzzing. Of course, his luck held. His foot hit a patch of leftover slime and slid right out from under him.
"Whoa!"
He stumbled forward and crashed right into Chloe's back. His arms automatically wrapped around her waist to keep them both from eating floor.
She let out this little "eep!" of surprise. For a second, it was just... warm. And she smelled like shampoo, which was a wild contrast to the general nastiness around them. It was actually kinda nice.
She elbowed him off, her face a little pink. "Watch it, Artisan. Can't have you breaking your magic hands."
"Yep. Sorry," Leo mumbled, his face getting hot.
Smooth, Leo. Real smooth.
Maya shone her magic flashlight around the trashed lobby. "So, the quickest way to this 'Hope's Outpost' is straight through the city park. Two klicks."
Luna bounced on her new boots. "A straight shot through monster town! Sounds like a party."
The party started about ten seconds later. Something wet and nasty dropped from a broken trellis right between Leo and Maya. It was all legs and teeth.
Leo didn't think. He tackled the thing. They hit the ground hard, and it was like wrestling a giant, slimy slug. It was seriously gross.
"Hold it, Leo!" Maya yelled.
Leo grunted, putting all his weight into holding it. A second later, one of her blue energy bolts zipped right past his ear—so close he felt the heat—and nailed the thing in the head. It stopped moving.
Leo pushed himself off, breathing heavy and attempting to stand up, only to get tackled again. Maya, trying to confirm if she had hit her mark, tripped over a chair leg and landed right on top of him.
"Oof!"
They were a tangled mess. Her glasses were crooked, her incredibly flustered face was right in his, and he could feel her heart beating a mile a minute. Her magic flashlight rolled away, making the shadows dance like they were at a weird disco. She was blushing super hard.
"Oh! Sorry! I miscalculated the— the physics!" she stammered, trying to get up and just making it more awkward.
Before they could untangle, a shadow fell over them. Chloe was standing there, one eyebrow raised. "You two done cuddling? We're kinda in the middle of something."
Maya scrambled off him like he was on fire. Her movements quite possibly matching Luna's mirage step, fixing her glasses and refusing to look at me. I got up, brushing myself off and trying to get rid of the worst of the slime.
"Thanks for the save," I said.
She just nodded, super serious. But it was clear there was something in her mind.
We started moving through the city, using wrecked cars and broken buildings for cover. Luna was loving her new boots, zipping ahead and blinking back to report.
"Next street's clear," she whispered, popping up right next to me so our arms touched. She didn't move away. "But there's a whole river of that purple gunk blocking the way. We're stuck." She gave me a grin and a look that felt a little too knowing before she vanished again, leaving a hint of her perfume behind.
She wasn't kidding. A wide stream of the acidic slime cut the street in half. No way across.
"I can jump it!" Luna said.
"The rest of us can't," Maya pointed out, ever the realist.
Leo looked around and saw a fallen streetlight pole. It was almost long enough to be a bridge. An idea hit him like a brick in a pond. "I can fix this. But I need a minute. And it's gonna be loud."
Right on cue, we heard growling. Three big, wolf-like monsters with glowing red eyes stepped out of an alley. Great.
"Out of time!" Chloe yelled. She slammed her shield, and a big, glowing wall popped into existence, blocking the street. "Leo, do your thing! Maya, light 'em up! Luna, be a pest!"
All hell broke loose. Maya started blasting. Luna was blinking everywhere, kicking the monsters and making them crazy. Chloe held the line, her personal shield blocking claws and teeth.
Despite the urge to join the fight along with the spectacularly beautiful girls, He knew that he had a much more important job to carry out.
He ran to the pole with a speed he didn't even know he had. E-rank speed was no joke.
He put his hands on it and focused on the Aegis skill blueprint and imagined the light stretching out, making a bridge.
Leo's head began to pound as he pushed his energy into it. The end of the pole lit up with a golden glow, and a solid-looking path of light shot out over the slime, connecting to the other side with a resounding bang.
"Bridge is up! Go, go, go!" He shouted, feeling totally wiped.
Chloe started yelling orders, and everyone scrambled across. Maya shot one last bolt and ran. Chloe backed across just as her big wall shattered.
Suddenly, the bridge snapped. And he was stuck with the lupine monsters.
The party stood on the other side, utterly dumbfounded on how things played out watching the monsters snarl and pace around Leo.
Leo looked incredibly calm on the outside but on the inside, his mind was ablaze with panic, his artist's eye helping to prevent him from making any rash decisions.
One of the lupine beasts snarled and lunged towards him. Leo bent backwards, narrowly avoiding the teeth as it snapped inches from his throat even if he had dodged.
His artist eye flared and his eyes widened as he saw his way out.
[Race: Lupine Tecron]
[Level: 6]
[Skill: Hellhound - Amplify speed and strength and absorb damage in the form of explosive energy.]
[Store Skill Blueprint? Y/N]
Leo didn't hesitate and clicked yes
A new screen appeared before his eyes once more.
[Hellhound+Arcane bolt] = [Hellbolt]
[Forge skill? Y/N]
He didn't bother to read it. Just confirmed it. And immediately activated the skill.
He collapsed to the ground twitching as his muscles rippled and tightened.
Even the monsters had to pause to watch. It was as of they were trying to gauge if he was still prey or a competition.
The change stopped abruptly. It wasn't noticable but Leo knew and felt it. He was faster and stronger now more than ever.
He stood up, his artist eye running amok . So many options now revealed themselves to him. He may have leveled up. But there was no time to check.
One of the beasts lunged and swiped at him but he simply took a step back and shot the beast like a striker to a penalty.
The beast flew with such force that it simply burst to pieces as it collided with the wall of a building
Leo blinked in surprise, already wondering just what kind of painting this monsters would have used his blood to paint if he hadn't taken their skill.
His artist eye flared.
[Glass shard + Tecron bone] = [Hunter dagger]
[Would you like to forge?Y/N]
Leo lunged and grabbed the two materials accepting the forge offer as he grabbed them. The two items began glowing and fused to form a surprisingly elegant dagger.
The bone handle had a variety of runic carvings on it while the blade was as transparent as glass, it seemed highly durable.
Leo really wanted to activate appraise to check it but there was no time.
One of the hellhounds began to howl but was abruptly cut short as Leo, in a burst of speed slit its throat with the dagger. Turning its howl into a gurgle but it seemed even the short sound it had produced had attracted the whole pack.
Leo could hear them even from there. They had to at least be up to a hundred. He had to get out of there. Fast
The last one began to whimper in his presence. He didn't know what could have changed in his outlook that made the blood lusting monster to turn into a puppy. Well it was a puppy.
It turned out that the lupine Tecrons were only still puppies. And the adults were the ones approaching.
He grabbed the crooked pole trying to construct the light-bridge again but it simply turned to dust as soon as he touched it. He needed a way out fast.
He took one look at the bloody puddle that was once a monster and swallowed, imagining what the adults would do to him.
He looked around. His artist eye swirling but all he was seeing were simple feats of blacksmithing and engineering. but then a thought occured to him.
Why not just jump it?
As soon as he considered it. An acid spring shot out of the lake. And he immediately dismissed the idea.
There was nothing to do.
But then someone appeared beside him, grabbed him by the shirt and skating on light, landed on the other side.
Leo blinked twice in dumbfounded confusion. When he looked at who had carried him, he was surprised to see Luna.
A hand landed on his shoulder. Chloe. "That was too close," she said, her voice low. "But you pulled it off."
Luna bumped my other shoulder. "You're such a Show-off. Did you really think you were the only one who got stronger?" She was smiling and occasionally glancing at her boots
.
Maya just pushed her glasses up. "The tactical applications of that are significant," she said, though she looked pretty impressed.
Standing there with the three of them—Chloe steady, Luna buzzing with energy, Maya already calculating—I felt the pressure like a weight. But it was a weight we were all carrying together. We'd made it through another mess. The road to the Outpost was still long, but at least I wasn't walking it alone.