Beast Attack
While Sara drove us to the village, I looked at Naval, who sat across from me, staring straight at my rifle. I looked down to see if there was some wrong. But besides the shadows eating at the light that dared to shine on it, nothing seemed amiss. Though, his odd glare only filled my mind with worry. Hopefully, needless worry. I turned towards Rin, who was wearing a steel-plated bullet-proof vest with runes covering it. I opened my book and flipped to a random page once more. As I flip through the old tome, the pages suddenly flipped on their own. A surprise for sure, but I let it choose the page. After a few seconds, the pages stopped, and I was met with a diagram of a figure encasing an item in magic. I stared at the unknown runes and the words came to mind.
"Oh, Mistress of the Void, enchant thy target with my body." After I finished, Rin's vest shimmered softly before a shadow similar to my gun devoured the light that tried to shine onto it. I looked at Rin and she gave me a soft smile, though her face was full of worry. Rin suddenly pulled out her .44 magnum and pointed it at her vest. "Wait, what are you doing?" I said, staring at the gun pointed at her chest. I then turned to Naval and noticed he was giving her silent motions to do it. "Naval-"
"If you have faith in your powers, I suggest you shut up and watch." Naval cut me off with a bitter tone as if I somehow pissed him off. I tried to move toward Rin, however, the look in her eye warned me to stop. In the reflection of her eyes, I spotted Naval moving behind me. Recognizing that I have no control here, I sat down. "Good little dog."
"… Bastard." I groaned.
"Heh, I don't wanna hear it from a slave to his country. Now Rin, do it." Within a second's notice, Rin pulled the trigger. I felt a horrific pain in my chest and fell to the ground, gasping for air. I looked back up and found Rin holding her gun with a terrified expression on her face. "So as I thought, more Void magic." After saying that, his tone changed back to his usual one. "I told you to stop flipping to a random page, lad. These prayers have their drawbacks." Rin and I both looked at Naval with speechless expressions. "What? Is there something on my face? Anyways, Hammond, give Rin your book will ya?" As I tried to open my mouth, he knocked his fists together.
This bastard…
I then handed over my book to Rin, and she placed it in a small satchel that was around her waist. It had a leathery appearance and had only enough space to hold the book that contained my soul. While I agree with having the book stay safe, I'm also at a disadvantage, as I cannot use it in combat.
Suddenly, the vehicle came to a screeching stop. Naval and I looked at each other and nodded. While his actions earlier were unnerving, at the end of the day we are fighting as comrades on the battlefield. I opened to back door of the vehicle and hopped out with the rifle resting on my hip, ready to fire at a moment's notice.
The horrifying scenes of war stood before me. Bodies belonging to men, women, and children littered the village's streets. Along with the villagers that lived here, soldiers wearing a US National Guard uniform lay motionless with their ranks. Upon seeing these, I attempted to reach for my phone. However, it appeared that it was no longer in my possession. Annoyed, I walked over to the corpse and grabbed his dog tag, and wrapped it around my left fist.
I then heard Naval's steps behind me. "Look at his corpse." Confused, I looked back at the dead soldier's body.
"What?" A blurted out. I was blinded by my emotions earlier that I failed to notice that the man before me had 80% of his neck ripped out. The remaining parts of his neck curved in the same of a mouth, a large one at that. I turned to face the other corpses and found that had all met similar fates. Large chucks of their bodies were ripped out and scattered. The thick smell of blood filled my nostrils. As I examined the corpse in front of me, I found a large metal needle-like object.
"Things have gotten even trickier than I had thought." As he said that, something in the surrounding trees alerted Naval. Sara and Rin came behind with their weapons in hand. However, instead of the gun at her thigh, Sara held a two-ended polearm with a long, curved blade on one end and a sharp spear, made of two blades intersecting, on the other end. Without warning, a large beast leaped off the tree and gave a deafening roar.
I immediately aimed my gun at its hand and shot a shadowy ball that pierced its left eye. As it was still airborne, Sara ran up with her bladed end and slashed its underside. Naval jumped into the air and used his gauntlets to slam the beast to the ground. Rin finished the beast by shooting it once in the head with her gun. The beast's head blew clean off as its brain chunks flew all over. I walked over to get a closer look at the beast's body.
It had the shape of an oversized wolf with its fur glistening a beautiful violet as the sliver moon shined into it. I reached to touch it and felt a stinging pain. As a pulled back my hand, I found it covered in cuts I swear were not there before.
"A Steelfur," Sara spoke. "These are minor beasts that can be easily tamed, given enough food. There are kinda like wolves with fur made of steel. If you think of this as an RPG, these guys are basically your starting enemies who basically cannot kill you unless you suck-" Sara was interrupted by a series of howls coming from the trees. "More are on the way. You kill as many of these wolves as possible while keeping Rin safe. Naval and I are gonna rescue that idiot sister of mine." Without a second to protest, A Steelfur leaped from the trees behind Sara. I aimed at its head and shot. Naval ran up and punched it to smithereens.
"That's a hell of a reaction shot you got there, lad. Keep it up." I said nothing in reason as more came out of the forest. "Earth! Bend to my will!!!" Naval shouted as a patch of dirt sprung out from under him, launching him into the air. On his way down, he crushed the skulls of two Steelfurs. "Sara!" Sara and Naval ran ahead, leaving the rest for me and Rin to take on.
"Tch, those assholes." I complained. But I understood why these things keep appearing out of the trees as if they were spawning from it. If they stayed, then they would have less time to save Sora. "Hey, Rin." I said out loud to the girl currently shooting beasts behind me. "I have an idea." As I said that, four Steelfurs launched at me. I used my bayonet to put them down. Their blood was thick, which caused my blade to dull. Rin noticed and tossed me a rag. I cleaned off the blood and shot at four more.
"You wanna enter the forest?" Rin reloaded her weapon. As she did, a Steelfur tried to bite her chest. The beast's fangs clamped down on her, however, she felt no pain and shot at the beast and blew off its head. Holding my chest in pain, I nodded. "Sure!" She agreed while kicking a Steelfur in the face. It responded with a pained whimper as she, without mercy, blew its head off.
"You know, you are cute yet terrifying." I said as I cleared an opening for us to enter the forest.
"I don't wanna hear it from a boy who can shoot a gun with the same experience as a retired vet. Just who are you?"
"Just a normal boy, I'll say." I then slashed at a few beasts and ran into the forest with Rin close behind.
While we in running, the howls followed and Rin reached into her tool belt and grabbed a flashlight. Lighting our way, Rin ran ahead of me. In front of her were a few Steelfurs running at us. I effortlessly gunned them down and Rin used their still moving, lifeless bodies as a springboard. After she landed, she spoke.
"Up ahead is a clearing. If anyone were to place a summon portal, it would be there."
"A summon portal?" I asked.
"Yeah, summon portal links from one area to another. Theoretically, we could use it to travel to the source, but we will mostly get killed if we did. So once we get there, I will nullify it with my void stone. But be warned that you will be unable to use magic once I do."
"So switch to only my bayonet, gotcha." Rin chuckled a little at my comment.
After running for a few minutes, we reached a large clearing strewed with the corpses of the Steelfurs. Rin ran behind me with her pistol in hand. A large portal-like thing stood in the center of the clearing. It illuminated a gentle blue and purple with runic symbols that circled around it. As a Steelfur came out, the sound of a semi-automatic rifle echoed off the trees. Then the sounds of footsteps crunching bones and flesh followed.
"Well, well, well." A recognizable voice called out to me. I look beside the portal and found a familiar man dressed in a non-traditional uniform with a blue trench coat over top. He wore a blue baggy cap that covered his black hair that slowly creeped out from under. His face was that of a young man in his 20s. Unlike my grandparents, he was actually in his 20s. He has a stern yet carefree face with a twisted smile on his face. In his hands was a blue AR-15 rifle. The man looked at me and grabbed a grenade from within his coat and tossed it into the portal. After a few moments, the portal closed, and the man walked toward me with his rifle in hand. "So Special Ops Gamma 7, Florence, returns from being MIA with a cute girl at his side." The man tossed me a small object. I caught the object and looked at it. It was my phone that I had lost. "How the hell am I gonna explain all the needless causalities?"
I aimed my gun at him. "Tell me one thing, Commander. Did you order this attack?"
He grinned. "You seem to have taken the wrong side, Florence. Look at your phone. Whoever had your phone was the mastermind here. I was just trying to recover a soldier of mine." I then pulled the trigger.