Sleepy Slurper

Alex woke up in a comfy bed with a comfy blanket, resting his head on a comfy woman's bosom. Wait, what the hell? Oh, it was just a pillow. That had him feeling relieved.

If either Sophia or Gertie rested his head on their bosom, his head would probably explode from confusion. That conversation with Gertie was a lot to process.

Not only did they have to snatch the dimensional core out from under the watch of some powerful beasts, but Gertie was now some sort of dimension-hopping, time-traveling witch with a good eye for interior design? It was almost too much to handle.

And exterior design even. Despite how rundown the outside of her home looked, it was extremely on brand for a 'witch'. It was practically a flashing neon sign saying, "Burn me at the stake!"

"You're finally awake," Gertie said. She was sitting in a chair by his bedside.

"Whoa! How long was I out," Alex said.

"A week," Gertie said.

"A week?" Alex said.

"No, I'm just messing with you. You've only been out for a couple hours," Gertie said. "I remember my first Slurp. Those things hit hard. I was worried when I saw you guzzling it."

"So, it was the Slurp. I thought I got some sci-fi disease like dimension sickness or something," Alex said.

"Nope. Just good old-fashioned Slurp," Gertie said, giggling to herself.

"Thanks for putting me in bed and letting me literally crash at your place. Sophia and I should get going though," Alex said, getting out of bed.

"Yeah, you got a world to save," Gertie said. "I'll see you around, kid."

"It was great to see you again," Alex said.

Alex and Sophia set off for the cliff's edge to figure out how best to get to the bottom. When they looked over the edge, they noticed you couldn't see the ground with all the bones that were laying on top of it.

No wonder it was called the Valley of Death. They could either walk the long way around, which could take a day or more, or they could rappel down.

Alex would fly down and let Sophia rappel if she wanted. He felt like holding in that he could fly wasn't good for their partnership, even if she did eventually stab him in the back.

"So, I can fly now. Do you want me to carry you down, or do you want to do it the hard way?" Alex said.

"You can fly?" Sophia said. "Why am I not surprised?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Alex said.

"Nothing," Sophia said. "Can I trust you?"

"Yeah. You never couldn't," Alex said.

Sophia hopped into Alex's arms. This was his first time flying, so they beefed it into the dirt a couple times before Alex could stay stable enough to carefully descend.

They landed on the ground with a loud clatter of bones. A pack of hungry wolves with white fur, blue eyes, and frosty breath walked out of the nearby cave in the side of the cliff.

They didn't seem happy to see them. "Oh, nice. A welcoming party!" Alex said. "You take left, I'll take right."

"Deal," Sophia said. She launched herself forward into the left half of the group. Alex launched himself into the right half.

Equipping his forcefield and telekinetic body at the same time, he uppercut the first wolf, flipping it over onto its back. It did not get up.

Another wolf clamped its mouth tight onto his arm. Alex punched it repeatedly in the face with his other arm. It still didn't let go. He channeled electricity into the wolf, electrocuting it.

Its head burnt to a crisp. It let go of Alex's arm, but it had nothing left to hold on with. When it fell to the ground, its head was just char.

Alex looked at his arm and noticed a build up of ice around the forcefield. Huh. Frost bite.

Alex shouted to Sophia, "Look out! They have-"

"I know!" Sophia said, holding her icy shoulder.

There was a wolf on the ground with a spear through its head, but she couldn't lift it anymore due to her literally frozen shoulder.

She battered away the remaining wolves with her shield, but it wouldn't last forever. They were already trying to find their way around it.

"Hold on!" Alex said. He ran backwards over to Sophia, making sure not to trip. He gently put his back against hers and said, "You watch my back I'll watch your back."

He was essentially telling her he was going to solo the remaining eight wolves. He couldn't rely on brawling right now. If he did, they would dog-pile him, and he wouldn't be able to protect Sophia.

One wolf leaped into the air, flying at Alex's face to bite his head off. He pushed his hand out, telekinetically shoving the wolf twenty feet back. It landed on its side, but it quickly got up.

As the wolves closed in, Alex got desperate. He dropped his forcefield to put all his power into his next attack. He put both his hands out in front of him in a 'V' shape.

He waited until all the wolves were within a fifteen-foot cone created by the shape of his arms and then channeled all his power into electrokinesis.

[New skill created: Cone of Lightning]

It struck every wolf at once and fried them all. Chunks of charred flesh exploded in all directions, covering everything within twenty feet, including Alex.

The remains of the wolf bodies barreled into Alex and Sophia, trapping them under hundreds of pounds of charred wolf flesh. Alex activated his telekinetic body to push the still massive animals off of him, but Sophia struggled to get them off.

She was strong, but she wasn't superhumanly strong, at least not as much as Bjorn was. Alex flipped wolf corpses off her body, throwing them ten feet behind him, kicking up a cloud of bone dust.

After he'd chucked the dead animals off her, he put out his hand for her to grab. She grabbed it with her good arm, and helped him pull her up.

Now that they were out of combat, Alex could switch out his core skills. He realized while training with Ludos and Morcai that he couldn't switch out his skills in combat.

That could've been the game telling him he needed to be careful about his loadout at all times, or maybe switching out skills just took concentration that combat wouldn't allow.

Regardless, he switched out psychometry for pyrokinesis and turned Sophia so her frozen shoulder was in front of him.

"Hold still," Alex said. He concentrated on creating heat, and only heat with his hands. No fire. He slowly increased the temperature until the ice on her shoulder began to melt.

He increased it more to defrost it faster and then carefully decreased the temperature down as he got closer to her actual skin. Her skin wasn't bright red, which was a very bad sign. It was greyish-yellow and it looked hard and waxy.