INTERLUDE (X)

  Minutes Earlier.

  Alice was already having second thoughts. Of course, she’d known from the very beginning that this was a bad idea, had tried to insist on as much, to little success all around. The others were adamant, and she’d been loathe to let herself get left behind. Nevertheless, as they marched deeper into the woods, growing further and further from her little bro and his umbrella of protection, she couldn’t help but feel like something terrible was going to happen.

  At their head, Donald came to a sudden halt. Immediately, he was bumped into by Sanya, nearly toppling them both over. Whereupon she, in turn, found herself rear ended by Jimmy, and so on, and so forth. Their single file procession coming to an abrupt halt like an awkward string of dominoes. Thankfully no one actually toppled over in truth, though it was a close thing. Donald hissed.

  “Shhhh! Do you hear that?”

  The others went quiet. Having grown perfectly still, they perked their ears for even the slightest noise. The rustle of leaves or snap of a twig. There was nothing.

  “Ye sure ye don’t just have somethin’ in yer ear?”

  “No!” he snapped.

  Then Donald paused, stuck a pinky finger into his ear and retrieved a glob of something Alice didn’t wish to look at to closely. Those nearest to him made a face of disgust.

  “See?! I told you so!” Skye exclaimed.

  “Shhhh!” Donald repeated, wiping the unmentionable thing on his clothes. “I’m telling you guys I heard something!” he hissed.

  “What did ye hear?” Skye continued. “Probly just yer ears stuffed up with all sorts of-!”

  There was a rustle to their left as something moving incredibly fast shot out from behind the tree cover. Each of their heads snapped in its direction. Skye bared her teeth, Donald fumbled with his spear, Jimmy fell into a fighting stance, Sanya took a wary step back, while Chance and Alice screamed. One in sheer terror. The other, in pure delight.

  “‘nelope!” Alice exclaimed, using the nickname she’d given her.

  And, as if launched from a cannon, the little girl shot straight into her arms, burrowing in close, and nearly landing Alice on her butt. Alice held the girl close, smooshing her face with hers, and rubbing cheeks well past the point of friction burn. Eventually, the two parted, and the little girl made the rounds, greeting everyone else in turn with warm hugs.

  “Gave me a freakin’ heart attack!” Donald cried. “What if you had been a monster?!”

  “Then you would have been in big trouble,” Jimmy glanced pointedly at the too long spear in his hands.

  Donald blushed.

  “S-spears are OP!” he cried indignantly, to which Jimmy merely shrugged.

  “If you say so,” he replied, though he left unsaid the obvious reason the young fanboy was so enamored with the spear, despite owning no ability, either system gifted or otherwise, to compliment it.

  “What are you doing here anyway?!” Donald blustered.

  “Yeah,” Sanya wondered. “How did you find us?”

  The girls only response was a small gesture she’d seen her little bro make on many an occasion. She thumped her chest, and gave a triumphant thumbs up, a beaming gummy smile capping it off. And, in so far as they were concerned, that was that.

  The peculiar little infant shot them all a curious glance, ran her eyes over their surroundings, then tilted her head with a perplexed expression.

  Alice, well practiced in deciphering this form of sign language by now, was the first to pick up on her meaning.

  “You wanna know why we’re all the way out here?” she asked, to which the young girl nodded emphatically.

  “Well…”

  “It’s a secret! If we tell you, you can’t tell anyone! Got it? Not even big bro!”

  The little girl’s eyes went wide, before going distant for a second. After which they once more sharpened and she bobbed her head in confirmation. Donald relaxed.

  “Good! Well…” he leaned in closer, just in case someone out there in the forest was eavesdropping. “We’re gonna go and hunt some monsters!” he whispered.

  Penelope stared at him blankly. She then tilted her head, as if to say, “that’s it?” Donald puffed up indignantly. Clearly incensed that she wasn’t in awe of his ingenious plan, but before he could open his mouth to show her the full extent of his displeasure, there came a rustling from nearby.

  This time, all seven of them snapped their heads in its direction. Relaxing when they saw the familiar silhouette of the tutorial guide. Large round bell and protruding cat ears making it very hard to mistake him for anyone else. Several of the children even raised their hands in greeting. Chance especially seemed ecstatic. Beaming wide and waving emphatically at the purple mascot. Their words of greeting died on their lips however, when they spotted the troupe of figures marching behind the titular mascot.

  Massive scaled giants, heavily scarred and well armed, it wasn’t their alien features, nor their strange weapons, nor the hardened look about them that made the children take a wary step back. No, instead it was the way they looked at them that sent shivers down their spines. Most dull eyed, like a dead fish, they stared through them more than they really saw them. Though that was nothing when compared to the downright ravenous looks a choice few of the skinnier lizard men aimed their way.

  As if they hadn’t eaten all week, and were suddenly presented with a blowout Christmas dinner.

  Jimmy and Donald took a couple more steps back. Until, that is, they bumped into Sanya and Skye, who were doing much the same.

  “Hey, what giv…” Donald’s words died in his throat, however, when he spun around in protest only to find there were just as many of the lizard men at their backs, as at their front.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  They were surrounded.

  One of the lizard men, a black scaled giant who stood head and shoulders above the other monsters—wielding a ginormous futuristic looking firearm—hissed something unintelligible in, what could only be, it’s native language. Blinky the mascot, standing only a foot or so away from the imposing lizard man, spoke back in a language they could understand, though it’s words and tone were anything but familiar. The mascot huffed:

  “Are your dogs so untrained that they cant help but pounce at anything that breathes?” there came a sharp hiss in response, to which the mascot sighed. “Alright fine. If it really can’t be helped. Leave the girl,” the lizard man hissed a question. “No, the small one, you dolt,” the snake man hissed its indignation.

  Blinky’s tail flicked sharply, and a shock of terrifying pressure lanced through everyone in the clearing. Bringing the weakest of them, each of the children but Penelope, to their knees. The lizard man’s angry hiss was silenced mid-protest.

  “Know your place, worm,” the mascot snapped, sending chills down their spines with the unaccustomed harshness of his tone.

  In response to this blatant insult, and in the wake of that display of power, the lizard man could only bow his head and grit his teeth in acquiescence. He then gestured towards his men. More specifically to those who’d shown a keen interest. The rail thin lizard men that’d looked upon the children with a palpable hunger. The kids huddled close, wide eyed and afraid. The lizard man in charge sparing them one last glance before turning with the rest of his men and walking off.

  “B-blinky…?” Chance muttered, his hopeful plea cutting through the tense atmosphere like a knife through butter.

  The titular mascot stared into the boy’s pleading eyes for some time before making a decision. He halted the black scaled lizard man in his tracks with a gesture. Turning around with a disgruntled expression, the hiss he uttered was easily understandable. This despite the language barrier:

  “What?!”

  Still staring Chance directly in the eyes, Blinky mused aloud.

  “If you can, tell your goons to make it last longer. Stretch it out, if you please. As long as they can, preferably. I’d like to actually savor a meal for once in this goodie two shoes, lovey dovey, sickly sweet candyland.”

  The leader gave one more irritated hiss before spinning on his heel and leading the procession. Leaving only the children, six malnourished lizards—saliva dripping from unhinged jaws—and a passively spectating mascot to see what came next. It’s tail gently swishing from side to side, arms folded behind its back, and bright yellow eyes crinkled up with glee.

  +++

  Penelope wasn’t entirely sure she understood what was going on. Oh, she thought she had the gist, but, then again, she didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. Maybe this was all some sort of game. Of course, it didn’t seem like a very fun one, looking at the expressions on her friend’s faces, but, then again again, she had been wrong before. What if teacher found out and punished her with no ice cream with her cake when this all turned out to be a big misunderstanding? She shuddered internally. No, she didn’t want that.

  Anything but that.

  Any yet when the big green lizard men loped forward, nothing good glinting in their cold, slitted eyes, and the nice cat man failed to intervene, her suspicions were finally put to rest. She hadn’t been mistaken. It would seem the nice cat man wasn’t so nice after all. She sent a quick message to teacher to make sure he’d be careful around this one. Only once she’d finished with that, did she turn her gaze back to the approaching lizard men. They weren’t far now, just a couple dozen or so paces.

  They’d slowed. Taking exaggerated steps now. Flashing their sharp claws and wicked canines. Seeming to take great enjoyment out of the frightened faces her friends made in response. Penelope frowned. She didn’t like that. No, she really didn’t like that. And, as if sensing her agitation, suddenly, neither did all the ambient mana in the area. She saw mean cat man’s eyes widen from out of the corner of her eye, just as six invisible hands grabbed the stupid lizards around the waist, and flung them high up into the stratosphere, where they could never scare anyone ever again!

  Or… at least, that had been her intention, and to her credit, the six cretins had stopped in their tracks. Panic flitting across their faces as they suddenly lost the ability to move. Only… when she tried to push her floaty friends to do as she said, she was met with unexpected resistance. Immediately she could tell that, were she to just lean the slightest bit harder on the mana, it would break through this blockage and leap to obey. And yet, met with this strange resistance for the very first time, she hesitated.

  Interesting…

  Penelope, enraptured by this interesting new development, followed the flavor of this strange influence back to its source, and was somewhat surprised to find that it was mean cat man, visibly shaking with the effort of holding back her imperial will. Her eyes widened, and, unbidden, she floated forward a step, as if to get a closer look.

  “Ah ah ah,” mean cat man admonished, a slight waver in his voice.

  Penelope squinted. Something funky was definitely going on here. An oddity about the mascot which somehow she hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps it was all that practice with teacher, but there was something not right about the creature. A shadow cast about its head that shouldn’t have been there.

  “We can’t have you interrupting, now can we? Now, why don’t you be a good little girl and-”

  With a twist of her thoughts, not only did she remove his meager hold on the ambient mana, but she also managed to rip aside the shroud shielding his information from view. Now, instead of it reading “Blinky the Friendly Tutorial Guide,” above his head, it now read:

  +—|-(PURRSEFONE OF SANDS; THE MIDNIGHT EARL)-|—+

  ?[Lvl ? ELITE]?

  With both his veil and grasp on ambient mana ripped away so suddenly, mean cat man staggered backwards, yellow eyes gone wide. Penelope grinned, sent back a quick progress report to teacher, and was about to get back to hurling the mean lizard men into space, when she heard something unexpected. The tinkling of a bell. In that same instant it was as if a nine inch nail had been jammed into Penelope’s eye socket. The pain so sudden and intense that she cried out, and would’ve fallen to the earth if she’d been hovering under her own power.

  Very quickly, all of the ambient mana in the near vicinity converged around her head. Bunching in so densely that she couldn’t see for all the swirling colors. Thankfully, their interference did help to lessen the pain considerably, though she was given little time to enjoy it. She felt it more than she saw it. A paw of liquid shadow leaping from her own shadow, catching her squarely in the middle. She was only barely able to direct the ambient mana in time, before it was her sent spinning high into the air, instead of the monsters.

  The blow enough to knock the wind from her lungs, even through padded layer upon layer of her floaty friends. Worse than that was that she suddenly had a lot fewer friends than she had before. The shadow paw somehow corrupting the floating wisps she had access to. As she watched, those colorful motes swiped by the shadow claws grew progressively more black, until they drifted away from her entirely. No longer under her control. Her eyes widened.

  She hadn’t even known that could happen. Arresting her momentum with a thought, she cleared her vision of ambient mana and looked down at the ongoing scene below. No longer hampered by her ability, the lizard men were closing in on the children fast. A few of the brave ones, like Jimmy and Skye, having apparently resolved themselves to stand and fight, but even from way up here she could tell it wasn’t going to go in their favor.

  Needing to help her friends, but not wanting to get close to mean cat man and whatever mean pain magic he used, Penelope did the only thing she could think to. Penelope sent one final message to teacher—just in case he tried to get in contact with her while she was still busy—then she tapped into the bobbing bubble of scorching heat teacher had tasked her with carrying with her at all times, and sent a pillar of flames earthward, in hopes of scaring away the beasts.

  She didn’t actually intend to hit anyone, as her friends were far too close for comfort, and yet maybe…

  Unfortunately, just as her pillar of fire was nearing the ground, and the lizard men’s steps had begun to falter, a dome of shadow sprang up to envelop the small patch of forest, nullifying her scorching flames entirely. The pillar entering the dome as if a stone thrown into a rippling pond, though where on earth it wound up, she could not currently say.

  Penelope grit her gums.

  No longer able to see what had become of her friends, and worrying for the worst, she fortified her mind as best she could, then launched herself at the shadowy dome, and the monsters who lurked within.