"Thanks," she said. "We didn't really rest that long. You sure you're ready?"
"I think it might be better if I'm the one asking you that question." Alex glanced at the bandages wrapping her arm. "I'm not the one that was injured."
Claire touched the wound gingerly. "I'll make it. This should be healed soon enough. I just don't want the weight of everything suddenly slamming down on you all at once, you know? It took me a little while to really register that my life was over and everything had gone to shit."
Alex didn't respond immediately. He still wasn't sure how he was meant to feel about the apocalypse. He'd nearly died more times in the last two hours than he had in the entirety of his life leading up to them… and he'd never felt more alive.
Not like I'm going to mention that. I don't need Claire thinking I'm completely insane.
"Did you have computers in your world?" Alex asked abruptly.
Claire blinked, then shook her head. "I haven't heard that word before."
"What about university? Jobs?"
"We had jobs. I don't know university either."
"School."
"Oh, yeah. We had academies," Claire said. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"Did you have a job?"
She shook her head and her eyes went distant as she slipped into memory. "I was in my last year of academy training. I was going to join the guard for my city."
"I take it you were looking forward to that."
"More than I can describe. I worked so bleeding hard for it. I never thought my whole life could just… evaporate. Poof." Claire flicked her fingers and shook her head as her shoulders slumped. "Nothing to do about it now. I can't complain as long as I'm still kicking. What about you?"
"I was in school. Had no damn idea what I wanted to do."
"You were going to school for something without knowing if you wanted to do it?"
Alex gave her a wry grin and shrugged. "My world was a bit weird. Like you said, it doesn't matter much now. I'm ready to get moving again if you are."
"Sure. It beats sitting around and waiting for the next spooky freak of nature to rock up and turn me into a fillet."
Alex flicked Glint's card. It transformed into a streamer of black smoke, returning to its deck, and small claws raked through the air beside him, leaving a thin rend in reality. Glint stepped out from within it and the portal snapped shut behind him.
"Bleeding hell." Claire's hand darted to the hilt of her sword and she took a surprised step back before catching herself. "Your hedgehog is back. I thought you were off your rocker. It actually can't die?"
"His name is Glint," Alex said. "And yes. I'd be in dire straits if he didn't. Is that not common for Evokers?"
"Hell if I know," Claire said, releasing her sword and rubbing the back of her neck. "I've never worked personally with one. I know about as much about it as I do about your backside."
Alex raised an eyebrow. "That's certainly an… odd turn of phrase. It's interesting, actually. You're from a whole different world, but we speak the same language."
"I assume the System must be automatically translating our words or something. I guess that doesn't carry through to idioms and the like," Claire said.
He nodded. That seemed like the most reasonable conclusion. It was surprisingly hard to keep in mind that Claire wasn't from Earth. Despite her appearance, her friendly demeanor made it easy to forget that she was, at the very least, a strong relative of a literal vampire.
"What to do. We might as well get moving," Alex said with a nod to the street. "I'll have Glint take up the front and find the monsters before we do. We'll follow a bit behind him and figure out if we're going to take fights or not. It might not be the fastest way to handle things, but I don't think we're in a rush."
"I'm not so sure I'd say that. I don't know about you, but I need to eat," Claire said.
Alex paused. "I… kind of thought that hunger and thirst paused here or something."
Claire shook her head. "Nope. I had some rations, but they're gone. Have been for a day. I'd gut someone for a drink of water. You don't have any, do you?"
That complicates things. Even if there's water anywhere in the area, I've got no clue if we can actually drink it. Then again, doesn't that mean the challenge of surviving is even harder? According to Claire, that means the reward should be way better too.
"I don't have anything other than Glint and the clothes on my back," Alex said apologetically. "But I suppose that means we should get moving faster rather than slower."
Claire nodded and they stepped out onto the street. Glint took the lead as they started toward the mountain looming over them, keeping to the shadows of the buildings to avoid the enormous monsters in the air.
They didn't make good time, but they moved along, nonetheless. Minutes ground by at an agonizingly slow speed. Every errant noise and gust of wind set Alex's hair on end. The adrenaline pumping through his veins mixed with fear and excitement in a cocktail that definitely wasn't good for his heart.
A purple ripple of energy washed over the street just a few dozen feet above them. Alex and Claire pressed themselves to the wall of a cracked building and hid beneath a thick, twisting root as an enormous City-Eater Centipede spiraled out from the disk of energy. Its legs swam as it passed through the sky.
Alex stared up at it in mute awe. Even though he was seeing it with his own eyes, the monster was unbelievably large. It was difficult to register just how large the City-Eaters could get until one was passing just above the tops of the buildings overhead.
He didn't so much as dare to draw in a breath. There was no way something as huge as a City-Eater Centipede would even want to eat him, but he wasn't about to tempt fate. There was challenge and there was suicide — and the massive bugs were undoubtedly the latter.
A portal yawned open before the City-Eater Centipede and it swam in its direction — but it didn't quite make it. Pink light lit the street as another portal carved open above the centipede. An enormous, three fingered hand stretched out from it and wrapped around the centipede.
??? (???)
/Author's Note///
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