Giant Dark Rabid Wolf vs Frightened Teen.
Before I could even process what was happening to my body, the Shuck launched Althea a few paces away from it- launching her with it's hind legs. With a loud crash, she hit hard against the pavement, leaving the creature to turn it's attention to me and the lady at my side. Instictively, I picked her up princess style and started running.
I didn't have time to admire my newfound, physics-defying leg strength. The sickening crunch of asphalt breaking snapped my attention back to the present. The Shuck had used its powerful hind legs to launch Althea backward like a ragdoll. She slammed into the pavement with a heavy, metallic crash, skidding several feet before coming to a halt.
With the Vanguard temporarily out of the picture, the monstrous shadow-hound slowly turned its massive head. That beaming red orb locked onto me with renewed, terrifying focus.
"Okay, nope. We are leaving," I announced to the terrified, bleeding woman.
Before my rational brain could remind me how incredibly heavy an adult human is supposed to be, I scooped her up off the ground princess-style. She felt shockingly light—like I was carrying a backpack full of crumpled paper instead of a full-grown person. My stats had definitely been tampered with.
I pivoted on my heel and bolted.
The world around me instantly dissolved into a dizzying blur of grey concrete and abandoned vehicles. The wind roared violently in my ears, but it wasn't loud enough to drown out the horrifying sounds right behind me. The heavy, rhythmic thud-crunch-thud of the Shuck's massive paws tearing into the pavement told me the nightmare dog was already in pursuit.
"Oh god, oh god, it hurts!" the woman shrieked, clutching her mangled leg as she bounced awkwardly against my chest. Her face was pale, tears streaming down her cheeks, mixing with the dirt and grime.
"I know! I'm sorry! I'm moving as fast as I can!" I yelled back, my voice barely audible over the wind and the monstrous, wet growls echoing down the street.
My mind was racing a mile a minute. Hospital. I need to get her to a hospital. I mentally mapped out the distance to Astral City General. It was at least twelve blocks east. I could probably make it with this weird new speed buff, but then a horrifying realization slapped me in the face.
If I ran straight to a hospital with a Havoc Class Void Demon directly on my tail, I wouldn't be saving anyone. I'd just be leading a giant, rabid shadow-wolf into a building packed full of helpless, injured people. I'd practically be ringing the dinner bell for an all-you-can-eat buffet.
"Change of plans!" I muttered through gritted teeth. "We have to lose the dog first!"
"What?!" the woman sobbed, her fingers digging painfully into the shoulders of my hoodie.
"Just hold on!"
I gripped her tighter and pushed my newly upgraded legs even harder. I felt a surge of adrenaline, mixed with raw, unadulterated panic, funnel directly into my calves. Every time my sneakers hit the ground, I practically launched myself forward. I swerved sharply to the right, cutting through a narrow alleyway clogged with overflowing dumpsters and discarded wooden pallets, praying the tight space would bottleneck the massive beast.
It didn't.
A deafening crash erupted right behind us as the Shuck barreled into the alley, completely obliterating the wooden pallets and sending heavy metal dumpsters flying into the brick walls like they were made of styrofoam. It was an unstoppable force of nature.
And judging by the hot, rancid breath I could suddenly feel brushing against the back of my neck, my speed buff wasn't going to be enough. It was catching up.
Damn it! I…I'm gonna have to fight it off.
Two hours ago, such a thought would've never even crossed my worst of nightmares. But with my new found….."strength", I wagered if I would be able to fight it off or not. The one who was supposed to be doing the fighting- the woman who insisted on fighting this thing because she "required it's core" was practically missing all the action leaving me to act out the rest of the movie on my own.
I swear if there's a punishment system in the Pantheon, I'm using it to give Althea the business.
"Adjutant!" she yelled, landing from the sky right next to me.
The two of us started running side by side, me with a injured woman in my arms, her with a sword at her hip, with a tear on my favorite sweater.
If there isn't a punishment system, I'll make one.
"Adjutant?" she winced.
"What?" I growled.
"You have a…. particular look on your face."
"You don't say?" I snarked. "Can you guess why that is?"
"Because I failed to beat the beast? In all fairness…I'm currently level one."
She spoke with such confidence and seriousness I began to wonder if she was delusional or genuinely that hyped up about herself. Either way, hype or not, the Shuck was hot in our heels and there was a woman losing a lot of blood. Althea would be dealt with later, for now I focused on the beast.
Right. Assuming this is some sort of leveling up feature thing like Althea said, I assume I need to level her up first so she can get stronger. That's what the XP from that Boggart kill from before must've been. Then the AXP must be for me- to level up my own skills. I wish I had time to check but it's the like Wolf the Rabid Dog is gonna sit while I scroll through an essentially invisible screen.
"Ok," I cleared my throat. "Plan. Althea, that ultimate skill of yours, Arial Gale. Can you use it?"
"I cannot." She shook her head.
"WHAT!? WHY!?"
"I don't have enough elemental energy to use my Burst."
Ah, so it's a charge and fire type of skill. If that's her ultimate…she's gotta have a cool down skill, right?
"Do you have a skill that doesn't require elemental energy?"
To answer my question, she didn't use words. She simply turned on her heel, rather my sneakers, and aimed her palm in the direction of the monster. With a sharp breath, she fired a diamond shape crystal from her palm. That crystal flew straight at the creature gathering strong currents in it's path before finally hitting it with a powerful gust of wind. The winds themselves weren't all that strong.
Sure they made a nice breeze, but as an attack the skill left so much to be desired. Was all that because she was level one? I wondered. With the Shuck knocked back it gave us a chance to catch our breaths. It got back to it's paws pretty quick, it's gleaming crimson gaze locked dead onto us.
I quickly deposited the bleeding woman behind the rusted husk of an abandoned sedan. "Stay down and keep pressure on that leg," I ordered, my voice dropping an octave as the adrenaline spiked to dangerous levels.
I turned back to my Aeon, who was already adjusting her stance, her blue eyes fixed on the recovering shadow-hound.
"Think you can cut it down with your sword?" I asked, my fists clenching at my sides.
"Only one way to find out," Althea said. Her hand snapped to the hilt of her golden broadsword, and with a sharp, echoing shing, the blade hummed to life, bleeding that familiar golden aura into the grim afternoon air.
"Right. Let's get this aggro over with," I muttered.
We pushed off the broken asphalt in unison. With my inexplicably buffed agility, keeping pace with a literal warrior entity felt as natural as breathing. We rushed the creature, closing the gap in a fraction of a second, perfectly synchronized and ready to unleash whatever level-one hell we could legally muster.
But before Althea could even raise her blade, the sky above us darkened.
A deafening BOOM shattered the air, accompanied by the terrifying shriek of crushing stone. A violent shockwave blew us back, forcing me to dig my heels into the street and throw my arms up to shield my face from a sudden hailstorm of flying debris.
When I lowered my arms, my jaw practically hit the floor.
A massive, heavy-bladed halberd had slammed directly into the ground between us and the Shuck, completely obliterating the asphalt and cratering the street in every direction. The weapon was absurdly huge—at least ten feet of dark, tempered steel vibrating with a terrifying, violent kinetic energy.
Before the dust could even settle, a massive figure landed heavily beside the weapon, grabbing its thick shaft and ripping it from the crater with a single, effortless pull.
It was a towering giant of a man. He easily cleared seven feet, his muscles thick and corded beneath a set of heavy, stylized armor. Long, unbound purple hair whipped violently around his broad shoulders in the wind, framing a sharp, angular face with piercing golden eyes. Those eyes locked onto the Black Shuck with absolute, unadulterated hatred. It looked like he had a very personal, very violent bone to pick with the rabid dog.
But it wasn't just the giant that caught my attention.
Riding piggyback on the armored titan was a guy who looked completely, hilariously out of place. He was clinging to the giant's broad back with one hand, furiously pushing a pair of perfectly circular glasses up his nose with the other. He wore a rumpled dress shirt, a loosened tie, and possessed the exhausted, highly-caffeinated aura of an underpaid corporate intern who had just missed a massive deadline.
The giant swung his halberd in a terrifying arc, leveling the massive blade at the snarling nightmare hound while the intern adjusted his glasses with a heavy sigh.
My brain instantly connected the dots. It was exactly what Captain Heather had been lecturing about in the gymnasium earlier today. A ridiculously overpowered warrior and a completely ordinary human tethered together.
I was staring at a sanctioned DHA Contractor… and his Angel.