Ch23 First Hunt

Chapter 23

Deadshot.

Jessica's attention settled completely on the creature.

Ryan didn't know exactly what her Talent showed her. To him, the beast was a mass of overlapping armor, six powerful legs, and a mouth he wanted nowhere near him. Jessica, however, seemed to be studying something far more specific.

Distance. Angle. Movement.

The gaps between its armored plates.

The creature turned toward them.

Jessica inhaled, exhaled, and held her breath. X Energy flowed down her arm, and the conduits along her particle sidearm brightened as the beast shifted its front legs.

She fired.

The crack split the forest.

A blue-white projectile crossed the distance almost instantly, striking beneath the creature's jaw at the precise moment two overlapping plates separated.

The result was violent.

The reinforced shot punched through the seam, jerking the creature's head sideways with enough force to twist its entire front half. Its six legs locked, claws digging into the soil, and for one terrible second Ryan thought it was going to charge anyway.

Then dark blood spilled from its mouth.

Its front legs folded, and several tons of armored flesh crashed sideways into the dirt.

Silence returned to the forest.

Jessica kept her weapon trained on the beast while Ryan watched for any sign of movement.

Five seconds passed.

Then ten.

Nothing.

Ben's voice came quietly from behind Ryan.

"Holy shit."

Raven lowered her hand. "One shot."

Jessica finally exhaled, and the faint light disappeared from her eyes.

"Don't celebrate yet."

Ryan moved forward cautiously, keeping his barrier between the squad and the creature. They approached from behind its head and waited another few seconds before he finally accepted what he was seeing.

Dead.

He looked at Jessica.

"Where'd you hit it?"

"Gap beneath the throat."

"Could you see that normally?"

"No." She kept her eyes on the corpse. "Deadshot picked it out when it turned."

Ryan grinned.

Jessica noticed. "What?"

"Your Talent is ridiculous."

A smile tugged at her mouth. "I told you."

Ryan guided his barrier to one side and released his mental control, leaving the construct hovering in place before drawing his combat knife.

"Now we find out if killing it actually counts."

He crouched beside the corpse.

Nobody in the group was unfamiliar with blood. Earth's Exclipse curriculum had included field anatomy long before Recruitment Day, and preserved Esoteric fauna had been dissected in school laboratories so future recruits could recognize organs, energy structures, and common biological weaknesses.

Preserved specimens hadn't smelled like this.

Ryan made the first cut between two armor plates and immediately grimaced.

"Fresh is worse."

Ben took a step back. "Much worse."

Jessica covered her nose. "You're the squad leader. Enjoy your responsibilities."

Ryan looked up at her. "That's not how leadership works."

"It is today."

He muttered something under his breath and returned to work.

The creature's anatomy wasn't identical to anything he'd studied, but the basic principles were familiar enough. He cut through dense muscle, following faint traces of Esoteric Energy deeper into the torso until a dim amber glow became visible beneath the blood.

"There."

The others moved closer.

Buried within a web of tissue was a hard structure about the size of Ryan's fist. Its surface was cloudy and irregular, with amber light pulsing faintly beneath it.

Ryan carefully cut it free.

The moment he lifted it from the corpse, Skynet reacted.

[RANK ONE BEAST CORE DETECTED]

[FIRST HUNT PROGRESS: 1/3]

Ryan stared at the core in his blood-covered hand.

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One down. Two to go.

Ben leaned over his shoulder. "That thing is worth money?"

"Everything here seems to be worth money."

Ryan handed it to him, and Ben opened a narrow spatial slit before slipping the core inside.

The opening closed.

Simple. Efficient.

Ryan looked at the enormous carcass beside them.

"What about the rest?"

Ben followed his gaze, and a smile slowly spread across his face.

Ryan recognized that expression.

"Don't."

"I have literal dimensional storage."

"Do you know if you can fit that?"

"No."

"Do you know how much X it'll cost?"

"No."

"Do you know what happens if your Talent can't hold it?"

Ben paused.

"...No."

Dezzy looked at him. "Then storing the valuable portion and leaving the carcass is the rational choice."

Ben stared mournfully at the dead beast.

"So much meat."

"From an alien animal we've never eaten," Raven said.

"Potential meat."

Ryan stood and wiped his knife clean.

"We take the core. Once we know more about what parts are valuable, we can start harvesting them."

Ben sighed. "Fine."

Ryan mentally pulled his barrier back toward the group. The construct slid through the air without consuming additional X Energy, though controlling its movement placed a faint pressure on his Mental Energy.

The first fight had cost him four X Energy. Jessica had fired a single reinforced shot, and the beast had died before it could reach them.

A clean victory, but not one they could afford to take for granted. They still had two more beasts to kill, and Ryan couldn't keep forming barriers indefinitely.

He looked at the others.

"Same formation. We need two more."

They moved on.

Something had changed. The forest was still dangerous, and none of them suddenly knew everything about fighting alien wildlife, but the first kill had stripped away some of the uncertainty. They'd seen a Rank One beast, discovered a vulnerable point, and brought it down without anyone getting hurt.

They had the beginnings of a method.

Finding the next creature proved harder than killing the first.

Nearly forty minutes passed before Dezzy discovered another trail. This beast was smaller and faster, with a narrow body covered in overlapping green plates that blended almost perfectly with the vegetation. They nearly walked past it before Raven noticed movement among the branches ahead.

Ryan didn't form another barrier immediately.

He only had five X Energy left.

Instead, the group spread out while Jessica searched for a clear firing angle.

The beast spotted them first.

It hissed and bolted.

Jessica fired.

The shot caught it behind the foreleg and punched through its chest. The animal tumbled through the undergrowth and didn't rise.

Ben looked at her.

"That's two."

Jessica lowered her weapon. "I can count."

The second core was smaller than the first, but Skynet accepted it.

[RANK ONE BEAST CORE DETECTED]

[FIRST HUNT PROGRESS: 2/3]

Ben stored it alongside the other.

One more.

They continued deeper along the ridge.

The third target took nearly an hour to find. By then, the heat had climbed even beneath the canopy, and the water at Ryan's hip had become uncomfortably warm. Sweat clung beneath his tactical uniform while insects—or whatever passed for insects on this planet—buzzed somewhere high in the trees.

Then Dezzy found another trail.

Broken vegetation. Claw marks.

Fresh droppings Ben wisely chose not to comment on.

They followed it into a section of forest where the pale trees grew farther apart.

Ryan saw the creature first.

Another six-legged armored beast stood near a shallow depression in the earth, tearing strips of bark from a fallen trunk. It looked almost identical to their first kill.

Ryan raised a hand, and the squad stopped.

Jessica moved into position while Raven angled right. Dezzy lowered her center of gravity, preparing to move if the creature came toward them, and Ben remained behind the others.

Ryan watched the beast carefully.

They didn't need to rush. If Jessica could find the same opening she'd exploited before, they might finish the hunt with another clean shot.

She raised her sidearm.

The creature's head snapped up.

Its nostrils flared.

Then it charged.

"Barrier!"

Ryan was already moving.

X Energy surged from the core behind his heart. Sapphire particles burst into existence ahead of the group, weaving themselves into glowing threads and then the familiar geometric lattice.

One second.

Too slow.

The creature covered the distance with frightening speed, its six legs pounding against the dry earth.

The lattice wasn't solid yet.

"Move!"

Jessica broke left. Ben stumbled backward, and Dezzy shifted right while Raven thrust out one hand.

"Come on—"

The beast was almost on them.

The barrier solidified.

A heartbeat later, several tons of armored muscle slammed into it.

The impact cracked through the forest like an explosion.

Ryan felt a violent pressure through his mental connection to the barrier, as though something had struck the inside of his skull. His vision flashed white for an instant, but the construct held.

The beast's momentum broke against the translucent wall. Its head snapped sideways, and its front legs scrambled for purchase in the dirt.

Raven reacted immediately.

She planted both feet as X Energy gathered around her outstretched hand.

Then she released it.

The air distorted.

A kinetic blast struck the creature broadside, lifting its massive body from the ground for an instant before hurling it into a tree.

The collision shook leaves from the canopy.

Dezzy was already moving.

Ryan saw her body change as she accelerated. Muscles tightened beneath her uniform, her stride lengthening as Body Control pushed her beyond what her ordinary physical conditioning would have allowed.

She crossed the distance before the creature could recover.

One boot planted against its neck.

Her combat knife drove into the exposed seam beneath its jaw.

Once.

The beast convulsed.

Dezzy ripped the blade free and struck again.

The creature went still.

For a moment, nobody said anything.

Dezzy straightened, dark blood running down one glove, and looked back at them.

"What?"

Ben pointed at her. "You could do that the whole time?"

"I explained my Talent."

"You said Body Control. You didn't say you could turn yourself into a missile."

"The description was sufficient."

Ryan laughed.

The sound escaped before he could stop it, part relief and part disbelief.

It had worked.

Not perfectly. Not cleanly. The barrier had barely formed in time, and the beast had come dangerously close to reaching them.

But Ryan had stopped the charge. Raven had knocked the creature off balance, and Dezzy had recognized the opening and finished it before it could recover.

Nobody had needed him to tell them what came next.

Jessica approached with her weapon still ready.

"Everyone okay?"

Ryan checked himself. His head ached slightly from the impact against the barrier, and his X Energy reserve was nearly empty after forming a second construct, but nothing felt damaged.

"Yeah."

Raven rolled one shoulder. "Fine."

Dezzy wiped her knife clean. "Uninjured."

Ben raised both hands. "I contributed emotionally."

Jessica smiled. "Important role."

Ryan looked at the dead creature.

"Get the core."

This time, the harvesting went faster.

He knew what he was looking for, and within minutes he'd cut the Rank One beast core free.

Skynet chimed as he held it up.

[RANK ONE BEAST CORE DETECTED]

[FIRST HUNT PROGRESS: 3/3]

[MANDATORY DIRECTIVE: FIRST HUNT]

[OBJECTIVE COMPLETE]

[COMPLETION REWARD: 5 LOW-GRADE X ENERGY CRYSTALS]

[REWARD DEPOSITED]

Ryan blinked as another display appeared.

[X ENERGY CRYSTALS: 5]

A second chime came from Jessica.

Then Raven.

Dezzy.

Ben.

Ryan looked around.

"You all got five?"

Jessica checked her interface. "Five."

"Same," Raven said.

Dezzy nodded.

Ben's grin widened.

"Twenty-five crystals."

Ryan did the math.

Five each. Twenty-five total.

The three beast cores were still theirs as well, safely stored inside Ben's Space Storage.

Some of the tension finally drained from his shoulders.

They had enough to get everyone back through the gate. Ten crystals for five people, leaving fifteen after reentry if they pooled their resources.

Food, water, ammunition, lodging, taxes—none of those problems had disappeared. But for the first time since the City Lord had explained how the city worked, they weren't sitting at zero.

Jessica looked toward the canopy.

"We should go back."

Ryan agreed immediately.

They'd completed the directive. His X Energy was nearly exhausted, and Raven and Dezzy had both spent energy during the last fight. Continuing simply because they'd won three encounters would be exactly the kind of decision that got people killed.

"We're done."

Ben looked almost disappointed. "No heroic march deeper into unknown territory?"

"No."

"Secret Dungeon?"

"No."

"Fight an Elf?"

Ryan stared at him.

Ben nodded. "Going home."

"Good choice."

Ryan checked the local time. Between the journey through the city, the search for prey, and the fights themselves, they'd already spent far longer away from the plaza than he'd expected.

"Same formation on the way back. No detours. We get inside, figure out what the cores are worth, then decide what we can afford."

Ben patted his side.

"Three genuine alien monster cores in another dimension."

"Don't lose them," Raven said.

Ben looked offended. "Have some faith."

"Do you know if you can lose things inside your Talent?"

Ben opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

"...I'll keep checking."

Ryan smiled and turned toward the city.

For the first time since stepping outside the walls, he allowed himself to feel proud.

They'd done it.

Five cadets who had Awakened yesterday had entered an alien wilderness, killed three Rank One beasts, completed their first Exclipse directive, and made it through without anyone getting hurt.

Not bad.

Not even close to Darkstar.

But not bad.

They started back.

The forest seemed different now, though Ryan knew it hadn't become any safer. The same dense vegetation surrounded them, and the wilderness was still full of creatures they knew almost nothing about. What had changed was the way the squad moved through it.

Ben checked the rear without being reminded. Raven watched the flanks, Dezzy searched the ground for tracks, and Jessica carried her sidearm ready rather than holstered.

Ryan stayed near the front, keeping himself between the forest ahead and the others.

They were beginning to look less like five strangers walking in the same direction.

Not a real team yet.

But maybe the start of one.

Ryan was still thinking about that when he stopped.

Jessica nearly walked into him.

"What?"

Ryan didn't answer.

He was listening.

The forest had gone quiet.

Not the ordinary silence between distant calls or rustling branches. This was deeper. The faint noises that had followed them for hours had simply disappeared.

No movement in the canopy.

No distant animal cries.

Nothing.

Raven noticed it next. Her hand rose slowly, and Dezzy turned to scan the trees.

Ben's smile disappeared.

Ryan felt the hairs along his arms rise.

Somewhere deeper in the forest, something cracked.

The sound was too deep to be a branch.

A tree.

The noise rolled through the woods like distant thunder.

Nobody moved.

Another crack followed.

Closer.

Jessica slowly raised her sidearm.

"Ryan..."

A vibration passed through the ground beneath his boots.

Once.

Then again.

Ryan stared between the pale trunks.

He couldn't see anything.

He didn't need to.

Footsteps.

Something was moving through the forest, something heavy enough that they could feel it coming before they could see it.

The pride he'd felt moments earlier vanished.

He had almost no X Energy left. They'd completed the mission, collected the beast cores, and earned enough crystals to get back through the gate.

There was absolutely nothing here worth fighting for.

"Move."

Nobody argued.

The five of them turned toward the city and started running.

Behind them, another tree broke.