In an effort to rescue James with the greatest speed possible, we decided to set out that night. Because we were taking out one of the outside encampments first, we needed to decide which one we would choose first. The people who would be going to help fight were me, Donny, Kaitlyn, Cindy, Taylor, and Steph. Nick and Trevor were still out clearing a ruin, so they would have to join us for the next one. We were all beta testers, and we had all worked hard to increase levels and learn to fight and use magic since the first wave happened. The lowest leveled member of the group was currently Steph, though she assured us that her power would make increasing her overall strength rather trivial. She liked to keep her actual abilities under wraps and refused to tell us much aside from her minor healing abilities, flight, and that she had some type of energy control.

The plan was to at first scope out the location that we were going to attack, then once we had an idea of how many people were there, we would press our advantage and take out as many as we could. After that we would be enacting essentially a scorched earth policy, leaving them nothing to take from the location.

Based on Kaitlyn’s information, either of the two bases would work as a point of attack. They were both defended by equal numbers of people who had similar weapons, and the bosses made sure that there were always at least two beta testers in each location at any given moment, but of the two one was far more defensible than the other.

One of the bases was built up into an old warehouse. Originally the place had been used to store pallets of goods before they were shipped off, but after the first wave, it had been taken over. This one was the more difficult of the two to attack, as it had only three points of entry, one office door, one shipping door for forklifts and trucks, and then finally door out the back leading to a worker’s parking lot. All three were defended constantly, and Kaitlyn believed that there were lots of pallets inside that could be used as easy cover. After spying on it for the past few days, Kaitlyn figured out that they had been using it to stockpile resources, money, and weapons that were found from raiding houses and stored throughout the city.

The second option to attack was actually an old motel. The gang had taken it over and were using it as a place to allow lots of the members to sleep. After the second wave when the power went out and the vast majority of the population was changed, they had stepped up recruiting, and most members of the gang had been members for less than a week. I suppose that the added protection from stronger people made the gang much more desirable to join. The whole motel was flooded with new recruits, people who didn’t know how to fight and hadn’t done much of anything yet. They were using it as a training ground, getting their members skills and some easy levels using hunting parties.

Between the two places, personally I thought it would be a better idea to attack the warehouse first. If we destroyed their access to more weapons, food, and supplies earlier, we could deprive reinforcements with the ability to defend themselves adequately. If we ended up attacking the motel tomorrow, we would then only have to deal with swarms of low leveled bandits. According to both Cindy and Taylor, they could each unleash an attack a single time that would deal over 70 damage in a large area, unless they possessed specific resistances. Many people, especially non-beta testers, didn’t even have 10 constitution, to begin with. After a double AOE attack like that, most of the work would be essentially done. Both Cindy and Taylor could unleash their attacks twice, but after that they were spent.

I said my piece about the warehouse, but a few of the others had misgivings. Eventually, we figured it would be better to take a vote on which base we destroyed first as it didn’t really matter. They would both have to fall. Cindy and Taylor both wanted to take out the motel first, as that would break their morale more than anything else and would hopefully mitigate the number of enemies we actually needed to fight in the future. I honestly didn’t care all that much either way, so I decided to go with them on this one.

I knew that our next step would be forming a concrete plan, but before that, there was something I needed everyone to agree to.

“Alright everyone. When we go out there tonight, I need everyone to understand that we will be killing a lot of people. Lots of them are going to be very bad guys, but many more are just going to be trying to survive. If they surrender or flee, I want them to be spared.

I know that there is a distinct possibility that they will go off and tell their friends about us, but all of us can recover our stamina and mana completely within the hour, and if we have enough health, we could even manage to destroy all three bases before the night ends.

They may be the bad guys, but that does not give us free rein to be evil as well.”

I looked around at the faces of our strike team and noticed that both Steph and Kaitlyn were both rather unhappy with my statement.

Steph was frowning, and I could tell she was planning out something to say.  Eventually she spoke out, arguing, “Everyone, I know that what we are going to be doing is nasty. Many might even consider it evil. I know that these people may not be truly bad in their hearts. But I also know that each and every member of this gang consented willingly to the enslavement of other people. They consented to the murder and rape of innocents. And they did all of this, just to feel a bit safer. Considering the track record of these individuals, you and I both know what we will find in their motel rooms.

I cannot agree with showing mercy this time Victoria. If we do this, we need to show no quarter. There is no law to help us, and there is no way to contain these people. Unless you feel like attempting to take them as slaves and provide food for them, we are unfortunately out of options.

There may yet be survivors, but people in this town need to understand that just because there is no law anymore, they do not have the right to commit such... atrocities. This needs to be the last time a gang decides to take things this far.”

As Steph finished, Kaitlyn seemed mollified. It was now her turn to speak. After steeling herself, she stammered out, “V... Vic, I... know that you want to make sure that nobody dies. But... you've gotta remember, I have been fighting these people since you brought me back to live here.

Alone, I... killed... 34 members of the Gems, and they just don't care. They keep sending out people, again and again, trying to steal and loot from the people around here.

Every time I go out, I always follow the squads closely, checking to see if they are actually up to no good. Sometimes it's not too bad, but other times...

I have been too late to save a family seven times Vic. Seven families just like mine... Did you think that the family you and Donny ran into was a new thing? These people are murderers, and they are evil and they need to be stopped. There is no one else, Vic. No one but us."

I closed my eyes tightly and tried to calm down. Every word said by Kaitlyn brought flashing images to my mind. Of the family I had seen raped, murdered, and burned. Of the children killed while hiding in their parents' bedroom. Of the police station, filled with people trying to help, every last one murdered when the city needed them most. Lastly, I thought of Kaitlyn, when I first found her.

Kaitlyn was hurt, badly. I’m sure she was still grieving for her parents, and she was just taking her anger out on more bandits. That, however, didn’t make her or Steph wrong. These people did need to die, and me sparing them now would only invite more death in the future. I had the highest level and rank among my friends, and I needed to protect them to the extent of my ability. James was enslaved, among many others, and needed saving, and I simply didn’t have the willpower to do what needed to be done.

“Okay. Have it your way. We will show no mercy and do everything we can to wipe these people out.”

As I said that, I opened my eyes, and looked around the group once more, especially at Donny, Cindy, and Taylor. Taylor looked like she had made her resolve, but Cindy looked scared still. Honestly, I couldn’t really tell how Donny looked, but he was showing teeth and growling, so I think that was probably a good sign.

Kaitlyn brought out a sketched map of the motel, and we all crowded around it in order to form a plan of action.

---

 

The motel looked ratty even from here, standing on a roof three blocks away. It was old, probably built around the 80s and it looked like way too much sex had happened there for it to in any way be considered a decent establishment. There were broken windows all over, and I could tell that a few of the doors around the area were left open.

The motel was two stories and had 40 rooms, 20 on each floor. It was shaped like a large U, with the parking lot in the middle and around the back. On the second-floor balcony I saw about 5 guards walking around at a regular pace. They weren’t carrying guns though and had bats or sticks instead. I guess the gang found out that bullets hurt a lot less now than a solid whack with a club did. Because the power was still out, the whole place was lit by fires kept in barrels and drums, scattered throughout the area, though I could see some lanterns and things that they must have stolen from a sporting goods store.

Taylor and Cindy were already taking up their positions on the building to the left of the motel, getting ready to cast their massive AOE spells which would target a 50-foot radius circle. In the case of this motel, that was the entire parking lot, and some of the building as well. We each had some cheap walkie talkies to communicate with, so we could stay in contact through this small distance.

Our plan of attack was rather simple. I would fly into the main area and call out the gang members to the parking lot, annoying them into attacking me. Then, once enough were in the middle and we had drawn out the leader, Taylor and Cindy would start to cast their magic. Each spell would take 15 seconds to fire off and had a cooldown of one minute. I would count the seconds, then fly straight up out of the range of the attack. Once the attack was set off, Kaitlyn, Donny, and Steph would fly in and start clearing out the bandits.

We didn’t worry too much about the experience, because of a wonderful discovery that was made when we all set out. As we left the house, we each received an alert.

 

After selecting yes, we got this.

After a bit of experimenting, we found that there were multiple ways that experience could be shared. We decided that we should use this method as all of the rank 1 party members would get split experience for all of the rank 1 enemies, while I would get half experience from the rank 2. I didn’t need any experience from the rank one guys anyway because I would only get a pittance, and it seemed like a waste. We settled on this method as it would benefit the majority of the party the most.

Even with that decided, I doubted that a member of the gems just so happened to be another one of the extremely limited amounts of rank 2 people worldwide. I’m sure a few more people managed to make it to rank two in the past couple of days, but it seemed rather unlikely. That being the case, it was still within the realm of possibility, so I would be careful.

I waited in my hiding spot for another couple of minutes when my radio blipped twice, signaling that everyone was in position.

I took to the skies, flying low to make sure that as many of the bandits saw me as possible. It only took me a few seconds to make my way to the parking lot. A few wrecked cars had been towed to tactical areas to form makeshift cover, but for the most part the whole place was open.

My heart was beating with nerves, but I was prepared. Making my voice as goading and happy as I could, I screamed into the night, “Hey Cocksuckers! I heard you pussies are called the Gems. I was wondering if you could help me with something?”

If they hadn’t seen me yet, they definitely heard me. I started to hear shouts and crashes coming from the area around me as the gang members started to wake each other up. The started to file out one by one from their rooms, coming along the balconies and leaving their rooms. Damn, there must have been fifty different people all crowded around the parking lot area. Most of them were on the ground floor, but a few were on the upper areas as well.

Finally, someone that looked like a leader of sorts came out. He was pretty tall, maybe around 6’5’’, though he was still dwarfed by me. He walked down the steps in the middle of the area, and the rest of the bandits parted around him. I inspected him as he approached me, stopping about 20 feet out surrounded by an angry posse of gangsters bearing machetes, pipes, bats, and the occasional gun.

 

Was that a new menu layout I saw? How nice. It was much easier to understand, and I couldn’t believe Luna hadn’t of thought of it yet. Vertical was definitely the new horizontal.

Back to the bandit, he was definitely the highest-level person that I had seen yet, besides myself. He was trying to look imposing, but after staring down a giant bipedal pig with a hammer, this just seemed weak in comparison. I discreetly reached behind me to my walkie talkie and sent a beep to the group to get Taylor and Cindy to start casting.

“Who the FUCK is you, and what the FUCK is you doing here.”

“Well, first off, I’m pretty sure the word you’re looking for is are. Who the fuck are you, is the right way to say it. Secondly, I’m just here for a good time. I heard there was a boatload of weak assholes living here, and I wanted to break them all into little bitty pieces.”

As I said that, I unleashed a double overcharged spark into the dude in the middle. Bringing my brand spanking new wings out on either side of me, I used aerokinesis to blast air into them, rapidly buffeting me upwards faster than I could normally accelerate.

-18, -17

The bandits all crowded under me, randomly firing their guns up into the air. I stopped about 70 feet up, looking down at them. I enticed them by charging my fists and feet with lightning, making them glow and crackle, and counted under my breath.

When I got to 13, I heard screams down below. I couldn’t quite see what was happening from this distance, but from what I could make out, vines were coming out of the ground and entangling all of the bandits who were waiting below. They were all scrambling to try and make it to high ground, but as they walked, more and more vines burst forth. That was Taylors contribution. Then, it was Cindy’s turn. The whole area was suddenly scattered with small red glowing insects. They flew around the whole complex until they were evenly spaced, then they each detonated. With every insect exploding into a 3-foot ball of flame, and with all of the people trapped in the greenery, they had nothing to do but burn.

Then came Steph, Donny, and Kaitlyn. They came over the roof at the back of the hotel. I presume that they already had started killing bandits that didn’t come to the front. They started working through the area, Steph blasting bodies through the chest with a beam of light, Kaitlyn piercing hearts or eyes with her knife, and Donny using the kangor sword to finish off any survivors. The only one left standing in the center was the bandit leader. He was dazed and confused and was clearly blinded. He probably had some degree of fire resistance, but he was still covered in injuries. Now that I was closer, I could see that the vines that Taylor had grown from the ground were covered in two-inch thorns. Many of the bandits fell from her attack alone.

He seemed to be regaining some vision from the blast, but it was far too late. We had attacked way too fast, and he didn’t really stand a chance, to begin with. It seemed like the era of power in numbers was definitely over. Individual strength or party strength had far more value in combat.

Steph hovered over him, flying using her strange ability. She held out two hands this time, and fired an especially thick piercing ray into his chest. I expected him to require a few more hits, but he too died immediately. Whatever ability Steph was using was extremely powerful, not to mention she had already fired off between 15 and 20 of them beforehand, making it very efficient for a magic attack.

Seeing the brutal effectiveness of supers and the massive destructive capabilities of circle magic wielded by specialized magic races, I definitely understood that whatever magic I used was leagues behind what they had. Monster magic might be far more intuitive as I could activate it subconsciously, but theirs was driven, custom, and far more efficient. Supers were masters of their one ability, magic races were masters of the arcane, and beastkin were masters of one type of combat. What did that leave for monster races? I was pretty confused about what the purpose of my race was, as I was certainly strong, but was still essentially a jack of all trades.

The only thing I could figure was that my rank ups changing my race had something to do with it. That was not something that happened to the other three racial types and was exclusive only to monsters. I would essentially be able to change my fundamental race ten different times through my progression. Perhaps what I really needed was time and experience before I started going out. One thing I knew for sure though what that if I was ever attacking a powerful super or a skilled magic race, I would be in for a world of hurt. Their natural specialization would trump my abilities at every turn unless I was extremely careful.

While I mused these thoughts in my head, I walked through the wreckage. For some reason, I didn’t seem too affected by the corpses and bodies. I wasn’t totally sure, but I had a suspicion that born warrior was at play once again, numbing my emotions to the plight of those I deemed as enemies. The motel was largely untouched, and we still needed to go through every room.

In many of the rooms, we found girls and the occasional boy that had been tied up. They each had the job slave, and only once we freed them explicitly by stating out loud to them “You are free” did the job title go away. All in all, there were 15 slaves, scattered among the 40 rooms, as well as around 10 bandits who were cowering there, hiding from their inevitable death. I didn't help finish them off, but by the time we left, none were left alive.