“Pandora, you're up!” David called.

 

David, Lena, and Harry had the van to their back and Harry’s shield in front of them, they all reached for their necks where modified earmuffs sat and placed them over their ears as the cat’s box began to play an eerie melody. They were just in time as Pandora began adding her own meows into the song. The sound of grass rustling and the ground lightly shaking was accompanied by the sight of many furry heads starting to appear from the dense foliage. 

 

“Wow, there must be several dens,” David concluded from the feeling of the ground shaking.

 

Reaching his hand forward he positioned it over Harry’s shoulder so that Lena, and he could both see it and signaled several directions. He then reached back and began knocking on the armor of the van producing a certain rhythm. Turning the poleaxe towards the ground, he thrust it into place using the spearhead and reached his hand towards the back window. 

 

Billy opened the window and passed David what appeared to be a small six-pack of beer, that was until you looked at the top of the bottles and noticed rags had been inserted into the top. The mixture was a simple one, using some gasoline and styrofoam mixed in to make it sticky. David passed a set of them to both Lena and Harry, then reached into his p[ocket and pulled out a small lighter he had gotten from his uncle.

 

It didn’t take long before several groups of monsters started to push through the tall grass and between the stacks of steel and lumber. However, they all stopped around the van and ignored their three dead companions in the back of the trailer. They were all transfixed by the little cat that had turned around and was shaking its butt while singing a song to the music from its box.

 

It started with a single possum monster that began to mimic the cat's provocative movements, and before long the entire group was following along. Every time another group pushed through the grass they were also caught in the cat’s song and dance. Meanwhile, on the top of the van, the cat seemed like she was in her own world.

 

She was ignoring the monsters that continued to build one after another until several large groups made up over thirty monsters. It was two groups of eight and a larger group of fourteen that made up the large crowd, but in the cat's mind, it was even bigger. There were thousands of adoring fans all throwing gifts of money and catnip onto the stage.

 

Click! Whoosh!

 

Several spotlights had just turned on and were slowly aiming towards the crowd.

 

Shatter! Shatter! Shatter!

 

The cat’s illusion was broken when three glass bottles were tossed into the crowd of monsters and several shattering sounds were heard. Then flames erupted and leaped up into the air as thick black smoke was issued from the flames. These flames engulfed several of the monsters and caused the crowd to snap out of their reverie as a group began to issue tragic screams.

 

Rolling on the ground did nothing but spread the flames as the thick mixture stuck to their fur and continued to burn. Out of the group of thirty monsters, twelve of them had been covered in a thick gel that spread out of the thick bottles. David, Harry, and Lena then tossed the remainder of the bottles to their sides so that the flames would burn near the van and make it impossible for the monsters to go around to the sides of them.

 

They now had an ally that was created by the flames and a large group of angry monsters that were rushing towards them in a straight line. A smile crossed David’s face as he kneeled and grabbed the poleaxe, he pointed the butt of the weapon towards the group and began channeling mana into the gem in the bottom. Placing it over Harry’s shoulder like a rifle barrel, he aimed it into the heart of the group of monsters.

 

Beside him Lena was tracing runes into the air to form a spell, it was neat and written in lines just as he would expect to see code written for a computer program. Sharp shards of ice began to form in the air like many small daggers, then a sudden burst of air fired from David’s weapon and carried the ice shards into the group at a speed so high it was hard to see. 

 

Shaaa! Puh! Puh! Puh! Puh!

 

Blood and fur flew into the air as the cone of ice was fired directly into the heart of the group of monsters. They watched as the front group of eight monsters fell to the ground, several of them were still alive in their death throes. Three of the ones that were behind them were all injured by shards of ice but they were all still capable of fighting.

 

David had used his spear twice and his mana was starting to flag a bit in his magic stone, he decided that it was time to move into the scrim. Pandora on the other hand had given up on her musical performance, she made a loud meowing noise and the box on her neck opened up revealing the small candle and flame. It roared to life and a fireball formed in front of the small cat's face as she raised her paws and made several motions with them.

 

Seeing the cat’s intentions, David lunged forward around Harry and used the ax blade to dig in the ground and flung dirt in the faces of the monsters in front of him. Several of them had started to lunge forward to try to bite him but he was only doing it as a feint. The moment they recoiled from the dirt he immediately backed off and got behind Harry again.

 

David watched the ball of flame select one of the targets that failed to close its eyes in time and got some dirt in them. It was helpless to save itself as the small ball of blood-red flames moved forward and immediately lit it on fire and began to spread. It roared in agony and started rolling on the ground desperately trying to put out the blood-red flames.

 

It started from its four limbs as they were reduced to ash, then the flames began to hungrily eat the monster's torso and tail. Its screams didn’t end until its head had burned away then after a few more moments its torso joined it. What was left was a small ball of fire that made its way back to the bat’s box on its neck and began burning on the candle. 

 

With the death of this one, there were only nine of them left and three of them were injured. Reaching forward he placed his hands on Harry’s shoulder and got behind him. Placing his shoulder against Harry’s back, he patted him several times to give him a signal.

 

“Alright, here we go!” Harry yelled trying to psyche himself up.

 

David charged forward, adding his momentum to Harry’s charge as they pushed forward and smashed into the large group of monsters after jumping over several corpses. Three of the monsters charged forward and hit Harry’s large tower shield, this caused the runes to light up again as a detonation occurred.

 

Boom!

 

The group of three was forced back into the group of six behind them and one of the monsters was shoved into the flames that had already claimed a monster's life. David also took this chance to bring the ax bled on his weapon down with an overhead chop taking advantage of a monster that was on its back. The blade dug into its sternum and made its way into the monster's heart, it shrieked loudly as he used his foot and dug it into the monster's stomach to free the blade.

 

Blood flew into the air and landed into some of the fire causing a sizzling noise as he spun the poleaxe to clear the blood from it. He could hear the monster caught in the flames screaming as it tried to get the sticky substance off of it and failed. David cursed as it took several steps and fell against a pallet of wood that started burning.

 

Just as he was about to start cursing a breeze kicked up from a spell that was cast by Lena that kicked up a cloud of dirt onto the flames. While the monster was still alive it was too injured to do anything but crawl around weakly. A sigh of relief made its way out of his mouth as he saw that most of the lumber would be okay.

 

“Pieces of shit! Can’t even die properly!” David cursed.

 

There were eight monsters left, but only four of them were in good shape. Harry took out the mace that David used, he began swinging it around his shield to keep the monsters from going around him, meanwhile, David also shifted so that the two of them were using the flames behind them to keep the remaining monsters from being able to attack Lena. The two were primarily throwing attacks to keep the group of monsters back.

 

Crackle! Zap!

 

What David was noticing was that Lena did not use the premade spells he had built into her weapon as much, now she was primarily casting by writing out the spells manually. The runes she tied together in the air using her mana started to emit crackling electricity that snaked out of the runes and shot towards three of the monsters that hadn’t been harmed yet. They began screaming as the electricity caused their muscles to contract painfully.

 

Puh!

 

David immediately took the opportunity he was given to drive the tip of the poleaxe’s spearhead right into a monster's skull and out the other side of its head. He was just about to put his foot on its head to pull the weapon out when he was attacked by one of the injured monsters and was about to abandon the weapon.

 

Crack!

 

A flaming mace head smashed into the skull of this monster and caused it to fall back into the group of six who were starting to show signs of panic. Two of the six were struggling with the electricity that was attacking their muscles and the other four were already injured. David took the chance that Harry gave him to free his weapon from the dead monster’s skull and aimed it back at the remnants of the group.

 

“They are all injured, now we just need to finish them! Just like we practiced!” David reminded everyone.

 

“Got it!” Harry confirmed.

 

“Understood.” Lena also confirmed.

 

***

A few hours later at the nearby creek…

 

The large black van parked close to the river with a trailer filled with carcasses from the group of monsters they killed. Billy and Jasmin were using a large collection of knives to collect meat and magic stones from the monsters that didn’t burn in the gasoline. Over twenty-two carcasses needed to be processed in the beginning and they were down to only eight left.

 

It was mid-afternoon, David had finished the maintenance on everyone's weapons and equipment after the battle. He had a folding table he had set up with a chair and various tools as he was working with what appeared to be a long metal javelin, he was installing a magical stone on the butt of it similar to his poleaxe. An awning had been set up above him that Billy and Jasmin were also using to help them butcher monsters.

 

Lena acted as his assistant as he continued to expand their arsenal of weapons in the van, eventually, he didn’t want to have to use things like molotovs. They had to wait for almost an hour for the fire to finally die down, it would be a disaster if they accidentally caused a wildfire that burned down their home. 

 

“What are we doing after this?” Harry called as he carried away another corpse that had nothing left on it but bones and organs.

 

“We are going to go back and fill up the trailer with resources. I want to start clearing the junkyard but that is useless if we don’t have the supplies at the ranch to be able to survive long term.” David sighed. “There are also a few houses we need to raid that are further out and pray that they had seeds for something that haven’t been taken.” 

 

“There is a lot of meat here, it should last us a while,” Harry said happily. “I am amazed at how tasty monster meat is when you get used to it, a bit gamey though.” 

 

“It is harder to chew than the meat I am used to,” Jasmin said shyly.

 

“It is impossible to live on monsters alone, we need to eat other things or we will all become malnourished,” David explained.

 

Next to the bank of the small creek, a black and white cat could be seen holding onto a fishing pole that had the handle stuck in the ground with a line in the water. She was meowing a song to herself as she kept testing the tension on the line. The cool breeze from the creek was calming, and the tall grasses on the bank rubbed against each other in the wind.

 

Tall trees were dotted around the landscape and no houses could be seen anywhere in the valley. The only sign of its habitation being the road that ran along the creek and led back to town. All of the roads they had been driving on were already cleared by another group, he wasn’t sure if it was the military or the people who set up the trap in the church.

 

“I know that, but won’t farming be a problem in the long term?” Harry asked. “This is Colorado.”

 

We need to convert to magical power as soon as possible, a lot of monsters will enter hibernation since their prey will be waiting for spring. I want to enter the dungeon during the winter and come out before spring.” David explained. “Farming won’t be a problem as long as we have fertilizer and magical stones.”

 

“We just need to keep getting stronger, right?” Lena asked.

 

“The dungeon is kind of a turning point, something happened or we would have heard from the government already. At this point it is safest to assume we are completely on our own, we can’t trust others easily anymore.” David explained. 

 

Billy, Jasmin, Harry, and Lena were all watching him now after what he had just said, so he decided to explain more. This was all information that was collected by a group on Edea after a lot of research on awakened and the worlds they saw,

 

“Some Espers have incredible abilities. Most empires were founded on these people because they possessed such powerful abilities. This meant that when it came to social progress, they completely stagnated across the board and could never move past a monarchy-styled government.” David stopped working, as he knew this was going to be a long explanation. “For society to progress, people with talent must be allowed to rise regardless of their background.

 

“At full power, if you have a very well-trained mage or martial force user, they will have a slight advantage over an esper because they can use a wider range of skills. But it is like the difference between a mercenary or a trained soldier.” David paused and held up the poleaxe. “We use tiers because if you are properly equipped then even if you are in the first layer it is possible to take down a monster in the same tier safely. We trained for about an hour a day to ensure that hunts like this could go smoothly and it paid off.

 

“A group of espers wouldn’t need to learn abilities or spells to do what we did today, they probably wouldn’t even need as much equipment. They will also be able to advance easier than we will be able to due to how their magic stones work.” David paused here and asked a question. “Do you know what is scarier than someone who thinks they are better than everyone else?”

 

“What?” Harry asked in rapt attention.

 

“When they feel like they have proof of it in their hands,” David said.

 

Billy was interrupted when he saw the cat slowly being dragged towards the creek by the fishing rod in its paws. A look of desperation was on her face as she called out to him.

 

“Billy! Help me!” She called as she began getting dragged across the loose pebbles and into the creek.

 

***

Meanwhile in Denver…

 

A woman with blonde hair and blue eyes was struggling against the hold of the man who was imprisoning her in his lap. The room was dark and there weren't any lights or windows, yet gauzy red curtains had been hung on the walls with various paintings of beasts that were painted on the oak walls.  The two were sitting on a loveseat with the man sitting casually in the middle, he didn’t seem to take any notice of the woman struggling on his lap.

 

 He had short black hair with slight signs of gray at his temples, but he was well built and clean-shaven. His skin was as pale as the dead, and he had dark red eyes that glowed the color of blood. The woman tried to claw at the man to get him to release her but her nails weren’t able to do any damage to his skin.

 

Finally tired of the woman who refused to play as his doll, he opened his mouth revealing sharp fangs that had replaced both his upper and lower teeth. He sank these into the woman's neck which caused her to stiffen up with her arms locked in a position of reaching for the man's face. Her complexion began to whiten rapidly as her veins started to bulge from the suction at her neck. Just as her eyes began to roll into the top of her skull, the man's neck moved as if he was coughing something up.

 

The woman instantly opened her mouth wide as if to scream, and her eyes instantly started to bulge. In response to this, the man threw her off of his lap onto the red carpet of the floor and wiped some blackish blood off of his face. He sneered at the woman who was seizing on the ground with her hands tightly wrapped around her neck, her spine arching into the air.

 

“Lupus!” He yelled out loudly.

 

One of the curtains on the wall was drawn back to reveal a woman wearing a maid attire with pale skin and red eyes. Her face was cold and expressionless, she was also blonde-haired and blue-eyed like the woman on the ground. She was another one of the victims of the man on the loveseat.

 

This room was called the scarlet room and it was where he liked to take women like her and take his time making them into vampires as he made them perform plays for him. The maid waited patiently for further orders from the man on the loveseat. She also decided to take this time to get in a jab of her own against the man in question.

 

“What are your orders, Master Marco?” She said coldly. 

 

“I told you, Lupus! I have abandoned that plebeian name! You will address me as Marchosias from now on!” He said in rage, snapping his fingers in her direction.

 

This caused her blood to begin rebelling and attacking her body from the inside, she lost her balance as an intense pain enveloped her. Refusing to scream, she bit on her teeth hard to the point they felt like they would shatter in her mouth. She fell to the ground and her blood started to flow from her mouth, her nose, and her eyes, but she refused to budge.

 

“I will break you one of these days!” He roared as he ceased. “Get this woman on ice to finish her transformation, I don’t want her damaged!”

 

Lupus stood up slowly now that her blood wasn’t trying to destroy her from the inside out, as the progenitor of the vampires, he had control over all of his spawn. While he could not control her thoughts, he could control whether she was able to live or die. It was no different than being a slave in her mind, this was how she had grown to see it. 

 

Walking over to the woman who was struggling on the floor with a distant look in her open eyes, Lupus felt some pity as she reached down and lifted the woman with strength that didn’t match her small frame. Lupus after all only looked like she was in her early twenties, she had been going to school to be a model before the apocalypse.

 

She carried the woman through the room that was filled with gauzy curtains, this was all done in Marco’s poor taste when he took over the city. Some would even say that the way that he took control would be considered a lucky break since he was able to gain access to the city hall due to an unlocked window. He then proceeded to turn one important figure after another, but these had all been replaced.

 

Making her way down a long hallway filled with doors that led to unused rooms, she exited the wing of the mansion and made her way to a large kitchen. There were several other maids just like her who all had similar uniforms and had also been inside of the scarlet room, it wasn’t something any of them wanted to talk about. 

 

“Another one?” A woman said with sadness.

 

This was another girl who looked similar to her that wore matching maid attire, she was sitting inside of the kitchen reading a book. There was nothing cooking and there were no dishes in the sink that needed washing. The pantry was empty and no remnants could be smelled coming from any recent meals that were cooked.

 

The maid stood up from her chair and walked over to the large walk-in freezer and opened the insulated door for Lupus. Lupus walked in quickly to avoid spilling out too much cold air, inside the freezer had been cleaned out of everything but a set of cots. Walking over she placed the woman down on the cot and tried to make her as comfortable as possible.

 

If a body was not kept cool during its transformation into a vampire it would suffer severe brain damage before the body had time to adapt. At that point the damage was permanent and the body would think that this was the optimal form, so it was impossible to treat it with anything. Marco had learned this lesson the hard way when he wasted some of the most talented people in the area who were running things.

 

Now, these bureaucrats had been reduced to violent toddlers at their best of times, and this caused many problems. Denver was a wealthy city, a wall was erected around the city to protect from monsters, this was done early and decisively with the city doing a strategic contraction. The only issue the city ran into was feeding a population of half a million people. 

 

Marco’s solution to this was to turn a fifth of the population into vampires, he then used these vampires to completely control the city. At night the vampires hunted for monsters for the people to eat, and in exchange once a month everyone was required to donate blood. There had been several espers and awakened that had all died under Marco’s hand, he was stronger than any monster they had seen so far. 

 

Closing the door tightly to the freezer, she nodded to the woman at the door before she turned to leave. Even though they were all in a similar situation, she wouldn’t allow herself to trust any of them since they were connected to Marco.

 

“I need to leave now, I will return in a few hours.” Lupus told the woman in the kitchen before she walked out of the boundary.

 

The woman in the kitchen sighed sadly to the back of the blonde woman, she could understand why she kept her distance. It was a secret that only she was aware of, and something that she would never tell Marco even if she was tortured to death.

 

Lupus took almost an hour moving through the city in as erratic a manner as possible before she finally turned into an abandoned trainyard that was barely inside of the walls. It was mostly filled with human waste that was being processed into fertilizer so few came to this side of the city. This made it the perfect place to hide something precious, something that she never wanted to be found.

 

She walked into a room that was filled with boxes of old newspapers, and after making her way through the maze of boxes she came to a small corner that was filled with trash and she began carefully moving it to reveal a trapdoor that she pulled open and carefully slid her body into. She sighed in relief when she could hear quiet breathing in the room and made her way down a ladder that was nailed to a wall.

 

She was inside of a storm shelter that had been installed that was expanded into a set of offices with a bathroom. She walked over and pushed open a door and revealed a small girl who looked to be about Aubrey’s age, she was holding a small boy in her arms who was only a year old. Seeing the boy instantly brought a smile to Lupus’s face as she walked over and plucked him out of the girl's arms.

 

“Jess, you are back!” The little girl said in excitement.

 

“Did he wake up while I was gone?”  She asked with a grin as she held the child in her arms.

 

The jostling caused his eyes to crack open and look at the woman who was holding him, he instantly wrapped his arms around her chest and buried his face into her bosom. A smile appeared on the boy's face as he called for her happily.

 

“Momma!” He said happily.

 

The room was sparsely furnished with a pair of beds and a few pictures on the wall. The largest one was framed and showed a woman and a man standing together wearing casual clothes and graduation capos. They were smiling happily together as they held hands together.

 

The next picture showed the man with dark blonde hair and gray eyes in an Army uniform and next to him was the blonde woman who was pregnant wearing an ‘Army Strong’ shirt over her swollen belly. They both had wedding rings on their fingers, it looked like it was only a few years old at most. It was one of the few things left that brought Jessica a smile still in the world.