Chapter 7: Field Test

The next morning, Alexis Bigsby was excited for another day outside the compound. She now had magic and a magic spear and she could use both of them to kill the things that had taken the world from humanity.

So after getting ready for the day, she almost skipped to the cafeteria to get herself some breakfast when she found Elaine already sitting there. She was about to wave at her but next to Elaine sat the redhead who'd been glaring at her ever since the first day. The girl looked incredibly awkward but somehow also really happy to be sitting next to Elaine. But hadn't she been upset with Elaine before for some weird-ass reason?

Nope. That's too much thinking before Coffee O'clock.

So, Alexis went to get herself some breakfast including a tall mug of coffee, milk and sugar thank you very much, and made her way over to Elaine. She sat down across from Elaine and the redhead and only after three large mouthfuls of coffee did she ask Elaine what was up.

She told her. Well, she told her the cliffs notes version, leaving out all the raunchy things Evelyn had uncovered in her digging and most everything else awkward, too.

**

Ophelia Devereux prided herself on her senses. She didn't have quite the same sense of smell as a werewolf but it was still much better than that of humans. She didn't just think so, she knew from experience. She had been turned and not born a vampire, after all, and had spent most her life with those dull human senses.

In the cafeteria of Base 15 that sense of smell was sometimes a nuisance. The chefs were generally very good about the food they prepared but if there were any burnt flavors at all, even the smallest bit, Ophelia would notice them right away. Right now, however, the sense of smell was actually useful. She saw the redhead who'd been snooping on Elaine that first day sitting next to her. The redhead looked awkward as hell but one whiff of her and Ophelia knew the girl was pumping endorphins into the air she was so happy. In fact, the girl was so happy Ophelia briefly wondered if Elaine and her might have had sex last night but then took another whiff and there was so little of their scents on each other that they couldn't have fucked.

It wasn't as though Ophelia was the jealous sort, but she didn't really peg Elaine as the type who would sleep with a woman just hours after getting sucked to orgasm by another.

But then again, that could be fun too, in its own way.

**

“So, Evelyn has asked to join us and I've decided to let her. But if either of you have an issue with that...?” Elaine left the question hanging and Evelyn cringed in her seat.

“She apologized, so whatever”, Alexis said.

“She never wronged me, so sure, the more the merrier”, Ophelia said.

Evelyn let out a huge sigh of relief.

“Alright then, Evelyn, do you have your CARD already?”, Elaine asked.

Evelyn nodded enthusiastically and pulled down her collar to show hers. “Yes, I got it this morning. I didn't want you all to have to wait on me.”

Elaine had to admit that now that Evelyn was no longer glaring at her she was actually really cute. She was slightly shorter than average and had a really cute face, similar to Alexis' girl next door looks but with a slightly thinner nose and thinner lips. Her hair was wavy and wine red and hung down to the small of her back. She was thin, with small breasts and a perky round ass that looked like it was made for spanking.

“Then I guess we should share our stats with you if we're working together.”

“Um, don't you want to see my stats, too?”, Evelyn asked.

“You haven't been outside?”, Elaine asked.

“No”, Evelyn said.

“Then we know all your stats are at five. The only thing you need to tell us is what Soul Shard you have.”

“Soul Shard, Soul Shard...”, Evelyn muttered, searching.

“In the bracket after Shard Bearer”, Elaine offered.

“Ah! It says 'Indra', whatever that means.”

Elaine's jaw all but hit the table. “Fuck me sideways.”

“Is that... good?”, Evelyn asked hesitantly.

“Indra is one of the strongest Hindu gods. And those guys are strong. Ever heard of Vasavi Shakti?”

It wasn't just Evelyn who shook her head. Ophelia and Alexis looked similarly confused.

“No appreciation for the classics, honestly”, Elaine grumbled, then dug around her AR menus until she'd found the video clip she'd been looking for, from the anime Fate/Apocrypha, where the legendary hero Karna used Vasavi Shakti, completely annihilating his surroundings merely by activating it.

“Okay, that looked impressive”, Evelyn conceded. “So what, I can learn to do that?”

Elaine shook her head. “No, that was the version Indra gave to Karna, one he could use one single time. With enough training you could learn to wield something this strong without limitation.”

“Sorry to rain on your parade”, Ophelia cut in, “but we don't know if the real life version lives up to what's shown in your Chinese cartoon.”

Elaine wanted to grit her teeth but one look at Ophelia told her the vampire was only teasing. “You have a point”, Elaine said hesitantly, “but just the thought of getting some of Indra's toys is exciting. Honestly, all of your abilities are awesome and I can't wait to see how they develop.”

“And you can't wait to see how many of them you get to use, too”, Alexis added.

“I won't deny it”, Elaine said. “Imagine slipping in and out of shadows with Aspect of Liminality to poke enemies with Areadbhar. That's cool.”

“I really didn't think you'd be such a nerd”, Alexis said.

“Don't think I didn't see how you were fawning over the CARD and the armor, Missy. You're just as much of a nerd as I am”, Elaine countered.

“That's my point. Usually it takes one to know one but I had no idea until you geeked out there”, Alexis replied.

“I guess it's proof that she's finally relaxing around us”, Ophelia said.

At just that moment Evelyn jumped up.

“What is it?”, Elaine asked. In response Evelyn fiddled with her AR menus a little and finally shared a notification:

“Huh, that went fast”, Alexis said.

“I think Elaine might have a thing for the pitiful type”, Ophelia added.

Evelyn and Elaine both blushed furiously.

**

After breakfast they'd all gone to the armory. Evelyn needed to get suited up and geared up and Elaine had wanted to look through the advanced gear. She'd noticed something peculiar on her AR displays that morning. She hadn't gotten any notifications, but she suddenly had way more Credits than she could remember earning. In fact, adding everything up, the only explanation that made the least bit of sense was that she'd gotten 50% of the Credits that her Shard Bearers had earned from their achievements. In fact, if she counted that up, it came out exactly to her current Credit balance. The theory had been confirmed when Evelyn had unlocked that achievement and along with her gaining 200 Credits Elaine's Credit balance had shot up another 100. She'd been worried about the amount of Credits she'd be getting seeing as how Awakeners didn't have achievements to hunt for, but now she had more Credits than she knew what to do with.

The last time she'd looked through the gear store she'd seen some stuff she wanted but hadn't been able to afford without bankrupting herself, but now?

So while Evelyn got suited up and Jeanne recommended her an assault rifle, the same model Elaine was using, Elaine rifled through the store selection. Finally she found what she'd been looking for.

The Ring of Holding was, as the name suggested, a ring that had a spatial enchantment on it, allowing it to access a pocket dimension one could place items into to retrieve them later. It allowed the holder to go out for longer trips without needing to take one of the bulky Mil-Spec backpacks with them.

“Alright, so where do you want to head this time?”, Ophelia asked once they had all gotten geared up.

“I want to head directly West to Waterport”, Elaine said. “It's a bit bigger and we definitely won't be the only team there, but from what we've seen on our scouting trips there should be enough Outsiders there to make the trip worthwhile.”

“Sounds good to me”, Ophelia said.

Alexis and Evelyn agreed, so they headed out.

**

“So, what's up with these achievements?”, Alexis asked as they humped it through a field. “What others are there?”

Elaine shrugged. “They didn't tell us everything, but from what I've understood they come in three categories. One is for Bond Level, as you've seen. The second is for encountering certain numbers of different enemy types. The third falls under miscellaneous, like that 'Survived your first outing' one you and Ophelia got.”

“Then what about you? Do you get achievements as well?”, Evelyn asked.

“Nope. I don't get EXP either. I only get stat points when you level up.”

“Well that sucks”, Evelyn said.

“Not really. I'm expecting my stats to skyrocket now that I've got three Shard Bearers along.”

It had taken them a while to get where they wanted to be. Right before they reached their destination they had to wade through a little creek and finally they found a larger building that had apparently been a canoe and kayak store once. There were some signs of battle, as if some people had thought to hide on the premises, but there were no bodies to be found, which probably had something to do with the horde of shriveled zombies standing in front of the building.

Elaine was about to give her team the go order when she noticed something yellow fluttering around the treeline. She focused on it, then scanned it as well.

The Yellow Wraith was a truly nightmarish sight to behold. It vaguely resembled a Man O' War, a bulbous air bladder on top and thin strands that were almost but not quite tentacles dangling down from it. Except unlike a Man O' War its body was pitch black and had a thin yellow membrane covering it that looked like a cloak with the hood pulled up. The entire thing was roughly seven feet long from top to bottom and floated through the air as if on an invisible current. Around it was a shimmer in the air, presumably the personal shield mentioned by the scan.

If Elaine squinted really hard she could see gossamer-thin tendrils reaching out of the Yellow Wraith to connect it to every single zombie present.

“How should we do this?”, Ophelia asked quietly. “I've got the Hounds of Hades with the extra damage against undead here.” Elaine shook her head.

“No. We'll work smarter”, she said, then addressed the group. “Evelyn and Ophelia will focus on overloading the shield. I will finish it off with a magical construct. Alexis will use her shotgun to mow through the zombies.”

“Okay, um, can I ask why we do it this way?”, Evelyn asked.

“Oh, sorry, I forgot to tell you”, Elaine said. “Alexis and I have a skill called Glory Hound that increases EXP and Credit rewards for everyone if we land the finishing blow. If we're in mortal danger we can't focus on that but this shouldn't be too hard so we can do it the lucrative way.”

“Okay”, Evelyn said and checked that the safety of her gun was off.

Ophelia started the battle by firing a sniper round at the Yellow Wraith. As the bullet hit, the personal shield flashed into view as concentric circles washed over it from the point of impact. The shield turned red and caved in but did not yet shatter. Before the shield could recover Evelyn laid into it with her rifle. She wasn't firing continuously. She was using careful, controlled three round bursts like she'd been trained to do, aiming again between bursts to focus on the point Ophelia had fired into. Ophelia was faster than human but the process of reloading a sniper rifle was still somewhat annoying and she couldn't risk breaking anything by flexing her super strength and speed too hard, so in the time Evelyn had fired an entire clip Ophelia had barely managed to fire two rounds.

The Yellow Wraith reacted to the attack by directing all the Zombies to go in the direction the shots were coming from, so between her shotgun and her newfound light magic it was the easiest thing in the world for Alexis to mow through the zombie horde. She alternated firing rounds from her shotgun and using small concentrated laser blasts. She didn't yet have the power or training to fire continuous laser beams but these small bursts, which reminded her of the guns the Stormtroopers in Star Wars had used except that her lasers were pure white rather than red, were still good enough to shear through the zombies' rotten flesh with ease.

Elaine had been feeling annoyed about her recent performances so she decided to impress her rookies a little.

She used air and earth magic to gather vast quantities of carbon and squeezed them down into crystal, creating swords out of the material. Before she had become an Awakener she'd struggled to create gems large enough to make earrings out of. Once she'd become an Awakener she'd found she'd become good enough to create a single crystal sword before exhaustion forced her to stop. Now, with all those stat boosts she'd gotten, she managed to assemble three swords and only felt slightly woozy afterwards. She still had more than enough left in her to levitate those swords over her shoulder, making them float in a circle with their points aimed at the Yellow Wraith.

Once the third sniper round hit the Yellow Wraith its shield tore like a balloon and Elaine let her crystal blades fly. The first missed but the other two struck it right in the bladder, tearing its main body to shreds.

Elaine recalled the blades, ready to use them again to attack or to deflect a Darklight attack, but the Wraith disintegrated before it could even hit the ground.

“Whoa, what was that?”, Evelyn asked Elaine after they'd made sure they'd gotten all enemies.

“Air and Earth magic put together to create crystals”, Elaine explained, a tad smugly. She really liked this trick. Especially because she could now keep these swords. She'd had to stash them away or destroy them before but now she had a Ring of Holding so she could be keeping these things around indefinitely.

“How does that work?”, Alexis asked.

“I use air magic to pull carbon out of the air and earth magic to pull it out of the ground, then I use earth magic to condense it”, Elaine explained.

“That would need unfathomable amounts of carbon, though”, Alexis said.

“I can create a lot of it with earth magic but yeah, I just purified a lot of air for this”, Elaine admitted.

“Wow”, Evelyn said.

Elaine was basking in the praise but then calmed down when she thought about the bevy of points the girls had accumulated. She was about to suggest they use them when an urgent message flared up on their AR displays.

“Fuck”, Elaine said.

“We can help them, right?”, Alexis asked.

“Yeah. We're not far. If we rush there we can make it in a few minutes”, Elaine said.

“I've got an idea”, Alexis said, then fiddled with her AR displays.

The next moment, Elaine also got a status notification.

Before Elaine could comment on it Alexis balled her right hand into a fist and placed it over her heart. A second later a manifestation of a huge horse armored for combat appeared behind her.

“Ophelia?”, Alexis asked as she petted the magnificent beast's flank. “Can I ask you to use your super speed to follow us along on foot? According to the ability description, Aenbharr can only carry three people.”

“Sure”, Ophelia said, eyeing the huge horse. “I didn't expect him to be this big, though.”

“Neither did I”, Alexis said as she swung herself into the saddle.