The sun at the peak of the mountain was fantastic, waves of warmth radiating down Leto’s bare chest. He had taken off his shirt and Aurora was settled on top of his head while he relaxed into a meditative position. Through their mental link, they were sharing this experience and practicing their bond. Aurora couldn’t quite send actual words through their link, but feelings and basic imagery were enough for now. He could feel her contentment and quiet pleasure at the calm of the situation. 

They were taking a moment to test out his newest ability, Solar Charge. Aurora had a similar skill, and it allowed her to show him how to use the skill. She helped him imagine a deep well, constructed from his own willpower. It was a slow process, as she tried to teach him a technique from a previous life when she didn’t quite have all her memories. They would come back as she aged, but for now many were disjointed clues. They breathed and meditated, slowly shaping each brick and building the structure into the fabric of his soul. Aurora helped push into the ‘ground’ as he continued to build it, and the two of them built subsidiary connections to his mana pool and his Sunburst skill. This way, when filled, it would be left alone until he was out of other mana and Sunburst would be able to have its charge. 

When he opened his eyes, sweat lined his forehead.They hadn’t been able to make more than a few layers, but it was enough to use Sunburst once when filled and still have a little more left over. Aurora sent a feeling of pride over to him, like a mother watching her chick flap its wings. He grinned a little and scratched her long neck. 

“Thanks darling, I don’t think I could have done that on my own.” She cooed, 

leaning her head into his hand. 

There had been no sign of the elk since she had scared him off in her old form. It must not have seen a stronger creature since it started to mutate, because its reaction in the moment was instantaneous, a retreat of pure terror. 

For the first time, Leto was left in a strange place. He had no real direction, no immediate threat to himself to push him onward. Tim’s last words still echoed in his mind ‘Get stronger.’ But Leto didn’t want to push himself without any knowledge. He stood, wiping the sweat off his body, and studied his surroundings. The range of mountains around him stretched off to the North, and the dense redwood forest surrounded him on all sides. A river cut through the forest to the East, further into the country. He could head West to the coast, where more people lived. But if the storms at Crater Lake were any sign, then it was probably destroyed. Any further North would start to get cold and rain, and snow was not something he wanted to deal with while also trying to just survive. South was another option, as there were even more people down South in California, but it was going to be a much longer journey on foot, through dense forest and mountains. When he pushed his question to Aurora, she chirped back uninterested, with no real opinion on the matter. Wherever he went, she would go with him and be just as happy. He began to make a pros and cons list in his head, when the feeling of the sun on his skin changed. Where before he could feel the rays and the energy straight from the sun, now it felt like a filter had been passed over him. Looking to the sky, he saw a giant transparent, golden rectangle slowly stretching outwards. 

From Aurora, he felt a thought of hope, then confusion and fear. His own fear began to rise to the surface as the rectangle started to become more and more opaque, letting less light through every time he blinked. It was truly massive stretching many miles across the beautiful blue sky like a slowly descending ship. It wasn’t centered over him as far as he could tell, but it was definitely over him. Leto put his shirt on quickly, and gathered all his equipment. A strange dim golden darkness spread covered the Oregon forests now, the square producing its own soft light while blocking out the natural light of the sun. 

The center of the gold shape stretched outwards, a dome forming like someone pushing a ball against a sheet. After a few moments of straining, a white dome pushed into the world. An aperture on the top of the dome spiraled open, and little white specks began to flow out in a wave, and spread across the horizon, with a few hundred of them falling straight down. In the direction he had come from. 

Another thrum of fear came through the connection with Aurora with one of the strongest images she had sent yet. RUN. 

For one more second, he watched as the sky rumbled and seemed to push in on the giant golden rectangle, not pushing it out into space but collapsing it in on itself. Or back into whatever dimension it sprouted out from. Then he was running, choosing on a dime to follow the river inland. More room to escape whatever the hell this apocalypse was unleashing on him now. 

 

↞↠

Nevada was an awful place to spend the apocalypse. A trip to Death Valley had sounded fun to Ben last month. He was always down to have an adventure, load up his car and take off into the wilderness. This trip had been Andrew’s idea, a last minute adventure before he went back to the Navy. Two days into the desert a massive sandstorm blew through, burying their small tent and earthquakes rocked the area for hours. When the sandstorm started to blow, they had both developed some sort of magic power that allowed them to manipulate sand that allowed them to tunnel out once everything had settled down. But that was not where the nightmare ended. 

They had been hunted by some kind of black wolves for several days. Andrew thought they looked like jackals, but the only kind of jackal-like animal in America were coyotes, and these were definitely not coyotes. After a few days of running, they used their sand manipulation to bury and suffocate the animals. They hid from roving packs of scorpions the size of doberman, and had almost been suffocated right back by some kind of sand elemental. 

Each had developed several skills in the past few weeks, and were feeling the confidence of growing power. They skated along the desert, using their sand manipulation to push themselves across its surface. Ben was a few yards behind Andrew, who had stopped at the top of a large dune. He grabbed Ben’s shoulder as soon as he joined him, his other hand across his brows to block out the sun as he stared into the sky. 

“Ben, look!” Ben likewise cupped his vision and managed to make out a cloud trail crossing the sky.

 “Do you think it’s a plane?” Andrew asked. Ben shook his head. 

“It's moving way too fast for a plane. Besides, We would be able to make out the shape from here.” 

“I don’t know, I’ve been saying the government probably has a solid grasp on whatever is happening right now. It could be a plane.” Andrew had hope in his voice. They hadn’t seen another human in weeks, though they had come across several abandoned campsites and cars. 

Ben squinted his eyes, taking another look at the object in the sky. His eyes quickly widened and he grabbed Andrew. 

“Whatever it is, it is getting bigger. I think it's coming down!” The two of them quickly skated down the dune, making sure they were a good distance from wherever this thing would land. 

It curved down toward the ground, before it started to level out. It coasted for several minutes before impacting the ground a few miles away from them, sending up a huge plume of sand into the air. The two made eye contact and grinned, dashing across the sand toward the impact site. 

 

A group of several people stood around the rim of a crater in a parking lot, destroyed buildings crowding the space around them. Each wielded a weapon of some kind, a baseball bat, a crowbar, a length of rebar sharpened into a spear. Inside the crater sat a white egg, about four feet tall and three feet across. 

“Alright I'm gonna poke it.” the one with the rebar spear said, sliding down the side of the crater. 

“Could you do something less moronic?” said Baseball Bat, trying to grab them before they made it down, hand swiping just past his shoulder. 

“Come on, with everything we’ve seen in these past few weeks, how bad can this be?” Rebar asks and wipes rubble dust off of his jacket as he climbs to his feet. The egg was perfectly smooth and looked like ceramic. Rebar’s spear came up, and lightly tapped the side. Once, twice, three times he tapped and everyone around the crater held their breath. After nearly a minute passed without a response from it. Finally, Rebar laughed, breaking the tension wide open. 

“HA. I bet it’s a monster egg or something. Let’s crack it open! Daddy needs a T-rex omelet!” He held his spear above his head and plunged it down into the egg. Straight into the egg, without a crack or a break, but like it was going into butter. The egg had deformed directly around it, allowing it to slide straight in. Rebar tugged on it, trying to pull it out, but it was stuck inside. 

“Fucking EGG!” He yelled, putting a foot on its surface to give himself better leverage. He sunk into it up to his knee and lost his footing, slipping onto his back. The egg began to move, slimming down to a humanoid shape about six feet tall. It looked like a mannequin made of porcelain. In one hand it held Rebar’s spear, and clutched his foot under its other arm. A golden screen flashed into existence in front of its face, with words that none of the onlookers could read. The mannequin’s head seemed to nod and the screen disappeared. It lifted its head, taking a long look at each person around the rim of the crater before looking down at Rebar on the ground. 

“Three Anomalies detected.” a tinny voice rang out from the mannequin, breaking the silence that had fallen on the small group. 

“Um, hello.” Baseball Bat said from the top of the crater. “We are sorry about poking your…egg. We don’t mean any harm if-” 

“Directive assigned. Eliminate.” The Hunter Series Homunculus said, before plunging the spear into Rebar’s eye. 

A cave cut into the side of a snowy mountain glowed with the heat of a huge campfire. In front of the cave, a woman sat atop a small pile of homunculus bodies, a large leg of some sort of cooked animal clutched in one hand. Her weapon of choice, a huge tusk sat in her other hand, the sharp tip pinning the newest Hunter to try and kill her to the ground. A goat the size of a bear lay along the side of the pile, gnawing at one of their heads. Taking a bite of her meal, the woman laughed at her companion’s antics. 

“Quit it Gnasher, that's gonna give you a stomach ache.” The goat bleated in reply, going back in to try and eat the homunculus. She chuckled again before her head snapped toward the base of the mountain, her gaze tracing a fast moving plume of snow that was carving its way toward her. 

“Here we go again. UP Gnasher!” She called, throwing the leg over her shoulder and pulling the tusk from the last one’s torso. These things were fun to fight at least.

Ben ran as fast as he could, the desert slipping below him like the surface of a highway. Tears cut through the blood that covered his face, some of it his, some of it from the homunculus crushing Andrew’s head like a grape just inches away 

from him. Turning his head to look, the Hunter pounded along behind him, gaining with every step. Ben pushed as much mana into his manipulation skill as he could, creating whips of sand that broke against the Hunter’s ivory body, pits that it would step into for just a moment and stumble, walls that it would kick its way through or jump over like a professional pole vaulter. 

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK! Ben screamed, pushing his legs and skill to move faster. He just wanted to escape, to get away and get stronger so he could come back and crush this thing that had killed his best friend. Mana burned in his body, his manipulation and movement skills soaking up mana like sponges in a sink. His will grabbed what remaining mana he had left, compacting it into the largest skill he had felt to date. He had no idea what it was, but he trusted his mana and his soul to make something for him. He cut off his other skills and pushed his remaining mana into forming the new skill. 

It grew and grew, swallowing his sand manipulation skill. He was sad for a moment that his oldest and most used skill was eaten to produce this new one, but he could sense that it would push it further than just his mana and will could have. Ben turned, facing the oncoming Hunter, his machete in hand. He had brought this blade on every camping trip since he was fifteen years old, and it sat in his grip like an old friend. 

The homunculus pounded closer, golden eyes trained on him and nothing else. Its hands sharpened into points, preparing to pierce the running Anomaly straight through its quickly beating heart. Ben tensed, swinging the machete down at the  ivory train of death that barreled toward him. Right before they made contact with each other, the skill solidified and mana coursed through his body. Ben could feel a change, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was for a moment. Then the Hunter batted away his machete and plunged its sharpened limb into his chest. He gasped, stumbling backwards from the transferred momentum of the blow. Thinking his death was certain, the hunter stood and flexed its hand back into its original shape. But when the limb left Ben’s body, he was stunned. He had been so sure that like a movie, a stream of pressurized blood would spurt from his chest and he would die on the spot. But that didn’t happen, in fact, he didn’t bleed at all. A small waterfall of sand poured from the chest cavity that the Hunter had left.

Mouth gaping, Ben stared at the hold in his chest. Thinking for a moment, he willed the hole to close. Mana swirled, and the sand closed the wound. It shifted for a moment,  before the golden sand turned into the normal color of his flesh. Slowly, he looked up at the Hunter in front of him. Its head was tilted, staring at the spot it was sure it had just stabbed the Anomaly. Ben grinned, and felt his body grow as he brought the sand up from the ground to augment his changed physiology. Standing several feet over the homunculus now, he whacked the machete against his sandy hand in anticipation. 

“Oh you’re so boned now.” Ben said with a chuckle, his voice like gravel in a blender. As if it agreed with him, the homunculus turned and started to run across the sand. The new hunter in their game laughed out loud and took off after it like the sandstorm that had given him his power.

 

↞↠

A white shape pushed through the trees and crept along the bank, its golden eyes sweeping the length of the river. Not identifying its quarry, it stood at a military-like attention and projected a golden screen in front of its face. Another white humanoid was seen on the screen, nearly identical to the hunter but for a third, black eye that sat in the center of its forehead.

“Report H12A.”

“Anomaly identified, pursued, and lost. Current mana density interfering with any mana signature tracing.”

“Continue the hunt. H1 has identified the signature from the retrieval site, approximately fifty miles from your location. One additional anomaly was found deceased. The body was exhumed for scans. Two mana signatures identified, the target anomaly and Noah’s subject.”

“My subject is the most likely candidate then?” 

“Correct. Continue the pursuit.”

 

The golden screen flicked out, and the hunter relaxed, dropping out of its stiff posture and into a crouch and a golden mist was sprayed from an aperture in its face. It flowed over the ground, highlighting bits and pieces of tracks left by creatures that had passed through the area. Footprints and droppings of small animals were illuminated and discarded before a single human footprint was seen. The hunter followed the direction it pointed in and came to a large tree. As it scanned the area, a branch above it snapped,  and its gaze shot up just in time to see Leto falling toward it, club raised. heat and mana pouring off of him in waves turning the air around his body obscured like a heat shimmer but heavily intensified. His eyes were wild and a snarl was creased over his face. The hunter had no time to react before the club crashed into its head, sending it sprawling into the dirt. A roar left Leto’s throat as he landed, barely recognizable as human. 

“YOU DUG HIM UP?!” he screamed and charged at the hunter. It scrambled to its feet, one hand morphing into a lance and the other into a shield. The club rang out against the shield and the hunter was pushed back.

“HOW COULD YOU?!” he attacked again and again, forcing the hunter into a purely defensive position. Wild strike filled his whole body, empowering each of his movements further. Any damage the backlash was doing was nearly instantly healed by the pure fury that was running through Infernal Vitality. When he had heard the specifics of the other hunter’s report, he had discovered two things. For some reason they were looking for him, and they had dug up Tim’s body. In that moment, Infernal Vitality had activated on its own and only his pure force of will had kept him from leaping until the hunter was closer. 

The hunter began to adjust to the onslaught that Leto was dishing out, and slowly began to slip its own attacks into the fray. A slash along his side, a puncture in his bicep, a swipe that went right past his eyes. The one sided fury beating suddenly became an equal exchange. Deep in Leto’s chest, a feeling was pushing against him, against the fury of his skill. But the skill was driving him forward, and he needed that fire, that anger. He pushed away the other feeling and leaned into the skill. He knocked the hunter’s shield up and his lance to the side before cracking one of the golden eyes that seemed to burrow into his soul. Before he could retreat, the lance became a set of wicked curved talons and sliced deep furrows into his arm. Gasping, Leto stepped back, heat billowing out of the wound. The other feeling pressed in again on his soul and a loud ‘CHIRP’ filled his mind. The fog began to clear and Leto took a few steps back, Aurora’s presence filtering back in. 

He could feel her fear at his current predicament, and then anger at being pushed out so suddenly and aggressively. Another loud chirp rang in his head and he flinched, pushing a feeling of guilt along their bond. The hunter circled around him and Leto rotated to keep him in his vision. The blindfold of rage gone, he could feel exactly how injured he was with gashes all over his body. Aurora’s anger sated, she nudged his newly constructed well within his mana pool. He sent a feeling of agreement back to her, but didn’t draw from it quite yet. Leto stumbled back toward the hunter, who now shifted its shield hand down its arm, its hand reammerging on the side of the shield with a short punch dagger-like shape. Leto winced as he moved in, the deep cuts on his bicep flaring as he swung his club in at the hunter. It's one good eye flared, the first real emotion he has seen on his opponent and it was contempt. It caught his club between the edge of the shield and the dagger, holding it in place as it swung down toward his shield arm. 

In that moment Leto drew from his well, a sphere of sun yellow mana washing over him and outward. In a single blink, his wounds were healed and strength returned to his arms. Dropping his shield and club, he gripped both wrists of his opponent and yelled out.

“Now Aurora!” 

She swooped down from the tree they had hidden from the hunter originally. Her small claws gripped its face and Leto pushed as much mana along their bond as he could spare. She opened her mouth and a veritable gale of blue and purple flame washed over its head. The hunter thrashed in his grip and he reinforced his arms with Wild Strike. It tried to morph into slick tentacles then into sharp blades to slice his hands. With each change, its throes lessened and its strength dipped until it stopped moving all together. Aurora’s flames puttered out, revealing a blackened, melted head, its whole body frozen in the last moment of its death. A pool of golden material settled at the top of its neck within its head, like the melted remnant of a golden brain. Leto let go, his body aching from mana overuse. The backlash had been healed, but it didn't mean he wasn’t sore as a consequence. He rocked backwards, rolling to the ground.

“Uuuungh that hurts like a mother.” He rolled his shoulders and tried to stretch his limbs. Aurora fluttered down, resting on his solar plexus and chirping angrily at him.

“I know, I know, I'm sorry. I think I might have some unresolved issues about this whole experience.” He looked down at her, and her gaze could only be summed up as ‘Ya think so huh?’. Letting his head fall back, he chuckled. 

“Alright, let's get moving on. I don’t think I can take another one in this shape, and they aren’t going to stop looking for me for some reason.” Aurora took to the air as he began to sit up, pushing himself to his feet, Another groan left him as he stretched again before turning east and following the river away from his newest adversaries. While he was confused why some weird extra dimensional shape-shifting mannequins were after him specifically, Leto was almost glad to have something pushing him onward, reaching further into the future even if he was running.