Rise of the Night Stalkers

by Kurtis Eckstein

“Thank you for saving me,” she whispered.

  I glanced up at her in surprise, seeing her crimson eyes looking down at me warmly, like I was her biggest hero.

  Hell no!

  Her tone was way too appreciative, and I wasn’t about to admit that I’d done something for someone else’s benefit. I did it for myself – not her – because I needed someone’s stats to experiment with, and nothing more. I didn’t have time to get attached to people, and I wasn’t about to even begin to tread down that path.

  She was just a tool, and nothing more! A weapon for me to use in a fight!

  I scoffed, barking out a humorless laugh. ‘What makes you think I did it for you?’ I retorted in my thoughts. ‘I was just trying to protect my points from getting stolen.’

  She was quiet for a moment, before revealing she wasn’t fooled at all.

  Of course she wouldn’t be.

  Dammit.

  “Thank you for saving me,” she repeated even more quietly. Even more meaningfully.

  Dammit, dammit, dammit!

  Groaning in annoyance, I just stopped thinking, staring into space as I listened to the sounds in the distance. Overall, it was quiet, except for a low whistling coming from the boiler that had been blasted open. I suspected it had an automatic shutdown system in place, considering it hadn’t spewed out steam for long.

  But the whistle was sure as hell annoying.

  Ugh.

  I couldn’t think anymore.

  I was truly spent.

  The last thing I remembered was Harper quietly beginning to hum something that reminded me of a lullaby.

  Chapter 11: Stats

  My eyes flew open as I regained consciousness, confused by the pressure on virtually all sides of my head, along with the curtain of white blocking my vision. Slowly, I realized that the warmth I felt on my temple was Harper’s forehead, appearing as if she had remained in her current position for however long until she leaned forward and passed out, using my head as a pillow.

  Stupid girl.

  I wasn’t anyone’s damn pillow.

  Carefully freeing the top of my head from her curled arm, while grabbing one of her small horns to prevent her own head from smacking into the ground, I extricated myself from Harper’s sleeping form and gently lowered her onto her side.

  Then, I examined the room, shocked that what I saw didn’t match what I smelt.

  Plain as day, I saw a horror scene before me, with two corpses in the middle of the room, one of which had been relieved of all its internal organs.

  Alternatively, there was no unpleasant smell. Even while it looked of death, there was no scent of death.

  What in the hell?

  Was it just me? Because I was a Night Stalker? Would a human smell death?

  Or was it truly that there was no foul scent?

  There was definitely a scent, but it was fairly neutral. Honestly, as I examined the black gunk everywhere, which seemed to exist in the place of blood, I was reminded of the faint smell of pure oil. I mean, no way in hell was the stuff oil, but it wasn’t unlike the faint, yet heavy, musty smell I imagined.

  Lifting up my tail to examine it, I discovered that the once dried human blood on the blade had also turned pitch-black and gunky. Weird.

  I had no idea the cause, but I was beginning to truly believe that the gore in the room didn’t smell. Plus, now that I considered it, if I had been a mindless beast who hadn’t taken a shower in months, shouldn’t I smell heavily of death?

  And yet, none of the humans had reacted to my scent at all, as if there was nothing unpleasant about being around me.

  All the potential monsters and humans I had killed, and yet my scent was neutral, like a diluted version of what I faintly detected in the room.

  Strange indeed.

  Glancing at the doorway to the boiler room, I realized Harper hadn’t been in that exact position the whole time, like I initially assumed. Sometime after I had passed out, she must have gotten up to barricade the door, using a bent metal pipe and a couple large adjustable wrenches to create a makeshift drop-bar that hooked through the handle and utilized the pipes along the wall by the door.

  She had also managed to move a large metal shelf against the doorway, with it laying on its side, one end sticking behind what appeared to be a support beam pole – either that or a large pipe that ran from the floor to the ceiling.

  All in all, the setup looked to be fairly sturdy.

  And clever.

  Dammit, she really was smart.

  Deciding I didn’t want to mess with her setup right now, and possibly wake her up in the process, I just sat there for a few minutes as I contemplated all that had happened. Clearly, I wasn’t the strongest monster out there, even if I was above average, which meant I needed to try to improve my stats as soon as possible.

  Which meant I needed to eat.

  Good thing I was a little hungry anyway.

  Getting up to move closer to the isopod, I sat down and began going to town, attempting to stuff as many points in me as feasibly possible. However, as I ate, my mind began wandering and considering how intelligent Harper really was, and then thinking about how she was curled around my head…

  Dammit, stupid girl! She was totally using her body to shield my most vulnerable spot! Like a damn helmet!

  Why in the hell was I so upset by that realization?

  I did my best to try not to think about it, instead focusing on stuffing my face. In the end, I stopped when it said I had an estimated 48 points. As soon as I had gotten into the forties, I decided to aim for fifty even though I was getting really stuffed, but I couldn’t quite make it, and gorging myself to the point of vomiting would be counterproductive.

  Thus, now all I could do was wait, giving me plenty of time to finally investigate my stats further since I had nothing else going on.

  Sitting down gently next to Harper’s sleeping form, with her head touching my hip, I leaned against the concrete wall and pulled up my displayable biometrics.

  HANDLER

  Physical Condition: Stable

  Psychological Condition: Stable

  Fatigue: 1%

  Mass: 113

  Strength: 623

  Endurance: 852

  Speed: 233

  Dexterity: 100

  Balance: 100

  Connection: 5

  Thermoacoustic: 20

  Attack: 5,344

  Defense: 7,991

  It was good to see that all my stats had returned to their normal values. It was also interesting to discover that my psychological condition was stable again, with the ‘traumatized’ condition having disappeared. I doubted a human would recover from such an incident so quickly, but after sleeping, I had to admit that I did feel stable again – and mentally distant from the previous fright. I assumed that my Fatigue was at 1% already because I had been awake for a bit, actively eating.

  But enough of that. It was time to begin going down the list to learn more about my abilities, starting with Mass.

  Mass: 113

  Systemic Skills: Regeneration, Reconstitution, Augmentation

  Body Augmentations: Enhanced Vision [s1], Clawed Digits [s1], Reconstructed Cardiovascular [s7], Reinforced Arms [s3], Reinforced Legs [s3], Spring Sacrum [s6], Coccyx Blade [s3], Wings [s4] (Lesser Socket, Lesser Arms, Elongated Digits, Digital Webbing), Hardened Skin Plates [s8]

  Enhancements: Strength +450, Endurance +850, Speed +350, Attack +5,500, Defense +7,100, Balance +50

  Debilitations: Endurance -79, Speed -201, Attack -156

  Augmentation Skills: Flight, Sharp Sight [s1], Night Vision, Thermal Vision, Spring-Blade [s3]

  Huh. I had assumed that my stats were so high because I had eaten a ton, but now I was realizing that my body augmentations truly functioned like weapons and armor in a videogame, with some enhancements causing both gains and losses in my stats.

  I assumed that the numbers like s1, s7, and s3 represented how many times I had upgraded that particular augm
entation, but I wasn’t completely sure about that.

  I also suspected that having my cardiovascular system reconstructed was what enhanced my endurance by 850, but the actual Endurance stat was only increased by 771 due to the 79 point debuff, for a total of 852, possibly because of the added weight from having extra limbs or something. I mean, that definitely had to be why I had a huge speed debuff of 201, because of the weight.

  Alternatively, the reinforced arms and legs were responsible for the 450 increase in strength. Likewise, my tail had probably been both the biggest investment to build it, as well as the biggest payoff, considering it gave me that huge attack boost of 5,500 even though the actual result was only 5,344…

  For a moment, I wondered why the boosts would be round numbers while the reductions would be more specific numbers, but then I realized the obvious – the system controlled the boosts, whereas the reductions were probably uncontrolled side-effects.

  Thinking about the subject of modifying my body, I was instantly reminded of the fight, along with the enemy’s laser hands.

  Would that have really been the result of the weaponized-hand proposal that I had looked into previously?

  If so, then I definitely wanted it.

  However, that also raised the question as to how exactly Thermoacoustic played a role. I decided it was well past time to look into it.

  Thermoacoustic: 20

  Thermal Stage 1: 20

  Thermal Stage 2: 30

  Thermal Stage 3: 40

  Refrigeration Stage 1: 50

  Refrigeration Stage 2: 55

  Transduction Stage 1: 60

  Transduction Stage 2: 65

  Electromagnetic Stage 1: 70

  Electromagnetic Stage 2: 75

  Plasma Stage 1: 80

  Plasma Stage 2: 90

  Plasma Stage 3: 100

  Whoa, whoa, whoa!

  Was this what I thought it was? I didn’t exactly know what Thermoacoustic meant, but I knew enough to assume it had something to do with heat and sound, which made sense now that I had heard another Night Stalker use this ability – there was, in fact, a hum coming from his body, as well as a louder reverberating pulse that occurred when he fired.

  So then, what did this mean? Was sound being used to create heat? Or maybe was sound just being used to control heat?

  I had no idea, but based on the full skill names, it looked like this was basically magic.

  Like, real life magic.

  Thermoacoustic Thermal would simply be heat or fire magic, which was literally what I witnessed that bastard use, almost like creating a fireball in his hand, except it shot out like a beam of heat instead.

  And obviously Thermoacoustic Refrigeration was ice magic, since everyone knew what a refrigerator was. But then what was Thermoacoustic Transduction and Electromagnetic? They both sounded electrical in nature, but were they really electric magic?

  And what about Thermoacoustic Plasma?

  I knew that the word plasma could refer to a state of matter, but it could also refer to the primary fluid in blood. Not to mention, either way, I had no idea how it could be used as a weapon, or even if it was a weaponized enhancement.

  But damn, this was feeling more game-like by the minute, even though it was uncomfortably real. Still, it was crazy to think I might actually be able to learn how to use fire, ice, and electric magic, or at least something similar. Like, I really wanted to invest my points in doing the hand evolution thing the moment I was able, but I also wanted to be able to speak for myself too.

  Dammit.

  At least I didn’t have to go far with my Connection stat. Originally, I had wanted the stat to be at exactly twenty, but Harper had been doing amazing with nineteen, prompting me to wonder if getting the stat up to ten would be sufficient. And, knowing that Connection required 3 resource points just to go up 1 stat point, I would only need fifteen points to increase it by five.

  Previously, when I was concerned about gaining only 2 or 3 points per meal, that would have been a problem. But that wasn’t too much of a burden now, since I had almost fifty points digesting. Not to mention, I didn’t really have anything else to do anyway, so I could just hang out in this boiler room for a few days and stock up on points, and eventually obtain the ability to use fire magic.

  Honestly, if I could have long-ranged attacks using my Thermoacoustic ability, then it seemed like the smartest option was to try to max it out to 100 as soon as possible. The only problem was I didn’t know how many points that would require. If Connection needed 3 points to increase by 1, then I suspected Thermoacoustic was similar. And I didn’t know what other unexpected body modifications I might need to make, which seemed to be the most expensive part.

  Glancing at my stats screen again, I saw the following information.

  Distributable Resources: 13

  Estimated Resources Processing: 35

  Estimated availability in 00:19:22:189

  I already had 13 resource points available, meaning I wasn’t far off from being able to raise Connection by 5 points. However, now that I had made the decision to just stock up on points for a few days, I decided that I needed to know how many resources Thermoacoustic required to raise by a point, in order to plan ahead.

  At first, I tried to get the system to show me how many points I would need to use ice magic, but it just said ‘Invalid.’ Which meant I had to use a few points to know what to expect.

  Sighing, I added a point to Thermoacoustic.

  Thermoacoustic: 21

  Distributable Resources: 3

  Estimated Resources Processing: 35

  Estimated availability in 00:18:35:871

  Wait, my available points dropped by ten?!

  Shit! At that rate, it would require 800 resource points to max it out! Dammit, that was a significantly larger investment than I anticipated. At a cost of 3, it would have only required 240 points…

  Well, so much for using electric magic anytime soon, since getting that stat to 70 was still going to cost basically 500 resources. I mean, technically I might be able to acquire that many points in under twenty meals, but that didn’t factor in the possible body augmentations, or evolutions, that would be required, both of which were a lot more costly.

  Not to mention, on top of all that, I had to begin considering how I would handle Harper’s stats. Originally, I had intended to play with the biometrics that I was lacking in, such as Thermoacoustic, or making body modifications that I might want to make on myself, to sort of test the waters before I committed to it. I hadn’t been at all worried about raising her strength, endurance, or even speed, nor did I care about her defensive abilities, largely because I was personally fine in those areas.

  No need to experiment with something on her that I wasn’t going to touch on myself.

  Essentially, that approach would have turned her into a glass-cannon, possibly capable of extreme firepower, but easy to kill with one or two hits.

  But now I realized I needed to start building up her biometrics with the intention of actually having a viable team member in a fight. Which meant I needed to give her some defensive measures in addition to adding some natural weapons…

  Glancing at her character sheet, I checked her stats.

  SUB-HANDLER 001

  Physical Condition: Stable

  Psychological Condition: Stable, Unconscious

  Fatigue: 33%

  Mass: 26

  Strength: 102

  Endurance: 39

  Speed: 124

  Dexterity: 87

  Balance: 64

  Connection: 19

  Thermoacoustic: 1

  Attack: 917

  Defense: 386

  Distributable Resources: 14

  My eyes narrowed as I focused on her remaining 14 points, knowing she had lost 3 of them, but unsure as to why. Glancing down at her sleeping form next to my hip, I examined her thin body, with an idea slowly surfacing as I recalled what I had seen when I first met her – she had been
regenerating, with 3 resource points dedicated to the endeavor. Meaning, at some point in time during the previous fight, she had become injured.

  There was no sign of that injury now.

  Well, at least we still had the isopod. Once she woke up, another meal would provide her with a good 30 or more points, depending on how much she could eat at once. Granted, that limitation in itself meant that I had to be more careful what I invested her points in, because her smaller stomach meant she wouldn’t be able to consume as many resources before the isopod carcass began to rot and become unusable.

  I wasn’t sure how long it would be before that happened, but I wasn’t too worried about it since we really didn’t have any reason to leave the room.

  The only reason I could imagine why I would need to leave Harper’s company would be to take a shit, but I wasn’t even sure how we were supposed to do that anyway, since the armor covering us was irremovable as far as I was aware. Not to mention, I had no recollection of ever having the urge to use a bathroom, indicating that my kind might not produce wastes like other animals.

  Certainly, I had no idea how that was even possible – for a creature to be able to eat, but not have to shit or urinate – but that appeared to be the case for us.

  And it seemed like there was more to it than that too.