Equalize

by Ryan DeBruyn

  Rocky’s respect for this man immediately rose higher with these actions. Even in his tired state, he seemed to respect the charges he was sent to protect. Before too long, more people began streaming out of the school to greet the friendly squad leader. This was when face falling Rocky confirmed he didn’t know anyone at the school.

  Not sticking around any longer, a frowning Rocky took off, deciding to try to hurry to the next Nepean safe zone before that group left for the day. He figured the school closest to his old neighborhood might be where his family was and staying still might still get him caught.

  A still sour Rocky arrived at St. Monica Public school just in time to see a large group of fifty plus individuals leaving the schoolyard. The group walked away from the Ottawa River, followed at a considerable distance by a tank and two men. This school was, in fact, the closest school to his family’s suburb and since he knew the direction the group was headed he decided to stop off.

  The suburb didn’t seem to have any indication of life. It was situated in the middle of the greenbelt which made for an extremely fast expanding forest and undergrowth. Some of the houses of the people he knew were gone, and unfortunately, this included his house, his parents’ house, and his sister’s house.

  The fact that some houses still stood suggested that some of the neighbors had picked up their keys early in the catastrophe, but his family wasn’t among those lucky individuals. Rocky felt tears threaten but furiously pushed them down. It didn’t help that the houses that hadn’t walked away were also destroyed.

  Rocky sprinted after the retreating group of survivors, breath coming labored even though he wasn’t physically tired in the least. He desperately prayed that the first sign he had found was an outlier to the actual truth. Repeating prayers to any god over and over, Rocky caught up to the group while in Stealth.

  Rocky first passed the militiamen and the tank but gave them a very wide berth because they may have been the shoot first and ask questions later sort.

  He made a slow circle of the hunting party that was following a lone figure off in the distance. It seemed that the lone figure was in charge of tracking and locating prey for the group. Rocky felt his heart clench when he recognized four faces. Each of the four belonged to a member of the Dungeons and Dragons group he occasionally joined.

  Jeff, Patrick, Phil, and Nick were all walking in a close group, each wearing some sort of protective armor. Armor may have been the wrong choice of words to describe the mismatched hockey equipment they were sporting, but Rocky continued scanning the crowd in desperate hope as frustrated tears came unbidden to his eyes.

  His heart was slowly falling into his boots, and a moment later, gravity had his heart hit rock bottom when he didn’t immediately find the familiar faces of family. It felt all the worse because of the moment of false hope he had when he saw his friends.

  That will teach you to get your hopes up. Suck-it-up. This is still a good thing.

  Rocky felt his mouth curl into a snarl, and he almost screamed in frustration. While there weren’t many women in the group there were a few. He felt that his mother and sister would have been upset with the prospect of being left behind at the school, his brother-in-law even more so.

  That being said, perhaps they had classes better suited to being left at the school? Rocky grasped the small hope and was getting ready to turn around when the tracker ran back to the group, looking extremely worried.

  Rocky, who had been circling a reasonable distance away to avoid any missteps, couldn’t hear what the tracker was saying, but by his body language and gestures, he knew something was wrong.

  Rocky was still too far away to cast Analyze on anyone and cursed himself for delaying getting into range when he had the chance. It was now too late as a shape in the distance which was vaguely humanoid approached the group of survivors who showed no semblance of cohesion. Each survivor began preparing for battle individually until the Dungeons and Dragons group stopped casting doubtful glances at the militiamen and stepped in to start organizing.

  In the end, only two additional men had some sort of piece of equipment acting as a shield. The term shield was loosely applied because they were thick slabs of a front door or an oven door. However, each man held it ready and waiting with minimal sign of fear.

  That left four men total standing ready to meet the approaching creature with the rest of the group separated into melee, casters, and ranged. Two of the frontline shield bearers were Nick and Pat. The distant shape suddenly dropped to a simian gait and continued charging.

  Rocky groaned because he was about to leave but turned back around with dread as he recognized the loping gait he had seen once before. Rocky watched the troll approach and understood that the militiamen were not mobilizing to help. If anything, they were crowding closer to the tank and preparing to flee if things went south.

  Rocky approached that group first, checking the troll’s distance and estimating it to be halfway to the survivors from where it had started but closing fast. The group of militiamen were discussing possible outcomes and placing bets it seemed.

  Fudge nuggets!

  He finally crept close enough to hear their exact points of discussion.

  These guys must be part of Corsair’s inner crew!

  “I bet my meal tonight that the Monika group dies to a man!” the man who was poking his head out of the tank exclaimed.

  “Nah, I think they will overwhelm it with numbers but lose around half of the group!” the second one said, shaking hands and accepting the bet.

  The third and final man leaned back casually against the tank and smugly stated, “Either way, it works out for us. Get ready to retreat if this thing does kill all of them.”

  Rocky felt his jaw muscles clench and his teeth grind as he thought fast, glancing at the troll who was nearly on top of the group of four men with shields. He had seen a troll in action before and felt like the first man was more likely to be right, but he had to do something.

  First, this was probably his best lead to his family, if they weren’t in St. Monika’s Public School. Second, these fudge nuggets were seriously going to let a group of humans die right in front of them when it was these very humans who had probably supplied the crystals to buy their weaponry.

  Rocky detached himself from emotion in a way he had learned through sports psychology and put together a plan which would at least protect his identity from one of the two sides. Just as he loosened his sword from the scabbard, a massive crash sounded across the trampled long grass.

  The troll had joined this three-way, even if everyone else thought it was just two sides. Rocky was about to go balls deep into this fray.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Richard Garth

  Apprentice-Soldier

  Level 7

  Terry Brock

  Apprentice-Ranger

  Level 7

  Patrick Fyss

  Apprentice-Hussar

  Level 7

  Already moving, Rocky used Analyze on the run, which popped up names and levels above the heads of each individual. It was a pretty handy piece of functionality he would have to remember in the future.

  A masked Rocky closed the thirty meters in a second and leaped directly at the back of the hussar who was poking his head out of the top of the tank. Rocky had decided, even before the Analyze, that this man would be the hardest to dispatch if this ambush turned into an extended fight. If he entered his tank, Rocky wasn’t sure he could dig the man out.

  Rocky was not willing to kill these men. Logically, he knew it was not the right choice, but he could still feel that beast inside himself. He was hesitant to open the cage again, unsure if he would ever be able to close it. Regardless, he chose to try to incapacitate the poop sticks and question them later.

  That’s why Rocky used the pommel of his sword to bash the hussar in the back of the head, just under his military helmet. The weighted hilt struck right where the spine met the bottom of the skull. The force of the
blow made the man’s head shoot forward as it attempted to rip itself off of the neck which had held it aloft its entire life. His upper body and shoulder followed a moment later, and a loud ringing was heard as his waist acted as a fulcrum and slammed the front of his helmet into the top of the tank. Rocky had tried to adjust his Strength so he didn’t sever the spinal column, but he had no idea what his power was compared to any of these men.

  As soon as Rocky had jumped at the man, he had activated Dark Cloak.

  The noise immediately alerted the other two militiamen, who reacted as slow as syrup in the winter but still turned to see what had made the jarring ping. What the men saw was a face half covered by a black mask and a body being slowly covered in dark smoke leaping at their position.

  The demon of a figure was departing the body of their downed squad leader. Men with more courage would have struggled to unshoulder the laser weaponry. These two soldiers added new stains to their uniforms before Rocky viciously turned the lights out with blows to the side of each of their heads.

  The group of three was dealt with in seconds, so Rocky took a moment to procure the laser rifles from the two downed militiamen and then sprinted into the fray of the survivors. Rocky turned off Dark Cloak, leaving it a few steps from where he had incapacitated the three men.

  Rocky pursed his lips behind his mask and hoped that these survivors wouldn’t attack him as an enemy. He doubted any of them had been able to see him take out the three militiamen but worried all the same. Just in case, he initiated Stealth again so it would be a harder mistake to make.

  As he sprinted past the back line of combat, he dropped the two laser rifles beside his friends. The two men, Phil and Jeff, only had two crossbow bolts left but that was only because of conservation.

  Instead of firing every arrow as fast as they could, it seemed they were trying to empower each shaft with a skill before releasing it at the troll. Whatever they were doing was the only reason the four shield wielders weren’t already down.

  One of the two fired arrows that dripped with a green, viscous solution that seemed to appear out of nowhere as he channeled Ether into the crossbow bolt. The other’s shaft seemed to warp the space it occupied. Each time the one with the viscous solution hit the troll, which had just happened moments ago, the troll seemed to slow noticeably for a few seconds.

  This gave the two remaining tanks an extra split second, allowing them to dodge its dangerous fists. The second arrow would stop the creature dead for a moment. However, even with all the bolts and other projectiles puncturing the troll’s hide Rocky could tell this battle was about to take a turn.

  At current, the survivors were throwing everything and the kitchen sink at this monster, but it was just healing the damage. Then renewed, the troll was attempting to swing massive fists at the two remaining shielded men. This terribly resilient creature had already removed two of the survivor’s tanks in the time it had taken Rocky to get in range.

  Still on the run, Rocky took a moment to Analyze the troll as he entered range.

  Plains Troll

  Level 27

  Journeyman-Fist

  Eyes narrowing, Rocky was glad to see it wasn’t as high level as the first troll, but he wasn’t sure what the difference in Class meant or what the difference in levels would actually equate to. One thing was certain; Rocky was sure the Journeyman class rank was not a good thing, especially if he had chosen a rank up that retained stat points from Apprentice rank.

  Now that Rocky was closer, he could make out bone protrusions jutting from the troll’s knuckles, and he shivered involuntarily. He considered using a Dark Blade to try to attack the dangerous melee creature from range but two problems jumped to the front of his mind. First, Dark Blade wasn’t overpowered as shown by the samurai knocking the blow aside with ease. Rocky had noticed that upping the power did make it slightly stronger, but mostly, it got more widespread, so he was hesitant to use it now. This creature was under fire from near on forty people and was just ignoring all of the magical and ballistic damage. The second problem was that at least ten people were easily within range of his skill. He couldn’t risk using it if it would kill any of the St. Monika survivors.

  Unfortunately, it was at this moment that Phil and Jeff ran out of crossbow bolts and had to switch to the dropped laser rifles. The two archers each let up fire for a moment, and it cost Nick. Nick managed to get his oven door up between him and the powerful fist, but the strength behind the strike buckled his shoulder and flung him away from the impact.

  Screaming, Nick sailed five feet before touching down in a tumble of limbs that cut off his scream and lasted another ten feet as his tangled body finally came to a stop. Rocky cursed as it took him a few extra precious seconds to close with the creature. These extra few seconds were because he moved to the monster’s back. As the animal pulled back an arm to throw another deadly haymaker, Rocky hastily struck from Stealth, not wanting to let it attack again.

  He had already leaped into the air a moment earlier and had easily vaulted the fifteen feet to the hunched creature’s head. Unfortunately, the position of the arm that was pulled back protected the skull from his angle of attack, so Rocky was forced to choose the left shoulder joint and committed himself to the strike with a grunt, trying to solidify his wrists just enough so the blade didn’t turn.

  Again, Rocky reactivated Dark Cloak the instant he committed to the attack and exited Stealth. It mostly worked. He managed to cut through more than half of the limb, which included the shoulder joint, but once his blade had met bone, it had encountered a significant amount of resistance and twisted in his too tight grip.

  This did have the desired effect of “disarming” the troll, mostly because the remaining flesh Rocky hadn’t cut through acted as a lever, and the arm slumped away from the troll’s shoulder which then healed in two separate parts. Even a troll can’t operate an appendage with sheared nerves and no brain signals. Unfortunately for Rocky, because he didn’t cut through the arm entirely, his blade healed inside of the wound, and his grip on the hilt left him dangling in the air.

  Snarling, Rocky yanked on his sword but was forced to leave it in the wound as the troll screamed and torqued its abdomen, delivering a right hook. Again, he couldn’t avoid the strike mid-air, and he watched as the bony knuckles sped towards him.

  You’d think I would take better mental notes!

  Was all Rocky could internalize before a massive fist crashed into his chest. As the fist entered the smoke, mere feet away from him, he felt the cloak slightly shift his position. It didn’t turn the blow or move him enough to avoid it.

  Instead, it adjusted him minutely, so the bone knuckles hit him square in the chest instead of in the face. Rocky, who thought it was pointless either way, was making peace with his immediate demise when instead of turning to a red mist as Rocky had assumed would happen, he felt multiple ribs cracking, and his body was violently tossed to the left of the troll, following the path of its hook.

  Breath held, Rocky knew he only had a moment before the pain of the ribs caught up to him and so used Dark Mend as quickly as possible. The skill activated, and the shadow cloak congealed thicker over his chest armor. Relief immediately washed over him as the skill numbed the whole area. The reduction of the pain gave him the cognitive ability to turn his fall into something more controlled. He was elated to find that casting his mend skill was no longer difficult. This was because he was not trying to cast Blood Mend when the skill had changed to Dark Mend.

  Rocky still hit the ground awkwardly but let his body roll back onto his butt and turned the momentum of his flight into a roll. This action allowed him to dig his toes into the ground as they came back in contact with the earth. It also halved the distance he would have flown otherwise and allowed him a moment’s respite.

  Eyes wide and heart pounding, the form of Rocky ran his hands over his chest and body, not sure how he could be alive. That blow had destroyed men who were crouched behind a stove door, and
he had just taken it to the chest. With no other explanation, he assumed it was the enchantments on his armor.

  With a muffled curse, he glanced back to the fight, regaining his focus.

  Now able to fire more shots, Phil and Patrick were alternating, which kept the monster in a defensive state. Even though each laser shot cauterized the wound on the beast, the injury itself wasn’t devastating. In fact, each shot seemed to leave a tennis ball sized crater on the arm the creature was using to shield its eyes from the strikes.

  From Rocky’s position, he could see a few holes around the eye sockets from earlier missed shots, which had probably led to this current stalemate. He took all that in in a moment and then pushed off from his imitation sprinter’s position.

  Quickly trying to re-enter the fight, he began summoning his sword while the beast was distracted, and he ran. Luckily, he had worked on summoning his sword a few times in the previous days, thinking specifically of a situation where he needed to resummon it in combat. Over the few practice attempts, he realized that it only took about five seconds to summon and that he could summon it into an outstretched hand.

  It went surprisingly fast this time around, and the survivors only lost two ranged attackers from lack of projectiles. Not wanting to see any more death, Rocky sprinted as fast as he could back at the troll.

  Again, the only way to get at the creature’s head would have been to leap at it, and Rocky had two valuable lessons on the danger of that tactic. Instead of going for a one-shot kill, he targeted the left leg.

  Adrenaline at full throttle, Rocky glanced at his Ether bar and saw it rapidly shrinking from around the thirty percent mark. He re-entered Stealth on the run, trying to reduce the cost of Dark Cloak and not at all for concealment. Once he felt the drain lessen, he executed a running slash, aiming for the point where the foot met the shin.