Earth Tactics Advance: Volume 1

by Scottie Futch

  Her hands slipped down to grip his ass cheeks and she bit his neck gently, almost playfully. However, the amount of pressure that she used left a vicious red mark.

  She leaned forward and kissed him tenderly on the lips, before she bit down hard enough to draw a little blood. She tasted him in her mouth and her eyes narrowed to slits. She ran her tongue over her lips and her face reddened. “Husband, you taste wonderful…”

  Scott’s lip bled lightly as the monster that had him in her sensual clutches nuzzled her cheek against his chin. She then leaned back and gazed longingly into his eyes. Her lips parted and she smiled demurely. “I want you inside me beloved.”

  Her mouth opened wider revealing a wicked set of fangs, much like a vampire in folklore. She twisted her body abruptly and knocked him into the water. Now atop him while she held his head beneath the surface, she gasped and moaned loudly. Her reddened face showed an ecstatic expression as she ground herself hotly against his drowning body.

  “Beloved! Yes! I love this!” she cried out then moaned loudly in orgasmic bliss.

  Suddenly, things changed. She squealed in surprise when something hard and determined began to pry its way into her anus. She may be part fish but she had all the general niceties of a human woman.

  She released her grip slightly and Scott started to struggle for freedom. It was his turn once more. The sudden submersion under water had shocked him back to his senses. She was strong, inhumanly strong, but the feeling of his finger invading her backside caused her to spasm wildly. She could not comprehend the sensation properly and gave in to the surprising pleasure of the interaction.

  Coughing and spluttering, Scott broke the surface of the water and rolled her over. His finger was forcibly removed from her backside in the process and she cried out in frustration. “No! Don’t take it out!”

  Scott slammed his fist down and solidly connected with the side of her overly beautiful face. She immediately released him and clutched at her injury in surprise.

  Now was not a time to revive the concept of chivalry. He desperately struggled to get out of the water. He hacked and wheezed. He coughed up water on his way to shore. His stamina drained rapidly as he used up both his movement and speed in a desperate effort to make it clear of the girl's influence.

  He snatched up his bush axe and stumbled a little as he reached the bank. Scott fell to his knees and he crawled away as best he could until his turn came to an end.

  His self-professed wife slipped forward in the water. She held one hand to her bruised cheek, one hand outstretched toward him, and a desperate expression on her face. “No! Come back beloved! I need you inside me!” The flash of her fangs made the statement a toss-up between innuendo and literal truth.

  His turn came around again. Scott used his bush axe for leverage and got back to his feet. He used it like a walking cane to keep his balance as he desperately fled for his life.

  “Don’t leave me! Please, Scott! I love you!” cried the girl desperately. Her tail thrashed in the water and she began to cry. She pulled herself up onto the river back and reached out for him in a futile gesture of regaining that which she had lost.

  After a few turns he had retreated out of sight. She sat up and covered her eyes with her hands. She cried hot, lonely, tears while whimpering his name. The poor broken-hearted, murderous thing, was quite distraught.

  “I can still taste him on my lips.” she whimpered. “Why did he leave me?”

  Her chest heaved and bucked. The tears continued to fall as she became filled with self-recriminations. “Why, my beautiful Scott? Did I do something wrong?”

  She fell over onto her back and flapped her tail once. She sniffed loudly then bit her lower lip. Her distraught face made it clear that theirs had been a brief, but passionate, affair. “Come back… Please, come back to me.”

  Her lower lip began to tremble gently then she cried out, "I just wanted to drown you in the river! What's wrong with that?"

  Once he was away from the river, it was quite some time before Scott could calm down. He was still coughing up water several minutes later. “Fuck that river. Fuck it right in its watery ass,” he muttered.

  Nothing good had come from it at all recently. Lizard men and murderous mermaids, it was like a line of death separating the town from the suburbs.

  Thankfully, the ghouls had not gotten wind of him before he recovered. That brief interaction had taken a heavy toll on him.

  When he was ready, he continued onward. He was not far from the fifth street barricade. He slowly worked his way toward his destination, and when he was close by he carefully performed a perimeter sweep of the area. He ran across several ghouls, and dispatched them, but saw no sign of the continuance of human life.

  “Damn,” said Scott. There was no sign of Tammi’s husband. He did not know where the man or his probably corpse could be.

  He moved on toward his true objective, the shopping arcade. On the way he faced off against several packs of ghouls, a few of which were quite fast for what they were. He lucked out and found a few silver, and a few dozen copper, daemons.

  The area registered on his map was just up ahead, but he heard a lot of growling and shuffling. Scott chose to climb up onto a dumpster and jump up to get onto a fire escape. He worked his way up to the top floor of the apartment building and broke into one of the apartments. The noise was a bit louder than he would have liked, but nothing bad came of it. Inside the apartment he faced off with a low-level ghoul, but it was an uneventful infiltration otherwise.

  He looked out of the window that faced the building designated as the shopping arcade. It had been a small grocery store before, but now it had morphed into a sleek black and gold building that had a single set of doors in front.

  Scott saw dozens of ghouls out front, one of which was several times larger than the others. It wielded what looked like a broken street lamp as a weapon. Every now and then it would swing its weapon around and slaughter several ghouls, after which it would wander over and begin feasting on their undead flesh.

  “Fuck me, sideways,” mumbled Scott the first time that he saw it. How the hell did he fight something like that?

  Chapter 7

  The horde meandering in the street below generated a stench so terrible that Scott thought that his nose hairs might burn away. It was a stench so vile that he wanted to take his time to think about his situation while well away from the window. He had only a few minutes to think of a plan before it would become too dark to do anything. The problem was that any idea that he came up with would require far more time than he possessed.

  However, while he considered his options something surprising happened. The ghouls began to shuffle off in a singular direction. It took Scott a moment to realize it, but he heard music.

  It was not the dulcet tones of a love-struck and murderous mermaid. It sounded a bit like 80s glam metal. After a moment he understood enough of the words to recognize it as Detroit Rock City by KISS. The monsters moved toward the sound of the music, clearing the area of all but a few stragglers.

  Four men wearing police uniforms appeared from around a corner and they began to clean up the remaining monsters. “Clever,” said Scott softly as he watched the men work.

  Scott felt like a dumb ass for not thinking of it himself. Though, he noticed that the men fighting below had to attack each ghoul as a team to take one down in less than three turns. There was no sign of magical attacks being utilized. One man even used a shotgun, but it did not seem to be more effective than any other weapon save for the fact that he could fire at the ghouls from a greater distance.

  The observant slayer slipped back out the back window and moved down to the ground once more. It was becoming darker by the minute. He needed to make contact with these guys to see if they were friendly. It would suck if they were bandits or worse. The shopping area probably wouldn't give a damn who got inside.

  “Hold it,” said one of the uniformed men, after Scott made his presence known by t
ossing a plastic bottle out onto the street.

  “Come on out here where we can see you. Hands up,” called a strong authoritative voice.

  Scott complied and the men visually inspected him from a distance. He did not much care for the situation, but he needed to get into that building. Who knew whether or not these guys would just leave after they did the same?

  “Who are you? What you doing here?” asked one of the men.

  “Scott. I planned to do a little shopping after the sun set,” he admitted easily. What would be the point in hiding his intentions? The arcade was an obvious destination.

  They glanced at each other. “You got a letter, too?”

  “Yeah. Is this really a conversation you want to have on the street?” asked Scott.

  “Damn, no,” muttered the man.

  They gestured for Scott to come over and all five of them moved over to a building on the other side of the street. They’d had a similar idea. Find somewhere close and wait for nightfall.

  “Hey, you guys really cops?” asked Scott.

  “Yeah. Not that it matters anymore,” muttered one of the younger men.

  “It might. Do any of you know a cop named Daniel Sauros?”

  Three of the officers looked over to the one cop who had not spoken yet. “I’m Sauros.”

  Scott eyed him for a moment. “Can you show me your tattoo? Someone asked me to find you, and I wanted to be sure.”

  He immediately perked up. “Someone asked you to find me? Who?”

  “Show me your tattoo, and I’ll tell you.” said Scott evenly.

  Daniel rolled up his left sleeve and showed him the tattoo on his arm. It read, “Tammi.”

  “Works for me. I’ve got your family at my place. Told them I’d look for you while I was on the way here.”

  “Your place? How? Who are you?” asked Daniel with a hint of suspicion in his voice.

  Scott shrugged. “Just a guy. I received a mission letter that told me that some people were in a barn and in desperate need of help. I went to help them.”

  “Mission letter?” asked Daniel.

  “You don’t know? Every now and then when you kill a monster, a letter will pop up. Like the one that told you to come here. Some of them offer rewards for doing things like saving people,” said Scott.

  Daniel closed his eyes and placed his hand over his face. “They’re really safe? You’re not lying?”

  “Tammi, Wayne, Daisy, and Anna. I even helped Daisy get her inhaler,” said Scott.

  “I can’t believe they made it across the river! How far are they? Is the bridge clear?” asked Daniel.

  “They’re not over here. They’re in the suburbs at my house across the way,” said Scott.

  “The fuck? How are you here then? It’s impossible to cross the river. Those damned things swarm every time, and the bridge is overflowing."

  Scott shrugged. “I’ve used a raft to cross twice, but it’s definitely not safe. There are worse things than lizard men in those waters.”

  “Like what?” asked one of the other men.

  “Mermaids,” said Scott seriously.

  The man snorted. “Come on…”

  “One of them nearly drowned me on my last crossing,” said Scott.

  “Fuck,” said Daniel. “Every time we tried to cross the river, those damn scaly lizards or the fish men attacked.”

  “Maybe it’s a little safer further down? Where are you crossing?” Scott asked.

  “We tried all over the place. Lost a man last time,” replied Daniel.

  “What about the south bridge? If we could get a vehicle, we could probably get there,” said Scott.

  The officers looked at each other then back to Scott. “We’ve thought about it, but every car we’ve found is deader than hell. It was like all the vehicles suddenly stopped on the first day,” said Daniel.

  Scott frowned. “So, that’s why my ride died on me.”

  “Probably. Nothing with a motor works for some reason, not even a generator.”

  “How do radios and TVs work then?” asked Scott. He had assumed that since a battery powered radio worked, that a TV would as well.

  “Fuck if I know. Maybe it’s just vehicles and portable generators. The power stayed on for a while.”

  “The water was working out at my place when I left, but I doubt it will much longer,” said Scott. "Could just be that anything run on gas isn't working?"

  Daniel nodded. He then hopped up and went to look out of the side of the curtain they had used to block one of the secured windows in the room. “Doors are open.”

  The men scrambled out of the room quickly and headed over to the open doors to the shopping arcade. There was a white screen of light encircling the store. The moment the group took a chance and entered, they heard a perky song echoing through the area.

  “The hell?” asked Scott.

  “Shopping mall music?” asked Daniel.

  They walked into the shopping arcade and were greeted to a carnival atmosphere. The place was empty, but there were several booths throughout the area. Each of them was labeled with various titles such as Happy Weapon Fun Time, and Guardian Bob’s Big Armor Bonanza.

  The five men wandered through the shopping arcade for a moment before Scott separated from then and went over to check the weapon section. The cops watched him, uncertain of what he was doing.

  Scott stepped up onto a little rectangle in front of the weapon store. A light rose up from the rectangle and a holographic display appeared before him. Several weapons were listed, two of which were highlighted in red and had a lock symbol over them. They had a level of nine and ten. Weapons purchased here had level locks!

  After looking through the selections he opted to purchase a level eight weapon similar to what he already wielded. It had a normal price of twenty-five hundred daemons, but Scott purchased it for twelve hundred fifty.

  A weapon known as Steel Kaiser appeared in the air before him and he took it in hand. It was heftier than the blade that he had been using, but had far better stats.

  [Weapon]

  Steel Kaiser

  A kaiser blade forged by a competent smith. It comes with a keen edge that can slice through bone and sinew alike.

  Type: Blade/Pole Arm

  Attack: 22

  Defense: 12

  Value: 2500 Daemons

  [--]

  It was a difference like night and day between his old weapon and his new one. After accepting his new weapon a small box appeared in the air. It was his reward for completing his mission. He received a thumb sized salvation crystal and an upgrade point. Scott sold off his old bush axe for a single copper daemon then moved on. He could only store one weapon in his ring, and the new and improved bush axe was far better than the older version.

  “So, we just stand on the rectangle?” asked Daniel.

  “Looks like it. Weapons are level locked, though. So, even if you have money you can’t buy anything you can’t use,” said Scott.

  “Level-locked? How do you know what your level is?” asked Daniel.

  Scott stared at him. “You don’t know? How are you guys even alive without checking your stats?”

  “Checking our stats… What are you talking about?”

  Scott looked around and spied a convenient mirror by itself near the back. “You do know that if you look at a weapon that can kill a monster, it has stats, right?”

  “Yeah, we know that much,” said another officer, Craig.

  Scott looked to Craig and said, “You should have learned about it when you swallowed that sphere. You just say 'Show status'. You’ll get a lot stronger if you upgrade your stats before you level-up.”

  “Hell yeah!” Craig cried after he checked his status for the first time. The other men followed suit.

  Scott went on to the armor store while the officers started looking at what their status had to offer. While they were shopping two more people popped up. An older man, and a tired looking woman.

  �
�People!” said the woman excitedly.

  “Yeah, join the party,” said Daniel. He told them how to buy things.

  “Hey, I guess I’m level four,” said Craig. He looked over to Scott. “Is that good?”

  “Better than level one,” he replied while checking the armor selection. Scott idly wondered how he did not know his level when it was low enough that he should have just remembered the number of times he had seen a level-up screen.

  “I had thought we were the only people left,” said the woman, tears coming to her eyes. The older man placed his hand on her shoulder and gave her a grandfatherly smile.

  “So did we, until Mr. Answers over there popped up,” said Daniel before jerking his thumb toward Scott.

  “Mr. Answers?” asked the old man.

  “Yeah, he’s been explaining a few things to us while we shop,” said Daniel.

  “You know what’s happening!” exclaimed the woman before running over to Scott.

  He looked over to her then shook his head. “No. Just figured out a few things. By the way, I highly suggest you buy something if that invitation you received told you that you’d receive an upgrade point and a salvation crystal.”

  “Why is that?” asked Craig.

  “I haven’t used one yet, but those salvation crystals supposedly grant a twenty-four hour safe zone against monsters. Probably works like whatever is keeping the ghouls from coming in and eating us while we shop. The upgrade points increase your stats,” he said.

  “No shit! That’s… Damn, we need something like that!” exclaimed Craig.

  “Buy something then,” said Scott after he finished looking through the armor selections. He wanted more gear, but he had limited funds, all told he still had around fifteen hundred daemons worth of money left. A silver daemon seemed to be worth one hundred of the copper ones. He would check the rest of the shops before he bought anything.

  He moved on to a few more booths and discovered an arms and armor shop. It was a shop that sold items that acted as both arms and armor! Gloves and shoes were common items, but there were also specialty items like claw weapons and elbow blades. Scott was sorely tempted to purchase from that shop, but he needed to see everything.