The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

Sama was all in tight black; tights, t-shirt, bare feet, fingerless gloves, Masspack molded to her back. She watched the way the black chain with its mismatched pattern was moving in a serpentine manner in the clawed hands of the werewolf.

Abyssal Dire Weapon. Double Exotic Weapon. +I Agile, probably. Easily changes between reach and close weapon. The spikes are avoiding her hands as she spins it, and it’s whipping into tautness too quickly to be natural.

It’s not a weapon meant for fighting other werewolf-level enemies alone, although it can probably reap normal people, and in a pack fight, she could wrap a limb to give her packmates openings.

But I’m not a werewolf, and my Maneuver Defense is now an extra +8 against Grapple and Trips, because wolves.

The spiked Chain slithered out at her, rather more like a striking serpent than a length of oddly-shaped links that rattled each other oddly... Yeah, those are spinal disks of bone of some kind, not metal...

Leaping would put her in the air if she continued moving absolutely straight. Instead, she cut down and across and hurtled sideways without breaking stride, smoothly enough to give a track star conniptions.

The spikes went by beneath her this time, hit the glowing golden length of her Sword and began to bite and wrap. The werewolf pulled on it instantly, trying to jerk Tremble out of her hands.

The golden Blade vanished, and the Chain whipped back so abruptly the werewolf overbalanced at the complete lack of resistance.

+1000 Karma before Renewal was enough to buy Morphing, which let her transform Tremble into any similar-sized or smaller weapon... like a knife.

Still glowing golden, merely six inches of silver-edged steel drove forwards, and as it did, it sprouted another twenty-four inches of golden edge once again.

The Chain whipped across to catch and deflect the incoming Blade, the werewolf’s arms moving with inhuman speed and power to turn it aside-

And the golden Blade vanished again, the Chain snapped past on nothing, and the werewolf’s bloody black and yellow eyes had just enough time to widen in alarm as the dagger drove in just under her ribs.

Sama looked into her eyes as two notes rang in the air, quavering through the werewolf’s bones.

“Tremble,” she hissed quietly, and it carried over the raging of the fires, the howling of the winds, and the screams of the fleeing workers.

Gold ejected out the werewolf’s back, punching through her heart, and soulfire burst forth as Sama let loose the Sun Strike to make sure things were finalized.

The backhand was a dying blow, pure instinct and reflex. Sama rolled with it, letting her Soak take the hit as it smashed her back through the air. Instead of tearing off her jaw, it merely left a light bruise and stripped off some Soak.

A sound halfway between howl, growl, and bark smashed into her almost as heavily as the pony-sized wolf that slammed into her from the side, jaws trying to grab her entire head and tear it off.

It ran into the barrier of her forearm, driven across the back of its mouth behind its teeth, gag reflex preventing its jaws from closing for a second as great pressure came down on her arm, and the bone threatened to break.

But it didn’t. Soak was annoying that way.

Lightfoot meant she didn’t fall to the ground; she kept skidding across it, propelled by the oversized wolf. It certainly could have rammed her into the wall... except she swung up underneath it, wrapping her legs up around its chest, between its clawed feet. Gold blossomed around her chewtoy arm and around Tremble as she drove the Knife into its ear and lit it off.

The Soulclaw manifesting inside the Vajra around her arm basically turned it into an axe and spiked club at the same moment, biting back into those huge jaws that were shaking her around like a toy, trying to rattle her... and it started ripping its own jaw apart as it did so. Versatile IUS was such a joy in grappling combat...

Then Tremble punched in through one ear and out the other side of the skull, and all the frenzied whipping about abruptly faded.

She kicked off before the oversized wolf could collapse on top of her, which might have been annoying to get out of. The fabric of her shirt was ripped all to heck, her shoulder was feeling more than a little strained... but Combat Vigor was pumping through her, washing away the minor trifles of lost Soak.

Her skin wasn’t even broken. Soak was just that wonderful of stuff. Until it was gone, people got to fight at full strength. Base, pure combat magic, a defense against all the bigger, meaner, magical things out there that could rip frail humans apart.

She had taken all the damage her DR could, which had mitigated some of the injury, but she was pretty sure just that backfist and this savaging had done 50+ damage. A normal person would have lost their face and broken their neck just from the backfist. The savaging would have reduced them to bloody pieces.

Werewolves were Health monsters, preferring to advance along their Racial Classes over and above everything else, and had precious little appreciation for the joys and wonders of Soak. As Shapechangers, they could heal themselves remarkably quickly, recovering in hours what would take a normal human days to recover from... and if the werewolves had enough Racial Levels, recover in minutes instead!

Kill them fast, or don’t kill them at all. Soak could do almost the same thing, it just didn’t come with major blood loss, carved flesh, and the like, which Health damage did.

Sama spun in a quick circle, making sure nothing was coming out of the two doors into the courtyard here. All was not still nor quiet, but there was no danger.

------

She cut off the heads of everything there, and if they were small enough, threw their bodies with the heads into the bonfire they had built.

She didn’t burn all the human flesh. She figured it would be a nice thing to be found by the firefighters and police who were doubtless already on their way.

Her Vajra meant she didn’t have to worry about the flaming debris coming down, or the poisonous smoke and inferno the air was turning into. The muck on the ground was all alight now, the oil storage tanks were covered with flames, and she wouldn’t be the type to not capitalize on that, would she?

Ah, what would Dad say if he knew I was making alchemical thermyte in the barn?, she wondered, as she clambered up the brick wall to get out of there, looking out over the mess she’d made of things.

Tremble fell apart into a metal-corded sling, and Sama pulled the first of three globes out of her Masspack.

They were glass, with a brass Rune etched onto them she now broke with her nail. The dark pasty stuff inside seemed to gleam for an instant as she loaded it into the pocket, and whipped it around once, twice, and sent it out in a long, arcing flight towards her target.

The Rune not only activated the thermyte, but rendered the sphere contact-brittle once it hit something.

This wasn’t an attack weapon, per se, as it was too easy to brush off. But for setting things on fire and burning through them, it did the job better than acid. With all the flaming shit everywhere, who wouldn’t believe that these decrepit tanks weren’t burned through here and there?... And the proof was going to be lost when they exploded, anyway.

The long and high arc of the first sphere wasn’t even completed before the second was flying out towards another containment tank. Glass struck metal, shattered into basically motes of sand, and the sticky stuff inside splattered and stuck to the painted steel.

It heated up very quickly, and burned and melted a path down through the steel with acrimonious intent, opening up an air vent into the shale oil and its fumes below... along with a lot of heat.

The eruption blew out the hole the thermyte had made, tore a gash in the tank, sent a lot of burning oil spraying in every direction, and increased the airflow to the resulting blaze.

Two more tanks followed the first one in short order. The fire spread on the ground even further, and blazing smoke climbed into the sky.

-------

A slender arm wrapped around State Trooper Harvey McGinnis’ throat, and a pair of slender legs clutched around his waist as he staggered in surprise, especially when a smooth cheek came up next to his own before he could say something, and something else golden and prickly sharp was humming between them.

“Officer,” a mild, smooth, and rather androgynous woman’s voice sounded in his ear, making him stiffen, suddenly aware he was in a very dangerous situation. “I need you to do some great Good Deeds tonight.”

His eyes darted around. He was basically standing next to his patrol truck, and nobody was looking his way. The fire trucks and police officers from three counties were here, trying to get this blaze under control, and basically waiting until some Casters could come up here and put the unnatural green and red flames out.

“What do you want?” he demanded, unable to keep the hostility out of his voice, knowing he was in danger and how many ways he could die right now. Her leg was right in the way of him drawing his pistol, too.

“Do you see that blockhouse over there?” she asked, turning both their heads to look at one of the buildings set off to the side, basically ignored by everyone for now.

“Yes,” he confirmed harshly.

“In the courtyard to that place, you will find the corpses of six mutated werewolves and six inhuman Aberrations being employed by the company that does business here. You will also find several coolers full of human flesh, and in the stomachs of those creatures you will find rather large quantities of that flesh.”

Despite himself, Harvey felt his stomach turn and his face go white. “Is that so...”

“Yes. If you are Ambitious, you will be the one to find them, deduce what they are, and start an investigation. If you are Smart and Ambitious, you will very quickly place a call to the Temple of Harse, and demand they get an Inquisitor out here right now. You are going to need the legal acumen and backing of the Church to make Hexar truly pay for what they were doing here, and no doubt the company is attempting to do damage control and sending people right here, right now, to cover things up.

“If you are Really Smart and Ambitious, you will contact the Idaho Pack Council, let them know there are mutant cannibal werewolves here, and you might need their help to make sure their employers are properly punished. I imagine they will get here the fastest of all of them.”

“And why aren’t you doing this?” he asked coolly, not sure whether or not to believe her, but realizing an immense opportunity might be right in front of him.

“Well, I don’t have a working phone, and I’m not a respected member of law enforcement,” was the amused reply, with a musical lilt to it. “Oh, and don’t involve the local sheriff. He works for them.”

There was a flash of light in front of his eyes, and the legs, hand, and face disengaged themselves from him smoothly. He cursed and stepped away, spinning around and rubbing at his eyes. When they cleared up a few seconds later, naturally there was no sign of who had spoken...

He looked around once; nobody had seen anything.

His eyes turned to that blockhouse.

Human-eating mutant werewolves... and other things, spoken with the surety of someone who had seen them.

He hadn’t heard of any elven vigilantes working this area, and of course, he had to wonder if she was responsible for this disaster.

Then again, if they were employing cannibals, they deserved everything that was being done to them...

He started to walk away, then paused. Slowly, he turned around and reached for his com. “Edith, this is Harvey. You copy?” At the confirmation, he continued, “I need you to put out two very, very high-priority calls for me...”

Being Really Smart here was probably the right call for his ambitions...