Their final target for the day was over an hour’s drive away from El Paso; the city was, day by day, getting further and further from danger, aside from the occasional random incident like the pet store. Grey was driving a hundred yards behind Sledge’s van, watching the rocks and the sand going past… wondering just what it could be that died so far in the middle of nowhere to trigger an event like this.

  Supposedly, big ones required something like a whole city dying with no survivors to soak up the Mana. This wasn’t that big… but still.

  As they started riding closer to the spot, they could see smoke rising into the sky, mountains rising to the sides… and see, in the distance…. A sign for a rest area, one mile ahead.

  Grey frowned. A rest area. What could possibly happen at a rest area that would involve that much death?

  The van slowed down ahead of him, and Grey was forced to slow down as well; he had yet to charge the Lightning, but it was still over 90%, which… was a good sign… and wished, for a moment, he was in the van, that he could see whatever they saw.

  And changed his mind moments later. There was a sudden flash of light… and the van swerved, slamming into a mile-marker, rolling onto its side… and skidding a dozen feet.

  Grey slammed on the breaks, leaving a squealing trail of rubber… and hit the reverse, driving back a few seconds… but there was no second flash. Whatever it was… perhaps it had a limited range?

  He pulled to the side of the road, opening up the truck door, studying the wreck… and nodded. Best be ready. On the one hand, they might be badly hurt, in need of immediate help. On the other… he didn’t wish to join them.

  He tossed the manhole cover he’d inscribed with the Necromancy circle on it onto the dirt beside the road, stepping onto it… and pulled free five Soldier Ant corpses… laying the first one down in front of him, focusing on it… keeping an eye on the smoke in the distance as he did.

  Empowered Undead. Venom. Stealth. Assassin’s Strike. Curse.

  He threw everything he had into it. It started off as a level 4 bug; but by the time he finished Empowering it, it counted as a level 8 for purposes of creation…. And he studied the results for a moment.

  There we go. Whether it was the venom, the curse, or the acid, that spit should do -something- to whatever had hit the van. The ant had a sinister vibe to it before it entered stealth; a dark green aura seemed to permeate it, its mandibles dripping with ooze, its carapace mottled and vile… it looked as menacing as it was.

  Thanks to his stamina, he had enough juice to step right on to making a second ant without pause…. But by the time he reached the third, he was at his limits, and had to stop, resting… sending the first two to inspect the crash site.

  He could see through the Bug’s… ‘antenna’ as it were… Sledge was already up, and had opened the door of the van… but another flash of light had narrowly missed his head when he emerged, so he ducked right back down.

  He couldn’t see what was going on inside the van, but it was shaking a bit… and looked mostly intact. The blast had moved it, more than it had actually hurt it.

  He glanced down at his flip-phone… and placed a call.

  After a few seconds… Sledge answered. “Grey. They hit you?”

  “Negative. What was it?”

  An exasperated grunt. “Just some guy in armor, with a rifle, inside the building. No clue if it can pierce my armor… but I fucking fell on Stacks when the van rolled. He’s mostly focused on Power, Mind, and all that to augment his TK and earth-shaping… which means it really hurt.”

  The squid was extremely useful. It would be unfortunate if he died. His species were supposed to be durable. Was it perhaps simply that Stacks had never upgraded his species innate Endurance?

  “I’ve got a couple of Soldier ants in stealth. Give me a few minutes… once I’ve got four, I’ll have them ambush whoever it is. If they head for the van, I’ll have them attack first, then warn you.”

  He kept focusing… taking it slower this time, letting his reserves build up slowly… and over the next few minutes, carefully formed the next two ants…. Before sending them out in Stealth.

  He didn’t stop there; he could control, at most, six ants of this level of power after his most recent upgrades; his cap was 48 levels worth, which was a dramatic improvement over just a few levels before.

  So, of course… he started working on two more, as the first four crawled their way forward…. And after a few minutes of walking, by the time the last two he could command were finished… he had eyes on the enemy.

  There were two figures; both appearing to be furry, humanoid, and… with horns. Minoans. The unusually strong, durable, and large sub-type from the class options. So. At least level 5. Well-armed. And….

  They two were wearing some sort of uniform. It was a dull blue in color, with some sort of red insignia.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  He blinked. Were these… some sort of local militia who had both chosen the Minotaur-like species? Invaders from another world? Nutjobs?

  It didn’t matter. They were enemies, who had attacked his allies.

  The two were whispering something quietly to themselves as the four ants prepared…. And, uncertain of the effectiveness of the attacks, he had all four of them attack the larger of the two from the hallway, about five meters away from the window they were crouched behind.

  The smaller one was acting as a spotter, apparently; the larger one laying on the floor a half-meter away, examining his rifle. And both completely shocked at the sudden gout of vile black-green fluid splattering across them…

  The one struck directly simply started writhing in pain on the ground helplessly, screaming, twitching, tossing his rifle away in his spasms… while the other, who’d mostly just gotten a bit splattered onto his left arm and back, started shaking the arm violently and backing away, removing some sort of side-arm from his waist, aiming at the ants…

  As the four charged at him, he opened fire; some sort of vivid white energy slamming into the center one, splattering its head across the floor… even as the other three pounced; filling the creature with both venom and curse magic even as they tore it apart.

  The one with the missing head started slowly crawling to the prone one; with no sharp mandibles to fight with, it simply pressed the oozing stump of its torso against the screaming victim, digging its far less sharp feet into the flesh…. Smothering the dying being.

  Once both of them were gone, Grey simply retrieved another Soldier ant; and worked on getting back to six, having the other three destroy the cripple. “Alright, Sledge. Sniper’s out. Recommend you flip the van upright and we pick a good spot to button up… and I’ll use the ants to scout.”

  “Got it.” Sledge stuck his head up out of the van for a moment…. And this time, when there was no flash of light, he hopped out… and after calling out a warning, started to pull on the edge…. And a few seconds later, rocked the van back upright.

  The enhanced vehicle had a few scrapes and dents; but otherwise seemed just fine. Sledge watched the faint blur of another Ant, clearly visible… as a blur, at least… but unidentifiable as it crawled on towards the rest stop. “Ugh. Getting shot at by people wasn’t what I was expecting today. I figured some sort of nightmare, an eldritch horror… maybe a dragon.”

  Grey popped the manhole cover back into storage, and walked over to the van, the two spiders he held back shadowing him… as he directed the undead to keep searching, inspecting. He quickly reached the limit of his range; it felt like, maybe, a few hundred yards… but it was enough, for the moment.

  He studied what his ants were showing him; a rectangular metal box, similar to a cargo container, a vivid blue in color. There were more of the blue-armored Minoans nearby, several of them looking at the rest stop and the sound of gunfire with obvious worry… and at least a few dozen younger ones. Mostly unarmed; children and teenagers judging by the size and appearance.

  He assessed what he was looking at. Forty to fifty children. Maybe twenty adults. All of the adults in light armor; Uncommon at best; and with weapons that, while flashy-looking, didn’t seem better than what was carried on earth.

  These weren’t quite invaders. More like… settlers. Or refugees.This would likely be something more worthwhile to report in that merely kill, though the weapons they bore might have some value. If they were from another world, they might have valuable intelligence about their origin the military would appreciate.

  System Credits. That… was interesting. Hadn’t Golden Boy offered him credits for his revolver? Said he could use them to buy weapons… or powers? Definitely not an opportunity to pass up. This sort of reward dramatically reshaped what the best option was; the military could use survivors from some other group, or learn what they needed to from what was left behind.

  A bit less than Fifty kids. Twenty adults. The other members of the group likely wouldn’t want to deal with the kids; while the message would probably be enough to get them to kill the adults, especially after the first two had opened fire, if they saw the children they might hesitate, or even refuse; it would be best if Grey could arrange to handle the children without witnesses.

  If these people were predictable, they’d keep the kids in a ‘safe’ place… and the adults would move forward to attack if provoked, perhaps leaving a guard or two behind.

  So. Best option. He and two of the ants could lure the adults into a place where Star and Shockwave could blast them, all together. While that was going on, he could have four of the ants kill the children; loot them before his allies saw. Definitely workable. Unfortunately, he couldn’t examine the adults through the Ant’s vision; but they hadn’t seemed too impressive, so far.

  He glanced at Sledge. “Alright. We’ve got a fair number of them; Minoan invaders from another world, dropped here somehow; a good number of lower level ones, and about twenty higher level. And we get a bounty for each we kill. So…”

  Sledge had been looking into nothing; reading the same prompt Grey himself had seen seconds before… and then gave a start, turning to Grey. “You can see them. What’s the best play?”

  He studied the area for a moment. “I’ll have four of my ants stay in stealth.. And these two spray some of the higher-level ones from a distance. When the high-level folks come charging… the ants run in our direction. I lay down a curse on them, and focus on killing the low-level ones… and the three of you… four if Stacktopus is up for it… handle the higher level ones. The bounty gets lower if you kill more than ten, and I’ve already got credit for two.”

  He heard a soft burble from the van. Stacktopus wasn’t floating at the moment, just lying there. “I can set a trap. Hollow out the earth under an area, so when anyone heavy steps on it, it collapses into a pit. Not enough to hurt them… but enough to let a single fireball hit a few dozen of them at once.”

  Sledge nodded. “Workable plan. They’ll have to come around the area between the rocks and the rest stop to reach us, unless they can leap over the buildings.”

  Grey lifted Cold Dead Hands up, and looked it over… before nodding. “Alright. I’ll use stealth, and move around. When its time to start, the ants will kick off the attack by splattering the area they’re standing in… and run your way. Or are the ants heavy enough to set it off?”

  “Judging by the size of these guys… one I make to collapse under one shouldn’t collapse under the ants. At least… Not unless they do it more than three at a time.”

  “Excellent. Lets get this done.”