There’s a hairline crack in Todd’s bracer, running along the middle. He lurches deep into a punch, hitting one rat in the nose and avoiding a second rat coming at his shins. Spinning on his heel he winds up and kicks the other rat in the ribs with the heavy toe of his boot. He looks down at the damage to his arm guard and grimaces.

  “Aw, this was nice,” he mourns. “I really,” he kicks again, “really,” and again, “kinda liked it.”

  “Shit,” Todd says as the other rat changes targets to attack Randall. He stabs it in the buttock with his needle and it yips, but it doesn’t stop so he kicks it in the hind leg. It topples, scrambles to its feet, and turns to face him again.

  “Shit,” Todd says.

  He cycles cosmic energy through his body in stuttering oscillations. His control is atrocious. The toxin coursing through his body is making his limbs weak and his eyes bleary.

  “Help!” Cries Sue Ann.

  Todd groans and eyes the whole group. They’re busy. Candra has a rat tearing at her pant leg and Joe has got his [armor breaker] stuck in the armpit of another, while a third turns its head to nip at his calves.

  So, beset on either side, Todd runs toward Sue Ann. She’s on the ground, forcing her machete between the teeth of the rat attacking her, sawing at its gums and lips. Having had success with it so far, Todd boots the beast in the torso hard with a meaty whump. It rolls off of her.

  “Get up,” he pleads.

  With two monsters behind him, Todd whips about and fends them off with his foot. When one comes close, he winds up and clocks it with his bracer. A snapping noise frightens him for a second, but it isn’t his wrist. The gauntlet gives structurally, compressing a quarter inch along a broken seam.

  “You’re stronger than them, you gotta fight back,” Todd begs.

  Sue Ann puts her back to Todd’s and swings her [mercury rod] wardingly. “I can’t, this thing is useless,” she cries.

  “I know,” Todd replies. Teeth catch ahold of his footwear and begin to harry it. Todd pulls himself loose and kicks a throat. “Just hold out for Candra.” he encourages.

  Sue Ann slashes wildly. “Oh no,” she says.

  Randall forces a rat backwards and lines up a solid firewood chop into its shoulder. His hips set and his knees brace as he brings the ax down.

  “What’s wrong?” Todd asks.

  “My stomach…” Sue Ann burbles.

  “Shit,” Todd says.

  Candra slays the rodent attacking her, but its teeth don’t detach from her pants. She drags its body for a step then leans over to tear herself loose. Seconds later she unleashes a flurry of strikes and drops the rat chasing Joe. Each tap uses a fraction of her strength, but wreaks terrible internal damage underneath the skin. Once Joe is free, he finishes off his own opponent freely, and the two of them run over to save Todd and Sue Ann.

  Candra’s scepter makes short work of two beasts, liquefying brains. Joe chops the third in the spine, paralyzing it.

  “Are you done with yours?” Candra calls to Randall.

  “Just one second,” Randall replies. He jukes left and right and then swings again. Then again. And again. Bones crunch. He takes it in the neck and ends it.

  Panting, the five gather in a circle in the middle of the street.

  “I can’t do that again,” Candra admits. “I don’t have it in me.”

  “More are gonna come though,” Todd warns. “Your weapon is the only one that really works.”

  “Then I can borrow it,” Joe suggests. “That okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “Rat!” Calls Randall.

  It runs screeching around a corner in a straight line towards Sue Ann. Joe steps in its way and slams it in the head. It drops like its wires are cut and slides a few inches before stopping.

  Randall scratches his head. “Just a thought, but how do we know this place is empty?”

  “We don’t,” Joe sighs. “That’s why I propose we set up right here in one of these houses and clear out the area before we take on the big one.” He hiccups. “I don’t want to get trapped somewhere.”

  “Ugh,” Todd churns. He rubs his chest under his wooden armor. “Good. Sue Ann really needs a chance to redeem her weapon token. This isn’t fair for her.”

  “Redeeming your token takes forever,” Candra reminds them.

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  “Only if you want to a fully customized one,” Todd challenges. “If you’re willing to settle for something that’s less of a fit, I think it’s shorter.”

  “What about you, Drips?”

  “I’ve managed so far, and I think you need me to help guard for at least a little while. I’ll get mine later.”

  Randall bends over and vomits. Chunks spatter on his cleats, and the others leap back to avoid it. “Shorry,” he says.

  Todd gags.

  Joe turns off and pops his head through a doorway. “Okay,” he declares. “You need to sit down. Let’s set up in here.”

  “We all need to sit down,” Candra rebuts.

  “No. We don’t have that luxury. Drips, you want to hold the door with me?”

  “Yea. Let me just… get…” Todd fishes through his [greed satchel], sorting through tokens and pills. He finds a small glass bottle and removes it. “There we go.” He plucks out the cork and thumbs one oblong white pill into his hand, then slams it into his mouth and chokes it down. The [dire corvid marrow energy replenishment pill] burns as it settles into his stomach, and then cool flowing energy flushes out into his channels.

  “Yea?” Joe questions.

  “Yea,” Todd reassures him.

  Randall, Sue Ann, and Candra stoop inside the hut and plop into the ash crust. Candra begins explaining how to use the token while Randall breathes heavily, intermittently shaking.

  “Can I have your sword, Joe?”

  “Sure. It’s not super sharp though.”

  “That’s fine.”

  Todd takes Joe’s square tipped gladius. He removes the [mercury rod] extender and hands it back to Joe.

  The two of them stand side by side.

  “So uh, what’s your favorite movie?” Todd asks.

  Joe snorts. “Are you serious? I don’t know. Goodfellas or something. Why? What about you?”

  “Uh, probably Paprika. It’s by this director Satoshi Kon who did a whole bunch of psychological movies in the late 90s and early 2000s. It’s about the boundaries between dreams and storytelling.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “A sister. You?”

  “No.”

  Todd looks into the room and watches Sue Ann meditating on the ground. The metal token lies in her open hands, and her mouth quivers as she fights off rising unease. He turns back out. He and Joe fall silent.

  After a minute like that, six rats snuffle along the street from a distance, heading their way.

  “You ready for this?” Joe adresses him.

  “Sure. Sure. I’ve got your back. Sure,” Todd hypes himself.

  Todd widens his stance and adjusts his grip on the sword. He changes position to see if it’s more comfortable. He switches back.

  The rats catch sight of the two young men and chitter angrily. What have they got to be so angry about? What is it about the life they lead that’s so disappointing to lead to such aggression? They break out into a sprint.

  Todd raises an arm and aims at a rat in the middle of the group. He whips up his cosmic energy and pours it into his skill fractal, then water condenses in front of his palm. In an instant, it cuts out in a ribbon and knocks the rat off its feet. As its skin balloons from the point of impact, the animal tumbles, colliding with the rats behind it and splitting the pack.

  Man and rodent collide. Todd holds the sword in a two handed grip and chops with all his strength. Skin parts deep into the fatty folds beneath, but the wound barely bleeds. The rat slams into his thighs and gnashes blindly.

  Meanwhile Joe breathes out like some kind of samurai and brings the sonic scepter down on the skull of his first target, hops backwards, then slaps a second one about the shoulders before scrambling its cranium too.

  Todd shuts his legs and traps the head of the rat there. He squeezes tight and prays for the safety of his unmentionables as he slams the edge of the sword down again and again into the neck until he shatters bone. The rodent drops and Todd is immediately set on by another. It steps over the corpse of its fellow in order to get at Todd’s arm and bites down into his padded gambeson. Crushing force scrapes the edge of his arm, and then it worries his sleeve. Todd can only cleave into it like a drunken butcher.

  Joe dances. He weaves. He staggers just a little. He devastates the rats one after another.

  “You want me to finish yours?”

  Todd grimaces. “No.” The rat’s jaw snaps and nearly catches his forearm. “Shit.” He raises his right arm and then smashes its orbital socket. Then he strikes its skull and the bone splinters into its fatty cavity.

  “This is gonna be hard,” Todd sighs. He wipes tears from his face and coughs a wet cough.