Chapter 122 – It Comes Back Around Again (Multi-POV)

  “Well, we can’t call them ‘supernatural’ because they are completely natural. Ab-Human doesn’t work either since they aren’t all just part human and are distinct races. Demi-Human doesn’t work either for the previously stated reasons. Honestly the ‘paranormal’ is even a stretch and the only reason we use that term is because of its widespread acceptance amongst the non-human communities.” – Director of Marketing for a financial institutions’ ‘Non-Human commerce’ division while discussing branding and outreach..

  As Anna trudged and waded through the swampy water, following just behind Kurt, she had a lot of opportunities to reflect on what she had just seen. She had naturally witnessed a lot, despite not being directly involved as Kurt and the girls had been rather insistent on her staying out of the action. They had only barely let her join the gunline for the initial trap they laid for the frogmen.

  That was fine with her since she had barely any real practice with the guns that the Order used in this world. Her inexperience and underwhelming performance in front of the others had solidified her resolve to get better and hoped Kurt and the others would be able to help. Speaking of Kurt…

  That fight had been… intense. At least in how Anna felt completely helpless and outclassed.

  In the initial exploration of the rift, she had wondered why Bont was so insistent that she went alone. She had always preferred to have him there as protection, especially after her abduction by the enchanter’s guild. But upon seeing how Kurt and the others fought, she felt she understood.

  She had the feeling that her summon wanted to show her the power disparity between them. After the wendigo hunt, she had confided in him that she felt rather comfortable around them and that she could hold her own. Apparently, the tiger found this amusing.

  ‘How could I have been so blind to what was right in front of me.’ She thought while looking at the gently swishing tail of the two-story tall werewolf in front of her. She had seen Kurt shift before, in the Order warehouse, when he inf-no… gifted, the mercenaries with lycanthropy. She had heard him call it a gift and wanted to use the proper term.

  When Kurt had shifted back then, he stopped at what would be considered a rather tall, if a bit skinny, lycan. Right around the seven-foot mark by her guess. Still, that transformation hadn’t prepared her for the real him and especially how he fought. She was having a hard time reconciling the two methods and personalities he seemed to have.

  She saw the brutally efficient way he fought with his firearms. She only wished that her own marksmanship was as good as his. He barely missed and fired with such assurance that he never lingered on a target after delivering a fatal shot.

  Then there was the magic that he used. Anna had seen powerful applications of runic magic but how he used ambient mana to fuel the spell and only had to pay the initial cost was brilliant. Given how the nanobots made his casting time almost instant was an insane force multiplier.

  But those two schools of dealing death were nothing to the wholesale slaughter he could deal after shifting. She had watched from behind a boulder as he shifted, taking on two of the giant crocodiles with barely an issue in such a cold and calculating way. He displayed more cunning than any werewolf she had ever seen and suspected it was part of his half-elf nature as Jade didn’t quite match the performance.

  Anna had thought that was it, he was a big and pretty smart lycan but didn’t actually consider it anymore until he was dragged away by that snake. She had sprinted after Kristi, taking to the tree canopy rather than trudging through the swamp as she was now. That gave her a bird’s eye view of the entire fight, and it was even worse than what the others saw.

  She had seen how he regained his footing by actually attacking the snake rather than struggling against it. In a move that was very counter intuitive to most creatures, humans included, he had pulled himself toward the threat. He has pulled his legs up, hunching down so he could directly attack the monster while removing its capability to maneuver by lifting it up.

  Sure, the snake had let go, tried to disengage in the deeper water and was likely to wait for another time to strike but Kurt didn’t let that happen. In a move of pure vengeful savagery, he had pulled a section of the snake toward his mouth, biting down hard while his clawed hands and feet went to work in shredding its body. She suspected that alone would have killed it with time as it would bleed out in the water.

  Naturally the snake had flailed and bitten back but the needle like teeth of the giant anaconda were nothing to the crushing jaws of a werewolf. The matter only got worse as it latched on and tried to constrict him. For every bone that was crushed by the snake, Kurt fought all the harder as it healed almost instantly. It rapidly became a battle of bloody attrition, and one side didn’t bleed for long.

  As she watched the fight, Anna also noticed something else strange happening. The other werewolves, while they didn’t do any direct damage, did aid Kurt. She wasn’t sure how but once they were in line of sight, he seemed to be… more. Somehow his presence grew and he seemed to possess a greater strength and emanate a strange energy.

  That energy created a small feedback loop from what she could see. The wolves moved faster, circling around and nipping at the monster with greater speed and accuracy. All the while their attacks made Kurt’s blows and bites cause more damage.

  It was an energy that Anna had felt before but couldn’t quite place what it was. Thinking back, she had also felt it faintly around when they hunted the wendigo and when the mercenaries were being turned. It was a mystery, one she would hopefully find the answer to one day but for now, they had a rift to finish.

  *****

  “So, what the hell happened in there?” Casitor asked Anton. “I thought your team was in the rift already.” The gargoyle was currently looming over the other manager.

  Jay was listening in from his seat in his operations command room where they had congregated. He was rather annoyed, if intrigued, by the development with the human manager and his team.

  “I-I don’t know. They were diving the rift and then suddenly everything…” He gestured to the displays on the far wall that showed the body camera footage from Jay’s Tacoma team and the werewolf platoon. “… it just went all fucky.”

  “Fucky?” Casitor questioned with a grumble that sounded like the old gargoyle was considering if he wanted to murder this manager as his wings flared slightly. Frankly a little light murder or casual mutilation would have been fine with Jay, he didn’t like Anton to begin with.

  “Y-yea-ess?” Anton stammered while trying to not cower under the looming chairman. “They were fighting these strange bug monsters then the beasts just started… warping.”

  Jay had reviewed the tapes, all thirty hours of them, as that was how long the team had been dealing with this small rift. He saw what Anton was talking about and put a video up on screen showing one of the original agent’s helmet camera. Both men turned to watch the new display, Casitor still looking annoyed while Anton looked thankful at the interruption.

  Jay quickly dissuaded the other manager of the idea that he was being nice. “I think this is the first instance of ‘fucky-ness’ our dear Anton was talking about.”

  The screen showed a date and time stamp just above the name Grunnan. The video played, mostly the audio as the focus since the team of agents was not at all quiet in their approach to suppressing and destroying rifts.

  “… tired. Can’t we call it a day for now?” Someone grumbled, likely from behind as the voice wasn’t very loud. “Seriously, we have been in here for three hours already today.”

  “Shut up Misko.” A voice, likely the person known as Grunnan based on the sound and how the camera bobbed, hissed and the helmet turned to show an elf who was in a sorry state as he slouched while walking, barely holding his rifle while his helmet was askew.

  “Another one about a hundred yards up on the left.” A third voice interrupted, causing the camera to pan quickly back to the front.

  “Make that three.” Grunnan muttered as the camera tilted, the edge of the frame showing the side of one Order issued rifle. A gunshot rang out and the camera bounced around a little. Then there were a few more shots. Then some more…

  After what seemed to be nearly twenty rounds, the three waist tall bug monsters were down. Jay noted that they had only started taking hits after getting much closer, within fifty yards by his guess. This was making him thankful that his teams were much more professional… or at least they were when on the job.

  Slowly, the camera began to move again, showing a trio of agents moving up to confirm the kills as two more kept lookout. Another thing Jay had noted, his teams were small in comparison to his peers. Most of the others liked five or six agents in a field office and it seemed they needed it.

  The first of the agents, an elf going off the ears, approached one of the bodies cautiously, poking at it with his boot. He then gave it a solid kick that rolled it onto its back. “Dead.” He called out and moved to the next body a few yards away.

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  Just as the elf turned, the body he kicked started to move. It began as a few twitches, like how nerves fired off for a while after a creature died from a head shot. Then the movements began to get more intense, and all the agents turned, guns pointing at the bug as it rocked back and forth.

  For some reason, they all just watched as the carapace split and a strange, semi ethereal tendril began to crawl out. It was already reaching a tentacle like appendage out by a few feet before the agents got the bright idea to shoot it.

  Another series of gunshots rang out and the black tentacle thing twitched and jerked. A strange, three-jawed mouth opened and there was a hissing screech that caused the video feed to fill with static. A moment, a fire spell and about a dozen rounds later, the creature slumped to the ground limply hanging out of the bug monster’s charred torso.

  “See, see? Fucky.” Anton said while pointing at the screed which Jay paused to show the parasite like creature.

  “Yes, I see it. But what am I seeing?” Casitor asked. “This looks like another rift creature as far as I can tell.”

  Jay cleared his throat. “Ahem, if you let me rewind a bit…” Jay began, rewinding the video and muting the sound. “If you look at the bullet impacts, you will notice that it isn’t normal. See how the exit looks more like vapor than blood or tissue? And here after its dead, see how it seems to be… flaking? Yeah, flaking away like dust.”

  Casitor watched, noting the features Jay had pointed out. “And this means?”

  “This isn’t a rift monster as far as we can tell.” Jay said. “Over the past few thousand years, rift monsters have nearly always appeared as flesh and blood creatures or known mechanical or ephemeral types. While I don’t have a sample, I can assure you, this creature isn’t flesh and blood and it certainly isn’t a ghost.”

  “Is it a spirit or one of those abominations from the fey wilds?”

  “No, if it was a spirit, then the weapons would not have hurt it. As for a fey beast, I don’t think so.” Jay explained. “I spent a lot of time in the fey lands and even their wraiths were less… corporeal. This is something that is solid when here but upon death, it disperses.” He had a feeling he knew what the creature was but wanted to confirm it before he shared his thoughts.

  All three of them sat in silence, only disturbed by the staff in the room talking and going about their work to record the incident. They watched the werewolf team cameras as they went and finished clearing the rift, knocking out the black and blue core with a gunshot. After several long minutes, Casitor was the one to break the silence.

  “Recall all assets and discharge the rift immediately.” The old gargoyle ordered. “Both of you, debrief your teams separately then send those reports to me. CC Thalla too.”

  “Got it boss.” Jay said as he fired off a quick text message on his phone. He sent it to Justin, letting him know where to meet once he got out of the rift and received the text.

  Jay watched both his guests leave before turning to Kevin. “Yes?” The aide asked, stepping out of the shadowed corner of the room with his note pad in hand.

  “Let Penny know that when Kurt is done to send him and Jade over. I want them in the debrief.” He had a sneaking suspicion that Kurt would have a good nose for whatever was going on in the rifts.

  The situation made him think about all the little scraps of information he had found. The clay tiles and cave paintings on this world were only the start of story. In his travels he had uncovered a great many things… many secrets that some very powerful entities were trying very hard to keep forgotten.

  “It seems the past has come back to haunt us.” Jay murmured.

  “What was that?” Kevin asked.

  “Nothing, nothing. But do me a favor, get intel to put together a report on Talth. Just general information on changes over the past ten years.”

  Kevin began scratching on his notepad. “Sure thing. But why Talth?”

  Jay considered how to answer that. He really liked Kevin and trusted him, but it was hard to invest in him so much when his life span was so limited as a human. Even less when he would likely retire from the Order after only a couple decades.

  “I think I need to send some people to get answers.” Jay replied. “I am hoping that Kristi will be welcome in her home now that things have calmed down. I am also hoping that her former patron would be open to a trade in her most precious commodity.”

  *****

  “The hell happened to you?” Justin asked as Kurt and Jade shuffled into the small meeting room. Penny immediately closing the door behind them and walking away very quickly. She used the excuse of having to ‘finish after action reports’ despite never having to do anything other than send the recordings to records after closing the rift before now.

  “Got dragged through a swamp by thirty feet of nope-rope.” Kurt grumbled and summoned a bottle of water from his ring. He then paused, eyeing the paper coffee cup stuffed with paper towel that Justin was holding. He sniffed, scenting the air. He could faintly smell something sweet and slightly minty over the stench of swamp mud that was clinging to him.

  “What flavor?” He asked, eyeing the bulge in Justin’s lip.

  “Huh? Oh, Cope straight.” Justin could read between the lines and fished the short cylindrical can out of the shoulder pocket of his uniform top. “Here, help yerself.” He then tossed the can over.

  Kurt snagged it out of midair. He quickly packed it, finger slapping against the lid as he settled the contents into the bottom of the can. Then, popping the top, he fished out a sizeable pinch that he stuffed into his lower lip.

  “MMmmmHM.” Kurt groaned in satisfaction while grabbing an empty coffee cup and arranging it like Justin had before spitting into it. “Oh yeah, that takes me back.” The tingle of the tobacco on his gums and the slight rush of endorphins helped take the edge off, just a little.

  “I, uh, didn’t know you dipped.” Justin said and watched the man who amounted to his new god slouched in the office chair across from him.

  “Yeah, picked up a taste before I got my ass bit by being stupid. Then did it in Afghanistan because everyone else did and it passed the time.” Kurt grumbled.

  “Right. I noticed that it doesn’t really…”

  “Work anymore?” Kurt offered, finishing the thought.

  “Yeah.” Justin said, looking at the can sadly before stuffing it back in his pocket.

  “Part of being a wolf.” Kurt shrugged. “Sure, the nicotine works for a bit and you get a little something, but it’s flushed out by our regeneration almost as fast as it gets in. We are almost completely immune to all toxins.”

  Jade cut in then. “Haven’t you noticed that with booze yet?”

  “Not much of a drinker but I felt like my coffee was less effective than normal.” Justin admitted with a frown. “Not that I really need it anymore, I guess.”

  Kurt was about to continue commiserating with the young wolf but the door opened and Jay strolled in. “Good you are here.” He nodded to Kurt and Jade.

  “Yeah, rather be all soaped up in the shower with the girls, but I guess I will stink up the office instead.” Kurt shot back.

  “Not my office, not my problem.” Jay quipped after giving him a once over, noting the clean uniform but dirt and mud-covered hair. “But what happened to you?”

  “Nope-rope. Thirty footer.” Jade muttered, itching at the drying mud in her own hair.

  “…Nope…Rope…?”

  “Snake.” Kurt elaborated.

  “Ah, well then this might be right up your alley.” Jay plugged in his computer to the dock and put an image up on screen. “Justin and his squad had a run in with a new type of enemy when helping with the rift your peers couldn’t handle.”

  Kurt instantly felt a revulsion to the image. It wasn’t just because it was a partly smashed giant insect. No, the feeling was directed at the wrist thick, multi jawed shadow snake creeping out of the wound.

  Recognizing the feeling as coming from his wolf, he tried to analyze the instinct. He felt like it was more than just a reaction from being a werewolf, this felt deeper. It felt like it belonged more to the little part of divinity that he had gathered. There was a sense that he needed to visit the forest again, hopefully to get some answers out of one of the two wolves there.

  He quit his introspection when he felt a shaking and heard something. It was an echoing rumble that sounded like a bulldozer was driving by right outside. A fraction of a second later, he realized that he was growling. He then realized that Justin and Jade were likewise producing a deep rumble. He stopped as soon as he noticed and the image disappeared a second later.

  “Umm…Guys?” Jay asked, snapping them all out of their little trance as he closed out of the screen and retuning to his home screen. “Guess that confirms some parts of my theory.” He commented dryly after the trio had stopped.

  The demon then pulled up another file that showed a video of the core. It was the same as every core, a ball of crystal-like material, but this one had a strange shifting mass of black in it. Kurt watched as that shadowy blackness swirled around until the core was suddenly shattered, a bullet knocking it out of the tree it was in.

  “The fuck is this.” Jade hissed after a shiver ran up her spine, dislodging even more dried mud.

  “Genetic memory.” Kurt answered. He was now completely certain of it. “Justin, did any of the regular wolves react strongly to these… things.”

  The mercenary shook his head. “Not really. Also, the core was like, leaking or something. It seemed to be the same strange misty stuff those monsters dissolved into. I felt like I was on the verge of a shift every time I saw them. I just wanted to…ugh.”

  “Utterly destroy them. Rip them to shreds with your fangs and claws.” Kurt supplied, getting a nod from Justin.

  “One more thing. How do I have a genetic memory if I wasn’t born a werewolf?” He asked.

  Once again Kurt had the answer and decided to share it after getting a shrug from Jay that said ‘do what you want’. “The gift isn’t just a blood line as in who your parents were. It’s spread through the bite. It’s part of the pact you made.”

  “I didn’t make any pact.” Justin said, sounding both offended and confused.

  “You did when you fought down the wolf inside your mind and didn’t go insane. Those impulses and urges are part of that genetic memory that was made when the lycanthropy changed your DNA.” Kurt growled. He noted that Jade was nodding along as he explained the concept, having known about the dangers of being a lycan since she was born one.

  “So, if I had lost that fist fight, I would have…” Justin asked, turning an incredulous look to Kurt.

  “Yeah, gone insane and feral. Then I would have had to kill you.” Kurt said bluntly. “Lucky for you, I got the feeling that you wouldn’t have any issues and I made sure of it, helping you suppress that wolf a bit since you got a double dose up front. Jade and Ra were already wolves and didn’t have nearly the struggle you would have had.”

  In the tense silence that followed, Jade spoke up, asking a question Kurt also wanted to know the answer to. “So, if they hadn’t cleared that rift, what would have happened?”

  Kurt and Justin turned to look at Jay as he answered. “Then it would anchor itself into our reality and begin to influence its surroundings, disgorging monsters whenever able. It would slowly affect its surroundings with a type of miasma. Hmmm.” He paused in thought for a minute before snapping his fingers.

  “A dungeon, like in a game or a lot of books. That’s what happens when they are allowed to bind to reality.” He said in way to cheerful of a tone.

  “I am a little surprised that this hasn’t happened before.” Kurt muttered.

  “Oh, it has.” Jay said. “You might not be familiar with them but there have been several instances of rifts forming dungeons over the millennia. That’s where all the monsters that knights fought came from or even things like The Labyrinth from the ancient Greek stories. They were dungeons that had to eventually be purged and their cores destroyed.

  “It is honestly such a pain in the ass to do that we developed a way to intercept them and pull them to known locations rather than letting them ruin the countryside when nobody saw them form. This had the added benefit of them being easier to handle as they don’t have access to the mana from the Earth, only what they brought through the void.” Jay finished his explanation with several pantomimed gestures that would have been considered very rude in any other context.

  That information was fascinating to Kurt but before he could ask more questions his boss once again interrupted. “But let’s get on with Justin’s debrief. Kurt I was thinking you might want to be a part of this and after the earlier reaction, I think I was right.”