Shit Hits the Helicopter Blade

John felt cold sweat run down his spine and his heart thundered in his chest. His mind screamed at him to take his mother’s hand and run, but his feet couldn’t move.

“I’ve been expecting you, boy,” Vulpis said gleefully, his pale face twisted into a condescending sneer, “and it looks like you’ve brought me even more meat to play with.”

The warg had barely finished before the twang of a bowstring resounded through the cavern. Yet the shot, destined for the place between his eyes, was deflected as if Vulpis had swatted away a fly.

“That was a good shot,” the warg complemented Miranda, though his voice was low and lacked anything sounding like genuine admiration. “I see that you’re a hunter, like me.”

“Your point being?” Miranda replied steadily, a second arrow nocked and drawn.

“You should realise you’re not equipped with the right tools,” Vulpis replied calmly while shrugging off his black suit vest and loosening the tie. “So I’ll give you all the chance to quit being a nuisance and put down your weapon.”

Miranda’s eyes never left Vulpis while she weighed up her options. John had no clue what was going through her head, but he hoped dearly that it was a spark of genius, because nothing he could think of ended with their escape. But to his dismay, Miranda lowered her weapon.

“Mom?!” Cynthia breathed in disbelief.

“Quiet, Cynthia,” Miranda replied sternly. “The cocksucker’s right, we can’t beat him head on.”

“Yes, yes. Get the petty name calling out of your system now. I doubt you’ll have many chances to run your mouths later,” Vulpis replied dismissively, though his eye twitched as he spoke. “Now put your weapons on the ground and kick them over here.”

Miranda complied, wincing as her bow scraped across the hard rock floor towards their enemy.

“The quiver too,” Vulpis ordered.

Miranda hesitated briefly before the quiver too was relinquished.

“Good. It’s much nicer for everyone when you’re obedient,” Vulpis grinned before glancing at John and Cynthia. “Now, I want the both of you t—“ Vulpis didn’t get to finish.

“GET DOWN!” the mature huntress ordered, just before her quiver exploded in a spectacular array of dazzling silvers, blues, and reds.

Miranda leapt to protect her daughter with her body, while John barely cast a Mana Shield in time to protect both himself and his mom from the shards of arrowheads and splintered shafts that flew in every direction.

The Alpha warg didn’t fare so well, taking the brunt of the shrapnel and breathing in the plume of sparkling silver that had resulted from the explosion. If wargs were weak to arcane silver, then breathing in a cloud of the stuff couldn’t have been healthy for the bastard. Good. He deserved any and all the pain he got. But now wasn’t the time to linger and watch — John had to get his mom out of the cave.

“Why the fuck haven’t you warped us out?!” Cynthia demanded quickly.

“I can’t, not while we’re in danger,” John replied just as panicked.

“Alright, then it’s plan B. I’ll carry her to the evac,” Miranda said and swiftly picked his mother up. “No offence — but I’ll probably be faster, plus we’re going to need your swords.”

“Right,” John agreed. He wasn’t going to start arguing with experience now.

While Vulpis spluttered and coughed up blood onto his hands and knees, they made their escape. The prospect of running up a long flight of stairs or even running inside a cave might have given John pause another time, but he was running on pure adrenaline for the moment, his body focused entirely on getting the fuck out of there.

Vulpis’ choked roar echoed through the cave from behind them. By the sound of it, the warg was back on his feet and now on the hunt.

“Ignore it, we’re almost out!” Miranda shouted without losing a breath.

‘Fuck me, most women in their forties would kill to be her,’ John found himself spontaneously thinking, despite the gravity of the circumstances.

The thought didn’t last long, however, as they finally caught sight of the light — or in this case the pitch darkness of the night — at the end of the tunnel. At the same time, Vulpis was closing in. John made the mistake of glancing back to see a hulking, four legged creature, somewhere between man, wolf, and fox. The pristine black suit he usually wore was torn to ribbons and trailed behind him as he ran, while his face was scratched and bloodied from the close range explosion. Their eyes briefly met, and suddenly John knew what it was to be prey. The fury and hunger in the warg’s eyes, the way the muscles on his fur covered body flexed as he took confident strides, and the rapid pace at which he closed the distance between them caused a primal fear to set in John’s heart. ‘We’re not going to make it,’ he realised; the exit was so close yet felt so incredibly far away.

Then, in a burst of insanity, John slowed his ascent before turning to face the charging warg.

“What are you doing, you idiot?!” Cynthia shouted back at him.

“Just get my mom out of here!” John called back, trying to suppress the quiver in his voice. “It’s me he’s after anyway.”

The Huntress wavered momentarily. “Ugh, just don’t die! Moira will strangle me!” she replied, swiftly nocking an arrow and firing it at the wolf to slow him down before turning and darting towards the cave mouth.

“Yeah, I’ll try my best,” John replied dryly. A small part of him had hoped the huntress would stay, but it seemed that he didn’t have a high enough rep with her yet to warrant a double suicide. John quickly shrugged off his disappointment and steeled himself. The speed and ferocity with which the warg hurled himself at John meant he’d be knocked flat and be lucky to survive. He needed to slow the warg down. ‘I guess we’ll see if I got my money’s worth,’ he grimaced, his grip tightening on his twin blades. Beads of sweat formed on his brow as he began to channel his mana, his eyes locked on the charging target. The spell charged at a painfully slow pace. ‘This is insane.’ John’s hands began to shake, his body screaming at him to turn and run. ‘He’s too fast.’ Vulpis was almost upon him now. ‘I’m so fucked.’ The air was heavy with the smell of sweat and vaguely of something burning.

The warg let out a triumphant howl, his front legs bending before his whole body sprung into the air, gleaming claws and jagged maw bared and pointing at John. But a flare of brilliant blue signalled John’s salvation, and his body moved before his mind could react, releasing the Mana Arrow in a cross slash that cleaved through the air to meet the leaping warg.

32 DMG

To John’s chagrin, it wasn’t much damage at all, but it did at least do its job — the **** of the blow having unbalanced the warg and causing him to fall a few feet short of him. John wasted no time stepping forward to deal another blow, it was all or nothing and he could debate morality later. All that mattered was that he finished this, to make it certain that Vulpis would never hurt his mom, Red’s family, or anyone else ever again. John lunged forward, his katanas flashing in streams of faint silver — too late.

John felt something hard and sharp latch onto his shin, moments before his weight was pulled out from under him. He landed roughly on the stone steps, the wind escaping him before Vulpis picked him up like a ragdoll and slammed him against the cave wall, one hand pressed around his throat while the claws on the other danced on his midriff.

-21 HP

The twin blades clattered uselessly to the floor as John desperately tried to pry Vulpis’ fingers away from his throat.

“I had intended on dealing with you once my daughter had arrived, but you insist on being a nuisance,” the hybrid warg growled, his hot breath blowing in John’s face as he spoke and spraying him with flecks of spittle and blood. However, John didn’t exactly have the voice to complain about it. “In truth, you are far too weak to face me alone, boy. You should have ran when there was a faint chance.”

“Hey, minge flaps, he’s not alone!” Saccharine declared proudly, as she poked her head out of John’s pocket.

Vulpis paused to regard the fae with a bloodshot eye. “What are you doing here, pest?”

John was equally surprised. Perhaps the only thing more insane than facing Vulpis himself was this tiny creature standing up to the warg, let alone insulting him.

“Giving you a facial, jackass,” the fae replied with a shit eating grin, moments before doing just that with a blast of faery dust.

“More parlour tricks?” the warg snorted derisively before letting out a small cough. “What… is this?!” he wheezed as his pupils began to dilate.

Saccha let out a small chuckle as she gave Vulpis her middle finger. “Have a nice trip d-bag, that’s grade-A shit express from down under!”

John felt the warg tense as Saccha opened her mouth to make another jeer while she prepared to fire more dust. John tried to scream, but Vulpis’ hand was still firmly in place around his neck. The fae barely had any time to react before the warg took a swipe at her. There was a split second where John saw the fae’s face blanch before his hand connected with her frail body and slapping her to the ground with a sound that was ominously alike to a twig snapping.

The colour red crept into the corner of John’s vision as he kicked out with as much might as he could muster, and whether it was Saccha’s dust coming into full effect or John’s boot managing to connect with the warg’s gut, Vulpis dropped him. It was by no means a graceful landing, as John’s tailbone hit the cold stone brick, sending a jarring shockwave up his spine. ‘There’s no fucking time to wallow in pain,’ he cursed before scrambling to grab his twin blades.

Above him, Vulpis’ body shook and he clawed at his own monstrous face as if to purge himself of an itch that had dug its way into his skin. Having been through it once before, John had a pretty good idea of the sensory overload the bastard was going through as the aphrodisiac invaded his system. That being said, John had nowhere near as violent of a reaction as Vulpis was having now. A pity it wouldn’t kill him — but John had a remedy for that.

His grasping hands found the hilts of his blades, and springing to his feet, John delivered two quick slashes across the wargs waist and chest.

181 DMG

113 DMG

Holy moly. Any other time that damage caused by the combined might of Swordsmanship, Beast Slayer, and the twin blades would’ve made John erect. As it was, however, he had other concerns. Vulpis let out a defiant roar before taking a swing at him through unfocused eyes. Freeflow Focus saved John by a hair’s breadth.

“You. Will. Die. Tonight. Boy,” Vulpis heaved. Despite the wolf’s **** state, it was taking everything John had to dodge the blows as they came. They were far from precise, but their speed and savagery left John no time to counterstrike. The compact hall of the cave didn’t favour an evasive strategy. There was little room to move either side and it was near impossible to get around to the warg’s back. The warg, meanwhile, was growing increasingly frustrated with their game of cat and mouse. Yet this anger only seemed to fuel his blows. “There. Won’t. Be any. Thing. Left. For. Charlene. To mourn...” the wolf snarled. The temperature of the room seemed to rise with every word. “SO QUIT DODGING AND DIE,” he finished with a furious roar. As the words left Vulpis’ wolf-like maw, his hand caught ablaze with a vicious flame. John’s eyes widened as Vulpis’ claws swung towards him, now enveloped in a gauntlet of fire.

It was one thing to dodge the swing, another thing entirely to avoid the fiery explosion that followed. John barely got a Mana Shield up in time and it still felt like he’d been hit by a train as the blast picked his body off the floor and threw him into the cave wall for the second time in the span of a minute.

-57 HP

John let out a groan and eyed his health bar. In just two blows he’d almost lost half of his total health. He was lucky Gamer’s Body converted incoming damage into hit points, else he would have been crispy bacon about now. With Vulpis in the state that he was, John had no chance of getting close without taking potentially fatal damage. It was time to go.

John scrambled backwards until he was safely out of reach of the flames, before his eyes fell on his injured fae companion. Eyes closed, her sundress was smattered with blood, her leg seemed to be broken, and two of her insect-like wings were torn like paper. But her body heaved ragged breaths, telling John that she was at the very least alive. John quickly sheathed his wakizashi before scooping her up in his hand, the simultaneous need to be gentle and also get the fuck out of there making the procedure uneasy and awkward.

“...John?” the fae mumbled.

“Don’t worry, Saccha, I got you,” John panted as he began to dash up the stairs. Behind them, the warg continued to wildly slash and burn the air around himself, making John ever so thankful that the Alpha was too dazed by fae dust to properly give chase. “You saved my life, you know? I don’t know how I’ll be able to repay you for that.”

The fae managed the tiniest of smiles and turned her head in a weak attempt to shake it. “You already are… I’m gonna get big and strong… remember?”

“Yeah. That’s right,” John managed a smile as they burst out of the cave mouth and into the darkling night. “Big and strong… so hang in there, okay? We’re gonna make it to the evac point and get you some help, yeah?”

“Mmm,” Saccha barely managed, before her head drooped again.

Unfortunately, his body was not trained for running through forests at night. He stumbled several times in the dark while low hanging branches clawed at John’s face and arms as he fumbled, clutching Saccha close to his chest to shield her. He only vaguely knew where he was supposed to be heading, but if the map back in the Brighton’s war room was to be trusted, then he simply had to follow the shoreline. Of course this night had been anything but ‘simple’, and true to form, a bloodlusting howl echoed across the lakewater, signalling to John that the chase was back on. It seemed that Saccha’s little gift had been an intense but short lived one. ‘Was it really too much to ask that he just overdose and die?!’ John wondered bitterly.

Suddenly, he found himself missing the cave. It had been cramped and difficult to fight in, sure, but at least it had been well lit. Out in the dark of the forest, Vulpis had the clear advantage. Where John was blindly fumbling around, the warg could creep through the forest with his eyes attuned to darkness and nose to guide him. The only thing in John’s favour was his headstart on the warg, but if he didn’t get to the evac point soon, that wouldn’t mean much.

“We’re almost there, Saccha,” John told his fae friend. “We’re going to make it… you’re going to make it.” In truth he had no way of being sure — it was more of a hope really, but it was far better than the feeling of anxiety that had creeped in. Every slight rustle of leaves on the wind or the snapping of a twig set his teeth on edge.

But fortune smiled upon John, as he burst into a small clearing, where a sleek black helicopter waited with its rotors slowly spinning.

“John?!” the figure of Cynthia called from the chopper as she lowered her bow.

Beside her, Miranda was helping an Order medic load John’s mom into a seat while another prepared to administer a short term treatment that would heal any minor injuries.

“Yeah, we need to fucking go!” John shouted back, aggressively signalling to the pilot to take off as he leapt into the helicopter. The pilot got the message and began a steady takeoff. The only noise to be heard was the rustling of tree branches, the chopper itself being magically enchanted to silence. It was a neat trick, and the only way they could have got a helicopter close to Vulpis’ hideout without potentially alerting the wargs. Cynthia helped him safely inside before closing the door just as the chopper began to speed its ascent and the pilot radioed his colleagues back at the Brighton Manor.

“Saccha needs help,” John panted, presenting the fae to the Order medic before collapsing into one of the seats. He hadn’t realised how fast his heart was beating until he had a moment to catch his breath.

“You had me worried for a moment there — he hits hard,” Cynthia chuckled, lightly punching his arm. “You hanging in there alright?”

“No kidding, but I’ll be fine…” John waved his hand dismissively before looking over at Saccha’s injured form with concern. One of the Order medics seemed to be attempting to pray the fae into good health. John might’ve scorned that a week ago, but the glowing white light around her pale form indicated there was something magical going on at the very least. “I’m more worried about my mom and Saccha right now,” he finished.

“Yeah,” Cynthia sighed, looking at the fae sympathetically.

“What became of Vulpis?” Miranda interjected.

“He’s alive,” John replied sternly, his gaze turning to stare out at the spearlike silhouettes of the treeline. “I only hope he can’t-” John almost bit his tongue as an explosion caused the helicopter to shudder, and as they began to spin, John’s immediate fear became reality.

“What the?!” the pilot’s shout followed by the sound of shattering glass drew everyone’s attention to the cockpit.

Vulpis clung to the outside, peering in with a jagged grin as he tore the pilot from his chair and out the shattered window where he was carelessly dropped.

“You will not escape me so easily, boy,” the warg spat, his clawed hand reigniting in a flaming gauntlet as he prepared to blast them all with his hellfire. “I’ll be picking you from my teeth by the night’s end.”

John fought back the urge to cry. He wasn’t some seasoned fighter who could deal with this shit, he was just a nerdy kid who spent most of his life cooped up in his room playing video games. He missed button mashing and quick-time events, not the shit he’d been through this past week, the risks he’d taken, the pain he and everyone else had endured, just to wind up trapped in the back of an aircraft that was supposed to have been their escape. An aircraft which, with no pilot to fight for control, now began to dip and spin back towards the hard ground below. The sensation of the contents of John’s stomach rising called to mind an amusement park ride, except this was far more terrifying and far more dangerous. Not that it really mattered in the grand scheme of things since Vulpis was about to turn the inside of the aircraft into an oven.

A sudden movement shook John from his thoughts.

“Hang on, kids,” Miranda shouted, as she vaulted into the cockpit, drawing a large bowie knife strapped to her lower back as she did. In one fluid motion she swung forward, feet first through the shattered windscreen and wrapped her muscled legs around the warg’s waist, knife flashing towards his bloody muzzle.

Vulpis’ grip was strong, but it wasn’t enough to handle Miranda’s weight as he was **** to use one hand to block her ****, causing the both of them to tumble off the chopper, disappearing below.

“Mom!” Cynthia shouted, struggling past John and against the increasing spin of the aircraft in order to look outside the window. It was a wasted effort, as the helicopter’s tail careened into the trunk of a tree wrenching them all to one side.