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The Story Thus Far:

Nearly three months after the cataclysm that befell Worlds 1- 5, its survivors are starting to miss the High Evolutionary and his empire. Sure it wasn't perfect but it provided stability, order, prosperity (for some) security and some quality of existence for its citizens. In its absence monsters now roam the forests, fringe groups that had been suppressed and controlled now run amok every where else, The KLIS are collecting survivors in ever increasing numbers for study and then there is ONE and the Others who are just collecting (for some unknown most likely sinister purpose).

Counter Earth Chronicles - Fallen Empire

Chapter 30: Deceiving Your Allies To Deceive Your Enemies

Day 54 (Overnight in the south maze)

Corey and I raced back to the lost city. When we arrived we heard screams coming from Dawn and Corbin's house.

"Get back!!! Get back stay away!!!" Dawn screamed.

*Mr. Collins! Mr. Winter! I am detecting an additional life sign from professor Stern's and Corbin' domicile.*

"You mean there are three life signs in there when there should be two." The teen said looking at me.

"Aiiee!!! Get away!! Stay back!!!" The professor screamed again.

"Professor Stern's worse nightmare come to life!" I said to my copilot.

"What's worse we can't use the weapons on the blue coupe!" Corey shouted.

"Let's go." I shouted. "Our family is in trouble !"

"You know, that was Rumble's line." Corey commented.

I parked the prototype on the stone walkway. Corey jumped out and fetched his crossbow and arrows from the trunk as we saw a chair fly through a window.

(Was that Dawn, Corbin or the creature's doing?!)

We then ran inside to find Corbin and Dawn huddled underneath a table. Their attacker on top of it peering down at them evilly.

"Another head sucker?!" The teen exclaimed.

The grayish green blob with red eyes stopped leering at the human and little beastial and turned its attention to us.

"Where the hell did this thing come from?!" I shouted.

"I don't know, but it looks like the one that attacked Russell." Corey shouted.

"How could that be, Rumble, Rhinox and my mistress slaughtered it!"

"Regardless, it took all our effort to kill it after it nearly killed one of our own." The black haired teen shouted.

"What do we do?!" Dawn screamed.

"Cover your head." Mr. Collins shouted.

"Suggestions?" I said to the defender.

"I am working on that!!! Ummmm....." The teen said loading an arrow on his crossbow. "I am going to flush it out. You finish it off."

"RIGHT!" I said running out the front door. I jumped back into the driver's seat of the prototype and repositioned the blue coupe to face the front of Corbin and Dawn's home.

*Side-pods engaged*

(That creature's hide is rather tough, how are we going to take it down?!) I thought to myself as I waited for Corey.

Rumble's former roommate had the same problem. The quick thinking teen assessed the situation, aimed and fired. The arrow struck the night creature right in its left eye.

*SCREECH!!!*

(That was one way to get its attention!)

"Alex!!!" Corey said running out of the front door, with the thing bouncing behind him.

"That gives me an idea!" I said scrolling through the weapons menu. "This ought to do it."

I managed to make my selection as the teen tumbled to his left, a half second before the head sucker landed onto where he had just been.

I lined up the crosshairs on the creature's other eye and pressed the fire button on the steering column.

*Tracker hook engaged.*

I watched as the tethered spear launched from the left side-pod and landing right in the creature's right eye.

*SCREECH!!!!* It shouted.

"Come here!!!" I shouted pressing the left toggle switch on the weapon's console.

The now blinded night creature was unceremoniously pulled toward the left side-pod. When the creature was about two feet from the weapons launcher....

*Laser system engaged.*

Corey and I watched with perverse fascination as the laser system started drilling into the creature's tough exterior.

*SCREECH!!!!*

*It appears to not to be enjoying that.*

"Too bad. Turn up the intensity if you please Overwatch."

Dawn and Corbin soon joined Corey and myself as we watched that creature scream in extreme pain as it was cooked by the laser. It tried to shake itself free from the tractor hook lodged in its right eye but just couldn't. Nor could it see what was happening the last moments of its existence.

It let out a distressed wail before....

*SPLUT!!!*

There was grayish-green goo everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

"Eww gross!" The little mongoose boy said. "It is going to take forever to clean that up!!!"

"You two are you okay?" I said opening the cockpit.

"It was scary but our heads are intact." The professor exclaimed.

"How did that thing get in the city?" The little mongoose asked.

"We don't know." I said to them.

*Mr. Winter. There are additional life signs coming from the central building.*

"That is where Shakara was seeing Russell, Ursa and Rhinox!" Corbin said.

"Really?" I asked.

"Follow up examinations Alex." Dawn said to me.

"They are in danger." Corey shouted. "We need to go now!"

"Once we get there we can't use the prototype's weapons either. DAMN." I pouted.

"Corey!" The professor shouted.

"I am not going to let anyone else die!" The teen said running off.

"Dawn, you and Corbin run tactical. I am going to try to help. Make sure that there aren't any more of these things running around in our city."

With that I jumped out of the prototype and after the lone defender on a desperate mission to protect our protectors.

We were about ten feet from the central building when...

!!!

"Get down!" I said pushing the teen to the ground just as what looked liked a large ball of lava floated over my head.

It hit the ground making a large burn mark about three feet in diameter next to us.

"Where did that come from?!" I shouted.

"It can't be! Another one?!" The teen exclaimed.

"Another one what?!"

"That!" He pointed. As a rotund floating lizard emerged from the entrance of the building. "That was that thing that attacked us last week. It shoots lava balls from its belly!"

*GAROARRR!!!!*

"How did you defeat it?"

"We ended crushing it underneath a stone."

"A stone?!" I asked Corey.

"Yeah. We couldn't get near it for obvious reasons."

"Hey blue and ugly this way!!!" I shouted at the creature.

"Alex! What are you doing?!"

"Look we can't even get near it, so let's draw it out and let Corbin and Dawn have a crack at it."

The black haired teen and I signaled the prototype. As the lizard floated by, Corey and I ran into the central building and shut the door.

The creature soon was confronted by a mongoose in a high tech super weapon. You know what happened next.

"Get behind me." Corey said drawing his crossbow.

"What is the plan?" I said as we started walking around the first floor.

"We don't have time to check room by room, we need to find our beastials quickly."

"But where do we even start?" I shot back.

"There is another problem." Mr. Collins said to me. "You also aren't carrying any weapons either. No way to defend yourself."

(Good point.)

"AAAIIIIEEE!!!!"

"That came from the second floor!" Corey shouted.

"It was Shakara!!!" I shouted.

We quickly, but carefully made our way upstairs to one of the rooms where we found my lioness. She had been fighting what looked like a walking eight foot tall plant thingie with multiple large eyeballs. The eyeballs were attached to what looked like a pod at its stem. The stem housed thirteen of them which floated toward her like some type of projectile.

"The hell!" I shouted.

"We fought that creeper two weeks ago. What is this the revenge of the sequels?!" Mr. Collins said.

"Alex!!!" The dark tan lioness shouted as she was enveloped by one of the eyeballs.

"Don't let them touch you!" Corey warned.

"Now you tell me!" My devious person said as she tried desperately to claw her way out.

"How was this creature defeated?" I asked Corey.

"You attack the base of the plant and what is above will follow." The teen growled. "But I don't have anything strong enough!"

"I got an idea I said running out of the room and into the infirmary."

Corey managed to fire at the plant's 'legs', but his arrows weren't deterring it. Arriving at the infirmary I started looking for something that would slow that thing down. I rummaged through the cabinets and closet before finding a bottle.

(This should do it!)

I ran back to the room only to find the teen had also been enveloped by an eyeball. I threw the bottle at the walking plant smashing it at its base. The creature shuttered as it realized I was drenching its base in acid.

"Alex get out of here before it gets you!" Corey shouted.

"And abandon you two?!"

"Go!" Shakara shouted. "Help the others!"

!!!

I managed to dodge a floating eyeball. As I exited the room, more eyeballs started floating toward me! I quickly shut the door and ran down the hall to get to- get to....

"HELP! HELP! HELP! THEY ARE AFTER ME!"

At the far end I saw Russell running away from a horn of plenty creature. Well it looked like a horn of plenty with legs and a tail.

"Russell you do know you are running away from something that is smaller than you?" I said to the terrified miniature pony.

"Yeah but it has teeth! Sharp teeth!" The little horse yelled before he crashed into another monster- the spiked land fish from weeks before. The creature pulled him into a near by closet and the horn of plenty creature followed the two inside closing the door behind it.

"AUGH!!!!!" The miniature horse screamed from with in. "No biting!"

(SHIT!)

I started to run toward Russell's location before hearing thumping, bumping and crashing from two rooms on either side of me.

I opened the room to my right to see the commander in a tussle with what looked to be a stone-like rock gargoyle looking creature red eyes, weird horns claws and wings. The monster looked like it was trying to make a meal out of the rhino.

"Do you want to know how to stop a charging rhino? Hint- you can't!!!" The commander said running at top speed. His head was lowered his horn pointed at the creature."

*SMACK*

The commander crashed right into it. To my and his amazement it laughed.

"Um, maybe you can." The rhino warrior said as he fell backward on to his butt. The creature then darted toward him for the kill.

(OH NO!)

The commotion across the hall was just as loud when I went into that room I saw Lady Ursa wrestling with what looked to be yellow blob about her hight with two eyes many many, many spikes.

"I *ow* will not *ouch* be bested here *yikes* or any where by *ah* the likes of you!!" My warrior bear growled.

My fierce ursine warrior was desperately grappling (despite being impaled by the spikes) with it trying to subdue it, she was finding out that the creature was every bit as strong and powerful as she was.

(Is this how we die?)

This was hopeless!!! I was not a warrior and without the prototype I was powerless to do anything. But even if I could who do I help first? Corey and Shakara? Russell? Lady Ursa? Rhinox?

It came to my realization this morning, my community and my family was facing our own extinction. When the creatures finished us off here in the central building, they would attack the professor and Corbin next then make their way to the forest looking for the next meal.

This was not happening!!! I ran to yet another room looking for anything I could use as a weapon. I realized that if this was it, I would go down fighting to protect my friends and my family.

I forgot that this was the room where we Shakara had placed our fallen were-creature while the city was in crisis. We were planning on burying him at some point, but didn't get around to it for obvious reasons. At the moment, that didn't matter as I combed the room for a chair, a wood plank- anything I could use to fight.

The room only had the glow sticks and the shroud covering Rumble.

"This is so totally hopeless! Ursa, Rhinox, Corey and Russell have weapons. I don't! What a I going to do?!" I shouted staring at the doorway.

"...GRRRRRR..."

I heard from behind me as huge paw landed on me head. Sharp black claws were attached to it.

*WHOOSH!!!*

The next thing I heard was the closet door opening down the hall and then screams and cries. I stuck my head out of the door into hallway and saw a brown blur toss the horn of plenty creature and land fish into the hallway. They had died with their eyes open. I soon realized that it was their screams that I had heard.

In the room down the hall came another scream as the spiked blob creature that was wrestling my mistress was thrown into the gargoyle creature in the room across from it. A moment later the head of the gargoyle bounced out of the room into the hall as the brown blur darted into the far room to confront the walking plant that had attacked Shakara and Corey.

A large piercing death cry came from that room. Then silence.

Russell stuck his head out from the closet. Then the rhino from his room and then the bear from hers.

"Everyone in one piece?" My mistress asked.

"Barely." Russell said.

"Where did those things come from?!" I gasped. "The city was secure!"

"They were already here pet." My brown bear said looking at her puncture wounds.

"Those were the creatures we had killed in the last few weeks that the professor was studying." The rhino said to me.

"But, but they were dead!!!" Russell shouted.

"Formerly. They re-spawned." My bear knight observed.

"And attacked us while we were waiting for Shakara." The commander said.

"But, what saved us?!" The miniature horse exclaimed.

I said nothing but ran back into the room where I had abandoned Corey and Shakara. Inside I found a brown, shaggy seven foot tall werewolf with blood soaked fur dry heaving over my lioness and our snarky teenager.

"RUMBLE?!" Corey said staring at the remains of the plant creature and then to his wolf who was missing his loincloth.

"...Corey..."

"Rumble!" The teen ran to the brown werewolf and hugged him tightly.

"How... could this be?!" The dark tan lioness exclaimed as Russell, Rhinox, Lady Ursa and myself entered the room. "You had acid burns over 90 percent of your body! You died!"

"What was the last thing you remember?" Rhinox asked.

"...monsters..."

Corey examined his wolf's chest and mane. There was no trace of injury any where. "He is fine now."

"Rumble wha, what are you?" I asked as our were-creature was hugged by his boy.

The creature shrugged as if to say he didn't know.

"Something that can regenerate not unlike our attackers." My bear said crossing her arms. "That is a nice trick, you will have to teach it to us some time."

"...Corey..." The were-creature said to his boy. He was growing increasingly embarrassed at the black haired teen's display of affection.

"No. I really missed you big guy." The black haired teen said hugging his wolf again.

"Do you two need some alone time?" Shakara announced.

"Welcome back Rumble." Lady Ursa said gently.

"Yes welcome back." Russell and the commander said joining in.

"We need to clear the building." The Rhino warrior said. "Rumble, Corey search this floor. Alex, Russell go to the roof and run surveillance. I assume Dawn and Corbin are watching the perimeter?"

I nodded.

"Well if anything escapes this building that does not belong here in the city have them shoot it."

"Yes Sir."

"Ursa, you are with me- we are going to search and clear the first floor."

"Commander, my lady, your injuries." Shakara protested.

"That will have to wait. Our safety and security are our first priority." My mistress said.

The defenders searched the entire building top to bottom looking for more re-spawned monsters. Fortunately there weren't any more; the seven that we did find were more than enough.

Later...

"It is hard to believe that those things came back to life madam knight." The professor said.

"The commander and I traced them back to this room where you were studying their remains after Rhinox, Rumble, Russell, Corey and myself slain them the first time they attacked us."

"So they weren't truly dead?" Dawn gasped.

"They were professor." It is jus they came back to life." I said. "And judging by the seven empty stone slabs they definitely came from this room."

"That is why they can't stay here." My bear knight said. "Going forward I recommend that these things be buried within a day or two after their demise."

"That is unless you want them to rise up again and kill us all." I added.

"Which raises another question? How many of those things can do that?" Professor Stern asked.

"I will raise you a better question why were the companies and businesses that created these things make them self resurrecting? I mean to what end?" I said to my mistress and sister's doppelgänger.

"The same reason that business you and Sir Ram found that was cloning beastials." My perfect person added.

Dawn and I looked at her.

"To transcend death." Lady Ursa said.

"I wonder what a world like that would look like? Where nothing could perish?" The professor asked.

"Let's ponder that later." I said grabbing my brown bear's paw. "Let's get you patched up."

I took my warrior bear back to the infirmary where we found a line. Shakara was busy treating and examining the other warriors in our community starting with the one that had come back to life.

"Stick out your tongue Rumble dear."

My devious person looked down the were-creatures's maw before examining his muzzle, neck, shoulders, back, torso, legs, arms and paws.

"So what was it like being dead?" The miniature horse said asking the werewolf.

"...dark..."

"It is remarkable, the areas that were singed and burnt beyond recognition have regrown tissue and muscle. You have to look very carefully to determine that it isn't original matter." She said casually grasping Rumble's penis sheath.

"...good...?"

"Beyond good. Oh, you mean your over all condition." The lioness said releasing the wolf's penis and moving down to the former lab experiment's legs.

"What she means Rumble, is that you have made an amazing recovery." I added.

After marveling after Rumble's regeneration ability, Shakara and I treated our warrior's wounds Lady Ursa had some minor bruises, scrapes and punctures. Commander Rhinox had scrapes, cuts and gashes but nothing broken this time around and Russell had bite marks where his attackers started to eat him.

Corey as well as my lioness received no injuries from being imprisoned in the floating eyeballs but she thought that the teen and she should bathe to make sure that nothing remained on their person. Shakara took it upon herself to personally bathe Corey. No doubt she was comparing the teen to myself.

Corbin, the commander and Russell started cleaning up the mess in the central building. Corbin told me that several times our little horse stopped to vomit especially after finding the head of the gargoyle.

Meanwhile Lady Ursa and I helped the professor dispose of the creatures that she was examining.

"This is the place professor?" My fierce ursine warrior asked.

"Yes. One mile south and a half mile east of our home." The archeologist responded.

It was a small clearing in the forest the snow had been shoveled. We could see where the cold ground had been dug to make a shallow grave and where something or somethings had determined that they didn't like it there and left.

"Looks like our seven weren't the only things to come back to life." I observed.

"Yes pet." My she beast said kneeling.

"Well not everything came back to life only a select few." The professor said peering into the hole.

We had to make several trips back and forth to the dispose of the professor's collection before covering up the entire hole.

"And so let's hope this ends the monster saga?" Dawn said as we made our way back to the lost city.

"Corey closed off the entrance to south maze and we will be using the new one." I said.

"Actually the one you made when you originally discovered our old - new home." Lady Ursa said as we walked back.

"This time around let's be even more discreet when we enter the outside world." I added.

"I think Corey, Corbin and Rumble have learned from their mistakes pet." My warrior bear said.

"Good. With our monster saga finally over we can now can focus on other things." Corbin's adoptive mother said.

"Such as?" I asked the two females.

"The commander has some other projects waiting in the wings he would like to pursue." My warrior bear said. "He is going to need our assistance with them."

Alex Winter February 25, YOE 34