The Birth of the New World

-Lain-

Ouch!

Not even the bear left me feeling this sore. Guess I’m not entirely immune to getting-smacked around and thrown through stuff. And here I was going and thinking I’m invincible because I could go through a tree and shrug off some bites and scratches from cats and rats. Uhh, I’m a freaking idiot…

Sluggishly, I force myself to sit up from my spot on the roof, stretching my back and popping me vertebrae and joints. Giving myself a look over, I can’t even get angry as I see myself covered in blood, dirt, and dust. My clothes are torn all over but thankfully keeping all my important bits covered.

The bottom half of my shirt is just plain gone, tearing the image on it in half and ruining the joke, and has my abdomen on full display. My pants have basically been turned into makeshift shorts, with only one pant leg still barley holding on, having been reduced to ribbons.

Besides my body feeling sore and a bit bruised, I shift my attention to my right arm. I try to move it and it responds sluggishly. It is soaked in red blood tinted black, and the flesh of my arm in shredded in places, torn and mangled by the beast’s serrated teeth. The pain radiating from it is slowly dissipating, and I watch as the skin on my arm slowly pulls itself back together.

It doesn’t go as fast as a comic book character would heal, but it is fast enough that I can see it happening.

This is so weird to watch, is it going to leave scars? And why is my blood tinted black? I don’t remember it being like that…

Feeling slowly returns to my arm and pain flashes through me as nerves are reconnected and set ablaze with warnings. The pain is slow to fade as the flesh continues to mend itself and I focus on my breathing as my body does its work. Once the pain becomes manageable enough, I flex my arm, moving it around as best as I can and testing its mobility.

I don’t think anything is broken… Actually, considering how ridiculous the rest of my body is, I wouldn’t be surprised if my bones are crazy too.

“Hey! Are you alright up there?” Someone yells.

Hmm? Oh ya… The soldiers.

“Ya, I’m good. A bit beaten up and sore, but I’ll heal.”

Shaking my head and running my fingers through my dirty hair, I force myself onto my feet and walk off the roof.

I alight next to the soldier, landing on the ground with the balls of my feet. The soldier, a massive wall of a man that dwarfs me in size, backs up a few steps as he watches.

“Uhmm, are you sure that you are ok…?

His eyes wonder down my body and settles on my still slowly healing arm.

“Ya, I’ll be fine… Oh!”

I am reminded to check some things. First moving my hand up to my horns; one whole, one still regrowing.

Good, I didn’t break the other one. Sort of sucks that I can’t really feel anything through them, but then it would hurt if they break… Probably for the best.

Confirming the condition of my horns, my hand move down to my backside, feeling at my pants. It doesn’t look like my tail hole has torn or anything.

Haaa, thank goodness, my dignity is intact. Did much better this time. I don’t mind having Sky see me naked, she’s just a cute little Kobold, but some strangers? No thank you!

“Is everything alright…?”

“Hmm? Oh, ya, ya! Everything fine. Just checking myself over. Going through walls doesn’t play nice with clothing. It isn't like on tv where people can just go through stuff and have their clothes be just fine. Would be nice if it was…”

“Right… How often are you going through walls…?” He asks, looking at me like I’m crazy.

“More often than I would like… which means at all.”

“Are you sure that you are, okay? Your arm is looking a bit mangled…”

“Ya, don’t worry about it, its healing just fine. Pains already fading. How are those two doing? The lady seems injured. And that guy is just standing there frozen. He good?”

“Don’t worry about him, he’s just a dumbass.”

We walk over to the other two and check on them while keeping an eye on me. The big guy poking the statue until he turns back into person.

“How are you guys doing? That leg ain’t looking good.” I ask.

“It doesn’t feel good. Though you don’t look much better… You mind telling us who you are and what you’re doing out here?”

“Lain, I was helping Sgt. Lenz and Rookie escape from the airport. We got to that camp in the Mexican restaurant when we heard gun shots. So, I came running…”

“You… you’re the Rookie’s Shadow aren’t you? Her stalker finally decided to show themselves, huh?” She laughs with a tired smile, holding back a wince of pain.

“Wha!? I’m not a stalker! I just didn’t want to distract you guys during your mission!”

“Plenty distracting having a Shadow keep popping up behind us…”

The big guy cuts back in, “The others are alright?”

“Huh? Ya, for the most part. Your Sergeant got a bit torn up by rats, but he’ll live. Your Rookie is watching him.” I tell them, and they wince at the mention of rats.

The guy with the glasses had at some point wandered off and started taking pictures of the now headless fluffy dragon. I decide to leave him be as he looks a bit listless.

“So, what’s your guys’ names?”

The lady points them each out, “Thomas, Sandy, and the cutey with the camera over there is Sanders.”

“Cutey?” I look at him but just shrug, “If you say so.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t think he’s cute?” She asks, looking a bit offended.

“Didn’t mean anything by it. Sorry.” I say with a shrug.

“Hmm. Sure…” She says, dropping her anger and looking rather tired.

I try to change the subject before I end up with my foot in my mouth, “Well anyways, do you guys want to get back to others? They are probably worried sick.”

“That would be for the best… Thomas can you help me up? Lain, can you go and grab Sanders for us. If we go now, we should be able to get back before dark. I’m exhausted…”

“Got it, I’ll grab your cutey for ya.” I say with a smile.

Walking over, I try stretching out my joints a bit and working out some of my soreness.

Sanders is still busy taking pictures of the dead beast and the surroundings, but he doesn’t seem entirely into it, sort of just going through the motions. Walking over to him he doesn’t even seem to notice me standing next to him.

“Hey, ground control to space man. Anyone up there?”

“Huh…” He looks down at me.

“Hi.”

He slowly blinks and his mind catches up with him.

“Ahhh!” He jumps back and fumbles with his camera while also going for his rifle.

I ignore this and point over at his teammates, “Sandy over there told me to come and get ya. We're heading back to link up with your Segreant and Rookie. Oh, and she called you a cutie. You two going out or something?” I ask with a smile.

He calms down a bit as he catches my words and realizes that I am not about to eat his liver or something.

“Right, right sorry. I lost focus for a bit there… So, we are heading back. Wait, she called me cute?”

His face gets flushed as my words sink in.

Ok, now I see it. He’s got that nerd energy going. Hard to tell with all the armor and the helmet, but he has nice curly hair and those big glasses. If he was a girl, I would probably get a crush too, nerds are cute.

Makes me want to bully him…

“Ya, she did. You didn’t answer my question though. You two dating? You’d make a cute couple.” I tell him happily, holding my hands behind my back and giving him a big smile.

He starts blushing even more, “Uhhh, you think so? Um no, we're not dating… not yet… She did just ki, kiss me though…”

“Oh! She kissed you!” Putting a bit of extra excitement into it to add some pressure, “You lucky dog, look at you! Out here catching yourself a girlfriend! I’m so jealous! You know I actually just got rejected yesterday. Maybe you can give me some advice. You must be doing something right getting yourself a cute girlfriend like her.”

He continues to look more and more flustered as I talk, apparently forgetting that he is talking with a blood covered Imp.

“Wha! Uhh, no she’s not my girlfriend… We haven’t eve…”

“Not your girlfriend!? Well, that’s no good! You like her, don’t ya? She clearly likes you. You should confess to her and fix that right now!” I take his hand and try to drag him behind me, not pulling too hard of course, I am mostly just messing with him.

“Come on, it’ll be great! Maybe she’ll give you another kiss!” I tell him, as I can feel my smile growing a bit more devilish.

He tries to resist, his face practically boiling with embarrassment, eyes swimming as he fights to figure out what to do. I can’t stop the evil smile from spreading across my face as I watch him squirm.

“Wait, wait, I can’t just… This is to fast! I don’t know what I should…”

“Don’t worry about it, you just gotta do it! Get in there and confess, you’ll do great!”

He keeps trying to resist, but eventually the other two come over to us and I hear from behind me, “Hey, will you stop picking on him!? Only I get to do that.”

I let him go and apologize to her with a smile, “Hehehe, sorry, he just seems so easy to bully. I couldn’t help myself. Hahaha.”

“Yes, he is, that’s part of why I like him so much.”

“Oh, I see! Hey, tell me what else you like about him? Surely you have lots of reasons?”

She gives me an evil smile, “Of course, I got tons of reasons to like him. For instance…”

Thomas, who is currently helping her stand, interrupts us, “You two might want to stop. If you keep this up, we are going to have to carry Sanders home in a body bag…”

We both turn to look at him and he is looking like he is contemplating his chances of survival if he were to run away into the wood to escape this conversation.

“Hmm, fine. I guess I had my fun… Oh ya, where is my hammer…?”

I look around and find it laying in the grass not too far from the fluffy dragon's corpse. Running over, I pick it up and check it over. While I was bullshitting and picking on Sanders, my arm had finished healing for the most part. Now I’m just waiting for the skin to finish closing up.

“Good, hammer still looks fine. Sky would be upset if I broke it or lost it.”

Standing next to the giant carcass, I get an idea.

“Hey Sanders! Take my picture!”

He gets knocked out of his head when he hears me call, “Oh, uhm.. Ok.”

He aims the camera at me, and I pose with my sledgehammer resting on my right shoulder and left hand up with a ‘V’ for victory.

With my picture taken, something I haven’t done in years, I run back over a tell them to follow me. I’m pretty tired after that fighting, but the three of them look like they are about to drop from exhaustion.

Moving through the neighborhood and back into the woods, we follow the trail of monster corpses and destroyed trees as our path back to camp.

As we walk, we find the occasional scavenger feeding on the bodies of fallen monsters. Some of them scatter when I get close, something I am not used to from them, while others charge towards us, only to end up with their heads smashed into pulp.

Weird, is it because I killed that fluffy dragon? Maybe not all monsters are dumbasses…

Going through the woods, we don’t talk with one another. The soldiers become much more serious and even Sanders sets aside his embarrassment as we go, to focus on staying vigilant. Upon reaching the restaurant, they visibly relax, especially when the Rookie comes running out to greet us.

Alright, part one of the escort mission is finished, now I just have to get all of them home...