AN: So, we have finally returned. My apologies for the lengthy stay away. I'll probably update this again this week since it took so long. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter.... and I do need to remind you that this is a mature story despite the goofiness... so, I won't be using spoiler tags to hide anything risque that pops up in the story. You have been warned.

Enjoy.

Chapter 15: Building a Bridge

The gaggle of gawkers were gathered in a group. Scott took a moment to make certain that everyone understood what was about to happen. “Alright, remember the plan. Harley and I will go out and kill everything in range of her sensors. We'll then make a quick safe-house for you to hide in before coming back to collect you.”

“Right, and we move from one house to the other till we get out of the suburbs,” said Tammi.

"Yes, exactly. We will probably be at it for most of the day, but it's a lot safer to do it this way," said Scott. He looked the others in the eyes one at a time. "No matter what happens, do not try to get involved in the fighting."

The group nodded to him almost in unison. With the exception of Wayne, none of the others seemed to mind the fact that they would not be fighting on this little road trip through hell.

Scott nodded to her then looked to Harley. “Ready?”

“Affirmative.” she said, before shifting into bike mode.

There were several gasps. They had seen her do it the night before, but it was still surprising.

Man and bike left the house and went out in search of death to deal. The battles were short and brutal. The ghouls on this side of the river were not in the same league as the others. Most of the stronger ones had already been dealt with, as far as Scott could tell.

The morning wore on as the ridiculous duo cut their way through several small packs of ghouls. The little family of NPCs were moved from one safe house to another. Ample rest breaks were taken. Despite the tenseness of the situation, they were never in any actual danger.

Surprisingly, the trip went well until they left the suburbs. Once they reached the main road, they were forced to cross a two mile section of road with little cover. Ghouls popped up here and there, but there was not much in the way of a safe house to deposit the followers. For the first time since their rescue the small family as a whole was forced to bear witness to the realities of bloody combat.

The blood and guts strewn about the highway mixed with the scent of decay to create the perfect opportunity for Tammi to bend over and vomit. The moment that she did so, the others began to follow suit. It was like a dam holding back a disgusting lake had burst. A roaring tidal wave of puke washed over an unsuspecting roadside.

Scott and Harley were largely immune to the effect. Mr. Badass spent the better part of the last few days buried in corpses. Harley was technically a machine.

Once the precious little family group was able to move without puking their collective guts out, the road trip continued.

“Master, there are twelve lizard men on the bridge up ahead. Average level is three,” said Harley.

Scott nodded. He had been afraid of that. The bridge was a respawn point, probably. Like the shopping arcade, monsters in similar number and level would respawn here at dawn.

“What’s wrong?” asked Tammi fearfully.

“I’m going to have to go clear the bridge again. Harley is going to stay with you and help you out if anything tries to hurt you. Alright?” said Scott.

They nodded at him. Harley said, “Understood, Master.”

Scott rubbed her handle bars lightly and her headlights dimmed. “Thank you.”

“Of course, Master,” she said in a slightly cheerful tone.

He turned toward the direction of the bridge and rotated his Kaiser blade lightly in his hand. “Right.”

He ran off toward the upcoming battle. The small family was left exposed in the road, but Harley would know if anything came their way. Scott simply needed to finish the battle as quickly as possible.

The arcane slayer rushed forward, blade at the ready. He intended to get as close to the fight as possible before the battle field kicked in and he was forced to pay more attention to his movements.

"You didn't learn your lesson?" cried Scott in a menacing voice. Who knew? They might run away. He had not seen that at all so far, but it could happen.

“Meat!” snarled a lizard man, this one had red scales for some reason. The rest were still green.

Three green lizard men raced toward him, while the red one hung back a little. As was the custom, the overly enthusiastic announcer cried out, "Mr. Badass Mid-Boss versus The Leaping Lizards of North Bridge! Fight-O!"

Scott's eyes widened when he noted the color of the battlefield. Instead of the normal red, blue, or yellow, the field surrounding the fight was black. He was in an inescapable field!

"Is it a boss fight?" asked Scott, surprised. Usually, a named monster would be mentioned.

The monsters in the field were nowhere near his level, as far as he could tell. Scott was able to go first. He quickly ran forward and began to hack and slash at his closest opponents. He split his attacks between the two closest lizardmen. When one collapsed to the ground, close to dying, the red lizard moved outside of what should have been his turn.

"Salamander Soldier Special Counter: Scorching Blaze Breath!" exclaimed the announcer.

Scott froze in place while the red lizard man took a deep breath and blew out a hot flame attack that covered a large section of the battlefield. He realized as the attack rolled out that he could not dodge or avoid the attack in any way.

The wide area attack ability would cover all possible avenues of escape. He could neither jump high enough nor move away quickly enough. The moment that he could move again, all he could do was brace himself for the assault.

The moderately well-known badass cried out in agony as his flesh began to burn. It was not until the brunt of the attack passed over him that he found relief. The back-end of the attack did not cover all areas completely. He hurled himself to the ground and rolled forward under the remainder of the attack. Scott made a concerted effort to rush the red lizard man, but his turn ended several steps short.

The salamander soldier hopped back to get some distance, and then screamed, "Please help me!" in a high-pitched tone of voice that held a strangely feminine quality.

"Salamander Soldier has called for help! Six lizard men have appeared," cried the announcer. Several loud splashes echoed through the air. Green lizard men leapt up out of the water on either side of the bridge.

“Shit!” snarled Scott. He abandoned all pre-text of fighting any other monsters. He would have to chase after the red one exclusively. The other lizard men were hardly an issue. They did not hit that hard due to his armor. The red one, could call others and breathe fire. That bastard needed to die.

The red lizard man lept up onto a wrecked car that had been turned sideways and started to jump away, but its foot pushed through the broken window. It shrieked in surprise, and then howled in pain as its turn ended.

The newly arrived lizard men could not move this round, and the only normal lizard man left in the fight were either too injured, or too far away to do much. Scott's turn soon came around once more.

Scott rushed toward his hated foe, and the leapt into the air. His blade slashed down with precisely controlled fury, and opened a large gash down the back of the monster's thigh.

The red menace took a deep breath, but released it too soon to breathe fire as the blade came down again. This time Scott cut straight to the bone and nearly tore its leg off. Its running days were over.

He continued to assault the monster with furious strikes, but his turn ended before he could finish the beast. The red lizard crawled away from Scott as best it could, and stopped just short of four of its brethren.

Another scream for help went out, "Please! He's killing me!"

"Salamander Soldier has called for help!" exclaimed the announcer. A tense few seconds passed before he quietly said, "... No one came."

The other lizard men made their moves. None of them were close enough to reach him this turn, but they did block his passage by taking up guard positions around their fallen comrade. Even if they were able to reach him on that turn, Scott would not be concerned. At their obvious level, they were more of a nuisance than anything else. A few days ago they would have each been a deadly threat. Today, they were a distraction.

It took several strong hits to bring one of them down through physical attacks alone, much like his battles with ghouls on his first day of fighting back. However, their attacks barely did anything to him.

Once his turn came again, Scott ran into the thickest concentration of lizard men. He decided to speed up the process of slaughtering them by drawing upon his lightning strike ability. As creatures who lived in the water, they should be weak to electrical attacks. His attack power increased and electricity raced along his blade.

He cleaved into the closest of the beasts, the poor bastard never had a chance to even try and dodge. They were cramped together in a bid to protect their red leader. During the battle, Scott used lightning strike several times, but in doing so, he was maneuvered around until his back faced the red beast.

The announcer cried out about a counter attack, and a gout of flame blasted against Scott's back. He instinctively whipped his blade around and finished tearing the red lizard man’s leg off. It screamed in pain and clutched at the stump.

Scott's turn ended, and the red lizard immediately screamed, "Please come! This monster will kill us all!" Tears poured from its eyes, even as blood poured from its severed leg.

The announcer, announced the call for help and several lizard men appeared nearby. The red beast crawled over to them and continued to sob behind the negligible protection of its brothers.

The battle continued from there, lizard men joined the battle whenever the red bastard cried, and Scott attacked it whenever he got the chance. Any other time he would have loved to bully the thing into crying for help all day long, free experienced and possible loot were nice. However, he needed to get his group back to the house before it got dark.

A crocodile head went flying as his blade blasted through a scaly neck. Scott reversed his weapon by instinct and slammed the bottom of the handle at a rising diagonal angle to crush the chest of a lizard man that lept toward him previously, but froze in mid-air due to the oddities of game mechanic paralysis.

He followed it up by a hard whirling motion that caused him to spin around in one complete rotation. It could have easily been stopped if the lizard men had higher defense, or were at a level where their agility and evasion would overcome his stats. Just a few levels higher, that's all they would have needed to be.

The red lizard man cried out for help in its terrified and strangely feminine voice once more. However, this time what came was something entirely unexpected.

The lizard men screamed in panic and ran back a few paces, signaling that something had come that broke the logic of one fighter moving at a time. That could only mean one thing as far as Scott was concerned. A new game event had started.

A loud feminine voice called out. “What’s all this crying about?”

Scott looked toward the newcomer since he could move as well. His eyes widened in surprise. The vision that had risen from the deep was that of a nude, and overly busty, lizard woman. Unlike the others, however, she looked surprisingly human. If not for the tail, claws, and other oddities she might have passed for human.

He stood on the back of the wrecked pick-up truck that he currently used as an attacking point, and sighed. “Dammit, really?”

“Are you the one bullying my cute little subordinates?” asked the new arrival. Her skin was a coppery-golden hue and sparkled in the light. She had small horns that rose from her skull, a tiny set of fangs, and a tail like a crocodile. Behind her ears, Scott could see a frill that was multicolor like a rainbow.

“They set me on fire and tried to eat me,” said Scott in a dead pan manner.

She cocked her hip to the side and placed a hand upon it. The other hand rose up to cradle her chin. “Really?”

The red lizard man waved his hands back and forth and cried out. “No! He attacked us first!”

“You attacked me yesterday,” pointed out Scott.

The new arrival gasped loudly then placed both hands to her hips. She leaned forward in a manner that was entirely too distracting, before she pouted at him. “Racism! Racism right here on this bridge!”

“Wha—?” asked Scott in confusion. Why was this overly busty handbag going on about racism?

“We didn’t control this bridge yesterday! We found it empty last night and claimed it for our clan!”

“Oh? So, you’re saying different lizard men had it before?” asked Scott.

“Yeah, and we don’t all look alike you know,” she said with a feminine huff.

“Well, you certainly look different,” said Scott. A blind man could see that much.

“Oh? Do I?” she asked curiously. She took a moment to run her hands down her sides like she was smoothing out her non-existent clothing.

“You’re sparkly,” said Scott with more levity than he felt. She was positioned outside his range, so he could not attack before the battle began again. Given the way her cute subordinates had acted, she had to be pretty tough. If she was only a little stronger than the red one, the fight could end up going an entirely different direction for him. He was not up for another boss battle, yet.

She chuckled softly then lashed her tail lazily like a crocodile moving through a river on a warm sunny day. “True. I suppose you humans look alike mostly as well.”

Scott nodded. There was an awkward pause after that.

“So… What now, human?” asked the lizard woman.

“I need to take people across this bridge. The river is a little dangerous for my people,” said Scott.

She rubbed her chin. “You come to my home, bully my subordinates, and then tell me that you want to cross my bridge?”

“Pretty much,” said Scott. She was the only real threat here. The rest of the lizard men were too low in level to do much, even the red guy.

“So aggressive.” She narrowed her eyes and granted him a predatory smile. “Say, would you like to mate with me?”

Scott blinked. He blinked hard. Had he just heard that? “What?”

“Aren’t I pretty enough for you?” She turned around and bent over before reaching back to pull her tail upward. “I'm certain that we are physically compatible, and we would have strong babies. I bet they would all be at least red lizard men, if not blue!”

The lizard men who had gathered round began to babble energetically. They seemed to be quite excited about the idea of their boss getting plowed by some random guy who'd killed several of their friends. What kind of people were they?

“I really don’t know you like that…” said Scott.

“What do you mean? Do you need to know something about me to mate with me?” she asked, confusion in her voice. She turned back toward him before he answered.

“Sorry, the last girl who openly admitted that she wanted me inside of her tried to drown me to prove her love.” said Scott, more as a way to side-step the issue than to continue the conversation.

The lizard queen, or whatever she was, laughed a little. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. She keeps singing about it,” said Scott.

“Singing… Wait! Is your name Scott?” she asked, mischief in her eyes.

“Uh, yeah…” he said slowly. How had she known? This conversation was becoming stranger by the moment.

She laughed so hard that she started to snort. “No way! I mean, I get it, but damn.”

“Am I missing something?” asked Scott.

“The mermaid queen in this area, all she does is sit around and crush on some guy. She’s hopeless.”

Scott had a sinking feeling. “She’s some sort of queen, or something?”

“Well, there’s only like five mermaids that I’ve ever seen in the river. She’s their leader, but all she’s done for the last two days is sing about the one who got away.”

“Man, now I feel bad. If she didn’t try to drown and eat me, I’d apologize,” said Scott. This was a strange conversation, but what had not been strange of late?

“Well, that’s nice of you,” she said lightly. Her eyes narrowed slightly and she canted her hips to the side. “Would you apologize if you broke my heart?”

“You seem nice enough. I’d hate to hurt your feelings, even if I might have to bully you a little.” It was true enough. He had to move this along. Either they were going to fight, or do whatever, but his people couldn’t stay on the road forever.

She tilted her head to the side. “You want to bully me a little?”

“I have to get my people across the bridge. They’re exposed on the road,” he said

“True enough. The ghouls don’t like to chat. Tell you what. You pay a toll to use our bridge whenever you need to cross. Only you, or people with you can cross, though. Alright?”

“Sounds fine. What’s the toll?” he asked.

She turned around and presented her backside to him once more, before she looked back over her shoulder. “Bully me a little?”

A chorus of lusty cheers rose up from the gathered lizard men. Scott sighed loudly. Somehow, he knew it would turn out this way. It was like every reasonably attractive monster girl in town wanted to have his babies.

“Fine, whatever. Can I take my people across first, so they can get home?” asked Scott.

She eyed him critically for a moment. “Well, alright, but you better bully me properly, or I’ll be mad.”

“I’ll come back,” said Scott. One way or another, he had to return. Either he would keep his promise, or there would be a lot of new boots going back to the house. Things could not be left to swing loose in the wind, however.

“Good! I look forward to it,” she said with a smile. “Minions! Withdraw.”

The green lizard folk dove over the side of the bridge, but the red one could not move properly. Scott felt a little bad for the thing despite how it had tried to fry him. “Hey, do restorative potions work on your people?”

“Restoratives?" asked the lizard queen.

“You know, put a bloodstone gem in a little water and drink what you get from that?” he asked.

“Oh! Yes. We don’t have any, though. We ran out yesterday,” she said.

Scott took out his bottle of restorative and tossed it toward the weakly moving lizard man. “I don’t know if that’ll do much when you’re missing a leg, but you’re welcome to it.”

The red lizard man said, “For me…?” and looked at him with eyes that seemed surprisingly innocent for a crocodile headed monster man.

“Sure, sorry about the misunderstanding.” said Scott.

Tears came to his crocodilian eyes. “Oh, I don’t know what to say.”

“Just drink it, girl. It’s only a leg. It’ll grow back in a week,” said the lizard queen.

He, rather she, stopped babbling and downed the whole bottle. Her horrible leg wound healed over and the stump stopped bleeding.

Scott blinked. “Damn, that was fast.”

It took him a brief moment to realize the other thing that he should have noted from the conversation. He was a she! He tilted his head to the side as the retreating lizard girl hobbled away. She lowered her crocodilian eyelids briefly, and then tilted her head down and to the side.

The scales beneath her eyes darkened slightly. “Thank you for your kindness,” she said before she threw herself over the rail. A splashing sound signaled her return to the water down below.

“Lizard folk have great natural regeneration. Restoratives like that only accelerate natural healing, so it’s to be expected,” she told him.

The lizard queen snorted then shook her head. “She’s a good kid, a little young to be on the surface, but what can we do. That poor flighty girl is the only salamander soldier that we have. She needs experience.”

“Why not go hunt ghouls? That fire breath would roast a whole horde of them,” said Scott.

“We do, but… they don’t usually come close to the water, and my young ones are a little shy about going too far away from it. The girls of my people usually are, and we're all girls here.”

Scott nodded. “I understand. I have people back home who need to increase their level, but they’re a little afraid to be out.”

“Yeah, but what can you do? They have to learn some time.” She shrugged impressively then sat down on the tailgate of a nearby truck. “This world is vast, and new to us. We need to expand unless we want to die out.”

“So, your people aren’t originally from here?” asked Scott. He had certainly assumed that much, but what did he really know?

She shook her head. “No. Our original home is an overcrowded swamp. We were tired of never being allowed to hunt for proper mates, and always being under the foot of the bigger clans"

“Sorry to hear that things were tough for your people. Things were pretty nice here, until well…”

“Yeah, if saying I’m sorry would change that I would say it." She eyed him thoughtfully. "I didn't cause all of this to happen. It won’t change a thing to apologize for something I took advantage of when given an opportunity to help my people. So, screw it."

"We’re here, now. We need to live somehow. So, we fight,” said the lizard queen.

“I can’t fault you for that, but you’ll have to forgive me if my people feel the same,” said Scott.

She smiled warmly. “I wish you well unless you attack my people again.”

“Same to you,” said Scott.

She nodded. “I don’t expect you to come back, you know. That was just for my clan to hear.”

Scott looked toward where the group he was escorting waited. “I said I would.”

She chuckled softly then made a great show of stretching her limbs. “You’re sweet. I can see why she won’t shut up about you.”

“Who… Oh, the mermaid?” asked Scott.

“Yes, of course,” she said.

Scott looked at her for a moment. “Do you really want me to bully you?”

She granted him a sweet, if somewhat predatory, smile. “Queenly duties. I need to mate with the strongest I can find, for the good of my tribe.”

“I’m not sure that I’m ready to be a father,” said Scott.

She blinked then threw her head back and laughed. She even slapped her thigh and shook her head while she did it.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“You can’t actually get me pregnant. We aren’t even the same species.” She laughed once more. It was the sort of laugh that many would consider genuine and warm.

“What was all that red and blue lizard man talk then?” asked Scott.

She laughed a little more. “Sorry. I’ll just absorb your spiritual energy, a bit of your mana. During the next full moon I’ll spontaneously give birth, you know like some lizards do? Your essence will make my babies stronger, but you won’t be a daddy.”

“Oh,” he said softly.

She blinked. “You almost sound sad to hear that.”

“Dunno, maybe a little,” said Scott. He was more than a little confused by his own feelings on the matter. On the one hand, he was not ready to a lizard daddy. On the other hand, it would have been interesting.

Her face darkened slightly and her nostrils flared a little. “That’s probably the sweetest thing that I’ve heard in a while. Thank you.”

Scott shrugged. “Not trying to be sweet. You’re just the first non-human I’ve met who has actually chatted with me without trying to drag me off or drown me for love.”

He thought better of it after a moment as the image of a certain undead music sensation reared her beautiful head.

"Well, almost the only one..."

“Well, you’re my first human,” she said before brushing her hair back behind her left ear and frill. “I’m a little surprised that you’re willing to bully me.”

He blinked, and then looked at her with an incredulous expression. “Have you not seen yourself before? I’m sure a lot of guys would love to bully you.”

She smiled brightly. “Really? You think so?”

“Sure,” He nodded.

She placed a finger to her lip. “I think I might like it if you cross my bridge a few times a week.”

“I might need to go on a road trip now and then,” said Scott.

“Don’t tease me.”

“You might like it.”

She laughed. “You’re dangerous! Go! Take your people across my bridge and come back to me.”

“It’s nice to do things together. Isn’t it?” he asked playfully.

She laughed again then shook her head. “Yeah, I’m in trouble.” She rolled backward over the side of the bridge then splashed down in the water. Just like that, the lizard queen had returned to her watery demesne.

Scott glanced down at the corpses of the lizard men that he had killed. He was conflicted by what he saw. On the one hand, he had been certain they were enemies. On the other, they had not really done anything to him until his attack.

“Damn.” He turned and walked away from the carnage. He had to finish up his current task, but life had just become more complicated. If every monster that he met was not automatically an enemy, how the hell was he supposed to act?

After he returned to the group, he led them across the bridge. Several sets of eyes stared at the dead lizard men as they walked past them.

True to her word, the lizard queen and her girls did not attack them. Scott led them to Rosa’s house. Frank, Rosa, and a few other people were at the gate by the time that they arrived.

“You made it back, man,” said Frank.

Rosa granted him a brief smile then nodded at Harley. “Welcome back.”

“Yeah, we made it. How did everything go here?”

“It was a little active last night. Giant rats kept popping up because of the corpses, but they didn’t get inside.”

“We should probably use one of those crystals tonight then to make sure random monsters don’t just roam around near here,” said Scott.

“Sounds good. Any word from the other group in town?”

“No, nothing.” Frank glanced over to Tammi then back to Scott. “You gonna go tell Daniel?”

“Tomorrow if we don’t hear from them. I have to go pay a toll for crossing the bridge, and go hunting with Rosa later.”

Rosa made a coughing noise then reached up and grip a lock of her hair before looking away. Scott smiled at her briefly.

“Who are you paying?” asked Frank.

“I made a deal with the leader of the lizard men who took over the bridge last night. We can cross freely, but only if it’s me or people are with me. I have to pay a toll each time, though.”

“Wait, wait, wait-a-minute! You actually talked to monsters?”

“Yeah. I've done that a few times. You do know some of them talk, right? Like the goblins.”

“I know that, but… can we trust… I mean, damn, man.” This was a bit of mind-blowing news as far as Frank was concerned.

“It’s fine. I trust them about as far as I can trust anyone in this world whom I just met,” said Scott. “Besides that, they kept their part of the deal so far and let Daniel’s family across.”

They reached the door to the house and everyone went in except for Frank, Scott, and Harley before Frank asked what the toll was once more. Scott sighed. “Well…” He explained the situation to Frank and the man’s eyes widened in surprise.

“You kidding? You really gonna do it?”

“They live right next to us, and we need access to that bridge. The lizard queen was actually a fairly nice person.”

“Yeah, what about the other ones?” asked Frank.

“Even after I killed off some of her friends, and chopped off her leg, the red lizard thanked me for my kindness. I get the feeling that they aren’t used to anyone outside of their clan treating them nicely, except maybe the mermaids.” said Scott.

“You talk like they didn’t just pop into existence the other day,” said Frank.

“From what I can tell, they came from somewhere else. They didn't cause all of this to happen, but they took advantage of a chance to have a better life in the aftermath of the change.”

“You trust that?” asked Frank.

Scott shrugged. “Won’t ever learn anything if we don’t try.”

"I don't know, man..." Frank frowned slightly then looked over to the main gate. "It's weird."

"I get that," said Scott. He turned and pointed toward the gate. "Out there, the world is filled with weird. Do you ever want to see a day where you can take a walk outside without having a life or death battle?"

"Yeah." Frank took a deep breath and nodded.

Scott took a deep breath as well then slowly released it. "As much as the others might hate the situation, the reality is that we're like hugely outnumbered."

"I know that, but..." began Frank.

"What if, Frank?" asked Scott.

"What if?" asked Frank, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"Yeah, man. What if?" Scott looked him in the eyes. "What if the monsters out there don't all have to be our enemies? Can you imagine how much better off we would be if we could make allies?"

"Fuck..." Frank blew out the breath he had just taken. "I'm not saying that the idea isn't good. It... Will it work, though?"

Scott reached out to then man and put his hand on his shoulder. "We gotta try to trust at least once, so we'll know. Why not try to build that trust with a bridge?"

Frank muttered briefly then nodded. "If you think there's a chance to make shit better, and you're the one taking the real risk... I won't try to talk against it."

After the matter was settled, Scott went inside and changed his clothes. His armor and accessories would remain safely locked up here, but he would take his Kaiser blade with him. The reasoning behind his choice was simple. If it was a trap, it probably would not be sprung until he was not wearing his equipment anyway. If he died, someone else could use it. Either way, he had to start trying to lay the foundation of trust somewhere.