Jessica looked about the forest under the rising daylight and chill air.

They had decided to go out to get breakfast, Jessica sighed, this would be much easier at home.

Grab the car, place an order, then pick up, instead they had to go through all the trouble of hunting something that was most likely disgusting to eat.

Eian and Alex had disposed of the remaining wolf carcasses as they had attracted flies, they only kept the two already skinned foul-smelling pelts.

Sarah stated she didn't even trust the cooked meat, which to Jessica seemed reasonable as it smelled funny to begin with.

Jessica noticed Eian had left some sort of discarded horn on the floor.

'Did he forget it? What is it?' Jessica shrugged, it was probably just a useless piece of bone anyways.

Jessica looked over at Sarah, making well sure to stay clear of the barbaric high-horsed bitch.

How dare she try to electrocute her?

While true that she had gotten closer, she wasn't some feral-frothing-beast whom would have physically assaulted her.

Alex had gotten in front of her and for a moment she had been equally scared for his safety.

Eian's actions told Jessica that clearly he was fine with it, he just stood there and let things unfold, not a word in protest.

He also obviously enjoyed bullying Alex, why couldn't he just tell him what he did wrong, wasn't that how soldiers learnt?

She'd never heard of soldiers returning home injured and beaten.

Still she wasn't stupid, despite their faults, Alex and herself were much safer with them than alone.

Surprisingly they ran into a herd of huge deer, which fled at the sight of them.

Sarah electrocuted one, Eian killed it and both boys dragged it back to base.

After a quick meal, they decided to move to the city to train their abilities and get stronger.

The insufferable bitch also repeated she needed to practice her powers.

While true it irked her to have to hear it from her constantly, as if she forgot each time.

'Maybe I should start calling her 'it', since that seems to suit 'it' better.' Jessica smiled at the thought, it felt good to smile again.

Surprisingly nothing attacked them from the forest to the gates of the abandoned city.

It gave Jessica chills remembering that monster in the house Sarah fried.

She hoped they all slept inside the houses.

Pulling on Alex's hand for his attention she addressed the group.

"I think we should be quiet in the city." Jessica's voice was the lowest audible whisper, even as her eyes darted at the newly guarded gate.

Sarah looked at her, contempt written all over her, Jessica hoped she got wrinkles from it, ugly noticeable wrinkles.

"Why? The vampires?" Sarah's eyes narrowed, then she stared at the sky.

"Yeah. Makes sense, there could be day-walkers, or something else there as well. Maybe giant skeletons too remember?" Eian looked at the gate before nodding.

Alex gave her a brief thumbs up, before they continued.

The old broken skeletons were missing, in place another stack of skeletons guarded the gate.

Twenty well armed, no pun intended, guard-skeletons, two knight skeletons at the center, and three mage skeletons whom were strangely on the right flank.

Apparently they felt the need to upgrade their security a bit, the previous bunch had been a pitiful bunch.

Jessica felt a lot more confident now, she was sure everyone else did as well, especially Alex since his bolts would harm these monsters.

Still they were far more skilled now, even though it had only been two days since leaving.

'Huh. For sure it felt like a lot more.' Jessica froze at the brief wonder of how time seemed to crawl by ever since she got to this new world.

"We should use the same strategy as before. Only this time I'll use lightning, I want to see if it affects the undead through their armor." Sarah surprised Jessica by summoning four lightning-bolts.

Jessica frowned and almost commented out of spite, but she reigned it in.

It had worked last time, so it should work this time.

Then an inspired thought struck her.

"The guards are more well-equipped this time. It could mean the patrols could be more dangerous and numerous." Jessica tucked a loose strand of hair inside her helmet, then stared at the monsters.

Everyone turned to stare at her, even Alex was probably bewildered under his helmet, the thought dampened her mood a bit.

"That's a risk we'll have to take. At least here we'll see most of them coming. In the forest things can catch us by surprise." Sarah frowned at her, she was obviously vexed Jessica said something.

"Yeah, lots a crazy shit out here." Eian visibly took a quick look behind them.

The group stopped for a moment, Jessica continued her line of thought.

"Do you really think it's a good idea to go in though? They could be expecting us." Jessica looked around, she played with her hair.

"We've been over this. We have to get home." Sarah rolled her eyes.

Alex turned to face Sarah.

"I think you should listen to other people sometimes." Alex's voice was stern, even under his helmet, you could hear his disapproval.

Sarah snorted, then looked away, but didn't answer.

Alex then turned to look at Eian.

"Eian man. I think it's a reasonable concern. Let's at least be careful, please man." Alex stood looking at Eian.

"No prob, I don't want to die either. We really need to get stronger though, I want to get home, my mom's probably close to a heart-attack by now." Eian gave a curt nod, but was visibly eager to get moving.

"Roger." Alex nodded.

Jessica breathed a sigh of relief, at least Eian wasn't as snobbish as Sarah.

She did want to go into the city, but she felt she needed to start speaking her mind a bit more.

She always felt like a pariah, only Alex treated her like a person most of the time.

She perhaps had to re-evaluate Eian, maybe they just got off to a bad start, it wouldn't hurt to at least be cordial to him.

"Can we start now?" Sarah was visibly waiting.

"Yeah." Alex nodded and turned to face the horde.

Sarah begun by launching all her four lightning bolt's at the mages, the horde began their slow approach.

Only two struck mages, it visibly injured them as they blew apart and fell in unbroken, but newly dead, pieces.

The two hit guards, which also fell to the ground, but only partially fell apart.

Alex shot his two life bolts shortly after at the injured guards, which finished them off.

Eian attempted to deflect a death bolt from the final mage by batting it like a baseball, it partially succeeded.

The death-bolt splattered and pieces struck him, he grunted and took a step back.

"Fuck! This shit stings! Alex a little help please?" Even then Eian kept a defensive stance, sword crossed and ready.

Jessica watched as Alex poured life energy into Eian, whom quickly gave thanks.

Right now she still felt a bit useless, but she had no ranged attacks, so she stayed behind.

From this point she had a clear view of the ongoing fight.

"Need another shield." Eian mumbled.

Alex was sending life-bolts constantly, even as the group retreated slowly.

Sarah was as well, in total Alex got four more guards, while Sarah got the mage and two guards.

Alex's attacks seemed to cause more damage to the monsters, while Sarah's took almost two to down.

Eian was visibly waiting for the monsters to dwindle, Jessica still felt anxious, there were still twelve regular skeletons and two knights.

Suddenly something changed, Jessica heard several howls and paws surging towards them.

A gang of four monsters gushed out from the gate, for an instant her eyes widened dramatically at the sight.

'Werewolves....' Jessica almost stumbled backwards in fright.

"SHIT!" Eian intercepted the first two in a blur of motion.

Howls and flesh parting were easily discernible and Jessica's heart sped to an unprecedented degree.

Of the first two only dead flesh remained scattered on the floor, it had distracted her for an instant, luckily Eian had killed those two.

The third werewolf was already charging at her and last minute she got herself in order, impaling it's skull on the point of her sword.

A surge of heat later, Jessica realized Sarah had fried the last werewolf.

Her heart was still beating as the rest continued battling the incoming skeletons.

'The first vision.' Jessica's eyes darted about scanning the forest.

The werewolves reminded her of her first vision, could it be about to occur?

Her heart was hammering withing her chest, her gut told her to abandon reason and flee.

Still she couldn't say anything right now, Alex and Sarah already knew about that vision, so perhaps they would remember.

Right after the fight ended, she'd be sure to tell them again.

For now survival came first, she firmed herself and nodded.

The amalgam of skeletons had become what Eian visibly estimated a reasonable amount.

He charged forward beheading one in a blur, chopping off the lower part of another one's leg, then shoulder-tackling one to the ground, all in one impressive display.

He weaved back and forth, as the skeletons stumbled stupidly over themselves to get at him.

Jessica's eyes bulged, when did he learn to do that?

All the while Eian was proving an impressive distraction to all the skeletons.

Steeling her fear and reminding herself of her armor she took a step forward and aimed at a straggling spear-wielding skeleton to the far left.

In her experience, shielded skeletons were a lot harder to kill, she let Eian handle those.

This particular spear-wielder was facing Eian, so it didn't even see the sword that stabbed the side of it's vulnerable neck.

She chose her next target similarly, a spear wielder, it lunged at her, but it was too obvious she dodged easily and stabbed it straight in the face, between the medium helmet.

Then a shield-sword skeleton approached and she was busy evading it's lunges.

With a good timing, she stabbed this one in the helmet too.

'Huh. This is a lot easier than I remember.' Jessica knit her brows for a second, then smiled, that was a good thing she supposed.

She couldn't be so sure, but these skeletons seemed much more clumsier than the last ones.

A life-bolt breezed by her and impacted a skeleton a bit ahead of her.

Soon with ranged-support the last skeletons remaining were her final skeleton opponent and the two knights.

Eian was engaging both knights and she quickly ended the last skeleton.

Eian easily disarmed one and tackled it to the floor, he put full attention to the final one.

Jessica saw as Alex approach the knight on the floor, she saw as he wrestled with it on the floor.

She got closer, he didn't want him to get hurt, though the monster held no visible weapons.

Soon he pried the helmet off and motioned at her.

"Jess kill this one." Alex held it down with some effort.

Jessica nodded, she had very little kills, she obliged him and quickly killed it.

A quick look verified Eian had already killed his opponent, apparently having caved in it's head.

"Gear up." Sarah commanded, eliciting a frown from her.

"Finally got another chest plate." Eian's voice sounded excited and she could hear the smile in his voice.

She and Alex ignored 'it's' words, but still they needed the equipment.

She took a winged long-spear on the floor, she could almost hug it to her chest, even her eyes felt like they would cry from sheer joy.

Alex, Eian and Sarah could keep their swords, this beautiful pole-arm was her weapon of choice, it even had a wonderful strap on it.

Feeling only slightly ridiculous she strapped two to her back and held one on her right hand, a big smile plastered on her face.

Turning to look, Alex had replaced his nicked, dented armor for a 'newer' set.

He strapped a great-sword to his back and two extra long-swords to his waist.

He looked like a tall knight from a historical documentary, that brought a smile to her face too.

Eian had similarly copied her idea, but he strapped three, not two, spear axes to his waist.

He had a brand new great-sword on his back, his last one was chipped and drew a long-sword from a fallen opponent.

Apparently no more spear-axes were about, he also held a shield and had wholly replaced his banged and dented armor, at least what had remained of it.

"We should take a few of these to the base, before we leave of course." Eian was scanning the discarded weapons.

"Yeah, we were running a bit short." Alex nodded.

Jessica felt a lot less embarrassed now.

She looked over the dead mages, though they wore nothing but tattered robes.

Seeing nothing else of value, she decided to talk again.

"Lex." Jessica neared him.

"Yeah? Sup babe?" Alex's visor turned to look at her.

Jessica opened her mouth to respond when frenzied howls emerged from within the city.

Jessica jumped in fright and turned to look at the gates.

A large pack of werewolves had emerged, twenty at least, her heart stopped.

Everyone swore obscenities, Eian especially said some foul things about their mothers.

Alex got close to her and she bared her spear upwards, positioning it defensively.

She saw as the monsters raced towards her and in that moment she tried to use the combat application of her power. Focusing something in her head clicked, she saw several shadowy images emerge outward from everyone, like an extra blurred-layer a top reality.

Most blurs from the werewolfs leapt at them.

She saw something strange on a few images at the far back, as if the ground erupted beneath them violently sending them upwards.

Suddenly she saw it play out real-time, Eian stomped the ground, several enemies were blown away and went flying everywhere, not dead but clearly in pain and incapacitated.

She even saw everyone's respective image moving, a moment later everyone's physical body played out exactly what she was seeing their images do, it felt uncanny and reminded her of a video loop.

Somehow this part of her power took into consideration her own movements as well, because when her body physically acted nothing adapted to her.

They just kept moving the same way and let her play her movement the way she wanted.

'Huh, I guess I can kill these things easier now.' Jessica smirked, as she looked for the ideal targets for her to attack.

She saw three lead wolves lunge at her, she sidestepped and let the first impale its skull, the other two landed near her.

Staggered, she withdrew backwards heart pounding, she swung wildly defensively, she could see the monsters keeping a small distance.

Suddenly she saw the image of the left lunge, she aimed it's skull and saw it impale itself a short while later.

Suddenly she felt the last werewolf collide unto her from the right, staggering her.

Before it could jump her, she sidestepped and then Alex was in front of her wrestling two a top himself.

He had somehow tackled her last wolf, even so.

Jessica felt shearing heat, the type she typically gave to the violent intense stream of Sarah's flames.

Once she regained her footing, she stabbed the one Alex had shoved off her and focused on helping him.

The way she saw it, the armor would protect him, but if he was on the floor he wasn't killing any more of these.

Inside though she really would just rather help him, who wouldn't after-all?

Three quick dead wolves later, she saw Eian surrounded, somehow he dodged the ones leaping from behind.

Blowing off arms, legs and heads, sometimes he even stopped their leaps midway with his shield.

At least ten partially burning werewolves were rolling about in pain, Sarah was now paralyzing any more that neared to seek out their deaths.

Alex went to aid Eian, whom was surrounded by torn limbs and dead or dying wolves.

Jessica begun killing several partially lit wolves, several were already dead, but others were just rolling about and close to putting out the fire.

She killed three more easily and then took stock of the battle.

The battle was over, Jessica let her mind rest, the images stopped and she stood in the aftermath of the two battles.

It was impossible to count how many there were, especially with Eian having dismembered so many werewolves.

Clearly there were more than twenty though, still Jessica wasn't about to stay here, where it was dangerous.

"I saw these things before! We should leave now!" Jessica looked at everyone, she was remembering the first vision she had felt, many more wolf-people than this.

Sarah obviously disagreed by the look in her face.

"Who cares if there are more werewolves? We killed them easily enough." Sarah shrugged and waved at the corpses of over twenty werewolves.

"These aren't like skeletons, nor this small group! I saw a lot more of those than this!" Jessica frowned and pointed at the werewolves as well.

Many more howls emitted from the city and Jessica's eyes widened, those sounded a lot more this group of enemies.

That wasn't a bad omen, it was almost a death-sentence, the choice was definitely made though.

Clearly even Sarah agreed.

"Fine! Let's go!" Sarah turned and ran.

If not for the circumstances Jessica would have rolled her eyes at 'it'.

Acting like it was 'its' own idea.