ACROSS THE COUNTRY

Kelly Hart released a heavy sigh of relief and stared back across the horizon at the once magnificent city that now burned. The city she used to call home. The only place on the planet for someone like her to make it big, or so she thought. And at times a nightmare. But she wanted to be a famous designer and this was supposedly the place you go to do that. So, when she turned 18, she left small-town Montana to pursue her dreams in New York City. Now that city was pretty much on fire in the distance behind her.

Oh, it all started pretty well. New Yorkers woke the morning the System initialized to find that the entire island was designated a Megalopolis. The problem is that no one with any sanity was nearby to claim ownership. For a week all the various factions political, gang, mob, and otherwise fought in and around City Hall. While no one held ownership of the city core the automatic defenses that rose, courtesy of the system, failed to function.

This of course allowed the System mutated creatures and monsters to easily run rampant and unhindered throughout the crowded city. And considering the size of the city the System ratcheted up the difficulty of the base monsters, as well as their numbers. There was no monster in the beginning below level ten. And the average was well over fifteen. And as far as the numbers go, they seemed like legion. With the local authorities, the official authorities, that is, tied up trying to defend the city core from being seized by one gang or mob faction or another, the general population were left to their own survival.

Kelly remembered the second day, when people began going out of their apartments and investigating the large portals that sprung up in all the parks. When the aliens appeared, people ran. Then other people showed up and started killing them. The worst part was that they didn’t fight back initially, they tried to talk. They tried to surrender, and the people that greeted them killed them. Murdered is a better description.

Then the aliens fought back. Kelly shuddered at the ferocity they displayed. She soon found out that they were fighting for their very existence, that they had failed to manage their planets properly and were on their last legs. She wouldn’t have found this out if she hadn’t gotten personally involved. She wasn’t one to get involved in others' problems. Though as she looked back at the group that followed her out of the city, she was suddenly glad she had done so this time.

“You look troubled, Mistress Kelly.” Tae’ long, a female wolverine analog with six arms came up to her as she stared at the city she had once called home. The place where she had planted her dreams, and ultimately failed.

She looked into Tae’ long’s eyes and remembered the day they had met. It was a few days after the Refugees began fighting back. A local gang had decided they were monsters, even though they had formally requested refuge. Everyone was scared and just as a certain psychologist had predicted, everyone basically ‘tribed’ up. It was during one such clash between Tae’s people and the aforementioned local gang when fate would intervene in their lives.

The Wolverines and the local gang had been fighting for about three days when Tae stumbled into the lobby of her apartment seeking to escape some men that had been pursuing her. She wasn’t fighting them because she had been shepherding the entirety of her people's children. They were attempting a fighting retreat to one of the bridges that cut across the Hudson and was still standing and lightly protected.

Humans had made it pretty clear the alien refugees were not welcome and they were doing everything they could to remove them from the islands. Kelly, who lived by herself in a single room studio, had been avoiding the gangs and other threats when she walked down stairs to find the strange woman shushing a couple dozen children and trying to find them a hiding place. The two women froze when they saw each other in the dimly lit lobby.

Tae began to inch backwards and crouch into a defensive stance in front of the children. Kelly looked at the six-armed refugee in fear and curiosity, then she saw how small the young ones were and her heart broke. “Come on, you can hide in my place.” She remembered saying and then led the hesitant alien woman upstairs into her too tiny apartment, trailed by the horde of tiny children.

“Just, people suck.” She finally responded, breaking from her reverie as they slipped into the woods of New Jersey and retreated from the still burning city behind them. A city of nearly 19 million people reduced to around 250,000. All divided into warring tribes. A month and a half later and the System titled War for the Core has yet to find a victor.

In that time, beyond the hordes of monsters, A Kraken rose out of the bay and strangled the Statue of Liberty. King Kong, yes, the System created a creature and named it King Kong, and it climbed to the top of the Empire State building and took up residence. No one had removed him yet. He wasn’t actually a giant gorilla, but the name was rather apt for the circumstance. Something from underground that she didn’t get to see collapsed the new World Trade Center tower and everything for several blocks around it. At least a million people died instantly and the area became a haven of undead. Fortunately, they didn’t need to pass that area on their way out of the city.

Tae chuckled in the wispy way her people did and cracked a smile that revealed all too sharp teeth, “Indeed. They do. But it’s good to know you and your friends are not all people. How far is this place you call home? This... Montana?”

Kelly looked back at the gathering of Tae’s people behind her and grimaced, “A couple thousand miles? We need transportation if we want to make it in any decent time.”

Tae’ long looked at her human friend and considered her next words. She knew the woman wanted to check on her family in Montana, though they knew nothing of the place. No word had come in before the local networks were subsumed by the System and outside connections became dependent on having access to a proper City Core. They managed to tap into a smaller network as they were passing through the remnants of Newark, one of the smaller communities had managed to stabilize their leadership and they weren’t as quick on the trigger as those living on the Long Island where they had emerged. They still looked at them with a wary eye, though apparently knew them for what they were. Which is where she saw the first reports of one of the few significant leaders on this continent that wasn’t turning away refugees, but actually embracing them.

“You know we are forever grateful for your kindness, Mistress Kelly.” Tae’ long began her pitch as softly as she could, “Some of my people caught up on current events while we passed through Wayne. Well, we are interested in heading to this place called... Arizona? It seems a settlement holder has embraced people like mine, and...”

Kelly paused and smiled back to the woman. She couldn’t blame them for wanting to go to where they knew it to be safe for her kind. They had been reduced to just barely over 2000 peoples. She wasn’t even sure they would survive with that many members to their race. “And you want to go where it’s known to be safer. I understand. Either way is a long drive, let alone an even longer walk. Let’s handle one goal at a time. We need to get across the Mississippi first, considering the changes that happened during the Mana Oversaturation event, who knows what’s happened there.”

Tae’ long blinked slowly and twitched a small smile, “Yes, that does seem prudent. My people just wished me to voice our concerns. You have already committed more to us than we deserve.”

“And you have imparted more knowledge and guidance within the System than I could hope for.”

“The most direct route to Montana is roughly 1800 miles. Arizona is just over 2000 miles, either way, you are right, we need transportation.”

“I think we need to find a Bus Depot. Even then I don’t know if we’ll be able to get enough buses and gas. Probably have to commandeer every box truck we find along the way as well.” Kelly offered thoughtfully. As much as she wanted to get word of her family, she was committed to ensuring Tae’long and her people’s safety.

“Right then, let’s get to it.”

*****

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

Somewhere on an island in Scotland a man fought against what seemed like a never-ending onslaught of monsters. The man didn’t have a name, only a class; The Highlander of the Old Way. He didn’t remember his name before the System woke him up. He just remembered the oversized rats that were trying to gnaw his feet off as he lay naked in an alley covered in filth and blood. He stayed in that state pretty much til the point he found himself now, though he was now covered in monster blood and... snow. Lots and lots of snow.

He wore only a pair of torn camo pants he picked up from an outfitter store. He didn’t have time to grab anything else as he was constantly set upon by mutated animals and other beasts he hadn’t a name for. Then came the ones he oddly knew the names of, the Wulver. They looked like werewolves, but with no hair and deathly colored skin with bloody inflamed gums wrapped around finger length teeth. Yellow eyes blazed as they attempted to rip his throat out. The Highlander dealt with them as he had done all the previous enemies he faced. He beat them into a bloody pulp and kept going.

It wasn’t until he stumbled across the Wulver Alpha that nearly ended him that he gained the weapon he carried currently. That fight was what one would have called epic. If there had been anyone else around to witness it. The Highlander and the Wulver Alpha traded blows for nearly three days straight. They would clash, inflict mutually devastating wounds then retreat to recover and attack each other again. It became a battle of attrition; one the Highlander was determined to win. And win he did, as his skills increased, he became stronger, more durable, and vicious.

The final blow came after the Highlander had snapped both of the Wulver’s arms while locked in a battle of strength. Without releasing the wounded foe’s arms, he pulled the beast to him and rammed his head into the vile creature’s snout which cracked and shattered with the unexpected impact. Then he shaped his fingers into a firm knife hand and drove his hand through the creature's neck. The Wulver’s eyes dimmed and its body went limp as its life drained into the snowy slurry at their feet. When the deed was done the Highlander earned a massive steel claymore as his reward. The weapon was rather plain with a simple leather wrapped handle attached to a six-foot, unadorned, narrow blade.

Currently the Highlander was cursing his luck as he was caught out in the forest when the Mana Oversaturation event triggered and what was once a chilly, but sunny climate had turned absolutely frigid. A thick haze of snowy fog hung across the landscape and made spotting enemies much more difficult. He ran his fingers through his thick red hair and stared at his latest kill. A Wooly Rhinoceros; a creature he somehow remembered should be extinct. The beast had charged him from within the fog and only the sound of its massive feet pounding into the dirt alerted him to its presence. When it finally resolved from within the thick white fog, he was ready and stepped to the side with a powerful overhead swing that took the ancient beast in the back of the neck and removed its head in a single swing.

Deciding that the thick furry hide would make a good cloak to cover his exposed skin he decided to carve it up. The only problem is he only had his significantly abused claymore to do the deed. After thinking about the problem for a half second, he reeled back and swung his sword across the beast's chest and stomach, careful to not cut too deeply. A neat red line opened up and the monster's guts spilled onto the snow, steaming where they landed. The Highlander drove his weapon into the rock-hard soil and proceeded to curl his fingers through the gap he created in the rhino’s hide and forcibly tear it free of the bone and muscle underneath.

As he was going about removing the animal's skin a noise caught his attention and he spun off the beast and snatched his sword from the ground where it was waiting and brought it up into a defensive posture. To his surprise another man came stumbling through a clutch of pines grumbling about the branches that constantly swung back to strike him in the face. The Highlander watched silently as the first man he had seen since he woke in that gutter nearly two months prior stopped in front of him.

The man wore a long gray robe and a heavy cloak of brown fur on his back. In his hand was an unremarkable gnarled wooden stave, though the Highlander could feel the power the unassuming weapon radiated. A hood covered the man's face revealing only a long white-gray beard and glowing white eyes. The Highlander was busy envying the man’s warm cloak when he finally spoke.

“Ah, good, I found ye. Hmmm, let me have a look at you. Yes. Yes. Good.” The strange man walked slowly around the Highlander then stopped and looked at his grisly work on the rhinoceros. The Highlander relaxed his stance and watched the mysterious man curiously but didn’t respond, he wasn’t certain he could speak. Surviving this place didn’t require speaking, it only required a specific capacity for violence.

“I am assuming you are the Highlander; you can call me the Druid.” The Highlander cocked his head slightly at the term druid, he knew this term from his previous life and decided the term aptly described the man standing before him.

“You don’t know my name?” He asked the Druid out of sheer curiosity; his voice was hoarse with lack of use and sounded strange to his own ears.

“Alas, I do not, I only know you by your class name. I can only surmise that you suffered significant head trauma before the System initialized on your planet. Looking at the vicious scar across your temple I guess you caught a bullet. But I am no expert on these things.”

The man grunted to himself and felt a bit of disappointment, then he shrugged off the mystery for another time, “You said you were looking for me, why?”

The Druid found relatively flat tree stump and took a seat. “Well, my boy, you have a... let’s call it a destiny. And you only have a couple months to get to it. So, I suppose I’m here to... set you on your path.”

The Highlander thought to himself silently for a moment and asked the only important question to ask, “And what is my destiny, I do not even know my name.”

“Well, your people need ye. They don’t know they are your people yet, or that they need ye, but both of these things are true nonetheless.”

“My people? You are the first person I’ve seen in two months. Just where are these people?” His voice was quickly returning to him now.

“Why, your people are on the big island. You’re currently in the Scottish Hunting Ground. It’s basically a place to level up. Which you’ve done well in. Now the people need a leader and that’s you.”

The Highlander didn’t speak. He looked at the mysterious old man with copious amounts of doubt writ across his face. The old man didn’t add anything so he asked another question, “Why me? Why do they need a leader? What’s my destiny?”

The old Druid stood and smiled at the nearly naked Highlander, “You are going to lead your people against the forces of War. And time is burning. So, I’ve brought you a thing or two that you will find useful.” The Druid handed the man a heavy cloak that was similar to the one he wore himself then a small package of food stuffs. He looked down at the Highlander’s bare feet and gave an apologetic shrug, “If I’d known, I’d have brought you some boots. But it won’t matter for long, head that way to the shore. You’ll find a boat you can take to the mainland. Head southeast from there and you’ll find the village of Skye. They need your strength.”

The Highlander swung the cloak around his freezing body in relief, when he looked up the Druid was gone. He looked around the clearing for any sign of where he went and found none. The man simply disappeared when he wasn’t looking. He thought about what the Druid had said about the forces of War and a memory tried to creep to the front of his mind. He knew from the context that War was something from a religious text that described the end times, though he couldn’t pin down the thought long enough to gain clarity. With no other goal before him he headed in the direction the Druid gave him. At least I know there’s other people alive, and I have a way off this damnable island.