“I’ll eat your fucking face off,” Nico quietly said to the second fairy that appeared, likely attracted by the ruckus he was making. His muggy mind was too overwhelmed to have remembered such a basic fact—noise attracts monsters.

It fired at the same time he ran to the cover of the nearest tree. He got out with only a minor graze on his thigh. There was no bleeding. When it pierced through his flesh it had scorched the wound closed. That’s where the good news ended, and where the onslaught of beams puncturing the earth and spraying broken metal began.

The odds were flipped—now he couldn’t do this forever. Running away was even riskier. He found two of them within moments of waking up. More must have been out there. He could end up agroing the entire Area if he played his cards wrong.

He kept close enough within range of a sprint, but not so close that he couldn’t dodge. When one of them fired at him, he stomped his foot and ran in between the two of them. He took a sharp turn towards the one that did not fire.

Its swirls began to lighten up before he was able to get in range. Reacting in such a short distance was too difficult, so he didn’t. A half second before the light reached the center he jumped down, letting the beams whizz over his head. He pushed off the ground with his arm as his knee collided with the Locust, almost making him trip.

The fairy stepped forward, swiping at him with its claw. He caught its hand below the wrist, avoiding the sharp fingers, and tossed it over his shoulder, smashing it against the ground and doing absolutely no damage. It just bounced off. It barely weighed anything.

Maybe Rubber Flesh? If his memory was right—

Ranger Fairy Of The Twisted Bogs ★★

Energy: 2/4 (+1/Minute)

Class: Emitter

Trait: Rubber Flesh (Common)

Increases flexibility, blunt resistance, and removes Bleeding damage at the cost of lowered resistances to Slash and Pierce attacks. Strength is reduced by 30%. Weight is Reduced by 70%.

1st Skill: Fragmentation Blast (Common II)

Consumes 1 Energy to unleash a wide, short-range blast.

Cast-time: Charge 2-6 seconds Deals up to 2 Shield damage and gains 2 meters effective range per 2 seconds Charged.

Cooldown: 6 seconds.

2nd Skill: Multiple-Charged Projectiles (Uncommon II)

Holy shit I cannot read all of that right now. The Augmenter must have inspected the rest of its skills the moment he touched it, as it hadn’t used its 1st skill yet.

Change of plans. Without letting it go Nico glanced up to confirm his count, and yanked it up in time to use its body as his own shield—three beams struck it. One went through its wings, while the other two went through its chest and stomach.

Through. The Life Rays pierced through the Bog Fairy and bashed his chest and punctured his stomach.

Years of past monster hunting experience moved Nico’s body for him. He thrust his hand into the hole in its chest. There was no blood inside, just more slimy flesh that flowed like heavy mud. It shrieked in tune with Nico and struggled erratically as he pushed his way towards its heart.

It couldn’t move its body, but its head did. It turned 180 degrees towards him.

Nico made to push away its head with his other arm, remembered he didn’t have one, and was then pleasantly surprised to find out that he did. He jabbed the fairies eye sockets with his metal fingers.

It screeched and struggled some more, breaking its teeth against his metal palm and elbowing him on his dented side. Before the flood of pain arrived, Nico clenched his teeth until he thought they would shatter. He screamed through them. The only thing that kept his mouth mostly shut was more potential pain.

Two things happened when Nico finally had its beating heart within his grasps—one, the other fairy was charging at him with its claws, and two, the fairy head in his hand spun to the left instead of the right, turning the full 360 degrees. A shinning yellow ball made its way up its throat.

Nico lunged forward, taking the fairy down with him. Mid fall he got the Locust’s forearm under its neck and pushed up, tilting its head far enough to point at the in-coming fairy. A yellow cone blast exploded into it. It imbedded its skin with holes and blew it away, taking a good chunk of its slimy flesh off in a wet splash of purple.

The smell of burnt rubber spread before Nico touched the ground. He squeezed the heart he had in his hands like a plump tomato.

Tomatoes. He’d eaten them once, with his teeth and all. It was the best, albeit only vegetable he’d had.

In a frantic fit of crawling and running, Nico tackled the other fairy before it got its bearings. He straddled it, pinned its arms and wings against the ground with his legs, and started pummeling it for all his life’s worth, which unfortunately wasn’t much. His fists kept bouncing off.

When his lungs couldn’t breathe fast enough and the dizziness threatened to take away his senses, he focused on the pain of his ribs. When he depleted that anger, he referred to his chest, palms, and the dripping of his stomach.

With a heave he threw one final punch with the Locust. It moved slower and was difficult to aim, but the added weight worked in his favor. It sank into the fairy’s head and into the dirt on the other side.

The fairy went rabid. It clawed at his legs and fired haymaker beams. They struck the branches above, causing burning fragments of metal to rain on his back.

Not the head. He straightened his hands and began stabbing with his entire back into it, aiming for its heart. Some dug in, most bounced off. Before his lungs burst, the Locust pierced through its slime, heart, and dirt in one stab. With a death rattle, the fairy finally stopped moving. A small skull with an X over its eyes floated past him.

Nico fell to the side, gasping as much breath as his tiny lungs allowed him. Exhaustion and mind blocking pain almost made him stop breathing all together. He finally got a good look on his stomach, and he would have emptied it in response had most of it not already fallen out.

Blood poured down his multiple cuts, combining with the dirt and purple slime. It was pleasant on the eyes. He looked back to the fairies in a mixture of anger, relief, fear, hunger, and curiosity—a decent combination of most emotions he had felt in his life. Fortunately, the dizziness made him numb to his own thoughts and body. The throbs felt distant. He lost too much blood to care.

With a shaking cold arm Nico reached for its body. He rested his hand over its chest. Its flesh ebbed in waves. A few seconds later, its body and all the purple slime it had splashed around turned yellow. It gathered into the cusp of his palm with the golden letters of the Locust appearing above it.

Siphon or Harvest Energy Of a Ranged Fairy?

The fairy’s soul was a green flame. He crushed it in his hands, Siphoning and Healing.

His skin began to stitch itself and the flesh underneath regrew. A thick yellow liquid conjugated around his bones, giving them a dull, pulsing yellow as they slowly moved back to their places. His pain was gone and he could think once again. He poked at his wound.

Nothing. He dug into his stomach with his nails. His skin bled but he only felt a light burn no hotter than the sun’s own light. He couldn’t even remember the pain he felt a few moments ago.

Nico dropped to his back. In one long exhale, he breathed out all the dread that bottled up inside him. He stared at the branches above, letting his mind relax. The fairy’s beams had knocked a couple of the branches down. They laid around him. He picked one up and inspected it. It sizzled in his palms, making an unpleasant yet regretfully familiar odor.

This was how the City’s made their drinks, grew their hamburgers, and played their games. It was also how the Deep made its monsters—Thermal Energy farmed from the sun. A Hunters job was to hunt the monsters that damaged the trees. In their modern time, Hunters were closer to being tree caretakers than monster hunters.

Huh. Nico sat up. The beams that had struck the other trees revealed the wires beneath. They vomited out blue sparks and black smoke. I bet we made lots of noise.

After a pause, Nico ungracefully scrambled towards the other fairy. He caught its foot and dragged it behind him, Siphoning it, as he ran towards the cover of the nearest tree. The prompt appeared again from the Locust, but he ignored it. He tucked himself into a dense outgrowing of grass and listened.

The trees swung with the strong lukewarm wind, but he didn’t hear anything. He poked his head out. Nothing.

He kept low to the ground and moved to the next tree, making sure to check the blind spots his previous vantagepoint missed. He stopped and listened inside the grass again. His heart beat loud in his head. His hands kept shaking, the adrenaline not worn off yet. He poked his head out and saw a couple large fairies coming his way.

Not good. Nico ran back the way he came from, then tried his left. He poked his head out and saw seven more fairies coming. Not good at all. They were converging on him from every direction.