Chapter 27

It was only a ten minute walk from where they were, the map specified that they were to rally with several other hunter teams at the edge of a large car park in front of the supermarket main entrance.

When Jack, Laurence and Katie arrived, he saw some familiar faces. Nate was there standing with three hunters whom he vaguely remembered from the Kladican incident several months ago. He also saw several other teams of hunters, overall there had to be close to thirty monster hunters at this point alone. Just across the large car park there were also other teams waiting near other entrances into the building.

“Jack!” Nate waved to him cheerfully and bounded over. “I knew I’d be seeing you here, you battle maniac!” Nate laughed and punched him affectionately in the shoulder.

“Ditto, I knew you couldn’t stay away from something like this either.” He grinned.

They banterred back and forth a little, swapping stories and sharing kill tallies. Eventually Nate’s team wandered over.

“So this is the guy then?” a young woman said, looking at Jack appraisingly. “‘Hungry Jack’, the big bad lightning cultivator, the guy that eats monster’s for breakfast.”

“Yup, I’m the guy. And I do eat monsters for breakfast on occasion. But you know, I’m pretty sure we’ve all eaten monsters for breakfast at least once. Hasn’t anyone else had a Bone Boar bacon sandwich from the guild hall?” Jack asked, looking around. “Anyone?”

He then noticed one of the more familiar faces glaring at him from amongst Nate’s team.

“Uh hey Eric, long time no see.” Jack smiled awkwardly.

Eric simply glared at him without responding.

“You remember him Eric? You and Jack fought each other in the arena and -” A grinning Nate started but was interrupted by Eric.

“Yes!” Eric practically hissed. “I remember, how could I forget?” Eric went back to glaring at Jack.

“Uh huh, ‘k,” Jack nodded, sensing some hostility. He turned to the other two hunters in Nate’s team, but kept Eric in his peripheral vision.

“Yeah, don’t mind Eric, he just hates you now,” Nate blithely spoke up before introducing his other two teammates. “This is Sarah and Jenny.” He pointed to a large dark skinned woman first, she wore a mix of bulky plate mail and monster parts and had patches of grey petrified skin around her temples and just underneath her eyes, a sure fire sign of an earth cultivator. He then pointed to the young woman who’d spoken to Jack previously, a young woman with pale skin and light brown hair wearing light chainmail and kevlar.

“These four are my team for neighbourhood watch runs,” Nate told him.

“Ah right, yeah I remember a while ago with the Kladican, wasn’t there another….oh,” Jack shut up immediately but realised he’d already said too much. Nate’s group had once had a fifth member, Lucas, but he’d endured a particularly brutal death on the ends of an A rank monster’s antlers.

The group looked uncomfortable for a moment and Eric’s glaring intensified.

However Jack was saved from any more awkwardness when Katie and Laurence moved forward to join the conversation, apparently they all knew each other already. Jack gratefully used the distraction to move away and stand apart from the group, looking towards the supermarket across the car park. He could see movement inside through the large glass windows, large squat figures loping back and forth, here and there, perhaps getting ready for the coming assault.

He also noticed a couple of journalists accompanied by camera men, the journalists were dressed like war correspondents in the middle of a combat zone, with the flak jacket saying ‘PRESS” across the chest and a helmet. They stood just inside the car park and had their cameras pointed at the hunters while the journalist spoke into their microphones. One of the cameras seemed to be focused on him and Jack turned away self-consciously. However he noticed a sudden shift in their focus and the two journalists seemed excited about something before one of them called out.

“Meredith! Meredith! Over here Meredith!” one of them cried out as he barged past the hunters.

Everyone turned around in surprise to see the beautiful Meredith Shriverston stride towards them, accompanied by a couple of other hunters who flanked her. She was wearing a set of light white plate armour over blue chainmail and had some sort of silver fur pelt resting over her shoulders. She carried a long golden and silver sword spear with veins of dark purple and blue shimmering up and down the haft and long blade.

The group of hunters watched her approach with interest and surprise. One of the journalists went straight up to her and proceeded to excitedly babble questions at her to which she politely smiled and quietly said something Jack couldn’t hear. The journalist hurriedly nodded multiple times in agreement, practically bowing, and withdrew, walking backwards as if he were afraid to show his back to royalty or something.

Meredith turned back to the group of hunters with a lovely smile and glided over to them. To his surprise, she made a bee line for Jack.

“Hello Jack,” Meredith greeted him politely with a shy smile.

“Hey Meredith,” he greeted her back somewhat suspiciously, they didn’t really know each other, only having exchanged a handful of words before now.

After another awkward pause where Meredith seemed to want to say something but didn’t, so Jack asked her, “What did you say to that journalist to make him go away? I can never get them to leave me alone.”

“Oh!” She then let out a giggle. “Well, first of all I try to avoid telling them to er…F off,” she said quietly with amusement as she leaned in. “I think that just seems to galvanise them, you know?” She giggled again and he grunted in embarrassed amusement.

“Ha! Yeah the PR guys keep giving me shit about that.” He grinned and rubbed the back of his head.

“Mm, well I find it best to just politely tell them to stay back at a safe distance while I work and promise them a few words once I’m done,” she told him cheerfully.

“So…you talk to them like they’re human beings, you know that genuinely never occurred to me, I’m not even joking. But I guess I can give it a go.” He shrugged and she let out a giggle. The two hunters who accompanied her, both male, looked supremely annoyed for some reason and glared daggers at him.

They continued to speak for a few minutes before the group of hunters suddenly grew tense and almost seemed to shy away, as if sensing a predator approach.

“What's up boys and girls!” Cheryl approached the group with a lopsided smirk on her face. Following her were a pair of strangely clad men who seemed to be dressed more for stealth rather than fighting.

Behind them were a dozen or so armed and armoured police in balaclavas and riot gear. Although there seemed to be something different about these police that Jack couldn’t quite put his finger on. They were all wearing some sort of riot armour, though it looked new rather than worn out and damaged as he’d become accustomed to seeing. They also carried large metal riot shields and thick bladed swords along with their standard issue assault rifles.

“Hi Aunty!” Meredith cheerfully replied with a little wave.

“Hey munchkin, right guys, here’s what's gonna happen. When the signal is given, we’re all going to assault the supermarket and kill every orc we find. You will focus only on the orcs. According to our surveyors, there are also human hostiles in that supermarket,” Cheryl informed them and the hunters all began murmuring to each other in concern and confusion.

One hunter spoke up. “Human hostiles? What does that mean? They’re working with the orcs?”

“We don’t know yet, but you are to focus only on the orcs, defend yourselves if you have to but I want you to leave the humans to these guys behind me.” Cheryl motioned to the strange police standing silently behind her. “They’re a special unit of the police that actually practise cultivation, their whole deal is to arrest criminal cultivators. So like I said, focus only on the orcs and whatever other monsters you find in there ok? Any questions?” She looked at the hunters expectantly.

Everyone simply exchanged uncertain looks with each other.

One hunter raised his hand. “Um, do the human er…hostiles have guns?” The concerned mutterings and murmurings renewed.

One of the surveyors stepped forward. “Yes, they are all armed with a mixture of semi-automatic assault rifles, handguns and shotguns, they are all also confirmed to be cultivators,” he impassively explained.

Jack also spoke up. “What about human hostages? Is there anyone in there that…like….needs saving?”

“From what we’ve observed, all the human non-combatants in that supermarket have already been killed and eaten by the orcs,” the surveyor answered him. The group of hunters shared exclamations of revulsion and horror.

“Right! Everyone get your heads in the game! We’re all here and it's time to move in and finish things. I’ll lead.” Cheryl stepped through the group and began walking through the car park. She raised her left hand to the side slightly and a white sparkling mist formed before rapidly coalescing into a large floating shield made out of thick jagged ice. She positioned the shield in front of her and began smoothly running forward.

The hunters all followed behind her in a somewhat disorganised rabble, the police on the other hand fanned out and kept to cover, looking every bit the trained professionals.

A moment later gunshots emanated from the supermarket, impacting harmlessly on the shield Cheryl had created. Without any further ado she wordlessly charged full pelt into the supermarket, covering the fifty metres of car park in a single moment and crashed through improvised barricades and reinforced strong plate glass of the main entrance. Right away orcish screams of pain and panic emerged from the supermarket.

Everyone else hurried to catch up, with Meredith leading the pack. As he ran Jack could see the other groups of hunters rush into the other entrances of the building.

The thirty or so hunters reached the main entrance of the supermarket and flooded in. There was no sign of Cheryl but judging by the sounds of fighting, crashing and orcish screams further inside, she was doing just fine. The trail of broken orc corpses starting at the entrance would most likely lead them to Cheryl, if anyone was inclined to go towards the sounds of panicked orcs and hysterical cackling.

The interior of the building was of a large high ceilinged warehouse with many aisles of different goods. The main lightning was out, natural daylight streamed in through the front windows lightning up the area around the main entrance, but further in the only light came from red emergency lighting, casting everything in a dull crimson.

Lurking between the ransacked aisles were ranks of orcs all moving towards them, grunting, growling and murmuring to each other in their own language. There was no sign of any rogue humans.

One of the hunters let rip with a large stream of fire at one of the orcs and just like that it was on. The orcs charged and the hunters did the same.

Jack momentarily cursed himself for allowing himself to be at the front of the group, he didn’t know where Laurence and Katie were, he himself had nowhere else to go but forward.

He ran a strong current of lightning through his body and axe, engaged his time dilation ability, snapped his visor down and sped directly forward, anticipating the mother of all headaches later on. He hacked into the first orc before it could react and unleashed an extra strong wave of lightning forwards into the ranks of orcs behind it.

The orc he’d just killed was knocked backwards into its brethren and remained upright, Jack killed the other two on either side of it before they could react. He now had a shield of three dead orcs preventing the large group behind them from getting to him; they were all hemmed in by the narrow aisle of goods. He took advantage of that by sending more and more lightning infused shockwaves of water vapour ripping into the densely packed mob of orcs. A couple of hunters he didn’t know also stood behind him, ready to assist.

The orcs howled with pain and frustration, not able to push forward because Jack’s lightning attacks were paralysing the orcs at the front. He just hoped they wouldn’t topple the aisle shelves that were keeping them funnelled and hemmed in. After ten or so swings however, something completely unexpected happened.

As usual, after a swing of his axe, a cloud of white glittering water vapour lined with blue crackling arcs of lightning rapidly travelled forwards, ripping into the orcs like a shockwave. However, a few thin stray arcs of electricity then travelled further forwards into the trapped ranks of orcs. And then KABOOM.

The orcs were consumed in a fiery inferno, Jack and the hunters with him were catapulted backwards by the shockwave of the blast. The wall of orcs had shielded them from the worst of it.

Jack lay there for a time, he didn’t know how long, his mind was addled, all he could see was white, all he could hear was a ringing noise in his ears. Eventually, his senses returned to him, the ringing in his ears lessened to be replaced by the noise of battle, clashing weapons, roaring, screaming, gunfire and explosions. He still couldn’t see anything but then realised his helmet was askew, he sat up and readjusted his helmet.

The first thing he saw were the burned and charred bodies of numerous orcs surrounding him, he then smelt their burned fur with a wrinkling of his nose. His head still felt a little fuzzy, he shook his head and smacked his helmet a couple of times. No time to sit still.

As Jack got to his feet he saw the other two hunters were in a similar state to him, dazed but alive. He walked unsteadily over to them and assisted in getting one of them to their feet.

“Which one of you did that?” he asked them irately, one of them must be a flame cultivator and decided to help out with some sort of explosive technique.

After exchanging looks of confusion, one of them answered. “Neither of us man, we’re both wind elements. Could’ve been a flamer from behind,” he shrugged.

“Huh? Well..whatever, if you guys are okay we should get back to it, shall we stick together?” Jack asked and they both agreed.

From there they moved further into the supermarket, joining the ongoing fight and engaging any orc they came across.

It was a mess, complete pandemonium, it seemed like everything that could be set on fire was now a raging inferno, the supermarket floor looked like it had been torn apart by multiple tiny earthquakes and entire sections were flooded with bodies floating in the water.

Hunters and orcs were engaged in dozens of small vicious skirmishes all over the supermarket. People could say what they liked about guild licensed monster hunters, but by the time they reached D rank, a hunter at that point had become a consummate professional and expert monster slayer. The orcs fought viciously but they were disorganised and fought like enraged brawlers, they were strong but they telegraphed their attacks and seemed to be great believers in the best defence is a good offence. Most of the hunters on the other hand knew what they were doing, not from any extensive government approved training, but from extensive experience earned through blood and tears.

The orcs were inhumanly strong and fast, but the hunters were able to match their strength and speed, and then overcome them through the use of various elemental abilities. There were still hunters who were tragically killed in the chaos of battle, but they were a rarity.

However, there were a couple of problem spots, most of the orcs didn’t use elemental abilities, but a few of the orcs did, this seemed to be causing some trouble and areas of resistance for the hunter’s assault.

It was one such problem area Jack found himself in after he finished off an orc during a short skirmish in the middle of the supermarket. One moment he was standing over his fallen opponent, the next there was a strange screaming rushing noise and one of the hunters next to him was enveloped in intense flame, she screamed in agony and terror before collapsing to the floor, dead.

Jack and the half a dozen other hunters near him scrambled, trying to find where the flame had come from before a thick serpentine stream of flame shot out from between the shelves of the aisle they were in and engulfed another hunter, killing them too.

In response the half dozen hunters pelted the spot where the flame had come from with the strongest techniques they could. Jack and a couple of other hunters ran to the end of their aisle and looked around to the adjacent aisle, where the attacks had come from.

They saw a smaller than normal orc dressed in rag-like hides and furs rushing towards them from halfway down the aisle, behind it the elemental attacks from the vengeful hunters were still raging as it made its escape. It was holding some sort of round, metal cage like apparatus, the size of a basketball. It had an angry red glow in its centre. When it saw them it snarled before raising the cage, a thick winding stream of fire burst out of the cage and shot out at them like a striking snake.

Jack and the others ducked back around the shelving, dodging the attack before coming back around and firing off their own attacks. The other hunters ran over to join them and added in their own attacks. This orc was smart though, rather than allow itself to be hemmed in and trapped by the aisles like other orcs, it instead elected to climb the shelving, nimble as a monkey. It ran along the top of the shelves, firing off winding blasts of serpentine fire at the group of hunters, jumping from shelf to shelf.

No one was able to hit it and everyone had to scatter to avoid being caught by one of the strange blasts of fire. Another one of the hunters was caught by the flame attack, it struck him in the chest and he laughed it off in relief, saying his breastplate was fireproof, however to his horror the fire remained burning before it began coiling around him like a snake, finding flesh and other less fire resistant materials. Fortunately a water element noticed his predicament and doused him with a blast of water before the flame completely enveloped him.

The small rag clad orc kept nimbly running along and hopping from shelf to shelf, avoiding all of their attacks, firing off one blast of fire after another. The hunters all kept to cover and sporadically fired off their own attacks when they could but it seemed like a stalemate.

Eventually though, a wind element managed to get in a lucky hit as the orc was in mid leap between shelves. It toppled downwards and landed hard into a shallow puddle of filthy water, the hunters all descended on it and hacked away at it with their melee weapons. The creature had killed at least two of their number that they were aware of and they wanted revenge.

By the time the fight with the fire wielding orc was done, the rest of the fighting was wrapping up, only a few other skirmishes were still ongoing. However there was still one last problem spot to deal with, loud howling and frequent booming crashing noises could be heard emanating from the far corner of the supermarket.

When they looked over to the end of the aisle Jack and the hunters he was with could see other hunters making their way over to the noises. All the other fighting seemed to be done, now there was just one last pocket of resistance and every hunter still standing was heading there now.

Jack joined in with the rest of the hunters in heading towards the howling and booming, the ground under their feet was periodically trembling, over the tops of the aisle shelving they could see jagged rock and stone spike formations.

After winding his way through fallen shelving, small indoor ponds, piles of dead orcs, small patches of fire and large boulders Jack eventually came to a small group of hunters hiding behind a strange rock formation that looked like large frozen waves of water made from stone. The jagged stone spikes of the top of the stone formations scraped the top of the ceiling.

Upon seeing his approach, the hunters who were crouching behind it frantically beckoned him over. He saw the urgency in their eyes and hurriedly ran over to them, just in the nick of time too because something launched a large sharp shard of stone which narrowly missed tearing into his shoulder. He stumbled in surprise before dropping to the ground and crawled the last few metres to cover.

He peeked around the stone formation.

He saw a large rough circle of ground that seemed to have sunk slightly into the supermarket floor, like a shallow sunken pit fifty metres across, the ground itself looked like cooled down black lava. More of the strange stone formations that Jack ducked behind surrounded the shallow pit.

Standing in the middle was an orc, similar to the fire wielding orc it was garbed in ragged furs and hides, though it was larger and had the addition of various animal bones attached to its apparel. It also had what looked to be growth of jagged stone jutting out of its left shoulder and back, giving it a hunched back appearance. It was holding some sort of stave or staff, from the head of the staff a strange glow was emanating, the glow seemed to pulse and shift between different shades of dull gold, brown and oily black.

Surrounding the orc were several hunters, standing on the shallow slopes of the pit, it looked like a standoff.

As Jack watched, one of the hunters made a move but the orc reacted quickly and swung its staff into the ground with a bellow. A spike of stone ripped out of the ground and clipped the hunter in the side and he was sent spinning to the ground. Before the orc could finish him off the other hunters around it all attacked at once with elemental attacks giving the injured hunter time to crawl to safety behind the spike stone formations.

The orc defended itself by erecting multiple stone barricades and launching stone spike projectiles at its attackers. It took several hits from fire balls but it was tough and simply ignored them. The hunters on the other hand all had to scramble backwards to safety and duck behind cover.

The orc snarled as it watched its retreating attackers but made no move to pursue, content to wait where it was like a cornered beast. A few hunters attempted to shoot it with firearms but the orc simply stood behind its own erected stone barricades. Jack briefly wondered where Katie and her bow was but became distracted by another hunter arriving on the scene.

Meredith Shriverston strode forwards into the shallow pit, twirling her sword spear. The orc also took note of her with a grunt and immediately attacked, it sliced its staff through the earth and several large jagged shards of stone flew out at her from the ground.

She dodged deftly to the side and began charging forward, the orc attempted the same attack several times but Meredith flowed around the attacks as if she were made of water.

The orc grew more frantic with its assaults and began backing off but Meredith wasn’t to be denied, she dodged the last barrage of stone spikes and reached the orc. She drew level with it and with an elegant pirouette she twirled around and lashed out with her swordspear before continuing past the orc for a few paces.

She stopped and straightened up, her back to the orc. The orc stiffly turned around to face her with a strangled snarl before its head fell from its shoulders and its body followed suit.

As one the observing hunters all let out breaths of relief, everyone began picking themselves up.

With that the last of the orcs had been exterminated and the battle was apparently over, however neither Jack nor the other hunters had seen the humans that had apparently sided with the orcs. Nor had they seen the police unit that was supposed to deal with them.

In anycase, now that the fighting was over it was time for cleanup duty, one of the B rank hunters took charge and began ordering hunters around for various duties. Jack and several others were assigned to search side rooms and offices for any leftover orcs. They didn’t find any live ones, what they found instead was Cheryl in one of the larger store rooms.

She was leaning casually against some shelving, drinking beer from a glass bottle through a straw. At her feet was a large pile of slain orcs, one of the orcs was an especially large specimen, almost twice the size of other orcs. The room had vast quantities of blood spread all over the floors, the walls and even the ceiling, everywhere except the spot Cheryl was standing in was covered in blood. Cheryl herself was almost completely unmarred, except for a light blood smatter on her white trainers, she wasn’t even sweating or breathing heavily, nor was a single hair out of place.

The hunters with Jack backed out of the room nervously while he stayed to talk with her.

“Hey Jack, you’re still alive then?” she asked rhetorically, greeting him in a relaxed manner, as if she wasn’t standing in the middle of an impromptu abattoir.

“Yeah I’m alive alright, that was a hell of a fight,” he said as he made his way over to her, no longer bothered about getting orc blood on himself, it would disappear shortly anyway.

“Mm, certainly was.” She took another sip of her beer.

“Yeah, so anyway, where were these criminals we were told about? I didn’t see anyone shooting at me back in there, did they run off?” he asked in curiosity, looking around to see where she’d got the beer.

“Pretty much, I saw groups of humans already running off deeper into the supermarket past the orcs just as I made entry. I decided to follow, thought they might be able to lead me to the orc chieftain. I didn’t find ‘em again, but I did find the big boy here so it all worked out in the end.” She gave the large orc at her feet a small nudge with a toe. “Anyway I ordered Mike and Sam to follow the criminals and let the police know where they were headed, so we’ll see what they come up with.” She yawned.

“Sam and Mike? The surveyors, right?” he asked and she nodded and took another sip of her beer.

“So, I’ve been wondering. Are you a help desk lady or a surveyor or what? Whenever I see you around other hunters you always seem to be in charge. What is your actual position in the guild anyway? Just curious, ya know,” he shrugged.

“My position? I’ve never made any secret of it, technically speaking I’m one of the guild executives. I’m one of the three founders of the UK hunters guild,” she casually informed him.

“Wha?” he intelligently responded.

“Yep, who did ya think came up with the whole idea for a guild in the first place huh? Me, my sister and another one of the Oxford titan slayers founded the guild just under three years ago.”

“Oh! Holy crap I had no idea! Charlie just introduced you as the help desk lady! Jesus! Er…erm…shit…er..” he fumbled around for what to say next, suddenly everyone’s nervousness around her made sense. He’d just thought it was her quiet, intense demeanour combined with the fact that she could literally snap anyone in half like a twig.

“Relax, relax.” She languidly waved her hand at him. “You don’t need to be nervous around me, just act the same way you always do, it's refreshing actually, everybody else is always so skittish around me for some reason.”

“Erm..well okay then. Hey wait! You said one of the other Oxford titan slayers was also a founder? There are three others besides you and your sister right? Please tell me its not Eric fucking Flamewrought,” he almost begged.

She smirked and let out a small chuckle. “Hah, no it's not him. There’s no way I could be a part of something Eric had a hand in creating.” She smirked in amusement.

“Ah yes, because he's a dickhead.” Jack nodded seriously.

She snorted. “Yes, but also because..well…yeah he’s a dickhead, that's pretty much it really.” They shared a laugh.

“Ok so, you like, run the guild then?” he asked and she nodded. “Well then, shouldn’t you be at the main headquarters in London?”

“Well, my main job is actually running the surveyor corps for the entire guild, I can do that from wherever, but my other job kind of needs me to be in North Yorkshire as much as possible,” she answered him. She finished her beer and began looking for another one amongst the shelves.

“Oh? What's your other job?” he asked in curiosity.

“I keep watch over the Dire Woods, it's a magical anomaly zone in the Yorkshire Dales. Some seriously powerful and seriously messed up shit lives in those woods. Stuff that makes a Kladican look like a newborn kitten in comparison. One of the agreements the guild made with the government during our founding was to always have an A plus ranking hunter standing watch over the Dire Woods, same goes for the Red Gorge in Cornwall,” she explained. “We kill anything that comes out of the Woods that normal hunters can’t deal with.”

“Oh, the Woods, I really wanna go there. What's it like? Have you been inside?” he asked.

“I’ve been inside a few times, yeah, generally to rescue hunters and other people who got trapped in there. Usually the people I was assigned to rescue were dead long before I’d even set foot inside the Woods. Anyway, as for what it's like, it's difficult to describe. Saying it's like a giant forest doesn’t really do it justice, you’ll just have to see it for yourself.”

“Mm! Looking forward to it!” he said with a bright grin.

“Yeah I bet, anyway from the sounds of it the fighting's all done out there so that's our job done. Time to head home.” She gracefully stepped over the piles of dead orcs and left the storeroom with Jack following behind her.