I am the most important person in the world.

This goes without saying—but I still said it, in my head.

And it also goes without saying that anyone who helped the most important person ever by putting their life on the line, of their own free will, with altruistic intentions, without any manipulation or influence on my part, should be awarded for their acts. For that, I bestowed upon them the highest honor of being considered my ‘friend’. I didn’t have a ‘true’ one anyway—whatever that entailed—and I could never fathom what actual friendship felt like, so I’d never have any, only approximations. Might as well give that slot as a reward to people doing the goodest of deeds—from my perspective.

Latest in the very short line of those awarded that honor was Cracked Humpty.

The floating liquid from the crystals on my palm partly perked up the dim storage room, but the others didn’t notice the golden glow from behind them because they were too shocked and scared of the monsters outside. The gold light turned red as the liquid coalesced into a long snout lined with wicked fangs.

And the mask will become a face, I chanted as I affixed it on my mouth.

Nothing.

Eh?

I repeated it a couple more times. Still nothing.

Fuck.

A light bulb dinged on inside my head. It must be the fucking balaclava mask I wore! I pulled it up and put on the Blanchette mask correctly.

A surge of fucking power! Erind poofed to another dimension, and Blanchette stepped on stage. Got me worried for a second there. We just encountered some technical difficulties, people. The show will continue.

I flexed my entire body from head to toe, my toe muscles up to my head muscles. The fuck was the nonsense I was thinking? Too much giddiness with the whole situation. I chomped the air, savoring the impact as my upper and lower fangs clashed against each other.

The store employee in front of me heard the noise and turned around. She screamed as she saw me, but her voice was drowned by an even louder cry for help by Cracked Humpty.

My homie! I shoved everyone aside and dove through the hole where the door formerly was.

A wild mesh of tentacles filling the store greeted me. In the middle of the tentacle bouquet was Cracked Humpty, each of his limbs and his head was slowly pulled apart by tendrils. The many bloodshot eyes covering the monster’s body all focused on me.

I jumped over the counter, snagging the cash register with my outstretched claws. The two nearest tendrils grew spikes and whipped forward. I smashed them away with the cash register, then the one coming from the left, and then the two snaking from the floor. The cash register broke apart, coins and dollar bills scattered as more tentacles came for me.

Shit, I have no choice.

A whirlwind of claws and fangs, I dove in to save my new friend, shearing away the monstrous limbs. Disgusting black goo spurted out from the stumps. The stench burned my nose, my hyper-sensitive sense of smell an annoying double-edged sword. An awful taste filled my mouth as I bit down and tore away the tendril squeezing Cracked Humpty’s head. Bleurgh, this was what I was trying to avoid.

I pulled out Cracked Humpty and tossed him back before continuing my business with the monster. I knew from fighting these fuckers as Pino that although they didn’t regenerate like Adumbrae, they were tough to kill and could continue to grow and mutate if they kept on feeding on their host or other food sources.

After a few seconds of frenzied ripping and tearing it, my prey stopped moving. I stood up, covered in black liquid as if a giant squid emptied its ink sacs on me, smelling like the most disgusting shit ever. The tentacles and its main body had shriveled up. I didn’t have Pino’s ‘life-force sight’ ability to check, but this fucker was positively dead.

Cracked Humpty was in pain but he’d live. I pointed at him and then to the storage room. He struggled to prop himself up, confusion on his face, trying to understand who, or what, I was. But instead of crawling to safety, he reached for a sharp piece of wood from a destroyed shelf.

“Humpty, my man!” Shirtless Guy poked his head out of the storage room. He climbed out of the hole. “Fuckin’ hell, the smell.”

“Adumbrae…” Cracked Humpty croaked, raising the stick at me.

“Whut you doin’? Drop that!” Shirtless Guy wrested the stick away and helped him up. “That’s Lil’ Homie you pointing at.”

“Lil’ Homie?”

“Yeah! Dunno why, but he turned into a monster chick and saved you.”

“Lil’ Homie…is a monster chick…all along?”

I nodded.

“Schrkrkrk!” An ugly ass creature that was a cross of man and fish hung upside down from the roof of the store, looking inside through the broken display window. Its bulging slimy eyes, rotating incessantly, scanned the room while it made the weird clicking noise. Using its webbed hands that ended in hooked nails, it stuck to the ceiling and crawled towards us.

I pointed again, with more urgency, at the storage room and snarled.

“Me got Cracked Humpty,” Shirtless Guy said. “Be careful fightin’ them Adumbrae, monster chick Lil’ Homie.”

I gave him a clawed thumbs up.

The Fishman launched itself at them. “Kreekrkrk!”

I intercepted it, slamming it against the wall. I opened my jaws wide and chomped off the front of its face. I spat out the gelatinous flesh—it hadn’t hurt me so it was a bad move to eat it. Ignoring the fresh black blood shower, I tore into the gaping wound with my claws and ripped its head apart like I was opening a coconut—or how I’d imagine it’d be like because I hadn’t opened a coconut before.

Its body flailed; the parasite was still alive. I dismembered it in rage as I dragged it out of the store. Takes such a fucking long time to kill one of these asshats.

As soon as I stepped outside, I ducked to avoid a flash of red—a fucking giant claw tried to snip me in two. It belonged to a humongous crab, probably the same one that killed two of my fellow looters. Its eyestalks bent down to stare at me. Then, before I could react, it scuttled to the other side of the street, apparently more interested in a parked car.

Oh, you don’t want to fight? Lucky you, I mused as it struggled to open the car to get to the screaming people hiding inside.

I scanned my surroundings, taking in everything with my senses.

Inhaling deeply, I detected the metallic scent of fresh blood, the earthy musk of scattered innards, the piercing smoke from the raging fires—the stench of the black slime still overpowered it all. Screams and cries from both humans and not. Gunfire. Explosions. Loud crashes. The engines of a helicopter overhead. Absolute chaos up and down the street. The ground was also oddly shaking.

Many dead people. There were, surprisingly, also several still alive. Monsters here and there, mostly the generic tentacle zombies. But that wouldn’t be for long as they ate and killed humans as well as each other. It was fortunate for the news chopper above that none of these fuckshits mutated into a flying asshole.

A vending machine soared across the air, launched by a giant arm with four legs further up the street. The projectile missed the low-flying helicopter by a good five feet, but the news team decided to fly higher for their safety. The vending machine arched back down to earth and landed a couple of feet to my right.

This fucker! Was it trying to hit the helicopter or me? Either way, this was good press.

I charged at Giant Arm, plowing through a few tentacle zombies that dared block my path.

Giant Arm was too busy trying to uproot a lamppost; it didn’t notice me diving at it with my claws stretched in front forming a spear. I penetrated deep into its body in one swoop. I angrily crawled inside it, shredding whatever I could, ignoring the foul black blood, and emerged on the other side like a worm boring a hole through an apple.

I looked up at the news chopper. Did you get that?

A video of me killing Giant Arm would certainly earn more fans. Killing? Not really. Knowing these parasite mutants, Giant Arm probably wasn’t dead yet. But I had to move on; I couldn’t stop and eliminate each and every one of them.

Now, off to find Myra.

My awesome strength, speed, and agility made avoiding the monsters a piece of cheesecake tart. With nothing to fear, it was like I was just strolling in a zoo, observing all the interesting mutations: a flaming ostrich skeleton, a human-faced rodent that burrowed underground, a pinwheel made of arms and legs rolling down the street, and so much more. One day, I promised myself, there’ll be a time I’ll seriously fight these parasite abominations.

Nearing the police station, I passed by an even more interesting sight.

A large group of PCM members, as well as innocent bystanders who had the misfortune of being in this area at the wrongest-time-ever, have holed up in a SaveValue Depot, turning it into some sort of fortress. They fortified it by piling sacks against the display windows, lining it with rakes and other sharp objects. Some of them had guns. Others armed themselves with anything they could find inside the store like nail guns, axes, and drills.

Kudos to them for actually killing several of the weaker monsters and a couple of large ones. What especially interested me was the PCM guy barking orders through a megaphone, urging the others to fight the Adumbrae till the end.

So, that was how they were able to quickly organize themselves and survive.

He saw me.

A bizarre expression of recognition passed the PCM leader’s face. “Red Hood!” he boomed with his megaphone. “Get that Adumbrae with the hood covered in black blood! Kill it! Kill it!”

Most of the PCM members didn’t react to his orders, too occupied with trying to survive the onslaught of monsters that broke through a portion of their crude wall. But those under the mind control spell thingy immediately stopped whatever they were doing and followed the direction their leader was pointing to.

They all sprinted to me with all their might, like newly hatched sea turtles racing across the sand to the seas as various predators snatched them. Tentacles, claws, jaws picked them up as soon as they exited the store. They didn’t care. Wearing deranged expressions on their faces, their eyes were focused solely on me.

I didn’t have time to be amused at the ridiculous scene because a brilliant idea came to me. Time to get the megaphone!

I rushed out to meet them and was about to get in range of the closest PCM member when something large above blotted out the sun. I instinctively leaped out of the way, narrowly avoiding a massive foot that stepped on where I was a split-second earlier. The ground shook, three PCM members about to attack me went splat. Others slammed into the side of the foot.

Gazing upward, I saw its owner. So, you’re the cause of the mini-quakes!

A massive wooly mammoth, twice, no, thrice the size of a normal elephant, loomed over the SaveValue Depot. It was smaller than the fire giant that Stella fought, but this was nonetheless the second largest of the parasite mutations I’d seen. Its tusks were disproportionately large compared to its body, curving down almost to the ground like a waterpark slide, before shooting upwards and branching out like antlers.

It lowered its head, catching the lip of the building’s roof with its tusks. Throwing back its head, it tore the roof off like it was opening a can. The people inside screamed and ran in all directions. The mammoth’s trunk split into scores of tendrils, grabbing anything it could inside, human and monster alike, shoving them into its mouth.

I weaved between its legs and entered the store. The mind-controlled PCM people were still on my tail.

Where’s the guy with the fucking megaphone? It was hard to spot him in the commotion. Was he still alive?

“Fight! Protectors of the City! Fight to the death!”

Yep, still alive. There he was, dangling upside down from a tendril.

I hopped on the tops of the shelves and caught up to him, swiping at him with my claws.

“Ahhh! My hand!”

I pried his severed hand off the megaphone’s handle and flung it back to him. And since he only asked for his hand, I assumed he was okay with me keeping the megaphone.

I, as Blanchette, entered the aisle for floor cleaning products along with three SaveValue Depot employees trying to escape from the mammoth’s tendrils; in their panic, they didn’t even notice I was a monster too.

I, as Erind, exited it safe and sound. And clean! Yey. I tore off the tendrils coiling around my neck and chest. Then I pulled down the lower half of the balaclava mask that I earlier raised when I wore the Blanchette face. Above me, my hiding-spot-mates were on their way to the mammoth’s gaping black hole of a mouth.

“How do I turn this thing on?” I muttered, fiddling with the megaphone. “Is this—?” Grating feedback noise made me wince. “Test, test, testes…what?” I giggled.

The absurdity of the situation was getting to me.

“Protectors of the City!” I yelled as I scaled a display of stacked cans of paint. “Protectors of the City, hear me! Help all the humans escape down Leon-Mejia Street!” I pointed in the opposite direction of the police station. “Everyone, go there! Take any human you can help and escape that way! Escape quickly!”

The PCM members who were puzzled that Red Hood disappeared found a new purpose. Some of them even tried to grab me and take me to ‘safety’ while I ran past them on my way out of the store. A number of normal people would be swept with or join them, and it would snowball with the majority of the group escaping with the herd, following my instructions.

My initial plan was to use these guys as a distraction—more like meatshields—to get past the defenses of the cops and inside the precinct. But now, I needed them to draw this mutant mammoth away from the police station. It was going to be a pain in the ass to fight this colossal thing, and it might even kill the people I was trying to save if it continued its way.

And my new plan was working!

I looked over my shoulder and saw humans streaming out of the SaveValue Depot, followed by monsters chasing them, followed by the mutant mammoth snacking on them all. Have fun!

Continuing onwards, I came upon the entrance of the back parking lot of the precinct. And it looked like a warzone. Smoldering police cars were overturned. Several people lay dead, a few of whom were cops; a number of the bodies were half-eaten.

I surmised the PCM assaulted the police lines en masse, a la Charge of the Light Brigade, kind of like my plan actually, and was able to break through with heavy casualties. There should be more corpses around here, but, apparently, the monsters already had a pass at the buffet.

The cops had retreated to their station and were shooting from the windows at the monsters trying to enter the building. I dunno where the protesters had gone off to. My problem now was getting past the monsters surrounding the station. I held up my right hand, deciding it was best if I transfor—Myra?!

A ten-foot humanoid tree covered in spikes used a pick-up truck as a battering ram to clear the monsters in front of the station doors. She pressed on, smashing the vehicle into the legs of a two-story tall golem that was reaching into the second floor of the building. As the golem toppled down, she jumped on its head, continually stabbing it with her blades.

This had to be Myra!

But why was she fighting them? Yeah, we knew these monsters were made by the 2Ms, but I thought she was just going to fetch Johann and leave. Did she have a change of heart and decide to save everyone?

That might be a good idea…

The two of us could work together and protect these people, just hold out until the BID arrived. Johann’s secret would be preserved; he’d avoid suspicion of getting kidnapped by a tree monster. Ramello would also be safe inside. Not sure if Reginus was also there, but she was a fun person; I didn’t want her to die. Officer H-Something, if he was still alive, was also amusing. Hmmm, there were a lot of people I found entertaining in that building.

Two helicopters descended from the sky. It wasn’t TV reporters this time.

The BID!

I immediately crouched behind a smoking sedan. They got here so fast! Should I retreat now?

But I wasn’t sure if their forces were enough to beat back the monsters. The larger helicopter landed on the roof of the precinct. They might be evacuating people that way. The smaller chopper circled Myra, who was fighting several monsters. It didn’t appear to be a gunship—I couldn’t spot any weapons attached to it—but the three BID agents sitting on the sort of ‘bench’ on its side did have guns.

They opened fire on Myra.