He woke with a scream. A wet tongue ran up the full length of his face, followed by the most horrendous morning breath he'd ever smelt before. In a soul stuttering jolt everything from the day before rushed back and he flung himself up and away from the persistent tongue. He rolled across the floor with only half his brain awake and gawked at the thing in front of him. It had clearly been a dog, that was undeniably the head of a golden retriever but the bloated mess of a body was almost spiderish and had way too many legs to deal with.

“What the fuck is happening?” he shouted.

Crazed laughter came from outside and the spider dog began waving its bulging rear in excitement. A short girl in a hoody and jeans so ripped he couldn't tell if it was from monsters or just fashionable skipped into the room.

“Morning!” she did a little spin and pulled down her hood giving him a wide eyed grin. The girl had her long black hair hanging over her eyes doing her best to scare him but he sighed with relief and slumped to the ground ready to pass out again.

“How the hell did you find me?” he asked checking his dead phone

“You know Murphy has a great nose. I had one of your old hoodies and he sniffed you out” she said giving the dog a little boop on its nose.

That woke him up. “That's Murph?” he asked getting up to really get a look at the dog. “No wait, You took another hoodie?” he asked accusingly.

“Pfft, what's a hoodie between friends?” she nonchalantly kept petting the dog head.

Kaleb didn't have the energy to fight about it, she'd been stealing his clothes since they were kids and it would take more than the apocalypse to stop her.

“What happened to him?” he asked kneeling in front of the grotesque former dog.

Viv's eyes grew misty as she pet its head. “My spell, It can combine animals and I couldn't carry Larry with me with all the monsters. I thought I'd combine two pets into one, y'know?” her voice broke up as she continued. “It was horrible but he still just acts like a dog. Still wags his..” she trailed off watching the strange rear appendages of the giant spider bottom.

Now that he was looking for it Kaleb could see the distinct patterns of Larry the tarantula on Murphy's body. “That's pretty fucked up Viv.” he wrapped her in a hug to calm her down. “This whole things fucked. I'm glad you and Murph found me though.” the two friends just held each other for a while grateful for the human contact.

Once they were all hugged out Kaleb checked his phone again. It was completely dead. 'Explains why I don't remember waking up at all last night.' It also explained the lack of minions. A slight shiver ran down his spine at the thought of what could of happened. ' I really need to be more careful.'

“So, what's the plan?” Viv asked closing the door and grabbing a seat.

“I've no idea. What's yours?”

“To find you and not get eaten. Successfully accomplished both I might add.”

Kaleb did his best to brainstorm some ideas but they all involved helping the people he abandoned and then shot at him. 'To be fair it was dark and I had a minion army.' he tried to reason going back. “There's a group of people in the square we could try and join.” he suggested not wanting the whole plan to be on him. Viv shook her head and kept her eyes on Murphy.

“We passed by the square and it looks like the walls just made it harder to escape once the monsters came. Its the worst thing I think I've ever seen.”

'Well fuck.' he drummed his fingers just staring mindlessly ahead. 'What the fuck do people do in the apocalypse?' He still felt an urge to do some heroic shit despite everything that happened

“Fuck it. The worlds fake and there's no point sitting around like lost lemons. We need to go find somewhere we can make secure and then start saving people.”

Viv couldn't help but laugh “Saving people that's your plan, are you nuts?”

Kaleb shushed her and opened his minion creator. “I might be a while here and don't freak out if monsters start appearing in the room.”

He needed to make some better minions or at least he needed taller minions. Kaleb skimmed through the different presets offered by the spell and settled on a lord of the rings knock-off uruk-hai. He kept the dog like muzzle and acid spit. They were quite muscled already so he left that as is, they weren't terminator ripped but they did look like the hit the gym for fun. He stripped away anything useless like hair and fancy skin pasterns instead just going for his solid reds,blues,yellows and so on to better keep track of them.

Deciding to keep the sharp claws on their hands and feet increased the cost per minion high enough that he could only get two for every full mana bar but it only took about eighty percent meaning he began conjuring them one at a time as soon as his mana reached roughly forty percent.

Despite his earlier warning Viv completely flipped her lid when the first two muscle bound red warriors popped into being. They grunted to each other, looked around before a bit engaged in all minions favourite activity of scratching each other.

'I really need to find out what that's all about.' Kaleb thought warily while his horde slowly grew. Once he had ten minions he stopped being rude and explained his class to Viv while he began to pack up the bags his minions had dropped after vanishing.

“So instead of the cute little ones you decided to make these things?” she asked keeping way back from them.

“The little guys are great but these should be way stronger and rabbits can't just jump over them to stab me.”

Viv looked at him like he had three heads “What the fuck kind of rabbits do you know?”

Kaleb waved her off not wanting to dwell on yesterday. He considered making weapons for the minions but decided that would make their claws and teeth kind of pointless and settled for making Viv and himself a large shield each as well as a spear.

“Really? I make furry abominations and you get the power to pull whatever you want out of thin air. How is that fair?” Viv had given him a run down of her powers during his conjuring session and he knew she was underselling her abilities. “ You said you can take a part of an animal and combine it with yourself as well as combining them with each other. Considering the animals are all terrifying beasts from hell I'd say that's pretty powerful.” he sent his minions downstairs to check for monsters “Plus you have Murph.”

Out on the streets felt like walking through an alien planet. Creatures had continued mutating through the night becoming warped monsters while the plants and neatly trimmed trees had tore up the concrete and huge canopies blocked out the sky between buildings. “It's only been one day. This isn't supposed to happen so fast.” Kaleb complained. They were heading west to the docks were there would hopefully be less monsters. The terrain had changed drastically however making certain roads completely inaccessible and they had to add murderous plants to their growing list of problems. One of his Minions had stepped on a vine only to be ensnared and dragged kicking and screaming into a thicket of blood red brambles.

He had twenty minions up and was making a new one whenever he could when the first monster took a shot at them. It pounced from a second story window and raked its scythe like claws through the chest of the surprised minion. Kaleb brought his shield up and backed away letting his other minions wall him off and aid their shredded brother. The giant tabby cat with three tail purred with satisfaction at the success of it distraction. Viv screamed and collapsed to the ground holding the stump of her right arm.

Two more car sized cats had crept through the grass from behind. Kaleb jabbed his spear at the attackers face making it leap casually back and hunkered over Viv with his shield. It watched him while licking the blood off of its claws and Kaleb could swear he'd seen it wink. Minions broke off from the first fight to protect the rear. Viv was going pale as there was more of her blood on the road than in her body. Kaleb in a moment of panic fuelled clarity ordered the fighting minions to grab onto the first beast and hold it down regardless of the injuries they would suffer. They quickly pinned it and he ordered the still guarding ones to rush at the other two and keep them busy. He dragged Viv to the struggling cat and pushed her at it. “Use your spell!” he shouted in her ear hoping to make her drifting eyes focus. He kept short of slapping her but gave her bleeding stump a nudge to shock her alert. “Use the Spell!”

There was a green glow around her stump and one of the beasts legs and paw disintegrated and then was reconstructed on Viv with some minor alterations. Instead of a paw she had a fur covered hand with five inch retractable claws. The dark fur continued down her arm that was now rippling with muscles as she flexed. The spell seemed to have restored some blood along with the arm but the stress still had her nearly unconscious.

With one arm down the yowling beast was quickly killed and the full team ran at the remaining two. Kaleb held back but occasionally jabbed his spear when one tried to get around the group. He barely contributed compared to the minions tearing chunks of monster out with each bite. With the full attention of the group they decided to run, quickly disappearing into the thick foliage. Kaleb rushed back to Viv who was sitting up rubbing the fur on her arm.

“I'm a regular old cat girl now.” she joked

“No, can we not do cat girls. Its already weird enough.”Kaleb begged

“Nya?”

“I'll cut it off again if I have to.”

Viv couldn't hold back tears as she laughed raising her paw to her cheek before really crying. The fear of almost dying hit as the adrenaline wore off.

Kaleb picked her up before the shock really set in and handed her the dropped shield. “I'm sorry, I know this sucks but we can't stop here.”

“I know.” she wiped tears away taking big ragged breaths to get in control again. “At least its absorbent.” she said towelling her face with the fur. Kaleb grinned at her and formed up the group around them. He'd always admired Viv's ability to laugh even when things sucked.

They walked and fought their way through the streets for hours until the salty smell of the sea hung heavy in the air. The docks had been the most crime riddles area of the city and the shabby, poorly looked after buildings had mostly been destroyed by fire or the roots of trees attacking their foundations.

“Why was the docks a good idea again?” Viv asked still swiping her new arm through the air to get used to it.

“Should be less animals about except in the sea but I've no plan on going for a dip.

The warehouses should still have stuff in them and the container ships could be good for a base.” Kaleb could picture it now, a huge ship covered in multicoloured containers filled with all the supplies they could need.

Viv snapped him out of his wondering with a shove. “Well there's less animals.”

In front of them at the foot of the long hill were huge crowds of people in an insane mosh of weapons and spells. Some were clearly gangs with their colour coordinated fashion choices. The largest groups seemed to be military which now that he though about it made a lot of sense. The naval college and the recruitment building was in the docks and the port had their own armed guards. 'They've even got the coast guard in there.'

“Lets see who's winning before we jump in.” he said hopping on top of a car to sit and watch. Viv climbed up next to him and the minions stood guard.

“Should of brought snacks.”

Kaleb plopped a cube of food on the hood of the car and tore a chunk off. “Its not popcorn but its good enough.”