“Alright let’s move out”

“What was your name again?”

“Err… Gans” Alex replied.

“OK...Gans.” Henderson said, looking like he tasted something bad in his mouth “Stick with me while we head to the station... And keep that pistol of yours in your backpack. If you've never had a lot of advanced fire training into you could make a pretty bad mistake.”

Henderson looked over to him at the last statement, and Alex nodded to confirm he understood. He might not have had a lot of practice with it, but he had grown up in a family that liked to use guns for hunting, if anything, his pistol scared him slightly.

With that the group started to move out slowly past the corpse strewn area while Henderson pointed out a few of the things that they had shot. It was impressive how much they had killed. The attacking monsters had generally disregarded their personal safety and charged the group from the open. Alex noticed a few different monsters besides goblins. What looked like wolves and humanoid dogs also littered the road way.

“Yesterday” he began, kicking a monster corpse lightly while keeping his a pistol trained on it, “Everything was pretty normal if you don't figure on the people passing out all over the place. Hell, Donnie over there” he waved to one of the police officers, a small man red haired man whose riot gear had a large scar running down the middle “passed out head first into his steering wheel while driving. His partner had to grab the wheel from him and even then they crashed since just about every third car had a driver passing out as well.” Henderson, stopped briefly as he examined a few more of the corpses on the street, checking the human bodies.

Noticing Alex’s gaze he grunted, softly, shaking his head as he passed another dead body “Haven’t found any survivors in the bodies yet.”

They left behind the battle site and continued down the street, Alex noted as they walked more monster bodies mixed in with the human corpses. He hadn’t noticed it before due to the adrenaline of the moment, but there was an overpowering smell of copper blood, shit and piss in the air. He shook his head slightly at a pile of bodies on the street, wondering what it would be like when the bodies started to rot.

As they came up to the corner of main street they all bunched up on one side of a building, the lead man peering out ahead before signaling the go ahead for everyone. Alex followed them quietly from behind alongside Henderson, who kept up his vigil amongst the bodies, looking for human survivors.

Turning left onto Main Street Alex got a better view of downtown than before as they were on top of a hill and were able to look down into the town of Appleton. The fires from before had grown larger and the sporadic gunfire surrounding them had intensified as well. Alex checked his watch, 11 am. People like Alex who had hid in their homes before were probably starting to overcome their fears and go outside.

“It wasn't too bad,” Henderson continued, drawing out the words and frowning slightly as he recalled it, “we were pulling people out of cars and sending to people to the hospital. Tow trucks were on their way to pull everything out of the way. EMT's were going into homes to help people who had injured themselves passing out and firefighters were freeing trapped people. It was a disaster but,” he paused, thinking, “It was something we were used too. Those were all things we’ve dealt with. Next thing we know...”

The lead man made sharp signal with his hand after they crossed a block and everyone stopped dead in their tracks, bending down. Alex, walking down the street thinking about the situation didn’t notice and walked into Henderson, bouncing back slightly from the contact. Henderson, making an irritated face turned to stare him down and put a finger to his mouth as Alex, red faced, slowly crouched down next to him.

They were relatively out in the open, and Alex noticed the buildings were getting taller as they moved closer to downtown. There were a lot more bodies on the ground now, and Alex got the impression that there was fighting in the area very recently, it just… smelled and looked differently to him in a way he couldn’t put his finger on. Alex noticed all the men tensed up and looking around, guns out.

He looked around but didn't see any dangers around. He tried looking into some of the windows in the office buildings around him but couldn't see much in them either. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he saw a few frightened faces looking down at him from the windows.

Looking back, he noticed that his summoned creatures were tense as well, and all three of them were looking towards the next block at the corner turning right.

“Henderson” he whispered as quietly as he could.

Henderson looked over, making a pissed off face at being interrupted a second time. Alex pointed at his creatures and then towards the next street corner on the right. Looking confused for a second, understanding dawned on the big man’s face and he crept up to the rest of the men whispering quietly and making some motions with his hands. Alex stayed put a few yards behind them all, slowly backing up against a car on the street to make himself smaller.

All of the men looked back at his creatures before staring up at the corner and putting themselves into a covered position, most of them preferring to take cover near Alex where a car was sitting sideways across the street.

The man with the scar on his riot armor, Donnie, came over next to Alex and squatted down, giving him a thumbs up and a quick smile, before peering over the hood of the vehicle with his police shotgun at the ready.

“THIS IS THE POLICE” Henderson shouted at the corner “COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP AND IDENTIFY YOURSELVES. WE WILL USE LETHAL FORCE IF FIRED UPON.”

A few seconds passed before a hulking dog like creature turned the corner, walking slowly as if it wanted them all to get a good look at it. Alex couldn't make out all the details as it was under the shadow of a building, but it looked like it had armored itself in scrap metal and most of its fur was matted down with blood, its eyes seemed to glow a soft red as it looked at them as it clutched a primitive looking axe in its hand. Dried Blood covered its entire face.

“Gnolls. Shit.” Whispered Donnie. Alex looked at Donnie questioningly.

“They always come with large pack when they decide to come at you. Hopefully that's just a scout or loner” he explained.

The gnoll stood there for a few seconds, sniffing the air and looking back and forth at men behind cover before it opened its mouth in a panting smile. Bracing itself against the ground with its legs, it arched its back and belted out an ear piercing loud howl. Windows all around them shattered and several of the men put their hands to their ears, Alex included.

“FRAG OUT!” One of the men in fatigues yelled, taking the initiative and throwing grenade towards the howling gnoll. The grenade arched up and bounced past the howling gnoll, disappearing from sight. A chorus of howls sounded out in answer to the gnoll.

Leaping out and onto the ground, the huge lone gnoll sprinted towards the furthest forward man, moving quickly with four of its limbs propelling it forward at an incredible speed. The riot cop took several shots with his pistol before bracing behind his heavy riot shield. Sparks flashed off the gnoll as

Reaching the braced riot cop, the bloodied gnoll hopped on the man’s shield and then kicked off, pouncing on top of a relatively unarmored soldier in fatigues, both of them knocking down violently into the pavement.

“FUCKING SHOOT HIM! SHOOT!” The man screamed, as he was picked up by the gnoll and then slammed back into the ground. Momentarily stunned the gnoll took a hard swipe into the soldier’s ribs, and then dove forward to bite at him.

The soldier, screaming and punching his M4 upwards into its teeth blocked the bite, as it involuntarily bit down onto his gun. Gripping the M4 with its teeth, the gnoll reared up to swing with its claws again before Henderson marched up and shot it off the man with a point blank shotgun blast. The gnoll shrieked like a wounded dog as it was blasted off.

The pack of hidden gnolls turned the corner, all of them sprinting on all fours. The grenade went off then, part of the pack getting blown to the side of the street howling and twisting in pain, but still alive and clawing the ground attempting to get back on their feet. The others in the pack kept up the charge, shrugging off shrapnel wounds as they plowed into the two shield riot officers who had run towards each other and slammed their shields together, bracing against one of the cars.

Alex watched everything descend into chaos. The men were all letting loose with their guns, wipping into the gnoll pack. Some of the gnolls were dropping, but most were taking fatal wounds and shrugging them off. Pushing their bleeding bodies towards the two riot shield holders, mobbing the two and ignoring the shots coming from all of the soldiers and police.

“FUCKING DIE” screamed Donnie next to him, as he began firing off round after round from his pump shotgun into the pack as they advanced.

The pack leader, despite getting shot close range with a shotgun seemed to be getting back on its feet before being put down again by another blast from the Henderson, this time being thrown backwards and shuttering in death throes. The downed soldier got back up from the ground screaming and cussing and despite bleeding claw marks to his side, and added fire with Henderson into the gnoll pack.

Alex, shaking slightly and breathing heavily as he watched, ripped the pack off of his back, zipping it open quickly and grabbing his pistol. He stood there, holding the pistol between his hands shakily, his hands automatically gripping it correctly from memory. Instead of firing however he continued to hold it down and watch as the fight progressed.

One of the shield bearers had his shield ripped away from him, and three of the gnolls grabbed onto him, each biting into the man as they brought him down into the ground, making tearing and ripping sounds while he screamed.

“FUCKING JAMES” one of the cops began to scream while unloading his shotgun into the three on top of the man, ignoring friendly fire.

By now the rate of fire was starting overwhelm the gnolls and their numbers continued to drop down, most of them being cut down right by the remaining shield bearer as they struggled with him, trying to claw around the man while he crouched down behind his shield and held on to it with both hands, pistol forgotten. The soldiers began to walk up, firing semi-automatic shots as they got closer to the melee pile, accurate bullets tearing through the few remaining gnolls, and each dead gnoll hitting the pavement like a doll with its strings cut. The remaining cops and soldiers, enraged, advanced on the few injured gnolls from the initial grenade blast, pumping bullets into each of them at close range as they struggled towards the men, an insane blood lust still in their eyes even as they were being wiped out.

“INBOUND!” Screamed Donnie. Alex looked over as shadow fell over them both, knocking Danny aside the figure swung viciously across Alex’s face, claws shredding across. Hot stabbing pain throbbed as he fell to the ground and ineffectually brought his arm up to block another slash, and instead he felt pain as the blood faced gnoll bit into his shoulder and thrashed his head wildly.

Overcoming his blindness and pain he cried out “attack” as the gnoll let go of his shoulder and reared up to swipe down with his claws. Alex didn't have the strength to fight back anymore and watched it as it reared up.

The trio saved him them. The Sparrow slamming into the head of the gnoll while shrieking wildly, the rat and raccoon both jumping onto its back. Enraged and distracted the gnoll howled and reared up quickly, frantically trying to shake the three off of it.

Alex, vision filled with blood, opened one good eye to realize he was still holding onto his pistol. Shakily, with his other hand bracing his firing arm he raised the pistol, thumbed the safety, and hastily shot at the struggling shadowed creature on top him. The figured stiffened up with the shot, and his three summoned creatures continued to bite and claw at it as if fell to the pavement alongside him, its last foul breath blowing against his face.

Level up!

Alex smiled in spite of the pain it caused his face, letting out a soft moan as he lay there immobile, thinking of how ridiculous this world was now. It felt like eternity to him before the remaining gunfire from the men petered out.

Donnie had gently lifted him up and propped him up against the car door, saying something to him and snapping his fingers, attempting to get his attention. Alex, however, at that moment, couldn't care less what Donnie wanted and felt incredibly tired. He could barely see out of his right eye, if at all, he felt debilitating pain across his face and shoulder, and he felt more tired than ever before. Every time he tried to close his eyes to rest, however, Donnie would do something annoying like snapping his fingers in front of his face.

After a while, and some muted conversations, two of the men, Alex didn't know who, had lifted him up and had him half walk. He could hear a bit more clearly now than before and his thoughts started to become less muddled, his uncaring attitude started to move over for the pain.

It felt like it took forever to say it, as he was being practically dragged between the two men, “what’s up” he rasped... still feeling a little punch drunk

“See I told you.” He heard the man on his left say, “just needed some time not fighting and he will start healing up like it was no big deal.

“He still looks pretty goddam awful” another man in front him said, taking a quick look at Alex's face before continuing forward.

“I doubt that James will make it. We might heal faster now, but he’s still bleeding out pretty badly,” said the man carrying him on his right.

There was a pause at that for a while before cheerful man on his left began to speak again. “Well, anyway, good news for you. The Sarge took a look at your eye while you were sitting there out of it, you'll be fine, not real wound in your eye, it’s that the blood and swelling that shut your eye up so you can't see.”

“That’s good...” he mumbled back. A small amount of relief pouring into him. He hadn't even considered that he'd be blind.

“What happened anyway? I thought we got all of them?” He asked to no one in particular.

Downer man on his right answered this time “Yeah, we did. That one that got you was the one from the very beginning. Remember the Sergeant had shot it twice with his shotgun damn near point blank!”

Alex remembered it, twitching on the ground in a rictus of pain. The gnolls were really tough.

“That reminds me” asked the man on the left “those animals of yours...”

“Stow the talk. We're not home yet.” He heard a familiar voice cut through them.

The rest of that day was hell for Alex as his body slowly healed itself. He might have been getting better as the day continued but he was still incapacitated, managing to put just a little more strength into his steps as the two men carried him along. On top of that, no one had any pain medications on them, apparently having used their limited supply yesterday in battles similar to the one with the gnolls.

According to the chatterbox on his left, who whispered for the rest of the journey, they were about twenty people strong yesterday. Alex looked around at that, counting only about a dozen of them now, when he first met them they seemed like a pretty strong group.

The gnoll pack must have numbered around 20 though, they had been outnumbered from the start.

The gnoll ambush wasn't the only attack of the day as they made their way across the city with Alex limping along slowly and James the wounded riot shield cop being carried. Goblins, only numbering in twos or threes would occasionally harass them.

They were easily taken out by their rifles and shotguns however, and didn't impede the journey much besides slow it down. The men were patient enough to hunker down whenever they heard something approach. The goblins, in naive excitement, tended to break first and expose themselves to the waiting guns of the men. Fortunately, they had even more advanced notice with Alex’s pets, anything that approached them out of sight or quietly would still get picked up by the trio, each of them tensing up visibly. A few of the men started to periodically monitor his animals as they moved.

Alex's pets even managed to take down a lone goblin that he spotted stalking the group from the side. It was incredibly disturbing to watch the trio literally rip apart the small green humanoid. Animals don't attack like the way his did, it was as if they were missing any sense of caution or pacing that a normal animal would have, instead ferociously attacking his target like the gnolls had done.

He shuttered slightly as he recalled the scene again, the vicious fight of three small animals taking apart the goblin playing over again in his mind. The goblin couldn't react to three attackers at one, and they slowly pecked and bit at it, bleeding it out and crippling it before attacking together. The men with him had watched it with a morbid fascination, none of them giving the goblin a mercy shot to finish the fight. The summoned creatures were far deadlier and useful then any of them thought initially.

At one point the group stopped to do something, Alex, instead of paying attention to it, took a nap against a car while they were speaking to one another. When one of his helpers nudged him awake again, he couldn't help but feel worse from the nap.

When they did make it to the station, he could almost walk for himself, and checked the time, 4:30. “Have we been out that long?” He thought to himself. Part of him wondered at that, but it made sense since they had to slow down or wait around for a fight.

He almost cried out in relief when they reached the police station. Two men in fatigues waved at them from the entrance, and the two group’s cried greetings as a few more soldiers walked out from the police station. A heavyset frightened man also walked out from the front door to greet them, looking relieved when he saw the group return and pushing both doors open, letting them all inside.

Alex might have mistaken because of the pain and his swollen eye, but he could have sworn he saw the heavy man scowl at him when he stepped through the doorway into the police station, but he ignored it instead, taking in the surroundings of the station. It definitely didn't look like he had imagined from moves, as instead of orderly rows of desks past the receiving area he saw a small tent town taking over all of their office space.

His helper directed him over to an empty tent, and Alex ignored what he said to him and he fell into the makeshift bed inside, falling blissfully asleep on the good side of his face.

---------

Author: ending seems a little weak and rushed, not sure if I will change it though as his pain is influencing how much he pays attention to how things progress. Only went through one proof read so I might have to revisit this again.

By the way, holy crap did I make the gnolls OP. Was not expecting that.