"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

  -Friedrich Nietzsche- Beyond Good and Evil

  Still Day 762 of this shitty Apocalypse

  The screams of terror coming from the sentry towers cut off instantly, one second there, the next, absolute silence. I looked up quickly to see that all the sentries in the tower had disappeared. Fen had used the shade cast by the encampment as a portal.

  “He must’ve put them in his shadow before he shadow-jumped to Leslie, to avoid any collateral damage in case she’s hurt and I freak out. Probably a good idea just in case. I wouldn’t want to hurt any innocent’s in that case, just this bastard,”

  A few seconds later, I heard the loudest howl I’ve ever heard from Fen, echoing with pain and tinged with madness

  Before thoughts of what could have happened started running through my mind, I felt a huge paw wrap around my leg, and then a pulling sensation, I felt myself become weightless and start falling downwards, through the ground. I made sure I had a tight hold on the Mutant in my grasp, No way was I not taking him with me. Depending on what had happened, my vengeance upon him would be swift and merciless.

  When I could see again, I was standing somewhere completely different than the camp I was just in front of. I was where I had Fen cover Leslie with shadows. I had wanted to place her in Fen’s shadow, that way absolutely no harm could come to her, but she had refused. She was always afraid that she would be trapped forever if Fen somehow died while she was still in his shadow, and was never willing to risk it, no matter how many times I had begged her in the past.

  She was still Tier 1, and only just barely half-way through it, not even close to the peak of Tier 1, and I had told her it was too dangerous to come with me.

  “Maybe if she had come with me like she wanted, we wouldn’t be in this position.” I thought angrily at myself.

  I didn’t see either Leslie or Fen at first, and then I heard a short, high-pitched whine coming from a few yards behind me.

  I realized I couldn’t turn around, because I was still hanging by this dudes head a couple feet off of the ground. Knowing he couldn't even break my skin if I stood still and let him whale on me all day, I ignored him for the moment.

  I released my grip on him, and let myself drop to the dirt. As soon as my feet hit the ground , I performed an instant one-eighty, and what I saw brought me to my knees with a thud so hard they dug about six inches into the hard packed dirt.

  The only thing visible of my Leslie was her terrified face protruding from the body of a huge Beast, some type of constrictor snake, with it’s mouth wide open around her throat. It’s fangs were pressed against the front and back of her neck, and I could see fresh blood dripping down her throat where the fangs were slightly grazing her.

  I turned my head quickly to look back at the huge man.

  “I can bargain with him. He has to know if he kills Leslie he loses his only bargaining chip. I can offer him increased power, that’s all a man like this cares about. He obviously has a Mental type Mutation towards Beasts, but I don’t have enough information to know if it’s restricted to snake-types or just any Beast in general” I thought to myself, beginning to feel bits of panic and impotent rage clawing at the edges of my mind.

  “What do you want in exchange for her life? Don’t even think of fucking with me. If she dies, she’ll have you for company on her way to the afterlife. I’ve got lot’s of things somebody you might like. You must have an ability to control snakes or maybe just animals in general, am I right?’ At this he nodded his head a couple of times. ‘I have plenty of Beast parts that could improve a Beast’s bloodline, even a Basilisk heart for that snake of yours. After this, we part ways, completely. You have my word on that.” I finished bargaining, almost pleading with him.

  “How do I know I can even trust you not to kill me once I let your girl go. Earlier you were just a millisecond from making my head go poof like some magic fairy dust.” He spoke confidently, now probably knowing he had me right where he wanted me.

  “The truth is you don’t. Could you honestly say you could trust anybodies word even before the Apocalypse?” I asked.

  He snorted at that.

  “Exactly my point,’ I remarked. ‘What you can trust is mutual benefits. If my Leslie is safe, no harm, no foul. I just go find another group of survivors to power up. You get guaranteed safety from me for the rest of your life, no matter what you do, as long as you don’t attack my Leslie again, and you get a significant power up for that Beast under your control. You do know that the Basilisk was king of the Serpents right, able to kill with eye contact alone? Imagine that against the zombies, or any of your enemies for that fact."

  With that last sentence I could tell I had won him over. His eyes lit up like he had just gotten all his previous years Christmas gifts at once. Especially in this day and age, you didn’t know which behemoth was right around the corner that could walk past and crush your camp without even realizing it, that’s the kind of world we lived in today. And the Basilisk was pretty fucking OP. I’d had to make Leslie gouge my eyes out and have her call out directions during the fight. That was probably the worst pain I’d ever felt, and it didn’t help knowing that as part-Divinity I could grow them back over time, with a little help from my own jury-rigged health potion.

  “Ay, for how sketchy it seemed at first, zombie-Cores distilled into alcohol actually does mimick the effects of a health potion in classic video games. Though it still pisses me off that I can remember everything about the mechanics of every game I’ve played, but I just can't remember me actually playing them. It’s like those people who can’t picture objects in their mind. What is it called… oh, Aphantasia, almost forgot, hehe,”

  “Fen, the Basilisk heart. Now please. I looked over to Fen who was between me and the snake wrapped around Leslie.

  He whined a little, and then I heard his voice whisper in my mind, “Big brother, it is dishonorable to submit to a cur like this,”

  I replied back to him mentally as well, “I choose Leslie over honor any day. Now the heart. This is not a request.”

  At that with a final bark, Fen lifted up his left paw, and as if it rose from it’s depths, the still pulsing heart of the Basilisk was revealed. It let out an aura of power that dwarfed the still living snake wrapped around Leslie, coming from just the heart of a Tier 1 Beast, even though the guy’s snake was at least a Tier 2 Beast. It was just a qualitative difference in Bloodlines.

  The Beast’s master didn’t even have to say anything to his snake. As soon as the heart appeared and it's aura started wafting from it, it took it’s fangs from Leslie’s throat and started uncoiling rapidly. At the end it must have been about thirty feet long, not the biggest for even a snake before the Apocalypse, but it more than made up for it in sheer girth. It had to be as wide around as a fully grown oak tree. It had to have balanced it’s weight perfectly on it’s coiled body or it would have crushed Leslie to goo with one wrong move

  Fen tossed it high in the air, thankfully diagonally back and away from Leslie to make sure that she wasn’t hurt in it’s frenzy to evolve. The snake’s head and part of the front of it’s body literally sailed through the air in pursuit of the alluring morsel. With a chomp, it’s dislocated jaws clamped around the heart, and then it let itself crash heavily to the ground, digging a large furrow into the earth before it came to a complete stop, though it looked no worse for the wear despite it's heavy impact.

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  I called out to Fen through our link, “Take her away, but just far enough so she can’t see us. She doesn’t need to witness what I’m about to do. Protect her in case he has any other Beasts under his control. Worst case, her life is more important than her feelings. Take her into your shadow and jump as far away as you can. You know I can handle myself, at least against this scrub and his snake.”

  Fen didn’t bother wasting many words. “For you big brother, it is done.” He loped quickly towards Leslie, grabbing her up by the back of her shirt gently between his teeth, almost like a mother wolf picking up her cub by the folds of skin in its neck, and then he lightly tossed her up and around with his neck so she landed perfectly astride his back. He then took off like a rocket, until he had disappeared over the horizon, even utilizing my perception to the max. My enhanced vision didn’t really allow me to see further than about three miles while on the ground, but that was due to the curvature of the Earth. But, my eyes could now zoom in kind of like binoculars, so anything that I could see, I could see like it was right in front of my face,

  Now that Leslie was safe, I had some business to take care of. I turned around slowly, limiting myself to my pre-Integration stats, so the man could see every bit of what I was about to do.

  My thoughts must have revealed themselves on my face, because he started backing up with a fearful expression on his face. He quickly looked past me towards his snake, which when I quickly turned my head, actually lay convulsing.

  “Man, I was saving that heart for when Leslie got strong enough to eat it and gain the Basilisks ability through her Mutation. That snake better survive, and it better be at least as powerful as it’s donor, or it’ll just be a waste of the blood, sweat, and tears that I shed during the hardest battle of my life.”

  “My Leslie’s safe now. I fucking told you what would happen if a hair on her head was harmed! But you just couldn’t bear to be the loser in this situation, could you, and now you’ve crossed my bottom line. I think this time, I might actually enjoy this,” And with that, I shut up. There would be no further words wasted on this cretin.

  “But we had a deal! You gave me your word! Does that mean nothing to you?” He finally realized the situation he had let himself get into, He could have just stayed hidden, seen what I wanted before he tried to start a dick-measuring contest with me. He would have realized that I was only there to help the survivors, and him, if he would have just given me the time to let me make my intentions clear, but noooo.

  I finally started walking towards him, savoring every little expression of fear I could see shift across his face.

  “You’re slipping Cade. I’ve remained silent long enough throughout this fiasco. This isn’t who you are Cade, but doing this will probably be the thing that tips you over the edge,” came a voice I hadn’t heard since before I had left Leslie where I thought she would be totally hidden.

  “Be quiet Heph, this doesn’t concern you. How could you possibly understand how I feel right now? Even the incarnation of Love couldn’t stand you, so how could you?” I didn’t realize until I saw a look of confusion cross the giant man’s face that I had replied to Heph out loud.

  Finished speaking, even to the voice in my head, I burst into action. Moving at my top speed, the Mutant could again not even begin to react before I was right in front of him, until I came to a complete stop with my left hand gripped around his right wrist in a vice grip, with my right hand placed between his shoulder and neck for leverage, and my legs using his knees as a foothold.

  He could probably guess what I was about to do, because he gasped out two words, his voice breaking, “Please, no,"

  A smile crossed my face. It was much too late to beg.

  With the slightest bit of effort, I jerked the hand wrapped around his wrist downwards in one smooth motion, and then an instant later, I was soaked from head to toe in the blood spurting from the slight stump where his right arm used to be. I quickly grabbed him and faced him away from me to stop any more blood getting on me.

  “Damn, shouldn’t have slowed my perception down so much to enjoy my revenge, Could’ve dodged the blood and saved another outfit from the fire.”

  With him now faced away from me, I tugged him down to his knees so now he was now almost at my height, now just a little shorter than me on his knees,

  “Open your mouth,’’ I said, reaching into the denim drawstring bag I had stuffed in my pocket, which was filled with a few spare health potions, the ones that I didn’t have Fen store in his shadow. ‘It’ll stop you from bleeding to death, so drink it, or I’ll bust your teeth out and do it for you” I held the bottle up to his lips and poured about the entire bottle between his now open mouth.

  “This should be enough to sustain his life through what I’m about to do to him. I did tell him I would leave him in Fen’s shadow for eternity, and I can’t do that with him dead, now can I?”

  I could see the profuse bleeding from his stump slowing down to a bare trickle in real time, and then stop completely.

  I moved in a flash until I was again facing the giant again, towards the direction where Fen had taken off with Leslie. I looked past the kneeling man to where the snake still lay thrashing around in obvious excruciating pain.

  “I knew that it would be painful for a normal Beast to try and upgrade to a King Beast bloodline, but damn. It’s stuggles are still going on strong though, so it must still have plenty of energy. Maybe there is a good chance it will succeed and upgrade it’s bloodline. That would be awesome, that way there’s still a chance for Leslie to gain the Basilisk ability, and probably a level out of it too.”

  “I’m not done with you yet. You can thank one of your sentries for giving me the idea,’

  I said in a monotone voice. ‘But this is starting to bore me, plus I want to go check on Leslie, so we’re gonna have to speed this up.

  A second later, the man that could no longer ever be called a giant again thudded to the ground, then tipped over almost like a felled tree, with nothing left to keep him upright anymore.

  A scream so shrill I almost pitied the man's vocal cords erupted from the now supine man. The scream cut off and he started bawling, taking in deep shuddering breaths just to continue screaming/crying.

  “Eww, get a hold of yourself man. You made your bed, I just tucked you in.” I quipped, feeling quite proud of myself for coming up with that one on the spot.

  I could hear the sobs start to peter out, and then stop completely.

  “Dude must have passed out, the health potion will stop him from dying. Alright, guess my fun’s over.”

  I stepped around him so I stood blocking the light from reaching the now much smaller man.

  Reaching out to Fen mentally, “Fen, he’s in my shadow. Take him through it instead of coming back yourself. It’s not pretty,” He didn’t bother to ask what I had done, because he would find out soon enough once he was placed in Fen’s shadow.

  I watched as the now quadruple amputee sank into my shadow, and then a few seconds later Fen was standing in front of me with Leslie still on his back, but only for an instant before she swung her leg over Fen’s back and she slid off in one smooth motion. She strode up to me until she was in front of me, and it looked like she didn’t know whether she should kiss or slap me. I guess my killer face-card won her over, because her softer instincts won out, and she leaned in to wrap her arms around my sides, and stand up on her tiptoes with her lips puckered towards me for a kiss, which I obviously reciprocated, I could feel her melt into my arms, and I felt a heavy weight that I hadn’t even known I was carrying lift from my shoulders.

  After a few seconds of sweet relief where the world around us disappeared, leaving Leslie as the center of my entire world, I pulled away, and the world came back into focus.

  “Baby, I-, I was so scared I was gonna lose you,’ I half-sobbed into her ear,

  “Sshhh, sshhh, it’s okay, my sweet, sweet avenging angel,”

  I half-chuckled at that.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s blasphemy baby. Wrong pantheon, remember?”

  “It’s not like I could call you my Nemesis,’ she said giggling beautifully. ‘First off, she’s a woman, and you are very much a man, and secondly, it sounds like I’m calling you my enemy.’

  She pressed herself up to me and reached towards my junk and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “Damn woman, am I just a piece of meat to you? Hands off the goods.” I said, though with zero heat in my voice.

  “Filet mignon though” she replied straight-faced

  I snorted saying, “This is what I get for loving someone who shares my sense of humor. Let’s go find a place to bed down tonight, and if you’re good, I might do that thing you like before we go to sleep,”

  She drew in a sharp breath, and then started breathing shallow and quickly. “That thing you do with your tou-?” I cut her off with a hand to the mouth.

  “Shush, little ears around. Fen’s a few feet behind you, and you know how good his hearing is, even compared to mine. But yes.” I spoke, laughing. I finally looked past Leslie towards where Fen was now sitting on his haunches. He pulled apart his lips in his imitation of a human smile.

  I averted my eyes in embarrassment. “Gods, he must know. If his mom was still alive she would probably tear my throat out for perverting her cub’s innocence.

  Approximately a couple hour later

  A scream split the night, “Aaaagh, God’s above!!”

  “Good night babe,” I whispered into the dark a few seconds later

  “Night, baby” responded Leslie in a whisper a couple notes higher than usual.

  A final thought crossed my mind before I turned over on my luxurious Beast furs.

  “Hehe, still got it,”