"Well, there's that thing in the steel mill you could try to get rid of, but there's something more important if you'd be willing. We’ve been having trouble getting in contact with people on the East side of town lately," Anna admitted a bit reluctantly, "can you check on them for us?"

  "You've lost contact with them?" I asked a bit worried. There were very few reasons for contact to be lost and few of them good. Especially these days. "Have you sent anyone to investigate?"

  "A couple of people yeah," Anna admitted sadly, "They didn't come back, so I doubt it's anything minor. They were some of our best hunters so the council just sort of wrote the whole secrion of town off. I was considering just leaving and hoping the next city over is better off than here."

  A quick glance at Matilda and Damian ended with a quick nod from Matilda and a slower one from Damian. "We'd be willing to at least look into it, maybe report back what we see."

  The snake woman seemed delighted before suddenly fearful then nervous before weakly asking. "W-would y-you, uhm, be w-willing to let me come along?"

  I started to rear back and only just managed to swallow the hiss trying to tear free from my throat as my snake side started insisting this upstart was trying to steal 'my' hunt. Breathing deeply through my nose as I fought the autistically hissing snake instincts down I eventually managed to growl out, "May I ask why?"

  Anna looked to be fighting not to flee the area as she trembled behind the concrete of the bridge. She still managed to stammer out, "W-w-well uh-I, *cough*, I had family among those sent to i-investigate a-and I." she paused fighting to get herself under control, "I want to find out what happened to him."

  My sympathy for her situation easily drowned out the furious ranting of my inner snake, "Of course. Do keep in mind this will potentially be very dangerous and you might not like what you find. No matter what happens, I will need you to do what we say. We've all got several ways of detecting things at long range so even if things seem calm and we tell you to do it immediately, understand?"

  "Yes sir," she said, trying to snap a salute with her tiny little arms.

  I glared at the little limbs in jealousy for a moment before sighing, "Good enough, now where were the missing people staying? When did you lose contact with them?"

  "They had mostly gathered around the Stonewall Church just off of 286 and the X-on station." she gestured with a thumb over her shoulder, "It's about five miles down the road."

  "Oh, I think I know the place," I announced happily, "Any other problems with getting in contact with other gatherings?"

  "Not really, contact with the Bulkathon up north and campgrounds down south have been sparse due to travel times, but not real issues besides getting everything running again and finding out what exactly we all have and can do. There's a bunch of aggressive animals, but our hunters and police have managed to mostly handle those. We haven't heard anything from Waxahachie, but that's like fifteen miles from where I've been staying and we've been busy working through things nearby and keeping everyone properly fed."

  "Uhg, another five miles?" I moaned, "That's a whole 'nother hour of walking! Do you mind letting me know where you've been staying? I could use a break from dragging all this dead weight."

  "You act like I weigh more than a feather to you," Damian scoffed, "I'm not that fat anymore!"

  I gave the man the most deadpan stare I could manage, "And yet it feels like I am carrying several tons of metal with your fat dino tail on my back." I managed to hold the look for a couple more seconds before we both broke down into a fit of laughter. Turning back to Anna with a real smile I asked her, "Do you mind taking us to the town you've been staying at? I'd like to set some stuff down and rest a bit before heading over."

  Again Anna squirmed a bit nervously, her little gecko-esque hands wringing, "It's down south near the baseball fields, but I'd rather not go with you if that's alright." I raised an eyebrow at her, remaining silent. Her squirming increased as she said, "I was planning to leave, so I might have helped myself to a few things, without asking."

  "Child," Matilda stated in a calm level tone that brooked no argument and promised pain, "You are going to come with us back to the Fields and return everything you took right this instance or, God as my witness, I will drag you back there."

  "But I-" Anna didn't get any further before Matilda shook free two of her larger moths and all three flew up to the snake woman. All three spat a thick line of silk that clung to the woman's snout and started pulling. Anna yelped and tried to resist only for the six other moths Matilda had summoned earlier to begin dive bombing her and batting at Anna's face with their wings. Anna hissed frightfully, batting her arms at the cloud of giant moths ineffectually and getting one of her hands tied to her face for her trouble. "Alright! I give up! Stop! Stop!"

  Matilda ceased her attack, all eight of her flutter of moths settling on the bridge to glare reproachfully at the giant snake woman who dejectedly picked up her garbage bag of stolen goods and began to sulkingly begin leading us south.

  I took the moment to happily bask in the amusement of not being the giant snake subject to the old woman's badgering for once.

  The walk to the community park took another half hour, the both of us slithering through the streets with a rider on our heads. Damian was thankfully a far happier passenger than Matilda, who still seemed to be actively scolding the woman. The worst I got from Damian was a complaint that our rations of jerky were starting to taste a bit on the stale side.

  When we came up upon the baseball field the reactions of the locals seemed far less than pleased going by the glares and tension that came over everyone.

  I largely ignored the tension as I looked over the area. It looked like it had once been a solid mile of fields and park with two lakes, a splash pad, multiple sport courts, a playground, and covered picnic and bathroom facilities. In its heyday it must have been beautiful, sadly time had not been kind. The vast manicured fields completely overgrown with grass and briars, trees from nearby woods and pathways had become unruly and begun to spread like a cancer, and several of the gazebos had collapsed.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  People were making their best of it. Even as I watched people were fighting back the grass with blade and claw as others gathered the thorny briars, perhaps for lashings or ready made rope. Others were stashing supplies and materials they were pulling out of nearby houses in the covered areas and some very early construction using felled trees looked to be aimed towards trying to expand the limited buildings into storehouses and barracks. They clearly had a lot less to work with than we'd had back in the heart of the metroplex but were persevering regardless of the challenges.

  I focused on the people again as I saw an ankylosaurus with an ax bladed thagomizer storming towards us with fire in its eyes as it glared at Anna, "Well it seems the little thieving snake has decided to call it quits already. I'd say you got cold feet to go with that cold blood, but you don't even have that. And who are these people supposed to be? Did you form a gang and come to steal more from us or did you try to rob these people too and get arrested? Hmm? Well? Spit it out! You've never had any trouble spitting your venom everywhere before."

  I bristled at the cruel barbs the woman was throwing, they were undoubtedly deserved to a point as Anna had been rather stupid in her actions. There was still a limit and adding us to her calumny tirade was hardly making me well disposed towards her. Going by the unhappy rumble in Damian's chest I had the suspicion he felt the same way.

  Yet before I could say anything Matilda cut in, "It seems the years haven't dulled your tongue a bit when something gets your goat Agatha." the moth chortled, "You can ease off, I've already given her an earful for playing the fool. Too much more and you'll render the poor girl a sobbing wreck."

  The grumpy dinosaur squinted up at Matilda, "Do I know you dear?"

  "And here I was hoping that your Alzheimer's had cleared up with the change, Aggie," Matilda moaned with mock sadness, "What's a poor little Mattie supposed to do without her Aggie?"

  The flat-backed dinosaur's mood instantly shifted to radiant joy as she all but started dancing in place with a cry that seemed to contain all the joy the world had ever known compacted down into a singular exclamation, "Matilda!?! You get your buggy butt down here right this instant!"

  Matilda threw herself and all of her moths onto the woman as the two elderly women began to happily nuzzle each other and babble excitedly at such a rate I felt certain that neither could understand the other. It didn't seem to matter, they were simply too happy to see each other. A glance over at Anna showed the smaller snake looking on with a confused and dazed expression of someone who had been too close to a very large explosion. I suspected she'd likely never seen the razor tongued woman this happy and cuddly before.

  "Oh! Where are my manners," Matilda exclaimed as the two women put pause to their nuzzling. "Aggie, this is Joe and Damian. A couple of fine young men I'm helping at the moment. Boys, this here is Aggie. She's been my best friend since I was six and I am very glad she is herself again."

  "Myself? Bah," the woman scoffed as she playfully scowled at the moth on her back. "I might have been old and cold blooded, but I was hardly a dinosaur Mattie." She chortled good naturedly and nodded to each of us, "It is good to meet you boys. Any friend of Mattie is a friend of mine." Her expression turned a bit guarded, "If memory serves, which it thankfully does again, Mattie was living up by the airport. Which means you boys are likely from the same area. That's a fair commute these days and I somehow doubt you're just here to check up on little ol' me. So what brings you boys down here?" She turned to scowl at Anna, "And how does it involve our oversized thief?"

  "I'm heading south to check on my folks," I admitted happily, "These two just insisted on coming with me for the trip. Saw Anna sitting on a bridge and asked if there was anything you folks needed help with. Told me you've lost contact with some people a few miles east of here. Thought I'd drop some stuff off here and catch a breather after spending a few hours traveling."

  "Ah, yes." Agatha stated sadly, her tail drooping, "We have been having trouble with that, and people who go to investigate not coming back." She looked pleadingly up at Matilda, "Please don't go Mattie. I only just got my best friend back, I don't want to risk losing you to whatever's haunting the church."

  "Don't fret yourself overmuch on my account Aggie," Matilda crooned patting the top of the larger woman's head, "I'm not exactly going in blind, and unlike my friends, I'm not one to dive into the middle of a tussle." She spread her wings and her collection of smaller moths took off in a cloud, fluttering north east. "There we go, now we have until they reach the church to catch up and the boys can rest."

  "And the snake can return what she stole," Aggie sniped with a glare pointed enough to pierce my defenses aimed at Anna.

  "I, I'll go do that." Anna said with a sigh. She slithered towards the covered bathrooms with her bag as glares followed her.

  Damian watched the girl go with a complicated expression I couldn't parse. Well, I was pretty sure he was watching her, his bug eyes did make it hard to be sure. "Say Joe," he started slowly, "Would you be okay with-."

  "You sneaking off to make sure no one jumps her? Go ahead." I said with a nod.

  "I was going to say, 'having a look around.' But yeah, that works too." He hopped off my back with less than a whisper. I managed to keep sight of him for a full thirty feet before blinking and losing him.

  Sighing, I settled down into a comfortable position, which these days consisted of coiling tightly around myself and resting my head on my back. After shifting my poncho to serve as a blanket and making a minor adjustment to my hat I was feeling nice and cozy.

  Sadly before I could properly sink into a nap someone weakly called, "Ah, excuse me. Sir? Might I have a moment?"

  Tilting back my hat I spotted a nervous looking sabertooth squirrel squirming nervously next to me. Sighing softly, I put on my best customer service voice and asked, "What can I do for you today, sir?"

  "Oh, um, it's just that, ah, well." He coughed into his little, articulate, nimble hands, "I couldn't help but overhear that you're from out of town and was wondering if you have any news. Maybe heard from the government?"

  "The closest thing to the government I've seen has been a few people in military bases. They hadn't done much before I left, likely still trying to reestablish the chain of command or something. As for news, well, I've had a busy five days so far so all of you over there pretending not to be listening get your butts over here and settle in. I've got a hell of a story to tell and I don't need it getting filtered through Chinese Whispers."

  I spent the better part of half an hour telling the small group of listeners of the various wild animals I'd seen, the giant but valuable boss monsters, of the other towns that I'd found or helped along the way. I even told them about the brief and bloody fight against Tango Blast, down playing my own contributions of course. When I ran out of news, people started asking me about how other towns were setting up or dealing with this or that problem. After that was people asking me questions about skills, bloodlines, special evolutions, and the system. A lot of it was stuff I didn't know, but it was clear I still knew more than they did. A few asked if I knew anything about certain people, sadly, by and large I had no closure to grant them. It wasn't until Matilda landed on me that I noticed my small group had grown into maybe a third of the town listening to me speak.

  Matilda looked at me and started signing semaphore with her wings. I still wasn't great at reading it, but I was mostly certain that this one meant something about maneuvering away from something. She probably wanted to talk in private about something.

  Politely excusing myself, I escaped the curious crowd and asked Matilda what she wanted.

  "I'm pretty sure I know why they haven't heard from the church and their investigators are going missing."