Museum Core Chapter 16: Apex Predator

Jaclyn was already moving before she’d even noticed the incoming attack, twisting to the side as she brought her gun around to aim at the thing that tried to flay open her back with its claws.

Its skin was mottled various shades of brown and green that seemed to fail as camouflage now that it was right in her face, but would doubtlessly make it nigh-invisible if she hadn’t known where to look.

At the moment, it looked oddly stretched, its feet planted almost five meters from her even as the claws whiffed past her. Its visage was oddly overgrown, covered in vines with a pair of immense, bulbous eyes and a tooth-filled maw being the only obvious features, but its head was still quite far away.

Its legs were short, verging on stubby, but its arms were almost two meters long and triple-jointed, ending in a surprisingly human-looking hand with a thumb and four additional fingers, each tipped with a claw the size, shape, and sharpness of a steak knife.

In other words, it was a horror show, one that had the potential to freak people out merely by being seen, an unnatural beast that had no business existing in this world.

Jaclyn just emptied half her Glock’s clip into its face, popping one eye, shattering several teeth, and tearing bloody holes into its floral covering. It collapsed almost soundlessly, only the thud of its body hitting the ground being audible.

Fucking spooky was what it was.

“Hey, are you …” Jaclyn began to turn to ask Gula how she was doing, only to be cut off by a thunderous burst of noise, which she only later realized had been an actual thunderclap.

She whirled, seeing the small kingfisher flying in the air while hurling bolts of lightning into the forest. Gula’s other main summons were also out and about, with the Caladrius alighting on the orc’s shoulder to heal her while the Tatzelwyrm was grappling with another one of the Creepers, which was what Jaclyn was calling those things in her head.

The venom-dragon-thing had practically been disemboweled on the first strike but its attacker had dropped dead on the spot and now it was fighting a second attacker, which was clearly being affected but had not yet died. All around them, vegetation was rapidly dying, and she sincerely doubted anything would grow there again for years or decades.

Jaclyn shivered. The only sound these things were making was when they dropped dead, otherwise, the whole fight was almost completely silent on their end while Gula was muttering spells.

Slowly, Jaclyn began to make her way towards the orc while waiting to get a clear shot and keeping her head on a swivel. Those things were nasty.

She didn’t even get halfway before a flash of movement in the corner of her eye gave her a last-second warning before another one of these creatures swiped at her.

It was the first look she got at the creature's pre-attack. They almost waddled towards their targets, legs folded and back hunched, to the point where it practically looked tiny but that was incredibly deceiving as these things could extend their bodies up to five meters from where their feet were. In the dense jungle, having that kind of range on top of their camouflage and ludicrous stealth made them deadly ambush predators.

Likely the only reason she and Gula were still alive was that they were currently fighting in a large gap in the treeline, rather than trudging through the underbrush.

Jaclyn ducked under the attack, falling into a low stance from which she’d have been able to launch an explosive upward strike … if her attacker had been anywhere near her.

As it was, the Creeper curled back in on itself while it shuffled forward, ready and waiting to unleash another swift attack.

Instead of trying to close the distance, Jaclyn just straightened and shot the damn thing. Tried to, at any rate, as the monster ducked and flung itself to the side to successfully avoid the attack.

Bollocks!

This thing seemed surprisingly smart. How smart was yet to be determined, but it had apparently not only figured out that the gun was a source of danger but which end and at what angle the bullets came out, allowing it to start moving the instant she’d brought the Glock up.

The next claw swipe went straight for her wrist, faster than she could dodge, so she wound up dropping the firearm and managed to grab a hold of the monster’s wrist as claws tore across the back of her left hand and plunged into her right wrist until she grasped the beast.

Bingo.

She yanked on the arm and slammed the heel of her left palm into the back of the monster’s lower “elbow”, causing it to bend in ways elbows were never meant to bend. No matter how capable that thing was, having an elbow shattered had to slow it down at least a little … but hadn’t that felt a little too easy?

The elbow was certainly bending nauseatingly in the wrong direction, but it had gone that way with a soft “pop” rather than the crunch of bone and cartilage breaking.

And then, suddenly, the limb yerked itself back into position, with the creature once again curling in on itself while experimentally flexing the bottom segment of its arm a few times.

Crap.

So, those things had elbows that were held in place by something like tendons, capable of stretching when necessary and even snapping it back into position with minimal damage.

She bent down to grab her gun, barely avoiding a sneak attack from yet another new opponent who’d decided to be a sneaky bastard.

This time, she turned and grabbed the outstretched limb with both hands and let herself fall backwards while pulling.

The monster might be a little too heavy to send flying with physical strength alone, but she was able to pull it off balance, pick up her gun, and put the final three rounds she had in her magazine into its head.

Jaclyn threw herself to the side as her original opponent came for her, trying to reload but was interrupted. She stepped forward and to the side, ducked under the other arm, and surged right into its face from that position.

Her right hand clenched into a half-open fist, leading with the second knuckles for a tiny surface area that could do devastating damage to weak points. She didn’t have the faintest clue about this thing’s anatomy, but virtually any creature with eyes, let alone such big ones, was vulnerable there.

So that’s what she punched, feeling the orb first squish and then burst under her knuckles, causing the creature to yerk back, still eerily silent despite the horrific injury it had sustained. Her follow-up attack landed squarely on where a human’s Adam’s apple would have been, a lethal attack against a member of her species, but not necessarily against this thing.

But no matter what this thing’s body was like, it was still a living being, which needed air and food, and both of those somehow needed from its head to the rest of its body. There had to be something important in its throat, and her knuckles were digging in deep.

This particular creature’s gagging was the first real sound one of these things had made for the entire duration of the fight, making Jaclyn grin despite herself. She’d been able to hurt that thing.

Unfortunately, at that point, she’d failed to defend against those freakishly long and flexible limbs the creature had, and they were dragged across her back, causing fiery lines of pain to erupt, but they felt shallow. Likely, these things were built for striking, with the muscles needed to strike while pulling back being less developed.

Either way, she had a chance to win this fight here and now.

Jaclyn’s hand shot out and grabbed the creature’s left arm just below the shoulder and pushed, then took that as a chance to stop down on the limb to pin it.

The other arm was raised into the air like a guillotine and she was able to grab it too, but the dual elbows made the arm ridiculously flexible, allowing it to strike down with the last two segments.

Five claws scraped shallowly across her neck and plunged into Jaclyn’s shoulder, causing her to hiss in pain even as she shifted her left hand to grab both ends of the creature’s right arm.

And then, she tried to twist the limb into a pretzel in an attempt to break something but didn’t get anywhere. The occasional “pop” signaled an elbow being dis- or re-located, but the bones were too tough and the joints were too flexible.

Unfortunately, the situation wasn’t conducive to proper experimentation. At first, the creature had tried to get its left arm back out from under her boot, but that went nowhere.

And then, the creature managed to lunge forward and almost bite down on her leg.

Jaclyn was forced to dodge and step off the left arm, but took that as a chance to yank on the arm she still had under her control and since the monster was already moving, it had no proper way to stabilize itself.

She pulled it past her and dropped onto its back, knee digging into its back.

Even so, the monster’s torso felt malleable, its spine folding around the strike as if the creature had evolved to have someone hit it there.

In another second or so, the creature would probably start clawing at her with its free hand, but before it could try anything, she took her right hand off the arm and began to hammer it into the back of the creature’s skull. Its spine might have been as flexible as a slinky, but its brain couldn’t possibly be as capable of taking punishment, and the bone protecting it couldn’t be soft either.

There was a soft crunch upon the first impact and the monster spasmed under her, so she kept punching. After the fifth hit, it stopped struggling, so she rose off the Creeper’s back and slammed her boot onto the spot she’d been attacking. Even if that thing was unlikely to have been playing dead, she didn’t want to take chances.

Jaclyn flung herself to where her gun was lying, already having a spare magazine in her hand as she scooped up the Glock. It slid home with a satisfying “click” as she looked around for more of these buggers.

Gula was looking unhurt, but judging by how miserable the Caladrius on her shoulder was looking and the damage to her clothing, she’d taken a few hits.

In front of her, an impressive number of dead Creepers lay, burned by electricity, lying amidst patches of dead vegetation where the Tatzelwyrm had bled, and one even had a massive, fist-shaped dent in its head. The final monster died amidst a crackle of electricity, and a tired-looking Halcyon vanished immediately afterwards.

Jaclyn spotted another creature in the jungle, somehow being able to pick up on its location even while it was still in the jungle, and fired several shots at it. This one didn’t seem to have been around to learn what a gun was and collapsed backwards with two bullets in its head.

She walked towards Gula with her head on a swivel but didn’t see anything else.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

The orc grinned back at her, “That was an impressive fight.”

“Impressive,” Jaclyn grimaced, touching the scratches on her neck with a wince. That attack might have come in at a horrible angle for the creature but even so, only a stupendous amount of luck had let her get away from that fight without damage to a vital blood vessel.

“Your bond seems to be working well,” Gula commented. “Did you look at your status yet?”

Her bond … Jacly quickly pulled up the description for her F-Rank ability to look at it. Specifically, the portion related to her durability.

Stubborn Invulnerability (you gain extremely tough skin while becoming quite difficult to grab a hold of, strikes at your vital areas will become less accurate, and toxins will become nigh-useless against you)

Not luck, just … supernatural powers. Superpowers, if you will. She began to laugh. This morning, her biggest problem had been a thick-headed six-year-old not being super-interested in school.

And now, she was standing in a magic jungle next to an orc, having just fought magical monsters and only survived due to, wait for it, superpowers. Come to think of it, the deep gash across her wrist had also completely missed the major blood vessels there as well.

She pulled up her Status next, to see the changes. Eventually, looking at it would become second nature to her to check the magical screen revealing the fundamentals of her being in a quantified state, but that would probably take a while.

Name: Jaclyn Abrahms

Race: Human

Class: Anima Monk

F-Rank, Level 1 -> 4/20

Class Abilities

Spirit Bond: Honey Badger (F-Rank)

Statistics (15 points available)

Body: 12

Magic: 0

Mind: 12

Spirit: 11

Skills

Pugilism 12 -> 14

Bàoquán 15

Firearms Handling 6 -> 8

Situational Awareness 10 -> 13

Bullshit Radar 11

Martial Arts 14 -> 15

…

The changes were … significant.

Her Level had jumped by three, giving her fifteen Stat points to play with. That seemed like a lot for a single fight, but maybe the monsters Gula had killed somehow counted to increase the threat level and boost her gains? Also, she gained Levels by acting in accordance with her Class, which meant that evading death by using her Class Ability also counted, so it was entirely possible that that was responsible for some of that.

She threw eight points into Body to make her tougher, three into Mind to strengthen her reflexes and senses and four into Spirit.

That last one was less … present, maybe? In her mind, it had less of a direct, tangible, boost, but that Statistic still seemed important. It would improve the toughness of her weak points in particular, something that had already likely saved her life once, as well as her sense of hearing and smell. Even if it didn’t make a massive difference, increasing Spirit would partially increase the things covered by both of the other Statistics she used.

And Magic was lost to the wayside. Magic sounded cool, but Jaclyn knew she could only spread herself so thin before she got in trouble.

And as for the rest …

She was familiar with rapid improvements when using her skills, lower-case “s” skills, that was, in the real world instead of rote repetition or katas, but this was insane.

For example, over the course of a single fight, she’d gone from barely being able to spot the Creepers to shooting one in the head before it had even moved over the course of a few minutes.

Not to mention that she’d hit dead-on with both shots at almost forty meters. Missing the torso at that range would have been embarrassing for someone authorized to carry and use a firearm for law enforcement, but two headshots would have been impressive for where she’d been beforehand.

And while Bàoquán hadn’t improved, Martial Arts had, and she could sense the difference. It wasn’t a difference of having learned a hard lesson or taking away specific pieces of information from combat, but simple, across the board, improvement.

She threw a practice punch to check it out and could feel going more smoothly than before … until she hissed in pain as her muscles yanked on her injured shoulder.

A small motion from the orc sent the Caladrius fluttering over to Jaclyn. It alighted on her shoulder and the pain from her injuries lessened, but the bird was looking downright suicidal now. She didn’t know why she was able to tell how it was feeling, she just knew. And then, it shattered into motes of light, stressed beyond what it was capable of handling.

The various scratches on her body were still there, but they felt days-old and she might not even have to clean them later. And based on their past conversation, Jaclyn knew Gula could summon that bird later and fully heal her up.

She started to walk towards the bodies that had baited the trap, only to stop when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Something she hadn’t expected to see used in her lifetime.

Smoke signals.

Judging by how they’d spread in the sky, they’d been going for a while, but she hadn’t noticed them until now.

And as for their contents, it was simple.

Dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot, which translated into SOS. Everyone knew it, everyone recognized it, and everyone would use it in an emergency.

Somewhere near Hyde Park, there were survivors, but she couldn’t head over there just yet.

“Gula, would you mind putting a few of the dead monsters into the back of the car while I check on the bodies?” Jaclyn asked and the orc immediately did just that, carefully avoiding the monsters that had been anywhere near the Tatzelwyrm.

And she had the shitty job of looking at the bodies. Judging by how they hadn’t moved at all even when bullets had started flying, they were definitely dead, but she still had to confirm that.

She pulled on disposable gloves as she reached the first one and carefully turned the body around.

“Bollocks,” she muttered as she saw the full horror of the situation.

The man’s eyes had been plucked out, and all internal organs removed with almost surgical precision, muscles in the arms and legs chewed off, all done with a focus on ensuring that injuries weren’t visible while the body had been lying on its front. That way, it would work perfectly well as bait for a trap for would-be rescuers.

Fuck.

The first time she’d seen something like that, she’d thrown up. The second time too. By the third time, she’d managed to restrain her reaction, only gagging several times.

And now, with disfigured bodies seven through twelve, her only response was a cold fury simmering in her gut, barely tempered by her knowledge that the things that had killed them were already dead. Almost certainly. There might be stragglers out there, but she couldn’t afford to go hunting them.

Jaclyn picked up the first body and carried it to the car. It felt incredibly light in her hands, courtesy of having almost doubled her physical strength since she’d woken up this morning, but she barely even noticed, let alone felt happy about the upgrade. She couldn’t, not yet.

The particular Husky they’d taken had a trunk, but when she’d opened it, she realized that the electric components that made opening it easier had failed.

Still, hauling it open was child’s play, so she placed the body inside and went back for the second one.

She stacked them like firewood, which felt incredibly disrespectful, but she knew that the bodies wouldn’t be there when she returned.

And on top of everything else, she had a group of living people she needed to arrange relief for somewhere around Hyde Park. She just hoped they had the good sense to keep that fire going if no one showed up soon.