Neviara

Chapter 66: The Final Assault

The group of helicopters charged forward, crossing into the main main battlefield. Fighter jets and missiles streaked through the air alongside monstrous forms and winged humanoids, their battles sending gouts of flame and smoke through the sky. From below, more explosions and the near-constant rat-a-tat of gunfire melded with shouts and shrieks into a blanket of sound.

A bulbous turkey marked as a Turturken (Lvl 14) dove toward the helicopters. A strange warbl...

Cycle 31-13: A Cut Above

The sound of her phone alarm dragged Kaitlyn out of her dreams, thrusting her into the early morning light. She cracked a sleepy eye open before reaching out with one fumbling hand to silence it.

Alright. Today's the big day.

Rolling out of bed, she quietly washed up and got ready. These days, she usually woke up earlier than Heather did. Thankfully, the girl was a heavy enough sleeper that she hardly noticed, even when Kaitlyn accidentally banged her toe against the dres...

Cycle 31-12: Music to my Ears

The Gully's interior was packed to the brim with chattering students, their bodies crammed together in the all-too-small space. The stage at the front of the room lay dormant for the moment, the instruments and microphone stands upon it highlighted by glowing spotlights.

Kaitlyn carefully navigated her way through the crowd with an armful of water bottles. As many times as she'd been through this concert, she still wasn't a huge fan of being jostled about by other people. That,...

Cycle 31-11: A New Perspective

/// You could call it late. Or you could call it "fashionably late," which is still late but with cooler connotations.

///

Billowy clouds drifted idly through the sky, their puffy white forms dotting the picturesque blue expanse like ships sailing high above. The sun's rays highlighted their edges, setting them aglow even as the breeze carried them along in their meanderings.

Far below, Kaitlyn headed to Chella's with a skip in her step. And why not? Things were loo...

Chapter 65: Flights of Fancy

The first rays of dawn had just begun to peek over the horizon as the bunker's inhabitants emerged. Together, they stood atop the now-cleared foundations of Gram Gram's house, waiting.

A tense silence pervaded the scene as each checked over their belongings. Annie compulsively checked and rechecked her firearms, making sure that each was in working order. Jerry played practice scales on his violin with increasing speed. Nick took the opportunity to grow a few more flowers in the surroun...

Chapter 64: Blazing a Trail

It took a bit of time to get all of Chad's points assigned. Tammy's insisted on running a whole battery of tests after each point was added.

It was with good reason – Chad could feel the first twinges of that pulling sensation return, especially when messing with his forearm and upper arm. Fortunately, Annie was on hand to help relax his muscles as needed until they balanced things out.

At the end of the day, they settled on adding five points of strength to his right shoulder, ...

Chapter 63: Man Punches Cloud

It didn't take long for Nick to get completely lost in his gardening. They left him to it, albeit with a few soldiers to make sure he didn't get up to anything too nefarious. But judging by the unbridled joy on the kid's face, he didn't mind a single bit.

"Well," Major Geoffries cleared his throat as they headed toward the bunker's common area. "We'll see how that works out. Also, I've been informed that the doctor I sent for has arrived. You should make go see her."

"Oh,...

Cycle 31-10: A Hypothetical Solution

Kaitlyn hunched over her lab notebook, fingers drumming on the bench beside it. For the tenth time, she scanned the list of variables and possibilities laid out before her.

Alright. I've got my control, and I've retested the biggest suspects just to make sure I'm in the same situation as before. The qPCR still isn't working.

It hadn't been her only project. Since that first assay, Kaitlyn had made sure to spread her time out between this particular project and a few other...

Cycle 31-9: Sweet and Sour Sauce

Unfortunately, she didn't.

Despite their teamwork, Kaitlyn and Ian couldn't quite pull off a win against Zog and his teammate. But it was close. Very close. Close enough that she thought they'd pull it off next loop.

But in the meantime, she settled for second place in doubles. It was a nice accompaniment to her fifth place in singles, following a gut-wrenching loss to Ian.

I'm getting better. I'm so close I can feel it.

But after a few more friendlie...

Cycle 31-8: Digging Deep

It took all of Kaitlyn's willpower to not look up Elliot's dad right there in the career fair. She managed to make it the whole way through, even getting back to her dorm before pulling up the web browser on her phone. Flopping onto her bed, she quickly tapped in the name "Glen Ambrose." But before hitting "search," she hesitated.

Should I be looking this up? It seemed like Elliot liked someone not knowing who he was…

If she looked the name up like he'd said, then there...

Chapter 62: Tea for Twenty

He was right. They were there for a while.

Tammy continued to measure and evaluate Chad, running him through a battery of tests. Lifting this, catching that, testing his reflexes, and so on. Most of them he ruined in comical fashion. Some of them he simply didn't know what to do with.

Annie watched from the sidelines with amusement. Evidently, the mad scientist doctor had no interest in her. So long as she stayed out of the way, the massage therapist could enjoy front-row...

Chapter 61: New Friends

The truck came into view of Gram Gram's place just as the sun began to set in the sky. In the time they'd been gone, much of the rubble had been cleared away, but not all of it. The wooden bones of the former house's frame jutted out from the ground amid splinters and damaged furniture.

Chad and the others disembarked near the wreckage, meeting a few guards who had remained behind. Interestingly, there were a few more vehicles than he remembered parked nearby -- all of them military-esq...

Chapter 60: Upping the Ante

The truck rumbled back toward home, chugging along the country roads. Its interior was packed with soldiers, an arm wrestler, an alien elf, and a parrot -- all but the last sopping wet.

They spent the first part of the trip in silence. The sound of the vehicle made it difficult to talk outside of shouts, but that wasn't the only reason. Everyone had more important matters to attend to -- their levels.

Name: Chadwick Armstrong

Class: Arm Wrestler (Lvl...