Chapter 12: Enemy of My Enemy Is…
Shiv was drenched, in pain, and his mood was sour.
In all, he was miserable.
But this incredible downpour didn't come without its own benefits.
It was now remarkably easy to move unnoticed through the woods. The downside was that it was rather difficult to notice other creatures moving.
In the case of the duo of bandits he was following, however, it wasn't so difficult, due to the torch they had managed to keep alight. They were currently huddled around the torch underneath a frighteningly large leaf, casting furtive glances at the wall of rain that surrounded them.
Shiv closed the distance slowly, favoring his good leg and considering his next course of action. He stopped abruptly when two shadows ducked underneath the leaf and scared the crap out of the two people already there.
Luckily for them, it turned out to be two more of their number. The only woman in the group, along with some other man that hadn't caught Shiv's attention until now.
'It doesn't matter who they are. They're going to die all the same.' He got into position while the group was distracted with yelling at each other. His idea was going to require an insane amount of momentum, and he honestly wasn't sure if he had the strength to build it up.
Being a farmer meant hard work day in and day out, which was very conducive toward packing on muscle, but Shiv's body was still relatively new to him. On top of that, it was short and had a rather slender build.
Shiv shook his head and focused. He stuck his hand into the muddy ground and manipulated it into a very long stick that slowly tapered from the thickness of his wrist to the thinness of a needle. Then, he imbued it with his glowy power so that it moved around at his will. It was very faint, so he wasn't worried about it being seen by his targets.
He reared his arm back and got ready to strike, setting it on fire as he did so. The fire flared up all the way down the whip, and he struck. He swung it in an arc, so that it wrapped around all four of the unaware people several times. Immediately, he used his newest power to tighten the bindings while simultaneously pulling with every ounce of strength he possessed. The resulting noises were drowned out by the constant pounding of the rain.
The result itself was, however, easily seen.
Shiv approached the four severed bodies without feeling. 'I just killed four people… no, I just killed six people, including the first two. And yet I feel nothing. Is this another curse from the Suited Jerk?' He sighed. 'This bodes well for my goal to destroy the entire world, at least.'
For whatever reason, the thought brought him no comfort.
The rush of power, however, was slightly comforting.
Checking their inventories revealed something interesting, in the case of the woman. She had quite a bit of food stored up that she kept secret from the group.
'What a shady group of people.' Shiv thought with disgust, completely disregarding the fact that he was currently looting the bodies of people he had killed with an attack from the shadows.
After a quick snack, Shiv put some time into making a more durable, sharper sword than he'd ever been able to make, then spent the next half hour failing to locate the rest of the people in the bandit group. Until, through pure luck, he managed to stumble upon one that was completely alone.
Directly in front of him, a man was hugging a tree.
'This… is a trap?' Shiv's head tilted as he considered the possibility. Then, with a shrug, he manipulated the earth so that it encased the man's hands and feet, immobilizing him. That finished, he stepped forward and gently pressed the blade of his sword to the back of the man's throat.
"W-what? Who's there!?" The man turned his head, revealing a large burn on his face.
'Aha, it's Burnface!' Shiv ignored the question and asked one of his own. "Why are you hugging a tree? Woah, I wouldn't do that, bro. One more move and I slice your head off."
Now that he was so close, Shiv could see how young Burnface was, and it surprised him. 'He can't be more than fifteen.'
"I- what?"
"The tree! Why are you hugging it?" Shiv repeated and put some pressure behind his sword.
"I was trying to get out of the rain!" Burnface replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Huh. Well, what's your group of bandits doing out here, anyway?"
"We're not bandits. We're mercenaries! And we're out here because we were betrayed by our last customer and had to get outta dodge fastlike."
"The mayor of the tomato town?"
"Yeah… how did you know that?" His eyes widened as he strained his neck to get a look at Shiv. "Are you a stalker?"
"Aw man. You have those here, as well? That sucks." Shiv groaned. 'Just one more reason to destroy this place.'
"Alright, one last thing: the tomato mayor hired you to destroy the village with all the wheat fields?" He continued.
"No, he hired us to starve them out. Boss Briggs decided it'd be a good idea to attack when a bunch of their main fighters sneaked off, though." Burnface scowled fiercely. "It wasn't. We took a solid beating from those old farmers. Lost a lot of good friends, and didn't even gain anything to show for it."
Shiv listened with half an ear. He was more focused on the fact that Burnface seemed to be way too talkative for a trained mercenary. He checked his surroundings to make sure nobody was attempting to sneak up on him while he was distracted, but found no one.
"Hey kid, you're a mercenary, so you'll do anything for money, right? Even betray your other mercenary friends?" Shiv asked, already knowing the answer was no.
"Sure! My mom always told me that my life is worth a lot more than theirs, anyway."
"Huh." Shiv said again, and went silent.
"Will you let me go after I betray them?" Burnface asked hopefully.
"Sure. What I want you to do is find your four remaining teammates and take them to the hole where the laboratory was. When you finish that, tell them you're going to find the rest of your teammates, and get away from that hole." Shiv ordered, then hid nearby and ordered the stone holding Burnface in place to recede.
Once free, Burnface looked around wildly, then immediately sprinted away. "Haha! I'll never betray Briggs!" He called over his shoulder, and ran directly into the wall Shiv made.
"Sorry, kid." Shiv took care of Burnface, and limped off in the direction he had sprinted in.
The rain didn't let up, and with the added fact that it was late at night, Shiv's visibility was almost non-existent. 'I'm literally just wandering around hoping I'll get lucky.' He thought.
His angry thoughts distracted him from one of his most important warning systems, though he didn't realize it. If he had been paying especially close attention, he would have noticed the lack of any animal noise. Previously, the frogs and toads had found extremely loud voices soon after the rain began, but they seemed to have suddenly lost them again.
Shiv, blissfully unaware of the approaching danger, continued grumbling about the discomfort he was feeling.
Also completely unaware of the approaching danger were four angry men and one unconscious boy behind him.
Briggs and the last three members of his mercenary group had found Burnface soon after Shiv had left him, and grabbed the scarred kid before pursuing Shiv.
"Why don't we kill him yet?" One of the impatient men asked. "He just beat up Burnface!"
Briggs put up a hand to quiet him. "Because I recognize him from somewhere. I just don't know where."
"What kind of a reason is-" The man started to reply angrily, but was silenced by Briggs, who had a wide-eyed expression on his face.
"Something is wro-" He was cut off by a scream that sent pure, unnatural terror racing through the veins of everyone who heard it.
Shiv turned around abruptly, his eyes also widened in the same terror, and searched the darkness for the source of the noise.
Then slowly, arrogantly, majestically, ten glowing yellow eyes were revealed in the rainy darkness. Shiv barely glanced at the group of men backing toward him, knowing they were nothing in comparison to the bearers of those eyes. By the time the men had reached him, they could all see the bodies that the eyes belonged to.
Five deerbucks came to a casual stop in front of the five conscious men.
Shiv discreetly checked nearby to see if he could possibly make it to a tree before he was annihilated. 'Yeah, that's not happening.' He shook some of the terror off and grimaced. 'That leaves only one option.'
"Hey, Briggs!" He had to yell to be heard over the pouring rain, but still tried to speak quietly so as not to set the deerbucks off. "There's a saying back where I come from that goes: the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
"We have a similar saying from my home as well." Briggs replied in the same hushed yell, never taking his eyes off of the monsters.
"Great, well. I think that saying applies to us. We'll kill each other after we destroy them, cool?"
Briggs nodded, and the monsters from hell charged.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Stuckers
Stuckers I wonder what a true monster from hell would look like? Something tells me it'd be something very similar to a small female human...
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone