My true goal begins. The plague; the monsters; and their dual nature. It is time to discover why they are and how they might become better... --79.5 Seconds Post-Integration.

  The quake was as though the Gods themselves shook the tower. People screamed as they were violently flung to the floor and unable to get up; whole shelving suits had their product flung; all as lights from the ceiling fell with a clang and shattered into pieces, the newly formed crevice having cleaved huge pieces of the dungeon from their rightful spots.

  Then the shaking stopped.

  "Clark! Are you okay? Can you hear me?" SIMP called.

  Hera and Theo called as well. "I'm fine!" he said to everyone. "Is anyone hurt?"

  The quake injured neither Hera nor Theo. He thanked the Gods, especially the retail Gods, for that!

  Emergency lights blared as background screaming continued. Various alerts flashed across Clark's HUD.

  Hera dusted herself off then spoke. "Clark! I'm receiving emergency League reports. Are you?"

  He quickly checked his HUD and sure as rain, a litany of League alerts urged all local personal to their location. SIMP answered why the reports had been sent: "Clark," they said. "I am picking up dozens of monster formations. Prepare for battle!"

  It was like a switch flicked. One moment, they were normal workers. The next, their battle-readiness predominated.

  "SIMP? How about some kind of weapon?"

  "Of course. This way." SIMP led the work detail to a nearby display of sporting goods. Seeing a rack of padded guards meant to be secured to one's vulnerable limbs, he got to work in strapping himself up. Clark had no idea how the goods related to athletic feats, but he knew armor when he saw it, and that was what mattered. For a weapon, Clark grabbed something called a 'hockey stick' and dosed it with some of his Blessing dandy. Theo and Hera did likewise.

  Back at the epicenter of the massive, newly emerged crevice, monsters had already emerged into the salesfloor from within the corrupted interior. Noir Slimes. "Easy enough..." Clark told himself. Except for one thing: these slimes were bigger than the slimes he had before fought.

  "Hera. On me. Theo, provide support and take out any monster which we can't finish. Can you do that?" he asked his friend.

  Smiling with his engine block forged daggers in hand, Theo nodded. "I'll take out more than you, I bet."

  Hera chided Theo. "This isn't a game, Theo. Cockiness leads to death."

  Theo just rolled his eyes. "I'm always sharp. Don't worry about me."

  An instant later, Theo disappeared into the aisles littered with overturned canned and bagged goods. Despite the rubbish on the floor, he vanished without making a single sound while on his way.

  Skilled as Theo was, Clark didn't have time to dwell on how Theo could move. No less than a dozen Noir Slimes came upon them ready for battle.

  "Ready, Hera?"

  "Ready!"

  Clark rushed at the enemy first and slammed his hockey stick into the slimes in a wide slashing move which struck multiple slimes horizontally. Clark felt a nice glow of satisfaction as he felt reverberations travel from the stick and up through his arm each time a slime was struck.

  His attack had shocked the slimes into inaction. Using the precious few minutes of shock to his advantage, Clark dashed over to his right, then back to his left, using his return trip as an excuse to build momentum with his stick for another wide, horizontal slash against the remaining slimes.

  A moment before he was to withdraw his hockey stick, he had an idea -- "I should do a weapon pulse! The remaining slimes will all be pushed back and that will give us some breathing room."

  Knowing he couldn't rush through the steps, he decided instead to shorten the process for bursting. He closed his eyes only once for a deep intake then release of air; when he opened his eyes, he saw his aura and willed it toward his stick. His aura overtook the stuck and he willed the weapon to pulse --

  Nothing.

  A slime shot into him, slamming him to the floor, his padded gear taking part of the impact but not nearly enough. It was then, feeling pain spread throughout him as he stumbled back on his feet, that he remembered he hadn't taken a Defense dandy before engaging the enemy. Now, was also when he remembered Salsa's lecture on weapon pulsing and how only weapons with magified centers could pulse.

  Embarrassed, Clark could only reason that in the terror of the crevice opening, and the rush of battle mode, some combat details had been lost.

  "No matter." He tightly held his stick. When another slime shot at him like a bullet, he by the thinnest of hairs, brought his stick up in time to whack the beast out of the way and to the side. The slimes crashed into a nearby berry display, upturning many containers into the air and sending others to the floor. "Ouch!" The force required to redirect and slam the slime away from him once it was already blasting toward him had been immense. Just for a moment, Clark had to let go of his stick and tend to his throbbing hands. Hera took a defensive stance as he did so. Using the opportunity, he took an additional moment and downed half a defense dandy before offering the rest to Hera, who thanked him and finished the little bottle.

  "Clark. Another dozen slimes detected and are en route." SIMP warned but he really didn't need the remainder. Whatever was happening, he expected to be bogged down in fighting for a while.

  "How should we take them?" Hera asked, using a broom and attached handle as her Blessed weapon of choice.

  Of the original twelve slimes who had attacked them, nearly half had been already destroyed. The surviving slimes were hurt, and Clark knew it would not take too much to take them out. He was about to order Hera to simply sweep the slimes on her side as he swept the rest, shoving them violently away, and hopefully bashing them into something on the way.

  His planning was rendered moot when, moments before he could open his mouth to give the order, Theo dashed in from nowhere.

  Theo was a blur; his daggers moved effortlessly from one slime to the next as did their feet. Theo's movements were precise. He skidded, sidestepped, and slid between the writhing slimes like a dancer or a skilled waiter in a busy restaurant. Before the slimes even dissolved, Theo scampered up a nearby shelving unit and vanished from sight.

  "Fecking amazing Theo! WOW!" Clark shouted. He thought he heard an appreciative snicker, but he couldn't be sure.

  Clark moved he and Hera up a few meters to confront the next group of slimes. He assumed Theo kept pace.

  "Same as before, alright?" he called to Hera. She shot back a knowing grunt.

  He careened into the half-dozen slimes on his right while Hera did the same for those on his left. Their massive swings hurt the slimes. A gentle, almost comical screech breaking from their bodies with each blow endured. He and Hera were about to turn and finish the second group when Theo darted from above and shouted, "Don't worry, I got 'em! Get the next ones!"

  A shouted confirmation later and Hera and he were already engaged in the next group of twelve.

  The third group was not any more difficult than the previous twenty-four slimes. Like with every monster encounter, however, the real danger was in over taxation. Having already a lengthy day by the time the overtime began and having a good few hours of overtime at that when the crevice shook its way into existence, once the fighting got underway, Clark felt the haggardness. He split a stamina dandy with Hera, happy with himself for bringing his entire dandy supply instead of only the one of each he had been doing.

  It was while they were fighting the fourth group of slimes when SIMP chimed in with bad news. "Attention! Slimes are fusing together. Expect a more significant threat soon!"

  "Fusing? What does that mean?" Clark asked a little bewildered.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "It only means what it sounds like -- smaller slimes are fusing into bigger slimes or perhaps even a different monster evolution altogether. Be on guard for new foes. If you can break through the enemy lines, you might be able to stop the slimes from joining together; their staging ground is just outside of the crevice." SIMP created a destination icon on his System HUD pinpointing where the so-called 'staging ground' was located. His heart sank when he saw how far away it was and how many slime groups they would be forced to fight.

  "That's not going to happen, SIMP! Not without reinforcements!" he yelled so everyone could hear. He couldn't let his team think this was all on them. Though for added measure, he drank a Manipulation dandy and gave another to Hera. He only had two such Manipulation dandies left, now.

  Before he could consume another defensive dandy, the slimes were upon them. At this point in the emergence, his System alerted him to many more groups of encroaching slimes than they could handle by themselves. They needed reinforcements. Which begged the question, what could they (realistically) do by themselves? He asked SIMP and received a less than helpful answer: "Additional League members are closing in on your position. Estimated Time till Arrival is unknown." A grunt was how he logged his complaint with SIMP's estimation.

  Forced into a purely defensive stance to block the many 'slime thrust' assaults lobbed at him, Clark observed how the slimes had become more aggressive. And perhaps wise to their tactics as gone were the single large group of slimes which he and Hera could sideswipe. Now, smaller groups of six and even three slimes assailed them which meant they had less time to go on the offensive.

  Painful minutes passed. Clark realized the fighting reached an impasse when the number of slimes refused to change no matter how many he destroyed. For every slime he killed, one, if not two, took its place. Gradually, he and Hera were becoming overwhelmed.

  "Time for a chance of tactics!" Theo yelled from somewhere atop a shelf. From above, a rounded ball flew into the melee; it did not explode, as Clark thought it would. Instead, it unleashed a steady stream of smoke which obscured the battlefield.

  Before he could react, Theo had clambered down from the shelf and urged him back. It was with only the mildest of reluctance that Clark went along with the retreat. Together, the three of them fled from the giant crevice, rushing toward the relative safety of 'further away,' near the store block's entrance in the connecting zone. The connecting zone was no less hectic with masses of shoppers and regular employees frantically running and screaming as they searched for a way out. Yet, here, he could at least catch his breath.

  "What are we going to do?" he asked his team.

  Neither Hera nor Theo had an answer. None of them were elite fighters. It wasn't as if they could take on a small army of monsters by themselves, especially not after having waded through literally dozens of the beasts earlier. There was a limit to what they could do, and Clark knew that limit was approaching fast.

  "All League forces. Pull back to the designated location for further instructions," came a voice over his communication channel.

  Clark looked to Hera. "I heard it, too," she said.

  "I didn't... what are you guys talking about?" Theo asked impatiently, one eyes darting toward where they had retreated from.

  "It's a League communication. I don't know who sent it, but we need to relocate. Follow us, Theo." Clark led them toward the location marker which blipped into his HUD's visuals moments later. It was about half-way between the entrance to the floor and the sales block they had come from.

  Around them, terrified associates from the surrounding sales blocks pulled down security gates and activated auto-defense measures prior to screaming off like a bat out of the flames. Although the crevice was huge, it, apparently, had not effected the entire floor. Obviously, Augustford sought to protect those areas of the floor still profitable.

  "Reporting for duty, sir!" Clark said to a tall, muscular man wearing military fatigues adorned with the store's logo.

  Hera only saluted but had a stern look on her face.

  The commander officer acknowledged them but didn't say anything until several other Leaguers arrived. In total, there were only a dozen of them. "The name's Darren," the officer spoke. "I'm a field commander. Too many of you are greenhorns. I won't sugarcoat it, this isn't good. This is a challenging outbreak. We don't want to happen here what happened on the executive lounge, so we are going to have to give it everything we got. I have already called in for advanced reinforcements. Hopefully, a highly Imbued Associate can lend us some aid. Until then, we are going to be fighting ourselves. Firstly, how much combat experience do you all have?"

  Darren asked each individual group member. The answers he received wasn't what he hoped for as the majority of the answers were 'I have no combat experience. Only the minimum League tutorials.' Clark remembered the 'minimum' meant the first three lessons. Basic melee, basic magic, basic blessing. He and Hera were only two of the group's five who said they had any field experience.

  A pained look crossed Darren face as he thought about what to do. "Okay. Here is the plan. We focus on containment. You five who have field experience will take the lead and become the tip of our spear. Everyone who lacks field experience will follow just behind and carefully observe how the spear operates, understood? That means you will look at them as they fight and try to replicate their style. Then, you will, under their guidance, engage the enemy yourselves while working in teams." The field commander went into specifics of what he wanted to see from those without field experience. Clark followed Theo's lead as Darren spoke and remained gazing at the store block they had retreated from, weary of monsters spilling forth and attacking.

  "Attention!" Darren ordered but no one moved. The field commander sighed. "That means to get into formation! Spear forms ahead, the 'stick' behind -- and march!"

  Clark met Hera's eyes and obeyed, Theo alongside them, the commander not caring he was a non-Leaguer.

  Every step they took to the overwhelmed store block brought apprehension. Clark wasn't going to let beasts as simplistic as slimes get the better of him, though, tired or not. "Remain firm, guys, okay?" he said to his crew. As one, they assented: "Obviously." Theo laughed at he and Hera saying the same thing in such a tense moment.

  "Halt!" Darren yelled.

  They halted.

  "We have entered a combat state," Darren spoke. "Which means we are authorized by the company to undertake any and all necessary means to pacify the enemy and re-take Augustford property. Damage to said Augustford property should be limited. This is not to say we should take unnecessary risks to protect Augustford property. First priority is to destroy the enemy..." Which meant, Clark told himself, that this was Darren's way of saying 'cut lose' and 'toss shet up.' He liked that. "Another thing! Any dandies you may or may not encounter while in the field are free-to-use. Should there be a Green Guild kiosk within the field, however, you will be expected to pay in full for those dandies. Guild fronts are protected by their own means with transportation to those fronts arranged by the guild. Our focus is not protecting the guild fronts, therefore. Our focus is to eradicate every monster. Questions?!"

  Silence and crickets.

  "Good! That's what I like to hear -- compliance!"

  The group entered re-entered the store block. Writhing masses of slimes had occupied nearly the entire sales floor. He felt sick in seeing the hundreds, if not thousands of beasts running rampant through the store, his place of work.

  "We keep our backs to the wall. We can't let any of the monsters catch us unaware!" Darren's voice echoed through the store, its depth and masculinity overshadowing the pathetic slimes who inched about like worms.

  Clark -- as the impromptu leader of the group outside of Darren -- obeyed, leading his unit along the edge of the store block upon entering. This way, any enemies who rushed them could be tackled head-on and without threat of surprise.

  "First enemies coming up!" Clark announced as a small group of slimes noticed and slid toward them.

  He and one of the other Leaguers who had combat experience dealt with the slimes. While fighting, he made sure the inexperienced Leaguers had a good angle for observing him fight, how he moved, and how he observed the enemy so as to react and counter.

  Their movement through the storefront was battle heavy but not onerous. With several experienced fighters by his side, and the greenhorns gaining experience by every defeated slime, Clark found much of the burden lifted from he and Hera's shoulders. Theo continued doing his sneak attack runs from atop the shelves, which helped a lot. Clark heard Darren mutter several times about Theo's battle tactics, in apparent disbelief that he hadn't signed on to be a Leaguer.

  An hour after their sortie began, their crawl along the edge of the sales floor brought them up to the massive crevice which divided the store block.

  "Ahead looks to be the emergence point," Darren said. "For future reference, an emergence point will always be easy to spot. It's always the place crawling with monsters."

  Clark didn't need to strain his eyes to see Darren's point. Ahead of them, where the crevice widened and emitted black smog, was also a cadre of slimes, most of which were large. With the slimes were other beasts Clark did not recognize. "What're those?" He pointed toward a monster which looked like a giant eyeball with wings made of black trash bags. It looked revolting!

  "That is an Airheart." Darren answered. "It's a medium threat level monster. One of the easier medium beasts to deal with but what it lacks in general offensiveness it more than makes up for in irritancy and grossness. You are unfortunately one League rank short of knowing the magic missile technique, which is the preferred way of dealing with these creatures. As such, I will need to be the one to engage them. If you should be forced to engage an Airheart in combat, you will need to use a manipulation dandy to fling projectiles at it and ground the beast before closing in on a melee attack. Be warned! Downing one of those while it's in the air is harder than you would think."

  That's not ideal... but Clark at least had a strategy for taking it out. Which was much better than what he figured he would have had to do, which was slowly form a strategy as he engaged the monster in combat. As he had needed to do with the Noir Slimes.

  "Greenhorns," Darren continued. "I deem you ready for combat. By now, you've not only observed our experienced fighters in action as we've moved through the store, but you do have that tiny sum of practical experience when you participated in the League examination. Now is the time to step up."

  Breathe in, breathe out... Calmed, Clark drank a whole suit of dandies, while re-applying a Blessing dandy to his impromptu weapon. He shared the remainder of his tonics with his Detail mates. After they drank the suite, Clark saw his supplies dwindle to only a couple of each, with the manipulation dandy being the odd duck out with only a single vial left. Clark readied himself for another throwdown. It had been a long time since he fought something which wasn't a gelatinous slime, but he was ready for this 'Airheart,' should he need to fight it.

  "Clark, Hera," Darren ordered. "Take point with Russet. Theo, continue doing what you do best but stick close to Bear in case trouble finds you. Bear, you have command of a few of the greenhorns. I will lead the remaining greenhorns. If the Airheart comes for you, find cover! Don't try and fight it! Those beasts have razor sharp claws on its wings and teeth to match. One can easily eat you for dinner!"

  Confidence shaken only slightly by Darren's revelation of the Airheart's ferociousness, he swallowed down his fear and followed orders.

  He, Hera's, and Russet, a mace-wielding man, advanced along the edge of the crevice toward the emergence point. All was going well until the Airheart sensed their presence and flew up then directly toward them.