“Rot-stink,” Dana whispered.

  “Who are you?” Danielle asked, shifting her grip on her staff and silently thanking God that she hadn’t left it behind.

  “I’m a wolf, and that’s all you rabbits need to know,” the boy said, drawing his sword and breaking into a jog.

  Danielle activated Combat Medic and feinted at him with her staff; left, right, all according to gym class instruction; then, as he moved his sword to parry the strike their gym instructor had drilled them in – she knew this boy, she’d actually sparred with him in gym class! What was his name? – Danielle shifted her grip slightly and struck him with all her might in a spear lunge that Cassy had just taught her that morning.

  To her own shock, she struck true, right in the center of his chest. His face registered equal shock, and Combat Medic drew her eyes down to his feet – both off the ground. She’d actually launched him backward! Not very far; he fell on his rear, tried to stabilize with one hand but slipped and fell the rest of the way back. Danielle gasped, but the ugly wet crack she dreaded didn’t come. His head was off the ground, just slightly, just enough to see him lower it to the ground under his own control. His hands clenched, but he seemed to be stunned, and his sword – not in his hand! Danielle swept forward with her staff and knocked the sword off the balcony.

  Gonzo opened the door again before she heard the clang of the sword hitting ground. “Oh stink, it’s a Wolf!” he shouted.

  “What? Is everyone OK?” Nathan exclaimed from inside.

  “We’re good, he’s disarmed and staying down,” Dana said. “Let’s get upstairs and get Marc and Reggie. The Wolf Pack isn’t our concern right now.”

  “R-right,” Nathan stammered. “Let’s go.” He pushed Gonzo from behind, and they both ran for the stairs; Dana and Danielle followed him, glancing over their shoulders to make sure the Wolf boy wasn’t getting up.

  The four of them trooped down the top balcony to 7320, where Nathan insisted he do the knocking. He knocked in a complex rhythm, and continued until Marc opened the door.

  “Hi Marc, that other hunting party we met the other night is calling us to help with a Healing and guarding the injured,” Nathan said tightly, a clear note of controlled tension in his voice. “The Wolves are out too, so between wild animals and human animals, we need all the fighters we can get with us. You up for it?”

  “I am. Where did you see the Wolf?” Marc said, moving back into his room as he spoke; Nathan stepped in far enough to hold the door open.

  “Flat on his back right outside our room!” Gonzo crowed. “The girl from the other party laid him out and they say he’s disarmed!”

  “I knocked his sword over the side when he dropped it,” Danielle confirmed. “It’s at the bottom of the near stairs, I guess.”

  Marc and Reggie were arming themselves as she spoke. “Don’t forget your rain ponchos,” Dana reminded them. “Also, any mana tokens you’re willing to offer for Healing, and regular first aid stuff – we’ll be asking them to pay us back, but you know, could be a gamble.”

  “Actually, if you guys think you can handle getting Nathan safely to building six, Dana and I need to go gear up too,” Danielle said. “Meet us at the ground floor fire corner at building six, or better, up on the ground outside it.”

  “We can handle it,” Marc said grimly.

  “Are you sure the two of you can get there without us?” Reggie asked. “I wouldn’t ask if you hadn’t already started a fight with a Wolf – “

  “Excuse you?! He attacked us!” Dana objected.

  “- If you hadn’t already started fighting with a Wolf then, I’m just saying, those guy don’t give up easily.”

  “We’re fast, we’re armed, and we’re determined,” Danielle said. “And we’ll go down the other stairway.”

  “Well don’t go around on this floor,” Marc said. “The level threes are in the room behind ours, and they’re off Outlaw and looking for prey.”

  Danielle went to the stairwell and looked down. “The guy I knocked down isn’t there at the moment. If we drop down to two and go around the building on the other end than before, you think we’ll be good?”

  “If you’re serious about being fast, maybe, but it better be System enhancement fast,” Marc said dubiously.

  Danielle turned to Dana. “You lead so I don’t leave you behind this time,” she said. “We know I’m faster, so you run flat out, and I’ll keep pace.”

  “Deal,” Dana agreed. “I just wish I had the kind of traits that would let me jump the balcony and climb down.”

  “Agreed, or even slide down to one and just plain jump from there,” Danielle said. “There’s a chance of hitting pavement though, so that’d probably be a pretty high-tier Trait. You ready?”

  Dana nodded and they started down the stairs, Danielle keeping at Dana’s side. Behind them, she heard someone – Gonzo? – exclaim, “Wait, really? We’re letting them - ?” Then the door closed.

  The two girls hit the second floor balcony at a jog and started running in earnest, going around the building on the opposite end from how they’d come the first time in hopes they wouldn’t pass the Wolf’s room again (if, indeed, that was even what had happened). Whatever his situation, he didn’t encounter them as they went, and they jogged down the stairs they’d come up on a few minutes before, and then out into the old road. Dana sped up again, and Danielle stuck to her side; Dana put on another burst of speed, and Danielle matched it. Past the choke point between buildings one and five, Dana dialed it back a bit, and Danielle matched her pace again until they got to the stairs of building six.

  “OK, I’m off to get my own gear,” Danielle said. “Poncho, sword, and bow! See you around the fire corner.”

  Dana nodded again and jogged to her room while Danielle ran past her and around the end of the building. Danielle entered her room, muttering to the System about how much she wished she could Skill-dry her shoes so she wasn’t tracking slippery water across her room tiles at a time like this. She went to her footlocker and quickly shoved her first aid kit and an extra roll of bandages into her bag. She confirmed that her blooding pin was in her bag, then thought twice and moved it into the kit. She threw on her poncho, then belted on knife, hatchet, and sword over it; then she put on bow and quiver, but remembered that it was raining and unstrung the bow, because wasn’t water bad for bow strings? She put the string into the breast pocket of her denim shirt. She belatedly remembered to take her own advice and set her career back from Academy Student to Survivor. Finally, she grabbed her bag and her staff, and the two five-mana tokens she’d gotten by trading with Heather to enlarge the tokens in the party reserve.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  She was almost out the door before she suddenly had a thought about mana and tokens, and paused to manifest another 10-mana token. She shoved it into the end pocket of her bag, then grabbed an empty “canteen” from the scavenged equipment and filled it with purple cherry tomatoes, popping an extra into her mouth as she did – Heather and Sadie had each had an extra already, and Danielle had used Skills to promote the party’s good too, now, hadn’t she? She dropped the bottle of purple tomatoes into her bag next to the first aid kit, and finally dashed out the door.

  When she got to the fire corner, she found all the girls there, including Jennifer, but the boys hadn’t arrived yet.

  “Everything going OK so far?” Danielle asked. “The other Healer’s on his way.”

  “I got my stuff like you said,” Jennifer quavered, no longer crying but still very stressed. Well, Danielle could hardly fault her for that. “The Rangers actually answered, like you said; I gave them directions, and they said they’d come, but I should get the Sent Healers there as quick as possible to make sure they stay alive long enough for the Ranger Healer to catch up. They said like you said – that they’re further away, so it’ll take time. At least 20 minutes, they said. How long has it even been?”

  Danielle looked at her watch. “It’s 6:52 right now,” she said. “I don’t know how long it’s been so far, but we can keep track of how long it takes from now.”

  “Someone’s coming on the grass!” Cynthia exclaimed, pointing into the darkness between buildings six and two.

  “It’s us!” a voice called. “They said come on the outside of the fire spot!”

  “That’s Reggie,” said the other Reggie. “Why’d you tell them to stay outside?”

  “Because those of us inside have to climb up – no stairs on this side, remember?” Danielle explained.

  Akari and Sadie immediately clambered up and out, and reached down to help others. Lauren and Cynthia were closest. Danielle climbed out on her own power, and Dana followed her example while Heather and Cassy accepted the helping hands. Jennifer somehow ended up going last, and Akari and Sadie basically just took one hand each and hoisted her out of the lower walkway and onto the soggy ground.

  “All right, Jennifer, show us the way,” Danielle said, glancing over the group. Akari had gotten everyone’s sword belts on the outside of the ponchos, and most people had brought bows; some of them unstrung like Danielle’s, but Sadie and Reggie (the girl) had both kept theirs strung; maybe they knew something Danielle didn’t about bows and rain.

  Jennifer looked panicked for a moment, then led off into the woods the way she had come running out at them. Danielle hoped she hadn’t actually forgotten how to get back to her party. “Martin,” whoever he was, probably felt like he’d been holding the line alone forever. She just hoped he hadn’t become a fourth casualty while they gathered the two parties.

  Under the trees, the already gloomy day was truly dark. Not, admittedly, “power outage in the caverns” dark, but quite nearly “the only light in the house is coming from the street lamps” dark. The rustle of wet leaves and branches in the wind and the unsteady plop of water gathering in various-sized leaves and pockets and then spilling over lent it a sort of melancholy noise; the sounds of life hidden behind the sounds of sky-water. Jennifer led them at a jog, pausing uneasily here and there to look for landmarks. At one point, Danielle thought she activated a Skill, but whatever it did wasn’t visible. The trip felt interminable, but as much as tension stretched the seconds, Danielle’s watch told her they’d barely passed the eight minute mark before Jennifer hissed, “There!” and pointed to a warm glow perhaps a hundred paces ahead.

  “Weapons out,” Danielle said. “We don’t want to stumble over a cat that thinks it’s at a safe distance, and be the ones who are more unprepared.”

  Sadie and Regina immediately drew their bows, Akari, Marc, and the other Reggie their swords. The rest of them brought their staves to the ready position as they kept moving.

  “Martin?” Jennifer called anxiously. “Are you OK?”

  “We’re all still alive,” a strained voice called back.

  “I brought help,” Jennifer told him. “A lot of help! Don’t panic, everyone’s with me.”

  “Is everyone Healers?” Martin (presumably) asked, as they approached. He finally stepped out from behind a tree, so they could see him – but silhouetted by his lantern, Danielle couldn’t make out much detail aside from a short stature, short hair in a buzz cut, and a drawn sword. He went very still – probably surprised by the size of the crowd, Danielle guessed.

  “Two Healers, and they each brought their own hunting party to protect them from the cat while they work,” Jennifer vouched for the group.

  “Oh. Wow. Well, uh, that’s good actually, because it’s been kind of spiraling back in towards us,” Martin said. “I think it’s realized we’re not shooting at it because we can’t anymore, or something.”

  An unearthly yowl punctuated his words. It came from somewhere to the left, far enough off for some minor comfort. “It keeps doing that,” a new voice moaned.

  The arriving group was still moving, so Danielle came into view of the patients before anyone could reply, and it was a sobering view. One boy lay flat on the ground, huge parallel slashes raked across his torso and hips. A girl sat propped against a tree, pressing a red cloth to her leg – Danielle thought it might be her denim shirt, since she wasn’t wearing one over her T-shirt. At this point, though, it was completely red. A second boy had a tourniquet around his left upper arm, but was using his right arm to apply pressure to a second wound on the girl’s side. A rain poncho had been awkwardly tied to the tree and a nearby bush to provide some uncertain cover from the rain; another was under the three of them. The boy with the long wounds was still wearing his, now shredded.

  Jennifer was talking, even as Danielle, Heather, and Nathan stared at the wounded in dismay. “That girl told me to call the Rangers, and they actually answered, and they said they’ll be here as soon as they can and it might be as little as 20 minutes – how long has it been?” She asked Danielle.

  “About eight minutes since we left,” Danielle said distractedly. “Healers, I’m activating Medic’s Diagnostics now. Where do you want me to start?”

  “It was probably at least two minutes between the call and when we left, so they could be here as soon as ten minutes!” Jennifer said. “And we’ve got so much help now, we can definitely hold out for ten minutes, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Martin said soberly. “I think that depends on the Healers, at least as far as those three are concerned; us fighters are probably good to handle the cat if it comes back at us, though.”

  “Figure out if the guy on his back has any chance,” Heather told Danielle. “I’m pretty sure any one of those is too much for me to touch. We’ll look at the ones we can realistically hope to take care of.”

  “Unpleasant but fair,” Danielle admitted and knelt next to the boy on the ground, activating her Skill and adding Combat Medic for good measure. She knew other people were still talking in the background; Jennifer and Martin, Heather and Nathan and the other injured people, and two or three whisperers among those standing guard against the cat. She tuned them all out and focused on her Skills.

  Medic’s Diagnostics didn’t have much hope to offer her. She checked his eyes, his breathing, tried to find his pulse – he was breathing, so she was reasonably confident his heart hadn’t stopped, but she couldn’t find the pulse in his wrist. Her Skill drew her hand into her bag, and she came out with the first aid kit, and then – the blooding pin?

  “What am I doing with this?” she asked the System in a faint whisper.

  Test response to stimulus, her Skill whispered back, and Danielle couldn’t suppress an enlightened “Ooooh,” though she regretted it as it caught people’s attention and she got several odd looks. Focus, she reminded herself. She lifted the wounded boy’s hand, and pressed the pin into it, watching for reactions. She drew a small bead of blood, but he didn’t give even the faintest twitch. Bad sign, she thought, not sure if it was the Skill or her own reaction. She checked the wounds; entirely unbound, but only bleeding a little. Were they that shallow? She prodded (still getting no reaction) and quickly determined that no, no they were not shallow.

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