Joe dropped Neal on his ass before he ran up the side of the building with the spider climbing ability. This was really wonderful. It freed his arms to either fire a gun or anything else he might need to do. Neal was an idiot for charging the snake creature. Bravado was fine and all, but it was meant to be used when it had a good chance of actually working. That is what the dumb ass forgot. Joe had anger written all over his face. It wasn’t an emotion he displayed, as that always got him in trouble.

  He was angry at Neal for almost throwing his own life away, and he was angry that the snake took a good kid: Brett. Brett was more than just a good kid in Joe’s mind, rather he was a great kid that had almost unlimited potential. He was going to go far, and now it was all gone. Joe grunted in as close to a growl of anger as he would allow himself.

  He turned his head to something in his peripheral vision. Spider legs, really big spider legs. For as large as they were they scurried very well. The spider was scrambling leg over leg to the top of a house less than a hundred yards away. Joe couldn’t really concern himself with the giant demon with a small herd of creatures on chains. Whether they were pets or slaves was unclear, and Joe wasn’t going to stay long enough to find out. He got to the top of the house he was jogging up and took stock of the situation: He couldn’t do anything about the snake creature. He couldn’t do anything about the large demon or the pets on leashes, but he could distract the spider, and hopefully divert a whole gaggle of monsters to chase him.

  While he still had time he fired his last enchanted bullet at the spider’s humanoid shaped head. The bullet clanged into something giving off a metallic ringing sound. He then waved at the spider. Lastly, he sprinted like his life depended on it.

  Running down the side of a building facing the ground is not a natural experience, but it was one that Joe was getting used to. He had used several charges of the wand so far. The orientation and viewpoint of running straight down while trying to keep his feet to the vertical walls was disorienting to say the least. Gravity played a part, and while the ability allowed him to walk in a way that defied gravity, it didn’t mean he didn’t feel it’s effects otherwise. The constant pulling motion towards the ground was jarring, but he ignored it as he continued. The last few feet he just jumped to the ground and landed into a roll. Back on his feet a moment later he continued.

  Joe didn’t need to look to know the spider was chasing him. He could hear the various legs of the spider creature crunching into the roof tiles of the buildings above and behind him to. Whatever the creature was, it had some serious bulk to be crunching roof tiles and making the boards creak underneath. Joe didn’t need to fight the creature, but he did need to get it to follow him without ever catching him. He slung his rifle over his shoulder as he really needed his hands for other things.

  Pulling grenades off his vest he pulled the pins and dropped them in the grass as he ran through it towards the street. Several second later and the explosion combined with a shriek of surprise brought a small smile to his lips. He didn’t get angry or happy, however he allowed himself a tiny bit of satisfaction in pissing off the creature. His running carried him into the next street over.

  There were orcs here as well. There were far too many orcs here, and he had to keep ahead of them. This plan was getting worse by the moment. As soon as he could get to the other side of the street he jumped behind a bush with a mailbox coming up out of the middle of it. Billy would have made a crack about needing to trim to the bush to better frame the box. Joe would never say that; he barely thought it, except when thinking about his friends.

  He activated his camouflage ability. Colors muted across him as the ability tried to blend him into his surroundings. He couldn’t move at a run with the ability up, but he could pop his head up and take a look around without losing it. Joe peered around the edge of the bus and saw the spider in the middle of the street looking around, most likely for him. He figured it had more than sight to its senses, but it was good to know that it hadn’t been able to immediately spot him as soon as he made the slightest movement.

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  Taking the moment to look around further he could see that all the orcs were back a ways and carefully moving down the street parallel to the street his friends were on. That was an awful lot of orcs. There was another intersection a couple of football fields down the road, and Joe carried some explosives on him, just not enough to stop over a hundred orcs and a giant spider creature.

  Joe decided to get creative.

  First thing up was getting behind the two cars parked on the edge of the street. He crouch walked over nice and slow. The orcs weren’t in a hurry, and the spider was slicing up all the trees and foliage on both sides of the street. It was angry at plants for some reason, but Joe had no idea what the plants ever did to it. Part of him was even angry on behalf of the plants, but payback was going to take a little time.

  It took time, but he created trip wires for when the orcs got this far that would direct small explosions into gas tanks. He had no clue if this was a good plan or bad movie magic. Sadly, he never saw an episode of MythBusters on this specific concept. As it was, he had the ground near the vehicles rigged in a few specific spots. He continued to work his way carefully until he reached a spot that he ran out of cover. It was unavoidable, but he needed to trust his camouflage ability to get him through a very sparse road that offered very little to blend into.

  He kept his eyes on the Spider creature as it was the closest, but he moved slowly so as not to break the camo ability. Joe watched where he stepped as any loud footfalls, or stepping over broken glass would end him. That creature was less than 50 feet away and it was faster than him. One of the militia guys had said, “slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” That concept stuck with him now.

  All he had to do was move one foot at a time and not step on the wrong things. Joe wasn’t cocky; he knew the wrong step got him killed. One foot and then the next. Halfway across the open space he realized he was sweating enough to leave the barest trail of perspiration. The spider creature hadn’t picked up on it yet, but given time, it would. Yet he continued to move as smoothly as he could. Step after step, he crossed the road.

  It was painstaking, but within a few minutes he was almost done with explosives on the other side. The orcs were right up to the point where they would start to trigger the explosives. He lacked remote detonators, so Joe hoped that orcs weren’t super observant.

  He stepped backwards, and that was the mistake. His shoe ground a piece of glass into the asphalt. The spider’s 8 eyes all looked at the spot where he was camouflaged. One leg stepped towards him, and then a second one. Orcs moved forward blissfully unaware of the cat-and-mouse game going on between the spider creature and the human. That was for the best, as orcs on both sides of the road tripped over the little wires Joe had set up over the last several minutes.

  Pins released under direct pressure from the wires being stepped on or through. Orcs continued moving, not knowing the calamity they had set off. They hadn’t been at war with us for weeks or months to experience and counteract our tactics, but merely five days. In those five days, they had lupin running most of the guerrilla warfare. The orcs just wanted to rush forward in large groups and smash anyone on the other end. That simplicity was their downfall.

  Cars exploded on both sides of the road as explosives were directed into gas tanks. Joe was lucky that the world had yet to go electric in its cars. That would have made the ground-level fireworks display far less impressive. Cars from both sides of the street blew apart, with most of them headed towards the middle of the street. Grenades were less effective on their own, but when they turned cars into shrapnel delivery systems, they were significantly more effective.

  The giant spider creature was caught in two explosions. It was not at the center of either, but it was in between both. It was at that moment that Joe used nearly the last of his mana to enchant several bullets. He took aim amidst the insanity of yelling orcs, blood, body parts, and a spider now missing two legs to put a pullet between the eyes of the humanoid upper half sitting on the spider's body. It saw him, but it was in no condition to pursue.

  It was time for Joe to rejoin his friends.