The doors to the first bus they approached opened on their own without the need to pry them apart. Inside, a group of half a dozen blue-souled monsters lingered. With their furry, eyeless bodies, it was hard to tell where they were looking, or if they could even see conventionally at all, but the orientation of their long, spider-like legs gave John the impression they were watching the humans.
John activated Accelerate and rushed inside, dispatching them easily enough with his Mana Blade. Black blood sprayed over the windows in far higher volumes than he'd been expecting, and he had to do some elaborate manoeuvres to make sure none of it got on his clothes. His outfit was already looking ragged enough as it was, besides the red leather jacket, which was also quite scuffed up itself.
After that, he found himself staring at the back of the bus as he waited for Accelerate to run out of heartbeats. He felt his eyes widen, and had to consciously reset them to their neutral state.
The thing was, there was no 'back' to this bus. It just transitioned straight into the next one behind it, and the one after that, and the one after that, and so on. A seemingly endless chain of buses, stretching on to a distant pin prick beyond even Eagle Eye's prodigious range.
"It's bigger on the inside," he stated the obvious as the others gathered behind him.
"So it would seem," Doug said. The old man stepped to John's side, squinting into the darkness. "And it already looked pretty bloody huge from the outside to begin with."
John nodded.
Only a few flickering lights actually lit up the long corridor of bus interiors, leaving most of it in gloom. There were a few dark silhouettes sitting in some of the buses ahead. Monsters, presumably.
"Why aren't they attacking us?" Lily whispered.
"Maybe they consider us to be on another bus, currently?" Jade proposed.
"But the monsters in the depot reacted to our presence even when we weren't on board the same bus," Chester said. His voice was furthest away, indicating he'd taken up a position at the back of their group, closer to the exit.
"Things are obviously different here," John said. "These buses haven't fully formed, and I guess the monsters haven't either. Maybe they're being put in that same mode as the phantom passengers, inactive."
Doug rubbed his chin in the classic thinker pose. "Poses some questions, though, doesn't it? Makes you wonder what's really going on with these monsters and all that."
"Unfortunately, we cannot ask," Alissa said, with a little venom. "Are we doing this or not?"
In answer, John stepped forward.
The occupants of the 'next' bus along didn't react until John was fully inside their territory, at which point they attacked. Though their slimy red humanoid bodies made them look rather grotesque, they were slow and clumsy, practically tripping over themselves every other step on their way to get to him. He didn't even bother to use Accelerate, merely slicing them apart with Mana Blade. A few more came rushing down from the upper deck in response to the commotion, but Lily's crossbow bolts dealt with them.
After that, a similar story unfolded through a long line of buses. There wasn't much worth commenting on in terms of monster encounters. They simply made steady progress forwards through one of the kraken's bus tendrils, and John actually mostly left the others to deal with the enemy, claiming that these monsters weren't worthy of his effort—and actually finding he meant it, which was a bit of a trip. He genuinely felt his time was better spent trying to use Mana Sense to make a mental map of the giant bus kraken's innards, which had greatly expanded once they were inside.
Easier said than done, of course. Just from the movements of the monsters, he could tell that this place was a veritable labyrinth. Thousands—no, tens of thousands of magical signatures pinged off Mana Sense with every heartbeat, and they were constantly on the move. It made for a hazy, confusing image in his mind's eye, but he was starting to gather at least some modicum of sense from all the chaos.
The monsters were most densely packed in an area right at the bus kraken's core. He reckoned that would be the area glowing with hellfire they'd been able to see from outside. At this point, he was utterly convinced new monsters were appearing from nowhere in that spot.
This thing was one of the sources of the devastation and misery that had afflicted Earth, and the hatred that coursed through him at that revelation made him feel like his heart had withered away and turned black.
An urge to turn his Spells on the buses themselves and do his best to destroy it all rose in him, but he tamped it down. Losing his temper here would do no good. All he'd be able to do was burn up one of its massive tendrils. He wanted to annihilate the entire thing.
So he kept his patience. Focused on mapping out a good route as best he could. So when they reached the 'end' of the tendril they'd been following, John was ready.
One would expect that the tendrils would all just be long corridors that twisted and turned but eventually made their way back to the core of the kraken. Not so. For reasons that were unfathomable to him, they branched off, splitting into multiple routes, many of which seemed to lead nowhere except to a denser cluster of monsters.
John wondered if this was a defence mechanism for the giant red monster. A way to deter invaders. If that was so, why had the doors opened so easily? The buses evidently had the power to prevent anyone leaving or getting on if they really wished. They'd already shown that.
Maybe there are rules these things have to follow. Like how the buses would open a route between each other once we killed all the monsters on board. They're allowed to slow us down, but not completely prevent us from being able to advance?
But who or what decides the rules? What's the fucking point of all this?
John's brows furrowed. He didn't know what to make it. Theories abounded, but he didn't want to let himself get distracted with them. They could all speculate to their heart's content together after the kraken was dead and the portal worlds were collapsed.
Regardless, John already knew which way they had to go when they reached a branch in the corridor of buses that split into three seemingly identical paths. The one on the left led to a dense cluster of monsters about the length of four buses along. The middle path seemed to curve downwards before terminating shortly after in an area where monsters again waited. It was the one on the right that took them further into the bus labyrinth.
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"Let's take all three," John said.
Alissa looked at him. "You don't know the right way?"
"Oh, I do," John said. "I just think you guys should kill as many monsters as possible. Get your stats up. You need to get stronger."
+400 Aura
"You're not wrong, I suppose," Doug said with a chuckle. "Alright, let's go handle some pests. Which way first?"
John slipped to the back of the group after they decided on taking the left route first. The passage veered to the left and descended a few metres, but ultimately it didn't take very long before they were faced with a pack of werewolves waiting in ambush.
From there, he settled in to watch. He'd noticed something as they'd advanced through the bus depot, and even more so since they'd entered the bus kraken's tendril. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say it had become increasingly harder to miss a crucial factor in this situation.
Teamwork.
"Chester!" Doug called out with authority.
Chester's radiant light Spell came alive the moment they realised enemies were ahead of them, having been warned beforehand to expect monsters lying in wait. The werewolves had been hiding behind and beneath the chairs, but they burst out into the open and raced forward as Chester's Spell stoked their aggression. Chester immediately scampered to the back of their formation, but the others positioned themselves in such a way that the werewolves maintained line of sight to him.
The werewolves stood at about five feet tall each, with deep back fur and electric blue eyes, black ichor dripping from their maws. Their teeth were yellow but sharp, bared in manic predatory grins. They charged forward with reckless abandon, and the shape of the humans' strategy was obvious.
Alissa and Lily took up the flanks of the group, bringing out their ranged attacks to thin the enemy numbers. Lily let loose trios of sickly green crossbow bolts with commendable accuracy; a good 90% of her shots impaled the werewolves right through the eyes, dropping them instantly, and the rest hit the head anyway, staggering them. None missed entirely.
Lily's eyes looked dead all the while, emotionless. Her movements were robotic.
Though Lily was dealing the most damage, Alissa was no slouch herself, blowing kiss after kiss with a mortifyingly exaggerated sound effect. The attack was effective though. It sent a cartoonish rendition of smooching lips fluttering through the air like a butterfly, and it seemed to hone in on the face of its designated target. Where the lips made contact with the werewolves cheeks with another cartoonish smooching sound effect, they left behind a red stain that melted through the skin with frightening speed, killing their target in seconds.
Even from behind, John could make out the disgust on Alissa's face through the reflection on the bus windows. He didn't blame her.
Doug and Jade, meanwhile, moved forward, bringing their own Spells to bear against anything that got too close.
The tension in Jade's shoulders was clear, but she attacked without hesitation, swinging her machete to create its golden projection which split into three. It sliced apart the werewolf she'd been aiming for like a scythe through wheat. At the same time, she caught another werewolf with her caustic red hand, and sent her spherical storm of blades flying at its face, tearing it to shreds in an instant. She dropped it immediately, her face pale. John decided not to encourage her to use her Reaper's Toll Spell—the one that gave her more Soul for hurting enemies rather than outright killing them. It didn't seem like she'd appreciate the suggestion.
The old man acted as the last line of defence. Doug's power was all about time, John recalled, though he had been a little cagey on what exactly that meant. John couldn't blame him, though, considering he'd outright lied to them about his own abilities.
Despite the potency of their abilities and relative weakness of their enemies, a handful of werewolves still made it close enough to force Doug to step in. It seemed that once they made it past a certain point, the others just left it to him. He moved with incredible speed, and John wondered if this was what Accelerate looked like from the outside. He darted close to the werewolf at the front of the three that had made it close, and aimed a lightning-speed jab right at its face. The werewolf froze on contact. One of its kin slammed into its back with a crunch, unable to budge it an inch.
The third tried to move past, but Doug was there in its way in a blink. The old man launched a brutal haymaker that sent the werewolf spinning to the ground, its lower jaw hanging on by a thread. It barely had a moment to get its bearings before he brought his foot down on its skull, crushing it.
It was rare for any attack to fail to find its mark, and not once did the enemy retaliate. The werewolves didn't even try to dodge. Chester's light had them completely enthralled, leaving them helpless.
John couldn't help but admire the strategy they'd put together. It was far from a perfect system, but their journey through the bus depot had evidently been good practice.
But there was something about the sight before him that dredged up negative feelings from the depth of his psyche, somehow. He frowned, trying to identify why. It was only when the werewolves were all dead and the group came back together that he figured out what was wrong with this picture.
Doug bellowed a laugh as he went around patting everyone on the shoulders. "Good job, chaps! Not a scratch on any of us! Ha!"
Jade smiled wryly up at the old man, then turned to Lily. "Good shooting back there. You're definitely improving."
"Getting over myself a bit," Lily said with a sigh. "Still fucking hate it, but what can I do? I've got what I've got, ya know?"
"I hear ya," Alissa said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. "Trust me, I hear ya."
"Working together, it's not so bad," Chester said softly.
"That's the spirit, young'un." Doug gave Chester a heavy pat on the back, sending him stumbling forward, then guffawed. "You'll be loving the spotlight in no time, you'll see."
"I'm sure you can teach me how," Chester snarked back, smiling.
"I don't think that kind of ego is teachable," Jade drawled.
They all laughed, and the conversation continued. Banter flowed. They discussed the battle, critiqued each other, gave suggestions, all laced with humour and a developing camaraderie that seemed to be growing more solid by the moment.
As he watched them, he realised none of them were paying him any attention at all.
Oh. I'm kind of becoming an outsider here, aren't I?
This was nothing new to John. He was no stranger to being left out, standing on the sidelines. The times when he was actually included always came with grumbling and reluctance. At least this time his isolation wasn't because they thought he was a total loser who wasn't worth associating with.
Still, there was a feeling in his heart like its weight had doubled and gravity was trying extra hard to pull it down. A lump was forming in his throat. Not a big one, but that raw, painful feeling when he swallowed was all too familiar.
Turning on his heel, John started walking back along the way they'd come. It only took them half a minute to realise he'd left, at least. Was that reassuring? He didn't know.
The middle route was full of pale worms as thick as a man's forearm and easily two metres long each, and they moved with surprising speed. Slicing them apart just split them into more worms, which renewed their attack. But the group's teamwork was on top of it once more, and they prevailed. John tried not to feel bitter as he watched them take a minute to celebrate another small victory.
The right route carried on in the same form the corridor had up to that point for a while, but eventually it brought them face to face with a group of green-souled monsters blocking their path, and John finally got back in on the action.
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