The horse snorts, the air pushing my hair, a string of snot smacking me in the face.

  Nancy and I scramble to our feet and back away, blades held up in front of us, as the horse lowers its massive head and snuffs around directly where we had been sitting moments ago.

  The horse is big and brown and really pretty, despite the fact that the thing looks big enough to bite my head off with one snap of those teeth. I’ve ridden horses a few times over my life, but not enough to ever feel truly comfortable with the animals, and seeing the one here, now, completely ignore us as it sniffs around in the dirt.

  A large dog leaps onto the horse’s back, its sharp, pointed muzzle closing around the skin at the base of its neck. The horse throws its head back, letting out a bray, and stands up on its back two legs to try to through the dog off. It succeeds, and a second later the horse has spun around and gone running after the dog.

  One second after that, I realize that wasn’t a dog.

  “Coyote,” Nancy breaths.

  “It’s like you said,” I remind her, wiping the glob of horse snot off my cheek. “Intense.”

  “Still,” Nancy says, reaching out and grabbing onto my wrist. “Be careful. Horses, coyotes, and whatever it was that did that to your shoulder—”

  “Chicken.”

  “Oh for crying out—Just. Be careful. This is a surge unlike we’ve seen before.”

  I nod, because I’ve already realized as such. If that horse had wanted to hurt us, it would be a very different situation. I reach over and place my free hand over the one of her’s, still on my arm, and give a little pat.

  Nancy’s hand slips away, and I turn around and head back around the table. “Try to keep an eye on me,” I call as I head off. “I’ll let you know when the surge is—” I have to cut off, because some flying thing flies into my face and I rejoin the battle.

  Once again, I turn off my thinking brain. I hack, whack, stab, punch, flail, and cut my path through the creatures, watching how the edges of the purple haze slowly start to withdraw. It’s moving way too slow, though, and I hate how long it’s taking. Nancy heals us, sure, and she’s able to give a brief refresh while we’re in contact with her, but I worry about our long-term stamina.

  And I’m still unsure what’s causing this strange version of a surge, too. I don’t know how to deal with all of this.

  I haven’t managed to come face to face with a horse again, or a coyote, when the purple haze suddenly starts steadily receding. Thank goodness. “Crest starting!” I scream, though I have no idea where anyone is and whether or not they can hear me. I peek at the dots on my map—a feature I largely ignore, and therefore tend to fade out of view like the Game knows I don’t use it. But now the white dots that make up the rest of my party pop into view and I get an idea of where they are.

  They are spread waaayyy out.

  I guess I know what my task is now.

  With that in mind, I change my direction, heading first to the dot that is furthest away, and very likely going to be outside the crest of the surge, assuming the speed and direction of the purple haze shrinking doesn’t change trajectory. I switch from my blades to my old, trusty baseball bat, wanting something with a little more range than the short daggers. And I use it to mostly keep the area ahead of me directly clear so I can move through the battle zone toward whichever party member is out that way.

  It’s a different sort of in-the-zone type of fighting, not trying to make killing shots or protect myself. Soon, Beaker comes into my view.

  And of course, he’s trying to take on a huge horse all on his own.

  Men, I swear.

  He has a strange contraption in his hand, something that sort of looks like a few knives welded together. It’s kind of like a cross between mace and a spiked club. Either way, he’s done some serious damage with it against the horse, whose sides are slick and dark with blood or sweat. I expect that this was something he built with his Ability, and once we’ve levelled him up a little, I can’t wait to see what else we can make.

  Because while effective, it’s a very ugly weapon.

  I wait until the horse backs up a bit, circling the man, before calling out his name. “Beaker!” He looks over at me quickly before focusing back on his foe.

  “I’m okay,” he calls back.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The horse eyes me, my bat, and turns its focus back onto Beaker. Okay, rude. “I don’t doubt it,” I yell, but I still come closer, and when the monster doesn’t outright attack me, I side up to Beaker. “But the surge is cresting and you’re going to be outside the zone. We gotta finish up here and get into the centre.”

  “Shoot, okay,” he says, spinning the weapon in his hand and getting back into his attack position. “Then let’s finish this.”

  And before I can do or say anything, Beaker lets out a battle cry and rushes the monster. The horse rears up on its back legs, lets out a cry, and meets Beaker head on.

  I quickly store my bat and pull my blades back out. And then I jump into the fight.

  Beaker, like the other animals that don’t really seem to know how to fight effectively, goes for his opponent’s face. He hoists his weapon, trying to get a good whack against the horse’s face. As tall as Beaker is, the horse is… a horse. It pulls its head up and back, so Beaker can’t get at his eyes. Its nose takes some damage, but then the horse lunges back down, lips pulled back to reveal teeth that are way too sharp for a horse, trying to bite down on Beaker’s arm.

  I use the horse’s distraction against it. While Beaker and the horse clash above my eye level, I drop onto my knees and skid along the dirt, wet from gore and blood, like the most disgusting slip-and-slide ever. I hold my blade out, slicing the tendons along the horse’s right legs.

  The horse screams at the contact, and tries rearing back again, but with the cuts on the back right leg, the limb gives out on it. My slid-and-sliding got me right past the animal, though I do have to clamber to my feet and move out of the way so the thing doesn’t come down at me.

  But come down it does. With a bleat, the horse collapses down on its side, and with the lower target Beaker is able to smash down with this knife-mace-thing.

  By the time I get back to their sides, the horse lets out one last pitiful whimper and dies. I want to pull Beaker away—already the purple is almost past us—but he’s looking down at his hands with some degree of wonder and disgust.

  It’s a feeling I know well.

  “Don’t bug out on me,” I say to him, storing my weapons so I can grab onto his wrists with bare hands. “I know, it’s a big feeling. But you can’t feel it right now. We gotta keep moving.”

  He nods, slowly at first but slowly building in speed and determination. When he looks up and meets my eyes, his own are blazing. “Then thanks for the assist. Where’s the crest?”

  I grin, and I’m sure there’s something savage in it, but there’s no time for the details. I quickly check the map and say, “Follow me!” even as I start running.

  Beaker catches up to me quickly. Damn those long legs. I point in the direction of one team mate. “Someone’s out that way. Go find out who it is and head back… there,” I say, moving my point toward when I predict the centre of the surge site to be.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Beaker says, and then he peels away and heads in the direction I pointed.

  There’s a relief in how quickly and easily he fell into line as a soldier. I don’t know if that was Nancy’s words or my own, or just the nature of being in his first big battle, but I don’t question it.

  I’m just glad.

  The purple on my map is getting dark and opaque, and I know we’re getting close. The monsters seem to know it, too, as there’s an additional frenzy to their movements. Luckily, if I don’t attack them, they don’t seem to attack me—they let me run past without even an acknowledgement. I get to the next white dot, Nancy, in a moment, and push her back toward the centre of the surge site. I can still see the Volvo, and the inventory table, off in the distance, dead monsters on and around there.

  So many bodies.

  God I hope that this magical ash trick works. Who knows how many Rank Tokens we can get from this collection of bodies. And/or the surge itself, because as I reach the next party member, Savannah, the purple on my map is so dark it’s turning black.

  She has that dazed look in her eyes, like Beaker did for those few seconds. But with Savannah… it feels more. It feels worse. It feels like a dark hole that I don’t know how to get her out of.

  I could have predicted that she wouldn’t have taken her first fight well. I should have paid better attention. I mentally smack myself for the oversight, but there’s no reason to dwell on the past right now. Just need to focus on getting through the present, and then I can try to remember the lesson the next time I bring someone into their first surge battle. For now, I skid back down onto my knees, slip-and-sliding directly to Savannah’s side.

  My hands go to her arms, her hands, down her legs, trying to make sure there’s no wounds. She’s covered in gore, her dark hair even darker than normal, her bangs sticking up where she must have pushed them back—and then had the blood dry. Not a gel I’d normally recommend. We’re face to face, both on our knees, and I finally lift my hands back up to her face. I cup her cheeks.

  “Savannah?” I call, but her eyes are distant and not seeing. “Come on, girl, I know we’ve had our differences, but I need you to hear me. We gotta keep moving, okay? The surge is coming soon and if we don’t get to the centre, all of this will have been for nothing.”

  (Hopefully not entirely true, but she doesn’t need to know that.)

  Slowly, her eyes move and find mine. They’re the same dark, chocolatey brown as her hair. I don’t think I’ve noticed that before.

  “There you are,” I go on, and I lower my hands to her shoulders, down her arms, and take her hands. I give them a slight tug. “We good to go? No more fighting, we just have to move back over there.” I let my head and gaze show the direction we need to go, not wanting to let go of her.

  That’s when I realized that she’s looking at me, but she’s breathing hard. Like, hyperventilating hard. Like, panic attack hard. Shit. She’s still barely moved. Was this a magic thing? Did one of the monsters have a magic attack that could freeze her in place? Maybe she simply can’t move. Her lifeless expression shifts, her eyes going wide and terror taking over her face, her chest rising and falling faster than I can see. She pulls one of her hands out of mine.

  Okay, so she can move. This is just a good old-fashioned panic attack.

  I drop her other hand, cupping her cheeks again. “I promise you, you’ll be okay, but we have to move.” Tears well in her eyes, and her whole body is trembling now with the emotions. I need to distract her somehow, interrupt her hitched breath. Something bigger than the fight. We’re in the purple, but barely, and I don’t want to miss the surge.

  Fuck it, I think.

  I throw myself forward and kiss her smack on the lips.