Theo

  Code Black.

  “Did she say what I think she just said?” Dane asked, having heard Rio over the phone.

  I nodded. I was already getting up to leave the restaurant. The food hadn’t come out yet, so I threw a hundred-dollar bill on the table and made a beeline for the door.

  It had become a regular thing for Dane and me to get lunch at Monroe’s on Thursdays ever since we’d become classers. Code Black though, didn’t mean I needed to wait for the check. It meant ‘get the fuck home. Now.’

  “Code Black. You couldn’t have come up with something better?” Dane asked, struggling to keep up as I stormed out of the place.

  I glared at him, and he snickered.

  “It’s not like you needed context to get what’s up, right? I gotta go. Could use you up there if something is happening,” I said.

  He pulled out a small handgun and pulled out the magazine while turning off the safety.

  “Teleporting to your homepoint from here will take out most of my mana, but hopefully, I won’t need more than this. I only ever got the one level, you know,” he said.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Of fucking course, it’s a yes,” he said, offended. He was still guilty about fleeing all those years ago after the rockworm had separated us underground. “I need to call Cames, though. She’ll have a fit if I don’t let her know.”

  “That works. I need to call Taemi and make sure she’s alert,” I said, even as I began dialing my home phone’s number.

  I swore if that girl didn’t pick up the phone…

  Fortunately, she picked up on the first ring.

  “Hello?” she asked. “Tande Residence, this is Taemi!”

  “Is that Mom!? Mooom, Taemi took my hairbrush, and she won’t give it back!” came a voice from the background. Trina. My racing heart calmed just tad.

  Well. That answered one question. If she was answering like that, she certainly wasn’t under attack by goblins.

  “Taemi. Get the gun and barricade yourself and Trina in the safe room, okay?” I snapped.

  “Oh! Hi Dad!” Trina exclaimed, hearing my voice but not my words.

  “Aww, again!? It’s so boring in there! Trina hates it! You aren’t going to make us wait for hours like last time, are you?”

  “Safe room? Aww no…” I heard Trina whine. “We were gonna get on the trampoline.”

  I cursed. More than once, I’d considered putting some sort of entertainment in the safe room just to make it more palatable for Trina, Haru, and now Taemi, when one of us called, worried the world was going to end, but that would defeat the point. If she was in the safe room, she needed to be alert. With a gun aimed at the door.

  We paid the girl extravagantly to put up with our over-the-top paranoia after all, just like we’d done for her older sister before she’d gone off to college.

  “Taemi, you weren’t in there for more than fifteen minutes last time, and you won’t be this time either. I will be there in no more than ten minutes, and you can go home early, okay?”

  I sighed, knowing how much Trina hated the damned safe room.

  “Okiedokie! Y’know, other parents are afraid of kids like me messing with guns.”

  “I’m aware, little smartass,” I said with a chuckle. This arrangement would probably get child services called on us if they ever found out about it, but the Min’s were as on board as I was. When you lived right next to a known breach, you had to take precautions. Taemi was a little marksman and a better shot than me.

  Besides, it wasn’t that odd. I had cousins whose parents took them hunting when they were two years younger than Taemi was now. They were usually just… there to supervise.

  “Be careful…” I said fearfully.

  “I will. See you soon, Uncle Theo!” she said.

  I wasn’t her uncle at all, but we’d made fast friends with the Min’s ever since that awful day. We’d have lunches at each other's houses, discuss security measures, and talk about Trina. They’d been a godsend for helping us with her. Haru and Taemi were possibly even more of a help, as Trina got old enough to be babysat.

  Taemi was a good kid. A bit more wild and rambunctious than her sister, and oddly familiar with us. Genji liked her more than even Rio.

  “See you soon,” I breathed before hanging up.

  Turning, I saw Dane was already waiting.

  I nodded and my body lifted off the ground right in front of my truck as I began to pour mana into the location in my mind. Dane joined me in the air a moment later.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  I hovered there as lights began cascading around me. Teleporting to one of the waypoints took about thirty seconds, and the process took more mana the further away I was. From town, it wouldn’t be too bad. I’d probably have a solid eighty percent of my mana left.

  I used the hovering time to text Taemi’s parents that demons had been spotted and I was rushing straight home. Code Black. Those two words almost ensured that they’d be over to our house before I was unless they were in town somewhere.

  I always kept at least three totems active beneath our home and powered them regularly. Even if there were demons, Trina and Taemi should be safe, at least long enough for me to get there from the waypoint at the dungeon’s entrance.

  I wasn’t too worried. I still had both of my claimed waypoints, after all. If the demons had returned and were swarming the house or something, they would first try to reclaim those points. Then again, they were pretty stupid. It was better to be careful.

  I’d planned for this. I didn’t have my weapons or gear, but I did have my own handgun at the ready. Irritatingly, my only light sources were my keychain flashlight and my cellphone. I could find my way to the dungeon’s exit with my eyes closed, but that wouldn’t help me much if enemies were there waiting to attack me in the dark.

  Activating Cyclone Armor as the countdown ended, I vanished in a swirl of red lights, only to reappear in a dank cave.

  “Burrr… Akkk ten-to gaaahh!” came a sudden snarl. It was only the glint of my flashlight on metal that alerted me to the immediate danger.

  I failed to dodge. Part of me didn’t believe, even with the dreaded words, that there would be demons here. We’d had false alarms before. The girls were just fine! Even the waypoints hadn’t been touched so why…?

  The answer came to me in seconds. It was an ambush. They were expecting classers to teleport in. Fortunately, my Cyclone Armor flung away the incoming weapon before it could hurt me, but I felt the ability crack as even more of the creatures began to attack.

  I dodged the second strike and the third, my mind finally catching up with my body. This was real. They were back, and I was proving that I still wasn’t ready even after six years of preparation.

  Fuck that.

  I raised my gun and let loose a barrage of bullets, each one smashing into a demon and sending it flailing back. The entire hallway was packed with the creatures, but the bullets were strong enough to punch through their weak bodies, and they were massed so closely that it was difficult to miss.

  I carried around a much larger gun than I once had.

  On the surface, they were almost exactly like I remembered. Ugly wrinkled skin, grotesque beady eyes, and crooked noses. Rows of incisors made for tearing flesh that leaked drool from their open mouths. Two devil horns on their bald heads. There was one big difference, though. They were nearly as tall as me.

  The moment I ran out of bullets, I shoved the gun back into its holster on my belt, even as I saw red flashes of light signaling Dane’s arrival.

  I moved quickly to cover him so he wouldn’t take a stray attack while he was vulnerable. Even with more guns, I wasn’t going to be able to fight so many enemies in such a cramped space. Not as I was now.

  I immediately dumped half my mana into Bear Form and began to transform just in time to block a heavy sword that might’ve cut Dane’s head off with a claw.

  “Oh shit! What the fuck!?” he screamed, backing up against the wall while I finished transforming.

  I roared and it seemed to invigorate him as he took aim. It was dark, and by turning into a bear I’d had to drop my flashlight to make sure we’d have any light at all, but it left most the hallway blurry and indistinct.

  A flash of lighting made all of the goblins scream as one of the died in electric agony. Not letting go of the momentum, I charged into the dank mass of demon flesh and began to tear.

  Dane seemed to take an eternity to reach down and pick up the flashlight, but soon, the hallway was again filled with the sound of gunfire.

  I was certain I’d missed more than once while emptying my magazine, but Dane was able to take his time. Each shot signaled a dead imp, while their weak attacks were focused on cutting pounds of flesh out of my hide.

  They might be bigger, but it was immediately obvious that they were little more effective than their waist-high brethren had been at hurting me. When I was a bear, my hide might as well have been steel, and my fur, chainmail.

  Their weapons skidded off my body like papercuts while they died to claw and bullets.

  Soon, all the enemies were either dead or screeching in pain on the floor. I saw plenty of them flee further into the dungeon, but a fair few of them had run towards the exit.

  My eyes narrowed, and I began to run.

  Running as a bear came as naturally as breathing. My hind legs propelled me through the cave like I’d been born here, and I trampled the fleeing imps like they were ants.

  “Wait up!” I heard Dane scream, but he should be fine. There weren’t any enemies anymore, but who knew how many might have already escaped into the surrounding woods?

  My daughter was in danger, and as I was now, a hurricane couldn’t stop me.

  The exit wasn’t very far from the waypoint and I made it in record time. My huge form was almost too big to get through the entrance, but I managed to scrabble through into the open sunlight.

  The valley was empty of any trace of demons. I could smell that immediately. As I’d found out online and through personal experience, my sense of smell was damn near a power all its own in bear form, and to my great relief, I couldn’t smell any trace of demons here. They had not left the dungeon.

  Why?

  That was a question for later.

  This place had been crawling with government agents, scientists, and others for a long time, just after the breeches. Over the months, then years with no new significant demonic activity, they eventually decided that there wasn’t much point in staying. They had eventually set up cameras to monitor the entrance, but those were only useful if the demons actually came out. Instead, all they’d see was a gigantic bear crawling out of the cave.

  I’d probably get a strongly worded email about frivolous teleportation, but… They were back. This was the exact situation they should be on alert for.

  I reached the top of the mountain, approaching our house from the back. I was galloping at a full sprint when a sudden bang tore through my ears. I skidded to a halt, primal terror running through me as I ineffectually took cover behind the nearest tree. A gunshot.

  I pulled my muzzle out of the rocks and dirt I’d crashed into and craned my neck up, finding that action difficult as a bear. Looking down from the top of our deck stood Narae Min, Taemi’s mother, holding a beast of a rifle. Thankfully, it wasn’t pointed at me.

  I held up my one working paw, even as I began to shift back to my human form.

  Jeez, that was a big gun.

  going over to Amazon and leaving me a review? Would very much enjoy being near the top of that algorithm! I would also be overjoyed if ya wanted to buy a copy!

  MB