Amazon Apocalypse: Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Regina was staring at an empty spot on the wall with a completely blank expression.

It was like she was frozen in time. The prompt before her should have vanished just as mine had. But Regina was still standing there with that blank look on her face.

"Regina?" I asked as I placed a hand on her shoulder.

I nudged her and stumbled back at what I saw. There was a growing bulge on her head, like some alien trying to pop out of her skull. As I watched, the bump grew longer and longer, turning red at the tip. Finally, that tip narrowed into a point until it formed a horn jutting out of Regina's skull.

Her frame grew as well beneath my hand. I felt her shoulder swell. Before, she'd been a woman of average build. Now, she looked as though she spent every spare hour in the gym instead of at work.

Her legs grew longer too, and by the time Regina finished the transformation, she was nearly half a hand taller than I was with her heels on.

Another screen flashed in front of me as I stared at her.

Red Oni (Level 5)

Status: Ally

"Regina?" I repeated with more than a bit of worry in my voice.

This time she responded.

"Ow! My feet hurt."

She quickly tore off her heels, which were suddenly several sizes too small for her. There was that same red color on the tips of her toes as there was at the end of her horn. I grabbed her wrist and looked at her fingers, which also had the strange inhuman red coloration at the tips.

"What's going on?" Regina asked, with more worry in her voice than I'd ever heard from her.

"The end of the world."

As if to punctuate my statement, the printer started shooting paper at us.

The paper sprayed out of the printer with incredible speed and force. The machine shouldn't have been capable of such a feat, but it did it anyway. The paper cut long lines against our skin. Both Regina and I were riddled with paper cuts and mere moments.

Regina fell backward, covering her face as the printer continued to attack. Even I stood frozen for a moment, despite how long I prepared for something like this. It was one thing to think about a monster attack. It was entirely another to have it happen.

Techno Elemental (Level 1)

Status: Enemy

Still, my years of practice kicked in then. I knew there was a fireman axe just outside the door to my left and I quickly reached for it. I tore it from the case in one smooth motion and then stepped into the office. Only a second had passed since the printer's attack, and it was still spraying sheets of paper at Regina.

I brought the fireman's axe down on top of the printer in one heavy blow. The cleaving strike cut through the printer's plastic body with ease, sending multicolored ink spraying in all directions like alien blood. The lights on the printer cut out, and the sound of its spinning gears died completely.

Enemy slain!

You have been awarded the title First Defender!

You are the first in your world to kill in defense of another.

Reward: +2 to all stats!

You have been awarded the title First Adventurer!

You are the first in your world to hunt down a monster and destroy it.

Reward: +1 points to a random stat for each level.

"What was that?" Regina said, staring wide-eyed in fright. The scared face looked strange on her usually self-assured and commanding face.

"That was a monster. A techno elemental by the looks of it. You should have gotten a prompt."

"W-what? Do you mean that blue screen that appeared? That was real?"

I nodded. "If you don't believe it, just touch your forehead."

Regina did so, hands jumping away in shock when her fingers ran across the horn jutting out of her skull.

"What is this thing?"

I shrugged. "You're from a race called the Oni, now. I don't know what that means."

"Oni are a species of powerful mystical creatures from Japanese mythology..." Regina said. "My grandmother once told me about them. She's from Japan and... I'm sorry, did you say I'm an oni?"

"Not me. The system said it."

"Right, the blue boxes." Regina unsteadily climbed to her feet. "I'm sorry, this is all a lot to take in."

I hefted the fireman's axe in my hands. "We should get to my car. I have a safe place set up in a mountain valley not far from here. It will be quite a hike, but it will be safer than just about anywhere else.

"You mean your bunker?" Regina asked. "I always thought that was a bizarre hobby. How can a man spend so much time obsessing over a hole in the ground?"

"You know about my bunker?"

"I had someone follow you with a drone the last time you took a vacation but didn't leave town," Regina explained with a flush in her cheeks. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't secretly working another job. Taking a week off and then not leaving town for a vacation strange, you know."

I led Regina to my car. I traded in my sedan for a truck a few years ago. This one was more expensive, but it had a four-wheel drive and was all-electric. That meant I could charge it entirely off the solar panels I had on the roof of my bunker. I had a gas guzzler too, but it was back at home, and I didn't expect I'd be able to get to it for a while.

As I moved across the parking lot, I realize there was a certain speed and grace in my steps that I'd never possessed before. Walking was suddenly easier. Despite Regina getting bigger, hauling her along by the wrist felt no more demanding than tugging a shopping cart along behind me.

I jumped in my truck, and Regina got in the seat across from me, still looking dazed and confused from the sudden turn of events.

The engine stalled for a brief moment, and for a second, I was worried that the car wouldn't start when I needed it most. But then after that moment of worry past, the lights went on in the car started moving.

I threw it into reverse. I was quickly pulling out of the parking lot. From there, getting on the highway was merely a matter of retracing a well-trod path.

"So… I am an oni now," Regina muttered to herself. The distant look in her eyes told me she was exploring an invisible screen in front of her. I was strongly tempted to do the same, but for some reason, the system wouldn't let me pull anything up while I was driving.

To comply with local distracted driving laws, you must pull over before opening your stats menu.

The safety prompt appeared every time I thought about the system. I had waited so long for this day, and I was so eager to dive into figuring out just what this apocalypse I'd been so afraid of was.

Eventually, I made a hard right turn onto a dirt path, switching my car over to a four-wheel drive.

"We are going off the beaten trail for a while," I explained to Regina. "My bunker is pretty far off the grid."

"…I'm being hauled off into the woods by a man to hide in his bunker…." Regina muttered. "and also, I'm apparently not even human anymore."

I snapped my fingers in front of Regina's face to get her attention. "Enough of that. Get your head in the moment. I need you with me, Regina. You're a woman who knows how to get stuff done. You are an oni now, and monsters are coming to attack us. Accept it and be ready to fight tooth and nail to keep living another day."

Some of that confident focus returned to Regina's eyes at my prompting.

"You are strangely ready for this, Carter."

I shrugged. "I've been thinking something like this might happen for a while."

"Really?" Regina raised an eyebrow. "You've been thinking about your supervisor transforming into an oni woman? And about printers coming to life and attacking people?"

"No, about the end of the world." I chuckled. "I'm ready for this."

Suddenly, something happened that I definitely wasn't ready for.

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