Speed Is King

“Whoa. Bright, burning sun! Evil! Pure Evil! Master, we’ll just stay here, a couple of meters underground if that’s alright with you.” The lead mole said and was immediately followed by a chorus of agreements.

Elliot couldn’t be bothered to reply them as he squinted his eyes and studied the eight spaceships that were flying in neat formation above his base camp!

However, they didn’t seem to be hostile, and his camp seemed relatively intact. So maybe… They belong to him?

A few seconds later, his suspicions were confirmed.

“Big brother! You’re finally out!! I’ve missed you so much!!” Jennifer cried out when she caught sight of him.

In a blink of an eye, she was upon him and hugging him fiercely!

After being kidnapped for two weeks, she only spent a day with him before he retired into seclusion to absorb his Dragon Blood. And so she still missed him a lot!_{pᴀɴᴅᴀ-ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ.ᴄᴏᴍ}

“Ahh Big Bro! You’re finally out! How many eggs did you lay? What took you so long!” Jessica cried out as well and flew down towards him from one of the spaceships.

“Hey sis.” Elliot grinned and ruffled Jennifer’s hair and waved to Jessica.

“How have you been these past two weeks? And how in the world did you get eight spaceships? And they seem to be really high grade too!” Elliot marveled.

“We’ve been doing very well, actually. Big sis Camelia and Kara have been really nice to us. We’ve cleaned out a huge amount of beasts and gathered a lot of survivors! By our last count, we have at least four hundred!” Jessica said half proudly but also half worriedly. It was a very complicated expression that she had on her face.

Proud because they had saved so many people. Worried because that “many” people were all that were left from over twenty cities and towns.

“They are all that’s left from over twenty towns.” Jennifer said quietly. “Hiding in secure basements, mostly. But a few in empty buildings and even a couple up on a tall tree. The rest… We didn’t see a lot of remains of dead bodies. They must have been… eaten.”

“Four hundred huh.” Elliot said very grimly. The situation was really, really bad. Much worse than the first iteration.

In the first iteration, at the end of the first month, there were at least fifty thousand people alive in the state of California.

If they had covered an area that encompassed over twenty towns and cities, they should have at least met with a few thousand survivors.

But there were only four hundred left.

Humanity was in an unprecedented crisis! _{ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀ​ꪶ​}

(Ok, that was a massive understatement. Boo, author.)

“What do we do now, big bro?” Jessica asked.

“Resources and survivors.” Elliot said very simply. “We need to gather every single precious resource according to the list that I have given you. Which brings me to the next question. Where did you find those spaceships? I don’t recall seeing spaceships in the list of precious resources in that list.”

“Oh. We met with a few aliens with spaceships. They were pretty hostile, so we killed most of them, and got the survivors to teach us how to fly those spaceships. We still kept the survivors alive, just in case we needed them to repair the spaceships.” Jessica said very casually as though she was just talking about a quick walk in the park.

But Elliot could detect a sense of pride underneath her casualness.

He grinned and ruffled her head in approval.

“Good. My sisters have grown up. To think that even aliens in spaceships are no longer your match!” Elliot laughed happily. “That’s exactly what we must do, I guess. In addition to securing the Resource Boxes, we need to rob and kill as many of those damned aliens as possible!”

“Agreed.” Jennifer nodded fiercely. “No mercy for them! Let’s set up hunting parties and hunt them down!”

“Hunting parties?” Elliot smiled grimly at Jennifer’s aggression. He shared her deep seated hatred of the aliens. In fact, every human being probably did.

But he would be a fool if he thought that the meager power he had was enough to allow them to go on an all out offensive against the aliens. There were too many powerful Emperors on planet Earth at that moment. And with the incoming wave of bounty hunters added into the mix, Elliot was sure that they were bound to meet with another Hegemon soon.

And realistically speaking, not even Elliot was confident that he could survive an encounter with a Hegemon, much less defeat one.

And if Elliot couldn’t survive, then there would be absolutely no hope for the rest of them. Not Jennifer with her powerful Royal Elemental Feline bloodline, and not even Jessica with her powerful Black Phoenix Goddess System.

They weren’t strong enough to deal with Hegemons. Not yet, anyway.

“Let’s wait till we get stronger before we do the hunting parties thing.” Elliot told Jennifer. “In the mean time, you guys can hang out with me and we’ll work together to clean up the state. It’ll be safer if we work as a team.”

“We can deal with most of the beasts and fugitives. But we’ll be in trouble if we meet with a Hegemon. We can win 99 fights and lose just 1 with a Hegemon, and we’ll be as dead as losing our very first fight. We can’t take any chances. I, won’t take any chances. I won’t lose you two again.” Elliot looked at Jennifer and Jessica seriously.

“Hmmm. I understand, big bro. We’ll stick with you then.” Jessica said. “We’ll stick so close to you that when you fart, Jennifer will be blown away by it!”

“Hey! Why do I have to stand directly behind him? I’ll stand next to him. You stand behind him!” Jennifer protested.

Jessica merely giggled at her.

Elliot merely rolled his eyes and laughed.