As the dark buildings rose over the newer houses, Alec startled at a sharp crack from his phone. He scrolled through his active apps and noticed he'd left the transceiver open. A muffled voice was saying something, but the signal was far too sparse to tell. Either that was Samanthe's magnetic interference or it was too far away.
He left it on and stashed the phone in his pocket.
The quaint mountain houses of Garden were now thinning out and the grass on the sides of the road was growing long. A flock of Murkrow scattered over the darkening horizon. The road was pocked with holes and cracks, then a few paces on it was almost gone to the mud. Trees and vegetation had taken back most of what humans had claimed. The ground was boggy and Surskit skirted around dirty little ponds on muddy legs.
The old buildings were tall, their facades crumbling and brick exposed. He spied a storm of Graveler tracks coming from the biggest of the houses and approached it carefully, motioning Golem to stay a few paces back.
The wooden stairs leading to the entrance were completely crumbled and the door itself looked as if a large mon had taken several bites out. Likely from the Graveler bustling to get in or out, judging by the short height of the damage marks. That was good. In the worst of scenarios, big attacking groups of animals were led by a larger, fiercer mon. The catch was, the mon had to be of the same compositional type as the pack of animals it was leading. Water animals could, for example, only follow the commands of other, fiercer water types.
If the entrance had been damaged at the top rim, that would have meant something tall like a Tyranitar or Onix was pulling the strings. Alec shivered at the thought.
He hoisted himself over the edge, making sure to avoid sharp splinters of wood. Inside, the house was empty. The floor had been caved in and bare rafters lined the trampled ground. The ceiling seemed on the verge of collapse. A dilapidated stairway rose in a far corner of the vast chamber. He carefully made his way there over a creaking rafter beam.
The smell of old house was pungent. He knew there was little chance of finding any Graveler on the top floor, since the ceiling would have broken had they loaded it with the weight of their heavy bodies. Best to check regardless.
On top, he was greeted by a darkening sky, covered by the shadow of a vast tree-top that had taken the liberty of growing over the space where the roof had been. He turned back to the stairs when he caught sight of something peculiar.
A set of fresh boot-prints in the dust. A troubling feeling surfaced in his gut. That couldn't mean anything good. The prints were large, belonging to an adult. And recently made, meaning somebody must have been here at the same time the Graveler were. He followed them over the debris to the other end of the space, where the sky opened up. The prints disappeared.
Alec raised his eyebrows. Somebody was here, made their way to the outer wall and… was suddenly gone. Where did they go? Did they jump down to the ground? Impossible. As he racked his brain for a solution, a sharp cry pierced the sky, like a cat crying out in pain. It immediately struck Alec this must have been what Zoe had heard.Then something howled fiercely. It was Golem.
"Shit." He sped down the old stairs heedlessly. The last step split in half as he tramped on it. Alec caught his balance on a rafter and stumbled across it to the opening. A rocky smacking was getting louder and louder.
Golem held something in its hand. It swung limply in its grip like a rag. A small rocky body, a head and two large arms. A Geodude – the little cub form of the Graveler.
There was another nearby, its skull broken, brain matter spilling out onto the street. They must have attacked and Golem took care of them as trained.
Alec took the Geodude from Golem's paw and had to strain to lift it. Its small body was deceptively heavy. "Remember when I used to lift you up like this?" He asked. Golem did not respond.
Evidently, Golem had cracked its young counterpart's rock skull enough to kill it instantly. Alec noted the two small nubs on the underside of its head. Geodude are born with only two arms, but gradually grow out another pair as they mature into Graveler. When the rare process of morphing into a Golem occurs, the older arms wrap themselves around the body and are carbonized along with its shell, leaving Golem with only two. The second pair of arms growing out of this Geodude were little more than nubs, meaning it was mere weeks old. This must have been the Gravelers' breeding ground. Those two Geodude had to have been overlooked. Left behind.
Alec stood. "Come," he said, clicking his tongue, and took off. If they had bred here, that meant their dwelling was nearby. Likely some natural crack in the hillside or an abandoned mineshaft. Their tracks were easy to find - there were plenty of trails spreading out, then joining into one main stream. Alec knew he had to proceed very cautiously. It wouldn't do to have all these animals set themselves upon him for encroaching on their territory. He was here solely to assess the threat.
There was at least one mystery solved. The shrill cries that Zoe had heard – they were Graveler cub cries, the shrieks of little Geodude. Alec felt a nostalgic pang. It wasn't seven years since Golem was a Geodude itself. He recalled the countless hours of training and exhaustively precise feeding. The hours of jogs through mountain terrain, the climbing sessions, shell hardening exercises, the tussling and command learning. At the time, it all seemed like a necessary pain in the ass. He remembered it fondly now. Out of all the creatures he'd brought up, it was Golem that was the most consistently loyal to him.
They ventured into the forest, noticing ever more egregious signs of Graveler presence. Broken branches, splintered tree boughs, trampled undergrowth, holes in the earth where big rocks must have been. By the time the old street disappeared from view, the sky had grown dark. Lights went on in the village, but they were barely visible now. It was proper dark. Alec unzipped his large pack and wrapped a light around his forehead. He took out a sandwich and tossed a bit of mineral kibble to Golem.
After a short break, they were at it again. The tracks were big advertisements now, there was barely a tree trunk that wasn't lying flat next to its stump. The undergrowth was stomped into the ground. A big shape flew overhead, flapping its wings and speeding by.
Suddenly, he began stumbling on pebbles and dips. He scanned the surroundings and saw that a mist had crept in around him. He hadn't even noticed it in the darkness, it must have happened quickly since visibility was fine just minutes ago. "Let's turn around now. We'll see what we can do in the morning," he whispered to himself and turned around.
Smack!
His foot struck something hard. He cursed in his mind because he dared not curse aloud. It was a boulder. A chest-high, rugged boulder of suspiciously oval shape. His eyes adjusted to the thickening fog. He could now make out the dozens of similar boulders all around.
Please don't wake up. He begged it quietly.
But it did. A gravelly cry issued from the boulder. It began to rise.
"God dammit," he said. They were deep in it now. "Come!" He shouted to Golem, turning and bolting in a direction he hoped was the way they'd come. It took Golem a while to catch up, but Alec knew when it did as the ground vibrated with each of its steps.
A lone, wailing groan blasted from behind. The Graveler he'd stumbled into was wailing, rousing its pals. Moments after, something like the rustle of a landslide stirring all around him. There was no doubt in his mind that a pack of Graveler would soon be champing to stampede him over.
Alec ran for his life.
He didn't notice the stone wall until he nearly crashed into it. He halted. Golem, however, smashed straight into the wall, unable to stop its own weight in motion. The stone cracked and Golem bounded back on its legs, leaving a cannonball hole in the wall.
"Shit, you okay?" Golem showed little sign of hurting. "Good. That stunt'll definitely draw them here." He looked all around him, but found it impossible to see through the fog. The stone wall stretched far in both directions. This was definitely not the way they were supposed to be going. His orientation was all but scrambled. If they tried to run next to the wall, their chances of getting surrounded were half more likely. Running back, away from the wall would only speed up their imminent meeting with the PDA pack. Only one option remained.
"Rock climb," he said, and clicked his tongue decisively. Golem complied without a hitch. It lowered its oval back, allowing Alec to grab ahold and climb on. There was no time to fasten himself to Golem. He would have to hold himself up with his own strength. "Up we go!" He clicked his tongue twice - once for the action itself, once more for continuation.
Golem punched its strong limbs into the rock surface, piercing it as easily as if it were biscuit. The top of Golem's head was almost flat, an anatomical feature Alec was glad to take advantage of. He turned and half-sat his butt right on top of his pet's noggin.
It began to climb, lifting limb over limb without as much as looking up. Normally, the wall would have been unscalable for a human without equipment, but Golem was a one-of-a-kind scaling machine. It climbed without strain, lifting itself evenly like an elevator. Alec's weight did not bother it.
They were more than fifteen meters up by the time their pursuing Graveler started cannonballing into the wall, unable to halt their weight, as Golem had been. He felt the wall shake dangerously and held tight onto Golem, which stopped momentarily. The Graveler kept on coming and crashing, piling themselves on top of one another like a crowd at a rock concert. There were at least twenty there now. Those numbers were concerning, it had to be admitted.
Alec noticed Golem was shaking with strain seconds before it kicked its leg down, unearthing a massive chunk of wall beneath them, sending it straight down on attackers. The mist made it impossible just what had happened, but he heard the boom as the package delivered. Small pebbles and sharp stones zipped up from below, fragments from the explosion, followed by a mass outcry of animalistic pain. Golem resumed climbing.
Alec had known what Golem was capable of – hell - he'd trained it himself. But this surprised him. No. It put him in awe. The decision to bring Golem was in hope of establishing it the leader of the Graveler pack. What was shocking was just how well Golem was already doing it, without command. This was natural to it. Alec's respect for the creature grew immensely.
The fog swallowed the world. They were climbing in a dark tunnel of mist. In that tense moment, Alec considered the phenomenon. Were these mists truly natural? They thinned out after a while and finally, they were above it. He spotted the lip of the cliff less than ten meters up. He tried not to think of the fact that they were dozens of meters above ground as he fumbled through his pack for the rope he would now certainly need.
Golem grunted in warning, slowing its ascent. The lip slightly overhung the wall itself, so it would have to climb horizontally. Alec grabbed a thin wire rope from the pack and fastened one end around his leg, the other around Golem's head. If worst came to worst, Golem's neck would keep him tethered. It was one of the toughest parts of its body.
The world turned itself around then. As adrenaline gripped his heart, Alec saw the beauty of the world that hadn't been there before. A sheet of fog covered the nightly landscape below them. Stony hills pierced the blanket, rising up to the sky, covered with skeletal pine trees unfurling in the dark. Shit, but the world only seemed to be truly beautiful when it was about to kill him.
He turned around to face Golem's back as he strained his body to keep ahold. The lip was now at its worst, facing the ground below like a ceiling. Alec held on, beads of sweat rolling over the sides of his head and falling far. The severity of angle eased, but he still felt it hard to relax. It struck him how easily he'd accepted the inevitability of having to climb the wall to escape, but stopped himself from thinking if it would have been better to be crushed by those animals outright, rather than falling down fifty meters to greet them dead.
His flow of thought was broken when Golem hoisted them over the edge. Alec let go and splayed his body on the grass, relaxing his muscles. He was wet and the ground was cold, but it was blissful. It was great to be alive. He was laughing. So fucking great to just live. He screamed into the night. They had made a clean break. But the pack might still catch up with them. Graveler might be slow, cumbersome and unthreatening to anything with a pair of decent legs, but they were known to be horribly territorial.
He forced himself to sit. Golem was curled up, fast asleep. He carefully removed the wire from its neck and bagged it.
He rummaged through the pack for a bottle of water. He emptied it halfway when the ground started vibrating. He peeked down over the lip and saw the Graveler horde scrambling up the wall en masse. Their slow, awkward performance made Golem's inexorable ascent seem all the more masterful. Nevertheless, they were gradually encroaching up ways.
Difficult as it was to accept, the Graveler were still very much hot on their tails.
"Golem!" Alec shouted. "No time to rest, bud. Sorry." The creature stirred, opening one red eye. Alec found himself unable to communicate just what he wanted it to do. Or rather, repeat. He struck his boot with his fist, and then stomped down on the lip, clicking his tongue all the while. The red eye opened widely in understanding. Golem stretched itself from its curl (as much its anatomy allowed) and inched over to the edge of the lip. It didn't need to see the Graveler to know they were coming.
For the first time ever, Alec heard Golem screech in battle rage. The sound split the sky and echoed over the stone walls. It seemed to balance on the tips of its hind paws and, in a split second, brought its weight down with immense force. Cracks fractured the plateau they were standing on, spreading beyond Alec's feet and onward. Golem recovered and turned around, growling urgently. Telling him to get a move on. Alec didn't need to wait around to see what would happen. As they ran down the slope on the other side, ever-smaller cracks kept outpacing them for a good while before they tapered off. Whatever force Golem had unleashed had fissured the top of the cliff, and would soon unleash a landslide down on their pursuers.
The earth shook and they heard a sound like an ocean wave slamming the shore, followed by the dismayed howls of their pursuing Graveler. Alec imagined their surprise to see the mountain coming down on them.
But the trouble wasn't over. The mist engulfed them once again as they descended, the pine forest growing thick around them. Only most of it wasn't standing. They had to clamber over collapsed boughs and branches to keep moving. Something had begun to flatten the nature hereabouts and Alec had a creeping suspicion about just what it might be.
There was only one way down the slope and Alec could feel the tension. He knew there was a good chance of more waiting for them at the bottom. There were many times in his career he'd wished he was wrong. This was one of them.
Unfortunately, he was right on the money. Living, four-armed boulders with eyes like dead fish awaited them in the collapsed canopies. The trembling earth must have woken them, they were on rise all around.
There was his Infestation Class 3 theory confirmed. Judging by the state of the environment, 4 might not be far ahead. Another separate Graveler pack had found them on the other side of the cliff plateau, ready to swarm. The ones they had run into by Jackal Street were only part of a larger horde. Alec, as well as the Ranger Union had been wondering whether Graveler were capable of forming hordes, so there was another theory confirmed.
There was no time to be shocked, no time to process the scale of threat. This was much larger than he had been anticipating. It was a life-or-death situation. They had to get out. Now.
His eyes darted all around, scanning the dark forest for a path clear of the shadowy beasts lumbering toward them. Up ahead, he saw a clearing free of the fog.
"There!" He shouted and ran ahead. Suddenly, a Graveler burst from inside a hollow tree trunk, grabbing him with two of its arms. Alec tried to wriggle free, but its grip shackled his movement. He couldn't reach the Injector. It pulled him closer and opened its stony maw. As it was about to bite down, the top of its head splattered open and the arms holding him went flying. Alec flew up in the air, then tumbled through bushes, dry needles in his mouth.
Golem, covered in slimy guts, kept bounding onward ahead. After a quick look behind, he went after Golem, his savior. That creature deserved an upgrade of its biome after all this was done.
He hopped over a root on a mound of earth and followed Golem through an opening in the foliage it had made.
He emerged into a vast, open space stopping dead in his tracks. Fear gripped his heart and chained him in place. The scene in front of him took a few seconds to crystallize.
Ahead lay a vast artificial cliff. Different levels of road made for mining machinery many years ago cut the mountainside into a rough bowl shape. Smack dab in the middle of the abandoned quarry yawned a gaping black hole. Cold air oozed out, blowing the mists away. It was black, pure as jet, so dark it seemed infinite, and alluring. It was almost tempting to step toward it, to explore its hidden depths, but rationale stopped him.
A forest of waist-high boulders stretched from within the abyss. A number of Graveler in one place Alec had never heard of. A thought entered his head, unwittingly. They looked like worshippers at mass. There were dozens, no, a hundred. More. All rousing up. Sensing a presence disturbing their holy garden.
Far and beyond shattering the Class 3 ceiling. This was bad, oh-so-fucking bad.
Death squad, Death squad, Death…
Golem shrieked a battle cry.
"No!" Yelled Alec. His tongue failed to click in his mouth. He turned back around, but the pursuing Graveler had already caught up to them. They were completely surrounded. He whirled and found himself eye to eye with Golem. The creature was scratched and dirty. Due to their weight, Golem are supernaturally strong, but tire out in hours. During average activity, their wake and sleep cycle lasts less than 4 hours in total. Alec could tell from Golem's drooping posture it was at its wit's end.
"Sorry, buddy," he said. He had brought it into this mess and he truly was sorry. "There's only way outta this now." In that frozen moment of time, Golem seemed to understand him, his emotions, even if it did not know the words. It growled reassuringly.
They faced away from the quarry together.
"Charge!" He took off, running straight for the Graveler creeping from the forest. He drew the Injector and sprung it fast. The first Graveler was already reaching its arms to grab him. He slid beneath the arms and punched the hot dart through its shell. He picked himself up and grappled the Graveler behind the first one. It was taken aback only slightly before it began to crush his bones. Enough time for Golem to crash into it, splitting its shell and spilling its insides like warm putty.
"Charge!" He pulled the trigger again, another dart hissing, stabbing through a Graveler coming in from the side, then immediately went after the speeding Golem. Yet another pack came in to meet them a pace onward.
"Shit." At this stage, they'd be sandwiched in.
Suddenly, the air shook with a devastating shriek. Golem launched straight toward them. Its body was already spinning in the air like a bullet when it reached its enemies, shooting straight through the center, blasting apart their bodies and their formation like a stack of glass bowling pins. Unable to stop, it kept on spinning and rolling in the mud, leaving a wide rut in the earth.
Alec ran after it, breath hot in his throat. The mists were thinning out once more and the night was clear in the sky. He could see their coming demise all the better now. The Graveler surrounded them like ants, spilling from the hills. A pine tree suddenly toppled over, crashing down into the undergrowth to his right. In its dislodged stump he saw Golem stuck, its shell cracked all over.
"Buddy, let's go," he patted it urgently. "Buddy, we gotta hurry, they're right behind us!"
Golem trembled weakly, dislodging itself from the splintered wood. It looked as if it was barely keeping its eyes open.
"Please, buddy, let's go now. Just a little while longer," he kept telling it, starting a slight jogging pace. Golem tried its best to keep up, but its legs wobbled, swaying with every step. He could hear the massive stampede behind them, felt the earth shaking. The horde was almost upon them. They neared a slope up ahead of them. Alec raced to the top, taking in their situation. He saw smoke and lights a few hundred meters away.
"The village! We're almost there!" He shouted, turning around. His heart fell. The scene before him was all too tragic. A broken Golem stood before him, stepping ever more slowly. Holding the cracks in its body with both arms. They glistened with blood. Behind it a sea of Graveler bustled, rushing toward them like a natural disaster.
"Come on, buddy! Just a little more!"
Golem looked up at him, clear red eyes shining in the starlight. "Ahh," it cried, gravelly voice full of wonder, then toppled over, rolling back down the slope.
Alec shouted in dismay as the rolling tide of Graveler engulfed it. He took off running, throat sore from screaming. He dashed through the forest, scraping through bushes, stumbling at roots and fallen branches. Behind him the stampede grew louder and louder.
Something glistened between the trees on the horizon. Knees aching, legs churning, body heavy, he used all his energy in a last ditch sprint. The closer he came, the more certain of it he was. He threw off his large backpack, tossed the torch from his head and threw off his boots. For all else there was no time. The Graveler were now close to arm's reach behind him. He jumped.
The river Avard greeted him like a wall. He crashed into it, sinking almost to the bottom of the stream. Swinging his arms, he surfaced and swam with all his might. Other heavy bodies crashed into the water behind him. Unable to stop, their momentum sent them flying straight over the sharp bank and into cold death below.
Feeling like a wet rag, he dragged himself over the bank on the other side, coughing up water. The Graveler on the other side tried to halt, but the rows behind crashed into the front, pushing them in. Alec watched with mounting horror as the riverbank on their side choked up with carcasses. Soon they were rolling into the river over each other, flailing helplessly.
Dozens of bodies bomb shelled the surface, making waves that slammed the bank Alec had hauled himself over. Still, they were falling, their screams unlike anything Alec had ever heard in his long career. A demonic cacophony merged with the sloshing of the killing water.
Alec didn't know what to feel anymore. So he felt nothing.
Gradually the stampeding horde was able to slow and stop, watching the river in stupid disbelief as their kin drowned below. It lasted for a while for the last of the fallen to die. The water burbled and sputtered with the breaths of their final cries. Then, for an eternity, all was still. It seemed time had stopped. The edge of the bank was packed on both sides with Graveler, still as statues. They stretched almost to the horizon. Despite their losses, the horde had been successful at chasing away the intruders from their nest. Sensing their task to be complete, a cloud of smoke emerged from behind the horde as the hind row turned to stalk back to their nest. The frontrunners soon joined them in a storm of crunching footsteps, leaving for their nesting grounds, to the quarry and the ungodly abyss that occupied it. Trees rustled and collapsed in their wake.
Alec watched them disappear, the sound of them ever fainter. "Let's go," he wanted to say, turning to Golem only to realize it wasn't there anymore. Would never be there anymore.
He sat still. Mind blank.
He dragged himself up on his socked feet and hobbled through the forest in the direction of the light. The night was dark. Branches whipped at him, leaving marks in his skin, twigs and needles bit at his feet. He was beaten down, and exhausted. As beaten down as he was at his lowest. When he was betrayed.
The carcass. Blood from his own mouth. Something through his stomach. Then the deaths.
He winced at the painful memory, then thought of Golem. He thought he should feel shame. Another creature dead, protecting him and his future failures. but all he felt was the empty space behind him where Golem used to trail after. He had failed in his mission.
"Hy-ype-e…"
Everything was hopeless. The threat was more massive than he could have imagined. Never in his life had he seen numbers like those. Not a hundred Exterminators could deal with that.
"Hy-ye…ion co-omes"
The Death Squad was sure to be here soon. They would destroy the village and the forest with an avalanche of fire. Maybe that was for the best.
"I-it… it's here, Alec! Hy-e-eion!"
Despite himself, a flame of hope engulfed his body. Then burning despair washed it down. He realized his phone was still on.
"We ma-ade it fro- -he -arm, Alec!"
He pulled it out and shouted into the transceiver. "Larry! Where are you?!"
"A-ee- here… Alec… at- her—get to – rande-….. On our way."
"Larry, where are you?!" Alec's voice cracked. He'd guessed Larry the apprentice tamer had done what he'd asked him to and brought that thing over.
"Do- by off -riv-….."
"Damn it, Larry! If you heard me, turn back now!"
"W—e-r g-a—g couple of hours…"
"Larry! Dammit, Larry!"
"…"
Nothing but static remained on the other end. Alec chucked the phone down in anger. Just then, he spotted a group of helicopters by the mountain peaks in the distance, getting closer. He could tell by the flashing purple lights.
The Death Squad was finally here. However, Larry was on his way over as well, bringing with him Alec's own secret weapon. One at least as dangerous as the Squad itself.
He spat on the floor as he picked up his phone. Grimacing as he said that name again after so many years. There would be no saving Garden now.
"Hyperion comes."
