Archive of Our Own

His truck was parked in a ditch six klicks back, covered in branches and leaves to hide it from both the cops and the metal-seeking eyes of his prey. 

The rain was rolling in down the valley, and xB tried to ignore it. The trees, scraggly little things clinging to the rocks, shielded him for the moment. 

His pack was heavy, and he took a drink from his canteen. 

He stepped on a twig, the snap ringing through the dark forest. He had his ears pricked up- listening for the unmistakable rumble. 

Smoke hit his nose, and xB shivered. 

Keep focused. Keep moving.

A few steps later, and xB’s phone buzzed against his chest. Only four people had his number, and he’d told all of them not to call him under any circumstances. He raised an eyebrow and fished it out of its pocket. He flipped the old phone open, extended the antenna, and held it to his ear. 

“Hello?” He said, voice soft. Didn’t want to give his position away. The game trail was silent, for the moment- but who knew what was listening in the depths of the woods? 

“Princess?” Keralis’ voice rasped. He sounded scared. He sounded desperate. 

“Keralis?” 

“Princess, it’s…it’s all gone. Everything’s gone. It came, like you said you would. It pushed the mountain over on the town. Princess-”

xB felt his blood run cold, and he shivered. 

“Did you-” 

“I did as you asked,” Keralis said, “We all did. But Princess- I need to go back in there. My bar. I need-” 

“You need to get the hell out of the mountains,” xB growled, “Get in your car and GET OUT. Let the experts handle this.” 

Let me handle this went unsaid.

Keralis hissed out a breath. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Get the hell out, Keralis. I got this. And don’t call me until I call you. Bye.” 

And xB hung up. 

He pulled the battery out of his phone, and tucked both into his breast pocket. 

Fire burned in his eyes as he stepped deeper into the woods.

xB tipped his head back and exhaled. A deliberate action, a bit of extra force from his lungs.

He watched his breath curl away, barely-visible wisps of white, lost in the morning mist. Below zero, then. Or hovering around it. He stared through the trees into the distant mountains. A huge chasm between the peaks yawned before him, the sides of each crag coated in trees, until it burst above the treetops. 

Behind him, xB’s tent was covered in dewdrops. Rain was sputtering through the conifers, the fresh scent of needles and mountain air tickling his nose. It would have been beautiful, if the cold wasn’t so vicious. 

xB pulled his hood over his head, and yanked on the cords, keeping out the chill. 

The ground shook. 

He swallowed, and crawled into his tent. 

There it sat, an expanse of black metal, long since shorn from its carrying case. Heavy. Deadly. Necessary. 

Ready for action. 

He’d pulled it apart eight hours ago. Cleaned every part of it, top to bottom. He knew the rhythms of this machine. 

He grabbed it with shaking hands, and emerged with his prize. 

A gleaming gun, polished black metal with a pair of bipod legs. A few feet long, with a squarish, unmistakable muzzle break on the end, to kill the recoil. xB snapped a massive magazine into the feed slot, and pulled back on the lever to chamber a bullet that was the length of his hand. 

His Barrett M82A1, ready to rock and roll. 

In the distance, a mountain moved. 

xB laid down on the ground, among the pine needles. He rested the bipod’s legs on a convenient rock. 

Took a moment to screw some earplugs into his ears. 

And took a breath. 

Then, another. 

Felt the air in his lungs. 

And he looked down the scope. 

The bell tinkled, and Hypno put down his tablet and looked up at his new customer. 

He didn’t mute his livestream. 

Footsteps creaked across the ancient wooden floor, sunlight backlighting his new customer as they approached. The dust of ages hung in great cobwebs from the ceiling- the old 1920’s wood-fronted building not Hypno’s first choice, but the only place he could afford to sell his product. 

Through the glass he’d taken pains to clean, he could see one of the mountains that cradled their town on either side. 

As the customer creaked closer and closer, Hypno’s face lit up with joy. 

“xB!” he said brightly, “What can I get for ya?” 

xB chuckled darkly. 

“Hypno,” he said, “We go way back. You know?” 

Hypno nodded, looking around his store, and at his wares. 

Guns. 

Guns on every wall, in racks, in cases. Guns under lockup. Guns under glass. Guns, displayed between the antlers of a stuffed elk head. Trophy heads, some Hypno’s, some donated. 

(Hypno was of a mind that if you were going to go to all the trouble of shooting a buck to eat, there was no sense wasting the trophy. Hence his favourite mount: The world’s scrawniest mule deer, with a rack of antlers so hilariously small he used it to hang his keys.)

“We do go way back,” Hypno said, leaning on the counter, “So what’s your quarry, man?” 

xB chuckled. 

“This place not bugged?” 

“Nope.” Hypno said, popping the ‘p’, “RC’s came in here the other day. I, ah, might’ve, you know….” 

Hypno winked, and waggled his fingers. 

“Did my magic to get them to leave.” 

xB chuckled, and his expression darkened. 

“You heard the news?” 

“What, on the radio? The… thing? ” Hypno frowned. 

“Wait, it’s- you’re joking, man. It’s not real , right?” 

xB nodded once. 

“I just got back from the bush,” he said, “It’s real. I saw it.” 

Hypno swallowed.

“And it’s coming?” 

“It is. You need to tell everyone to get out. You have at most a week. Probably closer to three days. Can you do that for me, Hypno? You’re so much more convincing than me.” 

Hypno swallowed. 

“...I think I can do that. I think I still have the mayor’s ear,” He said, “Are you sure?” 

xB leaned against his counter. 

“I am dead sure. Now…I need to buy some stuff. Can you help me?”

Hypno nodded, and he pulled a key off his neck. He hit a switch behind his counter, which locked the front door and turned off the OPEN sign. 

“Come with me,” Hypno said, gesturing for xB to follow him behind the counter. 

They walked into a side room, out of the prying eyes of Hypno’s CCTV. He hit a switch on the wall to erase the last five minutes of camera footage. xB, meanwhile, ran his fingers along one of the hundreds of boxes of ammunition lining the walls. 

 Hypno wrenched up a plank in the middle of the floor, revealing a trapdoor into a pitch-dark basement. 

“After you.” 

xB breathed. 

In and out. In and out. 

Filling his lungs, supersaturating his blood with air. Getting ready to hold his breath. 

He dialed in on the scope. Fished a pad of paper out of his breast pocket, and took a look. 

Range…

xB fished out his rangefinder, and took aim at his quarry. Clicked the button and held his breath.

…two kilometres.

Oh, easy peasy. Only up there with the longest shots ever made by a sniper. Fantastic. 

xB took another breath, and pressed his chin against the gun. Closed one eye, laying flat on the ground, and lined up the crosshairs. 

His vision down the scope was filled with a ghostly blue. Up, up, he inched his aim up, and then he was staring at glossy black. He dialed the range out, just a little. 

Normally, headshots were bad. Video games gave everyone such a skewed view of shooting. In reality, you wanted to aim for the centre of mass- the body, the torso. The head was a tiny, fast-moving target, almost impossible to draw a proper bead on. 

Headshots were the province of gamer shut-ins and people who wanted to miss their mark.

….That wisdom didn’t apply when the head in question was the size of a building. 

xB carefully aimed as his target moved. Distantly, he felt a rumble through his chest, as the great columns stomped at the ground. 

Take a breath, now. 

Take another. 

Feel the crisp mountain air in your lungs. 

And pull the trigger. 

“So is the emergency escape tunnel still a thing, or do I gotta find a way to smuggle this down main street?” xB asked, turning the weapon over in his hands. It was huge- a tower of black death, the imposing muzzle break making the massive gun immediately recognizable. 

Hypno snorted. 

Down here, in the basement, he kept a supply of his more…specialized wares. For specialized customers. For cash transactions that Hypno liked to keep off the books. 

Discreetly, Hypno placed a case of hand grenades aside, and tucked it on a shelf. Strolled by a belt-fed machine gun that was just missing the truck attachment point, to get to the wall of incendiary ammo he had on hand.

“The escape tunnel is just where I left it,” Hypno said. 

“Cool. I’ll take this, three boxes of ammo, and…y’got any landmines?” xB asked. 

Hypno put the rocket launcher tube he was holding down on the table with a clank, and narrowed his eyes. 

“Man, what do you take me for? I have STANDARDS, thanks!” Hypno huffed, putting a box of flechette rounds back on the shelf, “We do not sell landmines here. Honestly, landmines should be a war crime. So no. Not now and not ever. Period.” 

xB raised an eyebrow, and both men looked over at the large sea mine Hypno had chilling in a corner. 

“That’s my emotional support mine. And it’s not for sale.” Hypno said, sticking his nose in the air.

xB sighed dramatically. 

“Fine. I’ll take the .50 cal and the ammo. Spoilsport.” 

Hypno grinned. 

“Pleasure doing business with you.” 

And he pushed a huge black plastic case across the table, full of foam cut-outs for the rifle to sit in. 

“It’s already sighted in. So…cash?” Hypno said with glee. 

xB sighed, and opened his backpack. 

The bullet hit the eye, and xB looked away from his scope. 

A fountain of ghostly blue sludge burst from the massive head, spraying the valley below. The monster tipped its vast head back, and opened those train-sized mouthparts in a silent scream. 

Because, of course, the speed of sound was slower than the speed of light. 

Five seconds of silence, of watching the beast thrash its head back and forth, watching the trees around it ripple outwards, and xB gripped the gun tightly and braced himself. 

The sound hit as a shockwave, and it was unlike any other noise xB had ever heard. Even through his earplugs it was deafeningly loud- without them, he’d have sustained permanent hearing damage. 

It rattled and ground, mechanical and artificial. It sounded like an engine and a bomb and the shrieking howl of a hurricane, of wind blown too fast through too narrow a gap as metal slammed into metal and ground against itself and shattered at the air. 

Birds took off in a panic all around, thousands of flocks of them, flying madly in all directions, and xB stood. 

He grabbed the whistle around his neck, and brought it to his lips. 

And he blew as hard as he could. 

The sound echoed down the valley, rattling off the treetops and bouncing down the rock walls. 

Its vast head turned, towards the source of the attack. Eye still dripping huge globs of viscous blue fluid. xB watched one of them splatter to the trees, and begin melting the needles off the conifers where it landed. 

The ground shook as it started to walk towards him. 

xB smiled. 

He pulled the magazine from the Barrett. Pulled back the bolt to check it was unloaded, and carried it back to his tent. 

He’d need to break camp, and continue on to his destination. 

He had its attention. 

And at the speed it moved, he didn’t have long to get in position. 

Probably a day. 

As xB walked, his stomach started to rumble, and he narrowed his eyes, and opened his pack. 

A single bag of ketchup chips stared back at him, and nothing else. 

And he had three more ridges to walk…

xB took a deep breath, and retreated to his tent. And when he emerged, he was clutching a second gun. 

A short little pistol, ready for the holster on his belt. 

And with that, he started breaking camp.

Keralis leaned against the counter, scrubbing one of the dirty beer glasses with a rag. He reached up and scratched at his bushy beard. Freshly trimmed that morning with dressmaker’s scissors in front of his bathroom mirror. (Which had gotten beard hair all over his favourite red plaid shirt, but details.)

Keralis put the glass down, and looked around his bar. It was one o’clock in the afternoon, so the only person in his pub was a man in a Leafs jersey, wasting his life’s savings at the VLT machines that flashed away in a corner.  The bar was darker than a cave, only lit by the odd glowing sign for Molson’s and the flickering lamps over his bar.

He glanced at the phone. It’d buzz if anyone wanted him at the front desk. Putting a bar in the motel was the smartest idea he’d ever made. 

But, no phone activity meant he was fine to keep tidying up. 

Keralis chuckled, ignoring the rattling of a few quarters from the slot machine, and wiped down the counter. 

In the corner, his old TV was flickering, showing a football game. Keralis’ eye drifted to it, and he grinned as the ‘Riders took the ball over the line and scored a touchdown. The crowd erupted on the flickering screen, and he smiled happily. 

The Redblacks looked dismayed, and Keralis smugly started wiping down the counter. 

The bell over the door tinkled, and he looked up. 

And his face lit up. 

“PRINCESS!” Keralis said, loud enough to jar the man in the corner, “Princess, you’re here!”

xB smiled as he strolled up to the counter, propping his elbows on it. 

“Oh, my perfect Princess,” Keralis said, grabbing xB’s hand across the countertop, “Can I get you a drink? Do you need a room for the night? Do you need… my room for the night?” 

He giggled, and waggled his eyebrows. 

xB smiled, and shook his head.

“Nah. I, uh, I’m gonna be hitting the road soon. I just needed to know…do you still have my stuff in lockup?” 

Keralis nodded. 

“All safely tucked away in my office. Plus your special package, just as you left it. I didn’t even bump the ammo can.” 

Keralis narrowed his eyes. 

“Why?”

“You checked the news lately?” xB asked, and Keralis frowned. 

“No, why? Or…oh, no. It’s not real, is it, Princess? They said it wasn’t, and that-”

“They said wrong. They’re covering it up.” xB huffed, “It’s as real as PTSD and wildfires.” 

“So what do we do?” Keralis said, his tone darkening. 

“What YOU are going to do is get your shit packed up, cash out with your ‘associates,’ and get the hell out of here,” xB said, jabbing a finger in the middle of Keralis’ chest, “Get your truck loaded, and get out. Before it arrives. And- honestly? Tell everyone to get out. This town needs to evacuate. You’re better at getting people to buy your bullshit than I am.”

Keralis nodded. 

“I will do that. I have a few strings I can pull and I have some blackmail I can use. And you?” 

“I am going to go after that thing. Government’s not coming to save us. It’s their fault anyway. So…” 

“So it’s you,” Keralis sighed, “Okay, princess.”

He paused, and reached under his shirt, emerging with a key on a chain. xB raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t Keralis’ key- it had a star-shaped charm tied to it.

He took the chain off his neck, and placed it in xB’s palm.

“That’s for the observatory,” Keralis said with a smile, “The head astronomer wanted some, ah, “private time” with one of the, ah, scientists. I promised I wouldn’t tell a soul. Maybe it’ll help you.” 

xB raised an eyebrow.

“Annnnnd you have this…why?” 

“He might’ve not paid his tab,” Keralis giggled, “And I might’ve…you know…sent him a message from my friends to pay me or his wife might learn things she doesn’t want to. Yes? So, he gave me a present with his money.” 

xB nodded, tucking the key into his pocket. 

“Thanks, Keralis. You scare me, you know that?” 

Keralis giggled. 

“Oh, princess. You’ll never, ever meet one of my friends. Your face is too sweet for that.” 

xB chuckled, and he followed Keralis into a small room behind the bar. 

He spared a glance back, to make sure nobody was watching. 

The bar was completely empty. 

Keralis closed the door. 

xB broke camp with ruthless efficiency. Tent packed into its smallest bits. Sleeping bag compacted down and down into a tiny little sack. Everything he owned tucked into his backpack, including his gun. He very carefully strapped the Barrett to the side of it. He wasn’t going to be lining up any shots with the bit ugly monster anytime soon, and he had a mission.

He lifted his shirt, making sure his pistol was in place. An M1911- as old as the hills, and still quite capable of spitting out a few choice counterarguments. 

…Not that xB intended to get into any arguments with anything. Better to avoid talking to the bears at all. But whatever. 

xB set his sights on the distant observatory, playing with the key around his neck. He had to get there before that thing did, or he was toast.

The observatory had been a whole to-do, when it was first built. Or, at least according to the older townsfolk.  Huge amounts of government money poured into the contract, materials and manpower trucked in from miles around.

And a ruling from the scientists in their ivory tower, that light from the town could not shine too bright. Hence why the streetlamps of home were always so dim. 

Dark skies abounded here in the mountains. 

xB drew closer, and he couldn’t help but smile. 

A vast white construction, romanesque marble perched haphazardly on the side of the mountain. A collossal portico wrapped around the top of the base, and from there, it extended up and up into three huge blue domes, their covers slid back so vast crystal eyes could strain to see the secrets of the cosmos. 

xB clenched his jaw. 

He started to walk, faster and faster.

Behind him, the valley shook. 

xB leaned against the payphone. One of the last ones left, and he was still in awe that it worked. A bit of a blessing, though, and xB wasn’t going to argue with the time warp this town was slightly stuck in. 

He drummed his fingers against the top of the phone. He could see Hypno’s shop just down the street, but right now, he didn’t have time for this. 

The phone connected with a click. 

“Y’ello, Welsknight here! Who’m I speaking to?” 

“Wels,” xB said, “It’s me.” 

“Oh. Hi.” Wels sighed, “And to what do I owe this particular cold call? No, don’t tell me- you’re stuck on another mountain.” 

“No.” xB said, “You owe me, Wels. Remember?” 

Wels hummed. 

“I…may have…a memory of owing someone both a lot of money and my life,” Wels said cautiously, “Why?”

“Because I need your help.” xB said simply, “You might get a call in a couple days. If you do, I need your chopper to fly me out of wherever I got myself stuck. Okay?” 

Wels sighed. 

“Okay, fine. But after this, we’re square. Got it? Thanks for saving my ass, really appreciate it. But this is the LAST FAVOUR.” 

“Got it. Glad we understand each other.” xB said. 

“Ugh. I’ll be in position. But use your cellphone, would you? I almost didn’t answer this call.” 

xB snorted. 

“Fiiiine, twist my arm why don’t you?” 

And then he paused. 

“Wels,” he said, “Call the fire chief. I know you have him on speed dial. Tell him he needs to order an evacuation, and he needs to order it now.”  

Wels went silent for a moment. 

“It’s that bad, huh?” 

xB nodded to nobody. 

“It’s that bad.”

And he hung up. 

He was on the final ascent to the observatory, and the ground behind him was shaking. The monster was close. Every one of its footfalls, drawing it to the glimmering metal telescope and the vast sunshades. 

xB started to run. The trail ran alongside the road, and with a few leaps off the rocks and roots- 

His boots hit the tarmac, and he took off sprinting, up the fairly steep mountain road. 

Closer and closer, his heavy pack rattling. The Barrett bounced a few times, and xB grabbed it to avoid jarring the scope. Messing up his optic now would mean death. His own, and then thousands and thousands of others. 

Come on. Come on. Come on.

Lives were in his hands. The valley was full of towns, and even farther up, a small city, nestled between the peaks- 

xB rounded the final switchback, and raced towards the doors of the observatory. A spartan thing, the 1980’s drawing closer with every footfall. Brick and beige and yellow paint, with dated signs and the County’s old logo. The whole thing had been constructed the last time the Feds had tossed the valley a bone. 

A very well-gnawed bone by this point, it had to be said. 

xB pulled the key from the chain around his neck, and stabbed it into the ancient brass lock. It stuck, and fought against him- but the metal relented, and it turned with a screech. 

He pushed the door open, and stepped into blackness. His eyes, so used to the sun, were lost in the lightless abyss for a few worrying seconds. As xB’s vision cleared, he made out more and more details. Two floors, and a hallway ahead. Everything was corrugated catwalks overlaying acres of pipes and wires, and ahead of him, a huge door leading to the main observatory. 

To his right, a spartan steel staircase, paint peeling off the handrails and Walk-don’t-run signs caked with dirt and the rot of ages. The whole place stank of grease and dust, and xB wrinkled his nose. 

The halls of Science were many things, but glamourous was not one of them. 

xB turned right, charging up the staircase. He grabbed the handrail,  heavy hiking boots rattled off the grating. 

As he climbed, xB felt gratitude that the observatory had been evacuated. The last thing he needed was some reedy little clipboard-clutcher asking stupid questions like “Who the hell are you” , “holy shit is that a gun” ,“hey are you allowed to have a 50 Cal” and so on.

On the second floor, he was confronted with a huge ring of catwalks, wrapping around a circular inner wall- more wires and pipes and other nonsense to keep the observatory running. But ahead lay the real prize. A beige door with OUTER WALKWAY written on it, and a glowing red EXIT sign above it.

xB reared back to kick the door in, and then he froze. Because right beside it was a glass case with a fire alarm behind it. 

Heart racing. His whole world shaking. 

He balled up a fist and shattered the glass with a single punch. Reached inside, grabbed the alarm- 

And pulled it. 

The observatory screamed. Lights flashed, alarm bells blared, sirens roared from the highest halls. The sound echoed off the walls of the dome, rattled off the telescope he hadn’t seen, and xB grinned. 

The perfect lure for his prey. 

He kicked the door open, snapping the lock and denting the hinges, and charged out onto the promenade. 

He could see the entire valley from here. The sun, setting behind him. The mountains, sharp shadows like crooked teeth racing across the trees. The sky, blue and pink and purple. Snow on the mountaintops, the waterfalls racing through ancient cracks in the stone. 

The wind whistled through the columns of the promenade, and whipped xB’s hair. 

And he could see it. 

The huge columns it called legs, dozens of them straining to support its corpulent, unnatural body. Like a frog perched on stilts, it sat, squat and unnatural.  The horrid blue eyes, one still bleeding onto the ground. The gnashing jaws, clicking and chittering visible over this distance. 

And it was staring straight at the observatory. 

“You mistrust too easily, princess,” Keralis chided him.

The whisky swirled at the bottom of xB’s glass, and he shook his head. 

“I’m  just being practical. There’s something out there. The government hasn’t said jack about it. But I know what I saw, Keralis. I saw the mountain move.”

Keralis sighed. 

“It sounds so far-fetched, xB. And why would such a thing even exist? And if it did get loose, wouldn’t they just call the military?” 

“Well, yeah,” xB grumbled, leaning against the bar and taking another sip of his drink, “If it wasn’t their pet project.”

Keralis sighed, and leaned against the sink. 

“You’re assuming this is the government at all, Princess.” 

“Who else could it be?” 

“You are very good at assuming things about the government, xB,” Keralis said with a sigh, “And a lot of them aren’t true. You’ve told me yourself.”

xB grumbled.

“Fine. Maybe it’s natural. Maybe it’s not. Whatever it is…I know what I saw. And I’m just worried it’s gonna make its way towards us.” 

Keralis sighed. 

“Assuming it is real, promise me you won’t do something stupid?” 

xB crossed his fingers behind his back. 

“I promise.” 

xB reached back, and he grabbed the Barrett from his pack. He clutched it in one hand, and stepped towards the railing, shrugging off his backpack onto the concrete. It landed with a THUD beside a coffee can full of sand and cigarette butts. 

xB stepped forward, approaching the white railing. Chips of paint had flaked off the concrete, lost in the baking heat of too many summers in the sun.

Focus, xB. Focus.

The gun was heavy in his hands. Cruel black metal, barely shining in the dying sunlight. 

He narrowed his eyes. 

Across a kilometre of distance, the monster stared right back at him. 

And for the first time in seven days, xB spoke.

“You want some of this?” He spat, his voice weak from disuse, “YOU WANT SOME OF THIS!? COME AND GET SOME, THEN!” 

xB knelt down, resting the bipod on the decorative railing wrapping around the observatory. Earplugs in, chin on the stock, eye down the sight. Both knees on the ground. 

He spared a glance at the ground, and he saw a flash of orange. The windsock. Based on how it was flapping, the wind was coming from up the valley. Looked like his bullets would have a tailwind. 

Cool. Incendiaries with same-day shipping. 

Okay. Focus, xB. Time to make it count. 

First, rangefinder. He fished it out of his breast pocket, and took the measurement. One lens to his eye, close the other, press the button. The laser shone to the monster’s head, bounced back-

One kilometre.

Oh, easy as pie. 

xB tucked the rangefinder away, and pulled out his notepad. Checked his ranges. 

Dialled in his scope. 

And now…

Well. Now it was all down to him. 

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. 

Breathe. Feel the breath in your lungs. 

Fill your blood with oxygen. Supersaturate your tissues. 

And exhale. 

And hold your breath. 

Line it up. 

Crosshairs, xB’s whole world. A circle of light, surrounded by absolute blackness. 

Accounted for drop-off, raised the rifle up, up, up- 

Three notches, at this range. 

xB’s scope filled with blue and black. 

And he fired. 

The crack of the rifle echoed off every column. It rattled the railing, it shook xB’s teeth and echoed through his chest. Even with the massive muzzle break, the gun still punched back at his shoulder, the force of the recoil echoing through his entire body. 

xB pulled away from the scope, not daring to breathe. He watched, one second, two, three- 

The second bullet hit another massive eye, and the monster threw its head back in a silent scream. 

xB pressed his chin to the rifle, and lined up again. 

He pulled the trigger just as the scream washed over him, rattling the observatory to its foundations. He felt the wail in his chest, echoing off his organs, drowning out the siren shrieking from inside. 

He took another breath. 

Aimed. 

Fired. 

xB lowered the gun, aiming for the monster’s head. It was thrashing now, slow movements to not unbalance itself, and he pulled the trigger again. 

And again. 

And again. 

Every shot rattled through his body. Bruised his shoulder. Shook his teeth. 

xB lined up, pulled the trigger- 

The gun clicked. 

He pulled away from the gun, fishing an extra mag out of his pocket, eyes locked on his quarry. 

Huge holes had been blasted in the head, the eyes, the mouthparts. The monster was clinging to the nearby mountainside with a dozen of its forelegs, and in its rage, it was ripping chunks out of the earth and flinging them into the valley below. An avalanche on demand, and xB winced. He’d been standing there an hour ago.

He pulled the empty magazine, and snapped a fresh one in. His only other full mag. He ran out of shots here, he’d have to stop to reload.

xB closed his eyes, and breathed again. 

In and out. A cycle, over and over. 

He snapped his eyes open, lined up the sights, and fired. 

Chunks of the monster’s head blasted off from the impact, revealing ghostly blue flesh and the ornate machinery sunk into its brain. Brass and copper and titanium gleamed from between the midnight-blue flesh, and xB smiled. 

The monster screamed, the sound warped and different with the back of its head gone. More metallic, less organic. It screamed and screamed- 

And the smile fell off xB’s face. 

It was charging right for him.

He had, at most, minutes. 

xB’s heart started to pound. 

Aim. 

Fire. 

Blast off another huge chunk of carapace. Wires hanging from the abomination’s face, globs of toxic ghostly glue splattering on the trees below. 

Aim. 

Fire. 

Shred off one of the larger mandibles, revealing a bunch of dangling pistons and gears, as chunks of meat fell out of the exoskeleton. 

Aim. 

Fire. 

One of the lower eyes exploded like a water balloon, spraying the observatory with goo. xB heard the paint start to hiss as the acid melted at it, and he swallowed. 

One shot left. 

The monster stormed, closer and closer, eating up the distance with huge leaps. One leg slammed into the tarmac of the road and punched a perfectly circular hole right through it. 

xB took a deep breath, and he stood up. 

He lifted the Barrett up, and shoved it against his shoulder. 

One second. Two. Three. 

It was so close, xB could smell its hot breath- rotten meat and engine grease, melded together. 

The shattered mandibles opened above his head, revealing hundreds of concentric rings of gleaming titanium teeth, emerging from a sinuous fleshy tube, made of glowing blue muscle and dripping with caustic fluid. 

xB lined up his scope with the monster’s mouth. 

And he pulled the trigger. 

The last vestiges of snow had yet to clear from the cracks in the mountains, and xB stomped in the nearest patch with a bit more force than necessary. Winter’s chill occasionally needed a reminder of who was boss, after all. 

He was getting distracted. xB had work to do. He kicked at the moss surrounding one of his traps on his trap line, nodding. Nothing at this one, and nothing at the last few. It was okay, he had money socked away from last year’s bumper crop, but…the truck did need new tires…

Whatever. 

He shook his head, shouldered his rifle again, and kept walking. 

Birds sang all around him, joyful and alive, in celebration that the long dark was over and that spring had finally come. This far away from civilization, three ridges back, he was the only human presence these critters were likely to see all summer long. 

Just how xB liked it. 

But as he walked, something- shifted. The birdsong stopped, and the ground under him rumbled. xB frowned. Earthquakes weren’t unheard of, but- not strong enough to be felt, surely? 

He looked up, and for a moment, his eyes were unsure of what he was seeing. 

From the top of the ridge, across the valley, he saw the mountain move. 

It shifted, a huge black boulder, like an error in reality. A shaking, a trembling, and then it took a step. The legs, impossible to resolve. The head, sleek and glossy. And in the rising sun, the thing he was staring at gleamed like polished black steel. 

xB felt something clench in his chest. 

It was far from humanity. For now. For the moment. 

But that wouldn’t last for long. 

Whatever that thing was, it was dangerous. 

He needed to warn everyone. 

The monster turned its great head, and it looked straight at him. 

xB’s reality exploded in blue. 

The bullet sailed right up the monster’s mouth and straight into its brain, destroying everything along the way. Blue goo splattered over everything, and xB dove behind a pillar, barely avoiding getting splattered in the stuff. 

The monster froze. 

It stumbled. 

And it crumpled like wet paper. 

xB watched with wide eyes as it tumbled, end over end. Great legs snapping like twigs. The carapace started to crack under its own weight, each bounce and tumble widening the gulfs and spraying more blue ooze every which way. It tore up the hillside as it fell, Trees and boulders losing their fight with gravity and following the monster as it plummeted to the valley bottom. 

xB winced. He had to pray it didn’t hit the river. Who knew what that toxic blood would do to the water supply? 

Finally, the monster’s corpse came to a stop, pinned against a steel electricity pylon and the side of the hill. 

And all was still. 

xB exhaled. 

A shaky breath, and then another. 

And another. 

He pulled out his phone, and dialed a number. Held it to his ear. 

It rang. And rang. 

“Y’ello, Welsknight here,” A cheerful voice said, “Who’m I talking to?” 

“Wels,” xB panted, resting his head against the column, “You remember that favour you owe me?”

“xB? Oh. Oh no. You actually- you- oh no.” 

“Yeah. You wanna fire up your chopper? I’m at the observatory.”

Wels went very quiet.

“...You actually did it, didn’t you?” He said softly, “You did it.” 

“I did.” xB panted, “I killed it. It’s dead. We’re safe. All of us are safe.” 

“...Thanks, xB.” Wels said, so much sincerity in those two words it made xB’s heart hurt. 

“Yeah, no problem. Now can you come and get me already? I’m fucking starving and I smell like something that died behind your fridge. I want a hot meal, a shower, and an entire case of beer.” 

Wels laughed. 

“Okay, we can make that happen. Sit tight, I’ll be a hot minute.”

And he hung up. 

xB rose to his feet, limbs shaking from adrenaline. He looked at the puddles of goo melting their way through the concrete on either side of him, and then at the .50 Cal that had served him so well. 

“Sorry, pal,” xB said, “But you gotta go. Before, you know, the cops send me to jail for a million years.” 

The Barrett, rather wisely, used its right to remain silent. 

xB stood, and carefully dropped the gun in a puddle of blue ooze, snapping into a salute as the metal dissolved in the goo. In a minute or two, it was just a blackish muck, swirling in the mess. He pulled out the pistol, and cast it into the goo as well. 

All evidence of his crimes melted away, and xB breathed a sigh of relief. 

And then xB realized his path back to the door was cut off by a new and exciting game of The-Floor-Is-Lava. And Wels couldn’t exactly land anywhere other than the parking lot. 

He sighed, looking down the rest of the promenade. 

“Man, there better be a door on the other side of this, or I’m gonna be really mad…” 

An underappreciated fact about tailgates was that they kind of sucked to sit on for a long period of time. 

Almost anything was better, really. Especially when the truck the tailgate was attatched to was old and rusty. But hey- it beat the ground, though not by much. All around them,  families were sitting farther down the hill, with the trucks parked on top. Flags waved from the ancient centennial display in a park, and many of the people were clutching the same flags hanging from the poles.  

xB smiled, sitting on the tailgate and kicking his legs, as a family went toddling by, with big smiles. Hypno elbowed him and passed him a beer, which he took, popping the cap on the side of his truck bed and slugging some back. 

Night had fallen, the stars had come out, and xB leaned back against his tailgate and continued sipping at his beer. 

“So,” Hypno said, “Bit odd, seeing you around town. Got tired of your cabin?”

“It’s good to socialize sometimes,” xB said softly, “Reminds me that I’m a person, I guess.”

Hypno snorted. 

“As if you’d ever forget.” He said, “Thanks for coming to say hi. I was worried I’d never see you again.” 

“I could say the same to you,” xB chuckled, “one of these days you’re gonna get rumbled, dude.”

Hypno shook his head. 

“Nah. You know me. I got a contingency for my contingency.” He chuckled, “Worst comes to worst…well. You know what you’ll see.” 

xB smiled. 

“Don’t I just.”

Fireworks burst into the sky, bright flashes of red and white exploding across the starlit dark. The hundreds of people gathered dutifully ooo’ed and aaaah’ed as the light and flame burst through the sky. 

Blasts of red, blasts of white, and xB smiled. 

Hypno held up his beer, and gave it a waggle. 

xB clinked their bottles together, and both men started to chug. 

As soon as xB came up for air, fireworks still bursting all around, he turned to Hypno.

“So…that favour you still owe me…”

Hypno snorted. 

“Just say the word, dude. Just say the word.” 

“Good.” xB said softly, looking up at the fireworks, “Good.” 

“You absolutely stink.” Wels said, his voice difficult to hear through the tinny headset. 

xB snorted, leaning back against the ratty seat of Wels’ helicopter. Usually he made his money flying tourists around the valley and showing them the sights, but, well…

The height of tourist season was handily countered by the giant monster at the foot of the mountain, bleeding its blue guts into a flood barrier set up to stop it. 

xB leaned down, looking at the dozens of cleanup crews scrambling to contain the mess and shove the Instagram kiddies away from the biohazard, and he shook his head. 

“As soon as I have a shower and a burger, I am going straight back into the woods. Technology sucks.” he sighed, closing his eyes. 

Wels snorted. 

“Says the man in a magical flying machine ferrying him to safety,” Wels snarked. 

xB didn’t have anything to say to that. 

They flew a few dozen kilometres down the valley, and both of them froze. 

“Oh.” Wels said. 

“Oh, fuck.” xB said, eyes wide. 

The town was buried. Trees and rocks had swallowed half the town, with dozens of rescue crews picking through the rubble. Fires burned here and there, and a train had stopped on the railroad track nearby. Just a mountain of rubble where everyone had been. 

xB swallowed, and looked at Wels in horror. 

“I…I was too late,” He whispered.

“You weren’t.” Wels said flatly, “They evacuated hours ago. Someone tipped them off. The rescuers are just looking for people who might’ve got left behind. I got tapped to fly hospital flights, and after I drop you off that’s what I’m gonna do.” 

xB sagged in relief. 

And then- 

The rubble pile exploded. 

One specific spot, bursting up with a blast like thunder, a perfectly circular shockwave, shattering some of the larger boulders and sending a mushroom cloud of rock and dust flying into the air. 

xB blinked. 

And he burst out laughing. 

“HYPNO’S ALIVE!” he shouted, throwing his arms up in delight. 

Wels stared at him. 

“What?” 

“That was his sea mine,” xB said brightly, “Hypno rigged it to blow his “Special room” to destroy the evidence. He’s alive. He got out. C’mon, man! We gotta go find him!” 

Wels smiled. 

“Sure thing, man. Okay, so where’d you say your truck was?” 

xB laughed.

“Down the valley, in a ditch. We just gotta hope it’s not buried under six tons of rubble…”