The customized AR-15 rifle that Alejandra Albright carried was the civilian variant of her trusty old M4 Carbine she had carried in the desert. It had the same shape, the same attachments, the same weight. There were only two differences between the two rifles. The first was that the AR-15 had no rapid-fire modes and was limited to one shot per trigger pull.

The other was the ammunition her rifle was loaded with was much more effective than the full-metal-jacket rounds carried in war.

The Geneva convention had long forbidden any type of bullet beside the FMJ rounds on the battlefield, not because the FMJ rounds were effective, but because they were less effective. They made clean wounds that medics could patch up with relative ease–'relative' being the key term. But they didn't tear ragged holes in flesh, they weren't designed to inflict the maximum amount of damage, they were designed to be 'gentlemanly'.

The 75-grain hollow-point rounds Alejandra had loaded in her AR-15 were decidedly not gentlemanly.

Her first round caught the gator-cat right between the eyes, and blew half of its head off. The thing didn't even have time to scream. It just bucked once, violently, its long slashing-tail thrashed and spun… And then it collapsed, dead as a doornail.

For a long second nothing moved. The other gator-cats stared at their fallen comrade, unable to comprehend what had just happened. And for a brief moment Alejandra thought she might be able to get out of here without a fight–

Then with a howl of outrage, five gator-cats turned and launched themselves at her.

Alejandra threw herself backwards, firing as fast as her finger could pull the trigger. The slashing tails ripped through the air, behaving less like a scorpion's sting and more like an extra leg on a giant cat, ripping sideways and trying to disembowel or hook her clothing to draw her in close for the other claws to disembowel.

She twisted and spun. One claw slashed across her shoulder, drawing blood. She hissed and fired again, and was rewarded with a gout of blood from a gator-cat's tail. The critter yowled and dropped back, but one of its fellows darted in, massive mouth open and fangs glistening as it tried to chomp down on her leg.

She kicked it in the face. Steel-toed boots collide with flesh and fur. The thing was bulky, and must have massed almost twice what it looked like. But Alejandra was whip-cord muscle and adrenaline, and her boots broke teeth and snapped the thing's jaws shut before it could get a hold on her. It still caromed into her legs, almost knocking her off balance and trying to get its claws into her flesh.

It was too close to bring her rifle effectively to bear, so she drew her .45 and blasted three rounds into the top of its skull from a range of inches.

The second gator-cat dropped and didn't move.

Alejandra didn't have time to celebrate. She was already running, operating on pure instinct and the need to put something between herself and the predators already nipping and slashing at her heels. Another tail-claw caught her low on the thigh and ripped through her jeans and the flesh beneath. She howled as pain shot up her leg, and she nearly stumbled and went down.

Then something heavy landed on her back, right on her backpack, and she did go down. She hit the ground on her knees as the gator-cat on her back threw its weight forward and sideways, trying to drag her with it over onto its back so that it could rip at her with its powerful hindclaws. She hit her backpack's quick-release clips, and the pack and the cat hit the ground in a tangle. She staggered to her feet and fired her pistol blindly behind her three times, missing everything except dirt but causing two more gator-cats who had been streaking towards her to break off their attack run.

She turned and fired twice more before the slide clicked open on an empty magazine. She hit the clip-eject button and did a fast combat-reload, slapping home a fresh clip from her pocket before the first one even touched the ground, then holstered her pistol in a fast movement and brought her rifle up, emptying the clip into the backpack-and-gator-cat combo thrashing on the ground in front of her.

She reloaded her rifle as the other cats circled back around. She was down to two clips for the rifle and one remaining for her pistol. And that was almost a fifth of all the ammo she had for the weapons, including what she had back on the boat.

She shoved the worries that realization brought up to the back of her mind and locked them in a box. She was in combat for her life. She would do what it took to get back to her kids. Ammo be damned.

The cats were circling now, their tails flicking back and forth and low rumbling yowls emanating from their throats. Three were dead, but there were still at least five that she could see. They were obviously pack hunters, like a pride of lionesses from earth or something. But they were also unlike the animals from earth, because she was pretty sure that if she had blown apart three lionesses back in the serengeti, the others would have decided taking her on was a bad idea and high-tailed it out of there.

She paused. Why weren't they running? Yes she was only a single creature, but she had already demonstrated that she was not prey. Three dead gator cats was enough to get through their minds that she was predator. And while hunger could drive a predator to try and take down something bigger and nastier than itself… These things didn't seem hungry. Their coats were glossy and their flesh was thick beneath their scales. They definitely didn't seem malnourished…

Oh. She glanced around at the ruined buildings around her. They were predators defending their territory. Their lair. Of course they wouldn't just give up and run. It would be like her waltzing into a wolf's den and expecting the wolves to flee before her.

"Okay," she said, the barrel of her rifle tracking back and forth between the circling cats. "Listen, I took a wrong turn, and I just want to get out of here. You gatos going to let me do that?"

One of the cats yowled and darted forward, but stopped and jumped back as her rifle turned to it. A feint. The others started doing the same thing, their tale-claws lashing the air in rage.

No. No they won't. Alejandra gave a mental sigh. She wasn't getting out of here without a fight. Maybe a massacre.

So be it. Her hand tightened on the pistol grip of her rifle. Yes, she had stumbled in here by mistake, yes this all could have been avoided. Yes, it was even her fault.

Oh Fucking Well.

She spun and fired twice as another gator-cat rushed her in one of those feints, and the cat screamed as the rounds pierced its chest and bowled it over. The other cats shrieked and charged in. Alejandra ducked under a tail slash and fired wildly, backpedaling. She missed twice, and clipped a rock that exploded into shrapnel next to a gator-cat, sending the critter leaping away howling in pain. Another one tried to jump on her back again, but this time she saw it coming and spun, driving the composite stock of her rifle right into the thing's outsized jaw. She heard bone break and felt the impact all the way up to her shoulder as the cat went flying off to slam into a nearby pile of rubble.

Then something roared.

The wall of sound and fury ripped through the clearing. Birds exploded out of the trees in panic, and a few precariously balanced rocks on the rubble pikes actually tipped over as the shockwave of the roar passed over them. Alejandra spun around towards the massive tree in the center of the ruined village as something emerged from the shadows.

It was another gator-cat, but this one was easily three times the size of the ones she had been fighting. It stood nearly as tall as she was at the shoulder, its thick body corded with obvious muscle. A thick mane of fur ringed its head and flowed back down its spine, giving it a leonine appearance. And it had three blade-tails behind it, whipping and lashing angrily at the air as it stalked forward.

The other gator-cats 'gronk'd in response and fell back, circling Alejandra now but not moving in to attack.

They're containing me, she realized. And just like that, understood what was going on. It was like a pride of lions. The smaller ones were like the lionesses, first into the breach to fight and hunt. And now the male had shown up–or the equivalent–to take things to hand when the lionesses couldn't get the job done.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

The thing was huge. It opened a maw big enough to bite her in half and roared again, its gimlet eyes locked onto her. It padded forward like the predator it was, body low to the ground and claws scraping against the rocky soil as it coiled itself, getting ready to spring.

The thing was fifty feet away if it was an inch, and Alejandra believed with all her heart that it could reach her from there with one pounce.

She didn't wait for it to attack. Her rifle came up and she squeezed off a half-dozen rounds in the time it took her to draw breath. The rounds slammed into the male's face and snapped its head back. She heard the impact of the bullets, and heard the male shriek in pain.

And saw the bullets ricochet off. Bits of rock and earth gouted into the air where the deflected bullets slammed to a stop.

The male's head came back around, its eyes blazing like fire. She could see little pockmarks and bruises where the bullets had hit him… But no blood.

Her bullets hadn't penetrated.

The shock rooted her to the ground for an instant too long. The male shrieked again and lunged, its huge form blurring as it launched itself across the space between itself and Alejandra. She tried to dodge out of the way, and almost made it.

A paw the size of a truck tire slammed into her side and sent her pinwheeling. She felt something give in her chest, and white agony lanced through her as she hit the ground a dozen feet away. A rock struck her temple, sending starbursts into her vision. Instinct and training tried to force her body to roll with the impact, and it almost worked. She managed to make it to her knees, her rifle coming up and firing blindly in the direction she'd come from. Blood leaked into her eyes, and she brought one hand up to dash it away, still firing wildly with her other hand.

She looked up just in time to see one of the females leaping at her, claws extended. She jerked to the side, then screamed as another female's claw-tail slammed full-on into her side, ripping out flesh and blood in one ugly movement.

The War rose up in her, riding on a steed made of pain and wielding a blade of pure white-hot rage. Her free hand drew her pistol and fired, blasting chunks out of the smaller cat that had hit her back and sending it screaming away in pain. She shifted fire, hitting another female–

The male pounced again. She emptied the pistol's clip into its face as it came, and it did no good whatsoever.

Massive claws shredded into her leg, yanked her forwards, and flung her through the air to impact heavily against a mound of rubble. She landed wrong, and heard the snap as her leg broke. Her pistol flew away somewhere she couldn't see, and the strap on her rifle cut into her broken ribs. She let out a strangled cry of pain, but the War forced her hand up and around the grip on her rifle. She brought the stock back to her shoulder with one hand–the other arm wasn't working right for some reason–and she sighted down the barrel as the male stalked towards her.

Her scream of defiance joined in with the snapping crackle of her rifle shots as she emptied her clip into the cat, trying to hit an eye or some kind of vulnerable spot. The bullets slapped into the massive gator-cat, snapping its head backwards but leaving no mark beyond small dents in its scales.

And then her gun clicked on an empty chamber.

Reflex ejected the spent clip, and she scrabbled with her bad arm for the last clip on her belt–but her fingers refused to close on it. The too-small metal rectangle slipped from her numb grasp and bounced away out of reach.

No. No no no. She felt hot angry tears in her eyes as the cats stalked forward, tails lashing. This was not how she was going to end. Her family needed her! She was Alejandra Albright! She had survived war, and had even survived the peace that followed. She would not die here! Her good hand closed on the hilt of her knife and she drew it in one pained motion.

She would not die her. She would–

Soft golden light suddenly sprang up in her vision, and a quiet androgynous voice spoke from out of thin air into her ear.

Thy ally hath granted thee a boon.

Fortune smiles upon those in dire need. Thy boon hath been enhanced.

A small glowing golden coin winked into existence in front of Alejandra, spun once, and then vanished in a shower of sparks. Something hot and roiling filled her chest, and she sucked in a lungful of air that felt like it had been laced with speedball. Heat and light flowed through her body, coursing like electricity down a wire.

Time slowed to a crawl around her. Her fingers dropped the knife without her willing them to do so, and closed instead around the grip of her rifle. The massive alpha-cat crouched to spring again, its claws unsheathing on all four of its paws.

Her empty rifle came up of its own accord.

The huge cat leaped.

A deep booming voice spoke out of thin air.

[DESPERATION ARTS: HOSE THE ROOM!]

Alejandra's rifle glowed crimson and changed. The barrel grew longer and larger, and then multiplied, and again, and again. The body thickened and sprouted massive drum-clips on either side. The stock writhed and wrapped around Alejandra's shoulder for purchase. The barrels began to spin like a minigun.

And a storm of gunfire erupted into the clearing.

Alejandra screeched in pain as tracer bullets the size of her thumb crashed into the gator-cat in mid-leap, blasting bloody gobbets from its tough hide and throwing it backwards like it was made of tissue paper. It had time for a single shriek of pain before the tracers walked up its chest and across its head, and the alpha's entire front section just exploded into blood and viscera.

The recoil from the rifle felt like she'd chained her arm to the bumper of a speeding truck. She felt her tendons screaming at the abuse, and felt more than heard the *pop* of something dislocating.

Alejandra heard herself screaming as she shoved herself to her knees. She didn't understand what was happening, but the War knew what to do. It took the massive firearm in her wounded hands and turned it this way and that, sending a stream of death cascading through the clearing even as the recoil ripped at her. Bullets slammed across two of the remaining gator-cats, blowing them to bloody chunks. It caught one of the other cats in mid-leap and cut it in half.

Two more tried to run. They didn't even get far enough to die tired before the bullets caught them and tore them to shreds.

And then the gunfire stopped, the barrels of the firearm stopped spinning, and her gun stopped glowing and slowly spun down. It did not revert to its previous shape but instead stayed in that weird tri-barreled form, permanently warped by whatever magic had infused it.

The heat fled from her limbs, the ruined gun slipped from her fingers, and she felt herself fall backwards until her back was propped up against the rubble pile behind her.

Silence dropped like an axe.

The clearing was still. Nothing moved. No more gator-cats came out to confront her. No more claws, no more leaping predators. Even the insect noises were gone. The entire clearing was like a tomb, littered with the bodies of her enemies.

Everything hurt. She could barely move. It felt like she'd been running flat-out for days. She could barely keep her eyes open. Whatever that had been, it had completely drained her. And dislocated her shoulder. And probably broken her arm. Even the pain from her obviously broken leg and cracked ribs was a dull thing, as if all of her perceptions had been covered over with a layer of foam and bubble wrap.

But she was still lucid enough to see the a mound of earth rise up beside her, and the head of some burrowing critter pop out a moment later. It had long blunt claws for digging through the earth, and in one of its paws it held a little golden scroll. It took one look at her and she would have sworn it winced at what it saw. Then it gathered itself, extended the scroll, and dropped it on her chest.

Her eyes went to the scroll. It spun lazily in the air for a single revolution, then disappeared. She felt something flow into her, but it was a distant sensation at best. And when she looked back, the mole-thing had disappeared.

She felt unconsciousness coming for her. She saw it in the blackness at the edges of her vision, felt it in how pieces of her were starting to just disappear from her senses.

She sucked in a breath and fought against it. She couldn't fall asleep. Sleep was dangerous after something like this. It was something you might never come out of.

With clumsy fingers she fumbled for the radio on her belt, and swore when she found it missing.

Flare gun. She'd brought the one from the boat, just in case.

It was in her pack.

The next ten minutes were a blur of pain and desperation as she dragged herself across the twenty feet between herself and where her pack had landed. Whatever numbness had been covering her senses receded as she forced herself to move. The agony was excruciating. It hadn't been this bad when the insurgents had overrun her FOB on her first tour. It hadn't been this bad when her HMMVW had been hit by three roadside bombs on her second tour.

She crawled a foot at a time, scraping over bloody ground, tears leaking from her eyes and a low animal whine coming from her mouth.

She crawled.

An eternity later, her hand struck canvas. She wept as useless fingers clawed at the zipper, until finally she had to drag herself even further forward to get the little metal tab in her teeth. She groaned as she forced her neck muscles to move, and felt more than heard the zipper come undone.

She sobbed against the pain as she shoved her broken hand inside the bag. Her fingers closed over something hard and oblong… And she thanked God with all her fading soul that the first thing she pulled out was the flare gun, and she thanked Him further that she'd loaded the thing before she'd ever started out on the journey.

She rolled over onto her back, her head half on the backpack and half on the dead gator-cat wrapped up with it. She took the gun in both hands and aimed skyward.

Please God, she prayed silently. Let them see.

She forced her fingers to contract, and the last thing she heard as darkness claimed her was the pop-hiss of a flare firing into the sky.

Please.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.