Apocalypse: Generic System by Macronomicon (shoe dog free ebook TXT) 📕

was panting, staring up at the canopy, searching for signs of a collapsed roof while trying to shut out the sounds of screams.

“You’re real right?” Jeb asked, glancing over at her.

“I’ll take that as a maybe,” Jess said, leaping to her feet and diving into the chaos.

That alone gave him the impetus he needed to get to his feet.

You do not leave your team on their own.

That thought brought back the memories, and Jeb looked down at the ugly scar on his hand, where he’d slipped trying to lift the ceiling off of Tyler. He hadn’t gotten around to telling the therapist yet, but sometimes that scar was his only lifeline. Proof that he’d survived. That he’d been the lucky one.

Jeb snorted. He didn’t feel like the lucky one, sometimes.

On and on we go, he thought, glancing up at the canopy where he could feel certain doom looming. The trees shook their branches comfortingly, sympathy written on their faces.

Yeah, I know. Gotta get to work.

Jeb walked out into the chaos, clomping forward with his cane, the knife and spear whipping around him like blender blades, puncturing or mauling anyone or anything stupid enough to get close to him.

The frog’s favorite weapons quickly became their undoing as the first round of warriors committed suicide by reflective bubble. After that, things got a little more dicey.

I should use my cane with the left hand, he realized after nearly dropping the ivory stick trying to hold onto it and shoot someone charging him with a claymore at the same time.

The creatures might prefer blowdarts, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have a plethora of alternatives.

I wonder if this is a side effect of the surge of humans in the forest? Otherwise I have no idea where they’re getting so much steel.

They had a tribal society and hut houses that would fit bush tribesmen, but they were armed to the teeth with steel swords and axes, presumably pilfered from unfortunate dead people.

Three more warriors dove out of a nearby hut as he passed by. He pinned two of them to the wall with the Penetrator and his trusty spearhead, the last one, he pointed a finger at.

“Pip six.”

The spike of telekinetically hardened air forced itself through the frogman’s chest. The creature stumbled a few times, looking down at the gushing hole with unmistakable confusion.

Jeb kept clomping along, his two blades pulling themselves out of the frogmen and bouncing along beside him. He kept them in nice and tight, so he could use them to stop more suicide charges if he had to.

He didn’t have a ‘technique’ yet. Nobody had a manual for how to maximize telekinetic combat effectiveness, so he was experimenting. Should I keep one in tight and one roaming? Should I have something defensive like a floating shield? A floating shield with a sharp edge? Well, if that’s the case, why not an oversized circular saw blade? It could do both.

It was with these kinds of thoughts that he and Jessica tore through the remaining krokkers, until they came upon the largest hut, practically a mansion by their standards.

You have gained a level!

You are now level 22!

There was a deep, reverberating croaking sound that rattled the walls of the hut. Then there was a bloom of orange light.

That was their only warning before a swarm of fireflies burst out of the house, spreading like the wings of a majestic – Oh crap, dodge!-

The fireflies weren’t yellow like your typical firefly. These things were Fire Flies, with big old Capital Letters. They were glowing a soft orange, and looked like something like sparks rising from a fire.

Except they weren’t floating up; they were coming after him, closing in from nearly every direction except straight backwards.

Taking discretion as the better part of valor, Jeb flicked his knives backwards, dropped control over them, then telekinetically grabbed his armor and yanked himself backwards, skimming over the muddy center of the village with inhuman speed, barely escaping the swarm engulfing the area he’d just been.

Everywhere a Fire Fly touched caught on fire. Dirt, thatched roof, puddle of unidentified liquid. Nothing was off limits. Not interested in those touching me.

A frog-man waddled out of the hut, but unlike the others, this one was big. He had darker coloration, a huge girth, a mouth that was almost…

He looked like a toad. He was wearing what looked like ceremonial leathers, and wearing a big old hat. Everybody knows the guy with the biggest hat is in charge.

The toad-man was carrying a lantern that burned with inner fire.

Wait, that’s not inner fire, that’s Fire Flies! As he watched, four more fireflies left the Lantern and joined the swarm that was even then trying to engulf him again.

Okay, what do we have that works against flies, Jeb thought, dragging himself around the village, his feet not even touching the ground, all to stay out of the grasp of the buzzing swarm of firestarters.

His bullets weren’t big enough, none of his safety words were any good at fighting swarms.

Grenades, maybe? He would need some way to focus the blast, to make sure the flies felt the full force of the shock.

Yeah, that might work.

Jeb dragged himself in a wide circle, allowing the swarm to clump up on itself as it tried to chase him.

He dropped control over his armor, staggering to a halt before he siphoned Myst out, creating a large dome of telekinetic force around the flies, with a little hole in the front.

He fished out his rock grenade and tossed it through the opening only he could perceive.

“Rock go boom.”

The deafening sound of the explosive wave of force emanating outward, was somewhat muted by the dome of force. He’d designed the grenades to release a thunderclap of force to generate