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

looking for something to say that could dance around the fact that being called Smartass was generally not considered a good thing.

She was still looking for the words when baby Casey started fussing, wriggling around in her living swaddle.

“What’s wrong?” Casey cooed at her daughter, trying to get her to calm down. “Are you hungry? Is that it?” Casey took her baby and held her up to her chest where the greedy little munchkin would normally start sucking like a hoover, but baby Casey pushed the offered boob away, going from upset to full-on bawling.

“What is it?” Casey asked, picking her daughter up and putting her over her shoulder, patting her back. Maybe the baby needed to burp or fart or something.

Baby Casey just bawled louder, her chubby cheeks turning red.

She’s never been this bad, Casey thought, anxiety beginning to wear at the edges of her calm. According to Amanda, baby Casey was very well behaved.

Well behaved for a baby means crying only when hungry, poopy, or sleepy, so roughly six times a day, allowing time for hour long naps.

She’d never cried for no reason before.

“It’s okay, Casey,” Casey said, partially to her daughter, partially to herself. She glanced off to the side as spotted Smartass watching them with an arch look.

“Mammals,” She said, shaking her head. It was somewhat less effective as Smartass was currently cleaning off the diaper.

“Wait,” Smartass said, tilting her ear, shutting off the squirtgun. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Casey demanded. “All I can hear is this one screaming into my ear.”

R-R-R-R

An echoing rumble spread through the air, coming in under baby Casey’s screams and rising above them, until all they could hear was the shifting of earth.

Then the mountain lurched underneath them.

“This is….” Smartass cocked her head to the side, glancing down at the stone beneath them, her eyes growing wide.

“Casey, you need to fly, right now!” Smartass said, holstering her water gun and grabbing Casey on the ear, applying a torturous amount of torque.

“OW, ow, ow!” Casey said, trying not to drop her daughter as the fairy pulled her by the ear out of the renovated cave.

“Quick, deploy your wings and get some distance! The mountain is waking up!”

“I don’t have any wings, quit it!” Casey said, staggering out into the open and whapping Smartass with her free hand.

Her stumbling gait and occupied hands led to Casey tripping over her own feet, toppling forward, baby Casey shrieking as the two of them went down.

Oh god! Casey’s mind was flooded with baby brains dashed on the stone as they fell through the air.

In a timeless moment, Casey shifted her grip, grabbing the back of her daughter’s head and extending her arm straight out, halting their fall as she absorbed the inertia with her arm.

The rock cracked a little under her hand, making her palm sting.

Casey’s heart stopped for an instant before baby Casey started crying again, heedless of the near-death experience.

“God-damnit, Smartass, you could’ve gotten –“

The cave they’d been sheltering in interrupted Casey’s words with a violent explosion containing the vast majority of their personal effects sailing out into the air, trailing smoke.

Casey looked behind her and spotted a bright glow coming from the cave entrance. There was another brief flash of light, forcing her to close her eyes. She heard the sound of tearing metal, and when she opened her eyes, she saw the iron cookpot laying in front of her, with shards of jagged stone sticking out of it like shrapnel.

The pot had dived in front of her to take the hit.

“Shit!” Casey cursed, scrambling to her feet, carrying Casey away from the volatile cave. She surveyed the mountain. All across its surface, the mountain was tearing itself apart, exposing veins of molten stone.

Smartass was right: They needed to fly.

“Mich-aaaael!” Casey shouted at the top of her lungs, diving into her Core and tearing pages out of her father’s bible in a whirlwind of power, sweeping all of it out through her channels.

They burned from the strain.

Huge arms wrapped around Casey’s waist, and her stomach sank as the ground dropped away beneath them.

***Jeb***

“Hold onto each other!” Jeb shouted as the five of them streaked down the mountainside, aiming for Casey and the baby. “If you fall, I can’t catch you!”

Jeb was lifting himself and Amanda. Brett and Jess were clinging tightly to Amanda, while Ron had a death-grip on the back of Jeb’s neck as they soared through the air. If the necromancer’s Body wasn’t so low, he’d actually be causing a problem.

The Death knight tried its best to keep up, leaping from stone to stone in pursuit of its master, but it was quickly falling behind.

“There’s the camp!” Jess said. “I don’t see Casey! All our shit’s on fire!”

A moment later, Jeb saw it too, a barren campsite filled with flaming wreckage that had been ejected from the renovated cave.

Shit, was Casey in the cave when it exploded? Jeb thought as they landed on the rapidly heating stone, braving the scorching temperature long enough to stick his face into the entrance.

“I don’t see her!” Jeb shouted over the rumbling mountain.

He glanced back and spotted Casey’s living spoon, blanket, washbasin and clothesline. They were on fire, and had gathered together to form a flaming arrow pointing to the northeast.

Jeb looked in the direction they indicated, scanning the side of the smoking mountainside, trying to pick out a young girl and baby among the geysers of smoke and flame.

“Up there!” Jess said, pointing in the same direction and up about fifteen degrees. A huge pair of brilliant white wings were flapping up and down, carrying a speck away from the mountain.

“Thanks,” Jeb said to the living utensils.

They formed into a thumbs up as they were consumed by