Planetary Destruction is Imminent and All I Got is This Stat Menu by J.J. Ackerknecht

Author:J.J. Ackerknecht [Ackerknecht, J.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

23

A pair of familiar faces met Anya and Pan as they strode off the airship: one human, one bestial. Ursula the polar bear and Zixin the sniper stood side-by-side a few yards away, eyes on the new arrivals.

Ursula stood at just over ten feet tall when she was on her hind legs, as she was now. She was clad from top-to-bottom in crude armor made of rough slabs of black iron, with a dark blue cape flowing behind her. Only her face poked out from a helmet crowned with short spikes. Despite the rough appearance of the armor, it didn’t seem to encumber Ursula’s movements at all.

She clutched a long weapon in her armored paws: a huge maul with a head and handle of the same black metal as her armor. The hammer was almost as tall as Anya herself, and its blunt head was nearly as broad as her shoulders. It must have weighed hundreds of pounds, but Ursula held it as if it weighed no more than a slender tree branch.

Ursula’s nose twitched and her lips curled up as she focused on Anya. Her fangs glistened, the two massive ones in front each longer and thicker than Anya’s thumbs. However, when she turned her attention to Pan, her lips lowered and her dark, beady eyes brightened.

Zixin was almost comically non-threatening when compared to the grim mountain of iron and hair and fangs beside him. He was short, even by normal standards, and had the lithe, athletic figure of a swimmer. His black hair was cut short on the sides, but longer on top, and tied back in a neat knot. He wore a silvery hooded cloak over a tight black body suit, which covered everything but his face and his right index finger.

A holster was strapped to Zixin’s right thigh, but it held no gun, only something that looked sort of like a large bottle made of a single piece of dull metal. Zixin had his hands hooked into his belt like some cowboy, and followed Anya’s every movement as she left the airship. Ursula was more focused on Pan, and she was the one to move first.

“Pan! Good to see you in-person again,” she said.

“Ursula!” Pan cheered and waddled forward. He had shed his winter clothes aboard the airship, and was now dressed in a pair of baggy green trousers and a thin black coat with flapping sleeves. Ursula dropped her maul and stood on all fours over Pan so he could embrace her front leg. The maul moved by itself and attached itself to Ursula’s back, as if magnetized.

“Ahem,” Zixin said and glared at Ursula. She let out a rolling grumbling sound at him, but then gently nudged Pan back with her snout.

“We can talk later. Maybe about getting Brody to come here too,” Ursula said.

“I’d like that!”

“And I’d like to get on with it. May we? Vastukar is waiting,” Zixin said and gestured to the side of the cavernous docking chamber.

“Lead the way,” Anya said, and Zixin marched toward a distant exit set in the far wall.

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