“What the actual hell is going on!?” Jon shouted. His hands were clasped over his ears as the raid siren continued to blare, invading our squad base and amplifying as the sounds bounced off of the walls.

  Although the day had been relatively calm, to the point that Swansong and I had gone out multiple times to fly around only to be a bit annoyed by a lack of any Crime Alert or noticeable activity, we hadn't let ourselves be completely unproductive. Swansong made use of the gym, raising her Toughness up by a point before she and Jon sat down for an extended period of time to go over the potential offensive options that she could manage. We had just been having some dinner, Cubans as promised by Jon, when the piercing sound threatened to deafen us.

  “We’ve gotta go see what’s going on!” I said, switching to our internal chat and finding the focus on the internal channel at least partially dimmed the continued sirens. Swansong made eye contact with me and nodded before we both took off for the exit. In hindsight, we really needed some sort of quick exit that we could fly out of.

  We made it to the exit and burst out from under the bridge on either side, rushing for the sky. Under normal circumstances, maybe the first thing I would have noticed would have been the swarm of Clockwork Falcons that were flying in large flocks around the city, but these weren’t normal circumstances. Fires were raging across the city and the echoing sound of the sirens barely blotted out the screams of civilians running below us.

  A window popped into my vision and while normally it would have been Angie reading it out to me, this time Axio’s voice filled my head.

  “New Mission! The Long Night. This is it! Phase Two! Did you really think you’d escape today without hearing from me?! You’ve had your time to rest, to train, maybe even to make a new friend. I hope whatever you’ve done, it’s been worth it. I’ll let you in on a little secret, the scene you’re seeing before you is happening all across the Western Hemisphere tonight, so don’t go thinking I’m targeting you specifically… At least… I’m not targeting you specifically for this… Don’t worry about that though, you’ve got bigger fish to fry. The occupation has begun, do what you can to make it through the first night. Save people, go after the occupier, run and hide, do whatever you believe is right. The decision is yours. Reward: Your reward will be determined based on what you accomplish in the next 12 hours. Oh, and don’t forget, an Ascension Token has just spawned somewhere in the city.”

  A timer appeared under the mission’s name on my tracker at the side of my vision before I met Swansong’s eyes. I could see panic in them as she looked from me and back out to the city.

  The raid sirens finally were starting to dim, but instead of the panic of the populace, a screeching metallic sound filled the air. It didn’t take long to find the source of the sound and I found my own eyes widening as I took in something that, even with the existence of Augments, I never expected to see.

  Far to the south of us, walking slowly toward the city past a decapitated Statue of Liberty, was a giant robotic animal. It looked similar to an armadillo but I discovered even at the distance I was at, my interface was able to highlight the kaiju sized robot.

  “Perry the Clockwork Pangolin. Level 65 (Elite) Golem Fortress. That’s… that’s one big Pangolin. I uh… I’m gonna just go ahead and say you might be a little in over your head against this guy.”

  “Holy shit…” Jon’s normal awestruck voice was surprisingly mellow and I could hear the rapid clack of his keys. “Not sure how this is happening, but my map is updating with live info on appearing groups of the Clockwork animals. There’s also some information on civilians in immediate risk too… Guys, this is way more than the two of you can handle alone…”

  I swallowed hard as I looked around. We couldn’t just float here, my stamina alone wasn’t endless and there was too much going on. I could see several more metallic canisters launching through the city, crashing down into random spots.

  “Swansong, I think we need to split up. You're going to need to go find anyone out in the open and get them to safety, I’m going to try to clean up some of these-”

  “Pinneedle has invited your squad, Fortune’s Cadence, to a Squad Raid Group. Four Corner’s is the hosting squad. Accept: Y/N.”

  “Oh, thank god they're in range,” I said and accepted the invite.

  “Loophole! Where are you guys at?”

  “Central Park, what the hell is going on?! I thought you guys were taking care of these things?”

  “That explains why I can open the voice channel then, I’m only a neighborhood away, just passing through Midtown. It seems Clockwork Tyrant’s been holding out on us,” Pinneedle replied with a laugh. “Grand Strike is en route to the Pangolin, we’re going to see if there is an obvious weak spot we can exploit to put an end to this.”

  “Wait, should he really be going alone?” Swansong spoke up and I looked over to her curiously. “We just got a mission that said we have to survive the occupation for the next twelve hours… It can’t be so simple that one Augment can take down that thing… Uh… No offense Grand Strike.”

  A boisterous laugh filled the chat before a new voice spoke. “None taken! And you really shouldn't fret about any of this too much! Pinneedle is on his way to help me and I’ve just scooped up Hydramental here, he’ll be able to assist me by highlighting any smaller droids that the bigger one may deploy while we are up close. That should keep them from being too high leveled. Should be a good night to gain a few levels for everyone.”

  “Hydra-”

  “Yup, don’t get your panties in a bunch, I’m in here too,” a familiar voice spoke up and I looked over to the raid window. I had thought that you would have needed to be in a squad to join the group but to my surprise Hydramental just occupied his own subgroup within the raid. “You gonna throw a little bitch-”

  “Hey! There will be time for pissing contests later,” Grand Strike’s amicable attitude seemed to vanish in a flash as he cut Hydramental off. “You don’t have to like each other, you just have to protect this city. If you want to have a pissing contest, do it by proving who can take down the most enemies. We are leaving chat range now.”

  There was a sudden BOOM that rattled through the air and I saw as an actual ripple that passed through the air to the south.

  “Loophole, your team is pretty mobile, can you sweep the city and clean up the smaller groups?” Pinneedle asked.

  “I was just about to have Swansong head off to make sure civilians are getting into the raid bunkers around the city so that we can cover more ground," I said, looking over to her and getting a nod before she took off toward the nearest set of screams. I wasn’t sure if it was the best idea for us to split up, but I could get by without her buffs and she did have at least a few abilities that should be able to handle some of the smaller Clockwork creations we had fought.

  “Good, I’m going to be dropping out of range here soon so that I can help Grand Strike, so if something comes up, send me a message. I’m not the most mobile but if we have to, Grand Strike can head back into the city. I know there’s a few more Augments from your wave around, Miss Mist is trying to find them and this is sure to draw them out. If you see any, add them to your squad in a Temporary Team-Up and I’ll move them into the Raid Group. I wasn’t joking when I said that Clockwork Tyrant’s been holding out on us, he has covered too much of-”

  Pinneedle’s voice cut off and I looked over at the raid group seeing an “out of range” icon over his name. I halfway expected him to turn around to finish his thought, but I wasn’t about to go chasing him down just to hear what I already knew.

  “This is fucking wild…” Jon muttered in our squad’s still open voice chat. “Wait, Swansong, there’s a family that just dipped into that alley over there.”

  “On it!”

  I heard a whir of energy before at least a dozen Clockwork Falcons went soaring past me. I was just about to chase them when I heard another round of screams. There was another one of those large, triangular scales that came crashing down into the street running along the east side of Central Park. The scale must have been every bit of five stories tall and that was with the tip of it buried deep into the street.

  The scale opened up and Clockwork Monkeys went pouring out of it, flooding the streets and tearing into the cars that had been left stuck in the now impossible to pass traffic. The chaos was overwhelming, but with some actual opponents ahead to chase down, I at least had somewhere to let out some of the rage I could feel welling up inside of me. This was going far beyond the limits of some game. I hadn't felt this angry at a Miscreant's choices since I had thought SnakeBite had been keeping Sapient NPCs as prisoners.

  I dropped in on them with Earthbound Impact. The pavement cratered as the shockwave spread out through the pack of monkeys, wiping out the entire wave in a single attack.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Damn, that was clean,” Jon said. I was just about to jump back into the air to get away from the explosions that the monkeys were bound to cause, when the components all seemed to start shaking.

  “Um…” I said, looking around at them as I slowly lifted off the ground.

  The components rushed together and where a dozen Clockwork Monkeys had once stood, a single extra-large one was left in its place. The monkey let out a screech of a roar that actually left me disoriented enough that I had to land. I highlighted the new opponent out of curiosity.

  “Mega Clockwork Monkey. Level 14 (Elite) Reconstructed Golem. Well that’s certainly a new trick! This giant sized version of one of your former opponents is made up of a bunch of his lesser versions, maybe this time when you break him, set the pieces on fire.”

  I rushed the monkey and threw a 25% Gravity Punch, ready to launch it back into the wall that had been created by the scale. The monkey actually reacted to my attack, throwing its arms up in a fighter-like block. At the same time, I heard the crack of pavement as claws buried themselves into the ground right before my strike could land. My strike landed, but the sudden appearance of a shield bar left the strike to take our a good chunk of it while leaving its health completely untouched. Even more frustrating was the fact that the claws that the monkey had deployed somehow completely negated the knockback I had been trying to cause.

  “Look out!” Jon yelled in my head, only a moment too late. The shock of the monkey not getting sent back caused me to hesitate just long enough for the monkey to strike me with the back of an overly large hand.

  Every bit of the knockback I should have caused was delivered to me and then some. The monkey hit me in a slightly downward direction, sending me hurtling down and into the ground as I went tumbling and rolling over the pavement between abandoned cars. My health had gone plummeting downwards, lowering over 40% in the single strike.

  “That hurt,” I groaned as I struggled to my feet, looking over at the monkey as it shook asphalt from its feet. Just as it started to charge, I rushed over toward Central Park.

  The monkey turned on a dime, chasing toward me as I flew over the fence and into the trees. It burst off the ground with a powerful leap that left yet another crater into the already pockmarked street. Just as it hit the treeline, I spun, holding myself in the air and watching as it continued to run toward me.

  I waited, wanting to make sure the monkey was fully surrounded by plant-life before I breathed out and activated the one new ability I had made over the last day of waiting. The ability had felt very similar to Weighted Clothes in some ways, but given that that ability was limited to enemies that were wearing clothes, I had needed a new way to lock down opponents.

  “Entangle! Level 1 Activated Ability. You have become one with nature, at least within your local area. Utilize the available plant-life in the world around you to entangle your enemies. The amount of enemies and the length of which you can hold said enemies is determined by the amount of plant-life available within your local area. This ability costs 100 times the amount of enemies you are entangling per second points of Stamina to maintain this ability. This ability has no cooldown.”

  Roots came bursting from the earth, wrapping up and around the large monkeys legs. Several vines came dropping from the trees. I was pretty sure that vines weren’t normally just existing in the trees of Central Park, but I wasn’t going to question it as the monkey struggled to break free from the ever growing bonds.

  My stamina was already dropping fast and I rushed toward the monkey. This time I didn’t want to send the monkey flying backwards, so when I struck I only hit it with a 20% Gravity Punch directly to the monkey’s exposed chest. The shield dropped and I quickly followed up the strike with Paradox Chain. With a quick few regular strikes, I managed to eliminate the monkey’s shield… only for it to finally break free of the vines and deliver another rough backhand that sent me stumbling.

  The vines were probably the only thing that saved me from having my health bottom out, though I was already down near critical. I reactivated Entangle, watching as the vines shot back out to rewrap the monkey as he fought against them and materialized a Superior Health Injector. I slammed it into my side and breathed a sigh of relief as my health jumped back up over 75%. My stamina was just below 25% so I quickly materialized and used a Superior Stamina Injector to top my bar off.

  “This guy is way too damn strong given how weak those initial monkeys were…” I muttered.

  While I had Quantum Overclock available, this wasn’t like other times where I was guaranteed time to rest once I was done fighting. I couldn’t risk gaining the Exhausted debuff, especially if Swansong ran into something that she needed help on.

  “Should we really have split up?” Swansong asked. I could hear more explosions in the distance but didn’t take my eyes off of the monkey as I held my mental finger on Entangle.

  “Swansong I’m going to need you to keep singing that peaceful song, those guys in the back look like they are starting to get jumpy. Loophole, there’s a pack of Clockwork… I want to say Tigers? Yeah let’s go with Tigers. There’s some Clockwork Tigers outside of the Guggenheim. Swansong is funneling folks down into the subway on the West Side. Maybe it's lucky but at least it seems like the droids are zeroing in on your location instead of hers,” Jon called out.

  “Yeah, in case you can’t see, I’m a bit busy with this thing already,” I grunted, “The asshole doesn’t want to go down.”

  “Yeah well I don’t think, huh… the Tigers just disappeared off my map,” Jon said with a murmur. "Maybe there's another Augment?"

  “Given the situation, I’ll take it,” I muttered before I rushed back in toward the captured monkey. My normal strikes didn’t do quite as much damage as my amped up Gravity Punches but they did do damage.

  The vines were luckily still coiling up and around the monkey’s limbs, holding it in place as I got in and landed a rapid set of strikes, each one dropping its health bar by a few percent. I was just getting into a rhythm when another loud BOOM filled the air, followed by a sharp whistling sound. Only a moment later, I heard as something went crashing through several trees just to the north of my fight.

  The monkey struggled against its bonds as I dodged backward, regrouping as I kept my focus on my Entangle ability.

  “That… hurt,” Grand Strike’s voice infiltrated my mind. “Just as a heads up, don’t try to go in the scales… They are trapped nine ways from Sunday.”

  “That was you?!” I asked, risking a look over my shoulder and into the trees where I had heard him crash.

  “I wish it wasn't, but yeah,” he said and I could see as he started to float back into the air. “Need any help before I rush back out there?”

  “Shouldn’t you be in more of a hurry!?” I asked and I could hear him laugh again as he looked over, apparently noticing my captured opponent.

  “I know you’re new to this kid and city wide attacks aren’t quite normal, but as you level up you’ll get used to the craziness. The others will be fine for an extra few seconds before I get back there,” He said before he flew over and landed on the ground next to me. “Now, want me to handle this thing for-”

  The giant Clockwork Monkey suddenly crumbled to pieces, the vines and roots holding it in place losing its grip on the droid as the metallic components all slipped down and to the ground. I was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when they all began shaking again, darting back together and reforming into the same monkey.

  “Oh shit,” Grand Strike muttered and I highlighted the monkey out of curiosity.

  “Mega Clockwork Monkey. Level 64 (Elite) Reconstructed Golem.”

  “Wait, what the fuck?!” I said and skipped backwards just as the monkey came rushing towards us.

  Grand Strike jumped into the attack, absorbing the blow as a shockwave of energy blew outward, quite literally taking me off of my feet and sending me to the ground. I recovered as quickly as I could, watching as the blue clad hero traded blows with the oversized mechanical simian.

  “Angie, Jon, what the fuck is going on?! How did it just change its level!?”

  “I’m not entirely sure Loophole, based on my observation, it would seem that when the droid disassembled itself, it briefly dropped its status as a targetable entity. This is not a function that has been previously explored within the system, so it is possible that the droid’s creator has found an exploitable… loophole,” Angie said, finishing with a sigh. “It would appear when it reformed, Grand Strike was the first to target it and its level set itself accordingly. Just be happy that its shields and health didn’t reset with it.”

  I watched the fight ahead of me, watching as the monkey’s health chipped downward bit by bit with each round of punches it exchanged with Grand Strike. Unfortunately, his health was also chipping down each time they collided. I could see him shift his weight as he started to move to dodge when the monkey struck.

  One of its legs extended outward and a claw identical to the one that it had used to stop itself from being launched by my attack grasped Grand Strike’s leg, preventing him from flying away as it dug its other foot down and into the earth below it.

  A mass of blue energy formed around Grand Strike’s fist as he moved to try and break the monkey’s leg so that he could escape when another hand whipped out from the monkey, enveloping Grand Strike’s hand and seemingly absorbing the blue energy.

  “Get off of me!” Grand Strike shouted, struggling and pulling as a mechanical tail I hadn’t noticed before whipped around from behind the monkey and encircled the man. I was just about to move toward him when I heard him let out a scream of pain as the tail tightened. “Stay back!”

  I felt the energy building up on the edge of my zone before it happened, but even that warning didn’t prepare me as the monkey suddenly self-destructed. The bomb was large enough that debris came pummeling into me, taking small chunks out of my health bar with each bit of metal that collided into my body.

  On the side of my vision, a single name noticeably faded from the raid group, disappearing in a way that the mess of malformed and singed body parts that were scattered amongst the metallic debris didn’t.

  A new notification opened in front of my eyes as I felt a small panic attack starting to form at the horror I had just seen.

  “Congratulations! You have reached Level 15, please return to your Safe House or Squad Base to assign stat points and additional attributes!”

  “Hidden Power Unlocked! Your Timekeeper abilities are now available to you.”

  Happy Friday! If you're enjoying the story, don't forget to leave a Rate, Review, or Comment!

  Just for a little reference in case you don't know what a Pangolin looks like or why it would have scales. Just imagine a Kaiju sized version of this little guy:

  Also... As I mentioned last Friday I'll be taking a one week break from posting here to give myself some time for editing and extending my backlog by a bit. I wish I could say this was a creative way to try and get y'all to jump over to my Patreon (something I am still wanting to start eventually) it is primarily just to give me some time to get ahead.

  Come on over to my Discord to talk about the story, see advanced news, and just talk nonsense!