Your thoughts raced as your feet tore through the cobblestone road, each step propelling you forward faster and faster, until it felt like your limbs were nothing more than a blur.

The roar of rushing wind was almost deafening to both sets of ears, but you were close enough now that you could still pick up the screams, even without super sensitive hearing.

When it came time to turn a corner, you barely slowed down. Instead, you sprang off of the side of a building, swung yourself from a light pole covered in glowing lichen, and covered the remaining distance by having Mercy rapidly reshape your uniform into a wingsuit variant.

A shadow passed by overhead, and you turned back to see Harpy flying high above you, surveying the scene. When you returned your gaze to the busy streets below, you caught your first glance of what had caused people to start screaming in the first place.

Undead. An army of them! They were crawling up through the evacuation grates that had been placed all throughout the city. The ones that were meant to take people to shelter in case of an emergency!

You dropped down immediately, brandishing your sword and cutting down a zombie before they could ravage a tiny, humanoid bat creature. Your senses told you that another three were approaching you from behind. You twirled around and lashed out with your sword in a diagonal arc, cleanly dismembering all three in one fell swoop. Another five began to surround you from all sides, and Mercy's cloth tendrils shot out to impale their hearts. It didn't kill them outright, but it was enough to slow them down.

Most of the residents of Monster Metropolis were fleeing for their lives, but some were actively fighting to defend their city. They were clumsy; untrained. They shouldn't have to deal with an invasion on this scale. Where were the guards!? How had no one raised the alarm yet!?

Just then, someone shoulder checked you, nearly causing you to stumble. Not a zombie, but a civilian fishman scrambling to get away from a particularly persistent group of undead. You tried to move past him to dispatch them, but you suddenly found yourself being thrown around and forced back by the sheer amount of people struggling to survive this nightmarish invasion. Some fled for their houses and other nearby shops, others attempted to climb the rowhouses to get to higher ground, and an unlucky few tried to escape through the very grates that were being used by the undead. They were everywhere...

This had to be Varnae's doing! You just knew...!

"What's happening!?"

The familiar voice drew your attention to a nearby roof, where Shaggy was climbing out from a magic portal very similar to the one he had been digging at that construction site.

"Zombies! Zombies everywhere!" you shouted, blowing a mouthful of blue foxfire into a zombie's face in order to blind it.

(Cont.)