-10 minutes before the warning-

  With every roar, bark or hiss that echoed into the Arts building, Everett Garcia flinched, his long black hair swaying as he whipped his head back and forth, making sure that nothing was inside the building.

  Luckily, even with his long hair, he had no problems knowing what was in his vicinity. He self consciously, tucked his hair back behind an ear, away from his new… features, the action reminding him of his recent experiences and how he had changed.

  –

  When the world entered into the Integration, he had accepted the offered opportunity to become a Forerunner of Earth and ended up in his worst nightmare: surrounded by insects in a cave.

  How he had managed to stay conscious, Everett would never know, as he stood in a massive cave alongside a couple hundred others, completely surrounded by creatures of all shapes and sizes, their only defining characteristics being the fact that they were all unique and they all were insect-like.

  While he was alongside many other humans, the weirdest part was that they were all spaced out and none of them were able to move. Over a period of time that felt like hours, Everett watched as the creatures walked through the mass of frozen people in seemingly random fashion, all while maintaining an eerie silence. A silence that was only broken by the sounds of the creature's limbs clacking across the hard stone floor.

  Sometimes, a creature would stop in front of one of the frozen people and touch them with an antenna, claw or some other appendage, resulting in the person emitting a flash of light and disappearing from the cavern. While Everett had witnessed a couple of those flashes of light, they were by no means the norm. More often than not, the initial touch was far from gentle. The crunching of bones and sounds of slurping fluids would haunt Everett’s nightmares for years to come.

  When he had finally been approached, there was no shame in the fear that he felt, nor in the destruction of his pants, as heat filled the space around him. He had felt the beings presence as it stood behind him and felt something touch the side of his face before the alien voice whispered in his mind. Images and feelings that were not his own, raced through his thoughts. Hollowed out mountains, miles of tunnels, groups of insectile beings around pits of magma flitted across the surface of his mind before a brief feeling of pleasant surprise overwhelmed his confusion and fear.

  The foreign thoughts faded from the recesses of his mind as an overwhelming presence connected forced its way into his brain, the pressure threatening to crush Everett’s entire being under its weight.

  A rumbling voice had seared across his mind as he felt his body be removed from the trial, “I guess you’ll do.”

  –

  Everett shivered, despite the aura of warmth he exuded. The memories of his trial, the so-called “First Contact” with a faction known as the Empiric Hive, provided him with some objectively amazing boons but… he wasn’t sure he would ever get used to them.

  He had gained a physique as a reward for completing his trial and while his cosmetic changes were not really to his liking, his increased strength and additional abilities he gained from this mess had proven to be a godsend.

  Everett was a firm believer in the phrase, “Knowledge is Power” and voraciously pursued education. So much so that he was planning on becoming a teacher in the future!

  So much for that future.

  His love of learning was a pivotal part of who he was and Everett was always learning random skills that had absolutely nothing to do with any other aspect of his life. That said, school itself wasn’t really his forte. So when he was offered his Paths of Pursuit, he was by no means surprised to see that his compatibility with the Path of the Academic was incredibly low. The Path of the Seeker just felt right anyways.

  The base active skill of the pursuit had proven instrumental in traversing the changed school as it allowed for him to learn more about the things around him.

  It’s honestly surprising that Identify is a first level skill. Every main character seems to have it for exposition purposes in old anime, but I won't complain.

  As soon as he had come back to Earth, he was able to test it on a person, seeing their name and current level. Nothing too impressive, but since he kept spamming it as he walked around the destroyed Arts building, he had been the first to notice the monsters outside as they rushed out of the ruined vehicles towards the students. Unfortunately, even with the warning, he wasn’t able to save everyone that had gone outside.

  Since then, he and roughly twenty other survivors had holed up in the auditorium, as it had the most open space for people to maneuver, in case a monster got past their rudimentary defenses.

  While some of the more confident people stood guard at the lower entrances, armed with prop weapons and metal pipes, Everett had used one of his many seemingly useless talents to fashion himself a sling out of an old leather pirate costume piece.

  With rubble all over the place, he had almost limitless ammunition and some of his more… unique abilities, as a Forerunner of Earth, allowed for him to be particularly viable as ranged cover.

  From his position on the second floor balcony, he was able to easily keep an eye on the outside of the building while other more leader oriented individuals took charge of all the others.

  -Present-

  The sounds of combat that had echoed throughout the building had been terrifying. The creatures in the vehicles were far too small to have made noises like that which meant there was something else closing in on them.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Everett had been sitting in the doorway to the auditorium, back and away from the broken windows that overlooked the courtyard, listening to both the sounds of combat and to the sounds of the people inside, arguing over what they should do next.

  Based on the way that they hadn’t reacted to the noises, he could only assume that either his enhanced physique or the fact that he was a Seeker, was allowing him to understand what was happening in his surroundings more than them.

  Either way, it doesn’t matter. He sighed internally. The other survivors were wanting to wait for help to come help them. With all the stuff that Everett could see from his vantage point though, help coming for them was a pipe dream, and he knew that they would need to leave this place at some point.

  The noises from the courtyard had disappeared a couple minutes before and Everett thought that he could hear voices. No, that couldn’t be right… How could there be voices coming from the same place that the monsters' sounds had just been coming from?

  Did these people kill the monsters?

  With a hint of trepidation, Everett slowly crawled past the framework that once held the large glass windows together, out onto the external patio. The ravages of time and the changes to the world breaking and sweeping away any remains of the broken window walls. Voices floated up to his hiding place on the gentle winds that swept over the mountainside.

  How the hell did we go from a small school on the coast to being halfway up a mountain? The change in the local topography had initially taken Everett aback, but now he was concerned. He knew nothing about the mountains and hoped that he could get out of them soon.

  The young man peeked his head over the edge to the balcony towards the sound of the voices and he tensed in alarm.

  The remains of the vehicles from before had moved.

  Why are they moved? How does that happen silently? I should have heard a couple of rusty cars being dragged across stone right?

  He squashed the feelings of confusion and leapt to his feet as a group of six people crept out of the rocky protrusions that filled the courtyard. Directly towards the newly relocated vehicles that could only be a deathtrap.

  “Quick! Run this way! The cars have monsters!”

  Adam whipped his head up towards the man on the balcony. How did I not notice him up there? Since the Integration, his new bestial instinct's had managed to alert him to just about every person he had seen so far. The monsters were different because they had been intentionally hiding and he assumed they were higher level then he was.

  As soon as the man alerted them to danger, shrieks filled the air as creatures flew from the seemingly empty vehicles before them. Skittering from every opening, like ants pouring from an anthill, were tens of oversized rats.

  Calling the critters rats was technically incorrect though, as they had some serious differences compared to your average rat.

  First, their bodies were almost two feet long and were covered in fur that reminded Adam of rusted metal, likely the reason they were unnoticed by the group.

  Second, their tails were long and silver, covered by intermittent barbs, similar to strands of barbed wire.

  And third, they each looked like they could crush rocks between their toes.

  Every single one of the small creatures looked like they benched 300lbs with no effort whatsoever.

  Their immense strength was proven as one of them whipped its tail at Adam, surprising him with its ability to extend. He managed to block the attack but was once again caught off guard when the tail wrapped around his forearm and the creature pulled Adam off his feet towards the approaching rats.

  A hand latched onto the collar that Adam now wore as a sash, stopping his forward momentum, Otto covered in glowing teal runes braced himself, “Cut its tail!”.

  Henry dove past Adam with his sword drawn, leaping directly towards the wave of rats, as Emi and Michael hacked at the tail that was latched to his arm.

  He had to grit his teeth as they worked, the force of their hacking causing the barbs to twist and rip at the skin on his forearm, making his injury even worse.

  “Don’t cut the tail! Just kill the damn thing!”, he ground out between the clenched jaws.

  Now that his feet were under him he planted himself firmly and gripped the tail with both hands, forcing his companions to stop cutting at the appendage.

  With a yell, Adam pulled the rat towards him as hard as he could. As it soared through the air backwards, he planned on stomping the little shit but lost out when a staff swung through the air leaving a lavender glow in its wake. Sylvia’s staff slammed into the side of the rat and pulsed with a pale red-pink light before the energy transferred into the rat, causing it to burst in a spray of blood.

  Adam, Michael, Otto and Emi all paused for a second and stared at Sylvia.

  She turned towards them with an annoyed look, “Don’t just stare, kill these things!” before turning and running to join Henry.

  It was a good thing that Sylvia was so focused because Henry was in over his head.

  Somehow, Henry was able to kill a couple of the rats but he spent most of his time dodging their metallic tails. The creatures seemed intent on capturing him.

  Initially, it looked as if there were about a dozen of the beasts but those numbers had been wrong. More and more of the beasts poured out of the vehicles, attempting to overwhelm them with numbers. Numbers that were separating them from their sword wielding friend.

  Just as two different tails managed to latch onto him, a whirring sound filled the air as the voice of warning called out again, “Grab him and get in here!”.

  Then something small and glowing flew towards the wave of creatures with a loud crack, killing a rat on contact, before a burst of flame incinerated all the others within a couple feet of the explosion.

  A glance towards the man on the balcony informed Adam that the man was using a sling to thin the numbers.

  Adam and Michael dashed into the fray and scooped up Henry before he could hit the ground. Another explosion went off in front of the men, effectively clearing a path towards the Arts building where they could see three figures running towards them.

  He recognized them as three of the school's athletes, though he couldn’t remember their names. One carried a baseball bat and had a helmet on, while another was wearing catcher's gear and wielded an iron bar in one hand and a hammer in the other. The last one was a mountain of a man that looked to be carrying a large piece of backdrop from the school's drama department, like it was a kite shield.

  The man with the shield, which Adam realized was a wooden cutout in the shape of a bush, ran past everyone and smashed the shield down on the nearest rats like it was a giant flyswatter, smushing and knocking away many of the closest monsters.

  He stomped on the board for good measure before turning and running back towards them as more cover fire came in from the balcony above.

  The group, escorted by the two baseball players, rushed into the lobby of the building towards the auditorium.

  Not even two seconds after they entered, the shield wielding man, now shield-less, dove through the doors, and slammed them shut behind him. He leaned against the door wheezing with a pained grin across his face.

  “Dammit Henry, you dumbass, who the hell runs straight into a bunch of murderous rats?!”