1: Not Buying It

Just after the war...

#473C31, a Dark Elf whose number was merely an indicator of what various division she fell under in the anti-human army. She walked soundlessly through the hot plain, not liking how blisteringly hot and dry it was out here in this awful desert. The ground was either hard-packed and killed your feet, or it was loose powder that got into everything, absolutely everything. Shaggy thistles, five to six foot tall prickly bushes, and unpleasant cacti littered the area. An occasional animal trail popped up, but the tracks all looked old. There was fortunately a light breeze which rustled leaves and detritus about and cooled the sweat off of  #473C31’s body. She had already loosened her clothes to help keep cool and keep the sweat from pooling in uncomfortable areas.

On her shoulder was her… friend was not the right word. Her companion was an Elf that had ran off with her when her former comrades had gotten scattered by a pack of ferals she could not identify and ate ten of their fifteen survivors within minutes. They had had no choice but to bolt. Sadly, her Elf companion was gone now and completely shut down in the Elves’ completely unconscious feral state. She was not entirely sure why she had not just dumped her the moment she realized she was never going to wake up. They had tried to stave off the feral state, but having to move frequently for fear of roving ferals that seemed a lot tougher than they were left little time for sex in the wilderness. The Elf was already half-feral when this started, and she had slipped the rest of the way on their merry little flight for their lives.

#473C31 was probably pretty far gone too, but then again hallucinating that thing with the moon might have been dehydration. Oh what she would not give for a-

"Freeze.”

James leveled his shotgun with several highly illegal modifications and locked eyes with the silver, almost white, irises of his target the black-skinned woman. #473C31 was not black like your average black woman but a deep blue-black and lacked any remotely Africanized features; there was no sign of a typically African nose, cheekbones, brow, or the typical set of the maxilla and mandible. No, structurally she was reminiscent of a Scandinavian and reminded James of a Danish girl he had had the hots for once upon a time. Oh, she had pointed ears too, but that was the least startling thing about her. It was as if she were airbrushed onto reality. James thought she looked like a fantastical sprite or elf, and if that was what she was or supposed to resemble, he would not have been the least bit surprised. There were more worrisome things in the world now.

On the other side was James and his shotty. James was a young man with a huge melon and a linebacker’s build. Caucasian and black-bearded, he had a severe look to him that aged him considerably. In reality he was in his twenties, but one could easily mistake him for ten years older with his dress and mannerisms. An itchy trigger finger hovered just outside the trigger guard. James was not so amateurish as to rest his finger on the trigger, but he could still fire fast enough to drop her and her cargo.

In her mind, she felt a cold dread sink through her bones. She knew enough about guns to fear the ones with barrels of that diameter even if she had never operated one or been hit personally. She had seen big ones take down some of her sisters-in-arms which were much, much more durable than she. While she, like many of the others, had often fantasized about spiriting away young, handsome soldiers for their personal use or- quite delectably forbidden- being spirited away by the enemy, she knew most soldiers would sooner kill them just as during the war most of her sisters-in-arms would have killed the enemy soldiers. Before she could think any more, the man spoke quite gruffly to her.

“If you move, I will shoot; if you flinch, I will shoot; if you shout or call or even look like you're signalling, I will shoot; If I see a hint of magic... you get the idea.”

The monstrous woman glanced worriedly down at the weapon pointed at her. She had no idea what he knew of magic or if it was just a general term he used not knowing what it truly meant, but she was not going to risk it anyways. Even the fastest spell could not be woven faster than one could pull a trigger. The shotgun had a barrel protruding to its right overflowing with shells bearing huge slugs. James had a fully automatic shotgun loaded with what must have been nearly thirty shells. Owning this would before the societal collapse would have earned him a hefty fine and quite possibly some considerable jail time, but that hardly mattered now. All but the nastiest monsters would be shredded by this. His tinkering nature had kept him alive until now and now more than ever was he glad he disregarded some rather silly regulations over modifying one’s own property before it all went tits up.

Fortunately for James, this dangerous superwoman was encumbered by another woman who was slung over the black creature’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Some of these creatures were lightning quick, moving much like his dead friend’s pet capuchin monkey he had accidentally pissed off as a child. Why Pete’s mother- God rest her soul- had let Pete have the beast even after the incident was beyond James’ mortal comprehension. Yet, here he stood today in front of an infinitely more dangerous beast. They both were frozen and staring one another down. After an aeon in their minds and only a moment in reality,

“What’re you doin’ here?” James asked gruffly. His voice was deep and rumbled through the air. It was resonant and traveled fair despite how low his volume actually was. Normal men were often subconsciously intimidated by it, but fortunately he had his much-needed firearm to back it up with this particular encounter.

The eerie silver eyes framed by titanium white hair snapped back to James’ face. “Passing through. I’m not looking for trouble,” she said with a dainty, feminine voice that belied how dangerous she was. James had seen the news and viewed her as he would a bear or puma albeit ones with comic book superpowers.

“Mm,” James grunted, “Sorry to say I don’t buy that.” At the proclamation, the black-skinned woman’s face grew grim but she otherwise stood perfectly still.“What’s wrong with her?” James inquired, gesturing with a jerk of his head at the woman slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

The blue-black skinned woman's attention momentarily shifted to other woman in her possession. From James’ perspective, he couldn't see anything obviously inhuman about the passenger but would assume she was deadly until proven otherwise like he was forced to do with all females nowadays. "She is unwell,” the woman said but did not elaborate.

James grunted and honestly cared little for the stranger's wellbeing. However, this was the closest thing to human contact he had had in- Well, he marked the days but hated thinking about them- not that he would admit that to her. The human brain did not have the capacity to work both empathetic and logical circuitry at the same time, only one or the other, so the neuroscientists had been saying before the collapse.  It made the loneliness itching at the back of his skull annoying at this moment, but at least he had yet to start having conversations with inanimate objects. Sure, sometimes he talked ''to” them out of boredom, but so long as that stayed one-sided, he was not in trouble as far as he was concerned.

“Elaborate, please,” he commanded as his grip tightened on his shotgun. The plagues had been on the news. He had gotten sick himself but had managed to pull through in about three days of misery none the wiser to whether that was the plague or if he had just gotten a nasty bug. It felt like simple influenza, and it was not as if there were vaccines for whatever new strains had popped up. He would never know unless he up and died.

The elf-like woman paused. “Have you seen the ferals?” she asked in a seeming nonsequitur, causing James’ eyes to narrow dangerously.

“That is not an answer,” he said as calmly as one could whilst having the appearance of one premeditating swift and cold murder. His finger twitched imperceptibly towards the trigger.

“Wait,” she said quickly, and silver eyes noticeably dilated. The contrast of dark pupil and her iris made it stand out quite a bit. “I- She has- I mean to say-” she continued, cutting herself off. She looked ready to bolt, but she must have possessed some intense discipline to root herself and otherwise remain still.

“Stop,” James interrupted, and her jaw clicked shut, “Start over. Tell me what’s wrong with her in twenty words or less.” While he had no intent to count her words, hopefully the command would keep her concise. He most certainly did not have all day to listen to her, and no matter how well behaved she was, James might just shoot her anyways to be safe.

“She is… in cryptobiosis,” she said slowly, watching James intently, “That’s where-”

“Suspended state. I know the gist,” James interrupted.

The blue-black elf looked like she wanted to bristle but wisely kept herself under control. “She, like many of us-” the monster paused and then clarified, “-that is to say we of Sukebe’s forces tend shut down in absence of certain stimuli. Her kind go catatonic and then into cryptobiosis. Most just go insane or start running around like wild animals.”  There had been enough animals before the plagues decimated their population to draw the comparison, and it got passed around a lot.

At that, James actually looked somewhat interested but not so interested as to refrain from gunning her down. “What stimuli?” he inquired.

“Sex,” she said without batting an eye. To her surprise, James just heaved a sigh. What came next, doubly surprised her.

“Bullshit,” he said, right before he opened fire.

She shrieked and dove to the ground with agility that was most likely beyond that of a mere human. Fortunately for her, the slug missed, but behind the slug was five buckshot, and it spread sufficiently to rake several painful streaks down her back, all grazes but all painful. She had no idea even if her passenger was hit by any of it, and it would not matter in a few moments if this human kept firing.

Already James scrambled back and pointed the barrel down towards the little quickling that had saved her skin. Shit. He should have just fired without speaking. That would have taken away any warning she might have had. Stupid, he chastised himself.

“Please!” came the most piteous noise he had ever heard, “Shit, you asshole, stop!” Through grit teeth, she even managed a “Please!” She was shaking like a leaf with her hands over her head. Tears and mucous had begun to streak down her face, “Damn it, hear me out!” Despite her obvious attempts to keep the fear out of her voice, it noticeably cracked into a squeak. Her teeth grit into a grimace, but her eyes were wide.

For some reason beyond James’ understanding, her obvious, unfiltered fear tugged at his heartstrings. She was quick enough to maybe get the better of him. Automatically, he clicked his modified shotgun from semi- to fully automatic. He resolved then that if he opened fire again, she would die. Even if he missed most of his shots, at this range, he was pretty certain he could at least pepper her to death and maybe get one slug in which would be more than enough to kill her.

Still, she was acting so piteous that she was either going to curl into the fetal position or grab a fistful of dirt and debris to fling in his face and try to get the upper hand from there. “Why should I?” he said, gun still leveled at her, “Why should I when you lie to my face? Obviously, I can’t trust you.”

“I’m n-not lying,” she said as quickly as she could, fumbling over her words. James opened his mouth to make an acidic comment, but she beat him and managed to speak before he could get a word in edge-wise, “T-that’s why I took her with me,” she explained. James assumed 'her’ was the girl she had had slung over her shoulder. As she spoke, she broke down further and began speaking so quickly that her words and sentences blurred together. “We were doing it whenever we could to fight it off, but she was already going f-f-feral, and we couldn't fuck enough and girls can't reverse the process with other girls and-”

“Stop,” James said, getting a headache from trying to parse her blubbering. “Stop!” he added more forcefully.

In a tiny voice, barely audible, he then heard her say, “I can prove it.” James looked disbelievingly at her.

“You do realize that just us fucking won’t prove anything, right?” he said flatly, Mentally, he scoffed. He was not letting her get within arms reach of him let alone that intimate.

“No… not me,” she said. She looked back at the Elf she had been lugging around with her. Maybe the human would go for it? “Her breed’s feral state is… well not violent. You can revive her.” Initially, the information that human men could reverse the feral state completely was entirely suppressed information, but once Command was destroyed and the forces scattered to the wind, word had spread quickly. Even she knew but she had no idea how to go about getting access to it in her previous predicament.

Ever cynical, James made the comment, “It sounds to me like you’re trying to trick me into fucking a corpse, but for the life of me I don’t know what you’d have to gain from that. There are so many much more plausible lies to get me to drop my guard” The woman winced. Yeah, the other one was pretty dead-looking. Still, that was an interesting idea, James thought. Shoot this one, see if the other one is actually out of it and not simply extremely skilled with the game of playing dead, and then restrain and revive. He could do that. Just as he was about to open fire, two things messed with his gut instinct on this. One was the immorality of just killing someone who had thrown themselves at your mercy and was yet to actually wrong you, and the other was the fact that he needed all the help he could get nowadays. He had been alone for so long, and quite frankly, if either one of them could overpower him at any time, two was not going to be a huge difference to him. James’ lip curled in disgust, but it was disgust with himself. He had one voice in his head screaming to just kill them now, but he forced his way through it.

“Explain.”

Notes and Commentary: Typical you trip and fall into pokegirls after the war or whatever. I’ve read this story variant three times on the forum, and this is what my take on it was about three years ago. I’m posting it up a polished version now because while I wrote quite a bit, it’s unlikely to be turned into a full beginning-to-end story.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the scale of guns, in-universe those with minimal durability are immune to small arms fire, which means .22s, but .50s, elephant guns (i.e. .84 double barrel with 1600 grains), and shotgun slugs will kill or severely injure all but the toughest. Since the U.S. armed forces have generally used .40s and up even in sidearms and would have abandoned the ineffective smaller arms quickly after the war started, the enemy forces all know how unfun getting shot is and have ample reason to fear a shotgun at close range. Dark Elves like the pokegirl featured in this story have no enhanced durability or strength, only speed and agility. Still, they’re not fast enough to run away from a gun, only fast enough to attempt to disarm the wielder which was infeasible at the time since she was burdened with another and sudden movements may have ended her. If you want to know what breeds are affected by what caliber, there’s a chart floating around the information brochure with a list of calibers and what durability they can take down.