Soul Merger

David gripped the fire poker with shaking hands. His father had told him he was the man of the house for now, and he was going to protect his family!

But the ogre in front of them was really really big. How was he supposed to kill it? In all the stories the boy at least had a sword. The poker he had wasn't even hot!

The ogre stepped forwards forcing him to take a step back. His sister Molly whimpered in fear. It raised its club and David tensed.

Then the window shattered as a woman jumped through.

The ogre turned to face her as her cloak billowed out revealing... a lot. David couldn't help but stare. She was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.

Faster than the ogre could react she lunged forwards, slicing the ogre's leg open. The monster fell to the ground bleeding all over the place. Molly yelped as some of the spray landed near them.

David finally realized he was staring at the woman's chest and turned away blushing. Fortunately she didn't say anything bad to him. Just looked around and flicked the blood off her sword.

The door opened and another beautiful woman entered. This one looked like a dragon merge. "Impressive, but you realize the door was unlocked Alissa."

"I didn't know at the time." The red haired warrior replied. "Besides there's already a hole in the wall." She pointed at the place that the ogre had burst through.

The dragon lady laughed and walked over to them. "You're okay now. Are either of you hurt? And is there anyone else in the building?"

David shook his head. "We're fine, miss. It's just me and my sister."

"Alright, let's get you somewhere safe."

Alissa let herself relax just a little as they dropped the two kids they'd rescued off at one of the restaurants people were congregating in. The area was a mess, but it wasn't quite as bad as she feared. The biggest problem might be the fires that were starting as panicked people and monsters overturned stoves and let flames get out of control.

On that note Fili was coming back from dumping a small wave on a burning building. "Everything handled over there?" Alissa asked.

"Yeah," Fili stretched. "Give me a moment and we can press on."

"Barricades are all set up," Clara said. "So Akari and I can go with you all as well." Fili nodded in appreciation. Traveling in a group was best as they pressed closer to the source of the Rampage.

As much as she'd wanted to check in on her friends immediately, there were lots of people who needed help. And as Rosalina had pointed out a club that catered to rich merchants and adventurers was probably decently safe. So they'd been helping where they could, slowly moving the 'safe' zone in and getting refugee centers set up.

And now was time for another push. Fili dusted off her robe and set a spell chip. "Alright. I'm good to go."

"Okay. I'll take the lead." Ibaraki was mostly resting, both to keep Akari from owing the oni too much, and as a trump card. Fortunately most of the foes they ran into were easily dispatched with a crossbow bolt.

Alissa slipped past the roadblock that had been set up and headed down the sidestreet. The chaos around her made it hard to pinpoint anything in particular, but she kept an ear out for anyone in trouble. Most of the restaurants here hadn't been open, but they'd probably been full of cooks doing prepwork for the evening.

She didn't hear any people yelling for help as they moved through the area. What she did hear was something strange rummaging through trash. She raised her hand and pointed towards the disturbance, then drew her sword and moved in that direction. Her friends followed

Alissa rounded the corner and cursed when she saw the red body of a howler. Worse still the monkey like monster had seen her as well. She threw her knife at the beast, but it was too late. The howler reared up and let out a deafening scream. Pain flashed through her head, and she hoped the noise wouldn't damage her hearing.

The creature's piercing scream of pain as the knife hit it was almost a relief. The ringing silence that fell when Clara's bolt punched through its chest was better. But unfortunately that wouldn't last. Alissa jogged over and grabbed her knife. They were about to have company.

"-hate those fucking things" she heard Rosalina say as she rejoined the group. Everyone looked unhappy at the assault on their senses.

"We're going to need Ibaraki," Alissa said simply. "Every monster with half a brain or less will be heading this way now."

Akari nodded but she turned to the dragon priestess first. "Rosalina, you should heal everyone. Ear damage is hard but we'll want to have our full senses."

"Yeah," Rosalina sighed. "I'll be useless the first wave though, so try not to get hurt."

Alissa looked to where Fili and Clara were already preparing, and shrugged off her cloak. "I doubt the first wave will do anything except die."

Fili smiled as strawberry and metal wafted off her, while Clara shook her head. "Dang, now I've got my pride on the line so I can't bet against you."

The last of the ringing and pain cleared up as Rosalina concentrated. Alissa stepped towards the far end of the street away from the 'safer' areas. "Saved you some money."

Sure enough the first 'wave' was a harpy that Fili sniped out of the sky with a high speed rock and an ogre that didn't even manage to stare at her before getting shot by Clara. The closest monsters would blunder into the kill zone without any thought, and die just as quickly.

Unfortunately Rosalina was still woozy when the main force arrived. Six dire wolves followed by two ogres, and some number of harpies. Meanwhile a small cyclops was approaching from behind. Alissa hoped Fili would keep the skies clear because this was going to be messy on the ground.

Fortunately Ibaraki seemed to have the same idea as her. "Guess I get to deal with the little fools while you shank the one eyed monster. Make it quick okay?"

"Sure." Alissa turned to face the nine foot tall monstrosity that was closing in. Unfortunately reality was likely to be less easy. The smaller cyclops didn't have the magical powers of their larger kin, but they were immune to all visual attacks. Which her charm apparently counted as given the creature was going through at least three dialects to call her a whore instead of staring. Rude.

She approached carefully, waiting for the creature to try to poke her with its oversized spear, but instead it swung the thing at her like a club. Troublesome. The cyclops advanced, using the spear's range to keep her on the defensive.

Alissa considered the situation. The trip below had been a mess, but she had been getting better at accessing her techniques. Which meant she might have something that would work here. A variant of the technique she'd used against the undead warrior.

Considering it for a moment she decided to chance it. She waited until the beast did a swing then stepped forwards into range.

The cyclops reacted with a quick thrust, but she caught it with both her blades and redirected the attack over her head. The monster looked shocked and she found herself smirking as she finished the technique. "Weapon breaker."

Putting all her strength into her dagger and sword, she cut into the wood of the spear, then twisted. The weapon shattered at the weak point and the cyclops staggered back in surprise.

Alissa pressed onwards, slashing out at the creatures gut. It used the haft of its weapon to keep from getting more than a cut, but that was enough. "Kneel," she ordered.

Instinctively the monster went to one knee. It started to stand almost immediately, but Alissa was already too close. A single slash and she cut open the cyclops' neck, leaving it to bleed out.

She turned back to find Ibaraki and Clara had slaughtered the rest of the monsters that had attacked. The oni was shaking the gore off her club. "Should look into getting a whip if you're gonna go full dommy mommy like that."

Alissa rolled her eyes and returned to the group. There were limits to things, and whips were on the other side as far as she was concerned. "You can give us back the nice catgirl now. We should be done."

"Tsundere," the oni taunted before swapping out. Akari shook her head and sighed. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Alissa replied. "Think that should be everything?"

Fili nodded. "Someone's up on the roofs shooting monsters, so anything further away is probably dead."

"More than one person I'd bet from how fast they were shooting," Clara added.

It made sense. It was a way to help without going out into the streets. Alissa put away her dagger and reseated her cloak. "Well, let's move on."

The group pressed on down a few more streets and found themselves facing another makeshift barricade. "Hey!" A frazzled looking siren merged man waved at them. "Are the streets clear?"

"Clearer than they were a few minutes ago," Rosalina replied. "We're working on cleanup. How are things here?"

"Messy," he replied. "Got some wounded. You got a healer?"

Rosalina gave a dramatic sigh. "Ah, the pain of always being in demand. Even at a hostess club my beauty calls to others."

Alissa poked her. "Brag while you heal."

"I can't," Rosalina protested. "Healing is hard, you know!"

The man seemed only mildly amused by their byplay, but he moved a cart aside and waved them through. Alissa hurried to the club proper and winced as she looked around the main room.

The place definitely had been turned into a shelter and hospital, and it was pretty close to full. Someone had pulled down or shifted all the walls to the sides, likely ruining any soundproofing enchanting they had but freeing up a lot of space. And that space was broken up into a very makeshift field hospital, a rest area, and what looked to be a kitchen. Hostesses, customers, and locals alike were running about trying to help each other, or recovering from the ordeal.

She stepped aside as Rosalina headed straight towards the injured. "Akari, can you help?" The dragon priestess was in serious mode now.

"Of course." Akari pulled out some normal medical supplies. They'd probably focus on triage first then more in depth healing.

Alissa found herself with Clara and Fili looking around trying to figure out what to do. There didn't seem to be any organization, so it was hard to find somewhere to slip in.

"Alissa!" She looked over to see Juli hurrying over. The bunny girl looked tired but unhurt, much to her relief. "I'm so glad to see you. Are we finally safe?"

"The local dungeon overflowed so technically no, but it should be fine soon," Alissa replied. "Sera's safe too? And anything we can do to help?"

"Sera's fine, just working in the back." Juli sighed. "As for help, well there's still people out there. But if you need some time to rest we've got some free rooms and food."

"Figure we can give you ladies a hand," Clara said. "Rosalina's gonna be healing for a bit so unless something goes real bad we'll stick here until she's ready to move out."

"Then can you help with the cooking?" Juli asked. "The normal staff can't cut it with all the people here."

"I can help with water," Fili said to Alissa's surprise. Normally the slime mage stayed far away from cooking. Or anything that might involve touching people. But the woman was swapping out one of her chips for what was probably a create water spell. A less aggressive version of water creation than she normally used.

Juli nodded happily. "That'd be great. The pumps are broken, and I think our Serena, our gillfolk gal, is so tired she has to drink almost as much as she conjures at this point."

Alissa followed the bunny girl to the back kitchen. It seemed they'd taken over part of the warehouse next door too as food was moving back and forth. The fine desserts and luxurious appetizers had been replaced by cauldrons of stew. A serpentfolk woman was giving orders out in between moving plates of food.

Juli waved her hand "We've got some temps! And one's a mage with water creation!"

"Great." The cook pointed each to a space in turn. "Water's over there, tell Serena to go to sleep. You the larger miss, please help move some of the cooking equipment next door so we can get a secondary kitchen going. A lot of people will probably be staying here overnight. You... have any useful merge skills?"

"Not for this," Alissa admitted as Clara and Fili broke off. "I'm good with my hands at least."

"Vegetables then. Juli will show you."

Juli led her to an area with a painfully large amount of potatoes, carrots, and apples. Several others were at work, including Sera who gave a happy wave. "Hi! Guess you picked a good time to stop coming."

"More she couldn't stay away," Juli said as she grabbed a seat and a knife.

Alissa followed suit while shaking her head. "I see I didn't need to worry about you two. So much for needing to rush here."

"I appreciate it," Sera protested. Her expression darkened a bit. "The start of the rampage was pretty bad too. We lucked out."

Alissa started in on the potatoes, her knife removing the eyes before separating the skin and flesh. "I'm very glad neither of you were hurt."

"Thanks," Juli said. "All the girls got away actually. That idiot bouncer even survived, somehow. But a lot of the people in the surrounding buildings didn't get off as easily." She shivered. "We tried to help but we didn't really have much equipment for it."

"Yeah." Alissa sighed. Even tearing up clothing for bandages would only go so far. "Rosalina's here so things should get better."

Sera finished her peeling and grabbed another basket. "Good. We had another priest come in, but they exhausted themselves on the worst cases. Their friends had to drug him to get him to sleep."

Alissa made a mental note to check on Rosalina before that happened with their friend. Though hopefully Akari would keep an eye on the priestess.

After about maybe half an hour of peeling Fili walked in. "You have a water barrel that needs filling?"

"Yeah, thanks," Sera pointed at a few standing barrels. "Can you tell Marge that we need a few more ice fangs to keep the stores cold? I think the ones we started with are old."

Alissa and Fili both blinked at that. "Aren't those expensive?" Alissa asked. "Can't imagine the boss authorized that. Not that I can mind you but-"

"The boss is dead," Juli said flatly. "Locked himself in upstairs so when he got jumped no one could save him."

Huh. Alissa couldn't say she was too broken up. She'd heard nothing good about the man. But it was still surprising. "So who owns the place?"

"No one as far as we know," Sera replied. "So it's free booze for everyone. Except now is the worst time to be drunk. Instead we're using up all the other stuff."

Clara poked her head in. "Heya. Good news, Rosalina's mostly done. Bad news, some idiot or monster set a chunk of buildings on fire. We need to help."

"Shit." Alissa stood. "Well off to work." The two hostesses flinched and looked at each other. They were... guilty? "What's up?"

"Alissa, we should tell you-" Juli started

Sera cut her off. "The boss. He was killed by a succubus."