I slam into a horde of monsters, an eclectic group of urban bugs and more esoteric things. One monster is a centipede the size of a bus. Its outer shell looks like a chopped up subway car, and underneath is rebar reinforced concrete.

  There are craters and gouges from autocannon rounds, anti tank missiles, and tank shells. As I charge it from behind, another tank shell slams into it and ricochets with a high pitched whistle.

  A low two handed slash cuts off half a dozen legs, but it doesn’t even slow. It doesn’t even notice the injury, seemingly.

  Fine.

  With a leap, I jump onto top of the Metro-pede, and crouch down. With another powerful leap, I launch myself high into the air, and I slam the Metro-pede into the ground with a thunderous crack.

  Looking down, I hammered it into a crater of its own making, cracks radiating away from both the road, and on its shell where I jumped from. It’s still alive, and struggles to its feet, clearly heavily injured.

  I slam down onto its back again, and my two ton plus weight means I cut it in half, and I hammer the crater the Metro-pede left a little deeper. I throw part of the corpse aside, and step out in the large, four lane street.

  Some of the National Guardsmen manning a set of fortifications just a little further down the road cheer as I butcher my way through any surviving lesser monsters.

  Half a dozen stunned, twitching Traffic-Mantids go down in seconds. I body-slam one so hard it pops like a balloon, covering me in gore. Metal shrapnel litters the streets.

  I make my way to the National Guard’s battered defensive line, and a sweaty officer meets me.

  “Oh thank God! Thank you!”

  I’d give him a smile if I could.

  “It’s what I’m here for. Where else am I needed?”

  He points off to the east, the way I came from.

  “There’s a Goliath running down FDR, heading for the bridge. Something big went off over there, but it could still be alive. We don’t have anything that can scratch it!”

  I chuckle.

  “That was me. It’s gone.”

  The Lieutenant works his jaw wordlessly for a second.

  “Right. Then, uh. 2nd Ave needs some help. 7th was pretty bad, but Morgan le Fay is there. Bowery has a bunch of the Empowered holding it.”

  I start jogging off in long, loping strides.

  “On my way.”

  I splice into the radio net on my short jog to 2nd Ave’s intersection with East Houston. Panic, desperation, defiance, and courage fills dozens of different channels. More reinforcements are landing even now at Long Island airports. Flights go out with civilians, and come back with Guardsman, Marines, and Army. We just need to buy some time for the reinforcements to get in, and the civilians to get out. Every minute counts.

  When I get to 2nd Ave and East Houston, the defensive line is in the process of being overrun. One Abrams lies smashed with the main gun bent. The whole thing looks slightly squished, and the tracks are knocked off the rollers.

  The offending Goliath is in the process of slamming its massive rocky fists into a second one. The tank still fires back in defiance, coaxial machine thundering out. A brave pair of soldiers fire work a recoilless rifle, ignoring a Steel-Beetle bearing down on them.

  A booming leap ends with my fist in the remains of its skull, and I toss the corpse far off into the horde. The pair of soldiers ignore me, and fire the recoil into the Goliath’s eye. It explodes into lava-like gore, and it reels back in pain. Only then do they turn to me with wide eyes.

  The gunner looks at me in shock, only finding her voice after a few seconds.

  “T-thanks!”

  “Keep at it!”

  I charge off for the Goliath, summoning my blade into my hand with a crack of thunder mid stride. I slice off a back leg, and kick off of it. I throw the stone pillar off into the horde, and it crushes a trio of wolves made out of plastic and aluminum.

  Blood stains their shattered, jagged glass teeth. They fly apart with a screech of twisted metal and the sound of crunching glass. I use the momentum from kicking off the back leg to fly back towards the desperate defenders, slicing off another leg mid-flight.

  I stab my blade into the road, tearing it up while slowing my momentum. I stop just in front of the Goliath, and it looks down on me in agony, barely standing upright. The second leg I severed is keeping it up, but it can’t walk now. I leap straight up, twisting mid air.

  I put my boots just below its eyes, and with a boom, I kick it over. We go flying apart, and it flies back onto the horde with another boom, shaking the street. It pulps half a dozen Traffic-Mantids in the process, and partially blocks the street. The defenders cry out with a cheer, and they use the moment of respite to recover a few positions.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I fly off into an apartment building, slamming through the outer wall with a crash. The floor beneath me groans for a split second, before giving way with a crack, and I fall through the second floor and slam into the ground floor with another building-shaking boom.

  Fuck!

  I climb to my feet and worriedly look up and around me. I didn’t land on anyone at least, but as I look up, I see a Guardsman desperately hanging onto the edge of the hole I left in the second floor.

  Oh shit.

  I quickly call out.

  “Let go! I got you!”

  He looks down at me and my outstretched arms, and pushes away from the edge. Once I catch him, I put him back on the ground.

  “Shit, I’m so fucking sorr—”

  He waves me off.

  “Go go! I’m good! Go!”

  He charges back to the stairs without a second glance, scooping up his fallen rifle.

  Huh.

  I charge out through the front door, shattering it. I see the Goliath trying to struggle to its feet, and the Abrams it was attempting to beat to death backs up, coax and top mount machine guns firing wildly. The main gun’s tip is bent, and as I sprint for the fallen rock monster, the tank commander sees me, and calls out.

  “Hey! Hey you! Robot guy!”

  I abort my attack and turn to him.

  “What?” I answer back over the radio.

  He switches to using the radio.

  “*Hey! Cut the bent part off! We got shells to spend and it’s fucked anyway!”

  I quickly move over and cut the bent two feet off the gun, and give the TC a thumbs up. He gives me a grin and dives back into the tank, slamming the hatch behind him. I hear him over the radio a moment later.

  “This is ‘Dodge This!’, main gun is back up and killing!”

  The gun fires again, and a Steel-Beetle dies messily.

  The Goliath finally gets an arm underneath itself, and starts to sit up. I dash over to it, and quickly cut away the arm with my massive blade. It falls back with an avalanche-like roar of pain. I leap on top of it, and start slashing at its eyes.

  I carve out the remaining three, all of them exploding into lava-like gore. The Goliath clumsily swipes at me in retaliation. I manage to dodge the first and second swipes before the third slams into my back. It sends me flying off into a nearby park.

  I dig a huge trench into the ground, sending dirt and rock flying. I slam through a tree, rendering it into matchsticks. A few soldiers have to dive out of the way.

  I let my blade return to the fire inside, and pull myself out of the hole I dug.

  “Aight, fucker. Let’s go.”

  I charge back towards it, and with a leap, slam on top of its rocky body. I hammer a crater into it, and I kneel down and start to tear away at it. Chunks go flying, and as it goes to grab at me again, Dodge This fires a round into the wrist, knocking it away.

  “Get ’em, get ’em!” I hear over the radio from the commander. I hear the officer in charge of the defense call out to the rapidly rallying defenders.

  “Go for the arms! Keep it off him!”

  I rip more and more stone away. It tries to desperately slap at me, but between the tank, two Bradleys, and the few anti-tank weapons the defenders have left, they manage to grind away the remaining three arms.

  After tearing a fifteen foot hole into its body, I finally reach a human-sized geode. I put a boot through it, shattering it. Potentia geysers out of it, and it stops moving. I leap out of the hole, ready for more with blade in hand. Instead, I find that with the death of the Goliath, the rallied defenders made quick work of the few remaining monsters. East Houston and 2nd Avenue has held against the tide of monsters.

  As I drop down from the Goliath’s corpse with a thud, another officer, a Captain, strides over to meet with me. She’s a short, dark-skinned woman with short cut hair. Sweat and soot cover her face.

  “Thanks for the assist.”

  She gives the Goliath a nervous eye.

  “I don’t know what we would have done with you.”

  I shrug.

  “That’s what I’m here for. Speaking of that, I’m needed elsewhere. I have to go.”

  I look up, and to the west I see a massive hawk the size of a fighter jet dive down to the ground.

  The Captain follows my gaze.

  “Go!”

  I take off running, but I can only watch as the metal hawk, feathers made up of helicopter blades, drag an Humvee with a gun on top into the sky. The gunner hoses the Heli-Hawk’s belly, a snarl on his face and a scream on his lips. He gets something good, and with a chittering squawk of pain, it drops the Humvee. The gunner doesn’t stop firing, all the way down.

  Fuck!

  I sprint faster, but I’m still too slow, and I only manage to see it hit the ground. The gunner’s body breaks apart like a poorly treated doll. The Heli-Hawk dives down to the ground again, and a wildfire of rage roars through me.

  I grab a bench next to and with the sound of screaming metal, rip it free. I hurl the improvised missile at it, and it glances off its head. It aborts its initial dive with a powerful flap of its metal wings before focusing on me.

  The Heli-Hawk extends its claws as it dives to grab me, and instead of waiting, I leap up into the air, carving upwards with a mid air slash. My blade bites deep into its body, and it tries to abort its dive with panicked flapping of its wings.

  I grab onto a claw, and with a one handed overhead swipe, slice deeply into a wing, and we both start to fall. I twist mid air and throw it down into the ground. It slams into the asphalt with a boom, and before it can react, I slam down on it.

  My sheer weight hammers it in deeper, crushing something important inside. It squawks again, and oil-like blood spews from its mouth. I grab my sword with two hands, and stab into its skull. It dies with a final twitch. I wrench my blade free, and sprint for a pack of Trash Wolves.

  The Second Battle for New York rages on. I can’t stop now. I can’t stop ever. Too many lives hang in the balance.

  Writing is hard, and yootie has provided me with what was single-handedly the best advice I feel I've ever gotten. Even counting the mechanical advice on how to structure stories better, or to make dialogue read smoother. They told me when I was new to writing (I still am, but this was back in August or July when I first started) that the bumbling about phase was necessary. That even if I could skip that phase, I shouldn't. That making mistakes and learning from them was a key part of writing, and the very most important thing to do was to just make them. Was to write something I loved and use it as a tool to grow. You can't learn to write well unless you love it, because it's difficult and painful. And that, in part, is why you are reading Eschaton today. So, thanks again yootie for all the advice.

  There is no final perfection when it comes to art. It's a path without an end. But the beginning of the path is rough, unclear, and filled with false starts--but at least they're a start! Once you take the first step, the rest become a little easier. Please read Sunspot, and show a little love to a work that has dearly helped and changed me in so many ways.

  read sunspot now!