Harem Apocalypse: My Seed is the Cure?!

When the Hybrid rushed them again, heat poured off its body in thick waves. Smoke rolled up from its skin and shoulders until it half hid its own shape, turning the corridor into a blur of white-gray distortion and movement. Everyone reacted at once, spreading out, raising weapons, bracing for impact.

Rachel lifted her left hand immediately.

Her right arm was useless now, tucked tight against her side, but she could still summon barriers. Pain showed on her face every time she moved, yet the red shimmer formed anyway, thin at first, then stronger as she forced it into shape.

The Hybrid did not go for Christopher first.

It came straight for her and Cindy.

"Where are you looking?!" Sydney shouted.

Blue light flared around her whole body, gathering in hard-bright particles over her legs and shoulders until her outline blurred. She launched forward in a streak, fast enough that Christopher lost track of her for half a second. The Hybrid turned toward that motion and swung its arm across the corridor, aiming to swat her out of the rush.

Sydney slipped under it.

Her foot drove up into the Hybrid’s abdomen with a crack loud enough to kick dust off the walls. The hit would have folded any normal thing in half. On this Hybrid, it only lifted one foot off the ground and forced it back a step. It stumbled, not much more.

Two shots cracked through the hall.

Then two more.

Lucy.

She had been waiting for exactly that opening. Her rifle barely shifted between shots, the recoil kept tight against her shoulder, the angle clean. Bullets tore through the Hybrid’s upper body, and two of them punched into its head just as it was recovering from Sydney’s kick.

For one brief second, everyone watched for the drop.

It didn’t come.

The Hybrid’s head twitched to one side. Blood ran down over its face, and another growl spilled out of its rotten mouth as if holes through its skull were only a nuisance.

Christopher stared. "Are you kidding me..."

"Take the head off," Sydney snapped. "That’s the answer."

Lucy was already firing again before the words finished. More rounds slammed toward the same area, but this time the Hybrid got its arm up in time and let the bullets chew into the ruined shield of flesh instead of its face.

"We don’t need to get fancy," she said, voice flat. "We just blow the head off."

"Watch out!" Rachel shouted.

The Hybrid was moving again.

Sydney looked quickly toward Christopher and Lucy.

She could dodge. She knew she could. But if the thing got past her cleanly, the two of them behind would be exposed. Christopher saw that thought flash across her face and understood it immediately.

"Don’t," he snapped.

He meant it.

She was fast, yes, but one wrong read against that thing and it was over. Sydney clicked her tongue, annoyed at both him and the Hybrid, and pivoted back toward the charge.

Blue light flared around her again.

Christopher thought for one second that she was about to do something reckless anyway. But she did not go straight in this time. She angled the run, planning to draw the creature’s focus and peel it away from the others. If she could get it chasing her, she could outrun it long enough to buy them room.

The Hybrid adapted first.

Heat surged off its body harder the moment she entered its range. Sydney felt it before it touched her properly, a sharp stinging pressure through the air itself. She shifted at the last possible second, changing the line of her run, but not fast enough to avoid all of it. The heat licked across her hand and forearm through her sleeve.

She hissed and slid back hard, blue light skidding under her feet.

When she looked at her right hand, the pale skin had already reddened.

"The hell is that?"

By the time she lifted her head again, the Hybrid had ignored her.

It was going for Christopher and Lucy.

Maybe it had judged the rifles as the real threat. Maybe it understood exactly what kind of damage they could do if given another clean opening. Either way, it lowered its shoulders and rushed them with frightening speed.

Christopher and Lucy broke off at once, both veering away from the others instead of letting Rachel and Cindy get dragged into the direct line. Their boots hammered the floor as they ran side by side through the hall’s wider stretch, the Hybrid closing behind them faster than something that size had any right to move.

"It’s too damn fast!" Christopher shouted.

"We split," Lucy said.

She already had her rifle coming up even while moving.

Christopher looked at her like she had lost her mind. "The hell are you doing? It’s right there!"

Lucy did not answer.

She planted one foot, turned sharply, and brought the rifle to shoulder in one clean motion. The Hybrid was nearly on top of them, its arm rising again to protect the head, but Lucy had already found the line.

She fired three times.

All three shots went to the same spot.

The first smashed into the shielding arm and tore a deeper hole through the shredded flesh there. The second drove through almost the exact same place, widening it. The third passed through that opening and punched straight into the Hybrid’s eye.

Its head snapped back.

For the first time since it appeared, the charge actually faltered.

It slowed, only by a fraction, but enough to show the hit mattered.

And it got angry.

A violent pulse of heat rolled out from its body at once, less controlled than before, more like rage forced into the air. The wave came hard down the corridor toward Lucy and Christopher, and struck Rachel’s barrier instead.

The red shield flashed into existence between them and the heat an instant before impact. The whole thing lit up bright enough to paint the corridor crimson. The wave slammed into it and spread outward in a wash of distortion and sparks, but it held.

Rachel and Cindy were behind it, following at a safer distance but close enough to support.

Cindy’s breathing had gone sharper from the running and the strain. She kept her handgun up with one hand while the other hovered near Rachel’s shoulder, ready to steady her if the barrier effort pulled too much out of her. Rachel’s face had gone pale again, but she locked the barrier in place anyway with her left hand trembling from the force pushing against it.

Sydney was already moving before the heat finished dispersing.

Blue light ripped down the side of the corridor as she accelerated again, this time aiming wide.

The Hybrid did not turn toward the gunfire this time.

Instead it released heat in every direction.

Not a focused strike. Not a punch driving it forward. Just a brutal burst expanding out from its body at once, thick smoke and distortion rolling across the lobby with enough force to cook anyone still too close.

Rachel’s eyes widened and she threw her left hand up.

Red light flashed around the Hybrid, not as a wall this time but as a full cylinder, a sealed barrier locking it inside before the heat could spread through the room. The wave slammed into the inside of it immediately. Cracks raced through the red surface. The whole thing bowed and shivered under the pressure, and before it could fully break Rachel forced another layer over it, then another, caging the monster inside overlapping red shells while the heat kept hammering outward from within.

"R...Rachel!" Cindy shouted.

Rachel spat blood onto her own chin and kept going.

Her face had gone white enough to frighten Cindy more than the Hybrid did for one second. Her shoulders were shaking. Her broken arm stayed pinned uselessly against her side. Still she held the cylinder together, breathing through clenched teeth while the thing inside kept pounding at it with heat and strength together.

Then the Hybrid roared and swung its arm.

The red shell shattered on one side.

At the same moment Sydney came down on it from above in a blur of blue.

She had built speed across the width of the lobby and launched at the exact instant the barrier cracked, driving her foot into the back of the Hybrid’s neck with a hit loud enough to ring through the whole floor. For one instant Sydney felt vertebrae give under the kick. Not enough.

Heat surged again around the Hybrid’s body.

Sydney reacted on instinct and tried to spring away before the next wave hit.

She was a fraction late.

The Hybrid’s hand shot up, caught her by the leg, and before she could even swear it whipped her through the air like a thrown weapon.

She flew straight into Rachel and Cindy.

Both of them saw it coming. Neither had time to do anything useful. Cindy lifted her arms on instinct, trying to catch Sydney and failing completely. Sydney hit her hard, the collision knocking both of them off their feet and sending them skidding across the floor in a heap of limbs and curses. Rachel stumbled after them, pain flashing over her face as the strain on the barriers broke her focus and the last red shell around the Hybrid collapsed.

"You okay?!" Rachel shouted, already moving toward them.

The Hybrid took one step after the three of them, intent on finishing what it had started.

Gunfire cracked into its back and head.

Christopher and Lucy, both still on their feet, were shooting again from behind. The rounds punched into its upper body and snapped its attention away just long enough to stop it reaching the others. The Hybrid turned its head.

Neither Christopher nor Lucy waited to see more.

They ran.

There was no time to debate it, no time to weigh whether Rachel and the others should have been the ones retreating instead. Rachel was half spent, Cindy was rattled, Sydney had just been thrown through two people, and the thing was still moving. Christopher and Lucy were the only ones in position to drag its attention off them.

So they did.

They bolted out of the wider lobby into the next corridor, boots pounding hard over the floor while the Hybrid came after them with terrifying speed. It was too close already. Every step Christopher took felt stolen. The thing behind them sounded heavier than anything alive had a right to sound, each footfall punching through the hallway like a warning that it was almost done playing.

"We’re never reaching the stairs in time!" Christopher shouted over his shoulder.

He knew it even as he said it.

Upstairs or down, it did not matter. They would never get there before the thing caught them in the open.

Lucy said nothing.

She was still running.

Christopher looked back once and felt his stomach drop. The Hybrid was right there, almost close enough to touch. In that split second he saw exactly how this ended. It would catch one of them from behind, smash them into the wall, and the other would get half a second to feel useless before dying too.

He stopped.

He turned hard on his heel and brought the rifle up.

His hands were shaking now. Not badly, but enough for him to notice. Enough to make him furious at himself for noticing. He had not really believed he would die here when he came at first. Not until now, with the corridor narrowing and the monster almost on him and no miracle left in sight.

Fine.

Then he would at least buy something with it.

The Hybrid was only a few feet away when Lucy slammed into him from the side.

The hit drove him bodily through the nearest hotel room door and both of them crashed inside, Christopher stumbling over the threshold while Lucy hit the floor first, rolled, and kicked the door back shut behind them.

"What are you doing?!" Christopher snapped, scrambling upright.

It was a stupid idea.

That door would last half a second.

As if to answer him, the Hybrid’s fist smashed into it from the other side. The whole slab of wood cracked inward at once, hinges shrieking, the center bowing around the print of the impact.

One more like that and it was done.

Lucy did not answer. She had already risen into position with the rifle up, standing off to one side of the doorway instead of directly in front of it. Christopher swore under his breath and copied her immediately, moving to the other side and raising his own weapon.

He barely had any rounds left.

Enough for one attempt. Maybe two.

Another impact hit.

The wood split farther.

A third came with enough force to rip it almost off the frame.

They waited, breathing shallowly, guns steady, each knowing the moment it came through they had to place every shot perfectly or die.

The final blow blasted the door inward.

It tore off the hinges, flew across the room, and smashed through the window in a burst of glass that exploded outward into the night. Cold air rushed in at once. The Hybrid filled the doorway right behind the flying wreckage, huge and smoking and already moving to enter—

But then something hit it from behind.

Hard.

So hard Christopher and Lucy both froze for half a beat from pure surprise.

The Hybrid did not stumble. It launched.

Its whole body shot through the room as if struck by a truck, smashing over the broken carpet and out through the ruined window after the door. Glass rained after it into the dark.

And riding it down, slamming into its back with all the force behind the hit, was Ryan.

Christopher only caught fragments at first. Blood all over him. Clothes shredded in places. One arm moving with that ugly wind-charged force he had seen before. Eyes fixed on the Hybrid with a look that made even Christopher flinch.

Then Ryan and the creature disappeared out through the window together, and Christopher lunged for the broken frame to look down.