“I’ll be damned.” Dug shook his head. “An actual alien spacecraft. And you can really fly that thing?”

“Some of your guys may also be able to,” she replied. “We just need to get them to level up first.”

She continued leading them away from the shelter.

“Err … where are we going, exactly?” one of the women asked, throwing nervous glances to the side.

“This should do,” Nori said, pointing at an abandoned van at the side of the road. She bent slightly and jumped. Her Tec enhanced muscles carried her higher than she could ever reach on her own, and she landed softly on the vehicle’s roof.

Everyone stared, mouths opened wide. But their jaws dropped even more as a second figure jumped to stand next to Nori.

“Those attribute increases come in real handy, don’t they?” Martin smiled and set down the crate he was carrying. “I didn’t realize leveling up could make us this powerful. So now what?”

Nori shrugged. “We make some noise.”

She bent and started pounding the roof of the van.

“Are you crazy?” one of the men on the ground yelled in outrage. “You'll draw in the Warped.”

Martin rolled his eyes at him. “That’s sort of the point, Mage.”

“I see one!” a woman exclaimed, pointing a shaking finger at a faraway boulder. A cat-sized creature that was a mass of flesh and jagged metal appeared behind it. Noticing the tasty human morsels it stopped and hissed. Two eye stalks popped up from the mass of metal and glared at them.

Warped, level 2

“Damn, you’re ugly,” Martin said and aimed the Disruptor.

A blue ray shot out and hit the creature dead center. It screeched once then fell as a jumbled heap of cooked flesh and molten metal.

“Dug, why don’t you do the honors?” Martin said, gesturing at the corpse with his gun.

The blond man blanched but braced himself. He approached the corpse and gingerly touched it with the tip of his boot. A soft glow streamed out of the Warped and into him.

The rest of the crowd watched Dug as he stood motionless for a whole minute. Then he shook himself and went back to the group.

“Nice one, Dug,” Martin said. “Here, catch.” He took out one of the silvery Zappers and threw it at the man.

“I’m a level one Technician,” he said apologetically. “Not exactly the sort of thing that’s good at shooting a weapon.”

“Doesn't matter,” Nori said. “You’re level one now, which means you can use it. Just point and shoot. Here comes another one.”

One of the tentacled dog-Warped approached them next.

Warped, level 4

“Come on, Dug, you can do it,” Martin said calmly, his own weapon trained on the monster. “Take your shot.”

Dug held up his Zapper and fired. The gun spat out a short green bolt of energy. It hit the ground a meter away from the monster.