When Charles was sure the hammer would work, we all stopped to watch as he put the first heated tooth down on the anvil. The hammer rose at a lethargic pace, but weight and gravity did the rest. The tooth was noticeably flatter after each hit.
The old man kept going until he was happy with the tooth, then dunked it in oil for quenching and laid it down in a metal tray. We all stared at it for several long seconds. It worked.
“Alright, quit your gawpin’. There's plenty more of those to be done, and that thing needs a handle,” Charles barked, and we all sprang into action.
April was put in charge of the hammer, and she immediately began to pump out flattened teeth. When they'd been quenched, they were passed to me. I would hammer the new axe heads into the haft, then bind them with steel ties and glue. They weren’t the most artfully crafted weapons in the world, what with the haft being attached in a way that meant they’d get stuck if you swung too hard. However, they’d do the trick for now.
We worked quick. Within two hours we had twenty-eight axes finished. As we were finishing up, I turned to our impromptu leader and asked, “Do we have the gear to melt down the squirrel iron?”
“Squiron,” April corrected me, and there was a workshop-wide pause as everyone processed the pun. Then, in a chorus, we all groaned.
Charles was the exception. He began to cough and laugh. “Squiron! That's a good one. Do we have a forge that could do it? No. Could we build one? Absolutely. Do we have the fuel to do it? Zero chance.”
“If we tell the Captain what we need, I reckon he might be able to send out a party to get it later,” I said. “That way we can test if melting down the… Squiron keeps its magical properties or whatever lets it kill monsters. If that’s true—”
“Whoa there, kiddo,” Charles said, interrupting me with a wave of his hands. “We need to take things a little slower here, get a feel for our situation before we go building an industrial process and sending out looting parties. The government might still be functioning somewhere, and we don’t all want to get arrested for organising a heist of the local barbecuing shop.”
“Oh.” I said, deflating a little.
“If this turns out to be a permanent deal, you bet your enthusiastic little noggin that we’ll be setting up something like that,” he said placatingly. “For now, though, let’s focus on getting these axes to the firefighters and setting up more lighting for the survivors in the gym.”
Abruptly, a presence began to press down on me, crushing me more thoroughly than any steam roller. It lessened within a second, until I was just barely aware of the goddess who was making her presence known.
The apocalypse is permanent. There is no doubt. The Storm is vast and powerful, and beyond the comprehension of even great beings like myself. The divine structure-front might’ve been corralled here by malicious forces, but in another million years or so, this entire galaxy would’ve been consumed regardless. That is to say, nobody has the power to remove it, and we'd be fools to even try, at this point.
I gulped and tried not to let on that a goddess was talking in my head again. “Okay. It’s chill if I make preparations for this though, right?”
“Aye, it’s perfectly fine, so long as you’re also doing your part with the regular work,” he smiled. “We’ll need to be able to see at night just as much as we need weapons, after all.”
“Fine, fine,” I sighed, and began to load the axes into my pack.
April hopped up beside me. “I’ll help.”
“Thanks.”
She was quite a bit older than me, now that I had time to really look. Probably mid-to-late twenties, if I had to guess. Her smile was just as nice as Finn's had been — different, of course, because she was a woman, but still quite… quite nice.
The bag was actually really heavy once all the axes were stowed, but April grabbed one strap and together we carried it out the door.
Once we were out of earshot of the workshop, she threw me a sideways look. "You're right. Shit like this doesn’t just happen and then unhappen, so if we want to live through it we need to move fast and secure as many advantages as we can."
"Yeah, but how are we meant to get this stuff? It's not like either of us is a fighter who can go scavenge the rest of Edgewood for supplies." She didn't need to know that I actually could do that as Silver.
She grinned and leaned over to whisper, "Yeah, but we know people who can right? That Silver chick was thinking fast, she knew to get those teeth and send you in with them, right? If we can find a way to talk to her, maybe she can get us what we need."
I groaned and glanced away, pretending to be focused on the direction we were headed. “Nobody even knows where she is. She just ran around saving people and then sent the last one back with a bunch of loot. How are we meant to find her?”
The light of a lonely lamp played menacing shadows across her face as she leaned in. “Come on, Kai. You’re really good, but my ex was a pathological fucking liar. She left me with some pretty neat trauma. I can spot when someone isn’t being entirely truthful.”
Oh boy. Okay… stay calm, Kai, stay calm. Keep a straight face.
“I’m sorry about your ex, I hope he’s having a rough time right now,” I said, trying to divert the conversation away from the subject of Silver.
“She — and nah, I hope… I mean I don't want anyone to get hurt, even her,” April said, her confidence faltering for a second before she pushed through. “Come on, Kai. Tell me what you know. Let’s talk to Silver and get this industrial revolution rolling, yeah?”
“I don’t—” she gave me a stern look, and I wavered. April was queer, like me. If there was anyone in this place I could trust not to judge me, it was her, right? Making a decision, I leaned closer and out my mouth to her ear. “I’m Silver. I can transform like a fucking magical girl, okay?”
“Ha ha, very funny. Come on.”
I leaned back, and my stupid face began to betray me as I felt a blush come over me, and then waves of hot and cold panic began to oscillate through me. Oh no. Was this a bad idea? Come on, Kai! She could tell anyone and you’d be completely fucked. Even if some people were chill, others definitely wouldn’t be.
“Oh… shit, you’re freaking out,” April said softly. She eased the weapons down onto the pavement and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Dude, it’s okay, I won’t say anything to anyone. I know what it’s like to be queer in this place.”
Swallowing my panic, I let myself have a few breaths to calm down. "Thanks. I don't know what I'm going to do…"
She gave my shoulder an awkward but kind pat and withdrew her hand. "I don't know about the social stuff, but if you're her, then we can gear you up in some amazing shit and you can go out and scavenge what we need."
"Oh… okay," I mumbled. I think I'd just reached my limit of shit I could process. Today had been a wild ride. Sure, I'd had fun crafting and playing the hero, but now I was getting tired, and the horrifying sights of the day were lurking in the edges of my mind.
"We'll refer to Silver as a separate person, though," she said after a little more thought. "That way if anyone overhears us it isn't so bad. So in that vein… what class is Silver?"
I grimaced when I thought of my other class. Steve was right. It definitely sounded main-charactery. "Fallen Angel."
"What the fuck? How did y— she get that?"
"An actual angel crash landed in uh, in her backyard," I shrugged, getting more and more embarrassed by the second. All this stuff kept making it look like I was some amazing person, but I was so mediocre it wasn't funny.
April, wide eyed, motioned for me to keep going, so I did. "The angel worships some goddess that was trying to save Earth from this apocalypse thing. They call it the Storm? Anyway, the angel was dying and decided to give her power to Silver and suddenly she could transform into a girl with bunny ears and that class. Because of what the angel said before she died, um, Silver had a better idea than most of what was happening. She figured it was her duty to go out and use that knowledge to save people."
My new friend listened to my story silently for several seconds, then shook her head in quiet amazement. "Sounds like that angel picked right. Thanks, by the way. It was one of Silver's refugees that saw me and told me where to go."
"Oh… um, you're welcome," I mumbled. "We should get the axes to the fighters, though."
"Very true," she smiled. "Ready to keep going?"
"Definitely."
As we closed in on the front of the school, we heard a shout from up on top, where they obviously had lookouts. “There’s a herd of squirrels coming!”
“Oh shit, we took too long!” I said, and together we picked up our pace.
We got to the defenders just in time, and waved out to the fire captain. “Weapons, we got the weapons!”
He took one look at the bag and shouted, “Finn, help these two distribute the axes! Let’s go, let’s go!”
I glanced fearfully out, trying to see the squirrels, but they weren't in sight, yet. I hoped the makeshift defenses helped. The barricade of cars guarded the front of the high school, except for one two-car-lengths entryway. Beyond it, the parking lot was eerily empty. The high school occupied an entire block, so at each corner of the lot stood a crossroads.
At one of those crossroads, a whole bunch of squirrels suddenly blundered into view. Oil soaked torches had been placed at regular intervals around the perimeter of the parking lot, and their light danced in the eyes of the monsters, highlighting their insane intelligence. It was like looking at a pack of the most murderous wolves, rather than a bunch of mutated squirrels.
I rushed down the line passing out the axes, but as I did so, the squirrels did something entirely unexpected. It took me a second to even realise what’d happened. They just… turned around and left? No attack, not even a single probing pass at the barricade. One moment they were sizing us up, and the next they must’ve decided we were too tough of a nut to crack. That felt so wrong on so many different levels.