The Reviews Are Rolling In! (Vol 1 Epilogue)

Cal found a hard plastic sword that was part of a video game display and swung away at the little mechanical serpents trying to bite him. While he was busy keeping those sparky boys off us, I was following close behind and skimming through my notebook for any info on how to finish them off for good.

“Have you found anything yet?” Cal asked.

“Not yet!” I replied. “Keep an eye out for June and anyone else! They’re in here somewhere.”

We hadn’t seen them yet. But a few screams of terror were giving us an idea of which way we needed to go to find them in the store.

“Bark Bark!” we heard Labrys call out as he jumped in front of us with a double bladed battle axe in his mouth! He swung it around and hacked away at several of the attacking serpents.

“Woah! Where’d he get that axe?” I cheered.

“Probably the same place I did. The weapons here are worthless though. What is this material they are made of?”

The sword and axe were both just a brittle plastic. This wasn’t an armory, after all. So the more the two of them were using those display only props, it was causing them to fall apart. No matter how real they looked, a shiny coat of paint couldn’t hide their fakeness in an actual fight.

“Bark Bark!” Labrys led us down an aisle toward a few people who were hiding from the serpents flooding the store from my broken computer, but June wasn’t there with them.

“Did anyone see a girl my age?” I asked the group.

“Yeah!” announced the store manager. “That girl you came in with is over in the television department rescuing a little kid!”

*BOOM!*

There was a huge explosion by the TV displays. That was where he said June was!

“Cal, lets head that way!” I pointed where we needed to go. “Labrys, help all these people get to the exit!”

“Woof!” he nodded his head.

I had to give that dog credit. He might not have been house broken, but he sure was battle ready. No wonder Cal wanted him as a pet so badly.

Cal and I raced to the TV department to go search for June. All the static in the air was messing with the lights, so it got darker on this side of the store. TV’s and their rippling pixels screens were about the only thing giving light.

There was another light though, and it was coming from a small crater. An orange wick of flame that was slowly dying out. At the center of the crater was a girl shielding a child with her body.

“Is that Friend June?” Cal immediately dove in and inspected her. “It is!”

I checked her and the kids' pulse. Both of them were alive, but unresponsive.

“June, wake up!” I shook her. “June!”

“Hmmm…” she grumbled, “Prin… Aurilia…” her eyes fluttered open. “Auri!” she shot upwards and clung to my shoulders tightly. “Oh my God, are you okay?”

She looked all over me for any bite marks or scratches, but I was fine. Cal on the other hand probably needed some help if anything.

“June, I’m fine.” I nodded. “What about the kid?”

“Oh, yeah.” She picked him up. He looked really young, just a little older than a toddler. “Labrys was getting people out of here, and the kid's mother couldn’t find him. So I… Well…”

“You saved the kid,” I smiled, warm at the thought of my best friend playing the hero.

“He’s not safe yet,” June asserted. “We need to get out of here and fast.”

I continued flipping through my notebook to try and find anything on these guys, but I was in complete panic mode and couldn't get to the right part where the snake automata showed up.

June took the book and opened it up to a random page. Then her face lit up with delight. “Found it!”

“That was quick…” I said, a little shocked at how easy that was. Speaking of shock, the solution was actually pretty simple…

“Do you remember how Cal used his electrical powers and accidentally fried everyone’s phones?” June reminded me. “We can use that same principle to overload the snake automata!”

They ran on electricity, but if we overloaded their battery, they’d explode. It was a genius strategy! The only problem was that if we were in here when Cal super charged them, we’d get fried like an egg on a Texas sidewalk.

“Cal, you think you're up for this?” I asked him, noticing he was pretty wounded already.

“If I managed it once before, I will do it again,” I asserted. “Firstly, I must protect the two of you!”

Cal slammed his foot down on the ground and created a shockwave that cleared out any snakes or stands in our way. We had a quick and clear path to the exit.

June picked up the kid and ran. Before leaving Cal, I jumped up and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Go get ‘em, Cal!”

Now he looked more determined than ever. Completely focused! Sparks of electricity were already appearing around him!

“Fear not, Fair Princess Aurilia, for I will defeat these foes!”

“I know you will!” I said as I backed away with a wave. “Good luck!”

I bum rushed it out of there, catching up to June just in time. The store manager opened the door for us and let us get outside with the others and Labrys.

“Everyone, back up!” I shouted, waving people to get clear of any windows near the store. “Keep going to the grass over at the other end of the parking lot!”

The further away everyone was, the safer it felt.

A bright yellow light flashed through the windows of the electronics store, followed by a big thunder cloud forming right above it in the sky.

*ZAAAP!*

A big bolt of lighting came down and blasted right down into the store! The thunder was so loud that it felt like we were going to get shaken to bits!

Electricity traveled right out through the walls and carried along power lines, frying any transformers along the road for about three street blocks.

Everyone's hair poofed up like afros from all the static in the air, even Labrys had one! We looked like disco was back in style.

“Zap!” I poked June.

“Yeep!” she jumped from the static. “Take this!”

“Youch!” she zapped me back!

Cal then came out through the front doors. His shirt was completely destroyed, showing off those muscles to everyone. All the ladies and single mothers were ogling him.

But he was my territory. I ran up to him and gave him a hug and snuggled my head into his chest. Every woman for a mile collectively let out a sigh of disappointment.

“You did it, Cal!” I cheered. “Did you make sure to get them all?”

“Every last one,” he gave a thumbs up, but then he got all serious for some reason. “But the job isn’t done, because whoever is responsible for this is still out there. I believe this was personal.”

It did feel that way to me, like someone targeted us specifically. It had to have been whoever sent that comment to me. What was their username anyways?

I ran to June’s car and checked my tablet. Thank God it had a rubber dolphin box cover!

“Wait, the comment is gone!” I said. “They must have deleted it.”

Actually, ‘all’ the comments under my book were gone. That was so strange, like they wanted to erase any trace of whoever sent them.

“Darn, I should have screenshot those…” I snapped my fingers.

June came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Auri, why don’t we go home. It’s been a long day.”

“June, it’s not even noon.”

“I know. But it’s still been a long day. Plus, we forgot to give Octo his UV lamp.”

Oh yeah… We kinda forgot that, didn’t we? Poor Octo.

^(0-0)^

When we got back, I transferred all my computer data and notebook writing over to my tablet. It was thanks to an app that scanned handwritten things and translated them into virtual documents. Where was this all my life?

That made posting up my other chapters a breeze, because now I just needed to copy and paste them into the AntHill.

A few days went by after that. I ended up contacting some of the moderators of the website to see if they could look into who sent that Email, and they replied pretty quickly and told me they were investigating it. They also gave me a heads up not to click on links people send next time…

“Oops.”

Eventually I started to get some real readers who were more than happy to send me feedback and leave reviews. Some were more flattering than others, but it was actually nice to get some real interaction…

-“Cal’s journey is an absolute mess. I took shots every time there were three pages worth of details on his muscles… I have poisoned my liver beyond repair… But I can tell that Dragon-lordess had a lot of fun with writing, because it just had me in stitches. Definitely not something I expected to read on this site, but it's a nice change of pace from the usual.”- BrakeTheGate69420

-“I love Cal! He’s a hottie! XD”- CydieCline

-“Just the other morning, I actually met the author at a store, and she was really nice. Apparently Cal is based on a real person, if you can believe it. Dude is huge! I wanted to thank her for helping me realize there’s more to do in this world than just spending all my money on live service games. I want to write like her now too!”- Haragami Senkai

I felt a nice tingle in my chest reading those. I even had them printed out and pasted on my wall and framed. It meant the world to me, knowing that my writing was actually making anyone happy, or even being read at all.

“June, did you see these reviews?!” I handed her my tablet. “Did you see? Did you see?”

“I did!” June clapped her hands. “Yay! But, Auri, you’ve shown me them like a hundred times in the last hour already.”

“Oh, then I guess it’s time to show them to Cal again!”

I handed the tablet to Cal, but he just smiled and handed it back to me.

“I’m sure if I could read any of this, I’d be even more happy for you.”

We probably needed to teach him to read and write English. He already spoke the language, so it probably wouldn’t be too hard to just get him to understand our alphabet. Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve been reading and writing the Queen’s English my whole life and I still don’t even get it.

“You’ve received Mail!” announced the tablet.

“Fair Princess, your tablet has prophesied again,” Cal said.

It was an alert that I’d received another comment on my book. It was posted by an account known as Spring-Mayhem.

“That name sounds like a music festival,” I snickered.

“-Dear Dragon-lordess. Reading this story brought back so many memories. Thank you for that. I hope you enjoyed my little present the other day, because I felt you deserved it.-”

“What the crap?!” I looked at the message in horror. “Was this person the one who sent that other message?!

“Mayhem…” Cal grit his teeth. “That name…”

“No…” June looked just as disturbed as Cal. “Why did she…?”

“There’s more to her comment.” I said. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to keep an eye on you and your work. I can tell you’re going to make it big, and I want to be there when you do. I REALLY want to be there to see your face at the end of your journey… Hee Hee :P -”

That was creepy as heck. It felt like she was some sort of psycho stalker.

“-Anyways, that’s all for now. Keep posting! You’re doing great. Sincerely, The Witch of Spring, Mayhem.-”

“-PS, Leaving a 5 star review. Tell June I said “hi” :) -”

“No way… This is that witch Cal mentioned before… She tried to kill me!” I looked at June, who was absolutely pissed off. “June, do you know who this is? Why did she mention you by name?”

June couldn’t look me in the eye. She turned away and faced the door.

“I don’t know why she would do that. We should call the police right now.”

Cal grabbed June’s hand before she could use the phone on the wall.

“No, I will hunt her down.” Cal said.

“You’re not strong enough, Cal,” June claimed. “You’ve never beat her before.”

That was odd of her to say, because I’m pretty sure she never read that part of my book. And I knew for a fact I hadn’t written that arc yet in the story even.

“June, what’s going on?”

“Nothing!” she yelled. “Just, nothing.” She let out a deep sigh. “Auri, do you trust me?”

“Of course,” I replied. “Why would you ask that?”

“Then please, just trust me for now. There’s things you really don’t need to know yet.”

Cal’s brow raised. “Friend June are you…”

“Cal, don’t say it,” June ordered.

They both had an intense stare down, but Cal blinked first.

“Fine,” Cal said. “But if we both have the same goal, then we are allies. Yes?”

“Of course,” June nodded. “There’s no one in this world I care about more.” She smiled at me. “Why don’t we go and get something to eat? I’m starving.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Cal agreed. “Stress on an empty stomach is no good.”

Did they think I was going to just drop this? I mean, there probably wasn’t anything I could say that would get June to spill her secret. But, I had a feeling things were about to get a little different from here on out. Before I interrogated her, I wanted to enjoy a nice meal with my friends and husbando.