The night went quite well. Hector even managed to get a few hours of sleep. His ego had inflated to a dangerous degree, so he endeavored to pop the bubble by listing the many reasons he hadn't just done something epic.

First, Mila clearly wanted to bang a foreign demon who would be immune to her manipulations. She didn't have a lot of realistic options for that. The Titans were built on a scale that would be problematic for coupling with a normal sized woman. Fred was a Rover. That left just Hector and Leroy. Winning out over a simpleton wasn't a huge win. Hector's emotions didn't listen to his logic. Not one bit. He barely had the self-control to avoid flashing a shit eating grin at his teammates as they gathered in the morning for a quick meal of rations before heading out.

"Look at the smile on this guy," Nestor said.

Well, maybe he wasn't suppressing that smile as well as he thought he was.

Ajax held out his hand for a fist bump. "Well done, man."

Hector returned the bump and settled down to eat another tin of salty meatloaf. He glanced over at Cleo, who projected a suspiciously neutral expression. "What happened with you and Hunter? Anything good to report?"

Cleo raised her nose into the air. "That is none of your concern, Hector."

"I remember having genitals." Fred sighed dramatically. "It was glorious."

Within the hour, they were on their way. Their guide, a man named Wade, took them through a different gate than the one they arrived by and led them at a steady jog down a wide path along a meandering river fed by the lake of Breadfruit Village. They stopped once for a quick lunch break. Then it was onward once more.

Their guide stopped mid-afternoon and pointed off the path into the forest. "The poison comes from that way. I will return home now." His speed as he abandoned them was even greater than the pace he set before.

Everyone turned to look at Fred.

"Dense jungle is not great terrain for this squad to engage an enemy," he said.

Nestor scratched his head. "We still have a mission. What's the plan?"

"I'm open to ideas," Fred said.

"Knock down trees in our way," Cleo suggested.

Ajax grimaced. "Then we're tuckered out before the fight."

Thoughts of his first dungeon delve filled Hector. He remembered Conrad berating him for flying and drawing too much attention to them. Cosmic energy was noisy enough that it drew monsters like blood in the water drew sharks. "I can fly around a bit to get their attention." He grimaced as he volunteered. His soul reserves were still hovering around fifty percent despite his efforts to increase them. Maybe he should have spent his night before a battle more productively.

Fred hummed in thought. "That could work. Lot of risk to you, though."

Ajax rumbled in response. "Is he supposed to attack them?"

"No," Fred said. "Cosmic energy use is easy to detect. Let's do it."

Hector nodded to Fred and then boosted himself into the air with blasts from his feet. As he rose, he considered his energy reserves. This was so far from ideal. Every time he saved up a smidgen of energy, he immediately turned around and used it up. The expenses always seemed reasonable at the time. Maybe the problem was his insight caused him to undervalue the effort of replenishing his reserves. Cultivating was too easy for him and so he didn't conserve energy like the precious resource that it was.

He would have to do better in the future. For now, he needed to draw the monsters to Misfit Squad. The alternative was trying to knock down trees. Or splitting the squad. No, this was the right move. Hector hovered above the treetops, not trying to do anything special. He just needed to radiate some energy into the environment to get a reaction.

"Hector! Get down here!"

Hearing his name, Hector dropped down to land on Fred's top. "What is it?"

Cleo seized his arm. "Buzzing."

"Buzzing?"

"Lots and lots of buzzing," she clarified.

Hector turned to look at the wall of trees just as the sound became obvious to his less sensitive ears. Buzzing. And, just as advertise, lots of it. "Oh, shit," he said.

A swarm of insects millions strong erupted from the tree line. The individual critters were slightly larger than their real life counterparts, but the true danger was the numbers. That and the fierce reality-twisting force of their presence. They trailed misty miasma like they were casting a shadow.

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Cleo released him and stumbled around the top of Fred. "We need cover! Leroy, look for cover! The two of us can't take more than a sting or two without dying!"

The leaping idiot didn't hesitate a single moment. He just wrapped his arms around Cleo, crouched down, and jumped the two of them directly into the middle of the river. It was a majestic dive conducted with inhuman grace. That freed up the rest of them to focus on the offense.

Hector had no response to the situation. "How do we kill bee monsters?"

Fred was of no help. "I have no idea."

Fortunately, Ajax was quick on his feet. He ripped two small trees directly from the ground, throwing one to his brother. "Fly swatters!"

And then the swarm was upon them. It was like a cloud covered the sun, darkening the day in an instant. The drone of their wings drowned out all other noise, loud enough that Hector felt the vibrations tingling his bones. Ajax and Nestor swung their improvised weapons wildly, then faded from view as the press of bees obscured all sight.

Hector formed cables and began whipping them about. Each movement killed hundreds of the insect monsters. It made no appreciable difference. They collided with him in such numbers that Hector found himself battered off the back of Fred to land on the ground.

Fortunately, his aura completely rebuffed the thousands of attacks from stingers. Hector flailed about with his limbs, his cables, and occasionally his torso when he was knocked down and chose to smash anything between him and the ground to death during his fall. His clothes were torn and corroded into oblivion, leaving him exposed to the swarm.

Then something struck him hard enough that Hector found himself thrown through the air to hit water. It didn't take him any time at all to realize one of the Titans caught him with their improvised fly swatters. He sank in an instant and discovered a blessed relief from the ominous buzzing. The sound had begun to infect his mind in an odd manner. Hector felt the tiny bodies brought along for the ride begin to decay into raw miasma in the water. Which gave him an idea.

With larger cables, Hector began to froth the water and toss it into the air, creating an artificial storm. He emerged from the river on pillars of cosmic energy and continued his watery assault. The hum of the swarm was greatly reduced as he rejoined the battle.

Tree trunks whistled through the air as the Titans batted at the air, thinning the enemy ranks with every motion. Hector landed back on solid ground and used his cables like a fan to stir up the air, blasting bees into the river. It might be an environmental disaster for whatever was downstream, but the monsters had to die.

"I need another tree," Nestor shouted.

"Take mine," Ajax responded. Then there was a crackling of wood. "Shit! Snake!"

Hector was able to see through the thinned swarm. Ajax had a monster latched onto his arm. He squeezed the snake's skull with his free hand to shatter it, whereupon the entire body began to vaporize. Ajax stumbled away holding his wound. "Shit! Venom! It got me!"

At the moment, the only thing Hector could do to help his comrade was keep killing bugs. He flailed with his cables, flinging tiny monsters into water, then flinging water into the air to bring down more of their number. He bled cosmic energy through his efforts. Just twenty percent reserves left.

Nestor was like a cartoon Tasmanian devil spinning about with an entire tree as a makeshift swatter. He screamed at the enemy with a fiery vitriol, mixing profanities and wordless growls. The monsters, single-minded in their quest to kill, never were hard to locate. They were always right there, always attacking. Finally, the swarm was gone, only a few of their number lingering about, too wet to fly but crawling towards their human opponents with twitching stingers ready.

"We need to retreat and regroup," Fred snapped out.

Ajax collapsed to the ground, moaning with the volume of a tree collapsing. Nestor was by his brother in an instant, studying the arm with black veins spreading upwards. He lifted Ajax and was about to run when a large form fell from the sky like a meteor and rocked the countryside, sending up a cloud of debris.

Hector returned to his feet after his fall just in time to receive a flurry of blows to his head and shoulders, each one powerful enough to turn an unenhanced human into paste. He didn't go flying simply because the strikes directed the force straight down. Then Nestor was there, drop-kicking the monster away from him.

A glance back showed Ajax now lay atop Fred. The Rover, for his part, came forward with a sword arm extended from each side. Seeing the things for the first time, Hector felt a moment of alarm. The multiply articulated arms ended in blades as long as Hector was tall.

The monster soon charged back at them, giving Hector his first chance to see what they were up against. Fucking King Kong. Hector whipped a cable at the face of the massive gorilla, taking out an eye with his first strike. The monster didn't stop its forward momentum and a swipe of its arm sent Hector ricocheting off the wall of trees back onto the dirt path.

Fred was past him then, a sword arm taking off a gorilla arm with a textbook perfect swing. Then the monster used its remaining arm to rip off the sword arm, which made the exchange far less promising. Each opponent had lost a limb in an even trade.

Nestor punched the side of the gorilla's head hard enough that it collapsed to the ground. Rather than remain down, it popped up and shuffled sideways to bite at one of Fred's tires. There was a squeal of tortured metal and then a snap. The entire rim tore free. Hector poked out the remaining eye with a cable. Nestor drove his heel onto the back of a gorilla leg with enough force to shatter it.

The roar of large cats came from the forest.

"Get out of here, Fred! Take my brother to safety!"

Hector seized the face of the gorilla with both hands. As it opened its mouth to bite, he looped a length of cable around the tongue and pressed it back into the throat to create an obstruction at the epiglottis, blocking both the food pipe and wind pipe from functioning. Then he flared his aura to prevent the bite from tearing off his entire head.

Eight percent energy reserves. Getting laid was definitely not worth dying for. From now on, he would cultivate before every battle.

Nestor dragged the monster off of Hector, then spun to face the cougar leaping in their direction. The Titan drove a fist down its throat, then beat the thing to death with his other arm. The decaying beast dropped to the ground as Nestor went for another cougar. Meanwhile, Hector flailed about with his cables, beating another two great cats senseless while he continued suffocating the gorilla with its own tongue.

Fred was escaping back upstream with a comatose Ajax on his back, legs dangling over one side. The rover had to use the remaining sword arm as a cane to compensate for the missing tire. Even so, their squad leader made good time with his retreat.

Hector and Nestor just needed to make sure nothing followed.

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