Felicity's Beast World Apocalypse-Chapter 13: Irritation

Victor clapped his hands together, the sharp crack echoing down the street like a gunshot.

"Alright," he said. "We move south. Find something that still has walls and more than two working doors. Finch, map it. Rose, take half the crew and clear the east block. Voss."

"With you, Silver," Voss said smoothly, already moving.

Victor’s mouth tightened, but he nodded.

Felicity kept her head down as they assembled. She focused on tightening the strap of her pack, on the scuffed toes of her boots, on literally anything except the feeling of eyes on her skin.

Because they were there.

Every time she glanced up, someone was watching. Sometimes openly. Sometimes quickly, like they’d been caught doing something they hadn’t meant to do.

Hunger. Envy. Hope. Curiosity. Relief.

It was all mixed together, impossible to untangle.

She felt like a drop of water in a drought.

Outside, the morning air was cool but heavy with the smell of damp concrete and creeping green things. The city looked different in daylight. Less monstrous.

More deceptive.

Ruins softened under climbing ivy. Fire escapes tangled with vines thick as rope. Storefronts reduced to mossy glass teeth that caught the light in dull, crooked reflections.

Beautiful, in a dangerous way.

Every shadow felt loaded, like it might move if she blinked wrong.

Finch skidded to a halt at the mouth of an alley, nostrils flaring hard. His ears snapped forward.

"Six," he said. "Fresh turned."

His eyes gleamed yellow in the dim light between buildings.

The first zombie barely had time to snarl before Rose was already moving.

And immediately swearing.

Vines ripped out of her forearms in a violent burst that made her stumble half a step.

"Okay!" she barked. "Still figuring that part out!"

The plants did not care.

They snapped outward like living whips, wrapping around torsos and legs with more enthusiasm than precision. One vine overshot completely and punched straight through a shop window with a crash of glass.

Rose stared at it.

"...Right. Less enthusiasm next time."

The rest of the vines yanked three zombies off their feet and slammed them into brick hard enough to splatter rot across the wall.

Her squad flowed around her automatically, blades flashing as they finished what her magic started.

"Six my ass," Rose muttered, ducking a snapping jaw and driving a knife through the roof of its mouth. "They multiply when you’re not looking."

Finch’s roar split the air as he launched forward, movement blurring into something barely contained. His claws tore through bone and rot like wet paper.

Giddy followed behind him, big kangaroo feet cracking pavement with every leap, each landing strong enough to rattle the street.

Victor felt it then.

The shift.

He glanced back.

Felicity stood just behind the line, hands clenched near her chest, shoulders squared despite the fear shimmering in her eyes.

She wasn’t frozen.

She wasn’t hiding.

She was watching.

When she met Victor’s gaze, he nodded once.

That was all she needed.

She lifted her hands.

And let the light go.

It spilled outward in a soft surge, thinner than before but wider, spreading through Snow Team like a quiet current. It threaded into muscle and breath and balance, settling into them without resistance.

The effect was immediate.

Finch barked out a startled laugh as his next strike landed harder than he expected.

"Everything feels light!" he shouted.

"Don’t get cocky," Rose snapped, slamming her palm into the pavement.

The street answered.

Roots erupted from cracks in the asphalt, thorned and twisting. One cluster skewered two zombies clean through the torso.

Another wrapped around a third zombie’s ankle.

Then a fourth.

Then five.

Rose blinked down at them.

"...Okay that’s new."

She flicked a glance over her shoulder.

Caught Voss staring, not at the fight at Felicity.

Rose rolled her eyes so hard it was audible.

"Oh my god," she called. "Silver, your boyfriend is doing that thing again."

Victor growled low and warning.

Voss didn’t even pretend innocence.

"Watching the asset."

Rose scoffed loudly.

"Sure. And I’m Mother Teresa."

She stalked forward, boots crunching over debris. "Try focusing on the zombies instead of the fox before I redirect my plants."

A thorned root twitched beside her foot as if eager to prove the threat.

Voss finally tore his eyes away, slow and unbothered, a crooked smirk settling across his mouth.

"Jealous?"

"No," Rose shot back immediately. "Irritated. There’s a difference."

The last zombie dropped seconds later, Finch’s claws tearing through the base of its skull with a wet crack.

Silence rushed in afterward.

Not peaceful silence.

The kind that came when violence had only just finished echoing through bone and muscle.

Heavy breathing filled the street. Boots shifted against broken pavement. Somewhere a loose sign creaked in the wind.

And beneath it all, the faint hum of Felicity’s magic faded like the last vibration of a struck bell.

Snow Team straightened slowly.

Bodies still charged.

Senses buzzing.

They hadn’t just felt stronger.

They’d felt... covered.

Like something soft and steady had wrapped itself around their instincts and sharpened them without demanding anything in return.

Rose dismissed her vines with a sharp flick of her wrist. The thorned growth sank back into cracked asphalt with reluctant resistance.

She rolled her shoulders.

"Cleanup done," she announced.

Then she pointed two fingers at Voss’s eyes and back toward Felicity.

"And for the record, if you keep staring holes through her mid-combat, I’m counting it as a distraction."

"Worth it," Voss said without hesitation.

Victor’s jaw tightened.

It was subtle.

Barely visible unless you knew him.

Rose snorted.

"Men are exhausting."

Felicity swayed slightly as the last of her magic burned through her system.

Victor moved before anyone else even noticed.

One step.

Then another.

His hand settled against the middle of her back, firm and steady. Not gripping. Not pulling her closer.

Just there.

A quiet wall behind her spine.

"You did good," he said.

His voice was low enough that it barely carried past her.

Felicity looked up at him.

The tiredness in her face softened into a small, proud smile.

Behind them, Snow Team shifted.

No one moved closer.

No one crowded her space.

But the formation changed anyway.

Ash subtly stepped to her left.

Sarge angled half a step behind.

Finch drifted a little further out, widening the perimeter without comment.

No one said anything about it.

It happened the way habits formed in animals.

Quietly.

Rose caught up to Felicity once the adrenaline burned off.

It was always the same window.

Ten minutes after a fight.

Long enough for everyone else to be loud and triumphant.

Short enough that Felicity hadn’t fully stopped shaking yet.

She sat on a chunk of fallen concrete, sipping from the bottle Victor had pressed into her hands earlier.

Her tail curled tight around her leg, the fluffy tip twitching faintly every few seconds.

Rose stopped in front of her.

Looked her over from head to toe.

Then sighed.

"Alright," she said. "Before you apologize, don’t."

Felicity blinked.

"I wasn’t..."

"Yes you were."

Rose crouched anyway, forearms resting loosely on her knees.

"You didn’t freeze. You didn’t overextend. You didn’t collapse mid-fight."

She paused.

"And you didn’t accidentally turn us into gods."

Felicity made a small face "I felt like I was going to throw up."

"Normal," Rose said immediately. "Means you care."

She reached forward and flicked Felicity’s ear lightly.

The fox ear flattened, then popped back up again.

"If anyone made you uncomfortable," Rose added casually, "you tell me."

"...Voss was staring."

Rose snorted.

"Yeah. He does that."

She leaned back slightly, glancing over her shoulder where the team was regrouping.

"Still doesn’t mean you owe him shit."

Felicity hesitated.

"You were kind of mean this morning."

Rose winced "Yeah," she admitted.

Her gaze slid sideways "Everyone forgot I existed."

Felicity didn’t say anything.

She just leaned forward slightly and bumped her forehead gently against Rose’s shoulder.

Rose froze.

For exactly two seconds.

Then her shoulders dropped.

"Don’t do that," she muttered.

"It works."

"I like you," Felicity said quietly.

Rose huffed.

"You’re lucky I like you too."

She grabbed Felicity’s wrist and hauled her back to her feet.

"Come on," she said. "Victor’s hovering again."

Victor was, in fact, hovering.

He pretended he wasn’t.

But his attention snapped back to Felicity the second she stood.

They moved out.

The next block turned into controlled chaos.

Rose surged ahead, slamming her palm into the pavement. Thorned roots erupted from spiderwebbed cracks in the street, twisting upward like living spears.

"Okay," she barked at the plants. "Not that many!"

The vines ignored her completely.

Zombies shrieked as they were flung into walls or crushed beneath tightening coils.

Finch tore through the openings with manic enthusiasm, claws ripping hearts free with surgical brutality.

Giddy charged straight through a pair of undead like a battering ram, bodies flying across the street.

Felicity stayed back.

Her hands glowed faintly now, the light flowing softer and steadier than before.

She wasn’t guessing anymore.

She was choosing.

A little more toward Finch.

A little less toward Giddy.

A subtle push toward Ash when his stance wavered.

And Snow Team followed her adjustments without ever realizing they were doing it.

Victor noticed.

He always did.

Only when the street finally fell quiet did Rose let the plants sink back into the earth.

The thorned growth retreated slowly, reluctant to leave the surface world.

Her irritation, at least, was gone.

And Felicity, breathing hard but still standing, realized something important.

She wasn’t just being protected.

She was participating.

And that made all the difference.