Friday, October 11, 2013

The running, Arcology, part 3. Demon-cat

After an uncomfortable rest on a meeting room I was ready to go. Too bad others weren’t. I had to wait for everyone to be ready, and it took time. But Ronin or Dodger (still can’t tell them apart… And don’t care either) said we had to move quicker. That we had lost too much time resting, and we should be at least a couple of floors higher already. It made me wonder if he had something personal against this Deus-person.

We climbed up again. Stairs, stairs and more stairs. Through a lot of office-floors. There were mazes, too, made out of offices. Don’t ask why. I don’t know… But we had to go into one maze. Apparently it was the best and quickest way at the time. The hallways in the maze were really narrow. I wanted to kick them down, but others didn’t. So we followed the paths in the maze. Opium was first, then me. And then Nerdy, even though I had loudly objected. He might see some threats attacking me again and try to gun me down before the threat. After Nerdy there was Shrew, then Random and Rugh was last.

At first I refused to go anywhere if Nerdy was behind me. He was too jumpy in combat situations, and still is. There’s no way of knowing what he will do. Opium promised to have a talk with Nerdy, and I let him walk behind me. I was hesitant, still. I wanted to take away Nerdy’s gun, but others didn’t think it was a good idea. I noticed that others didn’t seem to mind me getting hit with bullets. Or anything else that might hurt me physically. I got to that conclusion when Opium told me to get the otaku from the other side of the maze. She said that I was the only one who healed quick. I gave her a Look and, because others agreed, left to get the otaku.

After this I’m not quite sure what’s the order of happenings until we got to an empty swimming pool. It doesn’t matter. I’ll try to tell the story as well as I can remember, it has been a while…

After the maze we got to yet another staircase. Otaku were thinking that someone was moving the walls of another maze. We noticed it too. Opium thought we should leave the maze be and keep going. Nerdy thought we should go and talk to the people moving the walls. I thought we should go and shoot the people moving the walls. It’s not a surprise we did what Opium said.

At some point we got to an elevator and skipped a lot of floors. It made me nearly freeze with fear in the elevator. I nearly shooted out when the doors opened. But I didn’t I managed to control myself enough to walk out.

From the elevator we ran to a staircase and up. Then we had to take a break, because the otaku were not as fit as we were. We were there to protect the otaku, and they needed to take a break. I thought to myself why they didn’t work out… I had had to start eating the energy bars everyone else ate. They tasted terrible. Disgusting. But I had to. I needed to stay strong.

Suddenly there was a round robot coming at us. I think it was dangerous. Others tried to shoot it, but the bullets just bounced on the walls from the robot. It seemed to have an armor. I shot it with my shotgun, and it broke down. It rolled around on the floor, bounced a bit and dropped into a flowerpot. Then we ran again.

After that we met a guy. He asked us to go with him to a hall nearby. He claimed to be a worker, and living with his colleagues somewhere. He was some kind of electric worker. We stopped and I found myself a nice place to sharpen my sword in. I didn’t care about the electro-guy or his colleagues. Others were talking to him anyway.

Electro-guy took Nerdy, Rugh and Opium with him to his hideout. I noticed Shrew had told her spirit to go with the group too. When they got back, the electro-guy helped us forward.

After a several floors the electro-guy left us there and returned to his place. We kept on going, until we got to a landing in the staircase. It had a clear sight to a big hall. In the middle there were a group of people dressed in rags. Shrew’s spirit told us that there was a big spirit watching them in the Astral Plane.

The otaku didn’t know what to do. No one knew what we should do to the spirit in the middle. As the conversation went on I thought they had come to a conclusion. I thought we would go there. So I told I would transform. No one said otherwise so I took my clothes off and transformed. Then they decided we wouldn’t go. I growled for a while and transformed back. I put my clothes back on and followed the others. They wanted to find another route. I was certain I would’ve killed that spirit easily. Me and my claws.

We found a door which would lead us to another way, past the spirit without having to meet it. I wasn’t interested at all. A bit annoyed actually. The door was opened and suddenly everyone started waving their hands and shooting. I took a step back and noticed that there was a lot of some kind of bugs flying around. They didn’t attack me so I kept my distance and was ready to defend myself.

Then we returned to the spirit. I transformed, yet again. Rugh started to glow in the Astral Plane. We went there and started to walk through the hall, towards the other side. We were walking on the side. The spirit came to us and told that we should go back in the middle. Because we didn’t do what we were told, the spirit told us again to go back, and then went there itself. It materialized.

The spirit tried to attack, and its powers made me tired. I didn’t think twice, I attacked. I ran as fast as I ever could. The spirit was materialized, but hidden from the physical eye. I saw it easily from the Astral Plane. I heard guns and made a huge leap. I scratched with my front paws, tried to bite and kick. I hoped it would fall, but it didn’t. I lost my consciousness after it used a power on me. When I woke up, I tried to attack again, but the spirit kicked me and I lost my consciousness again.

When I woke up again I noticed that the battle was over. I had been dragged to the side of the hall, next to some building. I growled and ran back to the center. I enjoyed the horror and fear I inflicted. The people tried to avoid me, but they didn’t leave the area. Finally I got bored and ripped some rags off of some corpse. I transformed and dressed myself in rags the best I could. I asked the people why they were there, but no one knew. One of them said I was a demon and wanted to pray. I grabbed him by the arm and walked him to the side of the hall, threw him inside the building through a window and jumped after him.

Others were inside the house. I demanded to know who had dragged me from the center of the hall to the side. Opium dared to confess. I kept a speech to the group, I told them that I wasn’t happy if they dragged me away when I was unconscious. If I wake up in a strange place I will not be happy. If there is no danger, I should be left there. It won’t take long for me to wake up.

At some point the man I had dragged from the middle stopped breathing. Opium tried to give him first aid, but he didn’t wake up anymore. We threw him out of the window and kept going.

We had a long brake in some bar. I kept ranting about the shit people ate, and I would not eat anything like that if I had any options. Rugh suggested I ate people. I told him I would never, ever eat people, I knew what they ate. I noticed the otaku keeping even a longer distance from me now. They usually keep their distance. I don’t know if it’s fear or respect, but I don’t care. Either one is good for me. But I think it’s mostly fear.

In the bar I tasted lots of different alcohols, but none of them tasted good. I gave all my wine flagons to Rugh. I told him they were not good in my opinion. I thought it would be nice to tell him that Shrew liked the wine and Nerdy said his mother didn’t accept drinking alcohol.

At some point we were running along a road. We thought it was empty, that there was no one there. Then we noticed a group of blue-eyed people running towards us from a smaller road. It became a shoot-out, of course. I was shot also, but it didn’t slow me down. I kept shooting. Finally we managed to kill them, and I went with Opium to take some equipment from the dead. I think Opium grabbed a gun and some bullets, but dropped the gun while running. I kept the gun I took, it might prove to be useful at some point.

After the incident with the blue-eyed people we rested in some church. One of the otaku came to me with a beeping device. He said the gun I had had a tracking device in it. Someone went to throw the gun down the stairs and then we ran again. The whole stay in the Arcology was full of running. Good exercise though. We were running up the stairs, along the hallways, carrying heavy equipment with us. No wonder the otaku were so tired all the time. They didn’t seem like the athletic type.

At one time we were sneaking along some streets in a line. I heard whispering in some house. I had reached the window and was sneaking past it when I heard an argument. It sounded like the people had spent way too much time in a small place together. They started to fight. They screamed and fought some more. Random wrote a note and put it on the door. I glanced it but don’t remember what it said. Arcology doesn’t do good to my memory. I can’t remember things so well. There’s too much bad stuff.

At some point, in the middle of our escape, we were attacked by four medusas. We shot them down, and Nerdy had to fight hand-to-hand with one. When it was broken down it exploded, and Nerdy was nearly in the middle of the explosion. One of the otaku died there.

Nerdy seemed to be in a bad shape. We kept on going, trying to get as far away from the place as possible. Otaku didn’t have the strength to run. To be honest, I felt it too, the exhaustion. Well, my plan was to keep exercising if I ever got out alive.

As we ran along an open hallway, we noticed a flying robot couple of floors above. We shot it down before it noticed us. Then we kept running. When we got a couple of floors higher, we noticed a perfect decoy for us. There was this guy running like hell. He was running from a couple of other guys. We were happy to go unnoticed. Everyone’s eyes were on the running guy, and we managed to go past it all quietly.

Finally we got to a safe area. It was a small place with lots of cover. We went to an empty swimming pool. It had a cover over it, and it provided us with very good, safe place.

I went to a corner as far away from others as possible. I hoped to get out. I didn’t understand why I had agreed to go there without a pay. At times even the payback I so much desired didn’t seem good enough reward. It seemed like minimal pay compared to all the shit I had to go through. A huge amount of money spent on bullets that never got there in time, taking a huge amount of hits from bullets to my skin, one from Nerdy. Shrew’s constant “Kitty”ing, eating the shit they call energy bars. Terrible.

Now that I think back, it wasn’t that terrible, really. I was inexperienced and too hotheaded. Well, I’m still hotheaded, but more experienced. I would go back, and I would do it for free. Well, we are going there soon anyway. Back there I mean. Now it might be even more interesting, with the army there.

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