The otaku had made extra efforts on my case. I thought it was because they wanted me out, and they wanted me out fast. I had said to stay there until I had what I needed. They don’t say it out loud, but some of them are afraid of me. There’s nothing I can do or say to make them not be afraid of me. Well, they should have respect for me, but I would never hurt them. It’s not worth it. And they did try to help me with my mission. I was grateful, and I still am. They might be a bunch of kids from the streets, but they know their stuff, and they keep their promises.
On one day Shrew came to my room. She wanted me to teach her fighting with knives. She promised to get me a roast beef for my help. I didn’t want that. I prefer killing my own food. Then she promised to add me to her debt-list. I didn’t really need anything from teaching her, but she had been such a pain to me I wanted to have some kind of payback.
We moved all the furniture next to the walls from the big room in the headquarters. Then we trained for a few days. I was happy to see her improve. She wasn't as good as me or anything, but she did improve. After she seemed to be okay on her own I returned to my old routines. I stayed in my room during the day, resting, thinking, sleeping. Then, during the night, I went out hunting. I got something to eat almost every night.
One day the otaku called me to look at a map. They had found the lab. It was in another nation, in the tribe-lands somewhere. It looked like a long way off. It seemed impossible that they didn’t find out the exact location, but they said it was a very secret lab. Well, it should be. I just wonder how good contacts Luis and Stephan had to find out about it.
The otaku were thinking about a way to pay for the trip there and back. I told them to look for a place to rob and then sell the loot. They told me about a cargo that was about two million nuyens worth. It would arrive to Seattle very soon. Shrew seemed to have caught the sum and came there, interested. The otaku told us the cargo was blood honey. I had no idea what it was. But Opium, who we asked for an opinion, told us that she wouldn't go. Rugh didn’t want to do it either. They said the problem was to sell the blood honey. The otaku told that they knew how to sell it, but no one believed them.
We went through our options. The first one was to steal the blood honey. Second and third had something to with a man named Jinx. Not the one who belonged to our team. This Jinx organized fights and ran the Death Zone. I could’ve gone there and fight and win. I would get money from wins. It seemed a bit risky. I didn’t want to fight in front of an audience. The third option was to go and hunt some ghouls to fight for Jinx. The ghouls were good fighters, apparently.
I didn’t know anything about ghouls. We had seen two in the Arcology, but they ran away. Others told me that they ate human flesh. They had some sort of virus. Rugh told me their brains had dripped out through their noses. It didn’t seem likely. But I figured they weren't very intelligent.
Well, actually we had a fourth option. Someone needed soldiers in a jungle somewhere. It sounded like a great idea for me. Hired soldiers in a jungle. I was an animal from the jungle, even though I had never been in one. I have read that leopards, especially black ones, thrive in jungles.
So there were our options. No one wanted to steal the honey. No one wanted to fight in the Death Zone. No one but me wanted to go to the jungle. So the only option was to go ghoul-hunting. We went to see Jinx, but it didn’t get us much. I asked about shapeshifters. He said one shifter had fought in the arena once, and been very good. He didn’t seem to know much though. I had really wanted to know some false beliefs. I didn’t.
So we left to hunt ghouls. They were known to hang around in the Barrens. So we went there. We asked around, if anyone knew anything. At first we met this group of seven people. Rugh asked about ghouls. They were gangers, and Rugh didn’t seem to know his business. I thought I would've been better one to talk with the gangers, because he was a mage, but I didn’t say it out loud.
We went and bought two cases of beer. Rugh promised to give the other one to the gangers if they told us everything they knew. Other one was apparently for himself, because he drank couple bottles when we got out from the store. He then put the other case down in front of the gangers. When their boss didn’t know anything, Rugh shot the case with a lightning bolt. Then we kept going. I craved for a battle. We would've kicked the gangers asses easily. Opium was a good fighter. So was I. Shrew wasn't that good yet, but Rugh was. There would've been two for me, two for Opium, two for Rugh and one for Shrew. But nooo, no fight this time.
We found a bum who, after we gave him two bottles of beer, told that there was this old orc who had had to move because of some monsters. We found the orc and Rugh offered some beer to him. He wanted food. Opium gave him energy bars. He didn’t like them, so I offered to hunt some rats. He liked the idea, and off I went.
There seemed to be more rats that where the otaku lived, but these ones seemed more paranoid. I got bored of the rats running away from me all the time so I transformed. I caught one rat. When I was bringing it to the orc I noticed others taking some other food to him. Well, it didn’t bother me. I ate the rat myself. I returned to the others with my stomach full. Well, one rat didn’t fill me up, but I wasn't hungry to begin with.
The orc told us where he had been forced to leave from. He didn’t know what there was. Maybe gangers, maybe monsters. He didn’t stay around to find out. We decided to go there anyway. Maybe there were ghouls for us to find and catch.
We arrived to the place the orc had told us about. An old building. We went in. We walked slowly, downwards, floor after floor. Shrew and Rugh stayed behind to have our backs. Me and Opium went ahead of them.
After a while something attacked Rugh. I noticed something in the Astral Plane and launched towards the place with my knife ready. I didn’t pay any attention to others, I just hoped Rugh didn’t kill the enemy before I got my hands on it.
I ran with full speed, past Rugh, and slit the throat of the attacker. Rugh hit it with his staff. It was dead. It had bitten Rugh on his leg. Others were talking about healing. Shrew did know a spell. Heal spell. I told her that I knew she knew how to do magic and that she had been lying. I said that if she ever would make a spirit to poke me again I would not be so nice.
The attacker had indeed been a ghoul. But it was way beyond healing at that point. We went back home to come back the next day. We were supposed to come and catch them. I figured all ghouls were as disgusting as this one there. It smelled bad and it was ugly. I didn’t expect much from other ghouls.
We arrived the next day. Nerdy had bought a car, and we packed two large cages to it. There wasn’t room for more cages.
I had brought my sledgehammer and my knife with me. The knife was for desperate measures in desperate times. My main weapon was my sledgehammer. We would get money from intact, strong ghouls. Not injured or dead ones.
We returned to the building we had encountered the one ghoul. Nerdy drove the car to the bottom floor, to the car park. We left the car there and continued on foot.
After a short look we found out that there were no ghouls there. Shrew asked her spirit to go and see if the building really was empty. It was. Great, just great. The ghouls had just packed up and left with their dead buddy. I suggested tracking the ghouls in my other form. Others thought it was a good idea, so I got undressed and transformed.
I sniffed around. The stench of the ghouls was strong, but mostly it had faded away already. Our smells had covered most of the ghoul stench. Then I found the place where the body had been. I followed the stench outside. Others stayed and waited. My mission was to go and find the place and get back.
I didn’t get far until I saw a hungry troll. He had spotted me and was coming closer with his knife ready. I had better things to do than this and I growled at the troll, hoping he would go away. He was too hungry to care. He called me a roast. He walked slowly, like he was stalking his prey. I knew the behavior. I practiced it every night. I didn’t want to turn my back to him, he would've stabbed me in the back.
I turned to meet the troll eye to eye. I bent my back, I made my fur stand up, and I pulled out my claws. I hissed and growled. I tried to scare him away; I didn’t feel like fighting him. I hoped that he’d leave, go where he had come from. He didn’t.
Finally I got bored. He was coming closer all the time, so I attacked. He threw his knife at me. It hurt a bit. I scratched him. Then he beat me unconscious. It hurt a bit more.
I woke up rather quickly. I noticed I was carried. The troll had put me on his shoulder. I was happy he hadn't slit my throat. Or maybe he had. I didn’t know. I decided to wait for a perfect moment to kill him.
I thought I had my opportunity when the troll dropped me on the floor. I kept my eyes closed, planning on attacking when he’d turn his back on me. He didn’t. I waited and waited. Then it was too late to wait. He pushed his knife through my stomach. Apparently he tried to gut me. I didn’t want to play dead anymore so I grabbed him with all my claws at once. He seemed puzzled, told me to hold still. I didn’t, I jumped back a bit and then attacked again. This time I won. He fell on the ground, dead. I stood there for a while. I was a bit shaken. Someone had tried to cook me for lunch!
Others arrived. Opium looked very serious when she said that I was supposed to hunt ghouls, not trolls. I growled at her, took a few steps to her direction. Opium dropped her gun to its strap and showed me her claws. The claws came out from her fingertips. I decided to go back to my original search. I found the tracks again and started following them. I noticed Shrew following me. I ran as fast as I could for a while to leave her far behind and continued following the tracks calmly.
I reached a big building. It was an ypermarket, according to the sign. Apparently the h had dropped down ages ago. I sat next to the door and started licking the blood off of me. I wanted to be clean before transforming. I had time, the others were far behind me.
I had had time to clean myself almost completely when the others got there. They had left the car where I had the incident with the troll and had walked from there. Rugh was carrying my stuff. We went inside and I transformed. I asked for my clothes. Rugh seemed reluctant to give them to me. I asked for my sledgehammer, and got it. I told I could be naked no problem, but Rugh had to be too, to see how cold it was. Opium forbid Rugh from taking his clothes off. Finally Rugh gave me my clothes, but kept them so high in the air I had to stand on my toes to grab them. Nice if he had a nice time…
Others stepped around me to guard me while I dressed up. As I was putting my pants on someone shot Rugh with a machine gun. I yelped, grabbed my clothes and jumped outside. I jumped around on one foot to get my pants on. I dressed as fast as I could. I was a bit too jumpy.
I decided to go back in. It was dark, but I saw auras. I noticed Rugh and sneaked after him. He was glowing brightly in the Astral Plane because of a spell he had casted. I saw some small aura following Rugh. I followed both of them. I was almost certain the smaller aura was Shrew. I decided to keep my distance though. Rugh seemed to reach back to the other aura and pointed forward. I was finally sure it was Shrew. She tried to throw something somewhere. Opium was in that general direction. Rugh yelled something about a grenade and made a fireball that hit the back-wall.
We moved next to the wall. Shrew sneaked on the other side of the shelf, I followed Rugh in between the shelf and the wall. We arrived at the door. Rugh secured it. Then he kept going. I stayed, just in case someone came. I was ready to hit with my sledgehammer as hard as I could.
Disappointingly no one tried to come through the door. I heard gunshots and explosions from the other side of the door. I decided to sneak to the room through another door. I snuck to the door and waited for a while. I was hoping someone would come. Soon I heard someone left from the other side of the door. Apparently that someone had been waiting there, having same thoughts with me. I opened the door carefully and snuck to the room. From there I continued along the hallway. I noticed the front door closing slowly. I started to sneak to it. When I noticed a grenade floating in mid-air on its way to me I forgot my carefulness. I jumped out through the door. I saw two auras further away. They were quickly moving away from me. Apparently these were the ghouls. I followed.
I ran after the ghouls to a house. They went in. I stayed and waited. Opium arrived there first. I pointed the door the ghouls had gone in. I told I had seen two. Opium ran to the other side of the house, apparently to watch the other door. Shrew, Nerdy, Random and Rugh came to me almost at the same time. The grenade came there as well. Apparently Rugh was holding it with his spell.
Shrew called her ally spirit to search the house. It went in through the door. At the same time several bullets came through the door. Someone had tried to shoot the spirit. It came out quickly as well. Shrew talked to it for a moment and then Rugh made his grenade float inside. It exploded, and that was our cue. We went in.
We stayed downstairs for a while. Rugh was injured, so Random gave him first aid. Shrew told her ally spirit to go and search the house again, and count the ghouls. Rugh shone in the Astral Plane. He was watching from both worlds. The ghouls were easy to spot from the Astral Plane, just like me. I wouldn't be able to hide from them very well, but they weren't able to hide from me either. I was starting to get very bored.
Finally Shrew told us the locations of all the ghouls. She also told us how many there were. The ghouls had tried to shoot the spirit, even though it wasn't in its physical form. I thought the ghouls were quite stupid, despite the fact they were able to use machine guns.
We made a quick plan and decided to move quickly. Rugh told one of his elementals to go upstairs. When we heard sounds of fighting it was our turn to run up. I followed Rugh.
There was two ghouls and one elemental there. They were fighting. The other ghoul ran away. We beat the other one unconscious. Then the elemental threw the unconscious ghoul down the stairs. The elemental then disappeared, from both Planes, and we kept going. Random stayed behind to give first aid to the ghoul, after he had tied the ghoul up.
We arrived to the door the other ghoul had run to. Rugh went into position, next to the door. I opened it standing next to the wall. The moment I pushed the handle, someone shot the door. The door around the handle was full of holes. Good thing I was next to the wall. Rugh shot some cover fire inside and seemed to start running inside. I followed the example and passed him easily. I was shot once. There was two ghouls, and the other one ran away after he saw me. I went after him. I caught him, hit him in the head with my sledgehammer and he fell down unconscious. I turned back and saw Rugh struggling with one ghoul. I went back and started swinging with my sledgehammer. One ghoul was trying to help him friend, apparently, and ran towards me. I hit him. He fell down unconscious. After that we hit the only ghoul awake so long he surrendered.
Rugh tied the ghouls’ hands and legs together. I crouched next to him. Rugh told me to look after him so that he wouldn’t escape. I tried to talk to him, asking if he knew how to speak English, did he think, did he feel. I didn’t understand all he said, but he told I was an animal and spat in my face. I spat back. I poked him a while and noticed he had his sense of touch left. I figured the ghouls were creatures who had feelings, they thought, they were intelligent, sentient beings. I started to feel remorse. I felt bad. I thought I should’ve done some more digging to find out about these things before going out hunting. It was too late now.
We packed the ghouls to the car, two at a time. With the last ones we left the place. I felt like I had made a huge mistake. I didn’t want to do things like that. I hoped they would be treated with respect. Like how they had treated the shapeshifter. After winning he had gotten his money. And had a chance to leave. I knew it wasn’t happening. People were cruel animals.
When we got to the Death Zone I talked to Jinx. I asked about the fate of the ghouls. He told me that if they won their fights, they would wait in their cages for the next ones. I asked if he had any conscience left. I asked how he could sleep at night. He didn’t seem to care. I told him what I thought about all of this, and he offered to give me the ghoul that was injured the most. He told I could take care of him. What the heck would I do with an injured ghoul? I would try and take care of him until he was well enough to go away, but that was not likely to happen. I noticed how they reacted to me. They were afraid of me. They thought I was some kind of monster, a beast. And I also thought what was done was done. I couldn’t undo things. If I could, I would.
It wasn’t right, to catch sentient beings to fight for their lives for amusement. I didn’t care if they were not sentient, if they were just animals, or people. I didn’t find any compassion in my heart for people. But ghouls, they were different. They were suffering already. There was no good reason to make them suffer more.
After I got back to the otaku headquarters, home, I asked them to get me all the information they could about ghouls. I got a paper containing everything people knew about them. It made me feel even worse. I couldn’t sleep that night, and I didn’t even want to go hunting.
I got over it eventually. But I still feel bad when I think about it. I would never do that again. I don’t care about animals, people, or creatures that have no ability to think, but I don’t really know what I think about Death Zone. It’s entertainment. I hunt for entertainment, and fight. But I want to do it on my terms. I don’t want an audience to look at me when I fight. It feels wrong.
I had learned at that point that people were cruel, nasty beings. They wanted to make other beings suffer, and thought they were superior to everything else. Not all people, but some. Enough to make me hate people. Of course, my team consisted of people, but it was a bit different. We didn’t do things for our entertainment, we did it for money. Maybe Jinx is also doing it for the money. I don’t know. But I thought he’s a contact that might prove useful later on.
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