Doom System Survivor: A LitRPG Apocalypse, page 26
Bianca pulled her shield in tight. Doing so released a blast of furry pink tentacles that ripped down the sign of one of the restaurants. She laughed with glee. “The tentacles are even better now. Come on,” she told Hiro as she turned to the exit. “Let’s go fight the bunny people you mentioned. That sounds fun.”
“I don’t know,” Hiro called after her. “I promised another—”
“You don’t think we can’t kick their asses together?”
“They are extremely violent and unpredictable.”
Bianca laughed. “And so are we. Let’s make them regret the day that they decided to cosplay as evil-bunny-rabbit-people.”
42
BIG BROTHER HIRO
Since they were already near the entrance to the subway system, Hiro headed back down, Bianca following behind him. “Are you serious?” she asked. “Down there?”
“You haven’t been in the subway system?”
“God, no.”
“It will be faster than heading through the streets and safer, trust me.”
“Who wants safe?” Bianca asked in a playful tone. “Ugh, fine,” she said as Hiro pressed on. “At least tell me about these Hunters.”
“There are three, as I already said. Valeria and I—”
“Who’s Valeria again?”
“She’s…” Hiro was about to say that she was a friend, but he didn’t know if this was the case. “Valeria and her girlfriend, Rena, plus a guy named Juan and an Australian named Samuel will join us at the gate.”
“And you tried to fight the bunnies with her?”
“Bunny Triplets, and yes, we did. Valeria injured the boy. Also, be aware.”
“Aware of what?”
“The teenage girl one speaks.” Hiro heard Bianca’s sneakers scrape as she came to a stop. He turned to her. “You good?”
“That’s creepy as fuck.”
“She speaks, yes. And you’re right—it is creepy as fuck.”
“Did she tell you her name?”
“I didn’t ask,” Hiro said as he followed signs for the 1 Line. “As for how we should go about this, I say we hit them with everything we have.” He silenced another thought that came immediately after that. Maybe we’re doing this too soon…
“I don’t have much, but I do have a magic hammer, my shield, and projectile vomit.”
“Your shield will be critical. You need to protect yourself. Their ears can go much further than they seem.”
“And you? You’re the one with all the stuff.”
“I’ll try {Kiss or Slap} and {Edging}.”
She snickered. “That sounds so weird.”
“Actually, I don’t know about {Edging}. It could help us, or it could royally screw us.”
She gave Hiro a funny look. “What does—I can’t believe I’m asking this—edging do?”
“It allows me to bring my opponent to what the Doom System calls the brink of insanity. But it can also produce new traits. It’s dependent on my MIND stat.”
“Which is?”
“2.4 because of Roulette Boost.”
“Ooo, such a smarty. Mine is only at 1.2. But my Stamina is at a 3.9. Badass, right?”
Hiro’s stats came to him just by thinking about them.
STR: 1.8 [+1 Roulette Boost]
STA: 2.7 [+2 Roulette Boost]
DEX: 1.6 [+1 Roulette Boost]
REG: 1.7 [+1 Roulette Boost]
MIND: 2.4 [+2 Roulette Boost]
Soul Essence (SE): 173 [137 SE to next level.]
Stolen Valor: 3
He spoke again. “You’re more than a point higher than me in Stamina. That could be an advantage. You distract them; I hit them with everything I have. Another question.”
“I’ll allow it.”
“What’s your title? Mine is Wolf Ronin of Wall Street.”
“Mine is The Upper West Side’s Answer to Hammer Time. It’s stupid. I think it was an early attempt for the Doom System to try to be quirky. You know how the descriptions have gotten crazier?”
“Well aware.”
“I think it was trying that out or something and has quickly evolved. Dunno. Anyway, back to the Bunny Triplets, because I’m guessing we should keep our voices down soon,” she said as they reached the subway platform. Bianca curled her nose. “It reeks in here.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“Hey, that trick you used against the underground monster. What did you call it? A One-Hit Wonder?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you have any more?”
“I have a different One-Hit Wonder called {Trucks Volta}. I was planning on saving it for the Statue of Liberty—”
“Come again?”
“You haven’t been downtown?”
“No, I’ve kept to the Central Park area.”
“Actually, put a pin in that,” Hiro said, recalling the enormous skeletal croc that had created the hole in Central Park that had led to the catacombs where he met Bianca. “I was in Battery Park. The Statue of Liberty was alive. She attacked Valeria and me from a distance.”
“Shit.”
“So I was saving {Trucks Volta} for her.”
“Which allows you to…?”
“Summon an eighteen-wheeler to hit an opponent. But I don’t think it would take the Statue out anyway. I wish I knew what we are able to use, and what would happen once the gates open. That would be helpful.”
“I assumed it was everything.”
“Let’s ask and see if we get the same answer.” Hiro retrieved his phone. “Can I use my current Roulette loadout once the gate opens?”
The text flashed across the screen:
He showed the answer to Bianca.
“I really need more,” Bianca lamented.
“The only way to do that is to go out on your own to get more or do a Doom Sample Sale.”
“A what now?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.” He hopped down onto the track and looked up at her. “Need help?”
“Please.” Bianca jumped down as well. “And fine, fine, Big Brother Hiro, I’ll go out on my own after we deal with your little rabbit problem. It’s just…”
“Terrifying?”
“Yeah, that. But also I’ve made it this far by teaming up with people. I mean, before the Doom System killed all the superfucks and gave us a system, I was still teaming up with people. I wasn’t a loner like you. So it’s new for me.”
I wasn’t always a loner, Hiro thought, thinking of Monica. “You could take my Buster Kunai with you,” he offered.
“The knife that becomes a sword? You’d let me borrow it?”
“It’s a Roulette Weapon anyway.”
“I don’t know. You seem to like it.”
“I just use what the system gives me to survive.”
“Big Brother Hiro, the Ultimate Survivor.”
“Something like that.”
“What’s your reason for surviving anyway? Some people I was with earlier, they just gave up. They got tired of it.” Bianca bit her lip. “One exploded himself—he had a spontaneous combustion power which turned him into some sort of suicide bomber because his guts melted most of the area—and another threw herself in front of this giant crow, which lifted her into the air and dropped her. Talk about splat. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that sound.”
“Sorry you had to see that.”
“I’m beyond the point that this stuff is bothering me. Or maybe I’m just holding it all inside.” She shrugged in an exaggerated way. “I’d love to see what my therapist would say, but that bitch is dead. She was one of the first to take a power. Nowadays, I cope through violence. And these bunnies sound like they need fucking up.”
Hiro couldn’t really believe it, but he was actually motivated by her desire to pursue the Bunny Triplets. Yet her confidence was inspiring, and he’d seen the kind of work she could do underground, even if she was ensnared by the monstrous tax collector for most of that fight.
The pair grew quiet as they moved deeper into the subway system. It was only when a rat scurried away that Bianca tensed. “This is so freaky,” she whispered.
“We’re safe,” Hiro said. “Unless the dark can attack us.”
He instantly regretted saying this. Hiro didn’t know how the Doom System got its ideas or powers. If, like Valeria had hinted, it was mirroring the behavior of hallucinating AI, then anything could happen. I could even be attacked by Ronald McDonald, he thought, which brought a dark smirk to his face.
They reached the Times Square-42nd Street exit.
Hiro glanced up at the stairs, aware that they would soon be in Bryant Park and likely witness to something potentially horrifying. “Just give me a sec,” he told Bianca as he put his Hyottoko mask in his backpack. He produced a Munster energy drink. “Drink half.”
“What does it—” Bianca’s question was answered by a prompt after she took the can from him. “Nice.” She drank it and licked her lips. “Not bad. Not great, but not bad.”
Hiro finished the can and got out the Pink Bull. “This is for Stamina. We’ll need even more. The Bunny Triplets don’t have a Sphere of Influence. If shit gets bad, run. And don’t run into here. Get out of the area. We can meet at Columbus Square.”
“Okay,” she said, a hint of hesitation in her voice. Bianca drank the energy drink and gave Hiro the rest. She placed a hand over her heart. “That feels wild.”
Hiro finished the drink and noticed his heart flutter. “Wasn’t expecting that, but it makes sense. Finally.” He popped a Bleed cartridge in his vape pen. “This will make them Bleed more. You distract them; I’ll start hitting them after I use this. The cats will help; I’ll try everything else I have, and I might have to call in an eighteen-wheeler. I still have other cartridges, but we’ll try this first. Plus there’s my {Lupine Shift} power. My Roulette Skill.”
“If you become Jacob Black, get out of the way?”
“Who?”
“The wolf dude in Twilight.”
“Sure. Get out of the way at that point. Columbus Square.”
“Got it,” Bianca said with a firm nod, the teenage girl a bit jittery now. “I think I’m ready. You?”
“Let’s do this.”
“Bunnies, here we come.”
43
RABBIT EARS AND FINGER GUNS
Seeing the Bunny Triplets sent a shiver down Hiro’s spine. As they had before, the bunnies had set up traps for passing Survivors, the moaning bodies adding to an already gruesome scene in Bryant Park. The biggest of the three held the boy bunny in his arms, while the teenage girl stood a few feet in front of them, her ears twitching in curiosity upon seeing Hiro and Bianca. “Look who it is,” she said innocuously. “You brought a friend.”
I should have come with Samuel and Valeria, Hiro thought as he sized up his opponents. Valeria could snipe from a distance; Samuel and I could handle things. Juan too.
He thrust his arm out, as if to stop Bianca from rushing forward, yet she was already on the move. Fast as ever due to her boosted stamina, plus the Pink Bull she had taken, Bianca rushed to the right and managed to leap over the teenage bunny’s first ear attack.
“Fun!” the teenage bunny shouted, glee in her voice.
Kiss or Slap? KISS!
The biggest of their opponents cocked his chin forward and sent his rabbit ears directly to the ground. They came up like long tendrils with minds of their own as they tried to strike Bianca.
“Careful!” Hiro called to her as he summoned his phantom cats.
~Kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, NEKO!~
The cats unleashed, Hiro moved ahead as he took a rip off his vape pen.
He exhaled a cloud of red smoke and directed it at the Bunny Triplets. It spread over them just as a pair of razored rabbit ears zipped toward him. He jumped to avoid them and slammed into an overturned table in the process.
Hiro moved out of the way again as the ears ripped through the metal of the table. He used {Bounce} to get out of range by landing on a gazebo. He popped a Poison cartridge in and fired off a blast from his katanas as his cats all raced in.
True to her promise, Bianca was doing a hell of a job of distracting the Bunny Triplets. Her shield’s fuzzy pink tentacles flapped all around her, and her flying hammer whisked in and out, beating back bladed rabbit ears and doing damage, especially once it struck the largest of the three.
The biggest bunny monster staggered, his health bar taking a cut as he repositioned himself with the crippled boy now on his shoulders like Tiny Tim.
It was comical in its own murderous, maniacal way, the image breaking Hiro’s focus for a moment. The absurdity of it all hit him as Bianca battled masked Hunters in pseudo-BDSM outfits and did so while wielding a fuzzy pink shield, the thick threads of which were fighting razored rabbit ears amidst yowling phantom demon cats and Legend of Zelda energy blasts from Hiro’s katana.
He blinked this thought away as he focused his attack on their smallest opponent.
He knew he was spamming the skill, and he didn’t care. He wanted these Hunters dead; he could see wounds on them now and their health bars starting to sink.
Hiro would cheat to win if he had to.
“Wait!” came a new voice.
Hiro nearly fired his next shot at his feet as a hand grabbed his ankle. He glanced down to see one of the Survivors that the Triplets had used as bait, his lower half mangled and crushed.
He squeezed his ankle. “Let me help. I’ve been waiting for this. My… Roulette Skill. Lethologica. It will kill me. I’ve been waiting…”
Hiro looked down into the man’s pleading eyes. “You don’t have to—”
“Hiro, what the fuck!?” Bianca called as she started to feel the pressure.
“Let me help!” The injured Survivor brought the same hand that he had used to grab Hiro’s leg to his temple. He clenched his eyes shut and started trembling.
A great twist of light formed around his head like a halo as the downed Survivor opened his eyes. The light poured from his pupils, completely bathing the Bunny Triplets with its power.
Hiro didn’t know what was going to happen, but he certainly didn’t expect to see the Bunny Triplets’ ears all drop to the ground. The Bunny teen staggered forward with confusion.
It was the only opening they were going to get.
“On me!” Hiro shouted to her as he rushed forward, hoping to seize on their opportunity, one given to them by a dying Survivor’s strange power.
Hiro blasted the crippled bunny kid off the bigger one’s shoulders with {Blade Whirlwind}. This cut deep into the boy’s health bar as the phantom cats all turned toward what would be an easy kill.
[A Hunter has fallen.]
The Bunny teen wasn’t going to go down so easily, however.
Even if she could no longer shoot her ears out, she was able to hoist them up and swing them around like a blade, which she did just as Hiro neared her. He dove to avoid them and came up with a {Blade Whirlwind} that staggered her, the teenager’s health bar at the halfway point now.
“You’re dead!” the crazed Hunter said as she pointed a finger gun at Hiro.
Pew!
Hiro barely had time to register what she had done as the teenage bunny girl fired her finger gun at him, forcing him to fly backward. It could have been fatal had it not been for his duct tape armor, which absorbed the brunt of the attack.
How Hiro had managed to get his arms up in time to block it was beyond him, but he went with it, once again hoping to spam her with {Blade Whirlwind}.
His focus shifted as Bianca tossed her hammer at the biggest of the triplets.
It hit the hulking Hunter in the head and instantly returned to her hand. She was just stepping to the side once again when one of his tentacle-like ear blades came alive and exploded toward her neck, where it tore through Bianca’s lower jaw and came out the back of her head.
Bianca didn’t even have a chance to scream as the tentacle whipped her to the ground, killing her for good.
Angered, shocked beyond belief, and quickly realizing that the two opponents that were left had regained their powers, Hiro triggered {Lupine Shift}, the rapid transformation shredding his duct tape armor.
As the bunny girl fired at him with her finger gun, Hiro dropped to all fours and raged forward toward her, who cried out in shock as he drove his claws into her arms and took a huge bite out of the side of her face.
[A Hunter has fallen.]
Ravenous, everything flashing red, lupine Hiro crushed her in his grip and tossed the Bunny teen aside as he moved to his last remaining opponent.
He grabbed one of the bladed ears and used it to wrap around the big man, the sharpness cutting into his chest as Hiro put on the pressure. Leverage allowed Hiro to bring the Hunter down onto his side, get on top, and slash at him again and again with claws as Soul Essence poured into his chest.
[A Hunter has fallen.]
The hunger came.
Hiro fought the urge to feast and failed against the animalistic nature of his transformation. The world around him blurred as frenzy overcame him, one that soon dissipated, leaving Hiro lying on his back and gasping for air.
You have new followers!
“Fuck you…” Hiro finally regained control of his body. He staggered to his feet and wiped blood and viscera from his face.
A glance around told him the Bunny Triplets were dead, but they weren’t the only ones. “Bianca.”
Hiro lowered his head after he took in her mangled body, the damage the Hunter had done.
There was no healing from that.
He felt like screaming at the sky, at the boats hovering over midtown Manhattan. Hiro swallowed the thought that this was his fault. He knew this was the case, but he also knew that they had made the decision together, that she had egged him on in her own way.
“Never again,” he said as his eyes fell upon her fuzzy pink shield, Bianca’s hammer gone.
