Doom System Survivor: A LitRPG Apocalypse, page 32
Like his Chronokuma teddy bear, the Heelys were a Legendary Item, yet for his part, Hiro had yet to share what the bear could do with anyone. He wasn’t always a man of secrets, and he didn’t mind telling the others what he could do or what he had, but nine months of living in a way he could have never fathomed had hardened him.
Hiro thought back to those nine months he had already survived. With it came the memory of Monica—the woman who had stood by his side through much of the Doom System’s chaos, only to later be turned against him by the system itself.
“We should do it,” Monica had said the last time he saw her. “What’s the point of living like this, Hiro?” She gestured to some of the tent homes people had built in the subways, the filth, the depravity. “I feel dirty all the time. It’s miserable. We have to scrounge for everything or hope that the supers have something at their food banks. We have to fight for existence. The world is fucked. It was crazy when it started, but now, it’s summer, it sucks, it’s hot, and I’m ready. What are you afraid of, anyway? We have just as easy of a chance to survive with a superpower as we have down here. Well?”
Hiro didn’t know what to tell her at that point.
This wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument, and if he was being honest with himself, his reason for not going forward to one of the gates and getting a superpower was starting to make less and less sense. Maybe it was the summer heat, or the fact that he had to fight some other homeless people the previous day and it had been pretty brutal, but she had a point.
Monica was probably right. Give in, take a power, and see what happens from there.
Yet he never followed her to the subway platform or up the stairs from there. He merely watched her go, a sinking feeling in his heart, and now, as he crouched on a building somewhere near the East River, he thought of that moment to the point that it took Valeria having to snap her fingers to bring him back to the present.
“What?” he asked her. “Sorry. Drifted off.”
“It happens. Look.” Valeria gestured to a body that had been impaled on a flagpole. Hiro instantly recognized Kiaan, the Indian Survivor who had saved them in their fight against the crazed linebacker. Now, he was dead, his goggles still over his eyes, thick mustache curled at the ends.
“Stolen Valor if we get any closer,” she said. “Could be worth it. How many points do you have?”
“Four. You?”
“Three.”
“Might as well catch up,” Hiro said.
“Might as well. We’re all probably fucked anyway.” Valeria puffed her cheeks out. “Don’t tell Rena I said that. She’s right in thinking we should try to stay positive. But it’s hard. And what we’re doing is irrational. I’m not suicidal here, I haven’t given up, but all of this just seems impossible if you really take it in.”
“It does.”
“Not only do I wonder what will happen when the gates open, but I wonder what the Second Interim will be like. It seems like the Doom System is adjusting things on a whim, sort of coding as it goes. It’s irrational for me to think that anything it tells us, even something like a Hunter Counter, is actually real. How do we know it isn’t lying? Everything is sus.”
“And then there’s the Companion.”
“An extension of the Doom System itself, extra sus.” Valeria approached Kiaan’s dead body. His goggles fizzled off his head and appeared in her hand.
The description appeared for Hiro as well.
Unique Item: {Emelia Earheart’s Flight Goggles}
Rank: A
Upgrade: N/A
Description: What led to beloved aviator and inventor of the tamagotchi’s disappearance? Was it the Bermuda Triangle? Dark energies swirling in the air that would later signal the start of the Second World War? Penile microplastics? A text message from Steve Jobs offering homeopathic health advice?
Or could it have been the smell emanating from the infamous Fish Disaster of the Port of Volos?
Greece’s Pagasetic Gulf was never the same after severe flooding caused hundreds of thousands of dead fish to fill its waters, declining commercial activity in the region by nearly eighty percent.
Fueled by an intense wind coming from the Alps, the stench of rotting fish drifted toward Bermuda, where it infiltrated Amelia Earhart’s cockpit, throwing her off course.
The famed aviator landed on a tiny island of cannibals known colloquially as Carnefador. Rather than eat her, the Carnefador made Earhart their queen, but only if she offered her goggles to Sebastian, a singing crustacean capable of communicating with humans and assisting mermaids in their transitions.
Earhart’s goggles will allow you to see enemies in the vicinity. These include Hunters, Revenants, Sentries, and other monsters.
Valeria opened her mouth like she was going to say something about the description but never did. Instead she put them on and scanned the buildings ahead. “It definitely works. Batshit explanation mashing timelines and bullshittery aside, it works. There is a grouping of monsters in a small courtyard behind that building. Let’s check it.”
Boing!
Hiro bounced to the next building, while Valeria used momentum from her Heelys to launch herself alongside him. She landed, and together, they approached the edge of the rooftop and looked down.
“I see them now,” he said.
“Yup.” Valeria drew her crossbow. “Sitting ducks. Get Juan and Rena in close so we can all get the SE.”
“Got it.”
Hiro hopped down to street level to find Juan with his baseball bat resting against his shoulder as he walked alongside Rena, who had her arms crossed over her chest, daggers sheathed at her sides. Her eyes occasionally jumped over to Hachi, who traveled near them.
“Val got goggles.”
Rena gave him a funny look. “She what?”
“Remember Kiaan, the guy who sort of saved us in our fight against the football Hunter? Well, he’s dead. We found his body. And his goggles allowed him to see enemies in the vicinity. She spotted some enemies in a small courtyard just ahead. She’s going to snipe them, and she wants all of us to reap the rewards.”
“Fuck it,” Juan said. “If we can make our lives easier, I’m all for it. If one tries to get away, I’ll take care of it.”
“Cool, follow me.” Hiro led them to the building in question, and just about the moment they arrived, he heard the familiar thunk of Valeria’s arrows followed by the hissing screech of the monsters. Soul Essence rushed into all of them, and soon, Valeria stepped over the side of the building and skated along its outer surface until she was at the street level.
“Cool, right?” She scanned the area again. “There’s a Hunter over there, I saw the skull, and…” She tensed.
“Yo, what is it, Val?” Juan asked.
“The Lady in the Yellow Raincoat. It has to be her. I was wondering if this would allow me to see Player Killers and, yeah, it does. We should go now.”
“You and I can cut her off,” Hiro told Valeria. “Juan and Rena can come in for backup. Lead the way. And Juan.”
“Yeah?” the big man asked.
“Let’s finish this.”
“As quickly as possible, amigo. There’s no sense in letting her get a lick in.”
54
SKYDIVE
Hiro and Valeria thought they had the Lady in the Yellow Raincoat pinned. Through the goggles, Valeria had tracked her movements as she skipped right past a Hunter and settled in an alley.
“She’s crouched now,” Valeria whispered to Hiro, the two of them on a rooftop less than a block away. “I don’t know what she’s doing, but she has her umbrella. It’s her. Or another bitch with an umbrella.”
“We have to be certain,” Hiro said, repeating Rena’s words from earlier. “We’re not Hunters.”
“Not yet,” Valeria told him. “For the streets, remember? The gate is going to open, and neither of us knows what that means. Best we deal with thorns in our sides now. This is the Interim. We’ve been told there will be others. This begs the question, the Interim to what?”
“I haven’t given it much thought. I’ve been focused on—”
“Surviving. Just like the Doom System wants us to do. Look. I know Juan wants to kill her. I don’t blame him. But if I can take the kill shot, I will. And to do that, I need you to distract her. Your cats will help. My pigeons will help. I can summon my ash warriors. And you’ve got a ton of shit up your sleeve. We don’t let her leave here alive is what I’m saying, Hiro.”
“You’re right.”
“We have enough shit to deal with from the Doom System and its wackiness, yeah, you heard me,” she said, her eyes twitching as she seemed to speak to the system directly. “One less player killer will only make this easier.”
Hiro popped his Inferno cartridge in his vape pen. “We’ll burn her out. Make it easy. I can hop over, send in the cats, release a puff of fire, land, and go from there.”
“Use your potential buffs too, but not {Kiss or Slap}, just in case she’s already been injured.”
“Got it.”
“And I’m glad your dog isn’t barking.”
“Hachi knows better. I don’t know how Hachi knows better, but he knows we’re tracking something.”
The dog had remained in the streets near Juan and Rena. Occasionally, he would dip off into an opening in a building or slip into an alley sniffing the ground, but he never blew their cover. As far as Hiro could tell, the demonic Shiba Inu was going to be a true asset, even if it wasn’t exactly friendly.
Valeria extended her fist to him. “You ready to do this?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Hiro bounced to the next roof over, where he landed near an air duct. He took one more leap and summoned his phantom cats, who fell out of the air and into the alley below.
He cast {Thoughts and Prayers} midair, which, as expected, didn’t do anything.
Hiro landed on the edge of the next rooftop and spewed flames into the alley just as he saw the ends of the Lady’s raincoat whip to the side.
The fight was on, especially once Valeria landed and fired several bolts into the alley. One thing Hiro hadn’t planned on was the sheer damage of his Inferno cartridge, which ignited everything, from what was left in the dumpsters to some of the exposed wood that had framed up parts of the building.
Like it had been pre-emptively drenched with gasoline, the fire raged faster than any he had ever seen, making it difficult to track the Lady from the rooftop.
Thunk!
Valeria continued to try to hit her with bolts, Hiro doing the same with his finger guns. Anything to stun her, anything to pin the Lady and prevent her from killing again.
Daggers flew past Hiro, which he knew originated from the woman’s umbrella. Two of them clinked against his duct tape armor as he shouted to Valeria, “Get down!”
Valeria dove just as daggers flew in her direction. Hiro came up again, this time with his fuzzy pink shield, the tendrils of which had started to come alive. He remained behind it as Juan raced into the alley, the man in his full-bodied metal form, which told Hiro that fire didn’t have the same effect on it as he would have thought.
The flames raged below, Hiro on edges and waiting ,to see what would happen next. There were sounds of metal on metal, Juan’s angry cry, and finally, a surge of energy that spiraled upward to the flames like a tornado.
Once again, Hiro protected himself with the shield. Even though it was fuzzy in nature, it never caught fire.
He glanced to the other building to see Valeria on her stomach and creeping forward, crossbow ready.
Hiro wished at that moment they could communicate in some way aside from gestures. This made him briefly think of telepathy, which he instantly wished he hadn’t considered. If Survivors had powers like that, it would make all of this much harder.
But did they? When the Doom System handed out superpowers back in January, there had been those who were able to use telepathy. Some of the things that Survivors could currently do, the things he’d witnessed, all resembled superpowers even if they were constricted by a system that quantized everything or labeled it as a Roulette Skill.
Ask the right questions.
“But do it later,” he told himself as he focused on what was happening below. The fire had started to fade, yet everything it ignited created billowing clouds of smoke that continued to obscure the action.
Hiro mentally scrolled through the list of things he was able to do, none of them exactly helpful at the moment unless he wanted to use a One-Hit Wonder.
Hachi’s barking caught his attention.
He peered yet again into the alley below and caught a glimpse of the dog’s tail as it charged into the fray. “I’m going in!” he shouted over to Valeria as he drew his katana and jumped down.
Hiro expected to land on solid ground in the alley.
Instead, he kept falling, the wind rushing around him as he appeared high in the air over the East River.
The change in location was so sudden that he had no time to shout, no time to get his bearings as he plummeted to the cold water below, the impact so sudden, so powerful, that everything went black as a familiar voice shouted to him, “Don’t worry, I got you!”
55
NO ONE SWIMS IN THE EAST RIVER FOR A REASON
Bubbles and a brisk coldness were the first things Hiro noticed, his vision blurred, everything murky and jaded.
“You’re awake? Good!” came that familiar voice again.
Bianca? Hiro thought, recalling the sixteen-year-old he had encountered in the catacombs beneath Central Park. He gasped as he realized that he was floating on his back, on his fuzzy pink shield, the tentacles of which were keeping him from drowning in the East River, water lashing at his arms and legs.
Barking drew his attention to his right, where he spotted Hachi swimming toward him. Hiro finally connected some of the dots. Somehow, I was transported to the East River alongside Hachi. But how does Bianca play into this?
“Swim, dammit, don’t make me hold all the weight!”
“How are you speaking to me?” Hiro asked Bianca as he sent his arms out, steadying himself.
The shield floated up in front of him. “I have no idea. You were falling, and I was suddenly falling with you, bro.”
“You don’t remember anything?”
“Not at all. How did you end up in the sky?” Bianca the shield asked.
“My friends and I were fighting a Survivor who hunts others, a lady in a raincoat. I think I told you about her. I jumped toward the fight, and I appeared here.”
“You have friends?”
“Is that all you took from that?”
“Ugh, this is all so fucked,” Bianca said as Hachiko reached them. “Ugh. Did I already say that? Ugh, again. Hey, at least you got a dog. It better not piss on me.”
Hiro tried to make sense of what he was seeing. “You’re really the shield?”
“No, I’m the East River. Of course, I’m the shield, the shield that you stole from me. Kidding,” Bianca said after a quick giggle. “I’m guessing I died, and it was what was left of me—my soul or spirit or ghost or whatever—that was reborn into this shield. How spooky! How shitty. Now, we just need to find my body, although I don’t think it will work that way.”
“I buried you in Central Park.”
“Really? What the fuck?”
“It was better than leaving you out in the open,” he said as he continued to wade through the cold water toward the shoreline.
“Are you telling me that you tossed me in the hole with the piefuckers?”
“Is that a problem? Did you have somewhere else you would have rather been buried?”
“I guess that sort of makes sense. Anyway, you dropped your katana in the East River.”
“Great,” Hiro said as his hand instantly went to his sheath, confirming what she said.
“But don’t worry. Like a good, cute little jellyfish, I’m going to swim down there and get it for you, Big Brother Hiro.”
“Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t sure. Get to the shoreline.” She pointed one of her fuzzy tentacles out of the water and aimed it at Manhattan. “I’ll meet you there.”
The pink shield dipped under the water, and he turned to Hachi. “I know it’s strange. Come on.” He started to swim toward the shore, Hiro doing his best not to let any of the water into his mouth. “There you go,” he called to the dog as it swam ahead of him.
The demon pup was the first to reach the shoreline, yet he wasn’t able to pull himself onto a dock, which left Hachi wading there, increasingly confused.
Hiro came to a ladder and placed his foot on it. He glanced over to the struggling dog. “I can get you up there, but you can’t bite me if I do.”
As he had before, Hachi seemed to interpret what he was told. The dog reluctantly paddled closer to Hiro until he was able to wrap his arm around Hachi’s belly.
“Just hang tight,” Hiro said as he carried the wet, sinewy Shiba Inu up the ladder. As soon as he could, Hachi squirmed out of Hiro’s arms and stood on the dock looking out at the East River, his tail wagging until it stopped.
“What is it, boy?” Hiro asked as he peered out at the water.
He all but expected to see Bianca surface like a buoy and swim to the dock, where she’d easily be able to pull herself up with her tentacles.
Instead, he saw the huge vertebrae of the giant crocodile monster that had once rested in Central Park, the backbones parting the waves as they swam toward the dock.
“Hachi, come on!”
Hiro rushed toward the end of the dock, the demon dog instantly catching up with him. As he had just moments ago, Hiro grabbed the dog and triggered {Bounce}, which sent him flying horizontally just as the monster tore into the dock.
A great wave followed as Hiro hit the shoreline, where he bounced again to get away from the monstrosity. He held onto the dog and cast both {Kiss or Slap} and {Thoughts and Prayers} as the boney beast rose from the water, its hollowed eye sockets locked on Hiro.
