Doom System Survivor: A LitRPG Apocalypse, page 35
It was a familiar path by this point—hop down to the tracks, squeeze past the end of one of the dormant trains, keep close to the wall as he ignored the rats, get to the platform, take the yellow ladder, and the stairs from there.
All in the dark.
Hiro could do this with or without the light on his backpack, which was why it was so frightening when Hachi barked, and he looked ahead into the pitch black to see a pair of red eyes staring back at him just as he reached the platform.
By this point, it was instinctual.
Hiro reached into the air above his head and drew his massive odachi, a rare growl coming to him. “Let’s go,” he growled.
59
KILLING SPREE
Hachi rushed forward toward the Spectator, who jumped back and released a series of throwing knives at the demonic dog. The knives hit Hachi and exploded, the dog torn to shreds as bits of its body ignited.
“Nooo!” Bianca shouted. “But he was so young…”
Hiro blasted at the Spectator with {Blade Whirlwind}. He rushed toward what was left of Hachi and picked a bit of flesh, which he pocketed. I hope this is how it works, he thought as he moved to attack the Spectator.
The light on his carabiner did little to reveal what the masked Spectator looked like, yet from what Hiro had already seen, his opponent was easily eight feet tall, male, and in a pair of thick red robes, the tails of which seemed almost symbiotic. His blazing red eyes were the only thing Hiro saw of his face, which was mostly concealed by a gorget.
Hiro summoned his phantom cats as he jumped back to avoid a spiraled attack by the Spectator, one that reminded him of the way Samuel fought with his cloak.
The cats rushed into the fray, yowling as Hiro cast {Kiss or Slap}, failed, and followed this up with {Thoughts and Prayers}, which seemed all but useless.
I have a Bleed cartridge, but I should probably save that, he thought as he sent his odachi away and went for his katana. Rune of the Reverse Blade can get the Bleed started; I can follow that up by spamming {Blade Whirlwind} if I have to.
To distract his opponent, he shot the Spectator in the face with his finger gun. This didn’t do any damage, but the sparks it created allowed Hiro to rush in and deliver his first strike. The Spectator slashed at him with the ends of his robes, which had a razor’s edge sharp enough to cut through the concrete platform.
“Put me in, coach!” Bianca said. Rather than wait, the teenager-turned-shield used her fuzzy tendrils to move from his back to his arm. “There, that’s better!”
With no health bar and no way of knowing how powerful the Spectator actually was, Hiro remained as cautious as ever. He jumped back, avoided a quick slash, and came forward, his blade held upside down as he delivered a slash directly toward the Spectator’s center.
Because of the way he held his katana, it wasn’t possible for him to drive his blade through the Spectator’s midsection, yet he was able to cause more Bleed damage, especially after he followed the strike with a quick attack that drew another wound.
That should be enough.
Hiro ran toward the platform exit, sent his katana away, and drew his odachi. He turned back to the Spectator just as the man lunged toward him, yet again unleashing explosive daggers.
He was certain as he turned his head that without the duct-tape armor on his mask, the bits of stone and metal that resulted would have killed him, a headshot from shrapnel, even if Bianca had shifted at the last moment to protect him as best she could.
“Now’s your chance!” she said as a blast of {Blade Whirlwind} from his odachi staggered the Spectator, who now bled profusely, his red robes saturated. He left a trail of blood as he hobbled toward Hiro, prepared to strike again.
“This one is yours, Hachi.” Hiro grabbed the strip of demon dog flesh out of his pocket and tossed it to the ground. The transformation was rapid, the flesh expanding, forming bone, and quickly melding into the body of a Shiba Inu.
“Hell yeah,” Bianca said. “Sicc him, boy!”
Hachi leaped toward the Spectator, who was unable to strike the dog away as the two hit the ground. Going straight for his jugular, Hachi grabbed on and didn’t let go until Soul Essence rushed into Hiro.
You have new followers!
“Good,” Hiro told Hachi once the Spectator’s body started to fade. The dog just sat there looking at him, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as if he hadn’t just been blown to pieces.
“How did you bring him back to life?” Bianca asked. “Follow-up question: can you do the same to me? I’m tired of being a fuzzy little shield.”
“It’s a trait he has.” Hiro looked up at the stairs that funneled out of the subway. Something told him that all of this was about to get exceedingly worse. This one seemed to be waiting for me. That, or he was patrolling the subway systems.
He got out his phone.
“Who you gonna call?” Bianca asked. “Didn’t the first Ghostbusters take place in New York City? I think my dad told me that was the case.”
“It did,” Hiro told her as he focused on the phone screen. “What can you tell me about Spectators?”
The text took a moment to appear.
He read the message aloud for Bianca.
“What utter bullshit,” she said. “The followers aren’t real, nor are the people sacrificing them, and for that matter, anyone ‘watching’ whatever is going on here. Total BS.”
“I don’t disagree entirely, but at this point, we have to accept it as real.”
“I know that, Big Brother.”
Hiro almost told her not to call him that, but then he decided it wasn’t worth it. He was a single child, and as far as he knew, she had been as well. Things were dire enough not to get into the weeds.
“Companion,” Hiro said, addressing his phone directly. “If I kill more Spectators, will that reduce the number of followers I lose when purchasing something?”
Once again, Hiro looked up at the exit. “In that case, it’s time… I can’t believe I’m saying this.”
“Do it,” Bianca teased.
“It’s time to go on a killing spree. We’ll check on Val and the others. Hopefully get some backup. If not, it’s just you and me.”
Hachi barked.
“And you,” Hiro assured the demon dog.
60
HATERADE
The next fight came the moment he stepped out of the subway station, Hiro barely having the time to take in the wild changes in the sky over New York City.
Two Spectators, each with a pair of arm blades, descended on him, whirling about, the ends of their red robes whipping all around them.
Bianca wrapped a tentacle around the neck of the first Spectator and slammed him into the pavement. “Got one!”
Hachi followed this up by leaping onto their downed opponent and grabbing onto the back of his neck. As the demon dog finished off the Spectator, Hiro turned to the other and blasted the Spectator back with {Blade Whirlwind}.
His opponent dodged by rolling to the right.
He came back up to his feet and bounded toward Hiro, who managed to block some of his attack with his duct-tape armor. As the Spectator stepped away, red eyes charging, Hiro loosed his Buster Kunai in his opponent’s direction.
It whistled through the air, growing in size, and grazing against the Spectator as he tried to roll out of the way again.
An overturned car did it.
Hiro’s opponent smacked into the Toyota and fell onto its hood as Hiro bounced into the air, blade held in reverse grip as he drove the blade into the Spectator’s chest.
“Do you speak?” Hiro asked as he glared down at the Spectator.
The man laughed and expired.
You have new followers!
Soul Essence poured into Hiro as Bianca used her tentacles to return to his arm. He finally got a chance to examine the sky, which had turned an even deeper shade of crimson. Now populated across the sky in place of clouds were enormous yellow eyes, some of which blinked.
“What the fuck…” Hiro said under his breath.
“That was dramatic,” Bianca told him, “but fun.”
“Can you see the sky?”
“Not exactly. Why? Still solar eclipse of the heart, or whatever?”
“It’s filled with huge yellow eyes.”
“Um, what? How huge?”
“I don’t know. The size of the moon? It’s not great,” Hiro told her. “And nothing about this is fun.”
“Come on, you sort of enjoy it. I can tell, you know.”
Hiro paused for a moment as he got his bearings. He was a block south of the place where Valeria and the others were staying. “What the hell do you mean?”
“What were you doing before the Doom System came? You told me. Or you didn’t. I met too many people, and all their backstories are starting to run together.”
“I did a lot of things,” Hiro said as he whistled for Hachi to follow. The demon dog stayed close, sniffing at the ground.
“Ooo, so mysterious. Really, did you tell me already? I can’t keep track. I’m scatterbrained. Or scattershielded? God, I hate being this round. I can’t tell you how much it sucks being pink, fuzzy, and rotund. It’s almost like this is a curse.”
All of this is a curse, Hiro thought as he rounded the block to find a Spectator standing there waiting for him.
The woman was stacked with muscles, at least three feet taller than him, with flowing red robes like the others and, her face obscured by shadow, as he soon noticed, a second set of arms that pushed out of her back.
Hiro hit her with {Kiss or Slap} and {Thoughts and Prayers}, neither of which connected, and summoned his phantom felines.
Hachi and his cats took off toward the Spectator as she produced a comically sized ball-peen hammer, which she slammed onto the street to produce a horizontal shockwave of power that Hiro was unable to avoid.
It struck him so hard he was flung upward, which triggered {Bounce} once he hit the ground, Hiro not able to get control of his trajectory.
“Hey, that one is even better than my hammer!” Bianca said, the shield using her tentacles to wrap around a steel bar jutting out of one of the buildings to help Hiro. Together, they did a complete three-sixty and landed on a car. He sent his katana away and drew his big odachi from the air.
As the Spectator beat back Hiro’s dog and cats, he jumped down to her, bounded forward, and moved to deliver a massive strike that was blocked by her hammer. Rather than slam the ground this time, she swung her hammer through the air and hit what seemed like an invisible surface.
A wave of force blew Hiro off his feet.
“Dammit,” he said under his breath as he bounced forward again. There’s a physics to this, he thought after she sent him careening away again. Hachi kept trying to get to her, but the Spectator’s attacks also had a way of blowing him back.
To distract the Spectator, Hiro rushed forward and blasted her with his finger gun, which caused her to miss the landing of her hammer. Slamming it down this time forced her to the side, where she lost her balance and fell.
“I’ll hold her!” Bianca shifted off Hiro’s arm and used her tentacles to pin the Spectator down by attaching to her back. “Do it!”
It was all over from there as Hiro sent his odachi through the top of her head, killing the big Spectator.
He received the follower prompt and applause at the same time Soul Essence rushed into him.
“That was one big lady,” Bianca said after she had returned to Hiro’s arm.
“It was. You good, Hachi?”
The dog offered Hiro a short bark and took his position at the front again, prepared to guard.
“I really think he’s starting to like us,” Bianca said.
“Really?”
“No.” She laughed. “But at least he’s loyal.”
“At least.” Hiro reached Valeria and Rena’s place and jumped up to the fire escape after telling Hachi to stay put in the streets below. He entered the hallway to find it covered in the black residue of recent explosions. The smell was still there as well, as if the attack had happened over the last few hours.
“Looks like the Spectators got here before we did,” Bianca said.
The wall to Valeria’s place was now crumbled, and the inside was trashed. There was blood, huge holes in the ground, and finally, an arrow pinning a note to the counter.
Hiro surveyed the apartment’s interior yet again, where he noted a bloody handprint against one of the walls. He reached for the letter, which he assumed was written by Valeria based on the tone.
Hiro~~
Shit is fucked. But you already knew that. We were all portaled away from the raincoat bitch. Juan might have killed her. I dunno. I found Rena. We have an agreed-upon meeting point, and that plan actually worked. Then, the Spectators. Fought our way back here, met your boy Samuel lurking around. We’re trying to get levels near the Trade Center area. There is no rest until the gate opens. Come find us if you can. If not, good luck.
Valeria and Rena (and Samuel)
“What’s it say?” Bianca asked.
Hiro read it aloud to her. “So, I’m guessing that’s where we go,” he said once he finished the note. “It’s not too far from the Financial District, so we should be able to get back here to the gate. There are merchants over there as well. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen their beacons.”
“Then what are you waiting for? Let’s get out there.”
Hiro left the home and hopped down to the streets, where he found Hachi waiting for him. “Good boy,” he told the demon dog.
“Such a cute little pooch,” Bianca said.
Hiro jumped to a smaller building and moved on from there in the direction of the One World Trade Center.
He tried not to pay attention to the enormous yellow eyes in the sky that all seemed to be watching him, tracking his every move. Shifting from building to building, he kept his focus on the next rooftop, occasionally checking to see if Hachi was also following.
The dog’s barks drew his attention once he found himself practically in the shadow of the One World Trade Center. He approached the edge of the roof, Hiro some thirty stories above street level, and peered down.
Hachi had corned a toilet, which glowed with energy as a tongue popped out of its bowl.
“Skibidi Toilet,” Hiro whispered.
“Do what?” Bianca asked with a laugh.
“It’s a mimic, and I need to one-shot it. If I get too close, it vanishes.” Another idea came to him as he considered his options. “Move to the side a bit,” he told Bianca, who remained strapped to his back with her shield tendrils. “I need to get out a can of Hatorade and a bottle of pills.”
61
DOOM SYSTEM GO JUICE
The toilet mimic gnashed its teeth at Hachi, who wanted to attack but had yet to find a way to bite through the mimic’s hardened porcelain shell.
“Poor Hachi, he’s so dumb,” Bianca said. “But he wants to kill so bad. I know the feeling.”
“You say the weirdest things sometimes,” Hiro told the shield as he prepared to jump down to the street. He had to be careful not to spook the mimic, which he knew would disappear if he got too close.
With this in mind, he landed about half a block away and slowly crept toward his opponent, hoping not to draw attention from anything else, namely Spectators. Hiro hadn’t encountered any since leaving Valeria’s home, but he knew they were out there, and he continued to witness the destruction they had caused already with their explosive armaments.
“So what does Haterade do exactly?” Bianca asked.
“It aggros an enemy. Keep quiet and let me focus.”
“Sorry, Big Brother Hiro. I know I’m chatty.”
“It’s fine.”
“But I won’t be in this world much longer, so I might as well say what’s on my mind.”
Hachi kept barking, which turned out to be the distraction Hiro needed as he managed to get close enough to the mimic to peg it with the can of Haterade, which, like a soda can, exploded upon impact.
The toilet mimic shifted backward and then pressed forward, its long tongue flying out of its mouth and striking Hachi. This sent the demon dog straight into an abandoned kebab stand as the mimic lunged for Hiro.
“You got that thing pissed!” Bianca said. “Need me?”
“Not yet!” Hiro told her. He cast {Kiss or Slap}, failed, and {Thoughts and Prayers}, which never seemed to do anything.
Just have to time this right… He stepped back, pill bottle in hand. The mimic’s toilet bowl mouth opened, Hiro pelting it with the pill bottle at just the right moment.
The toilet mimic swallowed the pills, paused, and then immediately grew even more aggressive as it sent its tongue flying at Hiro, where it managed to wrap around his leg, lift him, and slam him into the pavement. He might have died on impact had it not been for Bianca, who used her tendrils to cushion his fall and create a natural spring.
The toilet mimic flung Hiro away and started dry heaving, foam bubbling from its bowl mouth. It scraped against the pavement and attempted to replenish its health through spare trash, each little bit ticking its health bar up by a hair.
Yet the poison from the pills became too much, and its health bar plummeted, the creature finally expiring.
You have new followers!
The toilet bowl cracked and produced a glowing orb that rushed toward Hiro and landed in front of him, where it formed into a metal water bottle.
Legendary Item: Doom System Go Juice
Rank: S
Description: As Hamlet once told Horatio, "There are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
But Shakespeare didn’t really know anything about the genetic presence of a dopamine receptor known as D4, nor did the Bard of Avon give a gat damn about the mini fatbergs found off the coast of New South Wales, or the troubled history of Sun Yaoting, the last surviving imperial eunuch of Chinese history.
