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 bound 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, 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 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.
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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, bound 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.”