The boost in stats from the Doom System Go Juice was certainly something Hiro noticed immediately after his first sip. The vomiting that followed didn’t seem to affect the boost either, which was good, because once he was done it felt like he had completely emptied the contents of his stomach.
“There goes your hamburger,” Bianca told him.
“Ugh…” Hiro pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Qué asco,” Juan said as Valeria mumbled something near him.
“Bloody rough.” Samuel wiped his mouth. He had been the only one that didn’t vomit, the Australian apparently with an iron stomach.
Maybe this will wash it down… Hiro took out his can of Munster and drank it, giving him an additional boost in STR. Better, he thought as he smacked his lips, but not by much.
“At least we’re good with the boost,” Juan said as he spat again. “Now, to find the spider.”
“That shouldn’t be hard,” Valeria told him as she shifted her goggles over her face, the ones that allowed her to find enemies.
“In that case, I’ll just run toward your direction. Just stay where I can easily see you. I’m sure I’ll hear a bunch of commotion, especially as that spider tears through shit.”
“Hachi will go with you,” Hiro told Juan. The dog barked, indicating that he at least partially understood what was going on.
“Right, see you all there!” Samuel moved ahead, the cloaked Survivor doing his teleportation-midair-twist movement. He reached a building and Hiro joined him with {Bounce}.
“This Go Juice is brilliant, mate,” Samuel said. “Taste like arse, but—”
A huge form crashed through the side of a glassed-in skyscraper ahead, sending debris to the street below. Hiro focused on the spider as it moved past and was provided a description.
Description: Infamous for their hoarding, Langley and Homer Collyer filled their Harlem mansion with nearly a hundred and fifty tons of junk, everything from pianos to discarded vehicles and broken furniture. Their home became so cluttered that Langley, who had started taking care of the increasingly blind Homer, was forced to carve out narrow pathways zigzagging through the garbage cluttering the halls of their mansion.
Tragedy struck in March 1947 when neighbors reported a foul odor emanating from the Collyer mansion. When the police arrived and forced themselves inside, they found Homer, dead from starvation after being buried in one of the rooms.
But Langley was nowhere to be found.
Weeks of searching led to the grim discovery of Langley’s body, crushed beneath a booby trap of junk set up to deter intruders. At least that’s what everyone thought…
The truth is far more sinister. Rupert—massive spider you see before you—was the real culprit.
Through repeated venomous bites, Rupert poisoned the Collyer brothers, driving them mad. The spider planted the idea that hoarding was the only way to protect themselves, their memories, and more importantly, their homes.
Now, Survivor, Rupert has come to share that same message with you.
“I guess let’s kill Rupert, then!” Samuel said as he surged ahead.
The spider landed on a rooftop and quickly used its web to gather the A/C units, which it arranged on its increasingly large abdomen. There was a lot attached to it now, from cars to construction materials and even a few dead Survivors, all of it forming an armor around the spider’s body.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“It’s getting away!” Bianca said as Hiro cast {Kiss or Slap}, which failed.
“Try to get its attention,” she told him, the shield now attached to Hiro’s back.
Hiro thought of firing his finger gun at it, but knew that he wouldn’t be able to reach the spider. Same with {Blade Whirlwind}, which seemed to have a range of about fifty or sixty feet.
“One sec.” Figuring it would be the best way to deal with a giant hoarding spider covered in junk, Hiro popped a Corruption cartridge in his vape pen. He soon joined Samuel, who had already portaled to another rooftop. They continued this way until the spider finally dropped down into a small dog park, where it became increasingly interested in a gazebo.
“Now’s our chance!” Samuel bolted in front of the spider and tried to strike it.
Hiro used {Thoughts and Prayers} to no avail as he landed behind the spider and went for his vape pen.
The spider nearly struck Samuel as Hiro exhaled a mustard-colored plume of smoke. While it barely dented the spider’s health bar, it managed to knock off some of the crap the spider had collected on its body, all of which tumbled to the ground and crumbled to dust.
“Bro, stop vaping and help your boy!” Bianca shouted, who had already come alive with her fuzzy pink tendrils.
The spider sprayed another Survivor with venom, killing him instantly.
“Cover me!” Hiro shouted to Samuel.
“I got you, mate!”
He popped in a Bleed cartridge as Samuel once again distracted the spider. Once the cartridge was locked in, Hiro released a red cloud of smoke over the spider and drew his odachi out of the air. He tried for a strike, but his hit was repelled by the armor the spider had since gathered in the form of junk.
“Just need to bloody get in there!” Samuel said.
Hiro bounced to the other side of the fight, where he got in front of Samuel and beat back the spider’s attacks using his odachi. The venom was much harder to dodge. While Hiro managed to avoid it, the caustic nature of the venom caused it to melt through anything it touched, including the stones on the ground.
“Almost there!” Samuel said as Hiro backpedaled with plans to surge forward again.
He had to take a double look once he caught a glimpse of what Samuel was doing. The Australian had removed his cloak, the man on the ground and curled up as his body split in two.
Hiro recalled that this was his Roulette Skill, that Samuel had said it was massively painful.
“Protect him!” Hiro told Bianca, who responded immediately by using her tendrils to skip toward Samuel.
“I really don’t want the venom on my shield, ugh!” she cried.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” Hiro batted the spider’s leg away with his odachi yet again.
“It’s hurting me, Hiro!” Bianca cried.
He glanced ahead to see the fuzzy pink shield covered in sizzling venom. Hiro jumped to the side and loaded his Healing cartridge into his vape pen just as two Samuels came up, both naked, one looking like he was moments away from dying as he stumbled away.
“Get it, mate,” the Samuel on the left told—what Hiro assumed—was the clone.
Clone Samuel bolted into action, leaving the real Samuel staggering as Bianca, still covered in venom, cried even louder.
“Hold still, both of you—” Hiro took a big drag off his vape pen and released a healing white cloud of white over the two of them.
The changes were remarkably fast.
Samuel stepped out of the smog rejuvenated, focused on the fight again while Biance tumbled out, the shield using her tendrils to do a cartwheel.
“I’m back!” she shouted.
A glance to the spider’s health bar told Hiro that some of their strikes and the additional Bleed damage was working. It had reduced the spider’s health by about a quarter. Still a ways to go, but certainly enough to show them that they would be able to kill it.
Barking filled the air as Hachi reached the fight, followed by Juan and Valeria.
“What am I looking at?” Valeria said as she aimed her crossbow at the spider, the beast distracted by the pair of Samuels.
“His Roulette Skill,” Hiro said quickly.
“Samuel can clone himself?” she asked.
“He didn’t tell you?”
“It never came up. How do we kill it?” she asked Hiro as she kept her crossbow aimed at the giant spider.
“The junk it’s collected works as an armor. The more we can remove from its body, the better hits we can get in. I already blasted it with Bleed damage, so that’s helping.”
“In that case…” Juan began to morph to his metal form. He tossed his baseball to the side. “I’ll pull that shit off myself.”
“But watch out for its venom. It’s corrosive,” Hiro told him.
“Got it!”
“We’ll get its health down and then I’ll personally take it down with my Roulette Skill,” Valeria said, anger and sadness flaring in her eyes. “Just give me an opening and the spider is mine.”