Oh fu… the culler’s eyes snapped open and a blade hissed through the air. Yelping, Mai tumbled backwards and out of cover. The culler leapt after her, nano-blade carving through the air.
Mai activated every skill she had, including her MOPPING skill. Target boxes appeared all over her opponent. With a meaty thud Mai’s hand stopped the attacker’s blade a hair’s breadth from punching into her eye.
“Fucking die. Fucking die. Fucking die,” repeated the culler as she pressed down with her weight, placing her other hand onto her blade to add further pressure. Mai’s arm trembled as the culler’s blade grew closer and closer, her opponent’s hot breath washing over her as they panted with exertion..
“Not today,” Mai hissed and punched her own blade into her opponent’s kidney. Twisting, she pulled the blade back out and then pistoned it back into her would-be-killer time and time again.
CRITICAL HIT! 80% DAMAGE
BLEED @7% PER SECOND
INTIMIDATED!
HIT! 7% DAMAGE
BLEED @5% PER SECOND
INTIMIDATED!
PANIC!
HIT! 8%DAMAGE
BLEED @9% PER SECOND
INTIMIDATED!
PANIC!
HIT! 12% DAMAGE
BLEED @12% PER SECOND
INTIMIDATED!
PANIC!
KILL!
CULLER 739287 ELIMINATED
Before she had time to register the damage she was doing, she reduced the culler’s health bar to total black. Coughing just once, the culler died nose-to-nose with Mai. Panting, she pushed the corpse away from her.
“Mai. You good?” Johnny asked, brow wrinkling as he reached a hand out tentatively before letting it drop.
“Not really. That kill marker’s going to warn the others.” She didn’t want to admit just how hard that had been for her. Not the killing, strangely despite the intimacy, but the fact that the culler had so very nearly killed her. She shuddered at the thought of a blade entering her eye.
“Not sure. There’s plenty here already and that battle’s going to keep them occupied.” The sounds of battle were just as loud as before. And she gave a jerky nod.
Mai didn’t bother replying as she ran her hands over the culler, snagging open pockets and pouches. She had a small musette which was packed with food supplies.
“Bingo. Sending some bars over to you. Water too.” She ripped the wrapper off a bar, shoving it into her mouth as quickly as possible, cracking open a water bottle to help wash the dry nutrients down.
“Did I ever tell you I love you? I’d kill for a real drink right now.” There was a pregnant pause, Johnny’s mouth working before he spoke again. “Sorry. You know what I mean.”
Her heart had leapt at those first few words. And then come crashing back as he continued to speak. Why, she wasn’t exactly sure. Probably because it was the first time someone not related to her had ever said such a thing.
And the sad thing was, she did understand what he meant about killing. And he was right. It had got to the point where they would literally kill for a drink if they had to.
Her anger at the Celestial Court and their supposedly glorious Emperor spiked. Red clouded her vision. People reduced to the point where they would actually kill someone for food in a city where such things should have been abundant. In a city where people shouldn’t have been able to get so desperate that they joined a gladiatorial event, slaughtering each other to chase the dream of a better life.
Those bastards, doing their best to keep us down, making people into living slaves. For what? Their fucking amusement?
Bullets hammered into her pillar, driving away all thoughts of the Celestial Court.
“Contact! Five pillars in front, one to the left. If you move to your right you’ll be properly out of sight of him.”
“Thought you bloody well said they wouldn’t realise we were here!” She snapped back.
“Can’t be right all the bloody time,” he replied in a hurt tone.
“Keep them pinned. I’m going to go around the left side of my pillar and get into their lane.”
Johnny opened fire, a long burst which sent plasticrete flying and forced their opponent back into cover.
“He’s suppressed. Move!”
Grunting, she moved, spinning around the pillar. The culler’s row of pillars was just five paces away.
With her FREERUNNING skill still active, she threw herself into a dive, tuck and rolled, landing perfectly in cover. She moved so fast that she didn’t think the culler had even noticed.
It was confirmed when they opened fire again, spraying both Johnny’s pillar and her previous one.
A SUPPRESSED glyph appeared over Johnny as he pressed himself into his pillar as tightly as he could.
“If you could please kill the shit I’d really appreciate it!” He yelled, blind firing around his pillar, his frustrations apparent. Neither of them were trained soldiers. Had they been, this fight would have been over much sooner.
Stepping back out of cover was the last thing she wanted to do. However, the culler stood to the left of his pillar, her right, and was concentrating his fire and attention that way.
Although she wasn’t in a tunnel, her TUNNEL COMBAT skill still let her have a guideline as to how she should approach their attacker whilst still remaining in cover.
LARCENY, with only a few seconds left, allowed her to run nearly silently; the battle drowning out any noise that she might have made.
In seconds she was closing in on the attacker’s pillar and could hear him cursing to himself.
Rounding the pillar, she grabbed hold of his forehead. Jerking his head back she drove her blade into his neck and punched it forward, ripping his throat out.
Blade free, she stabbed into his kidney, pulled the blade out and then drove it into his heart. He was dead before the hit notifications had finished popping up.
INSTAKILL!
CONTESTANT 849374 ELIMINATED
“Damn, you’re good,” Johnny had moved up, so they were level once more. “Dude you just killed had five culls to his name. That means you’ve essentially got nineteen for the scoreboard! You’ve got more than double what I have! Level six culler too!”
Mai was confused for a second before she remembered that she would be credited with the kills of other cullers. So whilst she had killed fourteen herself, she was listed on the Culling scoreboard as having nineteen. She couldn’t tell if he was impressed or threatened. She hoped it was the former. If it was the latter … well, she didn’t want to think about that.
For a moment she worried that he’d SASS’d her before her unsettled mind realised that he would have been able to work out her kills by looking at the scoreboard and her culler level by looking at the number of kills required.
I’m getting way too paranoid, she thought.
“Focus. We’ve just put two kill markers onto the map. People are definitely going to know we’re here,” Johnny warned, scanning about them to make sure no one was sneaking up on them. “Still time to build BIO-MASS. Get a snack bar into your mouth. Eat on the move. Drink on the move.”
It was good advice. Running and breathing would be hard with a mouth full of food, but it was better than the alternative.
She took the bar with the highest amount of BIO-MASS she hoped and tore open the wrapping and stuffed it into her mouth.
“You’re beautiful,” he joked.
“Mummbmbml,” she replied, raising two fingers to make sure he really got the message.
“Let’s keep moving. I’ll go first. Get another bar into your mouth as soon as you can.”
Johnny slipped away moving past a few more pillars. She took the time to check the minimap. There were far more kill markers than before. She counted at least thirty now.
“This is turning into a massacre!” Johnny commed over their private channel. It was better than trying to shout over the din, but only a little. He peaked around his pillar. Despite the close proximity of the battle, they still didn’t have a clear line of sight to the action.
“Nearest new kill markers are dead ahead, why can’t we see them?” She asked.
“See that wall ten pillars down?”
“Yep. What about it?”
“I reckon it leads to a theatre of some sort, hard to tell for sure though.”
Whilst the minimap was helpful for seeing where they’d been, it was useless for seeing what was ahead.
“We’re going to need to push up. Both of us at the same time, hit the wall and take cover,” he was off and running before she even had a chance to agree.
“Dammit!” Mai sprayed the contents of her mouth in a wide arc. Wiping her mouth, she sprinted after him, keeping close to the pillars. It was hard as she was still chewing, but she got there only a couple of seconds after him, swallowing hard.
“What’s your BIO-MASS at? Good enough to finish off healing and make some weapons?”
“Johnny, I ate a couple of protein bars, not a ton of steaks.”
“Eat faster,” he hissed. “I need you back to one hundred per cent.”
She leaned back from him. This was a different side to the Johnny that she used to know or that he had been just presenting.
It must be the ganger in him, although why he doesn’t still have the markings like the other gangers in the barracks is beyond me. Or did he have them removed so he could hide better?
“Here, eat this,” his voice snapped her out of her thoughts. Looking at what he was holding she saw it had a BIO-MASS value of 5%.
It would take her to ten per cent BIO-MASS.
“Still not enough to get a proper weapon, with enough ammunition and be able to heal any damage,” she sighed. He pushed it towards her again, more forcefully this time. “Fine. I’ll eat it.”
“We’ll get you a proper meal once we’ve taken the supplies. If there’s anything left.”
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
She took the hint and popped her head over the wall to see what was happening.
Carnage was the first word that sprung to mind. Bodies lay scattered around the auditorium before them. Gangers, prisoners, and soldiers were swapping bullets from three different vantage points. Fortunately, they were so wrapped up in their battle they weren’t looking over at Mai and Johnny.
There were no other cullers that she could see. Any that weren’t from the three factions were already strewn across the open-space.
At the very centre, surrounded by bodies of cullers, was the supply drop. Bright orange, it stood at roughly the height of a man, and was a good ten paces long.
Must have been dropped through the skylight. Although skylight wasn’t exactly accurate. It was more of a plexiglass covering which prevented the condenrain from the hab block ten levels above from dripping down onto the actors below.
Now, the condenrain showered down onto the supply drop. The blood from the cullers was diluted, covering the floor around the supplies in a lake of red.
“Gangers to the left look like they’re winning. Prisoners next. Soldiers are definitely getting their arses handed to them,” reported Johnny.
“So what do we do? Let them kill each other off and then fight the survivors?”
“Hells yeah, give you time to eat everything you can.”
She took the hint and started eating, again. As she chewed they hashed out a plan to take on any survivors. Mai watched to their left whilst Johnny kept an eye on their right.
Anyone charging at them from inside the auditorium would have to be either suicidal or terminally stupid.
“Who do you reckon got here first?” She swallowed hard, trying not to choke on the food as it slowly travelled down her gullet. She decided to chew a little more next time. No point in choking herself.
“Definitely the fools in the centre. I reckon they made a rush. Probably a bit of a fight. Then they decided to share. You can see where a couple of the crates are open.”
“And then the other factions arrived,” she finished.
“Exactly. How are you doing?”
“Up to forty-six per cent and feeling damned sick.”
“Waste that BIO-MASS and I’ll kick your arse from here to the Celestial Court and back,” he laughed. But there was a coldness to his tone.
“I’ll be fine. But we’re out of food,” Mai snapped back, tiring of his attitude. She was trying her best dammit. He looked over at her, eyes narrowed, but said nothing, giving her a short nod instead.
“Use ten per cent to heal yourself, then use three for an SMG and six for two magazines.”
“Sounds good to me,” she wasn’t in the mood to argue. Activating her HEALING, she sped up the slow process normally carried out by the nanites. “Oh that feels good!”
And it did. The nanites immediately set to work, bringing her health back up to eighty-nine per cent. The decrease in the aches and pains which had been making her life miserable was utter bliss.
“Prisoners are making an attack on the soldiers. Pushing around the wall.”
Mai took a careful look over the top of their shelter. A group of prisoners was sprinting towards the surviving soldiers, whilst the rest kept the gangers pinned down.
“Oh shit, the only way for the gangers to get to the soldiers is around this part of the bowl,” warned Mai.
Tearing her gaze from the soldier’s last stand she saw a handful of gangers start to run towards her position, keeping as low as they could to avoid the fire from the rear guard the prisoners had left.
“Activate everything you have. Free run the living shit out of them if you have too!” Ordered Johnny.
Mai did so. She’d have preferred to have run away from the upcoming conflict, but Johnny was already moving towards her position.
“Fucking move Mai!” She moved, raising her SMG as she did so, blade outstretched behind her.
Her first target was the lead ganger. Mouth open in a shocked ‘o’ he skidded to a halt. That made it all the easier for her.
A three-round burst punched through his face, sending his corpse tumbling to the ground.
HEADSHOT!
INSTAKILL!
CONTESTANT 339947 ELIMINATED
LEVEL UP – CULLER LEVEL 7!
Dropping to her knees she slid along the well-polished floor, fire spitting from her SMG as she shot the next ganger in line.
HEART SHOT!
INSTA-KILL!
CONTESTANT 302299 ELIMINATED
She felt unstoppable. As the second ganger’s corpse tumbled to the floor she sprayed the ganger behind. It was like something out of a holomyth.
CRITICAL HIT! 50% DAMAGE
BLEED @10% PER SECOND
SUPPRESSED!
PANIC!
Her bullets had cut across the ganger’s guts. Screaming, the ganger tumbled to the side. Behind them another ganger stood straight up, double-barrelled shotgun levelled at her head. They were free of glyphs, and their health bar was fully green.
“Bollocks,” Mai breathed as she saw the ganger’s steely-eyed determination and her SMG’s magazine flashed an EMPTY notification.
“Duck!”
Mai didn’t think, just threw herself to the ground as bullets zipped past her head and blasted the last ganger from his feet.
“Reload, dammit. Now!” Johnny hauled her back up against the wall.
“Wait!” Shaking herself free she threw herself forward and thrust her nano-blade into the wounded ganger.
KILL!
CONTESTANT 394873 ELIMINATED
“You seriously need to let me catch-up!” He laughed. Bullets sent shards of plasticrete flying as they punched into the wall.
“Looks like they know we’re here now!”
“Plenty left for you, Johnny, plenty.”
Mai kept low, keeping a careful eye in the direction that the gangers had approached from.
A clutch of kill markers appeared on her minimap over where the prisoners and soldiers were battling.
“We should take the gangers,” Johnny shouted, blasting her ears, seemingly having forgotten they were using voice comms. “There’s fewer of them than the prisoners, and half of them are trying to push up on the other side.”
“Okay, but my skills are all on cool down. Need another thirty seconds before I can activate them all.”
“We don’t have thirty seconds! If we don’t take out the gangers, the prisoners will wipe us out! We’re trapped between the two of them if they come this way!” Again he shouted, forcing her to lower the volume.
Johnny pushed past her and started moving as quickly as he could whilst doubled over.
“Dammit!” He was risking the same death as the gangers who had run into them. Absorbing her nano-blade, she used the BIO-MASS she regained plus some of what she had left to make a frag.
“Grenade!”
As soon as it was in her hand she primed it and lobbed it through the air. Ducking down, she had no idea as to whether it was going to land on target.
“Shit!” Gasped Johnny. Then there was a huge blast.
KILL!
CONTESTANT 699274 ELIMINATED
KILL!
CONTESTANT 395748 ELIMINATED
HIT! 35% DAMAGE
STUNNED!
BLINDED!
BLEED @7% PER SECOND
HIT! 29% DAMAGE
STUNNED!
BLINDED!
INTIMIDATED!
BLEED @3% PER SECOND
HIT! 7% DAMAGE
STUNNED!
INTIMIDATED!
BLEED @18% PER SECOND
NEW SKILL! USE GRENADE LAUNCHER! RANK1!
BASE SKILL +5%
Glyphs filled the air above the gangers as their health bars filled rapidly with black. Those glyphs made the area over them look like a scene from a childrens holovid, comical.
“You absolute beauty!” Cried Johnny as his SMG chattered into life.
KILL ASSIST!
CONTESTANT 000029 ELIMINATED
KILL ASSIST!
CONTESTANT 001938 ELIMINATED
KILL ASSIST!
CONTESTANT 000005 ELIMINATED
“Yes! I’ve levelled up! They’re all dead. Move up.”
Mai moved. Stepping carefully over the first set of gangers, she then raced along the wall until she reached Johnny.
It was like stepping into an abattoir. The once-white plastimarble of the floor was coated in human remains ranging from the size of a thigh, to a speck of meat. Her nostrils flared as the stench of blood and offal seemed to force its way to the back of her throat. It was so bad she thought she could almost taste it.
“Oh gods,” she couldn’t help it. The sight and smell made her vomit. Without even looking up she knew she had a debuff glyph above.
“Damn you! Stop wasting fucking BIO-MASS!” screamed Johnny. She’d never heard such rage from anyone, and it shocked her to her core to hear her once closest friend yell at her like that. “Fucking sort yourself out, they’re coming.”
Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she took a look over the wall. Prisoners were advancing from the position they’d been left in, whilst their other party battled the remaining soldiers.
“There’s a lot less bullets flying our way,” she noted. “They’re probably running low on BIO-MASS.”
“You don’t say. Work that out all by yourself?” He snarked back at her. “We need to move left.”
Mai popped up and back down again. She was only up for a split second, but that was all she needed.
“Nope. We can take the middle now the gangers...” she paused to burp bile, “are down.”
“Are you mad? No way!”
“Probably.” And with that she was up and over the wall. For a couple of strides nothing happened. The battle at the other end of the bowl was still raging, all of the combatants too busy trying to kill each other to notice that someone had entered the arena. Literally.
The bowl was perfect for FREE RUNNING. Every row of benches was slightly lower than the one behind it so that the entertainers in the bottom of the bowl could be seen and heard by all.
Acoustically, it was perfect. Every sound was amplified. Meaning that her ears were assaulted by the sounds of battle as soon as she’d taken no more than five strides.
“Covering you!” Snapped Johnny, and she felt rather than heard his bullets passing over her head.
Then bullets started coming towards her.
Shit! The weight of fire wasn’t that much, but it was never nice to have someone trying to kill you. She flipped, spinning through the air, and then tucked into a dive and rolled between some seats.
They were barely high enough at the front to stop someone from sitting on the person behind them’s feet.
Bullets chipped into the plasticrete, sending small splinters into her skin. No damage registered but it still hurt.
“Move! I’ve got them pinned.”
From her point of view it certainly didn’t feel as though they were pinned. Trusting him, she rolled over a seat and dropped to her knees.
Rolling forward into a somersault she came onto her feet and was back up and running in one smooth motion. The end of the supply box was now only a few strides away.
DAMAGE!
CRITICAL HIT! 20%
BLEED @10% PER SECOND
HEALTH 80%
The damage notification was utterly redundant. She knew she’d been hit by the explosion of pain in her mid-thigh. That and the blood that sprayed into the air. It registered to her like it was slow motion. Then time caught up to her again.
“Fuck!” She wailed as she crashed to the floor, tumbling all the way down into the lee of the supplies. “I’m hit. It’s got my femoral.” Dizziness washed over her and as she stared at the blood pouring out of the wound, her vision closed in. Pressing hard with her hands, she sobbed as the blood continued to well between her fingers.
“So heal!”
“What do you think I’m trying to do?!” She slapped a hand on the wound, pressing as hard as she could. Blood, her own precious blood, leaked from beneath her hand. There was more than she’d ever seen leaving her body.
She activated HEALING and the flow slowed somewhat, dropping the BLEED to eight per cent. But she just didn’t have enough BIO-MASS. Even now she was loathe to use her own body for BIO-MASS, especially considering how low her health was and the speed at which it was getting even lower.
With a great effort she pushed away her rising fear and looked at the pile of supplies. It was composed of blocks. Each one numbered, and with a stencil to describe what was in the block.
Through tear-blurred eyes it appeared that they all held the same thing. Liquid BIO-MASS. Concentrated, it offered the owner more than three times the amount of BIO-MASS per litre than anything they’d find normally.
Slapping her hand on the palm-reading plate she prayed to every god she could think of that it would open. It did. She received a CHEER on the scoreboard for this. It was a shame they didn’t result in direct help.
Someone, somewhere, liked her pluck. Not that it meant a lot to her right now.
Absorbing her SMG, she took the BIO-MASS out and activated HEALING. Praying she would be quick enough to avoid having the nanites start taking from her own body, she quickly looked at the bottle of concentrated BIO-MASS. It was bacon flavour. Her least favourite.
Beggars can’t be choosers she thought as she popped the cap and sucked on the small straw beneath it.
To her surprise it tasted surprisingly good. Even better was that with every mouthful her passive HEALING skill reduced her horrific injury faster than normal. With a thought, she activated her TREAT SERIOUS INJURY, her BIO-MASS sufficiently high that she could do so safely.
As soon as she was back up to one hundred per cent health she started making weapons.
Another suck and she was over one hundred per cent BIO-MASS. Ignoring the incoming enemy fire, she sucked hard again. Her BIO-MASS rose still.
Apparently I can go beyond one hundred per cent if I’m using BIO-BOOST concentrate and not just simple BIO-MASS bottles. Opening up her menu and selecting her bookmarks, she smiled as she saw her dream suit, one which had previously been redded out, was now a very pleasing shade of green.
“These fuckers are going to be in for a nasty surprise!”