I was sitting in the darkness next to a truck that was missing its wheels, while watching the gas station on the other side of the street. A fit thirty-something black guy dressed in construction clothes holding a heavy-looking crossbow was guarding the entrance.
“They must be inside,” I whispered to Bee. “But let me check.”
“Rootkit.”
Rootkit initiating!
...
…Evading firewall...
...
…Generating backdoor...
...
…Playing ‘im_in.mp3’ through speakers…
...
Success!
Rootkit installed on Player Target: ‘Davis Green’
“Rootkit.monitor( ),” I continued.
A small webcam screen appeared in the center of my vision, the quality extremely poor, but nevertheless from the perspective of Davis Green.
“This is still creepy,” Panda remarked.
The man was gliding his gaze across the surroundings, while a little bit of light from within the gas station was illuminating his surroundings. From the way the light shifted, I guessed its origin was either a few candles or maybe a campfire. Lighting fire within a gas station seemed pretty idiotic, but it did present an easy way to get rid of them all. But first…
“Where’s the Otter…” I muttered.
[Wish I had some smokes…] came the muttered voice of Davis, full of static and audio artefacts.
I mentally nudged the webcam screen out from the center of my vision, before picking up a small pebble from the ground. The entire scrap yard was essentially just a gravel field with old cars.
“What are you doing with that?” Bee whispered.
“A small distraction.”
“There’s no way that’ll work,” Panda remarked.
I put the pebble between the thumb and middle fingers of the balloon gauntlet, then finger-flicked it at the side of an abandoned truck near where Davis was guarding.
“Distraction pebble!!” squealed Brock.
The pebble hit the truck’s door and penetrated all the way through with a loud pling!
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“How the hell are you so accurate?” Panda wondered.
“Practice.”
“Bullshit.”
“Why aren’t we just killing them?” Bee asked.
I glared at her. “We need the Otter! You know how it goes: ‘Save the Otter, save the world’!”
“What are you talking about?” she replied.
I shook my head. “You’ll realize what I mean by season 4.”
Bee looked to Panda for guidance.
“Don’t ask me. I’m lost too.”
The footage of the webcam shifted as Davis went to investigate the sound, his crossbow lifted and ready to fire.
“Why did that work…?” Panda muttered.
“Guards always check loud noises, even if they are clearly distractions,” I lectured.
As Davis went around the back of the truck, he disappeared from our line of sight. We had a straight unimpeded shot to the gas station now, but I wanted to see where the Mayor was first, since I didn’t trust the Skinstealer to not lay in wait for me.
[Must’ve been the wind…] Davis muttered through the webcam feed.
“Are we sure this guy isn’t the Skinstealer?” Panda wondered. “He’s acting like an NPC.”
“What’s that?” Bee asked.
[Crunch!]
“It means—”
I immediately interrupted him before he could get started, “Shut up. Listen.”
[Crunch!]
Davis seemed to have picked up on the sound as well, as he turned towards its source. We couldn’t see him at all from where we hid, but, from the feed, it seemed the sound was coming from behind an overturned container truck.
There was no light at all in that part of the gas station’s parking lot, so Davis pulled out a lighter from his trouser pocket and flicked it on, while holding the crossbow steady with his other hand. The crunching sounds grew louder-and-louder as he circled around the side of the truck. Lip-smacking and water-dripping sounds were interspersed with the crunching, and as he came around to the other side of the truck, there was a hunched-over dark shape there, eating something. Since my Transition Lenses didn’t affect what Davis was seeing, I had no idea what he was looking at.
Bee was waiting for an update patiently, unable to see what Panda and I were watching.
[Mister Sullivan, that you?] asked Davis.
The sounds stopped and the dark shape righted itself slightly.
Davis threw the lighter towards it and the brief glimpse of the creature made me grit my teeth.
The lighter’s flame illuminated a prone shape of what looked like a human-sized brown teddy-bear. The middle of it was frayed and torn open, revealing a bloodied and ripped human body beneath its surface.
But it wasn’t a bear. It was an otter.
The creature that’d been snacking on it looked like a human from the torso and down, but the neck and head were peeled open and full of teeth, as though belonging to a lamprey-humanoid creature.
[Drip!] came the sound of the dark blood that fell from the many teeth.
The open face and neck zipped itself shut and became a recognizable human face. Noah Sullivan’s face to be exact.
As he stood up to his full height, regarding Davis, the lighter’s flame died out.
[You caught me at an awkward moment…] said Noah.
[Is that… is that Otto!?]
The dark shape took a step towards Davis, before suddenly flying forward.
The webcam feed cut off and a scream rent the air.
“Shit,” Panda muttered.
“…He killed Otto! Otto the Otter Mascot!!”
I stood up, clenching my fists in outrage.
“Gambit, calm down,” Bee urged.
In the distance at the gas station, the three remaining Players within quickly stormed out through the doors, crossbows and spears in their hands.
A dark shape immediately landed on the first one, tearing it limb-from-limb, while the two survivors began attacking it.
I stooped to pick up some pebbles and immediately finger-flicked one at a gas pump next to them.
Pling!
A dime-sized hole opened in the front of it and liquid started bubbling out gleefully, while the last two of Noah’s crew were torn apart by him.
I finger-flicked another pebble, aiming it at the ground near the gasoline.
The sound was like a loud scratch, but as soon as it created a small spark, a deafening explosion rolled through the gas station as the whole thing lit up like the 4th of July.
I stormed towards the flames, my fists clenched.
“You’ll fucking die, Noah!” I yelled, pulling the Soul Blade from my chest and manifesting a purple gummy-bear trident.
I lifted the weapon above my head, charging it while running into the fire.
“For Otto!!” I screamed.