Under normal circumstances, the friction of the longboard’s plastic wheels and the asphalt would’ve created enough heat to melt the wheels at the speed with which I was traveling, but fortunately the board utterly ignored physics.
“You’re already past 70 punches built-up,” Panda said.
I took that as my cue to stop shadowboxing and begin blowing air into the valve attached to Brock.
Bee was still clinging to me, but she’d take off as soon as I was fully buffed.
“Make sure not to go too far,” Panda told her, completely attuned to my thoughts in this moment.
Behind us, the Aphid-Dog was about three leaps shy of landing on top of our heads, despite the fact that we were flying down the road. Ahead, the newly-arrived ‘Whiskers’ was patiently waiting like a roadblock.
I pulled my mouth off of the valve. “Go!” I yelled.
“Gamby, let’s go nuclear on their arses!!”
Bee released her grip on my shoulders and lifted into the air, curving right, while I continued heading directly for the Aphid. I clenched my right fist to trigger the Sea Urchin Ring, covering my arm in a black spiky carapace. Then I crouched down on the board, further accelerating my speed.
The Captain, who was sitting atop the Aphid-Dog, seemed to realize he ought to move. But he was too slow, because by the time he issued the command to his pet, I was already soaring through the air after triggering SPRING_HEEL to shoot off from my board.
My balloon gauntlet was pulled back, locked-and-loaded. With every split-second that passed, the Aphid-Dog grew as the distance shrunk, really making me appreciate just how enormous it was. In fact, if only counted for height, it was taller than the Metro Train.
The massive spotlight that flooded the area with a harsh white glare was reflected off the black carapace covering its back and the plate protecting its head. It was clearly a bastardized offspring of real aphids and ants, because aphids didn’t have mandibles nor that kind of carapace armor.
“Focus!” Panda yelled.
Instinctively, I swung my arm out, booping the Aphid-Dog right on what might’ve been its nose.
“Pow!” I shouted.
ACTIVATING SCRIPT: Math.pow(Punch)!
Number of Punches recorded in fight: 77
Calculating 77 to the power of Punch
…
Calculations complete!
A bright flash, like a new sun that existed for a single nanosecond, appeared at the point of impact. The giant spotlight was rendered dim by comparison to the awesome energy that fired from Brock. The sound was not so much a noise as it was the simple deafening of all other sounds.
The Aphid-Dog and its Handler were turned to ash in an instant and the road in front of me became a bubbling boiling mess, with the guard-rails glowing white-hot and dripping globs of liquid metal.
My momentum kept me flying forward towards this unpleasant landing, but Bee quickly swooped in to catch me, though it hadn’t been part of the plan.
“That was amazing!” she yelled.
“We need the Transponder!” I told her, but our speed was still so great that it was hard to make a full 180 to go scoop up the wisp that appeared where the Aphid-Dog and Captain had been.
“Second dog coming in!” Panda said, just as the creature landed in front of the boiling bit of road with a loud boom! that lifted dirt and debris into the air.
“I’m gonna use the Rebel’s Ring to turn its armor into a bomb!” Bee explained, as she banked hard to turn us around, her wings clearly struggling since she was holding me and I now weighed five times more than normal due to my Silver Skeleton. In fact, we were clearly beginning to dip down towards the ground faster than we could turn.
“Drop me off here,” I told her and she immediately let me fall.
I landed in some dry shrubbery off to the side of the road with enough power to crater the earth and pulverize its branches, then immediately re-equipped my Unicorn Suit.
Bee picked up speed and shot straight for the Aphid-Dog in what looked like a suicide bombing run. The Captain was sitting behind the plate-covered head of the beast, indistinguishable from the other ants we’d encountered, except for a black baseball cap that had a pink heart on it with the name ‘Sparkles’ inside. When he spotted Bee’s approach, he put his right hand on his stinger and pulled out an orange-glowing lasso that he immediately snapped in her direction.
I picked up a rock and finger-flicked it right at his forehead, making his head snap back and knocking off his cap, as well as throwing off his aim.
Bee maneuvered just slightly to get around him, before tapping the top of the Aphid-Dog’s back carapace with the Rebel’s Ring and ducking off to the side.
“My Soul Blade is ready, right?”
“It is,” Panda confirmed.
I started blowing air into Brock’s valve, while watching the Captain frantically retrieve his baseball cap and direct his pet to follow after Bee, who was buzzing around in a confusing zigzag pattern.
As soon as the balloon gauntlet was fully-charged, I started sprinting after the giant insect, which, in its eagerness to catch Bee, was exposing its back to me. They clearly wanted to catch her more than they cared about killing me, at least for the moment.
Then its carapace began to glow red and start to blink. Neither Aphid nor Handler noticed until the blinking became so rapid that it was impossible to ignore.
Just as the giant insect stopped moving to figure out what was going on, the entire back carapace exploded outward in a shower of shrapnel. I immediately ducked down and Bee, still in the air, activated her Beetle Barrier with what little Mana she had managed to recoup.
The sound of thousands of small fragments plinked and crashed across the nearby road and the shrubbery-covered dirt area next to it, sounding like a storm of gunfire.
As soon as it was over, I jumped back to my feet and pulled out my Soul Blade, which was once more a purple gummy trident. The Aphid-Dog was lying flat on its stomach, not dead but definitely incapacitated, while smoke and steam billowed from the exposed semi-transparent jellied flesh that the carapace had been protecting. The Captain was just a pair of legs clamped onto the beast’s neck, the rest of his body erased by his close proximity to the explosion.
While striding towards the downed Aphid, I lifted the Soul Blade above my head and charged it to full. Then I leapt off the ground using SPRING_HEEL and jabbed it straight into the exposed flesh.
The damage was enough to explode a hole all the way through the giant insect, killing it instantly.
As I landed atop its remains, Bee returned to my side, immediately pulling out the Litany and beginning to recoup her Mana.
“What are you doing? We’ve gotta grab the Transponder and go!” I told her.
She didn’t even have to explain herself, as three loud booms resounded across the area from the new giant Aphid-Dog pods that’d just landed.
“We can’t outrun them,” she said.
“You can’t defeat them either,” Panda added. “Not like this anyway. They have countless more soldiers to send!”
To highlight his point, the sound of thunder from above revealed many more pods heading down towards us. The smaller pods that’d already landed and the Ant soldiers they had deposited were also close to catching up to us, though they were on foot and nowhere near as fast as the Aphid-Dogs.
“Alright, different plan then,” I said.
WARNING!
Child Protective Services have sent a Minor Warden to pacify the Amoral Pervert guarding a Wayward Minor in distress.
All other Players should vacate the landing zone.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing good,” Panda guessed.
Bee handed me back the Rebel’s Ring, as well as something else I’d completely forgotten about.
I looked at the blue orb in my hand:
SAFE ZONE SPHERE
An object capable of transforming almost any place into a Safe Zone. The duration of the Creation Event is based on the area chosen to be transformed. During the Event, Enemies and Bosses within and near the area will be attracted to the Sphere, seeking to destroy it.
Status: INACTIVE
Weight: 1 Panda
image [https://i.imgur.com/O2vEnwm.png]
“Why are you giving me this?”
“Because I know what your plan is,” she replied.
I grinned and said, “I need a Bus.”
“Ah damn it, you couple of morons,” Panda complained.
REQUEST RECEIVED!
Your current location has been added to the route of the nearest ‘Bus’.
Please wait patiently for it to arrive.
I threw the Sphere into my inventory and slid down the side of the Aphid-Dog’s body to where the wisp from the Collector Captain hovered above his half-missing corpse.
Leftovers of Minor Collector Captain ‘#0000000968’:
200x ‘GAME Coins’
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
‘I-Love-Sparkles Cap’
“Wait, where the hell is the Transponder?” I asked, scooping up the meagre rewards.
A sudden impact from something like a missile traveling at the speed of a lightning bolt struck the ground with enough force to make me stumble. From the massive crater forty yards away from us, stood a neon-orange pod shaped like a spike.
I heard the sound of Bee snapping shut her Litany, before she slid down to join me. She was looking at the pod as well, clearly ready to appraise whatever emerged from within.
There was no explosion or steam or anything, just a flicker of lightning before the panels of the pod fell down to reveal a single imposingly-tall figure. It looked like a mix between a Mantis and an Ant, with the head a triangular shape, four arms with folded-up scythe limbs, a relatively-small torso, four super-long legs, and a long gaster full of neon-orange fluid that almost looked like a tail. Its 16-foot-tall body was incandescent-blue, but its compound eyes glowed with the same energy as its gaster.
Level 80
‘#0000000012’
Warden x
“For my Queen, I will do whatever it takes.”
Job: Minor Warden
Affiliation: Child Protective Services
Maybe you’ve picked up on the fact that: the stronger the Ants of the Child Protective Services get, the lower their number is. #12 is obviously pretty high up there, and she’s a wielder of some truly powerful magic.
Normally, the Minor Wardens are in charge of the children aboard the Hive Ship, but it’s clear that they aren’t taking any chances with you, since you’ve managed to kill two Aphid-Dogs and their Captains.
Most of us who were betting on your death weren’t expecting it to arrive in this form, but one guy in the office got lucky and is now doing a happy dance in his underwear.
Anyway, you’re fucked.
She intends to destroy you and capture the Wayward Minor.
image [https://i.imgur.com/2YRYmeU.png]
The Minor Warden lifted one of its scythe limbs and a bolt of orange energy shot across the ground towards us. I immediately grabbed Bee and shot us into the air with SPRING_HEEL, just as the spell hit the side of the dead Aphid-Dog and surrounded it in a lattice of energy, like a magical cage.
I let go of Bee so she could stay in the air, while I dropped back down to the ground. As soon as I landed, I sprinted straight for the Warden.
“Bee just got an emergency gift from her Benefactor,” Panda told me, somehow able to keep track of what both of us were doing. “I think it’s to refill her Mana.”
“Awesome,” I said, then dropped into a crouch to spring forward and over a wave of cutting orange energy shot my way.
The three new Aphid-Dogs in the distance were forming a perimeter around the Warden and us, but clearly giving their magic-wielding superior some space.
A lattice barrier of orange energy sprang from the Warden’s hand and right into my path, but something sharp producing a shhhh sound cut through the air ahead of me to slice it in half. I recognized it as Bee’s Killing Thread.
I flew past the severed barrier, and before the Warden could make another, I was close enough to strike her with my fist.
“Punch.spinTheWh—!”
“Mute.”
Warning!
Your ability has been muted!
Time remaining:
59,982,763 μs
My fist struck the Warden with hardly any power, not even managing to budge her torso. Before I could begin to fall back down to the ground, all four of the scythe limbs slashed out with neon-orange energy suffusing them and no doubt making them deadlier.
My Reflective Shell managed to bounce back the damage from two of them, due to some insane luck, while the other struck me hard enough to burn through my Unicorn Suit and carve deep gouges in my right side.
I was sent backwards with so much force that when I hit the ground, I skipped like a stone on water.
“It’s only 56 more seconds before you can use it again!” Panda told me.
Bee yelled something and immediately went on the offensive, slashing with the Killing Thread and clearly burning through her Mana recklessly.
The Warden was taking quite a lot of superficial damage from her attacks, mostly because she seemed incapable of defending herself against them. Two smoldering gouges were also visible from where her scythes’ damage had been reflected into her body.
After a moment of indecisiveness, the Warden formed a lattice between her four limbs and sent it straight at Bee, catching her like a fly in a trap and surrounding her in a sphere that was impossible for her to escape.
I aimed a middle-finger at the bastard, while blood bubbled out from my torso. “.interrupt( )!”
The prison surrounding Bee disappeared, but in response the Warden immediately leapt forward to snatch her by her throat, before leashing a glowing rope of magical energy around the Moth Magician.
Bee was tossed back towards one of the Aphid-Dogs, whose Captain caught her with his own neon-orange whip and immediately started leaving the area.
I pushed myself up, only to be seized by a scalding energy rope that coiled itself around my neck.
“BEE!!” I screamed and pulled on the rope hard enough to make the Warden stumble forward.
“Use the Claymore!” Panda shouted into my ear.
“Crimson Claymore!”
A crackling claymore of red energy appeared in my right hand, making my entire hand tingle.
“Let’s get ‘em!!” Brock squealed.
I spun around and slashed through the leash around my neck, feeling no resistance in the blade. Then I used SPRING_HEEL to close the distance to the Warden, who raised a lattice barrier in front of herself again.
With a single swing, the barrier fell away and I landed against the Warden’s torso. With a full spin of my body, I sliced the sword through her torso and head, instantly killing her.
Then I launched off from her falling body and into the air as high as I could go, before targeting Bee in the distance and saying, “Rootkit!”
Rootkit initiating!
...
…Evading firewall...
...
…Generating backdoor...
...
…Playing ‘im_in.mp3’ through speakers…
...
Success!
Rootkit installed on Player Target: ‘Bee’
I immediately followed it up with, “Rootkit.infiltrate( )!”
My body felt like it was pulled through a very small opening, before I appeared right beside Bee, who was carried in the arms of a Captain. I immediately sliced through her neon-orange bonds, before cutting through the Captain and the head of the Aphid he was sitting atop.
WARNING!
Child Protective Services have sent a second Minor Warden to pacify the Amoral Pervert guarding a Wayward Minor in distress.
All other Players should vacate the landing zone.
“Fuck! They just keep coming!” I yelled.
Bee unfurled her wings and shook herself. “Where is the Humanbus?”
“Wait, I see people!” Panda announced, pointing at a group of Players fighting with the outer fringes of the Ants. I couldn’t tell who they were at first, but then I saw the yellow raincoat belonging to Matthew Twine.
“Ah, fuck…”
Something akin to a meteor struck the area nearby, crushing several Ants that were charging for us, and quickly opening up to reveal another Minor Warden, along with a bulky 20-foot-tall Ant wielding an enormous shield.
Bee shared the appraisal for this new enemy:
Level 90
‘#0000000005’
Queenguard x
“Protect the Queen, protect the Hive.”
Job: Queenguard
Affiliation: Child Protective Services
Welp, you did it, you made the Child Protective Services really mad. Good job. This guy isn’t even meant to leave the Queen’s throne room, but they sent him in, which means they’re done playing. This is the equivalent of throwing a nuke at a neighboring farm because the owner stole your sheep.
I.e., you’re so mega-fucked you don’t even know it.
He is glad to be allowed free rein to use his powers.
image [https://i.imgur.com/Sr2q6Ga.png]
“This will literally never end…” I groaned.
“Not until we deal with the CPS, I don’t think,” Panda commented. “Your Spin the Wheel is ready by the way.”
[NEXT STOP: MY TUMMY, YUMMY-YUMMY!]
“It’s here!” Bee yelled excitedly, as the Humanbus began mowing through the army of Ants on the opposite side from the Players following Twine.
The Queenguard raised his giant shield and it became entirely covered in the neon-orange energy. At the same time, the Warden moved straight towards Bee and me.
“Fly towards the Players!” I told Bee, while I moved to intercept the Warden, since my powerful Claymore was still active.
With a loud gong, the Queenguard hammered his shield into the ground and fired off a bright laser beam aimed in the direction of the Humanbus that was working its way through the crowd towards us. It was bright enough to make it seem like a sunlit day for a few seconds.
Twenty of the Ants on foot were instantly vaporized, and the Humanbus was reduced to a melting snake of metal and flesh.
“Holy shit.”
The Queenguard lifted its shield again, this time aiming towards us.
Bee had already created some distance, but I changed targets from the Warden to the Guard, since he was clearly the bigger threat.
As I skidded through the legs of the lanky Warden, she tried to leash me with her energy ropes, and when that failed, she launched her lattice prison.
It started forming around me, but I carved my way through and continued moving.
“This sword is amazing!” I yelled, as I came near the Queenguard.
“Only 8 seconds left on its duration!” Panda told me.
I leapt from the dirt and did an upward slash of the blade against the giant shield, catching it at the bottom and carving a channel through it as I landed on its side. The building energy started scalding and burning my Schmonic Boots, but I ran up the side of its porous volcanic-rock-like surface, while dragging the claymore behind me.
The rend at the bottom of the shield was starting to cause problems in integrity of its potent magic, as the untamed energy that was steadily growing was starting to arc against the ground like bolts of lightning, one of which even struck a nearby Ant and reduced him to cinders.
As I reached the top and finished the cut through the shield, I leapt off towards his head, the claymore lifted above me and ready to strike.
Then the red energy fizzed out and the ability ended.
“Shi—!”
The Queenguard seized me in his enormous left fist and started squeezing so hard that my body began to pop and crack. A second later his shield exploded and knocked him onto his back, releasing me from his hand and flinging me away. I struck the ground hard enough to break a few ribs.
“Gah!” I groaned in pain. “That smarts!”
“You’re at 48,77% health,” Panda told me. “You’ve got to get up though, Bee is about to be caught by the Warden.”
I had no idea how he could tell that from here, but I pushed myself up, feeling my broken bones grind against each other in protest.
“Rootkit.infiltrate( ),” I said, knowing that Bee was still the target for the ability.
ERROR!
This ability is on cooldown.
Time left:
14,166,989,612 μs
“Crap. Well, guess it’s time to finally use it.”
“Just do it, hurry!”
“Time Save.”
TIME SAVE TRIGGERED!
All cooldowns have been reset.
“Fuck yeah,” I said with a grin, before repeating the ability.
“Rootkit.infiltrate( ).”
I experienced the same feeling of being pulled through a narrow hole, before I popped up into the air next to Bee and immediately started falling.
A cord of neon-orange energy caught me around the waist and whipped me into the ground, where I landed atop two Ant soldiers who were heading towards the new Players that’d arrived. My body was already pretty broken, and even though they cushioned my fall, it flared up all the injuries at once.
Before I could try to move, a lattice prison surrounded me. I lifted my finger towards the towering Warden.
“.inter—!”
“Mute.”
Warning!
Your ability has been muted!
Time remaining:
59,896,821 μs
“You bitch!” I yelled. Meanwhile, the lattice was shrinking around me.
Bee, realizing that I’d come to help her, immediately spun around in the air and tried to free me with her Killing Thread.
“No, Bee! Keep going!” Panda yelled at her.
“Crimson Claymore!” I exclaimed, pushing against the pain and confining energy prison to lash out with a slash of the red weapon that materialized in my hand.
As I cut through the neon-orange spell, Bee was caught in a web of energy for a second time.
I was just about to leap from the ground to free her and kill the Warden with my Claymore, when a voice rang out from nearby. I only just barely managed to turn to see Matthew Twine in the air, holding on to Steve, when I realized what he’d said.
“Steve Says: Everybody freeze!”
“You, motherfucker!” I yelled, as my entire body became unable to move.
All the Ants around me, the Aphid-Dogs, and even Matthew Twine who was holding the Birthday Brat in the air, stopped moving. Since the last two were mid-air, they quickly started falling.
The Minor Warden and the Queenguard, as well as the nearby Collector Captains, and of course Bee, were unaffected.
I could just barely glance to the side as the Warden whipped her scythes out to cast a spell.
I heard Bee yell something.
Then a scalding heat touched against the side of my neck, before continuing all the way through, clearly decapitating me.
GAME OVER!
You have died.
Please wait for scheduled resurrection by
SKILL TRIGGER!
Rules of Anarchy(Respawn Once) respawned you back at the beginning!