Both me and the other user act at once. I jump at the zombie and they stop it dead with their powers. I slam my hatchet against the zombie's head and it shatter while taking a huge chunk of flesh with it. The other user's powers easily rip the head out and I see their body faintly glow. Uh? My body also glows when I kill these monsters. I check my menu out of curiosity and immediately find the something quite odd: 35 points of experience. 20 I can account for, from the achievement, but the fifteen others? Is that another way to gain xp? Killing monsters? Does that extends to other things?
An almost silent shuffling sound makes me look right and I come face to face with a green monster's head stuck in a wailing expression. light starts to shine from inside its skull and I my broken memories scream for me to run away from the thing. I immediately listen to them. A deafening explosion throws me in the air and I land on a soft surface. Which grunts.
"Sorry!" I say as I scramble back to my feet. What was THAT? They have explosive monsters? I didn't even have the time to check the WAYLA descriptor. Where I had been standing a second ago, there is now a small blackened crater. Some trees have even been felled around it.
"What the fuck was that?" I cannot help but whisper.
The other user points to my right and another one is already approaching. The header reads as 'Creeper'. Yeah that is what the first one did. Creep on me and go boom.
"Okay we move! Now!" I exclaim.
Where to? I do not know. But right now I am willing to listen to my broken memories. A small cave, an abandoned house? Anything where I can rest. And I need to find it fast because I have barely a third of my energy reserves left. I even lost coolant here. I am down to sixty percent, roughly. I gulp and then chose to go north. Why north? Why not! I go at a light jog, trying to limit my coolant and energy consumption. Coolant seems to not diminish anymore, but energy? Energy is dropping fast! Another value is, however, going up: Integrity. It went down to seventy percent, but is now back to 96. And is still rising. That must be what is consuming energy so fast. I look down on my stomach, the places where that first zombie hands had penetrated the supposedly hardened metal have been repaired. Slight traces are still visible though.
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The other user goes to what seem to be a random direction for Mewtwo. It seems strange. The explosion has rattled them both. He had not expected the strange monster to detonate as it did.
The meeting with the other user has been, to this point, both surprising and worrying. The other user is different. Mewtwo can sense them, can sense what they want and are about to do to some extent, the other being not hiding any of his thoughs or intentions. And it is a godsend, as he cannot understand the tongue the being speaks. And it seems the other being lacks ways to understand him too.
He tried to communicate, but the result is either apprehension or confusion. So for now he follows in silence, and try to think of ways to convey his own intentions to the other user.
They pass multiple holes or cave openings, that the other user dismisses after a short investigation. Most open to passageways that go deep within the earth, to what seems to be a large and seemingly endless subterranean cave system. Multiple times, he feel something following them. More exactly, it sometimes feels like a void is close by, but always vanishes when he try to investigate it.
He would have dismissed it as his stress becoming greater under the current situation, but after the other user also looks in the same direction he himself feels the void, he posit it might not just be a stress hallucination. Something is following them. And it can easily hide itself. After the user dismisses yet another opening going deep into the ground, Mewtwo resumes his attempts at communication.
If I cannot use my words, what about forcing my thoughs? He had been wandering for a while now. What if he used his power not to push the other being physically, but to push his own intent inside the other being's head? It might work.
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Another open cave. Shit! We have been running for what feels like hours, but might have barely been one. My power is still dropping, down to twenty percent now, and I do not have the food to fully replenish it. If I survive the night, I am going to search this entire forest for edibles tomorrow!
Where? Where am I going? Where is the destination? Where- WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT! I stop dead in my tracks. That... THAT was not my thoughs. This 'where?' that was not me, not the broken memories, or the unlocking ones. Where did that come from? I had suddenly questioned the entire reason I was running away. But it was a good question. I was running from monsters. Why north? Because the forest had seemed to go longer up north than south. So more possibility to keep more trees between monsters and me... us. Us... Wait a second.
I turn toward the other user. They are patiently waiting. Their long purple tail swish left and right. There is a look of curiosity on their hairless cat-like face. The more I look at them, the more I feel I should know what they are. Yet it seems as if something is preventing that to happen. Are they doing that? Is it the system? But why? No, wrong question here. The better question should be why not. Why not withhold information on a potential ally? Maybe because It makes for more possible tension?
What do the creators of the system actually want from me? From us?
Where? Where am I going? Do I have a destination? A goal? A- Again? And his eyes shone for a few seconds here. I squint at him and he looks both surprised and pleased.
Hear? Do I hear? Can I comprehend? Can I understand? So much in a single though. My head starts to throb. I wince. I have now isolated the errant and alien thoughs. It surprisingly helps when you already feel like three people in a single body. A fourth one gets spotted almost instantly.
"Okay, that's three times now. What that you?" I ask to confirm my suspicions.
Affirmative. That was me, it was indeed coming from me. I have done so.
Wow this is so weird.
"Cool. Please stop trying to impose yourself on me. I already had one existential crisis today, I don't need another." I say as I start to feel like my cranium is crushing my brain.
Apologetic. I am apologizing to myself. I take a knee and take my head in my hand, groaning. "Please stop!" I plead. My integrity actually went down by three points here. But the though seemed less forced, more like a whisper... in some ways.
I can see the other user try to reach for me, then stop, as if unsure as to what they can actually do. They then offer me one of the fruits orbiting them. I look at it with dubious eyes. It looks like an orange with blue skin. I look at it with suspicion. It is labelled as an oran berry. A berry that can heal pokemons for a small amount. Would that work on me?
It is quite big for a berry. I hesitate, but then why not. I have the coolant to spare another rejection, for now. The skin seems quite thin, so I take a bite. The taste is rather bland, like the diluted taste of an apple, fruity, but not that much. The flesh is actually closer to a pear, grainy and raspy on the tongue.
I take a quick look at my energy meter... And it did not move. I take another bite, then another and I quickly end up consuming the whole thing. And am rewarded by... nothing. The meter did not even budge but I now have some new little underside bar beneath the squares.
Stolen novel; please report.
Energy: ◼◼◻◻◻ ◻◻◻◻◻
What do these mean? No idea. I'll have to wait and see I guess. Like with a lot of things with the system. Growls and bony sounds return me to reality. The night is still young, and monsters are still hunting us.
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Mewtwo is mostly pleased with his attempts at communication. They worked. They were not perfect, but they worked. What he is less pleased with is the resultant damage he seems to have inflicted upon his fellow user. The attempts resulting in an attempt at overwriting the being's mind and will was not what he wanted. But he was right in some ways. He can send psychic messages to the other user. He is unsure if the other user understand him. It seemed like it with the last messages, but maybe something else clued him in.
The offering of a berry had an unexpected result. On the user's face, he saw a mix of surprise and disappointment. He is unsure if the berry had any effects on the user's head injuries. However, they did get back up on their feet and consulted their screens. Or at least it seemed so. Looking at them touch thin air was strange. Had he not possessed a now clearly invisible screens himself, he would have though the user insane.
Mewtwo and the user are moving again. Their destination still unknown. Mewtwo is still working on his telepathy. He is certain he is close to being able to communicate. He also scans for the void shadowing them. It still appears, always close and, more often than not now, hidden from view. As he try to refine his telepathy skill, he also experiments on the monsters following them. He send those pulses he sent to the user directly to the monsters. It works, when he send them a message to stop, they do so for a second, sometimes two when he put more power behind the command. But the practice is exhausting and he can feel his stamina depleting.
Instead, he uses the monsters as practice to only send messages. If the monster stops, there was still too much will in the message. If the monster does not, then he finally got it. To this point, the monster has always stopped, or at least hesitated.
"I might answer your question though." Question asked, answer delivered. "I am looking for a cave we could easily defend from. Or a house. Someplace we can spend the night." Search for safety, search for a rest, search for a fortress. "And going north should help us stay in the forest." Safest direction, evasion of enemies.
I see. He understands now why the user went the direction they went. He also understand why they dismissed the other caves. they were too opened, there was too much risk of creatures coming from the deeper parts. But how would they know that. It made sense to Mewtwo as he had seen one of their pursuer below earlier this day, but had the other user seen the same?
The other user does not hear his answer. Mewtwo is still uncomfortable to try his current method on them again. The monsters still stop, it might be less than a second, but I still put my own will and intent behind my messages. He frowns as he try to parse what he does, and why his will always accompany his unspoken words.
The other user finally stops before a cave. It indeed has a small entrance and stops in a rather spacious almost circular chamber. The user look around the entrance, but starts to swear as it seems they do not find what they are looking for.
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FUCK! That place would be perfect! But there is now way to block the entrance! FUCK! "FUCK!" That one could not be contained. What do I do? What do I do? Wait! Inventory! And the recipes! I quickly look up my now growing list of possible recipes and find... Nothing. No wait. What about the planks? I get one out of my inventory, something I should have done earlier. Yep, that's a one meter long plank by half of one, between maybe five to ten centimeter thick. But I cannot do much with it. Most recipes ask for more items that I do not have yet. Shit! I do not have enough rocks to be able to be stack in any sort of barricades. RAAAAH. And the growling is getting closer.
Then a realization hits me. "Hey!" I turn toward the other user. "Can you help with sealing this cave for the night?" They look at me with their big purple eyes, cock their head to the side then start to stroke their chin in though. How human of a reaction.
They then point at the trees surrounding us. "Uh... Can you tear them down?"
Their answer come in the form of an aura surrounding the closest tree. The large tree start to shake, but remain firmly rooted. The other user falls down, both their halos of rock and fruit falls town behind them. Their ragged breath tells me the effort might have exhausted them almost completely. Shit. What to do? What to do?
I no longer have my hatchet, not that it would have helped... Wait... I quickly craft another one. "Hey, I have an idea."
They look up at me with tired, but questioning eyes. "I am going to start hacking that tree" I point toward one of the thicker ones close to the cave. "I need you to start pushing above the place I cut. Don't try to uproot the tree, just try to widen the cut I make."
I rush to the tree and... Hold on. I gently tap the tree first. "Hello? Sorry to bother any of you, but I really need this tree. If you are up here, could you move out please?"
I get no answers. I try to peer into the dark canopy, but can see nothing. Welp, I tried. I start to hack away. The blue aura, fainter than before, embraces the tree once more. With each swings of hatchet, the tear in the tree widen slowly. I hear the other user grunt from the effort. I can feel my own arms pulsing with the effort. But we keep at it, and after long minutes, the tree finally start to fall.
"Don't let it fall yet!" I cut it so it would fall directly into the cave entrance. "Let's back up into the cave."
Cannot! The word is a whisper of inability. Far fainter than the first ones. I cannot- They cannot. Shit. the other user are barely able to hold themselves upright. Their legs are trembling with the effort, their face is stuck in a snarl. They are even using their left arm to support their right. "If I move you, will it stop you from holding the tree?"
Uncertain. Not the answer I expected. "I hope you're not too heavy." I say as I position myself. I now have the other user in front of the cave. I inhale, then exhale. I focus myself, then dash as fast as I can. I tackle the other user. Holy shit they are heavy! I Almost stumble under their weight, but push through. I can feel my body heating up under the effort. I grit my teeth keep going. A creaking sound makes me redouble my efforts. The other user has released the tree.
As we pass the place he first fell down from exhaustion, I quickly activate my auto-gather and collect both crystals and fruits. And then we enter the cave. I jump into it more than anything and with a resounding crack, the tree finally topples, completely blocking the cave entrance. I release a breath I had not realized I had been holding. We should be safe.
A wet gurgle proves me wrong immediately. I turn to the lone zombie. Where did it come from? There was nothing in there! I checked! At least it is only one. I prepare to rush him, but my legs suddenly feel like lead. I can barely move. A screen pops up in my vision.
/!\ Warning /!\
POWER RESERVES CRITICAL!
Entering power-saving mode. Do note certains abilities will be reduced.
(You should really be careful of you power supplies)
NOT NOW! The zombie is almost on top of me. I try to get any of the remaining food I have on me out, but the system is struggling. I won't make it in time. The other user falls from my shoulder onto the floor, they are also breathing heavy. "Just... Just one... more..." I manage to gasp. They look up from his perspective, and extend one of their arm above their head. Small yellow stars burst from his body and home on the zombie. They crash onto it, one partly severing one of the monster's leg. The other user immediately pass out out of sheer exhaustion.
I slowly approach the downed monster and lift my leg with absurd difficulty. The zombie raise one arm toward me. My leg comes down, shattering its head. And I fall on my knees. I can barely move anymore. I concentrate on my inventory, trying to have it work one final time. A singular sweet potato materialize. I reach for it with my right hand, my left refusing to work anymore, and with a shaky grip, I bring the potato to my mouth. And bite. And and the world turns black.
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She looks at the toppled tree. That was a good idea. They are now safe for the night. She finally had to act. The time they took to down the tree had been too long. Without her keeping the monsters from reaching them, they would have both been swarmed. She huffs in both pride and annoyance. If, and that is a big if in her mind, the human is the pack leader's query, then he has none of the grand memories and instincts from leader Hound's stories. He has some, different ones, but none of those she heard of from the leader's tales.
She shakes her canine head, and settles on top of the fallen tree. She'll keep guard for them tonight.