The man hadn’t made it far, and he grimaced as Rick approached.
44…
40…
The numbers on the counter dropped in spurts. He got DobBer_badDer into a choke and nodded at Ditto as he approached. It seemed only fair to give this win to the bot. The other three would have overwhelmed him without Ditto.
The enigmatic kung fu bot shook his head, and Rick shrugged. In ten seconds, the player, DobBer_badDer, was out.
Victory!
Then, just as quickly as he’d appeared, Ditto faded into the undergrowth. In ten seconds, the bot was gone.
Saved my bacon twice. Why? Never trust bots bearing gifts. Next time I see him, I’m getting answers.
Four sets of icons hovered all around the scene where bodies once lay.
In total, there were nine blue icons, six orange, and ten yellow. He approached the yellows in each pile first.
Cosmetic Item Acquired!
Cosmetic Item Acquired!
Cosmetic Item Acquired!
Three tattoos. He tossed them into inventory—he’d have to ask Alex later whether there were rare tattoos he could sell.
Cosmetic Item Acquired!
Cosmetic Item Acquired!
The first was a ridiculously ornate king’s crown he’d never wear, but the second was an impressively patterned pair of red gi pants with pockets. An embroidered black and gold dragon crawled up the side of the left leg. Rick wasted no time equipping the pants, then approached the next pile.
Cosmetic Item Acquired!
Cosmetic Item Acquired!
Cosmetic Item Acquired!
Cosmetic Item Acquired!
The first two were tattoos he threw into inventory, but the third item was a pair of red wrestler’s shoes that would nicely compliment the red gi. He equipped them and flexed his feet, admiring them. The fourth item was a strange gold coin. He deposited it in the pocket of his gi and approached the final pile—the one that hovered over the ground where CRuk12 had fallen.
Cosmetic Item Acquired!
Another tattoo. He laughed aloud. Never. Next, he sorted through the boost points.
Boost Points +1
He approached the other piles and collected the other five boost points.
Boost Points +1
Boost Points +1
Boost Points +1
Boost Points +1
Boost Points +1
Thunder crackled in the distance as he placed three points in speed and split the rest into strength and stamina.
Strength: 3
Speed: 5
Stamina: 3
Lastly, he collected the skills.
Passive Skill Acquired!
Lamp Lit: Secret doorways are illuminated in golden light. Find the loot—win the game!
Passive Skill Acquired!
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Butter: Better flow between move-sets and less chance of being interrupted.
He grinned at that. It would go great with his Iron Fist—if he placed high enough to keep them both.
Active Skill Acquired!
Chuck: Player may throw one cosmetic item at the other player, briefly interrupting an attack. One use only. May lose cosmetic item if it’s small.
That’s useless.
Active Skill Acquired!
Winchester Straight Cross-Up: A jab followed by two straights in a flurry. If the first jab isn’t blocked or avoided, the other punches become unblockable. Two-minute cooldown.
Better…
Active Skill Acquired!
Bell-Ringer: High kick useful for head shots.
Active Skill Acquired!
Disposition: 50% chance to slip from any hold. May only be used once per match.
Active Skill Acquired!
Donkey Bones: Unaimed rear kick that won’t affect balance. Use when you’re between the Rock and the hard place. Two-minute cooldown.
Active Skill Acquired!
Shut-Down: A grab that spins the opponent before pushing them forward. Great for breaking momentum.
Passive Skill Acquired:
Kick Pattern: Repeated kicks are more likely to connect to weak points like joints or other critical areas. Repeated use renders this skill less effective until passive cooldown of thirty seconds is observed. *HUD will not track passive cooldown, and skill can always be used.*
It was a lot to take in all at once, but Rick didn’t have time to think about it. The ring of lightning had gotten much closer. He dashed down the path as another peel rolled and boomed, goading him to flee.
**********************************************
Ten minutes later, Lamp Lit showed its usefulness when he stumbled on a cache of boosts hanging in a tree. The climb to where the stash lay nested in a crown of branches had been easy, but it slowed him down.
Boost Points +3
He placed two more into speed and the final point into stamina.
Strength: 3
Speed: 7
Stamina: 4
The player countdown had been at 20 for several minutes, which made him nervous. The final twenty were likely the best, or the most cunning, or both. Rick suspected he was still nowhere near the center, though Alex had told him that, unlike his bespoke match with Esposito, if he made it to the top two, the game would transport him and the other player to the ash lands in the middle.
That had to be disorienting, but he’d worry about it when the time came. For now, his focus remained solely on survival.
Worries about Kristina nagged him, and he pushed them away with a brutal force usually reserved for his memories of prison.
He climbed a rocky path up a small hill, his nerves on edge at the total absence of player activity around him.
The player number dropped again, but only by one, so that now it read 19. Though it made sense he didn’t see anyone—nineteen players spread out on a game map designed to accommodate up to five hundred justified what he found—the tension had him flexing and releasing his fists in anticipation.
Then, as he rounded a corner, a bot pacing back and forth across the path appeared, and Rick stopped to assess from outside its alert zone.
The bot looked bog-standard—a woman in fitness clothing with brown skin and a dark brown bobbed hairstyle.
The player roster dropped again.
18…
17/16/15…
It stabilized at fifteen as he stepped closer to the bot-character and triggered its fight routine. She smiled and nodded. No player information window hovered over her. Rick hadn’t seen this variant of bot, but that wasn’t unusual in his experience. Bots were supposed to be game-assembled fighters that followed certain parameters so as not to be too outlandish, but there was still quite a bit of variance and nearly infinite combos. That was fine—the Wild Ones had “freakishly outlandish” covered well enough.
She flashed beautiful, perfectly white teeth as her smile got wider. Rick shook his head at that; he’d never met a real mixed martial arts fighter with perfect teeth. Even with the mental “double-vision” caused by his implant, it was hard not to forget the world wasn’t real, so the sight jarred him.
When he got within a few paces of the bot, she cartwheeled toward him, and he dodged to the side. Though upside down, the woman corrected her direction, aiming her downward leg strikes at him.
He blocked, but it had little effect on the heel-strikes as they connected, sending him back on his ass as he came down hard on the gravel of the path.
He rolled backward to a stand, ignoring the rough gravel along his back as he did so, and avoiding her follow-up elbow. She stood and rocked back and forth slowly, but she wavered like she was intoxicated.
What is that? Drunken capoeira? Whatever it was, it made her movements unpredictable. He’d never fought a capoeira fighter before. In a true fight, it seemed quite high on the risk versus reward spectrum, but kung fu was far more effective in Ruckus Online than it was in real life as well, regardless of what kung fu proponents liked to argue.
She made a wild sideway crouched step, but came back across with a shin aimed at his hips. He spun to avoid it and get more distance, but when she flopped to the ground as if drunk, he prepared Iron Fist.
The extra speed had the desired effect, but it still gave her too much time to react, though it was curious she sensed it coming. His hammer fist came down hard on the gravel and sent rocks flying in an explosive spray. Damn!
The failed move left him vulnerable. The woman stepped in for a grab, and the word “Disposition” flashed in his visual field, reminding him he had the grab and throw preventing technique. He fired it off. Her grasp slipped, and she stumbled at her own missed move. He threw a knee strike at her, but she was too close for it to gain enough velocity to snap, making it more of a knee push than a strike. It moved her further off her axis, but she recovered with a tumble and rose to her feet.
He followed her, not allowing the bot the distance to effectively strike from range, hoping to confound her strategy. The struggle devolved into a grab-for-grab flurry, as they each attempted to get a throw on the other. After each grab failed, he hopped back, then used Kick Pattern to strike at her knees.
She dropped, though whether it was a feint or a successful strike, he wasn’t certain.
He jumped atop her, and she squirmed to get her legs under his hips before explosively kicking him away so forcefully, he nearly landed directly on his feet. Instead, he landed left leg first, with his body at an angle that required him to hustle to get his bottom half under his torso to keep balance.
When he righted himself, her spinning elbow was already on its way toward his face. He grimaced, unable to change his balance fast enough to duck or dodge.
When the blow landed, static-like stars filled his vision for an instant before fading, but it affected his balance. From instinct, he protected his face and ducked, then twisted so he was facing away from her as he leapt into another roll.
He stood and panted, waiting for his stamina to catch up. The bot seemed to be in the same state. Rick wiped something wet from his mouth, but there was no pain, and he didn’t check to see if it was blood. What would it matter?
The countdown dropped.
13…
12…
11…
Almost there! When his stamina crossed the halfway point toward full, he slowly advanced, but something had changed.
The bot’s movements become less unpredictable, and she no longer swayed.
Okay…
The bot became lightning quick, its arms swooping up, then dropping at weird angles, like some sort of snake-style kung fu.
He danced away, but her legs followed his own retreating legs, the first two steps ended with her scraping her feet along his shins.
“Ah, fuck! Fuck!” He struggled to keep ahead of the bot’s lightning fast strikes.
Then, the bot stopped and drew its limbs in. Ditto’s voice was in the female bot’s mouth. “You were never supposed to win, Rick Prophet.”
Before he saw it coming, Ditto-as-a-woman lashed out and slammed its fist through his skull.
His last thoughts were, Noooo—