Continue Online (Part 3, Realities) (33 page)

Using Dusk like this was probably unfair. Using Dusk at all was generally horribly rude in the terms of gameplay. My little buddy had helped me in far too many ways.

"Agggh!" I couldn't help but scream out while blasts cranked out toward Dusk's area of interest. The wall shattered outward and clumps of dirt mixed with lasers.

"Whoa shit," someone above commented. I heard a few of the others laughing.

"Whoop. Shit. Ah god." MrJohnson covered his face with both mountainous arms. He seemed completely unprepared for my rampaging attack. I tilted the gun back slightly and aimed for his head. The chamber's rotational motions shook my hands and numbed sensations up one shoulder.

I smiled in momentary exaltation. Feeling this kind of destructive power and getting the chance to use it was addicting. The gun's stream of blasts started to taper off and MrJohnson's health had only gone down a quarter. This attack method had slaughtered miles of smaller creatures back on the
[Wayfarer Seven]
, which meant
[Behemoth]
s had way too much survival ability.

I glared at the weapon and tried to remember Emerald's advice. The weapon was useless without recharging so it was cannibalized for two
[Mechanical Minion]
s. An earthen wall shot up as my gun rapidly reconfigured into two cat-sized metal monsters.

My hand reached out for the next weapon being activated. A two pronged laser sword clicked on. I triggered the
[Domestic Trainer]
ability and set my mentally vacant metal minions on MrJohnson. Me and the dual sword followed up.

MrJohnson wasn't sitting idle either. A swirl of yellow and green light flashed behind the wall and his health bar was slowly recovering. I growled and triggered another
[Mechanical Minion]
, my body reduced in size accordingly for the third one. My reckless charge meant the third slid around trying to both gain a solid shape and follow the generic
[Attack]
command being issued.

The three pets and their metallic nails clanked across the floor. Nails dug out grooves in our dirt flooring. I jumped up and once again wished for the
[Blink]
ability back. My feet cleared over the walltop using a combination of
[Brawn]
and
[Finesse]
.

"Shit!" he shouted. MrJohnson's face on the other side was focused on the three approaching tiny
[Mechanical Minion]
s, his eyes caught sight of me at the last minute.

I felt proud to see the other player's startled look. A sudden surge of dirty green and orange flashed on his arm. It swept across catching me and causing my
[Mechanoid]
body to go flying even higher.

MrJohnson ignored the munching monsters that had started to climb all over him like angry robot chickens. His health took minor damage and I was still airborne. Color swirled again, this time, he lifted both arms and the ground beneath my form bubbled.

"The eyes!" I shouted at my little minions. My sword was tossed and commanded to shift into a fourth
[Mechanical Minion]
. By the Voices, I was going to push this ability for all it was worth. Even if I ended up smaller than TLM as a result.

"Nice try!" MrJohnson yelled back.

My former two-handed sword's hilt complied and turned into a super tiny monster. It followed the rest of my swarm's orders and tried desperately to get to MrJohnson's eyes. None of it stopped the latest forming spike from impaling me right in the gut.

"Ahhh!" I had no way to dodge midair and took it. My health bar lost a huge chunk. Belatedly I realized that each
[Mechanical Minion]
used also reduced my health bar's maximum. "Voices!"

"Here it comes," someone behind me muttered, but the words rang. Mr Johnson was losing health steadily. I could see him through an eye that buzzed with static. The damage to my health was making visual signals drop.

"That newb's screwed."

Concentration was hard. Words spun through as time seemed to blur. Emerald had said throw it away. Treasure told me to show
[Mechanoid]
superiority. William Carver's legacy was to be a fighter. Shazam's mountaintop training. Requiem's abuse. I was no longer that same scared man. Those things mattered, even here in a new game.

I was the man in the arena and giving up was not an option. This was my road to travel.

Activating
[Mechanical Minion]
's ability multiple times hurt worse than being impaled on a spike. The ARC feedback felt unkind. Vision buzzed in and out with static. Audio broke up. I screamed and ground my teeth.

Small metal versions of Dusk clumped together from my side. I could see feet and tails rapidly climbing down the giant spike holding me up. With each body formed my side had less mass and felt lighter. At minion number six I slid down the pillar's side and hit bottom.

Jerky legs and an arm pushed me from behind the pillar. MrJohnson didn't notice my liberated and broken status. He was too busy channeling that swirl of colors and energy into some giant effect. I grit my teeth, readied one good arm and fired my tiny wrist laser.

The mess of minions hit MrJohnson as the ground rumbled and rolled. Something big was happening, but I kept shooting. His health started dropping fast.

Everything down here felt like an earthquake was hitting. The spike I had been impaled on turned into a porcupine. Whatever it was doing didn't stop there. Everything heaved as it sank back into dirt and kept right on going. I ceased firing and pushed myself over in a roll while crying out from pain again.

My face planted into the ground and moving was even harder. My body didn't respond right due to the large chunks of it missing and my mental anguish. A message popped up telling me that somehow I was crippled and my
[Energy Core]
was damaged.

"Hah!" someone shouted. "Look at that. He actually won."

I opened eyes that had closed. Braving combat was a bit different from handling an giant earthquake spell.

"Well played," MrJohnson said, his face looked like an absolute wreck. The health above him flashed red at one percent. My
[Mechanical Minion]
army was standing still. At some point, Dusk had leapt down and was inspecting the littlest with a sniff.

"Yeah," I said. The fight had been over quick. Maybe less than a minute and it still felt like a rush. Adrenaline was speeding through and reducing some of the pain perception being presented by the ARC feedback.

I closed my eyes and tried to trigger the command to put myself back together. The abrupt change of direction from my swarm made Dusk hiss in annoyance. My body laid there huffing as the
[Mechanical Minion]
army merged with this crazily designed
[Mechanoid]
character. The pain ruling my brain dulled.

MrJohnson also lay there huffing while the crowd above chattered away. About ten minutes later I had mostly recovered. The mess of
[Mechanical Minion]
s took a long while to reabsorb. As soon as everything had settled back into place TLM sent me a challenge message.

"Let's go!" he shouted in his squeaky voice.

I sighed heavily and looked at the shorter player. My hand reached for yes and our arena set back up again. The
[Behemoth]
grumbled while climbing out of the forming pit. Moments later we were in combat.

That little guy was insanely hoppy. My eyes were lost as he swiftly ran in. I had enough time to take a deep breath and open fire with my Gatling laser. From there I unleashed the tried and true heavy gun tactic of spray and pray.

The battles went on. Near the end of my first ten fights, the score was about even. Six wins, and four losses. I felt proud for getting that far. TLM was actually hard to beat. Only a few lucky shots helped me take him down. Both the current top ranking players had easily destroyed me despite the tricks I pulled.

We had another hour to waste before our ships would reach
[The Lone Tower]
. TLM and two others kept up the challenges, but I think they were going easy on me. Playing around. I got a few pointers from the
[Cricket]
who had stomped me in the face earlier.

By the fifteenth match, I felt better about player fights. Not perfect, but far less worried than I had during the war, or dealing with Requiem. Everyone's abilities were different, trying to figure out ways to counter a
[Cricket]
's disorient inducing chirps was hard.

A small crew of people walked onto the arena's floor. I was between matches resting my brain and had time to see them. All four people wore the same militarized blue and dark gray gear. They were clearly NPCs. In the front was a woman with an annoyed frown.

"We're here. You three, based on the ranks you'll each get a chance to plead your cases before the Mistborn. Use it wisely." She turned right around without even sparing us a hello or goodbye.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"Viola Queenshand," the man next to me said. I looked down at the
[Teeny]
, TheLittleMan. "She was the commander at the station we left."

I tried to peg the name. It sounded familiar, but at the same it didn't. A new message popped up to distract me from the memory recollection attempt. Third place had benefits that were not expected in the least. Life in this game was looking up. Now if only I understood why talking to a
[Mistborn]
mattered in the slightest things might make more sense.

"Neat." I didn't realize these duels had left me in third place.

Session Fifty Two – Space to Think

Dusk and I were loaded into
[Wayfarer's Hope]
for a return trip to the mothership. In the distance loomed a giant tower made of a black material which reflected sunlight. The building sat upon an even larger rock like some island fortress, but with the gulf of space instead of the ocean.

"Dusk," I said quietly to the little guy on my shoulder.

He let out a noise that sounded like a cat purring mixed with bird chirps. I think it was dragon hiccups. He seemed bloated by a critter meal. How he had found time to dash off and munch on anything was beyond me. Then again, dozens of duels against other players had been distracting.

"Does this place seem, I don't know, familiar to you?" The tower looked a lot bigger, but it certainly held a lot of similarities. From a distance, it seemed absurdly familiar to one I had delivered a letter to in Continue Online.

Dusk shrugged. Extra arms made the motion look less fluid. I missed the dragon wings and sleeker body. This odd raptor shape didn't feel right. His extra-long tail often felt like a rope around my neck.

I sighed. Dusk could be asked a hundred questions and may choose not to respond. He was smart. I knew for a fact he understood, there was little I could do to motivate him.

"Can you still get into my Atrium?" I asked him.

Dusk turned and nodded slowly. There was a glint in his eyes that spoke of mild wariness. I wrinkled my nose and tried to figure out why asking about my Atrium would get that reaction. Nothing immediate came to mind.

"If I buy you cupcakes will you answer me?" I raised my eyebrows and reeled back to get a better angle on the shoulder riding creature.

His neck twisted around which almost left me facing an upside down grin. Dusk's rapid nod looked comical from this angle. I smiled. Bribes worked far better than repetitive questions.

"Can I ask questions first?"

My tiny companion nodded then shrugged.

"So, are they similar?" I started with the biggest issue to plague me since hearing about
[The Lone Tower]
.

Dusk nodded and rippled both shoulders then shook his head no. That caused a lot of confusion. I tried to decipher it while Dusk drooled on my shoulder. Small drips of mildly acidic material knocked an already abused health bar down one point at a time. I had barely recovered from the mess of side effects dueling induced.

"Really? I said to him.

Dusk nodded again, shrugged and finally shook his head in the negative once more. I had been asking about the drool, but he took it as a repeat of my former question. So far a promise of cupcakes had bought me a mixed bag. Yes, it doesn't matter, and no. That's what his combination of movements implied.

"That ghost lady in the video. This tower." I waved at the building in the distance. "And remember me staring at that star map? It had a gray skull on it. I would bet money on it being a space version of Camp Grey Skull."

Dusk yawned, nodded, shrugged, then shook his head. I sighed and tried to figure out better questions to ask him. Reconciling the two games wasn't easy. There were clear differences. It was impossible for this to be a differently skinned version of the fantasy world. For one thing, Continue Online didn't have a giant
[Leviathan]
rolling around in the
[Ya-Ya Mountains]
. Or flying, in an asteroid field, did it?