Guardian Angel Haruki
Azure Bubbles
Lurking Krog
rush99999
Savo
Agunimon
fellsing
Majoraa
Necroes
Ohm
Ciri
VS
Viper
VS
Viper
Monsters were generally resistant to physical attacks, but espers had enough magic coursing through their bodies that a foot stomp could be effective. "Monkey’s uncle!" The tiger shouted as Ciri maneuvered around him and towards the girl she had decided to take along with her. It got into position as Ciri reached towards Amanda.
"We need to find cove-"
She and it sank through the floor. With hardly any time to spare, Ciri dove through an adjacent wall and hoped there was a safe place to materialize. Before long, she phased back into reality and fell on top of an unmade bed.
Was this room in use? Some weeb had put up a bunch of retro anime posters, and his computer had an oni wallpaper background. Everything else looked pretty standard for a low end apartment in a high end part of town. The chaos of the hallway had quieted down to nothing, and now all Ciri could hear was the sound of running water coming from the bathroom.
Ciri's first thought was that at least she landed onto something soft. No record remains of what her second thought was, as the moment she was able to take in her surroundings, her mind was numbed by absolute dread. She rolled onto her stomach and pushed herself up on her elbows, eyes darting from one scantily-clad, disproportionate anime girl to the next.
No. No, no, no fucking way, not anothe–
Seconds later, a guy wearing nothing but a towel walked into the room. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he spotted Ciri "casually" reclining in his bedsheets.
"Um…" He adjusted the towel. "Are you stalking me?"
The bathroom door opened, and as Ciri's gaze snapped towards the man stepping out, she nearly choked. It wasn't just a nerd; it was the nerd. And he thought she was stalking him?!
"You fucking wish," she hissed, training her gun on him so fast it made her own head spin. He immediately swallowed. "Trust me, if I knew I was going to end up here, I would’ve stayed in the corridor and gotten shot. Now shut up. And– hold on to that damn towel like it's hiding your browsing history. You drop it, you drop dead. Capiche?! Just... I'm trying to think..."
Was this guy actually stalking her?! How was he here anyway, wasn't this like a crazy expensive hotel?! Was this a trap? A joke? A divine comedy? More like a fucking traged– wait, this wasn't what she was supposed to be thinking about!
Her gaze shot to the room's rightmost wall, then swept to the one she'd just slipped through, both adjacent to the corridors beyond. Where had Viper moved by now? Ciri knew she had to get a clear shot, preferably from behind, but if she just picked a part of the wall at random, she was just as likely to stick her head directly in the way of a shotgun barrel. And then she would've blown her cover. She had one shot.
Ciri slid off the bed – eww, she was way past the five second rule of touching those sheets – and cursed under her breath. Right now, she was in the clear. Able to 'lay low' as she was supposed to. Any time now, the gang downstairs would make their way up – and then she'd have backup. Ironically, the best thing she could do now, was... nothing. She could always fight Viper another day. Except she really, really could fucking not.
She grit her teeth, staring at the wall.
"… Okay, Ciri decided after a few seconds of silent fuming. She had a plan.
The nerd relaxed a little bit when she wasn’t aiming a gun at him any more. "Um, well, thanks for saving me last time."
"If I turn myself invisible first and then go through the damn wall…
He scratched the back of his head. "I mean, I wouldn’t have needed to have been saved if I didn’t scream like you wanted me to, but I thought we made a pretty good team."
"I'll get, what, a few extra seconds to figure out where I am and where that bitch is, and then—
He sniffed his shoulder to make sure his body spray was still intact. "I’m Joshua, by the way. What’s-"
"Ugh, shut up!
Ciri whirled around, unable to filter the damn nerd out any longer. "Joshua, we are not a fucking t–"
And then the entire south wall caught fire and collapsed on itself. There was no longer a hallway. All of the hotel rooms on either side of the former hallway had been de-walled, and the hallway’s ceiling and floor had been burned away too. Most of the rooms were unoccupied, but there were a few shrieks up and down the former hallway as guests were able to look into each other’s rooms.
The loud series of crashes startled Ciri into turning back towards where there... used to be a wall, gun pointed at the wreckage of the hallway as if anticipating all of her enemies pouring into the room at once. Somewhere, someone was screaming.
"Oh, that’s not good…" came Joshua’s helpful contribution to the situation. Ciri wanted to scream too. Things could not get any wors–
"Hey!" It was Amanda from the floor below.
She was wrong. They got worse.
"What gives? You said you were going to help me get revenge!" The girl soared up through the floor and landed in the room with everyone. For a moment she had ethereal bat winds, but they dissipated after she landed. It was not far behind, but seemed a little distraught that they couldn’t keep Amanda downstairs. Her eyes darted between the naked man in a towel, then at Cirilla. "I know how the birds and the bees work! You don’t have to send me downstairs just because you want to visit your boyfriend! We can save him too while we’re here."
Ciri could feel her face heat up, though whether from embarrassment at the sheer absurdity of Amanda’s assumption, or from being two seconds from spontaneously combusting from anger, even she couldn’t tell.
"Amanda I will fucking shoot everyone in this room and then myself, I am not kidding right now."
Amanda sighed. "Guns don’t typically have much effect on us." She gestured towards it and herself. "So knock yourself out. But before you do, might I suggest another way out of here?" Again, Amanda sprouted wings and jumped. She led first, and crashed right through the ceiling. Concrete and rebar fell to the floor where she went. She kicked around the hole to knock more debris before leaning back into the room and offering her hand. "The room’s empty. We can get the jump on gas mask girl a lot easier from up here."
…
Ciri was already mentally walking through the steps of a good ol' AoE Damage X Melody, when Amanda broke through the damn ceiling, and proceeded to speak the magic words. Ciri snapped out of whatever anger-induced stupor she was in, and refocused on the hand being offered to her. "Right, that's... not a bad idea. Just remember, we take her out first, and then the kid."
The nerd looked around. "Can I put on my pajamas and come with you guys?"
"No you fucking cannot, Joshua. And like– your entire wall just collapsed, you might wanna like, I don't know, develop a sense of self-preservation, maybe?! Like get the hell out of the building before it collapses? You know?! Normal shit?! This isn’t an… ayneymeh."
With that, she kicked off the ground and hoped Amanda really was stronger than she looked.
Amanda may have looked like a teenager, but upon taking her arm, Ciri was reminded she was a young monster. She pulled Ciri up and let her climb the rest of the way out of the hole.
Joshua rubbed the back of his head. "I uh, I’d like to escape, but there’s no floor. I’m kind of trapped."
With a sigh, Amanda offered her hand. "We’re leaving now. If you want to come up, come now."
Ciri whirled around, wide-eyed. "Wait, what, you aren’t really–"
"Ah… I guess naked and untrapped is better than the alternative." Using one hand to hold his towel, he grabbed Amanda’s hand with the other and she helped him up. With everyone up, they left the hotel room and piled into the hallway. "So um, about getting downstairs. You said ‘gas mask’ girl is there?"
Amanda groaned. "Yea, but Ciri wants to take care of her so that you have a clear escape."
"I don’t think that’s true…"
"It's not true."
Joshua and Ciri’s words went ignored when Amanda looked back at Ciri. "Okay, so the metallic dragon is still-" The building shook as the golden dragon descended from on high. It was plain to see that the meek, cowardly dragon was wearing a confident smile. He descended below the window frame with a crash. This turn of events just made Amanda sigh. "I don’t think we have long before she comes this way. Ideas?"
Ciri sighed, deep and heavy. This was not how she imagined getting her revenge, being cheered on by a teenage monster and a dude in a towel. But whatever.
"You two start getting on Boteg," she gestured towards the window. "I'll hide. When she sees you about to escape and tries to stop you, I'll snipe her ass from behind. Uh, figuratively. Her ass still has armour." Her scowl morphed into a grin. "But the back of her skull doesn't."
As she said this, it sounded like more people were coming downstairs to their level. Just how many hostels were in the Golden Trove?
"... You hear that? Guess there’s gonna be more distractions around in a sec…"
"We’ll have to move quickly then."
So they did.
Amanda took Joshua’s hand and ran to the window. It looked a little weird, maybe even inappropriate, for a teenage girl to be leading a nearly naked man down the hall. At least it seemed like they might be out of Ciri’s hair for the moment.
When they got to the window, Amanda looked outside. "Oh wow."
Given Ciri’s position, she wasn’t able to look and see what they were seeing, but Amanda was slowly backing away from the window. It seemed that getting on Boteg was not a realistic option right now. And the why would become evident very shortly.
The top of the dragon’s head smashed into the window frame and crushed about a half a ton of concrete. Amanda stumbled into a wall while Joshua. Fortunately Ciri didn’t get to see anything from where she was standing. Amanda helped the man back up as Boteg righted himself.
"Thou art feisty wench!" The dragon used his claw to wipe some concrete dust off of his mouth. "Shadow scare doth tell me that thou art a partner that requires a romantic rendezvous!" He razed his claws. "Shall I compare thee to an erupting magma cavern?" Regina tackled him out of view.
Amanda groaned. "Why is everyone so horny?" she bit her lip.
Meanwhile Ciri, who had thankfully neither seen nor heard what was going on outside, had tried to find herself a dark nook to hide in. Her aim was to flatten herself against the shadows in a spot where she would be able to see Viper once she reached their floor, but where said sniper’s eyes wouldn’t immediately land on. Her hope was that Amanda and Joshua’s position would draw the bitch’s attention, since they weren't exactly being quiet.
Ciri would just need to make sure she was.
[Diamond Self][Obfuscate] -40
She listened and waited for the sounds of approach from downstairs to come a bit closer, casted, then prepared to wait again. She had a few seconds of literal invisibility even after she left her little bubble of darkness, which she was saving for once Viper was within sight. Then all she needed was a clear shot to the back of her head.
… Come to think of it, shooting people in the backs of their heads had become a bit of a recurring theme, huh.
But before Ciri could wind up her melody, that distant sound coming from upstairs was now very close. Two weretigers were charging down the hall with their guns drawn. They didn’t see her, of course. She had a few seconds left before the shadow she was standing in flicked out and the lights came back on.
Amanda was about to retreat back into the hallway when she noticed what Ciri noticed earlier. Amanda and Jason were trapped against a duel between dragons, approaching guards, and likely Viper.
Amanda looked down the hall at the approaching threat, who was charging up for some uranium based melody. Glowing yellow dust kicked up around her body.
"You should have stayed home."
As Himiko stormed down the corridor she spotted someone up ahead as they got closer, it didn’t take long to know it wasn’t someone from Gemini as she had a pretty good grasp on the agents within the organization. "I tink we have found a better way of swowing hew down…" quietly remarking to MDP and the Pounder before raising her voice to address the woman ahead. "You might wanna to save that attack!" calling out to Viper while keeping in her stride. Anything that the trio seemed to do had very little impact on Vermilion's progress and only minorly inconvenienced her at best.
"Huh?" Viper whipped around just as Himiko ran past her.
Buttttt, if they could get someone else to keep her busy it would make it a whole hell of a lot easier to get to the designated targets without Vermilion breathing down their necks. It was at least worth a try, even if Himiko didn’t know who the woman worked for or why they were here, she had a suspicion that she wasn’t on Maverick or Gemini’s side. Whether or not it worked, Himiko had no intention of slowing down or stopping as the moment she did Vermilion would be right at their throats.
Everything always happened at fucking once.
Ciri had just managed to bite back a few choice words directed at the interfering kitty cats, when Amanda seemed ready to take on the downstairs gang (oh hell no) and someone who was supposed to be dead showed up from behind a corner. From the sounds of it, more were coming from downstairs. She would have to worry about them later. She would have to worry about everything else later.
Right now, she had a few seconds of invisibility and a dream.
And, most importantly of all, finally her target.
[Gold Projectile][Homing][Avoid][Damage X] -280
The projectile nearly hit the trio of espers running on by, but it weaved over their heads before locking onto Viper. Smash, direct hit, not even a chance to block.
At the sound of impact, Ciri let out a triumphant breath she'd been holding for fucking months at this point. Finally, she’d caught that slippery snake! Talk about a delicious fucking reven–
Her mask popped off of her face.
?!
"Grah!" Viper didn’t have a chance to fully turn around. She pressed herself against the wall as Veronica tore past her, more concerned with the fleeing espers than some faceless nobody. Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. Viper’s face was beautiful, with lips like rubies and a small nose. The only offputting detail was that her eyes glowed like uranium, though some would say that gave her an otherworldly charm.
…
The gasmask was part of it too?! She wore a damage absorbing helmet and her gasmask was still–
Amanda and Josua used the distraction to retreat behind Ciri, where the weretigers were waiting for them. But Veronica was ahead of them, and she dispatched them as soon as they opened fire. The quatro of espers disappeared in the distance. It was just the four of them now, minus the fight going on outside.
With a brief glance over her shoulder after Ciri’s attack had passed Himiko took stock of the situation. It had hit Viper, but with so much other stuff going on around them Vermilion was still slowed by having to take out the present weretigers even if it had only taken her a second to do so. Himiko now knew she and her allies would reach the final floor without being stopped by the tea drinking fashionista.
"Well." Viper pointed her glowing finger at Ciri. "If you wanna fight now, that can be arranged." With a snap, a glowing block of radioactive material appeared in the air and orbited around Viper. Just being in its presence was making Ciri sick, and Amanda had already started convulsing. Joshua, strangely enough, seemed completely unphased by it. He slid an arm around Amanda and helped her walk down the hall. Then Viper lifted her shotgun, and Joshua scooped up Amanda with both arms and took off running, allowing his towel to fall on the floor as she screamed down the hall. "Ugh!" She took cover behind the corner. "Did you fall for that guy or something? Why did you bring him into this?"
Ciri truly did feel sick, and only part of it was the radioactive shit floating around Viper. A comparatively small part, even.
Was– was Joshua a fucking esper with some truly remarkable defenses or something, or was the entire point that he wasn’t affected because he wasn’t one?! Was that shit anti-magic? Or was it ju– oh my god there he went and he was holding Amanda, she was the worst babysitter ever.
Was that the towel?!
Focus, Ciri, fuck.
Amanda, she snapped, exasperated,can't you encase that damn thing in sand or something? she asked, hoping the girl realized she meant the floating, radioactive whatever-the-fuck.
"I-I don’t know!" She thought back. "I think it’s a melody, those aren’t really my area of expertise."
Speaking of, she had to get the hell away from that or no skin care routine would save her face. Ciri started retreating into the hallway, searching for the closest doorway she could take cover in, shooting at Viper with both pistols as she went. She didn't exactly aim at anything in particular; mostly she just wanted to get rid of her armour, whatever form it might take, and by now she finally figured that a hail of bullets might do that particular job the best.
Viper popped out from behind her corner just in time to take two bullets from Ciri’s wild fire. Her over shirt exploded, and the other bullet blew off her cargo pants. The assassin didn’t seem to be too bothered that they were waltzing around in a plain T-shirt and hot pants. A single shot from her shotgun filled the hallway with pellets. Ciri had managed to find her way back inside the guest room, but the doorframe didn’t take everything. Some slag and wooden splinters peppered the side of her body.
Viper took cover in the room just in front of Ciri’s. Dragon Regina and Boteg continued to wrestle outside.
Shit, shit, shit, that was close.
Hiding near the entrance of the guest room, Ciri held back a groan. She was almost done with Viper's armour, though at this point she was pretty convinced the t-shirt and hot pants (as well as whatever the fuck she wore underneath) also counted towards her Style, so who the fuck knew.
She was almost out of mana. She only had one big shot left, and she had to save it for when she was sure it'd hit its mark. So until then, all she had were her guns and... ugh.
Her 'allies'.
It, first. It wouldn't die from inevitably getting shot.Get in there, I need help with the rest of the damn armour. Cover for Amanda.
For whom she sent a: "Fine, forget the orb, just need some sand in the eyes or something, a distraction, you can do that, right?! Don't get fucking shot.
... And... finally…
"So... Josh, you wanna be a hero? Jump that fucking orb. Ciri raised her guns, glancing over her shoulder to the hallway and the door across from hers. "We're going in. Now.
No time like the present after all.
Josh had run Amanda away from danger, so they were both quite far away. Fortunately, Joshua could run a lot faster when he wasn’t carrying a school-girl-looking-succubus-sand-man-monster-person. "Alright, here I come!"
It got there first. When Viper aimed her gun down the hallway, the shadow inflated its body to shield everyone from any incoming bullets. But Viper did not fire a bullet. A glowing uranium slug flew out from the end of the gun and slammed into the specter, blowing a huge hole in the shadow. It collapsed to the ground, writing in pain, and Viper launched another melody. A swirl of yellow dust particles soared towards the burning crystal she had made earlier and flung it further down the hall. The normally silent shadow was positively howling as he burned up at the edges.
Ciri startled at the howl, a sound she’d never heard It make. Yeah, It had gotten hurt before, just not… hurt-hurt, not like this. Reflexively, she tried to aim at Viper in revenge, but–
But what Viper saw next had her ducking back into cover. Not because of a potent attack coming her way, but because a naked nerd with no self respect was running as fast as his hairy, untoned legs could carry him. There were certain parts of the human body that nobody wanted to see flex and shake during a sprint, and all of them were on display.
For a fleeting moment, Ciri thought of turning her guns on herself.
She closed her eyes and cursed whatever deity had bestowed her eyes instead.
Josh dove for the little radioactive pellet that didn’t seem to hurt him, and tumbled further down the wall. When he stood up, he looked back down the hall at Ciri. "I got it! I really got-Oh!" He placed his hands over his crotch, and the pellet made it look like he was trying to hold back yellow streams of light.
He did?! Ciri didn’t dare open her eyes to check.
Viper groaned before aiming down the hallway again, only for Amanda to bring up a handful of sand and bitch slap her as she cruised by. The nearly naked, formerly masked esper sunk to her knees. Then her eyelids fluttered shut as she collapsed in the doorway, her instrument resting in her lap.
During the entire exchange, Ciri hadn’t found a moment to shoot her pistol that wouldn’t have endangered someone. But it didn’t seem like it was necessary. Her plan had worked. Aside from It being reduced to a screeching mess, everyone else appeared to be fine.
Amanda scooped up the shadow in her arms, which laid across them like a torn flag. "You’ll heal up. Wounds like that are something us monsters can recover from." With a groan, she looked at Ciri. "Was that enough revenge for you? If not, better get it out of your system before everyone else gets here. We still have to go higher."
It worked.
Somehow, against all odds, the three (two?) stooges had managed to take down the foe she'd been fumbling to injure for what felt like ages. Flabbergasted and still partly expecting Viper to be faking it, Ciri slipped out of her hiding place into the hallway, heading towards the unconscious woman.
Only to stop when she saw It, finally able to take in the extent of damage the monster had sustained.
Ciri had expected – even counted on – it getting shot, in lieu of anyone else. It had been part of the plan, a fate It, too, had accepted by going along with it. So…
She shifted uncomfortably. So she shouldn't... It'd recover, right? Like Amanda said. It was a monster, a damn strong one, and–
... And she wasn't doing a very stellar job of repaying It for saving her life back then, huh.
"... Thank you. And, yeah, I'm… there was an awkward, heavy pause." ...Sorry. But like, you'll get your fill of mana later, alright? So just... hang in there.
Ciri looked over to where Viper lay, unconscious, and fiddled with the trigger of her gun. Enough revenge? She hadn't even hurt the bitch yet! After everything, Viper got to snooze away in dreamland with nary a fucking scratch on her. How was that revenge?!
But at the same fucking time, if she shot her now, what'd that teach the damn kid? Amanda was right there, watching, still after her own revenge.
Ciri grit her teeth, indecisive. She didn't feel like she'd gotten what she wanted yet, but when she tried to think of what it was exactly she wanted revenge for, she was… admittedly drawing a blank. Then her eyes flicked to Joshua, and she remembered. It wasn't pain that got her so worked up and wanting to settle the score in the first place. It was embarrassment. Being forced to rely on the help of a nerd, twice, and once while the dude was dangling his bits all over the hallway. And so–
"Hey, Josh," she barely afforded Joshua a spot in her peripheral vision, not wanting to look too close. "I think you earned your first... hero point." Ciri had no idea how these fucking gaming terms worked. "I think for your next... uh, level up or whatever, you should take care of her." She gestured at Viper with a gun. "Can't leave her lying here, right? It's dangerous. So, yeah, think you gotta take her along and nurse her to health so you can trigger her, uh..." shit, what did they call them? "Redemption arc? Yeah. Sure she'll wake up and appreciate all the fussing and change all her wicked ways for you."
"I um-" He sighed, then threw the infernal uranium-thingie out into the dragon battlefield. "Just let me get my towel and I’ll get right on it. God you people are weird."
She was just about to turn away, but felt compelled to add: "Just don't try anything fucking weird while she's out of it."
"This whole situation is fucking weird!" Josh gave his towel a firm tug once it was in place. "I’d have pants on right now if I had it my way!"
He’d better mean that. There was a limit to her revenge, too, and she wasn't above shooting up everything below the dude's towel-line if she had to.
With that, with her revenge actually taken care of, Ciri kneeled next to Amanda to see what she could do to help. "We have to take It away from here, it's fucking dangerous, but I gotta still get upstairs..."
"Me too." Amanda added while side-eyeing Ciri.
"Why not? I’ll take the screaming shadow with me too!" He scooped up the shadow. It was a little awkward because he was holding onto Viper too, and they just kind of slipped out of his fingers. "Could one of you lovely damsels place him in my arms? That’s an extra hero point for me, right?"
"The fuck did you just call u–"
Amanda sighed. "Where are you even going to go? There’s a battle on the floor below, and it could reach here any second." Joshua didn’t answer. "Maybe it’s safer if everyone just comes with us?"
"Are you kidding? We don’t know what’s upstairs! We at least know we got allies downstairs." Granted, they could be pretty far down, past who-knew-what. And the last time she’d tried to get rid of Amanda, it’d backfired pretty bad.
"... Just stay a good distance behind us, and stay quiet." She helped heave It onto Joshua’s arms, surprised at how light it was. It felt almost… insubstantial, a shadow about to fade.
She dispersed that thought with a frown. "And if shit hits the fan, forget that damsel," she gestured at Viper, "and make sure this one makes it out alive or your hero’s journey fucking ends right there and then. Got it?"
With that, she grabbed her guns once more, nodded to Amanda, and finally started towards the stairs leading upstairs. On the bright side, whatever awaited her there couldn’t possibly be worse than all the shit she’d endured here, right?
… Right?
