Bet you never saw this coming
"A team?" My slayer, Reclaim Terminal, (Or RT as I liked to call him for short), asked, "What the heck is a team?"
I grinned to myself, staring over the remains of the flattened leet in front of me. I figured we'd better clean it up before someone see's it - we didn't know how many of these robot-leets might be wandering around.
"A team," I replied, "was something that used to exist before we found this Shadowlands thing. Ahh... back in the day we were given the option of at least two beasts to kill. Now all we can find are those bloody rocky things." I picked up the mess of a leet and headed over to a tree. "I think we'd better hide this here. Too many people swim in the water to put it in there. It should stay secret here."
"Yeah you're right. Anyway, we should go find one of those things you were on about... what did you call it... a teem?"
As I stepped up, in the corner of my eye I swore I saw the leet twitch. I jerked my head and it lay still, as dead as it appeared before. The whole thing still confused me - it made no sense at all.
It didn't take long to reach the heckler spots. There I found a small group of clanners sitting around a tree, talking and joking around.
"Hey guys... mind if I take a seat with you? I'm exhuasted - I just had the weirdest experience involving MP's... leets and robots...." The group looked at me, a little disgusted. A large atrox lying against a tree coughed and said;
"Uhmm... whatever you do with your little friends when the light go out is something we don't want to -"
"Nononono it's not like that. Ah forget it... So how long have you guys been sat here?" A small, frail opifex walked out from behind the tree. He scared me a bit - last thing you want to see after an experience I just had is a butt-ugly opifex jumping in your face.
"I've been here since the portal to the shadowlands opened... I set up this place as my stronghold." I looked around. Nothing but trees and grass.
"Doesn't look like much of a stronghold. Why can't you find a team? I mean, you're a fixer so... oh I see. I'm terribly sorry I didn't realise you were a fixer."
He looked at the ground, sad. The atrox from earlier s******ed to himself whilst taking a puff of his cigarette.
"What I wouldn't do to get a kill... I haven't killed anything in donkey's years. Man... I have such an itchy trigger finger!" The fixer lightened up. He wasn't holding a weapon, but still looked ready to shoot the next thing that moved.
The atrox took another large puff of his cigarette.
"So what's your story? Your name is... Halouk right? Come to join our little stronghold? Heheheh.." The atrox giggled to himself, before breaking into a coughing fit. I was just about to answer when a bulletin came shooting over the IRRK Newsline;
"Citizen's of Rubi-Ka and Explorers of the Shadowlands. We have a special and important warning - be on the look-out for Halouk , an atrox engineer last seen around the Eastern area of Adonis. He can be seen walking with a large slayerdroid and a small predator-M30. Approach with caution. If you feel you can, please kill him ON SIGHT. We have people waiting at every reclaim point known to Rubi-ka, to catch him as he respawns. Thank you."
The group fell silent. Slowly, I reached into my pocket and clutched my pistol. The atrox took a last puff of his cigarette, put it out under his shoe and slowly stood up. The fixer reached behind a tree and pulled out a very shiny, brand new SMG. I looked at him, puzzled.
"What do you think I've been doing the last year? Sat here on my ass? Not likely. Camping. And now I have it. I'd like you to try out my new toy. And I'm sure the rest of the group would too."
With that, all 6 of of the group pulled out their weapons and formed a cirlce around me. I was trapped, looking down the barrel of 3 very scary guns, knowing another 3 were aiming at the back of my head.
"Take your hand out your pocket, Hal.... slowly..." The fixer stated. He was clearly enjoying this.
"Sure... I'm just getting a cigarette." I slowly pulled a cigarette out of my pocket, happily showing it to the fixer and his group - so they knew I wasn't up to anything. I clicked the button on it, starting the auto-ignite.
"Wonder how much bounty-money we'll get for this. Should get quite a reward, I think." The atrox grinned. I smiled at him, and took a large, very large breath of my cigarette. As I exhaled, I breathed it all in his direction, starting one of his coughing fits. He keeled over, clutching his lungs and gasping for air. Taking my chance, I dived over the atrox and pushed him to the floor. The rest of the group quickly took aim as I dived behind a nearby tree.
"Take him out! Don't let that gimp get away!" The fixer shouted. I protected my head with my arms as bullets came flying all around the tree. My slayerdroid and predator were both hiding behind a nearby tree.
"RT! I need your ubah health bar bud! I need you to give me some cover - we're gonna have to jump the brink!" I shouted. RT nodded in acknowledgement, and run out from the tree towards me. As he reached me, I stood behind him and ducked from all the incoming bullets flying my direction, whilst running hastily towards heckler-ville. Looking behind me, I caught a glimpse of my predator growling, baring all it's teeth at the small group. The fixer was still shouting.
"Ffs noobs! It's only a predator! It'll die in one shot!"
"There ain't no way I'm going near that! I heard those thing bite your... you-know'whats off!" The atrox screamed in reply.
"What do you care? You're an atrox! You don't have male or female genitals... do you?"
"Well actually, not many people know this, but what we do really have is a -"
The atrox never finished his sentence as my predator took a nice bite. Right on his ass.
"Yeowch! Forget this man." The atrox ran off. I smiled to myself. They might have gimpy HP - but dogs really are neuters best friend. It wasn't long before the rest of the group followed. Still running, I finally could see the brink in the distance - and waiting there for me was a sight that almost made me drop my screwdriver in shock.
There, lined up at the brink like a wall, were dozens upon dozens of enforcers, adventurers and others who had obviously recieved the message too. They knew I was coming, and they were ready for me. I stood at the top of the hill, staring at all of them. There were too many to count. It was hopeless - there was no way I could survive a run to the brink with all these people.
"You know, RT, if you had any idea how to walk in a stright line, you might actually be useful here." I joked. RT just stared at the crowd, obviously as bewildered as me.
"What I still don't get, Hal, is who the heck put that message on the IRRK, and why?"
"Beats me. But I'm not gonna find much out about it around here!" I smiled to myself as stream of hope dawned on me. RT looked and smiled at me, realising what I was about to do. Calmly, I spoke into my NCU microphone.
"Activate Perk: Bio Cocoon."
I grinned as the bubble of absorb materealised around me. I had 30 seconds to do it.
"Good luck Hal. Guess I'll be seeing you on RK." RT smiled. Holstering my pistol in my pocket, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and ran as hard and as fast towards the huge crowd blocking the brink as I could. I was nearly deafened by the huge yell of the leader, a large enforcer, shouting the command to start shooting. Praying my bioshield would hold, I kept running as the army of players burst, full auto and fast attack their fury out on me.
To be continued (?)
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