LIT RPG 15 (Patreon)

Violence. Charly never knew just how– thrilling– it could be, but as soon as they got into the game, proper, she and Danny went wilding, fists flying, guns blazing. Charly had always been one of the smallest girls in the class as she’d grown up. There were girls who got status by being athletic, and girls who leaned into brains. Charly, though, was tiny and pretty, and she’d hung her hat on cute. As she’d older and developed curves, what had started as a choice became her reality– she was cute, she was pretty, she was sweet.  She loved going to football games and watching the guys shove and hit and tackle– to her, it was all just a bunch of bucks, butting heads, fighting to impress her and the other females. But– omigod– her? Violent? No, she would have told you. Not her. She would always have a boyfriend to protect her if she needed it. She didn’t even like violent movies!

In her whole life, Charly had never even chased a boy, since she thought it was too aggressive. She just made herself as pretty and attractive as she could, and the boys all came to her, like bees to a rose.

That all changed as soon as they started the game. Having chosen to play two men, the girls were sent on a very different mission to start the game than their boyfriends, who had unwittingly put themselves into the “girl” storyline. Alas, game designers were still mostly men, and still mostly not very – modern.

Their first mission was a straight up raid. Danny, as a sniper, had taken up a position outside what looked like a repair shop, parking lot crowded with old, junk cars, a handful of NPC milling around. Their plan was for Charly to attack, fall back, and then let Danny pick off the NPCs who chased her. There was one man at the gate, lounging.  Deciding on the direct approach, Charly had walked right up to him.

“Hey,” the guy said.

“Hey, bro,” Charly said, trying not to giggle at the rumble of her manly voice. She was supposed to knock the guy out, but in her whole life, Charly had never even thrown a punch. She kind of shifted about awkwardly, raising her fists like a cartoon character and making what she thought was an angry frowny face.

A yellow, caution light flashed above the man at the gate. He stepped back. “Hey, what’s this?”

“What are you doing?” Danny said, watching Charly do what looked like some sort of spastic dance.

“I’m– um– getting ready to, you know? Hit him or something?”

“Just knock him on his ass before he codes red.”

“I don’t know how!” Charly admitted.

“Take your first and throw it at his face.”

“He’s so big!”

“You’re bigger. Now, hit that asshole!”

“Okay. Okay,” Charley said, then to the man, “sorry?” She swung toward him, palm open, and slapped him across the face, but even that she had hesitated right before striking, feeling bad about it.

“Motherfucker!” The man roared, reaching for his gun. The NPCs in the parking lot all flashed yellow.

“I thought you took kick boxing?” Danny said, appalled at the little girly slap Charly had unleashed.

“I do!” Charly said, putting her hands to her cheeks as the man pulled his gun.

“Hit him like he was the punishing bag! Now!”

“Oh, shit!” Seeing the gun rising up, Charly did exactly what Danny had told her, using her legs, swinging as if she were going to swing through his face and not at it.  Her fist connected, she felt a jolt in her arm, and the man’s head bucked backward, his whole body spinning as he fell to the ground, stunned.

“Fuck!” Charly said.

The NPCs were now all red, and all heading toward the gate. Danny put one in her sights, pop!  His head exploded. “Finish him and retreat. Lead them out!”

Stunned, the man was trying to get to his feet. Charly used another Kick Boxing move, bringing her knee up to smash into his chin, and collapsed, unconscious. Charly retreated, but she was lit up like she hadn’t been in years. “I’m a badass!” She shouted, feeling so big, so powerful. Beating that man down had been– empowering.

The NPCs began to move forward, now taking cover, but just as Danny had hoped, they followed Charly out into the open street, heedless of the sniper fire that was taking them down one by one by one.  NPCs are stupid. Usually.

Charly, seeing what was happening, had paused halfway across the street instead of ducking behind a car across the way as planned. Consumed with bloodlust, she wanted more.  One of the NPCs, a bald, tattooed looking freak with a pipe wrench, was closing on her. “Let me take him,” she growled.

“O-Kay!” Danny said, loving it.

The man lunged, swinging the pipe wrench in a wide arc. Charly raised her arm and blocked, then spun, delivering a roundhouse kick to the man’s head. He fell, and Charly pounced, climbing on top of him and unleashing a flurry of fists into his face, reducing it to a bloody pulp.

Danny’s eyes went wide as she watched Charly go savage. Yikes! It seems little miss cute has an angry side after all. “I think you got him,” she said.

The comment broke Charly’s violent fever, and she stopped, looking down at the pulverized face, then at her own bloody hands and clothes. “Yuck,” she said, shocked with embarrassment at what she’d just done and feeling a need to revert to girly. “There’s blood all over me! Gross!”

Danny climbed down from her sniper position. “It’s fun, right?” Danny said.

“It was, um,” Charly reached up to brush back the long hair she no longer had. “Interesting?”

“You loved it.”

“I’ve never been bigger?” Charly said. “I don’t know what came over me!”

“You don’t know your own strength yet,” Danny said. “And don’t worry about it. It’s a game. We get to do things in here we would never do in the real world. It’s part of the fun.”

Things we never do in the real world, Charly mused, looking at Danny’s handsome face. She really wanted to kiss her. What would it be like to kiss a guy who was actually a girl, as a guy? But, she wasn’t sure how Danny would take it, and she’d already crossed what she felt was some kind of line in terms of how she presented herself to the world.

“What next?”

“We get the car we were sent for and then kick some more ass.”

“Bro!”

“Bro!”

The girls fist-bumped and LVL UP!

Charly pulled the trigger on her Glock– the recoil was not as intense as she expected. The muzzle flashed, and blood blossomed from the gut of the old school mafia thug in the three piece suit who’d come at her with a broken bottle. She and Danny had picked up a side mission to bust up a gambling den. Charly could see the man wasn’t dead, so she fired three more times, missing twice as she swung the gun wildly, then hitting him for the kill shot.

Hmmmmn, she thought, Not as much fun as beating them down with my fists. The gamblers were screaming, running, as guns went off, flash! Flash! It was like they were under a strobe light, Danny unleashing hell on a group of thugs in the corner, while Charly un-equipped her gun and closed in on a scrawny looking runt. His face filled with fear as Charly lumbered towards him, and seeing the look of fear in his eyes, knowing he was scared of her, Charly thought, “Oh! Fun!” She punched him in the gut– no longer tentative, and when the man doubled-over she put him in a head lock and choked him until he collapsed.

Charly tossed him aside like a rag doll, reveling in her strength, her ability to dominate, then her world shuddered as someone smashed a chair over her head. She lost 2 hit points. That’s probably not good, she thought, her head aching with pain as she turned to face a big, burly looking man with a tattoo across his face. He was almost as big as her, but she thought– I can take him.

“Bring it!” The man, who the game indicated was called, Gino said, fists raised.

“I’m going to fuck you up!” Charly said, thinking it was probably the kind of thing a dude might say.

She hadn’t even looked at his level. If she had, she would have been a little more cautious. He was three levels higher, and the boss of this level.

Charly swung her fist, and then she didn’t even know what happened as Gino easily ducked under her punch and then unleashed a flurry of lightning fast blows that sent Charly to the floor, lip bloody, head swimming. “Ow! It hurts for real!”

“You bet it does,” Gino said, picking up one of the broken chair legs. “Stay down, bitch!”

“Bitch?” Charly struggled to her feet. There was no way she was letting this asshole beat her. “You’re the bitch!”

“I gave you a chance,” Gino said. “Now, you die!”

Charly sneered, got into a fighter’s stance, ready to try and–

Pop!

Gino’s head exploded and his lifeless body sank to its knees, then fell to the floor.

Danny stood behind him, and blew the smoke from the muzzle of her gun.

“I had him!” Charly bellowed, kicking the corpse, furious that she’d been denied what she’d thought was going to be her kill.

“Um, let me explain to you about levels.”

They say in the now empty illegal casino. Danny explained, then asked, “You okay? He it you pretty hard.”

“Yeah,” Charly said, confused at her own reaction, because she had always avoided pain. “It was actually, kind of…? I don’t know how to put it, but it was…?”

“Fun? Intense?” Danny said, having had the same experience herself.

“I felt alive,” Charly admitted. “When he knocked me down, I wasn’t afraid. I just wanted to get up and beat his ass. I just– I’ve never felt this way before.”

“I know. I went through the same thing.”

Jacked up on violence, the girls stared into each other’s eyes. They both wanted it, and Danny made the first move, putting her hand on the back of Charly’s head and pulling her in for a kiss.  As soon as it was over, they both giggled and looked away from each other.

“Sorry,” Danny said. “It’s just something I wanted to do.”

“I was curious, too,” Charly said. “I kissed a girl in high-school once. At a party.”

“Didn’t we all?” Danny said, getting to her feet. She offered Charly her hand, but Charly shook her off and got to her feet on her own.

“I never kissed anyone as a guy before,” Charly said.

“How was it for you?”

“Kind of the same,” giggling again, covering her eyes. “Except my dick kind of started to get hard!”

“Mine, too. How do guys put up with these things?”

The casino turned out to be an exceedingly lucrative mission, as they scored over 2000 credits, the usual weapons and gear. Unlike the “girls,” and Jack in particular, they didn’t find themselves scoring high heels and mini-skirts, but true to life tactical gear. They also Leveled Up! Twice. “You ready to log out?” Danny said once they’d finished gathering their winnings.

“Maybe one more mission?” Charly said.

“I was hoping you would say that. One more level or so, and we’ll be fit to help the ladies with their little mission.”

“The ladies,” Charly said, kinda loving the idea of seeing girl Brett soon. “We should totally treat them like girls.”

“I agree. It’ll be fun to be the guys for awhile. Now, let’s go kick some ass.”

“Bro!”

They’d both gotten addicted to the game.