LIT RPG 17 (Patreon)

The chopper circled Essentilus Tower. The pilot, for now, kept them outside the threat zone that would trigger the security systems. All five of them, geared up, stared down at the building through binoculars. What had looked easy in blueprints from the safety of Jack’s living room didn’t look so easy now as they eyed the turreted machine guns.

“Those guns will tear us to shreds,” Jack said. “I really think this is a mistake.”

“Can your chopper take a hit from one of those?”

“I’m armored up pretty well,” the pilot said, his voice crackling over their headphones. “I can absorb some fire, but you’ll need to take out those guns in a hurry or I’ll be a ball of flame before I can get clear.”

“Okay, here’s what we do,” Danny said, taking charge. “Jack, you see if you can hack at least one of the guns and disable it. Brett and I will see if we can take out two of the others with our sniper rifles. Once we fire our weapons, things will get hot, so everyone be ready.”

“Who put you in charge?” Brett asked, though he couldn’t disagree with her strategy.

“Don’t be a bitch,” Danny said. “Let’s just do this.”

“Who are you calling a bitch?”

“Um, didn’t you just have my dick inside you?” Danny said.

“Yeah, and I’ve had my duck in you in the real world, so what?”

Jack and Charly groaned. They were both tired of the pissing contest. “I’m hacking in,” Jack said.

“Wait!” Brett said.

“No. I’m sick of you two fighting all the time.”

“I’m taking us in,” the pilot said.

“Just don’t miss your shot, honey buns,” Danny said, shouldering her rifle and taking aim.

“Warning! You have entered restricted air space,” a metallic voice called out. “Change course or be destroyed.”

“Pulling out,” the pilot lied.

“That’s what he said,” Danny mumbled.

Jack locked onto the closest turret and initiated breach protocol. A red bar appeared, filling, filling. “Come on. Come on,” he urged.

Danny and Brett lined up their shots in the crosshairs, locating the weak points of each gun.

“Breached!” Jack shouted. A menu appeared, and he had two choices. Disable. Or, take control. “I can take control of the gun,” he said.

“Do it,” Danny said.

Charly had her weapons ready and was ready to leap from the chopper when they got close enough.

Jack took control of the gun, which popped  and sparked. He was now seeing the roof from the perspective of the gun, and he swung it around, letting loose a spray of bullets that tore into one of the guards and ripped his body apart.

“We are under attack! Repeat! We are under attack!”

Danny and Brettt both fired, each one shouting as their bullets hit home and the guns exploded into flames.  With Jack sweeping the roof with machine gun fire, the guards all dove for cover, flattening themselves, trying to avoid getting destroyed. The fourth turret popped up, took aim at the chopper, and then exploded into shrapnel as Jack blasted it to pieces.

“You go, girl!” Charly shouted.

“Ladies and gentleman,” the pilot said as he brought the chopper swooping sideways across the roof. “”We hope you have enjoyed your flight. Now get the hell off my chopper!”

Charly leapt, rolled,spotted a target and pop pop pop took him out.

Jack disabled the turret, disconnected and followed, Danny and Brett right behind him. They tossed their sniper rifles, which were useless in close combat, and equipped their machine guns. Soon, the roof was alive with flashes and bangs, smoke trailing across the scene as the team butchered the over-matched NPCs.

“Suckers,” Jack said, planting a hand on his hip and tossing his hair.

“Watch out!” Brett yelled, even as one of the NPCs, who’d been stunned and not killed, rose up and grabbed Jack around the waist, lifting him off his feet.

“Let go of me!” Jack squealed, struggling, kicking.

“Let;s see if you can survive a fall from fifty stories!” The man yelled as he spun and hurled Jack over the edge.

“Motherfucker!” Charly screamed, diving at the man, knocking him on his back and then beating him senseless. “Shit. Shit. Jack! He’s dead!” Charly yelled.

“Um, not?” Jack said.

They all looked to see two tiny hands with long, red nails clinging to the edge of the rooftop. “A little help?”

Jack could have used the Climb skill to pop up, but he wanted to be rescued. Danny came over and grabbed his hand, easily pulling him to the roof and wrapping her arms around his little body. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. He was really starting to enjoy the feeling of being small, held in a man’s big strong arms, his soft body pressed against hard muscle. “Thanks to you.”

Danny kissed him. Jack sank into the kiss.

“Oh, how sweet!” Charly said. She was a sucker for romance, even as a dude.

That’s when they heard it. A loud grinding sound– the elevator rising.

“Playtime’s over,” Brett said. “Here comes trouble. I knew it was too easy.”

The group instinctively formed a semi-circle, guns ready.

“Whatever comes out of there, blast the hell out of it,” Danny said.

“No shit,” Brett added.

The doors clanged open to reveal a huge, gleaming robot bristling with weapons. The game identified it as Warbot3000. Everyone fired, but some sort of force field rose around the Warbot, and their bullets seemed to dissolve.

“Oh, shit,” Charly said.

“You are trespassing,” Warbot announced. “”And you will die.” The guns on its shoulders began to spit lead, while it also raised an arm and unleashed a stream of fire. Everyone went into evasion mode, dodging and running for cover.

A bullet caught Brett in the leg, and he stumbled and fell. Charly grabbed his arm and pulled him to a spot behind an air condition vent.

Jack got singed before he could roll to safety, and a bullet smashed into Danny’s back, but her armor held. She tumbled forward and rolled to a spot behind an electronics panel. Warbot locked in and Brett and Charly, then advance, blasting away at their position. All they could do was hide while a storm of deadly bullets blasted all around them.

Jack and Danny fired away to no avail. Jack scanned the bot.  The force field showed having 834 points out of 1000 remaining.  They’d be out of bullets before they destroyed it.  He tried to hack into the bot’s brain, and as he expected failed.

“A little help!” Brett shouted as the Warbot grew closer. In another couple of seconds it would be able to look over their shelter and fire right down on them.

“The gun!” Danny shouted. “The gun!”

Oh, shit. Jack had forgotten about the gun. He hacked back and took control, blasting away at Warbot. 834. &34. 634. The 50 caliber was doing serious damage! Warbot spun around and annihilated the gun. Brett and Charly seized the opportunity to scatter, running to new points of cover.

Brett fired a volley into the force field and then checked and saw what Jack had already seen. It would take all their ammo to take it down. “The elevator!” He shouted. “Run!”

But as he ran towards the elevator, bullets cut across his path, sending chunks of the rooftop flying. He retreated.

“There is no escape for you!” Warbot announced.

“You love to state the obvious, don’t you?” Charly said, firing her gun, knowing it was pointless, but needing to do something.

“You just stated the obvious,” Warbot answered. The programmers thought they were funny.

“We’re fucked,” Danny said. “Anyone die in this game before?”

“Nope,” Brett said. “‘But I bet it’s gonna hurt like hell.”

The mission level was too high. They were all doomed, and they lowered their weapons, waiting for the end.  It was all part of playing one of these games.

Which is when Jack giggled. He ran out from behind his shelter, directly at the bot.

The other three watched, thinking Jack had decided to go down in a blaze of glory.  Jack dove inside the force field, rolled and ran, ducking under a pillar of flame as the Warbot struggled to fix on the small, quick little target.

Brett was about to tell him to stop fucking around.  The sooner they died the sooner they could all start over, but then he saw it: Jack had left a grenade at Warbot’s feet.  It sputtered and shook. Warbot looked down.

“Oh, shit,” he said, and then the grenade exploded.

Warbot began to smoke and shake, and then he seemed to just fall apart, raining down onto the roof as a pile of components.

“Motherfucker!” Brett yelled. “Kick ass!”

“Fuck, yes!” Danny shouted.

“How did you know to do that??” Charly asked, wishing she’d thought of it.

“Oh, you know,” Jack said, hooking his hair behind his ear. “Feminine intuition?”

Everyone laughed.

Tommy, who’d cowered during the whole thing, walked up to Jack and kissed him. “You’re my hero,” he said softly. “Let’s do it right here, right now.”

“Not now,” Jack said. “We need to get you  back in your real body.”

“Pooh!” Tommy said. “You’re no fun.”

They took the elevator down to the penthouse office. Rene Brand,, in Tommy’s body, waited for them. She looked handsome in her pinstripe suit, her stubbled face. “Hey, babe,” she said to Tommy. “I knew you’d come back to me.”

“I missed you,” Tommy said, walking up to Rene and accepting a kiss.

“Okay, what the hell?” Brett said.

“Tommy is completely under my control when he is in my proximity,” Rene said. “He’s my puppet. Aren’t you, honey?”

“I’m whatever you want me to be,” Tommy cooed. “I love being a girl, and I want to stay a woman!”

“You see, my sisters and I can’t be stopped.  We are turning men like Tommy Grant into helpless women and taking all their power. We will reshape the world in…”

“Monologuing? Can we just finish this already?” Danny said, raising her rife and talking aim at Rene’s skull.

“Let me explain my plan, and when I am done, if you still want to try and stop me…”

Once more, Jack’s feminine intuition kicked in. He checked his hacking system. “She’s trying to hack our brains!” He said. “And turn us into her servants!”

“Damn it!” Rene yelled, shoving  Tommy away, reaching for the pistol on her desk. Charly’s fist sent her to the ground, unconscious.

Tommy shook his head. “Thank God,” he said. “Let’s get this done. Now.”

There was a body swap machine in the office, but whereas the other one they’d discovered had looked like something from a 1950s B movie, this one looked like futuristic cyberpunk.

It didn’t really make sense to anyone that there would be one in the office, but this was a computer game. Stranger things had been observed. Charly picked Rene up and dumped her in the chair. Tommy sat. Danny through the switch, and they watched as ghostly images of Tommy and Rene changed places.

Tommy immediately grabbed his junk. “Hey, guys,” he said, speaking to his crotch. “I missed you.”

Mission Complete.

It was a big one. They each gained FIVE levels.

Mission complete, they couldn’t help it. Brett and Jack found themselves in the arms of their men, celebrating their success with warm kisses full of longing and desire.

END Part I