Gamma Protocol (030) (Patreon)

[030]

CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP

The Bear greeted me to the massive concrete ring with a slow clap of her bandaged hands. She was tall for a meguca, sculpted arms, scars hidden under tattoos, looking like a brick-house that’d made it through a war and then assaulted by graffiti. But I focused on her face, on the broken nose and squarish jawline, and the way her eyes stared me down despite being half my current height.

“I saw your fight.” Bear smirked, the stare remaining cold and hard.

The floodlights around me made it impossible to see beyond the outline of the ring. The roar of idle engines revved from every direction. I’d seen this situation, there were a billion clips online. The Bear liked to set a scene, and it played to the song of brutality.

“You’re one smart motherfucker.” Slowly she began to trail the perimeter of the ring, I mirrored her, keeping my distance.

AP: 00 / 150
Speed: 160
Strength: 183
Durability: 85

The system’s prompt rattled in warning, it knew I was in over my head. The sense of power and confidence oozing out of Bear was like staring at an artillery cannon from the wrong end.

She taunted, raising her fists. “Not going to attack me?” 

No, I wanted to run.

But I knew what would happen if I tried. There were no end of examples of what happened to monsters that tried to go after the “audience” rather than Bear. So I raised my claws and prepared myself. 

The gesture gave her pause, her brow furrowing ever so minutely, her stance tightening as she shifted, approaching me directly.

I bolted to the side, trying to regain distance while sticking to the boundaries of the ring.

Bear only moved faster, cornering me.

Then, she threw a right hook into the empty air in front of her.

I raised my arm, bracing right as a giant ball of chains materialized into thin air and pummeled my side like a wrecking ball. I stumbled, nearly falling down as she jogged closer, punching the air in front of her. The chains materialized a split second after, forming large spheres, barreling at me in odd angles and smacking me before vanishing into thin air half a second after.

Trying to dodge was borderline useless with how large the attacks were, my only option was to raise my guard and clench, my speed allowing me to roll with the punches somewhat. But even with that, every blow was like getting run over by a speeding bus, it was an order of magnitude more powerful than anything I could put out.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to hold out.

My opening came almost a full minute in, the punch rolling a bit too high, just enough for me to duck under and roll out of the way. Bear had over-extended, flank wide open, but I took the opportunity to get some space, putting some distance.

The assault slowed down as she glared harder. Was she trying to get a read on me?

“What are you trying to do? Escape?” she said. Her words held that same cadence I used when talking to myself. Of course. She thought me no more capable of understanding what she meant than any other monster.

Bear’s hands took a dim red glow, four chains emerging, two leading into the metal-like spheres, the others to wicked looking harpoons. She was no longer trying to hide her powers, the moment I turned to run, she’d get a clean shot with those harpoons and nail me to the ground.

“You’re not going to make it very far.” Bear raised her fists again. “Better die fighting.”

I raised my claws, mimicking her stance.

Bear’s brow twitched. “You’re not human.”

I flinched at her words, and that was all the opening she needed. The meguca launched her assault faster and more aggressively than before. Her shadow-boxing started with just sending the chain-balls my way, but as I raised my defenses, she threw a right straight, the harpoon thrusting at my chest.

Dodging to the right left me vulnerable to her uppercut. I saw the attack coming and could not move out of the way, the chain ball smashed against my chest, lifting my feet off the ground.

Several things cracked. With the air knocked right out of me, I collapsed to my knees, hacking for breath. 

Bear cupped her hands together in a downward attack, the two metal balls following through and pummeling me down. “Fight already!” She demanded, glaring, but giving me the opportunity to get back on my feet. “Stop pretending you’re human.”

Snarling, I clenched my fingers, curling each finger, feeling the audible crunch of reforming bone as I forced them into a fist, ignoring the sting against my palms. Then, slowly, I raised my arms, mimicking her stance.

The meguca didn’t say anything, she just threw a right hook.

I spun, throwing my own punch straight at the incoming metal ball. There was a bang where our attacks met, the metal sphere coming to a dead stop. Bear’s eyes widened in shock and I thanked my lucky-loot-boxes that the meguca’s punch hadn’t been with all she could pull out.

Concussive Touch
Every blow hits with twice the force.

Reacting faster than the meguca could recover, I launched myself at her, fists ready. Bear crossed her arms, the chained weapons rushing in front of her to block the attack. Except none came, I kicked at the ground, claws dug in, tearing concrete and sending a spray of dust, dirt, and rocks at her face. And just as she sputtered, I quickly backpedaled.

“H-h-HEY!”

Bear threw both harpoons, half-blind and probably thinking I’d turned tail and bolted.

As I dodged the two, I gripped the two chains and yanked.

Bear was stronger than me. I’d given my strongest punch against an average shot and barely managed to stop it. But with my claws digging into the concrete for traction, I held the advantage.

The meguca screamed, finding both her feet off the ground and unable to stop me as I proceeded to spin, dragging her around me like a flail. One rotation, two, and then… I let go. My payload hadn’t even begun flying off when I immediately bolted in the opposite direction, ignoring the scream, and the thud.

She was a meguca, she’d be fine… I hoped.

More concerning was the sound of people shouting and of engines roaring to life. Someone got off a shot on me, but whatever caliber they were using, I’d barely felt it as I broke past the flood-lights.

There was an empty stretch of terrain between the floodlights and the nearest gang-member. Several mounted weapons were brought to bear, but I kept myself low on the ground to make it impossible to open fire without risking people on the other side of the ring. Fortunately for everyone involved, whoever was on the mounted weaponry was either smart enough to realize this, or had been ordered not to shoot.

Should’ve kept to a proper formation, idiots.

The gang scrambled to get out of the way, members that’d been on vehicles already pulling away with whoever could catch a ride. I didn’t bother with any of them, running straight towards the city, looking over my shoulder every other second, dreading the moment Bear would catch up.

A buzzing sound drew my attention skyward, only now noticing the dozen-odd drones flying overhead.

Right, my shimmer kept me hard to track by digital cameras, not completely invisible.

My momentary pondering over what to do was superseded by the recognition of the area I was in. An idea emerged, and I began to run faster towards my target.

All around me, the roar of bikes was starting to join the buzz of the drones. The gang was mobilizing and organizing. I had little doubt they’d sooner or later corner me, either that or Bear would catch-up and finish the job.

Reaching the trash-filled alleyways bought me some breathing-room, zig-zagging and changing directions to make it impossible to set up an ambush-point. Though I couldn’t see it, I could hear the panic that was spreading throughout the district. Cars honking, people screaming.

I let out a pained roar, if just to add to the chaos a little.

Not my proudest moment, but if I could get traffic-jams to slow or even halt the gang chasing me, then I wasn’t going to complain.

Fortunately, I reached my destination before lock-down could be put into proper effect.

Barreling through the glass doors, I ran inside.

“Welcome to Organ Harvesters incorporated, how-”

Shoving the bot aside, I broke through the doors to go deeper into the building. The buzzing of drones had diminished, undoubtedly spreading over outside the building to cover all possible exits. The two following me met an unfortunate end when I rounded a corner and proceeded to apply some blunt-force. Their chassis turned into an example of overwhelming force meeting tissue-paper resistance.

Free of immediate pursuit and inside a (hopefully) empty (hopefully) normal office building, I began breaking down doors, opening into rooms, revealing more and more empty rooms in my search for…

There!

A wave of relief washed over me as soon as I recognized the janitor’s closet. Cleaning utensils and… an unnerving amount of deactivated cleaning drones. And more importantly, clothes! Gingerly, I snatched the overalls and continued through the building, this time wrecking more things, but intentionally.

There was a concerning amount of unfurnished empty rooms.

I ignored that, however, finding the bathrooms and releasing my transformation, proceeded to put on the overalls with the “Organ Harvesting” logo alongside the bare-bones hazmat mask-filter. My hands were shaking with adrenaline, my body exploding with a thousand pinpricks of pain, my chest felt like it was partially caved in, my everything bruised. 

It seemed the injuries from my monster form carried over, though fortunately not in their entirety. But I couldn’t stop now. Barefoot, I hurried back towards the entrance, bolting right out to the street.

There were a dozen bikers there already.

“Monster!” I shouted, pointing behind me as I stumbled my way out, tripping over myself, groaning in pain. Breathing was hard, and my stomach panged with agonizing hunger.

“Run off, we’ve got this.” The gang-member shoved me off as they were already preparing a perimeter.

They didn’t even give me a second glance as I ran, hunger becoming worse with every step. But I didn’t relax, not until I’d gotten far enough I couldn’t hear the buzzing of drones, nor the screaming of people, nor the rumbling of engines.

The hunger clawed at my entrails like a ravenous monster.

My eyes drifted to the trash.

Passive ‘Stomach’

Grade: [F] [1 / 22]
Effects: Digest any ANY biological matter.

“No.”

I just needed to make it to my stuff, then to the storage unit. There was a pile of tasteless nutrient-paste with my name on it, right next to a bag full of tasteful flavor-packets.

Another pang caused me to double over.

I groaned, taking a bite out of a piece of plastic.

It didn’t taste as bad as it should have. Actually, it had a mild corn-mulch-like flavor.

I was both thankful and resentful of that fact.

+Durability: 5+
 ∟Poison: 5 [08%] -> [12%]

“I hate you so much right now.”

---

After eating just enough out of the trash to hold out to the storage unit, and then proceeding to gorge myself stupid, by the time I came back out, the district had gone into full lockdown, meaning no public transportation.

I’d had to drag my way back, my everything hurting every step of the way. If any more of the damage had made it through to my human form, I would’ve probably collapsed somewhere along the way. Which would be bad to say the least.

Meaning, I just did my best to follow the third wall and keep it to my left until I found the Well, and from there maneuvered my way around by following the graffiti until I eventually found the motel.

Grills stood there, non-responsive.

Not wanting to risk meeting the wrong end of her shotgun, again, I just clambered into my room, opened the hot shower.

I was asleep before I even felt the water running over me.

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AN:

Sorry for the delay, gonna be ramping up chapter-posting back up now that I've finally put everything into gear