That was a subject I cared even less about than the vacation she’d ditched me for. “I have studying to do,” I interrupted.
“Oh, right. I forget you’re doing the student thing. Really, you should just get a husband and let him take care of you. That’s what men are for.” I had no doubt in my mind she believed that. Mom was a modern woman in appearance only. “You know, that sexy Irwin Collier was asking about you?”
My blood boiled and froze at the same time. My stomach clenched. “He was, was he?”
“Honey, are you okay?” Mom asked. “You sound like you’ve got something lodged in your throat?”
I don’t know why I said it. I knew it wouldn’t make a difference It just burst out. “He slipped something into my drink at Daddy’s fundraiser.”
“Oooh, how scandalous! That’s flattering, isn’t it? He must really want to get into your panties.” She said all of this with a hint of excitement that absolutely disgusted me. More than disgusted. It hurt. It shouldn’t have. I knew better than to expect any sort of support from her. She’d proved over and over that she wouldn’t, maybe even couldn’t, give it. Still, like a fucking idiot I kept reaching out for her.
“I have to go,” I said and hung up. I’d probably pay for that later. Rudeness wasn’t something that could be tolerated in me, after all.
Before anything else could happen, I pressed my thumb to the Kaiju Wars Online app. I didn’t want to play. I wanted to borrow Isabella’s gloves and go to town on the training bag she had hanging in our garage, but this needed to be done.
I was going to have a real future, and I was going to build it myself by whatever means necessary.
The game came online, and my breath caught in my throat at the sight of the creature that awaited me. The ooze monster was gone.
“Oh, you beautiful beastly bitch,” I muttered as I took in the creature that had replaced it.
Chapter Four
Edward Scissorhands eat your heart out. The crystalline talons my girl was packing on her hands were each the length of her arm, maybe longer, and each one put me in mind of a katana. Powerful and razor-edged. My girl had six of them.
It was like someone had carved a velociraptor out of orange stone, blown it up to the size of a building, and then said, “Yeah, she’s not dangerous enough yet. Let’s take it a step further.”
I couldn’t have said how I knew the monster was female, but I did. She was sinuous with a long neck and tail armored with jagged white crystals that looked like they could do some serious damage. Her face was almost avian with a beak-like mouth. All of which was completely overshadowed by those damnably ferocious talons on her hands. I couldn’t get over them, and they kept drawing my attention back.
I’d never been a fan of science fiction or fantasy. Monsters had never done anything for me. This one though, she did. There was an instantaneous connection between us. I could feel it as I took her in. There was something in her eyes that recognized me, and, for the first time, I felt a genuine thrill rush through my body.
I got to play with her? Oh, hell yeah!
Welcome back, Miss Church, said the AI voice that had greeted me the first time I’d logged in. Up until this moment it had been the best part of the game, because he sounds like a sexy Aussie guy who just returned from punching dingo’s in the face in the outback. This kaiju was designed to compliment your playstyle. Your special abilities have been granted and you have points waiting to be assigned.
The AI had said the game would design something customized for me—that had been half the disappointment of the ooze monster. This girl, though?
Are you ready to begin, Miss Church?
“Yes,” I said, meeting my kaiju’s eyes. “Yes, I am.”
A status window appeared next to my beautiful crystalline murder-machine.
Level 1
HP 3
Attack 5 (+2 Ambush Predator)
Defense 4
Special Attack 4
Special Defense 3
Speed 5 (+2 Ambush Predator)
Special Ability: Desiccation Ray
Desiccation Ray? As in dehydration? That sounded kind of lame. Though as I considered my monster—my kaiju—I suppose it made sense. There was a vague familiarity about her crystals, the way her center was a rich orange and the white shards grew from her. It made me think of these rock salt lamps I’d seen in home décor stores. That wasn’t nearly as cool as her being made of diamonds, which had been my first thought. Not that I could hold that against my baby. It wasn’t her fault the game made her out of salt. “No, it’s not,” I found myself cooing at her in a baby-voice. “Who’s a good, little pretty kaiju?”
Would you like to name your kaiju Little Pretty? asked my sexy Australian-voiced assistant.
“Fuck no,” I snapped. “No, my baby deserves better than that.”
A part of me thought that it would be funny as hell. I could just imagine everyone running in terror because the great and terrible Little Pretty was on them.
“I’m going to hold off on naming her just yet,” I said to the sexy Aussie voice. “Is there anything else she needs?”
You have fifteen points to allocate to her abilities, Mr. Australian said, then followed up with, Please clarify. You would like to designate me, ‘Mr. Australian?’”
Okay, that was intuitive. Also, creepy. The AI could read my mind. Damn, this implant was impressive.
“Sure, why the hell not,” I said. It would be easier than thinking of him as some disembodied voice. Besides, who was going to call me on cultural stereotyping a voice in my head? “Tell me more about these points.”
He did. There was a cap of ten to any given stat, not including the number in parenthesis. Those were apparently earned through the earlier test of my playstyle. They also apparently had an influence on my kaiju’s overall design. Ambush predator, huh? I liked that.
Mr. Australian went on to tell me that any stat I raised up to ten by using my points would get a bonus to it. Good thing I stopped to ask him before just spending them. The game seemed to reward specialization. I liked math as much as the next nerd—I was an accounting major after all, even if I wasn’t naturally amazing at it—but I’d much rather play the game. All of which made my decision on where to spend my points pretty clear and easy.
I poured as many points into Attack and Speed as the game would let me and discovered two things. One, the bonus from Ambush Predator was applied after the expenditure. Two, an extra two points were awarded for reaching the expenditure cap. By the time I finished, my girl’s stats read:
HP 3
Attack 14
Defense 4
Special Attack 9
Special defense 3
Speed 14
Special Ability: Desiccation Ray
If ten was a high stat, then having not one, but two stats that were nearly half again that high had to be freaking awesome. If I was fast enough, getting hit wouldn’t be an issue. I had no idea how effective my girl’s Desiccation Ray was. Mr. Australian wasn’t especially forthcoming for once. It was an attack though, and my girl was definitely all about offense. I loved that about her.
My whole life has been about quiet endurance. Grinning and bearing it and trying not to snap and murder everyone around me. My kaiju, who really needed a name, was going to be everything I couldn’t let myself be in the real world. That’s what games like this were about, right? Being something you weren’t? Or maybe—just maybe—this game was about letting the player be who—or what—they really were.
Are you ready to play? Mr. Australian asked.
“Yeah,” I said, and I meant it.
I could feel myself getting jittery. I couldn’t honestly say that I was hesitant about the game. Not like I probably should have been. I got a freaking implant in my hand after all and it was somehow reading my mind. The slime monster had been a pretty lackluster experience. I could honestly say that playing hadn’t been high on
my list of priorities. I’d been ready to regulate it to my minimum effort list. Now, though? Now, I wanted to cut some things with my girl’s magnificent katana claws.
I was dropped into a city. I was my kaiju. I was big and powerful, and I could all but feel her vibrating with the desire to destroy everything around us. That was the goal of the game, wasn’t it? Break everything as fast as you could?
I took off down a street, trampling alien hovercars as I flew, stretching out my kaiju’s hands. The claws sliced straight through the buildings on either side of me like they were made of tissue paper. Before I knew it, I was at the end of the road.
The buildings down the street behind me all listed inward and collapsed in an enormous cloud of dust, crashing into the street and into each other. I grinned, and my kaiju let out a triumphant shriek. We did that. The game was so visceral. That must be why it needed an implant. It let like it was really me doing all that damage. I couldn’t begin to guess at how much money must have gone in to making this chip in order to connect to my nervous system for feedback like that.
It was satisfying in a way I couldn’t really explain, because I’d never been able to experience it before. This was what freedom and power felt like. Even if it was only an illusion in my mind, I was going to grab hold of it and never let go.
I took off, sprinting down the roads, squishing little alien people and their dumb floating cars, slicing through buildings. I carved the city up like a pumpkin for Halloween. Fire, and dust, and smoke, and screams rose up all around me. My kaiju shrieked her triumph and I wanted to scream with her.
This. Felt. So. Damn. Good.
I noted that there were two bars hovering over my head. One seemed to be slowly filling up while the other hadn’t been touched. I was guessing that the untouched one was some kind of health meter, but what was the other one for?
On a hunch, I let out another scream and tried out my Desiccation Ray. An almost invisible beam of rippling energy fired from my kaiju’s beak and into the flames of a nearby wreck of a building. The flames shot up as if I’d thrown gasoline on them. The meter that had been filling up dropped. Nothing else happened. I tried again on a different building, this one not on fire, and nothing happened. Bummer.
The attack must be literal. It dried things out. Okay, this game clearly still had some kinks to work through because that was just fucking lame. No wonder it was still in beta. I’d basically wasted every point I spent on Special Attack if that was all my ray did.
At least my investment in Speed and Attack had clearly paid off, judging from all the damage I’d inflicted on the city.
Green energy bolts came flying out of the clouds of dust followed by alien hover tanks. The first few hit me before I could react and took a good chunk out of my health bar. Damn, those hurt! I ducked and ran, zigzagging around buildings and wreckage. I didn’t slash through these, tucking my kaiju’s claws underneath her, sheathed for speed. Also, I didn’t want to destroy my cover.
That was weird when I thought about it. My objective was to destroy the city. That was what giant monsters did. Now that I was on the defensive though, the aliens were doing more damage to their home than I had in their effort to hit me. It was laughable. I could probably use them to destroy the whole city this way, though it would take forever compared to what I could do just by slashing with my claws.
I darted in and eviscerated a handful of hover tanks, then took off. Hit and run. I did this several times in quick succession before I heard a sound and spotted those stupid-looking flying saucers I’d seen when I’d first logged in. They were coming in low and fast and directly for me.
I rolled my eyes and felt my kaiju try to mimic the motion. Her eyes weren’t really built for it though, so what resulted was an odd twist of her head. Whatever these things could do, I didn’t stick around to find out. I took off, running, dodging, ducking.
I leapt aside as they dropped something and ran for all I was worth. It was barely enough.
There was a blinding flash of light behind me. When I looked back, there was a crater. Those things dropped one hell of a bomb. Considering how much damage the green energy blasts from the hover tanks had done to me, I don’t think my girl would have done well taking a hit from one of those things.
I snarled. Those bastards had tried to fucking bomb me. They were already zooming away back up into the sky, far out of reach of my claws. This game was a fucking cheat! There’s no way I could fight back against those things. I was fast, but they could fly, and while I did have a ranged attack, my Desiccation Ray was beyond lame. What would it even do to a flying saucer? Make the pilot thirsty?
The meter below my health bar crackled with energy.
Something hit me from behind and sent me flying.
I crashed through a building, this one remarkably not on fire, and tumbled upright. My health bar had the barest sliver of red remaining and an obnoxious music rang in my ears over and over in time with the red sliver’s pulsing light. My kaiju was about to die. Whatever had hit me from behind had nearly killed me and in the state my girl was in, a stiff breeze could finish us off.
That’s when I noticed the state of my poor kaiju. Her crystals were shattered and the thicker orange material underneath that made up her body was fissured. The sight of my kaiju’s injuries filled me with even more rage than the damn obnoxious music. I shrieked, and without thinking, let fly my Desiccation Ray in the direction of my attacker.
The transparent beam collided with an enormous form looming out of the smoke and rubble. It was another monster. It was bigger than mine. A lot bigger.
My Desiccation Ray hit it square on and did absolutely nothing.
The giant kaiju let out a bellow and came at me.
Chapter Five
The monster attacking me was one fugly son of a bitch. It looked like someone had crossed a grizzly bear with a piranha. It had an upright, ursine build, but it was covered in fins and scales and had one hideous underbite that showed off rows of triangular teeth. Spikey fins framed its face and lined its back.
I was so caught up in the thing’s ugliness that I almost missed the colorful bars floating over its head. My first thought was that it was some kind of level boss. That idea was quickly put to rest as the thing laughed, and through the rumble of its grunts and roars, a man’s voice came through.
“Little noobie,” he laughed, brushing a clawed and finned appendage over the undisturbed patch of scales my had ray struck. “God, look how tiny you are. Guess you were too stupid to put any points into your Special Attack.”
He reached me, and I dodged away, letting him obliterate what remained of the structures I’d been shoved through. I kept dodging back and away as he swung at me. He missed by a mile, but I could feel the force of his attacks. This monster was all power. If my girl was a katana, this guy was a sledgehammer. I absolutely did not want to get hit by him, especially not with my health so low. I quickly put some fresh distance between us.
“Here,” he bellowed. “I’ll show you how they’re supposed to work!”
He opened his mouth and let fly a bolt of purple something. I couldn’t tell what it was, and I didn’t care. I got the hell out of the way before it could hit. The violet explosion that followed when it struck the ground I’d been standing on rocked my whole body, but I managed to keep on my feet and continue moving.
The meter below his health bar dropped.
My own was still pretty full, and I couldn’t afford to get close, so I retaliated with my own Desiccation Ray. It hit square on again and nothing happened.
He laughed and blasted again. “Fucking noob. You can’t even scratch me.”
I dodged again. Another explosion rocked the city, leaving behind a crater to rival what the alien’s flying saucers had dropped earlier. Where were those things anyway? It looked as if all the hover tanks and saucers had cleared out to let us fight it out. That figured. I could have dodged them all damn day while they whittled Mr.
Behemoth down. At least his attacks were useless so long as they didn’t hit.
“Damn, you’re fast,” he snarled. “That’s going to get old. Hold still already, and fucking take it like a good little bitch.”
His words set me off. I screamed. I screamed with everything I had. I’d been taking it my entire life. That was not about to be what happened here, too!
He launched another purple blast. I dodged it, and it exploded behind me. Instead of running away, I rode the explosion, sprinting straight at the bastard with a shriek, letting fly with my Desiccation Ray as the meter below my health crackled. The Ray hit him in the chest, and this time, I noted something. The amount in his health bar hadn’t dropped, but the bar itself was smaller than it was before. Much smaller. What’s more, after that last energy attack, the meter below his health was empty.
The bastard didn’t notice either one. He was too busy laughing, rushing to meet my charge.
I continued blasting him with my Ray as I flew at him, claws extended, shredding through every building in my path. “Come here, Little Mermaid! I’m going to rip your tongue out and shove it up your fishy ass!”
“You’re a girl?” He laughed and threw himself at me. “Come on, bitch, I’m gonna—”
I ducked his attack and zipped past him in a crystalline blur and a spray of blood as my kaiju’s talons parted through his monster’s flesh like water. There was so much blood. It erupted from his body in a geyser, spraying everything around him. It smelled delicious. The other player’s monster split in two, and the halves collapsed to the ground hard enough to make the earth shake.
I laughed. The sound was absolutely manic and absolutely wonderful. “Take that fish-fucker!”
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