Power Fantasy

by Scottie Futch

  A student sitting in the dark nearby suddenly stood up and glared at Scott. “Think you’re hot shit? Is that it?”

  Scott blinked at him. “The hell is your problem?”

  “You’re my problem!” snapped the guy in response. “Coming in here like you’re gonna save the fucking world and flirting with Ms. Oppai right after.”

  Scott snorted at him. A single thought ran through his mind in that moment, ‘Great, one of those guys. Can’t handle a crisis, but he wants to blame someone else for his life turning to shit.’

  Whether this world was real or not, Scott couldn’t be certain. What he did know was that he refused to let himself get killed just because some frightened douche had a chip on his shoulder.

  “I don’t even know you,” said Scott. “We don’t have time for whatever you’re trying to start.”

  “What we? Huh? Who said anything about we?” asked the guy, his anger growing with each word spoken. “We were just fine until you two showed up!”

  Scott shook his head and turned back to Summer. Much like in the anime series she was tall and curvaceous. If anything, she was even curvier in what amounted to real life in this place. Blond hair and eyes that seemed to vary between brown and hazel, she had a certain unique feminine charm to her. It was unfortunate that she also had a doe-eyed expression and seemed to almost be half asleep.

  He started to say something, his eyes moving to Saiko, but the annoyance from before spoke up once more. “You fucking ignoring me?”

  “Shut your mouth,” said Scott. “The world’s gone to hell. Dead people are trying to eat the living, and you want to start some shit for no good reason.”

  “Fuck you! They’re mine!” said the angry douche.

  Scott barely spared him a glance but kept watch over him out of the corner of his eye. Instead of trying to talk with the idiot, he focused on the task at hand. “Staying here isn’t safe. I’m leaving. Anyone who wants to come can—”

  “No one’s going anywhere!” snarled the douche. His face started to distort slightly, even as the color drained from his flesh.

  “What the hell…” said Scott, his eyes widening.

  “These bitches are mine!” shouted the douche. “I found them first!”

  Objective: A survivor is turning into a necro-erotic life form. Defeat him.

  “Shit!” snapped Scott. It’s bad enough that he was somehow dropped into the middle of a weird hentai version of an anime that he adored. Now there were mini-bosses! The zombie apocalypse was supposed to be fun, dammit!

  The douche ran toward Scott like a wild animal, his eyes glazing over in the process. Tongue lolling out of his mouth, he tried to tackle him to the ground.

  Faster than a zombie, but rapidly losing his agility, the deranged student was easily pushed back. Scott whipped is blade up in a brutal arc that tore through his chin and ripped off part of the rapidly degenerating monster’s nose.

  Summer squealed a little and covered her mouth, while the other people who were originally in the room cried out in fright. Scott did not realize it at that moment, but except for him and the zombie douche there were only women in the room.

  Saiko watched curiously but did not interfere. Scott’s movements seemed sloppy to her. They lacked subtlety and he used too much strength. Yet, he was clearly getting the job done. As the former man’s blood splattered across the room beneath the onslaught of Scott’s brush axe, however, a strange light came to her eyes and she began to breathe a little heavier. There was just so much… blood.

  Scott did not spare a second thought for the douche. He kicked the guy’s legs out from under him then slapped his blade down between the zombie’s eyes. Surprisingly, the first overhand blow did not crack the thing’s head open like a melon. The blade impacted heavily, and the beast went cross-eyed. However, it took several heavy blows to finish it off. In a way, the creature that the douche had become seemed pitiful. In the eyes of the terrified girls huddled nearby, Scott looked more like a bully than a hero in that moment.

  Never in his life had he been so calm about such things, and he had never killed anyone before that day. Yet, he found that in the heat of the moment he did not care about the person he had killed. The only way he knew of killing first-hand was through hunting, games, and watching television. Briefly, he wondered if he had become desensitized to violence through those activities but in the end he just didn’t care. He was tired and the guy was obviously infected with zombie aids, or whatever.

  Of course, had he checked into that ‘trait’ he acquired after his first completed objective he would have discovered that ‘Cool Under Pressure’ was more than just a statement about his personality.

  He panted a little then sighed, “Well, that happened.”

  “He’ll kill us all,” said one girl. She tried to bury herself in the chest of one of the other girls nearby.

  “He just... He just killed him like it was nothing,” mumbled another girl.

  “All this shouting is bound to have drawn attention,” said Scott.

  Saiko nodded to him. “Yes. Probably.”

  “Do you think we should leave? What if help comes?” asked Summer.

  Scott shook his head. “This place won’t hold off another attack, and I’m sure this same thing is happening all over the city.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Summer.

  “Back in the classroom building I saw that there was a fire outside the school. Buildings burning, or at least there was a lot of smoke,” said Scott.

  “So, we should just leave and take our chances?” asked Summer. “I don’t know…”

  “We shouldn’t go!” said one of the girls huddled nearby. “Those things will kill us.”

  “Yeah! Let’s wait for help,” said another girl.

  “These zombies came in from outside the school,” said Scott. He sighed and leaned against a nearby desk. “It’s obvious that there won’t be a rescue, at least not for a long time.”

  “We’re safe here,” said the girl.

  “That guy over there just turned into a zombie,” said Scott. He gestured to the corpse. “Had he done that before we got here, you would all probably be dead.”

  “Just go away, you murderer!” snapped one of the girls.

  “Are you serious?” Scott could not believe his ears. These people were flat out ridiculous. “The guy was a freaking zombie.”

  “No! Yuto couldn’t have been a zombie! He was here with us the whole time!” cried another girl.

  Scott stalked over to the dead guy’s body and started to fiddle with it. One of the girls called out for him to stop with tears in her eyes. He managed to find what he was looking for after a moment. “Right here. He was obviously bitten on his side. Looks like someone patched him up.”

  “I did…” said Summer. “It didn’t seem bad, but…”

  Saiko spoke up. “I’ve seen it. If they bite you, you turn.”

  “Anyone else here been bitten?” she asked the girls. “If so, I will release you from your pain in an honorable manner if you wish.”

  “Crazy,” said a brown-haired girl with glasses. “They’re both monsters…”

  Scott sighed loudly then shook his head. “Look. I’m leaving. Whoever’s coming, let’s go.”

  “They aren’t attacking us at the moment. We should think about what we need to do,” said Summer, obvious reluctance in her voice. From what it looked like; she probably did not want to leave the girls behind.

  “Too much time has been wasted. It won’t be long before the zombies in the school eat everyone else and they start breaking out to come after whoever is left,” said Scott.

  “God you’re disgusting!” said one of the girls. “Just leave already.”

  He glanced toward the girl. “I’ll leave when I feel like it. We’ve all been through too much shit today for me to give a damn about your petulant whining.”

  His words caused the room to go quiet. Never in his life had he spoken to someone in such a cold
manner, and yet he knew that he had just said those words. Something was wrong with him. At first, he had thought it to be due to the sudden awakening in this place, and the surprise apocalypse. Now, he was not so certain.

  Before anyone thought to speak again, one of the girls reached over and began to caress her nearest neighbor’s chest. “Sakura… Chan…”

  “What are you doing Sayuri?” asked the girl while she tried to fight off her friend’s advances.

  “I can’t help it, you smell… so pretty,” said the handsy girl.

  Scott tilted his head to the side in confusion, but then he noticed something. “Ms. … Oppai was it?”

  “Uhm? Yes?” asked Summer.

  “How many of these people were bitten or scratched badly by those zombies?” asked Scott.

  Her eyes widened as she realized what he was asking. She quickly looked toward the girls once more and saw that they were all starting to paw at each other.

  “You’re kidding…” muttered Scott. “All of them?”

  “Most of their injuries seemed so small!” exclaimed Summer. “A few scratches, or a small bite. Antibiotics should work so I patched them up until they could get to a hospital…”

  The girls started complaining about being cold and began to tear each other’s clothes off. Scott looked at them with pity in his eyes. There was no saving them as far as he knew. He did not know why they were not vomiting up blood and other things like in the show this place seemed to be modeled on, but they were losing their humanity moment by moment. The color drained from their faces, even as their hands worked to stimulate the dying nerves of their quivering maiden flesh.

  His first instinct was to run. There was no objective to keep him in that place. However, he could not. At the moment the only real clues to his existence were the system in his head and the characters here in this room.

  “We should go,” said Summer.

  “Go where?” asked Saiko. “You’re a teacher, right? Do you have a car?”

  “Yes, but I caught a ride today...” Her eyes seemed to glaze over slightly and she touched her finger to her chin. It looked for all the world like she was trying to think really hard about something. “There could be keys in the staff lounge, though,” she admitted.

  “There’s a bus, right?” asked Scott. Though, his eyes never left the lesbian zombie make out session. He could not decide whether it was hot, or the most disturbing thing that he had ever seen in his life.

  The entire situation was just so surreal. Any time his adrenaline slowed down even a little, it was like a gibbering monkey would start to shriek inside of his head. It shouted all manner of things, but mostly implored him to run and hide somewhere.

  His decision was made a moment later when one of the girls cried out ecstatically then bit the arm of another girl. There was nothing to be done to save any of them, but he did not want to watch it.

  “Look. You two get going,” said Scott.

  “You’re staying?” asked Summer.

  Scott shrugged. “Not long. I just don’t feel right leaving them like this, and they could be a problem for someone else who thinks to run here.”

  “Oh…” she said, her eyes falling along with the rest of her expression.

  “You shouldn’t have to do that alone,” said Saiko.

  “I’ll catch up,” he replied coolly.

  Admittedly, he had no real idea why he was so calm at the moment. Whenever his adrenaline started to spike it seemed to lead to a calming of his nerves rather than an exacerbation of his fright.

  Saiko and Summer crawled out of the window, and Scott got to work. The first thing he did, however, was not put the girls out of their misery. He risked further exhaustion to itemize the dead guy. The douche, now understood to be under the influence of perverted zombie syndrome or whatever, had procced an objective. He might drop something good!

  Scott gasped aloud as he felt the strength drain from his body. However, after the light show ended, he was rewarded with something interesting.

  Tiny Flickering Dark Soul Gem

  A jet-black crystal that intermittently emits a dull green light. A mystery is held deep within the inky black heart of its existence.

  He glanced at the zombie girls, then itemized the little crystal that he had gathered. His eyebrow quirked upward a moment later after he checked his status. “Damn!”

  Scott Ambrose

  Level: 60

  EXPERIENCE POINTS

  Item EXP: 1257

  Equipment EXP: 1023

  Skill EXP: 612

  Trait EXP: 1037

  Waifu EXP: 1050

  World EXP: 1012

  DYNAMIC ATTRIBUTES

  Hit Points: 100/100

  Energy: 54/100

  STATUS ATTRIBUTES

  Strength: 10

  Endurance: 10

  Agility: 10

  Mind: 10

  Spirit: 10

  Luck: 10

  TRAITS

  Cool Under Pressure

  SKILLS

  Itemization [0]

  Identification

  Edged Weapon Mastery [0]

  Itemizing that soul gem granted him fifty waifu points, whatever those were supposed to be, but obviously gave him experience points in everything else as well. His item points had increased greatly, overall. Scott rejoiced internally for a moment, though his joy turned to sadness not long afterward. There was still one more job to do.

  He looked to the girls. There was nothing left of their former selves, a few had even begun to eat each other even while they tried to grope their unfortunate meal.

  “This world…” he whispered. It did not matter if he whispered, though. They were far too busy to care.

  Scott took the girls down one after the other. They were so consumed with what they were doing that they did not even struggle.

  Speaking of struggle, he found himself to be severely winded. Whether it was from the exertion of finishing those girls off or it came from itemization, he was uncertain. Undoubtedly both things were at fault.

  “Can’t keep using that ability… Need to rest,” he mumbled.

  It took him quite a bit of effort, but he was able to crawl back through the window. He heard the sound of a power drill echoing through the air, loud as shit, not far away.

  “Dammit!” It would only be a matter of time before some horny dead fuck came to investigate, though he was certain that he knew what was going on at least. His little stay behind plan had led him to miss a story scene.

  Scott trotted toward the source of the sound and soon found his way to the staff room building. He killed two zombies that had been attracted by the noise then began to search around. Soon, voices caught his attention. Someone beyond a nearby door was screaming loud as shit.

  “Because I’m a genius!” cried the voice. The walls and door muffled the sound to some extent, but if there were zombies elsewhere in the building, they might have heard a hint of it at least.

  He walked over and knocked on the door marked ‘Staff Room.’ Strangely, English letters appeared in front of the Japanese script. The words were being translated like they were part of a lazily translated anime series. “Shit, I didn’t even pay attention to that the first time I noticed it. At least they decided to go with a dub instead of a sub.” He did not want to even think of what life would be like were he to have to stop all conversations and actions to look at the words at the bottom of an invisible screen.

  “Who’s there?” asked a trembling voice from inside.

  “Housekeeping,” said Scott in an attempt at levity. “Do you need fresh towels?”

  A brief discussion ensued beyond the door. It cracked open slowly to reveal a fatty wielding a nail gun like a rifle. Behind him were three others who wielded melee weapons.

  Scott glanced at them, looked to Saiko, then looked to the guy with the nail gun. “Look. I know you rented this room and all, but the management does require us to clean the place daily.”

  “What?”
asked Tosh. He and Jade had managed to make their way to the area like their apparent counterparts had done in the show.

  Lord Slap-a-Ho, or Tosh if you’re nasty, eyed Scott critically. His grip tightened on his bat when he noted the blood splatter on his clothes and bits of gore on his blade.

  Scott had liked Takashi from the show, despite some of his douchey antics. Given that Tosh was supposed to be some sort of parody of that character he expected things to be at least a little different.

  He wanted to let things go. Still, even the parody came off as a bit of a douche. It was understandable given the situation. He was direct and would take chances. In the current state of things, that was all that was needed really. If anything, he came off as an exception to the generic anime protagonist. He was allowed to man-up early on instead of having to spend six episodes crying about how weak he was, or whatever that sort of thing usually led to in this type of environment.

  Takashi as a character served his function as a designated leader well since he was pretty much the only option. The other characters had their own quirks. Despite some attempts to make them seem like nothing more than fan service, there was a bit of depth in them in comparison to many characters in other shows. Even so, none of them had any fitness to be a leader.

  Shizuka, rather Summer, was a highly intelligent ditz. Despite her age she could not lead. If the anime information held true, she was studying to become a doctor and was in fact highly skilled. Most of the time she looked like she was half asleep, but it could have been an act. At times she would put on a serious face, and get things done. If anything, she might be the sort of person who lets people underestimate her because it is just easier to live life when no one expected much from her. Plus, being a ditz was fun.