Kaiju- Battlefield Surgeon

by Matt Dinniman

  My own fatal attack—Batshit Berserker—was powerful enough to rip a hole in Miftah. But I would only use it if it looked like the badger was about to die. Physical damage didn’t seem to harm him.

  Still, the kaiju appeared to be fearful of Paimon’s giant hammer. Why was that?

  I thought for a moment, and then it hit me all at once. I pictured the Shrill’s anatomy. My guardian was a ball of flesh with a brain in the middle. I pictured that odd, boney jawbone shape in the Shrill’s mass. What if Miftah was like that? What if he had a vulnerable brain protected by a boney superstructure? That would explain his fear of the hammer.

  “Raguel,” I yelled. “I know how to hurt him. We must…”

  Entering Oblation Chamber.

  The world blinked, and I was suddenly in my regeneration spot, the oblation chamber. I’d been ejected from direct control. While I still had my Gross Anatomy map, all my other indicators were simply gone. I gazed upon Gulch, who remained in his spot, screaming.

  What the hell happened?

  Warning: A new groundling player has joined the game. As this game is in co-op mode, you have lost the ability to control Moritasgus. Per the current session’s rules, the controller for Moritasgus has been transferred.

  Player Jenk2 has joined the game.

  Warning: Moritasgus’s player controller is not within the realm of Hell. The guardian will be recalled in 3, 2, 1...

  “No, no, no,” I cried.

  Chapter 68

  Feedings Left: 0

  Warning: Your feeding apparatus is empty. Administration has been notified.

  The world shook, and I knew we had just teleported from the battlefield to the rocky plateau just south and west of Medina.

  I sat upon the floor of the oblation chamber in stunned silence for several moments. Jenk had fucked us. He’d done it at the worst possible moment, too. It was almost as if he knew precisely when to do it. Was he toying with us? Had he been fucking with us this whole time?

  Of course he had. If he was really a developer and not just a client, then he’d probably been watching all of this unfold. He probably didn’t even have to log in. He could likely push a button on his tablet and watch any of us whenever he wanted.

  That was it, then. Done.

  Banksy: Where the hell did you go?

  Duke: I’m sorry. Something terrible just happened. I am back on the other side of the rift. I’ve lost control of Moritasgus, and I won’t be able to come back to you.

  Banksy: What do you want me to do? The angel is hurt. He is being attacked by both demons. Avvinik keeps slicing and slicing and jumping back. But I don’t think anything is happening. Sometimes when Avvinik cuts a piece off of the giant demon, it falls to the ground, and a tentacle snakes out, and the part slurps back onto him, like he’s a slime. There are no more demons attacking me. I can fight. Tell me what to do.

  It didn’t matter anymore. Win, lose. It didn’t matter. Jenk knew what we were up to, and he’d never let us finish the game.

  I couldn’t take the screaming anymore. I popped up the menu and teleported myself back to my base. I eased myself into the couch, and I thought of all I had lost. Despair washed over me, burning.

  I thought of Mary. She’d likely lost the apartment by now. Where was she living? Did she hate me? She’d loved that place. It was all she had left of her own parents. It was the only place she’d ever lived with her son. You should never have married an artist, her dad had said to her the day we’d told him we’d eloped. I’d been in the next room, but he said it using a stage whisper, and I was certain he wanted me to hear. He was drunk, and he was angry. He would be dead from liver failure in less than a year. Now you’re married, I can’t take care of you anymore. And neither can he. He couldn’t take care of his first wife, why do you think it will be different for you?

  I thought of Ruth. I thought of the shell she had become, of those hollow, angry eyes. I thought of the kangaroo poster. I thought of nights gazing at the stars, and of her laughter that was forever gone. I thought of the tattoo she’d gotten of her brother’s face on her arm, and of the night she’d gone to the ER after half scratching it off. She’d gone to jail, gotten out, and fled to Arizona, only to get arrested again and again. Arizona was where her mother had said she was going when she left us, and that’s where Ruth went. She never found her. Her mother had abandoned her, she had killed her brother, and when she was finally getting her feet underneath her, she’d been abandoned again. It didn’t matter it wasn’t on purpose. She was all alone, and I couldn’t help her.

  Where was she now?

  I thought of Chris. My boy. My son, my only son. He’d been scared of monsters, and I had lied to him by telling him monsters weren’t real.

  I thought of Raguel the angel. I thought of his words. Having children is much more a division of strength than a multiplication. I don’t understand why anyone would do that to themselves. An NPC. A fucking NPC. Had a human written that line? Or was that the AI, trying its hardest to understand why these humans trapped in its game were making such stupid choices over and over?

  This is too much.

  This is too much.

  Banksy: Please, father. Avvinik is hurt. Raguel is on the ground. I don’t want to be here all alone. Tell me what you want me to do. Dad. Please help.

  And then, finally, I thought of the promise I had made to Clara and to myself. I thought of those who needed to pay for what they had done. I thought of my anger. I no longer had a rat's chance in hell of winning, not anymore. But I would go down fighting.

  I popped open the chat.

  Duke: Okay, buddy. Hold tight. I’m coming.

  ***

  Entering Avvinik – Player Base. Restricted area. Access granted by brand.

  For a while there I’d forgotten Clara and I had traded brands.

  I banged on the door to the cockpit and yelled, “Clara. I’m here. I’m gonna heal Avvinik!”

  I doubted she could hear me. But she’d notice I was here in a minute. I pulled a scan, saw both of the panther’s front paws needed sewing up, and I jumped into the stream.

  I spent the next several minutes combing through the panther, using my unlimited soul power to heal, patch, and bind. Twice, I ran into Iffy, who was also whizzing about the interior of the kaiju, healing wounds and patching holes. The red slug was in his element. The smelly, slow-moving slug was mostly useless outside of battle, but it turned out fast-acting, efficient battlefield surgery was where he excelled. He zipped around with lightning speed, popping irritably at me when I got in the way. He pushed me aside to get to a ripped tendon, which he repaired in a fraction of the time it would’ve taken me.

  With Avvinik’s rising strength, the panther was able to get back into the fight. Banksy kept up a running commentary. Raguel had fallen, and for a while Paimon set upon him instead of Miftah. But with Avvinik’s rising health and Banksy running interference, Miftah decided to focus on taking down Paimon, which would hopefully give Raguel time to recover.

  Winky appeared in front of me just as I finished casting Patch on a severed artery deep within the panther’s torso. I was covered in kaiju blood. The bat screeched at me, then blinked away.

  I teleported myself back to Clara’s base to find her standing in the open doorway to the cockpit.

  “I saw the Jenk notification,” she yelled. She looked worn down and exhausted. “What’re we going to do?”

  “Stick with the plan!” I said. “I have an idea, but all of this will be for nothing if that angel dies. His blood is toxic, so I can’t go over there and heal him. You probably can, but you can’t leave Avvinik. So get back in there and protect him.”

  “What’re you going to do?”

  I grinned. “I’m going diving.”

  ***

  The best way to exit Avvinik was through the ear. The guardian’s ears were a strangely complicated system of flaps and canals, but luckily both ears had a fat vein that followed the curvature of the ear’s shape.
Clara had somehow managed to place a hatch and exit right at the tip of the panther’s right ear that could be accessed via BloodBorne. She used it to come and go using her wings, so getting down was a bit more awkward for me.

  Winky popped into the air in front of me just as I exited out of the ear and onto the kaiju’s fur. I slid down, falling several feet until I landed directly on Avvinik’s head. Clara was, thankfully, keeping the head steady.

  The first thing I noticed was the temperature out here was surprisingly pleasant. I’d been expecting hell to be overwhelmingly hot or cold. But it was light jacket weather at best, only slightly chillier than the world on the other side of the rift. And it wasn’t raining, either. In fact, I liked the weather out here much more than on the other side.

  I changed my mind about ten seconds later when the vomit-inducing stench of death sucker-punched me. This was worse than the rancid interior of Bast.

  Miftah and Paimon had gone back to their scuffle. It seemed most of the demons on the ground had been killed or had just run away, which was the smart thing to do. The spider-camel-centaur thing swung its hammer back and forth, keeping Miftah’s attention. Each swing of that thing threatened to blow me off Avvinik’s head with the shockwave.

  Raguel sat on the ground nearby, shaking his head. He’d grown to his smaller, 30-foot size after almost being killed. I wondered if he needed to shrink himself in order to heal. He’d fallen back with Banksy wrapped protectively around him.

  I used my four pincers, and I held tightly onto a clump of soft fur.

  “I’m ready,” I called to the bat, who screeched and disappeared.

  Clara waited until Miftah had to scramble back to avoid getting smashed by the hammer, then she pounced, landing onto the side of the much-larger creature. Instead of clawing and ripping like before, she clung on, digging her claws in like a cat trying to ascend a tree.

  I leaped into the air, shooting my claw so it grasped a fleshy nodule on the side of the hell guardian, retracting myself in.

  Avvinik roared in pain as multiple spikes burst from his back. The kaiju screamed and fell backward, blossoms of red spreading along his chest from where Miftah had created spears of flesh.

  I didn’t have time to see if he was okay. Using the amplification knife, I unzipped a layer of amorphous flesh. The monster didn’t seem to even notice the cut, and flesh flowed back toward itself almost immediately, closing like the creature was made of gel.

  I cut again, this time slipping myself into the hole as I slashed. I went headfirst, slicing and squeezing forward. It felt as if I was trying to pull myself through a massive glob of hot bubblegum.

  The notifications finally rolled by once I was about ten feet deep into the skin layer.

  Entering Miftah – Subdermal Layer One

  Deep Dive activating! World Map is not available during a deep dive! Gross Anatomy map activating! Surgery menu activating! Frame Vision now available!

  The moment the notifications rolled, I opened up the surgery menu and selected my Incision talent. My soul power remained yellow. Unlimited.

  Like I had suspected, the guardian was basically a giant, nerve-laden muscle surrounding a small ball of organs. The center area of the beast was off-center, a round, boney area about 300 meters away on the upper half of the body. It was attached to the exterior by a relatively small bundle of nerves, connecting to the giraffe-like neck.

  There were no veins or arteries I could use to zip around in, so instead I cut. I used Incision to create a tunnel in the gelatinous outer layer of the monster. I stood to my full height, and I ran.

  The muscles closed behind me as I pushed forward, giving me the impression I wasn’t moving at all. There was no air in here, and the closer I got to the center, the hotter it became.

  Miftah’s entire body thrummed and bounced up and down. From the Gross Anatomy map, it appeared the hell guardian had just been creamed with Paimon’s hammer.

  A moment later, a black lance pierced Miftah from behind, showing on the map as a tear through the guardian’s flesh.

  He’d just been stabbed by Raguel. The sword didn’t come anywhere near the vulnerable center, but the sword, as broad as a city block, had cut through the kaiju, missing me by mere feet.

  The temperature plummeted for a few seconds, and I realized Raguel’s ice sword was freezing the flesh around the wound. It didn’t last.

  Duke: Banksy, tell that asshole to stop stabbing him! He almost got me!

  Banksy: I will try, father.

  Duke: How is Avvinik?

  Banksy: He is on his back. Iffy is on the outside, repairing the holes in his stomach. He’s out of the fight for the moment, but I think he’ll be back soon.

  The world lurched, and I suddenly found myself hanging upside down. Despite my already-endless supply of soul power, a new surge of energy rushed at me.

  Banksy: The camel demon is down. Miftah is on top of him. I think he’s eating him.

  Shit. I had to hurry. With Paimon down, the others wouldn’t last.

  I pushed the last fifty meters to the round skull. My Incision talent could not sever the bone. There didn’t seem to be a way inside. Even my amplification knife just clinked against the material. I had to get to the nerve bundle. I moved along the oblong shape of the skull. Banksy obviously didn’t get through to the angel, as Raguel stabbed again and again, but it didn’t come near me.

  I wrenched myself up to stand before the nerve bundle. It was a set of about a hundred cables, each of them anywhere from one foot to ten feet thick.

  When I examined them, my diagnosis talent activated, telling me what did what. I waved the menu away.

  Banksy: The other demon is coming. The donkey lady whose boobs you drank. She looks mad. But she’s hurt, too. She’s all cut up. Wasn’t she fighting the Shrill? I think she might’ve won, but not by a lot.

  Damn it. If she killed the Shrill, that meant he’d been kicked all the way back to Neo-Austin. I couldn’t pull up my menu to confirm where he was while I was going deep dive.

  Duke: Go get her. Finish her off.

  Banksy: What about Miftah?

  Duke: Miftah is already dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.

  I pulled open my surgery menu. The thick nerve bundle pulsed.

  “Lights out, motherfucker,” I said as I used Incision to cut the whole bunch at once.

  Chapter 69

  Quest Complete. Kill Miftah.

  Experience Earned!

  You are now level 49!

  I’d just barely gotten enough experience to kick me up a level. I knew what was coming next, so I threw my point into durability. It equaled it out with my strength. They were both now 36.

  Banksy: The donkey lady is very, very angry. She’s glowing!

  That didn’t sound good. But surely we could put her down. It was three versus one, and she was already injured.

  Deep dive deactivated. My Frame Vision abruptly snapped off. I could still see thanks to my darkness vision, but it wasn’t quite the same. With the loss of my deep dive status, I regained the ability to pull my kaiju and mapping menus. The Shrill was not dead, but he was injured, and he was still fighting by the rift.

  I glanced at the map, and my blood ran cold. It looked like my guardian was fighting Orthrus. And if he was fighting Orthrus, that could mean only one thing.

  Jenk prime was out of jail.

  But how? He had months left on his sentence.

  A possible scenario dawned on me. He’d created the Jenk2 groundling character and had somehow bailed himself out. How a new and level 1 character managed to find enough teeth to pay down the fine, I doubted I’d ever know. But it was the only way it made sense. I wondered if there was a way to transfer funds between characters. That was something I never really had the chance to explore.

  The kaiju collapsed in on itself, and I suddenly had the weight of a literal mountain of flesh crushing me. I stopped worrying about Jenk as I felt the life start to squeeze out of me. I cut upward u
sing my amplification knife, creating a thin pocket of flesh, a sleeve that slipped around me as the dead kaiju continued to ooze downward, melting. I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long.

  I tried to teleport back to Clara’s base, but the system wouldn’t let me. Outside, Lamashtu clashed with Banksy, Avvinik, and Raguel. I was too close to the battle to use Teleport. Instead, I pulled up Recall and attempted to cast.

  Recall Level 2 required to cast between planes.

  Oh shit. I’m going to die.

  I hurriedly called up my respawn menu. I could change my regeneration spot to Clara’s base within Avvinik. I held the brand. But before I could change it, I was interrupted.

  Banksy: The angel is down! The donkey lady ripped his head right off!

  No. Goddamnit! No!

  The next several things all happened in the course of about two seconds.

  The world stuttered, and I was falling. Falling fast. I blinked, trying to figure out what happened.

  I caught a shape falling next to me. A baby donkey. Miftah had transformed back to his small form upon death. His head lolled, flapping through the air. We were both about to smash into the ground.

  I yanked the spell menu back open. Without even realizing I had the idea, I clicked on my Wicked Meat skill.

  Holy fucking shit. My mind registered the possible upgrade. I acted instinctively. I shot my arm, wrapping itself around the small donkey. I couldn’t afford for the body to splatter.

  Then I cast Hinder as I pulled the corpse to myself.

  Smash!

  Once again, I cast the damn, useless-ass spell too soon. And this time I had a dead donkey on top of me. I screamed in pain as my left leg bone ripped out of me, pushing my knee bracer aside in a grinding, ripping cavalcade of pain.

  I cast Reconstitute as I dragged myself to the broken and smashed body of the donkey, who had bounced about ten feet away.

  Beyond the tiny corpse of Miftah was the corpse of Raguel, twisted and broken. He’d shrunk to his 30-foot size. His blood sizzled as it touched the ground. I turned my attention back to the dead baby donkey.