Melee: A LitRPG Adventure - Book 1

by Wyatt Savage

  I scanned the HUD to see that there were sixty-seven vaguely humanoid forms dropping down through the air. Upon closer inspection I saw that they weren’t using parachutes, but silver leaders, long ropelike strands of what appeared to be cable or wire. They were riding the leaders down toward us.

  Before I had a chance to brief the others, a sound rose up, a scream from my brother’s lips that I’ll carry with me until the day that I die. It was the kind of shriek I imagine that sounds when someone has their soul ripped out through their mouth.

  Looking down, I could see that Kate was convulsing, bucking as if she’d been electrocuted.

  A box on my HUD blinked and I zoomed in on an image of Kate. The image was bleached of color, which allowed me to see the tiny black forms all over her body.

  Inside of her body.

  They were the size of golf balls and there had to be a hundred of them, maybe more. It was as if they’d been in some kind of hibernation and were awaking, which was why they hadn’t appeared on the HUD earlier.

  “Are those…s-sp-spiders?!” Dwayne sputtered. “You know how I feel about spiders!”

  “Scorpions,” I muttered.

  Sean leaned into his wife and she vomited a clot of the black things into his face. He fell back, which allowed me to see that the black things were alive, the balls opening like an iris to reveal small, scorpion-like creatures. The things opened their mouths, mewled, and spat ropes of viscous liquid.

  More of the scorpions bulged out of holes they’d chewed through Kate’s stomach, neck and face. In seconds there was barely any recognizable human anatomy left, there were so many of the little monsters.

  I grabbed Sean’s hand and he tore it away from me.

  His hands were out and he was vomiting, upchucking a mouthful of the scorpions.

  “Get away from him!” Lish shouted.

  Sean flopped on his side, clutching his chest, which was expanding and contracting. I placed my hands on his side and he kicked them away. It was at that moment that a box popped up on my HUD and Sue said, “Forty-nine points are required for a Ragetag.”

  “Why are you telling me that?”

  “Because the two people in front of you will enable you to obtain the Tag.”

  “My brother and sister-in-law!” I shouted via Mindspeak.

  “They are worth—”

  “They’re human beings!”

  “They are 100 points.”

  “No, it’s just two of them…fifty points.”

  “The Noctem have doubled the points on family members. Just for you. Just for this moment.”

  The sick fucks, I thought. They’d decided to make some kind of twisted deal by doubling the points if I killed my own family members.

  “I have to kill my brother to get the goddamn points?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I won’t do it.”

  “The choice is yours.”

  “Fuck you, Sue. Fuck you and the other aliens. You have no idea what it’s like to do any of this.”

  “That is not true,” Sue said. “I faced many of the same situations before that you face now.”

  “This is my family goddammit!”

  “You forget that I had a family too. They did not resemble any creature that you would recognize, but they were mine and we were what you would call happy once, a very long time ago.”

  This threw me for a loop, but I wasn’t in the mood for a deep discussion so I banished Sue. Sean reached up and gripped my hand.

  One of the scorpion monsters slithered out of Sean’s right eye and he flicked it away, gesturing at the rifle in my hand. “Don’t leave us like this,” Sean wheezed.

  “No, man. No…no fucking way.”

  “We’re dead anyway. I can feel the things inside, eating their way out. We’ll suffer if you don’t do it.”

  “I’m going to hell for this, Sean,” I said.

  For a moment the light returned to his eyes. He removed something from a pocket and slapped it in my hand. The other portion of the laminated card, the one I’d come to get. “We’re already in hell, brother. Maybe using this will help you find the way out. Please…don’t leave us like this.”

  Lish and Dwayne were shouting, reminding me that the aliens in the air were getting closer. Soon they’d surround us and then our only hope would lie in finding a way to fight our way to safety against impossible odds.

  More of the things squirmed out of Sean and Kate and I drew back and stood. I’ll bet it’s no surprise to mention that I doubt I’ll ever totally mend or heal. The things I’ve seen and done? The most I can hope for is a disease that will make me forget. Dementia possibly, or even Alzheimer’s. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that every participant in the Melee is praying for the Big A.

  I raised my gun, hesitating, and then, God help me, I blew my brother and sister-in-law away into eternity. God damn the Noctem, I thought, watching a wisp of smoke rise from the barrel of my rifle.

  “Congratulations,” Sue said. “You have killed two Level 1 participants and gained 100 experience points. You now have 344 experience, 194 of which can be allocated for a Ragetag.”

  I was still in shock from the death of Sean and Kate that I didn’t feel Dwayne’s hand on my shoulder.

  “C’mon, Logan,” Dwayne said. “It’s time to go.”

  “No.”

  “They’re almost here.”

  He helped me up and I gazed at the sky. There were so many of the aliens. So many of them and so few of us.

  “What kind of Ragetag can I buy?” I asked Sue.

  A number of them flashed before me.

  I didn’t have time to dicker with her, so I asked, “Which one will allow me to cause the most destruction?”

  “Hater.”

  I stared at the Hater Ragetag, an image of an obscured figure inside what looked like some old-timey diving suit, complete with a bulbous helmet and oversized fists and boots. It looked like the perfect outfit to strap on and kick some ass.

  I gazed at my SecondSight, mentally moving a cursor over the Hater Ragetag.

  “Please confirm selection of Hater Ragetag,” the prompt said.

  I selected yes and I was suddenly gripped by a powerful sensation. Unable to move a muscle, I just stood there, rigid as a post, my body swaddled by a warm, golden light. Dwayne and Lish were outside of the light, gesturing and yelling, but I couldn’t hear them. I was already inside my suit, which was being constructed by what seemed like the hands of invisible craftsmen.

  My HUD reflected that I would be fitted with a neuro-gauntlet, jump-pack, power armor, servo-arm cannon, and a chain-grinder, all of which magically appeared.

  First came a kind of breastplate, a section of black armor that was snugged over my body. Next followed armor for my legs, my arms, a flexible piece that went around my neck, and finally a battle helmet of sorts with a thick black visor pinned to the front.

  Lastly, oversized metal gloves formed around my hands and platform boots that hummed and buzzed snapped around my feet.

  Glancing down I saw that I was taller in my suit and boots, nearly nine feet in height, and I was wider, bulkier, stronger.

  At the end of my right arm was a golden Gatling gun and on my left was the longest chainsaw I’d ever seen in my life. A prompt on my HUD asked me if I wanted to select “Bottomless Bullets” for my gun, which I did. Who doesn’t like bottomless bullets?

  Another prompt appeared with instructions, including a note that I could control both of the weapons simply by sight.

  “How long does this last, Sue?”

  “Approximately four minutes.”

  A box appeared on my HUD with what looked like a rubber button marked “Hater.” I reckoned that as soon as I tapped that button the four minutes would begin.

  I turned and took in Dwayne’s and Lish’s looks. “You bought one, didn’t you?” she asked. “You bought a Ragetag.”

  I nodded, watching the aliens drop to the ground on their leaders.

 
Dwayne climbed aboard the holo-lift, gun at the ready. “Please tell me you have a plan.”

  “Course I do,” I answered.

  “A really good one?”

  “Yep.”

  “What does it involve?” Lish asked.

  “Primarily fucking shit up,” I said.

  She smiled and I pointed across the backyard to the fields that lay in the distance. “There are several hundred bad guys between us and that secret vault. In order to get to the next level, we need points and weapons. In order to get to the weapons, we’re going to go right through the aliens.”

  “I hope you’re thinking of leading the way,” Dwayne said. “Total beast mode.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” I replied.

  Lish climbed aboard the holo-lift and I took up a position in front of it. “Follow me, follow closely, and do not stop for anything,” I said.

  “You sure you’re up for doing this?”

  “Look at me, Lish. I was born to do this.”

  Dwayne nodded. “Let’s take the battle to them.”

  I smiled. “Let’s pay them back for what they’ve done. Time for an upgrade.”

  We watched the alien marauders charge toward us, barely visible in the semi-darkness. They were tall and lean, multi-armed and protected by armor that resembled fish scales.

  I mentally hovered over the Hater button, waiting until the very last moment.

  And then, when the alien gladiators were damn near on top of us, I blinked, mentally slamming the Hater button down.

  27

  Nothing happened.

  Not a thing.

  Shit!

  “Sue, what the hell is happening to me?”

  It suddenly felt as if I’d sucked down a thousand Red Bulls and chased those with cases of Mountain Dew and syringes filled with pure adrenaline. In addition to that, I had full-color night vision, not the crappy, green-tinged crap I’d been using before. It might’ve been nine p.m. outside, but it looked lighter than noon.

  I felt lighter than air, delirious, whacked out of my fucking skull and it was glorious.

  Energy of pure white light surrounded me.

  A timer dinged on my HUD: 4:00:00.

  I had four minutes to raise some serious hell.

  “LET’S GO!” I screamed, waving my arms.

  In full-on rage mode, I led the charge forward, my HUD reflecting the stats of the first alien attacker:

  Species: Cobalus Monstrum

  Level:1

  Class:Monster

  Health:10/10

  Attributes: Armed with orbital energy prods; heightened metabolism allows them to fight with incredible ferocity and speed.

  The alien marauder twirled a metal staff with a blue light winking at the end, what I reckoned was the orbital energy prod. The alien ran at me and I shot it through the mouth.

  Boom.

  Just like that.

  -10 Health Points!

  The first alien was down, green blood spurting as the thing collapsed to the ground. I planted one of my mighty boots, then another, finding that they were capable of propelling me forward. I was surprisingly light on my feet, explosive, and so I began churning my arms as a popup blinked:

  Would you like to engage your chainsaw?

  Yes, I thought. Yes, I would.

  My palms quickened with sweat as I mentally engaged the weapon, listening to the roar of an unseen motor, the grinding of the heavy chain. Lish and Dwayne were directly behind me, guns out, ready for anything.

  The blade on my saw spun like a dervish as I met the first wave of alien attackers. They stormed forward and I met them, sawing through their ranks with the chainsaw.

  There was an explosion of viscera as the saw cut into the beasts, the chain severing muscle and ligaments, eating through bone and biosynthetic innards, a gory froth filling the air.

  -9 Health Points!

  -8 Health Points!

  -10 Health Points!

  My HUD was blinking because I was mowing the aliens down, racking up some serious points which Sue continued to recount, congratulating me over and over again on the kills. Even after allocating points to get the Hater Ragetag, I’d gained an additional four hundred points.

  Swinging my chainsaw arm, I bisected three aliens while riddling four more with cannon fire. Another one leaped at me and I grabbed the thing in my gloves and broke him over my knee. The wet snap of bone echoed as I tossed the alien aside.

  My gloves were glossy with green blood as I looked for more targets.

  The aliens were everywhere, scurrying like fire ants.

  Dwayne and Lish were firing at them, knocking a few down, but I had to do most of the dirty work.

  Dwayne shot his rifle, finally getting the hang of it while Lish used her phaser.

  I found a way to tether the holo-lift to the back of my suit and then, like an avenging angel, plunged ahead, going into full berserker mode.

  The suit allowed me to run at twenty miles per hour, which enabled me to spring up on the aliens before they had a chance to properly react.

  I battered skulls and gutshot a quintet of them and then—

  WHAM!

  Something powerful struck me in the left side of my head and I careened to the ground. Rolling over, I saw that I’d taken a glancing blow from one of the alien’s weapons. The sonofabitch had struck me with his metal staff, the blue light some kind of powerful electrical current.

  I scoped my HUD. I’d lost a health point and the timer was down to 3:12.

  Lish and Dwayne attacked the alien.

  The creature fired a bolt of light that destroyed Lish’s phaser, but which gave Dwayne the chance to fire four shots into the thing’s head, killing it.

  “How long?!” Lish asked.

  “A little over three minutes,” I replied.

  Dwayne removed a spent magazine from his rifle and slapped a new one in, before helping me up. “Well, if you’re done taking a break, James, it’s time to get our stroll on.”

  I fought off a grin. “Try to keep up.”

  With a venomous snarl, I rampaged across the field, shooting and cutting and carving up the aliens.

  After losing the health point I was a little slower and the suit felt a little heavier, but that just meant I had to redouble my efforts.

  Looking back, our lack of tactical awareness seemed to work to our advantage, because the aliens looked genuinely shocked that we’d decided to hit them head-on.

  I acted as the tip of our spear, disrupting their middle while Lish and Dwayne fired out at the margins.

  I shot down eight aliens with my cannons and disemboweled four more with my saw. If this was the best the aliens could throw at us, I wasn’t overly impressed.

  “What are you gonna buy with all the points?!” Dwayne shouted.

  “A tank!” I answered. “I’m gonna buy a fucking tank!”

  The timer on my HUD began dinging and I saw we only had a minute and thirty seconds left. Barely enough time to get to the other side of the field.

  More aliens came at us, bigger ones, faster.

  Two of them knocked Lish to the side and shocked her with their staffs. She writhed on the ground and one of the aliens unsheathed a blade to finish her off when I shot the demons down.

  Dwayne wasn’t faring much better.

  Somehow he’d gotten separated from us and appeared out of ammo, swinging his rifle like a baseball bat.

  The aliens moved to corner him and Dwayne used his newfound speed to duck and dart around them.

  But there were so many, and one of the devils violently jump-kicked him and he flew through the air, landing at my feet. He rolled over and looked up at me. “Did you get the number of the truck that hit me?”

  I smiled and used my strength to pick him up.

  With Dwayne safely on his feet, I turned my attention back to the aliens. Weaving towards them, I was a remorseless killing machine. I punched, chopped, kicked, and battered the skulls and bodies of the alien
s.

  I grabbed the next one I saw by the arms and used it as a battering ram to knock five more down. Then I screamed for Dwayne and Lish to hit the ground as I rotated, letting loose with my cannon, producing a withering sweep of intense fire that finished the aliens off.

  Stopping, I looked back to see that the field we’d just crossed was carpeted with bodies. Steam rose up from the corpses which easily numbered three or four dozen, more than half of which I’d taken down.

  Scanning my HUD, I saw that my new stats reflected:

  Species: Homo Sapiens (James, Logan)

  Chattel:NA

  Ragetag:Hater

  Health:9/10

  Level 1:1

  Class:Fighter

  Kills:32

  Vitals:BP – 130/80; T – 97.04f; RR – 17bpm

  XP:802

  I looked to the others. “We did it.”

  “Sure did,” Dwayne said, rubbing his midsection. Lish wiped blood from her face, which was crosshatched with scratches. “Course I’m down three health points,” Dwayne added.

  Lish held up a hand, grimacing. “I’m down four. How far to the vault?”

  I scanned both of the laminated cards, watching the coordinates populate in one of the HUD’s boxes. The coordinates became a map that revealed that the vault was a quarter mile off, beyond a skein of zigzag logging roads, and at the end of a single-lane strip of asphalt.

  “I’m only going to get to use these once,” I said, waving the laminated cards. “Won’t be enough time to hit another vault.” I pointed. “It’s right over there. Less than a quarter of a mile.”

  I tromped across the field, leading the way, when my body began quivering. The HUD timer was counting down: 10, 9, 8, 7…

  I was changing.

  I was losing my Hater Ragetag and my enhanced night vision was fading.

  The timer beeped and the battle suit and all the other cool gear vanished in a plume of golden dust and I, regular old Logan James, returned to my decidedly ordinary form and crumpled to the ground.

  “It was fun while it lasted,” Dwayne said, grabbing my arm and helping me up.

  “They do it on purpose,” I realized.

  “The suits disintegrate so that other participants can’t loot them.”

  “You’ve got to earn your Ragetag,” I said with a nod.