"Dave, I found the copper spring thing, the items are more detailed and stand out. So, you should be able to see them better than the rest," Aquina called over.
"Thank you, dear. I found a large pot with a lid, do you think we should look more? This is two of the four parts, I can't imagine another one being in here."
"Better safe than sorry. It will take us more time to come back then if we just finish looking now."
"Your reasoning is sound, I'm just going to shut up, and look, boss!"
"You better, or you will be the one going over my knee!"
"Can I get a substitute? I know this great gal that would just love to switch places with me!"
I didn't get an answer back, so my man brain heard it as a maybe, making me laugh quietly.
"THAT WAS NOT A MAYBE!" Aquina yelled at me angrily from across the barn, making me turn around.
"Woah, hold on a second, I didn't say shit!"
"That's what you thought!"
"How the hell would...oh, that's not cool Mom!"
'Sorry.' -Tequila.
"Are you kidding me? Alright, what the fuck is going on Aquina? Why is mom playing favorites with you, when you only just met her?"
I was getting a little fed up with being left outside of the loop with all these secrets. What was the point in hiding everything from me?
'You're not ready to know yet, please, Dave. I promise not to do something like that again, it was just automatic for me, sorry.' -Tequila.
"I am sorry too, I shouldn't have lost it about something you joked about in your mind. I also shouldn't have asked Mom to spy on you, it was my fault, not hers."
I was joking? Yes, a very good jokester I am. I waited, nothing, no reaction from Aquina, so it was good for now. The rest would be done covertly without my knowing, no doubt. I really wished I had more time to think about what I wasn't ready to know. I was really getting behind on my 'Things Dave Needs to Figure Out' list.
I turned back with an audible sigh and started to look over the stuff again, but I was getting drawn back into the question of what I wasn't supposed to or couldn't know. I was about to get lost in some deep introspection when I noticed something white ahead of me on a bench. When I got closer, I was surprised and a bit grossed out by what I had found lying on the bench, between a wrench and a screwdriver.
I reached forward and grabbed the human tooth off the bench. It was clean and seemed to be in good shape, so I stuck it in one of the two pockets that I could actually reach into. I looked for a bit more and then turned to Aquina, who had just finished looking.
I got a pleasant smile, but there was no trace that we had just had a mind-bending discussion. One that produced more questions and no answers, but we needed to hurry, the clock said we only had three minutes left. Aquina pushed her chin out towards the door and I nodded, then both of us ran as fast as we were allowed over to the house.
The house wasn't big, and we entered inside into a mudroom with coats hanging up. They had that slightly less detailed look that I was becoming more familiar with, so I didn't waste my time trying to touch them. Instead, I entered the next room and found it was a kitchen with a small table with chairs at the opposite end of the room.
As I entered the room, I could see that there was a piece of paper on the table, so I walked over to it with Aquina. The paper was a note, but It had more texture than the table, so I reached forward and picked it up and scanned the note, and sighed. I had no idea who wrote this note, but they seemed like they were going to be a lot of work, like Gretchen kind of work.
"What does the note say?" Aquina asked after I finished reading.
Instead of reading it out, I just turned it around and held it out for her to read. The note was drawn in crayon, with a stick figure at the bottom. The note read as follows:
'Hey! You! I fell down the stairs and rolled into a cage that locked itself. Can you come to get me?'
Was this a text message? The way it was written, sounded like she wrote the note after she locked herself into the cage, but my thought was interrupted by a 'hm' sound from Aquina, and a laugh. She grabbed my hand that was holding the paper and turned it back to me, and I looked at it again. New writing was there and I groaned.
'Dave, if you don't get you lazy ass down here right now, I will tell everyone all your dark little secrets!'
Great, well, I found her finally, because there was only one person I knew that loved secrets and extortion as much as she did.
Latisha.
Chapter 202: Crotchety Piece Of Software!
"Do you know this person?" Aquina asked.
"Oh yes, better watch out, she is an extortionist at heart and will use everything you have to get you to do things for the klutz. Not only is she the biggest gossip, but she is a walking time bomb of Murphy's law just waiting to go off. Maybe we could just pretend like we didn't see the note…"
"DAVE!"
The muffled yell came from the basement, and it made me laugh, but it was cut short by the round warning. Our time was up, time to head outside and see what was next.
WARNING, LOCKDOWN IN PROGRESS
SURVIVE THE REMAINING 4 ROUNDS INSIDE THIS HOUSE TO ADVANCE TO THE NEXT ROUND
Ugh, so many rounds, but suddenly, everything around us changed. The once beautiful house was now a half-destroyed mess, it was like someone had turned on the doomsday switch had been turned on. The outside was craters and burning fields, and then metal shutters dropped down on the side windows and the small kitchen window.
That left only the two big windows in the back of the house, and both of us cracked knuckles. With Sally and Sam Sammich in our hands, we dashed to the windows. We got there just as green light beams began flashing down and dropping off the little green men, but they were relentless, only by pushing them into a group with Sam, and then pulling out Rip to get them with the Xplodey shot.
[12320pts]
The last little bastard finally died and the shutters slammed down. Lots of points, but no way to get out and collect the ammo that was slowly disappearing from the first ones we had killed.
[09:59 Minutes until next round]
"DAVE!"
I stopped on the floor and trudged over to where I had noticed a door in the kitchen when I was walking through. I grabbed the handle, but it was locked. Of course, it was, but there was a string attached to the knob will old skeleton key looking thing, but it was missing all its...I could feel the pearly white in my pocket shaking, clever.
I reached in my pocket and pulled the tooth out, and I flipped out of my, flying onto the key. There were two more slots left, so that must mean that were more teeth hiding. I turned to find Aquina giving me a disgusted look, but she had a sac that said 'potatoes'.
"They couldn't have put it in a plastic bag?" I sighed after asking no one in particular.
I half expected the back to be filled with little dolls of me, so I turned and started to look around, and Aquina helped, taking the kitchen, while I took the living room. I started with the couch and found the first one on the end table. My discovery was followed by Aquina calling for me to come and pick up the one she had just found.
After collecting all the remaining teeth, the two of us went to the door. The key sucked up the remaining teeth and disappeared, causing the door to make a clicking noise. I tried the handle, and it opened with ease.
I made sure to check the stairs before going down, just because Latisha was a klutz, doesn't mean it wouldn't be dangerous. The two of us made our way down to the bottom of the stair and turned to find a girl with white hair and a portable machine gun on her lap. Cage my ass, this lying bitch, I should have just left her down here!
"I can see how salty you're getting, so I guess I'll help without you begging me," Latisha said with a noncommittal hand wave.
"What were you actually doing here?"
"Waiting for you, and this little tasty morsel. Where did you find such a cutie? Does he make you scream?" Latisha probed.
She had dark skin and a brilliant smile, but I knew there was an evil mind lurking just behind it. I felt back for Aquina, well, no I felt bad for all the girls, but I think Grace might get her to sing a different tune if she annoyed her too much. Let's see if I have to break this up, plus I see the last part of the distillery!
"W-W-What!?" Aquina stuttered.
"Oh, love, don't be shy, you can tell Mama Tisha all your secrets!"
"Alright, I got my pot, let's boogie, the round is almost up. Let's all head back to the top."
"Why?" Latisha asked, giving me a strange look.
"We have to survive three more waves upstairs! Come on!"
"Just go close the door, where did it say you need to be upstairs? Don't we just have to survive?"
That made me pause, there were 30 seconds left on the clock, but she wasn't wrong. Plus it was a single path that we could mow them down on the stairs. I ran up and closed the door, then came back down, cracking a knuckle and getting myself ready and the time went off and the next round started. Aquina joined me, but Latisha remained in her chair, but I ignored her.
Hopefully, when the aliens started to get too much she would come help, but I didn't put much faith in that. Both of us were ready for anything that came through that door and we stayed deathly quiet. Above us, we could hear footsteps of the creatures moving around, but after about ten minutes, Aquina and I relaxed, and flopped back into the wall.
Latisha finally got up and came over to sit on the ground in front of us. I guess she was tired of waiting for us to come to her because she started whispering at a very low level as soon as she got over to us.
"If we stay quiet, they won't find us, and…"
The door burst open, scaring the shit out of all of us, and both Aquina and I started firing. Even Latisha was sending a hail of bullets from her massive gun. The round ended, and none ever made it to the stairs, giving us another ten-minute breather. Two more rounds to go, and staying down here seemed like a good idea.
Still, I ran up to the top of the stair and found tons of ammo, far more than I hold, so I called down to the girls, and they came up and collected the remaining ammo. I also picked up three of the same items, called 'Don't Stand On This'. They were a type of proximity landmine that looked like a doormat when I tossed around the house.
After that, we headed back down and got all our guns to reload, but Tenten suddenly perked up.
"Ah, Dave! I don't think…
The round buzzer went off and Tenten cut off what he was going to say and just sighed instead. I wonder what the little tin can was about to say? I didn't have time to think about it more, as explosions rocked the house from my doormats, but soon the rush of footsteps started again.
The horde of aliens was trying to fit down the stairs, but it was a bottleneck. It didn't really matter what they sent, the firepower we had was more than enough to hold back the waves as aliens exploded into black particles. There were some massive black aliens, but they couldn't fit down the stairs and just took more bullets.
Soon, the aliens stopped coming, and the final round timer started, but Tenten immediately started to talk again.
"You need to get out of this house!" Tenten said with a lot of excitement.
"Why?"
I didn't have a chance to get an answer, my screen started to flash red, and my HUD was assaulted by strange symbols running across my vision. What the hell was going on? I was about to turn and ask the girls, but then the house was ripped off the basement.
Above us, as the house pulled away, the massive monster of an alien that held it in its hand opened its mouth facing us. The light was gathering in its mouth at a scary speed, slowly going larger. This was not good.
"RUN!"
We burst up the stairs and barely made it out of the blast range. This was crazy, I looked back and the thing was probably the same size as the legless monster on Prime. This thing had legs and it was using them to chase after us.
"What the hell is going on?!" Latisha asked in a panicked voice as we ran as fast as we could, but I wasn't the one that answered.
DAVE, YOU CAN JUST PLAY A GAME WITHOUT CHEATING IN SOME WAY SHAPE OR FORM!
"Fuck you, stop being so salty you crotchety piece of software! Just because we thought of a good idea to use part of the game to make it easier for us DOESN'T MAKE IT CHEATING!"
ALL YOU DO IS MAKE EXCUSES, BUT I FOUND YOU IN THIS GAME, AND NOW I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE!
"Dave, what did you do to this guy?" Latisha asked.
"This stupid twat is the father of the person that convinced Irellia to betray us all in the Transporter world where I lost you!"
Latisha stopped and turned, leveling her gun at the four-armed monstrosity. There was an unbridled rage burning in her eyes as she screamed a blood-curdling battle cry, unloading hell, and rage into the aliens. MainFrame had no idea what it had just unleashed.
Chapter 203: I Get It. I’m Here To Do A Job
Unfortunately, we were going to need more than hell and brimstone to bring down this chaos monster. This was an end boss, Four arms, long oval plate on the top of its head, and a big long tail. It was something from a game that the aliens were from, that might actually be a fun one, but now was not the time. I ran, and scooped the firestorm incarnate as her white hair flowed behind her.
"Put me down! I will fuck that mother fucker!"
I was just able to clear the blast radius, and ran to Aquina, who was running to the barn. The barn would be no match, but it would be something between us. Thank someone that the thing was slow, and it was taking it's time to turn, so I put the no longer squirming Latisha down. The realization that she had almost become rainbow dust had set in, and she was looking a lot calmer.
"How can we beat something like this? Latisha gun didn't even scratch it." Aquina said with worry etched on her face.
"We don't have anything, but there is a drunk Russian that is going to owe us a favor. I don't know if he can help up, but we don't have any options. I will distract it and you go place the parts of the distillery in the tube! Go, Fast!"
I reversed and ran back out to see the monster finally bringing its face to bear on the barn, but I was already running and cracking a knuckle. The Ripperess dropped into my hands, and I ran straight at it. The thing was well over twenty meters tall, but I was wrong to think it would be all slow.
I was sent skidding across the map like sliding on icy ground. Only the game mechanics saved me, I couldn't get knocked into the air, and I didn't have health, so a hit of any strength was always the same. Still, this was not going to be easy, the movement speed was lacking, but I never saw the back hand coming.
I cracked to get Sam Sammich out and started to circle the Black four armed monolith as I tried to track me. The bullets I fired had little to no effect, the alien turned to face me with unnatural speed and I swear it grinned at me before spinning at a blinding speed. The massive tail caught me, and I felt the first sting, but then I was knocked through the little green tractor. I was smashed into the ground, and my screen was now pulsing red as I got up.
"DAVE! IVAN SAID HE'S SEND YOU SOMETHING OF YOURS TO EVEN THE ODDS SINCE MAINFRAME IS CHEATING! TRY NOT TO DIE!" Aquina screamed.
Ugh, yes, not dying sounded good, and I was up and running again. My screen was back to pink and I tried to get out of range, but the alien did another lightning fast tail smash. I was smashed into the ground again, and I heard the girls both scream my name, but it was getting harder to get up. My HUD was throbbing crimson red, and my head was starting to hurt.
*BWOOMPH*
I heard the sounds, but all my attention was on trying to get back up and the monster that could now run as it closed in on me. I wasn't sure there was anything that could make a difference, but I heard a different noise come from the sky. I had finally got up, but the alien was almost on top of me, so I spared a glance to the sky.
I immediately turned on a dime and hoofed it as fast as i could to get away from the monster, whi
le running from the black object in the sky. It's funny how some connection spread across games, and they never are forgotten. The alien was almost on top of me, and I was sure one of the four hands were moments from grabbing me, so I jumped the measly amount I was able to, but it was enough.
The familiar encirclement of my MAS Unit, Diamond Edge, closed and around me, and time almost froze solid as every system function came on line at once. I pulled out my Naginata and charged the Gravity Dynam to make my blade weightless, then I leapt at the first knee. I flipped forward, slashing through the knee, and then planting off it, and shooting directly sideways. I flew by the second knee, letting my blade cut into it as I passed, but I turned, and planted on an air platform.
Harem Reborn c1-297 Page 87