by Lucas Flint
I blinked in surprise, but remembered that my Fame was over 500 now, meaning random strangers—players and NPCs alike—were more likely to recognize me now. Being this famous still took some getting used to, though. “Uh, yes. That’s me. What are you running from? Do you need any help?”
Kathy’s smile at running into me suddenly turned into a terrified frown. She pointed behind her sharply and said, “My boyfriend … he’s … he’s … oh my god it’s too horrible …”
“What’s too horrible?” I said. I looked down the alley, but I didn’t see anything. “What happened to your boyfriend? Was he attacked?”
Kathy opened her mouth to continue to blubber at me, but then I heard that grunting sound again and another figure appeared at the end of the alleyway.
This figure was a man. He looked to be close in age to Kathy, most likely in his early-to-mid twenties. He wore a simple sleeveless black shirt that did a good job showing off his huge, muscular arms, arms that looked almost bigger than my own. He also wore a pair of faded jeans with holes in the knees, but my attention wasn’t drawn to his clothing. His skin was what caught my attention.
The man’s skin looked unnaturally pale, like the skin of a corpse. He stared down at us with a blank look on his chiseled features. Blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth and his neck had a big gash in it that looked kind of like a bite mark, though what could have bitten him, I didn’t know.
Then my eyes were drawn to the glowing green nametag floating above his head: [INFECTED CIVILIAN ROBERT]
“Is that your boyfriend?” I said to Kathy.
Kathy nodded, but clutched me even closer and whimpered. “Yes. And now he’s going to kill us all.”
CHAPTER NINE
Before I could ask Kathy what she meant, Robert ran toward us.
And when I say ran, I meant ran. His strong legs caused him to move at superhuman speeds. He ran half-bent over, his hands bared like claws as he snarled like a monster. Blood streaked from the corners of his mouth as a deep, unnatural growl escaped his throat.
Although I had no idea what was going on, I wasted no time in shoving Kathy behind me and snapping at Cy, “Get her to someplace safe! I’ll keep her boyfriend busy.”
Without waiting to see where Cy took Kelly, I rushed toward Robert. Robert, despite being a Civilian, oddly showed no fear whatsoever as he ran toward me. Perhaps that had something to do with his [INFECTED] tag messing with his mind, but in any case, he would probably be easy to defeat. Civilians, as a general rule, were weaker than Heroes or Villains, which was the main reason we had to protect or harm them depending on our Alignment. I didn’t want to kill Robert, but if I had to, I would.
When we got close enough, Robert lunged at me, but I Dodged his outstretched claws and slashed my Ice Dagger across his face. My Ice Dagger slashed open the side of Robert’s face, making blood pour out of his cheek, but it didn’t slow him down at all. Instead, he spun and slashed across my chest so fast I couldn’t activate Dodge.
Robert’s claws sliced cleanly through the chest of my Costume, which took a few points off my Health bar but otherwise did not hurt me or leave me with any debuffs. I did, however, take advantage of his close proximity to grab his wrist and activate Freezing Touch. A thick sheet of ice began forming along Robert’s arm until he wrenched it out of my grasp with surprising strength, but I kicked him in the gut and sent him falling to the ground. When Robert hit the ground, I activated Ice Shackles and thrust my hands at him.
Ice chains shot out of the ground and wrapped firmly around Robert’s wrists and ankles. Despite that, Robert began struggling against them furiously, that same deep, animalistic growl emitting from his throat like the vibration of an engine in a car.
Taking advantage of this moment, I Scanned Robert to see if I could find out exactly what was wrong with him:
Infected Civilian Robert Doyle
LEVEL: 15
ALIGNMENT: Unaligned
CLASS: Civilian [Infected]
WEAK POINT: Head
WEAKNESS: Bullets
Civilians are the primary inhabitants of the world of Capes Online. They are the people who Heroes have sworn to protect and the victims which Villains seek to harm or destroy. Due to their lack of Powers and Unaligned status, Civilians are typically quite defenseless, although some Civilians can learn Martial Arts or gain certain Civilian Equipment to help them defend themselves in battle.
I frowned. Even though Scan was Level 3 now, it still didn’t tell me what was wrong with Robert, exactly, other than he was [Infected]. No duh, Scan. Tell me something I don’t know.
“Please!” Kathy suddenly shouted. “Don’t kill him! He’s not in his right mind anymore!”
Startled, I looked back down the alleyway and saw Kathy straining against Cy’s grasp. Her eyes were locked on Robert, who was still fighting against the Ice Shackles I had put on him.
“Please!” Kathy half-shouted, half-sobbed. “Please don’t kill him! He just needs help.”
“Help?” I shouted back. “Lady, I’d love to help your boyfriend, but unless you tell me exactly what’s wrong with him, I—”
Abruptly, Robert shattered my Ice Shackles and lunged at me. This time, I Dodged and neatly avoided his claws. In fact, Robert rushed toward me so fast that he actually ran smack dab into the brick wall of the building behind me. Robert staggered backward, a dazed look on his face before he shook his head and turned to face me.
Then, without hesitation, Robert lunged toward me again, making weird growling noises like a dog. This time, however, I fired Ice Beam at him. The Ice Beam struck him directly in the chest and knocked him flat on his feet, but before I could use Ice Shackles again, Robert rolled back to his feet and thrust his arms out at me.
Weird black spores shot out of the palms of his hands toward me. Taken by surprise, I got hit full on by the spores, which hit me in the face and made my vision suddenly become blurry. A prompt appeared in my face that I could somehow still read despite my blurry vision:
You’ve been hit by Blinding Spores!
Debuff added: Blurry vision. -50% Accuracy and Evasion. Duration: 1 minute.
One minute didn’t sound like a long time, but in a fight, one minute lasted a lifetime. In any case, I rubbed my eyes in an attempt to get the spores out, but if anything, that seemed to make my vision worse.
Then I felt claws slash across my chest again. The blow only took a handful of points off my Health, but it was so surprising that I cried out in pain and staggered backward. I heard Robert grunting and growling before me and it was all I could do to Dodge his attacks. Unfortunately, due to my decrease in Evasion, most of Robert’s attacks easily hit me, shaving off bits of my Health with each blow.
I tried to hit back, but with my Accuracy cut in half, pretty much all of my attacks missed. I swung my fists wildly about, hoping to hit Robert even if accidentally, but somehow none of my blows landed. Robert’s attacks, on the other hand, seemed to land each time. And, although each attack didn’t do much individually, the constant barrage meant Robert chipped away at my Health quickly until soon I was well under half my Health.
“Boss!” I heard Cy shout. “Hold on! I’ll save—”
“No!” I shouted back as I narrowly avoided another slash from Robert. “Get Kathy out of here! I can save myself!”
I had no idea if Cy obeyed my orders or not, but soon all thoughts about Cy and Kathy vanished when another slash connected and tore through my chest. Grunting in pain, I staggered backward until I nearly stumbled into what felt like a trash can. Desperately clutching for the lid, I felt the handle of the trash can’s lids and, gripping it firmly, slammed it in front of me as hard as I could, hoping against hope the attack would connect.
It did. A loud gong sound could be heard when the trash can lid slammed into Robert’s face. I heard Robert growl in pain and then, abruptly, my vision returned, the blurry vision debuff lifting at the same time when its minute was up.
That allowed me t
o see Robert staggering backward from getting hit in the face, his eyes spinning from the blow. Sensing my chance, I summoned another Ice Dagger and rushed toward Robert. With a yell, I slammed my Ice Dagger directly into Robert’s chest, aimed right at his heart, and thrust it in all the way up to its hilt.
Robert choked before I wrenched my Dagger out of his chest and kicked him in his wound. Robert fell over flat onto his back on the street and stopped moving, the hole in his chest leaking red blood. His chest did not rise and fall, which was a pretty good sign that he was dead.
Breathing hard, I felt bad about having to kill a Civilian, but I reasoned that since I did it in self-defense, perhaps it wouldn’t affect my Hero score. A glance at my Alignment bar showed that I was correct. I was still 100% a Hero through and through. That was good because this was the first time I had killed a Civilian and I wasn’t sure if the game’s Dynamic Environment System was advanced enough to tell the difference between murder and killing in self-defense. Good to know that it was.
“Robert, no!” Kathy suddenly screamed. I looked up and saw that Cy hadn’t made much progress in getting her to safety. They were about halfway up the alleyway still, with Cy struggling to hold onto the shrieking Kathy. “No, Robert, no!”
I grimaced. “Sorry, Kathy. I didn’t want to kill him, but it was either me or him and, well, I hope you understand.”
Kathy stopped screaming, only to break down into sobs. She began sobbing into Cy’s chest, making him look uncomfortable as he awkwardly patted her on the back. Even though Kathy was an NPC, I still felt bad for her losing her boyfriend. I wondered how much Sally, my fiancee back in the real world, cried when she was first told I was dead. Or how much she cried when Chuck told her I was still alive.
Shaking my head, I was about to put my Ice Dagger away when Robert’s eyes snapped open and he lunged up at me. He slammed into me and, wrapping his surprisingly strong arms around my body, crushed me in a vice grip and sank his teeth—which looked more like fangs—into my neck.
I screamed in pain as something hot flowed from his teeth into my veins. It felt like he was injecting hot lava directly into my veins, making me feel like my blood was literally boiling away.
As I screamed, I got a new notification that I somehow managed to read despite the pain:
[Infected Civilian Robert] attacked you! -10 Health.
Status Effect: Infection. A mysterious infection has entered your body, the full effects of which remain unknown. It is recommended you see a Healer or Civilian Doctor as soon as possible in order to deal with it before you suffer possible negative effects.
CHAPTER TEN
Reading that notification—and noting how vague it was—snapped me out of my pain. With a grunt, I stabbed Robert in the side several times with my knife, but it did nothing to make him let go of my neck, so I tossed my Ice Dagger aside and wrapped my arms around Robert. The two of us were basically in a big hug, but it wasn’t because I didn’t want to get away from him. No, it was because I wanted to make sure he didn’t get away from me.
With a grunt, I activated Freezing Touch. Ice exploded from the palms of my hands and raced up and down Robert’s body. The ice made Robert let go of my neck, but that was the last thing he did before the ice covered his head. Soon, Robert looked like a frozen statue, the blood around his mouth—my blood—frozen on his lips.
Without hesitation, I shoved Robert forward. His frozen form tipped over backward and smashed against the ground, sending chunks of ice scattering everywhere as yet another prompt showed up in my view:
[Infected Civilian Robert] is dead! +300 EXP!
As this death was clearly in self-defense, your Hero Alignment is unaffected.
I cursed foully under my breath. I only got 300 EXP for that? Granted, Robert hadn’t been a very high level, but come on. And because I shattered him into itty bitty little pieces, I doubted he had any good loot on him, either. At least it didn’t hurt my Alignment. As I suspected, killing a Civilian in self-defense was not punished by the system, which was good. The pain caused by Robert’s bite, however, was not.
My thoughts were interrupted by another scream. Thinking that another Infected Civilian was about to attack, I looked up just in time to see Kathy—having somehow freed herself from Cy’s grasp—rushing toward me. She dropped on her knees before the frozen chunks of flesh that had once been her boyfriend and began scooping them up into her arms.
“Hey, miss,” I said, holding out a hand toward her. “There’s no need to do that. Robert is dead. He isn’t coming back. I’m sorry.”
Kathy looked up at me, her arms full of Robert’s frozen chunks, but she didn’t scream at me like I thought she was going to. Tears were running down her face as she sniffled and sobbed slightly.
“I-It’s fine,” Kathy said. She dropped the ice chunks onto the street and buried her face into her hands. “H-He’s probably b-better off that way than he was in life … if you c-could even call that life, anyway.”
Frowned, I suddenly noticed a small symbol in the corner of my character screen. Right next to the tab with the name of my character was a hazardous waste symbol, which, when I clicked it, said ‘INFECTED.’ A glance at my nametag above my head showed that the Infected tag was not visible, which I found strange, but then maybe Capes Online just didn’t display Status Effects openly like that.
In any case, I would look at that later. I closed my character screen just as Cy ran up to us, a look of worry and excitement on his face.
“Good job, boss!” said Cy in an overly-cheery tone that starkly contrasted with Kathy’s sobbing. “Glad to see you took out that monster! I thought it was dead when you first stabbed it, but then it jumped you and bit your neck. You okay?”
Touching my neck wound, I said, “I think so, although the wound hurts.”
I quickly took a Health Drink out of my item inventory and drank it. The Health Drink restored my Health bar to 100% and healed my neck wound and the other scrapes I had taken during the battle, but it did nothing about the Infected tag, which was starting to worry me. I didn’t say that aloud, however, because I didn’t want to worry either Kathy or Cy unnecessarily.
Kneeling down, I said to Kathy, “I am sorry for your boyfriend’s death, but it had to be done. It was either me or him, but if I could have saved him, I would have.”
Kathy looked up at me. The tears were still coming down her face in torrents, but she seemed to be sobbing less, although I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Like I said, don’t worry about it. Robert would have wanted it. He always believed in living life to the fullest. He wouldn’t have wanted to spend the rest of his life like … like that.”
Kathy gestured at the frozen flesh chunks on the ground, but I got her meaning quite well.
“Yes, about that,” I said. “I understand if you don’t feel up to talking, but could you possibly enlighten us about what, exactly, happened to Robert that caused him to behave like, well, that?”
Kathy sniffled and took in several deep breaths, but nodded slowly. “Yes. I don’t want something like this to happen to other people. The man who did this to my husband needs to be stopped.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Someone did this to Robert? Do you know who?”
Cy suddenly pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to Kathy, who took it and immediately blew her nose into it.
I looked up at Cy. “Good thinking, Cy, but why do you carry a handkerchief around?”
“It’s my crying handkerchief,” Cy informed me. “Doesn’t everyone carry a crying handkerchief around? It’s called being prepared, which is what Heroes are supposed to be.”
Before I could respond to that, Kathy lowered the now dirty handkerchief from her nose and looked at me with puffy red eyes. “A-About an hour ago, Robert and I met up with a man who claimed he could give us superpowers.”
“Superpowers?” I repeated. “What do you mean give them?”
Kathy sniffled again. “You know
how superpowers work, being a Hero and all. Not all humans are born with the potential for Powers. The vast majority of us Civilians lack any sort of special Powers or abilities. If you give us a Power Crystal, it won’t unlock new Powers within us or do anything like that.”
I nodded. I was well aware of Capes Online’s lore explaining the difference between players and most NPCs. “And you and your boyfriend wanted to become Heroes, right?”
“Right,” said Kathy. She wiped away the tears from her own eyes. “Robert’s always wanted to be a Hero. He became a police officer because he didn’t have any Powers, but he always felt like he was supposed to do more than that. So when he heard of a man who sold drugs that could unlock the Power within us, he convinced me to go with him to buy the drugs. Said I could be his Sidekick and he would always protect me.”
Although I did not show it on my face, I was rather shocked at how similar Robert’s back story was to my own. In real life, I had never wanted to become a superhero per se, seeing as superheroes don’t exist in real life, but I always did want to help people and so I became a police officer to do that. Then the car crash happened and, well, I became a superhero, sort of. Was it just a coincidence that I happened to run into a Civilian like Robert whose back story was similar to my own or had the system designed this encounter specifically for me?
“But that didn’t happen,” said Kathy. “The man who sold us the drugs allowed Robert to try it out there and then, as soon as the money switched hands of course. Robert and I both were excited to see what kind of Powers he would get, but … but …”
“He didn’t get any, did he?” I said, glancing at the frozen chunks of flesh that had once been Robert.
Kathy nodded. She looked close to tears again but was still capable of speaking to us legibly. “He went insane. He became feral, almost like an animal. The man who sold us those drugs disappeared before I could ask him what happened. Robert then began chasing me. He didn’t recognize me. He didn’t know who I was. He just saw a target for him to attack and kill. It was awful, like something straight out of a nightmare.”