Ryuk looks at Enway, still curious about her new avatar. She acts the same, but looks completely different with her dark hair, bronze skin, red eyes and red tear on her forehead.
“Say, you don’t have another hazmat suit, do you?” Hiccup calls down to FeeTwix once he has descended into the hole.
“Sorry, Hiccup!”
Ryuk goes in the manhole next, after a sidelong glance at Enway, who still has her Book of Time stuffed under her arm. She smiles, and he’s just about to smile back when Zaena sidles up next to him.
“Are you going to go into the sewers or are you going to smile at the Hourglass Mage?”
Ryuk nearly jumps out of his dream armor. “I’m going!”
Down the hole he goes, two rungs at a time until he lands in a long, dreadfully odorous tunnel. FeeTwix aims the headlamp on his hazmat suit at a giant piece of shit floating by.
“That’s a lot of shit,” he says, “and if you need to shit a lot, there’s no better time than right now to pick up a package of Super Strength Pumpkin Spice Ex-Lax, available exclusively at WalMacy’s and WalMacy’s online! You can’t get this flavor anywhere else, and if you’re tired of P. Spice, choose from a dozen other flavors including Tropickle, Birthday Cake, Red Banana, and Pepto Bismol. Do what Hiccup does every day – clear that bowel and let it all out!”
“I heard that!” the goblin shouts from the top.
“And remember, fan-migos, mention #FeeTwixRox at checkout and get, I shit you not, 35% off your first two packages! Stock up now, and be ready for anything! Terms and conditions apply. Please see WalMacy for details. Offer valid online and in all fifty states and territories excluding Afghanistan, Puerto Rico, American Korea, the Midway Islands, and the Green Zone. Not valid with any other offer or discount. The claims made by the WalMacy Bowel Clearance Department have not been evaluated by the United States Food and Drug Administration and are not approved to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. WalMacy’s is not liable for any information ad-libbed by the host of this ad, nor should you use this ad to diagnose any symptoms you may be experiencing. If symptoms persist, please consult a healthcare professional. Whew!”
“That was quite the disclaimer,” Enway says after she’s stepped off the last rung. Zaena is above her, and as usual, the Thulean uses her ghost limbs to quickly climb down the ladder.
“Yeah, some advertisers are more difficult than others…”
“How the fick are we going to get Wolf down?” Hiccup calls down the hole.
“Hmmm …” FeeTwix turns to Ryuk. “Any ideas?”
“Do you have a crane in your list?”
Enway laughs at Ryuk’s joke and he smiles.
“Ha! That’d be something. Any ideas, babe? I believe your limbs aren’t long enough.”
The Thulean shakes her head. “What about one of Ryuk’s gravity marbles.”
Ryuk unhooks his slingshot. “That may work, but what about Wolf? On second thought, that won’t work.”
“Git your ass down there!”
The Mitherfickers look up to see Hiccup trying to push Wolf into the hole.
“That won’t work, Hiccup,” the Swede calls up to him. “Okay, okay, I’ll handle this. Do you guys think I can lift him?”
“Who? Hiccup?” Ryuk shakes his head.
“The goblin is a fatass. I believe Wolf weighs more, but that is just because he is mostly muscle.”
“Good point, babe. Now I don’t want to go with my Steamsuit. A little overkill. I could go with my flying boots from Steam, but again, I’d have to carry both of them separately.”
“Git in that fickin’ hole, or I’m sending your ass back to Kayi!”
Wolf looks in the hole, barks, and with a nervous glance at the goblin, he places his front paws on the first rung.
“Not gonna work, Hiccup!” FeeTwix calls up.
“Like fick it won’t work. Wolfy, I’m fickin’ warning you, if you ever want to put your red rocket in another silo, you’d better git in that hole!”
Wolf barks.
“This is animal cruelty,” says Enway.
“Git! Git!”
Wolf takes another step down just as digital gravity kicks in.
“Shit!” Hiccup cries out as Wolf falls all the way to the bottom of the sewer, a good seven meters. “Is he okay?”
Enway races over to Wolf just as he stands. The big black canine shakes his head and falls back down again.
“I’m coming, Wolfy! Someone get that dog a potion!” Hiccup says as his fat ass clings to the rungs.
The goblin reaches the ground in record time. He rushes over to Wolf, drops to his side and snaps his mechanical fingers at FeeTwix. “Potion, now, the good stuff. A Hopkins’, dammit!”
FeeTwix tosses over the grenade-shaped bottle and Hiccup shoves it in Wolf’s mouth. Soon the dog is better, his tail thumping against the ground.
“Fick me, Wolfy, that wasn’t my idea. No one told me you couldn’t climb a ladder. Blame Marbles over there.” He turns Wolf’s head toward Ryuk. “That’s the ficker that told me to force you down.”
“Hiccup, stop fucking around!”
“Marbles,” the goblin says as he gets to his feet, “I know you’re trying to show off in front of your new lady friend who has recently become exotic with her dark hair and burnt butter skin, but really, kid, you don’t want it with me. I’ll fickin’ murder your poofty ass. Fick! What the fick was that?” Hiccup jumps back, his leap accompanied by a cloud of doom. He swiftly unsheathes his toe knife.
A giant mound of poo lifts from the stream of waste traveling through the sewer. The eyeless creature roars, filth and debris spraying out of its mouth.
“Fick! It’s a shit monster!”
(0)__(x)
Fecal Creature Level 7
HP: 192/192
ATK: 48
MATK: 0
DEF: 29
MDF: 38
LUCK: 2
Leaping into action, Ryuk goes for his slingshot and looses two sword marbles that pass straight through the center of the poo monster. The fecal terror cries out, brings a droopy arm back, and responds to Ryuk’s attack with a blistering stink attack of its own.
Ryuk’s dream armor barely blocks the hunks of partially digested bone that hit it.
The armor morphs as the Ballistics Mage dives left, only to be struck by the partially digested skull of a land dragon.
-59 HP!
Ryuk slams into a group of pipes. One of the pipes bursts open, covering him in urine and feces.
“Fick me, Marbles, that’s called a golden-brown shower where I’m from!”
Rather than fight, the goblin has dipped into one of the emergency drainage systems. He has a healing potion in his hand, sipping it as he watches the ensuing mayhem.
“Baka! Don’t just sit there!”
“Fick you and your ‘baka,’ Marbles. No one here even knows what that fickin’ means!” He puckers his lips and takes another small sip of the potion. “And don’t get your underoos in a wad; I’ll join the fight when I see an opening, just like Lizzy.”
Ryuk looks the other way to see Zaena standing on the sidelines. She pivots from foot to foot, waiting for her chance to strike as FeeTwix does his thing.
“Burn in hell, mitherficker!”
The Swede now holds a Model CR-24 Flame Rifle. With a pull of the trigger, a great ball of fire bursts from the weapon’s receiving end, only to backfire because of all the flammable gas in the air causing a minor explosion.
“Fick!” Hiccup shouts as FeeTwix is thrown into a side wall, his hazmat suit now on fire.
Like a stuntman in a movie about firefighters, FeeTwix stumbles around as flames rage off his suit, his hands waving in the air above him.
Ryuk quickly fires off a message to FeeTwix.
Ryuk: You okay?
FeeTwix: I’ll be okay. I’m wearing a flame retardant undersuit.
Hiccup: You looked like a retard batting your hands at the air while your body was on fir
e. Don’t cringe from across the way, Marbles, retard is only offensive to retards, and ficktards for that matter. Everyone else secretly uses the word, kind of like racial slurs.”
“Shut up, goblin!” Zaena’s battle cry is atypical for her, yet apropos.
Her swords spinning, and her nose held high likely due to the stink, the Thulean warrior princess uses her ghost limbs to fling herself at the towering feces foe, only to be swiped by the creature’s beefy, sewage enhanced hand.
-78 HP!
“Aye!”
The Thulean is tossed into the running stream of filth cutting through the sewer. Gasping for air after she comes up, Zaena quickly uses her ghost limbs to pull herself out of the stream of feces.
The monster roars and Wolf barks loudly in response.
The big black wolf stands as far away from the stream of waste cutting through the sewer as he possibly can.
“You will die for this,” Zaena says as she flicks a bit of bathroom matter off her brow.
Her wand at the ready, and sparking pink magic twisting around her arm, Enway fires off a blast of chromatic goodness, which fizzles away before it can reach the angry poo beast.
“You’re going to need to work on your magic there, Elfy,” Hiccup comments from the sidelines.
“Just watch,” the Hourglass Mage calls over her shoulder.
-103 HP!
Suddenly, her chromatic energy takes a shoulder off the shit monster.
“Fick!”
“Delayed Strike,” she says just about as coolly as Ryuk has ever heard someone say the name of their last attack.
Feeling emboldened, the Ballistics Mage steps up, Marble Gun at the ready. Ryuk fires three opaque marbles at their increasingly shitty foe.
The marbles connect, and the scheisse monster lifts into the air, slamming into the ceiling of the sewers and causing the entire tunnel to shake.
-151 HP! Critical hit!
Rather than fall back down, the crap creature stays stuck to the ceiling, hurling globs of after dinner goo down on the Mitherfickers.
Everyone who can dive, dives for cover.
Hiccup, still in his tunnel, finishes his potion and tosses it aside.
“I’ve got this,” he growls as he straightens up. While everyone is either ducking for cover and trying to avoid flying feces, or in Wolf’s case, barking maniacally, the most gaseous goblin this side of Athos equips one of his throwing tomahawks.
Even as shit flies all around him, he beats his chest for a moment, grumbling about potion-induced heartburn.
“Now where are you, you little ficker?” The goblin’s eyes trained on the energetic egesta, he pulls back his arm and overhand tosses his tomahawk into the center of the dung demon’s chest.
The ceiling-bound monster screeches as it falls to the ground, shit whirling in a tornado around its body.
Instakill!
One legendary explosion of odorous ordure later, and the Mitherfickers see a small fairy float into the air.
She spins, golden dust and any leftover residue flying off her body.
“Just as I thought,” Hiccup grumbles, “a fickin’ stinkerbell. It’s safe to come out, everyone. I’ve won the fight here.”
“Stinkerbell?” FeeTwix asks, his eyes quivering as he reads messages from his fans. “Ah! I see, they collect treasure in sewers and sometimes become possessed by shit. That can’t be right.”
“It’s right,” Hiccup says as he takes a few steps closer to the fairy. “These little fickers love going through butt truffles in search of rare stones and whatnot.”
“Are you the one that freed me?” the fairy asks, dropping down before the goblin so she’s now at eye level.
“That’s right,” he says, a mischievous grin on his face.
“Thanks!”
Hiccup plucks her out of the air, and before she can zip away, he tosses her in his mouth and swallows her whole.
“What the hell are you doing!?”
“Relax, Marbles, swallowing these things is great for digestion. It’s illegal in Jatla, but that’s because of the fairy lobby and the fairy union there. Fickers.”
“Did he just swallow that shit fairy?” Enway asks.
Zaena nods, disgust evident on her face.
“When you two are fickin’ done judging me, you can thank me for winning the fight for the Mitherfickers. How many times do I have to save everyone’s asses again? Gee, let me think. It’s been at least three times, and I’m a barely functional part of the team, aside from comic relief. It’s like a played-out trope, here comes Hiccup to save the day.”
“No one thinks you are funny,” Zaena reminds him while cleaning her dirty arm with one of FeeTwix’s rags and a canteen of water from her own list.
“Yeah? Says you.” Hiccup burps, slams his mechanical fist into his belly, and turns east. “If we run into any more of those fecal fickers, aim for the heart, that’s usually where the pixies are trapped.”
“Good to know, Hiccup!”
“You’re fickin’ welcome, Twixy.” The goblin burps. “Shit, she’s really putting up a fight in there.” He punches his stomach again. “Better. Now, are we going or what? Don’t you fickers worry about me eating faeries. If you need safe spaces, you can book one once we get in Bluwid. Fick.”
.6. Tamana’s Test
Kodai waits nervously for Tesla’s diagnosis. Walt, the older MercSecure mercenary who met him at their repair facility, assured Kodai that she’d be fine, but he still lets out a sigh of relief when he is told he can come see her.
It’s early morning now, and while Kodai was planning an assault on his rival Ginko’s estate, he doesn’t know if he still has it in him. And besides, if Tesla isn’t there…
But Walt assured me she’d be fine relatively quickly due to the advanced tech they have in this facility, he thinks as he’s led down another hallway into Tesla’s room.
She’s sitting up when he enters, a MercSecure scientist busying himself with the holoscreen tablet affixed to her gurney.
“Kodai,” Tesla says, a smile taking shape on her face. Her eyes flash black as she scans his vitals.
“Easy,” the scientist reminds her, “you’ve just booted up.”
“How are you?” Kodai asks, his hatred for Hajime and Ryuk growing as he reaches her side.
“I’m fine. Are we still on for later today?” she asks, cutting to the point.
“We discussed all that before,” he swallows hard, “before this happened. Now, I don’t know. Maybe we should wait a few days.”
The scientist, a thin man with glasses and a beard, looks at Kodai and frowns. “She needs to take it easy.”
“Thanks, Dr. Taylor,” Walt says. “We’ve got it from here.”
“You most certainly do not have it from here.”
Walt clears his throat and Dr. Taylor is out of there before the grizzled mercenary can say whatever he was planning to say.
“I can go in her place,” Walt offers Kodai. “Whatever it is you were planning to do, I’ve been instructed to act as Tesla until she can be adequately repaired.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Tesla says. “I am ready now to proceed with my mission.”
Kodai smiles at her. She has drive, I’ll give her that. Still, he knows that she probably needs at least a few more hours of rest.
He turns to Walt. “How about this? I have some things I need to do in a Proxima world, which I’m sure you at least know something about.”
He nods.
“Good, you can escort me home.” He turns back to the female humandroid. “Once you are ready and have been cleared, you can meet me at home. I can also pick you up here on my way to our next visit.”
“That would work better. At eleven?”
Kodai’s calendar pops up on his iNet screen. Messages from his men appear, as do a series of available times. “That will work. I’ll be back then.”
(0)__(0)
FeeTwix’s feed plays on his iNet screen as Kodai makes h
is way home in an aerosSUV. Walt sits up front, and a vehicle follows behind them, added security courtesy of MercSecure.
Kodai doesn’t always agree with America and their aggressive military habits, but over the last century, the country had created some of the best security companies the world has ever seen.
The American private security companies are light years ahead of Japanese and Korean ones, and just about the only country that gives them a run for their money is Great Britain, mostly because they have an agreement in which they hire from the same pool and are able to skip visa, regulatory, and other protocols.
Walt is a notable example of this.
Kodai assumes he is American, and he detects an American accent when he speaks Japanese, but regardless, the guy is a seasoned professional. He feels just as safe with Walt as he does with Tesla, which is saying something.
The fact that Walt is a cyborg only adds to Kodai’s confidence in his abilities.
From what Kodai can tell Walt has had his arm, both legs, and his eyes replaced, and those are just the most visible portions. The seasoned vet may be reaching a new problem for the modern day, war-ravaged soldier: just how much of his body is human and how much is otherwise, and if it is predominantly otherwise, does that still make him human?
The aeros lands and Kodai is shuffled inside.
Once he is in his penthouse apartment, he immediately goes over to his favorite chair and places his haptic gloves and NV Visor on. The Proxima login screen appears, and after a few moments trapped in the Empyrean, he stands in his avatar at the mouth of the Sabors.
Kodai Matsuzaki Level 15 Ballistics Mage
HP: 830/830
ATK: 213
MATK: 176
DEF: 98
MDF: 105
LUCK: 7
Tamana Nakamura Level 15 White Warrior
HP: 410/410
MANA: 389/389
ATK: 117
DEF: 134
MATK: 149
MDF: 108
LUCK: 6
Tomas Romero Level 51 Shield Warrior
HP: 2167/2167
ATK: 593
MATK: 10
DEF: 740
MDF: 555
Fantasy Online_The Runestones of Tritinakh Page 6