by Yuli Ban
I grabbed her mouth and immediately recoiled when I felt her tongue on my palm. But that was a fun little thing.
"What happened? Start from the top— what happened?"
Maria said, "Is that all you're wondering about, big man? You should have said something."
If there was a camera, that gaze of mine found it. Then I turned back to her and said, "Enough of all this. I know it's funny, but seriously— c'mon— what happened?"
They giggled in tandem. I didn't like the way the show started, and the curtains hadn't even been lifted.
Olga said, "You mean after you went El Sexorcisto?" She turned to the other girls. "I don't know. Should we tell him yet?" And she had a real goofy grin on her face as if she was hiding something utterly inconsequential and wanted to make it out to be something epic.
Maria folded her arms. "To tell you the truth, even we aren't quite sure how it started. All at once, you began to glow white, your clothes miraculously reformed on your body, and you started laying waste to the entire country. It's after that, when you attacked the military base and your climax ended, that we really remember."
The windowpanes rattled. However bright the sun lit the sky before, there was only pure darkness with a shade of blackened grey. I peered through the blinds again and saw the scuds passing about, jagged clouds twisting and lifting in the winds above. It didn't look severe enough to drop a tornado, but there was reason to assume we were about to receive a gullywasher. Whatever cheat I activated definitely worked, but I didn’t understand how you could even use a cheat in an MMO.
I turned back to the girls and sat on the bed. They followed my lead— and I quickly understood that there was only one bed in the room.
As I lay down, they set their heads on my legs.
"El Sexorcisto..."
Maria's timbre lit the room. Her demon-red lips looked cute in the dark, but I still decided to turn on a table lamp that was within reach. She said, "It's a special transformation in the game. Only some can achieve it. And this is why you have to avoid the one named Sam."
Sam. That name rang familiar. Immediately, I felt ghost pains in my scrotum and took great solace in knowing that all of that old pain had subsided thanks to Tatiana's generous donations. But before all that pain, there was that mention of someone named Sam. For a minute, my mind parsed through yesterday's chaos and a second mention came to the front— hadn't I seen his name around Scumlord's place? I couldn't pinpoint exactly where, but it made sense to me. Even the first instance felt like reaching into the fuzziness of my mind and pulling back with my arms suddenly low-resolution.
I asked, "Who's Sam?"
"Head honcho, basically. He leads the Rocket 88s."
"I guess I could'a figured that one out." I closed my eyes. Another rolling boil of thunder shook the room. Wind pressed against the window.
Maria said, "You should rest. Keep your head down for a while and just try to survive for now."
To an extent, I wanted to agree with her. This was obviously the best thing to do. If not the best, then the smartest. And I guess I wasn't that smart.
"I've gotta beat Sam. Maybe then I can start to make things right."
"Very sharp! But where on earth did you get that idea, Boss?"
I chuckled. "Well, it just seems right. You know how video games work— you beat a boss and win something. Maybe that's still true here. And I want to fight. It's been a wild ride, but I can't just let this go."
"Is it about Mya?" I could feel the tension in the bedsheets, and when I looked down to the girls, I saw Maria staring right at me, supporting herself on the bed by her forearm. And for once, that scowl on her face looked more inviting than Ana's best smile. I don't know what it was about it. Sometimes people have expressions that fit into your emotions better than a novel's worth of words.
I nodded. "Yeah. Mya and Myles."
With a no-bullshit force behind her words, she said, "You said that Mya stuck you in the game right before the Hurricanes took her but she never said where she was sending you, is that right?"
My brow furrowed. Did I say that? There was no point combing through my memories. Not when I was still so confused.
But damn me if my little coma didn't set some other things straight and reset my emotions.
"Quick question. The Hurricanes are just a corporation, right?"
"Yep," all four said in unison.
"Never would have thought they crossed over into politics themselves," Tatiana said, "but it makes perfect sense that they'd become a tyrannical fascist party."
"They didn't always control the Rio Baja Desert, though," Ana added. "And maybe we shoulda figured something was wrong in retrospect from that."
Thunder started dropping like crazy pills at a rave, with lightning flashing so much that it could have made an epileptic go into shock.
"That was about five years ago," Maria said.
I pursed my lips. "Well, I don't remember everything Mya said before she sent me here, but I'd be a bigger dumbass than Simple Jack if I didn't say there's a connection. The one game the Hurricanes exist in, she sends me to..." Finally, I opened my eyes and got an eyeful of the wicked-looking lightning storm outside. How thunder wasn't constantly exploding, I don't know. "You got any ideas?"
The girls huddled their heads right on top of my knees, with Ana and Maria crossing their tails.
And she wasn't going to hide it from me. Maria's face kept twitching. Something bothered her so much that she wore it on her face. I’d noticed that same twitching back on the bikes when she asked me about my name, but I thought she was just making a stupid reaction. Now, it was starting to make me concerned.
But I said nothing.
"Well," Olga's elfy tone brought. "You’re our best shot. Especially after all the weird stuff you were doing last night while we were trying to escape."
I shifted my body, and the girls had to get up. "Yeah, you never told me— what happened after I passed out? I know there was some cyberpunk-ass warehouse or base or whatever."
Ana's eyes lit up. "Can we tell him?" She pressed Maria's shoulder. "Or do you think he's still not ready?"
I shook my head. "What's wrong? What cosmic truth did you unlock back there that was so shocking it would taint my mortal ears?"
Maria's mouth lifted, but her brow took on a wince's curves. "It's not that. But you do have a right to know..."
As if she said another cheat, the rains began to splash against the window. One last thunderclap burst.
But before she could say another word, Olga stretched and said, "I'm gonna go get some snacks. You want anything, elf-hater?"
I cocked my head to the side and said, "You do you. I'm sure even an elf knows what's best for her friends."
She shrugged and smiled. "And I'm sure even an elf-hater loves salty white-cheddar cheese puffs." She disappeared into the bathroom.
"Why do you have food in the bathroom?"
Tatiana blew a raspberry and said, "We were really trying to get back in here so we just threw everything into one room while getting you into bed. And then the roaches came. But the kitchen’s over there.” She pointed off to a bend, and I scratched my head. Since when did motels have kitchens?
Maria stepped up and said, "But that's the epilogue. Flip back to the start of the book."
Doomsday Dealers…
The night before.
What an exciting mess. Neo-Nazi bikers, corporate mercenaries, heavily-armed jet-copters, and an anomalous swirling ball of hate and thunder all screamed bloody murder. Centers, hangars, tents, and runways glowed in the fire of a madman’s orgasmic rage, the dancing shadows setting the stage for a showdown. Far beyond the horizon, mechanized forces shrieked forth with intent to find and bury the pissants who dared to defy the order of the Hurricanes.
Maria replied with a wry grin, "Kill 'em all, sisters!"
The Wytches Crue charged.
Ana fired her panzerfaust into the cockpit of an approaching jet-copter. Shrapnel flew far and wide, and th
e fireball engulfed the entire machine. Its remnants crashed into an Apache, and the combined debris fell onto several bikers.
For this, Ana received a large amount of experience points and giggled at her adept at murdering. However, her panzerfaust was spent, so she tossed the tube down and picked up a more modern RPG-7 out of the hands of a singed Nazi.
Tatiana had a Tommy Gun complete with an ammo drum, giving her twenty times more ammo. This increased her own kill count to only thrice of what it would have been with a standard ammo clip.
She stared at her submachine gun and said, "Geez, this really is inaccurate as all hell!"
"I toldja!" Olga shouted over the roar of a flamethrower. However, this flamethrower spewed not just flaming fuel but also caltrops. Each caltrop dug into the ground, and as a Nazi ran to avoid the fire, his foot would be skewered and the sudden loss of balance brought him down into Olga's path. She pumped her fist as she managed to take out three fascists this way and saw another concentration building its numbers.
"Is that a half-track?" she said.
"Oh crap!" Maria carried Alex on her back, just over her neck. Though she knew this made him more exposed, she needed only to bring him to a vehicle and needed to conserve her stamina. The addition of a half-track to the battle didn't improve their chances.
Olga shouted, "Wait!" She saw a red crate nestled inside of a distant room. She ran down the hall, her feet slapping against the cold metal floor. "I see some grenades!"
Ana fired a rocket at the half-track, but the trajectory proved too chaotic— the explosion was several miles back. The half-track returned her generosity with several 50 caliber bullets, all erupting from a machine gun hidden in the side.
Then they heard the shriek of jet fighters— it couldn't have been the jet-copters, for those are far too low and linger for much too little time. Up above, triangles of light blinked against the darkness, streaking against the stars.
"Run?" Ana asked.
"Run," Maria answered. The three girls jumped into the room with Olga as a fireball screamed into the sky behind them. More 500-pound bombs pelted the landscape, searing their skin.
Maria looked across the room for any place she could hide the young man and saw a tiny crevasse in the floor. "Where does this lead?" she said out loud, knowing no one knew the answer but still feeling the need to say something.
Tatiana got on her knees and looked into the crack. "Wow! It's nothing. We can't stay here."
Olga equipped all ten of the stick grenades she found within the crate. "No, but we can get out through the underground."
"Does this place even have an underground facility?" Tatiana ran her fingers through her hair as she said 'Oh my god' over and over, looking back to the surface.
Ana rubbed her chin. "Even if it does, Alex prolly destroyed it."
They exchanged glares. "You do know what that means, right?"
Maria looked down and nodded.
Olga said, "That's why we have to keep him alive, though. He's our best chance at killing Sam."
Maria sprawled Alex onto the floor and rested her muscles. As she looked down upon him, her face twisted into pretty curves. "It's tragic, isn't it? The fate of this young man. And he doesn't even know the truth."
"He will soon enough." Ana tossed down the RPG and equipped the Uzi. "And when he does, we'll be able to really change things."
Maria rubbed behind her ears, causing Ana to take on a joyous expression. "That's true, yeah. But—" another bomb exploded above them, throwing down plaster and dust, "we shouldn't start expecting things. We have to take things one step at a time or else we'll just be disappointed again."
Tatiana said, "Obviously. No one's saying that we should just fuck him back to full power."
"But what I'm trying to say is, he's confused. I can tell that he's confused. He's not ready for the pressures of this fight. Even little quips trigger him. If he is that emotional, then he might never be able to control the state properly."
"You know, that's your own fault," Olga said, staring out the door. She pulled out a grenade and lobbed it down the hall.
"I know! That doesn't mean I'm not trying."
Several Nazis screamed as the stick grenade exploded.
Olga added, "We should probably start movin' if we don't want to get overrun!"
Ana pat her thighs and said, "Oh crap, we need clothes!"
Tatiana gave her comrades a smug grin, but Ana gave her, "Don't start, you! You've got a fuck hole over your ass!" Everyone stared at themselves and then over to Tatiana, the only one who wore any clothes whatsoever.
Maria said, "Calm it, ladies! Ana's right— we need some proper claddin'."
"That'll be our new objective," Tatiana said as she pulled out a shotgun from hammerspace and tossed it to Ana. "Find some goddamn clothes.”
Maria said, “We’ll need to get to the barracks and vestibule for this. This will require us break through their positions with the maximum possible force we can muster. And if we’re really at six stars, there’s no doubt that the Hurricanes will have summoned shocktroopers by now.” She fluttered her eyes over to Ana. “I know you like this part.”
Ana coiled her tail and pulled a blade from hammerspace. “I love Positronic Blades. I really do.”
They all gathered around Alex's body and placed their hands over each other’s. More Positronic Blades appeared, pre-clutched. These blades were little uranium sickles decorated with hot-blue neon across the ends as well as black sickles composed of obsidian and steel. Then they all cheered with, "Ready? Goooo WYTCHES!"
They turned, facing the door, hands on their hips.
Maria scowled. "These bastards think they can handle us. How pathetic, huh?"
Ana shook her trunk and said, "Let's break their lives!”
They dashed out into the fire and smoke, all brandishing weapons. Maria kept an eye on Alex, but turned away and looked onwards to the current challenge.
Shocktroopers were about to march in, all clad in heavy plated body armor— sexy black-blue steel, fascist eagle insignias, the black sun fashioned into a hurricane symbol, all of the usual homoerotic fascist imagery. They carried Gatling guns, the weight of the weapons barely slumping their massive frames. Then they opened fire. Bullets erased chunks of the wall while sparks spat up and down.
One shocktrooper stepped forward to increase his accuracy, only for the two separated slices of his face to get whittled by his fellow soldiers' gunfire.
Another shouted, "Hold your fire!" But before they could remove their fingers from the triggers, the girls came in like whirlwinds of blades. All four twirled and swirled, slashing at the men and their armor to deal such great damage that some fell back with only a tap.
This dance of death ended when Olga's blades crumbled in her hand. She swore, and the scene repeated in her comrade's hands. The positronic remnants exploded into vapor upon hitting the ground.
Ana wafted the smoke away and kicked away a hulking shocktrooper’s body. “Drat, and I really loved those things.”
Maria smirked. "We still did what we needed to do!" She eyed the massive Gatling gun rattled before her, but when she tried to lift it to her bare chest, the weight of it proved to be too much.
Tatiana tried the same stunt and said, “Oh wow, they must’ve been a thousand pounds of pure muscle to carry this.” Each bullet feeding into the gun was half the size of her feet and felt as if they carried heft even with a little kick.
Ana threw herself to the ground front-first and grabbed one of Olga's grenades. Olga pat her mouth and gawked at her. Ana turned to her and they both erupted in laughs. Then she stood up and lobbed the grenade out of the roof. Olga tossed her another grenade, and Ana repeated the action again and again until eight grenades were spent. For seven, they heard screams.
Tatiana then said with a grin, “I don’t think you should slide naked on burnt out ground. You’ll be burning for weeks!”
Ana kicked her legs and lashed her tail laughing. “But i
t’s cool, though!”
“She’s right, Ana, you could get stabbed by debris.” Maria found her discarded STG-44 and set up shop next to a half-busted window. The metallic frame by her face curled in enough to provide her with a unique area of cover that allowed for her to aim the gun and see her enemies without being exposed.
“Every party needs a pooper,” Ana cried.
Maria rolled her eyes. "The vestibule should be near the barracks," she shouted. "When I give the order— Tats, Olga, you flank them from the helipad; Ana, you use that last grenade to knock out the half-track and man the machine gun."
"Aye-aye!" they shouted in unison.
"First, we have to take out these beta losers!"
Several leather-clad Nazis with handlebar mustaches charged in carrying MP-40s and Tommy Guns, giving the girls a fantastic opportunity for target practice. Their clothes shined in the fires, so whatever stealth they could theoretically have had died like them.
"Where do we go after this, Ms. D?"
Maria popped off several more shots, scoring plenty of experience points. "We'll figure that out when we figure it out. Less talk, more bang bang."
The ground exploded where Tatiana tossed a grenade, which earned her a quick scold: "Was that out last grenade?! You idiot, we were gonna use that for the half-track!"
Tatiana said, "Oops. Sorry 'bout that."
Maria shook her head and turned back to the approaching Nazis, only to recoil when a bullet tore into her arm. The other girls rushed to her, and she pressed them back.
At that moment, Olga commented, "Why are they so pissy tonight? I've never seen a six-star wanted level come with such ferocity!"
Maria grasped her shoulder, seething and rubbing away blood. Her health bar took a dive and lost points for every second of continued blood loss.
"It's because of Alex," she grumbled. "It's something like a blessing and a curse all at once."
From hammerspace, Tatiana pulled an AK-47 and fired wildly at the next wave. She managed to take a few out, but more came.
"Dammit!" she shouted as the gun clicked. She tossed it to the ground and pulled out a machine pistol. "We can't keep doing this, Ms. D. There's more Nazis than we have bullets."