Monster Hunt NYC 2

by Harmon Cooper

  Lady C. and Aya were actually stoked to train us; they readily flashed back to EverLife, leaving Iris and me alone.

  “They’re so fun to be around,” she said as soon as they were gone.

  “Yeah, they are,” I said as I grew drowsy.

  My nap was brief, but it felt as if eternity had passed through the eye of a needle by the time I awoke, less drowsy than before and in need of coffee, which Iris had made while I was out. In fact, the smell of coffee was what actually woke me.

  Damn, I have a good life, I thought as I sat up.

  Iris brought me a cup.

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “About the other night…” she said suddenly.

  “Yeah, about that,” I said as I took a sip from my cup.

  “Just… let’s just let things flow. Like music. If they flow to that again, that’s fine by me. No pressure. No worries.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “no worries.”

  “Log in soon?”

  “After my coffee.”

  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  Our avatars took shape in EverLife.

  A weapons rack and a makeshift obstacle course had been erected before us. Aya and Lady C. wore light leather armor, some stuff I’d never seen them wear before. They had matching leather caps, and Aya had a scroll that she held like a clipboard.

  “Today is going to be the worst day of your life,” she said, stepping in front of us. “By the end of today, you will be sore, sorry, and angry at the fact that your mothers gave birth to you.”

  I started to chuckle.

  Whap!

  Lady C. slapped me across the face with a wooden back scratcher.

  “Hey!”

  Iris laughed, and she was also reprimanded, this time by Aya, who cracked her across the face with a thin wooden paddle.

  Thwip!

  “That hurt!”

  “And it will continue to hurt unless you two do what we say!” Aya scolded her. “Now, pick a weapon. Chase, you first.”

  Some of the other mythcrea had gathered around, and I didn’t even have a chance to wave at them before Lady C. struck me across the chin for a second time.

  “Focus, Chase!”

  “All right, shit.”

  I grabbed a sword with a hilt that had been formed into a double bitted axe. It was definitely a cool-looking weapon.

  “Good.” Aya nodded me over to her. “You will go first, Alpha, then Iris. Iris, please choose a weapon while I beat the living shit out of Chase.”

  “Are you being serious?” I asked as I caught up to Aya. The axe-sword was heavy; I had no idea how I’d be able to wield this thing for more than a few minutes.

  “I am the Alpha now, and you will refer to me as Duchig!”

  “Your last name?”

  “Shut up and get over there.” She pointed her chin to a place about ten feet away from her.

  “You can do it, Chase!” Sun Wukong laughed. “I’m joking, you will now know what it feels like to die at the hands of a Thulean.”

  “I already know what it feels like,” I grumbled as I got into position.

  Or at least I thought it was position. I was quickly discovering that I knew shit-all about combat, this notion further solidified when I approached Aya with my sword-axe, lost my footing, and she drove her buster sword through the top of my head.

  Instakill!

  “Get up,” she said as I healed. “Again! Again!”

  “Fuck me…” I moved back to my position and found Lady C. waiting for me, ready to give me instruction.

  “Stand like this,” she said, kicking my right leg. “Hold the weapon like this. Don’t fight like an idiot. You have to destroy her!”

  “Destroy her?”

  Lady C. adjusted my hand around the sword’s hilt, careful not to cut herself on the axe-hilt. “Hold it like this, push into your attack with all your weight, but always be ready to use your forward momentum to right yourself. That’s when you’re really good; you use gravity to propel yourself forward and gravity to return to your original position. It’s hard to explain. Oh, I know! It’s like being in tune. You should understand that, right? Get in tune with your footwork and the physics of your weapon. I’ll go up against you after Iris goes.”

  “In tune,” I said as I approached Aya again.

  Instakill!

  She cut me down before I could get my weapon up. It hurt, but the pain instantly disappeared as the wound healed itself. I could see Altsoba watching us now, the whites of her eyes accentuated by the darkness of her skin.

  I was just about to smile at her when Aya cut me in half.

  Instakill!

  “Dammit, Aya!”

  By the time she was finished, I was exhausted, ready to throw in the towel, which was strange as I hadn’t actually sustained any damage.

  The psychological damage, however…

  “My turn!” Iris stepped up to Aya, a short sword in her hand.

  Whatever can of whoop-ass Aya had opened on me, she gave doubly to Iris, who was about as good at using a sword as I was building a humandroid from scratch.

  Insta-insta-instakill!

  Aya told Iris to try again, and once she did, Iris charged Aya holding her sword over her head.

  Instakill!

  Iris was cut into two pieces, her body immediately snapping back together.

  Upset at seeing Iris pummeled, I grabbed a staff from the collection of weapons, and joined the fight, where I quickly got pinned to the ground by a throwing knife.

  -243 HP! Critical hit!

  “Fight me, Alpha!” Aya said, taunting me.

  After a few more obnoxious instakills, Aya finished beating the living hell out of Iris, and passed her off to Lady C., who also handed Iris her ass.

  “You’re up again, Chase,” said the Thulean. “Different this time. I'm going to be your coach.” She handed me her enormous buster sword, its hilt fashioned into the head of a dragon. “You will fight Lady Cassandra.”

  Lady C. took her place across from me, brandished both swords, and brought them to the ready.

  “Are you serious?” I asked Aya out of the corner of my mouth.

  “Do you have a problem attacking me?” Lady C. asked playfully.

  I don't think I've ever tried to wield something as large as Aya's sword.

  It was like using a keyboard made of the densest metal on Earth as a weapon, and I could barely hold the damn thing up.

  “You have to be stronger than that to take on Lady C.,” Aya tsked.

  “Give me something lighter,” I told her.

  "Ah, is the sword too heavy for the poor little Alpha?” She slapped me on the back of the head. “Now go get her!”

  I ran toward Lady C., dragging the tip of the sword on the ground.

  A grin on her face, she whipped her torso around and cut off both my arms.

  -431 HP! Critical hit!

  The sword fell; my arms naturally reconnected to my body.

  “You could at least bring the sword up,” Lady C. told me.

  “I'm trying, it's too heavy.”

  “You can do it, I believe in you,” she whispered. And with that she sliced both blades across my chest, cutting deep into my flesh.

  “Come on,” she said with a sexy purr.

  “That fucking hurt! Are you serious right now?”

  “Come on, Chase, give it to me!” She swiped her blades against my chest again, this time to a chorus of laughter from the mythcrea that had gathered.

  “Real funny,” I said as I charged at her with Aya's blade.

  I toppled over almost immediately, not as much tripped up by my feet as I was pulled forward by the weight of the sword. Rather than stab me this time she simply brought her heeled boot back and kicked me in the neck.

  -69 HP!

  She let me get my footing again, only to sweep my legs out from beneath me and press the tip of one of her blades against my throat.

  I smiled at Lady C. meekly, just as a flame spread u
p her blade and ignited my skull. This one really hurt, and I ran around for a moment screaming only to realize that the flame had fizzled out.

  The next thing she went for was one of her lightning attacks, which had me shaking on the ground, drooling.

  “Come on, Chase!” Aya called out.

  On my feet again, I charged at Lady C., only for her to sidestep my attack. But hey, at least I actually attacked this time, and even though I was quickly cut down from behind, I still had a feeling of exhilaration spreading through me, happy that I had at least made my first real attack.

  “Enough,” Aya said as she waved Iris over. “You are next.”

  It was brutal, all of it, and when it ended an hour later, I was glad for it to be done.

  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  Iris and I logged out. We lay on her futon for a moment, breathing heavily.

  “I don't know why that was exhausting,” I said as the NV visor powered down, “but it was.”

  “And why do I feel so sore? It’s like I ran a couple marathons.”

  “Yeah, it was pretty real. I mean, except for the fact that we didn't die or bleed or anything. My muscles definitely hurt though.”

  “And we still have a busy night ahead of us.”

  The sine waves eventually settled and I sat up, placing the visor next to me. I rubbed my eyes, adjusting to the light of the room.

  It was early evening, and it was already dark outside.

  Which was what we wanted; I had already run my idea by Iris and, much to my surprise, she actually liked it. It was a risky idea, something I’d come up with on my subway ride earlier.

  Once we were good and ready, which was after a cup of tea for Iris and a bottle of water for me, I called the Huntresses to New York.

  They appeared moments later in their armor, Aya yawning as she stretched her hands over her head. I felt a strange sensation against the side of my face; she was affectionately touching my cheek with her ghost limb.

  “Training someone who doesn't know how to fight is tough,” Lady C. said with a pouty exhale. She gave me a cute wink, which was less cute considering that just thirty minutes ago, she was trying to teach me how to fist fight.

  And damn if she didn't pack a punch.

  I think she hit even harder than Aya, who was actually hitting with four hands considering her extra appendages.

  “What we're doing tonight is a little dangerous,” Iris told them – or rather, told me.

  “I’m ready,” said the Thulean.

  “Do you have any flashlights?”

  “I have some headlamps,” Iris told me. She found the shoebox labeled ‘camping supplies,’ and tossed the headlamp over to me.

  I tested the halogen; it would do.

  “I actually read about this area that we're going to,” Iris said. “There won't be any trains coming by or anything. It’s one of the lines that they use only when they're having celebrations in Times Square and other events. We're likely going to have to get past at least one or two subway workers, though.”

  “That'll be easy for me,” Aya said. “I excel in stealth attacks.”

  I ignored Aya. “We'll see what we can do. If we have to wait, we have to wait. Or we could go somewhere else, if it's looking like we're not going to be able to get in. I just got this good feeling that we may find something down there, and we need to get the tokens we need by tomorrow's tournament.”

  It took us about twenty minutes to reach the area of the subway station that gave access to the lowest subway tunnel. We got lucky. No one was around aside from a station attendant who had stepped out for a moment.

  I swallowed the strange mixture of excitement and fear as we continued deeper in. We found our way down to the platform, and after making sure that this was the place, which it was, we hopped onto the tracks.

  A musty smell met my nostrils, followed by the scent of dampness and a pungent odor.

  I decided at that point to breathe through my mouth.

  My Monster Locator was up, and already I could see some activity to the north.

  As planned, once we got just a little further in and the tunnels split, Lady C. and I took the left, while Iris and Aya took the right.

  “We’ll meet back here,” I reminded Iris as we waved goodbye.

  “See you soon.”

  “Do not worry, Alpha Two, I will protect you.”

  “Thanks, Aya…” said Iris.

  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  “Looks like it is just you and me.”

  “Yep.”

  “And you’re not scared?”

  “Not really.”

  “This is a little scary,” Lady C. said, her voice echoing down the tunnel.

  This struck me as awesome in two ways: one, the app actually knew we were in a tunnel and made it sound as if her voice was echoing; and two, she was in tune enough with the environment to know that it was a little bit creepy.

  “Just stay close,” I said, feeling tough. “If anything happens, I'm here.”

  She didn't laugh at that, but she should have.

  “We're coming up on something,” I whispered.

  Lady C.’s hand ignited, ready to go.

  “Where is it?”

  “It should be here…”

  The Monster Locator indicated that it was in this area, that it should be right in front of us, but neither of us could see anything.

  Lady C. drew both blades, the right blade igniting and a spark of electricity coming off the left blade.

  “Stay behind me, Chase,” she said as she lifted her left blade. Electricity arced through the tunnel, and we heard an animal cry out. As soon as it did, stats flashed on my pane of vision.

  A phantom kangaroo? I thought, and just thinking this spawned a GoogleFace search on my pane of vision, letting me know that this was actually a mythological creature.

  The things I learned playing this game!

  Regardless, it was worth three tokens. I relayed its info to Lady C., and she quickly switched up her attack style.

  I couldn't tell what was happening, only that she was barely dodging its attacks, and that she did take one good kick to the stomach that sent her spiraling backwards in the subway tunnel. But Lady C. was fast, and she recovered quickly, and a blast of ice was followed by the terrible screech of an injured animal.

  “Now!”

  I brought my hand back and tossed the net made of light forward, but by this time, the kangaroo had moved.

  Since she couldn't see it, Lady C. simply blasted the entire cone of visible space in front of us with ice until the animal cried out again.

  “To the right!” she called over to me, huffing as ice crackled up her sword.

  “Got it!” I threw another net of light, and this time it hit the target.

  One phantom kangaroo down, three tokens up.

  “Shall we continue?” Lady C. asked, breathing a little heavily now.

  “Sure, you ready?”

  “Just give me a second. That was more intense than I thought it would be.”

  We weren't far from another blue swath of activity, and I had a feeling that this one would be harder than the last.

  Silence stretched between us as we continued deeper into the tunnel, the sound of dripping water occasionally startling Lady C.

  It was weird to think that New York was so far above us, that all those lives were being lived, vehicles driven, businesses opened and closed, feet hammering on the pavements, just above our heads while we were in this semi-forgotten tunnel, oblivious to it all, away from the calming madness of the city.

  It was cold down here too, a coldness I could feel in my bones. But the adrenaline had a warming effect, almost as if I hadn't been microwaved properly, still cold at my center, but hot on the outside.

  We heard some scuffling ahead, which quickly shut down my train of thought.

  “Whatever it is,” Lady C. said, “it's huge.”

  “Well, let's see what we can do.” A radiant light charged up my a
rm; I knew that Lady C. would have to fight it first, at least soften it up a bit, but I wanted to be ready this time.

  And whatever it was, it sounded large.

  I heard a loud snort that echoed down the tunnel, causing the hairs on the back of my arm to rise.

  The creature came into view a second later, slapping its body against the side of the tunnel as it charged us.

  Its details flashed before me, but I was too busy getting out of the way to pay attention to them.

  The karkadann was some sort of unicorn and rhinoceros hybrid, absolutely massive, with a curved horn at the tip of its nose. It was angry too, and something about the look in its eyes told me that it was ...confused?

  The lost creature was built like a roided-out buffalo, its skin black and calloused.

  I rolled out of the way to avoid getting torn to shreds by its horn. Lady C. hit it with both blades, but this did little to its thick skin.

  The karkadann turned and tried to attack us again, this time letting out a noise that I’d never heard from an animal before, something low and gruff, yet as I had noticed before, still tinged with confusion.

  Maybe it doesn't want to be down in these tunnels.

  Lady C. blasted it with fire, which did little to the creature’s thick hide.

  She followed up with a blast of lightning, also to no avail. It charged at her and she just barely got out of the way.

  The karkadann slammed into the tunnel wall, turned, and moved its head in a way that connected its curved horn with Lady C.'s arm.

  She cried out, and at that point, I moved over to her and got in front, ready to take on the creature myself.

  I didn't care, I wasn't going to let her get hurt.

  The karkadann scuffed its foot against the ground as it prepared to charge me, snorting, its eyes red and angry, my cone of light not able to reveal how large it was.

  I thought about singing to it, and if that would help.

  I also thought about dancing for it, which I instantly realized was stupid.

  I didn't know how well it understood what I was saying, but I sensed something from the rhinoceros hybrid.

  I decided to go with my gut.

  “We're going to take you to EverLife,” I told the beast, my chest heaving up and down as I tried to catch my breath. “It's going to be better there, much better than here. You can roam freely, and you can enjoy the meadow of our Dojo.”