Kaiju- Battlefield Surgeon

by Matt Dinniman

  Warning! Guardian Moritasgus is stuck in a trap!

  I had several choices:

  Sleep

  Summon to my current location

  Summon to waypoint

  Attack at waypoint

  Go Stealth (Burrow)

  Hell yeah, I thought.

  Both Summon to my current location and Go Stealth were grayed out, which made sense. I couldn’t summon the kaiju if I was inside of it. And it was already burrowed into the ground.

  I wanted to get to the cockpit, and I needed to break it out of…

  The world rumbled, and the veins near my head tumbled away. I had to duck to keep from getting clobbered. I belatedly realized the guardian was twisting and turning. The room under my feet, like Anatoly’s base, was attempting to keep steady while the world around me twirled.

  Guardian Moritasgus has broken free from his confinement!

  I smashed down on Sleep, and the world stopped spinning. The old, broken bridge stood before me, rising vertically into the air. It took my brain a few moments to understand what had happened. The kaiju was still burrowed under the mountain, but it now lay horizontal, upsetting the bridge and travel system of the groundlings. Instead of being below me, the heart was now before me, looming like the bow of some massive, worm-covered ship. The heartworms twitched, twisted, undulated, undisturbed by the change of position. The damaged bridge hung vertically from the portal in which it was attached, swinging and dripping with gore.

  Moritasgus had broken out of the trap. Thanks to my deal with the dilo-whatever worms, the kaiju had received a 20% strength boost the moment I took control. His total strength had gone from 45% to 65%, and he only needed to be at 60% to break free. So that’s exactly what he did.

  I put my hand on a vein, and the surgical menu popped up. I chose BloodBorne, but instead of the list of destinations, a warning popped up.

  You have insufficient soul power to cast this talent.

  Shit. I needed to kill something. If I died now, it’d probably be a long time before I’d be able to get branded and back here. I wanted to try my hand at driving this thing. I warily eyed the knot of heartworms. I couldn’t touch them. I had to kill something else, and fast. I wondered if there was anything like those crab things roaming around. Only those things scrabbled about the large intestine, and I was a long way from there.

  I examined my purple waypoints. There were none of the train-sized parasites roaming this kaiju, thank goodness. While Moritasgus was in poor health, he wasn’t on the verge of death like Bast always seemed to be. That meant fewer things crawling around the inside of him trying to murder me.

  I briefly wondered about that. Up until this point I hadn’t thought much about the nature of the creatures that lived within the kaiju. Most of them seemed to be gamified parasites, the same sort of critters that creatures in the real world would succumb to. Moritasgus had heartworms. I’d seen gross pictures of dogs who’d been infested with something similar.

  But the whole catalyst of this game was the opening of the rift and the demon invasion. According to the groundlings, Moritasgus had been “kept safe” from the demon invaders. So did that mean all the parasites and creatures living within were of a domestic origin? Bast had way more things living within her, but she was also living and fighting not too far from the front line. So what was the difference between native and demon parasites? Was there one, other than perhaps difficulty level? Did it matter?

  It was something to contemplate later. For now I needed to find something relatively easy to kill.

  Hmm. I continued to pore over my Gross Anatomy map. There weren’t too many places I could get to from here without digging through flesh or riding the blood vessels, and I couldn’t do that easily without soul power. But I did see something of interest.

  I dropped back into the oblation chamber. The worms remained. The children remained. They continued to scream.

  The large mech stood, statue-like in the center of the room. The boiler chugged merrily away, like nothing was wrong. Madame Throb remained attached to the harness, slumped over. The worm attached to her head was gone. She appeared as an NPC on my map, where the children didn’t appear at all. She still had her name and title floating over her head. The “Host” part was gone.

  The fact she still had a tag meant she was still alive. Holy shit, she lived.

  Her entire body shuddered. White, wriggling worms continued to come out of every visible orifice. But she was still alive.

  I pulled my knife, and I stuck it in her temple. She did not move. But she did, finally, expire. I felt the rush of soul power, so much it filled my bar. I healed myself. I received a nominal amount of experience, too.

  I noted that it only took about 30% of my total soul power to heal me this time. Before it took almost my entire bar. I suspected if I tossed some points into my acumen stat, my soul points bar would be able to hold even more. I still didn’t like the way soul points worked. It made it hard to plan without hard numbers.

  A few bare moments after Madame Throb died, the entirety of her body dissolved away, replaced by worms. I took a step back as they cascaded off the front of the mech, disappearing through the hole in the floor.

  I spent a few moments unsuccessfully attempting to use the mech. It could only be equipped by groundlings according to the system. I couldn’t stuff it in my bag, even if I took everything else out. It would have to remain here. There was a pouch with about 200 teeth, which I quickly snagged. The odd rifle she’d carried was also much too big to carry, so it also remained.

  This time I left the chamber out the front door, which now faced an arterial wall. I placed my hand on the flesh and was rewarded with multiple waypoint choices after I selected BloodBorne. The very first option was “Guardian Cockpit.” I chose it.

  I watched, fascinated as the artery before me bulged. Through the thin skin I watched as multiple white cells appeared and started to form and coagulate before me, forming what appeared to be a worm surgeon-sized pod within the vein. And just as I wondered how the hells I was supposed to get to the damn thing, the artery split open, and the pod peeled, alien-like.

  Lights appeared on the interior of the pod.

  “Okay then,” I said. I held my breath, and I stepped in.

  Chapter 28

  The moment I stepped into the pod, it snapped closed. I was whisked away.

  I tumbled, spun, and twisted. It felt as if I was rolling down a hill. I had quick flashes of red, purple, black, and yellow as I made a circuit of the kaiju’s blood system. Before I knew it, the cell screeched to a halt, opened up, and vomited me out into a small, white room.

  I hit the floor with an oof. I sat up, shaking my head. The whole trip had taken maybe 10 seconds.

  Entering Guardian Cockpit – Moritasgus

  The plain room was about the size of a large walk-in pantry. It held white, unadorned, solid walls that seemed to be made of smooth and polished bone. In the center of the room was a small, groundling-sized chair that I could probably fit into, but I’d be uncomfortable as hell. The chair also appeared to be made of bone. A screen dominated one wall, facing the chair. The screen was black with “Asleep” written across it.

  The left wall was a purple vein about as wide as an elevator. It was where I’d come from. The right wall was bare, and a simple, sliding door filled the back wall, almost as if this was a closet.

  The room was brightly lit by the flat ceiling, which glowed with yellow light.

  Staring at the screen, I was immediately reminded of the television in Anatoly’s base. Of Ruth and Mary’s feed. How long had it been? I instinctively pulled up my status screen. I had 145 feedings left, which meant I’d been in here about three weeks. That was it? It felt like a lifetime. Three weeks. I wondered if Mary had given up on me yet. I wondered if Ruth was okay.

  I tried the sliding door, and I received an error message:

  You do not have access to this area.

  I’d seen this type of door
and message before in Anatoly’s base. I realized that the empty base was likely on the other side of this door. That meant Bast’s cockpit was probably on the other side of the door in Anatoly’s base. I would never have access to that area, not without permission and a brand from the man, who was probably never coming back.

  I’d assumed the cockpit would be in the kaiju’s skull somewhere, but I guess it didn’t matter. I zoomed out the Gross Anatomy map, and sure enough, I was situated in roughly the same place as I’d been before in Bast. In the large intestine. But I had no door to the outside here. My only exit was through the vein. I wondered what would happen if I tried to get in the vein without using my BloodBorne talent. Probably not anything good, I decided.

  I pulled open my Guardian menu, and my menu items were replaced with two buttons.

  Activate Cockpit?

  and

  Cockpit Skins

  I clicked Activate Cockpit.

  Direct Control or Managed Control?

  I had no idea what that meant. I clicked Managed Control.

  The lights in the room dimmed, and a panel rose from the ground in front of the chair.

  A second screen descended over the right wall. It was a similar map to my Gross Anatomy skill, but zoomed out. It showed the massive badger kaiju with several blinking yellow lights within, indicating areas that needed healing. All were parasitic-style infestations and sores. Several stats scrolled down the screen, and I didn’t understand any of them except the overall strength stat, which was at 65% and the health meter, which was at 80%.

  In front of the screen was a simple joystick. The way the joystick was situated, I’d never be able to properly sit in the chair and use it.

  On a hunch, I clicked Cockpit Skins, and a long, scrolling list of options appeared. Most of them were grayed out. Some of the inaccessible ones seemed pretty cool, yet out of place. Like starship bridge, tiki hut, Donkey Kong World, etc. I realized these were user-created skins for the cockpits. This was pretty common in games like this. That probably meant there were skins for the home base, too. In fact, my heart leaped at the button at the bottom that read Create Your Own Skin to Share. If there was a way to access the net, even if it was through a skin…

  I clicked the link and received an error message.

  You are not connected or you do not have the proper permissions to access the network.

  Damnit.

  Anyway, of the selectable cockpit skins, there was one for each of the 22 races. Groundling was currently selected. I scrolled down to Worm Surgeon and selected it.

  In a blink, the room changed color to a dull gray, the chair rose in the air, and the pedestal with the joystick pushed out slightly.

  Much better. I eased myself into the chair and grasped the joystick. The moment I sat in the chair, straps magically pulled over my shoulder. My gun and pack disappeared. It was the same thing that had happened when I was in chains. A tiny button appeared in the lower left of my screen: Exit Cockpit Chair.

  The stick had multiple buttons, like one of those old school computer game sticks. There were toggles, buttons, and dials. I had no idea what did what. I gave the stick a tap.

  The world rumbled, and the screen blinked on, revealing nothing but brown dirt. A round exterior map appeared in the top right of the screen, indicating coordinates and current depth, which was 233 meters underground.

  I pulled the trigger on the front of the joystick, just to see what would happen. Nothing. A small line of text appeared on the screen.

  Main weapon not available while burrowed.

  Main weapon? That suggested there were multiple “weapons.” I wondered what they were.

  I played around with the thumb toggle on the top of the joystick, and I realized that it controlled the direction of the kaiju’s head. It was a lot like driving a tank in a game. But it was still odd, like playing a game in a game. And the controls were sluggish. I tapped the joystick forward, and the badger dug forward, but only after a moment. Like I wasn’t really the one driving. I was telling the kaiju what to do, and he took a moment to decide whether he wanted to actually do it or not. So did direct control mean he’d be more responsive? What was the difference?

  I went back a few menus, and I selected Direct Control.

  The joystick rumbled away into the floor. The chair eased back, turning itself into a bed. It reminded me of an immersion rig.

  Warning! Ensure your area is secure and you are locked into your chair before initiating direct control. It is possible for your body to sustain fatal damage during direct control.

  Warning! You are not branded with a Guardian Moritasgus Cockpit brand. If Moritasgus is knocked out, you will teleport to your currently-selected regeneration spot – Village of Charnel. Guardian Moritasgus will awaken without a controller.

  Are you certain you want to continue?

  I clicked Yes.

  My world went dark.

  I felt sick, not whole. The cool earth hugged me on every side. My head ached, and my mouth was full of something foul.

  What was happening? My body felt wrong, different. I tried to move my arm, but it held fast.

  My head’s up display remained, but it was all jumbled up.

  I was going to throw up. Something was not right.

  Take a deep breath.

  I tried, and I inhaled a mouthful of dirt.

  And then, it all clicked into place. Of course. Of course.

  I pushed forward with my legs, and I dug with my claws. Higher, and higher. I instinctively knew how to do this. Burrowing through the dirt and rock like it was merely sand, I ascended. I emerged out into the world, breaking free of my confinement. I felt the brass shell about my head, already cracked, fall. I spit the makeshift remains of the temple from my mouth. I reached up into the sky, and I roared.

  I had become a god.

  Chapter 29

  I was at 65% strength, and I could feel the ill effects of the parasites sapping my energy. My health was at 80%, and I had three special weapons, all of them fully charged and ready to go. The weapons appeared at the bottom right of my vision. All I needed to do to cast them was mentally click. Other than the three weapons, it didn’t appear as if I had any additional special or magical abilities. Except for burrow, which seemed to work regardless of the type of ground. I knew Banksy would never be able to burrow into the stone ground where I now stood.

  My three weapons were:

  Sizzle and Steak

  Feral Claw

  And

  Batshit Berserker

  There was nothing that indicated what any of those did. That last ability, Batshit Berserker, had a skull next to it.

  I had emerged from the ground not too far from where we’d entered the caverns to the now-destroyed Kinnegad. It was late afternoon and I looked about, still not used to the different HUD. A map sat in the top right. I tried to pull up my normal menus, but they didn’t work while I was inside this mode. I had two buttons on the bottom: Exit Control and a glowing red button that read Eject!

  I took a tentative step forward. The rock under my feet crunched, as if the rocky ground held a thin crust of snow. I didn’t feel nearly as slow as I imagined a giant badger would feel. But it was peculiar, being in this body. My long snout, my prone form, my retractable claws. It all made my head swim. A light rain fell. Everything smelled so much more, the world an explosion of sensation. Animals, grass, the smoky sky, the burnt stench of demons. It was all amplified a thousandfold. I’d played a few games where you immersed as non-human shaped creatures, and it was always odd, disconcerting. It took a lot longer to get used to it than in other games, and afterward it took much longer to recover from immersion. As a result, most games kept the vast majority of characters as bipedal, two-armed creatures.

  I’d once tried out the free demo of Garden Variety, a stealth-themed game where you played a fox hunting chickens, and even that was too much for me. The game had eventually been co-opted by the furries anyway. Not that there was anyt
hing wrong with that.

  I wanted to try out my three weapons, and then I would hustle my new ride over to Charnel and see if I could find Clara and Banksy.

  At this height, I could see the distant glow of Medina and the horde of demons flocking around it. That gave me an idea. I likely wouldn’t survive for long, but I wondered if I could power my way to the walls. I probably could, I decided. If we could do that, then maybe we didn’t need to complete the Shrill quest just yet.

  I clicked on the map. I wanted to set a waypoint. I found Charnel, and it allowed me to place a marker. I noticed something odd, though. There was a wide, red indicator around the abandoned city that Charnel bordered. Zooming out, a similar area surrounded Medina. I tried to click within and received an error:

  This Guardian may not venture within a kilometer of Medina.

  Shit. There went that idea.

  My world flashed red, and I went tumbling, agony erupting from my side. I felt myself roar in pain. I spun, bewildered, not sure what could possibly have hurt me so. My health went down to 50% with that single hit. What the hell?

  I scrambled to my feet, still uncertain on my legs. I looked up in time to see a massive, two-headed wolf fly at me, both mouths snarling. The right head clamped on my neck and started shaking. I reflexively clawed out, and I connected with the second head. Both heads yelped, dropping me.

  Orthrus! Jenk was attacking me with Orthrus.

  All around us, wildlife and demons fled. Trees smaller than blades of grass disintegrated. Rocks shattered with each step. A small herd of those rhinoceros demons, the giant, fireball-shooting monsters, fell over themselves in terror as they tried to get away. I stepped on one and didn’t even feel it.

  My health had plummeted to 35%. In a panic, I jammed down on my first special attack: Sizzle and Steak.

  I roared, no longer in control of my actions. I felt myself stand vertical, felt the strain on my back. My body became hot, almost unbearably so. The ground around me rumbled. It was an earthquake ability! The ground cracked, steam rushing out. Lava emerged, oozing out from the crevices. Demons and animals and plants all around me died. Orthrus howled, jumping back, moving lighting quick. The wolf heads snarled, circling the ring of fire.