Fragged

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “Who wants to go first?” I asked with a heaved breath as we all stopped digging.

  “I think that honour falls on you, Zo.” Brendo said, “Go on, we’ll catch you if you have to jump back down.”

  “Heh, like that’s gonna happen.” I replied, the thought not crossing my mind for a second that there could be all kinds of trouble waiting for us on the surface.

  Didn’t matter though, as when I clawed my way up the dirt, using the sort of funnel shape that had formed to my advantage, it became clear that nothing but blue sky and trees awaited us on the bunker’s grassy roof.

  “Come on up,” I called down into the hole as I slowly scanned the area around us, “looks like it’s all clear.”

  “Should I call the Js and the trikes back?” Chad asked after letting out a somewhat drained sigh.

  “Yeah, couldn’t hurt.” I replied, deciding not to give him the satisfaction of getting irritated with him.

  God, I could be annoying at times.

  Chapter Ten

  “One little Bearie,” I huffed in amusement as Brendo’s men boosted Felicity and Melinda out of the hole, “one little Bearie caused all this. Crazy, huh?”

  “Well, take a few steps back,” Brendo said, leading us about a dozen metres away from the hole, “and it doesn’t look all that bad, eh?”

  He had a point, from where we stood it was near-impossible to tell that anything was even remotely wrong, beyond the steady stream of smoke that was coming out of both the hole and the open hatch of course. With that being said, there was still going to have to be a lot of rebuilding, which I promised myself I would be more hands-on with than the original build.

  “I have to admit, I am pretty excited to try out some new stuff with the design,” Paul announced almost too loudly, “I’m thinking a pool, maybe a rec room. Just a whole bunch of really cool stuff.”

  “Fix the air filtration system first,” Pete light-heartedly jabbed, “then you can talk about pools and shit.”

  “And why shouldn’t we be talking about fun stuff?” Miles snapped, “I mean, that’s one-”

  “Guys, please, can we just enjoy this for two seconds?” I asked tiredly, “Seriously, I get that you get off on all this bickering and shit, but I just want us to… be for a few moments, okay?”

  Neither of them responded, and for a time no one said anything, we just kind of watched the smoke in silent appreciation.

  “Reckon the guys downstairs are gonna be okay?” Paul asked, breaking the silence and making both Pete and I jump.

  “Should be,” Miles replied coolly, “with that hole pumping out the smoke, all they’ll have to do is work their way up and avoid the fire. Even that should burn out pretty quickly though, especially after it’s down with horticulture.”

  Pete went to say something snarky about that, but caught himself when he saw the face I was giving him.

  “This is good,” I said with a grin once I’d turned my attention back to the hole and saw that Brendo’s men were struggling to pull themselves out, “I’m looking forward to the opportunity to do some cool new shit.”

  “Like what?” Chad asked somewhat bitterly.

  “I don’t know,” I replied happily, shutting Chad’s snippiness in an instant, “maybe I could get some of my skills up while we rebuild? Heh, then maybe Pete and I could take that spec ops group of his, make a move for the Spire.”

  “You mean Liennam Tower?” Paul scoffed, “There’s no way in Hell that you’re going to Liennam without me.”

  “Or me.” Miles added with a smile.

  “Or m-” Brendo started then stopped as, out of nowhere, a text block popped up in our vision.

  You feel that? That unsettling sort of sinking feeling in your gut? Are your feet trembling with the earth beneath you?

  At first, I thought it was some kind of glitch, maybe the game thought we were on a different part of the map or something, but then it happened.

  The beast breached.

  I couldn’t tell if it was the creature or the ground it was tunnelling through like a shark through water, but something was roaring, almost shrieking as the monster’s unbelievably long body cut through the earth like it was nothing, its long, grey back being the only thing that was visible as it toppled trees, destroyed our fences, and went clean through the space Brendo’s men and the hole had been occupying like it was all nothing.

  Community Population: 414/550

  And now you’ve seen it, the mythical Burrower. Crapping yourself yet?

  A full five seconds went by before the worm-like goliath had disappeared into the ground again, leaving this long stretch of concaved earth in its wake.

  “I-I-I… I…” I muttered confusedly, “I… What?”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Paul said in a totally unconvincing calm voice, “we’ll just… um… We’ll just dig out the others when the Js get here. How long ‘til they get back?”

  Chad took a moment to respond, understandably, and before he could form any words he had to swallow a brick-sized lump, “Um, three, maybe five minutes? Tops?”

  “Okay, good, they should be fine then.” Miles said, ignoring the fact that our chat was fast-filling with pleas for help.

  “This is gonna be fine, right?” I asked, some part of me feeling like I was somehow responsible for what had just happened because of all my wishing for a more exciting time.

  “This’ll be fine,” Brendo consoled somewhat desperately, “I mean, heh, it’s just the first floo-”

  That’s when, with another ear-piercing shriek, the beast breached the dirt once more, but not tunnelling, no, no instead the creature had somehow launched itself straight up out of the ground, directly above where our bunker sat.

  Well, I suppose ‘where it used to sit’ is more appropriate, you know, seeing as the bunker and the hundreds of people that where stuck in there were showering us as we struggled to both watch the still airborne creature and dodge the falling rubble.

  It was chaotic to say the least.

  Oh, and I haven’t even gotten to the best part.

  Community Population: 14/0

  Ha! Looks like some idiot’s gone ahead and destroyed all their beds. Well, sucks to be you. What that means is that your base, or wherever the beds were, has disappeared from all your followers’ maps, and your Freemen and/or Slaves no longer have a point of reference for defence, and will more than likely kill you and run away as you can’t provide shelter. Again, sucks to be you.

  Home Base destroyed.

  Ahahaha! You lost your Home Base? What kind of a moron lets their Home Base get destroyed? Well, looks like you’ll either have to join someone else’s group, steal someone else’s Home Base, or go all nomadic. Well, there is a fourth option. You could just go ahead and off yourself. That’d be great.

  The creature held its place in the air for a while before finally, with no small amount of convulsing, turned back towards the ground and dove back into the hole it had created.

  “Did that…” I mumbled fearfully as the last of the rubble fell before turning red with rage, “Did that seriously just fucking happen?”

  “I think it did.” Paul replied completely stone-faced before slowly walking towards me without taking his eyes off the hole, “How does something like that happen?”

  “Clearly Thren didn’t like us fucking around underground,” Chad said matter-of-factly, “went ahead and sent its attack dog after us.”

  I damn near shot him right then and there, but then Pete came running over with Miles with unbelievably happy expressions smeared across their faces.

  “Please tell me someone captured that,” Miles pleaded with eyes full of wonderment, “please, please, please.”

  At first I wanted to snap, maybe even roar a bit, but that’s when something strange happened.

  I smiled.

  I don’t know whether it was simply them pointing it out, or if I was genuinely realising it by myself, but what we had just seen was something that very
few people got to see, including the people that just got devoured by it, who I’m sure were too busy being dismembered to see what had gotten them.

  “I tried to,” Brendo said as he came over to join us, “damn thing wouldn’t start though, I might’ve just caught the moment before it hit the ground again though.”

  “So, what? We’re all just happy and dandy that we just lost a week’s worth of work?” Chad snapped, “What the Hell is wrong with you people?”

  No one answered for a while, and then Pete shrugged, “Was gonna happen eventually, I’m just glad it was something this awesome.”

  “Can you believe this?” Chad scoffed in my general direction, then grew a sort of sad face when he saw that I was smiling.

  “I’m with Pete, at least it was interesting.”

  Chad, again, went to say something and failed, leaving room for the rest of us to smile and actually kind of enjoy the fact that we were getting a quasi-fresh start.

  “So, the Spire?” Paul asked hopefully, looking in the general direction of Liennam as he did so.

  I didn’t quite know how to answer, I wanted to give him a firm yes, but with Chad skulking the way he was I didn’t know if going even further out of my way to tick him off was such a good idea.

  And then I smiled and shrugged it off, “The Spire it is, as long as everyone else is cool with it?”

  I was met with a sea of nods and smiles, with the obvious exception of Chad who just kind of grumbled.

  “Alright then,” I said, “to the Spire.”

  “Wait,” Chad interjected right as we went to get moving, “shouldn’t we wait until the Js get back?”

  I wanted to say something to the effect of ‘Fuck the Js’, but I figured that they would actually be pretty useful and instead said “Okay, we wait for the Js and then we go for the Spire.”

  “Wait, maybe we should load up first?” Miles suggested, “I mean, a bunch of guns and shit did just land all around us, seems kind of foolish to just leave them here.”

  “You know what?” I said with a sigh, “You guys are really killing my momentum here. Go on then, grab what you can carry while we wait for the Js, and then we go to the Spire!”

  That’s when Paul opened his mouth.

  “Don’t say it, just do it,” I warned, “or I swear to all the gods I will slap you silly.”

  Ah, Zoey’s Fighters, such a professional bunch.

  FRAGGED 12

  Chapter One

  “This… I’m sure this could be worse,” I said as myself and the few members left of Zoey’s Fighters scanned the forest around us, “but nothing specific comes to mind.”

  The Js were doing a good job of circling us with their steggies, but if just one of the newly mutinous trike riders charged and managed to get between them we were as good as dead.

  “This is just all kinds of fuckin’ bad…” Brendo muttered as something a dozen or so metres to the West barrelled through the trees, snapping all of our attention over to it.

  “Missing the bunker yet?” Chad asked with no small amount of snark in his voice.

  “Hey, Zo,” Pete said from directly behind me as he watch our back, “want me to knock him out?”

  “Nah, we’ll give him a few more minutes to pull his head in.” I replied with a little grin, “But if he keeps bitchin’, feel free.”

  Five minutes.

  Five minutes was how long it took for our trike-mounted Freemen to turn on us, and we’d only barely managed to force them back into the position they were in, but we’d quickly come to regret that as they circled us like sharks.

  “One of ‘em has stopped. South.” Miles practically whispered, “Should I shoot?”

  “Hold up.” I breathed back as I slowly turned around and went to crouch beside him, following his gaze into the trees, “I don’t-ah, yep, got ‘em.”

  “We firing?” Paul asked concernedly.

  “You just keep your eyes on your sector,” I replied coolly as I lined up my DMR’s sight with the trike’s yellow right eye, “Miles and I’ve got this one.”

  “Heh, sure.” Chad scoffed.

  “I’ve already shot you once, Chad,” I muttered coldly without taking my eyes off my target, “don’t make me do it again.”

  Then it happened, the trike let out a single, foggy breath, signalling that it was about to charge, and I fired, the bullet practically hitting the dino’s iris and putting it down instantly, leaving its rider to be riddled with bullets by the almost overeager Miles.

  +1 Firearm Skill

  Firearm Skill: 18/100

  Level Progression: 10/250

  Community Population: 13/0

  “We got one charging!” Pete barked as he started shooting, “East side!”

  By the time I’d turned to face the charging trike one of the Js had got his steggie in position and used its mighty spiked tail to slam into the trike’s exposed side, piercing its flesh with ease and causing the dino to let out a deep, almost cow-like cry of pain.

  I wasn’t about to let the J take all the glory though, and joined in with Pete’s shooting, putting the majority of my focus on hitting the rider as the trike flailed and left him completely open to my shots.

  Thanks to the armour, it took three solid shots along with all the ones that I’d landed on the trike, but the grouped fire at his ribs was enough to damn near shatter the protection he had there and caused the rider to fall clear of his mount, clutching his side in pain as his final few seconds of life seeped out through the wound I’d inflicted on him.

  +1 Firearm Skill

  Firearm Skill: 19/100

  Level Progression: 20/250

  Community Population: 12/0

  “Fun enough for you?” Miles laughed as the last of the trikes charged at us from the West, its rider being the first to attempt to shoot at us.

  “Eh, it’s getting there.” I chuckled after turning around and joining the others in absolutely peppering the trike and its rider with bullets.

  One of the other Js’ steggies managed to soak up the bullets that didn’t deflect off of our armour, while the third J went ahead and charged into the trike’s side.

  The meaty slam was enough to throw the charging dino off course, causing it to topple onto its side and thrash around for a few seconds before getting back to its feet and facing off against the one that had charged him.

  “Should we put it down?” Miles asked as the two Freemen faced each other off.

  “I’m worried if we don’t get it in the first few seconds it’ll just end up trampling us,” I replied, my finger tensing around the trigger as I did, “we might be able to dive out of the way, but I’m worried about the girls.”

  “What if we lose a steggie though?” Brendo added, “I mean, it’s not-”

  Brendo didn’t get the chance to finish his thought before the trike rider took the initiative and charged the J, but my boy was too quick, easily side-stepping the injured trike and, in one smooth motion, catching the head of the mutinous Freeman with the tail of his steggie.

  Community Population: 11/0

  “Fuckin’ Hell!” Pete exclaimed with a laugh as the headless NPC’s body continued to ride off into the forest with its aimless mount, the head brutally spiked on the steggie’s tail.

  “Don’t see that every day.” I chuckled as, with no small amount of hesitance, I rose to my feet and stopped aiming down my sights, “Everyone okay?”

  “No, beca-” Chad started then stopped as Paul cleared his throat exaggeratedly in a successful effort to throw him off.

  “Nobody’s injured, Zo.” Paul replied, blocking off any opportunity for Chad to go on moaning about how we’d abandoned the bunker like he had been before the attack, “We’re ready to move if you are.”

  I confirmed Paul’s statement by quickly looking around at the other guys, who each nodded or otherwise indicated they were good to keep going, before smiling and looking back in the general direction of the city, “Let’s keep on keepin’ on then.”<
br />
  Chapter Two

  It was a strange thing, having Chad be so against me I mean, and while the other’s enthusiasm was keeping a smile on my face. I have to admit his general bitchiness was starting to wear on me, particularly when he decided to moan and groan when the rest of us were making a concerted effort to keep quiet.

  With that being said, I kind of got where he was coming from. I mean, he had been the one who had kept me afloat throughout that whole journey up to and through the creation of the bunker, and I’d been pretty quick to throw it away.

  However, that didn’t give him a free pass to moan like a girl who’s seen one too many pornos and is trying really hard to impress her new boyfriend.

  So, when Chad said “I just don’t see why we had to leave so quickly.” for the tenth time over the space of fifteen minutes, I hope you can understand why Pete ended up driving the butt of his gun into his unsuspecting jaw.

  “What the Hell?” Paul practically squeaked as Chad went down like a pile of bricks.

  “Oh, come on,” Pete droned tiredly before crouching down and pulling Chad onto his shoulder, “like I was the only one who was sick of his constant bitching.”

  “We could’ve at least had some sort of conversation before you went ahead and clocked him in the face though.” Paul replied as Pete carried Chad over to one of the Js’ steggies and put the unconscious whiner on its back.

  “True, we could’ve, but I’d reached the end of my tether,” Pete said after dusting off his hands, “besides, not like he would’ve taken the suggestion of knocking him out in stride.”

  “I have to agree with Pete,” I added with a somewhat sad sigh, “this’ll give him a few minutes to cool down, or at the very least give us an opportunity to recover.”

  Brendo and Miles, having apparently decided that complacency was the best way to handle the situation, started us moving again.

  While I wasn’t fully supportive of Pete’s method, I appreciated that it came from a place of wanting to make things more comfortable for me.