Apocalypse 2020: A Wasteland LitRPG

by James T. Witherspoon

  “Crit,” Mariko said, in a soft sing-song voice.

  The explosion that followed took a chunk out of the building, collapsing the brick wall and the roof that the turret sat on top of. The grenade didn’t completely destroy the turret, but when the roof underneath it collapsed, the turret fell too. It crashed down into the rooms below and was buried by the resulting rubble. It still whirred, its barrel aiming uselessly at the sky, unable to target anything.

  “Nice throw, Mariko!” Boothe cheered. “Holy crap!”

  She shrugged. Then she propped her rifle over the waist-high wall next to them, and pointed it down at the bandits hiding all along the street. One by one, she took her time to aim, squeezed the trigger and popped them in the head.

  “I’ll get the others,” Boothe said.

  He jumped off the building and fell three stories to the ground. His boots absorbed the impact of the fall and he immediately ran for Scarlett and Lucas. He took Scarlett up first, then returned and grabbed Lucas as well. A few enemies still shot at them, but most were looking for new cover to hide from Mariko’s constant onslaught.

  From the rooftop, they could see the battle happening on the edge of where the dome had been. The bandits were holed up and using their defensive advantages and turrets to keep the Eagles from getting too far into the city. Cars launched rockets and heavy machinegun fire towards the buildings, reducing them to flaming rubble, while the turrets blasted away at the Eagle’s vehicles, causing explosion after explosion. The ground was littered with bodies from both sides. Even from this distance, Boothe spotted Hugo, the heavily muscled leader of Chaotic Decay, standing up in the back of a truck and firing rockets from the huge launcher on his shoulder, blowing up buildings and sending bandits flying.

  Boothe hoped that the Eagles would come out of that battle on top, but either way, the player-base would be decimated.

  “Let’s go,” he said to the others. “We need to get to Orion as soon as possible.”

  They ran across the rooftop towards the tower. A sturdy wooden plank had been placed across the gap between this rooftop and the next, and Boothe crossed it without even thinking. The others followed him, more hesitantly.

  Marty flew ahead and attached to the closest Turret.

  Hacking (85%) - SUCCESS!

  “Rewire,” Boothe commanded, and the turret immediately turned and began firing on its former allies, providing covering fire for the group to run further towards the tower.

  They charged forward, leapt across a small gap to the next building, then took cover as the turret on the next rooftop turned and fired at them. Boothe sent the command for Marty to head towards it, but before the drone could hover over, he spotted bandits climbing up onto the rooftop that they had just left.

  “They’re surrounding us!” Boothe said. He knelt against a large air-conditioning unit, keeping cover from the turret, but the bandits coming up behind them had a clear shot. He remembered how quickly they had killed Braddock - if he gave any of them a chance to fire, another one of his team could die.

  “Take them out quickly!” Scarlett said, voicing his thoughts. “She fired her shotgun, but from this distance, the spread was too wide and she didn’t do much damage.

  Mariko shot one as he ran to cover, but then had to reload her rifle, leaving five more enemies.

  Lucas slipped one of his revolvers into his holster and held the other steady in his left hand. Then his right moved in a blur that was impossible to follow, fanning the hammer and firing shot after shot, until every chamber was empty. It was almost supernatural how he could aim while firing that fast, but all six bullets hit and four of the bandits fell dead.

  That left only one for Boothe. He took aim and put a three-round burst into the last bandit’s chest, sending him face-down into the ground.

  After all those bandits were taken care of, Marty reached the turret and connected to it.

  Hacking (85%) - SUCCESS!

  The minigun spun and fired at another turret across the street, ripping through its metal plating until it exploded into useless scrap. Then the turret rotated to fire at the bandits hiding on the next building over.

  “Let’s go!” Boothe said. He ran and took cover behind the re-wired turret.

  The bandits were getting desperate now. Many more of them climbed up to the roofs, no longer even attempting to stay in cover, no longer caring if they were killed. All that mattered was stopping Boothe’s team from reaching the tower. More were hiding on the next rooftop over, sending a constant barrage of machinegun fire towards them.

  Scarlett ducked down next to Boothe, while Mariko and Lucas took cover behind the waist-high wall that surrounded the roof. More bandits climbed up behind them, but they came slowly so Lucas could shoot each of them as they reached the top. The re-wired turret stopped shooting and disabled itself with a soft whine, its five rounds over.

  Boothe peeked around at the next building, and was rewarded with a bullet that would have hit him right in the face if he hadn’t had his shield up.

  Boothe takes 3 DAMAGE!

  Energy Shield 2/5.

  “Ow!” Boothe said, ducking back down. “Dammit!”

  “Do you think that I could fire this minigun manually?” Scarlett asked.

  They were crouched next to where all the electronics for the turret were. Boothe ripped away the cover for the control panel and dug into the circuit boards inside.

  Hacking (75%) - SUCCESS!

  He connected a few wires together, the system sparked, the barrel dropped a bit, and the minigun spun, firing bullets non-stop into the roof.

  “There!” Boothe yelled over the noise. “It should swivel freely, but the trigger is stuck. It’ll keep firing until it’s empty!”

  “Got it!” Scarlett said. She stood behind the turret and used all her strength to spin the huge mechanism, aiming it towards the enemies on the other rooftop. “I’ll cover you! Do you think you can get to them?”

  Boothe looked around, taking in the situation and making a quick plan. Mariko and Lucas were busy covering their ass from the bandits that were climbing up behind them. There were no more turrets for Marty to take control of, and the path to the next roof was a narrow plank that would put him directly in the enemy’s line of fire.

  “Yeah, I think I can,” Boothe said.

  He stood up and ran to the left, towards the edge of the roof, then dove off. As he fell, he shot the grappling hook to the top of the next building over, where the enemies were in cover, hiding from Scarlett’s gunfire. The grappling hook stuck and pulled Boothe forward in an arc, swinging him to the roof just behind the enemies. He landed softly and took cover behind a waist-high wall on the edge of the rooftop.

  The bandits hadn’t even noticed him, they were so focused on Scarlett and her minigun. Bricks and cement shattered with every bullet she fired, some tearing through and hitting their targets even through their cover.

  Boothe took a frag grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it right in the middle of the bandits. One of them looked down at it and screamed before it exploded, destroying their cover and sending them all flying across the rooftop. Those that survived the blast were shredded to pieces by the turret’s high-caliber rounds.

  Mariko and Lucas moved over near Scarlett, reloading their weapons and staying on the lookout for enemies, though there didn’t seem to be any left. Marty scanned the battlefield but did not see any more bandits nearby. Scarlett spun the turret towards the buildings across the street and shot all the remaining ammunition into the brick walls there, until the minigun spun empty.

  The battle still raged a few hundred yards away where the rest of the Eagles were fighting, but here next to the Reunion Tower, all was quiet.

  The rest of the group joined Boothe on the building closest to the tower and they climbed down the fire escape to street level.

  Approaching the tower, the finality of the whole situation hit Boothe hard and his stomach felt like it was doing backflips. He look
ed over at his friends and wished that Caustic and Braddock could have been here with them. Locke too, though Boothe hadn’t ever really gotten to know him.

  They walked into the building at the bottom of the tower together, staying alert for enemies that may be hiding inside, but the place was completely empty. Rubble and broken furniture filled the lobby and four elevators were located around the room, leading up to the observation deck. The doors to three of them had been removed revealing empty shafts that descended into an underground level, but the fourth seemed to be operational.

  Boothe pressed the up button on the working elevator, and they waited for the car to come down.

  “He’s going to know we’re coming,” Lucas said.

  “Yep,” Mariko agreed.

  “Nothing we can do about that,” Scarlett said. “We’re not going to be sneaky. We’re just going to kill him.”

  “Get your guns loaded with the armor piercing rounds,” Boothe said, pulling his own clip from his vest and loading it into his carbine. Unlike the magazines he normally used, which held fifty rounds, this one only held 12. That was four three-round bursts. Lucas had twelve rounds also, enough to fill both of his revolvers. Mariko had only five of her .308 cartridges, and Scarlett only had five 12-gauge slugs.

  It didn’t seem like much, but if they hit him with everything, there was no way he could survive.

  The elevator door dinged and opened. They got inside and pressed the button for the observation deck at the top of the tower. One side of the elevator car had been glass and was now shattered, leaving that side open to the rushing air outside as they soared towards the top.

  Scarlett stepped away, pressing herself against the furthest wall from the window and closing her eyes.

  “I’m going to barf,” she said.

  Boothe stood at the edge and looked out at the battle going on in the base below them. He couldn’t make out anything from here except for the fire and smoke. In the distance, the wasteland spread out for miles. He could see the Palisades, rising like a monolith to the south. He hoped that Wulfa, Robert, Abigail, and the others who remained behind were doing okay. To the west he could see the zoo, a green patch on the otherwise brown landscape. Past that, the sun was dropping below the horizon, transforming the sky into an orange and violet explosion of colors.

  By the time they reached the top, Boothe’s energy shield had recharged completely. The elevator slowed, stopped, and the door opened with a ding.

  They all stepped out onto the observation level. The whole floor had been cleared of any debris, like an open arena created just for this purpose. A few of the windows surrounding the circular room were still intact while others had been broken, leaving only shards jutting out from metal frames. The ceiling had been ripped away by some great catastrophe, long ago.

  Across the arena from the elevator, Orion stood with his back to them, looking out over the wasteland.

  “So,” he said. “Someone has finally come to challenge me?

  He closed his right fist, and a three-foot-long blade extended from his knuckles. His left hand somehow retreated into his forearm, rotated, and was replaced by a large bore gun barrel.

  “Time to die,” he said.

  Then, Orion turned to face them.

  2

  As soon as they saw Orion turning, the entire team unloaded on him. Scarlett blasted him in the chest with a shotgun slug, Mariko put a rifle round directly into his metal faceplate, knocking his head backwards. Lucas fanned his revolver, sending three shots into his shoulders and Boothe shot a three-round burst into his chest.

  The armor piercing bullets punched holes in his metal plating, but Boothe couldn’t tell if any of their attacks actually hurt Orion. If they did, the pain did not slow him down. Instead, the bullets seemed to only anger him. He was no longer calm and arrogant, but furious.

  “I will kill every one of you,” he growled. “Rip you to pieces. Feed on your insides.”

  He pulled back his blade arm and charged towards them, his boots sending out jets of flame that made him glide across the arena. The group separated, trying to avoid his attack. They couldn’t even tell which one of them he was targeting, until they split up and his sword came down towards Mariko.

  She rolled to the side, avoiding the swipe and the rest of the group fired at Orion again. Boothe took his shot and had Marty simultaneously fire his laser as well. The drone’s laser did nothing against Orion’s armor, but the bullets tore through. There was no blood like Boothe would have expected from a living creature, and no sparks like there would have been from a robot. What the hell was he?

  Mariko, much closer to Orion than she was comfortable with, tried to scramble away, but the huge monster glided after her. He lunged, stabbing forward with his arm blade and pierced directly through Mariko’s back. She fell forward, her mouth open, gasping in pain.

  “Help!” Mariko called through the headset.

  When Orion tried to bring his blade down once again to finish Mariko off, Boothe aimed his grapple glove at the giant’s thick arm and launched the hook. It flew out and wrapped around Orion’s wrist. Boothe pulled tight, holding his arm back, interrupting the attack.

  Orion turned and looked at him. The metal on his faceplate had been ripped away, revealing his right eye - a useless milky white thing with a dead gray pupil. How could he even see them? Whether mutant or human, he was definitely organic underneath that armor. Hacking was not going to be an option here.

  “You only delay the inevitable,” Orion said. “This world will bow to me.”

  Boothe held his rifle in one hand while pulling back as hard as he could with the other to stop Orion from stabbing Mariko. She lay on the ground, bleeding, trying to crawl away.

  A moment later, despite the bullets that tore through his armor and his body beneath, Orion pointed his gun barrel hand at Mariko and shot a laser blast through her head, splattering her skull across the floor.

  Then Orion pivoted the laser cannon towards Boothe.

  Boothe dodged to the side, causing one of the laser shots to go wide, but two more slammed into his energy shield.

  Boothe takes 6 DAMAGE!

  Energy Shield - 0/5.

  Energy Shield depleted!

  Boothe HP - 5/6

  The second shot broke through his shield and singed his shoulder. Then Orion yanked his other hand back, pulling the grappling hook that was still attached and knocking Boothe off balance. He tripped to the floor, leaving himself wide open and defenseless.

  Fortunately, his friends were there to protect him.

  “Get his legs!” Scarlett yelled.

  Lucas had a revolver gripped in both hands and fired them over and over at Orion’s legs. Nearly every one of the shots hit, ripping away pieces of his armor and tearing into the muscles below. Orion wobbled a bit, finally seeming to feel the damage that they were doing to him. Then Scarlett leaped through the air and slammed her body into his shoulders, knocking him backwards.

  He fell like a tree, his impact shaking the floor. Scarlett stood over him, shoved her shotgun into the exposed portion of his face and pulled the trigger, blasting most of his head apart.

  Meaty chunks poured from the remains of his helmet, and for a moment Boothe thought that the fight must be over - he had to be dead.

  Then with a single swipe, Orion brought his blade up and sliced through Scarlett’s right arm, severing the limb at the shoulder. Her arm flew through the air, shotgun still gripped in its hand, and went off the side of the arena, falling the five hundred feet to the ground below.

  He swung the blade again, this time aiming for her neck, but she jumped back away from him. She stumbled, then fell backwards and slid across the floor, leaving a trail of blood.

  Boothe released the grappling hook from Orion’s arm, retracting it into his glove, and ran over to where Scarlett lay. She was still alive, though the gash where her arm had been now spewed blood onto the floor. He quickly pulled the medkit from his belt and began wrap
ping bandages around her wound.

  “That was my favorite arm too,” Scarlett said.

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  “Go kill him, Boothe,” she ordered through gritted teeth. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “No,” Boothe said. “We’re doing this together.”

  Behind him, Orion rose to his feet. Lucas fired his revolvers over and over until they clicked empty. He tossed them aside, dove to Mariko’s body, and pulled her gun from her hands. He spun and fired the rifle, blasting another hole through the armor covering Orion’s stomach. Marty fired his laser through the newly created hole, cutting into the flesh there and sending electricity coursing through Orion’s body.

  The drone’s lightning shot had no effect. Orion slowly got back to his feet, then the jets on his boots activated and his injuries no longer seemed to matter. He glided towards Lucas, but aimed his laser cannon arm at Marty as he passed. Three blue lines shot out and pierced through the drone’s metal body. Boothe watched as the camera feed in the corner of his vision went dark.

  Drone OFFLINE.

  The words appeared over the black screen just before Marty clanged to the ground.

  “Shit,” Boothe muttered, still applying the medkit to Scarlett’s shoulder.

  “Go Boothe,” Scarlett said. “I’ll finish with the medkit. I’ll be okay.”

  Boothe nodded and then turned to help his only other remaining teammate - the guy who he had fought against only a week earlier, in what felt like another life.

  Lucas backed up to the edge of the arena, trying to stay away from Orion’s attack. He had the rifle up, but Orion was too close for him to get a clear shot.

  The space between Boothe and Orion was wide open though, and he took the opportunity to fire a three-round burst right into Orion’s back. All three bullets tore through the armor and Orion stumbled and reeled. He turned to look at Boothe, letting out a low growl that seemed to echo inside of Boothe’s mind. While he was distracted, Lucas aimed the rifle high and blasted Orion’s bull helmet completely off, sending it clattering to the ground.