Blue Pills

by Armand Vespertine

  “What is that stink coming from underneath us?” Warren asked.

  “The Sewers. The water here is pretty heavily contaminated. Only the mutated Crocanthrops are tough enough to survive down there. They’re cold blooded so they don’t need to eat much, and can survive off occasional raids to the surface, as well as the questers who dare to venture underground. I’ve been eaten by those bastards a dozen times.”

  “Koby’s not underground is he?” Maverick asked.

  “No, he’s doing an escort mission for a food drop. We’ll meet him at the drop point. If we can make it, that is.”

  “Is this place really so dangerous that you can’t get from point A to point B without dying?” Warren asked.

  As if on cue (and quite possibly Warren’s question had been the trigger for it) a humanoid giant came stumbling backwards from around a corner and crashed into the building behind it. An equally colossal robot appeared from around the corner as well, its right arm cocked for a punch.

  “On a good day,” Vega replied. “Come on, I’m not in the mood to fight these guys.”

  Dodging the rubble the dueling giants sent flying, Vega led her party through the back alleys. Post-apocalyptic gang members peppered the alley ways, but they never made a move against Vega.

  “Why aren’t they attacking?” Warren asked.

  “Because they know they don’t stand a chance against me,” she explained. “They’re going to tell King Kush I’m here and get reinforcements. We’ve got to find Koby quickly.”

  Fortunately the drop point wasn’t hard to find. Hundreds of desperate looking people were all gathered around an intersection, where the solar powered traffic lights still flashed at random.

  The sound of a helicopter’s blades caught the mob’s attention, and as soon as the black craft was in sight they all began desperately clamouring for food, water and medicine.

  The craft came as low as it could without the people being able to grab it. A young and lean black man with a shaven head and military sun glasses jumped from the chopper. He was dressed in sleek black clothes and had multiple guns strapped to him.

  “That’s Koby,” Vega whispered.

  “Form a line!” Koby announced, brandishing his plasma rifle in the air. “We have rations, and med-packs, and clean water, but they are all to be distributed equally to the citizens of the City. We will not stand for Kush’s gangs stealing our charity and selling it at exorbitant prices. Each individual will be provided only with what they need, and thieves will be shot without question. Please form an orderly line so that the helicopter can land and we can distribute the supplies.”

  “But who is our benefactor, and where do they obtain these goods?” a character from the crowd asked. Many others repeated his sentiment.

  “He’s supposed to keep the crowd happy. I don’t think he can do it,” Vega whispered.

  “Your benefactor wishes to remain anonymous, for reasons that are his own,” Koby announced. “You should be grateful that there is anyone able to grant you charity at all.”

  “But is not your very presence here proof that beyond Apocalypse City civilization still flourishes?” the character asked. “If that’s true, then why have we received so little aid? Why has there been no attempt at evacuation?”

  “Why has the world abandoned us?” another shouted. The crowd began demanding answers.

  “Listen, all of this is above my pay grade. I don’t have any answers, I’m just here to distribute supplies,” Koby told them. “Children, the elderly, and anyone with any life threatening conditions will be served first. Everyone else needs to move back. Healthy adults will be served last…if there’s anything left.”

  The crowd erupted in an uproar at the last edict. They rushed him, and he was barely able to fire off a few rounds before he was overpowered. The men still in the helicopter started firing into the crowd, but one of the vagrants grabbed Koby’s rifle and nicked the helicopter’s blades. It immediately became unstable, and crashed into the crowd with a completely unjustified explosive fireball.

  Koby rose from the disaster, and saw the smoldering ruin of a chopper surrounded by burning corpses. The few people that had survived were fleeing the scene, some of them horribly injured. A Mission Failed sign appeared in his HUD, accompanied by Vega’s laughter and sarcastic clapping.

  “Way to go buddy. Way to go,” she said. “Never tell them that you might not have enough to go around. They always react violently to it.”

  “So far I haven’t been able to find anything they don’t react violently to,” he said. “How did you beat this?”

  “Benevolent sexism. They’re just inherently nicer to girls,” she claimed.

  “Yeah, well my tip screen just keeps telling me to smile more,” he lamented. “That has to be the most useless advice I’ve ever gotten. Who’s the Paladin?”

  “This is Maverick; my boyfriend,” she replied proudly.

  “Boyfriend? Since when do you have a boyfriend?” Koby asked.

  “Since yesterday,” she replied. Koby took off his sunglasses and took a closer look at Maverick.

  “You’re the one she got to follow her into the Insomnia Labyrinth?” he asked.

  “That was me,” Maverick nodded.

  “You heard about that?” Vega asked.

  “Of course I heard about that; you killed Idolum,” Koby replied. “Did you make it out with any Mythreal?”

  “Oh yeah,” she smiled.

  “How much?”

  “Sixty six kilos between the two of us,” she bragged. “I’m willing to lend out some of my share to my party members for their armour, so we can finally beat the Aeolic Temple. Are you in Koby, or do you want to stay here trying and failing to convince starving people to accept food?”

  Koby sighed reflectively, thinking over the situation.

  “Are these two members of our party now?” he asked.

  “I have no interest in joining any party that doesn’t have an open bar,” Warren replied.

  “Maverick is, but Warren’s just tagging along until he gets killed. You don’t need to worry about him,” Vega explained. Koby starred at Maverick passively, visually evaluating him.

  “That’s your Cygnet Axe. You’re twinking this guy out?” he asked.

  “It’s not twinking. I’m level fifty six,” Maverick said.

  “That makes you an intermediate player. The rest of our party’s all elite, and the Aeolic Temple is an elite campaign.”

  “Which we’ve been wiping at, over and over again,” Vega reminded him. “Now that we have Mythreal we finally have a shot at beating it, and he’s the only reason I was able to get the Mythreal. He’s with our party now, intermediate or not.”

  “Look, with Mythreal armour and Vega’s weapons I’ll be just as good as an elite character,” Maverick claimed. “Plus I know multiple healing and protection spells. I can be an asset to your party.”

  The sound of multiple motor cycles suddenly came into earshot.

  “Prove it,” Koby smirked, drawing his weapons for the imminent fight. “Okay everyone, back to back formation, weapons drawn!”

  “Wait, what the hell’s going on?” Warren asked, fumbling with his spear and shield.

  “Kush’s gang; they found me,” Vega replied, pulling out her war hammer. Maverick murmured an incantation, granting his Blessed Aura to Koby, and then drew his axe.

  Dozens of pimped out motor bikes came roaring into view, each mounted by a flamboyantly intimidating street punk. They immediately encircled the small party, forming an impassable barricade. The gang members began jeering and hollering at them belligerently.

  “Stay back! I’ll poke you, I mean it!” Warren shouted, waving his spear about wildly.

  “What do you want to do Koby?” Vega asked softly.

  “Let’s just hold our ground for now; let them make the first move,” he replied.

  A rider with heavily tattooed brown skin and a purple Mohawk drove her motorcycle halfway in between
the party and her gang. She casually dismounted, slowing spinning a heaving chain around in her hand.

  “Vega, Vega, Vega. Apocalypse City just hasn’t been the same without you,” she said in mock courtesy.

  “Hey Fox. I’m surprised King Kush let you live after I forced you and your gang bangers out of the subways,” Vega said. “You’re here to collect the bounty he put on my head?”

  “You know it. But you’re worth more alive because King Kush wants you to die in the Coliseum,” she sneered. Her gang began whooping emphatically at the mention of the hallowed arena.

  “The Coliseum? Perfect,” Koby smiled, putting away his guns. “We surrender. Take us to the Coliseum.”

  The gang broke out in uproarious hooting, and the party was quickly bound in chains.

  “Wait, a Coliseum? What kind of Coliseum?” Maverick asked.

  “Don’t worry babe, you’ll do great,” Vega assured him.

  “What about me?” Warren demanded.

  “Oh you’re definitely going to die.”

  Whatever profanity Warren shouted in response was drowned out by the revving of the motorcycles as they sped towards the Coliseum of Apocalypse City.

  The ‘Coliseum’ was in fact an American Football Stadium. It was dilapidated, but still in serviceable condition. The seats nearest to the field were filled with hundreds of street gang members, all jeering as the new contestants were brought into the arena.

  Sitting in a makeshift ‘Emperor’s Box’ was King Kush. He was almost middle age with a green and yellow Mohawk, wearing a spiked leather vest and a pink shirt that said DIE CIS SCUM in a sharpie. Beneath that was a bracketed paragraph explaining that the above statement was meant ironically and that he was not actually transsexual.

  “There she is,” he said, pushing down his hot pink shutter shades to get a good look. “Of all the meddling Outlanders who have come into my town and interfered with my operations, not a one of them gets me riled up like little miss Vega here.”

  “I bet you say that to everyone who kills you,” she smiled.

  “I don’t like being killed! It’s an odious offence. I do the killings around here, you understand?”

  “Why does he sound like a southern dandy?” Warren whispered.

  “I’ll tell you why boy!” Kush shouted in response. “Because this here’s my town. I keep all the nasties here from spreading to the Outlands, and in exchange I am free to rule this city however I see fit. I control the food, the water, the power, the medicine, the blow, everything! I cannot be having do-gooders like yourselves threatening my monopolies.

  “Let me give you a little history lesson. Once upon a time this place was called Renascence City, ironically enough. Then we were nuked, still don’t know why, and the radiation mutated a strain of the common cold into the Doom Plague. It killed off most of us, and those who caught it but didn’t die turned into zombies. Then the acid rain fell because of the nuclear fallout, and our crumbling infrastructure left our water tainted! There was famine, pestilence, disease, violence! Good Lord, never have I seen such uncivil conduct. A super volcano went off and blackened the sky for months! Then The Storm came, and then the meteors, which brought aliens, and then the giants! I think that last one is what they call a Black Swan since no one ever expected that. We built robots to fight the giants, but that just led to a robot rebellion! There was also a slight recession somewhere in there, but that’s beside the point. The point is this town isn’t called Apocalypse City for nothing! I have lived through nearly every type of conceivable catastrophe, and I will not be undone by fine folk such as your good selves.

  “Any Outlanders we capture alive are brought here to die in the most spectacular manner imaginable, as a warning to all others who might dare to challenge the authority of King Kush!”

  The crowd began chanting his name and banging on their seats, creating as much of a racket as possible.

  “Vega Tir-anna, I will enjoy watching you die. May the odds be never in your favour!”

  The gates were hoisted open, revealing a pack of feral mongrels. Multiple generations of natural selection had turned them all into generalized mutts with a strong lupine resemblance. They were dirty, and some were mangy, and they all looked half starved. Growling angrily and baring their glistening teeth, they charged towards the party with predatory intent.

  “Don’t waste your Mana, save it for the hard rounds,” Koby recommended as he laid down some suppressing fire that kept the pack at a safe distance.

  “How the hell did that not kill them?” Warren demanded.

  “Because they’re elite level enemies, and ranged weapons only do full damage at point blank,” Koby explained. “Have you seriously never played before?”

  “No, because I actually have a sex life you poop-socking loser!”

  The savage dogs began to circle them, barking ferociously and drooling hungrily.

  “Next time they charge I’m going to let a few of them through for you guys to kill, all right?” Koby asked.

  “I’m ready,” Vega replied.

  “Me too,” Maverick agreed.

  “No! God, no!” Warren objected.

  The dogs came in for a second strike. Most of them retreated when Koby shot at them, but he did let several through. One of them leapt through the air straight at Vega, and was quickly and brutally knocked to the side with a blow from her hammer. She swirled around and smashed a second one, then swung her hammer over her head to implode the skull of a third.

  Koby kept the pack scattered with his gunfire, so Vega jumped into a small group of them and started swinging her hammer about wildly. Maverick followed suit and leapt into another group, slicing through them with his axe as if he was reaping wheat with a scythe.

  “No! Bad doggy! Shoo! Shoo!” Warren said, cowering behind his shield and holding off a single dog by jabbing at it with his spear.

  “More dogs!” Kush demanded shrilly. One of his servants ran up to him, presenting him with a tray of hotdogs. “I…oh all right.”

  Despite the seeming confusion, reinforcements for the canines started flooding through the gates. Koby was firing nearly constantly, trying to keep too many of them from surrounding Vega or Maverick at once. He completely ignored Warren though, happy to let some of the dogs be drawn off by easy prey. The sound of his screams was quickly replaced by the sound of his bones being crunched by ravenous jaws.

  “Maverick, get closer to Vega! I can keep the dogs off you better if you’re together!” Koby shouted.

  Maverick nodded. Despite Koby’s recommendation to save his Mana, he used a blast of white fire to clear a path to Vega. He sped through the path while it was open, and beheaded a dog biting at Vega’s heels. He continued hacking at the pack while she continued swinging. She knocked some of them so hard that they went flying into the stands.

  It was then that a large alpha male came sauntering into the arena. It was more than twice as big as any of the other dogs, and it didn’t seem as mindlessly aggressive. It looked over the scene strategically, and made a run for Koby. It zigged and zagged at random, making it impossible for him to get a shot in. It pounced through the air at him, only to be knocked sideways by Vega’s hammer. It hopped backed to its feet immediately, snarling hungrily at the three of them. Barking rabidly, it charged straight at Vega. Maverick stood between them, and found himself holding back the ravenous maw of the creature with the hilt of his axe. The massive fangs were right in his face, drool dripping from them in anticipation of a feast. Maverick resisted with all his strength, but inch by inch the dog’s mouth came closer.

  Using her Quantum Rush, Vega dashed behind the dog and swung her hammer between its hind legs, neutering it.

  The alpha male howled in agony, and with its tale between its legs it quickly abandoned the rest of its pack to their inevitable demise.

  By now the pack numbers were thinned by more than fifty percent. The survivors had become more timid and even tried to flee. Koby was able to pick off the weake
ned dogs with his rifle, while Vega and Maverick chased down the rest.

  Vega picked up the shield and spear off Warren’s corpse, tossing them into her inventory.

  “Don’t waste your phial on this guy. He won’t do any better in the next round,” she said, picking up the panacea pills he hadn’t had the presence of mind to use. “You’re doing pretty decent though. I’m impressed.”

  “Thanks, but I think your axe here should get most of the credit,” he said, slicing at a stray dog as it ran past.

  “If I had given that axe to Warren do you think he would have lived any longer?” she asked.

  “I guess you have a point,” Maverick smiled, dealing a coup de grace to the last dog.

  “Oh my great good lord,” Kush shook his head sadly, dismayed at the scene of canine carnage before him. “They were puppies! You’re puppy killers! How could you be so heartless as to massacre so many cuddly little puppies? This is horrendous, is what it is. Mercy me, you’re giving me palpitations! Someone, someone fetch me some libations. I’m liable to pass out.”

  Once of his attendants handed him a pink cocktail on the rocks and garnished with a strawberry, which looked egregiously out of place amidst the devastation of the setting.

  “Why is this game filled with so many ridiculous stereotypes?” Maverick asked.

  “Silence from the puppy killers!” Kush demanded, sipping his cocktail. “I do believe I am sufficiently revitalized to proceed to the next round of the events. Ladies and gentlemen, please give your warmest welcome to ‘The Infected’.”

  The crowd cheered as hordes of bluish zombies started shambling through the gate.

  “I’m not going be able to give you any cover fire. Those things have no desire for self-preservation,” Koby said.

  “Don’t set them on fire either. They feel no pain, and it takes them hours to burn to ash,” Vega warned.

  “So what do we do?” Maverick asked.

  “Just wait,” Vega smiled.

  The horde continued advancing towards them, albeit at a much slower pace than the feral dogs had managed.