Sprint Page 4

  While we are waiting Rachel whispers to me, “So, now that we aren’t around them anymore, why didn’t we tell Kylie and the gang about our full powers?”

  I respond, “Because I don’t know who to trust. You remember those skaters? Kylie and her friends seem nice now, but who is to say it will stay that way? No, we might tell them more later, once they have earned our trust, but right now, I think we should play things close to the vest. Besides, we can only enter the Gate with two people so we don’t need to expand our circle. I think right now it should just be us.”

  Rachel is quiet for some time before she speaks up, “We are going to have to trust people sometime. We can’t live in the Iron Circle forever. They seemed like decent enough people. Why not them?”

  I shrug, “They do seem like decent people, just not yet.”

  We chat some more waiting in line, but my mind is keeps coming back to Rachel’s question, why not them. Brent and Stephen were very nice, but there is definitely something different about Jay. He was nice enough, but he just seemed cagey to me. Like I wasn’t getting the whole truth. Kylie on the other hand is an open book. She just seemed like a nice young girl. We get to the Gate room and then it is our turn walk up to the Gate.

  Do you wish to participate in A Gate Wars match?

  We confirm and the purple portal appears in front of us. I walk close to the portal and open my shield. I step in first. The tugging sensation right above my belly button comes and my world fades to streaking lights.

  I appear in a classic forest with the sound of rushing water nearby. The trees remind me of oaks, but they have seven pointed leaves. Rachel appears behind me a moment later and we both hunker down behind my shield. Last battle we could see the elves appear, but this time I don’t catch the sight of the aliens appearing. There are too many trees in the way. I begin to charge my energy beam. We start to move forward, paying attention to not create too much noise. We start to pick out way through the dead branches on the ground.

  There is a large crashing behind us. I spin around and pivot around Rachel. She allows me to get in front of her. There is a forest of leaves in the way, but I manage to catch the glimpse of something moving. It appears to be a gray object moving forcefully through the forest and making a racket while doing it. Not wanting to waste time, I point my hand at the movement. My energy beam is half-way charged at this point. I point it at the creature and I fire. The blue beam lances out, burning through the branches and leaves leaving behind the smell of a bonfire. The beam makes solid contact with the gray figure and the gray turns to red. The figure stumbles backward, but my energy beam isn’t enough to incinerate it.

  When the beam ends a clear whole of destruction is laid out before me. There is a gray monstrous alien stalking through the forest. It has rough looking gray skin and a black horn on its head. It looks like a rhino walking on two legs. I see a blackened area where my energy beam struck it, but other than that there is no noticeable difference. This is the first time my Energy Beam has made solid contact and it hasn’t been a one shot kill. What do I do now?

  Not knowing what else to do, I quickly start to pull the energy around my fingers and fire my plasma bolts. I start to bombard the alien with red hot bolts of energy. The plasma, responds to my guidance and pours through the opening left by my energy beam. The rhino alien doesn’t even stop. Small pock marks of black appear on his skin, but he doesn’t even seem to flinch when my plasma bolts hit him. The alien doesn’t stop his gait and keeps plowing forward through the forest. Now that he knows where we are, he is heading directly at us.

  Seven bolts of artificial green plasma race over my shoulder as Rachel fires her gun over the shoulder of the rhino alien. I follow the bolt and see a second rhino alien. Rachel must have seen how effective my weapons were on the first alien and she was hoping to catch the partner unaware. Maybe if we could kill the partner, we could figure out some way to deal with the first monstrosity. The artificial green plasma doesn’t even leave a black mark on the monster. The second rhino turns his head and begins to move forward. These creatures aren’t even trying to hide, or block our attacks. Stealth is not important when you can take an energy beam directly to the chest. There is a large cracking sound, which causes me to jump. It sounds like metal popping, but when I look it is just that the alien stepped on a large rock and cracked it. These creatures must weigh tons for it to so casually destroy that rock.

  “What should we do?” Rachel asks. “I’m out of energy on my gun and those things are still coming.”

  The first rhino is only a few feet away now. Its fists start to glow with white hot fire. The fire dancing on the closed firsts. The rhino extends his arms forward, pointing the fire at us. I brace for an impact. An impact doesn’t come instead my world disappears in white hot light. The fire from his fist envelopes me and Rachel and I hear a scream behind me. My shield is offering me a bit of respite, but the fire is still burning our exposed areas. My legs are raw and my pants are burnt off. Rachel’s legs are far worse, third-degree burns covering her legs. Rachel’s hand rests on her leg and it begins to repair. The damn smell of the pig roast is back. This alien has a flamethrower and it has put us on the grill.

  I grab Rachel around the waist and pain shoots through my arm. Red blisters are covering my arm and my tender skin is pressing against the rough jeans she is wearing. It is hard to breathe, the flames have eaten all the oxygen in the air. Despite that, I manage to pick her up and drag her out of the flamethrower. I gasp, “Run.”

  Rachel’s hands are glowing green still healing her legs. There was a lot of damage. Rachel can walk now, and we both take off into the forest. My energy beam starts to charge. This time I will wait for it to get to full blast before I fire. The woosh of the flames ends and I hear crashing and a crackling behind me. I look back. I am shocked as the second alien is running forward, body glowing with white lightning. I manage to put my shield in front of me, but I don’t have time to brace myself. The alien crashes into my shield and there is a loud bang and boom. I hear my arm snap as the reverberation from the impact breaks my bone. The force on that hit must be extraordinary for it to break my bone so easily. Since I was not braced, I am sent flying through the air. I feel my foot clip Rachel as I fly by her and into a tree. A fraction of a second before I hit the tree, I am able to make out the panic on her face. Smack! My vision goes black.

  The next thing I know, I see Rachel above me with her hands glowing green. My vision is cloudy and my thinking is muddled. There is a blackness around the edge of my vision and everything more than three feet away is fuzzy. Rachel is tugging me up as she keeps looking over her shoulder. I hear muffled screaming, “Get up, get up.”

  I try to focus. Why am I here? Why is she so scared? I pull myself to my feet at Rachel’s tugging. Rachel starts to push me forward. Rachel grabs my hand and pulls me. I go with her. The forest branches slap my face as I am pulled along. The slapping of the branches helps me regain some of my senses as I get steadier on my legs. I remember now, I am in the Gate. I hear a crackling; Rachel turns around and her eyes go wide. She pushes us behind a tree.

  There is an explosion of wood and leaves. The once tree is now nothing more than splinters and a broken stump. There is a rhino alien standing behind the trunk. He reaches across the splintered stump and grabs my arm, lifting me up like a child. The pain in my arm snaps me out of my haze. I am fighting for my life on an alien world, and losing. I form plasma bolts on my finger tips and fire them directly into the horned alien’s face. He screams, letting go of my arm and holding his eyes. Rachel and I take the moment to get back up to our feet and run away again. There is a rushing rumbling sound as our the ground suddenly drops off into a cliff. There is roaring waterfall directly in front of us and two terminators behind us. I hold my arm in pain and Rachel’s hands glow green. It itches, but the pain fades.

  “We have to stand and fight,” I shout over the rushing of the waterfall.

  The two rhinos are lumberi
ng toward us now, crashing through the forest. Snapping fallen logs like they are twigs. I reach out and begin to fire my plasma bolts. The red-hot plasma does not even slow them down. I try to guide the bolts to the rhinos faces again, but I can’t focus on their faces enough to get an accurate target. Objects at a distance are still slightly fuzzy. The plasma bolts themselves don’t even form blisters on these monstrosities. One of their hands begins to glow white with flames as they get closer. We are going to be cooked alive standing over this waterfall.

  “Fuck that,” Rachel pushes me over the cliff. I hit the side of the cliff on the way down, but that pain is nothing compared to the fire and strength of the rhino aliens. Hardy finally does me some good with those impacts. If those gray aliens could break my bones, then I am grateful they never got their hands on Rachel. At that thought, I smile and splash in the cold water. The water hits me like a freight train. It clears away all the fogginess that remained from my impact in the tree. I manage to keep my eyes shut while under the water. Before we jumped, Rachel had healed all my wounds so it wasn’t a problem to swim up to the top of the water. Rachel breaks the surface right after me and we both make our way to the shore.

  Afraid to look, I shift my gaze to the top of the cliff. The rhinos are staring over the edge. The one with fire on his hand screams in frustration, sticks his hands into the air and fire erupts into the air. How are we going to defeat these creatures? I imagine them jumping into the water and following us, but they never do. Which is a surprise. We are now on the opposite bank as the aliens, but for some reason they don’t follow us. They probably don’t want to risk the fall. No that doesn’t make sense, anything that can take an Energy Beam directly to the chest must be able to survive a thirty-foot fall. Why wouldn’t they follow us? Rachel pulls herself to shore and she is gasping for breath.

  “Fuck those aliens. Are they invulnerable or something? I saw one take your Energy Beam and keep coming.”

  “I hit him square in the chest, it barely caused him to stumble backward. And my plasma bolts might as well have been matches for all the damage they do.”

  Rachel looks up, and sees the aliens on the cliff. My fears coming to life, they jump the thirty feet down onto the shore opposite us. Rachel scrambles up and I start to charge my energy beam. The aliens land easily across the shore, landing in three-point stances. They stand up slowly and look at us from across the shore. The river is about twenty yards wide and the aliens stop at the shore and glare at us.

  Rachel whispers, “Why aren’t they coming after us?”

  “I don’t know, but I am not going to waste this chance.” I hold up my hand, my energy beam is at full charge now. I let loose. Blue energy lances directly at the alien and he crosses his arms in front of his face. The blue energy starts to smoke and pushes him back a few steps. His arms are badly blistering and I can see raw skin being peeled away. The energy beam ends and the gray alien remains standing; his arms bleeding, but standing. The alien looks at its arms, looks at me, and roars in pain and frustration. Birds fly out of the trees at the sound of the roar, but otherwise we are unharmed.

  Thinking that this will be the end of me soon, I bring my shield in front of myself, ready for the attack. But nothing comes. I look across the river and the aliens are stalking down river to a shallow crossing that is visible. My brain working in overdrive tries to piece everything together. Why wouldn’t the aliens just swim across the river. We can’t stand up to them. They took a max blast energy beam and it only blistered them. Why wouldn’t they enter the water?

  Then it hits me. “Rachel get in the water, the deep end by the waterfall.” I grab Rachel pushing her into the water and nearer to the aliens. At first, she resists, but when she sees me getting in the water, she follows along. “Stay in the water, no matter what, just stay in the water.”

  The aliens have reached the crossing and they are plodding through the shallow water. Good, they do not appear to have seen us. I swim across the river and now I am on the other side of the shore. My energy beam is fully charged. I shout at the aliens and they turn to face me. I find the one that I have already damaged and I let loose another full powered energy beam. The beam light pierces into his flesh and begins to cook his arms. I hear sizzling as his flesh cooks. The alien drops his arms and roars. My energy beam hits him in the face and travels into the soft flesh of this throat. When my beam finally fades, I see one of the aliens stumbling backward holding his mouth. One? Where is the second one? In my focus on burning one of the aliens alive, I lost track of the second one.

  I hear crackling and a shout from Rachel. I brace myself and hold my shield up. I know what is coming from that crackling sound. I don’t dare look over the shield, knowing that any exposing of myself could be my undoing. My shield dents and my arm breaks. My arm flops down since I am no longer able to keep it up. The first time, I wasn’t braced, but this time I am not caught off guard. The bracing helps. I am only launched a few feet and I land close to the side of the cliff instead of crashing into it. I try to stand up but the alien is upon me. It picks me up by the broken arm and throws me deeper into the forest.

  My plan isn’t working, I know what I have to do, I get to my feet quickly and start to run. Not away from the aliens this time. No, I am charging the alien that just broke my arm. I get within a few feet of him and stick my hand out, red hot plasma coalesces on my fingers and fires at the creature’s face. The plasma finds its mark and the alien screams and rubs its eyes. I manage to dodge past him while the plasma has blinded him. I am so close to my goal. Fire erupts all around me. The flamethrower rhino has recovered and now he is roasting me. I dive forward and submerge myself in the river. I try to swim fast, but my broken arm doesn’t allow for it. Instead I do a one arm swim leg kick doggy paddle to get to Rachel. She is thankfully still in the river treading water.

  “Heal me quick.” Rachel reaches out and her green light causes my arm and flesh to itch. It is the best feeling I could imagine right now. I begin to charge my energy beam. The flamethrower alien has stopped bathing the shore in fire. The aliens are standing at the shore, watching us. My beam is fully charged, but I know I will not be able to hold my arm still while treading water. I begin to swim to the opposite shore. The alien that charges begins to run to the shallows again. I reach the shore as he reaches the shallows. It is a race to see if I will have enough time to set up. He is racing across the river. Now is the moment of truth. I get on one knee and brace myself behind my shield. The alien starts to crackle, white light glowing around him. He charges. When he charges, he flies forward at an almost blinding pace. This is the first time I have seen his charge in all its glory. I scream fling my hand forward and I can feel something tear through my whole body. My body screams out as a blue so dark it is almost black flies out of my hand. My body is being drained; it feels like my soul is being stretched out. The beam hits the charging alien and the white energy and the blue energy interact and a shockwave forms and explodes. I am rocked by a concussion wave and the alien is thrown back into the river.

  The alien splashes in the water only five yards away from my wife. My theory will be put to the test right now. Either we win or my wife dies. I scramble to my feet. My entire body is sore and pain shoots through my limbs as I can barely make it to my feet. Whatever tore in my body isn’t letting me off the hook. The flamethrower alien is still out there. I trip and fall as I make my way to the river. The gray alien is only five yards away from me now and I am on my knees. I raise my hand and fire a plasma bolt. I try to hit him in the eye, but he puts up a hand to block the red-hot energy. He is still bleeding from his arms, but he is able to snap my arm. Hardy can go fuck itself. It is supposed to protect me from shit like broken bones. I start to swing my shield trying to bash the alien. My shield flails around, hitting the alien a few times, but doing nothing as the creature uses his other hand and grabs for my head. I dodge my head to the left and try to pry my arm out of his grip.

  You have slain another compe
titor in honorable combat, you are awarded 100x2 experience, 50x2 honor points and 16x2 red sigils.

  I can’t relish the success of my plan; I am still fighting for my life. I fold my shield into an armband and begin to charge my energy beam as my right hand is in his iron grip. I use my left hand and form plasma bolts, this time placing my hand directly against the alien's eye. He lets loose a rasping roar and headbutts me with his horn. My head snaps back and my vision goes white. Thankfully, the pain in his eyes is enough that he doesn’t use this opportunity to crush my skull and his grasping misses my head. I fire another bolt this time up the alien’s nose. Just keep firing. He roars back and I shove my hand in his mouth.

  No one really ever expects a fist in their mouth and he starts to gag. My energy beam is a full charge now and I unleash it directly in the giant’s mouth. The sound of pain erupts, muffled by my fist. My energy beam scorches his throat and head.

  You have slain another competitor in honorable combat, you are awarded 100x2 experience, 50x2 honor points and 12x2 green sigils.

  You have been awarded with 40 Iron I Tokens and 500 experience for your victory.

  Your opponent was ranked higher than you.

  Congratulations you have survived your third Gate War.

  You will be transported back to your world in thirty seconds.

  I collapse to the ground and roll on top of the dead alien. It begins to disintegrate as the looting process starts.

  You have obtained 5 orange sigils.

  You have obtained 340 credits.

  You have obtained Amulet of Reach.

  Amulet of Reach Durability 18/30 Increase the effective range of one of your abilities. Spend ten minutes focusing on an ability to attune this amulet.