Chapter 24 024: Joy Ride
It was not a good idea to be moving around blind, but it sounded like a war was going on out there, which technically was, but things were getting a little too close for his comfort, and he really couldn't focus on anything else. Cole checked his weapons, and they were now a little too big for him, seeing how he had lost two whole feet in height, they were still functional.
He opened the door, only to find out it wouldn't open up completely. He pushed twice as hard, but his diminutive form seemed to have reduced his overall strength. He solved the problem by carving out the door with his Vibro blade. He stepped out of the janitors closet only to discover a body blocking the door.
On closer look it was two bodies, they had just been burnt so hard that they had fused. Cole clicked his tongue and made his way outside, coming up into the alleyway once again. He swept his current vicinity, noticing with astounding clarity that everything seemed to have changed.
Before the city was on fire or possibly undergoing a riot, but right now it was no longer in flames, but in ruins with a red hue hanging over the atmosphere. It was a scene out of a dystopic movie or an apocalypse. Cole made his way to the entrance of the alleyway, the plaza ahead was almost completely abandoned with just a few patrols of Nijat aliens running about.
He spied a couple of them communicating in their guttural language while loading a massive Hover-Truck with bodies that they seemingly wanted to transport deeper into the station, possibly the coliseum itself. He made his decision immediately and activated Invisibility.
He crossed the street as quickly as he could manage, bringing to bare all skill about stealth he had learnt and gained, and with his now smaller form, no to mention the sound cancellation effect of the armor he had on. He made his way quickly to the truck, literally brushing aside one of the Nijat aliens, to get onto it, and then lay his body in between three other bodies, before canceling his Invisibility, and just in time too as the truck rose to the sky.
Cole felt his stomach lurch for a moment as the speed with which the truck took off, he heard one of the Nijat alien sitting at the front berate and curse at the other that was driving, their language completely eluding him, as the truck made jerky movements, quite a few bodies dropping down from it in the process.
Cole relaxed, waiting mostly for his energy to regenerate as he observed the hell scape he was seeing. Everything was in ruins, and worse was the fact that he had no idea why the bloody Nijat aliens were so damn adamant about destroying everything. So far of all the things that they have been doing, they had not taken a single prisoner.
For a while everything was good without a single shred of a problem, and while he couldn't see much, Cole suspected they were getting close to the coliseum. And that should have been the best case scenario but like everything in life, no plan you make ever survives the battlefield, and it was proven all the more when another truck carrying players pulled up besides the one with the bodies.
Cole suddenly found himself wishing they would just move on, but if there was one thing you could always count on players to be players. He had scarcely finished his thought when one of them pulled out a freaking rocket launcher. Cole could not help but curse out loud.
"Oh for fuck sake!"
Much to the shock of the players and the Nijat aliens still on the truck and probably seeing their lives. Flash before their eyes. Cole got up and jumped, right in the air as both vehicles were moving, crossing the 10 feet chasm separating them to land on the other truck, hitting the player with the docket launcher as inertia from the truck still moving threatened to throw them both off.
Cole grabbed the foot of another player who had his hands on the railing of the truck, and was properly balanced. The guy he had hit on the other hand was thrown off, his few laden voice echoing as he spun into the air and down to the flaming fields of green below.
Cole grabbed the rocket launcher, which frankly speaking was a lot larger than his small frame now. He pointed it in the direction of the Nijat truck and squeezed the trigger, watching on in satisfaction as they were blasted into smithereens, their own truck careening downward to explore in an orchard.
Having seen dozens of documentary about space stations and how they supported life, he knew they were now flying above the station's green house. The green house grew food and most of the Oxygen that the station needed to support it's inhabitants.
"who the hell are you? You killed Gary!"
Cole responded by smacking the rocket launcher into the face of the person who just spoke, shattering his jaw in the process as his body took unwilling steps backwards and took a spill off the truck.
Cole rushed forwards intercepting a gun that was pointed in his direction as he shifted it to the side and right in the direction of the truck's passenger seat. The player there had his head blasted into bits, brain matter and bone splattering his partner who in this case was the driver.
The truck careened to the side, throwing the people on it off balance with two more people falling off, leaving only Cole and two others, his current opponent included, excluding the driver on the truck. But Cole had a body that seemed to now have an abundance of grace, and above all, he seemed to have eyes at the back of his head, which mostly stemmed from his Dominion mastery attached to his perception stat.
Cole had perfect knowledge of everything happening around him within a 3 meter radius. Plus with all of the stats growths, his senses were a lot sharper and his body's control a lot smoother.
The person he was fighting had a little bit of combat experience as he pulled his guns back and attempted to twist it, so as to point it in Cole's direction. But the Raen spawn was a being of grace, even though it was tiny. Cole ducked under it and brought up his Vibro blade, sinking it into the wrist of the player and taking command of his gun as he yelled out in pain.
*Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!*
Unlike his cold fission gun, the gun in his hand was not energy based, so it's projectiles were bullets and they were faster. And frankly speaking, Cole preferred this, if not only for the fact that it's ammunition was finite.
Four shorts, a double tap each for both players left on the truck. One to the chest and another to the skull, standard procedure to make sure your enemies are deader than dead. Cole turned to the last player, the driver showed looking at him with a shocked look on his face, and with no small amount of horror too.
"I suggest you keep driving till we reach the coliseum, once we're there I can consider letting you go….or sending you to respawn. The choice is yours." Cole said to him with a shrug before looking ahead to notice that they were a lot closer to the coliseum than he thought, and there was a massive hole in the sky where the vacuum of space was exposed and debris were flying about.
Unfortunately for Cole, the driver had a different response to his threat as a fireball came flying straight for his face. The ability was relatively weak and only served to push Cole back a little and piss him off. But when the driver pulled out another rocket launcher and pointed it in Cole's direction he knew at that point that all bets were off. So he did the only thing he could do.
*Bang! Bang!*
Two to end his misery, Cole shrugged as the driver slumped over the seat, he counted the five seconds remaining before his body broke up into particles of light of course the blood and vote was still left behind. Cole moved to the roof of the truck about to get into the driver's side of the truck when he heard the sound of a loud whistle, or rather something was whistling through the air.
He turned around just in time to see a small Nijat cruiser chasing after him, and it had just released a module that was rapidly eating up distance as soon as Cole noticed it.
"Oh fuck me!" Cole cursed out loud in annoyance as he turned away.
*Boom!*
And so it all went up in flames, the truck, now a flaming heap of metal fell until it smashed into the well paved paths that led to the coliseum, hitting it the ground with a loud crash as it rolled forwards leaving debris and death in it's wake, before finally exploding for one final time, taking with it all of its denizens, it was over.