Chapter 164
We go in, beat up some low rank rezzers, and make some fun eddies! Its a good way to get your name out too! Sasha offered practically bouncing despite being in cyberspace.
What kind of battles? I dont like the sound of Combat Zone, and Sasha, really I need some deets before I do something like this.
She looked at me for a moment before sighing. Okaye with me. She demanded and faux grabbed my wrist to tug me along. I eventually relented and rose to follow. She led me back through the door she had entered and into a It reminded me of a locker room.
Okay Motoko, here is the deal. We are 2v2. There will be a couple of amateurs on the other side. We beat them. No killing, but you do your hacks to disable them. They will get tugged out by the system if something goes bad. Its all safe as can be. Hasnt been a death in the Combat Zone in years. And that was practically a suicide. Follow me so far?
Sort of. Why, though? Why would arunner show off their hacks like that? Isnt that dumb?
Eh. You dont really bring in the best of the best stuff that you want to keep secret, and kiddy scripts arent going to be new to anyone. But yeah if you got something special youe in show it off, and you might get someone, or multiple someones interested, then you trade for better hacks, or data, or equipment.
I never heard about this ce before.
Which is weird! She suddenly eximed, arms waving. Even kiddy scripters hear about it! The fact you dont know is super weird! So here we are! You back me up. I can handle this myself if I have to, but I have to bring a +1 for the double battles. So just sit back and let Senpai Neko-Nyan
Im not sure I want to jump right in Sasha, Id kinda rather watch to get an idea of whats going on first. Besides my hacks aren-
Oh its toote for that. She interrupted, and then suddenly I felt it. I was pulled from the server I had been on before, and instantly moved to another section. I couldnt even fight it, as it felt more like the entire server section I was in dropped deeper into the.
Which was a truly ufortable feeling. This server wasnt normal. The restrictions, and setup was odd. Truly odd. I could feel foreign code m down. Rules of the server architecture that
It was a game. I was in a game. I twitched, wanting to rip the entire thing apart and get out of here, but I mean
It was a little intrusive with how I had just dropped in, and I didnt know the rules, but I quickly pinged the system and confirmed that the rules would keep anything from going too wrong.
Suddenly the far wall of the locker room burst apart into data revealing what looked like a recreation of a garbage dump beyond.
Sasha. I said tly not at all amused. Did you just walk me into the arena while exining what this ce even is?
Yep! Put down a bet on your behalf as well! She said with a wink.
Dont kill her Motoko. Dont kill her. I whispered to myself. I just saved her. Killing her would be a mistake
Wooo! Sasha cried out as she charged ahead, and then threw out a hack. The data coalesced from her hand in a stream of white hot sma that ripped a hole straight across the arena towards the other side. The st distorted the data in the way, smashing through every piece of terrain the arena had created.
A momentter she snapped her fingers. Aww. That sometimes works. Killing them before they leave their starting zone.
Great. Im teamed up with a spawn camper. I muttered in realization.
Sasha was a toxic gamer.
Fuck.
I hurried to escape the spawn point not sure what the fuck was gonna happen in retaliation, and I did so just in time.
A Missile? It looked like a missile, or lots of them anyways, shot over the terrain and then came down in a mass towards our entrance. mming into the little locker room and exploding constantly, a barrage of damage, that I was able to see beyond the disy, and realize it was tearing apart data that was struck. A virus, and a nasty one.
Looking around I realized that Sasha waspletely missing.
Bitch. I muttered and then breached into the server around me. Its defenses were strong. Probably to stop people from doing just what I was up to, but I hadnt been seen, and I wasnt going to.
I could hear explosions and sounds of fire, and wind, and even the noise of many footsteps all rushing around, but I remained hidden. Using everything I knew about staying invisible to keep me out of this mess as I started breaching. Whoever we were against wouldnt have ess to the server right? They would have to breach in too, so they shouldnt notice?
Fuck if I know. Fuck if Sasha had given me a chance to figure out what the fuck was happening!
Finally I broke through. The entire server architecture disyed before my eyes.
Then it reconfigured, and Those fucking gonks.
I was looking at a minimap. Whoever designed this arena nned for a breach of ess and set it up so that if you slipped through the defenses you could get a mini map
Which meant someone might know where I was. I quickly removed my information from the system, my stealth Daemon activating as I had ess now. It appeared beside me since the breach wasplete. The Face Hugger burst away from me, going invisible as it did, and it spread, each Daemon it would find it would help blind me in their eyes.
That left Sasha and
Two were still there, two big red dots that wererunners. Dozens of smaller ones that were Daemons, and one green one. Sasha.
Sasha was fighting them. I could see her green dot running around sting massive server breaking attacks at them, but together they seemed to be defending.
I considered it. I could just fucking leave. Let Sasha take the loss
But I was also prettypetitive, and while this was a mess I had walked into, it was also Sasha.
For the girl I had watched die so many times Yeah fine. I would deal with this.
But I didnt have the programs for this. What Sasha and the enemyrunners were throwing around was way beyond what I had.
The programs I had picked up from V3L0CITY way back, had been on his server storage. They werent his best, but hacks he didnt use anymore, or just found and thought they were interesting. I wasnt throwing Kamehameha waves around like Sasha had just done! My hacks were mostly Anti-Daemon tools. Sure Hell me wasnt something arunner wanted to touch, but it was easily defended against by anyonepetent.
So I would just have to be sneaky.
I couldnt program something fast enough to matter here, but I could at least act as support, and maybe an assassin.
This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
So I got up and started moving. As I did I walked around a corner and had to duck backwards. A Daemon. Therunners we were fighting must have activated it. It was a prettymon grunt Daemon, but it was designed to look like a soldier, and came in a squad of five.
Their faces were already covered by my face hugger daemon so they didnt notice me That gave me a chance.
I breached one of them. If I had a Cyberpsychosis hack I could probably cause them some trouble, but I didnt have anything like that installed.
Considering what I did have installed
I walked up behind them, made a quick modification of the upload rate of my hack and activated it, feeling the heat of the me almost echo the heat of my Cyberdeck heating up.
I cast the hack five times, each of them only barely moving. Just a me sort of hanging in the air, before I released them all at once.
The fire shot forward towards the five Daemons that were walking away from me, and had no clue I was around.
Instantly all four took the hit and burned into nothing.
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
I blinked at the little menu pop up.
Thats right.
Daemons killed meant XP for me Okay maybe after bitching out Sasha after this I might think about forgiving her.
I took off, moving through the server as fast as I could. I wasnt so much walking, as forcing my position to change on the digitalndscape. It was an aspect of breaching. Basically instead of using my normal virtual movement, I was just force moving myself through the architecture.
Then Inded on top of the highest point, giving me not just a minimap view, but also an actual view of the arena.
It was a giant circle. Trash piles meant to block sight and movement. With paths in between.
And I could see the battle. Sasha was zipping around sending out massive attacks that disrupted the terrain every time. While the tworunners worked together on defense, assisting each other.
One was constantly activating more Daemons. The soldiers I saw before, a search program shaped like a dog, and a mass amount of flying I.M.Ps.
The daemons werent doing much as most of them searched the arena, probably for me. But the rest focused on Sasha, disrupting her mass AOE hacks, forcing her to stop attacking the runners and protect herself.
I should probably go help.
On the other hand. She wanted to handle it on her own and got herself into this situation. And that was a lot of Daemons wandering around.
I turned and leapt, disappearing as I breached close to another group of soldiers.
A few momentster they burned into digital g.
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
And that was worth it all. XP. Easy XP. Non murder focused XP.
I didnt have the equipment for this really. I was only able to ambush the Daemons, because of my own. But I couldnt really mass kill them as fast as I would like.
And it seems I couldnt do it stealthily. Before I even moved away from thetest kills, I heard it. Scrambling ws.
The Daemons had reacted to the loss of each other and wasing to investigate.
I moved, hiding away and throwing up some garbage data to conceal myself, as three of the scout dogs arrived. They sniffed at the melted still on fire remains of the daemons I had hit and then started their search subroutine.
They were actually pretty low tier. I could tell that just from one look at them. Their bodies were slim, but had bulky sections where inefficient code left them awkward. And their search function was literally to just go in circles from the start point. They were circling around in ever expanding circles trying to find me.
Fortunately they were also already infested with my Daemon.
Which made these weak daemonspletely incapable of being a threat to me, as I threw out my ICE hack. Instantly the one I targeted was coated in digital ice, slowing it down to a crawl as I charged in.
I pulled up a modification of my Hell me hack I had once made in a rush so long ago, and a longsword made of me arced out of my hand as I cut through the daemon.
Its data deleted in a massive arc caused the digital program to copse.
*250 XP Gained.*
The two dogs left both turned to me. My Daemon might keep myself out of sight, make it harder to see me, but something like this would still break the stealth.
Both dogs howled. Alerting therunners that they had discovered me, and then charged.
One mmed into a shield, its form distorting a bit as it was bogged down by junk data, while I focused on the other one, I sent off another Hell me, sting the Daemon as it jumped at me. And itnded in a heap half burned away already.
Then I walked over and cut down thest dog that was too bogged down.
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
Everything went quiet for a moment, which was good, because I also had another alert that was taking up all my attention.
*100 Quick Hack XP Gained.*
*Quick Hack skill level up!*
Quick Hack 9. I had been using so many hacks on the I must have finally clicked over. I luxuriated in the moment of knowledge slipping through. But I refocused, I wasnt safe here. I checked the update from my chair, showing me my internal temperature was raised, but nothing terrible. I was okay still.
Ah there you are. A voice called out and I looked up to see anotherrunner standing on top of the pile of garbage. Have fun derezzing my search programs?
Honestly its kinda fun. Nice to meet you. I offered a friendly greeting. Just because this was a weird betting arena, didnt mean we shouldnt be civil.
Aww. arent you a cute one. Some one-byte runner that the stray cat dragged along? Yeah, I looked you up already. You dont have a record in the arena. Sorry about that one. The cat has a rep Listen, we cant be gentle about this as long as you dont quit, just how the game is yed you know? Nothing personal.
Then I heard it. A heavy stomping. I looked towards where the dogs hade running and cursed.
These guys are just rezzers. I mocked. Itll be easy, just let me handle it. I continued as I stared at the burning Daemon that was a digital hazard, melting the trash around it, as it deleted and warped data in a space around it.
A Balrog.
I had only faced one of these before, and it had sent me scurrying away. This one wasnt set into a dying server. Therunner looked proud as his Daemon finished loading and then it locked onto me.
Oh fuck this. I muttered and took off. Using every bit of my breaching skill to move as far from that thing as I could.
It followed, roaring a challenge as it stomped after me.
It was slow. Much slower than I was, so I quickly decided on a battle n.
Just stay the fuck away from it.
It lost direct sight of me quickly enough, and instead of trying to hide, I knew what I had to do.
Sasha might have pulled me into this nonsense, but if I ignored it, then good chance, she would have to face it as well. That Daemon is not something she could handle along with bothrunners at the same time.
So I would be the bait keeping it busy.
And while I did that, I would go murder a bunch of Daemons. I had a minimap after all.
I turned and ran up some garbage leaping over it and then right into an array of five of the soldier daemons.
One was sted from a full strength Hell me. Another was cut in half and it distorted its form glitching unable to stay coherent. I continued on and turned mming up an ICE shield, letting it absorb the array of lights the three remaining Daemons fired at me.
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
The three couldnt reach me though. Despite their shared attacks, my ICE wall absorbed attack after attack.
I used that moment to cool down. I could feel my Cyberdeck cycling and only once I was cooled off did I prep another three attacks melting the daemons down.
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
I checked the minimap.
Sasha was still fighting, and the tworunners were back together.
I guess they didnt expect me to be able to handle their Daemon. The daemon I noticed was catching up to me.
I moved at a normal speed, trying to give my cyberdeck cool down time. As I considered what I could do.
Sure I could run around and clear up the groups of small Daemons they had sent out. And it would benefit me, but it wouldnt do much for Sasha
Ugh! I groaned, aloud because despite my own greed at having XP bags just wandering around. Sasha was on her own, and whether people died or not
Sasha was still my choom. Even if she didnt know me well, and I didnt know her well. Even if she had put herself into this situation, even if she didnt understand why I was so connected to her.
The image of her falling. Of ss glittering around her, ran through my mind.
An image of her smile. The smile she carried into death.
It was stupid. I barely knew her, and she barely knew me, but Dammit I respected her even if she was a pain in the ass.
I couldnt handle this Daemon, but I bet Sasha could.
I shifted where I was going.
I arrived as another of the missile barrages mmed into the area Sasha had just been standing.
When the smoke cleared almost instantly after Sasha was fine, a barrier of light stood before her. Immovable.
That the best you got!? She screamed out in challenge, but the tworunners didnt react, just stayed together. Both men worked in sync to prep more attacks, to prep more Daemons to distract her and me with.
Probably more a distraction for me than anything.
The moment after, a group of Daemons spawned in, the soldiers instantly pointed and started pelting shots at Sasha.
I could see her frustration.
Which is why I teleported in right next to her, instantly my defenses activated, ICE wall absorbed the shots, and started spawning in Barriers as well.
Wha? Kitten!
Its Ghost. Im on defense. Also a big Daemon ising. I dont have anything that can handle it. I warned, but Sasha justughed. You leave offense to me then! Maybe breach the server if you can! I could use some info!
What? Oh, I breached the server already! I called in response, as I started throwing up ICE and barriers wherever I could as another missile barrage arced in, and those were nasty. My Barriers slowed them, but I had to remake the ICE each time a missile struck them.
ying defense was already starting to overwhelm me, but it gave Sasha the moment she needed.
I nearly flinched as she lobbed what looked like a star straight towards the runners. And the attacks instantly stopped as they desperately switched to defense.
It smashed into them, and a howling noise of distorted data reached my ears.
Pretty terrifying considering just where we were.
Hehe! See Kitten! Look at how amazing Senpai is! Sasha crowed out in delight at her attack, but I just huffed at her.
They blocked it! Do something else!