Kicking off the wall, he threw himself back around the corner just as a huge chunk of plaster and brick dust blasted in front of where he had just been stood.
10.
Scurrying across the floor on his hands and knees and he scrambled towards the barricade which sat precariously in front of the windows. Behind him, Agnes began revving up her gatling guns as another shell left the man’s chamber, severing her arm which flew through the air, spurting blood like a pressurised hosepipe. She grunted and her chair tipped back from the force of the blast, throwing her onto her back like a stuck turtle.
9.
The children screamed, some cried, a few showed no reaction at all and simply sat under the table, staring into space like zombies. They worried John the most, they had no survival instincts left. Empty shells, waiting for this hell to be done with them. Lilia’s eyes were red and puffy as she threw herself over Agnes, shaking, as she tried to protect her with her body.
“Don’t hurt her!” She screamed.
Charlie, watched on in terror. His screams were the loudest and he covered his face with his blood drenched hands, peeking through his fingers at chaotic scene.
It would be kinder to let them die, his intrusive thoughts broke through again, it was the deeper voice. The one he wished he didn’t have.
8.
Truffle let out a pig squeal but it had no effect on the juggernaut, despite blowing out the glass panels on the one remaining door and adding to the disorienting cacophony all around them. All John could here was the high-pitched din like a flatline as his heart thudded against his chest and a tangy iron taste clung to the back of his throat.
The juggernaut kicked the pig absently, as if he was a mere fly buzzing around his feet. Truffle flew through the air, smashing into the back wall of the Hungry Jack’s and landing with a thud onto the floor. He tried to get up, but his legs gave way and slipped back to the ground.
7.
The Captain screamed something which was inaudible to John, but if he had to guess it was probably a reaction to seeing Agnes take a hit. Recklessly he bounded over a table, his pump action in one hand like the Terminator as he squeezed the trigger and an ineffective shell bounced off the man’s suit.
6.
Beverly’s arm bucked in a horrifying fashion and he lost his grip on the weapon, it flew into the air and dematerialised as it went back into the card in his heart. His arm stood at an odd angle, possibly broken from the recoil of such an idiotic action.
The juggernaut squeezed the trigger of his AA-12 once again and this time didn’t let go. A myriad of shells exploded as he moved the weapon in a sweeping arc across the room, a move more commonly associate with Al Pacino.
5.
Chunks of wall exploded, plaster rained down covering the room in a silt-like fog of white and grey. Plastic chairs disintegrated and bits of tables fragmented. Still, the high-pitched din persisted as John began to climb the barricade.
The shotgun swept ever closer towards him as he scrambled up the side, an almost insurmountable task with a defective arm. Still, he persisted and reached the top, rolling over it and onto the other side just as the upended table, which sat atop the makeshift structure, disintegrated in front of him. Wood showered down around him as he landed heavily on his back. The wind was forced from his lungs as he felt the impact; a thud followed by a burning sensation peppering his lower spine.
Picking himself up, he felt his back and pulled his hand away seeing fresh blood on his fingertips. Looking down he saw broken shards of glass on the floor, slick with bright red blood. His blood. He knew it was a close call. If one of those large, upright shards, which were still held in place by the bottom of the window frame, had severed anything major in his lower back he could have been paralysed. The thought wasn’t lost on him, but he had to keep going.
With no time to dress or properly assess his injury, he pulled himself to his feet and sprinted around the corner of the building, stumbling and almost falling as he summoned one revolver into his hand.
1.
Slamming into the front side wall as he shakily ran, he flicked the cylinder, which didn’t light up with red runes, and pushed through the front door.
This better fucking work!
With both hands, and a numb mechanical tension from his bad arm, he reached up and fumbled, jamming the barrel of his revolver under the rim of the juggernaut’s helmet and up towards his head.
The man flinched and began to turn, bringing the sweeping arc of his still-firing shotgun back across the back wall with him. More bricks turned to dust and The Captain dived onto the floor with wide eyes and a pained grimace as he desperately tried to avoid the onslaught.
0.
Red runes flickered to life like an old neon sign and John could have cheered like a football hooligan as his dragon’s breath cooldown period ended. Ducking down and pressing himself as close to the armour as possible, he squeezed the trigger.
***
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“That was crazy,” Beverly gasped as he looked down at John, trapped beneath the weight of the juggernaut armour. “You saved us, you saved all of us.”
John smiled weakly, one of his ribs was cracked and it pressed painfully into him as the weight of his dead opponent crushed him. Thankfully his gambit had paid off. When the dragon’s breath shell went off inside the man’s helmet it was completely contained by the sheer potency of the armour.
The man’s head was a mushy pulp inside the thing, leaking out gross fluids onto John’s head. He was almost scared to take the helmet off, to see what a mess he’d made inside of it.
“A little help?” He said weakly and The Captain grabbed the dead man’s arm and began to pull with all his strength. John aided him, pushing from underneath and with a lot of pain and effort the two men managed to roll the juggernaut off of John.
“Grandma’s wounded,” Lilia cried, “she’s bleeding really bad.” The girl sobbed as John stumbled towards them, dropping to his knees and inspecting the wound.
It wasn’t a clean cut. Blood seeped from her arm, severed tendons dangled through the edges. Grabbing a knife from her wheelchair, John cut off the leg of his soiled jeans. He then stamped on a plastic chair leg, breaking it off and began wrapping the jeans leg around Agnes’ arm, just above the wound.
Jamming the chair leg into the jeans, her turned it over and over again, as tightly as he could, making a sort of makeshift torniquet which stemmed the flow of blood. It did the trick for now, but John knew it wouldn’t save her life indefinitely. She desperately needed medical treatment and he wasn’t sure that any existed in the game. The bed in The Outback Sleep Shack healed them somehow, but he doubted it could grow back limbs. He wasn’t even sure it could close up a wound this bad, he’d never tried it.
“Hopefully this’ll last long enough to get you through the gate,” he said, “but it won’t keep you alive forever.”
“Thank you, deary,” Agnes said, smiling weakly up at him. Her face devoid of colour as her bloodshot eyes glistened. She looked so old in the moment, wrinkled, pruning skin wrapped loosely over a frail frame.
With a grunt, John pulled himself up from the floor and righted her chair, though she’d only be able to go in circles with a single arm. She had the rocket propulsion but he was pretty certain that was a card power so it likely had a cooldown. Lilia hugged his leg, cold metal making him flinch. She whispered “thank you” over and over again into his one remaining jeans leg, and then she let go.
“Boss,” Truffle said as he staggered dazedly towards the group from the far side of the fast-food restaurant. “If I eat this guy, do you think I’ll get a shotgun?”
“Pigs can’t use shotguns,” John replied, “you don’t have opposable thumbs.”
“Pigs shouldn’t be able to break windows by squealing either, yet here we are,” he replied glibly. “I’m gonna try it.”
“Too late,” The Captain said, looking up from the corpse and grinning. The juggernaut armour was nowhere to be seen. The man laid, mostly intact, in the place where the suit had been. His head looked like a crushed watermelon. “It was a card, a few cards actually. I’ve taken two of them. There are two more here we can give to the kids.”
John and Truffle both looked at each other as the grinning, blood covered man held out two shining metal cards, then John nodded.
“Good idea, do you think those other guys had cards too?”
“They didn’t,” Beverly said in low voice, “I already checked. It was just this guy. Maybe that was why they were gunning for us so hard, they needed our cards to get through the gate.”
“Maybe,” John replied, but he still felt like there was more too it. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Jo Ren is going to make a move on you, watch you back.
Buck’s warning reverberated in John’s head like a thumping Viking battle song. Was this what he’d meant? Surely Jo Ren would have done something grander? The guy was the head of the Jellyfish Collective, a multi-system conglomerate involved with facilitating the game itself. John’s brain hurt as he tried to piece it all together. If there was one thing he was certain of, it was that there was still more pain and fighting to come. Their little alliance needed to be ready for it.
“What do they do?” Truffle asked The Captain, referencing the cards he had taken.
“One of them gives you the juggernaut armour, the other gives you the AA-12. So now, I have two different shotgun cards, armour, and infinite ammo that I don’t have to load. Those are my four cards.”
As he finished up his sentence, Beverly began to glow. His eyes rolled back into his head, his broken arm snapped and cracked back into place like something from a horror movie. Then he refocused, the glow disappeared and he was left panting and grinning wildly on the floor.
“Holy shit,” he panted, “that’s fucking awesome!”
“What is?” Truffle and John said together.
Beverly_Jones: I don’t want to say this out loud just yet since we’re always being watched. But my fifth card just manifested. It fixed my arm and gave me a dual wielding skill that means I can use both shotguns at once, one per hand, without breaking my arm again. My bones are made of some weird alien metal now, I’m like Wolverine!
Truffle: Wow that’s amazing! But where was that concern for privacy a minute ago?
John Doe: That’s useful, having a tank build will come in handy. But how can you use a pump action with one hand?
Beverly_Jones: Hell if I know. I guess we’ll find out.
“Who are you?” Lilia asked, pulling John’s attention away from the chat.
He turned, with a furrowed brow, looking towards the innocent little girl and his mouth fell open with shock and horror.
Stood before her was Joanna, Selina, and Horatio. Selina leaned heavily on Horatio, one of her legs was missing. She looked positively furious as she glared at John, refusing to take her eyes off him.
Before he had a chance to equip his guns, before he could even wonder how they’d managed to get there, Joanna reached out with an evil smile and plunged her hand straight into Lilia’s heart.
The girl gasped as the card was yanked from her soul space. Immediately her metal limbs disappeared and she fell to the floor, gasping like she was going to be sick, as she stared helplessly up at the woman.
“Nice to see you again John Doe,” she said, “Jo Ren sends his regards.”
With widened eyes, John dived towards her, pulling out both of his revolvers. But it was too late, with a grim half-smile, Joanna pointed her palm down towards the crying girl and flames erupted from her.
Lilia screamed, John screamed, and within seconds all that remained of her little, broken body was a few bones as her skin liquified and turned into some weird, molten goop.
His heart beat hard in his chest, the world span, he felt bile burning the back of his throat. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. How could she so easily murder Lilia? Lilia the sweet little girl. Lilia, the girl who wouldn’t have had to suffer if he hadn’t tried to save her. Was this his fault? He knew she was going to suffer if she was kept alive in this game, he’d said it before. He’d failed to kill Joanna multiple times now. After she’d been on that alien talk show with him he’d known she was dangerous. Her manager was dangerous. He should have tracked her down, he didn’t even try. He’d fucked up big time.
Never leave an enemy alive. A voice that wasn’t his own spoke into his mind. It sounded menacing, deep and throaty. This was your fault. You should have tracked her down. You should have ended her. You knew she was dangerous.
“No,” John said forcefully through gritted teeth, a visceral shout akin to a metal vocalist’s growl.
This was her fault. But the voice was right, he was too lenient. Too merciful. Too negligent. Not anymore. This time he wouldn’t mess up; this time he would end her for sure. No hesitation.
Gnashing his teeth like a rabid beast, he raised his revolvers and flicked the cylinders which lit up with red runes. Anger coursed through him, pure, vengeful adrenaline. He focused, pushing away all other emotion, all other thought. It was easy to do with the aid of his trauma nullification and emotional dampening skills. His fingers squeezed the triggers.
The Berserker’s Curse has awakened.