HPDBC Chapter 4 – Sight seeing Samurai Style
Chapter 4 – Sight seeing Samurai Style
Chapter 4 – Sight seeing Samurai Style
“With the advent of alien incursions, the deterioration of the climate, and the rise of megacorporations and 80 hour work weeks, the tourism market suffered greatly. Most people could not afford to make even short day trips, so most amusement parks and entertainment establishments shut down. These days the entertainment industry almost exclusively focuses on catering to the rich and powerful.”
- “A History of the Amusement Park”, written by Jeremy Parker, 2036
“Are you okay?” Chloe asked as she stopped a pace away from me, getting to her knees to check me over.
“I’ll live,” I muttered, then rubbed my face before I looked at her, “You have no idea how fucking glad I am to see you.” And I meant it too.
She smiled, then looked at the people behind me, “Everyone else okay?”
Worry was evident in her voice, which made me like her even more. Not many people cared a lot about the kind of person working around this area.
“Yeah, I think... Panicked but okay.”
She nodded, then looked me over again, before her eyes stopped at my new bracelet. “Wait... What’s that?”
I followed her gaze to my wrist, then showed it to her, “Hard-Light emitter. Figured it was my best option,” I shrugged, giving her a sheepish smile.
“You’re a Samurai?” She asked me with wide eyes.
“Newly minted,” I said with a chuckle, “That gun you gave me was a miracle worker. Without it I’d be xeno chow by now. As would the people behind me. Had to fend off like, what, ten aliens? before Kaysa told me about the Vanguard and shit.” I laughed, “Imagine that, some cheap whore who only cares about cumming her tits off high on drugs becomes a Samurai.”
In reply Chloe snorted, shaking her head, “Well, that’s how life goes. Maybe one day I can tell you the story of how I ended up with an alien AI in my skull. But right now we have to move. The streets aren’t safe.”
I nodded, calming down at her words. She was right, this wasn’t the time to dilly dally.
With some effort I got back to my feet, helped by Chloe who pulled me up. I gave her a warm smile as thanks, feeling infinitely better already just by having her here. She smiled in return, a warm smile that made my heart beat a bit faster.
“I’ve cleared the way to the shelter so far,” she said, once again checking on the people behind me, who had started to murmur quietly. “I still recommend you keep your guard up. Wouldn’t want to see your pretty face get hurt,” she gave me a smirk and I winked at her.
I greatly appreciated her worry over me. It made me... very happy.
It didn’t take long for everyone to get ready to move and Chloe stepped forward.
“Stick behind me,” she said, giving me another warm smile which I answered with my own, before she took off.
Her pace was slow, slow enough for me to pay close attention to our surroundings.
“Kaysa, how’s my emitter looking?” I muttered quietly, while I tried to find any xenos before they had the chance to jump my charges.
Your emitter is still at 81% charge, slowly recharging. Even then, you have more than enough points to obtain more batteries in case of emergency.
“Great... Can you pull up like a little indicator on my HUD? I mean, I know my augs are shit, but the HUD should still work for that, right? Oh, and do the same for the points please. The notifications can be a bit distracting, especially if a lot of shit is going on.”
As you wish.
A moment later my HUD changed. In the bottom right of my vision two new additions popped up, the first was the same nearly naked Fox-Woman holding her arm across her chest, with a stylised emitter visibility indicated. She had a small little box next to her reading ‘82%’. Huh, even during our short conversation it had recharged a little. That was good to know.
The second indicator was the same woman using a very clear copy of my metal dildo-club to smash a model Threes face in, with cartoonish exaggerations like her being mid jump, legs spread wide. It had another box next to it reading ‘107 points’.
Looking at the images I snorted, “You do love that imagery, don’t you?”
Considering your appreciation for your own appearance and the fact that Kitsune are typically known to seduce people to steal their soul, it did seem fitting.
“Wait, is that the reason you recommended that catalogue?”
Not originally, no. What I have said about the usability of that catalogue holds true, but you have to admit that it is a fun coincidence that you share so much with the theme of the catalogue in question.
“Can you try and stop them from getting too far from the entrance?” She asked, smiling warmly at me again. That smile took a lot of my tension away and calmed me down a bit.
I smiled back, before I looked once more at the xenos still munching happily on dead teenager.
“I can try. What’s your plan?”
“I have some lures and grenades. They will make some noise, but they are good at dealing with groups.”
I nodded, “Okay, I’m ready when you are.”
Chloe motioned the others to stay back a bit, then knelt down. A box appeared next to her, which she opened, grabbing the four grenades inside. I noticed that her box didn’t have any decorations and looked a lot cheaper than my own.
She gave me a questioning glance and I nodded, acknowledging my readiness. She nodded in turn and without wasting time threw the first grenade behind one of the old cars parked in front of the fast food joint.
When it stopped there wasn’t any big explosion, like I had expected. Instead I heard a low whistle, and soon all the aliens turned towards the direction the grenade had landed in.
I kept myself ready to project a shield wherever I needed to.
Once the xenos had started to group up next to the grenade, sniffing around, Chloe threw the next one. This one had barely landed when it emitted a loud screeching noise that had me grit my teeth. It took all the willpower I could muster not to hold my ears at the sound.
Whatever the grenade did though, it worked wonders. Before I even realised what was going on, the closest xenos had already started melting. Some were quick enough to escape the bullshit grenade, while some had been outside of the range entirely, but at least half of the aliens had started to melt, bits and bobs of mulched alien flesh dripping down their bodies.
The survivors looked around, probably trying to find whatever had thrown the ear tearing melting thing.
None of the xenos seemed fully coherent though, because I was pretty sure one of them glanced at me and still didn’t jump me immediately. Chloe didn’t waste any time and started to lay into the stumbling survivors. I quickly followed suit, arm pointed at one of the closest xenos. “Bullet,” I muttered once more, and soon a shiny new hole decorated the alien’s skull.
I wanted to shoot more, but by this point the couple of survivors did figure out what was what and started to move in our direction. So, to make sure nothing could come close enough to maul us, I started flinging shields left, right, and center. Any movement got a shield from me, ending with the alien crashing into it with a satisfying crunching sound. It stalled them enough for Chloe to pick them off, one by one, until nothing was left.
This time though we didn’t wait to see if there’d be more, instead Chloe motioned us to move, so we moved.
With a light jog we made our way past the fast food joint, giving it a wide enough berth so to not accidentally step on dead alien or human for that matter, before sticking close to the graffiti covered wall on the other side of the street. From here the shelter wasn’t far, but I didn’t dare relax yet. We had to go around two more corners with a good bit of street in between.
Once we arrived at the first of those aforementioned corners Chloe once more looked around, with me close behind. I saw her eyes wander up and down the street, before she nodded. The entire procession followed her around and down the street, until she suddenly held up a hand, and dropped to the knees. We, no dummies, quickly followed suit, all hiding behind one of those old school convertibles that was more rust than actual metal. When I leaned into it I could feel the door bending inwards and a small rain of rust fell out from under the car.
“Model Six,” Chloe whispered next to me, dragging me away from my thoughts about safety hazards on the streets, and back to reality.
In front of us, some fifty or so meters away, was a small group of model Threes, one of the bird thingies but much larger this time, and a six legged... ursoid thing at least my height. They didn’t seem to care much about anything as they slowly made their way into our direction from one of those rentable parking garages that old people usually go absolutely bonkers over.
“Can we deal with that?” I asked in a whisper, barely loud enough for Chloe to even understand me. She nodded, then pulled the magazine out of her giant pistol and put it into one of her many pockets. A moment later another magazine appeared in her outstretched hand, this one with much meaner looking bullets.
“I need you to deal with the smaller fry,” she whispered to me, eyes still focused on the big model Six.
I nodded and raised my arm, readying myself for the fight ahead.
Chloe took aim, waited a couple of moments, then pulled the trigger. A very loud bang rang out, much louder than before, and the upper half of the model Six nearly disintegrated, bits of xeno splattering in every which direction before it slumped.
I didn’t wait for them to get a grip and immediately send a couple of projectiles into their direction, although only half of them actually hit their target in such a way that they died. The problem was that they were quicker with running than I was with killing them. Luckily for me though I had Chloe with me, and soon the last of the aliens died just before it could jump over the convertible. It did have the unfortunate side effect that when it died it crashed head first into the convertible, which groaned and squeaked, before fully falling apart in cartoonish fashion.
I didn’t have time to think about what that meant for the cars driving around the streets in these parts, Chloe was already waving us to follow.
The rest of the street was quiet, and soon we arrived at the last corner leading to the shelter. I looked behind, checking if our friends were okay. I saw Tina and Sharon both holding hands. Sharon was doing okay, but Tina looked... bad.
After playing peekaboo around the corner one last time Chloe motioned us again to follow, weapon raised but obviously relieved. And I understood why, the moment we came around the corner. In front of the entrance to the shelter I could see four people, some gang members probably, who had rifles and stood guard.
Letting out a long breath I didn’t realise I had been holding, I relaxed a bit. Safety at last.
I have a Discord!