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xp_logsEntering the game, our young heroes are impressed with the graphics. However, it goes from wonderful to horrible real fast.
"Whoa..." Xavin held their hands out and stared around. "Holy shit. This is unreal. Look at this. Look at this." The HUD flashed multiple notifications and a map and a setting for a ... "How do I make the notifications go away?"
"Top left corner - there's a minimizer there" came Monica's response. "I went over the player's guide last night." There might have been a touch of smugness in her voice. She hefted the laser rifle in her hands. "These are way more real than I expected. They're definitely heavy enough to be real, you know, apart from the whole laser part."
“Girl Scout knows her stuff.” Maya’s voice was affectionate rather than derisive. She’d done a lot of reading herself in prep for this day. Which was why she easily brought up their mission objectives and the grid map on her head’s up display. Fog of war obscured much of the current battlefield but the area around them was clear of hostiles this early in the cycle. “Looks like it’s a last team standing game. Guess we get to play HunterKiller.”
Stephen hefted his gun onto his shoulder and let a small smirk pull up the corner of his lips, "Well at least we know that we have a big advantage on the competition, they might all be friends who play game together, but we're all that and more. Everything we've been doing has been leading up to this point, to our inevitable victory." He grinned mischievously and winked, "I bet no-one ever thought all those classes would come in useful here."
Clea was looking at their surroundings and walked over to a planet and touched it. If felt real, or her brain was lead to believe. "This is crazy." She stepped back and looked around. She held onto the rifle tightly. "The trailers did not do this justice."
Hanging out at the back of the room, Rahne was trying her best to not throw up a little bit in her mouth. She'd been through the Danger Room simulations, of course, but this was full on immersion and what she was seeing versus what her nose and ears were telling her were at war with each other. Leaning on a wall, she took a couple of deep breaths and tried to concentrate beyond what her senses were telling her.
"Oh aye, 'tis so awesome I might vomit out of joy," she muttered, though she was starting to be able to focus on just the images. If only she could shut her stupid nose and ears off!
Maya was about to respond to that when a large animal, that she barely caught a glimpse of, was on her, biting into her weapon arm and shaking her like a rag doll. She tried to stand, or pull her arm away, gripping the thing’s jaw with the glove of her right hand but it had a lock on her, almost like a pit-bull.
“Shoot the damn thing!”
"Aaaaaaaa!" Xavin screamed and brought their gun around. The first, second and third shots went wild as they moved Maya. The fourth went into the cluster of players. The fifth hit the animal in the head.
Clea responded to the screams behind her and saw a large creature attack Maya. Large, scaly, and looked mean. "Xavin!" Clea yelled when a shot came right at them, luckily not too close to Clea herself. Lifting her own rifle up, Clea ran to the other side to get a better shot. "I don't want to accidentally shoot Maya." Instead she aimed lower and started to aim for the creatures feet. The first shots went into the ground as she wasn't expecting the recoil on the gun. "Ow." She shot again and this time it hit its back left leg.
Stephen almost imagined that he could smell the ozone of the laser as it burned through the air, could hear the shots pinging into the ground and overhead as Xavin opened fire. The teenager twisted, shifting from side to side as he started sprinting towards the creature, one of the lasers sizzling by his cheek as he drove a fist into the side of the creature's face and pulling the trigger as he winced. "These things have a hard head, they actually hurt!"
"Shoot first, critique later!" yelled Nica. She'd shifted so she could get a clear shot, as well as cover the group. "Steve, try and get Maya loose. Clea, Xavin, once she's out of the way, try and focus your fire in this thing's center mass. Rahne, keep us covered - there might be another one out there and we don't want to be surprised."
"Aaaah" Xavin yelled again, shooting at the thing as Steven started working to get Maya loose.
"Would you shoot it already and be careful where you point that thing.." Maya's teeth were clenched against the pain as the animal's jaws sawed at her arm, unwilling to let go despite Stephen's attempts to pull it off. She wasn't sure if the pain was something that was meant to be happening but everything else had been so real up to this point, she supposed it was part of the game. Maybe some sort of neural net built into the helmets? She'd have to ask them when they got out of here. "Just push against the sides of it's jaw, I'm told that works with mastiffs."
Dropping her weapon, Rahne leaped into the fray. "Move!" she barked, knowing she should be keeping them covered but it didn't look like anyone could actually get this thing off of Maya. Her senses were going nuts but she ignored it the best she could now, the adrenaline was pushing her hard even though she kept telling herself that it wasn't real. She shoved her hands into the mouth of the creature and, carefully so as not to completely wolf out, gently pushed the change for her powers. She didn't want to go all wolf or even all the way to the half form, just enough...
She felt the fur grow beneath the gloves, felt the teeth start to elongate and felt that little bit of strength course through her body. 'There, stop and pull!' she thought to herself. And with a grunt, she slowly began to pry the mouth apart.
"Don't stop shooting it!" she gasped, her voice a slightly deeper growl.
“Kill it!” Maya scuttled backwards like a crab, unconcerned about how stupid she might look as she attempted to get as far away as quickly as she could. “Killitkillitkillit.”
"With pleasure!" Stephen stepped forward, waiting just one moment as the...creature, or whatever it was meant to be snarled and bunched up its haunches, throwing itself forward as he pressed his gun forward, holding it against the dripping teeth of the monster as he depressed the trigger once, the monster stumbling to a halt and collapsing down, as if its strings had been cut.
The screams from the creature still echoed as Clea stood in the back of the group, "What the bloody fuck..." She whispered when she heard rustling behind her. "Shit.."
Gracie didn't know where she was, who she was, or what was going on. All she knew at this point was that she was covered in blood, and she didn't know how much of it was hers or how much was Greg's. Oh god. Greg. A shuddering cry escaped through, and she reached out blindly in front her, clasping hard onto the first thing she found. "Oh god, oh god, Greg -- they -- they got him, and oh fuck, I left him but he's dying or maybe he's dead and what the fuck is going on?!" Gracie broke down sobbing, tears leaving streak marks in the dirt and blood on her face. "I think it killed him! IT FUCKING KILLED HIM!"
She was half expecting another one of those things, so when a person came running out and grabbed her, Clea's gun dropped to her side as she steady the girl. Before another word was said, another creature appeared. Grabbing the girl's clothing, Clea pushed both of them to the side just as it pounced landing where the two of them were.
Xavin slammed into it from the side, crouching down and pushing up with their legs, shifting momentarily into a person made almost of rock as the hard-taught lessons in self defense classes came to the fore. Rock up; Hit hard. Guns weren't in the curriculum but this was and they'd drilled it over and over. The creature went flying and Xavin shifted back to a human form, finally, finally bringing the laser gun around to point at it.
Fumbling with her own gun, which she was amazed was still on her, Rahne awkwardly brought it up and opened fire. Everything was a blur now and she blinked away the sweat in her eyes. "I think we need more firepower!" she yelled over the noise, even though she felt really stupid saying that.
Stephen wasn't going to let himself be caught out in the open with one of the creatures like this, the finest athletic instincts at the fore...he ran for cover firing wildly behind him in the direction of the creature. "Something with a little more punch would be nice."
Gracie put her hands over her ears, and closed her eyes. She couldn't take another second of this. Somewhere along the line, she'd lost her gun, and let's be real -- she wasn't a killer. She was a gamer. This wasn't supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen.
"Right, go right." Maya pulled herself back to her feet now that the creature wasn't chowing down on her arm but she could feel the game penalizing her for the injury, that side almost completely non-responsive when she tried to use or move it at all. "It's right side is open!"
She reached the stranger and pulled with her one good remaining hand, trying to get the girl to follow her to where Stephen had retreated to. She might be no good in the fight right now but the least she could do was get this person out of the line of fire.
[Placeholder Zoila]
The right side. Nica saw the opening at the same time as Maya's shout reached her ears and she acted on instinct, finger squeezing the trigger and spraying the creature with laser fire. It began to wheel around to counter the threat, but the damage was too great - it got only a few steps in Nica's direction before collapsing in a bloody heap.
Nica, heart pounding and gasping for breath, lowered her gun. "All right," she managed to say. "That was a little too real."
"Whoa..." Xavin held their hands out and stared around. "Holy shit. This is unreal. Look at this. Look at this." The HUD flashed multiple notifications and a map and a setting for a ... "How do I make the notifications go away?"
"Top left corner - there's a minimizer there" came Monica's response. "I went over the player's guide last night." There might have been a touch of smugness in her voice. She hefted the laser rifle in her hands. "These are way more real than I expected. They're definitely heavy enough to be real, you know, apart from the whole laser part."
“Girl Scout knows her stuff.” Maya’s voice was affectionate rather than derisive. She’d done a lot of reading herself in prep for this day. Which was why she easily brought up their mission objectives and the grid map on her head’s up display. Fog of war obscured much of the current battlefield but the area around them was clear of hostiles this early in the cycle. “Looks like it’s a last team standing game. Guess we get to play HunterKiller.”
Stephen hefted his gun onto his shoulder and let a small smirk pull up the corner of his lips, "Well at least we know that we have a big advantage on the competition, they might all be friends who play game together, but we're all that and more. Everything we've been doing has been leading up to this point, to our inevitable victory." He grinned mischievously and winked, "I bet no-one ever thought all those classes would come in useful here."
Clea was looking at their surroundings and walked over to a planet and touched it. If felt real, or her brain was lead to believe. "This is crazy." She stepped back and looked around. She held onto the rifle tightly. "The trailers did not do this justice."
Hanging out at the back of the room, Rahne was trying her best to not throw up a little bit in her mouth. She'd been through the Danger Room simulations, of course, but this was full on immersion and what she was seeing versus what her nose and ears were telling her were at war with each other. Leaning on a wall, she took a couple of deep breaths and tried to concentrate beyond what her senses were telling her.
"Oh aye, 'tis so awesome I might vomit out of joy," she muttered, though she was starting to be able to focus on just the images. If only she could shut her stupid nose and ears off!
Maya was about to respond to that when a large animal, that she barely caught a glimpse of, was on her, biting into her weapon arm and shaking her like a rag doll. She tried to stand, or pull her arm away, gripping the thing’s jaw with the glove of her right hand but it had a lock on her, almost like a pit-bull.
“Shoot the damn thing!”
"Aaaaaaaa!" Xavin screamed and brought their gun around. The first, second and third shots went wild as they moved Maya. The fourth went into the cluster of players. The fifth hit the animal in the head.
Clea responded to the screams behind her and saw a large creature attack Maya. Large, scaly, and looked mean. "Xavin!" Clea yelled when a shot came right at them, luckily not too close to Clea herself. Lifting her own rifle up, Clea ran to the other side to get a better shot. "I don't want to accidentally shoot Maya." Instead she aimed lower and started to aim for the creatures feet. The first shots went into the ground as she wasn't expecting the recoil on the gun. "Ow." She shot again and this time it hit its back left leg.
Stephen almost imagined that he could smell the ozone of the laser as it burned through the air, could hear the shots pinging into the ground and overhead as Xavin opened fire. The teenager twisted, shifting from side to side as he started sprinting towards the creature, one of the lasers sizzling by his cheek as he drove a fist into the side of the creature's face and pulling the trigger as he winced. "These things have a hard head, they actually hurt!"
"Shoot first, critique later!" yelled Nica. She'd shifted so she could get a clear shot, as well as cover the group. "Steve, try and get Maya loose. Clea, Xavin, once she's out of the way, try and focus your fire in this thing's center mass. Rahne, keep us covered - there might be another one out there and we don't want to be surprised."
"Aaaah" Xavin yelled again, shooting at the thing as Steven started working to get Maya loose.
"Would you shoot it already and be careful where you point that thing.." Maya's teeth were clenched against the pain as the animal's jaws sawed at her arm, unwilling to let go despite Stephen's attempts to pull it off. She wasn't sure if the pain was something that was meant to be happening but everything else had been so real up to this point, she supposed it was part of the game. Maybe some sort of neural net built into the helmets? She'd have to ask them when they got out of here. "Just push against the sides of it's jaw, I'm told that works with mastiffs."
Dropping her weapon, Rahne leaped into the fray. "Move!" she barked, knowing she should be keeping them covered but it didn't look like anyone could actually get this thing off of Maya. Her senses were going nuts but she ignored it the best she could now, the adrenaline was pushing her hard even though she kept telling herself that it wasn't real. She shoved her hands into the mouth of the creature and, carefully so as not to completely wolf out, gently pushed the change for her powers. She didn't want to go all wolf or even all the way to the half form, just enough...
She felt the fur grow beneath the gloves, felt the teeth start to elongate and felt that little bit of strength course through her body. 'There, stop and pull!' she thought to herself. And with a grunt, she slowly began to pry the mouth apart.
"Don't stop shooting it!" she gasped, her voice a slightly deeper growl.
“Kill it!” Maya scuttled backwards like a crab, unconcerned about how stupid she might look as she attempted to get as far away as quickly as she could. “Killitkillitkillit.”
"With pleasure!" Stephen stepped forward, waiting just one moment as the...creature, or whatever it was meant to be snarled and bunched up its haunches, throwing itself forward as he pressed his gun forward, holding it against the dripping teeth of the monster as he depressed the trigger once, the monster stumbling to a halt and collapsing down, as if its strings had been cut.
The screams from the creature still echoed as Clea stood in the back of the group, "What the bloody fuck..." She whispered when she heard rustling behind her. "Shit.."
Gracie didn't know where she was, who she was, or what was going on. All she knew at this point was that she was covered in blood, and she didn't know how much of it was hers or how much was Greg's. Oh god. Greg. A shuddering cry escaped through, and she reached out blindly in front her, clasping hard onto the first thing she found. "Oh god, oh god, Greg -- they -- they got him, and oh fuck, I left him but he's dying or maybe he's dead and what the fuck is going on?!" Gracie broke down sobbing, tears leaving streak marks in the dirt and blood on her face. "I think it killed him! IT FUCKING KILLED HIM!"
She was half expecting another one of those things, so when a person came running out and grabbed her, Clea's gun dropped to her side as she steady the girl. Before another word was said, another creature appeared. Grabbing the girl's clothing, Clea pushed both of them to the side just as it pounced landing where the two of them were.
Xavin slammed into it from the side, crouching down and pushing up with their legs, shifting momentarily into a person made almost of rock as the hard-taught lessons in self defense classes came to the fore. Rock up; Hit hard. Guns weren't in the curriculum but this was and they'd drilled it over and over. The creature went flying and Xavin shifted back to a human form, finally, finally bringing the laser gun around to point at it.
Fumbling with her own gun, which she was amazed was still on her, Rahne awkwardly brought it up and opened fire. Everything was a blur now and she blinked away the sweat in her eyes. "I think we need more firepower!" she yelled over the noise, even though she felt really stupid saying that.
Stephen wasn't going to let himself be caught out in the open with one of the creatures like this, the finest athletic instincts at the fore...he ran for cover firing wildly behind him in the direction of the creature. "Something with a little more punch would be nice."
Gracie put her hands over her ears, and closed her eyes. She couldn't take another second of this. Somewhere along the line, she'd lost her gun, and let's be real -- she wasn't a killer. She was a gamer. This wasn't supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen.
"Right, go right." Maya pulled herself back to her feet now that the creature wasn't chowing down on her arm but she could feel the game penalizing her for the injury, that side almost completely non-responsive when she tried to use or move it at all. "It's right side is open!"
She reached the stranger and pulled with her one good remaining hand, trying to get the girl to follow her to where Stephen had retreated to. She might be no good in the fight right now but the least she could do was get this person out of the line of fire.
[Placeholder Zoila]
The right side. Nica saw the opening at the same time as Maya's shout reached her ears and she acted on instinct, finger squeezing the trigger and spraying the creature with laser fire. It began to wheel around to counter the threat, but the damage was too great - it got only a few steps in Nica's direction before collapsing in a bloody heap.
Nica, heart pounding and gasping for breath, lowered her gun. "All right," she managed to say. "That was a little too real."
