We go in, beat up so low rank rezzers, and make so fun eddies! Its a good way to get your na 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 so deets before I do sothing like this.
She looked at for a mont before sighing. Okay co with . She demanded and faux grabbed my wrist to tug along. I eventually relented and rose to follow. She led back through the door she had entered and into a It reminded 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 sothing 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 so far?
Sort of. Why, though? Why would a netrunner 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 sothing special you co in show it off, and you might get soone, or multiple soones interested, then you trade for better hacks, or data, or equipnt.
I never heard about this place before.
Which is weird! She suddenly exclaid, arms waving. Even kiddy scripters hear about it! The fact you dont know is super weird! So here we are! You back 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 too late 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 net.
Which was a truly uncomfortable feeling. This server wasnt normal. The restrictions, and setup was odd. Truly odd. I could feel foreign code slam down. Rules of the server architecture that
It was a ga. I was in a ga. I twitched, wanting to rip the entire thing apart and get out of here, but I an
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 confird 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 flatly not at all amused. Did you just walk into the arena while explaining what this place 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 plasma that ripped a hole straight across the arena towards the other side. The blast distorted the data in the way, smashing through every piece of terrain the arena had created.
A mont later she snapped her fingers. Aww. That sotis works. Killing them before they leave their starting zone.
Great. Im tead up with a spawn camper. I muttered in realization.
Sasha was a toxic gar.
Fuck.
I hurried to escape the spawn point not sure what the fuck was gonna happen in retaliation, and I did so just in ti.
A Missile? It looked like a missile, or lots of them anyways, shot over the terrain and then ca down in a mass towards our entrance. Slamming into the little locker room and exploding constantly, a barrage of damage, that I was able to see beyond the display, and realize it was tearing apart data that was struck. A virus, and a nasty one.
Looking around I realized that Sasha was completely missing.
Bitch. I muttered and then breached into the server around . 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 out of this ss as I started breaching. Whoever we were against wouldnt have access to the server right? They would have to breach in too, so they shouldnt notice?
Fuck if I know. Fuck if Sasha had given a chance to figure out what the fuck was happening!
Finally I broke through. The entire server architecture displayed before my eyes.
Then it reconfigured, and Those fucking gonks.
I was looking at a minimap. Whoever designed this arena planned for a breach of access and set it up so that if you slipped through the defenses you could get a mini map
Which ant soone might know where I was. I quickly removed my information from the system, my stealth Daemon activating as I had access now. It appeared beside since the breach was complete. The Face Hugger burst away from , going invisible as it did, and it spread, each Daemon it would find it would help blind in their eyes.
That left Sasha and
Two were still there, two big red dots that were netrunners. Dozens of smaller ones that were Daemons, and one green one. Sasha.
Sasha was fighting them. I could see her green dot running around blasting massive server breaking attacks at them, but together they seed to be defending.
I considered it. I could just fucking leave. Let Sasha take the loss
But I was also pretty competitive, and while this was a ss I had walked into, it was also Sasha.
For the girl I had watched die so many tis Yeah fine. I would deal with this.
But I didnt have the programs for this. What Sasha and the enemy netrunners 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 Kahaha waves around like Sasha had just done! My hacks were mostly Anti-Daemon tools. Sure Hell Fla wasnt sothing a netrunner wanted to touch, but it was easily defended against by anyone competent.
So I would just have to be sneaky.
I couldnt program sothing 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. The netrunners we were fighting must have activated it. It was a pretty common grunt Daemon, but it was designed to look like a soldier, and ca in a squad of five.
Their faces were already covered by my face hugger daemon so they didnt notice That gave a chance.
I breached one of them. If I had a Cyberpsychosis hack I could probably cause them so 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 fla almost echo the heat of my Cyberdeck heating up.
I cast the hack five tis, each of them only barely moving. Just a fla 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 , 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 nu pop up.
Thats right.
Daemons killed ant XP for 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 digital landscape. It was an aspect of breaching. Basically instead of using my normal virtual movent, I was just force moving myself through the architecture.
Then I landed on top of the highest point, giving not just a minimap view, but also an actual view of the arena.
It was a giant circle. Trash piles ant to block sight and movent. With paths in between.
And I could see the battle. Sasha was zipping around sending out massive attacks that disrupted the terrain every ti. While the two netrunners 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 . 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 monts later they burned into digital slag.
*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 equipnt 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 the latest kills, I heard it. Scrambling claws.
The Daemons had reacted to the loss of each other and was coming to investigate.
I moved, hiding away and throwing up so garbage data to conceal myself, as three of the scout dogs arrived. They sniffed at the lted 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 .
Fortunately they were also already infested with my Daemon.
Which made these weak daemons completely incapable of being a threat to , 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 Fla hack I had once made in a rush so long ago, and a longsword made of fla arced out of my hand as I cut through the daemon.
Its data deleted in a massive arc caused the digital program to collapse.
*250 XP Gained.*
The two dogs left both turned to . My Daemon might keep myself out of sight, make it harder to see , but sothing like this would still break the stealth.
Both dogs howled. Alerting the netrunners that they had discovered , and then charged.
One slamd 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 Fla, blasting the Daemon as it jumped at . And it landed in a heap half burned away already.
Then I walked over and cut down the last dog that was too bogged down.
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
Everything went quiet for a mont, 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 net I must have finally clicked over. I luxuriated in the mont of knowledge slipping through. But I refocused, I wasnt safe here. I checked the update from my net chair, showing 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 another netrunner standing on top of the pile of garbage. Have fun derezzing my search programs?
Honestly its kinda fun. Nice to et you. I offered a friendly greeting. Just because this was a weird betting arena, didnt an we shouldnt be civil.
Aww. arent you a cute one. So 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 ga is played you know? Nothing personal.
Then I heard it. A heavy stomping. I looked towards where the dogs had co running and cursed.
These guys are just rezzers. I mocked. Itll be easy, just let handle it. I continued as I stared at the burning Daemon that was a digital hazard, lting 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 scurrying away. This one wasnt set into a dying server. The netrunner looked proud as his Daemon finished loading and then it locked onto .
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 .
It was slow. Much slower than I was, so I quickly decided on a battle plan.
Just stay the fuck away from it.
It lost direct sight of quickly enough, and instead of trying to hide, I knew what I had to do.
Sasha might have pulled into this nonsense, but if I ignored it, then good chance, she would have to face it as well. That Daemon is not sothing she could handle along with both netrunners at the sa ti.
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 so garbage leaping over it and then right into an array of five of the soldier daemons.
One was blasted from a full strength Hell Fla. Another was cut in half and it distorted its form glitching unable to stay coherent. I continued on and turned slamming up an ICE shield, letting it absorb the array of lights the three remaining Daemons fired at .
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
The three couldnt reach though. Despite their shared attacks, my ICE wall absorbed attack after attack.
I used that mont to cool down. I could feel my Cyberdeck cycling and only once I was cooled off did I prep another three attacks lting the daemons down.
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
I checked the minimap.
Sasha was still fighting, and the two netrunners were back together.
I guess they didnt expect to be able to handle their Daemon. The daemon I noticed was catching up to .
I moved at a normal speed, trying to give my cyberdeck cool down ti. 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 , 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 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 glass 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 , 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 slamd 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 scread out in challenge, but the two netrunners didnt react, just stayed together. Both n worked in sync to prep more attacks, to prep more Daemons to distract her and with.
Probably more a distraction for than anything.
The mont 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 is coming. I dont have anything that can handle it. I warned, but Sasha just laughed. You leave offense to then! Maybe breach the server if you can! I could use so 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 ti a missile struck them.
Playing defense was already starting to overwhelm , but it gave Sasha the mont 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 sothing else!
Reviews
All reviews (0)