As Mary worked on whatever she was doing at the security terminal, Erika raided the stash of gear in the room looking for anything that might help them out. Thoughts of the men she’d killed were fresh in her mind. The armor they wore didn’t seem to help much, but she couldn’t help but wish she still had some. Digging through the lockers, she found stacks of the uniforms everyone was wearing in different sizes, but checking the tags confirmed they were just cargo pants and jackets made of stiff canvas. The vests were sturdier, made of kevlar with some kind of ceramic plates sewn in, but they didn’t help the men they’d shot. Giving up finding armor as a loss, Erika started to move on, but noticed something weird as she did.
A simple looking silvery pendant on a thick cord of black woven material lay on a stand next to the armor. It was a weird place to leave a piece of jewelry. A cheap looking one at that. As cheap as it looked though, something about it appealed to her. It wouldn’t help with their current predicament, Shrugging, she slipped the cord over her head, the cord stretching a bit to barely fit over her ears. Settling the piece of jewelry into place, she moved on to the weapons.
More of the same pistol that she had at her hip had her briefly fantasizing about dual wielding them, but common sense caught up to her quickly. Superpowers or not, she wasn’t some ambidextrous master markswoman that could use two pistols at once. Realistically, she wasn’t entirely sure she was good with one. Before today, she’d never actually shot any gun before unless the ones in video games counted, and she didn’t think they did. Moving on, she saw more of the rifles and grabbed a few more clips to shove into her belt and the pockets of her jacket before she saw something that grabbed all of her attention.
It was a stubby, blocky looking weapon that looked straight out of a sci-fi movie, but it was something she’d seen before in the hands of a cop in the portal. The slightly rounded grip on the front, the wide barrel set into a blocky frame, and the hefty looking butt in all black painted metal and plastic. It was a shotgun. The dream weapon in zombie movies.
Gingerly, Erika pulled a shotgun off the rack, marveling at the heavy weight of the solid weapon. It felt comfortable in her hands. She wanted this gun. Copying the movements she’d seen in movies, Erika pumped the shotgun, enjoying the metal ratcheting sound it made. Now she just needed to figure out how to load it. Glancing at her friend, she saw Mary still tapping away at the computer. She didn’t want to bother her friend. How hard could it be to figure out?
It turned out, figuring out how to load the gun wasn’t that intuitive, but luckily she found a manual for it stuffed next to a box of shotgun shells labeled “slugs” for some reason. Shrugging, she skimmed the manual to find some handy diagrams showing how to load and shoot the weapon and copied it, slowly loading in eight of the shells from the box.
But before she could get that excited, Mary swore. “Fuck, I think they figured out where we went!” Mary’s words made her stomach drop as she returned to the monitor cradling the shotgun in her arms, the rifle still hanging across her back from a strap. The video feed flipped to a camera right outside the security room where a handful of armed men slowly approached and set up large metal barriers across the hallway. Weapons pointed out at the door as one of the men approached and pressed a keycard against the door’s security panel, only for the door to remain closed.Then he pounded on the door.
Erika and Mary jumped as the room filled with the sound of the man pounding on the door like a drum.
“We know you’re in there! Come out and you won’t get hurt!”
“There’s no way they think we’ll believe that do they?” Erika asked quietly.
“They’re idiots. They probably think everyone else is just as stupid as them,” Mary whispered back.
Despite the situation they were in, Erika couldn’t help but giggle quietly. It was exactly the kind of exchange they’d have at the cafe
***
“Urgh!” Erika grunted, knocking over the last locker in front of the door. Straightening her back, she heard something pop as she wiped sweat from her brow. Turning to Mary, she watched her friend furiously typing on her keyboard for a moment. “How’s it going?”
Mary groaned as she focused on the screen, lines of incomprehensible text running past her in a plain black window as she typed. “They’re not supposed to be this good… Oh fuck, the door!”
Whirling around, Erika looked at the door mostly blocked with a pile of tables and lockers chest high, just in time to watch it slide open. Raising her shotgun up, she pumped it as the first armed man started to rush in and bounced off the barrier with a curse. But before she could laugh about it, a rifle appeared above the barrier and pointed at her. Acting on instinct, Erika pointed the shotgun just below it and pulled the trigger, a loud boom filling the security room as a hole appeared in the table and the rifle dropped from sight. Her shoulder ached like someone punched her as the recoil hit
“Fuck! Chad!” someone yelled from the hallway as the door slid back shut.
*Ding!* You have defeated Human Thug (Class F) x1! You have gained 500 EXP! Congratulations!
“Got the door back, but they’re fighting for it! Get ready!” Mary shouted.
Glancing at the security camera feeds, she watched several men dragging another back behind one of the barriers they’d set up, leaving a trail of blood behind. Swallowing back the acrid taste that threatened to come back, Erika shoved a new shell into the shotgun and pumped it. Watching the security monitor, she saw as the men outside stacked up again on either side of the door. As she watched, she saw another man carrying what looked like a battering ram sidle to the front, just next to the door.
Aiming her shotgun at the barricaded door again, Erika tried to clear her head as she took a deep breath. How the fuck did she get into this mess? What the fuck was she going to do. The door started to slide open again. Fuck! Erika placed her finger on the trigger, ready to fire, but hesitated as nothing appeared. Flicking her gaze to the monitor, she was just in time to see the man with the battering ram swing it into the impromptu barricade, making the stack of tables and lockers shudder and screech. Erika pulled the trigger blindly as she looked back at the door, her shoulder absorbing the recoil of the weapon and leaving it aching. Ignoring it, she pumped the shotgun and fired again, aiming between the first hole in the table and the second she’d blindly made and squeezed the trigger. Once, twice, three times, new holes appeared in the thin metal of the table before she heard something heavy clatter to the ground outside.
Trained as she was on the new holes in the door, she saw the barrel of a rifle stick through and point at her. Following her instincts, she dove to the side, hearing something whistle past her ear as she narrowly avoided the return gunfire. Across the room, she heard Mary spill out of the chair to the floor before returning fire. The staccato of rapid gunshots filled the room for a moment before another scream of pain came from outside and the rifle barrel disappeared. Pulling her shotgun back at the door and the now shredded barricade, Erika awkwardly scrambled to her feet just as the top table cracked in half from another heavy blow. As gloved hands appeared to grab the edges, she fired again and again, emptying the shotgun as they disappeared.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
After what felt like hours, but what must have only been less than a minute, the door slid back shut again.
*Ding!* You have defeated Human Thug (Class F) x2! You have gained 1,000 EXP! Congratulations!
The barricade they’d thrown up in front of the door was looking like a pile of scrap metal now. It was clear from the holes that it wouldn’t stop any bullets. The top table was riddled with holes already, massive ones from Erika’s shotgun, and a bunch of smaller ones from the rifles. The battering ram they were using wasn’t helping matters either. No, as good as the barricade had been at keeping the criminals from just rushing in and shooting them both, it didn’t truly protect them and they were sitting ducks.
“We can’t just sit in here and wait,” Erika finally mumbled, staring at the half destroyed barrier.
Mary didn’t respond as she typed in a frenzy. Not wanting to interrupt whatever her friend was doing, Erika started to reload the powerful weapon one shell at a time. Something told her that if they just kept waiting around in this room, the next time that door opened would be the end for them. Moving over next to the barricade, Erika glanced at the security monitor as she watched the men hurriedly breaking down the shields in the hallway and push them to the side. The reason why was soon apparent as a hulking suit of power armor came marching down the hallway to stop outside the security room door.
“Surrender to Professor Panic now, or die,” a gruff, mechanical voice shouted through the doorway.
“If you don’t let us go, I’ll set off the self destruct!” Mary screamed at the door.
Erika hoped her friend was bluffing, but also that the goons outside fell for it.
“You have ten seconds.”
Mary wasn’t bluffing. As she forcefully hit a key on the computer, the flashing red lights came back as a maniacal mechanical voice cackled. “Three minutes to self-destruct. You’ll never take me alive heroes! Muahahahahahaha!”
“That was prerecorded,” Mary said awkwardly as she pushed herself out of the chair and shouldered her rifle and pointed it at the door.
As Erika copied her friend’s stance, something in her broke, and she couldn’t help but smile as amusement washed over her. “Of course it is!” Erika laughed. “Hahahaha!”
After a couple chuckles, Mary joined in with fitful giggles, the two girls standing there with weapons pointed at the door, waiting for an explosion to come.
There was just something so ridiculous about this whole week! Taken hostage by a trio of cringe-inducing assholes, then fired for being late because of them, then being sucked into a portal and getting superpowers, only to die to a supervillain lair’s self destruct because she tried to help her friend who needed to make rent? It was just ridiculous!
As the two girls laughed, they heard the mechanical voice outside start to count down, unfazed by the alert even as they saw the other goons running and flooding out of the base in a panic.
“Ten…”
“Nine…”
“Eight…”
The two girls’ mirth died as the security door suddenly dented in and shook the barricade. A quick glance at the monitor revealed the mechanical brute pulling its fist back to throw another punch that further dented the door, ripping part of it off the sliding track. Erika saw a flash of matte black metal through the crack as another punch rocked the door. Through the new gap, beefy mechanical fingers grabbed the side and started to pull on the door, the shriek of tearing metal cutting through the sound of the alarm.
“Two and a half minutes left hero! You’ll never catch me!”
Following her instincts, Erika took a couple steps forward as she aimed at the fingers, and pulled the trigger, not expecting to do much more than piss off whoever was in the power armor. To her surprise, she saw one of the fingers explode in a mix of blood and shrapnel as her round slammed into a joint purely by chance.
“Aargh! You bitch!” the goon screamed. With an angry roar and the crunch of metal, the man ripped the door out of its frame as Erika and Mary unloaded on him.
Mary’s rifle didn’t seem to do much, the rounds ricocheting dangerously off the armor, but Erika had a bit more success as another of her slugs slammed into his chest, leaving a noticeable dent. But it wasn’t enough. Before Erika could pump the shotgun again, the man heaved the heavy metal door at them, forcing the two to scatter as he kicked the barricade aside.
Narrowly avoiding the thrown door, Erika rolled back to her feet, her enhanced stats making her body feel as light as air. In no time at all she whirled back around just in time to see the man turn and stomp towards Mary.
“I’ll kill you and your friend, traitor!” he screamed, power walking towards her.
Without thinking, Erika pumped her shotgun again and fired at his back, leaving another sizable dent and throwing the man off balance. “Hey asshole! Pick on someone your own size!” As the man started to lean down to grab Mary, Erika fired into him again and again, leaving more and more dents in the armor until she finally hit something vital and one of the suit’s arms fell limp.
Snapping herself out of it, Mary scrambled away from the armored man but she was too slow as the mechanical giant managed to grab her rifle, crushing it in his grip as he hauled her back with it. With his left arm unresponsive, the man turned around and whipped Mary at Erika!
Acting on instinct, Erika dropped her shotgun to catch her friend, only to go down in a tangle of limbs as the smaller girl slammed into her chest face first. The pain of the impact was muted, but it was still hard enough to drive the air from her lungs with a pained gasp and knock her head against the unyielding concrete floor. Despite her purchased power, the blow to her head left her woozy and all she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep, but she didn’t have time for that. Disentangling herself from her friend, Erika pushed herself back up as the man in power armor stomped towards them. “Get up and run!” she yelled.
Mary didn’t seem injured as she scrambled to her feet, but Erika couldn’t help but realize just how slow Mary was compared to her. Whatever else her stat points did, one thing became clear. She was far stronger than a woman her size should be, and it was time she used it. As the man in power armor stomped towards them, Erika pulled her knife as she explosively lunged forward, using all eleven of her points in Strength to propel herself as fast as an Olympic sprinter into the hulking suit of power armor.
“What the—” the mechanical voice shouted, swiping at her with his working arm.
Adrenaline coursing through her veins, Erika ducked under the swipe and started to tumble, but she rolled into the fall to slide between the power armor’s legs. With all of her strength, she stabbed the dagger deep into the armor’s hip, feeling something crunch beneath the blade before sinking into soft flesh.
“Argh! You bitch!” the armored man screamed as he tried to turn and swipe at her.
Abandoning the dagger, Erika quickly rolled out of the way and up to her feet as the man tried to chase after her, only for the suit’s left leg to remain still. Sparks shot out of the power armor’s hip as he tried to move, filling the security room with the smell of burning plastic.
“Damnit, get over here!” the man screamed, stuck in place.
Cautiously approaching the suit of power armor, Erika watched it swipe at her in futility, the damaged leg keeping it stuck in place. An idea popped into her head. Ducking under another aggressive but pointless swipe, Erika closed in, moving to the damaged left side. Reaching up, she gripped the damaged armor by its bad shoulder and pulled until it started to tip over before she retreated. The power armor teetered a moment as the pilot frantically clawed at the air with the suit’s one good arm in a desperate attempt to keep his balance, but it wasn’t enough. With a muffled yelp, the armor toppled backwards, crashing to the floor hard enough to shake it.
Like an angry turtle, the man flailed as he tried to right himself, but the armor was too heavy and inflexible.
Stepping away from the flailing hulk, Erika turned to see Mary staring at her with wide eyes.
“Two minutes heroes! Muahahahahahahaha!” The alarm taunted.
“What’re you waiting for?! Run!”
