Continue Online (Part 3, Realities) (59 page)

"The systems are going out. We're nearly dead weight," Jeeves said while shaking its head back and forth.

"No, we're doomed! But the other players are still online, I know it! If those twerps made it through, so can we!" Eggman shouted happily despite the bolts streaming around nearby.

What exactly were they conducting off of? It was like this place still had some semblance of gravity, but no longer had actual mass. Our war with the AIs must have truly turned this place into a bizarre madhouse planet. It could be the game just messing with settings for impact.

I didn't have control of our destination. It was perhaps for the best, my ability to pilot felt like a drunk person driving sometimes. The prior fuel usage and constant course corrections were all my fault.

"Brace yourselves!" Treasure shouted. Our ship rocked as another trail of lightning went by. The interface I was watching faded out as electricity rippled through. This bolt must have been close enough for some of the branches of energy to reach across to us. I frantically tried to figure out if we were full of negative or positive ions, but nothing came to mind. We had to be a bit of both with energy
[Core]
s, but portions of Advance Online didn't follow outright science.

I mean, I was a metal creature who stole minerals and elements from a ship in order to upgrade myself. We traveled through space into mass teleportation relays and came out the other side. Jeeves and I had fought a space eel. Our ship drove like a car without an Auto-NAV. Clearly the AIs that managed this place thought science only existed when it didn't interfere with the game elements.

"Ahhhh!" Eggman screamed. The rest of us watched our
[Core]
energy bars fluctuate rapidly. He huffed and pressed a button at his waist. Red blots appeared along one meaty arm, but after the ability activated they slowly vanished. He must have triggered a player potion or nano-machines, whatever future tech excuse allowed for health recovery.

Seconds later our ship was bumped, and this time the collision was unkind. "She's on us again." Treasure said after trying repeatedly to access her console. It flickered in and out.

"Don't we have shields?" I asked.

"Not with all this ambient energy," she responded.

"Your pal's right, we're doomed!" Eggman put a fist in the air and jumped up and down. His form shimmered a bit with a green glow.

"Fine! I'm not driving, and I'm tired of her following us!" If they didn't need me to drive this hunk of metal, I needed to try another means of keeping us safe. I unbuckled and pushed myself by Eggman's bulky form. He rolled into a wall and almost crushed Dusk and Jeeves.

"What are you doing, Hermes?!" the chubby player demanded. We were like two large pigs trying to pass each other in a narrow hallway.

"Being stupid, but we're going down one way or another, and I'm not letting her follow us anymore." My brain was already trying to plot out the calculations. At the right angle, there would be enough force for me to leap between ships. From there I could bring the
[Stabinator]
down. My abilities could easily take out an enemy's vessel, especially since our shields were constantly being drained by the lightning.

We had a small ladder in the back. I pushed up through the hatch.
[Anchor]
activated swiftly and my hand glommed onto the hull. Eggman screamed at me as oxygen whooshed out. Dusk chirped and clanked in behind me. It took less than a minute to get myself outside and seal the hatch behind me.

Jeeves' voice came out over the intercom, "Are you sure this is wise?"

"No! Try to stay close!" I wondered briefly what my sister would think about these next few actions. My head shook back and forth. I readied myself to jump. Space combat without the
[Blink]
skill felt exhilarating. If it hadn't been for Xin, Jeeves, and Treasure behind me I would have truly enjoyed this.

"That won't be a problem, Hermes, at this point gravity and propulsion will do the work for us. You have less than five minutes before we breach the clear zone," Treasure said over the system.

"Okay! Are we going that slow?" I was an idiot, one with a metal body who couldn't actually die in this game. Treasure and Jeeves might be able to resurrect me on the other side of this. Maybe, but this recurring nightmare of a boss had to go.

"Through this? We must not rush, it takes time to correct course and avoid the worst strikes," Treasure said.

"Ham?" our mostly broken enemy questioned. I was unsure what game mechanic justified her ability to break across our lines.

Both legs bunched,
[Anchor]
deactivated, and I leapt through space toward a looming
[Stabinator]
. The vessel's size was downright imposing but impossible to miss. My body slammed into the accelerating vehicle. I had no idea how fast we were going, or how much gravity was impacting us. I did know the action hurt as inertia sent me rolling around the hull.

I landed on a spike's rounded edge, my back bent painfully over the damaged weapon.
[Anchor]
activated again as I slammed both hands down to try and get purchase before slipping away into the great unknown. A small chirp of noise came in right behind me. I looked up and saw Dusk, angry and upset at our slippery situation.

He had mastered traveling on the
[Wayfarer Seven]
's hull. Auntie Backstab's ship was not nearly as easy to get around on for either of us. I wasn't sure where to start with my demolition plan.
[Anchor]
fluctuated wildly with each minor lightning strike passing by. Dusk seemed to be timing his hops between spikes, I followed him, only stopping when he did.

Our path was aiming for a hatch near the underside. Probably used by normal people to board the ship. We passed through huge dents, broken spike pits, and portions of the ship that was covered in tar.

"Treasure! Jeeves!" I shouted. They didn't respond. Our connection was full of static. Whatever space nonsense we were flying through felt like hail and ruined my senses. Only Dusk's bouts of chirping noise kept me together long enough to get to a hatch, and let myself inside Auntie Backstab's giant ship.

Inside looked nothing like the
[Wayfarer's Hope]
. Our ship was rather streamlined, with a few seats and displays for all the
[Mechanoid]
s to operate at. This vessel was like a cage where the wall had been pounded back repeatedly in spots. Layers of dents existed inside and a few actual chunks of a wall were missing.

I didn't have time to sneak. Crawling across the ship's hull had taken at least a minute. We were still moving forward rapidly. Inertia kept me balanced, but this ship had no gravity. If Auntie Backstab noticed me then this mission would turn sour. I felt unsure about breaking into this broken Captain's personal vessel. She clearly had anger issues and damned impressive willpower. Maybe she would have been perfectly fine if it weren't for Commander Queenshand's stance on the
[Mistborn]
.

Thinking like that made this a million times worse. My hand went up toward one of the less damaged looking panels. Both eyes closed and I took a breath.
[Material Conversion]
went into action. A microwave ding and whir of noise accompanied the increase in mass. Fifteen seconds later and I was near the halfway point and managed to suck up an entire panel of wires.

"Ham? Is that Ham?" Auntie Backstab's giant body, which sat roughly twenty feet away, gradually started to turn.

"No," I whispered. Dusk turned and chirped. I wished that Auntie Backstab had been human, stopping her vessel from following us would have been simply by venting us into space. Instead, she was comprised of two races that didn't care about oxygen that much.

Not everything in her ship was made of metals. There appeared to be a sort of rubbery plastic mixed in with the walls. It might have been the only thing which prevented her constant abuse of the ship's inside from leaving lasting damage. My efforts neared the three-quarters mark of maximum mass before a lightning bolt disrupted everything. The enlarged body briefly stuttered as extra mass around me could no longer be supported.

It fell to the ground in clumps of metal clay. Warm heat spread through my feet and made me regret drinking too much water before getting into the ARC.

"Ham?" she said again. The chair didn't seem capable of turning all the way, gears ground and a clicking sound came forth.

"Has she slowed down?" I asked the others on my intercom, hoping that absorbing half the wiring back here had helped.

"Negative, Unit Hermes, and we will be through the cloud in minutes. Whatever you seek to do must be accomplished posthaste," Jeeves answered.

Dusk chirped. I couldn't wait for my energy to recover fully. How long had it been since we started? One minute? Two? How much longer did we have in this freakish storm with the
[Stabinator]
tearing us apart?

I became desperate and ran for Auntie Backstab's control panel. She looked out of it that maybe it was possible to remove her method of controlling this ship.

"Ham!" Seeing me move into her line of sight caused the giant to start shaking with eager rage. "Make you metal man soup!"

I ducked toward the ground and put both hands on a large panel's base. It looked important, and just seconds ago the half
[Behemoth]
had been pressing buttons while staring through a screen.
[Material Conversion]
dinged again and the panel started melting as metals were sucked out of the side. I tried to grip my hands tighter as she wiggled to get out of a large harness.

"You killed my ship!" Her foot kicked me in the gut and I lost part of my grip. The console she had been using started to fold like wet cardboard. I gave it a few swift kicks while trying to clutch my wounded side. Even a weakened Captain Backstab hurt like hell.

She got out of her harness, and I managed to absorb enough mass from the hull to spawn two Dusk shaped minions. I saw the real Dusk leap in as well, all three started tearing at the large creature.

"Hermes?" Treasure said over our communications.

"Here." I didn't have the breath for more than one word. Being a
[Mechanoid]
didn't override my normal mental instincts. When in outer space, I still took a breath frequently, when kicked I still gasped with pain.

"The enemy vessel shows all navigation controls are offline, you need to return quickly before we exit the cloud," she said.

I rolled away from a stomping foot. Lightning rippled by and my energy bar fell apart. The two metal Dusks turned into puddles and glommed onto Captain Backstab, slowing the giant down slightly. Her swings no longer had the strength to break them apart.

Dusk was busy clawing and stabbing. The boss' health bar had been overwhelming on the
[Knuckle Dragger]
, but now it actually took damage.

I didn't have time to hang around and try to finish her off.

"Metal people will not escape!" She started stomping at the broken control panel. The ship lurched forward and the vessel's engines started rotating us wildly. Both myself and the boss were bouncing around the cabin.

Spikes hung loosely off of chains. I had no idea how this ship managed to spin while still retaining any sort of ability to chase the
[Wayfarer's Hope]
, and I needed to get outside. It was too late, she grabbed my shoulder and dragged me slowly inward to that grossly deformed maw. My free arm clawed at the ship's side, trying to find purchase and keep using
[Material Conversion]
. The ability had saved me before, even now it was brokenly useful.

I threw out another metal Dusk as my energy rapidly recovered. The lightning bolts kept disrupting my
[Core]
but recovery was oddly fast. The small being of metal started biting. The boss' eyes glazed over as she tried to pull me in. My fingers were absorbing enough mass that the outside of the ship could be seen. Auntie Backstab was near death and kept trying to eat my arm as we tumbled around.

"Ham." She wasn't looking directly at me. The monstrous amalgamation operated on vague instinct to pursue food.

My fingers kept trying to grab a wall but slipped. The vessel's constant bouncing motion made it like trying to use chopsticks to pick up water. My
[Messenger's Pet]
managed to jab Auntie Backstab in the face repeatedly which delayed the monster. Another metal version of Dusk spawned from my
[Mechanical Minion]
ability. A fresh bolt of lightning disrupted my energy bar and the accumulated metal bits fell onto Auntie Backstab. As the metal re-solidified it seemed to trap large portions of the half
[Behemoth]
's body.

Finally, she froze.

"Hermes! You must return!" All around us, things still spun. I managed to get back to the rear hatch and Dusk chirped behind me. I reached one arm out and tried to grab on as everything whirled. It was too much, too sickening.