ROD - Chapter 106

Chapter One-Hundred-Six – Thunder – Part Three

Fun fact, did you know that the average person can take a large stick… and go fuck themselves.

-Former WHA Greeter Charles-

Hellfire and black smoke becomes our existence as we move through the stairwell.

“Zero better not have been on that fucking helicopter,” Clayton says, his eyes are wide as we descend deeper into the belly of chaos below. “I will kill every fucking person involved in this fucking stupid attack if she was.”

“Who do you think it was?” I ask, nearly stumbling with Vella on my back. Or at least I think she’s Vella, haven’t confirmed it yet.

“I don’t fucking know.”

Hundreds of WHA personnel are trying to take the stairwells, more and more each floor. The building tremors with thunderous sounds. Fire plumes from some of the doors to different floors.

I feel a strange pulse from the black ring… from Abyss. It doesn’t quite feel like the Abyss I know though.

[ Error Notice: 100 souls have been collected. ]

[ Refine? ]

[ Yes / No ]

Refine? What the fuck? Is that Abyss… wait, is that the Error item that I got from the Chaos Emporium, or an actual error? For fuck’s sake, I don’t have time for this shit right now. I slap the refine.

[ Refining… ]

“Thanks for the play by play,” I groan as I adjust Vella on my shoulder, I’m a lot weaker now that I’m level seven again. Still stronger than the average human since I’m a hunter, but this is grueling with my belly starting to hurt from my wound.

“Play by play of what?” Tran asks.

“Not you guys, Abyss, or it doesn’t matter.”

Tran grits his teeth as he jumps over a steel beam, Clayton jumps with Barlow on his back, shaking the metal steps as he lands.

Barlow’s eyes flit open after he lands, he looks groggy.

“What happened?”

“Long story short, shit hit the fan,” I say, helping him down.

Clayton moves ahead scouting the next floor as Barlow finds his balance on the rails. We follow soon after, the building shakes and another explosion fractures the reinforced concrete wall of the stairwell, dust plumes and the exposed rebar flexes.

My chest tightens as I read the next notification.

[ Error Notice: 100 Souls Collected. ]

[ Refine? ]

[ Yes / No ]

I hit the no, I’m not sure what happens if I don’t refine them, and I doubt… no I hope I won’t get another opportunity to find out.

That’s two hundred people that have died during this attack… I check my Soul Mark on Starman, it’s still active. He’s outside, in the parking garage. Shouldn’t he be helping? No… it’s good he is safe. We need all the heroes for the gates. I’ve already marked Vella, just in case I lose her in the chaos.

“The stairs are collapsed on the next floor,” Clayton says ushering us through the next set of doors after the crowd, “There are four sets on each corner of the building and two on either side of the atrium.”

Our pace is fast, this floor wasn’t bombed, so most of it is intact, though the sheetrock is heavily cracked and the accent panels are popping rivets as they bow. I think this building might actually collapse. Is that what they are aiming for? Who is doing this? Why are they doing it?

Then it hits me… it hits me so hard that I almost stop running.

Nine Chairs were missing from the meeting.

Two of the heroes, or less officially, Champions, were here today including the illegal seventh… was this… was this Marauders? There are supposed to be nine Marauders… nine chairs were empty.

No, one of them is off world, either dead or grinding levels to come back and fuck Earth, so that doesn’t make sense… unless those are their handlers, or minions or whatever. I push away the thought as we reach the very tall atrium, forty floors high by my count earlier. I can see the steady stream of people running from the building below. There’s fire down there too, and scorch marks on the walls. Nearly all the interior glass is broken on this floor and the ones below, half of the exterior that I can see as well. The damage looks like it was deliberate, not every floor was hit. This looks like a highly targeted attack.

“All the stairwells are blocked, the next floor is fucked,” Clayton says, running his hands through his soot stained hair, he’s looking around quickly. The floors above are starting to bend and collapse on themselves, creating an unnatural sway in the building.

“I can…” Barlow begins, blinking twice, “I can get us down… I think.”

“How?” I ask.

He points to the glass ornaments they hang from the top of the Atrium. Some of them have already fallen, the attachment points ripping after the floor above gave way.

“My skill from level ten, it’s Iron Skin.”

Clayton curses then nods, “That might work.” He looks around at our options. “Fuck it, let’s do it.”

Barlow nods, “I just need help getting to…”

Clayton picks him up off the ground and throws him through the air toward a bundle of them. Barlow snatches one of them, the momentum swings him out and then back in, Clayton grabs his ankle, holding him in the air.

“Grab on, uh, we can each hold one of her arms… you sure we need her?” Clayton asks.

Another explosion presses us to move faster. Tran climbs up Barlow’s back and swings his arms around him like a piggy back ride. Clayton and me each lock our arms around one of Barlow’s legs, splitting the weight of Vella between us.

“Activate skill, Iron Skin.”

Barlow’s brown skin shimmers as it shifts to metal. He’ll be able to hold this skill for up to two minutes with his mana pool. Hopefully.

He loosens his grip on the thick stranded metal wire that holds us in the air, we start moving quickly, his hand acts like a brake, sparks are flying and his hand is glowing from the heat of it.

Almost there… almost… the cord of metal snaps as we are near the third floor… fuck… Barlow spins in the air, grabbing all of us in a bear hug and clenching tightly. His hand burns into my back, searing the flesh. Stars fill my eyes as we smash into the large front desk, sending splintered wood flying. Everything hurts, but I’m alive, I look around, everyone’s alive.

“Fuck, my arm’s broken,” Tran groans, he rolls from Barlow’s grasp, “You okay, bro?”

“I think so,” he says, trying to stand.

“No time, we need to move,” Clayton says, grabbing them by the collars and dragging them toward the door, “Come on, Godslayer, run!”

My shoulder aches from the burn and my abdomen is screaming in pain, but I manage to slide Vella onto my good shoulder, if you can call it that. I limp run after them, a large splinter of the desk is in my thigh, thankfully it’s in the meaty part and not next to any major arteries.

It’s the little things.

Outside there are thousands of people flooding the streets and running from the building. I look up at it… it’s collapsing in on itself. Like a professional demo team took it down. Floor by floor, like dominoes it’s shattering.

“Move!” Clayton yells.

Adrenaline is one hell of a thing. I manage to get through the crowd, helping up a guy who was getting trampled as I go. It’s madness… complete and utter fucking madness.

Debris is falling from the skies like lightning strikes from the heavens. The street rumbles as a gas main explodes, sending street caps into the air and fracturing the road, collapsing it to the lower waterways. At least they won’t burn to death… the water runs red and churns as bodies are grinded by cement and asphalt chunks.

A new notification pops up.

[ Error Notice: 600 Souls Collected. ]

[ Refine? ]

[ Yes / No ]

I swipe it away. At least seven hundred people have died in this attack, and we don’t even know if it’s over yet.

“Keep moving!” Clayton yells.

I can barely limp fast enough to chase his shadow through the crowd. Tran is standing again, Barlow looks like his legs are facing the wrong way and his shoulder is definitely out of joint.

A massive cloud of dust and smoke scatters around us as the building fully collapses. Most of us are already a block and a half away. Those that weren’t, the ones that just watched in horror and couldn’t move or run…

[ Error Notice: 1,100 Souls Collected ]

[ Refine? ]

[ Yes / No ]

I want to yell, I want to scream, but all that comes out is ragged breaths as I try to run as fast as I can. Tran is helping me now, carrying half of Vella’s weight.

Why do people have to suck? Why can’t people just work together for the greater good? Why am I so fucking weak? I couldn’t do anything to stop this, I’m supposed to be a hero…

Stop whining. You’re alive. Move your goddamn feet and bear it.

Focus becomes my existence, each step driving my resolve to greater heights.

Hundreds of cars have their alarms blaring from the vibrations of the building collapsing. Clayton is already fist deep ripping the front panel of an old school hippie van with pot leaves on the side and trying to hot wire it.

“Fucking start goddamnit!” he yells, kicking it while his hands hold the wire.

It roars to life with a loud sputtering and Clayton breathes out, “Get in.”

We pile into the back, Tran sitting in front with Clayton. I activate healing skill on Barlow immediately. His skin is charred to hell on his arm. When Iron Skin deactivated, it didn’t take the heat with it. It will take a lot of mana to heal him, Dorliac is better at burns than me, I’ll let her finish them off so they don’t scar. I mend his broken legs and pop his shoulder back in, and fuse four of his ribs back together. That desk and his Iron Skin really helped break the fall.

I turn to look at Clayton, and Tran, Clayton is fine and I splint Tran’s arm with the massive splinter I pull from my leg. I don’t want to waste these healing runes, they are miracles, and these wounds aren’t bad enough to warrant them.

Healing yourself with Healing Skill is a strange sensation, like dipping your body in a cold pool after being in a hot tub while being hung upside down. I don’t have mana to spare and make it pretty, so I staunch the bleeding. Verantha or Dorliac can sort me out later.

I turn to Vella, activating healing on her.

Besides her head injury, she isn’t wounded, then I notice something strange… she’s awake.

I cancel the healing skill, my mana is nearly spent anyway. Yet even after I cancel it, she still doesn’t indicate she’s awake, she’s pretending to be unconscious still… why though? How long has she been faking?

She probably doesn’t realize that healers can tell. The WHA wouldn’t give a hero a healer class in their party, they’d only give them the best, Clerics and Paladins. In fact, it’s rare that Healer class is even considered by the WHA. It’s considered a near dud class for the healing types.

“What’s wrong?” Barlow asks with a groan as he sits up.

“Nothing, I’m good.”

I don’t know what her game is. But I know that she’s extremely strong to have not taken more serious injuries during the blast. Strong enough that with Clayton driving we’d lose a fight. So, I’ll play her strange game and pretend I don’t know she’s awake. That’s one less thing to worry about.

My system interface is blinking with a lot of messages and notices. Probably from Cortez and the team.

I get a sensation from my Soul Mark, a proximity ping. Starman is… close to us, maybe five cars behind. He was in the parking garage well before us though, so why would he be behind us? Was he waiting for us?

What the fuck is going on?