Episode 4.2 - Armageddon

Even without the telescopes, we can now see the flashes, the distant thunderclaps of blue in the far distance. It's like you can feel it in the air, a faint ozone of something electrical, of the world's walls collapsing. Talk about a buggy game, man...

"Hey, errr, 'mistress'," I stutter, looking out on watch as instructed, means I don't have to make eye contact for this at least.

"Ya, what dog?"

"Don’t call me– That is, I just, look, I mean - I might have gone too far, in the past that is - I just thought you should know before the very end that I, sorry ya know?" That ought to be an adequate reconciliation, right?

"Pft, pah, hahahahaha," the grating laughter fills the air behind me, and I have to suppress a cringe. "You utter piece of shit! You're purely saying that, right here and now, because you finally have doubts, right? You're solely doing it to make sure you can hitch your wagon to me if this is the end of days - you don't mean a word of it!"

"I, ah," well, shit, it was worth a try.
     "Ya maybe, no, sure. You're totally right, ok? But not just for that, for those two as well." My cheeks flush, 'those two' can of course hear this just fine, I'm real glad I have my back turned, "They like you, and I like them, and I don't want my or their worlds to end, alright? So, what do you say, can we bury the hatchet? Maybe?"

"Ha, in your back perhaps!" Lila crackles, I can all but picture her holding her stomach as she rolls around in laughter.
      "You are a supremely selfish prick, ya know that?" the demon adds when she’s had her fill.

"More or less..."

"Ah, you are right, though, what the heck. If it's for those two, I'll even put up with a dog that bites the hand whom feeds it. So stop panicking, watch your side, defend me with your life, and I'll see us all through this, deal?"
     Despite her laughing and the harsh words, I probably deserve it. I feel awkward and small, and I really do not like that fact, but, ya, it's good enough, "Deal."

"Err, guys," Eshu suddenly interrupts, and I expect some valid teasing of my comments, "So listen, when the walls fall, there's a chance, just a chance--"

And then it happens. The air is filled with a sound I can't aptly describe. Like a window pane shattering? No, not even close. Like a church bell falling from the sky? Hardly.
     Maybe a windchime, all its little glass parts smacking against the earth into a thousand small shards, each making a different, distinct smattering sound, a different pitch of destruction. Maybe that, but tuned up to eleven.

A moment later, Lila begins her chants, the ground glows beneath her, Major Tom standing just an inch beyond the intricate swirling patterns. It's begun.

"Eshu, can it wait? I promise we can talk after," Ko calls.

"Y-ya, of course. In fact, it was nothing," she replies.

Waves of a deep green seem to pulsate along the ground, spanning outward from the lady of Clan Rowan. She's speaking softly, but I don't understand any of the words, some fantasy language from the gameworld to our east, I suppose. It's sort of enchanting to listen to - especially while staring out at the massive blue hexagonal world barriers tumble through the sky in myriad pieces, smashing into the ground and bursting apart where they land far off - but best I don't get distracted.

"Err, Tom, Major? What are those?" Ko suddenly says, and I turn in her direction. Coming at us head-on, literally flying through the sky, is some sort of hovercraft; a floating sci-fi platform.

"Grakkus, Garah! Gra ha, Pah!" Tom clicks.

"Something like, low-level minions, I think? The thing they're on he doesn't recognise, maybe they stole it, but the guys on it are like, something he’d hunt for sport back home?" Eshu translates.

Oh, oh shit, what is this? Before my eyes and all around me, little orbs of glowing light have appeared, "G-guys, I think something else is here, like, here right now!"

    Ko gives my side of the roof an evaluating once over.

"Grrr, Grak, Roh!" Tom issues.

"He doesn't recognise it but says their power is weak, maybe? Lots of complicated sounds, sorry guys," Eshu adds.

"You're doing great, and thank you, Tom," Ko says, "Eshu, Sek, focus on that side, I'll handle the flying platform thing."
    Eshu skips over to me and holds my hand for a moment. It's a welcome feeling, I'd been… I was trembling a little.

Whizzzz!

An arrow! It comes from the guys on that platform. Thankfully, Ko smacks it aside with her metal gauntlet.
     Suddenly, over here, the lights disappear, and in their place are two rows of robots? All silver but for a glowing gem in their chest, thin, stick-thin limbs, but clearly deadly. They're somewhat bland. Thinking about the game they must be from - the world to our left according to Lila - they must have been a very low-level enemy, yet their metallic, cold bodies look razor-sharp deadly up close like this.
     They gradually unfold into a standing height taller than me, "Oh shit," I mutter. Eshu whacks me on the back, "Come on, we got this," she smiles.

The nearest one raises an arm, no, its arm is a sort of gun! With a hollow electronic 'zapping' noise, it glows bright red and then discharges a blast right at me, no questions asked. I raise the big shield Lila gave me.

THUNK
     A single impact, one shot of pale generic laser-bolt energy, leaves a massive dent in the shield. Eshu doesn't wait around, she charges right at and around it, her short frame leaps onto its back and grapples with it, dagger to its ‘neck’, her cowl billowing behind her like a cape.
There is a pause as the blade struggles to cut through metal, but then, with a harsh tug, Eshu beheads the thing. She drops to the ground at the same time as the severed metal face clanks against the flagstones beneath, ready to find her next victim.

"Duck!" I yell desperately. Thankfully, she does.
     The beheaded robot swings a hand with a sort of vibrating, chainsaw-like implement right at where she was, perhaps hoping to return the favour of decapitation.

"They can fight headless?!" Eshu whines.

Ko also has her hands full from the glances I manage to sneak. Half a dozen arrows lay smashed around her, and at least one has left her with a nasty grazed shoulder, but clearly the archer can't get past her, so the whole floating 'thing' has come up to nearly be touching the tower. "You two ok?" she calls over.

"Okie Dokie!" Eshu shouts back while blocking one of those vibration blades with her short sword and stabbing another robot in its equivalent of a knee with her dagger. I grunt something incomprehensible from behind my shield of rapidly growing dents.

"Alright then," Ko says, grabs an arrow aimed right at her face and snaps the thing in half, fragments and splinters raining down. She charges, runs right ahead and then leaps! I watch her arc beautifully through the air. So do the people on the platform, people with purple skin and bandit-looking clothing, I now realise. Demons?
     Whatever they are, they aren't ready. Ko lands, crouches, grabs the nearest one's arm and tosses him right off the side of the platform.
      "Arghhhhhhhh!!" is the last we ever hear or see of him.

A second closes the distance, swinging a sword. Ko catches it in the space between the claws of her gauntlet and twists. The poor guy doesn't think to let go of his blade, his wrist audibly cracks and a second later, he and his sword are also thrown overboard.
     A third guy with a much larger broadsword comes in next. Ko flips, from standing still, she simply leaps into the air, over the incoming sword, and cartwheels through the sky. She lands tiptoe on the furthest edge of the hovercraft, balancing so elegantly, tail swishing, 'claws' ready for their next strike.

Beside me, Eshu ducks yet another blade, hitting the deck. She sweeps her leg out and trips the robot before leaping on him as he falls and tearing into his chest with her short sword, looking like some crazed gremlin as she cuts and stabs away metallic components and sparking wiring. She may be a short girl, but she absolutely rocks the assassin vibes.

And meanwhile… I stand here. My shield is slowly growing cracks, my armour too. My sword is chipped from the few bad swings I've attempted. I'm shivering, I can't deny it. I'm certainly not contributing much. Just cowering here like some frightened abandoned animal caught in a thunderstorm.
     My sword stabs out desperately again and hits my attacker right in the shiny jewel each one has at the centre of its chest. There is a spark, and for a moment, I'm afraid I'll be electrocuted or something. Then, suddenly, it stops moving.
     I blink idiotically as realisation dawns on me; "Eshu! The jewel in their chest! This mob could teleport, but the caveat was a stupidly easy-to-hit weak spot. Break the jewel!!"

Eshu shrugs, "Right-o!" From her sleeve, three throwing daggers shoot out; not one misses. In a second, three of the robots stutter and stall, before, with an anticlimactically dull thud, falling over just like that. Eshu grins broadly, "Oh-ho-ho-ho!"
    She seems pleased with the result, but I'm not. I've played the studio’s Sci-Fi game, so why the hell didn't I remember that sooner? What if Eshu had been hurt while I was standing here hiding behind my shield?

“Pft,” then again, who am I kidding - just look at them. Ko's acrobatics, fighting purple-faced demons twice her height like it's nothing, Eshu, a twirling tornado of throwing knives and lethal strikes. I'm the useless one here.
     We've levelled up from all our training with Lila. It's one of those games where improving your skills and killing monsters both increase your overall level. Eshu and Ko? Both are level fifty-two now. Me? Thirty-four, that's how metrically, numerically far behind I've fallen in just a month.

They were the same as me, layabouts who came to Escape to do nothing, to just immerse in fantasy and idleness and debauchery; but in the same time period, with the same trainer and resources, they've become badasses. And there's Lila, some level three-hundred super-species thing, casting eldritch spells in a language I can't even hear properly. Even Tom with the silly hat is apparently hyper-strong and telepathically commanding all the other troops across the tower while just standing there.
Where do I even fit into all that?

I try so hard not to think about it, but seriously, why do they stay with me, those two amazing girls? Was it just pity that made them take me in in the first place? Perhaps it was simply my privates, maybe they just really wanted a penis to spruce up their sex lives - because that's all I am, isn't it? What else do I possibly provide for them?

 I know I'm an asshole, I know I'm clumsy and poorly able to use this fake body the game gave me through no work of my own. I know deep down that Lila's right, that I'm a supremely selfish fuck who disrespects people and panics at every turn and hates himself more than anyone else in the world. What the hell do they like me for?

Eshu has nearly wiped out the robots now that she knows their weak point. Ko knocks the second-to-last guy off her platform. It's as good as done - no wait - the last demon is trying to activate something on the back of the hovercraft; a big stick, like a road bollard? No wait, I recognise that vehicle now that I look properly, and that's a–

Ko jumps backwards off the platform as the demon activates the energy minigun affixed to his floating troop-transport. It sprays hot blue pellets of raw, hyperenergised heat through the air, spraying around wildly as the demon no doubt tries to comprehend the sci-fi weapon. Mid-spray, it hits Ko still in flight. The force knocks her back, and she skids to a harsh landing on the fort's ceiling, stabbing one gauntlet into the ground in a shower of sparks to break her progress.
     Gradually, the demon masters his bucking bronco. The catgirl warrior is already back up, her gauntlets raised to block the next strike - but the purple demon grins, grimey black, chunky molars smirking - Ko is somewhat short, Lila is floating, I watch the guy raise the barrel above one to focus on the other.

I move on instinct, that's all I can say. I don't think of putting myself in danger, certainly not for Lila, surely. If anything, I was absently thinking about how ridiculous and foolish Ko was being, trying to shield Lila in the first place.
    I just move. My avatar in this world is stupid tall and broad; even floating, it safely covers the small demon.

In pairs of two, the energy courses across the sky, and the very first impact completely shatters my much-abused shield.

"Well, shit," are the last words I manage as I stretch out my arms.
     The pain is truly immense. I don't think I've ever been in agony like this before. Hot, fiery, dull impacts smack into my body over and over, a tempest of punches. The armour I have cracks away in no time. The stinging, biting, burning sensation left behind after each impact is only topped by the raw, damp pain of the next hit a second later. Before long, my underclothes literally catch fire.

"Sek!!" Ko screams.

"Buy me a moment!" Eshu shouts.
     Ko recomposes herself with impressive promptness. Jumping up, she blocks the impacts for a merciful moment. The power-trip mad demon is fully focused on her for a moment. He doesn't see Eshu take a running jump and throw a dagger. It strikes him in the shoulder, and with an unsuspecting shriek, he loses his footing and tumbles backwards, the cannon flipping upwards and firing at nothing but sky. Like that, the last enemy has fallen.

There is no status bar in Escape; it's in the menu if you want to check, as to increase immersion. However, you can sort of feel your health points, and I can tell mine are well below ten per cent right about now. One last pair of bolts is heading for me. I wonder if I'll live it? What happens when you die in this game again?

A moment before it can, a skeletal hand presses against my burned, exposed skin - seems my clothes are all cinders at this point - God, am I naked? How lame can I get…
    The hand pushes me aside, and I watch blankly as Major Tom draws a curved Arabian-looking sword from his waist and simply slashes the final bolts apart, utterly ignoring the physical probability of ‘slicing energy’, their fiery mass splits apart, hot plasma splashing against the fortress's surfaces. I doubt the shot would have even damaged him.

I hit the ground hard. My eyelids feel so heavy. A hazy glance down shows me the damage. Clothes and armour gone is nothing, I'm covered in ugly, coloured bruising, cuts and nasty charred burning, my beautiful avatar ain't looking so hot. All the damage does seem to numb me after a while, mind, so much pain sort of cancels itself, I guess. How nice...

What a shit rescue, eh? Was that my best? The skeleton still had to step in, Ko and Eshu too.       We're nerds, weeaboo droks. Eshu says cringey crap like 'baka' all the time, I used to play so many video games that I forget actually useful stuff like the weaknesses of an enemy, and Ko, Ko is literally running towards me with silly cat ears and a tail. But I'm the only one falling behind, the only worthless one here at the end of the world. Those two are just as deep in escapism, in bad Japanese slang dropping and fantasising and turning away from reality - and yet they managed to make themselves stronger, if only in this new world. What about me, here on the floor, a crisp, battered mess? I can smell myself burning, how lame.

"Sek, Sek, come on, hang in there," Ko shouts, kneeling down next to me, tears in her eyes. But why? I can't help but ask myself, why?
Eshu's also running over but suddenly stops and looks terrified, "More lights, more machines," she says.
    I strain to look, and true enough, more of those orbs of teleportation, and in the distance, another floating platform. And now, now I have to leave them fight that off entirely alone. I can't even be their human shield any longer.