His First War With Himself - Chapter 3
I updated chapter one, so if you haven't already, I suggest you go back and re-read it! \(ovo)
=X=
The more Piko walked along the shiny metal roofs of the buildings, the more he realized how much the area reminded him of his home. The buildings in his city were probably more than twice as tall as the ones here, and they were all made of the same sleek black metal, but there was a smell in the air that left his nose stinging and a greyish tint to everything from the cloud cover that was exactly the same.
Piko didn't like his home city much, for obvious reasons, so he had hoped that the war would take place somewhere more interesting. At least he knew how things worked around a city like this. All cities around the world followed plans that were all almost identical to each other.
Piko and Rin had climbed up on to one of the shorter buildings and worked their way over the land, creeping slowly toward the tower, so that they wouldn't be spotted by any other teams.
So far they had gone undetected. The area was silent except for the occasional chirp from a passing virtual bird, which only made Piko feel even more uneasy. The more time they went without encountering another, more bloodthirsty gang, the more it felt like someone was about to jump out of nowhere and kill them both.
Rin hadn't talked to him at all since they set off, either. She just wanted to get to Gumi and leave Piko behind. That was her plan, once the two of them got to the tower, she would run off with her best friend and they would win by themselves. They didn't need the boys.
She was beginning to get angry, Piko was slowing her down. Gumi knew how to keep up with her, but Piko kept slowing his pace every once in a while, looking around nervously.
He wasn't afraid of being defeated. Much. He and Rin both knew how to fight, but so did the other teams, and they had more experience. Of course, now that he was in the war Piko wasn't sure if he could stomach killing another person, even virtually.
They walked on, occasionally having to leap over the gaps between buildings, without an encounter, until Piko heard a crash and a scream.
He froze. It was faint, like it had come from somewhere far off, but it was loud enough for Piko to catch it. It sounded like breaking glass and a woman's scream. He waited for it to happen again, thinking it may have been his imagination, not moving a muscle.
Rin turned around to look back at him. It was clear from her expression the she had run out of patience with him long ago. She obviously hadn't heard what he had.
"What are you-" Piko shushed her. Her face darkened, and she took a step towards him.
"Did you just-" He shushed her again, holding his hands up.
"I think I just heard something. Like, another team," He explained quietly. She looked around at the other buildings surrounding them. If there really was a team around, they could be anywhere, and Rin and Piko were sitting ducks from where they were.
"I didn't..." She trailed off looking back at Piko. There was none of her usual spunky attitude in her eyes. For the first time, there was just fear, "Are you sure?"
Piko was about to say that he /wasn't/ sure, and that they might have been worrying for nothing, when he heard it again. Shattering glass.
This time, it came from right above them.
=X=
Len and Gumi had gotten lucky.
When the two of them entered the strange, dystopian landscape, they had found themselves in what might have served as a shopping mall before it was abandoned.
Len could see colourful light from holographic advertisements lining the black tiled walls shining weakly out from under layers of dust and dirt, and many of the doorways leading into large, dimly lit stores were blocked by fallen parts of the shiny black ceilings. All of the lights in the hall they were standing in we're flickering, or dead.
Len felt a shiver climb up his spin. It looked so much like the shopping centre in central TW.
Gumi gritted her teeth, "Geez, this place gives me the creeps."
"We'll be fine," Len reached for her hand, smiling gently at her, "There aren't any ghosts in TW,"
"But there are murderers," she thought, and gripped Len's hand a little tighter.
Len looked up at her, he has never seen Gumi so on edge before.
"At least we're in a mall," She said suddenly, raising her voice to sound more confident and pulling Len off down the dark tiled floors, "We can search for supplies before we head out!"
The two of them searched the hallways that weren't completely mangled or destroyed for anything useful, but most of the stores sold clothing or music or home decor. Len had known that there wasn't much hope of finding anything useful for a fight in a shopping mall that's mostly catered to teens.
Gumi sighed quietly and slowed down, beginning to lose hope herself. She saw coats and hats and things in a few of the less destroyed stores, which would have been useful if they knew what the weather outside was like. They hadn't come across any windows yet so for all she knew, they could be in the middle of the desert.
Then, as if the creators of the war were giving her a hint, the dim light reflected off of something in the back of a rubble covered shop.
It was just too dark inside to make out what exactly it was that caught her eye, but somehow she knew it had to be important. She tugged on Len's arm.
"Look," Gumi pointed into the store. The place looked like it would fall apart any second, the parts of the floor that hasn't fallen to the floor below were covered with dusty magazines and sports equipment that the place used to sell, "What do you think that is?"
Len squinted into the entrance, leaning over a large part of the ceiling that had crumbled in front of it. It took him few seconds, but he finally saw what Gumi had pointed out.
It was a small rectangle of blue metal with a black button on each of the thin sides. It looked to Len like a high-tech taser, like a lot of the people he knew at school carried with them at all times. New-New Chicago could be a dangerous place sometimes.
It was great for defending yourself in a dangerous city, and it was great for defending yourself in a dangerous war.
Len leaned into the entrance a little more and saw that around the counter in the back, there was a stash of weapons, from old style guns to baseball bats to lasers. He glanced worriedly around the room, it almost looked like a trap.
"So?" Gumi tapped him on the shoulder, "Should we check it out?"
Len considered it for a second. It was much too early in the war for anyone to gather all of those weapons and set up a trap for them, but the room still looked unstable, and there was no way of telling if they were alone in the mall.
He swallowed, "We need weapons, and we may not get another chance like this..."
"...We have to go in," Gumi said decidedly and squeezed his arm.
Len nodded and the two of them hopped over the slice of ceiling obstructing the entrance. The moment they stepped foot in the store, the dim, wavering light flickered on and they saw that the whole store was covered in piles of various weapons, on the floor, shelves, tables, everywhere. Gumi sucked in a breath and skipped over to one of the piles on the floor, grinning.
"I knew it! This is great, there are enough weapons for everyone on our team, and more!"
"Yeah!" Len agreed, stepping carefully over a gaping hole in the ground, towards the back table. To think he had been so nervous about not being able to defend his team just a few minutes ago. He bent down to pick up a laser gun off the white tiles.
Piko would be ecstatic.
Just then, Gumi's head snapped up from the pile of weapons she was searching through.
"I heard a voice," she whispered. Gumi had amazing hearing, she could hear a mouse on the other side of the city if she tried hard enough. Ok, maybe not, but she did hear someone laughing down the hall.
"I thought you told me there were no ghosts here," she tried to sound confident, but she ended up stuttering.
The two of them just held their breaths.
"...Whole place to ourselves!" Len caught one voice laugh. They probably wouldn't be thrilled to find out that they weren't alone in the mall. And they sounded armed.
Another voice said something he couldn't quite make out, and they both burst out into a fit of mad laughter.
Len glanced at Gumi, who crouched slowly to pick up a taser off the ground. As she did, her elbow bumped the table beside her and it fell to the side, making a loud clanging noise. Len cringed
The laughing stopped.
They had been found.
He heard the two in the hall suddenly sprint towards the store, letting out a few whoops like two hungry monkeys racing towards a food source. Gumi threw herself behind a few heavy boxes and Len dove behind the counter, just as something shot the light out of the ceiling, plunging the room into darkness.
Everything was silent.
"We know you're in here," the first voice said smoothly, not a hint of fear in her voice, "Come out now and we won't kill you," she paused, "Oh wait!" The second voice laughed out loud again.
Len's heart pounded in his chest as he tried to quiet his heavy breathing. He needed a weapon. The closest one was the taser, just outside of the cover created by the counter.
"Looks like we're going to have to go in," said the second voice, who sounded more amused than anything.
Len closed his eyes and took deep a breath through his nose. He had to move now, if the two made it too far into the store, they would be found immediately. He began inching as quietly as he could towards the edge of the counter, keeping his eyes on the taser.
Slow footsteps entered the store, their shoes squeaking on the shiny floor. Gumi counted them.
Two. Len was close to the weapon he was going for.
Five. He wasn't close enough though.
Eight. She needed to buy him some time.
Ten. Her eyes darted around the room and finally landed on a fist-sized part of the store's ceiling on the ground near her. She snatched it up.
Fifteen. She pitched it over the top of the boxes she was hiding behind and braced herself.
Len was almost to the edge, the taser within arms reach. All he needed was to grab it and he could get Gumi and himself out of there safely. He slowly extended his arm toward it, sucking in a breath.
He was so close, when suddenly the first voice cursed and a gunshot rang out. Len's breath caught in his throat and he retracted his arm, jumping back from the edge.
He breathed. He was in one piece, maybe a little shaken, but-
Gumi! His stomach lurched at the thought that his partner might be dead. He turned his head to look over the edge at her, breathing heavily.
She had shoved herself against the wall and her eyes were as big as galaxies, but she was also in one piece. Her makeshift cannonball had hit the first enemy square in the face and the second had put a bullet through the box only inches from her head.
She made eye contact with Len and nodded towards the taser. They needed to get out. Len took another breath. He reached past the edge through the darkness, closed his fingers around the cold metal surface of the taser, and squeezed.
The weapon lit up with electricity, filling the room with a cold blue light for a split second. He saw Gumi, grinning wildly. He saw the small girl with the layered long black hair, clutching her eye and pointing an old gun at the box, the realization of what had happened just beginning to appear on her face. He saw the tall, muscular boy beside her with the short blue hair, staring directly at Len, his expression somewhere between shock and fury. He saw the weapon send a charge flying through the air straight towards the girl. And then and he saw nothing.
Len jumped up from his hiding place, completely blind in the darkness again, and ran to Gumi, groping the ground for her hand. Once he had it secured in his, he sprinted in the general direction of the door.
The girl screamed and there was a thump as her body hit the ground. Oh god, Len hoped he hadn't killed her.
"Tianyi!?" The boy screamed, stumbling around the room. Len knew the boy was just as blind as he was, so all he had to do was find the door before he found his partner.
Len sped up and banged his leg on the piece of debris blocking the door, sending him tumbling over it face first to the hallway floor. Dang, he had forgotten that was there.
Gumi hopped right over it, scooped the smaller boy into her arms, and sprinted down the hall. Gumi was fast, and she couldn't hear the other team following her, so soon she stopped and leaned on the cool wall to catch her breath.
"Man," She sighed, looking down at the dizzy blonde clinging to her, "That was intense. You ok there, Lenny?"
He just nodded. He had smashed his face into the tiles back at the shop, and the thought that he might have killed someone made him sick, so he was a little off. Gumi was happy to carry him, so it didn't matter. She was a little worried about the blood pouring from his nose, though
Wait. She could see his face, there was a soft warm light coming from somewhere. A window? She looked around, It was coming from up the staircase down the hall. She headed up and gasped at the sight.
The walls of the hall were completely made of glass, it was like a lookout at the top of a tower. From it, she could see everywhere. The bright orange sun peeked through the clouds, illuminating the city expanding in all directions around them, the parts that were reduced to barely more than rubble, and the parts that looked brand new.
Gumi and Len were at the highest point in the city.
=X=
Oh man oh man this is so much fun to write!
Halfway through this my spellcheck stopped working, so if you catch any errors, please let me know!
=Review Replies=
Blanckary: thank you for reviewing! Ehehe, I know, they're some of my favourite pairings.
Bereft of Relevance: Thank you for reviewing, I'm glad you like it!
