Klein Week 2022
Prompt: Freedom
Title: What? We're Doing My Plan?!
Summary: "So What's the plan, macho?" She asked while they spun and another laser fired from nearby, turning a spike on the ceiling to ashes.
What?
"When was I ever the strategist, man?"
Takes place in ALS Alf-Heim Swords & is in the same world as the prompt: "Protector"
What? My Plan?!
This was the final boss?!
A shapeshifter? A creature who embodied it's main target's greatest fears and hypnotized them into walking into their lair and into it's clutches?
The running through the labyrinth couldn't have been more tense and rushed as he raced after Asuna, trying to keep on her heels. It was even harder with how he had Kirito's body over his shoulder, the swordsman's unconscious body slung over his shoulder.
In a game it should be impossible to have your "mind" disconnected from your body! Your avatar/body shouldn't be able to be separated from the mind!
Nor should it be possible to have your mind be in an endless battle till a rescue team came to your rescue!
But then again…
It shouldn't be possible for someone to have their brains fried if their health bar reached zero.
It shouldn't be possible to have permanent brain damage from nearly being killed by the console helmet, yet Caylee did.
It shouldn't be possible to grow and change within a game but it happened here.
It shouldn't be possible to be trapped within a game, yet… they were.
Running through the twists and turns through a labyrinth with the game's lead guild leader with Asuna the lightning Flash leading the way via the partner location feature. Allowing her to find her in game husband who's unconscious avatar was over Klein's shoulder.
Prepared for a battle, a game battle. Fighting a mental battle had never, ever, been on the long list of things Klein had signed up for in this game, Alf-Heim Swords.
Yet before his eyes out of his peripherals,, Asuna slammed into some kind of invisible wall, and their leader's head snapped back from the impact.
"Catch 'er!" Argo shouted from above them, where the information broker was trying to catch up to them, she had been in space when she received the message. Which was why she was a bit behind and was using her alternating grappler iconic technique to move at five or six times the speed of other players.
Catch her why? She just ran into something, right? They needed to run ahead and catch up to Kirito, Asuna was fast enough, she'd catch up just fine.
Klein kept running, moving ahead to take over for her till she recovered-
Then a voice, dead of emotion shouted from the back, "she's been hypnotized!"
Klein lurched into motion, whirling around to run back and catch her, but he wouldn't be close enough to catch her.
Thankfully, with the sound of metal clanking and a massive rifle firing a blank as it hit the ground, Sinon broke through the crowd of other players and shot across the remaining gap. Having dropped all of her heavy gear with a preset button to allow her to move much faster than other STR players like himself and with her AGI phys-build.
(phys-build: a separate build stat that underlies and is separate from a player's chosen build. Stat is chosen off of the players physical body perameters. Ex: Agil - broad, muscled = STR, Argo - lithe, small, lean = AGI)
The sniper promptly toppled backward under Asuna's weight and slipping on the floor, but she did manage to catch her, keeping Asuna separate from the floor for a reason Klein didn't know. At least till the ground rippled underneath the sniper and the rest of the upfront players were running to her like he was, with Lizbeth pulling up the rear, Sinon's discarded gear tucked safely in two of the extra duffel bags she often carried with her in case her inventory weight limit was met and she had to carry more materials. The mentioned smith carefully picked up their leader and slung her around her shoulders in a fireman carry. While Klein offered Sinon his hand and he carefully lifted her to her feet
Caylee ran into the rippling ground with everyone else and briskly spoke, "huddle up! Starcrossed swords members only! This is too dangerous for other players!"
"What?!" The other players started yelling and Klein cringed at their indignant yells while he obediently huddled in with the rest of his guild, cautiously eying the rest of the players.
Argo, while in the process of retracting her grapples, dropped down onto Caylee's shoulders and shot the yelling players a glare before she focused on who were secretly her guild. The proud broker ignored complaints about her being biased or truly part of StarCrossed swords and made eye contact with each of her guild members. "Isten closely," she told them quickly as the floor rippled and lapped at their ankles like… they were… sinking into it. "Dat boss isn't 'upposed ta be in da game, it's a beta boss, 'ven Ki-Lii 'asn't 'een it in da codes. No one, 'nd I mean no 'ody, 'an fight dis but us-"
They were sinking up their knees now.
"-Ki-Lii, Ku, 'nd I battled dis in da beta with a group of eighty, 'nd, no 'ody made it-"
"You guys can't tell us not to come!" Suddenly there was a lot of jostling and Klein barely kept his balance as too many players crammed together despite Argo's yell.
"Ya idiots!"
Then the world went black.
Sinking into some kind of portal or something and ending up falling onto his butt on a hard floor was not what Klein wanted to do today. Nor had he wanted to take out all of the smaller enemies or nearly have his ears blown out from players screaming as within the boss's lair, their worst fears came to light before their very eyes, but only within their minds.
They weren't like them, they hadn't trained against everything Argo, Caylee, and Kirito could come up with to prepare them to fight anything, including the beta's bosses that Caylee managed to recreate via holo tech and mimicked attacks through devices they wore on their wrists or like a headband.
Meaning a hundred of the players here had no experience having manipulation and fear used against them.
That didn't mean that it didn't hurt like hell having something stabbing you in the mind all of the time.
Liz was somewhere in the air, the forgemaster and owner of the only set of dragon like tank armor that allowed her to full on fly like one, had been in charge of circling in the air for recon for Argo and Caylee, letting the brunette see through her visor while Argo all but chewed out the other players once she had Silica set up a protection dome of magic to protect them from the mind attacks.
While here, Klein was just angrily slicing through as many of the smaller enemies as possible while giving directions to his strike team, since now wasn't the time to be an idiot.
Static rippled through the comns he had with the rest of his team, "Asuna… visible… danger…" Liz's voice came through the static, "cover fire… need… plan."
"On… way," Sinon responded immediately and a moment later with a flash of metal, the sniper was gone and Liz was barreling through the air again to gain speed.
Asuna and Kirito were in danger.
Klein's feet burst into motion. Abandoning his swing at an enemy, he shot the nuesence before they could come into range and wentrunning instead. Sprinting so the hexagonal patterns of the lair's smooth floors flashed by in a mesmerizing pattern. With the pattern only interrupted by the spinning ring growing and shrinking embedded in the screen of his eyeglass, searching. The device working overtime to locate their missing teammates.
The boss was in the distance now, the tips of the massive horns visible around the floor virtually melting beneath and around it like an angry ocean's waves whirlpool. With ripples expanding out from each of his footsteps. Distorting the lair like it was unaffected by gravity and physics, or… that it belonged to a whole set of physics purely it's own.
As he approached, the floor rippled with an angry wave till out of nowhere, spikes tore the hexagons to shreds as massive ten foot spikes erupted from beneath the floor's smooth finish.
Using his sword as a pivot point, Klein movedand dodged a spike that nearly skewered in in a mere instant. Before more and more spikes kept erupting from the ground.
Till he whirled around, looking for a way out and there was none. Just a series of spikes in a perfect circle closing him in toward death.
Damnit! He swore and kept looking, why did I leave them all!
In his rush to get involved he was physically on his own, meaning unless one of them pulled off a miracle, he was toast.
But this was his team, his family, and they never, ever truly left someone to do it alone.
Not Kirito, not Asuna, and definitely not him or anyone else.
His faith wasn't in the wrong place.
As barely a second later, he heard the now familiar ear piercing screech of vibranium in the distance in the form of a mile wide stun attack of the alloy grating against itself. Before he saw a blinding laser squeeze through a space between the spikes above his head at an angle and shatter the spike blocking his straight path toward the manipulated flooring.
The shockwave of the two together made his in game ears pop.
A voice crackled through the static in the earpieces, "Klein!… arm up… look up!"
Immediately, Klein threw his hand up into the air and looked up while far behind him, he could vaguely hear Silica and Kuroshiro shouting.
"This way! Everyone out!"
Perfect, no more stubborn players trying to get themselves killed. A lot of the time Klein found it as hilarious or entertaining, but now, when they were all gonna die if they got involved? Hell no.
Above him he saw metal, the angled way Liz was swooping down about twenty feet in the air to come get him. While nearby, the teal and black squirrel suited player with a fifty-cal sniper rippling in the wind was gliding away from her. Splitting off to find a stable higher up position to snipe from while Liz was busy.
A flash of blonde and brown shooting up into the air in a massive swing signalled Argo's silent response to Liz saying through the static that she'd pick him up. The information broker swung in a full circle, gaining honestly too much air height before she spun in a move similar to Liz's dragon spin and caught Sinon and gave her more air time and the height to reach one of the higher ledges.
He didn't have time to watch anymore as he heard the clicking sound of metal disengaging from what he knew was her dragon wings and he was yanked straight up into the air.
Normally it would've been terrifying being lifted off the ground and the only way he was in the air was someone's hand clutching at his, but this was a game and even in a game where death meant his entire life would be over, he knew she wouldn't drop him.
"Sup, got a present for you," Liz laughed even as she lifted her arm up and hauled him up toward the armor on her back. Being the game's one and only dragon thanks to her and the other innovation players in their guild. "So quit yapping and get your ass up here dude, before I take a fireball to the face for your ass," she said with a grin down at him, the visor hiding some of her pink colored eyes as it also searched for the same thing his was searching for.
The joke was a great icebreaker from the situation they had found themselves in and Klein grinned in turn and ruffled the tank's hair, if only because she couldn't strangle him about it thirty feet in the air. Eventually he managed to climb up, hands and feet slipping into the loops of leather on the back and sides of her armor to keep her teammates from sliding off when she was flying them around.
The timing was perfect, since once he had grabbed onto them, Liz tucked her arms in, pulling the wings in toward her body and spinning in what would've been a nauseatingly fast barrel roll to dodge another fireball if Klein hadn't trained with her like everyone else to handle spinning around like a top in the air.
"So What's the plan, macho?" She asked while they spun and another laser fired from nearby, turning a spike on the ceiling to ashes.
What?
"When was I ever the strategist, man?" Klein snorted with a shake of his head and brought up his sword against his shoulder. Till it dinged like someone had flicked the blade before he slammed it down toward the other side of his waist. The ranged sword skill flashed out, a large crescent shape flying out and cutting through one of the incoming fireballs.
"Since you're a crazy ass out here," Liz smirked as she spread out the metallic wings above her arms.
"So are you!" Klein smirked and prodded the back of Liz's head for emphasis, "I taught you to be crazy!"
"Yeah, well… I'm busy flying!" Liz laughed and her arm unlatched from the wing again as she pulled something from her belt, her inventory access, "but here," she held up the collapsed black and red handle, "fixed it this morning, figured you might want it whatever crazy plan you come up with!"
His light sword!
"Sweet! Come to papa!" Klein laughed and swiped the device from her and snapped it to his belt, "but still, you should come up with the plan, big brains!"
"I mean, unless of course…" the tank grinned and promptly went into a free fall. To which Klein shrieked while she merely burst out laughing as they fell upsider down. "...you want us to fall!" Liz was obviously unfazed with how often she was in the air these days. To be fair, she had been trying to make a flying device to the entire time.
"Oh, commme onnn!" Klein shrieked, "Lizzzzzzzzz!"
The comms systems crackled a bit before the irritating static finally lifted.
"Finally fixed-," Caylee's emotionally deadened tone came through it though she was cut off by another of their guild.
"Rika, so help me," Sinon's voice came through the comn systems, icey, even if mildly amused, "if you make it so Klein can't come up with something I will knock you out of that sky myself."
"Booooo," Liz whined but she obediently clicked the heel of one of her metallic boots and reengaged the thrusters. Before spinning rapidly upward with her armor screeching, in her signature for taking off or gaining sudden fast speed. If he hadn't had this much practice with having Liz try and throw him off in training, Klein probably would've lost his lunch.
But still, they had a job to do and a teammate to save, so it was up to him to come up with the plan.
"Okay! Let's do this!" he shouted once Liz had leveled out higher up and just a little slower and looked around. Seeing the distinct lack of blonde and tan and purple and brown. "Hang on… anyone know where Argo is?"
"She's with me," Caylee droned, the brain damage still messing with her ability to show and convey emotions in her nerve gear. She paused for a second then sighed, "Short version, we'll be there in five minutes."
"'razy times ask 'er 'razy plans," Argo cackled cheekily and Klein grinned.
"Better be back in time love birds, cause I have an awesome plan!"
