"Keep an eye out, in case you see the alien dog," Carl told Douche once he was fully teleported.
"Don't tell me what to do, asshole!" The douche snapped back at him in anger, and began deliberately looking up in order to not do what Carl told him to.
Carl sighed as he realized that no matter what, Douche wasn't going to be any help with this hunt. With a shrug, Carl kept a close eye on Douche while swiveling his head around to keep a lookout for the alien dog.
Once everyone had been teleported, right as Carl was going to suggest pairing up and looking for the alien dog, Douche preempted Carl with his own loud announcement.
"Well, that's it! We're out of the room, now. I'm going home! Adios, assholes!" And without another word, he began walking along the street, muttering to himself, "Just got to find a payphone to call a cab, and I can be home before long."
"Wait!" Young Boy called out. "In Battle Royale they put explosive collars on everyone to force them to fight! You shouldn't…"
The douche paused and turned around to glare at the young boy while yelling, "You see a collar on me, stupid?"
"B-but…they've got teleportation technology. Maybe they implanted the bomb inside you," Young Boy said, no longer as confident as he was before.
Douche laughed mockingly "Yeah, right! Like I'm supposed to believe that! Piss off, boy. If you want to play their games, be my guest. But I'm leaving!" He then turned around and continued walking along the street toward the main road.
"Good riddance!" Carl exclaimed, causing everyone to turn to look at him. "Now, about this mission we were given. Unfortunately, we didn't get any clue as to where this alien dog is, so I think we should split into groups to track it down. We should all be very careful, though, since we don't know what kind of alien abilities it might have."
Carl watched as some of the group exchanged nervous glances with each other, before House Wife, Teen Girl, Grandpa, and Fatty shook their heads.
"I'm not going to join in on this craziness with you," House Wife said. "I'm not a soldier or a hunter or anything. And I've got a home to get back to, and kids to take care of." She then walked the same direction that Douche had.
"I'm not…" Teen Girl trailed off, and Carl realized she was full of fear, almost choking on it. "I'm leaving!" She immediately joined House Wife.
"Even if this is some kind of game, it's a game for young people, not me," Grandpa said just before walking away.
"Yeah, I'm not too keen on running around at night, chasing after a dog," Fatty sarcastically said. "I'm not that into exercise in the first place, and I've got work in the morning."
"I guess that leaves only five of us," Suit said, shocking Carl with his willingness to go along with the hunt. "Should we split into two teams, then?"
"Nah, let's do three," Buff Guy said. "Those that left took that street. If they find the alien dog, I'm sure we'll hear gun shots or screams or something. I'll go by myself this way, you four can pair up if you want and go the other two directions to find the dog."
No sooner had he spoken, then Buff Guy put his words into action and headed off in the opposite direction the other five had left in, walking in the middle of the residential street.
Carl exchanged glances with the other three that was left behind. "So who wants to pair up?"
"I'll go with you!" Young Boy quickly said, moving to stand next to him.
"Yeah, that works. I'll go with the big guy," Suit said, apparently relieved he wasn't being stuck with Young Boy.
"I'm Dylan," Big Guy said while nodding at Suit, surprising Carl that someone was finally introducing themselves.
"I'm Mario," Suit replied.
"Carl," Carl offered to the group.
"Oliver," Young Boy said.
"Let's go Oliver. Good luck!" Carl said to Mario and Dylan as he began walking down one of the streets with Oliver falling in next to him. Mario and Dylan took the other street, going the opposite direction.
Carl kept his pace to a slower walk, scanning the streets ahead of him and to his right, and kept looking over at Oliver. He saw the young boy was only looking in an arc in front of them, so he adjusted himself and began walking backwards to keep an eye on the side and behind them.
"I'll keep an eye out behind us and on my side, Oliver. You keep an eye in front of us and on your side. When we're working as a unit, we've got to trust each other to watch each other's backs, since we can't look everywhere at once with our forward facing eyes. Don't focus on any one place too long, scan the area for our target or anything of interest and keep regularly glancing over to me to make eye contact so we both know we're together and that we're communicating with each other."
"Okay, Carl," Oliver replied with gratitude in his voice for the directions on how to act.
"If you see anything, keep your voice down and don't shout, but be sure to say something to keep your partner, me, informed before you go off to explore anything," Carl continued teaching the young boy. "Have you ever fired a gun before?"
"Not a real gun, but I have played plenty of air soft and paintball."
"That's good. It shows you have the basics down. The only real difference is that real guns and ammunition have a bit more kick and noise, so be aware of that but don't focus on it overly much. Bracing yourself too hard against the recoil can spoil your aim, so don't worry about it too much.
"Too bad we don't want to spook the alien dog or have the cops called down on us in the middle of this bug hunt before we find our target, or I'd suggest we practice firing a couple rounds so you can get used to it first."
"Were you in the military or the police, Carl? It sounds like you have experience with this."
"I was in the Marines, but I was a POG, so it's not like I really have a lot of actual experience, just a bit of the basic training," Carl replied. "But that was years ago."
"You don't look that old, Carl. How long ago could it have been? And what's a POG?"
Carl startled inside, realizing he'd carelessly given away some information he didn't want to. During his inspection of the apartment earlier he'd seen himself in the bathroom mirror and it looked like he was maybe 18 or 19 once more in this new body. But in his past life he'd not even joined the Marines until he was in his mid twenties, and he was pretty sure he was in a completely new world, with a different background, if he even existed in this world in the first place.
Cursing himself in his mind for being careless and talking about his past life, he shrugged. 'Oh well, what's done is done.'
"POG stands for Personnel Other than Grunt. I did paperwork to keep the cogs turning. And I'm older than I look. But let's focus…"
Carl didn't get to finish that statement as he heard an explosion in the distance. Looking in the direction it came from, it seemed to have come from the direction that Douche had left in.
"That didn't sound like a gunshot," Carl observed, then looked at Oliver and saw he was trembling a bit in fear. "I think your observation about explosive collars might be a bit too accurate for comfort."
He put his hand on Oliver's shoulder, which calmed him down a bit. Carl then did a quick look around the area, just to make sure nothing was sneaking up on them, before putting his attention on Oliver once more.
"Hey! Do your best to ignore that and focus on our task. At least we're not all expected to kill each other, and can work together to hunt this alien dog. Just focus on that and you'll get through this, okay?"
"Y-yeah. Sure, Carl. Thanks."
Gun fire than rang out in the direction that Buff Guy had gone in, causing Carl to snap his head around in that direction. Of course he saw nothing, since there were residential houses in front of them.
"I think the buff guy found the dog. We should move that way to see if he got it, or if we need to finish it off. Why don't you take up watching our six?"
"Watching our six?" Oliver asked.
"Think of it as a clock on the ground. In front of us is twelve o'clock. To our right is three. Behind us is six, and to our left is nine. Watching our six means keeping an eye behind us."
"Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. I can do that. I'll watch our six," Oliver babbled. "But isn't the alien dog that way?"
"It probably was when we heard the shots. But we've got no idea how fast it is or where it is going or what it's doing. So we'll still keep a sharp eye out in case it circles behind us, okay?"
"Okay."
Oliver didn't say anything else once they got moving, but he followed along with Carl at a walk, keeping an eye on their rear. Carl didn't want to rush around a corner only to get shot by their fellow hunters or jumped by an alien dog, so he was going to take it slow.
Reaching the last house on the street, Carl walked across the yard to the edge of the house and looked around the corner. The street lights for some distance were dark, so it was impossible to see anything. Carl reached up and pulled down the night vision goggles. It took a bit of adjustment for him to get the goggles seated properly, but once he did, he could see the street lit up in shades of green.
A couple hundred yards down, in the middle of the street, Carl could barely make out the figure of something. He operated the zoom function, and saw the scene enlarge and become slightly more clear.
Carl saw the corgi alien dog biting and gnawing at the body under it. The dog's overly large mouth and teeth were ripping out hunks of meat that it was gulping down.
Carl's eyes narrowed in thought, wondering how the dog had killed the buff guy, even after having been spotted and shot at. But if there was one thing that was true among all the aliens that were coming to Earth in this dimension, it was that they had hidden abilities and were much more dangerous than their outer appearance showed.
According to the description Gantz gave them, the dog was fast. So running up to it in the open and shooting at it might not be the best bet idea. As evidenced by Buff Guy's fate, it really was a suicidally dumb idea.
"Let's go back a house or two and cross through the yards to sneak closer to the alien dog, Oliver," Carl said, gesturing back the way they came while unzooming his goggles.
"How is the buff guy, Carl? Is he…?" Oliver gulped in fear. When he had been reading his manga, the action scenes had always caused a sense of excitement in him, an eagerness that he thought he would feel if he was ever in the same situation. But now…facing this small alien dog where he might die, he was far less excited and very afraid. It wasn't the same as reading the stories at all!
"Yeah, I'm afraid he's dead." Carl led the way across the house's lawn, and past the second house for good measure, to make sure they had some distance away from the main street while they were sneaking up to a good position to ambush the dog. Hopefully it didn't lose interest in eating the corpse of the buff guy, since Gantz's report said that it liked meat.
When they got to the backyard fence, Carl realized how awkward it was to try to climb a fence with a shotgun in hand. So he handed off his shotgun to Oliver to hold, climbed over the fence, then reached over and grabbed both of their shotguns from him. Thankfully Oliver was relatively in decent shape for a young manga geek, so he clambered over the fence just fine.
Handing Oliver back his shotgun and holding his own at the ready, Carl led the way to the fence bordering another house, and quickly climbed over into that yard. There was an above ground pool in this yard that they had to circle around to get to the next fence that led the front yard, but then Carl almost smacked his head. There was a gate there. He should have just used the gate on the other side of the house's fence that they first jumped, rather than going to the trouble of climbing a fence.
Carl was just opening the gate when he heard more gunfire from the street, close to where he'd seen the dog eating the buff guy.
"It sounds like Mario and Dylan are shooting it now. I hope they're okay…" Oliver trailed off.
"Yeah, me too," Carl agreed with the young boy while peering up the dark street. He didn't see anything from where they were standing, though the street they were on was pretty close to where the action was. "Let's cross the street so we're near the houses for cover and head over to the peak around the corner and see what's going on."
The gunfire cut off before they'd gotten to the edge of the street, giving Carl a sinking feeling about the situation. Poking his head around the corner, he saw the alien dog not far from his position, standing on Dylan's back and savaging his body. It was obvious that Dylan was dead.
Taking a moment to breathe deeply to calm himself while scanning the area, Carl soon saw Mario nearby on the ground, also dead. Pulling his head back, Carl looked at Oliver who was shaking a bit in fear.
"They're both dead," Carl whispered while placing one hand on the boy's shoulder to steady him.
Even with two people shooting the dog in the open, the attack failed. He wasn't sure of exactly how it had gone down, but they had been fighting it on the street with plenty of room for the dog to maneuver, so presumably it was too quick to shoot while it had room to dodge.
Carl looked around for some kind of location they could use to limit the dog's maneuverability, and remembered what he'd seen while they were making their way here. The houses around here had large backyards, but they generally had a narrow area between the house and the fence bordering their neighbor's yards. The garage of this house was sitting open and Carl had spotted a lawn mower sitting there, which gave him an idea.
"Listen up, Oliver," Carl said, looking at the young boy who had calmed enough to be tracking what he was saying. "Fighting this thing out in the open isn't a good idea. So we've got to lure it into more narrow confines to limit its mobility. So here's the plan."
Carl pulled him over to the side of the house and began pointing out the ambush area.
"You're going to get up on the roof and wait out of sight of where it'll be on the ground. I'm going to shoot at it, hopefully hitting it, but mostly to get it to chase me. I'll run into this narrow area between the house and the fence, where the lawn mower will be waiting for me to use as a shield against its attack. Once it's here in the small area and stopped by the lawn mower, then you just lean over the edge of the roof and shoot it, like shooting fish in a barrel. Sounds like something you can do?"
"Y-yeah. I can do that. I will do it!" Oliver firmed up under Carl's encouraging gaze, so he gave the boy a nod and then helped him up to the roof and handed Oliver his shotgun. "Good luck, Carl!"
"Thanks! Sit tight and get ready to kill this thing!" Carl had already set up the lawn mower exactly how he wanted it, so he snuck around to the side of the house where he could get a bead on the alien dog with the revolver, which would have better accuracy at the range he was shooting than the shotgun.
Right as Carl was about to fire, the alien dog's head came up and looked right at him. Carl got a shiver down his back, feeling like someone had just locked onto him and wanted to eat him. The feeling and sensation was definitely more than simply his fear speaking, but he would have to worry about his extra sense later.
The unnatural corgi with bat ears suddenly hunched up and huge bat wings sprouted from its back. Carl shot at it, since he saw no point in not trying, but it jumped to the side, and he had fired and emptied the pistol without hitting the alien dog even once. Just before turning to run to their ambush point, Carl saw it launch itself into the air and forward towards him.
"Oliver! It's got bat wings and can fly! Get down from the roof and I'll lure it into the garage! Try to come up behind it when you hear me shooting!"
Carl hoped the boy heard him, because if the alien dog flew right over the house and attacked Oliver when he wasn't expecting it, the boy would be done for. In the meantime he was dashing into the open garage of the house and frantically looking for something else to use as a shield from the alien dog.
There really wasn't much he could use, other than hunkering down behind the truck. So that's what he did. Most of his body was behind the truck, with just his head and shoulder peeking out with his shotgun aimed where he hoped the dog would show up.
Carl frowned at the quiet, wondering if the dog actually saw him come into the garage, or if he would keep flying in one direction before circling back.
The quiet was getting on his nerves. Carl didn't want to be the stupid guy that went and looked outside only to get ambushed in that moment, but not knowing where the creature was or what it was doing was getting on his nerves.
Suddenly he heard the click of nails on metal at the front of the outwards facing truck, and Carl knew the dog was sitting on the hood of the truck. Should he stand and shoot through the windows at the dog?
Carefully moving so he didn't make any noise by bumping into the truck, Carl's head cleared the body of the truck and he saw the demonic looking alien dog with its glowing red eyes, wings still out as it threateningly bared its teeth at him.
The feeling of being in someone's sight with the desire to kill him suddenly returned, even more intense than before. Carl shifted the aim of his shotgun and fired through the windows at the dog.
It jumped up on top of the cab of the truck as the glass was shattering, and Carl desperately shifted his aim up while pumping the action of the shotgun. Right as he pulled the trigger again, something flashed past the dog and smashed into his left shoulder, knocking him back against the garage wall.
Carl's back crashed into the back of the garage, and he was pinned there by whatever had hit him. Glancing down as he pumped a new round into the chamber, since he hadn't lost his grip on his shotgun, Carl was horrified to see a scorpion looking tail stabbing into his shoulder, blood and some vile green liquid dripping out of his wound.
His shotgun was suddenly feeling quite heavy, and his vision was blurring, but he tried his best to aim his shotgun at the dog that was still sitting on the truck, with the extendable scorpion tail leading from his shoulder over the dog's back and curving down into its body.
Carl squeezed the trigger, and was happy to see that the dog got a faceful of buck shot. The tail abruptly pulled out of his shoulder, and Carl struggled to stay on his feet, but he was too weak and crumbled to his butt. He tried to reload the shotgun, but his hands weren't cooperating.
The dog hopped onto the edge of the truck's bed and glared down at him with a bleeding muzzle and wrecked face. Carl knew his number was pretty much up, but he fumbled at his belt for the revolver. Maybe it would be easier to use and lighter to lift than the shotgun.
'Oh, yeah,' Carl blurrily thought. 'I forgot that I dropped it earlier when the damned dog kept dodging my shots. Not like I took the time to reload it anyway…'
Right then a shotgun fired from behind the dog, smashing into its body and causing it to fall to the cement floor while thrashing around. Oliver stepped closer, into Carl's view, and fired another shot into the dog's body. He reloaded and shot it again, and again.
After several shots, it was obvious the alien dog was finally completely dead. Oliver dropped the shotgun and rushed over to Carl's side, crying tears while looking at his bloody shoulder wound in shock and horror.
"'ood job, 'ver!" Carl mumbled while trying to give the boy a thumbs up, but only barely able to move his hand.
"Carl!" Oliver finally called out in shock.
Carl's vision was going dark, but he stubbornly held on. If he could hold on long enough…
"The teleporter is going again!" Oliver's words sounded as if they were coming through a long and dark tunnel, barely heard. But Carl took some comfort from them.
And a moment later, he was proven right as his head suddenly cleared up completely.
"Carl! You're okay!" Carl oofed as a weight slammed into his stomach. Opening his eyes and looking down, he saw Oliver grabbing him in a hug around his middle, so he hugged the boy back. "I thought you were dead!
"Yeah. Thank goodness for the teleporter. Apparently it fixes you right up if you manage to survive." Carl chuckled as Oliver stepped back, and he looked around and saw that he was inside the apartment with the Gantz ball once more. Just like what happened in the show.
Teen Girl, House Wife, and Grandpa were all being teleported in, but he didn't see Fatty or Douche anywhere. Apparently they'd died somehow. Probably had their heads explode from trying to leave the hunt zone.
"Why are we back here!?" House Wife cried out when her head was mostly teleported in.
"I just wanted to go home! But their heads exploded! I want to go home!" Teen Girl cried out piteously.
"Young man, do you know what's going on? Why are we back here again?" Grandpa said while staring at Carl.
"We killed the alien dog! It was tough and grew wings and flew and had a scorpion tail! But we lured it into a trap and shot it to death with the shotguns!" Oliver bragged to the three who hadn't even seen the alien dog and had been trying to leave the hunt.
Carl ruefully rubbed his left shoulder where he'd been attacked by the scorpion tail. That had not felt good at all! But now his shoulder, the clothes, and the bullet proof vest were all whole and perfectly fine, as if nothing had ever happened to him.
"Old man, the teen girl over their said their heads exploded. Did you see it happen?" Carl asked.
"Yes. They were quickly walking ahead of the three of us. It looked they walked through a sort of soap bubble, and then their heads exploded."
"Damn! It looks like I was right! They've got us bugged with explosives!" Oliver cried out in fear and some amount of vindication. He had tried to warn Douche about the issue, but no one had listened to the young boy.
"Yeah, unfortunately," Carl agreed. "It seems like there's a limited area of operation where whoever is behind this black ball wants us to work in during our so called missions. If we leave the area, we are eliminated."
"The black ball is writing again!" House Wife called out, bringing everyone's attention to the ball.
You're spot on, Hunters! You can't leave the mission area while the mission is ongoing. Until the target is eliminated, everyone must try to survive and kill the target. Time to score your performance!
"So it really is like a game," Carl muttered, trying to act like he didn't know this was coming based on what he'd seen in the show.
The screen blanked out and showed a picture of Teen Girl first.
Emma Shelton
Cried a lot and didn't even try to participate in combat.
Points Awarded: 0
Points Total: 0
Teen Girl, Emma, burst into more tears at that. She seemed to be doing that a lot. Next up was a picture of House Wife.
Maya Mason
Overly nervous disposition, ran away and didn't even try to participate in combat.
Points Awarded: 0
Points Total: 0
Carl looked at the woman as she bit her lip and really did seem the nervous sort. He shrugged. Hopefully the two women would be able to overcome their mental issues, or they wouldn't survive long in this death game they were dragged into. Next up was a picture of Grandpa.
Isaiah Hanson
Old bones don't necessarily mean brave bones. Didn't even try to participate in the hunt.
Points Awarded: 0
Points Total: 0
Next up was Carl's picture.
Carl Smith
Tried to use his head, but allowed himself to get injured on his first mission. Still managed to help kill the target, so that's something.
Points Awarded: 5
Points Total: 5
Carl frowned but shrugged it away. At least they gave him points for fighting and injuring the alien dog. In the show, they hadn't awarded points to anyone but the one who had killed the target, so this way was better in his opinion.
Again Carl was left wondering why his experience was so different from the show. He mentally shrugged as he had no clue what was going on. Next up the picture of Oliver showed on the screen.
Oliver Watson
Managed to kill the target, but only because of the work and distraction of someone else.
Points Awarded: 5
Points Total: 5
"Aww, man. I should get more points for the kill!" Oliver complained, causing Carl to snort in amusement.
Carl's attention was then grabbed by the letter that appeared on the screen.
Dear Humans,
Approximately five years ago the Aliens began migrating to Earth. We watched eagerly to see how the Humans would fight against the Aliens and protect their planet from being invaded.
Unfortunately, you Humans were too disappointing! You were completely unable to find and engage the aliens due to your poor genetics, skills, abilities, and technology compared to the Aliens.
This would just not do! If this were to continue, there would be absolutely no chance for the Humans to fight off the Aliens once the main bulk of their population arrived on Earth in about 30 years. It would be a foregone conclusion that the Human species would become slaves, food, or extinct at that time.
After looking at the issue, and determining that the invading Aliens were too far ahead of the Humans in technology, and that they had been genetically enhanced to outperform Humans by such a large margin, we decided to balance the scales a little.
In order to give you Humans a chance to fight for your species' survival, we have sent hundreds of Gantz balls to your major cities across the world. They will automatically find and recruit humans at the moment of their deaths in order to work as hunter teams in the defense of your planet and your species against the Alien's invasion.
Congratulations on being the first batch chosen for the honor of fighting for your species' survival!
By being chosen as Gantz Hunters, you have the opportunity to fight the Aliens head to head! You can make a difference in the outcome of your species survival!
But we couldn't just give you everything you would need to fight off the Aliens up front. That wouldn't be very fair at all. So we came up with a balanced system for you to participate in, in order to advance and become better Hunters and Defenders of your species.
Participating in Alien Hunts will earn you points to spend in the Gantz Shop.
Successfully killing various Aliens will add their genetic abilities to the Gantz Shop for you to buy genetic enhancements to improve upon your poor genetics.
Successfully capturing Aliens alive will add the skills the Aliens possess to the Gantz Shop for you to purchase.
Successfully obtaining advanced technology and having the Gantz Ball scan it will add that technology to the Gantz Shop for you to purchase for future hunts.
In order to help the new hunters in their first hunt, we have provided decent individual weapons available to the common citizens of your planet for free.
Rejecting this offer and leaving the area of the hunt will be seen as a sign that you would prefer to return to the death we saved you from. As such, you will no longer be on the Gantz Hunter Roster and will be returned to death.
When you have reached 100 points, you can choose to purchase the right to return to your normal life as a Reserve Hunter, if you so choose. You will no longer be called up for Alien Hunts, though you can still join back up if you wish in the future.
No matter how injured you are during the mission, as long as you survive, you will be healed to full when the mission is completed and teleported back here. So don't lose hope even if things don't go well for you in the hunts!
Until the next mission, when you'll be teleported here to hunt another target, you are free to return home and live your normal lives, if you so choose.
Now that you have completed your first mission, you will be allowed to browse the Shop.
Work hard for your species future! Good luck!
"That's the kind of introduction you should give us before the hunt," Carl grunted at the ball, annoyed that all that information hadn't been provided to the team beforehand. Maybe if everyone had known what the price of not participating was, they would have joined the hunt. Or at least not left the area while the hunt was ongoing.
And who knows, maybe a couple more bodies would have prevented Buff Guy, Dylan, and Mario from being killed. Those three at least had been willing to work together, even if they didn't survive very long.
'Well, even if we had this information, I don't think Douche would have listened,' Carl admitted to himself. 'And Fatty seemed just as determined to leave as Douche, so I guess I'll never know if they would have changed their minds with this information.'
Carl shook his head to dispel his thoughts. Despite himself he was feeling a bit guiltily pleased that he wouldn't have to deal with Douche anymore. Despite the man's attitude, Carl didn't feel like it was completely fair for him to have been snuffed so easily. But he was relieved he wouldn't have to try to work with the angry man in the future.
Looking at Emma, Maya, and Isaiah, Carl shook his head as he realized that those three were just as much dead weight as Douche had been, in their own way. Hopefully they would get with the program in the future.
Returning his attention to the message on the ball, Carl figured that it seemed that he was placed in this world long before the setting of the show was established. In the show he had watched there had supposedly been some cabal of humans who figured out how to hijack the Gantz balls by wiring up a drugged up human to control the Gantz balls and turned the whole thing into an entertainment death match in order to profit at everyone's expense.
Carl couldn't figure out why those people would derail Humanity's only hope of survival against the Alien Invasion. The only reasons that Carl could figure was that the show writers wanted to hammer home the "Rich People Are Evil" trope. He hadn't really paid too much attention to the show to remember all the ins and outs, if it ever showed any specifics beyond conspiracy theories posited by the Hunters the main character met.
Supposedly the rich cabal apparently didn't care about fighting the Aliens invasion, they just wanted to profit off of the fights that were happening.
'Well, I suppose it could have been a group of Quislings. Or maybe they were poor intelligent people that wanted to make bank no matter the despicable method? So after 20 plus years of doing that, they became the Rich Cabal that was mentioned in the show?
'Maybe they even assumed they could serve Humanity up on a platter to the Aliens in the hope of gaining a place at the table in the New Alien World Order?'
Carl mentally shook his head and dropped his speculation. Aside from no answers being available to him, there was far too much hand-waving away facts and plot holes in the show for him to base his decisions on. Not to mention that the show was from the perspective of a dumb and horny teenager that had no real knowledge of what was really going on.
"Why in the world would they pick me for hunting aliens?!" Maya, the housewife, screeched in her nervous way, while the teen girl, Emma, just cried some more. "I'm not at all suited for this kind of thing! I just want to live my normal life! I'm leaving!"
Despite her words, Maya didn't immediately leave the room, but stood at the hallway, watching to see what the others would do. Emma hung at her shoulder, tears dripping from her face as she nodded vigorously at Maya's words.
Isaiah sighed out dolefully as he looked at Maya and the crying Emma. "They said it was a random selection. It would have to be to find someone less unsuited to this work than one such as me. I've never even killed a fish! I'm far from suited to this kind of young man's game of hunting aliens! I'm afraid what time I have left on this world is bound to be troubled."
Carl shook his head and exchanged dismayed looks with Oliver over their pig teammate's reactions. It really was too bad the braver three, the buff guy, Mario, and Dylan had died already. They were at least willing to work with them on the hunt.
"I know it doesn't sound that great, and it would be a lot of work, but if we spend most of our downtime exercising and training between missions, we'll have a much better chance to survive this experience," Carl said to the three people in an attempt to encourage them to step up and be useful on the next hunt. Oliver was standing next to Carl, nodding and offering encouraging looks at the three. "You've going to have to grow up and get used to the idea that this is what you have to do from now on to survive. Otherwise you'll never gain enough points to go back to your normal lives."
Emma just burst into more strident tears, Maya hugged her while glaring at Carl, and Isaiah just sighed and shook his head in clear rejection. The three of them shuffled out of the room and tried the front door and found that they could leave, so they did without another word.
"Damn…" Carl muttered.
"I…I don't think they are going to survive another mission, Carl," Oliver sadly said.
"Yeah, I'm afraid you're probably right, more's the pity. I really feel bad for them to be sucked into this, but it's not like I can do anything to help them other than help them train, but it doesn't look like they want to take me up on that."
"I'm up for the training, Carl!" Oliver exclaimed. "I want to survive and even win this thing!"
"Yeah. Sounds like a plan, Oliver." Carl grinned at the boy, before shaking his head. "And I know I've got to train a bunch too, in order to have a better chance of survival in this. If it weren't for the teleport healing, I'd be dead by now."
"It's unfair! It's not like we knew the alien dog could grow bat wings, fly, and use a scorpion tail to get you like that! If they told us about that, you could have come up with a better plan! Maybe Mario and Dylan and the buff guy wouldn't have died, either!"
Carl sighed out and shook his head. "Yeah, I know what you mean, Oliver. But I guess things just aren't going to be fair. I mean, if it was, we wouldn't have aliens invading, so we would never have been picked for this crazy thing in the first place."
"Yeah…" Oliver's shoulders drooped at that thought, and Carl patted him on the back and gave him shrug and a grin.
"Well, let's see what this thing has available for shop options, to see what we can do with those points we earned." Carl went up to the Gantz ball and saw the list of options was already being displayed.
· Communicator (1 Point): Allows communication between teammates who also have a communicator.
· Hemostasis Spray (1 Point): Spray bottle to stabilize injuries and stop the bleeding. Helps you live long enough to be teleported back to the room.
· Anti-Venom Injection (1 Point): Injection to counter the effects of the venom from the alien Bat-Dog.
· Backpack (1 Point): Backpack that is can help you carry more ammo, weapons, and gear.
· Stim-pack (1 Point): Ten minute temporary boost to strength, speed, and reaction speed.
· Grenade, Various (1 Point): Fragmentation, EMP, Molotov, and Flashbang.
· Money (1 Point): $1,000
· Alien Bat-Dog Genetic Enhancement (5 Points): A slight permanent boost to speed, reflexes, and senses.
Carl found it interesting that there were a lot of differences here from the show. From what he remembered of the story, many of the sci-fi items were free for the hunters, like the basic suit that enhanced the wearer's strength, speed, endurance, and jumping ability. There were also some sci-fi guns, the X-Pistol and X-Shotgun, that could do a lot of damage to the target.
But none of those was even available here! They were stuck with basic human technology for the most part, aside from what they appeared to have gotten from hunting the Bat-Dog.
In addition to that, Carl was pretty sure there hadn't been an option in the original show to enhance their genetics with that of the alien creatures they had killed. And he was very excited for that possibility. It was far better in his mind to get enhanced than to simply rely on a suit to do it for him!
Not that he would turn that suit down if he was offered it. That would just be silly.
Carl turned to Oliver and said, "I'm thinking of getting that genetic enhancement from the Bat-Dog we just killed. I'm not sure how much it'll boost us, but every little bit counts when hunting these dangerous things. And it's a permanent boost, too, so that has to count for something. What do you think, Oliver?"
"I'm already under a handicap because I'm only 12," Oliver said with a smile, pleased that Carl was asking him his opinion, and not just dictating things to him like all the other adults in his life. "Anything I can do to close the gap is great in my mind."
"Okay, Gantz," Carl said after turning back to the black ball. "I'll take the Alien Bat-Dog Genetic Enhancement for 5 points, please."
A moment later a similar function to the teleporter de-molecularization began, disappearing Carl from the room. But he didn't reappear anywhere else, and simply blanked out for a few moments, before he was basically teleported back in.
"Whoa!" Carl said as he looked around the room, seeing everything in much sharper detail. "The senses boost is no joke!"
Carl went to the window and looked outside, and was amazed how far he could see and hear in the dark. He then tested his physical abilities by running back and forth in the apartment living room, and found himself quite a bit faster than before. Not quite superhuman, but he was feeling like he was near the peak of human ability concerning speed.
"Yeah, Oliver, you definitely have to get that upgrade!" Carl excitedly exclaimed, looking over at the 12 year old boy that was staring at him with a wide open mouth.
"Yeah! Gantz, I'll take the Alien Bat-Dog Genetic Enhancement for 5 points, also, please!"
A moment later, Oliver also underwent the procedure to be genetically enhanced and reappeared once more. With a laugh, Oliver started running around and boasting about how tough he was now.
"Well, I guess that's all we can do for now, since we don't have anymore points," Carl said once Oliver had calmed down after running around wildly. He looked at the Gantz ball for a moment, complicated feelings bubbling up inside him.
Sure it wasn't ideal to have been dropped into this death game instead of living a nice peaceful life. But at the same time, the Gantz ball and this death game was his key to getting enhanced abilities and cool toys. Not to mention that pretty much anything beat being stuck in the Void.
"So, do you think you can get home on your own?" Carl asked Oliver, who suddenly looked very downtrodden.
"I'm an orphan, living in some state run half-way home. No one's gonna even notice I'm gone," Oliver mumbled softly, but Carl caught it with his newly enhanced hearing.
"Well, I guess we can just crash here for the night, then, and see what we'll do in the morning," Carl offered, and inwardly shook his head at Oliver's excitement at that suggestion.
It wasn't like he had anywhere to go in this world anyway…
Carl grimaced as memories suddenly began flooding his mind. He now "remembered" his life here in this world, and his family. He was a 19 year old college student with a small family, a father, mother, and two younger sisters. And today was Friday, January 1st, 1988. He had gone to sleep after the fireworks of New Years, and then he had suddenly woken up in the Gantz room.
"Yeah, spending the rest of the night here will probably work," Carl told Oliver as he tried to juggle his newly implanted memories and act normal. He went down the hall to one of the rooms while Oliver took the other. He was suddenly feeling very fatigued from the fight and the influx of memories, and he needed time to adjust and figure out what he was going to do.
At least now that he had some memories of this world, he knew that he had a support system and an identity in this world. That was far better than being homeless and penniless while trying to get ready for Gantz missions, that was for sure.
His last thought before falling asleep was to wonder if he could convince his parents in this world to give Oliver a room so he didn't have to stay at the halfway house and they could continue to train.