Frequently Asked Forum Questions | ||||
Search Older Posts on This Forum: Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts | ||||
My Skull Was the Sign of an Ass-kicking... Part II | |
Posted By: Michael M. <Dexterdot@hotmail.com> | Date: 9/24/04 5:41 p.m. |
Part I -- Required reading if you want to understand Part II Don't Dance with the Devil's Heir
Part II I picked up a needler. Michael M: Now, let’s get on with it. Let’s kick. Some. Ass. I slid over to Blue base. There he stood, waiting for me.
Twenty needles raced towards him. Gracefully, he floated out of the way, returning with a plasma grenade. As it exploded, I managed to catch some air off it and brutally stabbed some needles into him with a melee. His shields disappeared. He launched towards me, throwing his plasma pistol on the ground in order to start punching me with some hand-to-hand combat. My pupils widened in shock. I was dumbstruck. My eyes focused on his weapon, which was still on the ground while he madly swiped at me with his bare fists. There he was, pounding me rapidly holding nothing but air, swiping fist after fist. His weapon remained on the ground.
My mind was racing as he continued to pound me with no weapon.
It was an even match, but he was winning. I readied a nearby shotgun and chased after him. “How the hell do you do all that?” I asked.
To much my surprise, a warthog flew over the top of the small canyon and landed in the middle of the creek. This time I was sure it was real. He mounted himself onto the gunner position and pounded my position with bullets. Before now, I wasn’t ever sure if it was physically possible to get a Warthog into this map. As I dodged his bullets, I rolled my fragmentation grenade under his wheel. The warthog gave a screaming noise as it scraped clean over the natural arch.
Slowly, the kills rose to 45-45.
46-48:
48-49: He put up a strong resistance as I blasted him into the wall with my Shotgun. The wall bled bullet holes. Now, the score was 49-49. I was confident this would be an easy match. My soul would forever remain mine. He was not coming near me.
By now I had forgotten all about the storm raging outside. I was unaware that the wind threw the power lines and fuse boxes about by my steps. The sign on my door had now flown off its hinges. The lines holding my Internet connection were hanging on by a thread – or a wire, even. One slight raise in wind would cut off all communication to the outside world. Yes, even online gaming. I took up a pistol, firing rapidly at his chest. He dodged the bullets like basketballs. He appeared from behind, ready to melee. Ready to finish the match. I ducked. His hit went off by a mile. I switched to my shotgun and circled him, ready to fire. My finger inched near the trigger. He backed away. If I fired, he was finished. He carefully backed off. Michael M: Goodbye. BAM! My bullets flew through the air gracefully. As they inched near him he vanished into thin air. He was gone. My mouth widened. I hit my head for not seeing that he had managed to grab the active camo the second before I fired. Now I had no clue where he was. Now, for half a minute or so, he would be able to gain the advantage over me and hit me in the back when I least expected it. But I wasn’t going to let that happen. I rushed over to a corner where my back wasn’t visible. I scanned the area, scared. I couldn’t see him. My eyes brushed over the bush to my left, the rock arch straight ahead… And onto the shotgun poking through the wall behind me. I scrambled away from the wall where I stood as he swiped at where I once was. He was hiding in the wall, his camouflage blending in. Somehow he had forced himself out of the level and had come up to where I was hiding. I rushed over to the LAAG with him still trailing me with a series of melees. I strapped myself in then proceeded to pound the area with a chain of lead. “You want my soul? Well, come and get it, because you’ll have to get through ME first!”
I continued hailing the area with bullets. I focused on the rock arch where he stood. His shields were dimming. Soon both them and the active camouflage would wear off.
That was it. He had hit the bar between his survival and death. I chose the latter. I grabbed the rocket launcher lying beside me. My MC pressed down firm on the handle.
I dropped mine. It was time for a showdown.
I retaliated by pushing my fists into his stomach rapidly. He struggled to block as I punched in everywhere on his body. He brought up his knees to my chest. My heart beat rapidly. Everything was becoming a blur as our characters struggled for life or death. We exchanged blows and kicks. The engine wheezed and moaned as certain things started to go awry. While Pfhorever gave a blow to my head, the overlay displaying the sky disappeared in the overload of stress. The sun, too, disappeared along with what could be seen of the rest of the ring world and the sky. Everything was black in the sky.
I flew back into the wall among much blood. I could swear now Battle Creek was cracking up and lightning was appearing in what was left of the sky.
It felt almost as if he was allowing me to do all these impossible feats of no-weaponed combat. Almost as if it were to make it hard for himself. I heard his shield beep, reinitializing. I found a fragmentation grenade sitting beside me. My Master Chief picked it up in his hand then smacked Pfhorever over with it. It exploded, taking down his health back to no shields with half a bar of health. Now my heart was beating faster than the shots of an Assault Rifle. This couldn’t be happening. This was all a dream. It wasn’t physically possible to fight without a weapon. Most likely, he hacked into the game and made the weapon models disappear. Yeah, that’s it. WHUMP!
I charged at him as he stepped out of the way. I mindlessly stumbled into a small corner from where I saw the one thing which would change the tide of the match.
I threw myself as far forward as possible. It almost felt like it were a movie-like slow motion. My feet whizzed through the creek amongst a hail of shreds of debris and shrapnel.
For him. He didn’t realize what I had planned. He didn’t know that I had seen a stockload of grenades piled under there from earlier. He would have obviously hacked chain-reaction grenades into the map. A smile spread on my face. His finger backed away from the trigger. He was puzzled as to why I hadn’t tried to hide. My grip tightened. This was it.
Michael M: So be it. Be gone. I reached for my character’s belt. Into his hand came one fragmentation grenade.
I blinked. Even through the internet and thousands of miles away, I could swear I could hear his voice screaming in a high, loud voice chiming through my modem as he realized my plan. I could even hear his finger pressing down on the mouse button to fire the LAAG. Michael M: Die. WHOOMF. The grenade’s fuse lit. It burnt down to the core, setting off a chemical reaction causing it to explode. It launched the warthog, still with my opponent into the air. But that wasn’t all. That one grenade caused an explosion which would surely end the game. That grenade set alight several other grenades, 38 to be exact. Simultaneously, they let out an explosion capable of creating a hole in time itself. And that it did. The air, rocks, grass and everything else on the map bubbled under the air and flew at least five feet away. The sheer strain of the engine caused everything on the map to freeze perfectly still, caught in a rip of time by the stress on the engine coupled together with an explosion capable of taking down half the earth. Everything was frozen solid. Slowly, the last grenade, capable of launching the Warthog an extra foot went off. It created a wave of air to ripple, and then freeze. Still, the warthog remained a foot above the ground. Then it all happened at once. The engine couldn’t take it anymore. The force of the explosion wasn’t meant to happen in multiplayer. The multiplayer engine wasn’t quite designed to handle such a force. The warthog froze for one more second with air still trapped around it in waves. Then, everything continued. The air wrapped into itself then vanished, sending everything in close proximity flying back. The explosion finally had an effect on the warthog and it launched high into the air. Hundreds of feet it went, still sailing through the air. More explosions went off from inside the warthog.
I followed the warthog, still flying high with my gaze.
It would all be over when he hit the ground… My screen flickered. I stood to my feet. The connection was dying. I saw the lag symbol in the lower right of my screen.
With the connection and power difficulties, not to mention the game engine breaking up, things were looking dim. The screen started to fade. Everything I could see on the screen was a blurry mess. The sound system was running through every possible piece of audio in the game to make sure everything worked. The keyboard made a crackling noise. Despite this, I advanced forward to see his death. He was descending now. Within seconds he would land on the ground, dead, with his warthog not far behind. I looked up to track his position. There he was, falling with his rocket launcher in hand, desperately trying to get a decent aim on me. He was now less than ten metres from the ground. I rushed to make sure that last corpse hump could be achieved when he hit. His body was less than a metre away from the ground when things went awry. The engine broke. Everything was chaos. My computer nearly exploded from the pandemonium outside. The game was seconds from crashing, and I would be forced to restart before the match ended. I could see him slowly reach the ground where he would slump into a heap. It would be worth all the trouble. In a mad attempt at the last possible moment, he slammed down on the trigger. A rocket spiralled from the tube of his SPNKr. It landed directly in front of him. He disappeared in a cloud of dust. So did I. I strained to watch the screen. I couldn’t see where I was. All I could see was dust and red.
It would all be over. I would have faced him again in the morning when I was more energetic. Now, I chose not to and it would be too late. He would win the match if I took my fingers away from the keyboard. And I wasn’t going to let that happen.
He swung his arm back and threw it into me. I ducked. I swiped at his ankles with my legs. He jumped. It was then he realized he had to kill me at that moment. He brought out a rocket launcher. I brought out a rocket launcher. We were face-to-face, barrel-to-barrel with our rocket launchers.
And on that very moment, there was an explosion never been seen before in Halo. The two rockets impacted, setting off the other grenades around the map. The game engine would probably explode under this kind of strain. And that it did. Red base disappeared in a fountain of flames from the explosion. Blue base followed suit. A giant mushroom cloud appeared over where we stood. As the twisted game engine respawned grenades as they went off, thousands upon thousands of grenades exploded. It was sure to kill us both. I could see shades of yellow, gold and red painting the air. The ground cracked. Numbers and letters flew around the entire map. My modem shuddered. The walls felt like they were on fire from the storm raging outside. The ground shook in the game.
One final explosion went off, lifting me above the ground.
Michael M: Good game. Too bad about my soul, though.
Suddenly I could see ahead of me. There stood the one force capable of putting order to Halo. The guardians. There they were, ghosts of white in the sky, lit only by the souls of those who play Halo. Then they spoke. “One of you must die…” They all said in unison, “But who shall die? It was a fair match. Both of you died equally. We have seen your match and it was the greatest we have ever witnessed. But there must be one winner.” They looked at Pfhorever. “The deal you made with him was a stupid one, but I must admit this was a good way to get a soul back…”
“NO!” I screamed. I charged at him. I was going to take him down with me. As I charged, I simply fell straight through him. “What? No!” I turned and started kicking him. Nothing. My foot went through him as if he were a ghost. “But… You’re… Just… I...” I stuttered. “You’re a ghost!”
“Please… Give it back… I need a soul…Please… You already have one… Why do you need two?” I whimpered.
He peeled off a sticker and slapped it on my Master Chief’s armor.
My jaw dropped. My eyes widened. My eyebrows rose.
One day as I came down the street someone appeared in front of me. He appeared in the form of a suit, sitting on a park bench. He asked me something.
As we had bargained, he gave me unlimited Halo power and soon everyone across the Halo community knew of me. It was awesome. After waiting months and months nervously and then seeing that he never came, I dropped the whole thing and realized he wasn’t going to come. Or that was what I thought. But on that fateful day he finally came. He wanted my soul. I decided then that souls were too precious, so I ran. And ran. But no, he’s too fast. He caught up, stole my soul and because I tried to escape, he trapped me forever in the world of Halo, unable to get out. And so I decided one day that I would take the soul of someone else to free myself. That was when I found you. So you must replace me, Michael. You must live in the world of Halo forever. I’m sorry, Michael.” I shook my head. “No, no, NO! You can’t take me! You won’t take me! This is all a dream! No!”
My soul vanished. He disappeared into thin air. I became part of my mind as my body disappeared. The world became waves of yellow. Everything became dizzy. The world spun round and around. My bed, my chair, my computer, they all disappeared as I vanished into the computer. I was no longer real. I reawoke in what was left of Battle Creek. The world was still being actively destroyed by the game engine. Everything was falling apart. I fell to my knees. I tried to cry, but couldn’t. I had no emotion. Life was nothing but coding to me, now. Without a soul, I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t laugh. I couldn’t eat. I had no free will, as there was no longer a thing called “free will”. I fell face down onto the dirt of Battle Creek. I looked at the creek, buried in debris as flaming sulphur rained down upon it. Electric storms covered the virtual reality’s sky. I covered my eyes from the stones that hailed down from the sky. And there it was.
Down beside it I found a fragmentation grenade. I casually turned my gaze back to the skull- wait. I turned back to the frag. I knew how to end this. Yes, this would all be over.
WHOOMF! Off it went. I couldn’t feel pain. I had no soul. I was simply the Master Chief who would respawn when he died. There was no end in Halo. However, there was another way to end it all. WHOOMF. WHOOMF. WHOOMF. Three grenades around me set off. And another. And another. Soon, the thousands of grenades around the map would set alight and create one more explosion to finish it all. No, I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I was trying to kill the game. Ten more grenades went off. Then more. And then more. When a grenade exploded, the game engine would automatically replace it with another. So, since the game had already screwed up and placed hundreds around the map, hundreds more would come when a grenade exploded. The world was fire. Dust rained from the sky as thousands upon thousands of grenades would explode. Soon, I was high above the clouds looking down on Battle Creek, now nothing but pure fire.
Bet you didn’t think that would happen, did you? Yeah, well now I’m back. And I want revenge. I logged onto HBO. So, which one of you knows where my soul is? Because when I do get it back, the world as he knows it will cease to exist. Good luck, Pfhorever, at keeping my soul. Because you didn’t think destroying Halo could happen, did you? Especially when you’re trapped inside? Yeah, well watch your back, man. I’m still holding the skull in my left hand. It’ll be the last thing you’ll ever see. Good luck. Right now, I’m still looking at the sticker he gave me.
E N D Author’s notes: Concerning Frogblast:
Regarding Fan Fiction:
About the game engine:
Special Thanks: Oh, one more thing: Please, put in your input. The more you give feedback, the better writer I can be.
© 2004 Michael M. The ~_^ logo and everything related to it is a trademark of sheer stupidity, so steal it if you want |
|
Replies: |
My Skull Was the Sign of an Ass-kicking... Part II | Michael M. | 9/24/04 5:41 p.m. |
Re: My Skull Was the Sign of an Ass-kicking... Par | The Mustard Chief | 9/24/04 6:02 p.m. |
Or Halo CE in one of the less laggy CTF servers *NM* | The Mustard Chief | 9/24/04 6:15 p.m. |
I liked it allot - great read - entertaining - gj *NM* | Vitron | 9/24/04 8:02 p.m. |
Yet again, a very nice read! *NM* | Gothmog117 | 9/24/04 8:26 p.m. |
The HBO Forum Archive is maintained with WebBBS 4.33. |