Condition Evolution 2: A LitRPG / Gamelit Adventure by Sinclair, Kevin (black female authors txt) 📗

“Whatever. What about that throw Ember. Didn’t realize you were so accurate.”

“I wasn’t under any direct pressure, so I went to my Mindscape. When you jumped and he raised his arm to you, I used telekinesis to shoot out of my hand with everything I had. Never actually threw it physically at all.”

“Well, whatever you did was magnificent,” I said and turned to Gus and Mick. “That was a team victory. Couldn’t have done it without you.”

Mick smiled tiredly. He wore a tightly tied bandage that was finally stemming the blood flow and was still holding a rifle loosely in his hands.

Gus nodded with a stern expression.

We had gained victory so far through teamwork, and because the Fystr had massively underestimated us. I grabbed the dead Fystr’s two swords and gave one each to Mick and Gus.

“No, Shaun,” Mick said. “I can’t even use it at the minute. You should keep mine.”

“You should keep both, Shaun. You deserve them,” Gus added.

I put the swords down in front of the two men. “I don’t use swords. I like my axes and let’s face it, they’ve done okay for us so far. If we come across an axe upgrade, it's mine,” I said. In my head, I knew exactly which axe I wanted.

Walking back to the body, I started dragging it away from our barricade. Ember followed me, moving the guy’s head along with her foot. “You're holding up pretty well, Shaun. I’m impressed.”

“I can promise you, I’m not. What did you say to me? Like a duck, calm on the surface? That’s me.”

“Well, you’re not showing it. You’ve kept us alive and you're inspiring those two back there to believe it’s not over. And me, if I’m honest.”

“I’m glad if I am, but we’re alive because we're all playing a part.”

“Whatever you say.” She smiled at me.

“Don’t be too inspired. They’re not gonna keep coming one-by-one.”

“No, they’re definitely not, I’d expect them all to come next time.”

“Yeah, me too, stupid Fystr. I’ve managed to go my whole life without seeing a decapitated head, and then these bastards come along, and I have to see three in twenty minutes.”

“You know you could kill them in a different way. I mean, you did chop both their heads of Shaun.”

I shrugged, “yeah, I definitely need more practice.”

She laughed, then we fell into an eerie silence. Listening intently for the impending doom coming our way.

We sat behind our crates for a lot longer than I thought we would have to before we heard anyone else come through the doors. One good thing about our defense was that it only had a narrow approach to us, so only a couple of Fystr could get through at one time. I didn’t think practically that it would do us any good, but we had to hope for these little advantages.

Thankfully, Mick had stopped bleeding. He and Gus stayed where they were. There weren’t really any other options for Mick, and Gus wouldn’t leave his side. Me and Ember climbed back up onto the shelves.

“Humans. Show yourselves!” came a deep, resonating voice. I was surprised he didn’t call us primates or monkeys. Obviously, we didn’t reply again. It was worth a try.

“We don’t know what skills you possess, but you’re obviously more powerful than we anticipated. You’ve managed to kill two of our number. We know there are only four of you, and we are all here now. That’s eight highly trained Fystr against four humans. No matter how skilled you may be, this will end in only one way.

Now, we are going to come down there and collect you up. If you resist, you will all be killed. There is nowhere you can hide. You have been very lucky for primates, thus far.”

I don’t know why, but when this guy said primates after avoiding using that term for the first part of his little speech, it pissed me off so much more.

“You are trying my patience!” he shouted. “If you surrender and we will take you as prisoners. We will find out how you’ve become so powerful in such a short span of time, and it won’t be pleasant. I understand that this would sound like an unfair proposition, but your options really are limited to that experimentation and torture or death.”

“How about box number C,” I shouted, then cringed at my gaffe. I couldn’t wait for Ember to take the piss about that one later. Not willing to be perturbed by my own idiocy for long, I continued. “How about you just let us fucking go. We’re not doing anything wrong. We haven’t done anything to you, and really don’t want anything to do with you. We’re just innocent bystanders in this shitstorm. Everything you’ve got going on, we don’t want to know anything about!”

“You have killed two Fystr, fool. There is no possible way, no scenario in any world, galaxy, or universe, where you walk away from this. Killing a Fystr, even if you were ignorant to who or what they were, is the worst offense you could possibly commit in the whole of the galaxy. Now, the time for your prattling is over. Surrender or die.”

We heard cautious footsteps move deeper into the room.

“What shall we do?” Gus whisper-shouted, “definitely going to die if we try to fight.”

“We’re definitely going to die if we don’t try to fight,” I replied.

“We could stall?” Gus said meaningfully.

“Fuck! I forgot about the bombs!” I said back to Gus. Then I shouted back, towards the ever encroaching footsteps, “We have this whole place rigged to blow up. If you try to take us, I promise you now, one of us will trigger it and blow this whole storage room to smithereens.”

“You try to trick us with lies, human. We do not believe you have any explosives here,” came an extra deep voice. I reckoned it was Gigantor with the axe.

“I thought you guys were supposed to be clever! Why the