The different factions took their stations around the door respectively. We Death Hunters were actually around the middle of the crowd of hundreds going in. And after a few moments were heard the timer. The time above the door ticked like a clock. Tensions rose in the air as we all felt the pressure. We made it through the door and we would be in a completely different scenario. A completely random place with ways to get rid of players immediately so only the ones with good instincts could make it. The timer reached zero and the doors creaked open revealing their glowing gold interior. And as one the crowd charged. Beth was on my back despite her more youthful appearance. She still wasn't as fast as the rest of us. I charged forward and suddenly found my way blocked partially by a guy with a wolf's head for his left hand. "You're mine kid." He said as he ran into the gate. I continued to charge ahead shaking the threat from my mind. I ran through the door with relative ease and felt a different sensation.
My feet were wet in the dark. I could hardly see a thing from how things seemed. I reached out and found a wall to my right as I felt my eyes warm. The surroundings became clearer and I realized why the ground was wet. We were in a sewer. Bethany had covered her nose with her handkerchief because of the smell. I wished I could have done the same from the smell but unfortunately my hands were full. I saw a bit of light ahead and started towards it. My pace started to pick up when I started to hear screaming behind me. I sloshed ahead and found a ladder leading to the surface. I pushed Beth up it and looked around quickly. Beth shoved the manhole cover out of the way as I noticed a flicker against the faint lighting. The flicker turned into gleaming eyes. And the gleaming eyes turned into a swarm of snake viruses that were swimming through the water towards me. I was startled enough to get my butt in gear. I went up the ladder and shoved the manhole cover back into position as soon as I was out. There was more viruses down there than what I could possibly handle with my current skills.
Beth had gone over to the sidewalk. The streets were completely empty. Not a car or person in sight. The sky was filled with lights everywhere. The cityscape was enormous while being very clustered and obnoxiously bright. The diamond shaped sun in the sky seemed hotter and brighter than usual. I could see groups of figures moving about in some places across the cityscape above. Though it didn't look like Thor was around for this weeks Dome battle from what I could see which only made me smile. Beth looked about before pointing at a skyscraper closest to us on the left. "If the rest of our group came out anywhere close to us they should be around that one." She said calmly. "Alright then." I said as she climbed on my back and I went on all fours and started walking that direction.
Meanwhile...
Three figures stood in a darkened ally. "We should have found them by now." A female figure said. Her staff had a skull with flowers on it and her dress was after the manner of the Greeks. "They'll be fine Lily. Beth's with Sil so if there's trouble they could get out no problem. Sil's fast and Beth's got her corrosion factor to take into account." Said a cloaked figure. Obviously the grim reaper by how his scythe gleamed against the light. "Now now. We should have some faith yes? After all they are a beauty and the beast combo. Nothing better to catch people off guard. Yes?" An Italian accent filled the air. This came from a pale man dressed in a black toga examining his sword before sheathing it.
"I hope they're ok." Lily said. Thumping could be heard coming from the street closest to the alley. As she peeked around the corner at the large group of tanky figures approaching Lily waved her hand signaling to retreat into a building next to them. Henry's boney figure immediately vanished through the wall next to him while Hoy took Lily into his arms and flew to the top of the building. It was a short shop structure with an icecream insignia on the front of it. The thumping steps of the guardian faction was enough to shake dust from the surrounding buildings and scared away alot of viruses above the ground. A giant blue man looked at the icecream sign and sighed. "Man. I miss ice cream. This place is too cruel to people man. Remindin me of my favorite snack. This place sucks." He rumbled as he kicked a basketball that rolled close by. The ball shot from the ground and started to ricochet between the buildings at high speed. I zoomed through the air above Lily's head and into the distance. Lily had to duck to avoid it.
"Geeze! That one must be Ymir if I guess correctly. How hard did he kick that ball?" She hissed in a whisper. Hoy peeked around the edge of the icecream sign slightly. "I dunno... But he's pretty cute. Though that Odin from the warrior faction... Grow." He muttered before quickly hiding as Ymir swung his head around looking at the roof tops. A chill had gone down his spine for no reason and it unsettled him. The guardian faction members numbered 30 or so. In truth their faction had split their group in half so 30 went one way and 20 went another. That was without thinking about the viruses that killed some of the members before the split. Lily and Henry looked very unimpressed at Hoy. He shrugged. "What? I get to admire eye candy every once in a while too." He grunted with a slight blush. Lily shook her head while rubbing her forehead. "Ok...Back to the main issue. What is the looks of things?" Lily asked and Hoy quietly explained the situation. Lily ran her hands through her hair in slight frustration. "This only serves to put me on edge further." She thought as she once again began to think about Beth and Sil who were on the other side of the map.
Meanwhile...
There was two figures running across the ground at high speed. A cloud of old newspapers and dust flying behind them as the ran. The closest skyscraper was only another block away. But that wasn't why they were running. A horde of snake viruses was following close behind in the dust. "I told you not to kill that virus as we passed!" Beth shouted. "How was I supposed to know it would trigger a stampede!?" I retorted to Beth who sat on my back as I ran on all fours. While we had been running to the sky scraper I had noticed a small snake virus and decided to kill it despite Beth's better judgement. Turns out the thing was a virus trigger. Something like a trojan horse. As soon as it was killed it would call all the viruses in the vicinity to kill its attacker. Now I know I'm a numbskull sometimes but this took the cake. But on the positive side the hoard was slowly falling behind.
I ran around a corner and opened a dumpster to hide in. Without much thought to the smell we jumped in. It took a few seconds before we heard the slithering noises of the snake hoard. The hissing and scraping of needles across the ground was unsettling as they passed. I lifted the lid of the dumpster to take a peek around after a few minutes of silence. I saw nothing resembling a virus which allowed me to let out a sigh of relief. I hopped out and lifted Beth back onto my back. "I am never going against your judgement again." I grumbled as I started back on all fours again. The skyscraper was actually easier to get to after that surprisingly. Though actually entering was a problem. A large crowd of different factions were facing off against each other around it.
There was large creatures with tanky builds fighting against a small horde of mechanical beasts. Each had a different form and build varying between an elephant all the way to the the tiniest lizard. The elephant was so heavy and bulky that it drove a big shield bearing God backwards leaving a trench from where his feet had been. He roared in anger and actually grabbed the thing and flipped it onto its side before brutally beating on it with its massive shields. Beth's jaw and mine hit the floor. "That's definitely Cabrakan." I whispered. His body was mostly naked with a loin cloth around his waist. He was 15 feet tall with skin he color of earthen brown and jewels coated his fist as gold lines ran across his veins. He literally was what a human born from a rock would look like. He roared at the wrecked hunky of metal which was steaming and smoking under his barrage of attacks. My eyes grew hot as my appraisal screen came up and started analyzing everyone. Bellona was nowhere to be seen but guardian faction was everywhere. They were fighting the builder faction by the looks of things. Hephaestus was sitting at the back of his group with his pet mech spider. The spider was spitting out metal sheets as little spider bots brought little rocks and pieces of metal from the surroundings. They inserted the pieces into the sides of its massive abdomen and I heard hissing and whirring before it spat out another piece of metal. I saw many hammers being raised in a blur as parts and materials were refined and metals were forged into the monsters that were fighting. there was alot of creatures smithing away but only Hephaestus was sitting idle or so it thought.
A guardian managed to break through the suppressing line of creatures and charged at the massive spider. The workers kept working away and it wasn't till he was about 5 feet away from hephaestus that something happened. A line of turrets popped out of he spider and the charging god realized something. His realization... He F@€#ED up. The turrets each had a whirling gatling gun on top which roared to life with bullets and light flaring off their gun barrels. The end result? He god was blown to kingdom come. He was filled with so many holes in seconds that he was a cloud of data before he could hit the floor.
Beth tapped my shoulder and motioned for us to go around. I quietly nodded and we started going around he building a different way. With the amount of noise being made we didn't really have to be quiet. Just had to be careful. I weaved behind dumpsters and rubble that was big enough for us to hide until we found our way behind the building. There was less people behind it and as far as I could see that was a good thing.
We slowly made out way forward until I stepped forward and felt something give under my foot before hearing a click. I stopped dead in my tracks. "Damnit."I hissed. Beth slowly got off my back and cleared away some of the rubble from my foot. And there staring me in the face was a mine. It was only then that I realized why noone was on this side. It was a minefield.