Kristoffer Pauly
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MADMAN APOCALYPSE - Chapter -147
🕑 Added 2024-11-28 19:02:33 +0000 UTC-Previous chapter-
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I am back from my brief vacation, thank you for waiting patiently.
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Chapter -147
Tina wrapped her green serpents around the three of us, although it was awkward since I was upside-down and they weren’t. Above me, which was below them, was the distant town hall of Madeville. I couldn’t see William Twine anywhere, but several Players seemed to be defending the Safe Zone from the giant Executioner Aphid-Dog. They were being torn to shreds by its aggressive turrets.
The pull on my stomach as I fell upwards toward the Hive Ship was accompanied by an increasingly-painful pressure on my ears, just like the experience of sitting in a plane during takeoff.
Steve was no longer screaming, but instead just ragdolled unconsciously while strapped to Tina and me. Meanwhile, Panda was inexplicably sitting on my shoulder as though our incredible velocity didn’t affect him, but, then again, it wouldn’t be the first time he defied reality.
“I think I can control the effect!” I yelled into the whooshing air.
“You think??” Panda replied pessimistically.
“The passive said gravity has no control over me, so I should be able to control it.”
“That makes no sense,” he said.
“If you can’t slow us down, I’ll try something,” Tina commented in-between excited laughs.
Below my pee-stained-white Schmonic Boots was the black outer shell of the Hive Ship, which just grew-and-grew as I continued to fall.
After twenty straight minutes and with a head that felt like it might pop from the pressure, the ship was the only thing I saw in the sky below.
“It’s fucking huge!” I exclaimed.
“Makes sense, doesn’t it? It houses all the human children of earth after all,” Panda commented.
Tina stopped laughing. “My children are waiting for me up there.”
I blinked in surprise. “You have children!? Since when??”
“Since five months ago,” she answered. “They were taken from me a week before the Great Game began.”
“Don’t worry!” I told her. “We’ll get them back.”
“I know. Nina said you would be able to save them.”
Tina raised her head to look up, which was my down, before adding, “There’s a hundred feet until we collide.”
“Oh shit!” Panda exclaimed. “Gambit, if you’re gonna slow us down, you’ve gotta do it now!”
I focused and, though it would be impossible to explain how, was able to intuitively ‘relax’ the momentum my reversed gravity had.
While I rapidly slowed my upwards fall, Steve spasmed awake with a loud gasp, only to immediately begin screaming. I lost control of the effect and we suddenly plummeted back down to earth for a couple seconds, before I managed to flip the gravity back around. Then we were leisurely floating towards the underside of the Hive Ship.
I rubbed my hands excitedly. “This will be so much fun to use in a fight.”
“If you can control it properly, it’ll definitely make you super powerful,” Panda agreed.
My squishy boots touched down on the black shell of the enormous spaceship. The landing was gentle enough that I didn’t even feel the impact. Tina and Steve were still oriented right-way-up, which made it very bizarre as their heads were down around my knees when I began walking.
“I’m gonna hurl,” Steve groaned.
“Don’t,” I told him. My face was in the direct line of fire.
He shut his eyes and shook his head. “Just find a way for us to get inside. Hurry!”
Tina, unfazed by the confusing situation, pointed off in a direction, where a hill of reflective black metal poked out of the jagged carapace of the ship. It was as though the entire thing was one impossibly-vast shard of a hybrid material made of obsidian glass and metal. Strangely, it produced a loud clink as I traversed it, despite my soft boots.
The hill turned out to not be a hill at all, but rather a strange barnacle-like protrusion from which a pod had been launched. The middle of the barnacle dipped down into a tube wide enough to fit the giant Metro Train.
“Woah,” Panda muttered as he looked around. I followed his gaze, seeing how in every direction the ground was the same polished black. The ship was so enormous that it was impossible to see where it ended, even from this elevated position.
Suddenly something zipped by us and went down into the barnacle hole. I caught just a quick blur of red, yellow, and white.
“What was that!?” Steve yelled in horror.
“The Twine brothers,” Tina replied.
“I wanted to be the first one in,” I complained, before hopping down into the barnacle hole.
Steve immediately began screaming again and his voice echoed off the walls of the tube strangely as we fell upwards into the Hive Ship.
The tube took a serpentine route as it moved through the outer shell and I had to constantly readjust the trajectory of my Fuck Gravity passive. When we finally reached the end a few minutes later, I felt as though I’d fully learnt how to master both the passive’s trajectory, as well as its inertia.
We flew out of the floor and towards the ceiling of a large chamber, but I quickly maneuvered us through the air in a U-turn and landed us gently on the floor. Since I was controlling the trajectory, this meant that I landed feet-on-the-ground, with Tina and Steve now being upside-down. The Venomancer quickly dispelled the neon-green serpents and they were both untangled from my body, before plopping down on the floor.
The chamber was rectangular and about thirty feet wide and a hundred long, with a massive blast door of the black material at the opposite end from where the giant hole in the floor had spit us out. The walls, floor, and ceiling weren’t anything like the exterior of the ship, but instead reminded me of the Healer’s shop in the Mall. It was like brown kind-of-flexible paper and it absorbed most of the noise from Steve’s violent vomiting. The air in the chamber was dry as a desert and sweltering like one too, perhaps due to the material’s insulating effect.
Opposite the hole from us were two figures: a fluffed-up and sick-looking Satyr; and a raincoat-wearing mask-thieving Angel Boy.
“Give me back what you stole, you bastard!” I yelled to Matthew Twine.
He wore the Red Pawn mask on his face and its color clashed severely with the white-and-yellow style he had going with the winged raincoat he wore.
Before he could respond, everyone froze. The puke leaving Steve’s mouth hung suspended in mid-air; the red lightning that was sparking to life in Matthew’s palm became static; and the neon-green serpent Tina was shooting forward in response was half-formed and stuck with its fanged maw aimed at his face.
Then a voice addressed us and our region. It was much different than the female voices of the Wasp Announcers, but still familiar to me. Unlike the first time I’d heard this voice, it didn’t feel like my brain was slowly decaying, although there was a distinct series of zaps rolling across my brain with every syllable it uttered.
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In the absence of any eligible Announcers, I have taken it upon myself to perform the GREAT GAME announcements.
My name is Messimer and I am the Master of the Broadcast Department. Due to the interference of two enterprising Players and an unregulated Benefactor, I have been summoned to the Castleburg Region ahead of schedule. Nevertheless, the show will go on as prescribed.
As you will recall, the period between GAME Events was shortened to 24 hours and it has now been exactly one day since the First Event concluded across all Regions. Thus, the Second Event must now commence.
Considering that there are no Announcers to guide you into this Event, I will briefly describe it before you are transported to the venue.
The Second GAME Event is called ‘Best in Show’. Players will be required to work together as teams in order to manufacture the most powerful Monstrosity possible. Teams are created based on current proximity, meaning that you are highly likely to end up on a team with those next to you in this current moment.
There are three phases to the Event:
The Collection Phase, where Players must scour the Singing City for parts and hunt its denizens for materials. Hunting other Players for materials is highly encouraged.
The Crafting Phase, where collected parts and materials must be combined to create a Monstrosity. Players who lack parts and materials may use this time to hunt down other Players to steal theirs. Teams without a Monstrosity at the end of this Phase are eliminated.
The Tournament Phase, where Teams will pit their Monstrosities against each other in a tournament bracket. Players may not interact with other Teams or Monstrosities during this Phase. Any Team whose Monstrosity is defeated will be eliminated.
I am unable to answer many of the questions you have, but I believe that if you have survived until now, you possess the ability to find the answers by yourself.
Good luck and may the best Teams win.
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When the announcement finished, none of us were transported away.
Tina’s big green serpent shot across the room, only to immediately collide with a spear of red lightning shot from Matthew’s hand. Both spells exploded and sent a weak shockwave outward.
Before either of them could try something else, Steve got to his feet, holding the Announcer’s Microphone in his hand. “Steve Says: Everybody has to get along!”
I’d been a millisecond away from leaping across the room using SPRING_HEEL and my new gravity-manipulation passive, but as his words washed over me, the aggression left my body.
But only for a moment.
Tina and Matthew both relaxed as well, but their eyes were still locked on one-another.
“For fuck’s sake, Steve!” I yelled.
“Shut up, Gambit! Just shut up for once!” he screamed. “We’re here to free your friend right?”
“And Tina’s kids,” Panda added.
“What?” he asked, the anger quickly replaced by confusion.
“Yeah, her kids are here too,” he said.
William got up from the floor, where he’d also thrown up, much like Steve. Then he said, “Where did that Panda come from? And why the hell are we still here when the Second Event just started!?”
“Maybe it’s because the Hive Ship is outside the influence of the Great Game?” Panda guessed.
While the plushie spoke, Matthew looked at him as well. It seemed both brothers were pretty close to going insane.
Then Matthew looked to Steve, who was wiping puke off his shoes.
“Happy Birthday,” he said in a deep and flat voice.
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I know it seems like this Second Event will be skipped, but don't worry, the Monstrosity Tournament battle will be coming later.
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Comments
Kristoffer Pauly
For the most part, yes. Although they do at times adopt human architecture for their purposes, such as with the Broadcast Department and the regional HQ that Gambit and Bee blew up.
the ice man
I have a question, are all system agents' structures biologically like with it like say the broadcasters the spider webs, or the hive ships barnacle?
M0och
That is some gorgeous art
the ice man
is it water-painted? because the ship looks fluid
