“You’re doing well, Forte,” X said after the Wilybot had finished his weapons proficiency and target practice and taken a brief break. “Ready to move on to your sims?”
“Hell fuckin’ yeah I am!” Forte paused when X raised an eyebrow at him, clearing his throat and trying to quell his excitement a little bit. “Er . . . sorry. I mean, uh, yes sir.”
To his relief, X smiled slightly, his gaze more amused than anything else. “Stay down here. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Gotcha.” Forte stretched idly to loosen himself up while he waited, straightening when X’s voice came over the intercom. At his side, Gospel was pawing at the ground in excitement, his tail wagging back and forth almost hard enough to take his back half with it. “Settle down, boy,” Forte said with a grin. “Save it for the sim.”
“Forte, can you hear me okay down there?”
“Good. Your objective for the first sim is to escort a civilian to safety through a dangerous area. Here-” A pause, and a holographic image of a seven-story building with a helipad on its roof flickered into existence at Forte’s feet. “Is where you’ll be working. Get the civilian to safety as quickly and efficiently as possible. Clear?”
“All right then.” X tapped out a few codes on the console, falling silent for a moment before adding, “Good luck in there.”
“Thank. Alright, let’s get to it.” Forte rolled his shoulders a few times as the simulated environment came into existence around him, feeling a little thrill in his chest in spite of the seriousness of his posture. This wasn’t a training sim, this was for real. He could feel Gospel practically quivering with pent up anticipation at his side, and he gave the wolfbot an amused if firm command to settle down.
Everything around him shifted and wavered, and he straightened up as he was immediately slammed into a world of chaos.
Unstable building that was a total warzone, check. Screaming civilian and Mavericks, check. Explosions and fire, check.
Yup, this was sure to be fun.
“Hey!” he called, immediately making a beeline for the civilian and ordering Gospel to cover him for the time being. “Hey, over here! Stick close to me, I’ll keep ya safe!”
He felt a mild spark of irritation when the civilian scrambled away from him with a squeak of fear, but he merely sighed, continuing to weave his way closer. “‘Ey- will you- calm down, will ya?” He placed a hand on the civilian’s trembling shoulder, eliciting another terrified squeak. “Look at me. I’m here to help you, okay? I’m a Hunter; I ain’t gonna hurtcha. Understand?”
The civilian nodded, and Forte sighed in relief. “A’ite, here’s the plan,” he said. “There’s an aerial transport waiting for ya on the roof. Good seven floors up or so. Stick near me or Gos, keep yer head low, and keep up with us. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
He somewhat grudgingly allowed the civilian to grab onto his hand as he broke into a sprint, an unusual amount of seriousness on his features as he took out the first wave of Mavericks that charged down the stairs at them. He knew how much power to put out, how much to charge up his shots and how to steady his aim to keep damage to the building to a minimum. It’s paying off, he told himself, listening to and communicating with Gospel at every move. All that practice and all those drills are paying off. You can do this.
They began steadily making their way up the stairs, Forte having to grit his teeth not to grow impatient at how slowly humans moved. Damn them and their vital need for breathing while they ran. “Yer doin’ fine,” he said, able to feel the civilian’s hand shaking in his own. “Just stick with me.”
He skidded to a halt as they rounded the next corner, holding his arm out for the civilian to stay behind him. The hall was narrow. Narrow and absolutely swarming with Mavericks. The short and sweet solution would be to just fire at will and watch them explode, but that wouldn’t exactly be pretty . . .
He was just starting to formulate a plan of attack when X’s voice came over the intercom, completely shattering his train of thought. “Forte, can you hear me?”
“Uh, loud and clear,” Forte said, taking a wary pace back when a number of Maverick optics zoned in on him. “Why, what happened?”
“The sim’s still running, don’t stop. I have a question for you.”
“O . . . kay?” Forte narrowed his eyes slightly, his plasma cannon giving a quiet click and his armor shifting to a reddish-purple color. “Fire away, I’ll uh, keep workin’ on this.”
He fired his Triple Blade twice in quick succession, the six sharp blades shearing through a number of enemies and sticking themselves in the walls. “I want you to put yourself in this scenario,” X went on. “There’s a Maverick with an innocent in its clutches, and they’re on unstable ground. There’s a high risk of injury to the innocent and a high probability that the structure they’re on could collapse from even minor damage. How would you proceed?”
“Uhm . . .” Fucking hell, now really wasn’t the time. Forte let loose a Commando Bomb, the spread of the explosion helping to clear a path through the swarm in the hall, and he started forward again at a sprint, waving an arm for the civilian to follow. “Stick with me!” he called before returning his attention to the question at hand. “I’d . . . I’d probably try and get in close!” he replied after another few moments of thought. “Grab the innocent and get ‘em away from the Maverick and back on stable ground; I can handle the Mav once the innocent’s not in the cross-” He ducked, drawing his axe and quickly activating the blades so he could use the weapon to block at least some shots. “Crossfire!”
There was a lengthy pause, X finally answering with a simple, “Proceed,” and nothing more.
“Got it,” Forte said under his breath, sliding to a stop and making a sharp movement to press his back to the wall, yanking the civilian along with him. “Heads up!”
A missile whizzed past them, and the civilian shrieked, clapping their hands over their ears and dropping into a crouch. “Hey, easy,” Forte said. “Easy, calm down.”
Fuck, this wasn’t working. It was too cramped in here, they needed another way around. “I got an idea,” he said. “Follow after me!”
Once again, he broke into a sprint, gathering a bigger charge into his plasma cannon to clear the path in front of them- not to mention shatter a number of the nearby windows. “C’mon, we’re gonna take the scenic route!”
He climbed his way through the shattered window and onto the fire escape first, checking to make sure there were no nasty surprises waiting outside before pulling the civilian through as well, Gospel close on their heels. "Here's what we're gonna do," Forte said, looking up and getting himself an estimate of how many units were going to start trying to eat his face as soon as he got up a little higher. "We'll climb as far as we can; once things get hairy we'll switch to the air. Hope ya like heights."
The civilian nodded weakly, following Forte up the fire escape on trembling legs. Any Mavericks who saw them through the windows were disposed of with a quick charge shot, Forte not so much as breaking pace to fire. "Forte, I have another question for you," came X's voice over the loudspeaker once again.
"Go for it," Forte said, biting back a sigh. "I'm listenin'."
"A close friend and unit member of yours begins displaying odd and erratic behavior," X said. "You suspect they may be showing signs of being a Maverick, but you can't tell for sure. What would you do?"
Oh, great. More hypotheticals. "Probably-" Forte looked up, squinting and whistling for Gospel to hop onto his back and get in adaptor form. "Talk to the higher ups, let 'em know to keep an eye out. Maybe suggest getting a viral scan done."
"And what if they turn out to be a free will Maverick, and they're not infected?"
There was a pause, Forte taking a few moments to think things over before speaking again. "I wouldn't just up and attack right off. I'd wanna know why. If it came down to the wire, I wouldn't hesitate, but I gotta do what's best to protect people first an' foremost."
"Yes, sir." Forte gave the jets on his back a quick test, holding an arm out toward the civilian. "C'mon. Whatever ya do, don't let go."
Once the civilian was secure in his hold, Forte's left arm holding them close and a charge humming in the plasma cannon on his right, he took a breath to steady himself and hopped off the side of the fire escape, the jets on his back carrying them into a quick climb upwards. "Hang on tight!" he called when he saw a good group of the aerial Mavericks turn their sights on him. "We're goin' in!"
To Forte's credit, he was more than comfortable in the air. He knew exactly where his wing tips were, how to just barely increase the output from his jets to compensate for the recoil each time he fired, how to dodge and weave smoothly in between hostiles, even while holding someone against his chest. He was the picture of calm and focus, every move indicating that he was taking this as seriously as he would were this a real civilian rather than a simulation.
He had made it as high as the sixth floor when X interrupted him again; of course he would interrupt when Forte was getting into the thick of the hostiles, of fucking course. "Last question, Forte."
"You're in the heart of an attack. One of your comrades is injured nearby and under duress, but you're not confident in your ability to take out their attacker, as you're injured as well. You're also aware of another comrade struggling to hold their own a ways away. How do you proceed?"
"Fuck," Forte muttered, followed by a shout of surprise when a piece of shrapnel whipped past his ear. "Uh, I'll get back to ya on that one in just-" He ducked. "A sec!"
"There's no time to hesitate, Forte," X said, even as the Wilybot took to evasive maneuvers in midair, still steadily working his way upwards. "If you don't act right away, one or more of your comrades could be seriously hurt or killed."
"Depends- whoa!" Again, Forte ducked, clearly more focused on avoiding than attacking at this point. Get the civilian to safety, then handle the Mavericks. Fighting Mavericks with civilians nearby was a pain. "If the one closer to me is in worse shape, I gotta see if anyone else is closer to the other and try and protect who I can! If nothin' else I could...I could try to disable the attacker to give the Hunter closer to me a break before going after the other two, it all depends on who's where and how bad everyone's hurt or struggling!"
There was an even longer silence this time, and Forte began to grow concerned that he'd said the wrong thing. "You're doing well," X said at last. "The transport is two floors up on roof level. Don't stop."
"Got it!" Forte said, feeling a spark of confidence in his chest at the praise. "C'mon, Gos, keep it up!"
His armor color shifted to a dusky red, and he fired two shots of his Solar Blaze straight upward, allowing the unusual splitting action of the fireball to clear him a path. "Almost there!" he said, shifting his trajectory to fly straight up. "We're gonna make it, almost-!"
Something clicked on his right side, and he found himself grateful for the sound-amplifying fins on his helmet, particularly when he turned his head and saw that the source of the click was one of his attackers arming a set of six missiles. "Hang on tight!" he ordered the civilian, kicking his jets on high and making a break for it.
Of course the missiles would just have to have ridiculously erratic paths, of fucking course they would. Forte was more than skilled at aerial maneuvers, but even he could only do so much when there were still about thirty or more smaller Mavericks attacking him at every turn, and when said Mavericks seemed to keep multiplying as he shot them down. A missile grazing his left calf really didn't help either, throwing his balance off just enough to send him spinning.
With a low growl, he gritted his teeth and righted his balance, whipping around in midair and firing a Spread Drill that split into pieces and took out four of the remaining five missiles. "Goin' down, get ready for a rough landing!" he shouted above the roar of the wind, changing his direction again and this time heading straight downwards, since they had shot right past the roof in playing tag with the goddamn missiles.
This wasn't going to be pretty.
All of his proximity sensors were screaming warnings at him- the missile was right on his tail, it was four yards away, now two yards, now one-
Instinctively, he curled himself around the civilian who had spent the entire flight screaming in his arms, the Wilybot giving a grunt of pain when the missile struck his lower back and exploded on impact. The ensuing pressure wave flipped him sideways, but he allowed the force to work for him, landing hard on his left foot and ending in a skid that left a long scrape in the roof.
"Go!" he told the civilian, giving them a shove toward the waiting helicopter and pretending he wasn't just a little bit disoriented by the explosion and the rough landing. "Go, run, I gotcha covered!"
To his relief, the civilian listened this time, and Forte turned sharply on his heel and allowed Gospel to detach from his shoulders. Protecting the helicopter as it took off was simple target practice to him; Axl's long sessions really had payed off after all.
As the helicopter began to make its way farther from the building, all the Mavericks abruptly froze, the simulated environment fading away. "Fuckin' hell," Forte panted. "That was...fun, wasn't it Gos?"
The wolfbot didn't respond but to flop down on his side with his tongue lolling out and his chest heaving for breath. "Take about twenty minutes to recharge and recover," X's voice ordered over the intercom. "Then we'll move on to the specialized sim."
"Sure thing," Forte said. "I'm gonna go get Gos some water; flying for that long takes a lot outta him."
"That's fine, there's a break room with a sink just through that door."
"Right. See ya in twenty." Forte patted the side of his leg to encourage Gospel to follow him to the break room, getting both himself and the wolfbot a cold drink to refresh them. “We’re doin’ good, boy,” he said, crouching down to scratch the sides of his companion’s face. “Stick with me now, a’ite? I’m gonna needja in this next sim too; you up for it?”
Gospel gave himself a shake, his tail beginning to wag again as he recovered. “Good dog,” Forte said, giving him a rough pat on the head and heading back out into the sim room, where he sat down against the wall to rest until it was time for the next sim.
“Ready to continue on?” X asked once the recruit’s break had ended.
Forte hopped to his feet with a nod, stretching a bit and looking as rested and revitalized as ever. “Good,” X said. “Your objective for the second sim will simply be to get from point A to point B. The goal you’re aiming for looks like this.” There was a pause as X typed something in on his console, a holographic image of a ring-like object appearing before Forte’s eyes. “It’s not about speed- just get there safely. Got it?”
“Understood. I’m ready whenever you are.”
“Glad to hear it. Good luck, Forte.”
The Wilybot took a deep breath to steel himself as the simulated environment wavered to life around him, looking down at the wolfbot by his side and feeling more than a little encouraged when Gospel wagged his tail and snapped his jaws eagerly. “One down, boy,” he said under his breath. “Two to go. Let’s hit it!”
He gave himself a light shake before starting off at a jog, Gospel loping along at his side easily. Get to the goal. Easy. He could do that. It couldn’t be any worse than trying to drag a terrified civilian through a swarm of Mavericks while X peppered him with random-ass questions he really didn’t have the time for.
Somehow, he felt like he was going to be regretting that thought pretty soon.
When he reached the apparent end of the first hall, he stopped. “Wall,” he said aloud. “That’s a wall.”
Okay, so he was stuck in what amounted to a large rectangular box.
“Course it couldn’t be that easy,” he muttered, while Gospel scraped at the wall with an uncertain whine. “C’mon, Gos.”
He turned and made his way back the way he’d come, sticking near the right hand side and sliding his palm across the wall as he went. There had to be something here he was missing, a hidden panel or a vent maybe.
He looked up, a faint grin tugging at the corners of his mouth when he saw the grate on the ceiling. “A’course,” he said. “Always gotta take the scenic route.”
The jump up to punch the grate out was an easy one, and he allowed Gospel to cling to his leg as he pulled himself up and inside what appeared to be a ventilation shaft. “Oh, sweet fuckin’ Asimov,” he grunted, wincing when he immediately banged the tops of his helmet fins on the ceiling. “S’a damn good thing I’m still short, or I wouldn’t fit in this thing.”
Gospel made an insistent noise behind him, and Forte rolled his eyes and began to crawl, grumbling every time his helmet scraped the top of the vent. “Really wish I knew where we were . . .”
He stopped at a fork in the vent, debating for a moment before giving a whistle that echoed against the thin metal walls. “Gos, go left,” he said. “I’ll head right. Howl if ya find a way out, a’ite?” Not that it was going to be terribly easy to turn around if he’d gone the wrong way, but at least all his bases would be covered.
Stay cool, you’re just getting started, he reminded himself. You got this.
Eventually, he reached a dead end, and it took a careful effort to turn his head and press his ear, or the equivalent thereof, against the bottom of the vent to listen. There didn’t seem to be anything dangerous down below, and a light rap on the metal indicated that it was likely thin enough to punch through . . .
Gospel’s insistent whining at the link they shared was enough to convince Forte that the wolfbot had hit a dead end as well, and it took the Wilybot a moment of thought before he brought up the data for his Wheel Cutter. “Ain’t gonna gimme a vent, I’ll damn well make my own,” he muttered to himself as he set about using the blade’s spinning action to slice through the thin metal.
Once he had cut out a hole big enough to bend the metal out of shape, he took a quick peek out to make sure nothing unpleasant was waiting for him before finishing the slice so that he had room to wriggle down and land lightly on the floor. He ordered Gospel to come and meet him, scanning the room while he waited for the wolfbot to catch up.
It wasn’t about speed, X had told him. Slow down, take in the surroundings, everything was good. The hallway appeared to be mostly empty, the walls and floor and ceiling all made of individual white tiles. “This is too easy,” Forte mused to himself as Gospel dropped down next to him with a thunk and shook himself out. Door at the far end, long stretch of nothing in between.
“A’ite Gos, let’s hit it,” he said, giving a light whistle and starting off at a light jog, all of his proximity sweeps alert for anything suspicious. After only a couple yards, Gospel began to growl, and Forte cast him a worried glance. “What’s up, boy?”
Rather suddenly, Gospel made a leap forward, his teeth bared in a snarl as he placed himself in front of Forte, stopping him from going any farther. “What?” Forte said, crouching just a little lower as if tensing for an attack. “Come on Gos, gimme a clue here . . .”
The wolfbot grunted, turning and pacing away at a slight diagonal and looking back as if indicating for Forte to follow. “A’ite, a’ite, I gotcha.”
Gospel was clearly onto something, his nose to the ground and his tail low as he continued across the room in an odd weave, and at a pace so slow it was almost driving Forte up the wall. He was almost itching to just give in and sprint and take what would come, and it showed in the way his fingers drummed against the barrel of his plasma cannon and in the way every circuit in his body seemed tense. “Come on, Gos,” he muttered. “Pick up the pace here, boy, I don’t like this.”
His support unit simply grumbled in response, and Forte rolled his eyes with a mumble of, “Dumb mutt.” Something clattered behind him, and he spun, instinctively gathering a charge into his plasma cannon when he saw a number of spider-like mechaniloids crawling through the hole he had left in the vent. “Hoo boy, here we go Gos.”
Gospel whined uneasily, giving Forte a nudge when the Wilybot attempted to step backwards. “What is with you?” Forte said, noting the way Gospel was standing in an odd way as if to avoid stepping on certain tiles. Instead of waiting for an answer, he turned back toward the approaching mechaniloids, closing one eye and sniping them down with a few quick easy shots.
He didn’t really think much of the shots grazing the ceiling tiles; it was hot plasma, it was the nature of the weapon. What he did think much of was when one of the ceiling tiles in particular depressed with a very audible click, the sound causing Forte to tense. What the fuck was-
As soon as he saw a hidden panel in the ceiling open up, he realized why Gospel had gotten so tense. Booby trapped. Of course the room was booby trapped. And of course at a glance there was literally no fucking way to tell what tiles would activate traps and of course there was a really big ass spinning blade dropping down from the ceiling at him.
He and Gospel leapt in opposite directions, Forte cringing slightly when he felt another tile depress beneath his right foot as he landed. Two more hidden panels in the wall opened up to reveal a pair of machine guns, and he hopped backwards out of the way, the motion flowing smoothly into a backflip.
Yet another tile shifted under his hand, but he ignored it for the time being, quickly springing back to his feet and destroying the machine guns with two well-placed shots. Across the room, he heard Gospel yelp, and he became aware that the wolfbot had accidentally activated a few traps of his own, more guns appearing from yet more hidden panels, these ones firing shots of mixed electricity and plasma. “Gos, down!” he yelled, firing shots to destroy two of the guns and hissing when a stray ball of electricity struck his plasma cannon. “Dammit,” he hissed, drawing the axe from his back and allowing the buster to revert back to his hand until the excess charge could cool down.
No time like the present to give his newest weapon some practice, he decided.
“Okay,” he whispered to himself, narrowing his eyes and concentrating on gathering energy into his core. Not too much, just enough to make a solid hit; now he just had to aim properly and . . .
He probably didn’t need to, but it somehow felt like instinct to throw his hands forward, a burst of energy discharging directly from his core and creating a fairly strong pressure wave right near the last of the remaining guns that damaged them well beyond repair. “Oh, now that I like!” he said, turning on his heel and hissing in annoyance when he stepped on another trapped tile. “Fuckin’- shit!”
The ‘shit’ came as a result of a very large swinging blade dropping down from the ceiling and very narrowly missing slicing across his back, his instinctive reaction to spring forward and tuck himself into a roll. And of course that carried him farther away from the door he was trying to get to and activated another trapped tile and more turrets. At least Gospel was steadily weaving his way closer, the wolfbot’s heightened senses clearly helping him avoid most of the dangerous tiles. “Okay, this isn’t fun any more,” Forte growled, tightening his hold on his axe and blocking shots with the plasma blade as best as he could. “Gotta get past that damn blade . . .”
The quickest course of action would be to just time it and jump and pray that he didn’t get chopped in half. That’s not what this sim is about, stupid, he scolded himself, despite his growing frustration with not actually being able to tell where any of the goddamn traps were. He just wanted to get to the fucking door, dammit!
Okay. Calm down, Forte. Take a breath, think it through. His plasma cannon was cooling down. That was good. As soon as he was sure he wouldn’t hurt himself with the rebound, he armed the weapon again and took out the two turrets so that he could concentrate on the swinging blade and not on trying to block every shot the stupid things were firing at his goddamn head. The gold on his armor melted away into sky blue, and he took careful aim at the blade’s pole, his blue-violet gaze following its almost hypnotic path back and forth. Axl’s oft-repeated advice ran through his head, irritating and somehow comforting at the same time. Aim for where the target’s gonna be, not for where it is. Targets move, cobra, don’t forget that.
“Right,” he whispered to himself, placing a hand on the side of his plasma cannon to steady his aim. “One shot, make it one shot . . .”
Of course, being able to somewhat direct the Remote Mine’s path in midair helped, the explosive device sticking itself squarely to the pole of the swinging blade. “Damn straight,” he said with a smirk, sending the signal to detonate the mine and leaping over the blade before it even hit the ground, though he flinched at the sound of clicking as said blade landed on yet more trapped tiles. “Aw come on, how many of these fuckin’ things are there?!”
The floor beneath his feet rather suddenly split into two halves which rapidly began to retract, revealing a very painful looking and very long spike pit that probably spanned a good third of the hall or so. “Gos!” he called, immediately breaking into a sprint and giving a sharp whistle. Trusting his support unit to meet his pace, he jumped towards safety and forced a jet of air through the soles of his feet to push him farther forward, feeling Gospel collide with his back just as he started to lose altitude, the wolfbot’s transformation into his adaptor form near-instantaneous.
“Now that’s more like it!” he said, a bit guiltily realizing that he probably could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he’d done this a hell of a lot earlier. It was an easy matter of zigzagging around the last few traps that had been activated and punching the panel that would open the door he’d been trying to get to in the first place. “Fuckin’ hell, that was a gauntlet,” he sighed, hovering in place for several moments as he took stock of the next room.
This one was much smaller, to his relief, but he still didn’t like the look of it. It was almost too small. And just like the last one, it was almost too empty. Actually, it was too empty. Just outright too innocently empty.
Well except for the holographic screen in the center, that was.
Unwilling to touch the ground after his experience in the last room, he slowly made his way forward to hover in front of the screen, giving it a tap to activate it and blinking when he was presented with a message. “Oh, what the fuck.”
I can sizzle like bacon, I am made with an egg
I have plenty of backbone but lack a good leg
I peel layers like onions but still remain whole
I can be long like a flag pole but fit in small holes
“Come on!” Forte groaned, staring at the screen like he wanted to punch it. It wasn’t that hard to figure out that he’d need to solve the stupid thing to get to the next room, but he hated riddles. He hated riddles with a fucking passion and why the fuck were the walls closing in?!
He swallowed back a noise of frustration, looking at the walls for a moment before looking back down at the screen. Fucking hell . . . okay, slow down. Something made with eggs, that immediately made him think of breakfast, but what did legs and backbones and more importantly flagpoles have to do with that?
“Fucking dammit,” he whispered, a knot of nervousness beginning to form in the pit of his stomach as he stared at the screen as if hoping it would give him the answer he was looking for. “Okay, okay . . .” Talking to himself out loud may have sounded stupid, but at least it would help him think. “Long like a flagpole, fits in small holes, somethin’ long and skinny. Pins? Fuckin’ . . . no, pins aren’t made with eggs, stupid. Pins don’t peel, either, what the fuck can peel and still remain whole. And somehow is also made with eggs.”
He could feel Gospel growing antsy over their shared connection, even though the wolfbot was still in his adaptor form. The damn walls seemed like they were closing faster and faster, and it really wasn’t helping Forte’s thought process any. “Eggs,” he said. “Eggs, layers, no legs, long and thin, sizzles. Fucking sizzles, what the fuck does that even mean? It can sizzle?”
Becoming more and more frustrated and more and more unnerved by how close the walls seemed to be getting, he pulled the axe from his back and telescoped the pole out to its full length, holding it out horizontally to hopefully slow the walls’ progress at least a little bit. “Sizzles,” he repeated, the strain beginning to show in his voice and in the way his hands were beginning to shake with the effort of not completely going into a fit of yelling. “Sizzles.” All he could think of was fucking bacon, and he seriously wondered if that was partially Gospel’s fault. Stupid mutt liked bacon way too much, the sound of breakfast sizzling and hissing in a pan was more than a little familiar to-
Long thin something that hissed and shed and didn’t have legs and-
He shook his head, too frustrated to be amused at this point as he tapped out ‘snake’ on the holographic screen. To his relief, the walls stopped in place with an audible thunk, a small trapdoor on the floor sliding open. He slowly lowered himself to the ground, allowing Gospel to detach from his shoulders and frowning when he noted that the wolfbot’s neck crest was too big to fit through the trapdoor. “Looks like I’m goin’ the rest alone, boy,” he said, giving his companion a rough scratch behind the ears. “Stay here. I’ll see ya soon, a’ite?”
Gospel whined, licking Forte’s hand and wagging his tail before settling down by the trap door as if to keep guard. “Good dog,” Forte said. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and slid into the hole in the floor, cautiously beginning to make his way down the ladder.
This room, to both his relief and dismay, wasn’t nearly as empty as the last one had been. Relief in that he wouldn’t have to deal with any nasty surprises. Dismay, however, in that he was staring at a very large pit with a number of comparably tiny platforms moving and shifting over the expanse of space, likely suspended in the air with some kind of magnets.
But just across that pit was the target that he knew was his goal. All he had to do was make it across and he’d be done and he could get out of this hellhole.
Eager to be finished- perhaps a bit too eager at this point- he started forward, easily making the jump to the first platform and wobbling slightly when it swayed under his weight. Balance. Of course. He should’ve guessed this would be a test of balance.
“Easy,” he muttered to himself, hesitating until he found his center and stopped wobbling. Okay. Seven platforms total. He’d already made it onto one. Six more to go.
He had just crouched to make his next jump when he realized that of course it wouldn’t be that easy.
A shriek overhead nearly startled him into losing his balance, and he looked up to find a swarm of bird-like mechaniloids swarming toward him, the mere sight bringing a scowl to his features. “Bring it on, ya bastards!” he yelled, gathering energy into his core once again and creating another good pressure explosion in the middle of the group of enemies. “I got this far, ya think yer gonna stop me now?!”
Feeling his energy and confidence beginning to return, he braced himself for a moment before pushing off to the next platform. The explosion had destroyed a good number of the birds and scattered the rest, and they quickly regrouped and began to swarm at him from all sides. “Come on!” he growled to himself, alternating between shifting his body weight to keep his balance and shooting down and swatting at the birds as they dove at him. “Give it all ya got, I dare ya!”
This was what put him in his element, he decided as he made the hop to the third platform, taking only a second to center himself before hopping again to the fourth. “Yeah, fuck you!” he shouted as the highlights on his armor swapped from gold to violet, a swarm of lightning bolts crackling and exploding around him and destroying yet more of the birds. “Think ya can hold me back, fat chance!”
A grin split his features, and he made it to the fifth platform easily as he fell into the rhythm of things. His coloring shifted to a darker blue, a string of water bubbles pouring from the end of his buster to surround him and shield him as he leapt for the sixth platform-
Only for him to make a poor landing, the platform immediately tilting sideways and sending him sliding too fast for him to shift his weight and steady himself out. He felt himself start to fall, and he immediately sent a burst of air through his soles and grabbed onto the edge of the platform, scrambling for a handhold and feeling a jolt of unease when it practically spun and flipped under his weight.
Calm down, get your head on straight and start acting like a Hunter!
His Water Shield wouldn’t hold for long and he knew it, he could already feel the birds beginning to slip through and slam their beaks against his exposed back. With a grunt of effort, he attempted to haul himself back onto something solid, only to slip and scramble when the platform flipped again. “Fuck,” he hissed. He couldn’t fail now. He couldn’t, he was too close to fail now . . . !
He needed a push. He just needed a solid push upward. His eyes narrowed slightly as he racked his brain and went through all of the weapons he had at his disposal, a particularly hard hit from one of the birds nearly causing him to slip. If he could just-!
First things first, birds. Get rid of the birds. He loaded up the data for his Copy Vision, firing at the ground near the ring he was aiming to eventually grab and creating what appeared to be a semi-transparent copy of himself. The birds shifted their focus, immediately swarming at the mimic signal and leaving Forte a moment to calm down and get his wits about him.
Gritting his teeth, he drew a deep breath, once more gathering and centering energy in his core- more energy this time, he knew exactly what he needed and he really hoped it wouldn’t backfire and bite him in the ass. Trust your judgement, everyone was always telling him. You know you can do this. You know you can do this!
So just . . . fucking do it!
The sudden discharge of energy straight downward and the ensuing pressure wave underneath his body, coupled with another jet of air from his soles, pushed him upward more than enough to land solidly on the platform, though he wasted no time in leaping again, sailing straight over the seventh and final platform and barely managing to land on the solid ground beyond. He practically dove toward the glowing target ring, grabbing it with one hand and landing in a rather clumsy skid on his side.
The environment faded around him, and he began to grin tiredly as he heard Gospel sprinting toward him. “I-I did it,” he panted out, not even flinching when the wolfbot began covering his face in sloppy licks. “Fuck . . . I did it . . . I-I actually . . .”
He took a shaky breath, slowly pushing himself up on his elbow and taking his helmet off to run a hand through his hair. “Two down,” he said, still sounding all but breathless. “One to go.”
