The Great Belligerency [Round 4: Static]

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

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Phil immediately rolled to the side, and Ur crashed into the floor where he had stood only moments before with a tremendous crack. Without stopping to pause, he let off a short burst of fire from his gun at the fallen god as she picked herself up from the ground. But Ur was faster than Phil had realized, and she leaped at him with inhuman speed and a feral screech, reaching him before he could do anything more than raise his weapon reflexively. Ur's sickle clattered into the sturdy multiweapon, and Phil took the chance to kick her legs out from beneath her. Ur landed on her butt in a rather undignified fashion, and as she looked back up at Phil, her face contained both unearthly fury and, Phil was surprised to see, a faint pouting expression, like that of a child denied something they thought was reasonable. His weapon now free, Phil snapped the barrel to face Ur and fired a point-blank burst into her chest. To Phil's dismay, other than being knocked back slightly and made slightly angrier, Ur seemed largely unaffected by what should have been a fatal bullet wound. Phil quickly weighed the situation and decided that a tactical retreat was in order; he sprinted off down an alley fast as he could, with Ur chasing after him, screeching death threats at the top of her voice.

Phil's mind raced just as his feet did. Maybe I can lose her in a crowd. "Suit, locate nearby living organisms my size or larger." Semitransparent triangles, size scaled to show distance, appeared on his visor as his suit carried out the command; he noted distractedly that his suit had not assigned an icon to Ur. He focused on a large group of fairly large triangles somewhere to his right, which he assumed indicated a crowd of the size he was looking for.

Before the armored commando and undead goddess burst screaming out of a nearby alley, the crowd was, for the most part, in a cheerful and lighthearted mood. Despite disturbing recent events, it was still a beautiful day, and the community was thriving just as it always did. The citizens of New Shambhala were no strangers to misfortune, but instead of trying to hide problems as past dystopias had, they found ways to fix them or move past them. Instead of focusing on the accidental death of one of their close friends, they focused on the sunny day, or the birth of a child, or the pay raise they just got. This positive outlook shared by nearly every citizen was what enabled the city to keep functioning as well as it did.

But then of course the armored commando and the undead goddess burst screaming out of a nearby alley and everything went to shit.

Phil dashed through the crowd, doing his best not to make waves, not so much to avoid being rude as to avoid making his location within the crowd visible. Ur waded into the crowd at a slower pace, taking the time to slice through everyone who got in her way. Within seconds the crowd was scattering, numerous species united in the single goal of getting the hell out of there. Phil glanced behind him and noted that while he was gaining a little distance, it wasn't nearly enough to be useful in the long run; the moment Ur had gotten out of the crowd she'd be right back on his tail, and he couldn't run forever. He burst out the other end of the crowd and darted into another alley, hoping he could lose Ur before she made it out of the crowd. I need to find some allies.

Without warning, his headset burst to life. "Phil? Phil, is that you?"

Phil was so surprised he nearly forgot to respond. "Julia, this is Phil. What's going on?"

Julia's voice came back, frantic and scared and small. "That thing left for a while, and I managed to get loose and get on its computer terminal! Phil, you're being chased by Ur!"

It took all of Phil's mental concentration to resist the urge to roll his eyes, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from responding sarcastically. "Yes, I know. Is there anything you can do from there?"

"Ummm...well, there's a map here. It's got your location highlighted, and a few other ones...ah!"

Probably the other contestants...unless I'm not the only one being blackmailed. "Can you click on any one other than the one right behind me?"

Julia's voice was much more energetic this time. "I just did, and a window appeared showing Cole! You were friends, right?"

"I suppose so, at least for the moment. Can you guide me to him?"

Phil imagined Julia hunching over the display, tracking his dot on the screen and then comparing it to Cole's. "Okay, pass the next two intersections and then make a right."

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Cole scuttled down the narrow hallways of the entrance to the insect wing, peering into each door as he passed it. It seemed he had chosen to enter from the administration wing, and thus was unable to find anything but flies and the occasional termite as he passed through the building. He tried a few of the terminals, but they all had virtual locks on them, so he gave up on that rather quickly, choosing instead to simply work his way towards the insect exhibits themselves. The building, which unbeknownst to him housed the main body of the zoo's administration, was surprisingly large, and the task took him about ten minutes.

At last, Cole made his way into a hub, with hovering signs pointing the way to each kind of insect. In a matter of minutes he was looking closely at a very specific spider, safely penned up in a display case made of some transparent material. If he had still been capable of smiling, Cole would have been doing so at this point. He was about to smash the case open and escape with his prize when the door burst open and Phil came barreling in, with a psychotic Ur in close pursuit. Phil shouted a greeting as he vaulted over a display table, knocking all the cases off of it and releasing a small cloud of various insects. "You ready to fight a god, Cole?"

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Phil sped down narrow side roads and back alleys, following Julia's instructions as best he could in his frantic retreat. In no time at all he had made it to the insect wing of what appeared to be some sort of zoo. Unfortunately, that was when disaster struck.

Julia's next message had a much more frantic tone to it. "Phil, I think I see--" Then without warning, the line went dead.

Phil swore. "Julia? Come in, Julia." Blast. Did she get caught?

"GIRNHAM! STOP RUNNING!" Ur's bloodthirsty wails behind him reminded Phil that he had no time to lose, and he decided to put the matter of what had happened to Julia to the back of his mind for the time being.

The door was blocked by a layer of webbing, but was hardly an obstacle for Phil; he simply broke in through one of the windows next to it and sprinted down the long hallway until he reached the same hub Cole had gotten to. From there he followed the same path Cole had, until he found himself bursting through a door to find the bug man eying a display case with a spider in it. Phil vaulted over the nearest display table, scattering display cases left and right. "You ready to fight a god, Cole?"

Before Cole could respond or even wrap his head around this sudden turn of events, Ur exploded out of the same door Phil had just came through, and he decided explanations could wait for later. Ur flew straight towards Phil, only for him to jump to the side and shoot her in the face with a well-aimed shotgun burst. She whirled around and screeched at him, lunging forward with her sickle; Phil ducked the blow, but the rest of Ur still collided with him, and god and mortal went tumbling to the ground in a tangled heap, wrestling furiously with each other.

Cole took this opportunity to grow a particularly nasty pair of pincers and hopped onto Ur's back. He clamped his new pincers down on her head, cutting viciously into the sides. To Cole's surprise, no blood came from the wound. Ur screeched in pain and bucked her back viciously, throwing Cole into another cluster of display cases. Phil took the opportunity offered by Cole's distraction to land a solid right hook and kick Ur off himself, rolling backwards to gain a little ground while Ur stumbled back to the table behind her.

Ur looked between her two foes, a stock expression of fury on her face. A loud buzzing noise filled the air as a massive swarm of bees rose up ominously from behind the dead goddess before launching itself at Cole and Phil. Cole simply ignored the bees as they plastered themselves uselessly against him, and began growing sharp claws and extra arms. Phil was not so fortunate, and he was forced to run for a nearby fire extinguisher and begin coating the bees in flame retardant foam. Before long the swarm had dwindled in numbers to the point where it was hardly a formidable obstacle, but it had served its purpose as a distraction. Ur crashed into Cole, the cuts on her head mysteriously gone.

Cole brought his claws up to block the sickle blow; the shock of the collision hurt a bit, but it kept the blade from hitting his more fleshy parts. He snapped his pincers at the goddess, but she was unfazed and snarled back at him. Vines began to sprout from the floor and encircle Cole's legs, rooting his feet to the spot. He struggled against the bonds with increasing urgency, eventually resorting to viciously snapping his pincers at Ur; she was forced to withdraw her face a few inches after he nearly nicked her in the eye.

Then a grunt followed by a sickening thunk came from behind Ur as Phil brought the fire extinguisher down on her head, squashing it like a pumpkin, but with distinctly less mess; despite the grievous wound, Ur still did not bleed. A hideous shriek came from Ur, and she rocketed out one of the windows, nearly knocking Phil over in the process. The vines, deprived of Ur's force of will, became limp, and Cole easily kicked them off and stood up, his insectoid form fading back into a more human one. He turned to Phil, who, he noted with a touch of envy, didn't seem to be winded in the slightest. "Mind explaining to me what that was about?"

Phil shrugged. "I would if I could. She just appeared out of nowhere and tried to attack me. When I discovered that bullets barely fazed her I ran off to find an ally. I saw a sign pointing towards the zoo and figured you might come here because of the insects." He doesn't need to know about Julia yet. He paused for a moment and chuckled quiety. "Sorry if I ruined your bughunting expedition."