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Dean and Tron were rejoined by the three Users from the light cycle games as they were herded towards a dark building that looked like it couldn’t decide on either being a bee hive or a Mayan pyramid. There were two more sentries waiting in front of two large glass like doors. Both held trays with those batons.
“We’re riding cycles again?” Dean asked.
“Think again, program,” the shrill female voice was shouted at him and nearly gutted out his ear canal.
“Where is Kruz?” Tron demanded as he and Dean turned around to face the female.
“He is facing off a different group,” the female said. She looked like she was in her late teens or early twenties. Dark brown hair was tied back into a long braid and her green eyes glared at them while her lips were pressed in disdain. One shoulder was bare and both arms were clothed in black elbow length gloves with a singe glowing orange-red line that went from the middle of the forearm down to the tip of her middle finger.
“Whoa,” the goblin said. “She’s hot.”
Dean thought she was pretty. She had a pretty good hour glass shaped figure and good-sized chest. There were two more glowing red lines that went down from her chest stopped at her waistline then they bent back over her hips. There was a line from her knees to her toes.
“What do we call you?” Dean asked.
“I am lieutenant Nyrii,” the female answered, still using the authoritve tone of a drill sergeant. “Captain Kruz has told me about your little group.”
“Captain Kruz?” Dean repeated the name. “Are you serious? That’s like a character from a lame Saturday morning cartoon.”
She took a step closer to Dean. Their noses nearly touched. “Especially you two. Don’t think you can try those same stunts with me.”
“Depends on what stunts you can do,” Dean said as he took a step back away from her. He knew he recognized her face from somewhere and figured it had to have been a member of Reece’s team.
“I’m afraid I must disappoint you,” Nyrii said. “I won’t be playing against you.” She stepped away from them and walked straight up the doors. “The game is called Bogs and Hobs. You will be given a primary weapon. Use it along with your Identity Disk to take out the Boggarts. You will also be given a net to catch the hobgoblins. A point will be taken away if you kill a hobgoblin. You will also lose a point if you get hit by a boggart. If your points go down to zero you will lose. You will win when you reach five hundred points.”
“Sounds simple enough,” Dean said and grabbed a baton from each tray. “How do you make this work?”
“Like this.” Tron pressed the bottom of his baton and a glowing net formed out of the end.
Dean made his net appeared and he clipped it to his belt and took another baton from the other sentry. He wondered what this one would generate. He pressed the bottom and a glowing blue blade shot from it. He smiled as he clipped it to the other side of his belt.
As soon as the last one had stepped into building the doors vanished from behind. The darkness was replaced with light, light that was generated from a sun in a pale blue sky. Dean looked around and saw they were surrounded by green grassy hills and a few forests. When Dean looked down he saw that he was standing on grass.
“This looks like your word,” Tron said as he looked around him.
“I think it’s supposed to be like that game,” Dean said. He had a feeling if he ran far enough he would bump into some invisible barrier.
Snarling and hissing sounds brought their attention to the small patch of woods that was close by. A three foot tall red scaly creature with claws, large pointed ears and tusks ran towards them.
“Action time,” the human said. He closed his eyes and grunted. Fur sprouted from his skin as his ears grew longer and pointed. His hands shifted into something between human paws and hands and claws sprouted from his fingers. His mouth and nose merged and grew into a snout that was filled with sharp teeth.
“What’s wrong with him?” Tron asked in an alarmed tone. He had removed the disk from his back.
“Nothing,” Dean said as the wolf man activated his baton and formed a glowing axe. “Apparently you have a werewolf option when you make your character. He can change back and forth at will.”
“I see.”
The zombie and goblin had also activated their weapons. The zombie pulled back on his bow, the string was glowing strand of light as was the arrow. He released the arrow and it sailed through the air and struck the boggart in the head, causing it to instantly erase.
Three more of the red little nasties crawled out of the woods.
Dean ran up to them and using his sword he slashed down on top of one before it could react. He could hear the other two beasts also being erased.
“Over there,” Tron said as he pointed deeper into the woods as a different kind of creature emerged. It was a blue fluffy creature that was two feet tall and looked like the cross between a rabbit and a monkey.
“I think that is what we have to catch.” Dean still held onto his sword but unclipped his net. He ran up to the hobgoblin and the little sob had to turn around and run back into the forest. “Not going to make this easy.” He ran after him. The creature was fast but Dean was faster. He swung down his net and scooped up the little fuzzball.
“Thank you,” the hobgoblin said before it giggled and disappeared into a glittering ball of smoke.
“Do I still get the point?” Dean asked and looked around him. Where the heck was the scoreboard?
He heard more snarling and it almost sounded it was right next to his ear. Dean spun around in time to see the boggart as it derezzed. He barely saw the glowing blue disk that sliced through the monster. He tried to follow the disk and watched as it returned to Tron who was standing in a half crouch with another disk in his hands. How he was able to get two of them, Dean had no idea.
“So that was why he was throwing hubcaps,” Dean muttered.
“That was too close,” Tron said.
“No kidding.”
Dean heard another hiss from above and behind him. He turned around to see another monster on the trunk of the tree, preparing itself to pounce on him.
Dean was ready to grab his sword but decided to try his own disk. He removed it from where it was pressed against his back. His fingers trembled as it came to life with glowing energy. He took a deep breath and threw it, just as the monster jumped. His disk sliced through the creature and spun around and returned to him. Dean could not believe how fast it was or how fast he was able to catch it.
“Good job,” Tron told him.
“I’m more comfortable with this,” Dean tapped the hilt baton of his sword once he replaced his disk.
“You have to use whatever works,” Tron said. He turned at something and jumped down as he removed his net. He swooped at the brush and came up with another of the hobgoblins. It had thanked him and vanished. “This is an odd game.”
“I’ve seen odder,” Dean said as he thought of the game with the strange alien with a mallet shaped head rolling around a giant ball.
“There’s more of them out there,” Tron told him as he walked up to him. “We should stay close to each other.”
“We should wait for the kids.”
“We are not alone.”
“Is it the kids?”
“No,” Tron said and pointed at several of the boggarts racing towards them.
Dean pulled out his sword and swung at the beasts while dodging others. He could hear Tron throwing his disks at the small menace and killing them, or would that just be deleting them?
As soon as Dean had finished killing several of the red boggarts two more of the blue hobgoblins ran past him. He swung his net after one and only had to take a few more steps before he caught it.
“I think I see where we need to go,” Tron said after he caught the second hobgoblin.
“We need to wait for the others,” Dean said and kept his eyes open and his gaze moving while he looked around for more of the little creatures to either catch or kill.
There was some crunching sounds in the bushes up ahead and another of the little red monsters emerged. Dean had his sword raised, ready to strike at him.
He didn’t get the chance to strike. An arrow flew past Dean and struck the beast right in the nose.
“Dude, did you see where you hit it?” The werewolf asked as the rest of their party arrived.
“Yeah I saw,” Zombie answered.
“That was sick, dude.”
“Next time aim for his eye,” Goblin offered.
“Or you could go for his balls,” Dean offered.
“How would that be cool?” Werewolf asked.
Dean shrugged. “I just thought it would be funny.”
“Does that thing even have any balls?” Zombie asked.
“Those things are back,” Tron said. He threw one of his disks at the advancing group of red monsters. As soon as the disk had killed the creature and return to his hand he threw the other.
Dean used his blade to take care of two more. One he nearly impaled as it had tried to jump down on him and the other he took out with a swift swing against the back of the head. He kept an eye open for more of the blue fluffy beasts and was able to capture two of them.
“They are coming from that direction,” Tron said as pointed to the northwest.
“Then that is where we are going to go,” Dean said.
The five of them continued on, using their weapons to kill the boggarts and their nets to catch the hobgoblins. It wasn’t easy. Dean was struck twice by the little red bastards and he didn’t know what hurt more, their claws or their teeth. He had been extra careful as to not kill any of the blue creatures.
The trio were not so lucky. Zombie and Werewolf both have accidentally killed one of blue furred beasts and Goblin had killed two, almost three but he pulled away his hammer at the last second and used his net instead. They also had been attacked by the boggarts a few times.
Tron was the best of them. He had stealth and speed, strength and agility. He was able to dodge the attacks from the bogs. He moved with an energetic grace that Dean had never seen before in a human. Of course that was because Tron wasn’t a human. He had the moves of a jungle cat. He was able to avoid the attacks from the beasts, use his disks to kill the red ones and his net to capture the blue beasts. He sometimes would use his sword, but most of the time it was with his disks.
The path led them to a large tree with twisting gnarled branches and several large holes. It was the type of tree that would be featured on a horror movie except for the octagonal shaped glowing jewel on the topmost branch. It was pulsating with it a soft light.
Several more of the red boggarts crawled out from the holes and ran towards them with their claws thrashing and drool dribbling through their grimaces.
“This must be the welcome wagon,” Dean said as he raised his sword.
Tron made their first strike with his disk followed by Zombie’s arrow. Goblin slammed his hammer down on one of their skulls. Dean and Werewolf struck at the same time. Even though they all made a kill they still had to duck from the many more that jumped out at them.
“I think we need to get that jewel,” Dean said as he pointed to the top branch.
“What will that do?” Werewolf asked.
“Don’t know, just figured it would do something.” Dean leaped over two of the monsters and landed behind them. He spun around with his blade and sliced off their heads. He turned around and brought up his blade as another tried to advance on him. Another grabbed his leg. Dean tried to kill it but another tried to tackle him.
The two monsters were derezzed. Dean looked up to see Tron standing over him, but he did not stand still for long. More of the monsters were coming out of the tree. Dean glanced back to the tree. He saw that with each new pulsation caused more of the monsters to climb out. Dean was right about his theory. That jewel was generating more of the boggarts.
“Tron, we have to destroy that jewel.” Dean pointed at the tree before he swung his blade at a few more of the creatures.
“The ground is hollow,” Tron said as he blocked another attack. “There has to be an underground passageway. We need to break through.”
“It will be easy to break through when we kill the monsters,” Dean said “Maybe if one of us try and use our disks.”
“I’ll try and throw it. You cover for me.”
“No sweat.” He swept his blade in a circle and sliced through most of the monsters. There were still too many and wasn’t sure if Tron would be able to take the shot. He watched as his friend used one disk to kill another monster while he was ready to throw his disk. He would have thrown the disk if another beast hadn’t jumped on his arm at the last second and caused the disk to fly and hit the tip of the branch near the panel and veer back to him. Tron was able to kill the boggart that was attacking his arm but more pooled around.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean mumbled as was ready to run up to his friend to give him some more help. He took two steps and felt himself tumble backwards as a large rectangle shaped section of the grass and earth sprang up and toppled over.
Something gray and furry climbed out of the hole wearing large black boots, fingerless gloves, a back pack and a bright red bandana tied around its neck. Dean wasn’t sure he was seeing things right. He watched as Skip Chinchilla jumped in the air and landed on two of the monsters, causing them to derezz, as the enemy beasts did in the Skip games.
“What the hell is Skip doing here?” Goblin asked as Skip used his stomp jump attack on several other boggarts.
“He’s kicking ass,” Zombie told him.
Skip did another jump in the air and on his decent he pulled out his trusty and famous slingshot and something else from his backpack. The anthropomorphic rodent had landed on the beasts and loaded his slingshot with a clear sphere with thin glowing lines. He jumped again, took aim and fired. The glowing sphere struck the panel and exploded.
The constant downpour of boggarts had stopped but there were still plenty to kill. Dean swung at the monsters with his sword in one hand and used his disk in the other to cut at them.
“You were right about the panel,” Tron said when the last of the boggarts had been derezzed.
“Yeah, but we are not going to live it down,” Dean stared at him and then looked at the tree to make certain here were no more of the creatures. Nothing was crawling out.
“I am not ashamed about missing earlier.”
“That’s not it. What’s embarrassing is being saved by Skip Chinchilla.” He turned back to where their gray furry rescuer was and saw that the other three members of their party had gathered around him and thanking him for his help.
Everything went dark, save for a few glowing circuits that lined where the trees were.
“Uh oh,” Skip said and blinked his bright blue eyes. “The jig is up.” He didn’t sound like the Skip from the games. His voice was different, yet also familiar.
“They’re on to us,” Tron said.
“Everyone into the hole,” Skip said and pointed to opening where he had crawled out of. “This path will lead you to safety.”
“You were also right,” Dean said to the program. “There is an underground pathway.”
“No time to sit and chat, Dean,” Skip said. “We gotta go.”
“How did he know my name?”
“Ask later,” Tron said. “We have to get out of here.”
Dean kept staring at the videogame mascot as he climbed down, having to crane his neck when he was nearly below. He did not take his eyes of Skip until he was in the tunnel. As soon as his feet had touched the ground he stepped back to make room for Tron.
“We are in deep gratitude,” Tron had said as soon as Skip had jumped down, taking the panel section with him to seal up the opening.
“We are still not in the clear,” Skip said.
“He’s right,” Another voice said. Dean turned around and saw Stan, or a program that looked like Stan with the others. “We are still within the zone of the MCP.”
“The MCP?” Tron asked in disbelief. “He was derezzed a long time ago.”
“Well there is a new one now,” the other program said. “He’s already growing in power as we speak. We have to get out of his area.”
“I think it will be better if we split up,” Skip said. “You three go with Slash here.” He pointed at Zombie, Werewolf and Goblin. Dean and his buddy are with me.”
“How come you know my name?” Dean asked him.
“Later.” Skip held up his hand and turned to his friend. “You okay with this Slash?”
Slash nodded. “We’ll see you at the couriers.” He pointed to the left. “This way guys.” He walked in that direction until he was certain the three players had followed him and then he broke out into a run.
“This way,” Skip ordered.
“Wait a second,” Dean said.
“No waiting,” Skip said. “The enemy is about to come upon that panel anytime now. We got to get going.”
“He’s right,” Tron told him. “I know you have questions and he can answer them when we have put some serious distance between us and here.”
Dean sighed. “Fine.” He watched as Skip took off with Tron not far behind him. “This was the strangest rescue ever.” He ran after them.
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A/N: The title is the popular catchphrase for Pokemon.
Thank you, to the anon for the review.