MADMAN APOCALYPSE

As soon as the announcement finished, time resumed. The four Beetle Agents knelt in prayer seemed to realize what had happened and began to rouse from their ritual. I wasted no time and leapt for the nearest one, my right fist pulled back.

“Punch.harder( )!” I yelled.

ACTIVATING SCRIPT: Punch.harder( )!

SCRIPT FAILED SUCCESSFULLY DUE TO: unCollide.glitchCollision()!

Although the recursive element of the Punch Harder ability didn’t work with my unCollide Plugin enabled, it wasn’t necessary in this case. My punch connected with the forehead of the beetle Agent with such strength that his whole back arched and his spine, or whatever analogous thing a creature like him possessed, snapped. The double impacts of Brock’s new form, plus the ability, created so potent an impact that the man died instantaneously, his limp body tumbling across the ground violently, before half of his torso became submerged and stuck in the sidewalk pavement twenty yards away.

“Fak yes!!” yelled Brock.

The other three had barely managed to stand up, before I drove my fist into the abdomen of the next one in line, once again uttering “Punch.harder( )!”

“Fak yuu!!”

His whole body did a 360-degree spin while flying into the Agent right behind him, sending them tumbling to the asphalt of the road, with the first getting his limbs stuck in the ground and trapping the other Agent he’d collided with.

The last one standing raised his palm at me.

“.interrupt( )!” I exclaimed and his Beetle Bolt weapon failed to fire.

“Beetle Blast!” Bee yelled and launched her own attack at the man, though the projectile bounced off his carapace, failing to trigger. She fired off another, but it had the same lack of effect. By then I’d cleared the distance between us with three great strides and sent a right hook into the side of his helmet, punching his head clean off and spraying a fountain of white blood into the air.

“That was sick as!!” Brock squealed in delight, as a misty rain of beetle blood fell down around us.

“One guy is still breathing,” Panda observed coldly.

I stalked over to the one trapped in the ground by the corpse of his comrade, but he had managed to trigger some kind of ability, as a whirring and loud buzzing was coming from inside his body.

“I think he’s going to blow up!” Bee yelled and I quickly spun on my heel and ran back towards her, leaping at the last second and bringing her down to the ground with me.

Nothing happened.

Then the buzzing died down.

“Huh, I guess I was wr—” was all she managed to utter before the Agent’s body exploded with a thousand tiny flechettes shooting in every direction. A few of them buried themselves in my back and thighs, but Bee, who was covered by my body, was unscathed.

“Ow.”

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Fak yea!! Let’s do that again!!” Brock said excitedly. It was strangely-comforting that he was no less talkative, despite having become a balloon gauntlet.

Panda sighed. “Of course they gave their Agents goddamn unalive buttons…”

“I shouldn’t really be surprised,” I remarked as I got to my feet.

Bee winced when she saw the projectiles piercing my body. While she began plucking them out, I looked at the crater left behind where the Agent had self-destructed.

“I leveled up to 7,” she then said.

“Just three more then,” I replied. “I wonder what kind of evolution you’ll get.”

“Maybe they’ll turn you into a different insect,” Panda joked.

“I wanna be a Moth,” she said.

“If I understand these Agencies correctly, the Moths are basically their coders, so if that’s an option, it might be powerful.”

“Look,” Panda said, pointing his chubby fingerless arm at one of the corpses. “They all have Leftovers.”

“Leftovers?” Bee wondered.

“That’s what they call loot,” I told her. “You didn’t see it when we killed the Psychic Snail, right?”

“Do you mind if I check them?” she asked. She’d already pulled all of the flechettes out of my back and legs.

I indicated the scene of carnage with my balloon-covered hand. “Be my guest.”

With a lot of enthusiasm, she skipped over to the nearest corpse, of which only a half-submerged leg and helmet remained following the explosion.

“This one has ten of something called ‘Game Coins’, as well as ‘Agent’s Torso Carapace’.”

She moved on to the next, after taking the loot.

“This one has another ten Coins, and ‘Agent’s Leg Carapace’.”

She searched the last two that’d landed on top of each other.

“Twenty more Coins, ‘Agent’s Head Carapace’, and a ‘Agent’s Litany of System Prayers’.”

“Can you use any of the armor?” I asked her.

“It doesn’t seem like it. I tried to put the Torso armor on and it gave me an error that it was incompatible, maybe because I’m already covered in carapace?”

“What about the Litany?”

Bee pulled it out of her inventory, though to me it just appeared out of thin air.

I took ahold of the small prayer book and inspected it:

‘Litany of System Prayers’ x

A cherished and well-cared-for book of Prayers used by an REPD Agent of the GREAT GAME. Within it are many rituals and prayers that, although carrying no actual effect, seems to make the Beetles of the REPD feel like they are fighting with the System at their backs.

The System honestly doesn’t care about them or their prayers.

This Litany grants the reader the ability to meditate and recoup lost Stamina, Health, and Mana at a rate of 1 point per 2 minutes.

You are unable to use this.

Weight: 1.2 Pandas

“That seems useful for you,” I told her.

She nodded. “I won’t have to be so conservative with my spells.”

“You were being conservative!?” Panda asked in horror.

We both ignored him.

“Can I have the carapace pieces?” I asked her.

“It actually combined into an ‘Agent’s Carapace Suit’ when all three pieces entered my inventory,” she remarked, surprised, before pulling it out and immediately dropping it on the asphalt road due to its weight.

“You should also take the Game Coins,” she said.

“Keep half.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

She nodded, then handed me a single large coin that apparently represented 20 coins. It was the size of a frisbee, as thick as my clenched fist, and made from some golden metal that weighed nothing, making it feel like a Styrofoam prop from a movie.

“Inspect.”

‘GAME Coin’ x

A coin for use in bartering with Merchants or other Players. On its own, the metal it is made from is worthless, but it has been agreed upon as a form of currency, which is what gives it value.

One GAME Coin is equal to the value of a Happy Meal, more or less.

Weight: 0.1 Pandas x amount

I stooped to pick up the Carapace Suit and inspected it as well:

‘Agent’s Carapace Suit’ x

You do know that this carapace is the literal bones of dead Agents, right? And the squishy parts on the inside is their flesh. But, once you can get over that fact, this is quite a nifty Suit.

That being said, normally Players aren’t supposed to be able to kill REPD Agents at this point in the GREAT GAME. But, then again, you’re far from normal…

Wearing this armor imbues you with the following effects:

- 50% Slashing Damage Taken

- 50% Stabbing Damage Taken

- 50% Cutting Damage Taken

- All REPD and Beetle-based Agencies want to murder you. Putting their own health and safety at risk to try and take you down. That’s how much they hate you. But, then again, you are wearing the literal bodies of their kindred.

Burn in hell you vile Glitch!

Sincerely,

The REPD

Weight: 25 Pandas

Without wasting any time, I put it into my inventory, turned away from Bee and unequipped my tattered suit, then equipped the Carapace armor.

Immediately, it felt like I was being squeezed all over by chunky and slimy latex, and a shiver ran down my back. It was suffocating with the helmet on, as it pressed against my nose and mouth, while the eye slots were positioned in such a way that my human eyes could not see out of them. As soon as I thought that I wanted to take it off, the helmet opened up and retracted down into the neck plates, allowing me to breathe and see normally.

After swallowing a lungful of air gratefully, I began moving my arms and legs around, trying to get a feel for the mobility. To my surprise, it was hardly noticeable, though I could definitely feel how I’d gotten slower. It seemed that my tattered black suit had barely counted as clothing, thus giving me a big boost from BIRTHDAY_SUIT, while the Carapace Suit seemed to fully negate its effects.

Fortunately, swapping between clothes was easy with the inventory system, so I could switch at times when I needed the extra speed and jump height.

“You look exactly like an Agent with the helmet activated,” Bee said.

“Maybe I can use it to blend in and avoid people like Hawaiian Shirt Guy and Annabella,” I considered.

“I don’t think you’ll be blending in with a suit like that,” she told me honestly.

“Also, the nametag still says ‘Gambit the Moron’,” Panda remarked.

I looked down at my chest and saw that the white nametag sticker was still there.

“Goddamn it…”