Dream Drive: Yuri Ch. 01

He coughed to clear his lungs. There was dust everywhere. It almost hurt to breathe. He checked his hit points. They were at 194, but they were ticking down. He looked down his body and saw a big, jagged piece of concrete lying atop his right leg. Of all the pinches he had felt, only one remained and it was coming from a spot on his thigh which was under the piece of concrete.

He grabbed the piece to slide off himself, but the pinch got sharper and his hit points started ticking down faster. He let go of it and the pinch was reduced, just like the rate of hit point loss. He felt around the edge of the concrete and soon realized it had a piece of rebar sticking out of it. The rebar had impaled his thigh at an angle. He needed to lift the damn thing at an angle. He put all his strength into it, but it budged by less than an inch.

Another piece of concrete landed nearby. He didn't have time for this shit. He put four hundred points into Strength and got rid of the concrete with only minor difficulty.

His hit points were at 142. He put another hundred into Vitality, bringing them to 192/747. No matter how much essence he puts into Vitality, it wouldn't be enough. He couldn't afford to go toe to toe with any more tanks, or RPG-wielding soldiers. Even if Wada wasn't dead yet, he would most likely only get her killed if he found her. There was too much heat on him. He needed to get out of there.

The enclave was surely surrounded by Army units that had orders to contain the situation. He couldn't simply walk out. He'd have to leave the same way he had left earlier: via Crux's magic servers. He needed to get back home and log into Isis.

The silence coming from the street meant that the tank wasn't coming closer. That was to be expected. Tanks weren't really suited for street-level warfare. That was more the domain of the mech.

No sooner had Yuri thought that then a rhythmic thudding started echoing in the distance. A quickdoom-doom-doom noise. He jumped up and rushed to the giant hole in the wall where the building used to have a door. A crater was in front of the building and a part of it extended inside the building's lobby, as well. Yuri slid down into the crater. A quick peek down the street revealed that the tank was in its previous position, only now it was surrounded by green uniforms. Yuri noted RPGs and pulled back with a growl.

A quick peek in the opposite direction made Yuri's yaw drop. A whole goddamned squad of mechs was jogging up the street, two abreast. Each sported more heavy caliber weapons than Yuri could shake a stick at. He pulled his head back down before it got blown off his shoulders. He raised his hands in front of his face. They were empty. He had dropped his guns when the tank had blasted him and didn't notice until now.

He reached into his pockets for his spare guns. He retrieved his Colt, but the HS he had had in the other pocket had vanished along with that pocket. He needed to get out of this situation fast, but the street was denied to him. He crawled back into the building and raised his gaze at the nine flights of stairs. He brought up his game menu. He noted that his carry weight was now 129. It had been listed as 60 when he had first entered Isis. He checked his list of skills. There were a few parkour items on it. Those would have to be his ticket out of there.

He dashed towards the roof, taking entire flights of stairs in just two powerful leaps. His feet effortlessly found the right step. He turned a corner on each landing with inertia hardly giving him any trouble.

He burst out of the roof access door and squinted against the bright sun. There was a very loud, but familiar noise coming from somewhere. The doorframe behind him blasted concrete chips at the back of his neck with a dull thud. He crouched and looked all around. There were sniper/spotter teams on the roofs of half the tall buildings he could see. A bullet kicked up concrete shards next to his foot. Yuri hardly noticed it. His gaze had followed the loud noise and found a gunship hovering over the mosque. It turned around and started flying his way.

Yuri ignored a shot to his leg while he determined the direction of his apartment building. He put his gun in his pocket and sprinted towards the edge of the roof. The roof behind him exploded into shards of concrete and steel as the gunship fired at him. He ran full tilt to avoid getting hit. Yuri jumped off the edge and fell towards the five story building on the next street over. He had expected to fall into the middle of the street below, but his legs propelled him much farther that he had thought possible. He willed his Shoulder Roll skill to activate upon contact with the roof. It would cost him 25 essence, five for every ten feet of the fall.

He landed, his skin glowing as he smoothly rolled four times and then wound up standing. He ran to the far edge of this roof. His hands and feet glowed as he used his Cat Leap skill to clear the gap to the next building and catch the edge of its roof. He clambered atop it and ran on. The roof suddenly exploded in a line of concrete shards that seemed to follow him as he ran. He didn't need to look to know the gunship was shooting at him again. He jumped blindly and felt a series of hard pinches across his upper back and front as he started falling.

He saw that he was not going to reach the next building. The ground was coming up fast. A mech was in the street below. Yuri activated his Shoulder Roll and his body neatly tucked into a glowing ball. He wished he could instantly Shoulder Roll away from the mech.

When he landed, his vertical motion was smoothly transformed into horizontal as he rolled diagonally, over and over again. Machinegun fire followed his progress. In just a few heartbeats, he was around the corner and upright again.

You have created a new skill: Cannonball Roll

He immediately ran through the nearest door and began climbing. As he ran past the series of windows which illuminated the stairwell, he caught flashes of what was going on outside. On the first floor, he saw only a lone soldier out on the sidewalk in front of the building. On the second floor, he saw that the mech had joined the party. It had a dozen soldiers with it. As he sprinted past the third floor window, Yuri was hit with a dozen bullets, which pinched their way through his video game body and took a chunk of his health bar.

He stopped climbing and ran into the next apartment which had windows that faced in the direction of Yuri's building.

The fourth floor landing exploded above him, shaking the whole building and nearly making him lose his footing. He used Speed Vault to jump from the apartment's balcony onto the balcony of the apartment opposite. The two buildings were only separated by a narrow alley. He ran through the building, neatly skipping over the overturned furniture. When he emerged on a balcony on the other end of the building, he checked his heading. His was the next street over.

The street below the balcony was quite wide. He went back inside and took a running start to try and jump the wide gap. The game responded to his will as he leapt.

You have created a new skill:Power Jump

He landed on the next balcony with a grunt and smashed his face against the wall. It hurt a lot, but barely nicked his health bar. He ran inside. As he was running through the building, he came across a Militiaman in the stairwell. Yuri didn't break his stride. He activated Pounce. His boots glowed when he jumped at the man. Yuri struck him with both feet to the chest. Yuri's feet dropped to the floor, his momentum gone. The militiaman was sent flying backwards. He bounced off a railing and fell straight down to the ground floor.

Yuri was intercepted by a ball of essence, only moments after he heard the smack of flesh against concrete. He ran through the building, leaving angry oaths and confused shouts of alarm behind him. He used Cat Leap to get inside the next building. He was now on his street, just five buildings away from his own.

He navigated his way through the building, trying two wrong apartments before he found a window that looked at the next building which led him home. It was only then that he remembered he had a minimap. It popped up in the lower right corner of his vision, showing him as a green arrow moving across a blueprint that was labeled with the building's address. When he willed it, the map would expand to take up most of his vision. It would shrink back down with a thought, too. Most of the buildings in the enclave were blank on the inside. He quickly realized his map could only show him places he had already been in.

Running over the rooftops would be much faster than navigating through buildings, but the roofs left him exposed to the gunship. Running through the streets ran the risk of running into trouble. The window/balcony freeway was the safest choice for him.

He used two more Cat Leaps to clear the gaps between the buildings. The other two gaps between buildings were so small, he simply hopped across. The map kept him from wasting any more time searching for the right window or balcony. He also consulted it to try and find a place where he could hide with his rig.

There were trillions of important questions that needed to be answered about the world of Isis and how he got teleported there, but it was obvious that he needed his Dream Drive to access it. It stood to reason that any damage to his rig would result in something very bad for him. Either he'd be stuck in Isis, or he'd be stuck on Earth, or maybe he could even lose his video game abilities and have all the wounds he had shrugged off until then come back in the same instant, killing him.

He needed someplace discreet. Someplace they've already torn apart and wouldn't have reason to search again. He found a few leads on the map. He closed it when he got to the last building before his. He climbed to the appropriate floor and jumped across the gap, unaided by essence-costing abilities. He ran down the balcony towards his destroyed home.

"There he is," a distant voice called out. Yuri didn't turn to look. He just let his long, powerful strides propel him home.

He stumbled to a stop shortly after he entered the apartment. Malia's spread thighs were pointed his way. He turned his misty eyes to the ceiling, his lips moving with whispered curses. He shut his eyes. The goddamned gunship was getting closer, its rotors and engines louder than a hurricane. Couldn't the bastards give him two seconds to mourn his family in peace?

He looked down at his parents' bodies. He felt the need to do something. Cover them up, or wrap them in a white sheet. He turned towards the linen closet, careful not to let his gaze fall on Malia. Of course, the linens were strewn across the floor, sullied by the boots of the butchers.

The noise of the gunship changed timber. Yuri frowned and turned towards the door. He saw the gunship hover into view in the distance. It fired a missile straight at him.

Yuri dove towards his room. The explosion tossed him aside like a rag doll. He was slammed into a wall and landed headfirst on the floor. He blinked his eyes clear of the debris and dust. He was right next to the door of his room. Everything in the apartment had been moved twelve feet towards the back wall. The entire front wall was missing. The balcony, too.

The gunship launched another missile in the distance. Yuri only had time to leap towards his rig and push the helmet behind it before the missile hit. The explosion was deafening. The heat was incredible. He got pinched hard on his ass. Concrete began raining down all around him. A big piece landed on his rig, pinching his hand against it. Yuri grit his teeth and swept it aside.

He turned around to look at the remains of his home. Dust hung thick in the air. The front and back walls were gone. So was most of the ceiling and floor. Water leaked from where the bathrooms used to be.

Malia and the dining room table were gone without a trace. His parent's mangled bodies had fallen into the apartment below. In his heart, Yuri swore to murder every goddamned helicopter pilot in the Caliphate Air Force.

His helmet was still intact, if covered in dust. He grabbed it with one hand and his rig with the other. He grunted as he put in an effort to lift it, but it was very light in his grip and he lost his balance. He fell into the apartment below. All he could think of at that moment was how badly he needed to keep his helmet and rig intact. The world seemed to shift on its axis.

You have created a new skill:Cat Landing

He landed on his feet, slightly crouched, with his rig and Dream Drive helmet safe in his hands. The helicopter's rotor noise was still assaulting his ears. He looked that way, but couldn't see anything for all the dust and smoke. His eye caught his health bar. It was almost empty. He had 41 hit points out of 747 possible. He had 540 essence and he willed another two hundred into Vitality. His hit points read 117/823.

Two hundred essence only gave me seventy-six hit points? Ridiculous!

A horrible noise followed. Yuri turned to see the entire front wall give in. It collapsed towards the street. The balconies fell from the higher floors. With a terrible report, half the building collapsed. And it blew up a huge cloud of dust doing so.

Yuri wiped clean the latch next to the carrying handle and pressed his thumb against it. He could just about see the keypad when it was opened. He quickly typed in his code and the rig unlocked. He stuffed his Dream Drive helmet inside and locked it shut. He breathed a sigh of relief and then focused on his map.

The tallest building in the enclave had a very big pump in its subbasement. It was used to increase the water pressure so even the people in the apartments above the tenth floor could take a shower whenever they felt like it. It had broken down two years ago. He had been brought there by the people who wanted to ask him if he could get the relatively minor parts needed to fix it. It had taken him a few weeks, but he had managed it.

The pump itself was very tall and took up nearly all the height of the room. If Yuri were to climb it and wedge himself and his rig between the pump and the ceiling, nobody would ever find him. Nobody would ever think to look there.

He clambered down to street level before the dust cloud cleared. There were no soldiers to be seen. The gunship was hovering in the distance. Yuri heard the doom-doom-doom of rapidly approaching mechs and hauled ass. He ran around back of his building and used the Wall Run skill to climb into a broken window of a house on the next street over.

Using his map and parkour skills, he made for the building. On the way over, he ran into some isolated Militiamen that were looting the dead Zibars' belongings. None of them noticed him. He drew his Colt from his pocket, drew a bead on the first one he saw and blew his brains out without remorse. Something made him pause with the second piece of shit he happened upon. After a few seconds of confusion, he realized that killing everyone he came across would be leaving a trail of corpses to his hideout.

Reluctantly, he safetied his Colt, put it in his pocket, and passed by the rest of the bastards unseen. At one point, he had to take a detour to avoid some patrolling mechs, but he got to the pump room without further incident.

The pump wasn't running, which was no surprise. The residents had no more need for showers. He climbed atop the pump and retrieved his helmet from his rig's case. He wedged the case securely between the pump's casing and the ceiling. He put the helmet on his head. The pistons locked it in place around his scalp. The tiny screen asked him if he wanted to log in.

"Yes."

He lost sensation of his body and then found himself back in the Elder's tent, lying on one of the carpets.

"Savior," Cara all but screamed. "You're back!" She turned her head to the entrance flap and yelled, "He's back! The Savior is back!" She knelt by him and took his hand. "What happened!? Did you really go back to your world?"

Yuri looked at his hand in hers. Her neat pentagram tattoo all but covered his ugly, misshapen one.

Her eyes ran up and down his form. Her fingers touched the singed Caliphate Intelligence Service insignia on his shoulder. "Your garb seems ruined. Are you well?" Yuri shook his head. Her brow bunched up in concern. "Is there anything I can do for you? How can I help?"

Yuri rolled away from her and convulsed with dry heaves as he cried.

****

Yuri's Statistics:

Strength - 400

Vitality - 1300

Agility - 100

Compulsion - 0

Persuasion - 0 (+5%)

Spirit - 500 +50 (+10%)

Health - 127/823

Essence - 355

Carry Weight - 12.7/129 (9.9%)