Take Down Chapter 55: Rise To The Occasion, Level 4

You left the lab (making sure everything was back the way it had been before you had entered) and went home to rest before coming back to practice in game with Hansu later that night.

Once again, you felt it hard to wind down. Every time you closed your eyes your body and mind would recreate the RFO scenery in your brain and try to reenact the moves that you could do in game and you just couldn’t quite switch off.

“I guess I have been in game a lot recently so it makes sense that my mind would be consumed by it,” you thought as you rolled over onto your stomach and smooshed your face into the pillow.

Finally, sleep found you, and before you knew it, your alarm was going off to wake you up for your next dive in game.

Bouncing out of bed, you quickly grabbed something to eat from the kitchen cupboard and ran from the house with a grin on your face.

…………………………….

“Asking if you’re ready is going to be a stupid question,” Hansu remarked when you entered the lab then greeted him quickly and jumped up on the exam bed with nervegear headset in hand.

“Come on, come on, I have a new move I want to test out,” you said, jamming the headset onto your head and lying down.

Hansu very calmly placed Mirio’s headgear on his head and lay down, looking across at you before giving you the thumbs up.

“Ok.”

“Link start!” you called.

“Link start,” Hansu said calmly.

Within a second, you were both in game, sitting side by side on the lounge in butterfli3’s house. 

“No time to waste! Let’s go,” you said, getting up from the lounge and walking quickly to the front door.

With a grunt, Hansu got up and followed you out then off to the teleport pad at the entrance of level 44.

Once back on level 3, you found a small ground hog and showed Hansu your new move.

“Each move had a short cut,” you explained, “the shortcut for this one is ‘ha’ so you can disguise the move. I can see the sonic waves come out so I know if they have reached the target, but others can’t see them so it’s a sneak move. It’s far more unassuming to call out ‘ha’ than it is to scream ‘deadly serenade’.”

“How do you know all of this?” Hansu asked.

“It’s all available online,” you replied, “I’ve done a lot of research.”

“Mmhmm,” Hansu hummed, a little suspiciously.

“I’d like to hone my ‘spin’ move and my new ‘ha’ move a little more, before moving on to the next level,” you commented as you turned and starting walking into the tree line, “I’ve used ‘move’ a lot so I’m very familiar with it.”

“I see,” Hansu replied, looking around at the scenery from inside his black swirling mass that occupied Migata’s form, “this is a nice level.”

“It is nice, isn’t it?” you replied, spotting a porcupine foraging for food nearby.

You quickly surveyed the surroundings then stepped in closer behind the porcupine until the engage sign flashed up, then jumped back and called for spin to activate, dancing delicately in a circle as the purple haze wafted and swirled around the creature.

Using just ‘spin’ and ‘ha’ you managed to defeat the creature and turned back to Hansu.

“I like those two moves because I can attack from a distance. I’m assuming the stronger the move becomes, the further away I can attack from. My AoE will increase.”

Without waiting for Hansu to reply, you moved on down the track and he smirked with amusement.

“Who’d have thought that this hell bent scientist would find such a peculiar hobby. If only she had found it AFTER the Goha issue had resolved.” He shook his head and followed you on.

“I’m ready for level 4, I think,” you called over your shoulder as you walked the track to the next level.

“Really?” Hansu asked from behind you, “you haven’t practiced much.”

“But did it look like I was having trouble defeating the level 3 field monsters?” you asked with smugness in your voice.

“Ok. Big wig, let’s go then,” Hansu teased, “if the next level monsters hand your ass to you then don’t mind me as I sit back and watch karma do her thing.”

“They won’t,” you replied confidently.

Hansu raised an eyebrow but didn’t say any more as you entered a more dense part of the forest that had [LEVEL 4] in bright colours on the side of the track.

“Where’s the boss?” you asked, half asking yourself, but also half asking Hansu.

“No idea,” he replied, moving slowly along behind you.

You inched forwards, waiting for something, anything, to pop out from somewhere and try to fight you but nothing came out.

As you continued on, the next level opened up before you, it looked to be a very large field with a castle-esque township towards the further end and you stopped for a second.

“Why wasn’t there a boss for level 4?” you asked Hansu, looking back at him before heading out into the field.

The grass in the field was deceivingly tall and it came up to mid waist, for the most part, as you stepped out into the open.

“Careful,” Hansu called to you, Migata’s stats are warning me that there is danger nearby.

“What are the monsters on this level?” you asked him.

“Says on the information sheet that it’s snakes,” he said, “it also says here- as a player additive, that a glitch in the game occurred a few months back where a red bear from level 7 was let loose on this level and although the bear was defeated and it hasn’t happened again since, the level is still missing a few things that was mucked up in the glitch… hence no boss that guards the level.”

“Ahhh, that makes sense,” you replied, stopping to look back at him.

The minute you had looked back he dived at you and grabbed you around the waist, then threw his hand out and called for a fireball to explode from his palm.

“Hansu?!” you screeched, allowing him to drag you backwards in his arms.

“Snake!” he shouted.

You stumbled back with him, arms you to shield your face from the explosion, then looked back out of his embrace to see a very large cobra raised up from the tall grass, it’s brownish-green hood flaring out as it hissed its annoyance at your presence in his grassland.

“Spin!” you shouted, pushing out of Hanus’s arms to take the cobra on.

Your haze attack did barely any damage to the snake and it lunged at you, trying to stab you with its two sharp fangs.

“Move!” you then shouted, jumping to the side then doubling back and doing a flip over the snakes back while smashing it with your whips.

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Take Down Chapter 56: Who Is Ægir? >>>