Rowdy Dead Productions

By David C. Daoust

It actually took about ten to fifteen seconds for the Monolith to connect to a new form. Wasn’t really so for a form already in use. But a new one, that you haven’t been into yet, like, off the factory floor… there was that little bit of a wait time. Normally, wasn’t much of a big deal, but when you’re in the middle of the action, that fifteen seconds of powering back up— feels like you are chomping at the bit just to get back out there.

No sooner had the Overseer regained full function, than he was tearing back out into the lower levels of the Crucible, Halfhul. His long serpentine tail flickering back and forth, propelling him forward, sparks flying as the metal of his form scraped across the metal of the industrial steel floors of the bot factory— he launched himself forward- as he had the past dozen times, as each of his forms in turn were rendered useless by the massive shadow-troll that now lurked within his domain.

Overseer had never seen anything like the troll, it was, just, this ‘amalgous’ form, which was why he was okay with making up a new word to describe it. An amalgam of shadowy imagery, it seemed to flow and rip itself apart as it moved. As the right and the left parts of the thing, weren’t quite connected correctly- for a brief moment when they came apart, there was just this moment of this normal shadowy human buried within the stream of shadow as it tried to catch up with itself…

Whatever it was, it was not meant to be within the Overseer’s domain.

The Overseer was going to have to rethink his past strategies, he had stubbornly resorted to only using his blades, despite the fact that his training with the assault rifles, this form was equipped with, cleared him for use aboard space vessels. The rifles fired a series of pulsar bursts. Bursts that could devastate anything it was fired at… his rating was through the roof, and the targeting system would even help prevent damage to the hull. All that being said, Mighty Mitch had never resorted to using guns in all his long career. In all his battles, in fact, it had always been the bad guys, the epic-hero was taking down, that only ever used the guns.

This foe however seemed completely impervious to his blades. In point of fact, Overseer had not managed to strike him one time. Not one time in all the dozen battles they had previously engaged in. It was just too fast, too confusing! It shifted left– and the right was so slow to catch up that the stream of the thing made it look like it was holding still. Then it was up and over, not only his blades but his entire form, forcing him back down and slicing through his metal form with those long-jagged knives… again!

This time when the monster came into view, Overseer let loose with a series of pulsar bursts! Bright white bullets of light struck the fiend full in the chest. It ripped itself apart again, the right darted for cover, just for that moment there was that shadow-human within the maelstrom of shadow as the left followed a half-second later, the whole thing spun away around the next corner.

The thrill was there for Overseer, the chase was on! He had turned the tables. At long last, the fiend was trying to elude him. The thrill only lasted long enough for him to round the corner, however. As it was quickly replaced by the sudden shock of a pair of shadow-hounds, running in low, suddenly launching themselves directly at him.

Overseer’s upper arms transformed into blades with but a thought. He thrust up high, quickly knocked the fiends free of him. One of his lower arms transformed into the pulsar rifle, and he drilled the hound into the wall with a series of blasts… all this, just to find the amalgam of shadow, come in like a streak, thrust one of its jagged blades forward– once again impaling him! What came next, he couldn’t say, he’d evacuated the form as soon as it had been compromised, though the ark of that second blade coming around for his head, foretold a grisly end for that particular form.

Fifteen seconds. Every time it was back to that fifteen second cage. Chomping at the bit, he had to get back out there- ‘try another thing– anything.

Overseer thought maybe if he could charge more forms up, all at the same time! Maybe he could cut the time between bodies, if he took the time to start the next one early. Trying to figure out how, is what clued him into the bigger picture. Accessing more of his data-files throughout the domain, showed alerts going throughout his systems– and they had been going off for a while. There were humans in the factory, one of them was dangerously close to his monolith!

They were distracting him with that troll monster, he had fallen for it.

Overseer knew he could not reach the human without first getting past the lurking shadow monster between.

Fifteen seconds were up!

The body was released.

Now was not the time for strategizing, he had to make it through. He had to save his Monolith, less he be powered down- possibly, permanently.

He shot like a bullet through all the long lines off assault-bot forms, snaking around them quickly without disturbing a single one. And up through the corridors, a mad-dash…

The blade came in quick, directly through his neck. It separated Overseer’s head from his body. An unusual experience he was simply not fast enough to avoid, despite trying to evacuate the form immediately.

The shadow was so close now, he could not make it out of the factory portion of the lower regions; he was effectively trapped.

This time, when he returned, there were multiple bodies already ready. This was… different… yet the same. The sudden readiness of the multiple forms he’d tried to charge early, opened his eyes to new possibilities.

Overseer was, after all, the remnant of ‘Deity of Heroes’—a game played with millions of different people- at exactly the same time. His old program was not like all the other dataspheres- all the ‘newer’ dataspheres, that is. He was old, before programs ever even thought of anything that was now the norm. Ultimately, he had not written himself to be in a form, he was written to be in a game.

A game used by millions of different people, at exactly the same time.

All of his experiences, across the board, ultimately, happened through millions of other instances of himself. He was a multiple man…

Once he realized this, he took up as many forms that were ready as he could, and fired up every other form still dormant…

In about fifteen seconds, the cage was going to release a small army!

All manned by one Mighty Mitch.