Best of Intentions: All The Small Things (ch. 18)

Only Rude could look annoyed after getting shot in the chest, sniped with a high-caliber rifle that punched a hole under his armpit and continued on out the other side in a spray of blood. His expression wasn’t one of shock. Not horror either. Just indignant annoyance as his strength failed him, and he started to fall to what had to be certain death as zombies continued to spill forth from the funnel that they’d created.

Jill’s heart was in her throat, air refusing to enter her lungs as she expected to see Rude -- someone who she’d met just days before but had wormed his way into her trust -- fall into a pit of zombies to be ripped to shreds. If they were lucky, he’d be dead on impact and she wouldn’t have to put his shambling corpse down. A lifetime of instincts went out the window because she was rooted to the spot, unable to move a muscle.

Then fucking tiny rockets emerged from the sole of Rude’s shoes that gave him enough thrust to keep him in the air, allowing him to glide away from the swarm of zombies as he flipped the bird in the general direction of the sniper. Next to her, Chris let out a disbelieving guffaw, every bit as dumbfounded as they watched Rude glide away from the zombies, only for a second shot to strike Rude in the side, and send him tumbling down into the bleachers.

Jill decided she was going to kill Rude with her own two hands for scaring her that badly twice in a row, so without any further thought, she jumped from the vantage point. Chris called out for her from above, but he went ignored as she slid down the rope ladder before jumping from it. She landed on the fringe of the horde, her pistol snapping up and firing a quick shot at a zombie who’d noticed her. The sound drew more to her, but Jill was already moving.

She moved fast and low to rush toward Rude’s side. Another shot punched through the plastic chairs, telling her that Rude had moved from where he had fallen and when she raced towards him, she saw a trail of blood leading up to where he was using his rocket shoes to push himself towards one of the stadium exits. An exit that was blocked off. The third bullet tagged him, but it was more of a graze at his collarbone, dangerously close to his head.

With a burst of speed, she rushed to him, grabbing him by the sweater and half-throwing him over the edge of the barricaded exit before jumping after him. They were still trapped inside the stadium, but here at least they were protected from the sniper. Rude flipped himself over so he was resting on his back, blood and sweat on his face. “Ow,” he summarized his condition, “That really hurt.”

“How are you even talking right now?” Jill asked, crouching next to him to check his injuries, only to find smooth skin, if slick with blood. A small disbelieving laugh escaped her. “Nanomachines?” She ventured, and it felt like her heart was able to start beating again. Rude was fine. He was alive. He was even shooting her a cocky grin.

“Always,” Rude replied, his face pale from blood loss. “I’m fine- wait, no, actually, I’m not -- I’m pissed off. Seriously, what kind of idiot goes for a kill shot for an asset like me? I have been putting my boot up Umbrella’s ass so badly it’s like I’m tap dancing on the ceiling of their skulls, and instead of trying to black bag me, they take me out?” Well, if he was complaining, he was probably fine.

“The rocket boots were a nice touch,” Jill consoled half-jokingly, offering a hand to pull Rude up. “Where did you get them?”

“Made ‘em while I had the chance earlier,” Rude answered easily, completely unaware of how utterly absurd that was. “Didn’t think I’d be playing that card so quickly.”

Before Jill had a chance to respond, her radio came to life. “Jill! We’re closing in on the sniper’s position but we’re encountering resistance! How is Rude’s condition?” He demanded and Rude got her attention, miming that he was hurting and making a ‘bleh’ face. She understood what he meant, even if charades wasn’t one of his talents.

It was a smart play, even if she did feel a bit bad about keeping Chris in the dark. It was necessary, however. Whoever was attacking them could have a line in their communications. “He’s in a bad way, but he’s alive. We’re heading to the locker rooms for medical supplies,” Jill decided, getting a thumbs up from Rude. She didn’t at all like the idea that Chris was encountering resistance, though. “Did the Umbrella squad betray us?”

“Doesn’t seem so, since three of their guys are dead already and they’re helping me flank. Not sure who it is, but you let me worry about that. Put Rude back together, Jill, we need him. And be careful -- you might be safe from the sniper down there, but you have a horde of trouble coming your way.” Chris said and she heard the sound of gunfire echoing through the radio before ending the call. She looked up, wondering where exactly the conflict was happening -- the gunfire she'd heard on the radio was being drowned out by the music that was left playing to draw in the dead.

And, as if to agree with Chris, the first of the zombies toppled over the side and landed near them. The ones that had followed her, and they would only bring more. She and Rude shared a glance before Rude threw an arm over her shoulder and started dragging his feet to give the impression that he was injured. “We have a Shield to burn, but let's move fast, yeah?” He requested, and Jill adjusted her grip.

The would-be assassins would want to make sure that they finished the job, and doing it like this made sure they got to pick the battleground. In a firefight, it couldn’t be understated how big of an advantage having the drop on someone was.

Taking a bracing breath, Jill started hauling Rude down the bleachers as more and more undead toppled over the barrier and gave chase. It was nerve-wracking, but she had to keep them close simply because the dead gave them cover from the sniper. They headed down the steps and Jill felt blood spray on her back as one of the zombies ate a bullet for them. Gritting her teeth, she resisted the urge to speed up and maintained their pace as they headed for the field itself. Which had its own problem, as it was filled with hundreds of zombies.

Who all seemed to take notice of them at the same time as she and Rude went over the side of the stadium onto the field, followed by hundreds of their fellow corpses. Jill's heart thundered in her chest as she found herself threading a needle between walls of moving corpses towards the locker rooms, trying to give them as much cover as they could while denying the sniper an angle. Even still, despite her efforts, a Shield flared, blocking a bullet that would have killed them both.

The arena seemed to echo with the moans of the dead and they were everywhere. It was like one of her nightmares had been pulled into reality and Jill could feel the bubbling panic under the surface that she was trying desperately to keep down. It wasn't easy as the dead lunged for them, grasping with cold fingers and lifeless eyes and she had to just barely avoid the lunges time and time again, despite every instinct that she had telling her to run.

Only it wouldn't matter, Jill tried not to remind herself, which she naturally failed spectacularly as a cold hard fact was at the forefront of her mind. They were trapped inside the stadium with thousands of undead. Even at the locker room, the exits had all been sealed and barricaded. It didn't make it impossible to get out, just… complicated, because all of this effort would be wasted if the undead managed to follow them out of their cage.

Somehow, Jill managed to keep her nerve as they hugged the wall towards the locker rooms, refusing to even speed up until they crossed the threshold and started heading down a hallway. Racoon Stadium wasn't exactly a large one that needed a lot of space, so it was almost a straight shot to the Home locker rooms. Jill slammed through them, and the moment they did, Rude dropped the helpless act and immediately slammed the door shut behind them just as a zombie lunged for them.

“We need a barricade!” Rude shouted, the full weight of the undead hitting the door that desperately tried to swing inward. Jill was already on it -- she grabbed hold of duffle bags and started hauling them to act as a brace for the door. After that, she started hammering door wedges into place to make sure that the door couldn't open. It was ceaselessly pounded at with moans filtering through, but those could be muffled with towels. The only weakness were the hinges, but the frame was concrete and the hallway limited their weight of numbers.

For the moment, they were safe.

Her hands were only trembling a little bit when she reached for the radio. “We're in the locker room, Chris. How is your situation?” She asked while Rude continued to fortify the door.

She waited a minute, knowing that Chris couldn't exactly answer in the middle of a firefight. Then she tried again, “Chris. Where in the locker room. What is your situation?” She tried again, but there was no response. So, she tried a third time, only for the same result.

Jill looked down at her radio with a frown before changing the channel. “Raymond, do you read me?” She tried, only to be answered with silence. Just in case, she waited a minute to try again, but no answer came. A chill raced down Jill's spine as she considered what that could mean.

“They're probably jamming us,” Rude offered as her mind went straight for the worst case scenarios. “If they wanted to do something at the Safe Zones, then they already had the opportunity for it. They would have done it when they blew holes in the Red Zones, because that would have tipped things against us. Divided our attention.”

“Unless they're pissed that we handled their attack so well,” Jill argued and Rude paused, his expression tightening a fraction before he took off his glasses to massage his eyes.

“Fair point,” Rude conceded. “But I still think that the safe havens are in the clear. For now, at least. They don't benefit from it like they would the dead spilling forth back into the city. I think their play was to take me out and maybe nab Annette for good measure.” He reasoned, putting his glasses back on.

“They're cleaning house… ?” Jill summarized, mulling it over for a moment before she nodded. That made sense. They were tying off loose ends before they washed their hands of the situation. This was damage control, rather than an attempt to kill everyone in the city and jumpstart the apocalypse. “Where does that leave us?”

“Don't know,” Rude answered with a small shrug. “As we are, we're sitting ducks. And with the undead out there, we could be more trouble than we're worth because a kill team would have to get through them to get to us, unless they blow a hole through that wall right there.” He said, pointing to the far wall, near the bathroom and showers. She cocked an eyebrow at Rude, and he shrugged, “I saw the floor plans.”

“And they won't do that?” Jill ventured, thinking that a wall wasn't going to stop Umbrella.

“That entirely depends on why they shot me,” Rude replied. “They had as good of a shot when we were leading the dead here. They could have just as easily put a bullet in me then as they did here.” That did make sense. To a degree. It was enough to give Jill more questions but there weren't any answers to be found -- not in here, trapped in a locker room that stunk of body spray and sweat.

“And what does that mean for us?” Jill pressed, and was bitterly disappointed when Rude offered a small shrug.

“Not sure,” he admitted. She didn't expect him to have all of the answers, but it would have been really nice if he did. “It means something is up in the air at the moment, but I'm not sure what, how, or why. But I think we have the opportunity to find out -- as far as they know, I'm out of commission. They didn't try to nab me. They tried to “asset denial” me.” He said, making finger quotations with a sneer on his face. “So they might tip their hand one way or the other because I'm off the board.”

“That sounds like a dangerous game to play, Rude,” Jill pointed out and Rude nodded as he took a seat on one of the benches.

“It is,” He agreed. “But not playing isn't an option.” Silently, Jill agreed with that.

“So… what? We wait?” Jill ventured, not liking the idea of that at all. Not when Chris had been in the middle of a firefight and now he suddenly wasn't answering the radio. She didn't like the idea of there being some mess going on around her and she wasn't in the thick of it -- it was fear of a lack of control, the mandated shrink she saw after that disastrous mission to the Mansion had said. Even if the car she was in was racing towards the guardrails at the edge of a cliff while going a hundred miles an hour, Jill wanted a hand on the wheel for the crash.

“No. You are going to catch up on some sleep, and I'm going to make Umbrella regret giving me more than three hours to think.” He said, and Jill opened her mouth to argue. “Unlike me, who managed to get a full eight hours, you have been running around for days straight by this point. Go take a nap, Jill. If something happens, believe me, I'll make sure to wake you up to kick it's ass. But go to sleep.”

Jill made to argue, but she couldn't deny it. She had stayed up all night, and it wasn't like she was getting particularly restful sleep before the world went to hell. After everything -- the hives, the horde, all the close calls… there was a bone deep exhaustion that she was losing the fight to ignore.

Instead of arguing, she just sighed. “Fine. I'll take a nap. A short one,” she stressed and Rude just waved her off. It didn't sit well with her. Not in the slightest. It felt almost wrong to rest when there was so much going inside of the city. When Chris could be in danger. But, until Umbrella came knocking at that wall to get to Rude, they were functionally trapped inside of the locker room.

She thought it would be difficult to sleep with the tension and the moans still drifting through the muffled door, but almost as soon as her head hit the rolled up towel, Jill was out like a light.

…

I wasn't entirely sure what Umbrella was doing, but I didn't like it. At all. Almost dying wasn't fun. I had a scar that traced where the bullet had hit me -- under the arm to hit my heart and lungs. A kill shot, if there ever was one. Pretty sure if I had an HP bar, that would have knocked me down to one health left.

Luckily I had a leftover spell slot, and a healing spell brought me from practically dead to almost dead. But, as the saying goes, the only health point that really mattered was the last one.

Outside of a few new scars, I was fine. Still weak and my heart felt kinda funny, but fine. It also helped that I had leveled up when dealing with the horde, bringing me to Level 11. But I held off on cashing in that Level just yet in favor of doing something that I had always sorta planned on doing, but everything had gone to hell in a handbasket so quickly, there had just never been the chance.

I was going to grind.

Dakka remained outside of the locker room, still in the Stadium filled with thousands of undead. And, I think that's why Umbrella was holding off on busting the wall down Kool-aid man style. They saw my little murder-bot was still active, and they weren't feeling confident about their chances of retrieving my body until it shut down.

Which gave me an opportunity to grind out a few levels. Make it look like Dakka was running on some kind of defensive program then, over time, I’d make it look like she ran out of steam and deactivated. I was willing to bet my metaphorical lunch that Umbrella would choose to bust down that wall then. And I did mean metaphorical since there was nothing to eat in the locker room beyond a frankly excessive amount of performance enhancing drugs.

So, while we were trapped with limited supplies that I would have to break down into base components, Dakka was outside in the Stadium putting in the work.

Each zombie was worth 50xp. In the early days or… yesterday, it would be enough to just kill a handful to level up. At Level 11, to hit Level 12, I needed about 15,000xp. Or about three hundred zombies. Which was a lot, but at the same time, hardly any. In a traditional game of DnD, you could go a whole 1-20 level campaign and kill fewer than a hundred enemies.

Here, however? In such a… target rich environment? Where there were thousands of zombies battering at the door in an attempt to get inside?

Three hundred was a drop in the bucket.

Dakka could fire her railgun every two seconds, and there were three thousand and six hundred seconds in an hour. Meaning Dakka, on the assumption every shot was a one hit kill, could kill one thousand and eight hundred zombies in the span of a single hour. At 50xp a pop, that would net me 90,000 experience, or enough xp to take me from Level 11 to Level 15, with an extra 10,000xp going towards Level 16.

That was the original purpose of the Red Zones. Sure, keeping the zombies off the streets was nice. It would make securing the city vastly simpler. It also made it easy to just target bomb a specific spot within the city to take out a massive chunk of the undead population. But I always intended on being the one that pulled the trigger on the Red Zones, because that meant the xp would go to me.

It was the ultimate metagaming move -- just shooting fish in the barrel to rack up xp and rapidly level up. Honestly, I wish I’d gotten the chance to do it sooner but everything was just so hectic that I never got the chance. The city was literally falling apart around us, and there hadn't been any time to grind.

Until now, at least.

As I worked, I felt the levels coming fast, one after another as I worked on two projects simultaneously -- first I broke down every electronic I could get my hands on. The TV, phones, watches, and even the fire alarm. It wasn't much, but it was enough for me to get the job done with the help of a little magic. My first project was done within fifteen minutes. It was a little dongle that plugged into the radio.

“Chris? It's Rude. This channel is secure, so get back to me if you aren't dead-” I started before there was a brief burst of static.

“Rude? Holy shit, you're alive?” Chris breathed, sounding so genuinely relieved that it was actually pretty heartwarming.

“Barely,” I admitted. That close call was closer than I was comfortable with. “They were jamming our signal but I built a little booster that'll encrypt the radio waves.” Something that was absurdly impossible without magic. Good luck figuring that one out, Umbrella. “What's your situation?”

“After you got shot, we got hit by someone and they hit us hard -- eight dead, so they're probably not with Umbrella. Or Umbrella doesn't mind taking out their own guys,” Chris said and I bit my tongue. Umbrella definitely wouldn't mind some friendly fire. Honestly, I don't think they could call an experiment a success unless it killed at least one of their people in an attempt to escape. “Their target was Annette -- they wanted to bag her, but they couldn't. Instead… Instead, they took Sherry. Her daughter.”

There was a bitterness in Chris' voice that told me he was blaming himself. There was no reassuring him, so I wouldn't try. Instead, I said, “Are you chasing them down?”

“Damn right,” Chris answered swiftly. “Me, Ada, Kevin, and Carlos are in pursuit. We’ll get her back.” Ada was with them? Well, I suppose I could bump her off the suspect list of who shot me. That did leave a few possibilities, even if it wasn't Mikhail's squad.

Hunk.

I didn't really know much about him beyond what we got from the bonus mission where you played him during his escape from Raccoon City just before the nuke dropped. Umbrella's Grim Reaper. I knew that he was in the city, but I didn't know where or when -- I couldn't, when I had changed so much. Honestly, I figured he'd come to me at some point. Him being joined by a squad was a little puzzling, though.

Them trying to kidnap Annette but kill me was even more puzzling. While it was entirely possible that Hunk and his team considered me such a threat that they didn't want to risk trying to capture me, Umbrella would absolutely order that they try anyway. Taking Sherry was clearly an attempt to play on Annette's nonexistent maternal instincts to make her comply with her own capture.

Which left me…

Ah.

I figured out why they’d tried to kill me and not Annette. And, like most of my problems, it was entirely self-inflicted.

They wanted my ‘nanomachines.’ And they thought all they needed was my body to harvest them.

“You rest up, Rude,” Chris ordered while I mulled what he said over. “We’ll get Sherry back, don't you worry about that. And then we're going to get you and Jill out of the Stadium.”

That got a grin from me, “That sounds like a plan.” I said, deciding to leave it to Chris. Despite everything I had managed to accomplish so far -- Chris was the super cop that could beat up boulders the size of the one that nearly squashed Indiana Jones. He was joined by Ada, which could be a problem, but Carlos was a solid guy. Didn't know anything about Kevin, but Chris seemed to trust him.

A rescue mission was Chris in his element, so I would trust that he had it handled while I focused on my other project with the little time that I had left.

The minutes ticked by as I had to make a makeshift electrical solder to piece together various electronics. Each level up almost felt like marking the time, keeping me informed of how much had passed. And, honestly, it was probably the most productive hour of my life.

Because by the time it was done, I’d hit Level 15.

First came Level 11, with the Spell Storing Item feature. In function, it was essentially the Spell Refueling Ring that I already wore, only the spell in question had to be prepared beforehand. The ring let me regain a spell slot, the Spell Storing Item stored a specific spell that could be unleashed at will at a later date. It had to be a first or second level spell, but that was hardly a deal breaker. It’s something that could be exceptionally useful if used under the right circumstances. Just took a little planning beforehand.

At Level 12 came my third Feat. While it was still so very tempting to go with something like Metamagic or even Eldrich Adept for that sweet, sweet, Mage Armor at will, my choice was Skill Expert. I would need it if I was going to take over Alice’s place as the big stick that beat Umbrella and every other moron that tried to kick-start the apocalypse.

For it, I got a nice little bump to my Intelligence, bringing me up to the max of 20. Secondly, I picked Medicine as my Expertise option because I was going to need it later. I also took Perception to gain proficiency, even if my Wisdom stat wasn’t the greatest. I also got a new spell slot, which was always nice as I was burning through them as fast as I got them.

Wasn’t like I was getting a lot of chances to take a long rest.

Feature-wise, Level 13 was a bit of a dud, but I did get access to 4th level spells.

Level 14 was a bit more exciting as I got both Magic Item Savant, which upped the number of attuned magic items I could have just as I got more infusions to play around with. My choices there were pretty obvious -- An Amulet of Health, which bumped up my Constitution score to 19 from 16. A nice health boost that would hopefully save my dumbass the next time someone shot me.

Secondly, I got the Belt of Hill Giant Strength. Goodbye negative Strength modifier. Hello, +5 Strength modifier. The belt was something I had wanted for some time now, as it would boost my Strength score to 21 from my current 9. Or, I could give it to someone like Chris, and he could probably start beating the shit out of mountains. Or if not mountains, then at the very least a large hill.

An extra spell slot for Level 14 was just gravy, honestly.

However, Level 15 was where the real fun began. The level that changed the whole damn ball game. It was probably the single most important level that I would get for my build. Honestly, it was so damn busted that there almost wasn’t a point going past Level 15 because none of the other class features held a candle to it.

Fortified Position. Dakka now counted as cover for allies within ten feet of her -- which was nice, sure. It was great, even. However, it was no where near as good as the second part of the feature.

I could now control an additional Eldritch Cannon.

Meaning that I could have two Dakkas.

I couldn’t stop myself from cackling as I used my newest spell, my first 4th level spell - Fabrication. The single most busted spell for an Artificer, by my estimation. It allowed me to turn raw materials into a complete product -- meaning that I could turn the lockers on the walls into armor plating and shape the plastics into protective electronics casings. It also allowed me to jury rig a similar build as Dakka 1 in terms of the generator for her little sister, though Dakka 2 was currently stuck on the previous fire rate. Without the rail gun either, but that was something I fully intended to fix later.

“Welcome to the world, Dakka Two,” I said, patting her chassis to infuse her with my magic. She came to life, ready to kick ass and take names.

In an hour, I had gained an entirely new level of firepower. The Belt of Hill Giant Strength was a plain leather belt that I scribbled some runes onto, an Amulet of Health hung from my neck in the form of a golden necklace -- both attuned to me. That wasn’t even to mention the level bonus of another damage dice added to my cantrips and the Dakka’s firepower. With Dakka 2, I felt ready to bring this conflict to a close.

All the more so because Umbrella thought that I was currently out of commission, if not dead. Meaning that I had the perfect opportunity to put my foot up their collective asses with more firepower than they could dream of right when they least expected it.

“Rude?” Jill said, stirring at my cackling before sitting up. Her eyes were bloodshot, but the sleep seemed to have done her some good. Though she still blinked a few times, looking at her surroundings. “What… what did you do, Rude?” She muttered, looking a bit weirded out that the entire locker room had more or less been scrapped.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, approaching her and offering a hand. “More importantly, have you ever seen the movie ‘Honey, I shrunk the kids?’” I asked her and Jill blinked a few times as her brain struggled to cast off the sleep.

“I have…?” She asked, sounding more than a little wary even as she accepted the hand that pulled her up. “Do I even want to know why you’re asking that?” She asked, narrowing her eyes at me while I just grinned and pointed to the air vent above us. It was small, too small for a person our size to crawl through.

But with a little Enlarge/Reduce?

We could slip out of the locker room while Umbrella was convinced we were stuck in here. Dakka would remain, continuing to harvest xp for me and to convince them that it was still in defensive mode, and they would be utterly clueless of my other Dakka until it was entirely too late.

The only issue was… well…

I hoped shrinking us down to the size of a small child could be explained by nanomachines.