Shelter Me

<SNIP>
On the balcony Tregard stared over the room, then out of the window, taking in the ravaged land, and eventually the chasm. He shuddered in sorrow at what he knew had taken place.
He'd sent the angel across the sea of Rea-Lite to his homeland, knowing he'd need to comfort his friends there. The other travellers were powerful, and capable of defeating the virus.
He turned back to the room and sighed.
They just had to work out how.
<SNIP>

Shark Boy and Mech Girl watched as Alex vanished before their eyes. Mech Girl with fear in her eyes said, “Jaxx promise me you won’t die.” Shark Boy looked at Mech Girl with his boyish charm and smiled as he replied, “Of course Eve babe. I promise I will totally be here for ya.” Mech Girl felt relived to hear Shark Boys words of comfort, but more importantly that he meant them. Mech Girl then looked at the Giant Kraken and said, “So how are we supposed to stop that thing?” Shark Boy rubbed his chin and then grinned like an idiot as he nervously rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Well I guess we could like pull out his batteries and stuff.” Mech Girl looked at Shark Boy in shock as he replied, “Sorry did I say something stupid again?” Mech Girl shook her head no as she replied, “No silly. I just wish the others could see you the way I do.” Shark Boy then said, “Yeah but their not the ones I like looking at.” Mech Girl replied, “Awwwwww you are so sweet, but we need to save this moment for later. First we need to find the green light you saw before and smash it. I bet the virus is feeding off it to power up. Once we break it the others can beat the bosses much easier.”

Shark Boy smiled and nodded as he said, “Lead the way Eve babe. Mech Girl then grabbed Shark Boy and flew over to Artemis and said, “Ubermensch we need a boost ASAP! We are gonna knock out the power source.” Ubermensch replied, “Splendid idea. Here ya go!” With that Ubermensch blasted Mech Girl and Shark Boy with a major boost. After a quick wave goodbye Mech Girl grabbed Shark Boy and flew up towards the ceiling. As they reached the ceiling Shark Boy then put his hands into the ceiling and said, “Hey Eve babe make your armor smaller and hang on to my feet so I can burrow through.” After Mech Girl powered down Shark Boy began tunneling through the floor and then through the thick walls. Every so often Shark Boy would pop his head out to see if the green light on the floor he was on before burrowing again. It took a long time to burrow through all the metal and rock as they swam up close to a hundred floors.

Eventually Mech Girl and Shark Boy arrived at the floor where the green light was glowing. As soon as Mech Girl and Shark Boy came out of the wall they were under attack. Shark Boy quickly pulled down a large metal column for them to hide behind while they were being shot at. The enemy looked like skinless, parasitic, humanoid creatures with a serious lack in hygiene. The Vorcha yelled, “DIE HUMANS!” Mech Girl and Shark Boy looked at each other and giggled as Mech Girl muttered, “But were not humans.” Shark Boy then muttered, “Maybe we should tell them they made a mistake.” Just then several rounds hit just above the column. Mech Girl and Shark Boy looked at the holes in the wall and then at each other, then Mech Girl said, “Somehow I don’t think they will care. Oh well time to teach these nasty boys some manners.” Mech Girl then powered up her suit and began blasting away at the Vorcha with her chain guns.

Through Mech Girl was able to blast away the Vorcha with ease, it didn’t take long for many more re-enforcements to arrive from the hallways. Mech Girl continued to waste the Vorcha as they poured into the room. One by one the dead Vorcha de-rezed into energy and vanished in the air. Just to make things worse some of the new Vorcha were wearing heavy Mech suits. After holding her position for a good while, as Mech Girl was blasting away she yelled to Shark Boy, “If this keeps up we won’t be able to get close enough to those large green crystals.” Shark Boy peered out of the corner to see they were pinned down by Vorcha and jumping out was out of the question. Shark Boy looked at his heroic Mech Girl blasting away at the enemy and realized what he had to do. Just then Mech Girl yelled, “ROCKET!” as she pounced on top of Shark Boy to protect him from the blast above them.

When the smoke cleared Mech Girl was looking right into Shark Boy’s eyes. She could see concern on his face as she was now hurt a little from protecting Shark Boy. Mech Girl muttered, “Jaxx?” Shark Boy then pulled her into a long passionate embrace. Mech Girl was in shock but was unable to resist Jaxx’s passionate kiss. Then Jaxx pulled away to see Mech Girl was now a grown up Eveline in a mech Suit and Jaxx was now a full-grown shark man. Jaxx looked at Eve and said, “Please forgive me. Before Eve could speak the Vorcha began shooting again. Jaxx used the distraction to quickly tunneled below and head under the Vorcha as he began pulling down to their necks. After he neutralized the main Vorcha, Jaxx twisted and pulled a heavy Vorcha Mechs to get stuck into the hallway to block the entrance.

Evelina was relieved to see Jaxx neutralizing the enemy for her as she was still in pain from the damage she took earlier. As Evelina looked at her burnt and bloodied leg she knew she was not going to be running anytime soon. After Jaxx minimized the threat to Evelina, he tunneled to the large green crystals. As he got closer to the crystals he felt a searing pain in his veins. Jaxx ignored the pain as he tunneled up and shattered one of the green crystals. The pain was immense as Jaxx was loosing life points quickly. However every time he hurt he remembered his precious Evelina in pain and he pushed through to swim up and shatter another crystal from below. Jaxx’s body was weakening tremendously as the power boost was wearing off. Jaxx fought through the pain again and smashed the third crystal. By now power fluctuations began to appear randomly all over. Jaxx was drained of most of his power and health as he breathed heavily and looked at the wounded Evelina. Tears rolled down her eyes as she saw her precious Jaxx on deaths door. His physical form was beginning to fade every now and then. Jaxx then mustered a smiled as he muttered something to Evelina before he turned to smash the last crystal. Evelina reached out and yelled, “JAXX!” as the crystal was smashed and Jaxx fell to the ground.

Suddenly the Vorcha and Mechs in the room simply de-rezed, leaving the area open for Evelina. Evelina saw it was now clear and used her arms to pull herself to Jaxx’s limp body. Evelina yelled, “JAXX! JAXX!” as Evelina was hoping for a response. Jaxx simply sat on his knees with his back to Evelina as he remained motionless. After Evelina was close enough she pulled Jaxx’s shoulders to her lap and was fighting back her tears. As the teardrops gently fell on Jaxx’s face his eyes began to open. Evelina was shaking as she could clearly see Jaxx was at zero health points and his body was fading on and off. Evelina muttered, “Jaxx you promised me.” Jaxx looked at Evelina and muttered something but no sound came from his voice. Just then Treguard interrupted as he said, “Fear not young lass, your friend here has by far the strongest will I have ever seen in my time.” Evelina looked at Treguard with tears rolling down her cheeks and asked, “Can you save him?” Treguard shook his head no and said, “I am afraid not however I can tell you where there is a will there is a way.” Evelina tried to speak again but then she and Jaxx faded out of the VR and back to reality. Still shaky Evelina ignored her hurt leg and groggy head as she freed herself to get to Jaxx. Evelina looked at the VR machine stats and was confused as his body was alive but there was no brain activity. Evelina held onto the motionless Jaxx and cried her heart out.

Meanwhile elsewhere on the Blue Dwarf near the unused hanger 13, skutter 86 was connecting to the mainframe for an upgrade when a power surge flowed through the whole ship. The power surge overloaded the poor circuits of the skutter as it was blasted from the console and launched into the adjacent wall across the room. When the damaged Skutter 86 regained power it looked around and was having trouble. Skutter 86 took some serious damage from the energy surge and no longer had communication and had little motor skills. The Skutter clumsily moved out of the hanger and down the hallways.

TAG (Jaxx is in a coma, Evelina is hurt and crying non stop and a damaged skutter 86 is aimlessly roaming the unused parts of the ship.)