Well, so you ask so you shall receive
.
THE DEATH OF BIRDKOP
Birdkop unfastened the bandoleer and shrugged it off into the drop compartment. He wouldnt need that where he was going; too heavy for his new birdframe.
He hadnt yet developed the light bones of his kinfolk, but he did have an impressive plumage lining his arms and down to his hands. Oh, he hated to use words like that to describe them, but nevertheless he was still a man. A man with sly cat eyes, beautiful red feathers, and pointed claws, but a man. And a gorgeous specimen of one, mutation or not.
Focusing on the task at hand, Birdkop turned off the engine of his repaired humvee. Its engine was new; a complete replacement donated from a torn up bus at the evacuation center. But he had already taken off the mounted turret, so it was useless to him. Besides, if all went well he would be sneaking back to it with all his loot and in no mood to find its ammo depleted and hull trashed.
First stop was the pharmacy across the street. Walking over that way, a crowd of zombies were wildly flailing and occasionally bursting in violent spritzes of gore. Something was killing them. Something strong too, judging from the zombies' inability to deal with it. Best move on for now.
In the pharmacy, Birdkop found nothing. His carnivore nature forbid him the fruit juice, but even so he could tell it was rotting in the late summer heat. He found a reveneant in the back room, smashing the storage cabinets and pulling down the wall with its distended limbs.
What a racket. Unholstering his shotgun, Birdkop took careful aim at the monster and resulting shell detonated against its shoulder rockets, chipping away flecks of skull with it. Headshot, but not enough to put it down. Launching a rocket from its good launcher with a shriek, the revenenent pulled Birdkop into mauling range.
Rocket before revenant. The revenant hurts, the rockets are deadly. Shooting the rocket first, Birdkop turned his shotgun to the monster and pumped 2 more shells into its torso before it slumped to the floor as a heap of twitching bones. Searching the back walls, Birdkop found his prize: some prozac half buried under some rocks. A roar and shattering wall informed him of new dangers, however, and 2 hell knights filed into the room with cries of fury and hate.
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The hell knights' hands began glowing a sickly green ... signaling their deadly plasma bursts forming, as if their infectious hate was made manifest by sheer willpower.
Picking up a discarded revenant rocket from the ground, Birdkop activated it and stood behind it, pumping shells at the closest knight. With a cry of agony it discharged its plasma ball and died. The shot impacted against the leg greaves of Birdkop, boiling the metal slightly. The second knight fired at the rocket, and its subsequently damaged engines careened it harmlessly into the ground.
It did its job though, eating the shot otherwise meant for him.
Birdkop dispatched the second monster with relative ease, using but 2 shells and a lucky headshot. *PHEW*, almost all 12 shells loaded into his 2021 were spent by now. His choice to use the larger capactity, lower raw damage shotgun had really paid off.
Slinking down the street, Birdkop's acute feline night vision kept him out of harms way as a few zombies and imp pathed into each other and battle was joined. Not for his liking; best let them exhaust each other. As if the hatred of the demons or the numbers of the mindless zombies knew any real bounds ...
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The spire itself was rather uninteresting. It was made from the same dull rock as the cliff faces around town were, and it lacked any real sense of aesthetic. The walls slowly slumped into one another, merging as a concave roof. The yard around it was littered in scorched Earth, crudely dug corpse-pits, and occasional pillars that bore dessicated bodies. The entrance to the spire was a misshapen hole, where once inside some art became evident as engraved pillars and burnt statues stood watch. Beyond that were pills of ash and bone that seemed to mimic that of pews. Chains, blades, and spikes adorned the ceiling and wall, and occasionally the bodies affixed to them twitched or moaned. Birdkop doubted any were human -or at least living human-.
Inside, Birdkop was forced to pass close to a pit of glowing lava, which both blinded his nightvision and alerted the sentinels -2 arachnotrons and a cacodemon- of his intrusion. With a horrid hiss the cacodemon hovered forward, mouth roiling with electric fury. 3 shotgun shells were not enough to quiet the monster, and it loosed a bolt of crackling electricity towards Birdkop, both damaging and stunning its victim.
Forcing his stuttering limbs to move, Bridkop fired 2 more rounds into the cacodemon, putting it down just so the first arachnotron could climb over its corpse.
The arachnotrons were somewhat easier to deal with. They had impressive armor, but their guns seemed non-functional at this range. In fact, they were pretty useless at melee ranges. Birdkop took some codeine to help ease his aches and began the process of meleeing them to death with his sharpened iron shaft he had pulled from a bridge last season. With his increased strength the monster were some dispatched, leaving only the flaming skulls to witness his victory.
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Descending the stairs behind the scorched altar at the front of the spire, Birdkop was immediately thrown to the ground by a charging lost soul. Fumbling out his beretta 9mm Birdkop slammed the trigger 3 times, splintering the jawbone of the floating skull with the last one. Standing up, Birdkop was met with 2 churles charging out of the distant darkness, waving clubs made of rebar and concrete and moaning wildly.
Dropping his beretta to the ground, Birdkop wrestled his solid metal shaft from its awkward rest over his back and pummeled them to death. They were much weakened by starvation, but so desperate that their tenacity was surprising even to him, a survivor who willingly mutated their body in order to stay above the rising tide of the apocalypse.
Time for some minor healing. Taking the time to catch his breath, Birdkop fixed up his head and ailing arms. The feathers there were quite burdensome in combat, and as a result he wore less armor on them. Merely a reinforced pair of athletic arm sleeves, compared to his kevlar vest and leather duster and his iron greaves and bonemold boots.
In the prison area, Birdkop found some 40mm grenades and a hell knight who stung him with its plasma. Clearing the area, Birdkop descended to the second basement level of the hell spire.
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Carefully tracing the wall of the Spire, Birdkop descended down, spying alcoves in the dark corners where more maltreated humans made their homes. Such unfortunate souls could not even see him pass by in this dark, let alone defend themselves. All the better for him, he thought as he released a revenant rocket into the room and braced for the coming explosion. When it came, he couldn't hear their cries, but could see wafts of radioactive particles paint the darkness shades of red, yellow, violet and blue.
Unfortunately for Birdkop, a pack of 3 hell knights, 2 cacodemons, and 2 lost souls also found the explosion of interest.
Flying after Birdkop with hellish speed, the lost souls illuminated him with their flaming bodies, dispelling any hopes for a miracle of stealth. 2 shotgun shells later and Birdkop was sprayed with 2 balls of unfurled electricity, stunned and badly injured on his feet where they both struck. Running into the radioactive alcove, Birdkop jumped over the former humans and activated his beserker pack. The speed, the strength, the perception, Birdkops eyes bled with the sudden clarity of his sensory organs as the beserker pack kept him alive and viable despite his wounds.
Shrugging off his redlining legs, Birdkop pumped 8 shells into 2 cacodemons and a hell knight, dropping his shotgun to take out his holstered frontier and dispatching the remaining hell knights with his favored 45 revolver. His wounds were fairly intense at this point, with badly mangles limbs and what felt like a hemorrhage in his brain as the beserker pack wore off and his overstimulated body began to shut down. All of his aches intensified and he swallowed some oxycodone he found on the ground beyond some smashed statues.
Below, he found a hell knight, a few imps, and 3 hell barons. The barons were clearly the overlords of this particular portion of hell on Earth.
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The hell knight and the imps were easy prey, after all this. But the barons ...
Birdkop drew the barons up the stairs in short order, hiding around corners to break their focus and blasting at them intermittently to damage them. It was going, and he was taking only minor damage, but the pain of his wounds were catching up to him. More asprin. More oxycodone. More codeine. On top of what he had already flushed into his taxed body. He must claim his prizes below.
He saw the helmet and power armor, mocking him in the distance of the arena. He saw the shimmering cloak and additional medikits, tantalizing him with their healing properties. But he couldn't get to them.
Just one more pill, he thought. Just one more .... He would be the conquer of this place, the despot of hell, the Highest birdkop ...
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Topic: How did you last die? (Read 2414393 times)