The Adaptive Game

"ON MY LIFE"

- Conner

10 HOURS AGO

"Are you in, or not?"

"I have a choice?"

Shaun puts his pistol back into his holster.

They're not watching. I have an idea, I'm gonna fake poison you.

I take some R.I. Beans from my bag, crack them open with my knife, and drop two diazepam pellets in each can.

"Take it."

"What do I do?"

"Eat it. I'll trick the guards into thinking you two are dead."

"What if you ACTUALLY kill us?" I jeer, as I pour the contents of the beans into my mouth.

"Then you won't feel it at all."

Is what Shaun says before I go 'A mimir' again.

After a very long sleep, I wake up in a coffin.

I'm not buried alive, but I am still in a pickle.

I hear two guards leave the room, so after a few seconds I push the cover off of my coffin and climb out.

This is a morgue.

Currently, the furnaces are burning other bodies right now. My turn would have been in a few minutes.

I need to find Emilia. She has to be somewhere here.

I close the lid on my coffin and start checking inside more body boxes. Gavin is in one of them, but I can barely see his face because Shaun gave it a nasty makeover.

I hear some thumping noises from one of the furnaces - it's not the sound of fire.

It's Emilia! She's in there!

"HEY! LET ME OUT!"

"STAY INSIDE! I'LL GET YOU OUT!"

"GET ME OUT OF HERE, IT'S SCORCHING ME!"

I try forcing the furnace door, but it's completely locked up. I need to get rid of the time constraint first.

So, I run to one of the control panels and shut off the gas.

Each of the furnace doors are locked and need a key, but the locking mechanism is weak, so I can try to break the metal slider.

A crowbar lies on the wall, I grab it and then bring it down right on the metal lock slider. It breaks in half and I open the furnace, then drag the coffin out.

"Hey."

"Hi, how's it cookin'?"

"Not good. They're gonna realize you turned the gas off, by the way."

I look at the doorway.

"You're right, we gotta do something about it."

"Then get a hiding spot! We take out whoever comes by."

"Okay, I have an idea."

I open the lid on one of the coffins and slide in with the body. The person inside is Naomi.

"Alright, I'll cause a distraction. Don't worry about me."

I close the lid overhead lightly, and I hear the guards walking in with their guns drawn.
I shake the coffin hard, and it alerts both the guards.

"Here, help me put this back on the table."

I hear them getting closer, and I pray to god that they don't open the lid.

Then, Emilia's voice from the other side of the room:

"DON'T MOVE!"

Now's my chance.

I take Naomi's body and knock the lid off the coffin. With the body in my hands, I throw her on one of the guards and take the gun from the other guard.

Now both of us have the weapons.

"Both of you. Drop all of your holsters."

"Ok!"

"And lose those clothes."

"What?!"

"You heard me. Strip."

They get down to their underwear and back away to the wall.

With my MP5 submachine gun pointed at them both, I look to Emilia.

"What do we do?"

"I'll change, you tie them down to something and don't let them move."

"I have a better idea."

I take their ring of keys and open two of the furnaces. With my gun pointed at them, I gesture for them to get in the furnace.

They comply accordingly and crawl in.

Then I lock them in completely.

"You're gonna burn them alive?"

"No. I'm gonna lock them in for a while."

"Until they're found.."

"Sure."

Both Emilia and I change into guard's clothing and leave the room.

"Alright, we should look for Shaun."

"He has to be with the host. 100 percent."

After a few turns and bends in the hallway, we can hear talking.

"I just don't get why you aren't happy with this. I mean, I watch the killing for the sake of entertainment. So sick of the same old, don't you get sick of that sometimes?"

"Mmm."

I walk over to the two of them and cross my arms.

"Is there anything I can do for you, sir?"

"No, nothing. You're not even supposed to be here, you're on furnace duty."

"I'm sorry, sir. What should I do?"

"Tell your friend back there to stop snooping around."

At that moment my heart STOPPED and my body FROZE.

"Yes, sir. I'll get him."

"Tell her to drop her weapons."

He knows it's a girl. Worst case scenario, he knows it's Emilia.

This is not good.

Emilia walks over with her hands locked with each other.

"Good. You're both here. Have you two met me before?"

"No."

"Let me introduce myself."

He spins around on his office chair, with a wine glass filled with milk in his hand, his other hand fiddling with the armrest.

"I am the host of this game. Slam. I appreciate your efforts towards keeping 'above the water'. But still. Shaun deserves the win."

He turns around and Shaun is gone.

"Where did he..."

Suddenly Shaun blasts himself up from behind the chair with his knuckleboom, and lands beside us.

"Come on guys. Let's put this guy in the ground, shall we?"

"Oh, you're gonna kill me? What about this money on the card?"

Slam points a pair of scissors at the credit card - with all 6.9 million bucks stored in it.

Shaun gets progressively MORE angry.

"You don't fucking scare me. I regret coming here."

"Heh. Is this a poor people joke I don't understand? Cause you can still walk away with it if you want."

Shaun reaches out to grab it slowly, but then he whips out his other hand and fires his knuckleboom AGAIN.

"Holy shit!"

Slam, instead of falling to the ground, deploys a energy shield of sorts right before the blast hits him.

"Damn... Just proves that these perk suits work damn well."

"Bring it on, jackass."

Slam charges forward lightning fast and strikes Shaun with inhumane strength. Unexpectedly, after punching him he HOLDS Shaun there and fires flame into his chest.

"GAH! HOT HOT HOT!"

Slam is using the flamethrower the Immulator used on me earlier.

With cursed dagger in hand, I dive right at Slam and knock him over, then bring down the dagger as hard as I can.

When it gets close to his face, he ends up blocking it successfully again, with the energy shield.

"How is he doing this?!"

"He has multiple perks at once. He's completely buffed."

Slam musters up all his strength and charges forward, hitting both Shaun and I at once.

"Oh, fuck!"

"This is fun!" Slam takes my arm and uses the poison dagger on my arm to drive it into Shaun's chest.

"Argh!"

"Shit. Shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit fuck!"

Slam punches me in the face, before returning to beat up Shaun.

"HEY, RICH BASTARD!"

Emilia is here to save the day again!

Actually, 3 of them. It muse be the Decoy HOLO Emitter that she picked up.

"Heh. Just because you have decoys doesn't mean I won't find a way to destroy you!"

"BITE ME!"

Slam starts off with a spray of bullets from Shaun's Ruger LCP pistol, but none of them seem to react to a single shot.

"The fuck..."

Two of the Emilias appear right behind Slam, but he sees it coming and elbows one of the holograms to no avail.

However, he didn't expect the real and legitimate Emilia to come from the other side and jam her katana through his chest.

"Didn't see that coming huh?"

Slam is still moving and breathing, so Emilia forces the katana up through his body until it comes out at his shoulder. His arm completely comes off his torso from the large incision.

"Not enough? IS THAT NOT ENOUGH YOU SON OF A BITCH?!"

Emilia activates the HOLO Emitter again for her clones to all T-POSE over Slam's body before she brings the blade to his neck.

"Good night."

Instead of going straight for the kill, she goes for a badass mortal-combat finisher and steps back around 7 paces.

"One of you hold him up."

I get up and hold Slam in my hands as Emilia jumps into the air with her katana drawn.

"IF YOU HATE EMILIA..."

"Unnh..." Slam says weakly.

"AND THINK SHE'S GARBAGE..."

She comes down full force with her blade lined up for perfection.

"GOODBYE!"

She hits the ground with grace, while Slam's head rolls to the ground in our victory.

"Take that."

"That was fucking awesome, Emilia."

Shaun gets up from his spot.

"I agree..."

"Not without you guys." She briefly blushes as she looks away from us.

"Awwwh. She's so cute, right Shaun?"

"Sure."

I crouch down about a whole metre to embrace Emilia, but she pushes herself off of me.

"Come on. We gotta go."

"Well, what do we do from here?"

"Split up. Meet at the Asturcas Provincial Airport tomorrow at noon."

"What?"

"Fucking... baka. I'll still see you! Does that reassure you?! I still want to see you too... now get out of here!"

She runs off with her back turned, and disappears in a fork in the road.

"She's gone."

"We have to disappear fast, as well."

"What were the chances?"

"Huh?"

"What were the chances we would have gotten out alive?"

"Zero. I never would've believed myself that I would 'quote on quote' win this." Shaun says as he picks up the reward card.

"Same."

"I'm serious. I swear, ON MY LIFE I wouldn't be able to see the sunlight again after this."