Turn 67 (Pt. 2)- Second Thoughts and Priorities Set

--- Maya ---

With a moment to think about it, she decided that the responsible thing to do was to call the Heroes’ Guild to help her, because as much as she wanted to remain independent of watchers she wasn’t really willing to allow a bunch of demons to run rampant for such a minor reason.

And so with her decision set, a little voice threw out, (What about ghost waifu?) bringing her to an immediate halt before she could call the heroes.

“What about her?” She asked herself cautiously.

(Well, if we call someone else to help us out won’t they want to investigate the entire hospital?) Her stray thought continued.

(Meaning they’d probably find her pretty quickly.) Another thought threw out, following the first’s tangent.

“Okay, I can see why that’d be bad if we called Sanctuary, but the Heroes’ Guild is all about helping people and keeping them safe.” She reminded herself. “It’s not like they’re going to do anything to hurt her.”

(Are you sure about that?) Her inner paranoia asked. (After all, is it safer for the public if they let a cannibal ghost-zombie run free, or if they ‘deal with it’ before anyone can get hurt.)

“But she eats animals, not people.” She pointed out. “That’s no different than anyone else, and unless they made meat actual murder, they can’t get her in trouble for that.”

(Unless we take into account the fact that we didn’t know that Deadmen could eat animals until a few days ago.) Her inner logic chimed in. (If whatever hero they send lacks that knowledge the same way we did, then they might think that Elizabeth is part of the problem here rather than a victim.)

“With as big as the guild is they have to know that not all Deadmen are monsters.” She argued.

(Perhaps.) Her inner reason admitted, before giving a mental grimace. (But have you ever heard of a Heroic Deadman?)

(Are you willing to risk them not knowing when they get here?)

(...)

“Fu~uck…” She groaned, running her hands down her face.

“We’re going to have to deal with this ourselves, aren’t we?” She asked after a moment of silence. “At least if we want to guarantee Elizabeth’s safety.”

(It seems so…) Her inner logic agreed with a touch of reluctance. (The question then becomes, how?)

“Well, um, going over that stuff we talked about with Vi and Aisha, the Bleeds are dimensional portals like Rifts, but more aggressive.” She said beginning to brainstorm ideas as she pulled out computer.

(Normally I’m all for the megalomania, but dimensional portals might be a bit above our current paygrade.) Her inner madness admitted. (At least if we’ve only got a couple of weeks to figure it out.)

(Surprisingly reasonable.) Her inner reason commented, before adding that, (That time constraint is likely our most crippling factor in this mess. Our we absolutely sure something is going to happen on Halloween?)

“Do you want to chance us being right?” She asked herself. “And remember how often we are right when you answer.”

(Point.) Her inner logic conceded. (But in that case it’d probably be best to look into how the guild and Sanctuary deal with Bleeds in the first place.)

(Taking their sweet ass time and hoping nothing goes wrong?) Her inner passion threw out, remembering how the mess at the summer festival went.

(To be fair, despite the public venue those… Husks, I believe they’re called, were a low priority threat. In fact, given how easily that one officer dispatched them, it’d be safe to say that we likely could have dealt with them ourselves.) Her inner reason pointed out. (The only reason things got as bad as they did was due to the various festival goers panicking when things went wrong.)

“Yeah… that’s a point.” She admitted with a sigh. “But like you said those Husks are a lot less dangerous than these… Bloodhounds screwing with our heads.”

(Eh, less that they’re more dangerous so much as that they’re fear spamming bitches.) Her inner rage corrected.

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. The point stands that they’re harder to fight, and if they manage to stun lock and swarm us, we’re fucked. And that’s a fairly big problem when you consider the fact that any solution we come up with probably requires that we go onto their pinche turf to do it.”

(I suppose that means, first priority is finding a way to snap ourselves out of their fear effect.) Her inner logic noted. (The second is finding an actual way to deal with them.)

“Yeah, yeah, already on that.” She told herself, pulling up several reports about Dimensional Creeps and Bleeds. “Wait… that can’t be right.”

(Well, that’s… underwhelming… to say the least…)

(Huh, real life is a video game.)

Apparently the best way to deal with a Bleed was to kill all of the Creeps pouring out of it, and then finish off the Boss that forms afterwards. A method so simple and easy that everyone from the Heroes’ Guild and Sanctuary, to both the Arcane and Hunter Associations, all used it to solve the problem of a Creep invasion.

“That’s… That’s so… fucking stupid.” She groaned with her head in her hands. “The only solution for dealing with Rifts is to kill whatever comes out of them?!”

(Not Rifts, Bleeds.) Her inner reason pointed out. (I very much doubt that they apply this solution to Rifts as well when we have Travelers running around.)

“Okay, that’s a… good point.” She nodded, making a slight tangent to look at how Rifts are dealt with. “And that is much less stupid.”

By contrast to the simple method of slaughtering Creeps, Rifts were given a much wider range of methods to deal with them. Ranging from research stations being built around them should a Rift or the location behind it prove interesting enough for study, to a powerful piece of M.A.D. Tech capable of sealing the Rifts shut at a damn near obscene cost in both power and parts. And of course there was the tried and true method of just waiting for it to shut since few Rifts stayed open for more than a couple of days if left alone.

(So that’s why they use such a simple method for Bleeds.) Her inner logic realized. (Once you take into account that most Bleeds only last a few minutes, and the expense in both time, money, and other resources to set up these other methods. The simplest method becomes the cheapest and most efficient, especially when any Soldier, Hunter, or Mask can deal with them.)

(A Mask like us.) Her inner passion added.

“Well then, that makes this much easier.” She blinked before shaking her head a moment later. “No wait, that just brings us full circle and back to fighting these things, since that’s apparently the only option anyone bothered to come up with.”

(To be fair it is also the fun option.)

(True.)

She pinched the bridge of her nose before deciding, “Fuck it, let’s just move on. How exactly are we going to fight something that stun locks us? I mean there’s no guarantee we can come up with something to resist their fear effect.”

(That’s quitter talk.) Her inner madness told her.

(Quite… though why not look up how Sanctuary or the heroes’ guild deals with these Creeps?) Her inner reason suggested.

“What do you mean? Wouldn’t that stuff be like super classified?”

(Ooh, are we finally hacking Sanctuary?) Her inner child squealed.

(That is still ill advised.) Her inner logic shot down quick. (That said, given how these Bleeds often manifest in a public setting it makes sense that there’d be a public database about them somewhere. Possibly for Hunters and independent Masks if we’re lucky, for the morbidly curious if we’re not.)

(Oh, if that doesn’t work we can always check our video game wikis since they’re apparently based on real monsters.)

(I… wouldn’t trust that information unless we were truly desperate.)

“We’re not?” She asked before going through several of the search pages she’d opened for Dimensional Creeps and trying to narrow it down to a database of some kind. Eventually she managed to stumble upon something of value.

“Huh, guess we got lucky this time.” She said, looking over a Creep Database, one apparently managed by the Hunter’s Association.

(It only makes sense that this exists given how large the Hunter’s Association is.) Her inner reason told her. (Truthfully the surprise is that all of this information isn’t behind some kind of security wall.)

(Not that would stop us.)

(Quite.)

“Um, it looks like they use a ranking system for the threat level of Creeps and only the lowest two are available to the public. You have to log in using a Hunter’s ID to get at the more dangerous stuff.” She frowned, wondering why that was.

(Probably to give people a taste of what Hunters do while making sure someone doesn’t pick a fight with something they shouldn’t.) Her inner logic suggested.

“Maybe… either way it doesn’t really matter as long as we can find the Creep we’re looking for.” She told herself, using a search engine with a large number of options asking for the physical description of the Creep she was looking for.

(And if we can’t we’ll just hack the bitch.)

“Right, okay, best match to our guy is… a lesser Cynophobius, a.k.a. a Bloodhound.” She read, mentally noting the fact that there was a greater Cynophobius out there, and that they were above E Rank in threat level.

“Typically appear in packs of four to eight, with a tendency to generate Bleeds in a location where acts of violence and horror have occurred in the past twenty or so years.” She began reading, unable to help the stray thinking, (Yep, that describes the hospital from what we’ve seen and learned.)

“Bloodhounds are a type of Ambush Creep, often appearing in the same area until dealt with, while also disappearing back behind their Bleed should no sapient prey be found nearby.” She continued with a shiver. “Should no prey be found for a long enough period of time, the Bloodhound’s pack will often use our world to migrate to another location before once more lying in wait. Sometimes creating the violence and horror they use to distinguish their nesting grounds should this migration last for more than a few hours at a time. That said, during these migrations it is not uncommon for Bloodhounds to attempt to pick off nearby stragglers of both sapient and non species.”

(Oh, that is very bad.)

“Yeah, right now me and Elizabeth are the only ones in serious danger, but if these things are allowed out that’ll put a lot more people at risk.” She grimaced.

(Actually I’m more worried about the straggler bit.) Her inner reason confessed. (Especially when you consider what day we think they’re most likely to migrate.)

“Oh… oh.” She swallowed.

(Yes, I believe the stakes just went up.) Her inner logic agreed dryly.

“Okay. Fuck…” She took a calming breath before shaking her head. “There’s uh, there’s got to be something we can use on here let’s see… Hunting habits. While typically lacking in physical prowess when compared to more commonly seen Creeps, Bloodhounds like all phobius Creeps, are capable of generating a fear aura that induces panic in all who are subjected to it. Causing a loss of focus and an instinctive desire to flee that can leave many open to the pack’s assault, seeing as how few can actually outrun them given how speed is one of the few physical parameters Bloodhounds surpass most E Rank Creeps.”

“Alright so, fast but weak, fights in a team, and uses fear to create an opening.” She summarized once she finished reading. “Ideas on how we deal with this?”

(Well, from a purely physical standpoint if we were to finish our power armor, or at least get it to a functional state, we could probably match them physically.) Her inner reason offered. (After all, just because they’re weak for Creeps does not mean they’re weak for humans.)

(I don’t know, I mean that one we killed went down pretty fast once we got around it’s fear thing.) Her inner madness pointed out. (A few upgrades to our hand cannons and we could probably one shot them. Hell, if we gave the DMs their own dakka they might be able to deal with the things for us since they're probably immune to whatever fear effect these things are using.)

(Debatable given how panicked DM-2 was when we found her.) Her inner logic offered, before conceding, (Though that may’ve been a remnant of her panic when she first ran.)

“Honestly, if we’re sending in a minion to fight these guys it might be better to just flat out create a combat minion to help us.” She threw out. “I mean the DM’s aren’t exactly combat ready, and there’s a fair bit we’d have to do to make them retroactively so. Time, they could spend gathering resources for these other projects since whatever we do it’s probably going to cost us a bit.”

(True, but if we make an entirely new minion we’d be starting from scratch with them, and we’d have to do a fair bit of testing given how it’d be an entirely new set of systems.) Her inner reason pointed out.

She nodded seeing how that could be its own can of worms. (Still…)

“We’re an M.A.D. Scientist, and we’ve got just under two weeks to avert a disaster.” She cracked her neck to each side. “Let’s see what we can do.”