Henry got up and pulled Nick into a tight hug. Nick’s tears continued to flow, his body continued to shake. The thoughts of anger and revenge coursed through him.

“There was nothing you could have done, Nick.” Henry tried to console him.

That wasn’t what Nick needed to hear though. He knew there was nothing he could have done and it was tearing him up on the inside. He was running through the possibilities of what could have happened if he had stayed with his family. Maybe he could have beaten Jacob in a fight, preventing Abigail from being assaulted and the following events. Maybe he could have stalled long enough for the PPM’s army to arrive and deal with Tony. Maybe he could have done anything different. Nick’s blood was practically burning through his veins right now, he needed to do something. He pushed away from his dad and ran for the door.

“I’ll be back in a bit.” Was all he said before he ran off.

He knew it wasn’t the smart thing to do but he needed to get these feelings out of him. He took off towards a door marked on his map. He ignored the masses of people moving around the rooms and just kept running. He didn’t pause when he hit the door, he just ran right in and accepted the prompt that came up. Five wasps appeared in the room and Nick set to work.

He brutalised his way through the first ten waves, the weak wasps weren’t enough to satisfy his desire to destroy things. They felt far too weak beneath his fists. It was only when the stronger wasps emerged that Nick began to feel satisfied. He still managed to tear his way through the next ten waves though. Now that he had the entire room to himself, and didn’t have to worry about leading a swarm into any other party members he found himself in his groove. It was long and tiring work but he managed to kite the huge number of wasps around the room and whittle them down. He actually managed to take less damage than he had when he’d been here with the Executioners. The 20th wave was hard, no doubt about it, but he still managed to get through it with only a slightly concerning amount of injuries. When he was prompted for the next wave Nick happily accepted, his anger was getting vented, his head was clearing. The growing clarity was screaming at him that this was a terrible idea but Nick ignored it, giving into the burning rage that still consumed most of him.

Nick looked at the five wasps that had spawned in the room and began to regret not listening to his rational side. The five hulking wasps began to dart towards him with a frightening speed for creatures of their size. Their mandibles were dripping with some sort of venom that Nick didn’t want to be on the receiving end of. Each of the wasps were now about the size of his torso and their carapaces looked solidly armoured, similar to those of the stronger spiders he’d encountered the other day. It was once the wasps closed the distance and Nick tried to hit one that he realised how boned he really was.

The wasp moved away just enough to remove most of the force from Nick’s punch, leaving Nick over extended. The other wasps jumped on the chance to attack him and he was barely about to throw himself into a roll to dodge them. He wasn’t sure if it was accidental, but the wasp had just played him like a fool. Nick’s rational side began to cloud again. He let out a roar.

“Dumbass wasps! Let me hit you!” Nick roared out and activated his debuff skill.

The wasps all slowed slightly and Nick literally pounced on one, dragging it out of the air and slamming it into the floor. He held it done with one hand and smashed into it with the other. The improved carapace put up a bit of resistance but it only took Nick a few punches to dispatch the critter. The rest of the wasps weren’t idle though, they had closed the distance while he was busy. Just as he went to get out, he felt something cut into his torso, multiple things actually.

Nick screamed and he felt the manables of the wasps cut through his armour and into his back. He flipped himself around, grabbing one of the wasps, tearing it off him and slamming it into the ground. He then tried to grab the other but was suddenly struck by a piercing pain in his lower back. The wasp had stabbed him with its pincer. Nick had to act quickly as the other two wasps were diving in for an attack of their own. Nick gritted his teeth and yanked the wasp out of him, tearing out portions of his own flesh. He then threw the wasp at the two coming towards him. He used the distraction to pounce on one of them. This time he only hit it twice, enough to leave it crippled before diving away, narrowly avoiding the other two wasps.

Nick stumbled up to his feet. One wasp was dead, two were incapcitated on the floor, and the remaining two were flying towards him. He was losing a lot of blood and he could feel the venom of the wasps making him sluggish. He really was up the creek without a paddle. Nick dug deep and focused on the last two monsters. He had to pull out all the stops to make it out of here in one piece. Nick took a risk moment to focus on his internals and rouse the energy inside him. He then tried replicating what he had done with the large bandit that had attacked him. He made a desperate emotional plea for the energy to intercept the coming threat.

Thankfully the energy responded to him and he felt it flood out into the air. Though it didn’t get quite the response he was hoping for. The creature didn’t freeze like everything he’d encountered so far, it merely slowed down. Nick couldn’t stop to contemplate what was happening, he charged forward and slammed his fist into the other wasp. He had covered the distance too quickly for it to dodge, and having packed everything he could into the punch, Nick decimated the creature. His punch tore through the wasp and killed it instantly.

It was just Nick and one more wasp now. The creature didn’t mourn the loss of its comrade and simply charged towards Nick. He didn’t want to take any risks in this final fight so Nick waited until it got close, activated Hasty Escape and used the buff to grab the creature and slam it into the floor before it could respond. He then dropped down onto the wasp and reduced it to pulp. Nick dragged himself back up to his feet and then over to the two crippled wasps, finishing them off.

He let out a sigh of relief as he watched them all turn to dust and a chest formed in the centre of the room. He certainly wasn’t game for another round of this stuff. Nick felt a tingling begin to spread across his body and he’d never been so thankful for it. He watched as venom was pushed out of a wound on his chest, dripping down his body to the floor. The wound then began to slowly heal over.

“Goddamn this is such a cool ability.” He wheezed out.

It certainly healed him up a decent amount, but he’d be needing a visit to Maddy. He could tell that while the wounds had closed over, his insides had been left worse for wear. It really hadn’t been his best of ideas to date. Nick sat down next to chest, using it as a way to keep himself upright. Nick needed some time to recover and think. Nick took a moment to get his breathing under control and began to think about his next steps. Other than getting back to Maddy and getting healed.

He’d been putting off thinking about the future until he made it down to the 71st with his family. Well now he was here and he realised he needed something to focus on. The first thing that jumped to his mind was Benny. He wanted to get Benny back. He couldn’t do anything about that though, so he reluctantly put that one on the back burner. Hopefully the Scout would be bringing him back in the next few hours. The next idea that came to mind was getting stronger, finding more class gems and bumping up his levels. Training more, getting better with his skills and finding someone that knew a bit more about martial arts. If he could learn more than just boxing he’d have a much bigger arsenal of skills. He really felt he was limiting his abilities by only knowing how to throw a punch.

He knew that kicks could pack a serious bit of force behind them, if he could pair that with his combo damage and internal damage he could add a deadly weapon to his kit. He also wanted to pick up some actual technique for takedowns. He first noticed during his fight with the giant that Gareth had put him through and then again during his fight with the bandits. He knew that there had to be better techniques out there than his sloppy attempts to get people to the floor.

That was one clear goal for him then. He’d try and find someone who knew a bit more about fighting than him. Getting class gems though, that was something he needed to work on as well. Getting level three would be a milestone, he’d finally get to understand what the class evolution stuff was really about. Level three raised a question of its own though. His class, Explorer was a ticking time bomb that he held the fuse to. If he levelled up he’d have started the supposed descent into madness that awaited him.

That was another goal then. He needed to find out more about the Explorer class and its mental component. He needed to find out if there was something he could do to safeguard his mind from the class. He always could just refuse to level the class, but he knew that would have consequences of its own. So Nick needed information, but where could he get it? The only other Explorer he knew about was the guy that had ditched the 72nd floor before him, Greg. The man was apparently down on the 70th floor, so Nick could potentially head down there and search him out. It was probably his best option, so Nick decided that he’d work towards it.

Nick let his thoughts wander, what else should he be doing? He could get his family their classes, he knew the way to the level two button. He’d do that as soon as he could, he wanted his family as strong as possible after everything they’d been through. Letting his mind wander he realised there was just a whole bunch that he wanted to know about. He felt like he was sorely lacking information about this place, he’d been here for a week and learnt so much but it just created more questions. He wanted to know more about the Parklands, he wanted to see them. That was pretty achievable, he could just go down to the 70th and cross a bridge and he’d be there. Nick decided that was something important to him and he put it on his mental list.

Nick’s body was sore and aching but after processing his thoughts and doing a bit of planning his mind felt miles better. He turned around and opened up the chest that he’d been using as back support. Inside was a boat load of pills and three items. There were at least two hundred pills in baggies sitting inside the chest but that wasn’t what brought a grin to his face, the two stickers were. Both the stickers were cartoonish figures leaping over a hurdle. Nick wasn’t certain but he assumed these were agility stickers. He didn’t hesitate and slapped the sticker onto his thigh. He made sure to check his surroundings before pulling his pants down this time.

Nick now had four stickers totally, he tried putting the other sticker onto his skin but it just refused to stick. Damn, the limit really was four. He had already known but he was still a little disappointed. He wanted to be able to infinitely stack the little buffs. He chuckled at the thought of a person who had every inch of their skin covered in dumb little cartoons. Nick then picked up the last item. It was a vest. A very tactical looking vest. It was slim but when he pressed his hand into it it felt very sturdy. He gave it a punch and felt a solid bit of resistance. He’d definitely be getting this identified by someone back in the kitchen, but until then he put it on. It was thin enough to be worn under his leather chestpiece, while it was snug fit, it made him feel much safer.

His own armour was now pretty trashed. The slice through the shoulder from the bandit and now the multiple holes from the wasps left it looking ready to be retired.

Nick got up and got ready to leave. He let out an almighty sigh before he left though. He’d run away from his family like a child having a tantrum, gone and gotten himself into a fight and recklessly endangered himself. It had been a few years since he’d acted like this around them and while he knew they’d be as accepting as they always had been, he couldn’t help but feel like he’d disappointed them.

As he started walking he felt a shooting pain through his lower back, he really needed to get back to Maddy.