193 Space Virus III : Infection

"This can't be right."

The ship was dark and completely powered down, I was in a room not unlike the Captain's cabin on the Acheron, but just a bit smaller, however there was absolutely no power to the cargo ship, and more than that Sky was nowhere to be found or felt. The connection I had from her was gone, or rather it felt as if I was pushing against some sort of barrier, but I couldn't reach her. I raised my communicator and decided to send a message to everyone.

"Hey guys where are you, and what happened to the ship? Everything seems a bit off."

At first there was static, and then the replies I got were moans and unintelligible mumbling, it didn't make any sort of sense to me. I made my way out of the cabin, coming up into and dark hallway, the in Elven/draconic night vision and I didn't have too much of a problem finding my way through it. An that's when I heard Houki call out for me.

"Captain! You have to get to the Acheron, and fast! Before the find you! Hurry!" I was completely taken aback by her frantic voice, what the hell happened during the time I was gone, but I guess the answer came to me just in time.

(SYSTEM ALERT: QUEST: During your time away a conscious and deadly space Virus that was smuggled onto your ship had broken loose and infected most of your crew! It has taken over the ship and spawned minions to help it find the rest of your crew for assimilation. Task 1: evade all the minions and find your way to your ship/ Task 2: synthesize a cure for the virus/ Task 3: fight the minions and your infected crew members and administer the anti-virus to their defeated forms/ Task 4: Locate the virus/ Task 5: Eliminate the virus) (There are no rewards)

"Oh fuck me!"

I couldn't help but curse at the madness of it all, can't there just be some peace an quiet for a very long time, why the heck do we always have to deal with one shit or the other, and as it stands it seems as if someone else was plotting behind our backs.....and right now it was not a question of why, but rather a question of who. I made my way out of the room I woke up in, just in time to get a face full of green slime.

I stepped back, in shock and raised my head just in time to see a floating jelly fish with green tentacles and ahead filled with eyes, each one leaking the green fluid that was sticking to my face. The smile didn't cause any damage, but what came next sucked a lot, the jelly fish shot out it's tentacles at me, slamming them into my chest, and releasing a large voltage of electricity that shouldn't be possible for a creature the size of soccer ball. I was thrown backwards with a paralyzed status effect showing up over my head, but even worse was the fact that the electricity seemed to have triggered some sort of chain reaction causing the slime on my face to be akin to acid, burning the ever loving shit out of my face.

"Arghhhhhh!"

Whether it was pain, frustration or anger they were all held within that scream, my eyes were burned through, which was why i was probably unable to see the blind status effect, but then again none of that mattered as I held the Kusanagi and pulled it out, slashing in the direction of the jelly fish and his cohorts, lined up behind him like some army squad.

(DIVINE WIND DRAW)

I could see a wave of silver and gold energy rush forwards to slash into a group of black boobs that were floating in the air. Technically I was blind, but I remember now that I've got a new class, and one of it's skills was affectionately named energy sight, and from the looks of things, and don't need my eyes to be able to use it's passive effect. Everything was dark around me, but as long as something gave off energy, it wouldn't be too hard for me to locate and take care of them. I held the Kusanagi in one hand, and pulled out one of my handguns, then I unrushed forwards moving past the hallway to come up to the elevator that would lead me up to the cockpit, and down to the holding area where the Acheron was being kept.

It wouldn't be an easy take getting to the ship, especially with my eyes out of commission, and with the ship's engine completely cut off, I couldn't use it's energy to move around, basically I had to really on myself to move, but I had an idea. I opened the elevator and had to duck backwards as an arrow flew past my face. There was someone standing in front of me, and from his posture, the way he held his bow and the energy coming from his body, and bright silvery green mixed in with stomach churning patches of black, and I would say that's Zack in front of me.

"Zack is that you?" I asked him as I took a step back, sheathing my katana and holstering my gun, I rather not risk injuring him.

"Arrrrhhhiieieieeeeyyyyeyeyeyeyeeettttttstsssssssss!"

"oh! Well nice to meet you too infected Zack" not that I understood one bit of what he just said, but it felt good trying to piss of an infected version of my friend while blind, what could possibly go wrong with that.

"Rooooooaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr!" well that could go wrong.

Two rapid shots both heavily saturated with energy came after me, I barely moved out of the way as the arrows flew past me as I turned my focus to Zack, (WARP) I appeared behind him, with my back to his own, a flaw of the low level (Warp) skill, you can only teleport in a straight line, basically your body is moved forward from one direction to the other, without variations during the teleportation. Luckily Infected Zack was caught off guard enough for me to turn around and grab him in a full nelson, with my arms under his armpit and my hands behind his neck keeping him bound. From then it was just a matter of applying a little pressure as I lifted him up and over my head to bring his head smashing down to the steel interior of the elevator in a dragon suplex move.

*Bang!*

This was a game, so the idea of people getting knocked out is actually a novelty, what they could actually experienced was a shirt period of being dazed and disoriented, giving me enough time to throw Zack out the elevator as his energy form bumbled about the hallway, moving like a drunk man with no destination in sight. The elevator doors closed but after a three seconds of no movement I remembered there was no power, which begged the question of how the doors were opened in the first place, and funny enough they weren't opening up again...I was fucking trapped. Maybe if this blindness status effect which will last for another ten minutes wasn't hindering me, I was would probably have noticed it there was something wrong with the elevator.

But now here I was, a fish in a barrel of something of the sort. (Clang!) There was a dull groaning sound as the elevator began to move up, heading upwards to the cockpit rather than down to the holding area where the Acheron was being held and Houki and the others were hopefully safe aboard. I held my breath until finally the elevator came to a stop and opened up to four faces, or rather four energy signatures that is could recognize.

Qitar, Dinah, Jack, and Darke, and hovering over them were what looked like hundreds of those jelly fishes, for the offspring of a space Virus, they're surprisingly huge, I mean after all weren't viruses supposed to be really tiny. There was no movement, as everyone just seemed to pause, like a veritable calm before the storm. I looked past them and saw a bigger and much more complex form of energy, and the infection here was worse, rather than it being black it was a deep red, growing and slowly corrupting a conflagration of golden and silver Energy that immediately recognized as Sky...…that virus is in my fucking battle beast! Shit!