Allan made his way through the streets, making sure to avoid anyone he came across. The sounds of police sirens kept blaring in his ear, more intense then when he entered Leon's apartment. It was loud enough to break his concentration, and he somehow forgot to bring his earplugs, even with all the potential sound radiation the guys online were warning him about. All he needed to do was find a base. A base with some sort of evidence of what these 'gods' were.
Two cop cars arrived behind him, and about three cops emerged, beginning to give chase. Allan gave an annoyed middle finger and tunnelled underground.
It was more peaceful down here, that was certain. Only real sound was the vibrations of footsteps above. Made it hard to know where to emerge, but anywhere still was hopefully a good bet. After a few minutes, he heard several footsteps with no vehicles. Perhaps scared people, or an extremely dedicated group of joggers. As he got closer, he could feel one pair of footsteps ahead of the rest. He got a little further, emerging beside the main group.
It was about half a dozen police officers chasing down Tedros. Two split off to chase him, and he ran a little bit forward before diving back underground. He allowed himself to sink further. This all came naturally to him at this point. When he felt he dove far enough, he let his body reverse upwards. He didn't know how to explain it, but when underground he could just…suggest a place to move to himself, and he would go there. He guided himself towards the cops vibrations. They had stopped, but he had a decent idea where they were.
He burst upwards, letting the ground erupt around the cops. They looked up at him as he was airborne, the first looking on in terror as Allan stomped the head of the second one. A cracking sound was heard, and Allan dove underground once again, repeating the process to take the other one out. Once they were taken out, he went back to Tedros. There was a giant pillar in the centre of the street and several unconscious police around it. And Tedros was next to the pillar, repeatedly punching it until it burst into small particles of light, which then faded into the air.
"Yo, Tedros!" Allan said, trying to look friendly, offering an equally friendly fist, which Tedros bumped. "Good job on taking the cops out!"
"Thanks." Tedros nodded.
"So, any plans for after this?"
"I'm trying to find the guys hosting this game. If we capture one and get real answers from them, then we can stop whatever's happening next, right?"
Tedros perked up when Allan finished the sentence.
"You want to hunt them down?"
"Yeah. Look, if we find whatever base they're in, we can steal any documents they have in there and figure out what's going on. You in?"
The two of them made their way through the streets, looking for any sign of a base. Truthfully, neither knew what to actually look for. They were expecting something temporary, like a bunch of tents with the commander looking at tablets. That or an abandoned building with soldiers in it like some sort of Halloween shop. But when looking for a lead, they saw gas spill out from a street corner near the edge of town. Several people were running in terror and they found they were at the edge of Ritzrub.
The gas quickly disappeared, sucked into a hole in the centre. And when Allan locked eyes with Ulysses, the creator, he quickly ran up to him.
Ulysses panicked when he saw that, quickly running towards the two and trying to avoid the vortex he created. In the centre of the vortex was a growing collection of police cars, at least three crushed in a heap together, with smaller items like traffic barriers.
"Ulysses?" Allan asked. Of all the people to take notes of, he was the least of note. He was in the drama club or something. Always wore beanies. His sexuality was a topic of debate for some reason.
"Yes?" He replied.
"Oh cool!" Allan yelled out as the vortex seemed to fizzle out. "That your power?"
"Yes." Ulysses finally said after several desperate gasps for breath, combined with several more looks back. More cops were approaching them, and the three ran back into a busier street.
"So, you see anything resembling a base?" Allan asked when the coast seemed clear.
"No?" Ulysses asked.
"Damn it." Tedros muttered.
"Why are you looking for a base?"
"Find information and/or kill one of the hosts. You want in?"
"And you think there's a base? That the military aren't just watching this from somewhere else?"
"Look, there are five hosts here at least, right? And the military game is probably an excuse for someone higher up to check on us. So all we gotta do is either kill a host or hold a colonel hostage."
"Where would we look for an army colonel anyway!?"
"Oh, that one's easy. Military men in a different city? They cheat on their wives. So we just need to find a place with a bunch of prostitutes and we'll find our guy!"
"Do you know where prostitutes even hang out?" Ulysses asked, looking at Tedros to gauge his reaction. Tedros seemed to be enthralled in the plan.
"Well, we're in Ritzrub, right?" Allan said. "So all we gotta do is find a red light district and hopefully we'll find him."
"Seems reasonable." Tedros replied.
"You cannot be serious." Ulysses yelled out.
"Okay, let me look for a thread online." Allan said as he took out his aged smartphone. The three sat in silence for a few minutes, with the only movement being Ulysses moving his head occasionally to see what was behind them.
"Okay, some guy on a travel forum said the bar district half a mile from here is where you go for the hookers. Let's go team."
Allan and Tedros ran to the bar, Ulysses following after he scrambled to his feet. They ducked between streets, trying to avoid anything with a lot of light, for more reasons than one. But after around five minutes, they were in the bar district.
"Okay, the bar the guy said was the main hub should be over there." Allan said, pointing to a shut down bar.
"The thread's pretty old." Allan sighed. "Whatever, we'll just go into the first one."
Allan opened the door, and sure enough, two soldiers were inside, each one laughing and talking to a woman wearing maybe enough clothing to not be considered a bikini or some kind of lingerie.
"How was he right?" Ulysses whispered to himself as he closed the door.
Allan observed the two men, who hadn't noticed them. It was just the bartender, eying them to see if they were allowed to be here or not.
"They're just normal soldiers." Allan whispered. "Whatever, we can use this. Tedros, block the door."