Arcade Ire

[ngm_foes]

It had been a nice, quiet weekday afternoon in New York. For once, it actually seemed as though there wasn't going to be any kind of trouble afoot.

That would have been nice, had it been true.

It happened suddenly, as things of this sort tended to happen. Out of seemingly nowhere, it appeared in the middle of Chinatown. A large, hulking, two-dimensional being stomping around.

And it only yelled one thing as it started to wreak havoc.

"DESTROY ALL COMBATANTS!"

Comments

[ngm_foes]

Oh please. Like the aliens weren't used to this? They dodged the bullet and went right on attacking.

Although one did set it's sights on Nika.

Video game sound effects were heard as it fired on the mini-Sable.

[symkarian_princess]

Oh, come on! You stupid, moving little... shit.

Nika was less than pleased she missed. And it was worse when one of them opened fire on her. She dove behind a car that rocked with the force of the alien blast.

"No, never pick the easy fight, do you, Nika?" She crouch walked to the other end of the car and popped up to fire off a couple shots at the alien.

[ngm_foes]

She could have picked worse? She might have gone after Donkey Kong. The easiest would probably have been Mrs. Pac-Man.

One of the aliens went down, but it was likely that HYDRA had been inspired by these aliens, for where one was shot down, another two took its place.

And now, instead of one, Nika had two after her.

[symkarian_princess]

Some day Nika would learn that pink bows and sloppily put on lipstick would be a sign of an easy target. She dropped her aim when she got two angry pixel aliens coming at her.

"Shit fire and light a match," she cursed in Symkarian. She glanced around to see where the civilians were at. Then she made a break for a free from people spot.

She fired a shot at the alien on the right as she considered calling back-up. She wondered how 'I went out for Chinese noodles and got attacked by video game aliens' would go over considering the HYDRA pizza parlor debacle.

She needed a narrow alley. Something to funnel the aliens down if they kept multiplying. Keeping an eye out, she tried to keep the aliens' attention on her.

[ngm_foes]

Not necessarily. Imagine Poundcakes in pink bows and badly applied lipstick. Still a dangerous one, she was.

Sure, she could head for an alley. Some of the aliens would follow.

Others would continue wreaking havoc in the streets.

But the ones that followed? Boy, were they enjoying trying to shoot the Symkarian princess up.

[symkarian_princess]

Nika did not have a machine gun with her, so she would have to work with some of them. She ducked and rolled to try to avoid the alien blasts. As much as she appreciated Felicity's last patch job, she did not want to go through another one.

Though the graze across her arm stung like a bitch.

Once into the alley, she dove behind a dumpster...

... and right into a homeless guy's lap.

"Sorry," was the quick apology she made before popping up over the edge of the dumpster to fire at the pursuing aliens.

[ngm_foes]

They swarmed in behind her.

That homeless guy who'd just gotten a quick little happy?

Well, that was cut short.

In the background, Videoman could still be heard commanding his newly created minions to destroy all combatants.

The thing was, if Nika paid attention, the army of space invaders were staying close to the ground. None of them thought about flying up into the air.

The painful sadness of being mostly brainless two-dimensional figures. You didn't really think about dimensions in any other way.

[symkarian_princess]

These were supposed to be flying... well, falling aliens. Nika wondered why they were staying so close to the ground.

She glanced around and saw a fire escape not too far from the dumpster.

"Stay behind the dumpster," she told the grimy guy as she jumped up on it. She fired a couple more shots as she tried to figure out if she could make the jump.

[ngm_foes]

The joys of 2 dimensions, that.

If she made the jump, she'd find herself at the perfect vantage point to shoot them down.

But, how to stop their swelling numbers?

[symkarian_princess]

Nika jumped and scrambled up. All without firing her gun into her body somehow. She got to the railing, aimed at the paper-thin creatures and paused.

Shooting them just made them multiply. She couldn't hammer a screw in. She needed a different tactic. Well, if shooting paper-targets didn't destroy them... maybe she could roll one up and beat the others with it.

She doubted it. They seemed flimsy enough to want to fall apart and then she'd have two angry aliens for the price of one baton. Nika put her hand up to call Felicity to maybe get an idea on how to help.

Then she got an idea. These things were like paper with zappy tendencies. What would water do to them?

She looked around for some source of water. She spotted a jug a couple landings up on the fire escape. She climbed as quickly as she could toward it.

Nika just hoped the alleyway aliens stayed in the alley.

[ngm_foes]

They did. Nika would find that water caused them to fizzle, spark, and...dissipate.

But was it really going to be that easy?

[symkarian_princess]

"Yes!" Nika pumped her fist in the air for a moment. Until she realized she did not have easy access to water from her perch on the fire escape.

She doubted spitting on them would have much effect. Also, she wasn't as accurate with her loogies as she was with firearms.

Which meant... she needed to get back on the street. And that was past the aliens. Looking down at the ones waiting, she decided to go up to the roof, across a couple rooftops and back down to the chaotic streets. She was still in Chinatown. There had to be a store with squirt guns or an outside hose or something, right?