"You bitch!" came a yell from somewhere as Stephanie stepped outside the kiosk, thinking it was clear. She quickly dropped low, her legs going wide and her tail coming up as she scanned the area for anyone immediately around her. She didn't see anyone, so she took off in behind her into the nearby parking garage, wondering how much time she had before anyone took notice.
"I was trying to help you," the same voice came from beside her. She turned and aimed the shotgun, but no one was there. She listened again as the voice spoke softly in her ears until she realized that it was a Whisper. Someone was talking to her out of character from elsewhere.
Using the hand motion to bring up the Menu, Denise checked his teamspeak options and discovered no option to use his character's voice over it. However, he did find it possible to Whisper In-Character, so he turned that option on and spoke aloud to himself.
A little bluetooth ear piece appeared on her right side with a small microphone, giving the IC version of a Whisper an In-Game appearance. "Kenny, is that you? 'Hon', I thought you were dead."
"You'll wish I was," he said back to her as Stephanie leaned forward off the car she was against and headed towards the back of the multi-story garage. She found a small sewer grate on the ground in the back and reached down to pull it up by the edges.
"Heaaarrrd," she pulled, and stopped… "That, befooooorre, uh," she strained again, and the cover didn't move. Maybe they didn't write up a sewer system for real, she wondered. "You show up and I'll put a bullet in your little virtual brain," she added.
Using the Menu, Denise looked around for a Character Sheet. He wasn't a big JRPG fan, but he understood that skills and stats about your character were always listed on a screen somewhere, and he had a bad feeling about what he'd find. A moment later, he discovered the horrible truth, "Shit, I'm only Level Fourteen," he said to himself in Steph's voice.
"You had to borrow a knife just to kill me," he said, finding her threat empty and hollow. "You've got no bullets to brain me."
"Now I have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho," she said, laying down her shotgun and looking to the nearest car. She was about to break open the window when she decided the check the door and found it to be unlocked. Leaning inside, she hit the 'Trunk' button in the glove compartment, and slid back out of the car to the rear.
Opening the back of the car, she found a jack and a crowbar. Stephanie let a long smirk form across her muzzle as she shoved the crowbar into one of the long slits to the side of the manhole cover and began to put all her weight into forcing it up out of it's place in the cement.
"I'm almost back, and when I get there, I'm going to beat you to death with my bare hands," Kenneth's voice continued as Stephanie pulled the cover over so she could go downward. Once she was down the ladder, she used her chin to keep the shotgun at her neck so she could use both hands to move the cover back into place.
"Kenny, seriously, you were just one guy. Go call the cops like a normal person if you want, but I intend to have fun," she said, holding up her shotgun and walking in the direction of downtown. I wonder if this game has Warp Zones, she thought as she took stock in the nasty, smelling, dark undercity that really looked nothing like the overly glorified and pretty city above.
"I'm a Level 23 Marial Arts Master," he warned. "I don't need any cops."
"So yer pissed a bitch who's nine levels beneath you slit your throat in a locker room," she offered. "Yeah, OK, I can see that. Have fun finding me," she offered. "I know this game has lots of Player Protections as far as privacy goes, so good luck figuring where I am without some good'ol sleuthing.
Just then, a giant crocodile erupted from the sewer water, it's form taking almost all of the tunnel up when it stood up on two legs. "Holy shit, it's Leatherhead!" she coughed, pulling up the shotgun and firing once into it's chest area. It roared an angered response to her action, and lunged forward at her.
"Leatherhead… like from Ninja Turtles?" Kenneth asked as Stephanie hadn't had time to turn of her Whisper before. "So you're in the sewers… wow. All the things down there'll be Level Skull to you," he laughed. "I'll be on my way," he said.
"That's nice," she growled softly a reply, firing sideways at the croc as she dodged just barely out of its way. If she could beat this thing, she'd probably level up more than once… but the chances of getting a lucky dodge like she just made any more times seemed unlikely.
She turned of her Whisper as she stood up, now shin-deep in shit, aiming her shotgun for the croc's mouth. "Alright, big boy. Let's dance."