Chapter 4: Black Rock Shooter
From Worldsofharuhi
Chapter 4: Black Rock Shooter
During the evening where everyone should be getting ready to sleep, Alan and Fuuko could be seen chasing after a glowing sphere of blue light down the street. The identity of the light was actually more harmful that it looked. The light was actually a doppelganger, which could be simply explained as incomplete character that carries negative emotions.
“Alan-kun, keep up!” Fuuko told Alan. Fuuko, who was way shorter than Alan, for some strange reason, was running ahead of Alan. Apparently, the physical stats back in the normal world were not very useful in this world. Alan, who was still new to this whole slider business, was only at level 1, which meant that he couldn’t use speed enhancement skills like Fuuko. Actually, keeping up with someone who was using speed enhancement with just normal human’s stamina was not an easy feat.
‘It must be all those runs that Haruhi make me do every morning.’ Alan thought as he tried his best to keep up with Fuuko, who was running almost as fast as someone riding a bicycle. This particular doppelganger was heading for the edge of this dome shaped world.
The portion of the city was actually looked like it was sealed off inside a snow globe. This dome world is sealed away from the normal world, thus people back in the normal world wouldn’t notice a thing even if we blew up a whole skyscraper. According to Kanata-san apparently this kind of seals are popular amongst many animes, it’s useful in a way that it doesn’t affect the normal world. Because of its usefulness, it is used by many of the sliders across the fictional realm. The size of how big one can make the seal depends on the ability of the slider.
Fuuko who is a level 5 slider created this particular seal that they are in right now. As Alan ran, he complained loudly to Fuuko.
“If we are going to chase something, wasn’t it better to not to make a seal cover the whole downtown?!”
“That isn’t Fuuko’s fault! Fuuko had no time to calculate the size.” Fuuko protested.
Alan was getting really tired; he wondered if he could even face off against that thing when it stopped. The light stopped advancing as it ran into the wall of the seal. Fuuko’s seal was apparently strong enough to block the doppelganger from forcing its way out of the seal.
“It’s transforming.” Fuuko warned Alan. Transformation is what doppelgangers do only when they are desperate. Since doppelgangers can only transform once, they usually analyze the foe before transforming so they can transform into a form that would be advantageous to their situation. Alan and Fuuko wanted to catch it by surprise before it transformed, but apparently the surprise attack failed. Thus, they had to go along the long chase before they could corner it.
The blue light was now glowing even brighter until it became impossible to stare straight at it. Then, when the light started to deem, Alan saw a giant lobster in front of him. “Ah! I hate lobsters!” Alan said with disgust.
Usually, doppelgangers transformed into a thing that would most intimidate its opponent, so this wasn’t really surprising to Alan. But still.
“Fuuko’s just glad that it didn’t turn into a starfish, and Fuuko will comment that tuning into huge lobster is incredibly lame.” Fuuko said as she pulled out her wooden shurikens; I mean, starfish carvings.
Those carvings were what sliders call “Objects”. Each object holds unique power. In the case of Fuuko’s shuriken, they could enlarge and shrink at the user’s will. It is not necessary for sliders to carry around an object, since a slider can be counted as a living and breathing object.
Mostly, low level sliders who are not much adjusted to his or her own powers like Fuuko and Alan, carried around these objects which were easy to use. Although those wooden starfish carvings look harmless, they could be deadly.
Alan was still developing his powers thus he didn’t have specific method of fighting yet, but he still could be of some help by using his armband looking object that could fire something equivalent as fireballs.
The lobster swung its giant pincers at Fuuko. Fuuko transformed two of her starfishes and enlarged them. The two starfishes floated at right and left side of Fuuko, each of them blocking each side of the pincers. The lobster turned around swinging its tail against Fuuko, Fuuko jumped to evade the strike.
I better do something, Alan thought as he threw his energy bomb at lobster’s eyes. Soon as the bomb made contact, it made an explosion that tipped the lobster off balance. The lobster fell, crashing into a building, causing all the derbies to fly about. Strangely, the lobster did not get up again.
“Ara, was it already damaged before?” Fuuko said while tilting her head. “Yea, don’t normal ones take much longer than this to take out?” Alan only thought about how strange this was for a moment. Well, either way the job was completed, now he could go home and relax. “Too bad… since this one lost so easily, it would have to wait a while longer for Alan-kun to be able to reach level 2” Fuuko told Alan with somewhat smug expression. Obviously, she was emphasizing that she was still higher level than him. Fuuko did not like it when Alan got the final blow.
“I don’t care, if that happens it happens.” Alan said it while walking out of the seal with Fuuko. “Mou, you are too carefree to be Fuuko’s partner.” Fuuko said in angry tone. Then turned around to leave.
Doppelganger that was defeated was now disappearing. There was no helping it, since it used up all its remaining power on transforming. As it disappeared, it recalled some of its last moments.
It all happened in different world from this. It was feeding itself happily on the negative emotions in that world until two sliders appeared. The slider had it cornered, and the doppelganger was about to transform to retaliate. But something came out of nowhere and attacked the sliders. The thing that came out took one slider down in an instant. Then it turned its attention to second. Not losing that chance, the doppelganger escaped. However, when it came to this world, before it could even rest; two other sliders showed up then finished it off. After recalling these events, the doppelganger disappeared.
