Gus tore after Manuel Rodriguez.


    Squinting in the midday sun as his ankle length leather duster flapped in the wind. His cowboy hat pressed firmly onto his head in an attempt to stop it flying off as the hat string pulled taught and tugged on his neck.


    Gus''s cheroot long since gone out protruded from the corner of his mouth. He chewed on it habitually as the handles of the two Glocks, one strapped on each of the outside of his thighs in their side holsters glinted in the sun.


    They raced through the old Mayan hillsides of Guatemala. The vegetation was lush and dense interspersed with rocks that jutted out everywhere with roads that were almost non existent, little more than dirt tracks riddled with pot holes.


    Gus''s Harley Sportster had few problems coping with the dodgy roads but Rodriguez''s beat up old ford sedan was careening all over the place.


    Gus grinned and fired off a shot at the ford''s tires with his left hand.


    He had almost no hope of hitting his target but it kept his prey running scared and if the roads didn''t get the guy then Gus knew he would.


    In the twenty years he''d been in the bounty hunting trade he had never failed to either bring in or kill his bounties. Of course his boss Patty preferred the former, but it barely mattered to Gus, he was in it for the chase.


    The terrain became harder and harder to traverse as they continued to drive hell for leather into the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes mountain range and eventually the ford shuddered to a halt as it beached itself on an enormous dirt rut in the over grown barely there track.


    Rodriguez wasted no time jumping out of the car and clambering up the rocky escarpment.


    Gus gritted his teeth and pushed his classic 1971 XLH 900CC Harley Davidson Sportster forward.


    He''d had the bike going on thirty years and had painstakingly rebuilt it himself bolt by bolt. It had taken a few knocks over the years, as had he.


    Unfortunately, unlike the bike he couldn''t swap out the trashed parts and put in good as new replacements and the years had taken their toll on his body.


    He figured the bike was in way better shape than he was even if they were of a similar age, so kept pushing until even the Sportster could go no further.


    He glanced up and saw Rodriguez scrambling over a small incline about fifty yards away.


    He seemed to be looking for something specific, Gus had no idea what, he originally thought the guy was just running as far into the back of beyond in the hopes Gus would give up.


    But Gus never ever gave up, it was what he was famous for, well that and being meaner than a junk yard dog.


    There was a reason they had nick named him Terror after all. Initially it had been to mock his last name of Tyra.


    Gustav Tyra born from second generation polish immigrants had few friends growing up, his cold demeanour and lack of social abilities set him aside from others in his age group and it wasn''t until he joined the army and found like minded people did he finally feel at home.


    But even then, his dogged determination and stubbornness made him stand out.


    It had saved his life and those of his comrades in arms on numerous occasions in the past though and the older he got the more implacable he seemed to become.


    Muttering to himself he hopped off the bike and headed in the direction he had last seen Rodriguez.


    As he crested the small rise he saw his prey suddenly jump up and looked down at Gus and exclaimed.


    “It''s too late now you old blood hound, not even you can follow me where I''m going!”


    With that he darted off to the right.


    Gus took aim with his Glock and fired. Rodriguez ''yelped'' as the bullet flew inches from his head and dove for the ground.


    Gus snarled and yelled. “We ain''t finished yet Rodriguez!” And started after him.


    Just as he got to where he had last seen him, he saw Rodriguez dart into a small opening in the rock about thirty yards from his left further up the rocky hillside and Gus grimaced.


    He hated going underground, but he''d traced this douche bag over at least two thousand miles, through almost half of the U.S., then Mexico and eventually to Guatemala. He wasn''t about to give up now.


    He shoved his gun back into it''s side holster, clambered over the rocks and headed into the dark forbidding cave entrance. He wondered for a moment what Rodriguez had meant by not even he could follow him? nothing this guy had done so far had made any sense so he just shook it off and kept going. Only one way to find out he thought. catch the fucker and wring the information out of his scrawny neck.


    Gus stepped into the cave entrance and slipped on the wet uneven ground and his head clanged against the rock wall.


    He grimaced as he felt a small trickle of blood and cursed the man he was after.


    The guy was really starting to piss him off and he fantasied about beating him to a pulp before he handed him over.


    The money as always would be good but he was definitely going to get his pound of flesh as well.


    He squeezed through what appeared to be an ever decreasing gap in the back of the small cave, the rough edges scrapping against his long tough leather coat.


    The thought of getting trapped in here and starving to death or being crushed under half the mountain filled his soul with fear.


    But fear was an old friend, he just ignored it and pushed on through.


    With his small electric torch in his mouth and both Glocks out he searched ahead trying to find where Rodriguez had gone.


    He heard a scrambling sound from in front of him.


    The sound made Gus think that his prey was no more than thirty or forty feet from him and he pushed on feeling ever more certain he had his man.


    Suddenly the tiny gap he had been fighting through opened up into a massive cavern, it looked like it had been an old Mayan temple. Carvings and murals adorned the walls and had he the time Gus would have been curious to see them in greater detail.


    But now wasn''t the time, there seemed to be some sort of worn stone sacrificial table on a dais with an archway embedded in the rock behind it and he saw Rodriguez with a much larger torch than Gus had in his hand running to the other side of the cavern.


    He seemed to be heading for the stone archway but as far as Gus could see there was no exit, it was just an archway embedded in the rock.


    Frowning he ran after him. Something didn''t add up. Gus had a nagging feeling in the back of his head, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.


    Normally it was the type of feeling he heeded. It had saved his life on more than one occasion, if barely. But this time he couldn''t equate the feeling to what he was looking at.


    Then just as Rodriguez reached the embedded archway he took out a long wicked looking blade from his belt and slashed it across the palm of his hand then reached out and touched what appeared to be a rune protruding from the rock surface.


    First one on the left of the archway, then one on the right.


    There were rocky channels sloping from the sacrificial table that led directly to both runes.


    Gus shuddered at the gore filled history of this chamber and he watched as the blood seemed to be instantly absorbed by the stone and the archway began to shimmer, like a wave of heat coming off the asphalt on a hot sunny day.


    Then to Gus''s incredulity Rodriguez stood up, took one glance back at Gus and walked through the rock wall under the arch and disappeared.


    “Fuck!”


    Gus quickly ran up to the arch and reached out to the rock wall to find solid stone at his finger tips.


    He searched around for what he had seen Rodriguez looking for and saw the first rune, he tentatively pulled out his own blade from the small of his back and made a cut across the palm of his hand.


    The nagging sensation in the back of his head grew, but he ignored it.


    That fucker wasn''t going to escape him now, if he could do this? Well then, so could Gus.


    Blood dripped from his flesh as he laid the cut hand on the stone rune and he felt....something. It made his skin crawl, but looked around for the second rune and touched that one too. He gasped as a wave of heat enveloped him and he staggered back a foot and felt, what? Something, some of his energy? life force? Drain from his body. He took a deep breath.


    Well as far as he could tell that was all Rodriguez had done, so... Gus squinted and winced looking away from the rock at the same time he reached out with his bloody fingers to the rock wall.


    He gasped in astonishment as his hand passed straight through!


    He gritted his teeth and against all good sense he staggered forward through the rock wall and fell into nothingness.


    Gus immediately tried to grab hold of something, anything! But it was completely dark.


    His scream of shock was instantly absorbed into the void and all he could feel was the sensation he was falling.


    Then a small pin prick of light appeared in his vision, it was impossible to tell how far it was or the lights dimensions, but slowly the light grew.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    It seemed the more he focused on it, the brighter it got and the bigger it became. Suddenly he felt as if he were being sucked into it, then light expanded and enveloped him.


    Gus gasped in fright, berating himself for not listening to the nagging sensation in the back of his head as he fell.


    He was falling through what appeared to be a light grey and purple swirling tunnel which seemed to flow past him at an ever increasing pace.


    He sucked in a deep lungful of air and realised what he had done, well wherever he was at least he could breath.


    Time passed as he fell through whatever this was...a wormhole? Some sort of Stargate shit for sure.


    No wonder Rodriguez thought he could evade him. Was this some sort of Mayan deities highway or something? Fucked if he knew.


    Then at the centre of his vision it seemed that just as he thought of Rodriguez he saw him.


    He was a good hundred and fifty yards away, but as Gus focused on his form his outline became sharper and it seemed to Gus that he got a little closer.


    He pointed his Glock at his prey and fired. The sound the gun made was muted by the wormhole, but Rodriguez heard it and attempted to turn around.


    He looked back in horror as Gus fired again. He noticed when he did the tunnel rippled and shimmered as the bullet fired wide and went through the side of the tunnel.


    Rodriguez went from horrified to mortified and bellowed. “What the fuck! are you insane!? Don''t shoot at the inter dimensional portal you fucking moron!”


    Gus fired again, this time two shots in quick succession.


    The first ripped a chunk off of Rodriguez''s left ear and careened off into the tunnel wall, but the second hit his chest dead centre.


    “Got you mother fu-”


    The bullet that had grazed Rodriguez''s ear seemed to blow a small jagged wound into the side of the wormhole and as Rodriguez''s body passed by it seemed to be sucked towards the hole.


    The speed at which he was traveling though meant only half of him made it through before his upper torso was ripped away from his lower half.


    The blood from the impact seemed to react like acid to the tunnel wall and it started to disintegrate.


    Gus flew passed it barely avoiding getting sucked out himself before he shot past.


    Rodriguez''s top half however seemed to careen all over the place and his blood smeared the grey and purple walls with Red and the whole tunnel started to vibrate.


    Gus slammed his guns back into his holster and curled into a ball as the tunnel appeared to start shaking itself to pieces.


    Suddenly there was an almighty explosion and Gus could feel air rushing past him at a rate of knots.


    He peaked out of one eye and slammed it shut again as his heart leaped into his mouth.


    He''d made his fair share of parachute drops in his time and knew without a doubt he was well and truly fucked.


    He opened his eyes fully and took a better look. From his estimation he was roughly just over half a mile in the air and dropping rapidly.


    Without a Chute he was a goner for sure. His mind flashed to a you tube video he had seen of a bunch of Adrenalin junkies flying down the side of a mountain in winged suits, they had gone for miles with the little go pros attached to their heads.


    Yeah that would be nice if....he thought of his big leather duster, then looked at the rapidly approaching ground and grabbed for his knife.


    Gus quickly pulled out his coats leather belt from it''s hoops and cut it in half and felt the world spin as he tried to tie one corner of the bottom of his coat to his right calf muscle through a small incision in the bottom of the jacket.


    Still curled up in a ball, the movement made his body tumble and he felt his gorge rise as he saw earth, sky,earth,sky,earth,sky.


    He bit back the urge to vomit and scrambled to tie the other corner of his coat to his left calf muscle.


    He pulled the belt as tight as he could, the last thing he needed if this was to work was the coat getting loose!


    Then he put the knife into the side of his boot and grabbed hold of the outer edges of his coat and spread his arms wide.


    Instantly he felt the wind pull at the left side and spun round. He fought desperately to control his orientation, then as he turned to face the ground he felt both his arms yanked violently back as the wind buffeted his fall.


    He cackled manically as he found some semblance of control and then focused on the rapidly approaching ground.


    He heard a muffled explosion, then saw the roof of some building on the outskirts of the ruins of an ancient city collapse.


    Gus guessed that was Rodriguez''s upper body hitting the roof.


    As he glanced at the building he felt his momentum carrying him in roughly the same direction as the damaged building and tried to force his trajectory to somewhere less...terminal.


    But he was rapidly running out of room and at the last second he hastily thought he had two options, curl up into a ball and try to protect his vitals. Or keep his arms spread and try to pull up, using the coat as a buffer right till the end and try to slow his flight to the very last second.


    As he decided on the initial option, preferring to protect his head he realised he had taken too long to decide and smashed face first through the roof of the same building Rodriguez had fallen into and the world went black.


    Gus blinked and saw the head of Rodriguez''s corpse sticking out of what appeared to be an old computer terminal.


    Both man and machine looked completely beyond repair. Gus groaned and tried to move but every breath was utter agony and the pain pushed him back into unconsciousness.


    He blinked and the corpse alongside the terminal appeared to have gone, in it''s place was a brilliant white room.


    He tried to move, but other than blink it didn''t look like he could do anything.


    Well at least the pain had gone, the light faded as his eyes closed again.


    He blinked. This time the white room had a giant TV screen and on the wall in front of him with a blue background exclaimed one word on it.


    ERROR


    Gus smirked, or at least he thought he did. that sign just about said it all.


    Well at least he was still alive he guessed. He gazed at the screen for a bit and wondered where all the medical equipment and nurses were.


    He had heard nothing, felt nothing, something wasn''t right. But his mind felt fuzzy and he felt his vision fade before succumbing to the inevitable pull of unconsciousness.


    Gus blinked again and looked at the screen in front of him. This time to his surprise it had written on it something completely different.


    WELCOME TO THE BROKEN REALMS OF KALLEON.


    CONGRATULATIONS!


    YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY CONNECTED AN INTERMITTENT OFF WORLD COMMUNICATION TO THE AUTOMATED TECH SUPPORT SERVICES WHILST SIMULTANEOUSLY NEARLY COMPLETELY DESTROYING THE CHARACTER CREATION FACILITIES.


    PLEASE HOLD.


    “Well what the fuck does any of that mean!?” He thought to himself.


    He tried to move, tried to call out. But other than his eyes nothing else seemed to work.


    He felt nothing. Well it was better than feeling pain, but surely it wasn''t a good sign.


    He refocused on the screen, it still read.


    PLEASE HOLD.


    Well, it didn''t look like he was going anywhere soon. Maybe he was hallucinating.


    Was he in some sort of coma? And all this was a dream? It would answer the questions about medical equipment and lack of doctors.


    That meant the sign on the screen could be even more ominous than he had first thought.


    Gus blinked and realised he had either fallen asleep or blacked out again as a new message lit up the screen


    DOWNLOADING SYSTEM UPDATES AND REPAIR FILES. ESTIMATED TIME REMAINING:


    FOUR HOURS.


    Gus tried to groan, Christ this was going to take ages! He had built his own windows machine back in the day and downloading and updating the system took forever.


    He wondered if the intermittent part of the first message was why it was going to take four hours. His eyes lost focus, then he blinked and refocused on the screen.


    DOWNLOADING REPAIR FILES. ESTIMATED TIME REMAINING:


    NINE HOURS.


    “Ah! come on man!”


    This was worse than watching cricket! He had had an English buddy back in Afghanistan and the guy had been delighted when he was able to find a channel that showed a five day test match with England vs India and had invited Gus over to watch.


    It had been mind numbingly boring, if it hadn''t been for the copious amounts of booze available he wouldn''t have made an hour of the dam game. As it was he bailed after watching for an afternoon, promising to comeback the following day but had then avoided the man like the plague ever since.


    Someone who was happy to watch that for five days straight? Nah, there had to be something seriously wrong with the man.


    DOWNLOADING REPAIR FILES. ESTIMATED TIME REMAINING:


    TWO HOURS.


    Yes! That was more like it. By now Gus was pretty sure it was the dodgy connection that was causing the issues so he took the wins when he could. He just hoped the connection issues weren''t in his brain.


    Time passed but Gus wasn''t sure how much as the screen lit up with a new message.


    His heart leapt at the change.


    And then dropped as he read.


    INITIALIZING....


    Well at least the download had finished. Wasn''t This whole out of body experience meant to be a bit more...well not dull?


    It seemed to Gus he had been gazing at the giant screen for days unable to move, shout, Breathe? Nothing.


    Gus blinked as he noticed the change in the screen, this time it looked a whole lot more interesting.


    WELCOME TO THE BROKEN REALMS OF KALLEON CHARACTER CREATION FACILITIES, WOULD YOU LIKE TO PROCEED?


    Y/N.


    Gus blinked. Well how was he going to answer that? He tried to focus on the Y and hoped it would be enough.


    He blinked and the screen lit up with the animation of a giant of a man similar to a character on the cartoon network called Johnny bravo! With the blonde quiff and shades included. but this guy had heavy plated purple and gold Armour on and he held a massive double handed sword almost as long as he was tall.


    WOULD YOU LIKE TO BECOME A KNIGHT?


    Gus looked at him, then in a blink he had changed from a male into a female.


    The woman, built like an Amazonian warrior. Wore the tiniest of purple and gold bikini briefs with an even skimpier string bikini top that was just about large enough to cover her nipples but barely held back her massive breasts.


    She still held the giant sword though, but instead of the heavy metallic greaves and metallic boots she wore dainty purple foil greaves that molded to her shins and calf muscles along with golden five inch high heel stilettos.


    Gus saw an arrow under her character and focused on it and her body turned as if on a disk and her rump came into view. Man did she had the hottest ass! Jeez.


    Well obviously he wasn''t about to become one of these either male or female, but no harm in looking right?...Right?


    WOULD YOU LIKE TO BECOME AN ELF MAGE?


    Suddenly the character changed to one of an elf mage. It was a male and he had an air of aristocracy about him.


    He wore a brilliant white silk shirt, a light blue jacket with tails down to his knees at the back and pair of black pants that stopped just below the knees that were tucked into a pair of white socks. He wore a rather dainty pair of silver slippers and held a staff in his right hand.


    Gus would have wrinkled his nose at this dandy if he had had one and immediately the male elf turned into a female one.


    Gus''s eyes would have bulged if they were able...maybe they had, who knew?


    The glorious female elf that stood before him wore no silk shirt.


    She just stood there in a jacket similar too but a far skimpier version than the male elf''s light blue jacket and instead of black pants she wore a black low rider ultra micro mini skirt and a pair of silver five inch stilettos.


    She had the biggest blue eyes and her lips were a deep plum color.


    Gus could have stared at her forever, but her cleavage got the better of him and he nudged the arrow slightly to see If he could get a better view.


    just like the female warrior she had massive firm breasts and as he got a side view all but her nipples appeared to be visible.


    Well it might be worth being a dandy if he got to walk around these beauties all day He thought to himself.


    The vision turned back to the dandy and Gus instantly changed his mind.


    WOULD YOU LIKE TO BECOME A DARK ELF FOREST ARCHER?


    The next character that morphed into view was that of an archer.


    The deep purple skinned dark elf wore a leather jerkin with leather pants and soft leather boots.


    He had a long bow over his shoulder and a thickset chest with strong arms, a dam sight better than the dandy for sure!


    The dark elf turned into a female dark elf and the female whilst still wearing a leather jacket, this one was more of a bolero top. It stopped just below her pendulous breasts and seemed to be held together at the front by sheer will power alone.


    She wore a similar minuscule mini skirt to her elven sister, but hers was made from tan leather. She also wore five inch leather stilettos.


    How the hell she got around the forest in them god only knows. But she did carry a long bow similar to that of her male companion.


    Her lips were a deep midnight blue and her eyes were the blackest black. Gus wouldn''t mind traipsing around after her all day in the forest, she looked amazing.


    Clearly who ever made this game knew what he liked. He wondered somewhat guiltily whether he was actually in a coma and this was his vision of an MMORPG.


    Then dismissed it, there was no way in hell he would have come up with the dandy.


    WOULD YOU LIKE TO BECOME AN ORC?


    The vision turned into a male orc and Gus would have staggered back if he were able.


    The monster looked horrifying and an instant later the male orc turned into a female one.


    The male orc had just worn a fur hide skirt made from some sort of animal carcass and held a giant tree limb in his hand, the female was similarly attired, she wore no top and her huge breasts bobbed gently as she slowly changed her stance and instead of a hide skirt she wore a fur thong.


    He would have loved to have seen the dark elf in the get up but the rough green flesh and the foot long tusks sticking out of her mouth were too much for Gus.


    WOULD YOU LIKE TO BECOME A GOBLIN?


    The orc turned into a goblin. The green scrawny thing chittered about not wearing anything, his tiny manhood just dangled lifelessly between his legs.


    He just held a twig in his hands like it was a broad sword. Jesus, who would want to be one of those!?


    The male turned into a female goblin and the naked creature scratched her armpit as she stood there with a blank glazed look in her eyes.


    She had tiny breasts but a huge stomach that drooped over her genitalia. Gus thought she looked even worse than the male version.


    The screen went back to johnny bravo.


    “what!? That was it?”