Story [Issue 13] Inside Tanki Online - part 3: FINALE

[Valletta 834]

Back to part 1 | Back to part 2

 

 

     Slap! Swish! Plonk! Vasily woke up to find himself half-submerged in all sorts of filth, from moss and flower petals to cobble and mud. Ewgh! The stuff was continuing to cover him, apparently coming in from some sort of hatch above his head. He was in a box. A metal box held together by bolts, which was putrid smelling of gasoline and quite peculiarly had several empty vodka bottles and a couple of magazines lying around on the floor. Plonk! Another dose of dirt landed on the boy’s face. He had to leave this torture chamber as soon as possible in order to avoid drowning in the filthy substance. It was now or never. He grabbed what seemed to be a sort of metal bar sticking out of the hull and used it to lift himself out of the confined space. Vasily’s head peeked out through the hatch to be inches from being chopped off by a... shovel. The boy saw a sweaty middle-aged man and his friend, Lev, obstinately shoveling the box he had woken up in... outside of the ground. He looked around and realized the box was actually some sort of tractor or excavator... maybe Lev found help and they were now on their way to civilization.

 

     “No! Not like that, you nincompoop,” shouted the evidently frustrated man at Lev. “You’re throwing all the stuff back into the tank!”

     “Hehe...” thought Vasily in his head, “Lev is failing at physical labor again... wait... TANK?”

 

     He jumped out of the hull like a cork plug out of a champagne bottle and landed on the ground. Indeed, the metal box he was about to drown in was a tank. An oddly familiar tank.

 

     “Ah, privet, sleepy face! Now get down to work.” Grunted the man and threw a shovel at Vasily

     “It’s no use...” Panted Lev, “We’re never getting her out at this rate!”

     “What am I missing here?” – Vasily still didn’t have an idea what was going on.

 

     The man continued without paying any attention to Vasily: “I’ll give her a go again and hope for the best”

 

     “What? Will someone tell me what is happening?”

 

     Lev came closer to his friend and hushed: “Now, Vasya, don’t ask too much questions because I believe the guy is a bit ill-tempered. He found us here. Nearly blew me to pieces when he crashed his scout tank close to us. You should be thanking me for this, by the way. So, we picked your stupid narcoleptic body and we are now driving to some sort of rebel camp, as #88374 says... Or at least we were until he drove us into a mud puddle and got stuck. I believe he’s a bit drunk...”

 

     “Okay...” Confirmed Vasily, preferring to save his amazement for later. “But why #88374? Doesn’t he have a name?”

     “Umm, yeah... I asked him about a name but he apparently doesn’t recognize the word. He says they call him 88374... It’s written on that tattoo thingy on his back too... I, I think he is an NPC.”

 

     Vasily was now sure that no more explanations were available at the moment and that. The two went on shoveling the tank out of the dirt. 1 hour later and 15 buckets’ worth of excavated dirt from the inside of the tank and all was set. Soon the engine was roaring again and #88374 packed the kids inside like sardines. The trip could now commence. When they finally reached the camp Lev was slightly more sure about his NPC hypothesis. Several dozens of make-do hangars, each packed with badly assembled versions of the Tanki Online garage: Wonky Mammoths with barely upgraded Smoky turrets and covered in various non-existing paints that were probably developed by the tankmen on the go. It looked as if the most-upgraded tank in the arsenal was indeed the one #88374 had driven them in... and crashed. It was apparent that the boys had found themselves in a guerrilla camp.

 

     The boys were assigned a room in what looked to be a small beat up cottage, and there wasn’t really much more to ask for. Something disturbed Lev though. The guerrilla fighters weren’t so intrigued by their prisoners rather than the broadcast that came from several radio stations. “The movement is expected to increase in size and head toward the base’s direction... Scouts have been sent on the lookout and have reported several of the new creatures within our borders. Battle stations may be requested soon enough...” Lev couldn’t hear much more than that because the commotion around him began to steadily grow bigger. Grimaces of concern and distress could be seen on some of the fighters’ faces.

 

     In 2 hours’ time the situation was serious. Night had fallen, and tanks’ headlights were beginning to light up. Engines began roaring. #88374 emptied a bottle of whiskey into his tank’s fuel tank, saying that “It makes the mixture less dense and adds a few extra horse powers”. Shells were being loaded into the Thunder and Smoky barrels, Isidas’ batteries were recharged, Freezes were refilled with cooling agent. The guerrilla squad was preparing for an ambush. #88374, as he was running around carrying supplies, passed by the kids a few times and said:

 

     “Look, comrades, I don’t want to look bad, but this is a difficult situation to be in, you know?” He had an almost fatherly voice. “I suggest you go hide in the bunkers ‘cause things are going to get messy, ok?” The boys followed the instructions and hid in the nearby concrete bunker. They continued watching the commotion from within, from the glass windows reinforced with steel bars.

 

     In half an hour many of the guerrilla tanks had left. Only a few stayed to clean up but soon too left and joined the others. Flags in an unknown language were hanged on some of the tanks’ turrets, possibly representing a marching insignia or some sort of motivational logo. All of the tanks, all of the base’s resources were on the road. The army wasn’t like anything the kids had seen before, a good 400 battle machines in all their might were ready to rumble, to fight to the end for an apparently vital cause. A cause the kids were not aware of. The slowly moving tanks were soon gone behind the horizon. It became pitch dark and twice as quiet.

 

     “Lev, I’m scared...” Started Vasily. He wasn’t usually the one to express his concerns but the situation was dire. “Me too too, pal, me too. Let’s go out”

The boys took a pair of flashlights and left the bunker. They climbed on the nearby hill to see whether the guerillas have started fighting yet but there was no trace of warfare. Probably the battle would take place elsewhere. Vasily and Lev walked around for a while and tried to work out what was happening. Maybe those NPC’s were off to fight other NPC’s? Was that the real world of Tanki? No sooner later than the boys had started to design conclusions they heard sirens. Distress sirens. The type of sirens you hear in the worst of civilian disasters, such as an earthquake or a terrorist attack. The noise was coming from the camp and it was deafening. But why an alert here? Why were the distress indicators reading a threat here? Wasn’t the battle somewhere else? Apparently not. Soon tracks could be heard. Engines too. Other tanks? Yes. Other tanks. Better tanks. M3 Mammoths with expensive paints and fully-upgraded weapons, ready to bring havoc.

 

     One word came to Lev’s mind, although it was obvious: “Run.”

 

     The boys ran and ran and heard the enemy tank platoon destroying the guerrilla camp behind them. An ambush-ambush?! What about the other tanks? Vasily and Lev ran following the guerilla tanks’ track traces hoping that they can lead them to the actual site of the battle and possibly save their homes. Alas, what they found when they reached the end of the tank tracks was nowhere near what they expected. Havoc had struck before they had expected. Another debris field. A fresh one. Smoking hulls were still lying around, their pilots sticking out, covered in blood, or burned, or shredded to pieces by shrapnel. #88374 was nowhere to be found, nor were his companions. Vasily decided not to even think what happened to them.

 

     So, the enemy had struck at both sides. The enemy was better-equipped and was outnumbering the guerrilla squad. A few of the enemies were actually still there. The kids ducked under a shattered Viking and took a better look at the enemy tanks that were passing by in the direction of the rebel camp. They were shiny, well-equipped M3’s. One thing was special, though. They had name-tags. Names and ranks glowing in big green letters over their turrets. Both of the passing tanks were Generalissimos, Russian in origin, as their nicknames showed. It all came to the boys then. Lev understood that those were players who were attacking the NPC’s. Brutally murdering every single one of them... for experience. Or crystals, or whatever what there as a reward. The NPC camp was a generated structure, and so were the guerrillas. #88374 was a part of a Tanki Online server, a possible update maybe, a patch in which NPC’s were added to enhance the results of EXP grinding for the players. How pitiful. 88374 was now gone somewhere in a player’s rank bar.

 

     The boys ran to the camp to find the player tanks leaving. They were all leaving in a direction of some sort of light. Lev and Vasily followed it. It was a FTL transponder cell (a wormhole), which was used by the players as a means of transportation. To where? To the outside world, possibly. Maybe this was the secret of logging in and out of the game. You go through one of these portals online and you take control of your tank, and then simply go out and log off. How elegant.

 

     “Wait... a portal!!” Run, Vasya, run!”

 

     Lev had not realized that logging off was the only way of leaving this place. They ran and they ran, waking the attention of the retreating tanks. The kids jumped into the wormhole along with a brigadier and a field marshal, and then everything was light.

 

(...)

 

     On the next day Lev woke up in his bedroom and Vasya woke up in his. He immediately dialed his friend to confirm that it wasn’t just a dream. How much would their parents and friends believe, was another issue. Upon logging in Tanki Online they read:

 

“Update 233! NPC maps have been added!”

 

     Neither of the boys ever played on such a map.

 

Edited July 31, 2017 by Valletta

[hogree 4,179]

Brilliant story. Big up, Val. Enjoyed it - big time ;)

[r_SwagBoy110 421]

That picture is epic. So is the story. G'job Val!

[Valletta 834]

Brilliant story. Big up, Val. Enjoyed it - big time ;)

  

Really? I thought it had a bit too much violence for a kid's game lol. Otherwise thanks, I really appreciate it

 

That picture is epic. So is the story. G'job Val!

Thank you :P I'll PM you about the secret of the pic ^_^

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I am aware of the spelling errors throughout the story and I will edit them as soon as I go back home. I'm on mobile now and I don't want to accidentally mess up the formatting)

[Valletta 834]

UPDATE: If anyone wants the uncut version of the entire story, from part 1 to part 3, properly written on MS Word then Skype me  :)

[Raphael2 3,263]

You should add links to ep. 1 and 2

[jazz20 1,181]

Nice :)