My System has a Glitch

'Grenades?'

Nod gritted his teeth, he was dead either way so he didn't move an inch.

'A grenade wont give me a chance, now how do I pull this off?'

The dead tree he hid in was nestled away in a small patch of earth, an island amidst the swamp. Lucky for him there were no snakes here and no one knew why the information wasn't provided in the encyclopedia but they were all about to find out.

Only one of the five men that pursued him had a rifle and he had succeeded in carefully leading them away from Ingrid.

All he had on him were the brass knuckle but they had the numbers and the gun and however he saw it, it always ended with him dead, so he decided to stay put.

"Hey how about that hollow tree over there?" One of the men said.

The tree was broken in half and was just a gray trunk with withered roots and green grasses all around it on the little patch of earth.

Nod had come in from the top and fit in quite perfectly with little room left to maneuver.

"Yeah," the man with the rifle said. The men took a step forward towards the dead tree but the one with the rifle told them to stop and Nod breathed a sigh of relief hoping they were going to look somewhere else.

"Get me a grenade," the man said and Nod's heart sank and he began to pray the man wouldn't be that cruel.

"What do you want to do with it boss?"

"I'm gonna throw it straight into that tree like a basketball."

"What!? Do you think you can make the shot boss?"

"Shut it, I'm good, you'll see. Just get me the grenade."

'What do I do?Do I jump out? No they'll just shoot me, but I can't stay here they'll blow me up, could I convince them somehow? they want the loot, could I tell them that she took it.'

'I could get them to go after her instead, no. I could offer to take them to her myself and that'll at least buy me enough time to think of a way out of this.'

'Why did I even hide here to begin with, I thought they'll just walk on by. Who knew these dummies were so thorough.'

"You hear me kid!? If you're in there you better come out. I'm going to give you to the count of three and if you don't come out then it's game over. Three, two….

Idiot! you don't say you'll count to three and then count down from three!

"…. One, you're screwed, kid!"

'Damn it! I got carried away.'

"Hey wait!" Nod screamed and the man paused with his finger inches from pulling out the pin.

Nod slowly stood up with his hands raised over his head.

"So there you are, little rabbit, now where's my loot?"

"It's with my sister, I can take you to her, we'll give you everything, just don't throw that grenade."

"That's a fine offer my boy, you see up until now I thought you had it, I just didn't think you'd be cowardly enough to burden such a fine lady like that with all that trouble but I was wrong about you and won't be needing your help."

"What!?"

"I can sniff her out myself, even now I think I smell her perfume, so I guess it's game over for you."

"You bastard!" Nod screamed at him. "Don't you dare throw….."

Before Nod could finish he threw the grenade at him. It came so fast and so direct but Nod was quick enough to slap it away and to his surprise it didn't explode the moment he touched it.

But before the grenade landed on the water the man was already pointing his rifle at him and Nod had completely deactivated his shield to keep from being detected so he was completely defenceless, even a regular bullet would kill him now.

Nod sent the grenade crashing into the pool of water and by his little island.

Bang!

Nod felt the bullet graze him but the force behind it sent him hurling back and falling down into the hollow tree. The grenade exploded and the men laughed.

"I think you got him boss."

"That kid's braver than I thought, isn't he boss? I mean slapping a grenade like that, I don't think I could do it."

"Well if you admire him so much why do you go check to see if he's dead!"

"Okay boss."

The goon walked over and got into the water, he sent ripples gliding through the pool and as he took his next step towards the hollow tree he noticed the water began bubbling around his feet.

Hey boss!? Something weird around here! I don't...

In the blink of an eye his words were cut short by a flash of green and no one could tell when he was swallowed by another kind of man-eating plant.

"What the hell!" the boss screamed and the rest of them stepped back. "We've got to get out of here."

He began firing at the giant plant but with only one bullet at a time he could barely do any lasting damage.

Nod watched them through a crack in the hollow tree and when they threw a live grenade at the plant, he jumped out of the tree and using the explosion as a cover he ran away from them.

He carefully watched his step making sure he only stepped on the earth and not the water just in case there was another man-eater lurking underneath.

The boss turned and saw him running away. "He's getting away," he cried then he took off after him leaving his men to fend off the plant on their own.

******

He had a clear shot of Nod and he fired directly at his head, the bullet hit him.

[ PHYSICAL DAMAGE - 30mins]

'That was so close, it's a good thing I reactivated my shield before I got out of that tree or else I'd be a goner.'

Nod kept his balance and continued running but the man fired again, this time narrowly missing him and blowing up the body of a tree beside him.

'He's catching up to me, not only is he faster but his skills with that rifle will be the death of me if I don't figure a way out of this.'

Suddenly he heard a whistle and when he turned, he saw Ben hiding behind a tree. Ben pressed his index finger on his lip, telling him to remain quiet.

Nod got the idea and ran as fast as he could, setting up the last piece of the trap.

The man pressed the scope of his rifle against his eye and was more than ready to blow Nod's brains out but at the last moment he caught a glimpse of Ben but before he could react Ben swung a rifle at his face, knocking him out cold.

*******

Ingrid easily grabbed a new vine and sung herself to the herb she came for. She scooped it away and assimilated it into her guide.

'One down, two to go.'

She looked down and saw a rope ladder sprawled out like a bridge below. She let go of the vine and landed on the bridge.

The bridge began to swing from side to side, so she got down on it as quickly as she could to grab hold of the ropes so she wouldn't fall.

"I wonder how he's doing," she said.

She knew it would be safer to wait till the bridge had stopped swinging, then she could calmly crawl her way on it till she found what she was looking for or got to the end of it but that would take too much time and there was very little time left

"I'm going to run on it," she said.

The rope ladder stretched far into the jungle, so it was clear to her she could save time by running on it instead of crawling but she could easily lose her balance and with millions of snakes waiting below, a fall was a certain death.

'Well it's only millions of snakes, it's not like I'm scared of them or anything, I'm more of a spider girl.'

She smiled and played it off as a joke then she slowly got on her feet and braced herself.

She always seemed a cold kind of person, the kind nothing would ever touch but here she was trying to save someone she didn't really need or know.

She let out a sigh and took off running, every step was shaky and unstable. She had to quickly readjust her body after every step just to keep herself from falling over.

She stops another herb about half way through the bridge. She grabbed a vine and swung towards it, she assimilated and swung back towards the bridge.

Just one left, just hang on, William, I'll be there soon.

On her way back on the vine a crazed looking man jumped at her from nowhere.

She couldn't dodge him and he grabbed onto her causing her grip slip.