by Dante Steel
“Don’t worry,” Gary said. “I’m not going to give up.”
Elena just gave him a look, and he hated it. She already had. That was plain to see, and it killed him.
Chapter Eighteen
For hours and hours, day after day, Gary walked all over the place, trying to find metal that they could use for their plan. In the end, he located five screws, two nuts, and one tiny piece of metal that had been so warped he had no idea what it might’ve been once upon a time.
“This isn’t enough,” Elena said.
Nicoletta glowered at them. “Guys, we’re so stupid,” she said.
“Huh?” Gary wanted to ask for details.
Already, the Hispanic was marching away, her dark hair bouncing with every step. Damn, did she have a fine ass, and it swayed just right, too. All natural. None of that exaggerated step to make it sway. He sighed, missing her, wishing she was here with him.
No. No, he definitely didn’t want that. First off, Jorge would kill them both and secondly, he wanted Nicoletta safe. That meant not in the game. Playing it was bad enough.
Olivia hadn’t returned yet in all of that time, and when she finally bounded over to them, she was pursing her lips.
“Well?” Elena asked eagerly.
“I couldn’t find much on Haru Sato. He has no criminal record—”
“You checked his criminal record?” Nicoletta asked, looking impressed.
“Yes, of course. He has had a few speeding tickets, but that’s it. He’s mostly up and up or so it seems. He’s married, doesn’t have any kids, an only child. He got good grades in school and—”
“Less about Haru and more about Samuel August,” Elena said.
Olivia nodded. “The story checks out. Samuel August did kill his mother fifteen years ago when he was fifteen. He is currently at large, his whereabouts unknown. The police are desperate to find him because of the murder charges, and a ton of women have come forward after the police came out with their report to announce that he had attacked them sexually, verbally, physically. He is a seriously bad dude.”
“Are we sure that Samuel August is that tech genius that Haru claimed him to be?” Gary asked.
Olivia nodded again. “The police didn’t realize he killed his mom for years, so he went off to school, went to college, racked up a couple of degrees in no time. Yes, everything Haru Sato has said about him checks out.”
“So he is the guy,” Elena said.
“Seems like it,” Gary said. He couldn’t help feeling a little stupid for not trusting Haru. Yes, the developer wasn’t having an easy time getting them out, but his growing irritability could be explained by Gary dragging him into the game all of the time for questions that Gary didn’t absolutely need to have answered.
“Well, Olivia? Are you on board with our plan?” Nicoletta asked eagerly.
“Not that we have enough metal for it,” Elena grumbled.
“Oh, but we do!” Nicoletta said cheerfully.
All of them had a small pouch that grew to hold a limited amount of stuff, no more than one hundred potions of any kind, back up clothing, armor, weapons, shields, gold, and more. She dug out armor piece after armor piece, shin guards, helms, weapons too, all of it metal.
Gary whistled. “We really are stupid.”
Nicoletta buffed her nails on her superhero attire. “I know. I’m the smartest of the group. Go on. Say it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Elena grumbled. “Not enough. Come on, everyone, pony up.”
They bought as much metal as they could carry, and they rushed over to the volcano. They were in the process of digging a hole near the base to hide the metal in for when they planned on attacking Smaug when the air around them grew entirely far too warm and far too breezy.
Which could only mean one thing.
Smaug.
The supervillain stood before them on the sand. Gary half expected to see him on the back of a sand-rhino or some other creature, considering the man had favored his dragon pet so much. But no, it was Smaug and only him waiting to greet them.
He was dressed solely in white, a dark blue cloak draped over his shoulders. He didn’t wear a mask at all. Despite the sand, his superhero spandex suit was completely spotless, as white as can be. It almost gave off a radiance, a glow, but a dark one, almost like a dark halo. Which was apt when you considered that the guy was a terrible being and more like a demon than an angel. Just the sight of the guy made Gary’s skin crawl.
Gary stiffened, but he didn’t need to say anything. Already, Elena was strolling up to Smaug. Which wasn’t exactly the plan, but if she were to toss the metal pieces into the volcano now, it would be too soon. They needed Smaug to be down the volcano first for the trap to work.
“Hi,” Elena said. “How are you? Have you seen any of the vampires? We’ve been trying to hunt some down, but we haven’t had much luck.”
Olivia winced. Her part of the plan was to help Gary float up the metal pieces and bring them down, but first, one or both would have to force Smaug down the volcano and keep him there in place. If that happened, then Elena would have to fling the metal supplies inside for them.
“I should be the one to flirt with him,” she grumbled under her breath.
“The point isn’t to flirt with him but to distract him,” Gary reminded her.
“There’s a difference?” Olivia asked innocently.
He chuckled. “Not with you there isn’t.”
“Shut up, you two,” Nicoletta snapped. “They’re coming.”
“You, you, you, and you,” Smaug said. “You all seem so very familiar to me.”
Gary flinched. It might’ve been a smart idea for them to change up their superhero attire so he might not recognize them. Worst of all, they hadn’t been able to do one single quest. They still weren’t even heroes here. Damn it! If only Nicoletta had her genius idea about the metal immediately. They could’ve had two days to complete quests. Then again, they might have faced Smaug two days ago instead.
“I think if you’ve seen one superhero in a tight spandex outfit and mask, you’ve seen them all,” Olivia said, rubbing her hands over herself.
Smaug eyed her but not with much interest. “You can fly.”
It wasn’t a question.
“You have paltry fire,” he said to Nicoletta.
“You have a problem with arrogance, and it’s not paltry,” Nicoletta countered.
Gary glowered at her, and she shrugged.
“You—” Smaug started, turning toward Elena.
Gary stepped forward. “Why are you here? There aren’t any enemies here, as you can see. I already killed the fire god.”
Smaug smirked. “There is no fire god beside me.” He shifted his gaze back to Nicoletta. “Do you dare to disagree?”
“I dare to do a lot of things,” she said heatedly.
“To be sure.”
Olivia eyed Smaug. “Wanna race, Fire God?” she asked, lifting easily off the sand.
His gaze flickered behind her to the pile of armor and weapons. He rolled his eyes. “I do not race.”
“Of course not. You’re afraid to lose.” Without waiting, Olivia flew around and around the volcano base, spiraling upward. Gary was impressed. He had never seen her zoom around that swiftly before.
The wind increased to the point that a spear almost started to fly away. Gary used his telekinesis to keep the spear in place.
Smaug lifted into the air. His cloak wrapped tightly around him, to reduce air resistance Gary guessed. The back of the cloak had a design on it that when brought together, formed the image of a vicious bat.
Gary swallowed hard. If Smaug was able to get the vampires onto his side like he had the dragons back in the first issue, Smaug would be impossible to beat.
No. No, he shouldn’t worry, shouldn’t freak out. They had a good plan, a solid plan. It would work.
It had to.
Smaug seemed to lazily fly after Olivia, yet he reached her in no time at all. Olivia gr
abbed his cloak and tried to force him into the volcano.
Gary seized the supervillain with his mind and lent his force to Olivia’s. Together, they brought Smaug closer and closer to the volcano’s opening.
Even though he remained as the base of the volcano, Gary could feel its intense heat. He wanted to wipe sweat from his brow, but he didn’t bother. He had to concentrate, had to get Smaug deeper inside, closer to the lava.
The lava that had been cooling underneath the thick layer of sand he had dumped into it. Fuck.
He didn’t need to worry. Olivia was already working on using her flying ability that extended to other objects to remove the sand. That was both good and bad considering that meant Gary had to hold Smaug in place by himself. The supervillain hadn’t struggled against their combined might, but he fought and fought hard against Gary’s hold, and he was nearly breaking free.
“Hurry,” Gary muttered. “I can’t hold him for long.”
“I can heat up the metal as it’s coming inside the volcano to help speed up the process,” Nicoletta offered, her hands already turned red-hot with flames flickering from her fingers.
Gary nodded. It was do or die time.
Chapter Nineteen
Every part of Gary fought to hold Smaug down, and suddenly, that was made much easier. Olivia was flying high above the volcano, but she must’ve cleared the sand away because now she was using her ability to make other items fly in reverse to help pin Smaug in place. The supervillain had gotten nearly back up to the entrance of the volcano, but now, they pushed him back, closer and closer toward the lava.
Smaug laughed. “Do you really think fire will kill me?”
“He’s not scared,” Elena muttered as she flung metal piece of armor and weapons after metal shard. “Why isn’t he at least a little freaked out? He’s human!”
“It’s called bravado,” Gary said.
“You sure?”
“Yep. To him, it’s a pissing contest.”
“He recognized us,” Nicoletta said.
Gary watched as each metal chunk, burning from her flames, entered the volcano. Via his powers, he could see each fragment as it fell into the growing mass of metal that was quickly congealing into a metal arch above Smaug, just as they had hoped. Everything was going according to plan.
They could honestly do this. Maybe he and Elena could go home today. With how screwy time could be in the game versus the real world, Gary wasn’t sure if there was a chance for her to make the funeral or not. He didn’t want to ask and risk hurting Elena all over again if the funeral had already been held.
But then, suddenly, Smaug wasn’t fighting against Gary and Olivia anymore. He was using his wind just enough to make sure he wasn’t submerged into the volcano.
“Something’s not right,” Gary said.
“Why?” Nicoletta asked.
“He’s not fighting.”
“Maybe he’s given up,” Elena suggested.
Without opening his eyes since closing them allowed him to see telekinetically better, he turned his face toward her, grimacing.
“I didn’t say I thought he had,” she added. “There. That’s the last of the metal.”
“All right.” Nicoletta sounded determined. Fling me up next.”
“What in the hell?” Elena shouted. “That’s suicide!”
“Olivia will catch me. “Come on. I don’t want to rely on the heat of the volcano. I don’t want it to erupt. Hurry! We don’t have much time!”
Gary did open his eyes in time to see Elena grab Nicoletta, spin a few times, and then fling the Hispanic through the air.
“Olivia!” Nicoletta called.
Olivia shifted positions and snatched Nicoletta’s hand. The two dropped several feet before recovering. Already, Nicoletta was blasting the volcano with her fire. Not the volcano. The metal mass.
Gary closed his eyes again. “Move back,” he told Elena. “You’ve done your part.”
“I’m not leaving,” she said.
He heard a soft sand of metal on sand. He imagined she had dug her heels in. He shook his head. Stubborn. He both loved and hated that about her.
“What the hell is he doing?” Gary muttered. He couldn’t see Smaug as well now, even telekinetically.
Abruptly, he realized Olivia wasn’t trying to force Smaug to stay in place. She was trying to use her power to push the metal arch down closer toward Smaug, using that to pin him there.
Which was a good thing, only they hadn’t acquired as much metal as they should’ve. At the ends of the arch, they didn’t quite touch either side of the volcano. Smaug might be able to squeeze through and escape.
Not if Gary had anything to say about that.
He yanked hard on the one side of the metal mass, but the congealed mass wasn’t budging. No way he could.
“We have to lift it,” he shouted, but the wind swirling around him threw his words back at him. He wasn’t even sure if Elena could hear him, and she stood right next to him, a metal hand on the small of his back.
“We can do this,” she said, her lips directly touching his ears.
That wind, where was it coming from? He hadn’t felt anything like this before in all of his time in Vampire War.
Smaug. It had to be. He was using his wind outside of the volcano? Why? That made no damn sense!
Unless he wanted to distract and confuse. Fuck. Gary ignored the wind and tried to shove up the congealed metal mass, but Olivia was fighting him. He had no way to let her know what he was trying to do.
Could someone with telekinesis use that power to mentally talk to someone? Gary wasn’t sure, and he didn’t know how to besides, so he wasn’t about to waste his precious energy trying. He was already dying as it was. Not literally, of course, but it wasn’t easy to keep on going, to keep on pushing.
Sweat dripped down his face. It was so hot, so fucking hot. Nicoletta was blasting the metal. She didn’t need to, did she? She should stop, needed to stop, too hot.
Gary’s mind was foggy. He couldn’t think clearly.
Just then, the metal mass moved much easier. Olivia must’ve realized what he was trying to do! Either side scraped against a higher portion to the narrowing volcano dome, and Gary breathed easier. Yes! Things were back to plan!
“Something isn’t right,” Elena said.
He risked opening his eyes because of the measure of fear in her voice. Not much frightened Elena.
“What is it?” he asked, blinking, readjusting to looking through his eyes versus his mind’s eye.
She nodded toward the volcano. It was hard to see through sudden, thick fog.
“What is that from?” he asked.
“It’s getting colder,” she murmured.
It was. The temperature was dropping alarmingly.
“Hell’s frozen over,” he said grimly.
“How the hell can he do that?” Elena asked.
“Easy,” Gary said, once again cursing himself for his stupidity. “Think about it. As soon as we came here, our powers were augmented. You have more metal, Olivia can extend her flight to other people or objects. I can fly myself. Nicoletta can breathe fire like a badass.”
“It stands to reason that he’ll have something else to. Okay, fine, I get that, but ice? I didn’t know anyone had ice powers before! I mean, we did fight that supervillain with it, but as far as gamers, I thought it was just the four: fire, water, wind, and earth.”
“Yeah, but not many have more than one, right? He can use the fire in reverse, strip the heat away from the water to make ice maybe. Or maybe those with water from the first issue now have ice as their power increased. Fire can breathe it. Wind… fly maybe? Earth, hell if I know. Haven’t come in contact with that enough yet.”
Just then, the ground beneath their feet shook.
“Did you feel that quake?” Elena asked.
“Definitely a tremor and definitely not a chance thing.”
“He can’t have all four, can he?” Elena shrieked.
>
“Remember, he is a wizard. Maybe he’s never been limited to fire and wind, just wanted us to think that. He might have all kinds of spells in his pocket.” Gary grimaced. “We just don’t know what we’re up against, and we were such fools to go up against him.”
“It wasn’t the plan,” she reminded him.
“Yes, well, now we’re fucked.”
Gary’s mind was racing. Smaug was making the volcano turn to ice. He wasn’t going to die. He could smash through the entire volcano, cause it to shatter apart and be free. Their trap was going to fail.
Was there any way to salvage this?
“We need to draw the heat away from the congealed metal, break it apart. If we can shatter the metal into shards, we might be able to impale him with some,” Gary said.
“Or he’ll turn those shards against us,” Elena muttered darkly.
“True enough, but do you have any other idea?”
“No, so how do we go about it?”
“Do you have any weapons at all?” he asked.
She lifted her metal fists.
“I was hoping something with a metal point so you could chip away at the metal, but that might work. You’ll have to smash it.”
“So I have to climb up there. Whoa! Warn a girl first!”
“We don’t have time,” Gary said as he continued to lift Elena up inside the volcano. He dropped her onto the metal mass and hovered beside the other two girls. They both looked worse for wear.
“We need the metal to break apart,” Gary muttered. “We need to use it as weapons again, projectiles to pin him down.”
“I don’t think that’s gonna work,” Nicoletta said.
“Adding more heat to the metal will make it soft again, right?” Gary asked.
“It’s not working!” Elena shouted. The thud of her fist hammering against the metal mess rang out again and again.
“I can try,” Nicoletta said, “but all of that ice… the temperature’s dropped so much.”
Gary nodded. She would have to use a ton of her energy to manage this, and she was already getting depleted.
