The female Marine swung at what seemed like thin air until a table collapsed. Xana reappeared on the table, naked and writhing in pain.
This wasn't working. This clan was too well-trained. He tried to think of a new strategy, but these weren't NPCs with predictable patterns. They were real players who were better than his team, and they were kicking his ass. He started to think he had bitten off more than he could chew.
"Goddamn it, you guys! Knock it off!"
The voice rang out across the casino before a slender woman in a short skirt came leaping over another card table to kick Prizebelt in the chest.
Three more people came charging off the casino floor. One was a larger woman wearing red tights and a white top stretched across her large breasts. Another was a thin man in a white coat, and the third was a short fat man with a long, red beard. They all had glowing red stars over their heads.
The four newcomers attacked the enemy clan with a fury Byron had never seen before.
The slender woman spun and flipped to deliver kicks and punches like a whirling tornado. The bigger woman had a punch that sent people flying across the floor. The thin man spun his hands, and created winds like a hurricane that blew Minty into a wall.
Prizebelt and his clan fought for a few seconds, then ran off out of the crowded casino.
The heavier woman yelled, "Yeah, next time we see you, we'll shove a missile up your asses!"
Byron ran over to Scarlett who sat up, holding her sides. "You okay?"
The robot nodded. "Yeah, just got the shit kicked outta me. I'll be just ducky."
The slender woman who had come out first reached out to take Byron's hand. She spoke with an accent. "Are you all right?"
Byron took a good look at the slender woman, and did a double take. She looked Asian with full lips, large almond eyes and long black hair that reached her waist. Her arms and legs looked delicate enough to break, even though he saw they had incredible power. She wore an outfit like a cross between a Japanese schoolgirl and body armor.
Byron realized he had frozen for a moment and nodded. "Yeah, yeah. I'm good."
The Asian woman smiled and bowed to him. "I am Kaguya-Hime. It's Japanese. You can just call me Princess."
He shook her hand, and it felt light as a feather. "Uh, I'm Byron Jones."
She jerked her head back a little. "I-Is that your real name?"
"Yeah. Why?"
She widened her eyes. "I am sorry, I have just never seen anyone in Venus Online use their real name before. They make us pick a username during orientation for anonymity."
He looked down at his feet. "Well, I, uh, never actually went through orientation."
Princess tilted her head to one side. "No orientation? How did you get into Venus Online, then?"
He went over to Xana and helped her off the table. "It's a long story."
The thin man held out his hand. "I'm 3Runner. Clan's technomage."
Byro shook hands with him. "Nice meeting you. Appreciate the save."
3Runner waved him off. "No problem. We don't stand for unnecessary PVP. It's supposed to be us against the game, not each other. At least that's how we at Clan Powerhouse feel. We're outnumbered by the NPCs as it is. We turn on each other, we'll never survive."
Princess nodded. "Exactly."
The second woman had a larger body with wide hips and enormous breasts. Long brown hair curled around her face, framing her full cheeks and rounded lips. When she turned around to smile at Princess, Byron couldn't help staring at her huge rounded ass. As a buttman, he thought she looked amazing.
The larger woman held out her hand. Her voice had a slight Spanish accent. "I'm AwesomeAss. Since you're going by your real name, you can call me Khloe."
Princess shushed her. "Awesome-san, you know that is against the rules."
Khloe shrugged. "Hey, if he can get away with it, so can I."
When Khloe turned around again to look at Chetaara, Byron took another glance at her butt. Khloe turned around quicker than he expected, and she caught him staring.
Khloe smirked with her hands on her hips. "Let me guess. You wanna know why I'm big, right?"
He held Chetaara's arm while shaking his head. "Oh, no, I didn't--"
Khloe waved a hand in the air. "Yeah, yeah, save it. It's not like you'll hurt my feelings. I mean this isn't my real body, right? And everybody asks. So I'll tell you."
She pointed at Byron's broad chest. "Everybody in this game goes for the wish-fulfillment where they give themselves these perfect bodies with rock-hard abs and big tits and tiny asses. Well, I'm Latina and I happen to like my curves in real life, and I wanted them in the game, too."
He smiled at her attitude. "I like that confidence. But I didn't know you could change what your body looked like in the game."
Khloe laughed. "Wow, you really did skip orientation. When you first log in, you're supposed to get a character creation screen. How'd you get this hot bod then?"
He shrugged. "I just woke up like this in the game."
"Must have been the default. Some people kept the body it first gave them, just a generic muscle guy. Well, fuck that shit."
The bearded man chuckled. "I'm kind of with AwesomeAss. I didn't go for the big muscle guy, either, but this isn't what I look like in real life. I mean, I'm fat, but I'm not this short and hairy. I actually wanted to look like a Hobbit, because I usually roleplay fantasy. Name's LostHobbit."
Byron shook hands with him.
3Runner laughed. "Since everybody is talking about their real body, yeah, this is what I look like."
"Me, too." Princess looked down at herself. "Well, maybe I am not this thin. But I am Japanese. I was recruited in Tokyo."
She turned and walked away. "Come on, Byron-san. It sounds like we have a lot to talk about."
Chapter 9
FIRST, BYRON used medpacks on himself, Chetaara, Scarlett, and Xana so they recovered and then they followed the Powerhouse Clan through the casino to the bar area.
Scarlett hung back a few steps to put space between them and the Clan, then whispered, "I don't like this."
Byron looked up at them. "What's not to like?"
"How about that we don't know shit about these guys?"
Xana raised her eyebrows. "We know they just saved us from getting killed."
He nodded. "That's true."
Scarlett spread her hands. "So? Maybe they were in on the whole fucking thing. Maybe they want us to trust them to get our guard down. Player-vs-player is a motherfucker in Venus Online."
Chetaara shook her head. "If they wanted to kill us, they could have done it when we were already hurt. And we have nothing of value."
Scarlett pointed at Byron. "Uh, did you forget we just upgraded the Icarus? And that Byron's still got millions of credits in his piggy bank?"
He held out his hands. "Look, I understand your concern, but I need answers and we need help rescuing Accolade. Right now, this clan could be our best option."
They reached the bar, and Princess ordered beers for the rest of her clan. Byron ordered a beer for himself, and margaritas for Chetaara and Scarlett. Xana just asked for a glass of red wine.
As they leaned against the bar with their drinks, 3Runner nodded at Scarlett. "So how come you're hanging around with a bunch of NPCs?"
Byron looked at his robot, who gave 3Runner the finger. "Well, they're my crew. This is Scarlett, my pilot. That's Chetaara, my navigator. And that's Xana, my engineer. And we're, uh, friends."
3Runner winced. "But they're not real."
That made Byron angry, but he fought to keep his expression calm. "They seem real enough to me."
Before 3Runner could speak again, Princess cut him off with a wave and said, "Do not worry about 3Runner. He is one of those people in Venus Online who does not like NPCs."
3Runner shrugged. "They're part of the system, the game that keeps us in here. Venus Online can make them say or do whatever it wants. That means if the game is our enemy, the NPCs are
our enemy. Am I right or am I wrong?"
Scarlett jabbed her index fingers at him. "Nobody makes me do anything, shit-for-brains."
3Runner smirked. "That's just what you're programmed to say."
Khloe set down her mug. "These aren't just random programs. The AI is super advanced. That's why real players have to use the red suns, so we can tell the difference. The NPCs are alive. They get happy and sad, they feel pain. I've seen them beg for their lives and play with their kids. They're more real than some of the asshole players I've seen."
Scarlett spread her arms. "Girl, bring it in. Bot lives matter."
The two hugged while giggling.
Princess swept her arms in the air. "Let us not turn this into a philosophy session. Byron-san, tell us how you got into the game without orientation."
Byron swallowed some beer. "Well, I was just hanging out one night, waiting for a subway train. These gang members pushed an old man off the platform onto the tracks. I saved him, and he gave me a card with a web address for the game invitation. When I put my information into the website, they delivered the VR pod to my apartment a few hours later. I climbed inside, they switched it on, and here I was."
"Son of a bitch," LostHobbit whispered. "I wish it was that easy for me. How'd that old guy get the card?"
"Well, apparently, the old man was Otis Accolade."
Khloe almost spit out her drink. "Accolade? You met Otis Accolade? In real life?"
"Uh, yeah. You never did?"
She wiped beer from her chin. "No way. I've never even seen him in real life. In fact, nobody's seen Accolade in like a year. Some people said he quit the company. He's a multi-billionaire. Why would he be in a subway station?"
Byron shrugged. "No idea. But lots of people ride the train. Mass transit in New York is awesome. So how'd you all get into the game?"
Khloe shook her head. "Well, like Hobbit said, it wasn't that easy. I was on my iPhone when I got a pop-up asking if I wanted the adventure of a lifetime. It was a link to the website to put in my information. I did and forgot about it until a few weeks later when I got an email for the beta test of Venus Online. I had to do all sorts of aptitude tests on different websites, then they had me go to this big office building, and go through more tests and all sorts of medical exams. It took me a year before they finally let me into the training class. That took a month, and then they finally knocked on my door, delivered the VR pod, and here I am."
LostHobbit nodded. "Kind of the same thing for me, but I was playing a game on my XBox when I got the ad. Took me two years before I saw the inside of a pod."
Princess shrugged. "I was on my Macbook when I got the ad. It took me two years and nine months."
3Runner nodded. "A buddy of mine told me about it. Took me a year and a half. Byron, you broke every rule in the book. You lucky son-of-a-bitch."
Byron grinned and lowered his head. "Well, I'm not so sure about lucky. I'm trapped in here."
"We all are." 3Runner shrugged. "But there could be worse places to be trapped in, right?"
"I guess. But a gilded cage is still a cage. I mean, don't you all wanna get out of here?"
LostHobbit looked down at his drink. "Some more than others. Depends on what you had going for you in the real world. For most of us, not much. Some people think the invitations weren't random, that we were selected. Almost everybody in Venus Online fits a type."
He began to tick off on his fingers. "We're all hardcore gamers. We're all kind of loners. All had kind of dead-end jobs."
Khloe spoke up. "Almost all. I was an aspiring actress."
"Yeah, working at Starbucks. And I was a cashier at a Wal-Mart. Anyway, most of us didn't have much in the way of family or friends. People who would notice we were missing and make a big stink about it. Some of us like me think all the tests and stuff were bogus, just to make us want to get in more. I think they already decided we were the perfect candidates before we even saw the ad."
Byron shook his head. "So you think the whole thing with me in the subway was a setup? That I was chosen to save that old guy and get the invitation?"
LostHobbit scratched his beard. "Well, your story is kind of a stretch, but it's possible."
Byron shook his head again. "No way. Because Accolade contacted me in the game."
The clan members all stared at him.
Princess leaned closer. "What did you say?"
"Accolade sent me a message yesterday, a voice in my head. He said he was trapped in the game and wanted me to find him. He said he could help us all escape."
"Th-That makes no sense. Venus Online employees usually do not go into the game. Accolade definitely did not. And why would he need help getting out of the game? We were told he almost wrote the whole program himself. If anybody could get out, it would be him."
Byron drained his beer mug and set it down on the counter. "That's why I'm on my way to find him. We traced the signal to the planet Nikor. If we can find him, we can free him. And I want to free the Nikora. Package deal."
The Powerhouse clan members all looked at each other with raised eyebrows.
"I don't know." Princess folded her arms. "Nikor is under Imperial control. You and your team are not even level ten yet. I do not think you will get too far."
"That why we could use some help."
Princess nodded. "Well, if you are going to go to Nikor, you need to contact the Resistance. We can help you. We were just going do a rescue quest, anyway."
3Runner narrowed his eyes and glared at Scarlett. "How do we know this isn't some stupid quest? To distract us? Or kill us?"
Princess gave him a wide and perfect smile. "We do not. But it sounds like fun. So I'm in."
Khloe gestured with her beer mug. "Me, too."
LostHobbit bowed. "Absolutely."
3Runner grit his teeth. "Fine. I'm outnumbered. But Byron, if this quest is a trap, I will wring your neck."
Byron nodded. "Fair enough."
∆∆∆
The Powerhouse clan had their own transport, so Byron and his crew rode with them, to his relief. Getting a limo would probably have been a little showy. The transport reminded him of a large van except with jets that allowed it to hover. He climbed into the back along with Chetaara, Scarlett, and Xana. When buckled in, the van floated off through the city.
As they headed through the streets, Khloe sat down alongside Byron. "So where's your clan?"
He shifted in his seat. "Uh, I haven't really joined a clan."
She gave him a bright smile. "You should join us. The Powerhouse clan rocks."
He looked away, trying to keep his shyness from overwhelming him. "I'll think about it. But I'm not much of a team player."
She tilted her head to one side. "How long you been in the game, anyway?"
"Uh, I guess two days or so. It's hard to tell."
Her eyes widened and she pushed her head forward. "Two days? How'd you get to be a level six in two days? It took me six months in game time to get to level five."
Byron shrugged. "I don't know, to be honest. It just kind of happened. I got a big boost from fighting the pirate Captain Jokah."
Her eyes widened even more. "You fought Jokah?"
"Yeah, I actually killed her. Well, we were fighting, and she fell--"
She interrupted him to lean over to her clan members. "Hey, guys, he's the one who killed Jokah!"
Princess gasped and turned in her seat to look at him. "Are you serious?"
3Runner, behind the controls of the transport, just shook his head. "I wish they had Wikipedia out here so I could look that up to verify it."
Byron shrugged. "I'm not trying to prove anything. How long have you been in the game?"
3Runner squinted. "Uh, three years in game-time. Not sure how long that is in the real world."
"What happened to your body outside the game?"
3Runner turned the van around a corner. "Beats me. I didn't really have anybody who'd be looking out for me, so it might still be in m
y living room. But I'm still alive, so my body must be alive. I've seen real players whose bodies died. They just dropped on the spot and disappeared. So I guess I should be grateful for that."
As they drove, the city became less and less glamorous. Over time, it actually became grimy and run-down. Casinos gave way to warehouses and factories. The well-dressed aliens and humans gave way to shuffling bodies in torn and ragged clothes.
"So," Princess asked, "how much do you know about the Necralia Empire?"
Byron held up his hand. "They're the bad guys, right?"
She nodded, brushing back her long hair out of her eyes. "Right. Lady Necralia is the Darth Vader of this place. Some players actually play for her, but we are part of the Resistance movement against her."
"Not that it matters," 3Runner grumbled. "Nobody's gonna beat her. I mean, that's the whole point of Venus Online, isn't it?"
"Not necessarily. If Necralia is beaten, I'm sure they will develop another enemy for the game." Princess shrugged. "And anyway, it's fun. Blowing up an Imperial battleship is very awesome."
They came to a factory where huge gates surrounded it, along with men and women carrying rifles. They all wore a sort of camouflage gear. When the Powerhouse clan floated up to the entrance, the guards opened the gates and waved them through. The clan members got out and headed inside.
Inside the building looked more like an army base than a factory with more soldiers walking and marching around. Most of the people in the building were real players, training alongside non-working industrial machines.
Princess led them to a far room where a tall man smoking a cigar leaned over a battered table with a starmap floating over it.
Princess shook the man's hand. "General Octowar."
Octowar pulled the cigar out of his mouth and pointed at Byron with it. "Who's the scrub with the NPCs?"
Byron glanced at his ladies before he held out his hand to the general. "Byron Jones. I have some information that could save us all."
Octowar ignored the extended hand. "Is that so? Well, let's hear it."
Byron put his hand back down. "I received a message from Accolade. Otis Accolade. He's inside the game with us, and he says he can help us all escape. We traced the signal to the planet Nikor. We want to go there to look for him.
Mine Shaft: A LitRPG Sci-Fi Harem Adventure (Venus Online Book 4) Page 6
