by Dante Doom
The Emperor didn't look nearly as confident as he had before as Van continued to describe the way the virus worked. He frowned and glanced at Sang. "Is this true?"
Sang nodded. "You bet it is. See, we got access to your little schematics, so guess what? We figured out exactly how your pods were designed to terminate their hosts and, oddly enough, getting those pods to activate the Clean-Up Protocol is surprisingly easy."
"So you can blow the earth up right now, give the order to activate whatever system you have, or you can save yourself," Van said as he confidently walked right up to the Emperor and seized him hard. The word Grappled hovered above the both of them.
"Are you insane?" the Emperor shouted as it tried to push him off, but Van's increased strength – thanks to the Emperor's buffs – had made it a difficult task to pry him off. "You're in one of those pods, too! You'll die!"
"I'll do anything to make sure humanity is safe!" Van shouted back.
"No! No!" the Emperor screamed as he kicked Van hard in the stomach. The words Grapple Broken flashed in front of Van as he fell backwards. "I did not get this far to die here! Not in this game! Not like this!"
"Why do you speak as such?" asked one of the Draco as it looked at the Emperor. "You speak with fear of death in your voice. There is no dignity in what you say!"
"No dignity!" echoed a few other Draco. They were now all staring at the Emperor as if he were some kind of a freak.
"To hell with you all," the Emperor said. "You have no power over me in this wretched realm."
The Emperor's body began to shift and change as he transformed back into the red dragon that Van had been so familiar with. With a roar, the dragon rushed up to the glass of the ship and crashed through it, flying back toward Oirthear at full speed. The lack of a vacuum suddenly pulling everyone out into space indicated that there was indeed oxygen in space.
"We gotta go!" Sang shouted as she grabbed Van and helped him up.
"Should we kill them?" asked one of the Draco. They were all looking around in complete confusion, unable to figure out what to do.
"They are enemies of the Draco!" shouted a bright yellow Draco as it rushed into the room. "Kill them!"
Lasers began to fire at Van and Sang as they rushed toward the shattered glass.
"Come on, come on!" Sang yelled as a few bright streaks of yellow nailed her in the side of her head. Her health dropped down to 750.
"Crap!" Van yelped as bolts of electricity crashed into him, as well. The pain was intense – far more than just the haptic simulation. They must have activated the lethal biofeedback setting on Van and Sang.
"I can't run!" Sang cried out as the word Stunned floated above her head. Her legs gave out and she crashed onto the ground. "Get out of here, Van! Log out before it's too late!"
"No!" Van yelled as he turned back to retrieve her. "They've got the biofeedback on – you'll die here!"
"Look, you risked your life to save me already!" Sang said as she rolled out of the way of a few more laser bolts. The Draco were beginning to grow more and more disorganized as they fired their shots. They were scrambling for cover, despite the fact that no one was shooting at them, and a few of them were running into the walls and continuing to attempt to run.
"The hell is going on?" Van asked as he rushed up to hoist his fallen ally up. He slung her over his shoulder and then fled toward the broken windows that would lead to freedom.
"I put a scrambling thing in the virus code, meant to mess with controls; I guess it's doing a really good job," Sang said.
"Uhhhh," Van said as he began to walk backwards. He wasn't trying to walk backwards, but no matter what he did, his legs refused to follow his orders. "This might be a problem."
"Oh crap, the virus just switches controls," Sang said. "Try walking backwards instead."
Van shrugged and tried to walk backwards, only to move forward. He took a deep breath and began to run for the exit, rushing as fast as he could. He hoped that his jumping capacity still existed as he reached the edge of the platform. There was no time to take in the beauty of the view as Van leapt with all of his might off of the edge. He found he could still breathe, which was great news, and sure enough, gravity was still functional. Space was programmed to be nothing more than a big empty area with some stars painted into it.
As Van fell toward the planet, he wondered if he was going to survive all of this. Not the fall, of course, but the virus. He was still trapped in his pod on the base, so would he be able to log out as soon as he landed on the ground? Or would he be liquefied in his pod in less than two minutes?
"So, the virus, was it engineered to be based on proximity?"
"Yeah," Sang said. "It's based on the zone only – that way, it doesn't accidentally spread to innocent players. The virus is, uh, pretty strong, though. We don't have the power to deactivate it once it gets going."
"Am I infected?"
"No, there's a signal output from the orb. Once you're out of range, you'll be safe," Sang replied.
They sailed toward the ground at a startling speed and Van let out a sigh of relief. As big and blustery as the Emperor was, he wasn't the main threat now. That ship was the problem. All of the major controls were located inside of that ship and, with all of the workers dead, the final protocol wouldn't be activated. All that was left for them to do was to find the Emperor and finish him off, once and for all. Van still had one biofeedback hijacker in his inventory, too, and no doubt the Emperor would be looking for revenge.
"It's my turn to save us," Sang said as she activated her Ring of Safe Falling. She grabbed onto Van before he smacked into the ground and the two slowly drifted toward the ground. Van glanced around and chuckled.
"What do you know – we're at the starting beach of the game. Ha, this was where we were first attacked by those bandits."
"And I thought I was actually dying," Sang said as she looked around. The crashing waves, the birds squawking, and the sun shining gave the illusion that everything was okay.
"At least I'm safe for the time being," Van said as he checked his log-out status. He wasn't able to leave the game. "Can you figure out some way to get me out?'
Sang shook her head. "I'm afraid not. I learned a lot about those pods, but there's some kind of safeguard on their release system. You aren't getting out of this game until we get to your physical location and bust you out."
"Oh, right, so maybe you should tell Neil where I am," Van said. "I was in some kind of desert – "
"Yeah, your coordinates were hard coded into those pods; I'm sure Neil and O'Hara are in the process of shooting up the place right now."
"Well, hopefully Neil doesn't think that I'm responsible for anything going wrong," Van replied as he looked up to the sky.
"Oh, he thinks you betrayed humanity and got me in trouble, so he'll be extra mad when he sees you next," Sang said. She pointed upwards. "Heads up."
"Here he comes," Van said as he looked at the small silver pod in his hand. He wasn't sure if he had enough power to kill the Emperor, but he was going to try. The game clock was in Sleep Time, at least, so that meant there would be no innocent players around to endanger with the biofeedback system. It was time for the end.
"You fools!" the Emperor screamed as he landed on the ground, causing the entire beach to shake. Waves crashed up high as the shockwave pushed through the water. "Have you any idea what you two have done? The entire game was being run through that ship, and they're all dead!"
"Ha!" Van laughed. "Not so tough now, are you? Try blowing up the world without your precious army of brain slaves!"
"You don't understand," the Emperor growled, his voice quivering with fear. "You didn't just kill the workers… you killed the game itself!"
"How?" Sang asked.
"Do you want to know why our technology is so powerful?" the Emperor asked. "It's because we all work together in perfect sync. Every single programmer aboard that ship was responsible for running the game in real time. Every asp
ect of this universe was operated by them – 10,000 minds trained only to make a simulation as realistic as possible. And now they are all dead."
"Good!" Van shouted back. "They had no problem watching the world burn for their sick cause. I'm glad every last one of your programmers is dead."
"When the game has no more programmers," the Emperor growled, "the Ragnarok Sequence begins. The game self-destructs."
"And how is that our problem?" Sang asked as she took a few steps back and began to wave her hands a little.
"We're all stuck here," the Emperor said. "I cannot leave this game because there is no one left to initiate the exit procedure for me, and I certainly will not allow you all to leave. This game will purge all data and then self destruct. We will be killed in the process."
"Aren't there thousands more Draco in this game?" Sang asked.
"They have all left, as per the final protocol," the Emperor hissed. "And so… I find that we are all in a precarious position."
"You want to make a deal, don't you?" Van asked.
"I am forced to make an offer that we will all find acceptable," the Emperor replied. "Sang's mastery of infiltrating the system would allow for her to eject me from the world. With my logging out, you two will be free to return to your real world before the game obliterates you. With the game gone, we will not be able to affect your planet any longer. You have won, humans. Now reap the rewards and get us the hell out of here."
Sang glanced over at Van, who shot her a concerned look. He leaned over to whisper to her.
"If we let him go, he'll just do this to more planets. Who knows… he might even try to take us out again. He's the Leader; he's the one responsible for bringing this invasion to dozens of planets. We can't just let him walk away."
"Yeah, but if the world is ending, we don't have much of a choice," Sang said. "I'm not sure it's worth trying to fight him."
"We can kill him," Van said. "I know we can, and even if we fail and he manages to kill us, he'll remain trapped here until the game self-destructs. We'll save not only humanity, but the rest of the universe from these guys."
"But we could die," Sang replied.
"How is that any different from any other choice we've made in the last three weeks?" Van asked. "Don't wuss out on me now."
"I'm not wussing out," Sang replied. "I… I just don't want to see you killed, Van. There's no way we can take him alone."
"And so what? We condemn the rest of the galaxy to enslavement and destruction because he's tougher than us?" Van asked. "Screw that. I'm not here to save the world, Sang, I'm here to save the freaking universe."
Sang nodded slowly at the comment. "I'll do whatever you're doing, Van. I'll tell Neil to pull you out ASAP. As soon as they get you out, they'll kick me out."
"Good," Van replied as he grinned fiendishly. "Now gear up!" He waved his hand and a rush of light came over Sang, equipping her with a high level bow and dragon-scale armor.
"Whoa!" Sang said.
"You forgot you gave me developer tools and left me in a pod with eons to learn how to use them!" Van said as he spun around to face the Emperor.
"So you would condemn yourselves to death?" the Emperor replied as he stretched his wings out. "You think that a few wall-hacks and an item creation kit makes you a god? You haven't even begun to see my power!"
"It's your funeral!" Van said. "Even if you manage to kill me, at least I get to die knowing that you'll be killed by your own creation."
"The universe will quake before my might!" the Emperor replied. "I tried to be civil! I tried to be kind, but I will kill you and torture her until she sets me free! You cannot kill a god!"
"I agree that you can't kill a god," Van replied as he flexed his muscles, activating a power-up that he had developed inside of the creation pod. Energy swirled around him as his skin gained a Damage Reduction of 100 points. "But the good news is that I’m not looking at some god – just a weak little lizard hiding inside the skin of a dragon."
The Emperor roared in rage and came flying at Van hard, slashing its claws at him with all of his might. Van tried to dodge out of the way, but was unable to avoid the fierce attack. The slashing pain overwhelmed him for a moment as he watched his health go from 3,000 to 1,800 in a matter of seconds. The damage reduction wasn't working.
"Do you see?" the Emperor screamed as it dug its claws into Van's flesh, causing blood to spray everywhere. "Your power-ups are nothing compared to me!"
"Ahhh!" Van shouted as he tried to get away from the Emperor. Sang snapped a few arrows off, but they merely bounced off of the monster's flesh.
"Now then!" the Emperor shouted as it towered above Van, its right claw raised high in the sky. The blood-soaked claws were glistening in the sunlight, but the dragon refused to bring them down into Van. "Free me of this place! Sang! You can choose now to watch him die or you can set me free and we all get to walk away from this!"
Van checked his character sheet to see if there was anything that he'd be able to do, but much to his dismay, he didn't really have anything useful. Any of the skills he had would help him only in a fair fight. The Emperor was planning on using power that was far beyond anything that Van could reasonably fight against.
There wasn't much that Van had at his disposal in the programming department, either. Even though he could screw with the game code a little, he wouldn't be faster than this gigantic red dragon. It could kill him in an instant if he wasn't careful. But all he had to do was stall for time until Neil and O'Hara pulled him out of the facility.
"Wait!" Van shouted. "Okay, okay, you made your point. Sang, figure out how to log him out."
"Really?" the Emperor and Sang asked at the same time.
"Well, it's not like I'm stronger than you," Van replied. His health bar was slowly beginning to regenerate thanks to his Spirit of the Warrior ability, but it would be a few minutes until he was back to full health. Not that it would help much anyway.
"Very well," the Emperor said as it pressed its claw against Van's throat. "Figure it out or I kill him."
Sang shot a look over at Van with a "what do I do?" expression on her face, and he shrugged. If there was someone who could get them out of this mess with electronic trickery, it was probably her.
"My patience is growing thin," the Emperor said. In the distance, there was a loud rumbling sound, as if thunder were rolling. Van glanced to the right to see that there was a large mass of red clouds which were beginning to form around them. Lightning was streaking across the sky and Van felt a sense of dread well up within him. He wondered how long it would be before the game destroyed itself.
"I'm trying to figure this all out," Sang replied as she waved her hands around some more. "Huh," she said.
"What? What did you find?" the Emperor asked. Despite his fierce demeanor, Van could hear the fear in the monster's voice. It would make sense that this guy would be a tremendous coward, after all, he had been so content to manipulate everyone from behind the scenes… when would he ever have been at risk?
"I found there's some kind of exploitation you've been using to overpower yourself, but since there's not a security team working to keep your code safe… I can turn it off now."
The Emperor lunged at Sang, forgetting about Van. Sang leapt out of the way and dodged his attacks with grace and ease.
"It's too late!" Sang said as the word Dodge repeatedly appeared over her head. Each slash of the Emperor's claws met with nothing but empty air. "I disabled your godlike powers, haha!"
Van was on his feet and was charging with his brand new warhammer. During the surprise attack on Sang, he had hastily summoned one of the better weapons in the game – a hammer known as Dreadbreaker – though it had a terrible price for wielding it. Any player who wielded Dreadbreaker would go back to level 1 for 3 weeks once combat ended… but since the world around him was falling to pieces, Van figured he wouldn't have to worry about the consequences.
"What should I have expected?" the Emperor asked as
his tail flicked towards Van, catching him completely off guard. The force from the tail knocked Van onto his back and the words Injury Sustained Cracked Ribs Regen Disabled appeared above him.
Sang fired a few more arrows at the red dragon, but despite her forceful attack, the arrows just bounced off of the Emperor's skin. And because she was unable to dodge at the same time that she attacked, the Emperor took the opportunity to seize hold of her.
"Ahhh!" Sang shouted as Van watched her health begin to go down rapidly.
"You are a fool, do you know that? To condemn yourself to die when you have already won?" the Emperor taunted her as it turned to face Van. Smoke was pouring from the dragon's nostrils and Van readied himself for the flames that were sure to come toward him. Fortunately, the Dreadbreaker offered a high level of elemental resistance, which would be useful since there was no dodging the flames – given that Van was charging straight at the dragon.
"That's the difference between you and me!" Van yelled as he ignored the torrent of flames washing over him. The burning sensation was intense, but the warhammer in his hands was glowing bright orange and it seemed to be soaking up the majority of the fire. The words 5 damage appeared over Van. A paltry sum, indeed. "You seem to think that the rest of the universe was made to serve you, and I'm just trying to help everyone out as best I can!"
"You will die for nothing!" the Emperor roared as it continued to squeeze away at Sang. The ranger had little chance of breaking free from the monster's grip, and her health was almost down to half at this point.
"I will die for the good of all races!" Van shouted as he leapt up and swung his warhammer hard at the dragon's jaw. The blow connected to its face and the words Dreadbreaker has been awoken appeared over Van's weapon. The hammer ignited with purple fire and Van watched the dragon Emperor's health bar appear as he took some damage. The bar had been at 6,000 points, but Dreadbreaker had dropped him down to 5,200.
The force of the blow had been enough to knock the Emperor back, and Sang was swift enough to take advantage of the distraction and break free of the grasp. She fell to the ground and began firing arrows at the monster quickly. Arrow after arrow flew into the Emperor's belly, but only one sank into his stomach. 100 damage floated above the dragon's head.
