by Simon Archer
“Yomura hired some good people,” Kate remarked, “they work fast.”
“We can only hope that everyone else is as talented at picking subordinates,” Minou added. “I fear for some of our departments.”
“Hey, Nick’s going to do great!” Natasha defended the unspoken culprit Minou was referring to. “You just watch him soar.”
“The fact that you knew exactly who I meant without a clue should tell you something,” Minou argued. “Even Crazy Cane worries me less, and his nickname literally refers to his insanity.”
“He’ll do fine.” Natasha’s confidence drained out her voice. “It’s fine, probably.”
“FrickaFresh, if you could crash the plane for me, that’d be peachy,” I spoke over the comm device. “Preferably on top of the smoking building already destroyed. No need to break anything else in my city.”
“Next one’s going to be an actual challenge, right?” FrickaFresh responded. “My man, give me something hard for once. Make me serve a cake using the plane as a knife. I might break a sweat with that one.”
A shot resounded from a mile or so away, and suddenly the eagle plane was spinning out of control through the air. One of its engines had been reduced to a giant censer paperweight, puking up fumes. As the light of the powerful energy propulsion blinked out of existence, the metal bird spun around in place, falling into the flames of the building still burning. The voices blurred together as they collectively cried out their terror.
“Thank you, Freddie.”
“Don’t mention it, my dude.”
“Do you think that they’re still alive in there?” Natasha’s cloud generated out from underneath her, lifting her up into the air. “That’s an awful lot of fire and smoke. Can they even breathe there?”
“Wishful thinking.” Minou’s form shifted to that of a massive tiger the size of a horse, with the furry shag of a lion. “Just like us, heroes aren’t beholden to the rules of normal human beings.”
“Are we going to kill them ourselves, then?” Kate’s hands and feet shed a light that swelled with a superpowered blaze. “I haven’t killed anyone in a while, and it’s starting to get to me.”
“I’m curious if they’re even worth the trouble, or if we can just let them go.” I rolled up both of my sleeves, activating the techno liquid within to bring up the blade and gun arms. “It looks like Eagle League, but who knows if they sent any top tier--”
Stopping me in my tracks was the condensing of a red cloud above the building, and a bloody rain pouring over the flames of the building and the wreckage to quell the lights. The darkness of the night overtook everything in an abrupt shift, the raining blood working faster than what should be possible.
Stepping out of the destroyed plane came the culprit behind the ruby weather, a witch doctor with a baseball cap and a gnarled staff, Vulturehead, followed by a miniature mech, Zipperking, a chicken man, Falcata, and a Rastafarian minstrel, Shimiji05798. Holy shit, these were beta saints. In fact, they were beta saints I’d beaten at their own games beforehand. But, unlike many other gamer saints I’d crushed, they didn’t lose their sponsors afterward. Got close, though. I definitely shook them. And they were almost all over level forty. Any one of them would be worth the effort to capture with a hundred casualties.
As if that wasn’t enough, one last figure stepped out of the wreckage, breaking all expectations. He wore a silver helmet accented with two wings on the side, a yellow visor in front of his eyes, and a black mask over his mouth and nose. In one hand, he had a bastard sword with an eagle’s wings for a crossguard, and a shield with an eagle emblazoned on it in the other.
I knew exactly who this was, even before seeing the nametag. Of all the gamer saints I’d taken down before, I’d managed to stay completely anonymous throughout, but P0ww0w had gotten the closest to figuring out who I really was. He even put up a good fight to beat me at his favorite game, Gun Chess. A clunky Frankenstein of an FPS and a turn-based strategy game, but it was popular nonetheless, and P0ww0w was damn good at it. I won out in the end but nearly had to reveal myself when he tried to smoke me out in a team battle. And he was the guildmaster of the Egalitarian League.
Sometimes life had a way of rewarding you for doing bad things.
23
“Alright, who the fuck are you people?” Vulturehead, the ‘Voodood,’ swung his staff from side to side to propagate the bloody rain. “That was a heroic-tier ship. You can’t just buy this shit, you know!”
“Do you know how much we paid to get those heroic-tier parts?” Zipperking, the ‘Iron Monarch,’ let loose a bit too much information. “… er, I mean, how much we ground to get those parts? Yeah, that one.”
“Did you keep the receipt?” Natasha drew attention back to the wreckage of the ship. “I hope you didn’t pay a lot of money for that.”
“Natasha, deal with that red eyesore in the sky up there for me, will you?” I asked the cloud girl. “No doubt it’s going to be a pain for us if it stays.”
“Okie dokie!”
Natasha floated upwards towards the cloud, expanding the cloud as she did. Before long, she disappeared, while the cloud shaped itself into a round caricature of a kitty. As the kitty cloud loomed ever slowly towards the mighty blood cloud, it stretched out a round paw to touch the dark weather phenomenon.
“Is that a fucking cat?” Voodood chuckled as he spun his staff over his head. “You realize that this is an animation, right? It’s just flair to make the space around me look cool. Do you think a goddamn cloud is going to…”
The sorcerer hero stopped talking as he saw what was happening in the sky above. Slowly but surely, the kitty had placed both paws on the dark cloud, pulling the fluffy cat closer to it and wrapping itself around the red mass like it was a ball of yarn. As the tail curled around the opposite end and almost met with the kitty’s head, the red rain turned into more of a drizzle, a fact not lost on any of the heroes underneath.
“Vulch, do something!” Iron Monarch slapped the conjurer with one of his metal hands. “We need those AoE heals and debuffs, man!”
“The fuck do you think I’m doing?” Voodood wiggled around with his strange staff, but nothing seemed to happen, the giant cloud kitty simply wrapping more and more around the dark storm. “The stupid game’s not letting me cancel the effect!”
“Why don’t you have any counterspells?” Falcata, playing the tentacle man-chicken Hen Tye-Dye Man, berated the mage alongside the mecha. “Just fucking dispel that shit or something!”
“That was what the blood rain was for, shithead!” Voodood smacked the chicken over the head with his demonic staff. “I didn’t have to waste any room in my spell slots for counterspells and focused completely on passives buffing my magic resistance and AoE range! That bitch shouldn’t be able to even touch my magic resistance to mess with it! And I haven’t even been hit once, so she couldn’t have done anything!”
Before long, the kitty shape had disappeared, and the two clouds meshed into a putty of dark fluffs and light fluffs. The bloody rain stopped entirely, leaving the heroes benefitting from the magic area with only wet clothes stained like a wine mishap. The Voodood could only stand still, clenching his demon-shaped staff as he struggled against my powerful raid boss to regain control over his cloud effect.
“Oh, fuck, this is messed up.” Hen Tye-Dye Man grabbed his head in his talon hands. “How can they counter a heroic item effect like that? Isn’t the cloud just a part of the graphic effects? She’d actually have to hit you to stop the blood rain, right?”
“Doesn’t matter, man.” Shimiji05798, playing the rasta bard Bardy Hard, pulled out a set of bongo drums from his knotted ball of musical instruments. “This shit’s over.”
Right at the moment that the man’s hand hit the top of the drum, the other heroes quickly put their own hands up to their ears. I could only figure that reaction meant that the musical instruments were dangerous to listen to but had no hands to cover my own ears with. Having no way to
protect my girls, either, I could only hope that whatever magical effect wouldn’t be that strong.
Or just let Kate use fiery missiles to poke two gaping holes in the sides of the bongo drums before anyone had noticed. The bottoms were already crumbling away, and the sound from the drums was just noise. Along with that, the giant cluster musical tools, as well as some of Bardy Hard’s clothes, were on fire before anyone had come to realize his impotence.
“Excuse me, what?” Bardy Hard didn’t quite understand the fire damage he was taking for a hot second. “What the shit, bro? What the actual shit? That shouldn’t be happening, right?”
“Are they burning heroic items!?” Hen Tye-Dye’s panic attack continued. “Heroic items don’t have durability! They don’t break! What the hell is even happening right now!?”
As the pack fell off of Bardy Hard’s back, the sound of it smacking the floor jolted the musician hero to come to grips with the flames attacking his outfit. The clothes flying off of the man in a newly invigorated flurry of fear properly separated the group from each other as they avoided the tossed pieces of cloth. It was hysterical to see each of them try to hide their weapons behind their backs to avoid the fire, like they were protecting paper from rain.
So, Kate’s flames could burn ‘heroic-tier’ equipment, huh? The surprise from the gamer saints had me thinking that this wasn’t a regular occurrence. I’d never run into heroic equipment before. The best I got was ‘S’ grade, which I thought was pretty good.
Was heroic above that? Maybe not, if Kate was the Achilles heel to them. Was that because she had leveled up enough? If that was the case, why hadn’t I seen some kind of ability on her character screen that said so? Maybe it had to do with the fact that she was a villain against a hero? Could all of my people damage hero equipment like this? I had to test this out.
I expected this fight to be a lot harder. Honestly, I was feeling a little blue-balled. If my own people could so easily counter the best that they could come up with, then I might have been overestimating heroes from the beginning. All of my plans coming into effect operated on the idea that the heroes would be the biggest obstacle to world domination. Were these jokes the menace to my schemes that I had built them up to me?
“Fucking A, man, I can’t afford to lose my equipment!” Iron Monarch shouted as he dodged flaming clothes. “I got a sponsored raid against Beast Lord in two days! He’ll cream me if I can’t tank his hits!”
“Why the hell did they release a buggy fucking update that lets fire damage burn through heroic items?” Voodood did what he could to keep his body between Bardy’s personal immolation and his precious staff. “This is bullshit!”
“Everyone, calm your tits,” P0ww0w, in his Beowulf-esque persona of Murder King, commanded his fellow heroes. “We only have to kill the guy with the gun and blade hands. He’s their leader. We collect the experience for the reward and just leave. Got it?”
“You are free to die trying,” Minou’s monstrous cat form growled as she stepped in front of me to block their line of sight. “None of you are getting past me.”
“Assuming they don’t survive what I do to them first!” Kate flew up into the air on a jet of flames, spinning herself around into a glowing wheel that crashed down on Bardy Hard’s head, who had just finished relieving himself of his burning attire.
The cracking noise that followed would haunt me for the rest of my living days. In a good way. To commemorate the kick was an update from the game:
Hero Slain!
All the items and assets of Bardy Hard have been transferred to your inventory.
Really? One kick? Shimiji had to be the dumbest player I’d ever seen. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to powerbuild a character with no health to speak of? He was not good enough to keep from getting hit. I’d seen him in action and played against him. I’d seen toddlers dodge better than him.
“OH, FUCK!” Hen Tye-Dye spazzed out, backing away from the death of his comrade even further. “She just fucking killed Shimiji! What the fuck is this quest?!”
He couldn’t continue his panic attacks anymore, as there was a set of teeth sinking into his avian neck, along with a few hundred pounds of Minou’s beastly form ripping and tearing at him. In retaliation, the chicken man tried to release his unnatural, slimy tentacles from his body to grapple with her and her swiping claws. It was only a matter of the poor hero’s perseverance and constant focus that kept Minou from crushing him into pulp.
Giving no one a chance to rest, Kate had already brought her infernal kung fu to the witch doctor, keeping herself in close contact with the mage hero’s hands to prevent him from doing anything fancy with them. Kate met the occasional start of an incantation with a fist to the face, followed by a swear word from the frustrated gamer saint.
“Zip! P0ww0w! Support!” Voodood screamed for the tanks to come save him from Kate’s onslaught of strikes. “Get your hands off your dicks and fucking tank, you dipshits!”
“What if she burns through my defensive upgrades?” Iron Monarch whined. “I can’t tank against her crazy ass fire damage without this armor! I need it!”
“Do you bitch and moan so much when you’re streaming your raids?” Murder King pushed on Iron Monarch’s back with his shield towards Kate and Voodood’s tussle. “If you don’t step in there right now, I’ll PK your ass myself.”
“Please, allow me.”
I blasted Iron Monarch with a few red shots from my gun hand, throwing Iron Monarch back into the rubble. As the dust settled on him, his pristine metal armor had come with a few bowling-ball sized dents. The surprise on his face was similar to my own, though I was much happier about it. I didn’t actually try to attack him that fiercely, just enough to distract him and Murder King enough to close the distance safely.
This was the armor he was so proud of? Had it ever taken a hit before? Horrible. Just horrible.
I struck out at Murder King with my blade hand while the stupor of my barrage still filled the air, but the gamer saint was just quick enough to catch it with his shield. As he went to stab me with his sword, I brought my cannon out to catch the tip of the blade inside, twisting the metal inside to catch it in friction and lock us together.
“Fuck, this is just getting dumber with every second,” Murder King sighed as he strained against my grip. “These devs can’t patch in an expansion without bugs to save their fucking lives. Christ, you better go down easily, dapper terminator fuck.”
“Aw, where’s your fighting spirit?” I taunted him. “Don’t you heroes usually do this for fun? Why would you want to end this so early when we’re just getting started?”
“Unlike you glitchy programs, I actually have a livelihood to worry about.” Murder King couldn’t wrest his shield from the barbs of my sword or his own sword from the barrel of my gun. “We’ve got games to run, sponsorship deals to cash in on, and shit to do. This mission should save on a lot of grinding, but right now, you’re turning this into a real shitshow. Not that you care, fucknard. Why am I talking to an NPC? Just fucking let go of me!”
“If you insist.” I snapped the blade of Murder King’s sword right at the edge of the barrel, simultaneously blasting out against Iron Monarch just before he’d gotten up from his little divet in the rubble. “Whoopsie!”
“Asshole!”
He swung at me with the chipped end of his sword with an accuracy and speed that had been unseen from his compatriots. Thankfully, without the rest of the blade, he didn’t have the range to strike at me. Instead, he missed by a solid couple of inches as I released his shield and separated us.
“Is this a new fucking feature?” Murder King threw the sword handle to the side, hiding behind his shield. “Villains that can break heroic equipment? It’s bullshit.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, hero!” I was heavily enjoying playing with him like this and found myself with a brand new understanding of why villains were so willing to play around with their prey. It was a dangerous indulgenc
e of power over the weak. “Maybe you simply acquired your equipment from a bad dealer. Are you sure that you got quality when you had that metal toothpick commissioned?”
“Don’t get so cocky, you prim and proper shit!” Murder King charged me, throwing his arm around to try to bludgeon me with his shield. “You haven’t seen what I can do!”
“You are absolutely right.” I jabbed my sword straight towards him, blade twisted upward, and watched the blade separate the striking shield right down to its center with his swing. The tip of the sword had properly sunk itself right into his chest, unimpeded by the armor that should protect him. “So what is it that you do?”
“What the fuck…?” P0ww0w coughed up blood. “These coma helms are intense. I can actually feel the tightness in my chest right now. Holy fuck!”
“What about this?” I plunged my blade deeper into his chest. “Does this hurt, too? How about this, then?”
With a few dozen blasts from my gun hand, I shredded his armor to pieces, stripping him of every last piece of metal between him and the open air. First, his chest piece, then the legs, then the arms, and finally the helmet, untill all that remained was tattered cloth and flowing hair. Releasing him from my blade, I retracted both it and the gun back into my suit to return my hands to normal. As he landed on his knees, I grabbed onto the front and back of his head, twisting it all the way around to end the bastard’s miserable time in the game properly:
Hero Slain!
All the items and assets of Murder King have been transferred to your inventory.
Disappointing. All of this preparation, and the heroes weren’t even close to the all-encompassing threat to my regime that I had come to expect. This world was practically mine already.
“AAAAUUUGGGHH!” I heard the girlish scream of the Iron Monarch as he ran as far away from the battlefield as possible. “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”
