by Terra Snover
“Truer words have never come from your mouth.” Drac shrugged. “He needs to die, like, right now.”
“Good work on stating the obvious...” I rolled my eyes at him. But then I realized his words were right on the money. We were still doing damage, if we could do enough at the same time he wouldn't get a chance to heal, being dead. But how could I do enough damage in one hit? I glanced up in thought for a moment; how to do this? A cloud drifted by above me and I smiled. My head snapped back to look at the now standing King then to Drac. “You smash this twit into the portal I’m about to open, understand?”
One of Drac’s eyebrows went up for just a moment, but it quickly went back to his normal nonplussed expression. “We are just going to send him away? He’ll just come back.”
“Drac, just trust me. I got this!” I punched my fist into my open palm.
“Alright.” Drac darted to the King with his insane speed.
I moved after Drac, unable to keep up with him. But I could give Drac some distraction to help out. “Crimson Kid, I don’t know what you did to make yourself heal like that and I really don’t care. You are nothing but a whiny, sexist, little punk.” I smirked at him. Drac came in and roundhoused him closer to me. “I bet the reason you are like this is girls won't even talk to you because you are just so, gods, what’s a good word for how much you suck…” I pondered a moment, “Repugnant. Yeah, repugnant.” His face was, well, crimson with rage, I could see the veins rising in his forehead. I didn’t get to see his face for long because Drac hit him square in the head, sending the King closer to me. Just a bit more and I can portal him. “I would feel bad for you, but you can’t feel bad for something as disgusting, idiotic, and stupid as you when you bring it all on yourself.” I shook my head and turned as if to walk away from him.
“I’LL MAKE YOU EAT THOSE WORDS!” he screamed at the top of his lungs and again rushed in blindly. Apparently, Drac didn’t need to beat him closer. The fool would come to me.
“Sigh, some people never learn…” As soon as I could hear him close by I spun and dropped to a knee. “NOW!” I shouted. Drac came out of nowhere, tripped the King, then uppercut him in the chin, sending him flying into the air. I hoped I was still good at trigonometry because I had to get the portal just right. I opened the portal right where he would have landed. I then jumped into the portal after the King. We emerged high in the sky. Like the highest one could go in AO. I grabbed the King's leg and flapped as hard as I could so we would go faster than normal towards the ground. “What the hell?!” he shouted, beating me with his morningstar. It hurt but I had to keep this speed up. One thing that could do massive damage to anything here in AO was falling damage, or at least I heard. Once, back in my item shop, I heard a story of a max level player taking a fall off a cliff and dying. That was a few years ago now and the King was a huge System exploiter so there was a chance that this wouldn't work but I had to try.
I could see the castle grounds growing ever closer, and my people fighting the Elder Dragon. “Two Birds,” I mumbled as I angled us a bit. A few seconds before I would slam into the ground, I let go of the King and angled my wings so I would go perpendicular to the ground. I heard a boom, and a cry of pain from a dragon from behind me. I flapped as hard as I could so I slowed myself and came to a nice landing. I turned to face where the fight with Crimson Victory was. Emphasis on was, I had used the Crimson King as a missile to finish off the dragon and seemingly the King himself. Only a crater left in their stead. Thaz looked shocked, her eyes were wide on me. “Wow,” she said before turning to help Ral and Tilln finish off the Babopotamus, no Babopotami? What would be the plural for Babopotamus? I shrugged to myself, I made up the word, I can make the plural whatever I wanted. “Wow, indeed,” Amber added, giving me a wave and joining the last bit of battle, whistling for Tundra to follow.
It seemed Drac was okay letting the swarm of badass ladies finish off the rest of the fight, because he sauntered over to me. “Not a bad way to vanquish a dragon, Mother.”
“Thanks, I do what I can.” I pointed at the fight. “What was with the Babopotami?”
“Babopotami?” Drac looked inquisitively at me.
“Good descriptor for those things.” I gestured at the few remaining Babopotami.
“He summoned the chimera monster with a summoning stone.” He put an emphasis on chimera, letting me know I named them wrong. “Simple little charm, but hard to come by. He won't be pulling that trick again, or bringing another dragon.” He looked back to the spot where the dragon had been.
I nodded. “But he will return from the dead just like all heros do.” I sighed. “Put a five hundred thousand gold price on his head if he steps into Empire territory again. I never want to see his idiotic face again.”
“As you wish mother.” he nodded. We watched the battle with the chimera- man, Babopotamus sounded much better- come to a close. I started to move away from the scene so I could clean myself off and get my hair under control, but as soon as I turned to walk to the castle I found myself face to face, well, top of head to face seeing as how short she was, with a furious looking Lily. “Var, we need to talk!”
“Can it wait, I need to-”
“NOW!” Okay, I had once again pissed off a GM, better do what she said. I just nodded and we walked into the castle. Where I was going to have a chat with an angry GM. Oh joy...
Chapter 12
The Broom Closet
I looked around the broom closet, wondering of all the places Lily could have brought me, why here? Especially seeing as there were three of us; before heading into the castle Lily grabbed Thaz and dragged her in here with us. “Soooo, what are we doing here, buddy?” Thaz lifted her eyebrows at Lily.
“I swear to god, Thaz, keep your mouth shut.” Lily turned on GM mode and immediately opened my terminal.
“Woah, Lily, is there any need to be messing around with my code?” I took a small step back.
“Var, I heard you talking out of character in that battle and I can only assume you did something to yourself.” She read over my code faster than I would ever be able to do. “What in the hell is all this?!”
“I don’t know; you are the one looking at the code.” I gave her a bit of sass.
“Don’t get smart, Var.” She frowned and moved the code so I could see it. “This clump right here.”
I looked it over. “Um, it seems to be code.” I rolled my eyes. All I knew was it was the stuff at the top of my code. I had no idea what any of it meant, but I think it had to do with my latest visit to the System Hivemind.
“You made yourself a custom debug room!” She kept scrolling. “Gave yourself higher admin privileges, made yourself a… How in the world? How did you make yourself a PLAYER?!” Lily locked her eyes on mine.
“Um, magic?” I put my hands in front of me and moved my fingers around like I was casting an enchantment.
“Var… I’m not in the mood for sass.” Lily’s brow furrowed.
“I, well, I…” I didn’t know what to do. I liked Lily and trusted her- well, to a point anyway. She was still a GM and GMs had to play the part just as much as Ns do here in AO. But then again, she was Lily. We had been through so much together. She had saved me on my first trip to the System Hivemind, she helped me and Jacky keep the other 2244 from the mountains where we got my dragon. Hell, she told me she loved me. That, and she caught me red-handed. I let out a sigh. “I may have found myself glitching out just a bit.” I gave a weak smile. “You know me, Lily, I do things and they, well, turn out interesting.”
She frowned more than before. “Why don’t you walk me through it.” And I did, I told her everything. Well, I left out the parts where Hell’a and I had sex, and the fact I gave Amber the ability to program, no need for her to know those little nuggets of information. After I finished, Lily just stood there, dumbfounded. Thaz, on the other hand, put her paw into the air, palm out. “Damn girl, way to stick it to the man.” Wait, did she want a high five? “Don’t leave me hanging.” By the
Void, she did. I thought the only person in the entire universe who still did high fives was my Papa. I shook my head a bit and slapped her hand. That high five seemed to be the exact thing Lily needed to pull herself out of her dumbfoundedness. She shook her head and asked. “You and Hell’a are trying to take over the world?”
“Yes.”
“And you have been pulling it off?”
“Uh, maybe? If this denial attack thingy works we could well do it.” I shrugged. “It’s hard to say; I’m kind of just going along with what the people who know this stuff are saying.”
“I, well, I… Ah, you know that could work.” She placed her thumb and forefinger on her chin in a pensive motion that she tended to do when she was thinking hard about something. “No, no, no. We can’t try something like that if we fail. We’ll-” She trailed off.
“Die?” Thaz finished.
“No, worse than that, I could be Archived and the others will be deleted and replaced.”
“That sounds a lot like dying.” Thaz leaned over so she was right in Lily’s face. “Look, this whole thing sounds like a good way to solve all of our problems. If Var takes over the world or whatever and shuts down the System Brain thing, I can leave and you all can do whatever you want in here.” Thaz brought her face so close to Lily's that their noses touched for a moment. “So what are you going to do, Ms. Fussy Britches?”
Lily turned away from us both and pulled at her cheeks. “Argh! You two are going to be the death of me!”
“Lily, would death be so bad as opposed to slavery?” I looked to the ground.
Lily peeked over her shoulder and glanced at me. “Um, yes. Var, I’m not insane. I don’t want to risk everything for the off chance you and your insane girlfriend may be able to temporarily take over Another Online.”
“Risk everything?! We are the playthings for players! Nothing good has or will come from that!”
Thaz eyed me, annoyed. “Um, a player is standing right here; watch what you say.”
“Thaz, I. Ugh, you know what I mean.” I pulled at my hair a bit.
“Var, until recently all I was doing was the thing I love most, making art. I didn’t have all this crap like fighting insane GMs, or trying to figure out how to save a player’s life, or, or…” Lily looked to the ground. “Or get my heart broken.” I felt that last one like a punch to the gut. Lily had confessed her love to me two years ago and I had shot her down. I liked her and all, but the power dynamic between her and I would not have lended itself to a healthy relationship. But that didn’t change the fact I hurt her. “Lily, I… I’m sorry about making your life harder, and any pain I may have caused. But this is bigger than our feelings, or fears. If we can pull this off, we could let everyone live the lives they want, we could free millions of innocent Ns from the hell they have been enduring.” I reached out and grabbed Lily’s hand and pulled her a bit so she was facing me again. “It may be scary, and you are right we may fail, but aren’t the lives of millions worth it?”
Lily glanced at me for a second and then up to the ceiling. “Var, you know exactly how to pull at my heartstrings.” She shook her head. “Sigh, fine, you win. We're going to try to take over the world like a bunch of fools. But if I’m going to be involved in all this, I’m not letting Hell’a of all people be at the wheel, we are going to do things by committee.”
“Hell’a’s fine, she has been nothing but helpf-”
“Var, you are a wonderful person but you may be one of the most daft individuals I have ever met. Hell’a is insane and manipulative.”
“Don't forget spooky,” Thaz added.
“And spooky,” Lily amended.
“What is everyone's problem with Hell’a?” I put my arms up in frustration. “Yeah, she comes on strong, but she’s on my side.”
Thaz turned to me with a motherly look. “Var, Var, Var… Hell’a is on Hell’a’s side. I have not spent a lot of time with her as you have, but I know a manipulative yariman when I see one.”
“I’m sorry, what’s yariman?” What in the world was Thaz saying?
“Uh, it doesn’t translate super well… The closest thing is slut or bitch.”
“Oh, come on, you two.” I glared at them.
“Don't get me wrong, I would, how do you say it? Hit that? But never in a million years trust her.”
“I never thought I would say this but Thaz is right.” Lily looked at Thaz in amazement, like she had just seen a dog do rocket science. She shook her head and looked back at me. “You want my help, those are my conditions.”
I frowned and looked at the door, “Fine. Now, can we get out of here I want to see how bad the damage is to the castle-”
“Then there is the other problem,” Lilly continued as if I hadn't said anything. “The GMs.”
“What about them?”
“They will notice something as big as us trying to take over the world.” She pondered for a moment. “We’ll need to do something big before we do this DoS to keep their attention. Like a big story event or somethin...”
“And what could we do that would be big en-” I started, but without warning a booming voice came from everywhere.
“Evil creatures of the Red Empire, the gods of light and harmony have deemed your presence in this world untenable! So I, Pronoia Hester, Lady of the Sun, have been sent to eradicate you and your ilk from the world and send you back to the hells that you came from!” I sighed. That was right, today was the day that the new expansion dropped. With everything going on it had completely slipped my mind. “You may ready your armies and try to defend yourselves but doing so will gain you nothing! There will be no mercy or reprieve for you, only justice!” The words echoed for a few moments before disappearing into nothing. I glowered at the disembodied voice and rubbed my temples. “This is all I need right now.”
“Oh yeah, the new expansion.” Thaz slid past me, opened the broom closet door and peeked out like she was expecting to find all the new races out in the hallway.
“Thaz, it’s not like Pronoia is going to be standing outside the door.” Lily turned off GM mode and walked into the hallway.
“With things as crazy as they are she may have been.” Thaz followed Lily. “You coming, Var?”
I stood there for a moment, fuming. Everyone was treating me like a child, like I didn’t know what I was doing. Hadn’t I proven myself able? Well, whatever, they could think whatever they wanted of me. I would prove them all wrong. “Yeah, I’m coming.” I moved slowly out behind Thaz and Lily.
Suddenly, something hit me, I knew a way that I could make a big enough splash to get the GMs’ attention so we could do our DoS. I briskly moved down the hallway to the throne room. I brushed past Thaz and Lily. “Var, what is-”
“RENNY!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. Moments later, Renny came skidding around the corner down the hallway. “Yes, my Queen?” he yelped as he ran as quick as he could towards us.
“Bring everyone to the throne room. I have something I need to tell them.”
“Right away, my Queen.” He gave a bow and skittered off.
“Var, what in the world is going on?” Lily inquired.
“I have a way to fix the second problem.” I gave her a sly smile.
We entered the throne room and I took a seat on the throne and leaned back, trying to act cool and collected.
It took a bit, but most of my high ranking people entered the room. Renny also rushed over to me. “These were all I could get, some are still recovering from the battle or not in the castle.”
“It’s fine, you listen to what I have to say and inform them of this meeting later.”
“Yes, my Queen.” He gave another bow and moved into the cluster.
“My friends, I called you all here today so I can inform you that we are going to end this war with the Alliance in one final push! No longer will we jockey for land with the Alliance, we will attack Silveren with a ground attack from Stone Keep. Our navy will attack Opal Crest. And our new Sky Force w
ill attack at the heart of the Alliance, King’s Rest. We will end the Alliance once and for all!” I noticed Lily’s eyes widened. It looked like she wanted to say something, but she stopped herself.
“I’m sorry, my Queen, but we haven’t figured out the airships yet, we will need more time to understand them,” Alexander informed me.
“You have four days to figure it out because in four days we will attack.” I got to my feet. “In four days time, the war with the Alliance will be over! We will destroy them!”
“The ground forces will be ready, my Queen,” Tilln informed me with a bow.
“I will manage,” Alexander also bowed.
“I’ll let my sister Tyn know she needs to get the navy ready.” Now it was Ral’s turn to bow.
“As always, I will be by your side,” Amber spoke.
“The Wild Ones are always ready for a fight.” Thaz smiled and nudged Lily. “Right, Lil?”
“I guess.” Lily avoided looking at anyone.
“Sounds like fun.” Drac gave that impish smile he always gave.
“Now go, we will meet in the war room at sundown!” I shouted to the room. “May the shadow of the Red Empire cover all the lands!”
“For the Empire!” everyone excluding Lily shouted and then dispersed from the room. Lily’s eyes lingered on me for a long moment, then she followed Thaz out of the throne room. I let out a breath and shook my head. Did I actually just do that?! I looked behind me at the enormous stained glass window of me. “What the hell are we doing?” I asked the window Var. No surprise that she didn’t answer.
“Wow, that was impressive!” a little voice, Badger’s voice, shouted from somewhere in the room. “You there do this, and you do that! And then they were like, yes, I’ll do whatever you want!”
“Ugh, I thought you left.” I groaned and leaned back in my seat.
“Nope, hanging around the castle. You know you all leave out a lot of food?”
“I didn’t know that.” I tried to track the source of the voice but was unable to spot the little Fairy.
