Miles didn’t let go of Alex until they were safe in the Keep, and the door was barricaded. Inside, Janus stood in the middle of a ring of defeated hackers. He hurried over and asked in a concerned but mildly interested voice, “What happened out there?”
“The Almighty Ginganinja nearly got himself killed,” Miles replied in a sarcastic voice. “His loyal fans,” he gestured to the door, which had begun to shake from repeated attacks, “proved to be crazier than a horde of Beliebers.”
“Hey, where’s the scarecrow guy?” Janus asked, realizing that Croe wasn't with them.
“Lost his shit when someone caught us in a lightning cage and took off after them,” Miles replied. “Must’ve been an old accomplice of his.”
Janus whistled. “That’s a bit of a low move.”
Miles rounded on Alex. “Listen,” he said in a deadly low voice. “You nearly got taken out in that fight. You act like you’ve got everything under control, but when it comes down to it, you don’t. Most of those hackers out there have been playing the game for over a year and they’ve honed their characters to the max and know how to use them. What makes you think you have the slightest chance at beating them?”
“Hey, chill out dude.” Janus said. “You’re being a bit-”
“And furthermore,” Miles continued, oblivious to Janus’ interjection; “What makes you think you can be a leader? No one besides Janus know much more than the fact that you have the hacker’s code grafted onto your character.” He pulled out his sword and leveled it at Alex. “How do we know you aren’t actually a Hacker? How do we know that this isn’t a trap? How do we know anything about you?”
“Enough!”
Miles turned to see Janus with a nocked arrow pointing directly at him.
“I am the only person in this game who knows GN from the real world,” Janus said with an even tone. “He is lazy, introverted, and so socially awkward that the only reason I know him is because my younger brother went to hang out with him because he had a Wii, and I tagged along.”
“Your point?” Miles shot back.
“My point,” Janus said in a low voice, “Is that I know that he has suffered the pain of being bullied too many times to take part in it himself. When he captured you and brought in Bearzerker and Saru, he did it because he felt that he was doing the right thing. And I also know that the reason he came here was not to extract revenge from the hackers for lying to him, it’s because he’s beating himself up inside for helping people bully others. He feels responsible for your pain and is doing what he can to fix it.”
They stood like that for what seemed to be an eternity- swordsman staring down archer. At long last, Miles gave and exasperated “Fine” and lowered his sword. He dropped the bag of explosives and made his way towards the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Janus asked.
“To find out where the hell that scarecrow is, and to take out anyone upstairs,” he replied. “At this point we’ll be lucky to get killed quickly. If I had any common sense I’dve left before this even started. But seeing how I’m already here, I might as well give it a shot. What the hell do I have to lose anyways?”
Janus put the arrow away, and helped Alex back to his feet.
“Thanks for sticking up for me,” Alex said. “I don't get it. Why did he lose it like that?”
Janus cracked the door and tossed two grenades out before slamming it and shoving a poleaxe underneath the door hinge. The ensuing explosions stopped the thumps of weapons against the door and gave them a small respite. “Well Alex,” he said, using his real name since they were alone; “If you really did almost die out there, he was probably scared and taking it out on you.”
“Scared?” Alex scoffed. “How was he scared? He was like a tank out there. What did he have to fear?”
“Apart from having his eardrums wrecked? Unlike you, Miles has no engineering background. If you had fallen, he probably would not have known what to do with the explosives to level the Keep. Speaking of which,” he grabbed a vial of glowing green liquid from the bag; “Where do we put these?”
“On the supports facing the gate. If we do it right, the keep will fall and take the gate and wall with it.” Alex replied. “That still doesn't explain why he was angry. If we failed, we could just try again.”
“Except we wouldn't,” Janus said, attaching the jar to a support with adhesive. “The hackers would know that you mean business and would be ready for you next time. This is our only chance at pulling this off.”
Janus moved to a cabinet filled with books and miscellaneous items. “Help me push this, will you?”
Alex obliged and the two of them managed to move it in front of the door, which had begun to splinter under the resumed attacks.
“One thing you have to understand something about Miles. He's been at this for at least a year now. And in that time, success has been out of our vocabulary since the beginning. This is actually the farthest anyone has ever gotten since the Hackers first unveiled their virus. Why we’ve never gotten this far, I don’t know. They keep the programmers near the base in-case something happened to us, so we rarely if ever go on a raid.”
“Wow, that sucks,” Alex said sympathetically
“Tell me about it. Garrett probably attacked those hackers because he realized we were out of the cave for the first time in ages.”
A pouch of black powder slipped through a hole in the pouch and Janus caught it. “What do you think I should do now?” Alex asked.
Janus tossed the black powder back up to him. “My suggestion would be to apologize to Miles. He has little patience for ineptitude but is quick to accept sincere apologies.”
“Do you think that’ll work?” Alex asked.
Janus nodded. “Just tell him you were wrong and that you should’ve listened to his advice. Once you do that, ask him for his advice. Garrett may be the best all- around fighter, but Miles is easily the best swordsman the Coders have to offer.”
“Except for the fact that you, Miles, and Croe were kicked out of the Coders for coming with me,” Alex added.
“Touché. By the way, how’s my code doing?”
“Your code?” Alex asked in shock. “Sam, when did you swap with your brother?”
“Janus shrugged. “About the same time Miles started yelling. So how’s the code working?”
“Not at all,” Alex sighed. “It copped out on me when we were in the courtyard.”
Janus paused, as if in thought. “Can you try it now? I want to see something.”
Alex obliged, and a brilliant fireball bloomed from his palm.
Janus walked closer, examining it. “You're sure that it was a virus ball in the courtyard?”
“Yeah, just ask M-” Alex stopped in mid- sentence, forgetting that Miles was out of the room and mad at him.”
“I think I might know what’s going on.” Janus said, ignoring Alex's pause. “The code I wrote to cover up the virus worked through proportions. Meaning that as long as the code I wrote is in greater proportion than the virus, it will remain under control. I think that when a virus is near other virus hosts, it links its code with the other viruses to increase its power, which also increases the proportion of virus code to the point where it overcomes my code.”
“Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“You do realize that you could’ve saved your breath and just said it was like Frodo’s sword in Lord of the Rings.”
Sam sighed. “Yeah, I probably could’ve.”
Alex summoned up a fireball once more. “Well, at least we have a way to tell if there's a Hacker;”
He paused in mid-sentence and stared at the fireball in horror. It had begun to sputter chaotically between fireball, and virus form.
“Near us.” Alex finished in a small voice.
At that moment, the ceiling gave an almighty groan, and Miles came crashing through.
@0@0@
Alex and Janus dove out of the way as the mountain man fell at near terminal velocity towards the stone floor. He hit with an almighty crash that rattled the fallen swords and knocked a candlestick off its perch.
Groaning, Miles sat up, one hand clutching his ear, the other groping for his sword, which had fallen out of his grasp when he landed. “Goddammit,” he muttered in pain.
The pain was the least of his worries. Alex looked up to see two hackers pushing a large chest towards the hole with the intent of crushing Miles. Alex ran to where Miles sat and pulled on his shoulders.
“Let’s go!” Alex shouted
“Get off of me!” Miles shouted back. “I can take care of myself.”
Janus’ bow thrummed twice, and a hacker fell from the ceiling, an arrow sticking out of his head like a horn. The other hacker dove for cover.
“Apparently you can’t.” Janus replied. Miles grunted ambiguously and didn’t meet their eyes.
“What did you see up there?” Alex asked.
“I reached the fourth floor just in time for that minotaur to respawn right in front of me. Slammed me through the floor before I knew what was going on.”
“And you survived?” Janus said impressed. “Dude, you’re made out of adamantium.”
“More like the third floor was made of tissue paper. It still took most of my health away. It’s going to take a few minutes or a health potion before I’m back to normal.”
“While we’re waiting,” Alex began, shifting uncomfortably. “There’s-”
Miles roared in pain as an arrow sprouted from his shoulder. He dropped to the floor again, barely being missed by another arrow.
“Sniper!” Janus shouted. He kicked a table over and crouched behind it, bow at the ready.”
“Miles!” Alex said worried. “Are you okay?”
Miles was still yelling in pain. In the background, Alex could hear the whine of the hacker’s virus.
“Ginge!” Janus shouted. “You’ve got to get the arrow out. The tip has the viral aura on it.”
Alex grasped it and pulled. The arrow came out with a wet shhhinnk and Alex tossed it away.”
“Miles! Oh God man, I had no idea! A-are you okay?” Alex stammered.
With lightning speed, Miles grabbed his sword from the ground and sliced it at Alex. He hit him with the flat of the blade, sending Ginganinja sailing sliding across the cobbled floor. Two more arrows were fired, one hitting right where Ginganinja had been mere moments before. The other sliced through Miles’ calf. It didn’t stick, but he roared in pain again.
Miles’ painful cry hit Alex hard. He saw red, and it was not from low health. Here was a guy who had been fighting Hackers for over a year, taking hit after hit, hearing the painful whine over and over again. And yet he was still willing to selflessly push someone else out of the way to take it once more.
It is said that the human body can do extraordinary feats in times of stress. While it was impossible for the developers do implement something quite like that, what Alex pulled off was nothing short of extraordinary.
He snapped his fingers, bringing up a fireball. It still spluttered between virus and fire form, but Alex didn’t care. The hackers had been dishing out the attack for ages. It was high time they got the same treatment.
He threw it at the nearest hacker who had poked his goblin’s head up to see the he had wrought damage. It hit him right between the eyes and he fell over with a squawk. Alex then jumped onto the table Janus had tipped and used it to jump high enough to grab onto the edge of the hole. Hoisting himself up, he barely had time to duck before a knife from the remaining archer swiped at him, nearly taking his head off. Drawing his sword, Alex activated the flame edge powerup. It too spluttered but Alex ignored it.
Recognizing the attack, the hacker’s eyes widened in fear and he desperately backpedaled in an attempt to get away. Alex swiped at him and the hacker somehow managed to bring the knife up in time to block. Alex pressed the attack, swiping and slashing as quickly as he could, intent on dealing as much damage as possible. It was successful and he began landing hits. Sometimes they landed when the fire-edge was active, causing the limb or clothing in question to burn. In other cases, the hacker was hit with the viral aura, causing him to whimper in pain.
“Who- who the hell are you?” he asked in shock.793Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc2BTskZAyW
Alex made a final swipe, knocking his knife out of his hand.
“Me?” Alex said, driving the sword point home. “I’m the Almighty Ginga-Fucking-Ninja.”
@0@0@
If Alex could see the eyes of Sam, he imagined they would be the size of dinner plates.
“That, was, actually pretty scary.” He said in an awed voice. “Remind me not to piss of the Ginganinja.”
Alex thanked him then turned to Miles. The swordsman had managed to stand up and was muttering curses under his breath.
Alex sighed. “It seems I keep ending up apologizing to you. I, I’m sorry for being a complete and utter dick.”
Miles sighed. “I suppose I can accept it. You did after all save my ass yet again.”
“For once, I was unnecessary in a long range fight.” Janus commented.
“I have been told that you were the best swordsman in the Coders.” Alex said.
Miles managed a weak laugh. “Try best straight up swordsman in the whole game.”
“Would you, be willing to, what I mean is,” Alex tried to say.
“Spit it out already!”
“Can you teach me how to fight?” Alex blurted.
Before Miles could respond, the door crashed open and several Hackers tumbled through. Miles redrew his sword as Alex had Ginganinja do the same.
“Got any quick pointers?” Alex whispered furiously.
“Strike hard and fast,” Miles replied. “Protect your head and chest. If you can, slide around their defenses to strike at them. With a curved blade like yours, it should be even easier.”
Suddenly the Hackers were shoved to the side. Master Saru strode in as Bearzerker lumbered behind.
“Christ, they don’t give up!” Alex muttered.
Saru gave them a malicious grin. “It would appear that we have once again caught you three.”
“That was the second time today I died today.” Bearzerker growled. “I did not appreciate that.”
“Nor do I,” a voice growled behind them.
Alex wheeled around to see the Minotaur advancing on them. He raised his sword in anticipation.
“Don’t,” Miles ordered. “If you take him on, you’ll die.” He then addressed the hackers. “You know you can’t win this time, right? This place is decked out with explosives. And the fuse, “he gestured at the fuse that was lying next to his foot, “is right here.”
Saru moved in a blur of speed. Before Alex knew what was going on, the fuse had been snatched from next to Miles’ boot, and into Saru’s tail. “Not anymore it’s not,” He said triumphantly.
“OOHH Burn!” Bearzerker said gleefully.
“Shut up, you sound like an idiot.” Saru ordered.
Alex summoned a fireball. The ball spluttered weakly, staying mostly in the viral form.”
Saru just sighed and moved his tail behind him to protect the fuse. “I see you tried to cover up the code. To get rid of the gift we gave you. Instead, you just made it worse- it’s now going drain your mana to use it.”
“That doesn’t mean that I can’t use it right now to light it on fire.” Alex shot back.
“You could try that, but I’d doubt it would work.” Saru admitted with a sneer. “I’m way too fast. Even if you did manage to hit the fuse, our virus code doesn’t set things on fire. You’d only have a fifty-fifty chance of success. You are such a pathetic excuse for a ninja.”
Angry, Alex increased the size of the fireball. It went from softball size, to as large as a watermelon.
“I see. You refuse to just lie down and die, don’t you?”
He whirled his staff at Alex, who had to hastily duck to avoid it. He looked up just in time to get hit in the face with Saru’s foot. He stumbled back, and barely managed to stay up.
Meanwhile, Miles had engaged the Minotaur. He had lost his sword in the opening strike, but was able to hold his ground and actually overpower the powerful player. He threw him on the ground and began repeatedly punching him over and over.
Janus had dove for the bag and was desperately searching through it. Soon he found what he was looking for and brought out Silent Stealth’s two knives. He flipped one around and tossed it. The knife spun through the air before impaling itself in Bearzerker’s forehead.
“Not again.” He moaned before collapsing to the ground.
Alex got back on his feet. Saru saw this and scowled. “Haven’t you had enough?” he said irritably.
“Not quite.” Alex said with a grin. He sliced at Saru who deflected it with his staff. Before he could counterattack though, Alex followed through with a cut to the legs. Saru managed to block that to, but just barely. Saru then spun the staff around and hit Alex on the head with the other end while dragging his sword out of his hand.
Alex winced in anticipation for the burst of noise, but surprisingly, it didn’t come. Instead, he launched himself at Saru and latched on tight.
The giant monkey stumbled. “What the- get off of me you freak!”
Instead, Alex began bashing Saru with the fireball he still had in his hand. With each hit, Saru became weaker and weaker. The viral aura on his staff flickered out and he began yelling in pain every time Alex hit him. With a jolt, Alex realized why he hadn’t been hit with the noise when Saru hit him. The Hackers must’ve put something in the virus to prevent friendly fire!
With one final blow, Alex burned clear through Saru’s head. The momentum behind the blow kept it going to where it reached his tail hidden behind his head, blasting that to.
Alex pushed off of Saru’s headless corpse and scooped up his sword, yanking it off of the staff and tossing the staff away.
“Alright, who wants some?” Alex yelled defiantly.
The hackers weren’t looking at him. They were instead looking at the fuse that had been in Saru’s tail before Alex destroyed it.
The fuse was lit and it was traveling at a rapid pace towards the first explosive Alex had placed- a very nasty looking firebomb.
“Run!” a runty goblin cried in a surprisingly deep voice. “Get the fuck out of my way!”
The hackers bolted, leaving the three standing in the middle of the few hackers they had managed to kill.
Janus grabbed the knife out of Bearzerker’s corpse. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here!”
They burst out of the shattered door and ran as fast as they could. Outside, the courtyard was in chaos- hackers and NPCs were running around in panic- trying to get away from the Keep. Alex looked to his right to see that the Armory was nothing more than a smoking crater at this point.
Just as they cleared the doorway, the firebomb went off. Fire blasted throughout the Keep, breaking windows and burping through holes.
“That was the first one” Alex said nervously. “It was designed to set off the others.” He turned to Miles. “How long does it take for those to go off?’
“The powder bombs should go off immediately, the rest should be activated and blow up within two minutes.”
“Not much time then.” Janus said. He took off, Miles following as he ran right at the gate that the Keep was primed to fall on.
“Wait!” Alex said franticly.
“What do you mean, wait?” Miles shouted. “We can’t stay here”
“We can’t use the gate either.” Alex replied. “We don’t have enough time before the Keep falls on it.”
“Then we jump the wall.” Miles roared.
“Not without Croe.” Alex said savagely. “We can’t just leave him. I know he’ll just respawn, but still!”
As if on cue, lightning blasted out of the top floor of the keep, demolishing the roof and most of the wall. A figure went flying out and landed ten yards away from them.
“Croe!” Alex shouted as he ran to him. The scarecrow was in bad shape. His robes had massive holes I them and straw was spewing everywhere. Smoke was coming out of every opening indicating he was on fire inside.
“Don’t worry about it.” Croe said when he saw Alex eyeballing the fires. “Just grab my head and scythe. I can always find more straw later.”
“But you’re-” Alex began
“I’m on fire and spewing stuffing everywhere, but for the moment, I’m alright,” Croe assured him. “My character type is an animation. So long as my core is safe, I’m okay.”
“He’s right.” Miles said. He reached down and pulled Croe’s collar back. Alex saw that Croe’s head was in fact just a stuffed burlap bag situated on top of a pile of straw with a string leading down the length of his body. With a quick yank, Miles severed the string and grabbed the head. Janus bent down and grabbed the scythe, sticking it in his bandolier, next to the knives.
“Where’s that scroll you had?” Miles asked Croe’s head.
“Left pocket, next to the smoke bomb.” He replied.
Miles grabbed that as well. He read it off at a fast pace, words almost blurring. He then threw it down, grabbed both Janus and Ginganinja and kicked off.
Alex gulped as a wave of vertigo and nausea blew through his system. “Oh god, I’m going to be sick.”
“Please don’t.” Janus said. “That’s the last thing I need.
“Hey, you guys have it easy.” Croe said indignantly. “I’m tucked under Miles’ arm in an awkward position. Let me tell you man, these next-gen graphics aren’t doing your sweaty pits any favors. You might want to also get your shirt fixed. It’s got a rip in a bad place for me.”
“Shut up,” Miles said. “I need to time this just right.”
Alex opened his eyes to see that Miles’ powerful leg muscles had propelled them all the way to the ledge from which they had first viewed the hacker’s castle. And they were coming towards it at a very high speed. At the last second, Miles straightened out and landed on his feet. He lost his grip on Janus, Ginganinja, and Croe’s head, and they all went rolling.
Alex tumbled left and right for what seemed like an eternity. Finally he hit a tree and came to an almighty stop. Groaning from the nausea, he stood Ginganinja up. “Everyone okay?
“No, I’m not.” Came a voice in the trees. Alex looked up to see Croe’s head wedged in the crook of a branch, twenty feet up in the air. “As it turns out, I bounce really well.”
“I got this.” Janus said dryly, looking up at Croe and nocking and arrow.
“Wait, what are you- don’t you do it you-” Croe yelled as Janus shot the arrow. It grazed Croe’s head and had enough force to push him out of the tree. He fell screaming into the outstretched hand of Miles. “Good to see we all made it.” He said. “I wasn’t sure there for a second.”
“What happened to the castle?” Alex asked.
Janus jogged to the edge and peered down into the valley. “You guys gotta see this.”
They hurried over to stand next to Janus. The castle was a mess. Buildings were on fire and explosions were going off in the Keep. Alex could see that it was teetering dangerously. Finally it leaned too much one way and its fate was sealed.
Small figures scattered and tried to escape from the falling stone. Most were unsuccessful. As it hit the ground, the Keep shattered into millions of pieces, throwing shrapnel everywhere. When it collided with the wall, it collapsed as well. The top two floors ended outside the wall and surprisingly mostly intact.
“Oh come on!” Miles cried indignantly. “What kind of demolition w-w-w-w-w-w-w”
Surprised, Alex tried to look at Miles, but when he turned his head, his virtual head refused to respond. Out of the corner of his eye though, he could see Miles was jittering between two frames.
Suddenly there was a bright light and the world exploded; very slowly. Still unable to turn, Alex got a good look as the massive pile of rubble that was once the keep get blasted up one frame per second. Alex, Miles, Janus, and Croe were treated to a picturesque view of the hated castle slowly disintegrating. Alex wished the game would return to normal so he could take some screenshots of the carnage. It was certainly something worth looking at over and over again.
When the game finally returned to normal time only bits and pieces of the wall remained as well as the parts of the Keep that ended up outside the walls, apparently sheltered from the blast.
“They must’ve been making the explosives in the keep.” Alex said in amazement.
“Holy shit.” Miles breathed in awe. “We, we actually fucking did it!”
“Did what?” Croe asked. “Why did the game nearly crash? I can’t see anything! Miles; get me out of your pit!”
“And you thought we were going to crash and burn.” Alex said playfully, elbowing Miles.
“Yeah, but we did it.” Miles repeated. He turned to Alex. “I'm sorry for ever doubting you GN.”
“Thanks for coming, even though you doubted me.” Alex replied.
“Friends?”
“Friends.”
“Yeah, that’s great and all,” Croe said, “But can someone besides Miles please carry me? I’m tired of looking at his armpit.”
“Sure,” Janus said, pulling Croe from Miles.
“Thanks man,” Croe said. “Hey, didn’t you pick up Silent Stealth’s knives?”
“Yeah, why?” Janus asked, looking down.
The knives weren’t there. They, along with the sheaths had disappeared off of Janus’ bandoliers- right in plain sight of the group. A note had been tucked in with Janus’ normal knife.
Thank you for getting my knives. It was a pleasure working with you.
-SS
@0@0@
Sharpslefae had been watching the group for some time now. Using a telescope she’d bought from Spicy, she could make out most of what was going on. It wasn’t too surprising that they had gotten captured almost immediately. Hadn’t they thought about social media at all? Still, it wasn’t too surprising when they managed to get free and escape. Once they jumped down off the wall, she lost sight of them. When she saw Croe launch up at whoever was attacking from the top of the Keep, once again she figured it was over.
“Typical Croe” she thought. “Always bolting at the first hint that the guy who stole his other scythe is around.”
To her surprise, she saw Miles and the red-haired kid survive and bolt into the Keep as the Armory exploded. She then saw the Hackers break down the door and run in. Suddenly, they poured out and began running away. She lost track of who was where when fire started blasting out of the Keep. All of the sudden, she saw a silhouette against the moon. She looked up and to her horror saw Miles, Janus, and the redhead soaring towards her.
Having seconds to act, she slammed on her helmet of invisibility and rolled away. Hiding behind a tree, she saw their ungraceful landing and inspection of the Hacker Lair. She couldn’t believe her eyes when it all exploded and lagged out the game. The apps that monitored the game’s status she had up in another window began shrieking and warning here that a crash was imminent. Just before it reached the limit of Rune’s servers, things calmed down and the statuses returned to normal.
While Miles shouted in joy, she brought up the messaging system for Rune. Unsurprisingly, Qilin had already messaged here
Qilin1 > Sharpslefae: Game nearly crashed for us. WTF is going on?
Sharpslefae: Qilin, you’re not going to believe this,793Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpUDO2bRjhg
END OF PART ONE
STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER, TWO WEEKS FROM NOW
UNTIL THEN, PEACE!!793Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGJTtWF3GrQ
