“You have fallen into our trap like flies in amber. There is no escape for you.” Saru said mystically.
Bearzerker paced in front of them without fear. He stopped at Miles. “You and I have some unfinished business. Specifically, where's that backstabbing punk of a ginger?”
“Hey asshole! That backstabbing punk is right here!” Alex replied.
Bearzerker swung around, his mouth agape. He looked Alex's character up and down before bursting out laughing.
“That is the shittiest ninja costume I have ever seen! Where'd you get the mask? The dumpster?”
“From the vest Miles dropped.” Alex replied in an attempted comeback. It only made Bearzerker laugh even harder. Some of the other hackers began laughing as well. Bearzerker laughed so hard, he fell out of his chair and crashed to the floor.
Alex's face burned with embarrassment. He'd tried to make a good comeback, but had only made the burn worse.
Master Saru continued where Bearzerker left off. He walked up to Janus and gave a slow smile.
“So, the mechanical man has let one of his pet programers go out for a walk. I will take great pleasure in finding your secrets.”
“What secrets?” Janus said calmly. “I have no secrets. I’m an open book for you to read. Not that you’d be able to read me, of course.”885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaufCRABEMC
Despite the tense situation, Alex and Croe began laughing at Janus’ burn. Miles was struggling to hold back a grin and even several of the Hackers were chuckling at the quip.
“Good one S-Janus” Alex said, catching himself at the last moment.
“Shut up! Shut up! I am tired of you people making fun of me every single goddam time!” Master Saru roared, losing his cool completely, along with his roleplay.
“Then don’t make it so easy” Miles commented. “Seriously; one mention of what you did to Curious Geor-”
Master Saru yelled and swung his staff at Miles. It hit, and he tumbled into Janus, hissing in pain. Being the closest to the edge, Janus had nothing to stop himself. His character gave a yell and he fell off the ledge.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX0PRp1AiKV
“Enough Saru!” a Minotaur snorted. “While your rage may earn you favor with our leader, I will not let you lose control on my wall! Go and make sure he doesn't get away.”
Master Saru peered off the edge before muttering a curse and sulking off.
The Minotaur walked up to the remaining three players. “Drop your weapons. Now.”
“You can't make us do that.” Alex said. “We can just log out.”
The bull gave them a view of his cracked yellow teeth. “Only Hackers log out of this castle. Anyone else will feel the unending pain of our virus. Now I’ll ask again. Drop your weapons.”
Grunting in resignation, Miles threw down his sword. Alex did the same. Only Croe refused to let his scythe go.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW5QrmfrQGf
“Drop the tool kid.” The Minotaur snorted.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGoqfTW81qQ
“No way.” Croe replied. “I've worked too hard just to get this one. I'm not just going to drop it on the ground when some hacker like you asks me to.”
“Give me the scythe kid!” The Minotaur bellowed. To emphasize his authority, the Minotaur activated the hacker's powerup. The red aura began emanating from his hooves and horns. Despite the show of power, Croe stood his ground.
“Not a chance!”
“Give it to me now!” the Minotaur grabbed the scythe and tried to pull it from his grasp.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWOJ1zV8QC2
“Let, go, of, ME!” Croe yelled.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhWG7ZoHA36
Orange flames, much more powerful than the ones in the cave, blasted out of the blade. The Minotaur roared and let go as they reached for him. With the weapon in hand, Croe viciously swiped at the Minotaur. A bit too vicious, perhaps. The scythe went clean through the Minotaur who disintegrated into orange dust. The flames jumped from the scythe and blasted all of the hackers on one side of the group, turning them into dust as well.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY7tHFEwtMR
Croe briefly turned to both Alex and Miles. The stitches that made up his mouth curved into a smile. “I told you it worked!” he said gleefully before turning to the other hackers.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJr1hkZWfl2
Alex and Miles dove for their weapons as Croe faced his opponents. As they moved to face him, Croe flicked his scythe, generating the orange flames and disintegrating the first few rows. A few mages took up formation and began to cast spells of destruction. Croe leapt over the hackers, who all ducked in fear, and would've destroyed the formation, had an Alchemist not transmuted the air around the hackers into an iron hemisphere. As Croe began ripping large gashes in the metal, the remaining hackers moved in for the kill, viral aura surrounding their weapons. They would've been successful had Alex and Miles at that moment not decided to join the fight. Miles went in with large swooping strikes, taking out several hackers in one swipe. Alex conjured fireballs and began lobbing them into the crowd. The remaining Hackers began to flee. As they ran, arrows sprouted from their backs and their characters collapsed. Alex whirled around to see Janus standing on the battlements, having evaded Saru and climbed back up.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXXRjaj3J8U
At this moment, Bearzerker finally came back. He looked around in bewilderment as he realized he was the only remaining hacker on the battlements.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv0c7sFpEbD
“Oh shit!” he yelled, desperately unsheathing his claws and activating the viral aura. Before he could complete it, Croe tossed his scythe. It spun end over end and hit Bearzerker dead in the forehead. He exploded into orange dust and the scythe clattered to the floor.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMIfUWDNQYA
Croe grabbed the scythe and pumped his fist in success.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡezKF3fgZxA
“I still think it's a gardening implement though,” Miles added, incapable of letting Croe get the last word, or gesture in that circumstance.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYcP4e50UTb
@0@0@885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMtVQKSmNJB
The element of surprise gone, the group rushed down the stairs and into the central courtyard. They made a beeline for the armory as hackers threw spears and cast spells in their direction.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrInfc99AYe
“Question.” Croe piped up. “Where do we place the explosives to take this place down?”
“How the hell should I know? I’m not an engineer.” Miles replied, swiping at a bold hacker who had gotten too close for comfort.
Miles and Croe both looked at Janus. Reading their minds, he said “Grenades are for people; not for big castles.”
Alex looked around. As he did, his father’s voice echoed through his mind. “I find that the engineer’s eye that people claim I have is nothing more than being observant of your surroundings, and thinking about what is useful and what is not.”
Alex shook his head and looked around. The castle the hackers had set up base in had long walls completely encircling the area. Houses lined the main road from the gate. They would be of no use. The walls could be blown up, but it would be nothing more than a temporary setback. The Keep however, was clearly important. Furthermore, if it could be destroyed so that if it fell down as one piece, it could take out a large chunk of the wall.
“Janus, can you go and guard the Keep? Don’t let anyone get to it.”
“Hold on,” Janus said. His head drooped for less than a second before snapping back up. “Wow. I leave you guys for fifteen minutes, and this is what you have to show for it.” Garret (or at least, Alex assumed it was Garret) said.
“Why did your brother put you on?” Alex asked exasperatedly.
“Probably because he knows I’m easily the better fighter. So what’s up?”
“We need the Keep clear of hackers.”
Janus nodded. He broke away from the group and ran towards the Keep, while the rest of the group reached the armory. Miles easily swiped through the door hinges, and they were through.
The inside was lined with rows upon rows of weapons. Potions were held in massive glass containers with spouts built into the bottom. In the back, scrolls and tomes littered shelves located next to workbenches with scraps of just about everything strewn on top. There were, however, no explosives.
“Now what?” Miles groaned. “Without the explosives, we can’t pull this off!”
Croe unfolded the map. “According to what Silent Stealth wrote on the map, this room is only made to look like the armory. The real armory should be located right;” he kicked on a bookshelf and it teetered and fell over to reveal a staircase, “here.” Croe finished triumphantly.
Alex conjured a fireball and led the way. The stairway led downwards briefly to reveal a smaller room. Unlike the room above that contained mundane everyday weapons, this room had rare and beautiful weapons from the game. What the three were interested in, however, was what was located in the middle of the room. A table sat in the middle with explosives upon explosives piled on top. Miles grabbed a burlap bag from an adjacent table and began shoving explosives into it.
“Careful!” Alex warned. “What if one of those went off?”
Miles shrugged. “Can’t. Rune requires most explosives to have something activate it before it goes off. A few bumps won’t do that.”
As Miles continued to shove explosives into the bag, Alex looked around the armory. “These are pretty nice weapons.” He mentioned, picking up a staff hanging on the wall. It was a light wood with intricate patterns carved into it. It split at the top and a soft green glow seemed to originate from the runes spiraling to the top.
Miles looked up for a second to see. He did a double take when he saw the staff. “Yeah, they are powerful.” He murmured. “Real powerful.”
“That one you're holding is the only one in the game.” Croe said. He turned to Miles. “Didn't Professor,”
“Just put it down.” Miles snapped. “Let it burn with the rest of this place.”
“Don't you think we should hang on to it?” Alex asked.
Miles shook his head. “It’d only slow us down.”
“Come on,” Alex pleaded. “Do you really want the hackers to keep it? This stuff could be powerful.”
“Not as powerful as the other scythe,” Croe muttered underneath his breath, but neither Miles nor Alex paid attention.
“I'm going to leave some explosives here with a long fuse,” Miles explained. “The blast will wipe out the weapons and reset their quests.”
“There are some we shouldn't leave,” Croe said.”
“And what might those be?” Miles looked up from his work with a look of irritation.”
Croe was holding two daggers. One was pointed with a handguard. The other was a black tanto knife.
“They fit Silent Stealth’s sheaths perfectly,” he said triumphantly. “They're the knives he lost.”
“Bag 'em,” Alex said. He turned to Miles. “You done yet?”
“Just finished,” he replied. He unrolled a long fuse and attached it to one of the explosives still laying on the table. He unrolled it as far as it would go, and quickly made his way up the stairs with Croe following suit. Alex waited until they were out of his sight, before lighting the fuse with a fireball. It lit on the first go and slowly made its way towards the explosives. Alex quickly followed behind Miles and Croe. They exited the building and were faced with several hackers who were lying in wait for them; weapons aglow with viral aura.
“How long does that fuse have?” Alex whispered furiously.
“Less than a minute,” Miles replied.
Suddenly, as if pulled by invisible strings, the hackers stepped back as one. In the sky, thunder rumbled, and the three of them looked up just in time to see dark blue lighting arc down towards them. It crashed to the earth, forming a cage not unlike the one used on Miles.
“You!” Croe shouted.
“Croe, who is that guy?” Alex asked.
Croe didn't answer. Instead, he pulled his scythe from his belt and slashed at the cage. Alex expected him to be instantly killed, but instead, the blade seemed to be protected by an invisible force that kept the lightning from touching the blade. It also had the added bonus of seemingly dissipating the strand into harmless streams of energy that quickly petered off. He repeated the action several times, and ended up with a hole large enough for him to step through. He pulled out a scroll that he apparently had stolen from the armory and chanted a few verses. Then, before the hackers could attack him, he took a giant leap and sailed towards the top of the Keep.
“What the hell is he doing?” Miles said angrily as he watched Croe disappear from sight.
“Um, Miles, I think we have bigger problems on our hand,” Alex said. The hackers encircling the cage had activated their powerups and were preparing to attack.
Miles made an angry sound in the back of his throat, and stood ready to fight. Alex unsheathed his sword as well and activated the flame-edge. To his horror, the flames had once again been replaced by the viral tendrils. “What the hell is going on?” he exclaimed. “I thought Janus fixed this!”
“How should I know?” Miles replied.
“Aren’t you a coder?”
“That’s just the name of the group. I’m a fighter, not a programmer. I use the tools they give me, but I have no idea how any of that shit works.”
As Miles and Alex stepped out of the cage, the hackers moved in, albeit with a bit less confidence as they were going up against their own ability. The first hacker, a paladin, swung at Miles, who blocked easily and threw the unfortunate hacker into the cage. His avatar gave a yelp of pain and jerked twice before burning to a crisp. The next one swung us axe at Miles again, but in doing so, exposed his side to Alex. He darted in and stabbed wildly, hitting the hacker several times, but missing the majority of his shots. It was enough though, and the hacker was taken down.
Miles frowned. “Slow down kid. You’re going to screw up if you don’t.”
“I got this,” Alex replied irritably. He felt his face flush. He could do this. He took down Bearzerker and Saru easily. And they were supposedly some of the toughest players in the game. How hard would it be?
As a hacker took a stab at him with his spear, Alex batted it away. He charged at the hacker, only to be clotheslined by the spear’s shaft. He stumbled, and gave the hacker the opening to stab him in the side. It was a glancing blow, but with the viral aura surrounding the head, it was enough.
A whine burst from Alex’s headphones. He clapped his hands over his ears and bit his lip to muffle his yells. His character fell to its knee, and the edges of his view was flashing red. In the background, he could still hear fighting, but the majority of his hearing was taken up by the ringing in his ears from the attack.
Out of nowhere, the ground began to rumble. Ginganinja was suddenly grasped by the back of his shirt and dragged at a fast pace. Alex looked around to see Miles holding him as he ran towards the Keep. Behind them, fire was spewing out from the windows of the armory. With an almighty roar, the building exploded outwards, taking the surrounding landscape, and the hackers, with it.885Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWPXTzcpAvH
