by Rae Nantes
“So you wish to end all that the gods had given us,” Ediha said.
“I spit in the face of those devils.” Leo gripped his spear and pointed it at him. “To end all suffering, to take back the freedom of death, we must end all. We must be the omega to this realm.”
Ediha ground out his sword from its sheath. Outside came whistling, flapping flames, a chorus of roars. The world was erupting, explosions of glass and stone blossomed around. “We must find another way,” he said over the noise. “For us, death is not the answer.”
Leo roared, “Then I will make it so!” He pulsed with power, an arc of white electricity flashed across his spear tip, and he dashed at Ediha.
Ediha swung out his shield, his gold aura flashed hot enough to burn away the paint on the walls.
6:8
The war outside had erupted into chaos. Gunfire rattled windows. Shouts and screams and weapons clashing. Spells zipping by, flashes of them over the archbasilica rooftops.
Rika stood frozen. Marcion stood some forty paces away from her, slowly chambering another round. Ka-tink! The empty casing flicked away into the grass. He eased his rifle to aim again and squeezed the trigger.
Rika rolled away, felt the wet grass brush against her neck and the bullet thump beside her, then dove through a nearby window. The shattering glass scraped her skin, slicing clean lines up her arms that stung like fire, flared her adrenaline, and poured blood down her forearms.
Marcion shouted after her. “Don’t even think about logging out, Rika. I’ve disabled it anyway.”
Her eyes grew wide. Her heart was beating out of her chest. For an instant, she checked her player screen and noted that the Logout prompt was missing. She was trapped here until her real body in the real world would need something. Now she was stuck being chased by a madman with a gun.
She went to peek back through the window, but the ledge of it exploded and threw bits of stone and rock over her.
Ka-tink!
“Come now,” Marcion yelled. His voice echoed throughout the archbasilica. “You can’t just run away from fate.” A distant window shattered.
She scurried to hide behind a pillar. “And you can’t just run away from responsibility!”
Marcion snapped a quick laugh. “Responsibility? I am taking responsibility! By tearing down sacrilege against the human spirit!”
Rika dove out, aimed at the one passing blur that was human-shaped, and fired as she rolled to the next pillar. Two gunshots thundered throughout. Glass shattered. She thumped hard against the wall. She peeked to see him chambering another round.
Ka-tink!
“This is genocide!”
“I know," he said. "This was my fault. All of it. I have doomed these people, my people, to life in a simulated purgatory. I will carry these sins alone."
Rika threw a chair out from her cover. Marcion shot at it. She jumped out and shot back. It missed. Marcion tried to chamber another round, but another chair was hurled toward him. He swatted it away just in time to see the butt of Rika’s rifle slashing down at him. He blocked it with his own.
She was driving the gun down on him, staring into him with wild eyes of resolve, every instinct of her body screaming at her to fight. “You made them,” she said through her teeth. “You have to preserve this world. Just take them off the grid!”
“You stupid bitch,” he shot back. “They exist because we benefit from it! If there is no benefit, no way to exploit them, then they wouldn’t have existed in the first place!”
With a burst of strength, Marcion rammed the stock of his rifle into her side. With her off balance, he chambered another round. Ka-tink! He took aim at her while she rolled away, then fired just as she jumped out of another window.
She fell out into a warzone.
6:9
Leo’s spear dug into Ediha’s shield, grinding into it like a welding flame. Ediha slammed it against him, throwing him to the other side of the room. The pope landed on his feet away, then an electric, crackling blue light sparked across his weapon. With a slash, a razor-thin wave of energy ripped across to Ediha, who countered with his own.
The slashes of energy collided with a glitchy squeal. The Sistine Chapel exploded. From the cloud of smoke and rubble, Ediha slammed against him, their weapons crossed against each other, flying out into the street.
They rolled into the fall, then dashed into each other again. Their fight took them through alleys, houses, rooftops. Leo’s power erupted buildings, and Ediha’s swings cut them in half.
Imbued with holy power, the pope flashed against Ediha to thrust his spear hard. It thunked into the shield, piercing it, shattering it in Ediha’s grip.
Ediha countered, but Leo dashed away.
They paused for a moment of rest on a rooftop. The wind pulled at Leo’s robes. Flares of heat rose to them from nearby fires and explosions. The world beneath them rumbled and shook.
Pope Leo was stronger than him, and he knew it. He had seen his power before when they both challenged Mondego, but now the pope had absorbed the black heart, and with it, untold power. Did this mean that the Soul was favoring the pope’s argument?
Ediha gripped his sword, and a holy flame erupted from it. It shone a light gold and blue, blinding, and he swung hard at the pope. A sharp line of magic power ripped through the air with an electric rattle.
Leo swatted it away without effort. It exploded with a metallic roar, then vaporized into a mist of sparks.
6:10
Rika saw the spell. She saw them in the street, just within throwing distance. Ediha was out of breath, worn out from the fight, while the pope stood domineering away from him.
Behind her, a window shattered, and something thumped in the grass.
She swung the rifle around and fired.
There were two gunshots, and the world turned to a blur.
Her arm flared with pain. It was hot, burning, scorching. Something had ripped into her, shredded muscles and ligaments and bone, throwing blood and shattering skin. The rifle thumped into the grass, and her arm dangled beside her.
She looked up to see Marcion writhing in the grass, scarlet pouring from his thigh. The side of his face was shredded by broken glass.
This was the moment she was waiting for. She dug into her pouch, took the heart, and hurled it like a baseball. “Ediha!” she screamed.
Time slowed to a snail’s pace. Both Ediha and the pope spotted it. The pope aimed his spear, it flashed in a dark mist, then lanced out like a laser to the toppling heart.
Then, a blur. A paladin flashed in, shield out, to block the pope’s spell. It was John. The heart arced over them both, then exploded into a red and gold mist.
All froze at the sight. The roar of a gunshot faded into an echo. Rika turned to see Marcion aiming, the barrel of his rifle smoking. On his face, a mad grin.
Never in her life had she wished for the death, the genuine death of another person, of another living person. She wished in all her heart and soul that he would die, that he would suffer, that she would suddenly have the power to grow fangs and claws and devil’s wings to rip into his flesh and peel off his skin and devour all that was within that evil man, and as she sprinted in his direction, as he chambered another round to aim it at her center mass, he fired again.
But the recoil yanked him to the side.
When Marcion recovered, he saw a knife dug into the wood of his gun, and he looked up to see Rika unharmed, frozen in her stride.
Nick stepped out with knives in his hand and in full cowboy regalia. "Howdy."
A laugh emerged from around the corner, behind Marcion. “Some important shit goin' on over there, and ya'll over here playin' fuck-fuck games wit’ each other.” It was Stef, dressed as a musketeer.
Around them, other familiar faces emerged. Valgus, Saito, and even Garrock.
Marcion’s veins were throbbing in his temples. His eyes slid over the motley crew who came to challenge him, then at Ediha and the Pope, and even John who stood
by Ediha’s side. He threw down his rifle in a fit of rage. “Leo!” he bellowed, “Keep them busy, I’ll just do it the hard way.”
The pope thrust his hand to the sky and clicked his fingers. The earth beneath shook violently, an earthquake that toppled them to the grass and threw all around like ragdolls. Houses toppled, towers crumbled, the earth was cracking apart. Marcion stood unaffected and swiped out his screen.
It was blue.
His eyes turned wild. “Goddamnit,” he roared. With a flash, he vanished from the world.
When the quaking ceased, the world turned quiet. The war had eased to a momentary standstill at the sudden geological violence, and the pope had moved further down the street. From his staff, a black wind was sweeping over those players too slow to get up, ripping their armor and clothes and flesh and blood from them, absorbing their essences, turning them to ash.
Rika snapped over to John and spoke between breaths. “He’s gonna break the server.”
“What?” John said. “The hell makes you think that?”
“That’s the whole point of this.”
John glanced at Ediha and noted his resolve.
“He wants the world dead,” she argued. “He feels guilty for making it.” Her eyes were wide with shock, her head shaking at his reluctance. “You gotta logout and see,” she pleaded. “Just in case.”
“I can’t,” he said. With a swing of his hand, his screen appeared. It was blue.
The others did the same. None found the option to logout.
A wave of gripping terror swallowed her like a tsunami of despair. She wanted to burst into tears, she wanted to say something, anything to Ediha in this final moment before he and the world vanished from them forever.
Then, a spark of an idea hit her. She swung out her player screen.
It glowed red.
6:11
SimCorps, the building read.
Rika stood before it, panting. Her legs were sore, her arm still limp and throbbing.
It was late. The streets were busy with the party crowds. Neon signs glowed across her back, throwing her elongated shadow down the street. A nearby club thumped in cadence with its electronic beat, a passing laugh crossed the alley.
The door was ajar, pried open with some kind of tool, the keypad lock smashed to bits. Was she too late?
Rika stepped inside to find it empty. Not a soul around, all home for the night, all gone for the weekend. A building directory told her where to go.
Her heart pounded as she rushed through the lines of cubicles, through the doors of offices, down poorly lit hallways. The noise of music and crowds bled into the place, the glow of neon dance lights poured in through the windows. As she hurried down the stairs to the underbelly of the company, the noise faded to a dull, steady hum.
She found an open door, and blue light poured from it.
It was the server room. A massive coliseum lit only by the dim blue glow of its core - the servers. Around, coolant apparatuses stood like obelisks, tethered to the massive machine in the center. It was nearly the size of a house, locked away beneath a coat of steel and nanofibers. Holoscreen terminals and datapads littered the place.
Someone was standing at the core terminal, frozen, staring back at her.
It was a woman.
6:12
Leo stood before them, readying another spell. Gold and red winds poured into it, forming a whirling mass in the palm of his hand.
“You make me sad, pope.” John stood in front of Ediha, towering over all.
“Oh?” Leo said. “And what is my crime?”
“Heresy of the highest order.”
Leo burst into laughter. “Heresy? There is no longer such a thing. It is no more real than the paladin you claim to be!”
John turned back to Ediha. “Watch carefully, young king. I’ve taught you how to live like a hero, and now you’ll witness what it’s like to die as one.”
Ediha tried to suppress his smile. “Then show me, John the roleplayer.”
John grinned, then charged in. Leo thrust out his hand, and a burst of searing wind erupted from it. It encompassed the street, engulfing all in its wake - except John. He was silhouetted against the light as it dug into him. He roared with power, marched onward, and raised his weapon high.
Glass shattering in reverse. A banshee wail. His claymore bent the light around it, pulsing with power, and he slashed it at Leo. The spells thrashed against one another in a contest of strength. “Now, comrades!” John commanded.
From the rooftops, they dove on him. Stef and Nick dove with spear and sword. Valgus, Saito, and even Garrock came after with their own attacks - fire, wind, and darkness.
All thumped against Leo’s aura, and before any could touch the ground, threads of black erupted from Leo and pierced them through. They grunted and dangled against it, then their bodies began to flake away in ash.
Leo turned back to face John. Through the blur of flashing lights, he realized that it wasn’t John at all - it was Ediha! He was using John’s shield to parry the blast.
He clicked the spell off and threw out a holy shield above him. John smashed against it, slicing it open. John’s laugh was cut short when he erupted into a red mist. In his place, a dozen holy spears vanished from sight.
"Enough," Leo spat. He flung up a dark orb that exploded out in a flash that raced across the city. A shockwave that pulsed into players and soldiers and civilians alike, freezing them in place like pillars of salt, stripping them of substance to fall away to dust.
Ediha flinched. He was unscathed.
Then, silence.
They were alone again. The war had died down to only a few blasts and gunshots, some fires still roared, smoke billowing in spots around Rome, all silent between them.
“Have you heard of nirvana?” asked Leo.
“No.”
Leo rested the tip of his spear in the ground. “In search of the truth of our world, I have read countless books of distant religions and philosophies. One in particular claims that life is a cycle of suffering. A person lives out their lives, suffers throughout, then dies - all to be reborn into a new life.”
“Of suffering,” said Ediha.
“Until,” the pope raised a finger to drive the point, “the cycle is finished. The cycle reaches nirvana. It is a state of neither suffering, nor desire, nor sense of self. This, as they say, is their paradise.”
“And you wish to bring us there by force.”
Leo shrugged with his hands and pursed his lips. “We have time, no one to bother us, why not talk some more? Tell me what you think.”
“I think suffering is a part of life,” Ediha said. “As is sadness or pain. Without those things, happiness would lose its meaning.”
“It’s a bit hard to consider,” Leo said, entertaining the thought.
“It should be our duty to minimize suffering while maximizing happiness. If we boil it down, you’re arguing that nothingness is better than the bad of life, but I argue that the good of life is better than what bad we would have.”
“Except that the bad is so bad that it is unbearable.” The pope’s eyes turned dark.
“You spoke to me of distant religions,” Ediha said. “Then I will speak of distant science.” He rammed his sword into the dirt and rested his hands on the hilt. “There is a thing called entropy - the state of disorder. It is the natural state of all things in life - the state of nothingness, the state of decay, the state of death of stars and men alike. But natural as it is, there is no honor or merit in pursuing entropy - we have both seen Mondego’s lust for destruction - as it is pursuing a state that comes naturally. But it is something noble to pursue the opposite. Preserving order, preserving life is the most difficult of all, and worthy of the highest praise.”
“A blind pursuit of order,” Leo said. “Even if the order, the structure, the state of which were tilted in such a way that it became unjust?”
“It is our charge to ensure it never is.”
; Leo’s eyes flashed dark. “And it never will be!” He raised the spear and slammed it into the ground. Light poured from him. “It is those players, those dreamers, those gods that have enforced their will upon our worlds, upon our minds, upon our fates! There is no option for us to turn to!”
A ring of strange etchings and marks formed around Leo, floating and swirling in a red glow as the spell was cast. The earth rumbled, Ediha struggled to stand against it. Leo was channeling all the power he had absorbed into his spear. A pillar of golden-red light rose from it, lancing the planet toward its core. “This is it, boy! Bear witness to the final sin of man!”
Ediha ripped his sword from the ground and charged in.
6:13
“I’ve come to warn you!” Rika rushed out. “Someone is coming to kill the server!”
Sasha stood silhouetted in front of the holoscreen. The machines idly beeped and blipped around her.
“Stop staring and do something!” Rika snapped. “Some guy named Marcion—”
She froze.
The woman before her stood with wide eyes, not of shock, but of hate. The side of her face was inflamed, thin lines of raised skin like an allergic reaction. Rika felt at the phantom gunshot wound on her arm. She had a rash there. Her heart stopped, and her blood was ice.
“Oh, Rika,” Sasha said, almost with pity. “It was a mistake to come here.”
Rika took one step forward, almost in a daze, then something clicked. A hurricane of rage flared within her, and she pounced over a terminal to attack. Sasha dodged it, drew out a kitchen knife, and slammed it into Rika’s chest.
6:14
The feathers of Ediha’s armor burned away. His cape ripped to shreds against the rushing air. The heat scorched his skin. It was pushing against him as he marched closer, hiding behind his shield. It was glowing red hot, ablating against the force.