by Dante Steel
“I’m not trying to be fresh,” he said, hurt. He let her go. “It’s just easier to protect you from sneak attacks while holding your hand.”
“Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean to jump down your throat.”
“It’s fine. You’re fine. Just keep an eye out.”
Sudden wind behind Gary was all the warning he had. He sent out a blast to shove everything away from him and Nicoletta, and a vampire was sent flying, pinned against the wall. Nicoletta’s fireball didn’t kill it, not until she engulfed him with fire from head to toe.
“That was intense,” she said, breathing heavy.
“You could say that again. There’s at least one more. Maybe others too.”
He started to move on further into the dungeon. When Nicoletta grabbed his hand, he smiled but didn’t say anything.
By the time they circled back around to the throne room, they had killed four more vampires. They passed the others. In the middle of the ballroom floor was a collection of books and small metal pieces that didn’t seem to belong in this post-apocalyptic world.
“For you to show to our friend Haru,” Elena said, a hint of biting snark to her tone.
“We’re only doing a sweep for vampires right now,” Gary said. “Once you’re done in here, you can check over there. It’s clear.”
“Sounds good,” Olivia said.
On the other side, they found twenty more vampires. The enemies were bastards to kill, and the vampires nearly could break through Gary’s telekinetic powers, but they managed to ash them one and all.
About a minute after the last one was reduced to rubble, white lettering appeared above them.
Congratulations! You are now megaheroes!
Gary glanced at her. “That was delayed.”
“I wonder if they killed the last one,” Nicoletta said.
Together, they raced back down to the throne room. Sure enough, a pile of ashes lay at Elena’s feet. She and Olivia were clutching each other and backing up as a dark swirling mass of black and purple smoke swirled by the throne room. With a sound like terrible thunder, the smoke vanished and in its place was a tall, emaciated scarecrow of a vampire. The darkness of the castle, that aura Gary felt? It all resonated from him. Fear unlike anything Gary had experienced before washed over him.
Wait. No. That shouldn’t be right. That couldn’t be right. His biggest fear was Smaug. No. This was an illusion, a trick. The game was trying to force him to feel scared.
It was working despite him knowing it to be a trick.
“This has to be it,” Elena said. “Kill him and we’ll be superheroes again.”
“We must have this,” Gary said. “Give him everything you’ve got.”
“Be careful,” Nicoletta called.
Olivia darted forward and leapt into the air. She grabbed Elena and zoomed forward.
The vampire boss dude decimated into a hundred bats that swarmed them. Gary tried to control a few of them, but that didn’t work, so he tried to pin them against the wall or floor for Nicoletta to blast with her fire or for Elena to stomp or punch, but they would not heed his control. Finally, all Gary could do was keep the bats away from him and the ladies long enough to keep them from being bitten. Important, yes, but it made him feel frustrated that he couldn’t do more.
Nicoletta zapped the bats with fire, but they were evading her. Even if the flames did touch the bats, they merely flew while covered in flames as if they were entirely fine being on fire.
Elena punched and kicked them, but the bats bounced back. Olivia tried to fling them into the walls, but she wasn’t having any more success than Gary had.
In short, they weren’t doing a damn thing to harm the bats.
Abruptly, the bats all morphed and congealed together again to form the vampire boss dude. He flew at them, literally flying. His teeth were even more hideous than the previous vampires’ and his cape flew out as if wings. He descended on them in a fury of fists and teeth. The clang of his teeth against Elena’s metal arm made Gary race forward. He grabbed the vampire boss dude around his arms by his armpits and clutched behind the vampire’s neck. Elena pummeled the vampire’s stomach, chest, and head. A few teeth came flying out.
Nicoletta pointed, and Olivia floated the teeth in the air. Nicoletta set them ablaze, and Olivia sent them through the vampire’s chest.
“Good idea,” Elena said.
With her fist, she punched through the vampire’s chest. She cracked open his ribs, which made the most terrible of sounds. Gary shuddered but managed to keep ahold of the vampire boss dude.
Then he realized Elena wasn’t doing anything else. Was the vampire dead?
Gary peered over the vampire’s shoulder. All of the girls were looking at the vampire boss dude in horror.
“What is it?” he asked.
“There’s no heart,” Elena said. “I know it sounds gross, but I was going to crush it, but…”
Abruptly, the vampire boss dude jerked in Gary’s arms. That terrible sound from the cracking ribs happened again, and the vampire reforged itself. He gnashed his teeth and let out a wicked sound that might have been a laugh.
“You think can defeat me? The likes of you? You are all beneath me! I will feast on your flesh and gnaw on your bones until the end of time!”
“End this!” Nicoletta said.
She glanced at Elena, who nodded. Nicoletta touched Elena’s fist, transferring fire to it. Gary wasn’t so sure that was the best of ideas, but already, Elena was slamming the fiery fist through the vampire’s skull. She broke his jaw in one swift blow.
“That was impressive,” Gary said.
“Not enough, though,” Olivia said. “Look.”
Already, the jaw was realigning itself.
Nicoletta backed up a step. “This might not be so easy, huh?”
“Got any other ideas?” Elena asked.
Gary grinned. “I do.”
He gripped the vampire boss dude from behind in a tight bear hug. He secured a cable grip with his hands and twisted and dragged it over to the wide opening that Gary and Olivia had flown through, where Smaug had jumped out of.
And Gary did the same. He jumped while holding the vampire boss dude.
Down they tumbled, falling fast and hard. Gary wasn’t using his flying. He couldn’t get his arms to move. They were falling that fast. Originally, he had wanted to try to release the vampire boss dude right before falling onto the mountain rock below, but he wasn’t able to move at all other than his cheeks blubbering from the swift descent.
The only good part about this was that the vampire boss dude wasn’t about move either. He couldn’t shift into his bats.
Shit. Yes, he could, and yes, he was.
The bats all flew above Gary, and Gary, unburdened by the weight of the vampire boss dude, now kicked in his telekinesis so he could fly. He zoomed down and forward, away from the bats and then circled back around. Unsure what else to do, where else to go, he returned to the ladies in the castle.
“A fat lot of good that did,” Nicoletta said.
He grabbed her hand. “You can do a fat lot of good.”
And he jumped, dragging her along. She shrieked as he took flight, and once more, she tried to send fire at the bats. They dodged easily, shrilling, and Gary abruptly pulled up and then dashed back to the castle.
“You didn’t give me a chance,” Nicoletta wailed.
“No. New plan. It might work. It might not. Elena, Olivia, you two have to get out all of the equipment that you scavenged about Smaug. Get it to the base of the mountain as quickly as you can.”
“You two will be able to stall that long?” Olivia asked.
“Yes. Once done, Elena, you guard it. Olivia, you come back. Quick. They’re coming. I don’t want him to hear the plan.”
“Ah, he’s a part of the game,” Elena said.
“Or maybe not,” Gary said bitterly. “We can’t take anything for granted.”
Elena nodded.
&
nbsp; While the two of them got to work, Gary whispered to Nicoletta to attack but not use too much energy.
“We’ll need your real fireworks later. Just be careful.”
“Got it,” Nicoletta said.
The two of them kept the vampire boss dude or the bats, whichever he was at the time, occupied while the others smuggled out the goods. Each trip they took made Gary more and more antsy. Yes, it was great they had gathered so much stuff, but seriously? This needed to end. Gary had almost gotten bitten five times now, and he was ready to end this.
When Olivia returned this time, she was alone, and Gary grinned.
“Let’s get this fire party started,” he said. To Olivia, he muttered, “Make sure none of the bats leave. Not one. Go on. You’re on perimeter duty.”
She nodded. “Check,” she said, and she darted out of there.
It was harder to get a chance to talk to Nicoletta. The vampire boss dude seemed to be holding back some, and Gary didn’t like that idea at all.
Eventually, he got close enough to whisper, “Blow up the joint.”
“Blow… Say, what?”
“Light it up,” he whispered.
“Are you crazy?”
“Light up the night!”
She nodded. This time, instead of aiming for the bats, Nicoletta poured her fire directly at the metal walls. The heat grew intense, and the vampire boss dude turned into its bats again.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Gary said. He stood right beside Nicoletta, keeping the bats away from them but also within the confines of the throne room. If any managed to get around his forcefield, hopefully Olivia would be able to cram them back in.
Finally, that portion of the wall burst into flames, and Nicoletta turned to the other side. The bats began to beat against Gary’s forcefield with more intensity, biting it, slamming their bodies again it, clawing, ripping, tearing. They looked positively rabid, and Gary winced. If one of them attacked, they would destroy whatever was in their path.
The other wall burst into flames. Nicoletta hesitated. “Ceiling or floor?”
“Ceiling,” he said. “If it collapses, the floor will burn too.”
She lifted her fire upward. The heat was so intense by now that Gary’s skin was growing too hot for him to touch. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could withstand the heat. He’d have to get out of the kitchen soon.
The ceiling groaned well before it was on fire, and it began to fall down all around them. The bats shrieked, and they flew around in a panic, congealing into the vampire boss dude once more. Even he no longer seemed as oddly detached and coolly aloof as before. He hissed and attacked the forcefield itself.
And then, he broke through. He reached for Nicoletta, ready to bite her.
Gary slammed down the ceiling beam directly above his head. It knocked the vampire boss dude aside long enough for Gary to grab Nicoletta. They darted out the window, and he flew, resealing the entire burning castle with his forcefield. The vampire boss dude banged against it from all angles, almost acting as if a rubber ball bouncing from one side to the other, but then, the flames engulfed the entire place and crumbled to dust itself.
No way could he have survived that.
It took a long while for the last piece of the castle, the tower, to fall, but then it crashed onto the pile of rubble.
Instantly, the sky above them turned an even brighter color, blue for the first time, and the sun they had saved was rescued.
Even better were the words on the air.
Congratulations, superheroes!
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gary followed Olivia down to where Elena was and helped Nicoletta to her feet before landing himself.
“Well done, superheroes!” he said.
They all hugged and high-fived each other.
Gary grinned. “I’m so changing my handle.”
“Geek,” Elena teased.
“Oh, cool! All kinds of new superhero outfits to try on!” Olivia said.
“I love mine as is,” Nicoletta said.
“Are you sure you don’t want to check it out?” Olivia asked. She was changing through costumes too fast for Gary to even see them all.
“There are some cool ones,” Elena said. “But I think I’ll stick with the silver look.”
“It does suit you,” he said, and she beamed.
In the end, Olivia decided to do with more of a starry night theme but only for a few moments and then reverting back to her original attire. Nicoletta updated her fire tattoos, but that was her only change. Gary had never been into superhero outfits before, so he didn’t bother even looking, something that the ladies teased him about.
Nicoletta and Olivia had to get going, and Gary didn’t blame them. The fight against Smaug and then the vampire boss dude had been intense.
Elena yawned. “I’m beat too.”
“If you want to head back to the room, you can.”
“What about you? And all of this crap we collected? We don’t know what half of it is, but we thought it might be important. Hard to tell. We were in such a rush and—” Another yawn caught her off.
“Don’t worry about this. I’ll get it to Haru. You go on back. I’ll be there soon.”
“I don’t like the idea of leaving you.” She pursed her lips.
“I’ll be fine. I think I can handle myself. I am a superhero after all.”
“Ah, yes, the mighty Dragon—Whoops—Vampire Hunter.” She giggled. “Be careful and don’t be long.”
“I won’t be,” he promised.
He wanted a kiss or at least a hug, but all he got was a tiny wave, and Elena was off.
Gary sighed. He missed her already. Actually, he missed all of them.
Settling into work, he rifled through the items the girls had pulled aside. Some pieces of papers, some notebooks filled with writings he couldn’t begin to make heads or tails of, nothing that screamed electronics. Nothing that suggested this was how he had hacked the game. Then again, Gary had no idea what exactly he should be looking for or what he was looking at.
Twilight descended shortly thereafter, and once night fell, Gary didn’t have to say anything to get Haru Sato to approach.
“You’ve been taking this game over a lot quicker than expected,” Haru said. “You brought back the sun and the vampires are all dead. I’m impressed. You didn’t get around to the vegetation yet, though.”
“I’m not worried about the game,” Gary said. “I’ve brought you a gift. Some items we recovered from Smaug—Samuel August. I thought you might want to take a look through it.”
“Hmm.” Haru walked over with tiny, swift steps. He almost looked like a bird.
The Japanese man rifled through the items one by one, muttering to himself. By the time he finished, he straightened and appeared thoughtful.
“Does any of that help you figure out how he’s hacking the game?” Gary asked hopefully. “Any chance you can put a block out so that he’ll be stopped?”
“I’m quite confident that Samuel August isn’t hacking the game,” Haru said stiffly.
“Oh, yeah? You remember the dragons from the first game? He was a fucking dragon rider. Were the dragons supposed to be okay with that? Didn’t think so. Were the vampires in this game supposed to come out during the daytime? Granted, the daytime was like two hours before we got the sun back, but still. Right? No vampires in the daytime?”
“Yes,” Haru said begrudgingly.
“Well, there were vampires during the day. How many vampires were there supposed to be in total? Because I bet we killed over a thousand. Maybe a lot more. Was that the number you had in mind for the game?”
Haru was silent.
“Was he supposed to have pet bats?” Gary fumed. “Were bats supposed to have sonic waves to de-plane a flier? Try to detach metal arms? Breathe fire? Be invulnerable to telekinesis? Because that’s what his pet bats could do, and I’m willing to bet that’s not how you program things to be. Am I right?”
“We�
�� We’ll look into this.”
“Oh, great. You’ll look into this. Isn’t that just fucking great? You’re not supposed to just run your damn tests and forget about us here in the game, Haru. You have to watch the game, specifically Samuel August, to make sure that the game isn’t being tampered with! What about that security breech you had? That was him making all kinds of hacks to the game right under your noses!”
“I appreciate you bringing all of this to our attention,” Haru said stiffly. “If you don’t mind, I will like to continue to study this for a bit.”
“Go on. Whatever you need.” Gary swallowed hard and inhaled and exhaled a few times. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m under a lot of stress, but I’m sure you are, too. You don’t need me to yell at you all of the time. I’m sorry. I won’t do that again.”
“I appreciate your apology, Gary,” Haru said. “And I apologize, too. I never intended for any of this to happen. Believe me. I am doing all I can to help you. I just wish that things were better.”
“What things? Your tests?”
Haru nodded glumly. “We are… Our hands are tied to some extent. You see, nothing like this has been done before. Honestly, I would like to send an animal through to be used as, well, a Guinea pig. However, if word got out and the animal activists knew, they could destroy us.”
“Because that is so much more devastating than for anyone to learn that actual humans are trapped in your game,” Gary said, somehow managing to keep from yelling.
“I do understand. I sympathize. I want you back, but I want you back intact and whole. We cannot risk trying to send you back, and your mind being mush. Or your body only partially coming out. There are a whole host of things that could go wrong with a transfer of that magnitude, Gary. I hope you understand that.”
“I can understand that.” Gary nodded. “I just want to go home.”
“Believe me. Before the end, you will return home. I promise you.”
As much as Gary didn’t like or even trust Haru, for some reason, that promise hit home. Haru was going to do his best. Gary did believe that.
He held out his hand. Haru hesitated and then shook it.