by Max Jager
"We gonna get the Moderators back for the wall?" Fate asked.
"Yep." Mendelen stated and walked off. He would return to the lobby in twenty minutes with three other Spartans by his side. Two of them were mages, and one was a tech specialist.
"Is this everyone we are bringing?" Fate unsurely asked. "Seems like our attack force is a little small to take them on."
Mendelen nodded. "Yep, this is all we will need." He said and then he gave Fate the coordinates to teleport everyone to.
Fate drew one of the five cards in her hand, the jack of spades, and focused on it. After a moment the group was teleported into a massive dark cave somewhere in the mountains just outside of Belesara city. There was a small, and very simplistic village in here.
Fate and the other Spartans curiously looked around, they had never been here before. But Mendelen knew exactly where to go. He lead the group up an incline to a small house that sat at the top.
"Set up the turrets at the for corners of the house." Mendelen instructed, and the tech expert went off to do just that.
"Is this his home?" Fate questioned.
"Kaden? Yes." Mendelen answered.
Fate nodded and readied her cards, preparing for a fight. But a fight never happened. After the tech expert finished setting up the turrets he returned to Mendelen.
"Alright, now make a dome around the house and the turrets. Make sure there's no holes for people to get in or out." Mendelen instructed as he walked up to the door and attached a note to the front door. The note read:
"Thanks for finding the hole in our anti-magic shield. It has now been fixed. However, for being a dick about it, you can enjoy your new cage.
"P.S. Estellese is pissed, and your guards don't do their job.
P.P.S. The correct grammar for an additional statement after P.S. is P.P.S. Not P.S.S. You did it wrong."
Mendelen stepped away from the house and one of the mages covered the house in a stone dome. Then the second mage covered it in a metal dome, then the first added another stone layer, and they alternated until there was a few layers around the house. Once they were done Mendelen turned back to the tech specialist. "Alright, now add as many anti-magic devices as you can to the dome. Stick them wherever you can to cover the whole area inside of it. But don't activate them yet." He instructed.
The tech specialist did just as he was asked, sticking ten anti-magic devices onto the dome. Once he was done Mendelen instructed the mages to add another couple layers over the anti-magic devices to make them difficult for people outside the dome to remove as well. Then he instructed the tech Spartan to remotely activate them all.
Once they were finished, Mendelen lead the group away from the newly created anti-magic zone. "Alright Fate, bring us home." Mendelen instructed.
"We are not going to fight them?" Fate looked up at him with a confused expression on her face.
"No, not today." Mendelen answered.
"Won't he just teleport out of that?" Fate questioned.
"Nope. He stole one of the Spartan insignias, which is what allows him to use magic in the city. We need to make a new one and ensure he doesn't get it. But for now, those ones are not set to give anyone any clearance. So even with the signia, he can't use magic in there. And his signet ring technically counts as magic." Mendelen replied. "It will be a while before he gets out of there."
"But he will get out?" Fate questioned again.
"Yes, I'm sure he will." Mendelen replied.
"So why don't we just go kill him now? Why let him escape?" Fate seemed to be growing more and more confused the longer the conversation went on.
"It's complicated. Don't worry it's for the best that he stays alive." Mendelen answered.
"If you say so." Fate unsurely replied as she drew another jack of spades and focused on it. After a moment, they were all teleported back to the Spartan Tower and they went back to sleep.
Three weeks passed and Estellese returned from her trip to see Pex in Evean. As she walked into Belesara she looked around and was genuinely impressed by the city. All of the buildings had electricity now, and they were no longer small stone boxes they were starting to look like real modern day homes and buildings. The city was growing so fast now, and it was more fortified than ever before.
"Welcome back Estell." Mendelen greeter her as she walked through the gate.
"Thanks. The city has drastically improved." Estellese commented as she looked around.
"Yeah, our first restaurant opened this morning, it's owned by someone who was an actual chef from the real world. And we have several shops a theater, and other places opening soon." Mendelen replied as he gestured over to the shopping district.
"Really? We should go check out the restaurant then. I haven't had good human food for two years now." Estellese replied.
Mendelen laughed a little. "I was thinking the same thing. Let's go." The two of them headed over to the restaurant and got a table. After a moment Mendelen got a message from Kaden. The message read:
"Hey guys! Did you see this? Zanath made a cool new thingy that lets you send pictures in your virtual keyboard chats! (P.S. Anti-magic barrier doesn't work up here.) -Kaden"
And with the message he sent a selfie from up on the very top of the spartan tower, with a nice view of the city below and the surrounding mountains while wearing his full suit of armor that he almost never was seen without.
Mendelen showed the picture to Estellese and she started to laugh a little. "Well, at least he took a nice picture."
"Yeah, credit where credit is due. But didn't Zanath make those things like, two weeks ago?" Estellese replied.
"Yeah. You've been keeping track of these things?" Mendelen questioned.
"Yep. Even on vacation I was still keeping tabs on the city and how things were going. As its leader I need to." Estellese replied.
"It was a vacation though, your time off, you could've just left it to me to handle." Mendelen replied, then he took out a small, high-tech looking camera. "Regardless, we should send something back." He suggested as he held out the camera to take a picture of himself and Estellese at the table. He sent the picture with the message:
"Yeah, we know. He made them a few weeks ago. As for the anti-magic barrier, there's no need to have it in the air above the tower. -Mendelen"
Estellese smiled a bit for the picture. "He seems to be doing better." She commented.
"Not really, he keeps attacking us at random. Just quick skirmishes that don't last long, there's been a lot less casualties though. The Spartans are training pretty hard to beat him." Mendelen explained, then he got another message from Kaden.
"You and Estellese are out on a date? When did you two become a thing? -Kaden"
"We are not on a date, nor are we a thing. We're just checking out a new restaurant together. You should try it. I'd bet it's been years since you've had good human food too. -Mendelen"
"You're not? Huh, that's surprising. -Kaden"
Estellese tilted her head a little, Kaden didn't send messages much so it was odd for them to have a conversation. "What's he talking about? I can't see your screen too well from here." However, as soon as she finished talking she received a message. "Oh, now he's messaging me?" She seemed confused.. The message read.
"So Mendelen was telling me you two were a thing now and were out on a date? I knew you two would end up together eventually :D -Kaden"
Estellese looked a little angry. "The hell are you telling him? We aren't on a date, nor are we together." She said loudly enough that several people from the nearby tables turned to them.
"What? I didn't say that." Mendelen countered with a confused expression on his face.
"Kaden said you did." Estellese stated as she showed him her message list.
"I did not." Mendelen replied as he brought up his own to show her. "Kaden's screwing with us again."
Estellese sighed and closed her virtual screen again. "Sorry, shoulda seen that one coming."
"It's fine, it
's just Kaden. He really needs to stop this." Mendelen sighed. But then he got another message. This one was a picture of a battlefield, a group of six Spartans were dead and two Moderators were dead alongside them. Following the picture Kaden send another message.
"Hey! The Spartans are getting better, I sent three of my guys against your six and they took down two of my guys this time. They still died though, in a 3v6, you might wanna work on that. -Kaden."
Mendelen looked over the message and sighed again, closing his virtual keyboard and deciding not to respond or read any further messages.
"What's wrong?" Estellese asked.
"He picked off another scouting party." Mendelen grumbled. "We lost six more."
"Oh… Anyone we know personally?" Estellese questioned.
"I don't think so." Mendelen stated. "But still. I don't know how to handle this. We can't kill him, but he can't keep doing this."
"I don't know." Estellese sighed.
"Let's not worry about that now. We'll figure it out later, let's enjoy lunch." Mendelen tried to lighten things up a little, and Estellese nodded. The two of them enjoyed a nice meal and then they headed back to the Spartan tower. However, when they arrived they found Kaden standing right outside the front door, he was surrounded by Spartans who were making some sort of an attempt to fight him, but none of them were able to land any hits due to his use of portals.
As soon as Kaden spotted Mendelen and Estellese he waved to them. "Hey guys! Mind telling them to stop? I tried to walk into the tower and they started trying to stab me. This is very poor customer service I might add."
"Kaden. You are not a customer here, you are the enemy they are training to fight. You're not welcome in the tower." Mendelen stated.
"Fine fine." Kaden stated as he quickly evaded another spear. "But do they need to try stabbing me on sight? I mean really, it's unnecessary. I just wanted to come here and plan our next big battle. Figured I wouldn't surprise you with this one, you'd have time to prepare and stuff since the battles have not been going in your favor." He explained. "So, next Friday good? At noon maybe? That seems like a good time for a big battle between the forces of good and evil and all that." Kaden asked as he pulled out his personal calendar and a tiny pen.
"Kaden, no. We will not have any battles. Go home. You can just portal out of here at any time." Mendelen stated.
"So not Friday? I'm also free on Monday, but no weekends, I can't do weekends. So Monday at 3:00 in the afternoon then?" Kaden asked as he quickly evaded another fireball then scribbled something in the calendar.
"Kaden, NO." Mendelen insisted.
"That's how this whole game works Mendelen. I pretend to be the big bad guy and terrorize everyone, and you get to be the hero who comes in and saves the day. You have to play along, it's the only way this city's going to be successful." Kaden stated.
Mendelen sighed when Kaden wouldn't take no for an answer. "FIne Kaden, fine. Friday at noon." He relented.
"Yay! Alright, I shall see you on the battlefield on Friday then!" Kaden cheerfully replied. He marked the date in his calendar and put it away. The next time he jumped through a portal to evade he didn't reappear on the battlefield. He was gone.
Several of the Spartans and spectating civilians turned to Mendelen and began questioning why he didn't just kill Kaden. Their enemy was right there, and Mendelen let him go, again. Mendelen brushed it off with his usual "It's complicated." answer and quickly went into the tower to get away from the angry people outside.
"Are we really going to fight him on friday?" Estellese asked.
"We have to, he'll attack the city if we don't play his game." Mendelen shook his head and the two of them headed upstairs so he could quickly catch Estellese up on some of the smaller details she missed while she was away.
"No we don't. Just hold the defenses in the city. Or take a sneakier approach and strike his forces down before they attack. Out of everyone here, I should be the last person trying to convince someone to not take a head-on approach to problems." Estellese chided him.
"No, it's not just the battle we need to win. We need to do something about his ego and attitude. It's getting out of hand, you saw one of his pranks at the restaurant." Mendelen spoke up.
"It was a prank, just let it go." Estellese stated.
"He keeps doing them, he won't stop. Every single time he pulls one of these he's attacking my reputation, he's trying to make me look bad in front of everyone." Mendelen stated. "Every time I say something to people, especially in public, he shows up to prove me wrong. Every time." Mendelen stated.
Estellese sighed and shook her head. "Why do you two need to constantly one up each other? Must you all turn everything into a contest of who has a bigger d-"
"We do not." Mendelen interrupted.
"You do. Fate's been keeping me updated. He made a wall, you went make a better wall around his house. He hid your armor on you, you went and turned his armor pink, he attacked the town and destroyed a couple inns, you snuck into his base and destroyed their food storage building. The two of you keep trying to one-up each other, let it go. He wants to play his pranks, just ignore it." Estellese stated.
"He's making me look bad in public, he's going out of his way to make me look bad." Mendelen repeated.
"So? That's exactly what I'm talking about, just ignore him. If you stop trying to one-up him, he'll stop trying to one-up you." Estellese pointed out. "What are you two even competing for?"
"My reputation." Mendelen stated.
"Half the things you do don't do anything to help your reputation. Nobody will know that you painted his armor pink. That's just between you two." Estellese stated.
"I don't know then." Mendelen sighed. "He just irritates me and I need to get back at him."
Estellese rolled her eyes. "So it's an ego thing." She sighed. "Just let it go." She added as they stepped into the records room and Mendelen began to catch her up on everything she missed.
On Friday, Mendelen and the Spartans had their battle against the Moderators, and the Spartans lost pretty heavily. These Moderators, they were a rag-tag group of the strongest and most powerful people in the world. These people, most of which were criminals back in the real world, were were specially selected by Kaden for their capacity to kill. They were people who were used to killing other people, the types of people who could do it easily. As much as Mendelen tried to train his soldiers, only a few of them were on the same skill level as the Moderators. Most of them were too soft, many were struggling to kill another human, and a lot of them just didn't have the same level of skill. Most of the attack force for the Spartans was lost, and only about a quarter of the Moderators in that group fell. Despite the Moderators fighting with a much smaller army.
Mendelen knew he had to do something to keep his soldiers alive. They were not cold-blooded killers like the Moderators were, they needed some advantage to put them on equal footing as the Moderators. He spent a lot of time trying to figure it out.
After the battle was over, Mendelen returned to his room to find it full of balloons and streamers. All of the balloons said "Congratulations!" on them and there was a note on the table. The note read. "That was the best battle yet! You guys took out more Moderators than ever before, congrats! Still lost though, but you're getting there. :D -From your friend, Kaden. 3"
Mendelen sighed and threw both the note and the balloons out of his window on the eighth floor of the tower, then he messaged Fate and a couple other Spartans again and asked them to meet him in the lobby. When Kaden woke up tomorrow, he would awake to find his house underground, with another anti-magic barrier attached to it. Attached to his door, would be two of the congratulations balloons from Mendelen's room, and another note that read:
"Congratulations, you've won another battle in your little game! So can you stop being an asshole and just stop attacking us and let us find this revival alter already? Or, better yet, revive the people you killed? I'll give you some alone time down underground to t
hink about that answer. Plus, since I can't jail you like I do the other Moderators we catch, this can serve as your prison cell.
-Mendelen. 3"
Next Chapter: The Royal Army Joins the Conflict.
Chapter 29: The Royal Army
— Immersion Chapter 29: The Royal Army —
"And that's the report from this morning." Kathryn stated and Katy nodded a little in response. "When we arrived on the scene all of the Spartans were already dead."
Mendelen nodded and sighed. "And I'm assuming the Moderators were gone?"
"No." Kathryn shook her head. "Two were dead, and five still remained on the battlefield." She then tapped the sniper rifle on Katy's back. "We killed four before the last of them fled."