by Max Jager
"Um, in Port Redwarren, in the home of one of their guards." Kaden replied. "The guard is off on a, uh, vacation, so he won't be back for a while. They have a TV for us to watch Zane's speech. It'll give us some good intel on what's going on. And probably a few good laughs, I wanna see how he tries to defend himself."
Mendelen sighed and glanced back at the others, before walking through the portal.
Kaden went over and sat on the couch. "Oh! Mind the blood, if that gets on your fancy shoes it'll never come off." He called out as soon as Mendelen walked through the portal.
Mendelen glanced down next to the portal where there was a small pool of blood on the tile floor. He let out a disappointed sigh and followed Kaden to join him on the couch. "You killed the guard who lives here, didn't you?"
"Me? Kill someone?" Kaden looked insulted. "Noooo, of course not. He's just on a vacation, a really long one." He laughed. "I'll revive him later and put him back."
Estellese and Zanath stepped through the portal after him. Estellese sat between Kaden and Mendelen on the couch, and Zanath grabbed a chair from the table and dragged it in for his own seat.
Kaden turned on the television, which just had a few words in big bold print scrolling across the screen over and over. "An important broadcast from King Zane will be played momentarially. Please remain at the television to hear this important message."
"Well, the show didn't start but since I'm so awesome we get front row seats to the before show." Kaden stated, then he opened a big portal in front of the television. Everyone could see through this portal from where they were seated.
"I see you learned a new trick with your portals." Mendelen commented.
Looking through the portal, they were viewing the room from another small portal above everyone. Zane stood in the middle of the large, rectangular room. There was a stage and podium on one side, a walkway going down the center connecting the podium to the door on the far side, stone pillars on either side of the walkway holding the ceiling up, and very small windows that were up high on the walls. It was clear this room was added specifically for Zane to send public messages.
A high-tech camera was set up in the center of the long room, it was pointed at the podium but by the way it moved around at Zane's command it was clear that someone was remotely controlling it. Zane crouched down beside the camera to manually adjust it to where he wanted it pointed before he stood up and opened his virtual keyboard. The holographic screen floating in front of him had a message reading:
"Have you spoken to Arachnia in the last few minutes? -Ashley"
"Yes I have. - Zane"
"So you are aware? -Ashley"
"Yes. But don't do anything to let them know that we know. We have a plan. Just make sure you get a good view. -Zane"
"Yes sir. Good luck. -Ashley"
Zane closed his virtual keyboard and the screen and walked over to the podium. He took a deep breath and adjusted his suit, fixed his tie, ran a hand through his hair to make sure it was neat, and as soon as the green light on the camera turned on he knew he was on the air.
"Hello and good morning to everyone watching this. I am Zane, for those of you who may not know me I am the hero, the world has chosen me to be the one who saves us all and finds us a way out of this game. I reside here, in Port Redwarren, where I lead the Royal Army to try and keep everyone safe until we find a way back to our world." He started.
"The Alphas believe that they are the chosen ones to lead us all, just because they were here first. They abuse their power and advantage over us betas to control us, and they are preventing us from escaping this game. I will not stand for this. They are not unstoppable, don't give in to them, and we can get out of this world and return home! I am the chosen hero, not them." He continued.
"They have recently started spreading propaganda to try and sway you all from following me. It's nothing more then that, propaganda. They realized that we are trying to escape this world, and now they are lashing out to try and prevent us from working together to find an escape. Do not believe the lies they are spreading, we are not the bad guys, we are not the immoral ones." Zane argued.
"Yes, as you may have heard, we are currently using elves as slaves. But we would NEVER promote slavery of any living being. You want to get out of this game right? We need the workforce, and the elves are not living nor sentient beings. They are AI, nothing but ones and zeros. They have no feelings, they are not alive, despite what the Alphas say. The AI don't really feel anything, they aren't real. You have all most likely killed countless AI in other games before, so what is the problem with it now? It's no different, and in this case it is saving our lives." He stated. "This is a critical step in getting everyone out of this game as soon as possible. The longer it takes for us to escape, the more people, REAL people, will die. We are exchanging AI for real human lives, that is not immoral. You want to know what is immoral? Keeping people trapped in this world because you don't want to lose your position of power, like the Alphas are doing." Zane slammed his fist on the podium. "They are trying their hardest to stop any progress we make towards escaping."
"The spartans have turned tyrannical, don't let them strip away all of your rights! And don't let the terroristic Moderators scare you into submission to their crooked rules!" Zane slammed his fist on the podium. "I am the hero of this world! I will protect you and together we can take a stand against the A-"
He was suddenly cut off. It all happened in a flash starting with Zane taking one step back. Zane drew his pistol and a dark figure jumped down from the roof, slamming into the ground. It just barely missed Zane, who fired his pistol right as the thing passed him. The figure hit the ground such force that it sent huge cracks through the stone stage and kicked up a cloud of dust obscuring the view of Zane and the thing that attacked him.
Zane could be seen rolling out from the cloud of smoke on the left. He quickly raised his pistol and took another shot into the cloud. There was a loud metal clang indicating that his bullet was blocked. When the smoke cleared whoever had attacked was gone, but there was a small amount of blood on the ground next to the podium. Zane began walking towards the podium with his pistol in his left hand and one of his rapiers in his right, cautiously looking around the room as he walked. He kept his gun pointed at the podium and his rapier at the ready as he approached, but he didn't get too close. "I know you are there and I can sit here all day." He called out to seemingly nobody.
A deep, irritated growl came from the shadow of the podium, then a man climbed out of the shadow as if it were a hole in the ground. He stared Zane down, silently wondering how Zane had known where he was. His left shoulder was bloody from where the first bullet had grazed him but he was mostly unharmed.
The man stood at 5'10" tall with a muscular and lean body. He wore a black military-style jacket over a black tank-top and faded gray jeans with a pair of black combat boots. He was pale skinned with short, dark brown, almost black hair, shaved close on the sides and left longer and relatively unkempt on top. He wore sleek metal gauntlets on his forearms and didn't seem to have any weapons on him aside from a small knife on his hip. Kaden vaguely recognized the man as someone he had crossed paths with in the past.
Zane watched the man climb out of the shadow and kept his pistol pointed at his head. "And as you can all see, the Alphas have already sent a Moderator to silence me! This is how they deal with anyone who opposes their plans, they kill them. Cut the broadcast for the next ten seconds then bring it back without audio." He called out to the camera, knowing that Ashley would cut the camera before it broadcast him saying that last part.
"I'm not a Moderator." Jackson muttered.
"I know that, but our audience doesn't need to know." Zane stated. "Not like it'll matter once you're dead anyways."
Jackson shook his head and almost laughed. "Heh… Yeah, right."
Zane smirked. It looked like his entire body turned into sand, then that sand started blowing away in the wind. Little by little Za
ne's features began to disappear and what was left where Zane had been standing was someone entirely different. When the dust cleared Zane was gone and replaced with a short blue eyed woman with long silver hair and a very sharp expression on her face. She wore the same clothes Zane had been wearing, and had his weapons. The Alphas immediately recognized her as the woman Zane had been talking with at the cafe.
As soon as Jackson saw that it wasn't really Zane that he was facing, he clenched his fists and teeth and shot the woman one of the most intense death glares she had ever seen.
The woman smirked "Reeeally? You're gonna kill me? Think about this now, we are both in the middle of the room with no real cover to hide behind. What did you bring to this fight? Shiny gloves? And OH! Would you look at that I brought a gun. Looks like you already lost bud." She said as she raised the gun over her head and pointed it up in the air as if to show it off.
Jackson was fuming, his attempt to assassinate Zane had been a complete failure. Zane wasn't even here, he was hiding behind this woman. What a great hero he is. The second the woman's pistol was pointed away from him, Jackson activated his kinetic boots and lunged at her. The push from the kinetic boots made him take off like a bullet and he would close the distance between them in the blink of an eye. But Christie was super-humanly fast without needing enchanted boots, and the second he launched his attack she smirked. She was pissing him off on purpose, knowing the rage would make him fight sloppily. She was even throwing in a little empathy magic to enrage him faster. She had known he would move in as soon as she pointed the gun away from him and that was exactly what she wanted, she was manipulating him and his emotions like a puppet.
As he lunged at her she thrust her rapier at his head, but he was quick to grab the rapier with his gauntlet covered hand and slam his feet into the ground to stop his own lunge before he jumped into the blade. While holding her rapier back so she couldn't attack, he let out an enraged roar as his other hand immediately threw a jab for her stomach. His kinetic gloves enhanced the force of his punches to have bone-shattering strength.
Christie used her superior agility to flip up into the air over his head and dodge his punch. While she was upside down in the air above his head, she reversed gravity in the area and they both began falling upwards towards the ceiling. Christie was already upside down so she landed on her feet, then used Jackson's grip on her rapier against him, yanking the rapier down and slamming him head-first into the concrete ceiling.
Jackson was stunned by the blow and confused by the sudden change in gravity's direction but adapted almost immediately. He kept his grip on her rapier as he kicked Christie's feet out from under her in one fluid and fast movement as he shifted back onto his own feet. But Christie didn't fall over. She flowed with the motion, letting go of her rapier and placing her hands on the ground as she shifted into a backflip and landed back on her feet. She looked up just in time to see her own rapier, in Jackson's hand, being thrust at her head.
Christie quickly sidestepped the blade and raised her gun for a point-blank shot, but before she could pull the trigger Jackson screamed in her face. It startled her, making her flinch and hesitate just enough for his other fist to slam into her chest. With a bone-snapping crack Christie was sent flying backwards and slammed into the wall on the other side of the room. She coughed up a mouthful of blood and ducked just in time for her rapier to strike the wall right above her head. Pushing through the pain she sprang to her feet and looked up to see that Jackson had thrown more than just the rapier. Moving with superhuman speed she tried to sidestep but the knife stabbed into her side and caused her to shout out in pain.
Before she knew it a bow and arrow appeared out of nowhere in Jackson's hands and in an instant he fired the arrow at her. With her lightning fast reflexes she sidestepped the arrow only to see a quiver full of arrows appear on his back. As soon as she had sidestepped the first shot he was already firing another. Christie dove out of the way of the arrows and jumped up at one of the stone pillars, then jumped off it to get higher and flipped upside down. As soon as she was upside down she returned gravity to normal and landed on her feet back on the floor.
Jackson began falling back to the ground but he wasn't falling for the same trick twice, as soon as gravity returned to normal he kicked back on the ceiling and flipped himself rightside up again. As he fell Christie took two shots at him with her pistol, the first was aimed at his chest but he used his free arm and his superhuman reflexes to block the bullet with his gauntlet. The second was clearly going to miss, it was aimed off to the side, but as it went past he realized what she was really aiming at. The bullet struck his bow, her real target, with pinpoint accuracy and splintered the wood. Christie ducked behind the pillar again and out of sight.
Jackson threw the broken remains of the bow aside and ran at the pillar, knowing she was wounded and slowed down by her injury. As he neared the pillar she suddenly popped out from behind it and fired another bullet directly at his forehead. Jackson saw it coming and moved his gauntlet in front of the bullet to block it as he closed the distance on the small woman. But in that moment he moved his arm to block the bullet, his vision of Christie was obscured by his own arm, exactly what she wanted. As soon as she knew his vision was obscured she fired three more times. Being unable to see where she fired the bullets, he couldn't block them. So Jackson quickly sidestepped to his left to dodge them, but as he moved he saw that she hadn't fired the bullets at him. One had been fired above his head, one had been fired to his right, and one had been fired to his left. Had he stayed where he was they would have missed, but by trying to dodge he unknowingly stepped right out in front of the bullet.
The bullet struck him in the chest, causing him to stumble backwards. Christie quickly stepped behind the pillar again. Jackson could hear the click of her ejecting the empty magazine from her pistol followed by it hitting the floor. She was reloading! Using adrenaline to push through the intense pain he activated his kinetic boots and launched himself behind the pillar with her to take advantage of her being unable to shoot at him. He was already halfway through a punch when he landed beside her, only to see that she wasn't there.
It was a trap. Jackson immediately heard three gunshots coming from above. Christie was using her gravity spells to stand on the side of the pillar, up high and out of his reach. She hadn't actually reloaded, she had just ejected the magazine and then put it back in to fire her last few shots at him when he unknowingly rushed in. Jackson attempted to dodge them as quickly as he could. He blocked one that almost hit his forehead with his gauntlet. The second two bullets, he sidestepped with one quick step to his left, although one of them grazed his cheek. Then he jumped back just barely in time to get out of the way as Christie lunged at him from above and stabbed her second rapier down at him, her blade came less than an inch from his head.
The wound on Jackson's chest was slowing him down, that attack was far too close. Jackson knew he needed to end this quickly, he knew he might not be able to evade in time next time. He attempted to kick her but as soon as she knew she missed Christie jumped backwards to gain some distance. Using her superhuman speed she grabbed a new magazine to reload.
Still trying to stop her before she could reload Jackson launched himself at her again, but he wasn't fast enough anymore, she got the magazine into her pistol before he could reach her. Christie quickly moved to the side to get out of his way and stabbed her rapier at his ribs. Jackson landed on his feet and immediately spun around, grabbing her rapier as he moved in to try and punch her again. This time she hopped backwards and pulled her rapier back, the smooth and tapered blade allowing it to slip right out of his metal gauntlets. As soon as it slipped out of his grip she immediately changed directions and lunged at him again, fluidly shifting into another thrust at his head.
Jackson stepped towards her and parried the blow this time, shoving the blade up and out of the way with his gauntlet. As soon as his arm moved to block the blade Christie shot her pistol at th
e shoulder of his blocking arm. He moved his other arm to block and while he was focused on her gun she swept his legs. He was fast but she was much faster, and she was intentionally throwing attacks at him too quickly for him to block them all. Even with his superhuman reflexes and speed, he couldn't match hers. Jackson hit the ground but in an instant he rolled backwards to evade a stab from her rapier, as he rolled she shot at him again but he was on his feet in a crouching position and blocking the bullet just in time.
He just needed to get one more good punch in, then the fight would be over. She may have been faster, but he could hit much harder. He activated his kinetic boots again to launch himself at her, but this time the force of gravity underneath his own feet suddenly became much stronger. Before his feet left the ground he was yanked right back down to his knees and Christie fired another bullet at his head. She had put on a good enough show for the camera, she was done playing around. It was time she finished him off. She knew her gravity spell would make his boots and gauntlets way too heavy for him to lift. Ensuring that there would be no blocking or evading this shot. The fight was over.
As the bullet neared Jackson's head he yanked his hand out of his gauntlet and extended his bare arm in front of the bullet. The bullet hit the bottom of his palm, pierced the bone, and began going down his arm through the bone. But the low caliber bullet wasn't enough to pierce all the way through, it could have, had he held his arm sideways, but going down his arm like this was too much for the bullet to pierce. The bullet was blocked.