In the background I heard the monster whine with pain as Stefanie yelled out a cry and advanced on the beast.
It was then that it was clear to me. If there was one thing that I wanted the most in the world, it was to be able to fix Xander. And so that’s exactly what I needed to do.
Taking a deep breath, I felt a tickling deep within myself. It was almost imperceptible, but present nonetheless – and I called on it, harvested it, grew it into something substantial, something that I could use.
“Lily,” the stranger voiced, “you need to let go.”
Let go. I needed to let go.
Removing the barrier between reality and emotion, I opened up my mind and listened to Xander’s dying thoughts. My consciousness washed over 3’s mind, the man whose name and story I’d just discovered and along with Stefanie and Victor’s thoughts, I located the seemingly infinite source of energy that would facilitate my intentions.
Leaning into Xander’s ear, I whispered my healing words. I kissed him on the forehead and sat as the energy around me was transferred into Xander.
Silence. Waiting. A feeling as if I was being drained.
Then the blood flow slowed then stopped altogether. The small scratches on Xander’s face turned into scabs, then into scars and then into nothing at all as if they had never existed. Xander’s chest did likewise and knitted itself back together.
I sat and waited, tears streaming down my face. It was irrational, illogical but that was the definition of feeling.
Xander coughed, his body stirring. Xander coughed again and I began to gently shake him. His eyes fluttered open and for the first time, I realised how green they were.
“You’re alive!” I called to him but he didn’t seem to register anything that I’d said. He tiredly rubbed his eyes, flexed his chest and looked around.
He jumped back.
“What happened? Where’s the wolf? I need to-“ he began to ramble.
“Xander, the wolf attacked you and nearly killed you,” 3 spoke in a serious tone. “Lily here saved your life.”
Xander looked at me with a look I’d never seen before. “Ththank you,” was all he said.
A roar erupted from somewhere nearby and everybody jumped to their feet, looking for the source.
“Stefanie,” Xander said in an undertone.
Rising himself into the air, he shot himself in the direction of the noise. Likewise, I did the same – flying over to Stefanie. 3 just vanished and reading his thoughts I knew he was also heading over to help.
When I got there, it was absolute carnage. Stefanie had several slashes on her arms and a cut on her cheek. The wolf was missing chunks of singed fur and was attempting to escape.
“Stefanie! STOP!” I yelled out. She didn’t know who the wolf was. “The wolf is Victor! It’s Victor,” I yelled out continuously.
Stefanie went still. In the lapse of concentration, Victor’s wolf-form darted in-between the trees but as Xander touched down, I realised the fight had just begun.
Driven by a sense of revenge and also by the energy reserves of 3, Xander pulled the beast back into the small clearing and flung him into one of the glass trees. The tree shattered and Xander levitated the glass shards
momentarily, before driving them into the wolf’s torso. There was a moan of pain from the wolf that sounded all too human and Stefanie stepped in front of Xander and attempted to stop him – “This isn’t what you want!” she said.
As if coming out of a trance, Xander blinked twice and then registered what he was doing. He paused for a moment, pinning the wolf into place.
“Fine,” he said.
Lifting the wolf high up into the air, he whirled it around and then sent if flying above the trees’ uppermost branches. In our minds, we all heard Xander’s warning ‘Don’t come
back.’
In the distance there was a faint crash as Victor hit the ground and Stefanie let out a sob. 3 patted her shoulder.
There was a momentary silence.
And then a ball of fire erupted behind Xander, flaring up before disappearing. Everybody spun around, alert and waiting. The residual smoke subsided and as this happened, B3ast materialised, stepping forward almost dramatically.
“Grace has a new wand, an army and a hell of an agenda. She’s on her way here, now – and she’s going to kill you all.”
19
XANDER
* * * INTERVIEWER: “So at this point, did you think you were going to die?” Eva Silvers’ face was solemn.
ME: “No. Never at one point in a game that relied on killing others to win, did I think I was going to die…” I let the sarcasm register.
She emitted a fake laugh and then shot me a look that was clearly intending to remind me that I had organised this interview.
INTERVIEWER: “Of course, of course. But tell me how you were feeling when this was happening. Better yet, we have some footage taken from the lab – would you like to watch it?”
I closed my eyes, already knowing what was going to happen. I didn’t need to see this.
* * *
As Lily healed me, I felt a warmth spread throughout my body. As I discovered the wolf was Victor, the lingering warmth turned into a tangible heat and I’d used that feeling to throw him through the air. As B3ast told us that Grace had come back, that she had a new wand and somehow had an army, that heat became an inferno and I wanted to kill her. Right now.
“Xander, please,” Stefanie pleaded. “She’ll come to us, we know that. It’ll make it easier for us to prepare this way. You know this.”
I shook my head. The time for waiting was over. Venting my frustration, I pointed at B3ast with conviction. “Why did she let youcome here? Are you working for her?”
B3ast jumped back as if he had been stung and I realised that I’d subconsciously used my power. I was not sorry.
“Grace,” B3ast began condescendingly, “enslaved me to do her dirty work and forced me to use both my hacking knowledge and my powers, to create an army and wand for her. I escaped at the first chance I got.”
I reached out with my mind to B3ast and then felt him mentally attack me. He wasn’t going to let me in again.
“Don’t make me do anything I’m going to regret,” was all he said.
‘Xander, he’s lying.’ I heard Lily’s voice in my head.
She’d already updated me on everything that had gone on, flooding me with images, words and feelings about what had happened since she had gotten here.
I felt bad for doubting her and I knew that she had been my strongest ally from the start.
What do you mean?
‘I mean,’ Lily replied ‘that he promisedGrace that he’d
come here on her terms and deliver the message.’
I tensed up.
‘But,’ Lily continued, ‘he planned on ditching her and
integrating himself with us. He likes us more, well he likes
everyone but you more.’
Typical. So can we trust him?
‘Probably not,’ was Lily’s response. ‘But,’ she added on
afterwards, ‘we could probably use his help to defend
ourselves. If he tries to do something, 3 will be more than
willing to facilitate his destruction.’
I blinked. It was logical and sneaky at the same time. B3ast did intend on fighting with us but also intended on taking us out during the process. By making him think that we trusted him, we could use him until he decided he wanted to die, by betraying us.
“How did you do it?” I asked B3ast. “How did you manage to gather an army and get a new wand for Grace?”
When I saw Lily’s image of Grace’s wand being singed by Stefanie, I felt immensely satisfied. B3ast may have just been the messenger, but when I heard that he was responsible for getting Grace a new one, I wanted to shoot him.
B3ast began to explain. “I used my computer, to hack the system, like I did when-“
“YOU!! IT WAS YOU!” Lil
y jumped forward, scrabbling to get at B3ast. Stefanie and I both had to hold her back.
“Lily!” Stefanie called out. “Lily! STOP IT!”
Seething with anger, Lily became still.
“B3ast. Was. The. One. Responsible. For. Trapping. Us.”
“What?!” Stefanie and I both exclaimed in sync.
B3ast flushed red and seemed to be contemplating running away.
“I don’t think you’re going anywhere,” I spat. “Tell me what you’ve done.”
“W-well, the first time I used my computer to hack the system,” B3ast looked terrified, “I found out I could give myself powers and while I was experimenting I thought… I thought…”
“WHAT DID YOU THINK?” My voice came out at maximum volume. I was sick of dealing with this. The temptation to kill him right now was mounting by the second.
“I thought that because I could control the game, I could kill everyone and then never have to leave,” his eyes became watery. “You don’t understand how cruel people are to me. Here, when I found out I could build my own world, I never, ever wanted to have to go. Why would I want to? I wanted this to be my new reality. I just wanted to have a place where I belonged.”
I felt no pity. In creating a world for him to control, he’d condemned us all to death, or worse and now we all had to suffer the consequences.
Stefanie, on the other hand, saw this as an opportunity to be a humanitarian – and she walked up to him, hugged him and said, “Don’t ever think that people don’t appreciate you. One day you will be very successful and people will be envious, never forget that.”
I was so confused but as Stefanie turned to walk back to us, she winked and Lily mentally said ‘Don’t worry, she’s just
as pissed as you. But she’s clever, she just won over his
trust.’
Perfect, I thought sarcastically, B3ast was on our team.
“So how did you build an army, then?” I asked, trying to keep my tone neutral.
“I-I found a ghost file in the system that generated NPC – non-player characters,” he added in response to my confused expression. “In this particular environment, Simulator hasn’t generated any people, but in different arenas, obviously there would be different variables. With a couple of simple lines of code, I activated the file and designed a couple of different characters. I then…”
“You then what?” 3’s input was totally unexpected; in fact, I had forgotten that he was even present. It didn’t help that he sometimes vanished, only to reappear moments later.
“I then assigned the characters powers and replicated them.” B3ast’s eyes dropped to the floor.
“YOU GAVE THEM POWERS? HOW COULD YOU-” 3 was enraged and for the first time since he’d revealed himself to me, he became nearly entirely opaque.
“Leave him alone,” Stefanie called out. “He was only doing what he had to, to survive. Isn’t that right B3ast?” B3ast nodded. “Tell us B3ast,” Stefanie was a very good actress, “how many people did you make?”
“I-“
Suddenly the ground began to rumble. The glass trees around us shook.
“Well,” I gritted my teeth, “doesn’t matter now. We're about to find out.”
Please don’t let us die.
20
XANDER
I was clearly in control of operations here with everybody looking to me for orders. “B3ast, get rid of these glass trees, I want a clear field ahead. Remember those rock walls you trapped me in?” I grimaced at the memory, “Do something like that to stop them. You’re in charge of shaping the terrain for our defence, do us proud.”
B3ast, for the first time ever, felt like he fit in. I would deal with him later.
“Lily,” I said, looking over to her, “you’re invaluable insofar as you can heal us. Stay safe and protected. When one of us needs you, evaluate the risk of helping us. I can’t speak for everyone but if I get hurt and you saving me, means dying yourself – don’t do it. You’re no use to anybody if you’re dead.”
Lily nodded, gaze steely and she flew up into the air, perching herself in a tree branch. From that vantage point she could also see the advancing front and intermittently, she sent me mental images of how far away they were. She’d be safe until she was needed.
“How much time do we have?” Stefanie called out to the treetops.
“Three minutes – tops!” Lily called down.
Three minutes. “Stefanie, you know that we’re going to be out there fighting. I just hope you-“
Out of nowhere, Stefanie’s nose touched mine and in what would’ve been the perfect moment for a kiss, B3ast shattered the glass tree that was closest to us. We both jumped, knocking our heads against one another. Awkward.
I just coughed, looking around to see if anybody saw. 3 appeared in front of a particularly large tree and attempted to hide a smile. B3ast called out an apology and Lily burst out into laughter.
“Stefanie, I-“
Again she shushed me and said, “Just promise me you won’t die.”
I shook my head and said, “I need to do the best I can to protect everybody here.” But then I added, “I promise.”
She seemed satisfied.
We both turned to see how B3ast was progressing; so far, he’d shattered the majority of the trees between us and the advancing front. It was a plain field, now, blanketed in shards of glass.
“B3ast, make a trench,” I called out, “a really big trench.”
“I’m already two steps ahead,” he called back.
Suddenly, a giant platform of rock, as tall as any skyscraper and as wide as I could see, rose out of the ground. I watched as behind the new wall, a trench seemingly scooped itself out of the ground, deep enough for me to stand in and I was reminded of the first fissure that B3ast had created.
Clearly enjoying himself, I heard a slurping sound in the distance and watched as B3ast redirected a branch of the river, into the trench.
To get to us, the army would have to break through the wall and then swim through the river. But B3ast still wasn’t done.
Ripping more glass trees out of the ground, he began to stack them up in small piles behind the moat.
“What is that?” I called out.
“Watch!” he grinned. As I focussed my eyes on one of the piles – it exploded outwards, flinging lethal shards of glass in every direction.
“Good job!” I called out.
I wondered how useful he’d be in battle though – would he be able to kill?
And then the rumbling, which had become background noise for us, stopped. Grace had reached the rock wall and there was no more preparation to be done.
Silence.
Two holographic-like figures appeared on top of the wall. From this distance, they looked exactly like 3. Translucent there but not quite there.
3 swore and at the same time Lily called out “ELIZA! ELIZA!”
Lily abandoned her perch in the tree to get a closer look and 3 called out “NO!”
Like a firework, a spontaneous flash of fire singed down Lily’s torso. The translucent figure laughed. Lily began to fall, limp and unmoving. She hit the ground with a menacing crack - and didn’t get up.
A bird crowed somewhere in the distance.
And suddenly, the giant, earthen wall began to crack. Huge lines - fissures of earthquake proportions - began to spread across the entire structure. And the wall fell, just like that.
For a brief second we had a view of Grace’s army and I realised then that there was no way we were going to win – B3ast also seemed to realise that, because he attempted to escape.
With a jet of air that I could feel, he forced himself up into the air and then attempted to fly over the now broken wall. He never stood a chance.
Beams of light, fireballs, shards of glass and chunks of rock converged on him – the powers that he had assigned to the soldiers were now being used against him.
Unlike Lily, there was zero chance of survival for him an
d the remaining bits of dust that were left over after the attacking ceased, drifted away in the breeze.
B3ast was gone. Dead.
Just as we expected to be attacked with the same powers, the chunks of rock that had been a part of the wall came flying at us. Several things occurred to me at once.
The first was that Lily’s body would be crushed if it wasn’t moved out of the way. As if on cue, the giant wolf that was Victor, leapt out of the trees and carried Lily’s body out of the line of fire. I stiffened, unsure whose side he was on but I realised I had to trust him.
I also realised that there was not enough time for us to hide
– and looking to a helpless Stefanie, I realised that the burden was on me to stop the worst of the boulders.
I needed to focus.
The body-sized rocks continued to come closer.
Taking in a deep breath, I reached out my mind to the power source that was 3. I realised that there was no holding back anymore, that the barriers between the energy and myself had to be erased and that in a matter of second, I could very well die.
Harnessing the power, I opened my eyes and with milliseconds to spare, I managed to levitate the three closest boulders.
Stefanie had gone white with fear. Her head was literally centimetres from one of the rocks. I smiled at her nervously. She glared back.
With a sudden surge of confidence, I pushed the boulders back to where they were thrown from.
Watching them arc through the air, the two figures that Lily had called out to, vanished.
We were met with a satisfying sight as entire segments of Grace’s army were crushed.
Grace… where was she?
And suddenly I wished I hadn’t asked.
From behind us there was a sudden screeching and the entire army ahead of us disappeared. I clutched my head in my hands – they had just been an illusion.
Turning around, we were met with the actual hoard of fighters – Grace being carried in a throne, in the middle of the pack.
“Did you miss me?” she called out mockingly.
There was nowhere for us to run to, there was no time to hide. The space between us and her army was minimal.
Grace raised her wand to Stefanie and said, “Well I’ve missed you.”
Gamer (Gamer Trilogy) Page 13