One of the afflicted comes up behind FeeTwix and he spins, popping the afflicted dwarf in the chest with his fire extinguisher. “Where was I? Ah! Speaking of headshots, it’s time to tweak that resume! Employers care how you look, and what better way to show them how stunning you are than a high quality, professional headshot from Walgreens CVS. Now I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking…”
“Fickin’ huckster ass fickboy, Twixy, fick, stop doing ad reads and start killing the flaming zombie dwarves!” Hiccup’s eyes go wide. “We’ve got company, Mitherfickers, more dwarves approaching.”
“I’ve got it, Hiccup!” A grenade appears in FeeTwix’s hand. He pulls the ring with his teeth, aims, and throws.
Shit, shit, shit, Ryuk thinks as he quickly races through his options. My gravity marbles could help, as could my sword and clear marbles.
The problem is, he’s so used to going with ballistics that he doesn’t really have these loaded up. His shotgun is loaded with explosive marbles, and all but one of his Marble Gun mags are either molten marbles, molten black mix, or black and sword marbles.
BOOM!
FeeTwix’s explosion sends flaming dwarves and debris into the air.
“Headshots work! Grenades too!” FeeTwix shouts to either his fans or the Mitherfickers. Ryuk really can’t tell.
Wolf skids to a halt and Oric uses the forward momentum to toss himself forward. His splintered sword in hand, he swipes his beast of a weapon at the leader of the afflicted. The dwarf, his fists in flames, tries to catch Oric’s blade.
The dwarf’s hands fly away, hit the ground and pulse.
Oric, nearly as fast as Zaena, jukes the leader out, making him think his next attack is going to come in from the right. When it comes in from the left, the leader dwarf is caught off guard, resulting in a downward swipe from Oric, which takes the dwarf’s head and arm off.
“Hiccup, I need Yangu!”
“Fick you, Marbles, this is my ride!”
Ryuk grits his teeth. “Dammit, Hiccup! Yangu, here, now!”
The snow dragon stops dead in his tracks and bucks up, throwing the goblin off.
“Yoy!” Hiccup crash-lands into a boulder-sized hunk of ice. The goblin’s mechanical hand immediately comes to his lower back; he groans and moans as a healing potion takes shape in his hand.
Once he’s finished his first potion, he equips a second.
“What are you thinking?” Enway calls over to Ryuk as Yangu races over to him. Not knowing how she can help, Enway has her wand at the ready, tracking the combat.
Meanwhile, Zaena has taken on three pyro-afflicted dwarves. She hops around like a doped up Russian gymnast, simultaneously engaging and dodging a myriad of sloppy attacks.
“Aye!” The Thulean throws her whole body into an attack and cuts the arms and head off a dwarf still in a horned helm.
“I’ve got a plan!” Ryuk points at the afflicted about fifty meters away, their numbers strengthening as they swell towards the Mitherfickers. “Yangu,” Ryuk asks, looking into the eyes of the snow dragon. “Are you ready to do this?”
“What are you going to do?” Enway asks, concern in her eyes.
The dragon barks, his eyes now tracking the approaching afflicted. Ryuk loads three aqua marbles into his slingshot and pulls back on the pouch.
“You know what to do?” he asks Yangu.
A vicious smile stretches across the dragon’s face.
“Then let’s do this!”
(0)__(x)
Ryuk pulls back until the slingshot is at its breaking point. Images from the last few days flash across his mind’s eye: Tamana standing over him, Tesla about to decommission Hajime, his brother punching him.
His muscles tense as he pulls back even further.
Warmth spreads from the slingshot to his hand and he ignores it.
I’ve got this.
He looses the three aqua marbles and they soar through the air.
Yangu rears his head back and spits a thick stream of blue flames at the aqua marbles. As soon as his blue fire connects with the marbles, a four meter long ice scythe takes shape.
Ryuk hardly has time to lower his slingshot before the ice scythe sails through the air, decapitating nearly every pyro-afflicted dwarf advancing on the Mitherfickers.
Skill level up!
New skill learned!
Level up!
Ryuk quickly notices his Bonding Trust has moved to level two.
He’s also gotten a new skill.
Skill: Ice Scythe
Level One: Work in tandem with your bonded animal to create a scythe made of ice.
Requirements: Level 20 Mage, Bonding Trust level two or higher.
“Wow!” Enway cheers. “That was awesome!”
“Three more to kill!” A bewildered look in her eyes, Zaena flings herself towards the remaining flaming dwarves using her ghost limbs.
She spins into action, her swords flailing all around her and she goes from limb to limb. The Thulean finishes the last afflicted and drops to her haunches, her back to the group.
“Damn, Liz, if only you’d done that back there to Conan. Ha! And fick me, Marbles, if it weren’t for the fact you just saved our asses, I’d be pissed about the way you stole Yangu out from under me, but seeing how I didn’t get my ass burnt and I got to enjoy a few potions, I’m good. Liz…”
Hiccup’s mocking smile fades as the Thulean turns to them. “Shit! Zaena, I mean, Liz, shit! Are you okay?”
Ryuk gasps as the Thulean approaches, an infection visible on her right hand. Her skin has cracked, and beneath it, moving lava pulses, some portions bright red and the others charcoal.
“Babe!” FeeTwix cries out.
“Don’t touch it,” Oric says.
“Get out of my way!” FeeTwix cries. He tries to move around Oric, but the Unigaean warrior steps in front of him again.
“Relax,” Oric says, his hand rising to the sword on his back.
The Swede pumps his shotgun one-handed and presses it to Oric’s chest. His eyes flash blue. “Out of my way,” he says, his voice drained of all its normal color.
“Put your gun down,” Oric grits. “And don’t do anything stupid. We don’t know how the infection works in Tritania. It could spread if you touch her hand, or it could spread if you touch any part of her.”
“I’m warning you.”
“Cool it, FeeTwix. Think this through, and please lower your gun.”
Wolf circles around to FeeTwix’s side, his head down, his lips raised in a snarl.
“Relax, FeeTwix,” Ryuk starts to say.
“Please, FeeTwix,” says Enway, “think about what you’re doing.”
The Swede glances at Wolf and back to Oric.
“That’s right, FeeTwix. That dog and I have been doing this for quite a while. If I don’t get you,” Oric wraps his hand around the handle of his sword, “he will.”
Hiccup claps his hands together, startling everyone. “First of all, fick you, Tarzan, and the wolf you rode in on. Second, I’ll fickin’ test it.”
The goblin’s chainmail disappears.
“Liz, don’t listen to He-Man, touch me with your non-infected hand and let’s see if it spreads. If it doesn’t, keep touching me. And while we’re at it, Marbles, bring me a healing potion.”
Ryuk starts to tell the goblin he can equip his own potion but decides otherwise, especially after seeing the goblin take another step closer to Zaena.
“Here,” he says, healing potion in hand. A look left and he sees that FeeTwix has lowered his weapon, his face white with shock.
“In my mouth, Marbles, put the potion directly in my mouth.”
“You can still use your hands.”
“I’m aware, but if I’m about to turn into a flaming goblin with a healthy head of pink hair, I want to go out on a fickin’ bang, and that bang is having someone feed me a potion!” He puckers his lips. “Now pour.”
“Hiccup, this is a serious moment,” Ryuk says, his
voice lowering. Zaena stands in front of them now, shock still evident in the way she holds her shoulders.
“Dammit, Marbles,” Hiccup says, a hint of something genuine behind his normal goblin snarl, “I know this is serious, kid. I just…I just wanted to make her laugh. Fick. We may have to kill her right here, and if that’s the case, I get to do the honors because, you know, goblins versus lizards and whatnot.”
“I will kill you two years before you kill me,” Zaena says, her voice quivering.
“Yeah, whatever, Liz, I’m just trying to make Marbles laugh over here, everyone lighten up a bit.”
“Are you serious right now?” Ryuk whispers.
“Marbles, if you haven’t figured it out already, I handle tragedy with comedy. Now, stop acting like a genderfluid bush beater and feed me the potion.”
Oric clears his throat.
“Quiet, Tarzan, and I don’t see you stepping in to stop her from touching me like you did FeeTwix.”
“That’s because I don’t like you.”
“Well, fick, someone bring out the Festivus pole, so we can all air our grievances. Marbles, potion, pronto.”
The potion lifts out of Ryuk’s hand.
“I’ll give it to you...” Liz says with a hint of sadness in her voice. “Hiccup.”
“That’ll work too,” he says, his voice lower than before.
“You ready?” Zaena asks.
“I was born ready to die, Mitherfickers.” The goblin opens his mouth wide, and from where he’s standing, Ryuk can see that Hiccup has a few rotten molars, which may explain the smell that usually wafts around him.
No, those are farts, Ryuk reminds himself as Zaena pours the potion into Hiccup’s mouth.
“Damn.” Hiccup burps and Wolf barks. “See that, Conan? You may not like me, but your pooch and I, fick, let me be the first to tell you, we go way back. Way back. Rode that bitch all the way through the catacombs connecting Kayi to Polynya.”
“Whatever.”
Hiccup pulls his shoulders back and shows Zaena his bare chest. “Now fickin’ do it, Liz, do it!”
“Are you sure?” She lifts her non pyro-afflicted hand.
“Fick yes, I’m sure,” the goblin says, tears in his eyes. He sniffs, sucks back some snot, and sniffs again.
“Someone tell Spewy that…fick…don’t tell him I love him, but do tell him that I think of the liddle ficker fondly every now and then. And not in a poofty fruit bat way. I’m charging you with that, Twixy. Spewy lives in Jatla, in the Venom Spur District. Remember that. And Marbles, Spewy gets the five percent you promised me after all is said and done.”
“Two percent.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
“Fine.” Hiccup slams his fist against his chest. “Fick, Liz, do it already, do it. I’m losing my nerve over here! Touch my chest!”
.21. New Recruits for the Shinigami
Kodai stands before the serpent woman, a vicious sneer on his face. “I have news, news I believe you would like to hear.”
An image of naked Tesla on top of him, her hands pressed against his shoulders flashes across his mind’s eye. He blinks it away.
Now isn’t the time.
“Sophia is in Tokyo, yes?”
The woman slithers towards Kodai, her breasts swaying as she moves through the OMIB. It is still something Kodai has to get used to, the OMIB, the endless galaxy around them even as they stand on relatively solid ground.
He looks down to see stars beneath him, as if he were standing on a glass floor overlooking the Milky Way.
Only in a digital world…
“That’s right.” Kodai touches his temples, afraid that she’s read his mind to the point that she knows about his relationship with Tesla. If she has, she doesn’t offer any indication that it bothers her.
“Yes, since we’ve bonded, I can read your thoughts. But back to the information you have brought me: FeeTwix and Sophia have both come to Tokyo to meet your brother.” She grins, green algomagic flashing across her eyes. Her face is normally obscured by shadow but today he can see her features, her solemn expression, her vampiric fangs. “You realize what this means, right?”
“Not quite,” Kodai admits. “I know that the Mitherfickers have met with the Knights, and that Ryuk used to be in the Knights, but I don’t see why it is they have joined together in the real world.”
“Sophia used to work for the DREAM Team. Are you familiar with this?”
“No.”
“Dream Recovery Extraction and Management Team, a program funded by America’s Federal Corporate Government, or the FCG, to help free players who were trapped in digital worlds. Since the Proxima Company held the biggest number of digital worlds, the Dream Team mostly focused on freeing people who were trapped in those.”
“I don’t understand what this has to do with the Knights.”
“Sophia knows what she is doing, I’ll give her that. The Knights are the guild that was started by the Dream Team when the team first came to Tritania.”
“Why did they come to Tritania?”
“In search of my brother, Luther. My father, Strata Godsick, founder of the Reapers and the Revenue Corporation…”
Kodai nods. He is all too familiar with the Reapers, having listened to the serpent woman’s explanation of the murder guild after their first encounter.
The name of their guild, the Shinigami, was in homage to the Reapers, the Japanese word Shinigami meaning “god of death,” a common translation of the word “reaper.” He also knew that some of the tech they had, weapons they had yet to use, were originally created by Strata Godsick in conjunction with his Meridian Circle.
The woman’s expression sours. “My father was hellbent on finding my brother. Luther was the favorite of the family. Anyway, that’s how the Knights of Non Compos Mentis were formed, and I was once part of their guild.”
“You were a Knight?”
“For a time.” She laughs. “A short time, really. I got close to them using a Dark Mage avatar that I’d worked on for a while named Veenure.”
“So your name is Veenure?”
“No, my name is Victoria, but you may call me Veenure. I created the name to pay homage to my father’s company, the Revenue Corporation.”
“How does that name pay homage?”
“It’s an anagram, but we can discuss my time in the Knights later. The point is that Doc, one of the members of the Knights and the old fucker in charge of tech for the Dream Team, developed a weapon…” She clenches her fists together. “He developed a weapon that trapped people in the OMIB, in this space.”
“That’s why you’re here?”
“Yes, after my true identity was revealed, I was shot by the weapon Doc invented, cursed to spawn in the OMIB eternally.”
Kodai grinds his teeth together. With FeeTwix and Sophia in Tokyo, now is the time to take them out, to act on this information. “We can go after them as soon as tonight. I have people at MercSecure who will be able to trace Sophia.”
“You won’t be able to trace Sophia,” Veenure says. “Doc would never allow that.”
“Is Doc still alive?”
“No, Doc is dead. But his RPC, a faun, is alive and well. I don’t think he spends much time in Tritania though. I only see the flash of his D-NAS every now and then. My point is,” she hisses, “it will be impossible to find Sophia because of Doc. I hate that fucking faun, but he is an expert, and he doesn’t make mistakes.”
“FeeTwix,” Kodai says suddenly.
“Yes, FeeTwix, that’s who you should be going after. Doc may have put some identity hiding protocols in place, but then again, maybe not. Find FeeTwix while he is in Tokyo and that will lead you to Sophia, who may very well hold the missing piece to the puzzle.”
“I’ve thought of another way we can get this missing piece,” Kodai says.
“As have I.” She offers the young crime lord a rare smile. “I like your idea, though, you first.”
Koda
i places his hands behind his back and stares at Veenure’s face, aware that she has already read his thoughts, but still excited to share his idea with her. Behind her, a black hole opens up, a purple rim of energy around it as it fades back into the starry galaxy.
“There is one member in the Mitherfickers who I am one hundred percent positive we could break,” he says. “I don’t know what he knows, but I assume he knows something.”
“Even if he doesn’t or can’t remember, I may be able to get inside his head and go through what has been discussed around him. The goblin should be our target then.”
“I fucking hate that goblin, but he’s got a big mouth, and I don’t think we’d even need to use your powers to figure out what the Mitherfickers are hiding, or why Sophia is in Tokyo.”
“Then we’ll get the goblin, now, while they are in the Sabors.”
“You said you had an idea, right?” Kodai asks, now mesmerized by the green glow of her eyes.
“I do,” she hisses. “With the Knights in the picture, and the fact that they don’t seem to be going anywhere, we need to increase our strength. Many of the Knights are level ninety or higher. This was also something I received when I was a member of the guild. We were all granted an incredible, once in a lifetime level increase. Further, if the Knights are ever truly in trouble, they can call upon a large group of NPCs, from British Assassins to the infamous Dirty Dave to help them. We need leverage, and that leverage could come through stronger members.”
“But where will we get stronger members?”
Veenure’s hand comes up and a sliver of silver magic forms into a small balloon. The balloon floats over to Kodai, and as soon as he touches it, it turns to ink and spreads up his arm.
Everything is suddenly clear to him.
“The Drachma Killers?” he asks. “Who are they?”
“A murder guild from Unigaea, the same world that Oric Rune and his Tagvornin wolf have come from. They’ve operated in Tritania from time to time, and using old tech provided by Proxima Smugglers, they’ve leveled quite nicely.”
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