Trust your class.
Oblivious to the fight that is happening around him, Ryuk pivots onto his left foot, well aware that they are four meters away from the edge of the ice wall, and brings his blade in an upward swoop.
Tamana blocks him just in time but is caught off guard.
As she stumbles backwards, he approaches, both hands on his blade and ready to end it there. Digital adrenaline surges through him; he brings his weapon back and is just about to deliver a finishing strike when he stops.
It can’t be.
Ryuk swears that he saw something flash behind Tamana’s eyes.
Instead of finishing the job, he brings his weapon down, still at the ready, so he can get another glimpse of her.
“Tamana?” he whispers.
“Fick, Marbles, stop undressing Tammy with your eyes and kill that turncoat-ass bia bia!” Hiccup has replaced his bigass ax with his bigass shield. He hides behind his scutum now as Kodai continues to fire black marbles at it.
Meanwhile, Oric and Tomas are all out brawling, their blades clinking and clanking as the evenly matched warriors try to get the upper hand.
Enway is doing relatively well against the Dark Mage. She’s cast her quick movement spell – Ryuk believes she called it Light Shadow – and moves in and out of reality as she avoids attacks from the mage.
Her hourglass necklace glowing, she blasts the mage from behind, -127 HP!, and again dips out of reality.
Wolf and Yangu have teamed up on the Berserker Mage, Yangu hitting him with streams of molten ice. The snow dragon’s attacks aren’t very strong, but he is able to provide enough of a distraction for Wolf to move on the mage.
“Ryuk?” Tamana asks as her eyes quiver, a look of confusion spreading across her face.
“Tamana!”
She bares her teeth at Ryuk and brings her buster sword over her shoulder, as if it were a baseball bat.
-266 HP!
The strike from Tamana’s sword sends Ryuk over the side of the ice wall. He hits the ice stair he created and tries to dig his free hand into the ice.
No such luck.
Ryuk’s body slides across the stair and he falls backwards, down to the very bottom of the ice wall, landing on his back.
-551 HP! Critical hit!
(0)__(0)
Tweety birds and a galaxy of stars swirl around Ryuk’s head as he sits up.
He’s down eight hundred hit points, and his first instinct is to go for a healing potion. Oblivious to his surroundings, he equips the healing potion and is just about to throw it back when he gets a boot to the face.
-48 HP!
The healing potion flies from his hand and he drops to the right.
Far away from the others now, Tamana stands over him, a familiar image if there ever was one, and before Ryuk can react, she grabs him by the back of his hair and sits him up.
His former friend brings her fist back, and as she does, Ryuk places his hand on the runestone on his chest and selects select Dark Mage.
Tamana is just about to strike him when his form starts to morph.
Startled, she brings her fist back again, giving Ryuk the time he needs to strike her with a bolt of black lightning.
-297 HP!
She’s thrown sideways and Ryuk goes for his potion. One hand still trained on her, ready to blast her at a moment’s notice, he gulps the potion down.
+500 HP!
He hasn’t had a chance to go through the spells the Dark Mage has, and truth be told, he hasn’t quite figured out how the avatar switching affects skillsets.
Regardless, he knows that the lightning works, and as Tamana struggles to get to her feet, he strikes her again.
-167 HP!
“Ryuk?” she asks as pushes herself up.
Her armor is now blackened and blood flows freely from her lips. She wipes her mouth, and somehow, accidentally transfers some of the blood to her white hair.
“Not going to work this time,” Ryuk says, standing.
He can hear his guildmates fighting above him. He doesn’t know how well they’re doing, but if what he saw before he was tossed over the wall is any indication of their performance, the Mitherfickers will beat the Shinigami today.
He shoots his hand out before him and curls his fingers. Another bolt of lightning strikes Tamana.
-222 HP!
“Please,” she whispers. “Ryuk.”
She looks at him, blood smeared across her face, and at that moment, his heart breaks. He can barely look at her in that state. He lowers his head, ashamed of what he’s done. Tamana falls forward onto her chest; the snow around her face quickly turns crimson.
As snow whirls all around, Ryuk makes an impulsive decision.
He presses his hand into the runestone on his chest and changes to his Cleric form.
Standing in his gray robes, light mana surging through his veins, Ryuk slowly lifts his hand over Tamana.
+250 HP!
She pushes herself up, now in a prone position with her knees and hands still on the ground.
Ryuk heals her again.
+274 HP!
Tamana gets to her feet, her fists at her side. Her buster sword is still on the ground; if she moved quickly, she’d be able to get it before Ryuk could change avatars.
+150 HP!
Ryuk heals her again, tears streaming down his face.
He sees the Tamana he used to know, the Tamana who would meet him at the arcade, who’d go eat ramen in Shinjuku with him, who’d meet him for breakfast, who fought beside him as a Knight, who went to first year classes with him, who had always been there for him since they first met.
And as he looks at her, hardly able to see through vision blurred by tears, Tamana does something that will affect him for the rest of his life.
She lifts a trembling hand and a yellow light appears.
“Don’t,” Ryuk asks, knowing exactly what she’s doing. “Please, Tamana, no!”
“Goodbye, Ryuk.” Tamana’s hand extends to the yellow blip of light and Ryuk rushes to her.
He tackles her to the ground and pulls her into his arms, sobbing as he tries to hold her back.
“Please, don’t!” he screams, the yellow reflecting in her eyes. “Please, Tamana, no!” He presses his forehead to hers. “Please, don’t do it, you can’t, I need you here.”
“Ryuk...”
The light is still shining behind his head, and Ryuk can sense that she’s still trying to reach for it.
He tries again to move her away from the light, to use all his strength to push her away, but he is so wrapped up in trying to save her that he doesn’t compute that the light is a part of her dashboard, that no matter what he does, he can’t actually stop her from completely deleting herself.
All Reborn Player Characters are able to permanently delete their base avatar and actually die, never to respawn again in a Proxima world.
“I’m sorry, Ryuk.”
“You don’t have to do this,” he pleads with her, “we can fix your avatar. Please, Tamana.”
He feels a burning sensation in his chest as she begins to fade away.
“Why?” he asks, barely able to make out the words.
Tamana presses her finger into the center of his forehead. “I’ll always be here,” she whispers. She removes her finger and leans forward to kiss Ryuk. As she kisses him, her body turns semitransparent. Her avatar starts to crumble and pixelate as her body turns to cosmic dust.
Ryuk falls to the right, sobbing as the cosmic dust settles all around him.
He places his hand on his wounds, white healing magic quickly patching it up.
In front of him, still lying in the snow, is Tamana’s buster sword.
.25. With a Little Help from My Friends
Rather than climb to the top of the stairs, Ryuk switches to Ballistics Mage, places a gravity marble in his mouth, and floats up. Once the marble starts to lose steam, he places another marble in his mouth.
He stops before r
eaching the top and moves onto an ice step.
Tears still stinging his face, and quickly starting to freeze, Ryuk crouches and loads his Marble Shotgun. He hears the clink and clank of swords above him, and he’s received no indication that any of the Mitherfickers have died.
Still, Tamana’s actual death, the fact that she deleted her RPC, is going to make it hard to fight. He will still be able to fight, but what he really needs is time to unpack what he’s just witnessed.
No time, he reminds himself as he finishes loading the canister full of gravity and black marbles. It is a combination he hasn’t tried yet, but he feels almost certain that it will put forth the damage he is looking to cause. He slings the Marble Shotgun over his shoulder and loads his Marble Gun with a black molten mix.
Another gravity marble in his mouth and he floats to the top, focusing on one thing and one thing only.
Kodai.
His brother continues to fire marbles at Hiccup even though the goblin is blocking them with his shield.
Hell, Hiccup has gotten so accustomed to just blocking that he now has the scutum held up with one shoulder, so he can chug a healing potion.
He sees Ryuk and gives him the “well it’s about fickin’ time you show up” face. Ryuk hardly acknowledges the goblin. He pulls the trigger on his Marble Shotgun and unloads the entire mag at his brother.
The combo of explosions and shifts in gravity works in just the way he predicted. His brother is thrown into the air and quickly sucked back down to the ground, thrown into the air again, and again brought back down.
He’s bad off by the time everything is said and done, but Ryuk’s too busy tracking his brother’s movements with his Marble Gun to pay attention to any of the damage prompts. He knows it isn’t enough, but killing his brother now will at least give the Mitherfickers a much needed victory.
The problem is the mages.
As soon as Kodai looks like he’s about to go down, the Dark Mage casts a shield of purple mana that blocks Kodai from any incoming hits. The Berserker Mage kicks Wolf into the rock wall, knocking the breath out of the beast.
He slams his two axes together and a searing flash of light flings Yangu over the edge of the snow wall. For his part, Oric has managed to get one of Tomas’ swords free, but struggles to get the other, as Tomas whips into a frenzied, multi-blade attack.
Enway.
Ryuk sees that she is down, blood dribbling down her chin as she sucks in air. He instinctively touches the runestone on his chest, changes into a cleric, and as white magic fills his soul, he sprinkles a cloud of healing magic onto Enway.
The wound on the side of her head heals up and she gets back to her feet.
Ryuk touches the runestone on his chest and turns into the warrior, Tamana’s buster sword in his hand.
Kodai’s eyes go wide as he takes in Ryuk’s new ability. His shock quickly settles into a wicked grin as a portal in the sky opens.
The OMIB? Ryuk thinks as he looks up at the portal and the star-filled galaxy inside of it. He sees the outline of the serpent woman, Veenure.
Her eyes flash green and spears of electric green magic rain down upon the battlefield.
-310 HP!
Ryuk takes a direct hit to the chest.
He hits the ground, but the warrior’s stamina and ability to take damage is much different than his base avatar. He’s back on his feet in seconds, a white magic glowing around the hilt of his buster sword.
I will guide you, Ryuk.
“Tamana?” he gulps and looks down at the glowing weapon.
There’s a flash a few feet away from him and FeeTwix steps out, two bandoliers of bullets across his chest, a RE4 Hand Cannon in his right hand and a Lancer chainsaw/assault rifle combo in his other hand.
The Lancer’s chainsaw kicks into gear. “To quote Hiccup,” the Swede says, a huge grin spreading across his face, “Fick everyone who isn’t me!”
FeeTwix lays down some major firepower as he alternatively takes huge .50 caliber shots from his Hand Cannon. He focuses his bullets on the portal in the sky, which momentarily takes Veenure off guard.
Once the Swede’s rounds are spent, he throws his Hand Cannon over his head and chugs a healing potion.
“Fick, Twixy, share some of that!” Hiccup says from his place behind the scutum.
“You’re on your own for now, goblin, I’ve got some mages to kill!”
“Ha! Viewers are surging, am I right? Fine, fine, New Marbles, you’re fickin’ dead!” Seeing that Kodai is still blocked by the mages, the cantankerous goblin drops to his hands and knees and scurries around them.
Normally, the mages would catch him and squash him like a cockroach, but FeeTwix has started to engage both of them with his Slice Bang. He cuts into the first, blasts at the second, and even as he moves, his free hand scrolls through his inventory list until it stops at his Steamsuit.
The Steamsuit materializes around him and he’s instantly in the cockpit. His face fills with fury as the docking station secures itself. The Berserker Mage comes in for a swipe and FeeTwix grabs him with his free hand (the other hand actually being a giant sword).
Propelled by steam from his mahoosive metal feet, FeeTwix takes off into the air, the Berserker Mage tucked under one hand.
Once he’s about a hundred meters up, the mage struggling all the way, FeeTwix does a one eighty and blasts off towards the ground.
Instakill!
He drives the mage headfirst into the parts of the tower that haven’t already been destroyed, doing damage to himself in the process.
“Fickin’ show off,” Hiccup says as he points his mechanical finger at Kodai, who is still protected by the Dark Mage’s barrier. “Get out from behind that magic shield, you dirty snowflake ficktard!”
Tomas’ second blade flies out of his hand and Oric moves in for the kill, only to be thwarted by Tomas’ speed.
With a loud grunt, and a louder nethergrunt from his starfish, Hiccup takes off towards Kodai, his huge axe held tightly between his grimy paws.
A snarl across his face, he’s just about to swing his weapon when a pink blast from Enway blazes over the battlefield, directly into the open OMIB portal.
The screeching sound that follows grounds everyone still fighting.
Ryuk hits the deck, his hands over his ears as the sound boils through him. A million angry voices screaming inside his head, Ryuk tries to lift his weapon in Kodai’s direction.
The buster sword is surprisingly light, but the trauma from the ear-piercing scream from Veenure makes it nearly impossible for him to focus.
What the hell did Enway hit her with? he thinks as he tries to get back to his feet.
“Fick you, let go of me, you ficker! Fick! FICK!”
Ryuk glances right just in time to see Kodai with his hand around Hiccup’s mouth. The two disappear in a flash, and as soon as they’re gone, the Dark Mage and Tomas also bow out.
The portal closes and the Mitherfickers are left tattered and goblin-less.
(0)__(0)
FeeTwix lands his Steamsuit and the front clamshell opens with a hiss.
“They took Hiccup?” he asks, rage in his eyes.
Ryuk, still reeling from the auditory wave, finally gets back to his feet. “They took him. My brother fucking took him.”
“That’s your brother?” Oric asks, his face drenched with blood. “Somehow I missed that part of the narrative.”
“My older brother.”
“He seemed like a dick.”
FeeTwix nods at the Unigaean warrior. “He’s a real asshole. Wait a minute, how did you get that sword?”
Ryuk looks down at his Buster Sword. “I …Tamana…”
The Swede gulps. “You killed her?”
FeeTwix approaches Ryuk and finally helps him to his feet.
“No,” he says sadly, “she killed herself, or that’s not quite it. She deleted her RPC.”
“That’s suicide,” Enway whispers.
“She killed he
rself then. She couldn’t take any of this anymore.”
“And wait a minute.” FeeTwix shakes his head. “Since when did you use swords?” He examines Ryuk’s Dream Armor. “Let me guess, an ability granted by the runestones?”
“Exactly.”
“Why do you think they took the goblin?” Oric asks as Wolf limps over to him. Oric drops next to his animal and begins petting his head. Yangu also appears after he reaches the last stair on the ice wall. He’s battered, but seems cheerful nonetheless.
A terrible thought comes to Ryuk. “How much does Hiccup know about you know what?”
FeeTwix’s eyes flash blue. “You mean NPCs spawning in humandroid bodies?”
“Refresh me on all this,” Oric says. As Enway catches him up to date, Ryuk and FeeTwix continue their discussion.
“I mean, Hiccup has been there when we are discussing it,” Ryuk says.
“Shit, this is really bad,” the Swede says. “We need to log out and tell Sophia.”
“We need to tell the faun.”
“Doc,” FeeTwix says. “Yeah, we need to tell him too. Um, should I just call his name?”
A flash and the Knight’s War Faun spawns before them. “I figured I’d save you the trouble of getting your megaphone out,” Doc says, his tail shaking as he moves around on his hooves. Leg warmers appear above his hooves and a sweater with a M-16 on the front across his chest. “It’s nippy out here.”
“Doc,” FeeTwix says, “they took Hiccup.”
Oric looks from Enway to the Killer Faun. “What in the hell is going on here?”
“That I can’t quite answer,” she says, having never met Doc herself.
“Doc is from the Knights of Non Compos Mentis,” Ryuk explains. “They’re watching over us, or something.”
“Ah,” Oric says. “I’ve heard of them.”
Doc waves everyone’s concerns away. “We can get to better introductions later. The important question is: does the goblin know about R-Diving?”
“R-Diving?” Oric asks.
“The word Sophia came up with to describe going from a Proxima World to a humandroid’s body in the real world. Personally, I don’t particularly like it, but I didn’t invent the tech, so I don’t get to name it.”
Fantasy Online_The Runestones of Tritinakh Page 25