Xenatlas’s code though isn’t something I can decrypt. I feel absolutely no shame in admitting that he’s smarter than me. A lot smarter. His code is an entirely new language and don’t have the beginnings of a Rosetta Stone.
The strange language is interrupted on the side of the rock formation where I’d clawed a message asking for help. I hadn’t had time to coordinate anything with the others and it had been the best I could do. There’s a few more markings beyond my message, but not many, and they clearly haven’t been added to recently.
And yet the scent of kaiju is stronger. I come up what feels like a few yards short of the mountainous formation, but which is probably closer to a thousand feet, and wait. A few moments later the peninsula shakes and Megaptera steps out from around the formation.
He’s huge.
Taisaur has never out-sized any of my friend’s kaiju. They’d been playing longer than I had and had helped me level up to the point where I was actually useful and not just a liability. Megaptera’s continued leveling up since I quit playing and has gotten proportionately larger. As a human I hadn’t been able to really grasp the difference. What is an extra forty feet to an ant?
On a more even footing now, the changes are readily apparent.
Hey, Dickhead, he snarls, flexing his mantis-like claws. Below the growling rumble of his kaiju his voice is colored by a Boston accent.
Our heads are approximately level, which you would think would make him seem less big. It doesn’t, because his body is hunkered over like a t-rex. All the even eye-level does is make the sheer mass behind that head more apparent. Damn. I am severely under-leveled.
Megaptera, I say. What the fuck was that in Huntsville?
His eyes flash with red light. For a moment I make to brace myself for his laser blast. The attack doesn’t come. He’s just really, really angry.
What? he growls, the furious sound reverberating through Taisaur’s ribcage. Are you trying to tell me I’m not playing a game anymore?
Fuck.
Chapter Seven
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I knew not telling them would come back to bite me in the ass. When I’d first learned that Kaiju Wars Online isn’t actually a game, I’d used them to help me get through an army of alien forces. I’d intended to destroy a device that was sending an alien kaiju from their world to ours and stop them from attacking us. Instead I’d ended up standing in the middle of Dallas as Taisaur and having a showdown with Titanocobra.
I hadn’t told my friends that it wasn’t a game.
An apology isn’t enough. “I needed your help.”
Megaptera surges forward and that rhinoceros horn of his gores Taisaur right above the hip. My HP bar drops, but it’s not the flashing color or depleting meter that grabs my focus. It’s the pain that explodes through me. I roar with it, even as Taisaur is lifted up off the ground, and slammed back into the rocks, shattering away pieces of Xenatlas’s code.
I’ve never felt pain like this before. Not as Taisaur. Not even when I’d brought Taisaur to our world. Titanocobra had mangled my arm then, bad enough that I’d been able to see Taisaur’s silvery bones.
That had been a distant pain, feeling more like fatigue or exhaustion than trauma. Intellectually I’d known I’d been hurt, but the visceral element that made it real had been missing. At the time I hadn’t made that connection and, in all fairness, I was fighting with major stakes on the line and more than a little distracted.
There’s no such distraction now and it fucking hurts.
I activate Taisaur’s Burning Aurora.
My kaiju didn’t start off with a special attack like my friends’ kaiju had. I’d only just earned my own by leveling up just in time for my fight with Titanocobra. Taisaur’s silver stripes turn crimson and shine with red light. A rippling crimson aura surrounds him. It’s like someone tried to paint an aurora borealis but only had red pigments to work with.
The rippling light shoves Megaptera’s horn out of Taisaur and pushes him back to the edge, his HP bar dropping marginally as he continues to press against the energy. Burning Aurora is basically a force field that protects Taisaur and injures anything that comes into contact with it. But it only lasts as long as I’ve got fuel in my rage meter, which is rapidly shrinking as Megaptera pulls back with a bellow and unleashes his optic heat rays from his eyes.
Both of our rage meter’s plummet. Our kaiju roar. Heat ripples from the exchange and what foliage exists on the rocky peninsula bursts into flame.
For several moments we’re at a stalemate. Megaptera hasn’t been ignoring the game like I have. He’s leveled up. His kaiju’s power and capacity to hold rage has increased in the time since we’ve seen each other. Taisaur’s rage meter is going to empty first, then those beams are going to burn into me. If that horn goring Taisaur hurt as badly as it did then I really don’t want to experience what getting cooked will feel like.
I push forward against the energy beams but it’s like trying to climb up a waterfall. The current is too powerful. Still, I manage a step. Then another. My rage is almost gone. One more step and I’m in range.
I swing Taisaur’s spiked tail, Burning Aurora rippling around it, and bury the spikes in Megaptera’s side, forcing the Burning Aurora into the deep puncture wounds. He bellows in pain and the energy blasts die an instant before the Burning Aurora does.
With a triumphant roar I leap forward to press the attack, only for those scything forelimbs to catch me out of the air and slam me to the ground, numerous bladed barbs along the ends sinking into my flesh. My HP bar drops and I’m filled with pain. I scream.
Through the pain I’m able to see Megaptera’s HP bar floating over him. He’s missing a chunk, but only a chunk. The pain made me forget that this world still operates on the rules of a videogame. And I’m too severely under-leveled to be trying to fight a kaiju like Megaptera.
I’m out of rage energy and my HP is quickly dropping as he saws his mantis limbs through Taisaur’s chest. It’s like being operated on without anesthesia. Blood runs from the wounds, flowing freely from Taisaur’s torso to the ground below. I can feel myself close to passing out—from the loss of blood or HP I don’t know. In a few seconds it won’t matter.
Then the scythe-limbs are pulled free and my HP bar holds steady. The pain doesn’t leave but without the wounds being torn further open I’m able to regain some semblance of conscious thought. Enough that I’m able to register the enormous hand with thick, powerful digging claws on Megaptera’s shoulder and the straining arm its attached to.
It’s not straining very hard, which is terrifying because it’s clear that Megaptera is.
I’ve never gulped as Taisaur before and the sensation is alien, making me hyper aware of my tongue and the odd shape of the fangs in my mouth.
Xenatlas has always been ahead of the rest of us in terms of level and this is reflected in the sheer size of his kaiju. He’s grown even bigger since I last saw him, even more so than Megaptera.
Xenatlas resembles one of those prehistoric megafaunas, like a giant ground sloth, that decided to turn carnivorous and put on shiny green beetle armor. He’s covered in glistening green chitin and a horn, bigger and longer than Megaptera’s, curls up from his proportionately small head. It’s matched by two more massive horns curling forward from his shoulders.
Hello, Taisaur, he says in a rumbling snarl. His voice is the deepest of my friends and it matches his truly enormous kaiju.
Xen, I cough. How’s it hanging?
Let me fucking saw him in half, Megaptera screams, struggling harder against Xenatlas’s grip.
With a shove, the colossal green kaiju drives Megaptera into the ground, pinning him in place. Not yet, Xenatlas rumbles. First, I need information.
I start to get up, but Xenatlas steps forward, releasing Megaptera who thankfully stays down, and steps on Taisaur’s leg. The weight doesn’t just
pin me down, it threatens to crush my leg and pulp it.
No, Xenatlas says, voice as cold as an avalanche. No, you stay down there while I ask you questions. You only get up if I think you deserve to.
That doesn’t bode well. My rage meter suddenly spikes and I’m angry. Part of my longing to be Taisaur again has been to feel powerful. I’ve always felt strong, unstoppable even, when I turn into him. And now that feeling of invincibility is gone. It’s like a part of me has been violated, turning my rage impotent.
It takes an effort not to reignite the Burning Aurora. Everyone who plays Kaiju Wars Online has some kind of anger issues, and right now I’ve given them a very real reason to be angry. I owe them. I give Xenatlas a nod of understanding.
When did you learn it wasn’t a game? He demands.
When Titanocobra showed up at Ole Miss and killed my roommate, I say.
I have mixed feelings about Brett. He’d thought I was on drugs and hiding it from him because I never wanted him to see me playing the game. If it weren’t for that, I think he might have been a pretty solid guy to have in my corner. I still sometimes saw his shocked face the instant before he died when I slept.
Megaptera swears.
Xenatlas bares his teeth at me. And you didn’t think it was important for us to know this as soon as that happened?
I didn’t think you’d believe me, I said. It sounds crazy. And…and I was scared that I was getting addicted to the game. It’s like a drug—” my words are cut off in a roar of pain as Xenatlas puts his weight down on Taisaur’s leg.
But it was okay for us to get addicted? He demands.
No, I hissed out. No, it wasn’t like that. Fuck, I’d never even thought about what it must be like for the other players.
And then you came back to the game anyway. You used us. He rumbles. Why?
I was trying to…trying to stop the aliens from sending another kaiju to earth. My mother was in Dallas.
The pressure on my leg lets up, but only slightly.
But after, Xenatlas says. After you stopped Titanocobra, you never showed up again. You quit playing and never said a word to any of us. We waited for you to come, to explain what the hell was going on after your kaiju showed up in our world. The danger was past and you couldn’t spare a moment to come fucking explain things?
I hadn’t thought about it. I’d been too afraid of the game. Too afraid of the addiction.
When I don’t answer Xenatlas returns to crushing my leg underfoot. You used us, then abandoned us.
Taisaur’s leg snaps. Pain fills me. I don’t even notice how much my HP bar shrinks. I…I couldn’t risk…addiction…
My other leg snaps as he crushes it. But it was okay for us to become addicts?
I’m in so much pain I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m not rational. I’m not intentional. Words just spill out of me as some part of my mind scrambles for an excuse, any excuse, to make the pain stop. I was only playing so I wouldn’t go back to prison!
Megaptera roars behind Xenatlas, his rage meter flashing brighter than I’ve ever seen it. He looks ready to tear into me.
Xenatlas steps off of my leg to tower over me. The horns on his head and shoulder pulse with light. Maybe we’re addicts now. Maybe we’re not. Either way, we are powerful now. Powerful enough to make a difference, to make the world a better place. We’re not going to hide from what we can and should do.
Light begins to swirl in an orb between the horns. While Taisaur has his Burning Aurora and Megaptera has his laser eyes, Xenatlas’s ability has always been far more impressive. He can conjure up miniature while holes, tears in reality that spill out energy, and judging from the size of this one, this power of his has leveled up too.
You though, you stay hidden. And you stay the fuck out of our way, Aaron.
Xenatlas lowers his horns and releases the White Hole. It swallows me. Everything is white. Then it’s all black.
Chapter Eight
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I wake up to the taste of blood. I try to cough and end up choking.
I’m on the ground next to the car. It would be pitch black except that way out here there’s no artificial light to block out the carpet of stars overhead and the moon is large in the sky, bathing everything in silvery light. I’d think it was gorgeous if my whole body didn’t ache, my face didn’t itch, and I could breathe.
With an effort I roll over and spit up a viscous, coppery tasting substance. The color doesn’t show up in the moonlight but I know the taste of blood well enough to recognize what I’ve just hacked up. And what is covering my face. I rub my hand over my nose and mouth. I’ve suffered the mother of all nose bleeds and it’s covered my upper lip and chin and crusted over, like the world’s goriest mustache.
It’s all I can do not to vomit. Instead I spit up more blood and try to rub away the dried blood. The smell is nearly overwhelming.
Shakily, I get to my feet. For a moment they forget how to work. The memory of their bones shattering isn’t just in my mind, it’s something visceral that my body remembers. It’s as if my legs don’t realize that they aren’t broken. I fall forward, barely grabbing the side of the car in time to keep from face planting and phantom pain screams up from my legs from broken bones I don’t possess.
Just as quickly as it hit me, the pain is gone. My body begins recognizing that it is, in fact, my body, not Taisaur’s. That it did not just die.
I’d died as Taisaur in Dallas and spent a week in a coma after. I don’t remember this ever happening to me before.
“What the fuck?” I mutter.
The update has more fully synchronized you with Taisaur, Mr. Moretti, the AI’s voice chimes in my head. I realize my hands are empty and my phone sits face down on the ground several feet away. Fuck, now this thing is talking in my head without my even holding a device. What other nasty surprises is the “game” holding for me now?
“Are there any upsides to this update?” I groan.
Several, the AI cheerfully adds. Friends can now locate you on earth. Weroik now has kaiju to fight and power ups available to the players. The reward system has likewise been updated so that new missions can be offered directly to players via the game. Also, you will be able to fight more closely with your kaiju, enhancing the experience and combat potential.
That…was a lot more helpful than I’d expected. “Uh, thank you,” I say. “Where the hell were you back when I first started playing?”
You ordered me to be silent, Mr. Moretti, the voice says. I exist solely to be helpful and to enhance your gameplay experience. If you find me distracting or annoying, then I will remain silent and respect your wishes.
Well, fuck. My treating this thing like I would a normal game when I first started out had really shot me in the foot. How much more would I know now if I’d been a little less impatient?
I start to shake my head but stop when it makes me dizzy. My head begins throbbing so hard my nausea returns and I have to lean against the car. After several deep breaths I realize I’m just distracting myself from the real mistakes I’ve made.
I didn’t even try to reach out to the other players to warn them about the game, not even after I’d already gotten their help. There was no way they didn’t know it wasn’t real after I showed up as Taisaur in Dallas. Would logging back in long enough to talk them have really been so much of a risk? I don’t know and never will. If I didn’t think I’d end up sprawled on the ground I’d kick the shit out of my tire to vent my frustration.
I don’t know why, but for some reason Isabella pops into my head. She’d been mad at me for not calling her. The thought that my ex-friends and sort-of-ex-girlfriend basically have the same thing in common sets me to laughing. I slip down the side of the car, laughing as my legs give out, and end up on my butt leaning back against the door.
This is just too fucking crazy. Stupid even. Everyone is mad becau
se I stopped talking to them.
In my defense, I’ve never had a real relationship, like what I imagine Isabella and I maybe could have, or even real friends. All my friends have been from online. Mom homeschooled me so we could travel around the country growing up and I wouldn’t trade those experiences for the world, but it made making more than passing acquaintances with kids my own age hard. And online, you could just disappear if you needed to. Terminating a relationship was so easy. Hell, maybe that’s why I’d preferred it.
And I’d done that to my friends from Kaiju Wars. Former friends. Dropped them as soon as it was risky or inconvenient for me. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I reach over and pick up my phone. The dirty screen informs me that it’s 1:30am. I’ve got several voicemails, missed calls, and text messages. Almost all of them from Mom. Oh, she is not going to be happy with me.
I make a call, but it’s not to Mom. There’s a two-hour time difference between Vegas and Kerrville. There’s a good chance Isabella’s still up.
It occurs to me as the phone rings in my ear that I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to say. I just know that I need to hear her voice.
“What’s up, Bumblefuck?”
I nearly drop the phone. Instead of Isabella’s sultry voice it’s my not-really-step-cousin, Lusitania on the other end. She doesn’t sound tired, so that’s good. She does sound irritated.
“Where’s Isabella?”
“Probably on a date with a real man. You know, like one who’s dick is bigger than my pinky.”
For a moment I see red. Not because my man-hood’s been insulted, though that may play a factor, but because I hate the idea of Isabella out there with another man. It fills me with a blinding rage and jealousy so potent I nearly scream and throw the phone away.
Kaiju for Dummies Page 4