Dragon Ops

by Dragon Ops (retail) (epub)

  “Good news, Derek!” I cried, happy to see he was still alive and okay. I’d been more than a little worried we’d taken too long already. “We’ve got everything we need to defeat Atreus now. And we’re headed your way. Just hang on a little longer and—”

  “Ian!” Derek interrupted, sounding annoyed. “Shut up and listen for a second! I have a message for you. From Atreus.”

  “What?” My heart dropped. Oh no. What now?

  “He says to tell you that the quest has changed.”

  “No way!” Lilli broke in. “You can’t change the quest midgame! That’s, like, against the rules!”

  Derek turned his head, as if listening to someone lurking just off camera. Atreus, I guessed. He turned back to us.

  “Um, he says to tell you he makes the rules? And to stop interrupting.”

  A shiver of dread spun down my spine. “What’s the new quest?” I asked slowly, pretty sure whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

  “Don’t freak out, it’s actually way easier than the original,” Derek replied. “You don’t even have to fight him. All you have to do is bring him the Elemental Stones. Then he’ll let you out of the game.”

  Wait, what?

  I turned to my sister and Ikumi, my mind racing. How did Atreus even know we had the Elemental Stones? Had he been watching us this whole time? Did he know exactly what we planned to do? Was he afraid we’d have a chance to defeat him—to win the game?

  Was the great and powerful Atreus actually running scared?

  “So wait,” Ikumi broke in. “That’s it? Just bring him the stones? And he’ll let us out?”

  “Uh, yeah. That’s what I said,” Derek replied, sounding a little impatient. “So, like, get your butts down here and get it done.”

  And with that, Derek hung up.

  I turned to my sister and Ikumi. “Can you believe it?” I asked. “This is amazing! We don’t have to battle him after all! We just have to give him the stones!”

  “And then we’ll finally be free!” Ikumi cried. She broke out into a little celebration dance on the sand, waving her arms and legs in excitement. I joined her, grabbing her hands and twirling her around. We spun and spun until we fell into the sand, laughing. My skin prickled with excitement.

  Until I looked up at my sister. Who was frowning.

  “What?” I asked, scrambling to my feet.

  “I don’t know about this,” she said. “It just… doesn’t seem right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, why would he suddenly change the quest out of the blue?”

  “Duh. ’Cuz he knows we’re about to kick his butt and he’s scared.”

  “He’s an AI. They don’t get scared. Also, why does he want us to bring him the stones? Why not just let us out now if he’s so frightened of what we could do to him?”

  My earlier excitement deflated like a balloon. She was right. As much as I wanted to believe it could be this simple, logic said there had to be something else going on here.

  “Remember what he did to Ghost Hollow,” Lilli reminded me. “And that was with one stone. What if he possesses all four? He’ll have the power to do whatever he wants in the game. And there will be no way, at that point, to stop him.”

  “Who cares?” Ikumi replied, looking annoyed. “We’ll be long gone by then.”

  “Will we, though?” Lilli asked. “What if he doesn’t let us out after all? What if this is all part of the plan to begin with?”

  Uh-oh. Miss Conspiracy Theory was on a roll.

  “What are you talking about?” Ikumi demanded.

  “What if he didn’t change his mind about the quest? What if that’s how this quest was programmed to go in the first place? It would be a great twist, right? For us to give everything to the dragon, only to have to fight him anyway? That’s a way more realistic game scenario than simply us handing over quest items and having him let us go. I mean, have you ever played a game without a big final boss fight?”

  My shoulders slumped. “No,” I admitted. “I didn’t think about that.” But it made perfect sense. The Elemental Stones were our only weapon against Atreus. And he expected us to just hand them over willingly?

  Ikumi’s eyes darkened. “So what? You want to try to fight him anyway? Risk dying in the game? Even without the stones, he’s really powerful. And you two are still pretty low-level.” She squeezed her eyes shut, as if she were in physical pain.

  My heart pattered nervously in my chest. We needed her to agree to this. There was no way we could do it without her.

  “Ikumi…” I tried.

  She opened her eyes. “Ian, please,” she begged. “Just give him what he wants. And we can all be free.”

  I sighed. I didn’t want to make her mad. But I didn’t know what else to do. What she was suggesting? I just couldn’t.

  “Trust me, I want to get out of here as much as you do,” I said slowly. “But, well, I agree with Lilli. I think fighting him with the stones is still the best way.”

  She turned, but not before I caught a lone tear slipping down her cheek. She stared at the water, her body still. For a long time she said nothing.

  “You can’t understand,” she whispered at last. “What it’s been like to be here. All by myself. All alone. Two years is a long time, Ian. But it’s nothing compared to what I’ll face if I don’t get out now.” Her voice cracked. “I can’t do it. I won’t! I won’t spend eternity in this video-game prison!”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, feeling tears well in my own eyes. I could tell she was hurting so badly, but I didn’t understand. “How could you have been stuck here for two years? Wouldn’t your dad have come for you?”

  Her face tightened. “He was the one who put me here to begin with.”

  “What?” Lilli cried, horrified.

  “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters.” She waved both her hands. “It’s just… well, I really thought this time I had a chance.…”

  “Ikumi…” I didn’t know what to say because I couldn’t wrap my head around what was going on.

  “I’m sorry,” I finally said, knowing it was the last thing she wanted to hear.

  She turned and looked me in the eyes. “No, Ian,” she said softly. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  She lifted her hand and I watched, confused, as a trail of pink mist drifted from her fingertips. I opened my mouth to ask what it was, but suddenly I felt too tired. Like, really, really tired. My eyelids began to droop. My muscles felt heavy and slow. I dropped to my knees in the sand, looking up at Ikumi with confusion.

  “What have you done?” I cried. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Lilli had fallen, too. Her eyes were closed. She looked… dead.

  “I’m sorry, Ian,” Ikumi said. “I really did want us to be friends.…”

  And then there was nothing but blackness.

  “Ian, wake up! Wake up!”

  I rolled over, rubbing my eyes with my hands. When I pulled them away, I saw Lilli leaning over me, her face pale.

  “What is it?” I asked, alarmed. I sat up, half expecting to see some crazy monster or dragon on approach. But everything was quiet, save for Yano’s buzz saw–like snores. “Is something wrong?”

  My sister sank back on her heels, staring up at the sky. It appeared to be morning; the twin suns were rising over the water. “Okay, don’t freak out,” she said slowly. “But Ikumi’s gone.”

  “What?” I scrambled to my feet, heart in my throat, my eyes darting around our camp and coming up empty. Ikumi was nowhere to be seen.

  My mind flashed back to the night before. The pink mist. The look in Ikumi’s eyes. I’m sorry, Ian, she’d said.

  “Oh no!” I cried. “No, no, no!”

  I dove for my bag, my stomach lurching. But even as I rummaged through, I knew exactly what I’d find. Or wouldn’t find.

  The stones were gone.

  Ikumi had stolen them.

  “No!” I moaned, a feeling of dread
sinking in my chest. She wouldn’t! She couldn’t. In desperation, I accessed my menu, searching for her character profile—positive it had to be some mistake. But she’d disbanded from our party. And to make matters worse, she’d unfriended me, so I couldn’t even call her in-game.

  I slammed my fist against the sand, wishing there was a monster nearby so I could tear it limb from limb. How could she do this? After all she said? After all we’d shared? My mind flashed back to her hand reaching for mine. The way she’d looked at me and smiled.

  But in the end, she didn’t care about anyone other than herself.

  My cries had woken Yano. He looked around, confused. “What happened?” he demanded. “Where’s Ikumi?”

  We quickly filled him in. When we were finished, he shook his wings in annoyance. “Well, of all the blasted cheats!” he declared. “Not to mention sleeping a guide is a clear violation of the Dragon Ops terms of service. Why, I should report her to—”

  “Report her later,” Lilli broke in. “Right now we need to find her before she gets to Atreus.”

  Our guide nodded, taking flight. “She’s on foot and will have to deal with trash mobs, so maybe she hasn’t gone far. It’ll be quicker for me to scout from the skies. I’ll do a circle and see if I can find her.” He huffed. “And give her a piece of my mind! Sleeping a guide! Of all the…” His words faded as he flew farther away.

  I dropped my head to the ground, pressing my forehead against the damp sand. All the fight left my body until I felt like a floppy doll. “I’m such an idiot,” I moaned. “She was probably just using us from the start to get what she wanted. And now that we’re not useful anymore…” I trailed off, too choked up to continue.

  “I’m so sorry, Ian,” Lilli said again. And I could hear the sympathy in her voice. “Believe me, I know exactly what this feels like. And how much it hurts.”

  I sighed, trying to pull myself together. “I know. She betrayed both of us.”

  “No.” Lilli hesitated. “That’s not what I mean.”

  She rose to her feet and walked down to the water, staring out at the two rising suns. For a long time, she said nothing, as if trying to weigh her words.

  “You want to know why I gave up video games?” she asked finally. Her voice was tight. “Why I really did?”

  I stared at her, shocked. This was not what I’d been expecting her to say. Was she really going to come clean now—of all times? Finally tell me her big secret? What had hurt her so badly that she left gaming forever?

  Forcing myself to push aside thoughts of Ikumi, I leaned forward. “It wasn’t because of Logan?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Because there was no Logan. There never was.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about? We played with Logan all the time.”

  “We played with his character.”

  “Well, yeah. But obviously he was controlling the character.”

  Lilli dropped to the ground, hugged her knees with her hands. “Remember Mina and Emmy?”

  “You mean, your friends from school?” I scratched my head as I sat down next to her. What would they have to do with Logan?

  “Friends,” my sister scoffed. “Yeah, right.”

  The look on her face made my fists clench. “What did they do?” I asked, a feeling of dread rising inside me.

  “They created Logan,” she blurted. “His character, I mean. Once they found out I was playing the game.” She kicked at a rock. “They thought it would be funny, I guess.”

  “What?” But that was crazy! I’d played with Logan, too. For hours! He’d been one of our best guild mates.

  There was no Logan. There never was.

  “They found us online. They got us to invite Logan to our guild. They flirted with me through in-game whispers. Told me I was pretty. That I was sweet. They even talked me into playing with them alone.”

  She sighed, swiping a tear from her cheek, only to have another fall. “In any case, idiot that I am, I started to really like him. I would be so excited to get home from school and sign on to talk to him. Sometimes we didn’t even play the game, we just talked. I thought he was such a good listener, letting me tell him all my problems.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “I had no idea I was actually pouring my heart out to Mina and Emmy.”

  “I can’t believe this,” I said.

  “Suddenly everyone in school seemed to know everything about me,” she continued, her voice wooden. “People were laughing at me, and I couldn’t figure out why. And the crazy thing was? It only made me want to play more. To talk to Logan more. He was… well, he was the one good thing in my life,” she whispered. “And he didn’t even exist.”

  “How did you find out?” I asked, my chest tight. Though what I really wanted to ask was, Why didn’t you tell me? Here she’d been hurting so badly and I had no idea. Heck, I even teased her about the no-video-games thing. What kind of brother did that make me?

  She shrugged. “Mina had a birthday party. I went to her bedroom looking for a manga I’d let her borrow. I noticed her computer was logged in to Fields of Fantasy. Which I couldn’t understand, since she always claimed she hated gaming. So I took a closer look and found a familiar character on the screen.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I confronted her,” she said in a tight voice. “I demanded to know if Logan was real or not. In the back of my mind, I thought maybe I’d made a mistake. That maybe he was Mina’s cousin or something. And he’d used her computer to play.” She hung her head. “But no. She and Emmy confessed immediately. They thought it was the funniest thing in the world.”

  Sobs broke from her body. I wrapped my arms around her. I knew it probably wouldn’t do much good, but I wanted to do something.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered.

  She snorted through her tears. “Are you kidding? I was way too embarrassed! I mean, how stupid am I? To fall for some made-up person? It was bad enough to have Mina and Emmy laughing at me. I didn’t want anyone else to know.”

  I pulled away from the hug. “So you quit the game.”

  “What else could I do? How could I trust anyone or anything online anymore? People can say anything—be anyone—and there’s no way to tell if it’s real. Except it is real. And it really hurts.”

  I nodded slowly, thinking of Ikumi and wondering how many lies she’d told of her own. I thought I knew her, but really… I didn’t even know her name. For all I knew she wasn’t even really Hiro’s daughter, but someone else entirely. Just playing a sick game with my head, like those girls had done with my sister.

  “Anyway,” Lilli said, standing up again. “I’ve found new friends since then. Like Izzy from my soccer team and Riley in gymnastics. And while I do miss being online sometimes—I also kind of like spending time in the real world.”

  “I get it,” I said, nodding slowly. “And I’m sorry I’ve given you a hard time about that. I’m glad you’ve found all this stuff you like—I really am. I just… miss hanging out with you. That’s all.” I blushed. “I know that’s totally selfish, but—”

  “It’s not,” she assured me. “And I’ve missed hanging out with you, too. If I’ve learned anything from this crazy adventure it’s that we make a good team. And, well, maybe we can team up again if we somehow manage to get out of this thing alive? I wouldn’t mind signing on to Fields of Fantasy once in a while. Just for fun.”

  “Really?” I asked, and she nodded. “Well, I wouldn’t mind doing some real-life things with you once in a while, either. Just for fun. But no bungee jumping. Or zip-lining. And definitely no roller coasters.”

  She laughed. “I’m sure we can figure something out.”

  At that moment, Yano flew back into view. He landed on my sister’s head, a shimmer of angry red slashing down his side.

  “No Ikumi?” I asked, my heart sinking.

  He shook his head. “Sorry. We must have been out for a while. There’s no sign of her.”

&
nbsp; “Which means she’s probably already at the mountain,” I concluded glumly. “We’re too late.”

  “No,” my sister interrupted, surprising me. “If it were too late, our quest would have failed. I still have it. Do you?”

  I accessed my menu. “Yeah,” I said. “But—”

  “Then that means we still have a chance,” Lilli declared, her eyes flashing something fierce. “Look, I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to let Ikumi—or whatever her name is—get away with this. She may have our stones. But she hasn’t won the game yet. Which means we can still beat her.”

  Hope rose in my chest. “You really think so?”

  “Absolutely,” she declared. “After all, we’re the Dragon Slayerz, right? We don’t give up without a fight.”

  We started walking, Yano taking the lead, calling out at any signs of trash mobs or other trouble. Thankfully, since Ikumi had passed through recently, we saw more monster corpses than living creatures, which made our journey a lot quicker. It gave me hope, too. Ikumi had to kill everything in her path, and even at her high level that meant it would take her a lot longer to get anywhere. Maybe we still had a chance to catch up with her before it was too late.

  At last a dark mountain rose in front of us, tall and looming. My heart stuttered in my chest as I craned my neck up—way up—to view its volcanic peak high above. A trail of bright-red lava wound down like an open wound, and thick black smoke smothered the sky.

  “There it is, the legendary Mount Fearless,” Yano proclaimed.

  “Should have called it Mount Freaking Frightening, if you ask me,” I grumbled.

  “How do we get up there?” Lilli asked, squinting at the lava. “It doesn’t look climbable.”

  “It’s not,” Yano agreed. “Luckily there’s a lift that will take you a few feet from the top. There, you’ll find a cave that will lead you down into the mountain and into Atreus’s Crystal Temple at the bottom.”

  My eyes followed his pointing wing. Sure enough there stood a small wooden structure I hadn’t noticed before. Like an old-fashioned elevator on a pulley system.