The Swede aims the gun in front of him. “Let’s fuck this wolf up.”
Hiccup shoulders past him. “You and your damn guns. You know, if you want to really kill a wolf, all you need … ” The goblin yelps as a man leaps down from a higher rock.
The warrior, his body covered in scars and mud, brandishes a huge sword splintered into three distinct peaks. He takes a step forward and drops to a knee, lifts himself, and tries to hold steady again.
“It’s … you!” Ryuk says, after he sees a glimpse of the Unigaean tattoo on the man’s chest.
Chapter 13: The Takeover
Kodai swivels his haptic chair so he can get a sparkling view of nighttime Tokyo. He takes a deep breath, places his NV Visor over his head, and after the familiar tone, he waits for the sine waves to start up. A message from Sarah the Aussie piques his interest.
Sarah: You want me to come over tonight?
He thinks about this for a moment as he watches the twinkling lights of the city. It would be interesting to see her reaction to Tesla …
Kodai: Yes, in an hour.
Sarah: I won’t be off until one.
Kodai: You’ll be off in an hour.
With a deep breath in, he settles into his haptic chair and chooses a spawning point, the rented guildhall in Aramis, and after a few moments, he steps out into the large banquet room.
His stats appear and away they go.
Kodai Matsuzaki Level 15 Ballistics Mage
HP: 830/830
ATK: 213
MATK: 176
DEF: 98
MDF: 105
LUCK: 7
“You’ve both failed,” he tells Tamana, who stands before him with her head bowed. Next to her is Tomas, who looks equally troubled. “And at your levels and with the armor we’ve given you, this is totally unacceptable.”
Kodai takes his magic slingshot from its holster and pouches two knife marbles. He adds a black marble on top, pulls back, and fires the three marbles directly into Tomas’ neck and face.
-321 HP! Critical hit!
Skill level up!
Tomas is blown back a good five feet. With his body now smoking, he tries to pick one of Kodai’s blades from his cheek.
A skill level up?
Skilclass="underline" Explosive Blades
Level Four: Use two knife marbles and one black marble to cause confusion and pain through an additional shrapnel bonus.
Damage: 25% if enemy is less than level 30; 9% if enemy is greater than level 30.
Odds of instakilclass="underline" 3%
Requirements for instakilclass="underline" LUCK > 8
“Good,” he says as he walks past Tamana, who still stands facing him with her head bowed. He approaches Tomas, and after equipping a knife marble, brings his slingshot up to the side of the RPC’s head.
Instakill!
Kodai turns back to Tamana just in time to hear Tomas’ body slap against the floor. He slowly walks towards her from behind, a new knife marble in his pouch.
Kodai.
The voice rings out in his head and he pauses. Even though the woman behind the door has spoken to him like this several times before, it still takes him off guard.
“Yes?”
Come to me.
With a grunt, he slowly lowers his slingshot. Not done yet with Tamana, Kodai brings his foot down on the back of her knee, sending her sprawling to the floor.
“Failure is not an option.”
“Yes, Kodai,” she says as she scrambles back to her feet. “It won’t happen again.”
Once he reaches the door at the far end of the room, Kodai takes the stairs down to the basement. While the room upstairs has been repaired, the basement is still in disarray. Shards of broken tiles litter the ground, portions of the wall have been ripped apart and the front door lies flat on the floor, its hinges broken.
The golden door in the center of the room, however, is in as perfect condition as ever, and as Kodai approaches it, the door cracks open revealing the galaxy inside.
Kodai.
The serpent woman stands before him, her image the clearest he’s ever seen.
She has dark hair with hints of purple, orange eyes, and faded Thulean tattoos along the side of her neck. She’s nude from the waist up; the scales from her lower half form a point at her sternum. Her scales are a deep shade of blue and dark green, the ventral scales a dark shade of yellow.
Kodai takes a knee before her and bows his head.
You’re angry.
“I am,” he grits. “They failed.”
I am aware, but it was you yourself who suggested sending Tamana and Tomas, and while they did little to stop your brother’s guild, they were able to add some psychological damage to the equation. Too bad we lost the dragon, though.
“Yes, you’re right. I’m sure my brother wasn’t happy.”
And his unhappiness will only grow with what I have planned next.
“Oh?” Kodai stands and raises an eyebrow at the serpent woman. “What is it you have planned? I’m aware of what we discussed, the larger plan.” He can’t help but grin. “The takeover.”
It will be glorious, but we cannot and have not yet been able to fully take over a person’s life chip.
Kodai nods.
This isn’t the first time he’s heard the woman mention ‘we.’ She has told him some of what she, or better, they, are trying to do. It seems easiest with RPCs, as their D-NAS has already been registered in Tritania’s system and when they take an avatar, small slivers of their original avatar remain with them, which is how the infection seeds.
But all they’ve been able to do with this infection is briefly modify a person’s iNet display. They still haven’t worked the kinks out in actually controlling the person, and for the most part, people that don’t immediately die after they see Tritania play out on their real world feed seem to recover. Well, sort of. They generally end up going insane, which doesn’t help to build an army at all.
An army of people who are controlled from within the game.
The thought only increases the size of Kodai’s grin.
They will work the kinks out. Kodai knows this, and he has already begun to plan how to control this army of mind-zapped denizens in the world out there. When they first met, it only took the serpent woman thirty minutes of explaining how it would work to completely sell him on the idea.
Still, he had questions, and for the most part, she deflected any question that dealt with specifics or reasons as to why he was chosen for this task.
“What is your plan?” he asks. “Should we attack them again?” A sinister grin spreads across his face. “I’d love, love, to lead an attack.”
Come here.
Kodai takes a step towards the open doorway in the center of the room. He reaches his arms in, moves closer, and breaches the game-time continuum.
His body and lower torso are still firmly planted outside the golden door, but his upper body is now inside.
He blinks as he takes in the starry galaxy in which the serpent woman stands.
She moves closer to him and a forked tongue extends from her mouth. It touches the bottom of his chin and pulls him just a bit closer to her.
The woman kisses him, as she did before, and as they kiss, images flash in front of his mind’s eye.
He sees a man in a robe; a white mage floating in the air with her nose upturned; a clean cut guy pursuing him around a circular hallway; a man in a life vest with arms that have turned into two grotesque weapons surrounded by throngs of screaming people; a war viewed from a perch in the sky; a faun flying through the air with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth as he unloads an ungodly amount of bullets; a black man pleading with her in the very space in which they currently stand.