The Bathrobe Knight (50 page)

“Crap, this isn’t good,” Bear managed to let out in a panic before having his head taken clean off with a blindingly-fast slash.

The Guild members all unconsciously took a step away from the headless Minotaur as Qasin helped the teetering corpse along with his foot as it fell backwards to the ground.

“Dammit! Give him everything you’ve got!” Maddock shouted.
This is insane. I must have made a bad guess at his level. It’s too the Hell late now though.

At that moment, as the mages began casting, the archers drew their bows, and the warriors charged forward, Qasin shot an icy glance over in Maddock’s direction. “You lead them?” he said. “Eve told me you seemed to enjoy bloodshed.”

“Eve?” was Maddock’s only reply before a mass of bodies and flashes of magic hid the King from his sight. The screams began shortly thereafter. With each passing moment, more blood could be seen flying into the air as it was flung clean off of Qasin’s blade by the terrible force of each swing. Maddock looked on in awe at the sight. This was awful for his Guild, but on some level it was also beautiful. This is what a high-leveled character could do in the game. It was what Maddock and his Guild could do given enough time. It was obvious they were over-matched today, but Maddock didn’t care much. He simply felt his boots dig into the ground and his fists tighten on the hilt of his Two-Handed Sword, and he gave himself over to the moment. He might die today, but it wouldn’t be the end by a longshot. This game had much, much more than he had originally imagined in store for him, and as his opponent emerged from the half-burning, half-frozen heap of his dismembered Guild, he looked dead into the eyes of the single NPC who had just taken out his entire team.

“As I was saying,” Qasin said between heavy breaths, “Eve . . . she said you liked bloodshed. That’s why you killed my people . . . murdered everyone in one of my towns . . . Valcrest. You just killed them all.”

This guy sure takes things personally for an NPC
, Maddock noted mentally, and decided he might as well play along for the fun of it, “I’d get bored otherwise. A guy’s gotta have something to do, right?”

“You killed them all for pleasure?” Qasin growled through his teeth, the color of his face almost matching the color of his suit.

“Looks like you enjoy a good fight yourself. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to see what kind of potential a Faction Leader really has.”

“Really? Well then . . . have it your way,” Qasin said with nothing but dead calm in his voice and a stony expression on his blood-smeared face. By the time Maddock had lifted his Sword to launch an attack at the King, his enemy was already upon him. Qasin grabbed Maddock’s hands, which were wrapped tightly around the hilt of his upraised blade, and simply squeezed. The pain that shot through Maddock’s hands caused him to let out an involuntary gasp. As the King lowered Maddock to his knees, he sheathed the Sword he held in his other hand and shoved his hand into Maddock’s face. The King’s fingers sank into Maddock’s eyes as his thumb dug into the soft flesh behind his chin. Even though the interface system in the game dulled the pain, Maddock could still feel enough to force him to scream. However, the next moment, he was back in his home.

• You have died. You will have the option to respawn at your bind point when your death counter expires.
               
  

He’d never felt anything like what he had just experienced in any game he had ever played before. He had to wait out the respawn timer before logging in again, but he had plenty to think about in the meantime. As the timer ticked away, he flopped down on his bed. Suddenly, he shot out his hand up in front of him as if tearing into someone just as the King had done to him. He tensed his fingers as if slowly crushing his imaginary foe, and he mimicked the fierce, merciless look in the Faction Leader’s eyes that was the last thing he had seen in-game. Then he just laughed, folded his hands behind his head and smiled.

Bonus Chapter 2: Dawn of Eve

“Is it just me, or does it seem like they never have to reload?” Eve griped to her friend Stephanie as she threw another clip into her gun. “I mean, I count the bullets, but they just keep coming.”

“Forget the bullets! How do they have so many bodies?” Stephanie said, ducking behind the torn up concrete medium they were using for cover after firing two bursts that Eve could only assume were kill shots.

“You got me there. The way they keep coming back it’s like 16 and Pregnant had a thousand spin offs with a few hundred girls trying out for each set every year.” Eve finished loading her clip, threw a few rocks into the air above her and popped out the side to pick off the four amateurs who took her bait.

“Don’t lie. You’re just jealous,” Stephanie grinned before popping her head over the cover and laying out another round of shots. “Only three boys from the village, and one’s your brother. The only thing that’s going to be stuck up with you is your attitude.”

Eve looked at the baby boy sitting between them, “I don’t think my chances with a man are going to be much worse than yours for another twenty or thirty years. Darwin isn’t even two. I mean, I know your mom hooked up with a guy almost a hundred and twenty years younger than her, but I feel like even you cougars have limits.”

“Yeah, not to mention if he grows up half as dorky as you, he won’t even be attractive enough to ask out on a mission, much less a date,” Stephanie chuckled before firing off one final salvo of bullets while she popped out from behind the cover and rushed to a forward position on the other side of the road.

“Don’t be so jealous of my cute little brother Stephanie. If you keep it up, those red eyes will turn green, and then we’ll have to shoot you like the rest of the aimless lemmings over there,” Eve laughed as she managed to pick off a few more of the approaching enemies while Stephanie got situated enough to provide her cover fire.

“I’m sorry, Eve: I couldn’t hear you over your gun,” Stephanie yelled back, “Your mouth may fire off faster than a machine gun, but that doesn’t mean it’s louder.”

“Ugh! Fine! I’ll get closer!” Eve shouted as loudly as she could before scooping up Darwin in one hand and carrying him like he was a football to a spot next to Stephanie behind the downed armored transport unit on the other side of the road.

“You should be more careful with that one, Eve,” Stephanie said as she motioned to Darwin, “kind of got the whole ‘future of our clan’ thing riding on him.”

“Clan? Might be species at this rate,” Eve frowned as she looked at the baby, “I haven’t seen another red-eye clan in years. I’m beginning to think that we’re the last ones left.”

“Eww, don’t say that. It makes it more depressing,” Stephanie grumbled. “Just, you know, feels too cliche . . . like one of those stories you hear as a kid. ‘Oh! you have to save the baby to save the world from the evil invaders with a mysterious unknown agenda.’ It’s almost as bad as that idiot eight generations back who murdered every guard on her way to take out the general and then decided she didn’t like ‘killing’ all of the sudden.”

“Cliche? That’s your problem with it?” Eve used her free hand to connect her palm with her forehead. “We’re all about to die, and your problem is that the situation is too trite and predictable?”

“Eve, everything about this entire thing is kind of ‘trite and predictable.’ How can it not bother you? The only thing worse than being stuck in a cliche storyline is being the villain of one.” Stephanie gave Eve a wicked smile before reloading her gun and popping her head out to shoot another enemy. The problem was, before she could get her head over the transport, bullets screamed past and almost pulled it off her body. The enemy had her side pinned and knew just where she would pop out. “Well, this isn’t going as planned,” she noted, not poking her head out a second time.

“Fine. I’ll do it, you scaredy cat.” Eve scooted over to Stephanie and handed off the Darwin football, “You just watch after little Mr. Cliche.”

Stephanie let her gun fall into its sling as she carefully reached out and took the baby with two hands. “Sniper spoon time?”

“Yep,” Eve nodded, pulling a spoon out of her pocket. The others had always thought she could somehow see a clear image in the spoon’s little head, calling her the ‘Spoon Sniper’ for her excellent vision, but it wasn’t really the trick. She just had really good hearing and the gumbo privates on the other side never really thought before they fired. Eve etched over to the side and held the spoon out from behind the cover, twisting it on occasion until finally someone fired.
*Bang!*
That’s one. Don’t tell me there is only one,
she thought, letting the spoon dangle over the side a bit longer, she wasn’t worried about it actually being hit. Even though they had improved a lot, the storm troopers on the other side couldn’t hit a target as small as a spoon in a million years with unlimited ammunition.
*Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!*
There you are. That’s all of you, right?
she thought, pulling her spoon back and smiling, she knew exactly where they were.

She laid out on all fours, and started crawling under the transport. If she stuck her head out the same spot again there was a good chance that they wouldn’t hit her still, but she didn’t want to leave anything to chance. She was awful at dice, so she went the other way around the transport: under it. When she was finally far enough under to shoot out the other side, she was able to clean up  in less than a second.
Men: they never last long enough,
she smiled, blowing the smoke off the hot barrel of the gun.

“Eve, you blew the smoke off the top of your barrel again, didn’t you?” Stephanie asked. Even though there was no way for her to see, she knew Eve better than Eve knew Eve.

“I did not,” Eve lied, her face turning red.
How does she always know when I do that?

“That’s because I know you can’t help yourself Eve,” Stephanie responded from her seated position as if she could read Eve’s mind. “If a gun is smoking hot and it’s near your mouth, you just have to blow it, don't’ you?”

“That sounds so dirty!” Eve almost did a spit take at Stephanie’s implication as Stephanie stood up and walked around to give Eve a hand up.

“That’s just your dirty mind matching your filthy attire,” Stephanie said as Eve took her hand and stood up. “All this dashing about is making your outfit absolutely filthy, Eve. It looks like you spent the day in a pig pen.”

“Have you managed to add the word ‘thanks’ to your lexicon,” Eve griped as she stood up and dusted herself off. “Where’s Darwin?”

“I set him down behind the front end of this dinosaur,” Stephanie patted the rickety machine twice, “He’s perfectly safe.”

“What? You need to have him with you at all times!” Eve barked at Stephanie while starting to head over to where Stephanie had pointed. “Do you not realize how important he is?”  

“Oh, so much affection. Perhaps I should protect him from you!” she laughed, easily darting in front of Eve, snatching the baby up and rushing out of Eve’s reach. “Careful, Darwin,” Stephanie whispered loud enough for Eve to hear, “this one is a real predator. She’ll spot you with that spoon of hers and snatch you up without a moment’s notice.”

“Will you stop it with that joke already? This is not going to be a Luke and Leia mishap,” Eve protested, trying to dash after the faster Stephanie who was skirting around the transport. “Just . . . be careful with him!”

“Oh, it’s okay. I know it won’t be a Luke or Leia incident. That was the bro chasing the sis; this will be the other way around.” Stephanie grinned ear to ear and then left off her dance around the transport to rush up to the next clear cover point on the side of a building.

“It will . . . you are so frustrating!” Eve finally relented, still following after her but this time only to make sure she wasn’t left behind in the mission.

“Of course I’m frustrating. You volunteered me for an escort mission. The only thankful part of this whole story is that we didn’t get one of the townspeople. How is it that they do mission after mission on their own when our units are out, but the second they have to be escorted they turn into fumbling idiots with an IQ lower than a French Model’s dress size?” Stephanie didn’t even bother controlling her volume as she poked her head around the corner. “All clear again.”

“Well, by all means you could have gone with Jennifer’s group.” Eve snatched Darwin from Stephanie while Stephanie was still looking for enemies to shoot. “She got stuck escorting Octopus Hands McGrabs-A-Lot. I swear the only thing more annoying than how that guy dashes in front of the line of fire every five minutes is how he tries to grab at you every two minutes. If he wasn’t one of the only guys left and needed for the ‘survival of the race,’ I’d have shot him myself years ago.”