HE NEEDS A HERO!

Once again we came riding up to the city of Mothbordia. Things had gotten much worse here since we were kicked out a few hours ago, and that was clear because the building lights and glass were colored red now instead of green. Evil people always like coloring things red, of course.

Hordes of zombies were waiting for us, lined up like Ray's collection of miniature block-men space troopers he kept behind glass. These Glitched were armored up with spears and rifles, ready for long range combat.

The_Zorro: -There’s a lot of them here. Think we can manage to get passed them all without a fight?-

“We can take that secret entrance in,” Crow-boy said.

He had a great idea, but it fell apart when we saw the entire sewer entrance had collapsed in on itself.

“They probably figured out we could come in this way,” Tensei suggested.

The_Zorro: -Are there any other secret entrances?-

There wasn’t enough time to go hunting down secret paths. The only option we really had was to pile into the carriage and ride into that city through the front gates, like real heroes.

♫ ♪ ♬ Queue a song about needing a hero before the morning light! ♫ ♪ ♬

Maybe this wasn’t the safest way in, but did we have much choice?

Everyone was physically and mentally preparing for riding in at full speed, gathering up ranged weapons of all kinds to take aim at the zombies in our path…

But this pretty lady had an even better plan to blast those Glitched down like bowling pins!

“Follow me!” I smirked as I flipped over Crow-boy and then off of our horse Ruth, who let out a neigh as I landed in front of her. “I’ll clear us a lane, so just keep a few paces behind so you don’t get blown up, K?”

“Mama, what are you planning?”

“Just pulling a page out of an old playbook,” I winked. “This isn’t my first time fighting zombie hordes in a video game, you know?”

The zombies were enticed by me, all gathering up with their respective weapons ready to poke and shoot. There were thousands, maybe even tens of thousands. I couldn’t count them all, and I counted money for a living.

None of these guys were ready for what was about to hit them. And I was all too happy to show a pretty smile with serious eyes, locking in like a boss.

“Here I go!” I sang as I ran forward and summersaulted. “♪Keep calm and Bom-Bom on!♪”

As I entered the crowd of zombies, I activated the explosive Bom-Boms and let those fiery things blast them away by the dozens. I twirled and spun, washing them all in beautiful flames and stars.

It was so much fun racking up that zombie body count and clearing a lane for everyone to follow. All the enemies tried their best to poke and shoot me, but I danced around their attacks with the grace of a butterfly dodging razor leaves in the wind. 

My head was back in a time where all I knew was practice-working myself to the bone every day, learning routines, balance and keeping in shape. All these years and this virtual body matched my muscle memory perfectly, even made it better.

*BOOM BOOM BOOM!*

Before I knew it, we were right on the gates, which were locked up tight with a big metal wall.

WELL 'F' THAT WALL! *BOOM!* *BOOM!*

I hit that thing like the bomb shell I was. It came down and we got in!

“Nice work, Mama! That was amazing!”

“Thank you, Teny-chan!” I posed proudly, then looked over my shoulder to smile brightly at her and the rest. “I feel like a teen again! Eeeehh!” I squealed, playfully slapping my Bom-Boms together and accidentally causing a big BOOM in my own face! “Woops!"

Lucky for me, that cleared a couple of strays out, but I needed to be more careful with these things.

🌹🎮🌹

Once we passed the city wall, we had those islands with all the buildings on them to hop across in order to reach the college tower.

I cleared that parkour path like a pro, and the others didn’t have any trouble with it either, but we did have to leave Ruth behind, since horses couldn’t B-hop…

…Or so I thought, because that girl left behind the carriage and galloped across the chunks of rocks right quick!

“Baller, Ruth!” I said while mid air. “You rock! Pun intended.”

*Neigh!*

We reached the gates of the collage and stomped down on a few zombies on the final landing. We looked so cool that I asked the stream chat to snap some screenshots from different angles. They were more than happy to oblige.

“♪Okay! Okay! Let’s be on our way!♪” I sang in a cheery tone, then I struck the front door with a Bom-Bom strike. A big energy shield protecting the door reflected all the damage back and I flipped back down the stairs, sticking the landing. “Crap. We need to figure out a way through that.”

As we considered our options, we heard some laughing coming from behind and turned to see that edgelord mama’s boy Troja sitting there, this time in even bigger armor with a suspiciously large codpiece that looked like it was going to make walking very difficult.

“What’s up, losers?” he grinned with an evil look in his now scary red eyes. His skin was zombified and pale, but thicker from the looks of his wider neck. He might have actually gained a few pounds since we last saw him.

“Well, if it isn’t Terminally Online himself,” I power posed with my Bom-Boms on my hips. “Come to be a pain again? We’ll smack you down so hard your mom won’t have enough band-aids to fix your ouchies.”

“Tell ‘em, Mama!” Teny-chan cheered. “♪Mama Mama, she’s our lady! Lord Troja’s a loser who sits and eats gravy!♪”

“Oh, you make fun of me now, but wait till you see my upgrade!”

That punk held up a toy wooden horse, which he threw up in the air. The whole thing exploded with a big *PWOOOF!* Then instantly grew like ten times larger, way big enough for that idiot to mount.

It was the same wooden raid boss we fought back in Seigefell, but this one sprouted wings and had a single long horn. He sat there so proudly on that things back, not realizing how ridiculous he looked.

“Oh no way…” I laughed. “Bro, you're not aura farming on a wooden unicorn, are you? What are you, a little girl in front of a supermarket? Chat, screenshot this so we can ruin his bad-boy reputation online!”

“H-hey!” Troja growled. “Don’t you dare challenge my masculinity like that, you pleb.”

Phase one of the fight was to throw him off his game. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be the same dude we faced off against before, so we needed to get him flustered and unfocused.

“Cope and seethe, cretin!” shouted Crow-boy.

I couldn’t think of better words than that. But one thing did worry me. Troja was going to be a pain in the butt to fight. That would really slow us down. We had to get in this tower before that update covered the whole map.

The_Zorro: -My daughter and I can handle this! Find a way inside!-

“You sure, Zorro?” I asked.

The_Zorro: -It would be our pleasure :) -

“You’re a champ, Zorro!” I waved to him and gave him a special cheer pose. “Kick his ***.”

Darn, the game censored me when I was trying to sound all cool!

The rest of us left to let Zorro and his daughter handle that loser. Now we had to figure out a way through this last door to the tower, and it didn’t seem like my Bom-Boms alone were going to cut it this time.

“Teny-chan, maybe you can hack it? Use that command prompt thing or whatever.

“Wait!” she snapped her fingers. “You’ve got it, Mama! Let me write up a script that… Mmm…”

She kinda’ just dove into her own little mind for a second and started typing up something in thin air. While she was doing that, I enjoyed the view of Zorro riding around on Ruth, trolling Troja by jumping off when close onto the back of his unicorn whenever he’d swoop in close. It was then that I decided to call Troja 'Trollja,' because it was hilarious.

“Got it!” Teny-chan said. “Let me try this cheer.” Two cute little proper pom-poms appeared in Teny-chans hands and she did a cute little dance, like the ones I was doing. “♪Mama mama! Make that barrier fall. Mama mama! Get us through this wall!♪”

Energy sparkled out of Teny-chan and radiated around me like a hot red flame. “What did you do?” I asked.

“This barrier is weak to energy attacks,” she explained. “I just gave you the electricity affinity. So hit it again and watch it fall.”

“That’s my girl,” I said as I went all BOOM on that energy barrier!

The barrier faded after a few BOOMs and Crow-boy got to work pushing that door open with all his digital strength.

Right at the main hall were two figures standing there, swirling with familiar raid boss energy. Two pirate folk I knew all too well as Davy and Ginger.

“Looks like the Virus turned them both into these super zombies,” I commented. “We’re gonna’ have to fight them to get through.”

“Allow me.” Crow-boy stepped forward, armed and armored with his holy sword and paladin gear like the brave knight he was. “I may not be the level I was the first time through, but I think I’ll be able to handle them.”

If I didn’t know what he was planning with his holy energy, I wouldn’t have allowed him to fight this two on one. But there were some things we had going for us that I bet even The Virus hadn’t planned for.

He rose up his sword. Raid-boss Davy brought up his finger guns, and Raid-boss Ginger raised dual cutlasses, both steaming with dark energy.

“Don’t kill them,” I ordered.

“I’m a paladin. It is my duty to cleanse darkness from every man woman and child, never to take their lives.” his glowing sword pointed their way. “Now, my friends, allow me to cure you of this zombified blight that has taken hold of your flesh.”

The two pirates both hovered off the floor and flew at him fast. BANG BANG! SWISH SWISH! CLANG CLINK!

Crow was speedy enough to block all their hits. Any dark damage that seeped through was negated by his resistance to dark energy, and these two raid-bosses were full of that stuff like a chocolate filled creampuff.

Through the traded blows with Ginger, he managed to get a slash across her arm, which delt enough light damage to free that part of her body from the zombification. With her hand returned to life, she regained a smidge of her consciousness and dropped the weapon in that hand.

Seeing that gave me all the hope I needed that he was going to be just fine, so Tensei and I made a break for the tower elevator room.

Davy wasn’t about to let that happen, because he started blasting. BANG BANG!

But Crow-boy’s chat ghosts appeared and surrounded Davy to block him from aiming at us properly.

“Good job, chat! Good luck, Crow-boy!”

“As to you, Madam Rose!” Crow-boy grunted as he struggled in a sword lock with Ginger. “May you save your husband, and this game!”