Chapter 2

I suppose I have to tell you the full story. What happened immediately after logging out of U-Infusion and turning off the ARG isn’t very exciting, let me tell you. I walked through the streets, taking care to avoid the several gamers I walked past as I did. Sure, their ARGs would’ve shown me as a ghost or animal or other non-important NPC they’d know to avoid, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. Otherwise I’d probably walk directly into the path of someone swinging their Yggdrasil around and get hit in the head. Again. So yeah, I took care on my way back to the apartment building I’d been living in at the time.

I walked around the back of the building and climbed up the fire escape. Near the top I slid open the window to my bedroom and slipped inside. I got changed and then just kinda hung out for a while. I kept an ear out for any sounds coming from the apartment at large, of course. And only once I could be completely sure that my father and sister were asleep and wouldn’t be disturbing me did I exit the room and stop by the kitchen for a quick meal. With that done I went back to bed.

{Dear Future Junai

Insert clever transition symbol here.

-Love, Past Junai

XOXO}

As it turns out, the odds that I would meet the renegades again were about a hundred percent. I didn’t run into them literally the next day, that would just be ridiculous. It was actually about a week later. There I was, doing my thing and fighting against a Moosekat, when I distantly heard a few words echoing over me from behind.

“Hey! It’s you again!”

I gotta be honest, I didn’t look back at the shout at all. Why would I? It’s not like I knew that the words were directed at me. So instead I just kept on fighting against the Moosekat. I sliced right through its horns and then shoved a flaming sword down its open mouth. The Moosekat perished into a burst of stars and dropped several items for me to collect. Mark dropped down onto my left shoulder. At the same time, I felt something on my right shoulder.

I jumped away from the invasive force on my shoulder and whirled around to face it. While doing so I jabbed my sword, still coated in crackling fire, toward the aforementioned force. It came to a halt right in front of Yguzi’s face. The sword didn’t actually touch him, though. Well, the flames might have grazed his nose a bit. But then they died out, so it’s fine.

Yguzi’s body was arched back away from my sword, but other than that he seemed completely at ease. “Hey!” he said brightly. “It’s you again!”

I sighed and dropped my sword. Yguzi’s body sprung back to a normal standing position.

“Did you want something?” I asked.

“Oh, just saw you and wanted to talk,” Yguzi said easily. “We’ve been grinding up some Frozen Sundrops and then I saw you here and wanted to say hello. So, hello!”

“Hello.”

“Now’s the part where you ask me how I’m doing.”

I won’t lie to you right now, I was kinda lost. So the instruction was actually quite helpful. Not that I told Yguzi that. Instead I just let out a simple “how are you doing?”

“Pretty good, pretty good. Can’t complain, you know? What about you? How are you doing today?”

“Fine. Just-” Mark twitched and then took flight. “Hold that thought.” I turned away from Yguzi and looked around us. A dark yet somehow luminous circle opened up on the floor behind us. The darkness morphed and folded upward, wrapping around itself as it began forming a Demonic Shadow.

Before the demon had even finished forming I had a card drawn and ready to go. Then I looked at said card. It was equal parts red, blue, green, and yellow. Best to hold on to that for later instead of just wasting it on a pithy little Demonic Shadow.

I shoved the card into something like a frame on my belt. It only had enough space in it for one card, but storing even a single card for later could be useful in a pinch. By the time I had my next card, this one a blue three, two important things had happened. The Demonic Shadow had finished rising up from the now gone shining darkness, and Yguzi had pulled his axes from… somewhere. Don’t ask me where he keeps them when they’re not in his hands. They just seem to vanish into the ether.

“Stay back,” I told Yguzi. “I got this.”

“I’m sure you do,” Yguzi agreed. “So we’ll definitely do great!”

Any further argument I could have made, and believe me I had plenty that I could and wanted to make, had to be put on hold because the Demonic Shadow was an inconsiderate demon who decided that would be the best moment to attack.

It attacked me and just completely ignored Yguzi. About what I’d have expected from it, too. Not to brag too much, but I was a significantly higher level than Yguzi and/or just about everyone you can think of, really. So yeah, the Demonic Shadow chose me as its first target. I moved to the side to dodge the attack. When an arm manifested from the Demonic Shadow’s chest to hit me I pivoted to the side in another dodge.

I pressed the card to the blade of my sword. “Infuse.” While dodging another attack I stabbed my iced over sword through the Demonic Shadow’s stomach. The eldritch abomination’s eldritch abomination slowed down significantly. Slow enough that it couldn’t get out of the way of Yguzi’s following attack. One of his axes, glowing bright red, sliced through the monster’s head. The other axe, this one with a yellow sheen, cut through the chest.

And that was it. The Demonic Shadow burst into light and died between Yguzi and I. The items it dropped were sucked into Yguzi’s inventory over mine, so that sucked. But whatever. Demonic Shadows didn’t have anything that I really wanted.

Yguzi shoved his hands into the pockets of his onesie, his axes nowhere in sight anymore. “You’re pretty good at this game,” he pointed out when Mark landed on my shoulder. “I’m supposed to be with Juno and Melody right now. I told you we’re looking for Frozen Sundrops, right?” I actually did plan on responding, or at least nodding, but Yguzi kept talking so I didn’t really get a chance. “Would you want to join us?”

I faltered a bit. “Frozen Sundrops?” I repeated after a moment.

“Yep!”

“How many do you have already?”

“Three.”

Here’s the thing about Frozen Sundrops. Or things, I suppose. They are only useful for one very specific sidequest that you can tackle about halfway through the main story of U-Infusion. The quest is designed so that people can only ever take it once. They complete it, and that’s it. Never again. I had already done the quest myself, so I couldn’t do it again. Which is annoying because the reward for the quest is astronomically good. Infusium Bricks that can be used to upgrade weapons and armor. Considering just how rare Infusium Bricks are I can admit, from a game design standpoint only, locking the quest to once only makes sense. From a player perspective it’s just plain annoying.

Another thing I knew was that, while I had already done the quest and collected the Infusium Bricks, there is a loophole. If the person to accept the quest is partied up with other people then when the quest is completed everyone in the party gets the reward, even if they’d already done the quest like me.

Finally, Yguzi said they only had three Frozen Sundrops. To complete the quest you need to collect seven of them. And they can only be collected once a day. So if I said yes, I would be subjecting myself to four days of working with the renegades.

I think we all know where this is going.

“Sure, sounds fun.”

Have you ever seen a montage in a book before? Because we’re about to get into one.

———————————————————————

As you read the next fifteen hundred and forty words, I’d recommend getting a speaker and playing one of those cheesy eighties songs. Eye of the Tiger or Holding Out for a Hero or similar. Go ahead and get that set up. I’ll wait.

———————————————————————

The second we began our attack, I zipped forward to take on the herd of Ogretaurs. Before the first one could even raise his club, my sword, wreathed in flames, pierced through his stomach. A simple twist and downward slice had the Ogretaur howling in pain. He lifted a club above his head and started to bring it down onto my own head. I pulled my sword back and held the blade above me. The Ogretaur brought his arm down onto the flat blade, slicing cleanly through his wrist. The Ogretaur’s attack missed me by a literally figurative kilometer. I stabbed my sword right through his eye. I flipped a card up onto the blade.

“Infuse.”

My sword creaked and turned to wood. Vines grew out of it. Some of them wrapped around the Ogretaur from the outside. Others grew and burst out of his face. The Ogretaur’s body blew apart in a blast of light. The vines flopped to the ground and shattered.

I ducked down to evade an attack from another Ogretaur. It would have been too awkward to grab a card from that position, so I slashed the next Ogretaur across her stomach with a plain sword.

“You’re a really good fighter.”

I looked back at Juno upon hearing her words. At some point she’d gotten closer and joined me in the fray. She shot an arrow at an Ogretaur from point blank rage, then followed up the attack by stabbing it with the blade of her Combow.

My Ogretaur made a move to attack me again. The next card I drew was yellow. It depicted a circle with a line slashed through it. “Infuse.” When I stabbed the Ogretaur she took as much damage as it did from the uninfused attack. She also began sparking with electricity, left completely immobile.

“I’ve had plenty of practice,” I told Juno.

“I can tell. Your form is amazing.”

I dodged out of the way of a charging Ogretaur. When he was directly in front of me I stabbed him with a frozen sword. My sword pierced through his side and hit the skipped Ogretaur. She died and the charger stumbled down.

“Why wouldn’t it-”

A club swinging against my stomach cut my words off. I may not have felt anything, but I’d like to see you speak while watching yourself be brutally attacked. I snarled and brought my sword down on the Ogretaur again and again. I didn’t stop until its dying face resembled that one shirt you shoved in the back of your closet and didn’t unearth for five years. You know the one.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” I asked.

“Couldn’t tell you.”

Juno had her Combow stabbed into the side of an Ogretaur. She looked at me again. Then she yanked her weapon and the Ogretaur to the side, spinning them around until her Combow was pointed at me. She fired a green arrow. It flew right over my shoulder, narrowly missing my face.

I jumped to the side, dropping into a defensive stance. I held my sword in front of me. “What was that for?!”

Juno nodded back to where I had been standing. “For him.”

I chanced a glance back over. An Ogretaur stood, vines constricting him in place, with his club raised to attack.

“Oh.”

———————————————————————

“So, Junai,” Melody said while idly spinning her trident around. “I was looking through your character profile last night.”

I gave Melody an admittedly dumbfounded look as I slid underneath an Ogretaur and sliced my sword right through the middle of his body. “That’s… set to private.”

If Melody heard, she didn’t show it. Just kept talking. “And I couldn’t help but notice you’ve logged literally thousands of hours into this game.” She threw the trident behind her, not even seeming to aim. It missed a few Ogretaurs before it finally struck one of the monsters in the leg. Melody held out her hand and the trident flew back into it. “What’s up with that?”

“I like the game,” I responded simply. I slashed my sword up through a charging Ogretaur’s neck. I spun it around and brought it down to clip his retreating leg.

“Do you? Or are you just stubborn?” Melody braced her trident against her shoulder and let a charging Ogretaur impale himself on it. She flicked the trident to the side, sending the monster rolling over the ground. “I mean, most people only manage a few dozen hours before they give up.”

“Do I look like most people?”

Melody hummed and made a show of looking me up and down. She took a hit to the back for it. “A little bit,” she decided as she got back to fighting. “I mean, your outfit is kinda unique. But then again it could be made with the most basic cosmetic items. I’m talking the kind that are standard in literally every game. And I don’t know many people who would want to wear a skirt in active combat.”

“Guess I’m just that kind of girl.” I touched a yellow card to my sword. “Infuse.”

“Why do you do that?”

I waited until I had finished cutting up three Ogretaurs in one slash before I answered. “Do what?”

“Say infuse all the time. You know you don’t need to do that, right?” To prove her point, Melody pressed a card to the center prong of her trident. The prong began to glow red.

I shrugged and shook my head. “It’s just a thing I do.”

“Every time you infuse a card into your weapon?”

In answer, I held a red card to the blade of my sword. “Infuse.”

“Right.”

During my momentary distraction, an Ogretaur started to sneak up behind me. I spun around to face it and jumped back at the same time to put some distance between us. I stumbled against Melody. My sword slipped from my hand and fell to the ground with a faint clatter.

I recovered in time to dodge the swing of a club. I landed with my left hand ready to grab a card from the holster on my belt and my right held in a fist in front of me.

“Duck!” Melody shouted.

I faltered. “What?”

Melody groaned and grabbed my shoulder. She shoved me down and jammed her trident above my head and into the Ogretaur’s ribcage. The monster cried out and perished in a whirl of flames.

Once it was dead, we had a momentary reprieve in monster attacks. Just long enough for me to grab my sword.

“Thought you could use a hand,” Melody explained.

“I was fine,” I muttered tightly.

“Really? That thing was about to clobber you.”

“And I was about to pull out my secret weapon!”

“What weapon? Strategic retreat?”

“The Cobalt Card of Shut Up!”

———————————————————————

Yguzi and I stood before a small army of Ogretaurs. They stayed away from us, but it wouldn’t last for long. I grabbed Yguzi’s arm and dragged him into a narrow gap between two buildings. One was pristinely standing while the other was decayed and wrapped in vines. “How much defense does that onesie of yours have?”

“Seventy-eight,” Yguzi answered.

“Right.” I flicked open my menu and pressed a few buttons. Two bottles dropped into my hands. I held one out to Yguzi. “Drink this.”

Yguzi grabbed the bottle, shrugged, and held it up to his mouth. The liquid drained rapidly, resulting in his body shimmering slightly. Yguzi’s eyes flicked to the corner of his own vision, where a small icon would now be floating. “Defense potion. And what’s that other one?”

“Essence of Centogres.” I dunked the bottle over Yguzi’s head, dousing him in the liquid. “Ogretaurs hate the stuff.”

I stepped out of the gap in the buildings as the entire herd of Ogretaurs roared and began their charge. They clambered to get to Yguzi. The gap between the buildings was so narrow that only one or two could get through at a time. And even then, with how the Ogretaurs were pushing and shoving at each other, they wound up blocking each other more than anything. Yguzi and I made quick work of the herd.

“What was that?” Yguzi asked.

“A genius plan.”

“And you couldn’t have warned me?”

“I knew you’d be fine.”

“Right,” Yguzi said slowly. “Can I leave this alley now?”

I shrugged. “Buddy, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

Yguzi sighed and crossed his arms. A mass of gnarled brown wood overtook my vision. An Ogretaur had swung his club through my head from behind. I yelped and spun around. I yanked out the card saved on my belt.

My sword began to hum with power. The blade and hilt turned to ice, vines wrapped around the weapon, electricity sparked across the blade, and the whole thing lit up with ethereal flames. I hacked and slashed at the Ogretaur until it died in an explosive rainbow of light.

“You couldn’t have warned me?!”

“I knew you’d be fine.”

———————————————————————

’Twas on the final day of our quest that everything truly went down. On our way to the pavilion that held the final Frozen Sundrop, Yguzi hopped forward and turned around so he walked backwards in front of the rest of us. “We’re not splitting up this time, right?”

“Why not?” I asked.

“It’s the last day! We’ve got six Sundrops, right?”

Melody nodded. “Can confirm.”

“Exactly! Six! Don’t you know what that means?”

“History’s about to get overthrown?” I quipped.

“More like we’ll be making history,” Juno countered. She frowned thoughtfully. “Well, we’ll be on the track to make history.”

“How is this making history?” I asked. “It’s not like this quest is that hard.”

“With the Infusium we’ll be well on our way to beat the game.”

“And no one’s ever done that before!” Yguzi added.

Melody leaned forward to look at me from Juno’s other side. “The final boss is that hard. Widely regarded as impossible to defeat.”

I inclined my head, acknowledging Melody’s point. Even still, I let out a scoff. “You’re exaggerating. Sure, The Terror is, well, terrifying and a terror to fight (oh, that’s where that name comes from), but not impossible. I mean, come on. Do you really think any game would be released with an unbeatable boss.”

Juno shrugged, taking it upon herself to answer. “Not unless the game was rushed through development with half the team of developers it should’ve had. Plenty of things, such as balancing of weapons and mobs and bosses inevitably slipped through the cracks.”

“Why does that sound like a parroted line?” I absently glanced at Mark on my shoulder and reached up to smooth out his feathers.

“I’ve had this conversation before,” Juno explained.

“Lots of times,” Melody added.

“Cool. You’re still exaggerating.”

“Is it still exaggerating if, a year after the game’s release, the developers announced that no one had beaten the game?” Melody countered.

“And then proceeded to release an update and say that from then on anyone who beat it after that would get an ultra rare item that’s a cryptid amongst even the most cryptic of cryptids,” I finished. “Yeah, I remember. It was a huge and overt and, most importantly, a hugely, overtly, stupid publicity stunt. Yet more proof that it’s not impossible.”

“Of course it’s not impossible,” Yguzi agreed. I crossed my arms and started to nod along. “That’s why we’re gonna be the first to beat it.” I kept my arms crossed, though for an admittedly different reason this time.

“You could join us, you know,” Juno offered. “We work well together. Could make history, get your hands on that cryptid item, all that jazz. What do you say?”

“Gee, I’d love to, but I’ve already got one,” I drawled.

“May we take that as a yes?” Melody asked.

I sighed and looked past Yguzi. “Look, there’s the Celestial-Terra Pavillion. Let’s focus on that.” I pointed at the blue and green gazebo in the distance.

A beam of sunlight shone down to illuminate the pavilion. No small feat, considering it and we were surrounded by a ring of mostly-ruined skyscrapers. Vines wrapped around the empty shells, keeping them upright. The few buildings that weren’t overgrown, and the only ones we could enter without immediately starting to get drained of health, weren’t even really buildings. They were just really big trees that had been carved into buildings. Either way, they were also skyscrapers that should have blocked most if not all the sunlight from reaching down to the clearing. And yet a single spotlight shone directly onto the pavilion, piercing through a thick layer of clouds to get there. Go figure.

We took a few steps closer to the Celestial-Terra Pavillion. Mark flew from my shoulder as the air all throughout the clearing began shimmering. Stumps grew up from the ground like weeds. Ogretaurs reached through the shimmering lines and ripped them open, stumbling into the clearing from whatever world they previously inhabited. Each one grabbed a stump and ripped it from the ground to use as a club.

The renegades and I all drew our weapons, getting ready to fight.

“We stick together this time,” Juno said. “Don’t split up. Don’t go straight for the pavilion. Let’s make this last fight one to remember. We’re gonna show these things what it’s like to fear us.”

All at once, every single Ogretaur flinched back. Some of them dropped their clubs, some roared in anger and fury, some screamed, and I swear I saw one burst into tears.

Juno blinked. She was so befuddled that her body actually fell from its battle stance. “G-good job.”

A chime echoed around my head. Judging by the way the other three reacted, they all heard one too. We’d all received some kind of messages. I’d have loved to see what they were about, but the Ogretaurs had gotten their bearings back. Their army charged at us, so we had to take care of that first.

It was laughably easy.

Once they were all dead and the Frozen Sundrop collected, I turned my attention to the message. I opened my menu and scrolled to the inbox. The others were all doing the same.

Only one unread message.

“Let me guess,” I spoke up. “The subject line reads ‘A declaration to the outsiders?’”

“Yep.”

“That’s what mine says.”

“Yes.”

“Comforting,” I muttered. I pressed my finger to the message’s icon.

I am done.

For years now, you -yes YOU- have been an outsider forcing your way into worlds that never have and never will belong to you. You trample in and stumble your way through scenarios that have nothing to do with you. All for the sake of your “quests” and “missions” and “entertainment.”

I am done putting up with you.

You’re no longer going to be allowed to stumble unchecked through a life that was never yours. You won’t be able to.

I am done putting up with you and you are going to stop.

We will force you if necessary. This is your one chance. I suggest you take it and leave me alone. Because if and when you don’t, we will be forced to fight back. And I will win.

Consider this a declaration of war.

The War of AIvNG.

And then all hell broke loose.