Aria

Episode I – The Pilot

“Hey? Alex! Stop looking at Olivia for one moment and listen to me!”

Alex’s line of sight was broken between him and Olivia, Roger Elyske stood in front of Alex’s desk trying to catch his attention. Alex shook his head and refocused his attention to his friend.

“Sorry, I was in, uh… Deep thought.”

“Yeah, about her. Have you even asked her out yet?”

 “What did you want anyway?” Alex said a little irritated by his friend

“You know that new game is coming out today right?”

“New game?”

“Wow, you’ve haven’t heard of Aria?”

“Oh, that game?”

“Dude, that is the game! It’s the first 4D game where you’re in the game!”

“Great.”

“You’re not even excited one bit, are you?”

“Not really.”

“Well, I’m stopping by the arcade after school to get it and you better come with me! Or else I’ll murder you while you sleep!”

 

The school bang rang throughout the halls and students raced out the door eager to get home while Alex casually walks up and heads out the door. The hallway was busy and filled with a horde of young adults rushing to and fro. Alex tried to dodge the heavy traffic but got swooped into it and decided to just follow the crowd. They were heading to the south exit where Roger’s locker would be so he didn’t mind.

Alex finally stepped out of the rushing crowd to meet Roger but Roger was in peril. The schools bully Lukas and his two friends had Roger pinned to the wall.

“We know you brought money today for that new game Roger. You’d better give us the money you piece of shit or you’ll end up looking like a smashed bug.”

Alex hated these guys but was no match for them. Alex didn’t care he wasn’t going to let his friend get hurt. Alex leapt forward and swung his fist out. One of Lukas’s friends turned around in time to see Alex coming but not enough time to react turning his face into a bloody pulp. Lukas grabbed Roger’s head and slammed it against the locker knocking him unconscious. The other bully tackled into Alex and pinned him against the floor, Lukas frantically frisked Roger for his wallet and soon found the money he carried. Lukas held the money in his hand and threw the wallet back at Roger. Alex tried to lift the bully off of him but the bully was part of the wrestling team and Alex was part of the chess team, Alex was stuck and received a flurry of punches. Lukas told his friend that they were leaving and all they all quickly vanished out the area. Alex couldn’t move. His nose was broken and blood soaked his eyes. He couldn’t even breathe properly. A distant sound echoed into Alex’s ear. It was a rhythmic sound, a sound much like footsteps. A gasp was heard and the rhythmic sound sped faster and grew louder. It was Olivia, she bent down beside Alex,

“Oh my god, are you alright?!”

“I… I could be better.”

“Wait here, I’ll get help.”
Olivia quickly got back onto her feet and ran down the hall. Alex formed a smile or at least mentally, (He had a hard time moving his mouth) because at that moment, he couldn’t feel pain at all. Alex tried to raise his head to look at Roger, he could see a big bruise on the back of his head but didn’t see any blood. More footsteps returned and they were the doctors of the school tending to him. He closed his eyes and tired to brush away the pain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three months later…

Alex opened his eyes and found himself in his room lying still on his bed. Alex sighed and tried to sit up but the muscles in his body denied him to any movement. Alex laid down and thought about what happened. He tried to protect his friend and failed. He got his body damaged, and he managed to be sarcastic with his dream girl at a horrible time.  Alex sighed at his horrible failure of a save the day attempt and closed his eyes. A knock at the door pried his eyelids open.
“Come in,”

Roger came into Alex’s room and sat down at his computer desk chair.

“Hey Alex,”

“Roger, I’m sorry-“

“Why are you sorry for?! Those bastards are the ones who need to apologize!”

Alex kept silent. He felt responsible for his friend getting robbed. If he didn’t charge into the situation, maybe Roger could have talked it out.

“What are you going to do about your money Roger?”

“I’ve saved that money from the summer waiting for this game… I guess I’m going to have to save up during the winter. I’m gonna go, you should rest.”

“Bye Roger,”

“Good night Alex.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

One month later

Alex stacked the box on top of the randomly lying crate and opened it up. It had the new game Aria inside. He resisted the temptation to just grab one for Roger, but it was against his morals. Roger was behind him eyeing the game in front of Alex.
“You know Alex; if you stole a copy we wouldn’t have to be working at the arcade to get money for the game.”

“Haha, I was thinking the same thing, but man that game is so expensive! 150$ for a game?!”

“Well, it’s the world’s first 4D game! You get to be in the game!”

Alex sighed and shook his head not understanding why it was so crucial for him to play the game.

“I bet it’s not even that great, you should get a different obsession Roger.”
“What are you talking about?! I heard that it was amazing, it’s got a few bugs and problems but they have a team for that kind of stuff.”

“Whatever, you’re wasting your time,”

“I think this is better than obsessing over a girl who you can’t even ask out!”

The door bell swung Alex’s attention to the entrance. He couldn’t make out the faces because of the dim lights but their gait and stature shouted their names out for him. It was Lukas and his two friends and they carried a baseball bats. The owner a old man about sixty walked up to Alex,

“Hey Alex, you know anything about those hooligans? They’re got no reason to take baseball bats into my store.”

“They’re the school bullies, they’re bastards and they need to be taught a lesson.”

“I’ll show them out the door,” interjected Roger but the owner put his arm out and stopped Roger.

“I’ll do this.”

The owner walks up the three boys and asks,

“I would to tell you baseball bats aren’t permitted inside this store.”

Lukas smiled and swung the baseball bat. A large electrical smash sound soon followed. Lukas hit a arcade machine and smashed it’s screen.

“Give us the money old man!”

The owner was surprised and shocked, he trembled and feared for his life.

“We gotta do something!” Yelled out Roger

“But what can we do?! Uh.. Um, Roger! Call the cops! I’ll deal with them and hopefully they’ll go away.”

Roger nodded his head and took out his cell phone.

Alex picked up the large bag of tokens for the arcade machines and charged at Lukas.

“Here’s your money!”

Alex swung the bag of tokens like a morning star into Lukas’s face. Alex kept running and tackled him back against the door and Alex kicked Lukas in the stomach knocking the hinges off and Lukas fell down with the door. One of Lukas’s friends swung his bat at Alex but the large token bag absorbed the blow. Alex aware of Lukas’s friends now swung the bag at the one who attacked him, knocking him down onto the ground. A baseball bat flew over his head has the remaining bully tried to hit Alex. Alex filled with adrenaline was ready to tackle him when a dart went into his neck. Alex looked over to see Roger with a blowgun in his hand.

“Where the hell did you find a blow gun?!”

“It’s mine; I keep a lot of weird items in my shop…”

The bully paused to take the dart out when sirens blared through the streets. A flash of red and blue as the cops came rushing down the block. The bully was scared and didn’t know what to do. At this moment Alex formed a smile and knew that he had won this fight. The cops arrested the three boys and each one of us what happened.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  After the cops were gone Alex sat on the counter with a cold drink in his hands trying to remember exactly how he accomplished his feat. He couldn’t remember it happened so fast it was like a blur. Roger jumped on the counter also and smiled,
“We sure showed those bastards!”

“Yeah, but why did you use a dart gun?”

“A dart can be very powerful my friend,”
Alex stared at Roger with a puzzled face, then they both broke out into laughter.

“That’s bullshit!”

“Shut up, it was close by and it seemed like a great idea at the time!”

The shop owner came out carrying two boxes.
“I’d like to thank both of you for saving me from those hooligans earlier, so I present to you-“

The shop owner opened the boxes and handed both of them to Alex and Roger,

“The Aria game, I’ve seen you two eyeing it, go home. Play it to your heart’s content.”

Roger had the biggest smile on his face and he instantly got onto his feet.
“Come on Alex! Let’s get to playing it!”

“I guess I could give it a try…”

Alex walked out the door with Roger ten feet ahead of him.
“Why do you walk so slow?! Hurry up!”

Alex laughed and started to sprint forward and went pass Roger,

“I’ll be home before you Roger, and I’ll get to play it first!”

Roger matched Alex’s speed and they ran side by side,

“Not if I get to my house first!”

They came up to the street that split their paths, Alex ran to the left and Roger ran to the right both headed towards their homes. Alex ran up to the front door and frantically tried to grab the keys out of his pocket and unlock the door. Inside was his family at the dining room table.

“Alex, come sit with your sister, father, and me.”

“Sorry, I’m going to be in my room, I gotta do something!”

Alex rushed upstairs and opened his room door to find Leo lying on his bed. Gizmo looked up and meowed at Alex,

“Hey Leo!”

Alex ruffled up his ears and quickly put the game into the console.

His cell phone rang and it was Roger.

“What is it loser? I beat you to it!” Yelled Roger through the phone

“What are you talking about I’m making my character right now!”

Alex could hear Roger laughing through the phone.
“I already made my character! His name is WonderWaffle94!”

“Wonder…Waffle?”

“Never mind just add me as a friend when you’re done.”

Roger hung up and Alex put the phone on his desk. He made his character a fair skin color with jet black hair. He picked one of the generic outfits to start out with and it was a royal looking shirt and pants of the color green. His class was a Mystic Knight. It allowed him to perform attack magic well and physical magic. His screen name was Spirit. The game started and he felt like his soul got sucked into the screen when he put the equipment on.

~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--

Spirit looked around and saw large white brick walls and torches that lit the room; however it was blue flame that glowed from the torches. A player walked closer to him, and a line of words appeared over his head that said WonderWaffle94.

“Hello there Spirit, you ready to do this?!”

“You know it’s really hard to take you seriously when your name is WonderWaffle94.”

“Whatever, I’m gonna be amazing at this game, so you can call names as much as you like.”

Down the hall lead into a larger room where Spirit could see players fighting enemies and flashes of light. Spirit peeked around his friend to see if he could see anymore of the action ahead. WonderWaffle94 turned around to see what Spirit was looking at and saw the large battle raging in the large decorated room ahead. The whole building seemed like it they were in heaven, it was so bright and neatly designed, but of course it was just game. More people kept appearing as Spirit and WonderWaffle94 stood gazing at the combat ahead. So many people… and we’re not even on a crowded server…

Spirit walked forward and entered the large room, it had the style of a grand ballroom, marvelously painted ceiling of a fortress in the sky and one side angels fighting shadowy demons that originated from the other side. The floor was smooth and polished shining against the torchlight. Even with the warfare the ground stayed in perfect form. Spirit looked away from the floor and looked across the room to find the enemies players were facing were shadowy humanoid figures, and the figures closely resembled their attacker. Spirit shuddered. The thought of something looking like you and then fighting against you is a little frightening.

An NPC walked up to Spirit and greeted him, the same to WonderWaffle94.

“Hello, Spirit. Welcome to combat training 101. Since you a Mystic Knight you will be given this special weapon.”

The NPC raises her hand and summons a scimitar; the curve of the blade was to supposedly increase the magical attack of the sword. The NPC smiles and raises her again this time summoning a shadow of Spirit.

“You must defeat yourself in order to continue in this game. Good luck!”

The shadow carried the same weapon Spirit just received and taunted towards Alex’s avatar. Spirit raised the sword and beckoned the shadow to attack. It mirrored Spirit’s movement probably to mock him. A long pause was initiated, the two stood in their tracks and studied each other, planning carefully and waiting for the right moment to charge. WonderWaffle94 was already in a fray with his dark doppelganger that both carried swords that seemed to be larger than life, for they were blademasters, a class that excels at using brute strength and stamina to achieve victory. Spirit faced his enemy again to find him only a foot away with his sword in midstrike. Spirit raised the scimitar in time to block the blade from harming him. The shadow seemed like it smiled and stomped on Spirit’s foot, leaving him open for only a second but enough for the shadow to strike at spirit’s arm leaving a large gash. Spirit clenched his arm and the dark figure retreated backwards beckoning Spirit to come forth and strike. Spirit charged back the shadow demon ignoring the wound, the shadow stood still and fully composed.

            Spirit was about two feet away when the entire room seemed to freeze in time and the environment started to distort, turning objects into a negative color and leaving binary code in cracks of the environment. A small gold glowing object about the size of a small rock rose from the ground that came between the shadow and Spirit. The shadow was being ripped to shreds into binary code, the code forming a larger shape.

Nothing else moved in the area except the shape shifting shadow and the floating object. The binary code started to turn solid now giving shape to a large and ferocious beast. The titan now looking enemy that came from the shadow towered at twenty feet high and wore black armor, its face covered by a helmet and its wings were both demonic and mechanical like. Alex didn’t understand what was happening in the game, was this a glitch or was it part of a quest?

The small floating object propelled itself into spirit’s body causing him to get knocked down. Spirit felt a surge of immense power rush all over his body and his sword changed from the curved sword into a large sword about 42 inches with a blue leather grip. The blade was made from metal that seemed to give off a shade of blue rather than pure silver metallic color. The large beast attacked smashing its fist against the polished floor opening a crack of binary code in the floor. The crack was growing fast and in the direction of Spirit who evaded to the left and managed to reach the far end of the room in a matter of seconds. It almost seemed liked he teleported. No one else in the room moved and it seemed like they didn’t have a clue of what really was happening. The edges of the room were all starting to melt down slowly into code, Spirit tried to conjure a plan of defeating the monster when he saw a scan ability appear on his screen. With haste Spirit used scan which sent forth a small blast of energy at the enemy and went inside it. Instantly, Sprit knew the type of enemy; a Shadow Titan but the rest of its stats were in garbled letters and symbols. Spirit ran forward with the sword resting on his shoulder and the Shadow Titan stood prepared for the assault. Spirit leapt into the air both hands grabbing the hilt bringing the blade down vertically, the Shadow Titan crossed its arms and blocked the blow but it was pushed back by the blow and it’s armor cracked where Spirit’s blade met his arms.
“Come on you big tin can! Eat my sword!”

Spirit rose into the air at a breakneck pace giving off the illusion of teleportation again and Spirit sank the blade into the Shadow Titan’s helmet. Light spewed from its helmet and the monstrous beast roared in agony and pain. Its entire body exploded into a large blinding light. Spirit fell from his location in the air and closed his eyes to avoid getting blinded.
The room returned to its original state and time resumed everyone completely unaware of what has happened. Spirit looked around trying to find the sword that helped him accomplish the amazing feet, but could not find it anywhere in the room. Alex put a hand over his heart trying to see how bad his heart was beating, and he took a few deep breaths.

WonderWaffle94 walked up to Spirit with a large grin on his face.

“How was your battle Alex?”

“Intense,”

“Really? It didn’t seem like it. You were guys were staring at each other and then it was like over in two seconds.”

“You mean you didn’t see the Shadow Titan? The binary code? The room melting away?!”

“Uh… No.”

“Yeah… Just kidding. I think we should keep moving.”

They both started to make their way to the next room when a small kid about age 12 runs in front of Spirit.
“Hi… Uh, I’m Gizmo.”

“Hi? Do I know you?”

“No, not at all, it’s just that… Well… You…”

WonderWaffle94 was beginning to get impatient.

“Listen kid, what do you want?!”

“Did you really take down that Shadow Titan?!”

Spirit eyes widened in surprise, he was certain that there was no one that saw the battle, after all no one else moved.
“How did you-“

“I think that floating piece was part of the key! And I was close enough to it to be able to see the battle.”

“What key are you talking about?”

“It’s not really a key, it’s a-“

Spirit and WonderWaffle94 both could hear a background voice through Gizmo’s headset.

“Sorry guys, I have to log off. Add me though!”

Gizmo disappeared and left the game.

“What a weird kid,” said WonderWaffle94

Spirit slowly started to walk forward but his mind was still with Gizmo’s words. The piece that appeared was part of a “key” that he doesn’t know the function of and that kid watched the battle. What was going on?! Spirit laid a hand on his chest. Worst of all, that piece of the key, was inside him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The alarm clock shouted right into Alex’s ear and forced him awake. A grunt left Alex as he got up and turned the alarm off. Leo jumped onto the bed next to Alex and brushed up against his torso.

“Hey there Leo, I probably shouldn’t have stayed up so late playing that game, huh?”

Leo just silently looked up at Alex expecting him to pet him. Alex rubbed his eyes and tried to stretch out the weariness. Alex opened the door and heard conversation downstairs, which was slightly odd because only he was usually the only one awake at this time. Alex went downstairs to find Olivia talking to his parents.

“Oh hi Alex, I was just talking with your parents about… Lukas.”

“How come you never told us about it Alex?”

Alex wasn’t sure if this was real, he rubbed his eyes then opened them again. Yep, it was real and it wasn’t great for Alex. His crush just told his parents about a problem that

He was trying to avoid telling his parents.
“About Lukas? Because he’s not a problem anymore, now that I think about it he’s probably afraid of me now.”

“If he ever hurts you just tell one of us and we’ll-“

“No, it’s alright, I got this under control. Uh Olivia can I see you for a moment?”

“Sure,”

Alex took her into the study room, and he sat down in one of the large comfortable chairs, that littered the study room. Olivia followed suit and sat across him.

“Why did you tell my parents?!”

“I was worried about you guys, and you live on the way to school from here, and-“

“No, I’m sorry. I should have told my parents but I figured that I could solve the problem myself, which I believe I did in the store yesterday.”

“Really?! That’s great! What happened?”

Alex grinned and told her his story of his battle at the store, with a little exaggeration to hopefully impress Olivia.

“You beat them up with a bag of tokens?!”

“It’s a little ridiculous isn’t it?”

“A little?”

Alex saw the time on his watch and jumped out of his seat when he saw it only ten minutes before school started and he wasn’t even dressed.

“Oh man, I think we need to hurry. You can go ahead and leave I have to change.”

Alex ran upstairs and changed into the school uniform, a dress shirt and dark blue pants. Alex pat Leo on the head and opened his room door in a hurry and bumped into Olivia.
“I’m sorry, wait, Olivia? What are still doing here school starts in five minutes!”

“I uh, come then, we shouldn’t waste time.”

Both Olivia and Alex ran out and raced to school.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Roger threw a paper airplane at Alex hitting him the head. Alex undid it carefully to find the message, and hoped not to alert the teacher of note passing. Inside the plane the words Aria and a time of 4:30 below it, Alex didn’t completely comprehend the message so he sent back, are you saying we should play at 4:30?

The plane struck him in the neck and Alex was getting a little annoyed by his friend with great aim. Alex opened it up and it replied, Yeah, I heard they’re having this special event thing going on at that time. Alex wrote his response and prepared to throw it. He aimed it so that it would strike him in the eye, when the paper left his finger tips the teacher extended his arm and expertly caught the airplane.

“You two stay after school.”

Alex sat in his desk finishing the homework assigned to him, by no means was Alex dumb, but he wasn’t an A average student. The teacher just kept assigning work as Alex finished them with ease, the teacher finally found work on a subject they rarely touched on and handed a pile of assignments. The teacher Mr. Jari didn’t particularly hate Alex and Roger he just felt it necessary to act tough towards all his students. The clock ticked away as the short arm fell onto the four while the longer on the 6. Roger looked at Alex with a face of defeat and laid his head on the desk.

Finally when it became five o’clock they were released and Roger ran home Alex not far behind to keep up with his friend. Roger turned at the intersection and Alex went the other direction. Alex opened the door and went upstairs and prepared the videogame console for Aria.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   

 Spirit looked around and found everything was normal. WonderWaffle94 hurriedly approached Spirit.

“Alex! We need to get off Tutorial Island so we can get to that event, it still might be going on!”

 “This is Tutorial Island?”

“Yeah, I read up on this stuff, all we need to do now is get our wings and descend to Aquaria City.”

“What? Wings?!”

“If you haven’t noticed we’re on a cloud. This is a fortress in the sky that trains beginners at Aria. We must earn our wings here so we can live in the mainland. We’ve beaten our enemies so all we have to do now is descend.”

“Let’s go then!”

Spirit and WonderWaffle94 raced to the end of the hallway where the floor was a large cloud and the far wall was nonexistent. He watched as players equipped the wings and jumped off. WonderWaffle94 was already in line for the wings while Spirit was standing and examining players take their leap of faiths into the mainland. An NPC walked up next to him and handed him a pair of wings.

“Enjoy the game,” Was all the NPC said

WonderWaffle94 walked beside Alex and asked,

“So you ready?”

“I… I guess…”
“We’re pretty high up, so try your best to land in Aquaria City, there’s where the event is at.”

Alex and Roger’s avatars walked up to the edge and looked down; the mainland seemed only like the size of a stone from his position.

“On three?” Asked Spirit

WonderWaffle94 grinned and jumped off,

“Roger wait!”
Spirit watched as WonderWaffle94’s altitude drop drastically, he didn’t know how to control it and he was spiraling out of control. Spirit jumped off and opened the winds and soared downwards in attempt to catch up and rescue his friend. As Spirit went through clouds and the wind rushed past his entire body the mainland seemed to grow larger and larger, a city was right below him, he concluded that it was probably Aquaria City. WonderWaffle94 was now out of sight and Spirit kept soaring downwards towards the city below him. The ground now seemed pretty large and he was within the city limits, Spirit spread his wings and used it much like a parachute. He slowly glided downwards onto a small brick arch bridge. As soon as he landed the wings disappeared, a message appeared on his screen from WonderWaffle94.

Hey have you landed? When you have come meet me by the big fountain, you can’t miss it.

Spirit scanned the area if he could find signs of the big fountain, but couldn’t find it. Spirit started to run forward in search of the fountain, as he went by he noticed the architecture, the entire city seemed similar to Venice. There were rivers running through many parts of the cities and the brick bridges and buildings helped the Venice effect. Spirit wasn’t watching what was in front of him and he ran into another player. The other player pushed him and yelled out,

“Watch it!”

The player was travelling in a large group of about ten people, one of them rested a hand onto the one he ran into.

“I’m sorry, I was looking around for the big fountain.”
“Stupid noob, you didn’t even know who you’re talking to, do you?”

Spirit tried to look at their faces and tried to see if he recognized them anywhere but didn’t.

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t know who you are but please if you know where the big fountain is,”

“We’re D.A.R.T. the debugging and research team. We’re top of the leaderboards so address us nicely and-“

One of the other DART members sighed and raised his hand to halt the one speaking,

“Forgive Raiyu, he’s quite rude.”

The other seemed angry then worried.

“I’m sorry Myraluna did I dissatisfy you?”

“You shouldn’t care about my silly opinions, I’m not your teacher, it’s Darki who’s your sensei. Sorry, uh… Spirit, the big fountain is behind us, just keep following this path.”

“Thanks, Myraluna.”

Raiyu walked up to Spirit with a frown.

“Spirit… I challenge you to a duel!”

“What?! Why?”

“It’s my teacher’s wishes.”

Spirit withdrew the scimitar he received in the sky fortress and took a few steps backwards.

“It would be dishonorable of me to oppose correct?”

“Correct.”

Spirit prepared himself for the duel. Raiyu was a blademaster, but his sword was an average size with a finely crafted blade and hilt, Raiyu stood in a unique battle stance and told Spirit he was ready.

Spirit and Raiyu charged forward, Raiyu’s blade coming down at a vertical descent, Spirit step sided to the left and dodged the attack following up with a swing at Raiyu’s chest, he expertly jumped back before the blade could touch him. Spirit observed Raiyu, he was strong, Blademasters were always the strongest physical class but he could also evade efficiently which most Blademasters traded for power. Raiyu’s sword was an example of this. He had the strength to carry a large claymore but instead choose an average sized weapon to balance out power and evasiveness. Spirit wanted to believe that there was a large vulnerability, but could not find it. Raiyu’s blade skimmed his face, drawing blood. Raiyu swung his sword out again horizontally but Spirit ducked down below it and aimed low at Raiyu. Spirit’s scimitar meet Raiyu’s ankle making him stagger backwards. Spirit had found the weakness. No matter how good Raiyu was at evading it takes him a moment to reposition himself after a strike. Raiyu let out a hiss and lunged forward the blade in a stab motion. Spirit went to the right avoiding the sword, he grabbed Raiyu’s arm and sent forth magic stunning him with lightning. Spirit saw the chance of a kill blow and went for it; he sank the scimitar into Raiyu’s stomach making him fall down to the ground.

Myraluna applauded and walked up to Spirit.

“How is it that you do not know where The Great Fountain is yet you can defeat a D.A.R.T. Member?”

“I do not know Myraluna; I’ve only started from yesterday.”

Myraluna gave off an awed look.

“Do you wish to get better?”

“Of course, it’s the reason people play this game, to strengthen their characters.”
“Good, would you like to be my apprentice?”

Spirit looked at Myraluna. His avatar’s age was quite young; around twenty to twenty three and he wore ornate metal torso armor, long black pants and long overcoat matching the style of the armor. He was fair skinned and had long white hair with dark blue colored eyes. He looked as he could be an apprentice himself but something in his eyes spoke otherwise.
“I will take up your offer; I wish to become your apprentice Myraluna.”

“Great! But if you’re going to be my apprentice you can’t have a silly name like spirit. Hmm… How about… Miramusa?”

“Miramusa? It has a ring to it, sure why not?”

Myraluna fiddled with a device and Alex’s avatar name changed to Miramusa. He now was the apprentice of a top leaderboards player and carried a different name. Miramusa… sounds good.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Roger’s avatar also carried a different name now, it was Voroger. The Great Fountain did live up to its name, it towered at almost forty feet high and the water displayed an amazing show the water changing colors and bending physics of the real world while it moved about in the fountain.  Voroger walked up Miramusa and looked at his name.

“Why the sudden change Alex?”

“I’m now Myraluna’s apprentice.”
Voroger let out a sarcastic laugh,

“Yeah right, stop kidding around why did you change your name?”

“I’m really Myraluna’s apprentice!”

“You’re…You’re not kidding are you? Oh damn! How did you get to become his apprentice?! He is part of D.A.R.T. and top of the leaderboards!”

Alex sat down on the fountain and explained the story of how he and Darki’s apprentice dueled and he won, impressing Myraluna. Voroger was impressed and a little jealous.
“That’s totally not fair! I should get a cool teacher also! What are the perks? Do you get discounts at stores now or have people part their way for you?”

“No, I don’t even think most people know I’m his apprentice, he said that I’ll begin training with him when he next messages me.”

“When will that be?”

“I have no idea, he’s probably a busy person. So, what was that event that was supposed to be happening?”

“Earlier, The Great Fountain was spewing out presents into the air and people lucky enough got items, but we were stuck in school doing work…”

“Well I doubt that I would have gotten anything anyway,”

“What are you talking about?! You got to be Myraluna’s apprentice! You’re the luckiest person I know, and from now on I’m gonna bring you to where ever I go, so you can bring ME good luck.”

Miramusa looked around the fountain and saw a large crowd forming; the noise level was rising quickly.

“Hey Voroger we should go somewhere else,”

“I agree, this place is getting too busy, and this server is usually a calm one. Don’t worry I know a place.”

Miramusa followed Voroger around passing stores, buildings, houses, and bridges. Miramusa started to examine the buildings and wondered if they were scenery or actually accessible. He didn’t have the time to find out but he would have to keep it in mind to explore one day. Voroger stopped in front of a pavilion which had a large number of floating rings that spun around each other, forming a blue sphere of energy in the center. Voroger touched the floor and two rings floated from the ground and started to circulate.
“What is this?”

“This? Oh, this is the dungeon system in Aria, this is called a Main Gate, the large one in the middle of the pavilion, it powers all teleportation to the dungeons, and the smaller one from the ground is a Sub Gate, it specifies the area and difficulty of dungeon. You can also create your own custom dungeon here, if you don’t like the presets.”

A familiar voice called out Miramusa’s name.

“Hi, it’s me Gizmo! I see you guys both changed your names; I hope it’s not to avoid me… I’m not that annoying am I?”

Miramusa remembered the small kid; he was the only other person that was able to see the glitch.
“No, you don’t annoy me Gizmo,”

“Thanks Miramusa! So can I go with you to the dungeon you’re going to?”

Miramusa looked at Voroger who signaled a big no.

“Sure why not, the more the merrier”

Voroger had a disappointed look on his face and opened the Sub Gate. The Main Gate spun ferociously and shot a bolt of energy at the Sub Gate which then shot energy at the three players.

Miramusa landed on a grassy hill in the middle of a starry night. A distant voice echoed through the night and reached Miramusa’s ears. He looked around but didn’t find Gizmo or Voroger. Miramusa started to take a few steps forward when the time of day changed instantly to daytime. A bright piercing light entered his eyes and blinded him; Voroger was walking towards him with Gizmo by his side.

“Sorry Miramusa, I was trying to set it to daytime, must have pressed the wrong thing,” Yelled out Voroger. They were at the base of the hill while he stood at the top which gave him a great viewpoint of the custom made area. It was a long seemingly endless stretch of hilly land with a large windmill located somewhere about ten miles away from him.
Gizmo walked up beside him and asked, “Did you go to The Great Fountain earlier?”

“No, I was too caught up in my personal life.”

“Oh, well that certainly is better than wasting away your days with video games!”

 “I suppose… Hey Gizmo, what class are you suppose to be?”

“Oh, I’m a Tinkerer! I get to use inventions and neat gadgets to achieve my goals! Take this boomerang thing for example,”

Gizmo held out a steel boomerang

“Now at first you may think a steel boomerang isn’t going to get anywhere, but when I throw it,”

Gizmo tossed the steel boomerang expertly into the air then the boomerang spun so fast it was a blur, its movement’s became jerky and it started to morph into a awkward shape.
“It changes into a steel bird.”

The steel boomerang was now soaring through the air in the shape of a bird, the bright daylight sun shining off the metallic feathers. The bird flew back to Gizmo and morphed back to a steel boomerang. Voroger looked at Gizmo astonished,

“Wow, you got some cool toys little boy. So Miramusa and Gizmo, we’re going to head to that large windmill, it’s a dungeon and at the end of every dungeon there’s a great treasure chest with a lot of loot in it, but there is always a boss.”

“What’s is the loot?” asked Miramusa

“I don’t know, it’s random every time. A custom area is only player made in a sense of difficulty and scenery.”

“Well, let’s go get some gold then!” yelled out Gizmo.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

The three players stood in front of the large windmill. It seemed so tall that it touched the sky and the blades of the windmill seem to be as large as a normal building. They were at the front door, waiting for each other to enter first.

“You go in Gizmo!” Yelled out Voroger.

“Wait, why me? I’m the youngest, the young shouldn’t die!”

“You go in Voroger, you have the greatest strength out of all of being a Blademaster.” Proposed Miramusa.
“I agree with Miramusa, you go in Voroger!”

“What?! Ugh… If I die, I’m going to respawn and kill all of you!”

Voroger whipped out his large blade and poked the door with the end of the sword. Nothing stirred so he moved forward and opened the door slowly. Nothing but darkness was inside.
“Hey Miramusa, Gizmo, do any of you have a torch?”
Miramusa shook his head no.

“I do! Well it’s not a torch but it’s a gadget for light!”

Gizmo opened his messenger bag in where he kept all his gadgets and tools and brought out a clear orb with a symbol of a star in the front.
“This is called the estrella, or star in Spanish it emits-“

Voroger shakes his head and tells him,

“Does it make light?”

“Yes, by using the magic-“

“Then stop explaining it and use it!”

Gizmo ran forward and threw the clear glass orb into the room. When it left his hands it followed standard projectile motion but just about when it was going to smash against the floor it rose into the center of the room and lit the room with a warm torch-like light.

The room was worn down and was covered in cobwebs, the wooden damaged floor was filled with scurrying of rats and it told them how old the building was.  There didn’t seem to be any danger lurking around so they went inside and searched the area. They didn’t find any treasure on this level so they went to the next one. This level was large. Larger than it seemed on the outside and it seemed physically impossible if it were the real world but it was a game. This level was composed of five different rooms. A hallway that formed a T shape and two rooms leading from there and two from those rooms as they came to the split in the hallway a problem arose,

“There seems to be two paths… should we split up?” Asked Miramusa

“No way! We’ll be slaughtered if we do that!” Yelled out Gizmo

“I actually agree with Gizmo, we’re low levels and if we split up-“

Voroger was interrupted by the sound of doors slamming shut. From each side a monster appeared. The monsters seemed to be bird-like creatures that shared features of a demonic ostrich. Miramusa drew his scimitar and braced for a battle, Gizmo frantically searched his bag for something useful, and Voroger was returning the charge at one of the demonic ostriches. Miramusa didn’t know how to use his magic well; in fact he only used it once in the duel with Raiyu. He only knew how to stun. The beast tackled into him smashing him into the wooden wall, breaking old weak boards, almost penetrating to the outside. That was close, a little bit harder and I would have fallen down quite a ways. The bird creature backed up as if it was preparing to perform the same move again but, Miramusa had a plan. The animal charged again but just before it could strike him he evaded and the bird crashed into the wooden wall breaking it causing him to fall out. Miramusa let out a sigh of relief that his plan worked as he turned to aid his friends he heard a weird sound coming from outside, the sound of rhythmic beating. It got louder and louder then Miramusa finally saw what it was. The bird creature could fly! Miramusa tried to brace himself for an attack but it was too late. The beast had smashed into him and pinned him against the floor. His sword arm was held down one of its strangely powerful legs. The beak of the bird came down like hammer strikes trying to cave in his skull, he was lucky to avoid them. He grabbed the beast’s leg and tried to use a stun attack with only a small succession. After a few seconds he used it again but was unable to attack because of the bird’s tight grip on Miramusa’s arm. Miramusa stunned it again and yelled out,

“Help!”

Voroger turned around and swung the blade diagonally at the bird on top of Miramusa and sliced it in half. Miramusa let out an exhale of relief and Voroger held out a hand to help him back to his feet.

“You okay Miramusa?”

“Yeah, just a little shaken up, oh my god behind you!”

Voroger’s enemy still wasn’t fully defeated and sent out an attack at him. Voroger blocked the initial strike and countered the following one, wounding it fatally. They both turned around to check on Gizmo but found him sitting on top of the bird with his hands behind his back laying down on it.

“Boy you guys sure work slow,” exclaimed Gizmo

Both Miramusa and Voroger stared at Gizmo in disbelief. He made it seem like such a simple task in contrast to Miramusa’s and Voroger’s struggles. They shook their heads and went back to the problem of the path.

“Which way?” asked Gizmo

“Let’s go… Left.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 After they went through four levels of the windmill tower facing opponents and acquiring treasure they finally came to the last level, the level that contained the boss. As they entered the level they saw that it was one really large room with a large golden treasure chest at the opposite side of the room, the floor was covered in hay like material and the ceiling was a dome with one large part of the ceiling missing. Light poured through the gap in the roof and shone to where the treasure stood.

“Let’s go get our reward!” Yelled Gizmo

Voroger stuck his arm out to stop Gizmo,

“Not so fast, there usually is a boss at the end…”

Gizmo escaped Voroger’s grasp and continued running up ahead and yelled out,

“Don’t you think we would see him by now?”

Voroger looked at Miramusa and signaled him to be cautious and they started to walk to the treasure chest. Gizmo ran up to the chest and danced in glee.
“Hahah! We made it!”

The light where it shone on the treasure chest started to dim and the room was turning dark. Gizmo stopped dancing and stared into the gap. The room was now very dark with only a few spots of light from the cracked dome roof and Miramusa could barely make out where the other two people were. A large roar thundered in the air and shook the floor. A fast moving beast entered through the large hole and flew behind everyone. The light poured in again not being obscured by the beast. Miramusa drew his scimitar and turned around. The boss was a giant bird. Voroger brandished his weapon,

“Miramusa, Gizmo, do you guys know what that is?”

Miramusa shook his head no,
“It’s Roc, a giant bird of a really high level.”

Miramusa could hear Gizmo’s voice,

“A really high level?! Why did you pick this area then Voroger?!”

“It’s not suppose to have a Roc at the end! I don’t know why that thing is here!,”

The Roc let out a scream and everyone dropped to their knees covering their ears because it was so loud. The Roc then took advantage of this and charged at Voroger. Voroger was just starting to get back up when he saw the large bird aiming straight for him. He put his sword in a defensive position and they clashed, Voroger flew to the other side of the room and the bird went into the air preparing for another target. It looked at Miramusa and he braced for impact. He was scared, he wasn’t even sure where to begin to hurt the animal. He doubt he could stun the bird of that strength and his weapon was so small compared to its size. Miramusa stood still eyes closed when the bird started to lunge at him. Seconds later Miramusa heard the Roc scream and he looked up to see a metallic bird attacking the Roc and Gizmo running up to Miramusa.
“Miramusa! Get out of the way!”

Gizmo pulled him away from the attacking birds and into a safer area. The Roc struck down the metallic bird and the boomerang flung down and got stuck into the wooden floor. Miramusa could hear Gizmo utter a swear but couldn’t hear it clearly.

“Miramusa, can I have your sword?”

Miramusa handed him his scimitar and Gizmo inserted it into a long tube with symbols etched in the wood and aimed it at the Roc. The giant beast screamed in anger as it charged full force at them.

“Hurry it up Gizmo! That thing is gonna kill us!”

Gizmo frantically inserted other things into the tube while the Roc inched closer and closer to them. Gizmo kneeled and aimed at the giant beast and spoke a few unrecognizable words of magic. The tube’s symbols etched on the side lit up in an array of colors and an explosion came from the tip of the long tube. The Roc was directly in front of them and it yelled out in pain as a object impaled it’s torso. It took a moment for Miramusa to realize that the object was his sword that was propelled out that portable cannon. The Roc staggered back, it’s flying a bit erratic and retreated out the hole in the ceiling. Both Gizmo and Miramusa let out a sigh of relief.
“We sure showed him! Turned out he was just a giant chicken, running away and everything” Yelled out Gizmo

“I don’t mind him running away, and I don’t think you should complain either.”

Gizmo shrugged and they proceeded to Voroger who was unconscious against a wall.

Miramusa leaned down and shook Voroger’s body.

“Wake up, that bird is gone.”

Voroger opened his eyes and put a hand on the back of his head.
“Ow, that bird was quite annoying wasn’t it?”

At that moment all three of them heard a cry of a bird. They turned themselves to the source of the sound to find the bird has come back.

“Damn, that bird isn’t just gonna give up huh? Hey you two we should plan this out, Gizmo get the boomerang from the floor and use the metallic bird to hold it in one spot, Miramusa I’ll be able to launch you up to the bird and you can attack it from there. Everyone understand?”

They all shook their heads yes.

“Then let’s go.”

Gizmo ran forward and dashed for the boomerang the Roc flew past over head Gizmo and went to the other side of the room. Gizmo picked up the metal boomerang and faced the Roc which was standing looking at Gizmo. Gizmo chucked the weapon and it shifted into a bird that went after the Roc; however the large beast flew into the ceiling and collapsed the area that the metal bird was under. The Roc now exposed more sunlight into the area by breaking a part of the roof. A piece of the roof came speeding down towards Gizmo but Miramusa grabbed him out of the falling debris.

“Thanks, I hate respawning in this game.”
Miramusa grinned but soon turned his attention to the roof collapsing on top of him,

“That damn bird is bringing down the entire ceiling!”

Miramusa and Gizmo started for the side that already was collapsed but debris fell in their path. They swerved around it and jumped onto a fallen piece of the ceiling. The entire roof now was on the floor, dust filled the air and the Roc hovered the entire floor. However, the Golden Treasure chest stood unscathed and shone. Gizmo poked around the debris and found the boomerang. He held it up to show Voroger he still had it.

“Same plan then!” Yelled out Voroger.

The debris impaired their ability to move efficiently but Gizmo got in a good position. The Roc came down at Gizmo without hesitating and he threw the boomerang. While the two birds fought in mid air Voroger ran beside Miramusa as they prepared for their part. Miramusa stood on top of Voroger’s large weapon and waited for the opportune moment. The Roc struck down the metal bird again and this was the signal for the strike. Voroger flung Miramusa at the Roc with his blade, now Miramusa flew through the air aimed at the Roc. The Roc hovered for a second still trying to recover from the metal bird’s charge that left him open. Miramusa landed on the bird with his scimitar, his weapon lodged into the Roc’s chest. The Roc flew upwards instantly which made Miramusa loose his grip and fall down onto the floor. The Roc flew upwards and screamed in pain. Miramusa’s weapon had struck the very heart of the Roc and the beast was now on the very last breath of its life. Gizmo and Voroger both ran to Miramusa and checked if he was hurt but he was unharmed. They ran to the treasure chest as the Roc was over the opposite side. The Roc let out one last cry then stopped in mid-air. The Roc was dead and it was also right above the windmill. The giant bird fell down like an arrow and smashed into the windmill and crashed through the floor and the next and the next. It was destroying the tower and the windmill started to collapse. The room started to tilt causing the treasure chest to slide down towards the large gap in the floor. Miramusa jumped after it and tried to pull it back but it was extremely heavy. Voroger ran and grabbed the chest also but the floor was tilting inwards also. Gizmo grabbed the chest and pulled out something held out a trinket. Next thing Miramusa knew was that they were outside the collapsing windmill with the golden treasure chest on top of hill that was close to the windmill except it wasn’t close enough to fall on them.

“How did we get here?” asked Miramusa 

“I brought an escape charm, it’s fairly expensive but being a Tinkerer I can make these things.”

Voroger looked at the used escape charm and smiled,

“Wow, instant teleportation out of a dungeon! I’m glad we brought you along! I knew you would be helpful!”

“Weren’t you signaling me not to bring him along earlier?”

“What? Me? Of course not!”

“Whatever, let’s just open this chest!” yelled out Gizmo.

They all moved their attention back to the shining golden chest and opened it up. Inside were large amounts of gold and jewels and also a couple of items. It included a weapon, a pair of boots, and a feather. The weapon was called the Sword of Roc which was very ornate and had a white hilt with an eagle head at the pommel and two feathers as the guard, they decided Miramusa should have the blade because it was too small compared to Voroger’s blade and Gizmo didn’t use weapons. The boots which had wings on each of the boots were given to Voroger, the boots granted the user the ability to jump higher than normally possible. Then the feather was given to Gizmo, nobody knew what it did but it interested Gizmo the most. They split the gold evenly and logged off after that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode II –Resurrection

The weekend finally came and Alex was glad. All through the week he had large amounts of homework and work at the arcade. Neither Alex nor Roger found much time to get on. Alex still checked his messages on Aria if Myraluna had contacted him but for an entire week Myraluna didn’t send him any kind of message. He was starting to think that he had played a trick on Alex. He brought his mind back to the real world and got up from his porch. He thought of what to do on this sunny day off, the first though became gaming but then another idea popped into his mind. Alex started walking down the block thinking of visiting her. He stood outside of Olivia’s house but he couldn’t sum up his courage to knock on her door. He started to walk away when the front door opened, it was Olivia. She locked her door and turned around and saw Alex there,
“I hope you aren’t stalking me,”

“Oh no, I was going to say hi but I wasn’t sure if you were home, the lights weren’t on and a car isn’t in the driveway,”

“My parents are at work and we don’t turn lights on during the day, besides I was only joking,”

Alex felt a pang of stupidity; he was embarrassed and didn’t feel brave enough to even be around her.

“Sorry Olivia, I have to go”

“No wait, I don’t really have anything to do let me walk with you,”

Alex became really nervous and self conscious when she said that. He was panicking inside on what he should do; he didn’t want to seem like a nervous freak but also didn’t want to mess up his chance.

“I’m only going home,”

“Then let’s go,”

Olivia walked over to Alex and looked at him weirdly when he wasn’t moving. She signaled him to move and he nervously smiled and started to walk forward. He kept silent for most the way until Olivia started to ask him questions,

“So what do you plan on doing this weekend?”

“I was just going to play Aria,”

Alex felt embarrassed and immediately regretted saying that implying to her how videogame savvy he was, spending the weekend doing nothing but playing videogames all day.

“So you play Aria?”

“Yes, I’ve only played it a couple times though; I might also go to the lake,”

Alex lied, he never even had thought of going to the lake, he just wanted to get off the subject of him being doing nerdy things.
“We should go to the lake!”

Alex panicked even more as she proposed this idea, it would be lovely but he was very nervous and he didn’t know if he could stand going to the lake with her.

“I…I don’t know, I guess we could I just would have to ask my parents.”

They arrived at his house and he told Olivia to wait outside as he went in his house. He found his parents and found the courage to ask,

“Hey can go to the lake with Olivia?”

“With Olivia? You guys going out? That’s so romantic!”

“No! we’re just friends wanting to go somewhere for the weekend!”

“Sure, whatever you say,”

“So can I go or what?”

“Of course, have fun and be safe!”

“That’s gross!”

Alex walked out his house and found Olivia observing his garden.

“You have beautiful flowers,”

“You can have one if you like,”

“No, it’s fine I wouldn’t want to mess up the garden.”

“You won’t mess it up,”

Alex bent over and picked the flower, it was a white rose, so fragrant and pure. Alex handed the flower to Olivia. She took it and with thankful expression and shortened the stem and placed it on her ear. She playfully did the hula girl dance and they both laughed.
“Come on let’s go,”

The lake was in close proximity to Alex’s house, it was down the street and they got there in a couple of minutes. The sun now stood close to the horizon, showing that sunset was only about an hour away. They walked over to the beach and sat down. Olivia laid down and told Alex,

“This is nice,”

“Yeah, it’s wonderful,”

Alex cringed when he said that, he hoped it didn’t tell her too much. Olivia propped her head up with her arm to watch the horizon’s dazzling pre sunset colors. Alex relaxed also and laid down beside her. He was worried about how close and far he should be away from her, if he was too close it would be creepy and awkward and yet if he was too far away she would think he didn’t like her. Alex carefully placed himself beside her and hoped the distance was good. He held up his head also to watch the sky’s sunset display of color. They looked at each other and something clicked in that moment but Alex suddenly got scared and looked away,

“It’s about to end, isn’t it?” asked Alex

“Yes, yes it is,”

“It should have lasted longer,”

“I guess we have to go home now, before it gets dark.”

Alex got up and held out an arm for Olivia and he helped her up. Alex was mentally beating himself up for screwing up the perfect chance. Alex sighed and thought, I’m luckier in a videogame than real life…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa examined the escape charm in his hand. It was like a necklace with an emerald with gold circle around it. When it was used up it turned into a red colored gem. Miramusa looked around to see if he could see anybody from the D.A.R.T team but he didn’t see anyone but NPC’s. Miramusa sighed and was about to log off when a message appeared on his screen. It was from Myraluna. Miramusa opened the message and read it, Sorry I haven’t contacted you in a while hope you didn’t think I was only joking about your apprenticeship. I’ve been busy juggling life, D.A.R.T cases, and planning out your training. I wouldn’t want to have to drag you into crazy D.A.R.T cases so that’s why I haven’t messaged you and left you to do what you will with your time. But now time’s up, come meet me at the Main gate in Aquaria.

Miramusa closed the message and smiled. This marked the beginning of his training. He looked at the weapon in his hand; it was The Sword of Roc. He remembered how curved blades were supposed to channel magic better than straight blades from the tutorial and The Sword of Roc was a straight long sword. He hoped that Myraluna had a better weapon for him since he too was a Mystic Warrior. Miramusa headed for the Main Gate in Aquaria passing The Great Fountain once more and traveling on the bridges and small passageways of the city. After going through alleys and crossing rivers he finally reached the Main Gate. He saw Myraluna setting up a Sub Gate. Miramusa walked up to him.

“Hey Myraluna,”

Myraluna gave a stern look to Miramusa, and then relaxed it.

“You’ve probably never been someone’s apprentice before have you?”

“No, this is the only place I would need one,”

“Then let’s clear a few things up, firstly you will address me as master. Secondly you will do everything I tell you to unless it involves any harm to anyone. Thirdly you need to get out of those noob clothes.”

Myraluna handed him a pair of clothes. They were all black and made of hard protective leather. It was a leather cuirass, and protective but more comfortable black leggings and black cape. The cuirass covered parts that a t-shirt would cover and from far away it seemed like a t-shirt. Miramusa equipped the new gear and instantly felt more official. He also remembered Raiyu wearing the same clothing.

“Thanks! Oh yeah, master!”

Myraluna sighed

“We’re gonna need to work on you addressing me. The equipment I gave you is the iconic armor of an apprentice! You probably remember Raiyu wearing this, anyway… I set up a Sub Gate that begins the start of your training!”

Miramusa looked at his master; he was weird and seemed to have a very unorthodox way of teaching. He was very serious when telling him what he needed to do but he instantly went back to being happy and into a free spirited tone. Miramusa remembered The Sword of Roc and asked,

“Wait, this sword I have, it’s not curved. I’ve heard curved blades channel magic better should I get a different sword?”

Myraluna looked at Miramusa expectantly and he got embarrassed and remembered,

“Sorry, should I get a different sword… Master,”

“No. This will be lesson one. Mystic Knights have this mentality to use scimitars all the time but this isn’t entirely true to use a scimitar if you’re a Mystic Knight. I believe that if you’re gonna carry a weapon it ought to be a powerful one not one that compensates for magical talent and then for channeling magic you use your body. If you can master channel magic through your body then you don’t even need to carry a weapon to vanquish your foes.”

Miramusa looked down at his hand. It was hard to imagine that his own body could become a weapon so deadly but if Myraluna said so, it must be true. The Main Gate spun and shot out energy, they teleported. Miramusa opened his eyes and saw a forest in front of him with a path leading to a lake.
“Welcome Miramusa, to The Garden of Eden, or at least that’s what we D.A.R.T guys call it. We use this area for anything and everything, training, testing, hanging out, and other assorted things.”

“So what are we going to learn today master?”

An arrow flew past Miramusa’s ear, inches away from taking it off.
“The most useful skill a Mystic Knight needs, dodging. Meet Hawkeye, he’s D.A.R.T’s archer able to strike enemies without fail. Now the question is… Will you be the first to make him miss his mark?” 

An arrow flew at the tree above Miramusa and struck a tree limb.

“Hah! You missed!”

The tree branch split off from the tree and fell on top of Miramusa. Hawkeye wore cyan colored clothes with a white headband. He was fair skinned and had blonde hair. His bow was made of white timber that was finely detailed, his arrows seemed custom made as they shared no traits with other arrows he had seen.

“My apprentice surely you do not underestimate Hawkeye! He is the most ninja guy I’ve ever seen! He doesn’t ever talk and his aim is extraordinary deadly,”

Hawkeye prepared another arrow as Miramusa pushed the branch off of him. Hawkeye raised his bow and aimed. Miramusa frantically tried to think up of something to avoid the strike,
“Don’t hesitate to do anything that will save your life or the life of others”

Miramusa hid behind the branch and the arrow flew from the bow. It struck Miramusa in the arm penetrating his armor. Miramusa let out a deep breath and tried to concentrate. When you got hurt in this game it didn’t affect the player but instead makes you feel weakened physically. The branch was not large, only about five feet tall and a foot wide. If he was going to avoid the shots he would need better cover. Hawkeye aimed again and this time Miramusa ran, trying to get behind a tree, the arrow still struck him however, the arrow went in his leg. Miramusa collapsed as he put that foot down to take a step forward. His movement was crippled but he still had enough stamina to move and he hoped that it was enough. Miramusa picked himself up with his remaining energy and ran behind a tree. He fell to his feet when he reached the tree with his back to the tree. He let out a sigh of relief; I’ll be safe for a little while, thought Miramusa. Myraluna’s voice yelled out

“Hey! It’s a lesson about evading not hiding!”

An object penetrated the tree and flew past his ear. It was an arrow but this shot had a white radiant light around its flight path, it seemed like a white laser. At that moment Miramusa panicked, he wasn’t safe here, Hawkeye’s arrows could penetrate through the tree! Miramusa looked around and studied the area. Hawkeye was moving into the forest area so maybe Miramusa could use that to his advantage, Hawkeye could shoot through trees but the trees broke the line of sight. Miramusa took out The Sword of Roc and

Chopped down the tree behind him causing a momentary distraction, Miramusa then ran to the adjacent tree and hid behind it still trying to recover from the wounds of the previous attacks. An arrow penetrated through the wood and struck him in the upper thigh. Miramusa jumped out of cover and charged at Hawkeye, an arrow flew out of his bow and was aimed perfectly at Miramusa’s skull. The arrow however passed though Miramusa as if the game glitched and that left Hawkeye exposed. The sword came down onto Hawkeye but it was blocked by Myraluna’s sword. Miramusa jumped back to analyze what happened. He didn’t even see Myraluna and he appeared so fast that he blocked his strike! Myraluna sheathed his blade and looked at Miramusa,

“How did you do that?”

“Do what master?”

“How did you dodge that arrow when it clearly should have killed you?”

Miramusa shrugged. Myraluna walked up to him and placed his hand on Miramusa’s chin raising it in an inspection like manner. Miramusa resisted and pushed him off. Then he regretted doing so because that probably made Myraluna mad.

“I’m sorry master, it’s just that…”

“What? What is it?”

“When I started the game...”

Miramusa told the two of how the piece of key entered him and how he fought a Shadow Titan with a unique weapon. They both stared at each other in a disbelieving look.

“I’m not lying!”

“No, I believe you it’s just that, that… You are a part of ‘The Key’!”

“What is this ‘Key’?”

“There is no secret that Aria has awkward anomalies in the game, that’s why we were assigned by the company that made Aria to study these weird happenings and fix them, but there is one that we believe to serve an actual purpose and created by the company itself. It’s dubbed ‘The Key’. ‘The Key’ is actually a name for a code that enables a player to change each and every aspect of the game but in the form of a wish. The code is broken up into seven pieces once a person has obtained all of the codes they are granted one wish and you Miramusa are one of the only known pieces of the code.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa sat on the edge of a bridge over a small canal. He was alone and Aquaria's sky was darkening, lights from lanterns started give life to the twilight creeping in. He remembered Myraluna’s words; you Miramusa are one of the only known pieces of the code. Out of all the players it was him that the piece appeared and entered his body. What did this mean? Would this be the cause of the supernatural things happening to him? Like the events back in the tutorial where he fought a Shadow Titan? Also earlier today, where he somehow mystically passed through an arrow, so would this mean that he like the other pieces of the key would be hunted for and fought over? A person sat down next to him and Miramusa expected Voroger. He looked to his left and found it was a girl about his age. She smiled and looked at him,
“You seem sad,”

Miramusa looked at the girl, she was young, pretty, and had a disarming smile, the name Lucretia Inferno floated over her head.

“Um… Do I know you?”

“You shouldn’t or that’ll be weird, I’m Lucretia Inferno but just call me Lucretia,”

“Uh, hi…”

“What are you so worried about I’m not here to kill you, it just seemed like this part of the city was dead and I then I saw you and wondered what where you doing here?”

“I was thinking, and I just wanted to go somewhere people weren’t at.”
“You know what? Come Mir, I want to show you something,”

She got off the edge of the bridge and put her feet back on solid ground. Miramusa was startled by Lucretia’s behavior, she met him about two seconds ago and yet she gives him a nickname and is about to present him something, what an odd person thought Miramusa. He got off the edge also and followed Lucretia’s lead, she danced and sang as she walked to her destination, however he singing was pleasant and she moved around in an over exaggerated manner swinging on light posts and jumping on ledges singing. It was mood lighting to Miramusa, for a while he was lost in stressful thoughts and ideas but now he was with a free spirited person making him form a smile. As they walked they entered a large square with an abundance of fountains filled with a number of lights and to the opposite side of the square stood a large clock tower that could be seen from almost any point of the city. Miramusa has seen it many times before just not up close. The clock tower was huge, and beautifully constructed, with details neatly done and designed to create a symbol for the town of Aquaria. Lucretia caught him marveling at its beauty and she stood next to him,

“It’s amazing isn’t it?”

He looked at her and nodded his head forward, she grabbed his hand and directed him to the tower,

“Well come on then! Let’s go to the top of it Mir,”

He tried to keep up with her fast pace keeping his hand in hers following her lead. They entered the clock tower and Miramusa instantly dropped his jaw at the interior. The floor was marble and it was amazingly well lit, the walls were painted from the ground all the way to top, and uncountable flights of stairs filled the walls of the towers.
“Wait Lucretia, are we gonna climb all those stairs?”

“Not if you want to, I have another way in mind,”
Lucretia tugged at his arm again moving him to where she directed. She brought them into a small dark closet where they both barely had enough room for themselves without touching each other, Lucretia whispered into Miramusa’s ear,

“What do you think Mir?”

Miramusa extremely nervous at this point being in a small dark area with another person of the opposite gender.

“What are we doing in here?”

Miramusa couldn’t see it but he could feel Lucretia smile and she wrapped her arms around Miramusa,

“Rise,”

“What?” asked Miramusa

The closet shook and started to go upwards at a fast pace,

“What’s going on?!”

“It’s an elevator only I know about,”
The closet now was going lightning fast and Miramusa fell to the floor unable to keep his balance. Miramusa fell forward and collapsed on top of Lucretia with his lips only inches away from hers, he pushed himself aside quickly and off of her.

“I’m sorry, I fell and-“

The closet finally came to an abrupt stop interrupting Miramusa. Lucretia got back on her feet and offered a hand to Miramusa. He accepted it and got back onto his own feet, he turned around to find he was on one of the clock faces looking at the entire city and Aquaria seemed so stunning from this view. He could see the entire city lit up by warm lantern lights and watched as the calm water reflected the moonlight. Miramusa looked over to Lucretia who was sitting on the edge swinging her legs,

“Thanks Lucretia, thanks for bringing me here,”

“I hope you’re not afraid of heights Mir,”
He sat down beside her and gazed at the scenic view in front of him.

“No not at all,”

“Then you mind if I did this?”

Lucretia’s hand abruptly grabbed onto Miramusa and she pushed him off the edge, Lucretia jumped off following Miramusa, he was panicking and screaming while Lucretia played around in the air. They were getting close to the ground and Lucretia suddenly turned quite serious. She created a magical sphere for both of them and their decent turned into a slow glide towards the ground. The sphere disappeared and they both were at the base of the clock tower.

“Why did you do that for?!”

“Oh stop whining that was fun and you know it!”

“It was not! That was scary!”
“Did you forget that this isn’t real? You won’t really die,”

Miramusa recovered and brushed off his shoulders. Lucretia wore an apologetic face,

“I’m…. I’m sorry Miramusa. I didn’t mean to barge into your life like that, I’ll leave and you won’t have to deal with me anymore.”
“No, it’s fine. I should have been more carefree, after all this is a game.”

Lucretia smiled thankful for his understanding.

“Yeah, it’s only a game.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Alex’s pencil zoomed across his paper; he was doing his homework in his other classes trying to get all the homework done at school so he could find time to play all day. Lately he has been training intensively with Myraluna. He was still learning evading tactics for his master told him how important they are. Mystic Knights are a fully offensive class taking skills from both magic users and warriors. This leaves them no room to be defensive so the closest thing we have is our speed. If they can’t hit us in the first place then we don’t need a reason to be defensive. Almost every day now he’s been practicing avoiding attacks and countering. That’s all he’s been learning is ducking and dodging and he was getting a little tired of it, but today Myraluna told him that they would try to learn magic so it was imperative that he completed all of his work. A hand prodded Alex’s shoulder, it was Roger.

“Hey there Miramusa,” said Roger jokingly

“Shut up Voroger I’m trying to get my work done,”

“For math, we’re in English right now.”

“I’m doing this so I can play Aria without a distraction.”

“So what has Myraluna been teaching you lately?”

“Evasion and countering attacks,”

“Pfft, how boring, while you were with him I did some research on that Key you told me about. It said that there are currently seven pieces floating around in Quinta that-“

“What’s Quinta?”

“That’s the name of the world in Aria, anyway there are seven pieces floating around, I don’t think they know about you being a part yet, and the locations of the keys change every hour and they could be virtually anywhere, in towns, the lands and even dungeons, for your case it appeared in the tutorial when you were there.”

“So I happened to be at the wrong place at the right time…”
“You say that like being a part of the key is a bad thing,”

“I don’t know… It’s just that sometimes weird things happen…”

“Dude if you’re the only person in Aria that can carry the legendary blade of Raiña-“

“Raiña?”

“Remember what you told me about that sword that you used to defeat the Shadow Titan? It’s called Raiña, a mythical weapon in the Aria universe that can do a crazy amount of damage and it’s said that it’s only been given to the strongest players, but it only appears for a little while then goes away.”

“Wow, I didn’t know I got to use such weapon…”

“You’re one lucky man you know that?”

“Whatever, yesterday I met a crazy chick who pushed me off the clock tower in Aquaria,”

“The clock tower? How did you get up there?”

The bell rung interrupting Alex before he could explain, he picked up his things and walked outside the school with Roger.

“Never mind forget I said anything about the clock tower”

A group of boys started to form around the two and they looked up to see Lukas there.

“Well, well if it isn’t Roger and Alex?”

“Leave us alone Lukas,” said Roger

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, at the incident at the store you got me arrested and you will pay for that.”
There were about five of them including Lukas against Alex and Roger, the odds didn’t seem great. Alex tried to step out of the ring but each time someone stood in his way. Alex tried to move them but they stood as still as statues. The people blocking their ways pushed them back into the middle of the circle. One opened up his back pack and brought out a baseball bat, Alex and Roger looked at each other not sure what to do. A fist came from Lukas and struck Roger in the face; the one with the baseball bat followed up and took a swing at Roger while Lukas came for Alex who was held still by the others. Lukas smiled as he relentlessly threw punch after punch, breaking his nose and causing him to bleed all over himself. When Lukas was finally satisfied he stopped and walked away, but the others weren’t as amused and quickly took over Lukas’s work. Finally a teacher came around the group scattered like rats. The teacher called over some help and they brought them to the school infirmary. Alex was sitting in a doctor’s chair while a nurse helped patch him up. The teacher sat down and took a deep sigh.

“How long as this been going on?”

“Forever or at least that’s what it seems like…”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I thought I could solve the problem on my own, but I can’t. I know I can’t do it now.”

Alex looked down at the floor and shedded a tear. He needed help with the situation, but he couldn’t get enough courage to ask anyone and Roger couldn’t either.

“Don’t worry, I will help you with this,”
“Thank you…”

The nurse finished tending to his wounds and she left the room. The teacher stayed where he was but Alex didn’t feel like talking anymore. He couldn’t talk anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 A raindrop fell on the window and Alex laid on his bed too lethargic to move. He wanted to escape his miserable life of being bullied, suicide did step into his mind only for a second and then he immediately dismissed it. The only way to escape this reality was to step into another one, another reality like the game of Aria. Alex finally moved feeling his joints ache from being so still. He walked over to the console and put in Aria.

He appeared in Aquaria at the base of the large clock tower, which he then recalled memories of a few nights ago when he was with Lucretia. He smiled for a moment remembering the feeling of standing at the top of the world then returned to a gloomy expression as he felt his body ache from earlier today. During that time he was suppose to be learning magic and how to channel it but he doubted that Myraluna was going to get back online. He saw on his friends list that no one else was on and he took a deep sigh. He looked back up at the clocktower and admired it. He knew where to go to now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa let his legs hang from the clocktower’s and his eyes watch over the city. The city is beautiful, the water, the buildings, the sky… But… It’s all fake. None of it is real and yet it’s better than anyplace I know of… A hand fell onto his shoulders and he looked up and saw it was Lucretia.

“Hello Miramusa,”

She sat down next to him and swung her legs carefree while sitting on the edge. She looked over and saw his face, then she calmed down and started to sit quietly.

“I’m sorry if I was interrupting you from something…”

“No… It’s fine. It’s just that I had a horrible day. I… I think Aria is a better place than the real world…”

“Now that’s just an addict’s talk! Or someone who’s really depressed I suppose, but if it’s the latter then we need to cheer you up!”

“No, don’t I just want to think things through…”

Lucretia looks at the city and then at him.

“You know that this view is entirely fake right? Never mind, turn your PvP on,”

“PvP?”

“Player versus player, there is a way you can activate it so that you can attack other players with it on, so turn it on.”

“Why?”

“Do it!”

Miramusa looked through the options and found the PvP switch, it was currently off and when he went to activate it, it asked him if he sure and warned him of the dangers. He turned it on anyway and looked back at Lucretia,

“How will this help?”

Lucretia smiled then stabbed him in the chest with a knife, through the game Alex felt a pressure against his chest and a feeling of unconsciousness sweep over him. He closed his eyes and fell into darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa opened his eyes to find himself in a familiar place, the blue flame torches and white brick quickly identified the place as the Tutorial Fortress. But why was he here? He looked around to find other players appearing in the same area, but they weren’t new players. A NPC approached him and handed him a pair of wings,

“This is your first time dying correct? Well this is how the spawning system works, when you die you respawn here and fly down back to Quinta.”

The NPC left to give other players their wings and Miramusa attached them to his back.

Why would Lucretia kill me and send him here? What was with that woman?

Miramusa looked over the edge and felt a feeling of vertigo overcome his body. He backed off and went away from the edge. What am I afraid of? I wasn’t afraid last time, so what is it now? He watched as other players jumped off emotionless, clearly they’ve done this many times and was used to it. He slowly walked over back to the edge and looked down. He watched as players fell through the sky and soared into Quinta. He observed the world as it moved and the people who walked around in it. Then he realized. None of it was real. He actually wasn’t anywhere except his room and that this vertigo this fear was fake. He smiled and leaped off, dropping into the world. He hysterically laughed as the wind, clouds, and sky passed through his body, he felt alive once more and reborn.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

   He landed back onto the clocktower where Lucretia was sitting, singing and smiling with her legs swinging about. As his feet touched the ground the wings dissipated into feathers that flew into the breeze.

“Thank you Lucretia, thank you for reviving my spirit.”

“What? I just wanted to stab you in your miserable heart!”

Miramusa looked at her weirdly then laughed,

“You’re quite sarcastic aren’t you?”

“No, I wasn’t kidding! I really just wanted to stab you!”

“Well… Thanks for killing me, it helped a lot,”

“No problem, anytime.”

“I’d rather hope not…”

A message appeared on his screen from Myraluna. Miramusa opened it up,

Miramusa, I’m not going to ask what happened earlier because it is expected that you can’t make every session but I would like to know beforehand if possible and I need your help. For some time we’ve been following this case of this player that could control other players, it goes back to almost the start of Aria, it was a cold and rainy night…

  Myraluna tried to keep up with the pace the man up ahead of him but it almost didn’t seem possible. Hawkeye and another D.A.R.T. member named Guissan who was a Lancer class tried to cut him off at key points but the man always seem to escape and dodge their attacks. The man was a dangerous person, he was named The Geist because he was able to hack into other players avatars by means of a magical attack at them. None of the D.A.R.T members could figure out how they could allow such a thing to happen. They finally found the avatar that he was currently controlling and were in pursuit. He was entering a laboratory and climbed up the stairs onto the catwalk trying to plan out his next course of actions. Myraluna noted the vats on the floor and the yellow substance inside, Myraluna then turned his attention back to The Geist and followed him up the flight of stairs while Hawkeye took another way to block him from escaping and Guissan did similar. Myraluna walked out on the same catwalk cautiously.

“Geist, we know what you have been doing and we would like you to stop.”

“What? What are you gonna do, kill me? This is a game! I can’t die here, so I have no reason to be afraid of you.”

“We can’t kill you, but we can sure as hell ban you from Aria and your IP address!”

“Ooh I’m scared!”

An arrow flew through the air and struck The Geist in the chest, he looked down at the arrow then fell backwards over the railing. While the body was falling the time in the room seemed to freeze as a shining small rock seemed to be floating around. It entered the vat of yellow substance then the time seemed to resume once more. The Geist’s body fell into the vat and melted in the liquid. Myraluna stood at the railing and watched as his body became engulfed.

And now we have reason to believe that he is back and even more powerful than before able to control more than one person at a time! I need your help my apprentice, come to The Garden of Eden immediately! And bring that Lucretia girl with you.

Miramusa closed the message and looked over the city once more.

“What was that message about?”

“The Geist is back and we need to go stop him.”

“The Geist? Isn’t he that one guy?”

“Yeah, he’s that one guy…”

“Well what are we waiting for then?”

She turned to face Miramusa and held out her hand, he knew what she was implying but he was hesitant. He finally smiled and held her hand. Lucretia and Miramusa both simultaneously jumped off the clocktower holding hands.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The Garden was filled with numerous people who all seemed to be really strong, amongst the group Miramusa found Myraluna addressing the situation a man in tuxedo with a gold halo floating over his head. Lucretia noticed the man and pulled Miramusa’s arm,

“That’s an administrator! Anybody wearing a tuxedo and/or has a gold halo is one of the staff members of Aria and they’re here!”

“Is this a bad thing or good thing?”
“I don’t know, it’s just that I’ve haven’t seen one before. Whatever is happening is pretty big for an admin to show up,”

The admin turned away and teleported out of The Garden. Myraluna rubbed his eyes and turned around to find the two standing there.

“What took you so long? Never mind that, I need your help. Admins have been breathing down D.A.R.T’s neck since the last report of players being unable to control their own characters. It’s a mess…”

“What would you have me do master?”

“I need you to go to Ludminton, apparently that’s where he is located but we aren’t sure, so that’s why I’m sending you in.”

“Is there anything I need to know about Ludminton?”

“Oh yes, how I could forget to inform you? Ludminton is basically a beta testing city that’s open to the public. All the new content, weapons, enemies, you name it comes out there first. So if players want to try to get an advantage over other players they go there and seek the new equipment, although it does come with a price. The new content will be untested for most of the part and could subject players to bugs, glitches and other harmful things. So when you are there, don’t touch anything you don’t recognize unless you want to risk your profile’s safety.”

“Alright then, can I bring others along with me to Ludminton master?”

“Yeah go right ahead, I would actually encourage it, The Geist is a dangerous man.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Roger and Alex were preparing at Alex’s house, both setting up their consoles in good positions and nearby water and snacks, they both agreed that hunting down The Geist will be time consuming. Alex took a sip of water then looked over to Roger,
“You ready?”

“Alex, I was born ready!”

“Let’s do this.”

The consoles hummed and their gazes transfixed.

They appeared in front of The Great Fountain Gizmo and Lucretia already waiting for the two. Miramusa and Voroger walked over to the two who seemed like they acquainted themselves with each other.
“Good evening Lucretia- Gizmo,” 

Voroger smiled,

“It’s ghost hunting time!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode III – Ghosts of The Past

The Garden was almost empty only a few remained but they all were together planning.

Miramusa told Voroger and the others to wait for him while he talked with Myraluna. The group tried to persuade him into letting them follow him to talk with Myraluna but Miramusa finally won stating that this was D.A.R.T business.  Miramusa joined the group that was planning while the group stood back and watched only hearing mumbles.

“Man, how could Miramusa leave us out?” Voroger asked rhetorically,

“He hates you Voroger, everyone does.” Replied Gizmo

Voroger slowly withdrew his weapon from its sheath while giving Gizmo a stare of death.

“Just kidding! Gosh, you’re such a hothead!”

Voroger drew out his blade in a quick pull and pointed it at Gizmo.

“I’m gonna smash you into pieces!”

Voroger slashed at Gizmo the blade stopping right before it touched Gizmo’s skin.

“I don’t have my PvP switch on!”

“I hate you… I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU!”

 Gizmo stood still while none of the attacks did any damage to him.
“Tell him to stop wasting his time Lucre-“

Gizmo saw that Lucretia was missing and scanned the area for any sign of her. Voroger noticed she was gone also and put back his sword.

“Damn, where did Lucretia go?”

“I don’t know, maybe if you weren’t so busy swinging that useless metal paddle at me we might have known where she went.”

“You’re insulting my weapon now too?! Oh man, after we find her it’s you and me, one on one, no rules cage match!”

“I’ll have to pass on that,”

“What?! It’s because you’re a coward!”
Gizmo pulled out a metal armadillo that had an iron shell and was rolled up like a ball.
“I’m going to find Lucretia!”

“Hey wait a second, you’re not gonna find her. We both are.”
“Glad you’re back on my side,”

“I was only joking about killing you Gizmo.”

“Yeah I know, now let’s go find Lucretia!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Miramusa, glad you were able to join us, I have informed various D.A.R.T. members to scatter amongst the land of Quinta in search of The Geist. The only unwatched area is Ludminton so I need you to get over there ASAP. Also, I don’t want you to go out there with no supplies so here’s some money. Miramusa, I trust you to not fail me, if you see that bastard I want you to tell me. Do not engage The Geist at any costs!”

 “I will not fail you master, I will do everything I can to find out where he is. If… He is in Ludminton that is.”

“I know you will. Now everyone listen up, we have another storm brewing and it doesn’t look like it’s gonna pass over anytime soon. Glitches have been popping up like weeds, if we don’t patch this soon players aren’t gonna be too happy.”
“How serious are these glitches?” asked one of the D.A.R.T members

“So far we got complaints listing from people who’ve benefitted from this, such as getting a rare item to players who can’t even log on anymore. It’s pretty messed up Stryker.”

The one named Stryker was a tall and well fit man. He wore armor of a Warrior and carried a large axe that required two hands to use it efficiently. He stroked his beard and looked at the rest of the members.

“Myraluna, could you inform the Admins that all available D.A.R.T members are busy with The Geist and we won’t be able to tackle the glitches right now.”

“I already have,”

“Blaze, come with me we need to cover the south area of Quinta.”

Blaze who seemed to be a skinny teenager but with a tuxedo and fedora and a cigar in his mouth started to walk away with Stryker who both left The Garden. Only three were left remaining, him, Myraluna, and Darki. Darki, who was an older man around fifty but had all silver hair and a fit body, stood quietly and in an intimidating manner. Miramusa remembered that this was the man who made his apprentice fight him. Miramusa smiled wondering what he was feeling at the moment, a newbie beat up his apprentice and suddenly gets to be part of the D.A.R.T. and trained by Myraluna. The sub gate at The Garden hummed which meant a person was entering. Miramusa shifted his look over to person coming in to find it was Raiyu. Raiyu seemed quite content, grinning and walking gaily. Raiyu’s eyes finally met with Miramusa and his mood completely changed into an angry and almost vindictive manner. Miramusa noted this, not wanting another confrontation and decided he would try to evade Raiyu as much as possible. Raiyu stood by his master, who whispered something in Raiyu’s ear. Raiyu seemed scared at first when he received the message then he quickly fixed it when he saw Miramusa watching him. Darki finally finished and Raiyu took a deep breath.

“Miramusa,” called out Raiyu.

“What is it?”
“My master says he wishes to help train you and wants me to teach you fighting skills.”

“Tell him I only take lessons from Myraluna,”

“He said that if I did not teach you, he will not teach me anymore.”
“That’s not my problem.”

Raiyu now seemed a little irritated by his resistance. He had hoped he would, he didn’t like Darki. Darki seemed like he was out to get him from the start and he always used his apprentice for it. Darki’s a coward! The only reason he doesn’t fight me is because he knows I’ll win!  Before Miramusa could react Raiyu’s blade was lunging at him, Myraluna suddenly appeared in front Miramusa almost as if teleported again and stopped the attack with his own blade.

“Whoa, it’s not polite to strike down a man without warning. You should have been vigilant Miramusa and also have not turned your PvP switch on.”

“How was I suppose to know he was gonna attack me? And I didn’t turn my PvP switch on!”

“My master wishes for me to defeat him by any means possible. Myraluna please, if I don’t he won’t teach me anymore.”

“I understand. Miramusa I want you to fight this man.”
“But-“

“You will fight him!”

“Yes master,”   

Myraluna drew his sword and stepped to the side.

“Keep it clean. Begin.”

Raiyu charged forward attacking at a breakneck speed. Miramusa was soon overwhelmed by the speed and ferocity of his attacks and left himself open. Raiyu took advantage of the situation and was able to throw in a punch to the gut and a hilt strike at the face. Miramusa staggered backwards trying to recover. When did he become so fast? I don’t remember him fighting as ferocious as last time. Raiyu’s sword skimmed along Miramusa’s right side of the torso and cut the leather armor. Miramusa remembered his strategy last time evasion and countering and grinned. He waited for Raiyu’s attack which came swift but missed its target. After learning how to dodge Hawkeye’s arrows he had better reflexes. Miramusa swung his sword at Raiyu’s leg but was immediately stopped by Raiyu’s blade. He looked up at Raiyu who was grinning and Raiyu’s blade quickly moved from the block into Miramusa’s chest. Raiyu added a kick in the face to help extract the blade and dish out additional pain.

“Miramusa, I was told to finish you with… With my Aria.”

Raiyu’s blade glowed a soft red and he plunged it into the ground. A large red ring formed around Miramusa as he laid there unable to move. The ring started to form intricate patterns on the ground until an alchemic circle was formed. Miramusa was confused and tried to stand up. When he got to his feet a barrier formed around a ring preventing him from escaping the circle. The barrier stood fifteen feet tall and the entire circle emitted a red light from the ground, almost blinding Miramusa. Then without warning a red lightning bolt shot from the barrier and struck him in the chest. Miramusa fell to his knees and another lightning strike shot him in the back. The barriers were firing off attacks from every direction. There was no escape. A strike pierced through his entire body like a spear and another followed soon after. Another one fired but it was aimed at the sky and was a constant stream. More shots aimed towards the sky and they all met to create one large beam towards the sky. The clouds gathered and roared. The skies turned black and crimson, the large beam and lightning was now ending. Miramusa still on his knees waiting for the next attack to strike, a cloud roared like a lion and shot down a gigantic lightning bolt of red that when it hit the ground it took up the entire circle and came down upon Miramusa.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~      

 “There you are! You shouldn’t run away from us.”

Voroger found Lucretia on a tree branch looking over the lake. Voroger could see the meeting of Myraluna and others across the water. They were on the opposite side of the lake where it seemed to be more forested. Gizmo and Voroger split trying to broaden their search but Voroger had already found her. Voroger looked around in his inventory and found a large red stick. Gizmo had given him a flare so that he could him if he found Lucretia. Voroger lit up the stick and threw into the air. Lucretia sat silently and watched as the meeting went on.

“Hey Lucretia how did you and Miramusa meet?”

Lucretia jumped down from the tree and faced Voroger.

“I met him in Aquaria and he looked lonely.”

“So you guys did exactly what to get acquainted?”     

“Nothing you need to know about,” she said with a smile

A sword fight broke out interrupting their conversation. Miramusa and Raiyu were engaged in deep combat. Gizmo came from the bushes and walked up to Lucretia and Voroger.

“Hey guys, whoa! What’s going on over there?”

“Apparently Miramusa and Raiyu started to fight for some reason.”

“We better go help him!”

They all broke into a trot trying to get back to the other side of the lake. The skies were gathering and turning crimson. The Garden turned dark and a red circle captured Miramusa. Gizmo stopped and stared at brawl.

“No, it can’t be…”

“What is It Gizmo?”

“Raiyu’s using his Aria against Miramusa.”

“What’s an Aria?” asked Lucretia.
“In the game your character gets stronger by a growth style unlike other games that make level ups in where you gain stronger instantly. The growth is a code written for your character personally and will continue to get stronger and stronger. Then at a certain point it writes a code that allows the player to perform a signature move unique to each player. The signature move is the most powerful attack that person can perform. Raiyu’s using his right now!”

“We need to get over there!”

A barrier rose to prevent Miramusa from escaping and lightning shots fired.

“Holy shit! Miramusa!!!” yelled out Voroger.      

All of the lightning bolts fired into the air and made the clouds roar.

“We need to move now!” yelled out Gizmo.

The large beam rained down on the large circle. When the attack subsided Miramusa and Lucretia were inside a barrier made by her and Gizmo stood under a large mirror beside the barrier. Voroger flanked at Raiyu who didn’t expect to see them. Raiyu blocked the incoming attack and parried cutting into Voroger’s arm. Voroger fell to a knee but retaliated with a swing of his broad sword. Raiyu jumped backwards and evading the attack. A large red beam shot out and struck Raiyu, knocking him sideways.

Gizmo’s hand raised showing Voroger that he was assisting him. The shield that Gizmo had made absorbed energy from the Aria and he was using it against Raiyu, Voroger ran over to attack Raiyu while he was down but Raiyu exited The Garden before Voroger could attack him.

Lucretia knelt over Miramusa’s body and checked if he enough health to live, he was hanging on by a thread so Lucretia used her potions to bring his health up to its maximum but the fatigue that came when you were attacked, still hung about him.       

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Great Fountain put on a display, as the sun slowly set, Lucretia, Gizmo, Voroger and Miramusa all sat on the benches by The Great Fountain. Miramusa remembered the money given to him by Myraluna and checked the amount. It was 10K enough for him to get new equipment but he wanted to get things that were important for a long distance trip. Miramusa had planned the entire journey in his mind, the things necessary for the trip and what they might face. Lucretia got up and withdrew her staff. She was a Magician, and Magician’s summoned powers to help them achieve their goals.
“I have a grand idea! Instead of wasting time traveling, we kill each other respawn then drop into Ludminton?”

Gizmo laughed,

“Wow it is that easy isn’t it?”

They all agreed it would be faster way to travel and turned on their PvP switches. Five minutes later they were inside the fortress in the sky. The NPC’s were handing out wings but also announced “We will stop this respawning system in approximately 12 hours. Please try avoiding respawning here. The new respawn location will be in Aquaria. Have a nice flight.”

They all equipped their wings and jumped off in unison forming a crescent. The night sky didn’t help to locate Ludminton but the stars that flooded the sky help to make the descent scenic. Aquaria were the brightest spot on Quinta but there was also another large gathering of lights and they moved towards it. As they got close they could see houses of an early 20^th century design. The city was darker then Aquaria and the mood of the city seemed dark. If Geist would be anywhere he most likely is here. The grouped touched down in front of a chapel and the wings dissipated. A mysterious voice spoke from a shadow.
“Welcome to Ludminton.”          

Miramusa drew out his sword and when the others saw him brandish his blade they drew out their own weapons. Miramusa scanned around looking for the source of the voice.
“This is Miramusa of D.A.R.T, state who you are and show your location.”

A laughed echoed through the walls around the chapel.
“Oh I know perfectly well who you are Miramusa of D.A.R.T and I am happy to meet you.”

“Who is this?!”

“I am nobody, just a ghost.”

“Guys it’s him! It’s the Geist! Take him down!”

“We don’t know where he even is.”

“Pray to god that you don’t find out!”

“He’s in the chapel!”

The group broke out into a sprint crashing down the chapel doors. Inside they found people sitting down in the pews but with no one preaching. Miramusa looked around at the people sitting in the pews and found that all of them were players, and then all the people moved their heads at the group. They slowly rose from their seats and started walking towards them. Voroger swung his broad sword around to keep a perimeter around them.

“Get back you freaks! Back!” yelled out Voroger.

The players ignored Voroger and they all charged at the group, Miramusa turned around,

“Move! Move! Move!!!”

The group all ran out trying to escape the players running at them. The area turned black and white for a second then changed back. Their PvP switches were turned on from a glitch.

“Welcome Miramusa and company to my city! I have control of almost everyone in this area and they will do whatever I say!”

“Shit! He has this whole entire city brainwashed or hacked or something!” Yelled out Voroger,

The crazy group of players rushed forward only to get cut down, and set on fire by Lucretia, Gizmo, Voroger and Miramusa. A crazy player dodged a strike of Miramusa’s and grabbed the hilt of his sword trying to steal his weapon from him. They engaged into what seemed like an awkward dance but the crazy player used a free hand to strike Miramusa on the nose breaking it. Miramusa’s grip faltered and the crazy player snatched his sword. Miramusa took his hands off his nose and looked back at the one carried his weapon; he took a deep breath and withdrew energy within himself and unleashed a shot of lightning from his left hand at the crazy player wielding his sword. The crazy player died instantly and dropped the blade. The rest of them were already taken out by the others and everyone was exhausted. A figure walked out from the shadows and walked in front of the group. It was Geist. He clapped his hands together applauding their work against his army of players.

“Congrats everyone on beating an unarmed group of mindless people, great accomplishment there right?”

“Shut the fu-“

Miramusa dragged off Voroger before he could continue.
“We can’t fight him, we need to contact Myraluna!”

“Screw Myraluna! We can take him right now and end it!”

“No! We have to get away!”

Voroger broke away from Miramusa’s grip and ignored his words. Voroger put his broad sword on his shoulder increasing his movement and charged at The Geist. The Geist smiled as Voroger leapt into the air while slashing his large blade downwards vertically. The Geist took one step to the right and dodged the blow.

“Too slow,” and motioned a yawn as to insult him.

His weapon swung horizontally into an arc trying to swipe at The Geist but he had dodged it again. Voroger didn’t give up and swung again and again tiring after each attack. Finally Voroger swung his sword and collapsed on the ground. The Geist stood over him and smiled.

“Good, another puppet to play with.”

“I don’t think so!” as Gizmo threw the metal boomerang at The Geist.

The large metal bird warded off The Geist and bought them time. Gizmo went over to Voroger and stuck a potion into his mouth. It helped to rejuvenate him and get him to move and they retreated into a house down the street.

“Don’t ever stick anything into my mouth again Gizmo!”

Everyone took a quick sigh of relief as they were away from The Geist and his crazy followers. Miramusa had been trying to send Myraluna messages for ten minutes but it didn’t seem like he was online or he was busy with other task.
“I can’t through to Myraluna; do you guys know anyone else that’s part of D.A.R.T that we can tell them about what happened?”

“How about that Hawkeye guy?” asked Voroger.

“No good. I don’t he has a microphone or he simply just doesn’t talk.
“There’s always Raiyu,”

All heads turned to Lucretia who had mentioned the idea.
“Are you mad? I’m not going to go to Raiyu if it depended on my life!”

“Calm down Voroger, we might need him.” Said Gizmo

“I agree with Gizmo, we could tell him but we don’t know if he’ll help us.”

“We need to try,” replied Lucretia

Miramusa sent out a Message to Raiyu. Everyone waited in anticipation wondering if he would help them out or not. A ring told Miramusa that he had a new message.

You want me to tell my master that The Geist is there in Ludminton and he has an army if crazy hacked players? You must be crazy! My master doesn’t care about this! But some D.A.R.T member probably will. If I see one I’ll tell him I guess. Whatever you guys can die and respawn back here so I can kill you. Because I will I’ll-      

Miramusa stopped reading the message right there because it started to rant on about how much Raiyu was going to kill him.

“What do we do now?”

“Now? Now we wait…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 The wind blew knocking around the shudder of the open window, there were noises from the players under The Geist’s control still searching for them. They yelled and screamed, flailing around after becoming frustrated from not finding the group. Voroger got up and closed the window blocking out the wind and their screeching.

“It’s a matter of time before they discover us.” Announced Voroger.

“I know, but Myraluna hasn’t responded yet, we need to wait for a response so we know what to do.”

“What we should be doing is getting The Geist!”

“No, we need to wait.”

“I don’t care what your master says, he’s not my master so I’m gonna catch that man myself!”

Voroger started to move for the door but the door opened on its own with a dark figure standing motionless. Voroger withdrew his broad sword and waited for the figure to move. It stepped inside and the wind slammed the door shut. The candlelight was dim and was the only thing illuminating the room. The figure was in the shadows of the house standing still.

“I presume one of you is Miramusa?”

 “That would be me.”

The stranger’s voice was strange and cold. His voice is almost like a skeleton coming back to life and started to have conversations. Miramusa rose from his seat and picked up a candle.
“Who are you? What do you want?”

“I’m with D.A.R.T. you can trust me.”

Miramusa threw the candlestick over by the figure and that area brightened. But almost as if a wind passed through the dark figure vanished into thin air,

“Where did the dark thingy go to?” asked Lucretia

“I have no idea…” responded Miramusa.

The shudders fluttered around again which started to annoy Voroger but he then he remembered he closed the window. Voroger advanced to the open window and closed it, this time using the lock. A hand dropped onto Voroger’s shoulder, it was a larger hand than Miramusa’s and Gizmo’s and it wore a leather gauntlet.

“You should watch your perimeter better,” spoke the stranger.

Voroger pushed the hand off and withdrew his dagger placing it on the stranger’s throat. It was a man about six feet tall and with the clothes of a ranger. He was smiling as the metal blade pushed against his neck, Miramusa approached the man,

“Were you the shadow earlier?”

“Uh… Yeah, no, sort of.”

“Who are you?”
“My screen name is Serpent, I work with D.A.R.T as a reconnaissance man. Myraluna sent me to go help you, apparently he can’t send a message back to you so he sent me to ensure that your message was true.”
“Every word of it.”

“Wonderful…. I’ll try to hack/send a message back to him.”

“What’s hack/send?”

“When you hack/send a message it bypasses any kind of protection that would eliminate the message but by doing that it encrypts the message and fools the systems into thinking it’s something else. When the message reaches Myraluna he’ll have to decrypt the message which might take a while, so we’re still on our own.”

A random possessed player smashed down the door. The player screamed announcing to the other possessed players of their position.

“What… The hell! Are those?!!” asked Serpent.

“The Geist are controlling them! We need to get out of here!”

The possessed started pour in, while the group ran out the back door. The group was now in an alley one way leading to a main street where the possessed were and the other way led to a large brick wall. The possessed followed the group outside and The Possessed started to rush in from the main street cutting off any way of escape. The five started to back up against the wall while the horde gathered around slowly watching them with devilish eyes. Miramusa felt the wall press up against his body as the players was now three feet away from them. Lucretia pulled put her staff and touched the brick wall. The wall turned into a large block of white light as its shape shifted. The light disappeared and the resultant shape was a large stone flower, the stem in the middle of the alley of where the wall was.

“Come on! Let’s go!” yelled out Lucretia

The five of them sprinted towards the opposite side, Lucretia sent a blast of air and destroyed the stem of the stone flower causing a large mass of rock to land on and block the path of The Possessed. Voroger held up his hand gesturing a high five to Lucretia which she replied back by completing it.

“Great thinking girl person!” Said Serpent.

“All I did was redistribute the matter so we could pass and I can collapse easily so they can’t follow. Plus I got to make a big flower! How amazing is that guys?!”

“We better find a place to hide before they find a way around and Miramusa do you or your group have any idea where The Geist is hiding?”

“No, we don’t. We just know that he’s here and he’s caused one hell of a mess.”

“Well then let’s find somewhere to lay low.”

“Can it be that mansion?” asked Gizmo jokingly pointing to the large mansion on a hill next to them.

“Hahaha, wait… Maybe it can be…”         

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The interior looked like something from a horror movie with the dimly lit space and cobwebs dangling from the ceiling. The mansion was large and offered plenty of protection from the players outside, they are inside the mansion in the foyer sitting in large chairs. Serpent stood up and put his hand under his chin as if trying to think of something.

“Let’s try to find out how The Geist did this, then maybe we can stop him. Let’s start with what we want to find out.”

“I want to know how he can control those people,” announced Miramusa,

“I also want to know how they can hurt us when our PvP switch is turned off.”

“Hmm…”

Serpent paced around the foyer, examining the mansion as he went. He stopped at this large painting of a man named Charles David.
“Do any of you know who this man was?”

“A dude?”
“Yes Voroger he was a dude…” answered Serpent sarcastically.

“No, I know who he is. He’s Charles David,”

“Oh gee Gizmo I wonder how you figured that out when his name is right under the picture!”

“Shut up Voroger!”

Gizmo lets out a sigh then continues,

“He’s Charles David one of the programmers of Aria, he died in a car crash when he was working on the problem of data placement.”

Serpent threw his arms into the air and jumped in glee,

“That’s it! The Geist is using the Datacombs!”
“Are they like catacombs for data?” asked Lucretia

“Sort of, it’s more like an area where all the technical things are ran. Basically the entire city is an image but the image of the city has to be projected and controlled and that’s the job of a Datacomb. It’s a base of information and script commands that lies below the city. The Geist probably has gone down there and hacked over a part of the Datacomb, such as the player controls and combat fields areas.”

“Why aren’t we affected by his control like the other players?” asked Miramusa

“I think it’s because we came after he hacked it, because the Datacombs only have control over what’s inside the city.”

“We need to get down there.”

“Agreed and we can ban him for good this time.”

“But how do we get down there?” asked Gizmo

“There must be something in this house, probably like a tunnel or an elevator or a slide. Wouldn’t that be fun if it was a slide?” suggested Lucretia

“I agree they must have made this mansion for another reason to remember Charles David. Let’s go find it.”

They all stood wondering what the most efficient way to search the mansion was and they finally decided to break up into three groups. Miramusa and Lucretia, Voroger and Gizmo, and Serpent by himself, the mansion had three floors, the ground floor, the second and then the basement each were unique and dangerous in their own way. Miramusa and Lucretia took the basement floor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Miramusa stepped out of the elevator he glanced around noticing all the paintings and statues decorating the halls. The floor was different from the foyer, it was neat and clean with red wood walls with black and red carpet. Miramusa noticed that the paintings and statues were all of people and monsters and it felt almost as if they were watching him as he walked by them. Miramusa and Lucretia entered a long hallway a statue of a man holding an apple and in the other hand a sword stood beside him. They decided to check the rooms one by one until something weird or significant appeared. Miramusa approached a door to the left and twisted the handle. Behind the door stood a man with a scythe embedded into what seemed to be a portrayal of himself. Miramusa drew his weapon and tried to take a step forward but the door slammed closed and locked. Miramusa tried to open it but soon became impatient and swung his sword at it but failed as it was deflected by an invisible shield.
“Lucretia!”

Lucretia came running and confused,

“Did you find it?”

“No, I found… I don’t really know what I found… I went into that room and I saw me dying. I just wanted to tell you to be careful. What did you find?”

“I found a bathroom. It had a large tub.”

“Great amazing… Let’s continue.”

Miramusa approached the next door and kept his sword in his hand. He took a deep sigh and slowly twisted the handle but the door flung open by itself and inside was Serpent hanging from the ceiling with a noose around his neck. Large letters in blood behind him wrote BOO! And voices slowly started whisper into Miramusa’s ear. Miramusa dropped his weapon and Serpent’s head rose. The rope snapped and Serpent’s body fell to the floor. A sadistic laugh thundered the room as Serpent’s body slowly rose up. Serpent’s voice and the voices in the room spoke in unison.

“Tell me Miramusa, do you believe in ghosts?”       

A tap on his shoulder broke his trance, he turned around and his eyes widened. The Geist smiled as he held a dagger in the air and sank it into Miramusa’s shoulder. Alex felt the exhaustion overwhelm his body as he passed out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Great you’re awake!”

Miramusa opened his eyes and found himself on a table surrounded by large computers processing information for the game. Miramusa moved his hand for his sword but remembered that he dropped it back in the mansion.

“What do you want?”

“I want it all, just like you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Inside your character you have a piece of the key and I WANT IT!”

The Geist picks up a dagger and charges at Miramusa. Miramusa dodged the blade as it came down right beside him and he rolled off the table.

“Hahaha, you think you’re gonna get away?”

Miramusa felt sparks of lightning circle his fingers, no matter what he still had his magic. Although it was unrefined and untrained he knew how to utilize it. The Geist threw the dagger at Miramusa who sidestepped and the weapon got lodged into one of the machines.

“Hmph, you have good reflexes.”

“I learn from the best,”

“Don’t worry it won’t matter who you learn from for long, because PK13 is coming.”

“PK13?”

The Geist smiled and started to open his mouth but a noise behind him interrupted. It was Serpent carrying a large hammer. The hammer smashed into The Geist’s skull and the rest of his body went limb.

“Serpent?”

“Yeah, Voroger tracked your movement, you are at his house after all and we came to the rescue and I banhammered that guy and now we never have to see him again.”

“Do you by any chance know what PK13 is?”

“PK13? Nope why?”

“The Geist mentioned it before you came in and uh…”

“Smashed him to pieces.”

Miramusa walked onto the street of Ludminton and the sun shone down on his face. People walked around celebrating and dancing glad that they are free from The Geist’s control. Miramusa smiled knowing he did something to help other people and walked around looking at all the different people partying. It was a bright and sunny day in Ludminton and Miramusa was glad but still wanted things. Miramusa could not get the thought of PK13 off his head and losing his sword really put him down. A hand dropped onto Miramusa’s shoulder and Miramusa turned around frantically with his arms flailing around remembering what happened to him last time when someone approached him from behind. But he soon regretted it as he saw it was Myraluna.

“Master! I’m sorry I thought…”

Myraluna waved his hand to signal Miramusa to dismiss the excuse.

“Good job Miramusa. I’m proud of you.”

“I didn’t do anything, Serpent took him down.”

“Ah but you lead him there.”

“Master, have you ever heard of PK13?”

“PK13?” Myraluna now had a concerned look.

“Yeah The Geist tried to tell me about it,”

“Recently we’ve been picking up rumors and little tidbits of something called PK13 but we don’t know what it is.”

“What did the rumors say master?”

“I don’t want to trouble you with that, I brought a gift for you.”

Myraluna opened up a large metal box and inside was a sword it was a very familiar sword to Miramusa.
“I picked it up at the Ludminton weapons testing department. So far they only have one and thinking of leaving production to that one.”

Miramusa picked up the sword all of it feeling natural and powerful then the name came back to him. The sword’s name is Raiña and it’s one of the most powerful swords in Quinta.

“Raiña…”

“I want to teach you how to use your magic. Are you ready to learn?”

“I’m always ready to learn,”

“Excellent!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode IV- Winter Magic

A couple weeks later….

A snowflake landed on Alex’s hand. It was December and only a few days away from Christmas. School stopped for winter break, Alex and Roger already took advantage of the free time. The wind blew and sent a chill through Alex’s body, a puff of steam came from Alex’s mouth. He was trying to spend less time in the game and more in a real world. His progress with Olivia has been subtle and exercise has been walking to the mailbox, but today he was standing outside a small coffee shop pondering or not whether to enter. Alex never had a great love for coffee but he did have a great attraction to a girl drinking coffee. Inside was Olivia sipping her drink unaware of Alex’s presence outside. Alex took a deep breath and let an exhale of visible air. The door opened making the bells attached to it ring, the powerful scent of coffee beans entered his nose, the warmth enveloping his shivering body. He walked up to the counter and ordered himself a warm cup of coffee and in his mind ran scenarios on how he would approach her and what he would say. A arm landed on the counter beside his and a voice spoke out,

“You’re not stalking me are you Alex?”

“What? No, I just swung by to grab a cup of coffee.”

Alex’s order was finished and a plastic cup was handed to him. He followed Olivia back to her seat and sat down on the chair opposite of hers. He took a sip of the coffee and sat it down on the table. Olivia did the same and they locked eyes.

“Tell me why you’re really here Alex,”

“I needed to get away from videogames, so I took a walk to downtown and… Got thirsty.”

“And me being here didn’t have anything to do with stopping here?”

“It didn’t hurt.”

A door flung open a cold chill smacked into Alex’s face, at the door was Roger.

“Alex, come quick!”

“Roger?”

“It’s about Aria! It’s raining presents man! I mean like pouring presents!”

Alex motioned at Olivia trying to tell Roger that him that this moment was important, Roger sighed and sat down on the table,

“Hey Olivia was I interrupting anything important?”
“Not really, I mean we were talking but-“

“Great then come on Alex,”

Roger grabbed Alex’s arm and pulled him out of the store.

“This better be amazing Roger because I was getting somewhere,”

“Don’t worry this is better than amazing,”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Great fountain was surrounded with people moving around and talking loudly. There were red boxes with colorful ribbons littered everywhere. People fought each other trying to open and get the treasures that lied inside.
“Voroger, where did these presents come from?”
“They’re being dropped from the sky, the presents contain everything from very common items to super rare items, it’s crazy!”

A box landed right beside them and a player pointed his finger at the box a crowd behind him started to rush for it. Voroger started for the present but Miramusa stopped him,

“Wait, we shouldn’t go after them, we should talk with Myraluna first.”

“But-“

“Come on Voroger, don’t you think this is a little strange?”

“Fine, but if this turns out to be harmless…”

They walked to The Main Gate watching hordes of people scavenge the presents like rats. They opened a sub-gate to The Garden and teleported. Presents littered the Garden as it did the city but there were no crowds gathering around them. Myraluna and a few other D.A.R.T. members were gathered around an oak tree seeming to be discussing an issue. Miramusa and Voroger made their way over to the group. There were about seven of them, he recognized a few from last time and Serpent was there. Serpent greeted them into the group,

“Happy holidays my friends,”

“Thank you Serpent,” replied Miramusa.

“My apprentice I suppose you are here for the same reason the rest of us gathered. You want to know about the presents I presume?”

“Yes master, they seem oddly suspicious.”

“We thought so too, so we contacted an admin and they told us that the company has nothing to do with this event. It’s coming from an outer source.”

“Why and how would a player do this? It’s clearly benefits many people.”

 “That’s what trying to figure out, how can a player spawn so much items and why would they give them to players, so far our theories are to create a little chaos and overloading servers.”

“What if the reason is more villainous?” asked Voroger

“How would it be villainous to give free items to players?”

“Well what if the presents are Trojan horses? Disguised as a gift, but truly inside lies a sinister attack…”

“That’s a good idea Voroger, Miramusa fetch me one of the presents.”

Miramusa quickly ran over to a small blue box with a white ribbon and picked it up. He placed his fingers on the ribbon ready to unravel it, but Myraluna yelled out,

“Don’t open it Miramusa! We don’t of its dangers.”

Miramusa halted and ran back to the group. He handed the package to Myraluna carefully and he held a tool up the box.
“I’ll scan for any type of virus and the contents of the package.”

The tool looked like a magnifying glass with a wooden rectangle handle, the glass projected light that shifted colors to signify whether or not it had something. The light shifted to a bright red and started to emit a fast repetitive clicking noise, Myraluna eyes widened.

“This can’t be…”

“What? What is it master?”

He pulled the ribbon which allowed the box to open and inside was a glowing floating piece of The Key.

“That makes three…” whispered Serpent

“Three? Three what?!” asked Voroger

“We have acquired three pieces of The Key, this one, and The Geist had a piece of key obviously, that’s how he was able to have so much power and Miramusa.”

“How could someone spawn a piece of The Key?” asked Miramusa

“I don’t think they did exactly, the appearance of a piece of key is random but by spawning just items it helped to increase its appearance in a box.”

“What it’s pretty dumb for the guy looking for it, I mean anyone could’ve found it.”

The boxes around the garden started to move around and glowing,

“When I scanned the box there was a virus, it traces the boxes and also infiltrates the user who used it causing them to instantly teleport to the person who’s doing this.”
“So wait does that mean that you’re-“

Myraluna vanished into a burst of light and the boxes opened by themselves unleashing monsters into The Garden.

“Monsters?! Why are there monsters?!” yelled Voroger

“I guess that the person has their piece of key they don’t feel generous anymore,”

A large rat about the size of an elephant with white fur and the jaws of a sabretooth came charging at the group. Many other monsters like ghost armors moved in at them, the large rat was called a Dengrada and it crashed into the Oak. The other D.A.R.T. members split up trying to fight off the ghost armors and other beasts but the Dengrada seemed to be after Miramusa and Voroger. It recovered after bashing itself against the tree and locked eyes with the two. Voroger pulled out his broad sword and charged. The Dengrada replied to Voroger’s assault with a charge of its own. The two were five feet away from each other and Voroger dropped his large blade onto its body but it didn’t even phase the beast and the Dengrada sank its jaws onto Voroger’s torso.

“Miramusa! It’s immune to physical attacks! Hit it with magic!”

Miramusa barely knew any magic but he did know how to stun, Miramusa ran up to the animal and placed his palm on its leg. He focused his energy and sent forth a jolt of it towards the large rat. The Dengrada dropped Voroger’s dead body and turned to Miramusa. Teeth penetrated the leather he wore to protect himself and Miramusa was mauled by the Dengrada.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex woke up and found himself still attached to the game, he grabbed a bottle of water that laid nearby and took in a large amount of water. He went back into Aria.

Aquaria was a mess, people ran around trying to escape the monsters that paraded the streets freely. A few people stayed back tried to kill them but the monsters seemed to only be affected by magic which limited the amount of help that could be found. A beast ran past Miramusa but ignored him as it was chasing someone else. He needed to get away from the mess and he needed to strengthen his magic. Miramusa started for the place where he could get both.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~     

Miramusa’s hunch was right, Lucretia was there on top of the Clocktower and she sent down lightning strikes at unknowing enemies.

“Lucretia! I need your help! I need you to teach me magic!”

“Oh hi! I’m sorry but killing monsters is very time consuming, I may not be able to teach you a lot at the moment.”

“That’s okay, just teach me something to help you right now so I can learn sooner.”

Lucretia turned around and grabbed Miramusa’s hands.

“Okay Mira, think of your energy and then think of it like a little ball. Imagine that ball is very very hot and tada!”

Lucretia shot down a ball of flame at a ghost armor. The ghost armor ignited and panicked around running into walls and rolling on the floor.

“Now you try, just close your eyes and imagine…”

Miramusa shut his eyes and thought of his own energy and extended his energy into a ball. He had to keep the shape as best as he could as it tried to break apart and return into his body, while the sphere of energy was wavering he tried to turn it hot fast before he eventually disappeared. After a few failed attempts at igniting it with his mind it eventually turned into a fire and Miramusa shot it down at an enemy, the fire ball was small and weak and didn’t make it past ten feet.

“Don’t worry Mira it takes practice,”

Miramusa tried to fire off another one with a similar result. Miramusa frowned and became a bit frustrated. Lucretia put her hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile.

“Don’t worry; maybe fire isn’t your forte. Let’s try lightning. Now extend your energy like last time except trying to make it into a shape and then imagine your enemy and instantly direct it at him. Oh, use your sword, it helps direct the power,”

Miramusa stood at the edge and watched a ghost armor attack another player. Miramusa closed his eyes and imagined the ghost armor. A flash of energy shot out and the sound of whip cracked and a shot of white lightning came from Raiña and struck the ghost armor burning it into a crisp.  

“That was… Shocking…”

“Haha, thanks Lucretia I owe you one.”

“Looks like the monsters are decreasing, c’mon Mira, let’s go and train your magic some more!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The streets of Aquaria were dead, barely any movement happened at all if any it was caused by the wind on a loose object, the only sounds came from the rivers crashing on the buildings. The Main Gate was deserted and Lucretia waltzed up to it and opened a sub-gate. Lucretia motioned for Miramusa to enter first,

“You first Mira,”
“Ladies first Lucretia,”

“Oh alright,”

She entered causing the main gate to turn and hum, a bolt of energy shot out and teleported Lucretia away. Miramusa entered the gate and came out at a lush green island in the sky.
“Greetings Mira to my island!”

“Your island?”

“Inferno island! Home to Lucretia Inferno!”

“So what’s the lesson plan?”
“Today students, I’m going to teach you how to blast your enemies away, be two places at once and create walls as strong as steel when they are only as thick as a piece of paper.”

“Wow, really? You’re gonna teach me all of that?”

“Of course! Now let’s start.”

Lucretia took a few steps forward in front of Miramusa and created three targets that seemed to be clones of her on the island.

“Why do they all look like you?”

“Because it’s a spell that allows you to create a false image into an area, for this lesson I made it look like me. Now I want you to shoot lightning at these three targets simultaneously. It’s easy, just remember how you did it at the clocktower, imagine and boom! They are dead.”

Miramusa raised Raiña so it faced the one in the middle and closed his eyes. He pictured three Lucretia’s facing him and his energy extending throughout his body and into his sword. His energy was now enveloping Raiña and ready to strike, Miramusa projected the energy and shot a large thunder strike at only the middle one, the recoil flung him back and onto the ground. The sound thundered across the island and echoed throughout the land.

“Try not to overdo it, it takes too much energy away from you and you make a lot of noise. Try not to make much noise Mira, or you’ll wake the beast.”

“The beast?”

“Let’s try that again Mira!”

“No wait you said something about a beast,”

“No, I said we should try this again so we can leave and get some cool treasure from a dungeon I have in mind. Now, let’s try this again.”

Lucretia summoned the targets back and Miramusa sighed and closed his eyes. He could feel his energy was greatly depleted after that last strike. He opened his eyes and turned to Lucretia,

“It still works if I have my eyes open right?”

“Um… Yeah, of course it does.”

“Then why do you have me close my eyes?”

“Because it’s fun!”

“Okay, well I’m gonna keep my eyes open from now on so I can actually see my enemy in a fight,”

“Okay whatever it’s your magic,”

Miramusa focused on the three targets, channeling his energy through Raiña and waiting until he was sure he could make the shot. He took a deep breath and sent forth three strikes of lightning, burning all of the targets at the same time. He lowered Raiña and smiled.

“How’s that for lighting strikes,”

“Marvelous! Now let’s move on to you making your own targets to practice on.”

Lucretia walked back to Miramusa and put her finger on his lips.

“Shhh… I think I just heard the beast yawn. Nope never mind it was probably my own imagination. Okay now imagine an image of something, anything it could a man, animal, cheese, or pencil, or maybe even a ninja… Anyway imagine something and project it at this area right here.”

Lucretia formed a circle of light about twenty feet away from them, the circle being the designated area for Miramusa’s target. Miramusa focused and tried to think of an image and one came to mind instantly, it appeared in circle instantly and very detailed. It was Olivia or the non-moving replica of her inside the circle. Miramusa embarrassed sent a bolt of lightning and destroyed the target.

“That was nice, great speed in creating it and destroying it. By the way who was that cute girl? Don’t worry Mira, I won’t tell anyone about her.”

“She’s no one…”

“I’m just kidding Mira, oh and remember the more details you can remember about the image you want to create the faster it’ll appear and it’ll look better too. So this is want I want you to do. Create ten images of yourself encircling you right now.”

Miramusa closed his eyes to try to conjure what his appearance looked like in detail and placed them in a circle in his mind. He reopened his eyes and found himself in a circle of poor detailed faceless humanoid things.

“The more images you try to create the poorer quality it’ll be because you have to spread the energy for each image. Now that we have your targets up, I want you to strike them all down with your lightning strike.”

“What?! That’s crazy!”
“No it’s not, I can do it and so can you.”

“Whatever, I’ll try…”

Miramusa looked around looking at all the targets wondering how he would he be able to strike all of them down, but then he remembered, lightning originally comes from the sky. He raised Raiña and pointed it at the sunny sky and focused. The clouds quickly gathered and the sky turned gray above Miramusa. Raiña was flashing a bright white color and Miramusa released the energy. The clouds thundered and ten lightning bolts hammered down onto the ten targets, burning them away into crisps.
“That was spectacular Miramusa! Oh man you learn stuff so quickly. Okay now I’m going to teach you how to create barriers, because everyone needs protection! Okay this is one is pretty simple. Just imagine something is about to hurt you at any moment and then think of a wall or shield or something that will stop it at all costs from hurting you. The more concentration you put into it the stronger it’ll be. But be careful your energy can run out from holding a barrier for too long.”

Lucretia pushed Miramusa backwards and brought out her staff.

“Get ready Mira, I’m about to attack you!”

“Wait what-“

A ball of flame exploded in front of Miramusa and sent him backwards. Miramusa coughed up smoke and felt fatigue from getting hurt in the game.

“That was pitiful! Come one Miramusa, you have to make a really strong one!”

Miramusa got back up his feet and waited for her next strike in the meanwhile trying to form some sort of barrier to protect him. Large shards of ice shot out at him and he summoned up a barrier but when the ice shards made contact with the shield it shattered it making the sound of breaking glass and the shards impaled Miramusa.

“Oh my, you’re shield was horrible!”

Lucretia casted a reviving spell and bought him to his senses. He coughed and put a hand on his head trying to recall the last few seconds. After a few minutes he finally collected himself enough to get back onto his feet.

“Good you’re standing.”

Lucretia sent out a fast strike of lightning but it came to a dead stop when it came into contact with Miramusa’s barrier making the air reverberate around him. Lucretia smiled and Miramusa replied back with his own grin.

“You have quite the rigorous training methods.”

“No, you just fail at making shields.”

Miramusa sent forth his own lightning strike which struck Lucretia in the chest and knocked her down.

“Ow, that was cheap; you didn’t even give me a warning,”

Miramusa grinned but felt a bit guilty when she seemed to be almost crying.

“Look I’m sorry Lucretia, I didn’t mean to hurt you-“

A fireball exploded at Miramusa’s feet knocking him back. He could see Lucretia smiling after the smoke cleared.
“Don’t sympathize for your enemies!”

Miramusa shot back a bolt of lightning which was blocked by Lucretia, she threw multiple fireballs from different directions all at the same time. The fireballs were going to strike him from the top, right, left and every which way. Miramusa shut his eyes and the fireballs all crashed and exploded in unison. The island shook and the smoke went into Lucretia’s mouth. Lucretia couldn’t see any sign of Miramusa but then she saw him only three feet away standing with Raiña in his hand.

“Whoa Miramusa you’re fast,”

The smoke uncovered and in middle was Miramusa, the one by Lucretia was only an image, Miramusa sent forth a blast of lightning attacking Lucretia by surprise and electrifying her body. She fell on to the ground tired from being hurt badly in the game.

“That was nice Mira…”

Miramusa walked over to Lucretia and helped her back onto her feet.

“C’mon Lucretia I think we should call this a day,”

At that moment the ground started to tremble and quake.
“Lucretia what’s going on? An earthquake?!”

“No, it’s awake…” Lucretia replied in a weak voice.
“What?! What are you talking about?!”

The ground started to move more violently now and made them lose their balance and fall. Miramusa fell and couldn’t find enough balance to get back up, the sound of a deep roar shaked the island even more and the land started to tilt.

“Sorry Mira, I forgot to tell you that the island is a giant turtle thing…”

The floor or the back of the large land monster started to tilt into a ninety degree angle, Miramusa sank Raiña into the monster’s back trying to hang on, Lucretia was sliding off slowly but Miramusa grabbed her hand as she slid by. The giant turtle was now vertically straight and screamed and roared like a madman. Miramusa couldn’t keep his grip on Raiña as his muscles seemed like they were tearing apart. The monster let out an ear shattering scream and caused Miramusa to let go off of Raiña. He fell and fell into a dark abyss with Lucretia.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex woke up and found himself in his bed, he looked over at his alarm clock and saw it was 3:00 am. Alex tried to put himself back to sleep but he could not return back to sleeping. Alex sighed and got out of bed. He looked around his room wondering what to do for four hours and looked over at the console where he played Aria. He wanted to but he didn’t think it was healthy to go back into it. He went downstairs and checked if anyone else was awake. He grabbed his coat and walked outside into the snowy night. He didn’t live far from the downtown and the school, so he decided to head down into the city.

 

The footprints left behind his trail of escape from Aria and his home; he just hoped his parents didn’t find out. A harsh wind blew which made Alex shiver, he had to find somewhere to go inside soon or else he was going to freeze. A small lit shop came into sight and a breeze let him catch a faint scent of coffee. Alex quickened his pace trying to see if it was open at such a time. To his surprise it seemed to be alive in the night, people were conversing and watching the television normally as if it were a happy hour. Alex opened the door activating a ringing noise of bells and a greeting from a clerk. Today was Christmas and the clerks wore festive outfits. People inside seemed happy and content, Alex approached the counter,

“Do you usually have this many customers at this time?”

“Not most of the time but today is quite a day for Christian families.”

“Right, I’ll have a caramel latté,”

The caramel latté was what Olivia ordered when he met her here, he wanted the drink to remind himself of that moment. When the drink was finished he sat down over to where he sat across Olivia and reenacted the scene. He was trying to explain himself to Olivia the reason for why he was there. The entire time he wanted to say how much affection he felt for her but he never had the courage. Alex came back into the present and took a sip of the caramel latté. He looked outside and watched as the small flakes of snow fall softly down onto the ground. The wind started to blow more and more strongly and the snow started to pour down heavily. A storm was brewing outside and all Alex could see was almost a blur of white. The taste of the caramel latté and the noise of the people started to fade into the background as the snow danced wickedly outside. The scene outside the window started to change, it started to morph. The outside started to seem more and more like Aquaria and a figure started walk up to the window, it was a familiar figure with a warm face. Myraluna. Now the coffee shop wasn’t even there and all that remained was Alex, the table, and the chair that he sat in. Myraluna walked over to the table and sat in the chair opposite of Alex.

“Hello Miramusa,”

“Master? What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been taken as you saw in The Garden. I need you to try to WARP over to my location.”

“WARP?”

“Wandering Area Repositioning Power, it’s an ability that allows players in Aria to in a way teleport. Only a few people know how to use and even less amount are good at it. But I believe you would be able to use it and come and get me. Please Miramusa I need your help. Come to the cave by the sea.”

Alex opened his eyes and sunlight entered them. He was inside his bed and the alarm clock told him it was 10:00 am. It was just a dream… But it seemed so real… Alex rubbed his temples and looked over at his console. Wandering Area Repositioning Power…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Great Fountain was still pretty quiet as monsters were still roaming around the lands. He saw a friend approaching him, Gizmo.
“Hey Miramusa, you know the streets aren’t really that safe anymore right?”

“Yeah I know, but it’s okay I’m pretty sure I can handle them.”

“Oh alright Miramusa,”

“Hey Gizmo have you ever heard of Wandering Area Repositioning Power?”

“WARP? It’s only a theory, a myth. It states that all this game is data and at anytime it can be rewritten, so you can rewrite where your character is.”

“You mean it is real?!”

“Well yeah I just told you what it was about, what’s wrong Miramusa?”

“Nothing, it’s just that I’ve been having weird dreams…”

A sound of armor clanking around and ghastly screams alerted them that ghost armors were around. Miramusa drew Raiña and turned to Gizmo,

“Miramusa I have no magical talent, I’m sorry but I’m not gonna be able to help.”

Three ghost armors appeared and other people at The Great Fountain ran away, Gizmo stood his ground. Miramusa pointed his sword at the group and a bolt of lightning shot out destroying the three ghost armors.

“Wow that was nice, where’d you learn skills like that?”

“From Lucretia, she taught me a few useful tricks.”

More ghost armors appeared and this time the numbers seemed to be around a hundred.

“Whoa! Where did those guys come from, can you handle them Miramusa?”

“No that’s too many, we need to get away, Gizmo give me your arm.”

Miramusa grabbed onto Gizmo’s arm and closed his eyes. Please…Please… Let this work!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Miramusa opened his eyes he in the entrance of a cave by the sea, it was the same exact place Myraluna spoke of. Myraluna never actually spoke details but for some reason Miramusa knew where it was.

“What happened Miramusa?”

“I… I think we, I just used WARP.”

“Really? No wait, it’s a theory. How in the world did you do that… Wait. Yeah… You have a piece of key inside you.”

“C’mon Gizmo we need to save Myraluna he needs our help or at least in my dreams he did…”

“What did you say about your dreams?”

“Nothing, come on let’s go spelunking,”

Miramusa and Gizmo went deeper into the cave, using the globe of light to help guide their way. The tunnels of the cave were getting narrower and it seems as if it was going to end at any moment. It was getting darker also the globe light was running out of magic and it was turning dim. Miramusa sat down on a rock and stopped to catch his breath.

“Why would Myraluna be here?”

“I don’t know but he could be so that’s why we’re here.”

“Why can’t you just use WARP and get us deeper into the place?”

“Because I have no idea what the deeper part of this place looks like and besides it took a lot of energy out of me to transport both of us this far distance under pressure.”

“I’m sorry Miramusa I didn’t mean to come off as annoying,”

“No, it’s okay we’re just tired.”

Miramusa got back up on his feet and helped Gizmo back to his own. They turned the corner and saw a dead end. A large rock wall killed Miramusa’s hope and their spelunking.

“C’mon Gizmo let’s go back,”

They turned around and a small breeze blew on Miramusa’s hair as he turned around.

“Wait, Gizmo did you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

Miramusa unsheathed Raiña and hacked at the rock wall, a piece of it fell off and a hole to the opposite side opened up. Miramusa slashed the rock wall up to pieces and pushed the loose debris away. He stepped through the hole, Gizmo handed Miramusa a light globe, and he threw it up. Miramusa couldn’t believe where he was. It was an entire abandoned underground city full of stone stairs and doors, rooms that seemed to be useful during a time. The globe light gave a limited view of the city but the place was massive, in front of him was a large temple about 1000 paces in front of him. A plaza stood before the temple a fountain that was clearly ran down and out of commission closely resembled The Great Fountain in Aquaria. They started their way to the fountain when a deep demonic voice echoed through the caverns.
“Welcome Miramusa we’re so glad you came…”

Miramusa and Gizmo stopped dead in their tracks, looking around trying to find the source of the sound.

“Who are you?” yelled back Miramusa

“I believe you know who we are Miramusa. We are PK13.”

“What is that? What is PK13?”

“We are all one and one of us are all. We are PK13 and we will rule the world.”

“The world? You mean this shitty basement of a video game?!”

“You underestimate us Miramusa…”

A man in dark red and black heavy armor wearing a helmet like of a skull covering his face appeared in front of the fountain. His sword was large and as long as his body made of black metal with glowing red symbols.

“Send your friend away Miramusa,”

“Why? He hasn’t done anything.”

“Do it!”

“I’m sorry Gizmo I need to use WARP on you.”

“Alright, but be careful with these guys okay?”

Miramusa placed his palm on Gizmo’s head and sent him away. Miramusa now stood there, facing an unknown enemy. Somehow Miramusa could feel the person smile through the mask and he came down from the fountain at a breakneck speed Miramusa didn’t even see him move. The person was using WARP also. In a blink of an eye a sword was coming at him, Miramusa dodged with the best to his ability escaping impalement but receiving a graze of the blade. This time when the blade made contact he actually felt pain and not fatigue. Miramusa side stepped trying to get away from his enemy. Another WARP assault came flying at him this time it came down vertically but Miramusa had enough time to draw up a barrier to block it. The sheer pain from the sword wound made it hard to focus and Miramusa couldn’t think of anything to counter the attacks. The person’s assaults were relentless, invisible swords flew at Miramusa’s body and he wasn’t able to keep up with all of them, finally the black metal sword struck him right in the stomach and through his body. When the sword was yanked out he fell to the floor crying unable to bear the tremendous pain and suffering.

“I am Reaper, the master of death.”

Reaper snapped his fingers causing a person to appear by the fountain. They were wounded and hurt also, bleeding all over the floor and themselves. Through the pain Miramusa couldn’t identify the other person, but their voice spoke out softly,

“Miramusa… Why are you here my apprentice?”

“I came to… I came to rescue…”

His breaths were turning into gasps as he felt death pull him away.
“Enough idle chatter Myraluna.”

Reaper WARP over to Myraluna and raised his sword.

“No! Myraluna! No please stop, you’re actually going to hurt him, you’re actually hurting me! Stop it! Stop… Stop-“

“Miramusa… I am so proud of you my apprentice. I knew you would be a great apprentice and a great friend.”

Reaper sank his sword into Myraluna’s body. He twitched and shivered then lied still.

“No! No! Why?! Why did you have to kill him, you bastard! You piece of shit! I’m gonna murder you! I’m gonna kill you!”

Reaper used WARP and stood on top of Miramusa. Reaper raised his blade, the symbols on the sword glowed ferociously as if they were screaming for more, more blood. Miramusa closes his eyes remembering everyone he has ever met. Olivia, his family, Roger, Gizmo, Lucretia, the people at school, the people in his town, and… Myraluna.

Miramusa opened his eyes and found himself in his own room. Roger stood over him trying to get him back to his senses.

“Alex! Alex!”

“Roger? What happened?”

“Gizmo messaged me about what was going on and I came over to your house to watch but when I got here you were lying on the floor and I saw what they did to Myraluna, I’m sorry Alex, I’m so sorry. They were gonna kill you too and I had to pull you out.”

“Thank you Roger, you saved my life.”

Episode V- Vendetta

“Merry Christmas Alex,”

He was given a present and he joyously accepted it and opened it up, it was a new phone and one of the more expensive and flashy ones too. He smiled and thanked his parents but through his smile he was crying. All the emotions of joy he projected were masks to hide his despair and anguish. He wanted to kill Reaper so much and not just kill him in a game he wanted to actually kill him, like he killed Myraluna. Roger said that the only reason I escaped and he didn’t was that you need someone else to pull you out to save you. You can’t log off because they block all of your technical controls. I was lucky. I lived but he died. He actually died.

“I… I have to use the bathroom”

Alex had to get away from his family and he walked out and went into the bathroom. He looked at himself, he was miserable and gloomy. He started to break out in tears and closed his eyes as he fell against the cold tile walls. Don’t worry Myraluna. I will avenge you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The break was ending with school returning in two days. So far Alex hasn’t been able to gather much knowledge, only to find out that PK13 is a group that consists of thirteen members that are Player Killers. The rest are uncreditable information or rumors. Nothing solid or anything about the death of a player on the announcements the company gives out to players about events and current issues. His name still stood on the leaderboards and it seemed as if he just hasn’t been on in a while. Alex got ready for school as he almost gave up trying to find out information on them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex walked through the school doors as the classes were starting to begin. He hasn’t seen Roger and he hoped he didn’t find him until class started; he didn’t want him or anyone to see him so weak. Alex’s path was obstructed by a large body. It was Lukas and his two friends ready to work on Alex.

“Piss off Lukas!”

“Ooh look he grew some balls, let’s see if there actually there,”

Lukas raised his knee to attack his crotch but Alex’s reflexes have grown thanks to Hawkeye and he grabbed Lukas’s knee and held onto his leg. Alex twisted the leg causing Lukas to fall down. Alex pinned him down and pummeled in Lukas’s face. Punch after punch feeling the crunch underneath and after each strike. Lukas’s face spewing blood like a fountain, the blood in his mouth causing to start to gag on from his own bleeding, his teeth were falling apart his eyes were so swollen he couldn’t even open them anymore. At this point his two friends had ran away in fear of Alex, and Alex wasn’t stopping. Even when Lukas had passed out Alex kept hitting away until finally he ran out of breath. He got up and looked at his own blood stained clothes, he opened his new phone and called an ambulance and told them to get Lukas. Alex walked home knowing his parents were at work he went into his room and sat on his bed. He knew what he did was wrong but he had too much pent up anger from Lukas and from Reaper. He wanted to do that. So much…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day Roger told him that Lukas was transferred to another school because their parents fear he was being bullied at school, Alex made no emotion and nodded his head to Roger.

“Come on Alex you’re still not griping over Myraluna are you?”

“He… He deserves a funeral.”

“Then we’ll give him one,”

“How would we do that?”

“Well… We would get a wooden box then bury it. But where would get a wooden box?”

“I’ll make.”

“You don’t have too we can always buy-“

“No, I’ll make it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex gathered materials for the casket and started working on it at his garage. So far he only had planks and wood stain. The garage wasn’t used for housing the vehicles and instead acted more like a storeroom and workplace put together. It had one light bulb and shelves filled with tools. Alex needed a workspace so he pushed the junk farther up against the wall, he saw a table while making space and he had to clear the table and brought it into the work space. He placed a wood plank on the table and placed one adjacent to it. He rummaged through the shelves until he found nails and a hammer. He started to nail the two boards together. The entire night Alex worked in the garage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was the weekend and Alex sat in his room wondering whether or not to enter Aria or not. He sighed and turned the console on. He appeared in Aquaria off in some stray street, but it was pretty crowded for its size. The monsters have all gone away after the death of Myraluna and everything resumed the way it was almost as if nothing happened. Miramusa grabbed Raiña and remembered Myraluna giving it to him, he clenched the hilt tight and closed his eyes. Someone pushed him causing him to retaliate and he swung his weapon at the direction of the push. Other players looked at him weirdly and others ignored him, but there was one player who stood and laughed.

“What’s wrong Miramusa? Have you become paranoid?”

“Raiyu?! What are you doing here, get lost!”

“No we didn’t finish our fight; I think we should resume it.”

Raiyu brought out a gun-like object and aimed it at Miramusa,

“What are you gonna do? My PvP switch is turned off.”

Raiyu grinned and shot the gun, a sonic wave shot out and smacked into Miramusa knocking him down. It alerted him that his PvP switch was turned on and he instantly tried to turn it off but it wasn’t responding.
“What’s going on?”

“You can’t turn it off right after you turn it on, you have to wait ten minutes. Oh and I got a gun that forces PvP switches on.”
Miramusa sighed and charged at Raiyu but Raiyu blocked it with his sword and countered the attack landing a blow on Miramusa’s arm. It didn’t hurt like when Reaper struck him but he still felt the fatigue. Miramusa dodged out of the way of Raiyu’s swings and returned with a lightning strike, Raiyu pulled up a shield and Miramusa saw this as a chance to attack. He ran forward dodging another strike from Raiyu and tackled Raiyu placing his palm on his stomach as he fell. He was stunned and stuck in a very vulnerable position. Miramusa sheathed Raiña and turned around.

“You lost, but I’ll let you live.”

Miramusa started to walk away from Raiyu but soon felt a hand grab his back and throw him upwards with great strength. He landed on the roof of a nearby building, confused and unsure of what just happened. Raiyu appeared on the roof beside him with his sword against Miramusa’s neck.
“How did you get up here so fast?”

Raiyu smiled and reached into his pocket, he pulled out a small glowing piece of metal. It was a piece of the key.
“How?”

“In The Garden they are starting a collection for them but they trust their members so much they left it unguarded. I slipped into The Garden and took one.”

“Hah, you need one to try and defeat me?”

“Oh heavens no, I was just trying to even out the odds because of your unfair advantage.”

Miramusa grabbed onto Raiyu’s blade and sent out electricity shocking him, Miramusa pushed him off and pulled out Raiña.

“You used WARP didn’t you?”
“I may have, I might not have.”

Miramusa closed his eyes and tried to use WARP but a wave of energy from Raiyu struck him down before he could achieve it. Raiyu walked over to Miramusa and aimed downwards with his sword but Miramusa rolled over causing the sword to get stuck on the roof tile. Miramusa got up and kicked Raiyu in the stomach causing him to roll on the roof away from his sword. Miramusa grabbed Raiyu’s blade and dual wielded weapons. Raiyu picked himself up in time to dodge Miramusa’s strikes, Raiyu strafed after Miramusa lunged and Raiyu grabbed onto Miramusa’s arm and bent it behind his back causing him to drop Raiyu’s blade. Raiyu picked his own weapon up and followed up with a strike into Miramusa’s chest which met its target. Miramusa fell down and felt fatigue sweep over his body. Miramusa closed his eyes the last he saw was Raiyu smiling wickedly over him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa woke up and found himself in a house. It was dark and empty but somehow it felt like a home. The bed was of poor quality and that was all that was in the dark room. Miramusa got up and found the door. He turned the handle and found himself in a Sub-gate but it was a different sub-gate, the portal for the dungeons and such were blue but this portal was purple. It also had boundaries after he took a few steps around the area. An NPC appeared through the portal and they carried a clipboard. Miramusa approached the person,

“What is this place?”

“We have a new update that allows players to have their own household in Aria. You can also spawn here and upgrade the house if you have the money. You can have many beneficial upgrades to your home, an armory, a bedroom that you can sleep in-“

“Why would you want to sleep?”

“It provides health bonuses and the code gets to rest for a while and review. I will give you this clipboard which allows you to upgrade as you please, the prices of items are listed and I’ll be on my way.”

Miramusa glanced over the items on the list and gawked at how much the things cost. He then remembered during a practice session with Myraluna…

“Remember that all of this is still just a game and it does not exist.”
“Don’t worry I won’t forget, I’m not gonna go crazy.”

“Good but not believing in the game also has another use, Miramusa try and hit me right in my chest.”

Myraluna threw away his sword and opened up his arms posing for an assault.

“What? Is this some trick? You’re gonna use magic to stop me aren’t you?”

“No, don’t worry Miramusa I’m not gonna use magic on you.”

Miramusa charged forward and using a stabbing motion he used his sword to stab into Myraluna, but Myraluna started to fade and the blade passed through him as he was a ghost. Miramusa pulled Raiña out and Myraluna turned whole again.

“See, if you don’t believe that any of it is real you yourself become nonexistent and therefore nothing affects you.”

“How do you achieve such non-existiveness?”

“You have to concentrate very hard and believe. Also Miramusa I want to tell you, if for some reason I don’t get on Aria for a long period and you believe that I probably won’t get on, I want you to have my money, here is the key to my bank, now you have a copy and I have a copy.”

“I’m not gonna need this Myraluna,”

“No, you keep it, I can trust you”

Miramusa searched his body for the key and found it inside his pocket. He pulled it out and on the side it said Myraluna. Miramusa smiled and whispered “Thank you Myraluna,”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aquaria was full of people and it was hard for Miramusa to get through the crowds moving about talking and trading with each other. The bank was quite a ways away and it didn’t help that the city was filled to the brim with players. Miramusa decided to switch servers into one less populated so it would easier to move around. Miramusa switched and appeared in the same location but with less people around. He only saw two other people by a shop and they seemed to holding a strange item. Miramusa was curious and approached the two. One was a girl who was named Estrella who wore bright white clothes and carried a staff only about half as long as her body, Miramusa guessed that by her outfit that she was a white magician someone who heals other team members when they get wounded. She was young about eighteen and had orange hair and the other one was a man about twenty five and he wore heavy armor. He had a halberd and had a faux hawk. He was quite skinny but seemed to be strong; he seemed to be a dragon lance by the cape he wore around his left arm, the name over his head was Spire. He was carrying a cube that had strange markings all of it.

“What is that thing you’re carrying?”

“Oh this? This is just a mystery box; they’ve been selling these at shops now.” Responded Spire,

“Do you remember the crazy Christmas event with the presents from the sky? We were so screwed that day man, we should not have touched those things! But yeah anyway the game’s company stole the idea and put a price tag on it, but you have a very high chance of getting common stuff.” Said Estrella

“Oh that’s cool why don’t you open it?”

“We were going to give this to a friend,”

“Forget about him Spire, he’s probably dead in some dungeon or something, open it.”

Spire shrugged and touched the box in a specific sequence causing it to glow and shake. Spire lost grip of the box and it fell onto the ground, the top opened up and a sphere of energy rose up.

“What is that?” asked Miramusa

“Oh man, that could like a bomb or something!”

“Relax Estrella it’s a sprite.”

“Like the drink?”

“No Estrella, it’s a creature that you can use as a pet.”

The ball of energy was a dark blue and had butterfly wings that allowed it to move. The sprite started to fly away and Spire tried to catch it but it escaped his grasp. The sprite quickly ran away down the street.

“Don’t just stand there guys! Let’s go catch it!” yelled Spire.

Miramusa and the two started to race down the street after it as it sped through stalls and pathways. It reached The Great Fountain and it seemed to stop and admire the view but then moved on evading the three of them. They were getting tired but they imagined that the sprite was too and they kept going following it at The Main Gate. The little sphere seemed to be pressing controls on The Main Gate. Suddenly a Sub-Gate appeared and it entered it.

“Holy jeebus, Spire! That thing is crazy!”

“Come on my 10,000 gold isn’t gonna go to waste like this,”

“You spent 10,000 gold on that?!” interjected Miramusa

“What?! It seemed like a good idea at the time,”

They entered the Sub-Gate and appeared in a dark round room. Miramusa checked around his inventory and saw he still had the globe light Gizmo gave him. He threw it up and the room illuminated. The room was filled with skeletons and dead animals and spider webs filled the walls of the room. A drop of liquid fell from the ceiling and Miramusa looked up. He couldn’t believe what he saw, it was a giant spider on a large web on the ceiling and it was looked as if it was staring back at him.

“Spire, Estrella, look up.”

They both slowly tilted their heads upwards and then saw the large beast. Estrella screamed and the Giant Spider dropped from the ceiling and landed, the globe of light got dragged down and got destroyed when it fell down.
“Oh man! Oh jeez! We’re gonna die Spire! We’re gonna die!”

“No we’re not Estrella, so focus. Create a shield of energy around us, we’re gonna deal with it and use your healing when we need it,”

“How am I gonna know when you need it?! We all seem like we’re about to die anyway!”

“We’ll raise our swords in the air and call your name, Miramusa you got that? Just raise your sword don’t worry Estrella’s a great white mage.”

“Yeah let’s kill this thing,”

Miramusa and Spire ran up forward to the spider but they were knocked down by its most front legs. The spider targeted Miramusa and dropped his fangs onto him, but a shield of light prevented the attack and the spider tried again but could not break the barrier. Spire grabbed his halberd and jumped onto the spider’s back while it was distracted with Miramusa. Spire had a hard time keeping balance on the spider’s back and fell off and the spider switched his attention to him. Miramusa quickly got back up and swung at the spider’s leg crippling it and causing it to scream loudly. It’s eight eyes turned red and smaller spiders about the size of large dogs started to appear, the spider shot a ball of venom at Estrella and it knocked her out. The barrier dropped for Spire and he was right underneath its fangs. Miramusa shot lightning at it causing it to hiss and back away from Spire. The other smaller spiders started to get closer to the two and they were running out of time. The Sprite appeared again and it circled the two leaving small glowing dots around them.

“Spire what is the sprite doing?”

“I have no idea I’ve never seen this before in my life.”

The smaller spiders jumped and tried to attack the two but the small glowing dots held them back, the Sprite created a barrier around them. Spire saw this as a chance to take down the big spider and he ran out, the spider smacked his lance aside which left him exposed and the spider sank it’s fangs into him, the barrier broke not being to withstand the power of the spider. Spire’s body went limb and fell down onto the ground.
“Spire! No!!”

Miramusa charged at the large spider, the barrier holding back the smaller spiders as he charged out. The spider swung it’s leg but Miramusa dodged and chopped off a part of the leg. The Spider screamed and kneeled trying to keep itself up, Miramusa ran forward screaming and lunged Raiña into its face, the beast screamed louder than ever before and Miramusa unleashed electricity through the blade electrifying the entire body of the large spider. It screamed and the smaller spiders all retreated away, after it stopped moving Miramusa extracted his blade and looked at his conquered foe. He was hyper ventilating, it took a great amount of energy to unleash a power of lightning that large. The sprite floated down to Miramusa and sent him more blue dots but these went inside of his body, when the sprite was finished Miramusa felt surprisingly great and restored almost as he as he had a good sleep. He watched as the sprite worked on the other two reviving them from their former state. Spire got up and rubbed his temples,

“Did you kill it Miramusa?”

“Yeah, I killed it.”

Estrella jumped up and looked around.

“Whoa! Is it dead? Wasn’t I dead?”

“Yeah but for some reason the sprite brought you back.” Replied Miramusa,

“That doesn’t make sense, why would a sprite lead us to a giant spider then help us after we killed it?” said Estrella

“Maybe, maybe it wanted to test our worth. To see if we are capable of taking down enemies, look Miramusa you were the one to slay the giant spider. I think you should have the sprite.”

“What? Me? I just got lucky, I didn’t know I was gonna kill it.”

“Take it dude, you deserve it!”

Spire grabbed the sprite now that it was obedient and handed it to Miramusa. It flew into Miramusa’s hand and fluttered it’s wings.
“I think it likes you Miramusa, but it needs a name too you know,”

 “I think I’ll name you Navi,”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The exited the Sub-Gate and went back to Aquaria.

“So I suppose I probably won’t see you two ever again right?”

“What are you talking about? I spent 10,000 gold coins on that thing no way I’m just gonna let you have that without making you my friend.”

“Hey me too! You’re adding me as a friend too!”

“Alright alright, I’ll add both of you,”

“Alright then Miramusa, if you ever need a good dragon lance or a healer just message one of us we’re usually not busy.”

“Thanks, I’m gonna head to the bank now.”

They broke off into their separate ways, and Miramusa walked towards the bank. Aquaria was in twilight now the sun just leaving Quinta, the lights were slowly turning on and people started to log off. Miramusa sped up his pace just in case the bank closed due to the in-game time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa busted through the bank doors and saw that it was still operating. The NPC’s were beckoning him to come forth as he was the only person in the bank. He walked forward and held Myraluna’s key in his hand.

“Hello Miramusa. What can we do for you today?”

“Hi, Myraluna gave me this key and said I could have his gold if he wasn’t to log in anymore.”

“Please hand me the key.”

Miramusa gave the clerk the key and they scanned it.

“Follow me Miramusa.”

The clerk got out of the work area and into the lobby. He started for a door and opened it up leading to a long hallway filled with vaults. They walked down the room for some time and finally approached one that had the name Myraluna on the vault door. The clerk used the key and activated the vault door. Inside were piles and piles of gold, it looked like a sea of gold coins laying in vault. The NPC walked away and left him at the entrance, Miramusa walked inside and jumped into a pile. When he landed it was rough obviously as he forgot they made of gold but he didn’t care. He picked it up and tossed it around laughing as if he had won the lottery because he had.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He went back to his house and picked up the clipboard looking over all the things he could purchase. He wondered if should be using this money from Myraluna but he would have wanted him to have it and be happy. He still felt a bit guilty for taking it so he decided to build his house dedicated to Myraluna. He went over the clipboard and bought many things. The first thing he did was change the location of the house. He placed it in Aquaria because it was Myraluna’s favorite place in Quinta, but only very few houses were placed in actual cities it required large amounts of money which he had. He started to construct, building rooms and placing fancy furniture inside. The building was like a square donut the missing center was a courtyard with a statue of Myraluna in the middle. The courtyard also had many beautiful flowers in it making it very scenic. He built a large room underground that held many items of training equipment and in the center a large ornate wooden table with matching chairs. This place Miramusa decided would be the headquarters of D.A.R.T.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex sat in his room thinking about all the training sessions he had had with Myraluna. He trying to find anything that he could use to fight PK13. As he tried to conjure his memories he went to the garage and picked up a piece of wood. It had been a couple of days that he had been working on it and he wanted it to be magnificent. A knock on the door interrupted his work and he took off his goggles and turned around. He saw Olivia and Roger standing by the doorway.
“Hey Miramusa” jibed Roger

Olivia gave Roger an awkward face then turned back to Alex.
“Hey we’ve noticed that you’ve been down and Roger and I decided for the three of us to go watch a movie,”

Alex put down his hammer and took off his gloves.

“What’s the movie?”

“A Song About The Moon.”

“I heard that was sad, you wanna cheer me up by taking me to a sad movie?”

“Come on Alex, it’s the only movie that’s out right now,”

“Oh alright but if this movie makes me worst off than I started you guys are horrible,”

Alex grabbed his coat that hung on a nail he placed inside the garage, and stepped outside; it was snowing very lightly and was slightly warm for being January. He walked with them hiding the fact that he already was quite happy. He got to meet two friendly players, fight a giant spider, obtain a sprite, and got to establish a headquarters for D.A.R.T in the name of Myraluna, but he did need to get away from the game and home for a while so hanging with his best friend and the girl he always wanted seemed like a good idea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex came out of the movie theatre a little saddened by the film but he was glad he watched it. The main character dies in the film and the bad guys doesn’t stop with him they eventually kill everyone and they end up victorious until the main character’s son goes out and murders them all. Man what a great film… Thought Alex.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Navi flew into Miramusa’s face and interrupted his train of thought. He had forgotten that Navi was still with him until just now. Miramusa was trying to remember the day he was with Reaper and wondering if he had said anything important, but Navi interrupted but made him aware of a group of people approaching him. He recognized a few of them from The Garden and they always seemed to be the high ranking decision making group that was always with Myraluna. There were about seven of them. He recognized Stryker, Blaze, Darki, and Raiyu. Stryker was a large warrior with a thick beard and a heavy axe, Blaze was the young man who wore a tuxedo and a fedora and smoked a cigarette, Darki and Raiyu were silent but they following the group. An elderly man approached Miramusa and shook his hand.

“Hello Miramusa, we are truly sorry for the loss of Myraluna. He was a good man but we heard you made a headquarters for D.A.R.T and we wanted to check it out.”

“Oh hello, but could you introduce yourselves?”

“My name is Merlin like the King Arthur Merlin and this is Stryker, Blaze, Raiyu, Darki, Elyne, and Master Marco.”

Merlin was old and wore clothes of a magician, his staff was plain and wooden and it almost looked as if it came from a tree root, but somehow he felt like Merlin would prove a powerful ally if necessary. Elyne was a white mage donning the bright clean white clothes and shorter staff. She seemed serious and at the same time graceful. The last one Master Marco, he looked like a rich businessman wearing jewelry and fine clothes. They entered the courtyard stopping at the statue of Myraluna to pay their respects and moved on inside. Miramusa and Navi both travelled with them Miramusa pointing out the direction to the underground room that he designated for D.A.R.T activities and meetings. They all took the flight of stairs down and walked into the large underground room. Merlin walked up to him and whispered into his ear,
“This is quite impressive my boy, oh and we’re about to hold a meeting if you would like to attend.”

“In here?”
“Of course this is our headquarters,”

Miramusa followed Merlin down to the large round table and found himself a seat. Merlin cleared his throat and announced the meeting has started.

“We have came upon a serious issue, one about PK13.” Announced Merlin

“We need to find those SOB’s and kill them!” yelled out Blaze

“We need to ban them immediately before anyone else gets killed,” suggested Stryker

“First we should find their location, motive and their plan of actions,” said Elyne

Miramusa raised his hand,

“This isn’t elementary school Miramusa, if you want to say something say it!” yelled out Raiyu,

Miramusa gave Raiyu a cold stare and they exchanged a couple bitter glances,

“I think I know where they are staying, they’re at a cave by the sea that’s actually an underground city.”

“Oh gee Miramusa, that sure helps a lot!” yelled out Raiyu

Miramusa stood up and looked Raiyu dead in the eyes.

“If you have a problem you should come out with it because I’m getting tired of your remarks.”

Raiyu stood up and returned the stare Miramusa gave him. Raiyu started to walk around the table getting closer to him but just before he reached Miramusa Raiyu turned and went upstairs. Merlin sighed and turned to Darki,

“Darki, I think you should calm you apprentice down before he goes and destroys something.”

Darki didn’t respond and instead stood up and left the table leaving Miramusa, Merlin, Stryker, Blaze and Elyne. Merlin turned back to the center of the table and started to speak.

“I have obtained new information about PK13 and I believe that they are mobilizing. More ‘accidents’ have been reported and the company is having a hard time keeping it secret. We have learned that they are going to attack the clocktower tomorrow at five o’clock.”

“Can we trust this information?” asked Master Marco

“Yes we can,”

“I’ll get people and set up a perimeter around the clock tower,”

“No Stryker we don’t them to know that we know about their plans, we should let them take it and then we move in, and Master Marco can you get the people away from the clocktower by hosting a party on the opposite side of town?”

“I can do that Merlin.”

“I’ll give the people helping strong barriers so that they shouldn’t get hurt,” announced Elyne.

“Miramusa I want you to be part of the force that takes the clock tower back, we will need your strength.”

“I will help you in any way to get back at those PK13”

“Then Operation Doomsday Clock is a go, meet back here in about twelve hours one hour before they strike the tower.”

The group rose out of their chairs and walked out of the underground room. Miramusa stayed put and sat at the table. He smiled, finally a chance to get back at those monsters!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The clock in Alex’s room ticked closer to four o’clock. He couldn’t wait to jump into the game but he was mentally preparing himself for the battle. He didn’t want to tell anyone that it was going to happen either, he didn’t want them to worry about him when all he wanted was to get revenge. The alarm clock blared and Alex put it back to sleep. Alex turned on the console and got ready.

The round table was already filled with the seven from yesterday and more that he didn’t know. He looked around and counted the amount of people in the underground chamber the numbers turned out to be around one hundred. He looked around at their faces and in some he saw fear but in others he saw courage. Merlin beckoned him into an empty seat and Miramusa sat down.

“In approximately one hour PK13 will strike the tower and we will move in after them.”

“Sir, do we have a confirmation on how many of them are going to attack?” asked a player in the room

“No but we should expect all of them so be prepared.” Replied Merlin

“So where should we-“

A player came running down the stairs hyperventilating and waving his arms,

“Merlin! Merlin! They’re attacking The Clocktower now!”

“Our intel was wrong, everyone to the clocktower!”

Miramusa got up and unsheathed Raiña, Navi followed closely behind. The large mass of people ran outside all following Merlin’s lead. When they got there they entered the plaza which was dead silent. A PK13 member was seen on the one of the clock’s faces then a large volley of arrows shot from the buildings. It was ambush and the arrows shot down almost half the people, Navi had created a barrier in time to stop an arrow from entering his chest. One PK13 member walked out and clapped his hands. He wore a mask that had the design of a horse’s head on it. He had a quiver and a bow resting on his shoulder. The name above him said Centaur.

“My, so many people have came. That’s okay, more targets for me!”

“Miramusa! Forget about him, I want you to use WARP and get up to the other guy and take him down!”

Miramusa nodded his head and closed his eyes. When he reopened them he was at the clocktower’s face. The man turned around surprised by Miramusa but Miramusa was already in mid-charge and the man used WARP to escape the assault. He wore all black and he wore a mask that was all black with eyeholes so he could see, his name was Phantom. He seemed to be unarmed but Miramusa was to blind with anger and hate that he didn’t care how much of an unfair advantage he had.

“No, stop Miramusa!”

Miramusa didn’t listen and swung Raiña him, a hidden blade from the top of his hand blocked the sword and he countered it with a punch to Miramusa’s face. He started bled through his nose but he wiped it away and slashed again. Phantom grabbed Raiña and pulled it away from his hand and threw it over the edge. Miramusa didn’t stop and continued with his fists. He threw a punch at Phantom which struck him in the face, the next one was caught and Phantom countered with a punch into Miramusa’s stomach and a punch into his face. Phantom threw him up against the clock face and held the hidden blade up to Miramusa’s neck.

“Now listen to me! I am on your side!”

“You’re PK13! You’re a murderer! You’ll never be on my side!”

“No, I know I’m PK13, I’m quitting them and I want to join you! I saw what they did to you and Myraluna. They didn’t need to kill him. I wasn’t in it to kill people I was only in it for the money. But now I want to stop them, help me help you stop them.”

“Why should I trust you?!”
“Because you’re the only other friend I have now!”

“What about that one the bottom of the clocktower that just massacred fifty people!”

“He doesn’t know that I’m betraying them, he thinks that I’m up here so I can activate the Neutralizer.”
“What’s that?”

“It’s a tool they made to wipe out entire cities, but they need a high location to activate it,”

“Okay, fine I believe you, you’re on my side but please take that blade away from my neck!”

“Sorry.”

Phantom retracted the blade and turned around.

“Listen Phantom, we need to stop Centaur from killing those people,”

“It’s too late. They’re all dead, all except the seven.”

“Then we need to save them!”

“No, Centaur is leaving, the longer they don’t know I’m helping you the better for us.”

The Two used WARP and went down to Merlin. Merlin shot a magical strike at Phantom at first sight but Miramusa soon explained everything to Merlin.

“I don’t trust him Miramusa,”

“I do.”

“Then let’s hope you are a better judge of character,”

“Don’t worry I won’t betray you. I hate those guys as much as you do.”

“Then maybe you can start by explaining a few things,”

“Such as…”

“Why kill people?”

“We are looking for the seven pieces of the key, and when we obtain all them our one wish would be too be able to do anything with Aria. Then we would make the company demands for money because we would be in control of the game. I didn’t know we were going to kill people though so that’s why I got out.”

“How are you able to hurt people?”

“It’s a virus they invented, it allows them to hurt people but it also allows them to get hurt.”

“You mean we can kill them?” asked Miramusa

“No, not from an average player but from someone that has the virus also like me.”

“What are PK13 planning next?”

“I’m not sure only Reaper makes the decisions and he usually doesn’t tell us about them until the previous day of when we’re about to do it.”

“What about that underground city I found? Is that your guys base?”

“Well, it’s one of them.”

“Everyone we need to head back and rethink our strategy.” Announced Merlin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

 Back at the D.A.R.T HQ they all sat around the round table silent remembering those that had sacrificed their lives for the greater good. Merlin raised his head and cleared his throat.

“We can’t let more people die we need to stop them now,”

“No, this is all your fault Miramusa! If you master wasn’t dumb and went after them we wouldn’t be worrying about this!” Yelled out Raiyu

“That’s it I had enough of you! Get out of my house!”

Raiyu unsheathed his sword and pounded his fist on the table

“I watched the people around me die while you were up there talking to Phantom!”

Miramusa shot out a bolt of lightning which struck Raiyu in the chest knocking him back. Raiyu got back up and started to laugh.

“You really want to do this Miramusa?”
Raiyu used WARP and got behind Miramusa but his reflexes were too sharp and Raiyu’s attack missed. Miramusa reused the same move and went to tackle and stun him but he disappeared before Miramusa made contact and Raiyu appeared behind him and landed a sword strike on the back of Miramusa. Miramusa stumbled and fell on the ground Raiyu was following up with a stab downwards but Navi created a barrier in time.

“Navi! I forgot you were with me!”

Navi flew in front of Raiyu and flashed a bright light causing Raiyu to stumble backwards, this gave time for Miramusa to regain his stance and prepare himself. Miramusa threw a lightning strike which was blocked by Raiyu’s blade and Raiyu slashed back at insane speeds, Miramusa was able to dodge a couple of them but they eventually passed him up and one struck him in the arm and another to the leg. Miramusa used WARP to temporarily disappear and when he reappeared there was four of him surrounding Raiyu all of them standing still. Raiyu laughed and looked around at the four Miramusa’s.

“Ha, this is pitiful that you have to hide yourself, just come out and I’ll be gentle.”

None of the Miramusa’s moved and Raiyu’s smile quickly dissipated, Raiyu stabbed a Miramusa in the chest causing the image to fade away, he slashed at adjacent one’s head but that too was an image and it faded away. It left two images standing next to each other and Raiyu once again smiled. Raiyu slashed at one diagonally but that was also an image. He turned to the last one and laughed. He shoved his blade at Miramusa but the blade seemed to pass right through him. Miramusa smiled,

“None of it is real.”

Then he kicked away Raiyu’s sword and shoved him back with a massive wave of energy causing him to be pinned against the wall Miramusa ran forward and impaled Raiyu with Raiña. Raiyu’s body was fading away going back to his own house to respawn. Miramusa grabbed Raiña and put it back in its scabbard.

“How did his sword pass through you?”

“Myraluna taught me it; he told me that none of it is real so you don’t exist either.”

“Too bad that won’t work with PK13,” said Phantom

“What? Why not?”

 “The virus attacks you even if your avatar isn’t there, all it needs is your code and that’s always around you.”

“Well that sucks.”

 

 

 

Episode VI- The Takedown

Miramusa and Phantom stood over the hill waiting for the signal to go. Miramusa looked over to Phantom and then turned back.

“Was there something you wanted to ask me?”

“No, it’s nothing,”

“Good.”

“What?! No, I actually want to ask you something.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?”

“Never mind that, I wanted to ask you if you could give the virus to someone without killing them.”
“Like giving them the ability to kill someone?”

“Yeah,”

“No. Well at least I’m not gonna give you the power.”

“Wait how did you know I wanted the power?”

“I get it they killed your master but I don’t want you have to carry this burden with you,”

“What burden the virus?”

“No taking a life,”

“Well it is possible then isn’t it?”

“Yes, but it’s complicated. You have to-“

A green ball of energy flew into the sky and the two instantly got up. They ran to the nearby town and saw their target. It was Centaur, he was there and he was fighting a couple D.A.R.T members.

“Remember Miramusa, we’re not gonna kill him, we’re going to ban him.”

Miramusa nodded his head and tightened his grip on Raiña. They jumped out the other D.A.R.T members happy to see them join the fight. An arrow flew past Miramusa face and caused him to be extremely vigilant. Miramusa ran up forward dodging the arrows and using Navi’s barrier for the one’s he fails to dodge. Centaur however can fire multiple arrows at a time which made him a ferocious enemy. He shot a volley of arrows in Miramusa’s direction and he threw up a barrier but it was to weak being drawn up so fast and the arrows broke through it causing them to hit Navi’s barrier and break that also not being able to withstand the amount of arrows, but when it passed through the barriers it lost most of its strength and only struck him with the same deadly force as a paintball. Still all that power forced him to kneel and cough not being to stand the force. Phantom jumped out from behind Centaur and swung the ban hammer, Centaur quick and agile ducked underneath and shot an arrow at Phantom which struck him in the stomach. A familiar player jumped out at Centaur and picked up the hammer. It was Serpent and he had the Ban Hammer once again. Centaur shot a volley of arrows at Serpent but a clear white barrier blocked the arrows and caused them to bounce off the barrier. Two more familiar players came into view, Estrella and Spire. Spire was riding his dragon and sending down projectiles at Centaur who had to constantly dodge from them, Serpent used this advantage and swung the hammer striking Centaur in the face which caused him to fade away. Estrella was healing Phantom and Spire was landing next to Miramusa.

“Hey Miramusa, you okay?”

“Yeah, Navi’s proven very useful. By the way what are you doing here?”

“Oh we’re D.A.R.T members also, didn’t you know?”

“What? Nobody tells me this stuff.”

Phantom got up and walked over to Miramusa.

“That’s one down, and eleven to go.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex turned off the console and sat down on his bed. He took a deep breath and smiled knowing that he lived to see another day. He went over to his desk and pulled some computer paper from his printer and took a black sharpie. He created thirteen circles, one directly in the middle of the paper and eleven circles around that one in the middle. He added an extra circle on the outside. He put name Phantom on the one on the outside and drew his mask inside the circle and put in green letters Ally underneath his name. He drew Reaper’s mask for the circle in the middle and put in red letters Enemy under his name. Phantom had told him that Reaper was the leader of PK13 and gave all the orders. He picked another empty circle and drew Centaur and under his name were purple letters that said, Banned. He hadn’t got any more information on other PK13 members, D.A.R.T had worked extremely hard and long trying to find and take Centaur out, D.A.R.T was extremely mad at him for the killing of fifty men. They’ve had to try to ban him ten times before finally succeeding today. The previous attempt they came really close, but had to pull out because they were about to lose Alex. It was in Ludminton at night.

 

“Phantom! Get around him, Miramusa keep him distracted!”

D.A.R.T had a special communications channel only audible to members which helped them to give commands without Centaur finding out. Phantom had sprung out behind him and landed a cut into Centaur’s shoulder, Centaur pulled out his knife and slashed at Phantom’s eye causing a straight cut on Phantom’s face. Miramusa hoped Phantoms attack was a big enough distraction for him to take him out. Miramusa ran forward with The Ban Hammer swinging it almost hitting Centaur’s leg. Centaur dodged out of the way and put back his dagger. He shot an arrow at Miramusa how had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit. Merlin casted a whip of lava at Centaur who was struck in the back with the whip and Centaur landed on the ground. Miramusa raised The Hammer and brought it down but Centaur dodged it and shot Miramusa with an arrow. It penetrated the shield Navi had made and stuck into his chest. Miramusa filled with adrenaline ignored it and swung the hammer again resulting in him getting shot again in the leg. Miramusa kneeled but still swung leaving him open for another shot with hit him in his shoulder. The others went to Miramusa and pulled him out of the situation giving Centaur time to escape.

But today they got him and no one got hurt. It took two entire weeks which was quite slow if they intended to catch all of the PK13 members. They had eleven left to go, and if they kept going at their pace, it would take about five months. That wasn’t good enough. They either needed to take down PK13 fast or find all the pieces of the key before they did, so far they have two pieces and they have one. Four more pieces of keys that could be anywhere at any given time wandering around Quinta or a group of skilled fighters that are able to kill people, which is harder I imagine? Asked Alex to himself. Alex picked up the paper and pinned it to his wall beside his console. He went downstairs and went to his garage. He picked up a hammer and a plank and got back to work on Myraluna’s coffin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex wiped the sweat of his brow and dropped his tools and took a step outside. It wasn’t snowing but there was a blanket of white covering the city. Alex went inside and grabbed his coat and walked outside to his house again. He took a walk towards downtown trying to clear his mind and live his life since it might end trying to get revenge. He didn’t tell Roger or his parents or anybody that wasn’t D.A.R.T because he didn’t want them to get worried. He reached a store with a group of people practicing martial arts and on the other side were fencers. Alex started to wonder if his fighting skills in the game would transfer to real life or vice versa in where if he learned how to fight better in real life he would be stronger in the game. He entered the store and stood at the doorway watching the people throw punches and kicks at each other. A person wearing a black belt approached him,

“Hello sir, may I help you?”

“Oh no I was just watching,”
“Would you like to join? It’s free for the first month then we have to start to charge but if you want to quit there than you can.”

“Sure, why not.”

“Do you want to fence or learn Martial Arts?”

“Can I do both?”

“Of course you can which one would you want to start with?”

“How about fencing?”

“Alright follow me.” 

He showed Alex to the fencing instructor and gave him the fencing equipment. The instructor was a young man whose name was John, by the way he spoke he was British and seemed to be well built. There were about five other people learning under his instruction and a spar was occurring at the moment he entered.

“How are you doing? What’s your name?”

“My name’s Alex,”

“Good name my father’s name was Alex.”

The spar was over ending with one of the fencers knocking the other’s rapier out of their hand.
“Alex, I want you to go fight, go up there.”

“What? I don’t even know how!”

“Don’t worry I just want to see how you match against one of our best.”

Alex put on the mask and went over to a weapons rack.

“There are three types of blades, I want you to take the epee, that one allows you to strike anywhere on their body. For this match we’ll say three touches on the opponent’s body will win the fight.”

Alex grabbed the epee and went onto the mat.
“En garde!” Yelled out John

And the Alex took into a defensive position. His stance was quite awkward as he was used to fighting in Aria. His opponent stepped forward and struck vertically simultaneously. Alex blocked the strike and tried to return an attack but his opponents sword struck him under his arm. Alex backed away and tried to recover and rethink but his opponent was relentless and keep striking away, Alex was able to dodge most with his body but doing so kept his sword out of position and low making it hard to return a strike quick enough to attack before his opponent. He was struck again in the mask and he pushed their sword away with his own. He stabbed forward but missed pulling it back before getting struck again. His opponent moved quickly and stabbed towards Alex’s leg, Alex was able to move away but it was feint attack and their blade landed on Alex’s heart. Alex dropped his sword and pulled off his mask.

“Wow you’re really good,”

His opponent pulled their sword away from Alex’s chest and pulled off their own mask. It was a girl but it wasn’t just any girl it was Olivia.
“Olivia?”

“Hi, Alex.”

“Wow, you’re amazing. You gotta teach me that move you just did.”

“God job you two, that was pretty nice Alex for your first go, where did you learn to dodge like that?”

“Well… Uh… From a friend of my friend.”

“It’s nice but you should also learn to deflect attacks with your weapon so that you can return attacks faster. Let’s practice that right now,”

Alex worked on deflecting for the rest of the course and then the store had to close. Alex was outside with Olivia.

“So when did you start fencing?”

“A couple of years ago,”

“You’re really good at it.”

“Thanks, you’re not too bad either,”
“Are you kidding me? I was horrible, you ended that match fast!”

“You lasted longer than most first timers.”

“Well thanks but somehow that doesn’t feel like a great accomplishment if in the end I lost.”

Alex walked Olivia back to her house and wished her a goodnight and returned to his own home. He was more worried about taking down PK13 at the time than trying to push the boundaries of their relationship. He returned home and got on Aria.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He appeared in his house and heard noise down in the lower level. Miramusa went down and entered the underground room seeing Lucretia, Voroger, and Gizmo sitting on the round table. They all stopped talking and turned to him.

“Hey guys, what’s going on?”

“Why didn’t you tell us? Or at least me, your best friend!”

“About what?”

“About fighting PK13, we want to help you fight them Miramusa.” Spoke out Gizmo

“No, I couldn’t tell you, I don’t want you guys stuck in this mess,”

“Miramusa we would fight beside you until the end, you should let us in!” said Lucretia

“Fine but promise me you guys aren’t gonna do something stupid and get yourselves killed. Oh and how did you find out about PK13?”

Phantom came from a dark part of the room.

“I thought they knew so I told them our plans on catching Hyper,”

“Who’s Hyper?” asked Miramusa
“Not me I’m pretty tired,” responded Lucretia

“No, not that, I mean the person Hyper,”

“He’s a really fast and really good at using WARP, but he does run out of energy so that’s when we strike.”

“What’s the plan?”

“First we have to bait him, he’s really into the ladies so we’re gonna use Lucretia, and then while he’s smooth talking her, we’ll jump in attacking with NPC’s until he’s worn down then we jump in and take the kill.”
“Why don’t we use NPC’s all the time?” asked Gizmo

“They have a really low skill level and wouldn’t be able to take him out.”

“How do we know he’ll fall for Lucretia or even find her?”
“Hey! You’re saying I’m ugly?”

“No, I was just trying to say how… Uh…”

“We’ll host a party, apparently Hyper is quite a party animal, so Master Marco is hosting one really big party in Aquaria and we’re gonna make everyone wear their normal armor and stuff for the party except for our lovely Lucretia who will bedecked with amazing clothes that Master Marco will provide.”

“When is this party gonna happen?”

“Tomorrow, at midnight. Get ready we’re not only saying not to dress up to accent Lucretia but to also have the right equipment to take him down.”

“Alright, midnight. Let’s party!” Yelled out Lucretia.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   

The mansion was filled to the brim with people, everyone he knew was there, the seven, Hawkeye, Serpent, Phantom, Spire, Estrella, Gizmo, Voroger and Lucretia. Wow Lucretia looks astonishing, Master Marco knows how to flair style. Miramusa looked around wondering how many of the people were D.A.R.T, it wouldn’t surprise him if they were all undercover, so far he’s hadn’t been told the amount of people in the group. He searched around constantly trying to find Hyper amongst the crowds. Phantom told him that Hyper wore a mask of a cheetah which should make him stick out but there so many people it was hard to clearly spot anybody. The D.A.R.T chat channel blocked out the obnoxious noise of the crowds, Merlin ordered radio silence so that they could concentrate on the important business. A voice popped into the Miramusa’s ears.

“I’ve spotted him! He’s coming in the main doors now, everyone get ready.”

Miramusa shifted his glance to the main door and saw a few others shift their looks, another voice spoke out.

“Don’t stare! He could be on to us if he catches us staring.”

Miramusa turned away and picked up a glass from a passing waiter, he took a drink and started to mingle around a group but still keeping an eye on Hyper. He watched as he walked over to Lucretia, her voice appeared in the channel,

“Hello there sir,”

“My, what a pleasure to meet a face like yours on this wonderful evening.” Replied Hyper

“The pleasure is all mine, mister-”

“Hyper, but you can call me Keith.”

“I like the name Keith,”

“I like the name Lucretia,”

“Now! Do it now!”

The noise in the Mansion stopped and almost of the people in the party drew their swords. Miramusa didn’t notice it but most of the people in the party were NPC’s and they attacked Hyper.
“Don’t worry my sweet Lucretia I’ll protect you!” spoke Hyper as he teleported around the room slashing the NPC’s. Hyper was extremely fast and was barely visible at times.

“Back away, get out of this room if you can, let him waste his energy.”

Miramusa saw people leaving the room but he couldn’t let Lucretia there by herself. Miramusa drew out Raiña. Hyper moved fast hitting with precision as he appeared making him seem even more deadly. Miramusa waited until he appeared and reflected the strike, making him the first enemy that Hyper failed to kill, Hyper ignored it and continued his massacre of NPC’s. He was laughing enjoying the mass slaughter as blood ran down his armor, down his hands as he slashed them down. He reappeared back to Lucretia. He was breathing hard and seemed a bit worn down.
“Everyone, I think he’s worn out and most of NPC’s are dead except for ten of them we should move in,” announced Miramusa

Miramusa focused and used WARP appearing in front of Hyper.

“Nice trick boy,”

Hyper grabbed his daggers and slashed forward Miramusa remembering the fencing lessons reflected the attacks and returned with attacks of his own which were evaded by his teleportation. Hyper used WARP and got behind Miramusa, Hyper was seconds away from sinking his blade into him but a magical strike interrupted Hyper. Lucretia smiled and went over to Miramusa,

“Thanks a lot Lucretia,”

Hyper recovered and WARP over back to them, he kept attacking then teleporting making it hard to keep up, Finally he stopped almost as he had to catch his breath and fought normally. Navi appeared from within Miramusa’s armor and created a barrier around Lucretia and Miramusa. Hyper backed away from them and pointed his dagger at Lucretia,

“You betrayed me!”

A hammer smacked against the back of Hyper’s head and his body faded away. Serpent was behind him and smiled.
“That’s two down,”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex went over to the paper and drew a cheetah mask in the circle, then marked him as banned. Alex smiled and flipped the marker around in his hand and smiled. Only ten more PK13 members to go and so far it’s been pretty easy, we haven’t lost much people. But what happens when it does get tough? Alex dropped the marker on his desk and laid down on his bed. When will this end?

 

 

 

Episode VII- Crossing The Strangelands

Navi kept going forward and Miramusa was started to lose his energy. For a long time Navi has been running away and Miramusa doesn’t even know the reason why, but it almost seems as if Navi was leading him somewhere. They outside the boundaries of Aquaria and into the Strangelands or that’s what Myraluna called them. The Strangeland was a large vast area of land that is usually not travelled by players because of its known harsh survival rate. Many unknown monsters appear in the Strangelands but also does many odd and useful items appear which can be sold for a fortune. Master Marco told Miramusa how much money he had earned from scavenging materials from the Strangelands, now Master Marco has other players gather stuff for him and he pays them well. Navi zigzagged as Miramusa got close trying to avoid capture. Finally it stopped at a cliff and Miramusa grabbed Navi,
“You’re such a weird little creature you know that? You help me in battles but you run away?”

A voice below him went into his ears and Miramusa looked down. He saw that it was ten robed people and Miramusa got down trying to hide himself from their view. He peered over the edge watching the group, the wind carrying their voices to his ears.

“How did we lose them?”
“I don’t know, they were careless and deserved to get kicked out. More money for us.”

A robed man dropped his hood and Miramusa saw that he wore a skull mask. It was PK13!

“You can take you hoods off, we weren’t followed.”

They dropped their hoods and each one revealed their identities. Miramusa looked around and looked at each of them and gasped as he saw two familiar faces. How?! What?! It can’t be! Raiyu and Darki are part of PK13!  Miramusa recollected himself and looked at the other members. By the conversation he picked up on all of their names, there was Reaper, Raiyu, Darki, a man wearing a rhino mask named Brutus, a girl wearing a masquerade mask who was named Fleur, another was wearing a samurai helmet and he was Bushido, another of wore a cowboy hat with a bandana up to his nose his name was Dusty, one wore a wolf mask and was named Lycanthrope, another one wore a mask that could change faces and her body changed also according to the faces, she was named Circe, the last one didn’t wear a mask, probably like Raiyu and Darki he was undercover getting information from PK13’s enemies. He carried a hammer and a sense of electricity emits off his body his name is Thor.

“Why don’t you undercover boys stop them before they go and ban one of our guys?!”

“Because then we wouldn’t be undercover anymore! It’s their own fault they go into their plan even though we warn them!”

“Stop arguing! We need to get the plan down. We have the magnet, but we need to find the center of Quinta to activate it. Once we activate the magnet all the pieces of the keys should come to it.”

“Wait, what about Miramusa? He has a piece of key inside of him.”

“Then when he comes we’ll just have to thank him.”

Miramusa turned his PvP switch on and stuck Raiña inside him committing suicide. He opened his eyes appearing in the D.A.R.T HQ. He fell down and tried to catch his breath. He couldn’t believe what was happening. Two of the highly renowned D.A.R.T members were actually PK13!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex sat on his bed with his hands on his head wondering what to do. I should expose them but I wouldn’t have any proof, maybe Phantom could back him up but why didn’t Phantom tell them about Raiyu and Darki in the first place? Maybe he didn’t know.

Alex got up and filled in the paper he made with the names and faces he learned today. He pinned the paper back up and headed out of his room and into his bathroom. He closed the door and looked at himself in the mirror. He seemed to have a worried and tired look, Alex washed his face and remembered that they were having lessons at the Dueling Center where he fenced, this week he was going to learn hand to hand skills. He went to the store and entered in, it turned out that the Martial Arts club wasn’t there but the fencing group was. He grabbed the equipment and put it on. John turned around and saw Alex approaching.

“You’re late, Alex get up there and fight Mike.”

Alex grabbed an epee and put on his mask. He walked onto the mat and positioned himself against Mike.

“En garde!”

Mike moved pretty sluggish when he tried to hit Alex. Alex reflected his sword and struck Mike in the chest, Mike moved back after being struck and tried to think up of another attack to perform, Alex went forward and performed a feint attack striking Mike in the arm, Mike reflected the next attack Alex attempted and returned with one at a fast pace, Mike smiled and at that moment Alex knew Mike had tricked him. Mike caught Alex off guard and struck him in the chest twice. Alex reflected the vertical strike mike attacked with and played it cautiously. He tried to see a weakness in his attacks but they were lightning fast and he quickly recovered after Alex reflected. Alex dodged the next stab that came from Mike and strafed around him targeting an exposed area Alex hit him on the side of his body. Mike took off his mask and they shook hands expressing respect for another. Alex went over and stood by Olivia,

“Good job, most people fall for his trick,”

“I’m not most people,”

“Alex nice job. Today we’ll learn the tactic Alex just used, strafing around your enemy, it not only helps to dodge attacks but to attack an exposed area. Everyone grab your weapon of choice and a partner.”

Alex grabbed the epee and went over to Olivia,

“Is it okay if I work with you Olivia?”

“Yeah sure, but I use a foil,”

Alex switched out his epee for the lighter foil. Throughout the session they worked on strafing, reflecting, feint attacks and counter strikes but mostly strafing. When the lesson got through Olivia and Alex found themselves outside once again.

“Hey I feel like going to the coffee store do you want to come?” asked Alex

“Sure but I don’t have any money,”

“Ah that’s alright I can pay for it.”

They reached the shop and sat down where they last had their conversation drinking the drinks they both had last time. Alex took a sip then took a deep breath.

“Listen Olivia I want you to know something,”

“What is it Alex?”

“Well… A lot of things are happening and I… I might not be here…”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“It’s nothing forget it, that’s not what I wanted to say,”

“No wait what could happen?”

“You wouldn’t even begin to believe me.”

“Go ahead and try me,”

“No, please let me say what I wanted to say,”

“I’m sorry, go ahead.”

“I…I lo-“

Alex felt a strange sensation over go his body then he tilted his head to look outside the window. He leapt out of his chair and stood up. Outside he could see Myraluna standing there again playing with the snow.

“What was that Alex?”

“Olivia! Do you see that?!” Alex pointed to outside the window

“See what?”

Alex looked back outside and Myraluna disappeared.
“I have to go Olivia,”

“No Alex wait!”

Alex rushed outside and looked around the building; he saw a shadow fade away around a corner. Alex ran towards it and tried to keep up, he was trying frantically to catch up but it seemed almost as if he always missed him just as he turned around the corner. Finally the figure stopped and entered a park and stood in front of a statue. Alex ran forward and walked up slowly to the man.

“Myraluna?”

“Miramusa,”

“No, I can’t be seeing you. You’re dead, I’m awake and this is real life!”

“Are you sure it is?”

“What are talking about?”

“There have been cases where a few people forget to distinguish between Quinta and Earth, they confused the real world with the fake and started to see game images with real life.”

“How is it that I’m learning from you if you’re fake?”

“Are you really or did you already know that?”

“You can’t be Myraluna! You’re not acting like him at all!”

“I’m sorry Miramusa I’m just trying to tell you that you could be going crazy,”

“Yeah don’t worry I got that down already,”

“I know the challenge that you’re facing is tough but you cannot let them win at any cost. Sacrifices will have to be made.”

Alex turned to side wondering about everything. He turned back asking,

“What about those traitorous rats Raiyu and Darki,”        

 Myraluna wasn’t there anymore and Alex was alone in the middle of a park. Alex rubbed his eyes and made sure he wasn’t asleep. He looked at where Myraluna was standing but didn’t see any footprints in the snow. Alex sighed and feel to his knees.
“Oh my god I’m gonna crazy!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex sat in his room and grabbed a small tennis ball. He bounced it off the floor and kept trying to recall if he was actually going crazy. How could that have been fake? He was there! I saw him, I heard him! Alex failed to catch the ball and he let it roll across the floor. Alex closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. Just when I was about to tell her. Alex turned on his console and entered Aria.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The D.A.R.T HQ was empty which was quite awkward, recently due to all the commotion about PK13 there had always been meetings and planning down in the lower floor but for some reason it was dead silent. Miramusa walked out to the courtyard and looked up to Myraluna’s statue.

“Why are you doing this to me master?”

He almost expected a reply from the rock figure but it stood still as always. Miramusa walked off and went into the streets. It was dark and the moon hung high on the cloudy sky. Miramusa walked the quiet streets looking over the beautiful city. He walked over to a bridge and sat on the edge of it; he almost hoped Lucretia would come and interrupt him again but no one came. Miramusa touched the bridge and wondered if he could shift the bridge using magic like Lucretia, he closed his mind and extended his energy but something stopped him from doing so. They probably don’t allow changing of the cities open to everyone or else the place would be a mess. When we were in Ludminton the Datacombs probably corrupted the land also. This brought an idea to Miramusa. Everything new gets tested in Ludminton, new equipment, new classes, new skills. Miramusa got back onto the bridge and ran to a nearby store. He bought a couple supplies like a globe light and potions to help him through the Strangelands and onto Ludminton. If he was going to fight PK13 he should strengthen his code and he believed going through this journey would help him. He pulled out Navi from his jacket and it spun around happy to be free again. Miramusa and Navi ran over to the far east gate stopping at it to make sure he has everything for this trip.

“Well let’s see I have potions, a globe light, Raiña, and Navi.”

Miramusa smiled and pushed open the gate. Outside was endless rolling plains filled with large and small creatures roaming around the land. Miramusa stepped out proud and happy he is able to go out of his barriers. A Roc swooped downwards and almost crushed Miramusa with its talons if not Navi blinded him causing him to take steps backwards. Miramusa saw the Roc in the air and he ran back inside Aquaria. Maybe I should try the northern gate!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dawn was breaking and Miramusa felt like he climbed the same hill as before. He had went out the north gate not seeing any giant birds in the sky and walked out only to be greeted soon after by a horde of locust. He had ran and run for the past half an hour trying to escape the bugs they eventually altered their direction and went another way by that time Miramusa was out of breath and laying down on the side of the hill. At the moment he was treading across hills as the sun slowly slips away from the horizon rising up to take power. Miramusa dropped on the hill and placed a hand onto his chest. He was trying to see if he could use his magic to restore some of stamina, he saw white mages do it with other people but white magic baffled him. Miramusa closed his eyes and imagined his energy, it was weak and he wanted to try to restore some of it. He extended some of it and shot it back at himself which only resulted to him electrifying himself. Note to self, you cannot restore your own energy, white mages heal people by giving them some of their energy. Navi circled Miramusa and a revitalizing feeling swept over him. He could feel his body start to function properly again and he stood back up. He looked at Navi and smiled.

“Thanks a lot, you’re quite an amazing floating ball thing.”
Miramusa took a step forward but felt the ground shake and he tripped and rolled down the hill. Miramusa rubbed his head and opened his eyes now aware of what was present. A pack of sabretooth tigers were gathered around him. He pulled out Raiña and prepared himself. They all charged forward at the same, Navi spun around Miramusa giving a body barrier, Miramusa created a barrier wall preventing a third of them from reaching him he pointed his sword at another third of the pack and shot out lightning causing them to burn into crisps but also taking a considerable amount of energy from him. The last third pounced on him knocking him down onto the ground. He knocked one on the head with the hilt of Raiña and kicked it off, the other two were soon replacing it. Miramusa focused and used WARP to get away from the two’s grasp. He only appeared five feet away because it wasn’t strong enough to get any farther than that. The barrier that held the three sabretooth tigers back fell and they were all headed towards him. One jumped directly at him with its fangs open and primed for a kill, Miramusa swung his sword and at the same time focused on magic. Raiña glowed a bright whitish-blue and created a electrical strike wave following the swords cutting motion, splitting the jumping sabretooth tiger in half burning it’s insides. Miramusa looked at Raiña and couldn’t believe the power that just came out of it. Miramusa tried again to no success the sabretooth tigers were circling around him, Miramusa constantly turning in a 360 motion watching them carefully. He reversed his grip on Raiña, using the ice pick grip. He smiled and used WARP leaving an image of himself still in the circle, he reappeared behind a sabretooth and sank his blade into the animal. Another sabretooth reacted quickly and swung it’s claw at Miramusa’s arm that held Raiña, another sabretooth followed up that attack by leaping at him it’s jaws wide open. Miramusa weaponless acted on impulse and grabbed the two fangs and sent out electrical energy through his hands shocking the sabretooth’s body and killing it. The sheer weight still knocked him over but he managed to toss it off the side as he fell. Three more sabretooth tigers remained and they were ready to take Miramusa out. Miramusa got back up and picked up Raiña ready for the other three to strike. A sound came from the distance and the three beasts retreated quickly.

“Haha! I am victorious!”

A weird buzzing sound came from behind Miramusa and he turned around to see what it was. It was the horde of locusts again.

“Oh no, not again.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa had spent another half an hour trying to escape them and managed to get away in a gathering of trees. He had his back against the tree and tried to slow his breathing. Navi’s glow seemed faint and it didn’t seem like it had enough energy to restore Miramusa’s.

“Don’t worry Navi you can rest.”

Miramusa picked up Navi and put it into his pocket. He turned around to make sure there wasn’t a horde of locust or a pack or wild animals around. It seemed clear and Miramusa walked on out. He saw a dirt path starting to appear on the land and wondered if this was made by a user or the game developers, curious to where it lead he started to walk along the path. He found a strange looking rock on the side of the road and for some reason felt like sitting upon it. He caught his breath and pulled out Raiña. He was still amazed at how it shot that lightning at the sabretooth tiger. A voice behind him appeared.

“You have to believe that your sword is a living being. You have to believe that it does things by itself. You believe that it is alive you’ll be able to do great things with it.”
Miramusa turned around and saw a hooded stranger who stood behind him.
“Who are you?”

“I’m a stranger just passing through,”

The stranger kept on walking and Miramusa looked back to Raiña. It’s alive? It’s alive… It’s alive! Raiña glowed a faint red and words seemed to enter his mind.

“Miramusa do you really believe that I am alive?”

Whoa, I think it just talked to me! I’m must be going crazy, taking advice from strangers and seeing my dead master in real life. Now I’m hearing things from a sword!

“You’re not hearing things I did mean to hold a conversation with you.”

The voice of Raiña was that of a young beautiful lady, he could not see a person but the voice itself was beautiful. Miramusa looked at the sword closely and wondered.

“How is it that you’re talking to me?”

“I’m not really talking just communicating to your mind. This connects the brain into a unreal realm, I’m using it to send messages to you.”

“You’re using my mind to talk to me?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Wow, that is really strange. So what does Raiña even mean?”

“It’s Gallic and it means queen.”

“That’s funny, I always imagined you to be the masculine type,”

“If I could move on my own I would stab you. Wait maybe… Yes!”

A strong flash of light emitted from Raiña and the blade flew out of Miramusa’s hands. The blade turned into a white light and the white light started to change its shape slowly shaping into a person. When it was done a young lady was the result although she was quite bare.

“Whoa! Why don’t you have any clothes on? What’s wrong with you!”

“Oh don’t act so childish Miramusa or wait… Ah Alex I found it in your brain. Don’t act like you’ve never seen a woman like this before. What? You haven’t? Oh whatever just pass me the scabbard.”

Miramusa passed Raiña the scabbard and she changed it into a long brown dress.
“That’s better for the general audience,”

“Oh but Alex my dear you’re the only one in my audience.”
“Stop talking like that!”

“No, I’m quite serious no one else will be able to see me so try to consult me when your by yourself or might seem a little…”

“Crazy?! Tell me about it, I saw Myraluna you know,”

“Yes I can see through your memories-“

“What else can you access through my body?! I feel like you’ve just infiltrated everything in my mind!”

“Oh hush dear boy! I was going to tell you that you’re not crazy,”

“You’re saying Myraluna is alive and walking around the real world?”

“No… I’m saying that you’re not crazy.”

“Oh yeah thanks a lot, I’m getting this from the apparition of a sword. Yeah I’m not going crazy.”
Raiña walked in a B-line and walked up to Miramusa and slapped him in the face.

“Ow, that actually hurts! Why does that hurt?”

“It’s your brain, I made it send a message to your body that makes it feel like it’s been slapped.”
“So, what if I just don’t believe you slapped me,”

“Then it’ll probably won’t hurt at all but you would have to believe pretty strongly.”

“What if I don’t believe you exist?”

“Now why would you want to that?”

The image of Raiña started to fade away and the sword started to reappear back into his hands, the scabbard covering it.

A voice entered his chat channel,

“This is squad 7 of Dragon Brigade. We see you down there in the Strangelands are you lost or in need for any assistance?”

“Well this is Miramusa of… D.A.R.T. I’m fine I was just exploring, who is this I’m speaking to?”

Miramusa could see a group of fourteen dragons flying his direction.

“Miramusa? This is Spire! Hey how you doing? Squad keep making your rounds I’m going down.”

One of the dragons started to descend and move towards him. The dragon was white with brown stripes and it was huge, he could see Spire and Estrella both on the dragon.

“Hey Miramusa how are you doing? This is Tronny my dragon, he’s a beast.”

“I’m fine, and you have a beautiful dragon. My I ask what the job of squad 7 is?”

“Squad 7 watches over the Strangelands, we make sure that people aren’t lost or need help, the Strangelands are quite harsh.”

“So I’ve learned, I’ve had to run away from a locust swarm for half an hour twice!”

“Well you can always ride with us, we’ll drop you off to where ever you want to get dropped off at.”

“I was heading to Ludminton,”

“Then hop on,”

Miramusa put Raiña on his back and climbed onto Tronny, he was last on the saddle, Estrella in front of him and Spire in front steering.

“Hey there Miramusa,” said Estrella

Miramusa smiled and they took off. He wasn’t used to flying and was hanging on for his life.

“Relax, you won’t die,” said Estrella

“Wow that’s something I’ve never expected you to say,”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You’re usually the doomsayer”

“Am not! Oh my god! Spire that’s a Predator! We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!”

A large horned beast about the size of ten elephants slowly charged towards them, the movement of it shook the ground and caused other smaller beasts to flee in terror.

“Whoa! What is that?!” asked Miramusa

“It’s called a Predator, it’s the biggest monster ever created and it eats everything but humans are a delicacy to it.” Answered Spire

The large beast was gaining on them but it seemed that they were always a step ahead of it.
“Couldn’t we just like throw spells at it?”

“Yeah maybe if you wanna die!”

“The entire Dragon Brigade tried one day just to see and it took us an entire hour to bring it down.”

“There must be something!”

“Uh… Oh yeah, here take this and throw it at him, maybe it’ll slow him down.”

Spire handed him a silver sphere, and Miramusa took aim. He threw it at the beast but it just bounced off and did nothing.

“It didn’t do anything!”

“Did you light it?”

“What?! I had to light it?”

“It was a smoke bomb! Ugh, here Miramusa take another one and light it this time!”

Miramusa caught the silver ball and found the wick. He summoned a magical spark and lit the bomb. He threw it at the Predator and it exploded and released a large cloud of smoke that even it wasn’t visible.

“Yeah! I think we lost it!”

The Predator came out from the smoke in a mad dash and swung it’s horn up coming right next to Tronny. Miramusa surprised and startled, jumped and almost fell off the saddle. The Predator slowed down and they could see it stop and rest.

“Is it over?” asked Miramusa

“No, it’s only begun.”

The Predator screamed and brown pods started to shoot out from its back. The brown pods flew high into the sky and were directed towards Tronny and some came close to hitting him. The pods broke in mid air and Miramusa that they weren’t pods but they were monsters. The pods broke and opened up showing Miramusa that they were flying monsters and that there was about a thousand of them.

“Miramusa?! You’re a Mystic Knight right? Then shoot some magic at them!”

Miramusa was panicking and shooting off random lightning strikes that haphazardly struck it’s targets. Estrella put her hand on his shoulder sending him energy,
“Thanks Estrella,”

“Stop thanking me and kill them! Or we’re gonna die!”

Miramusa turned back and focused on the enemies. He took a deep breath and focused, he was going to target these things one by one, it was more efficient than shooting randomly or trying to hit a large number of them when they moved so spasmodically. Miramusa shot one down then another but it barely seemed like he was making a dent in their numbers. One flew directly in front of him trying to knock him off Tronny which almost succeeded if not Estrella had caught him. A voice in his mind appeared.

“Alex trust me.”

Raiña?  

Miramusa unsheathed his sword and stood up on the saddle. He closed his eyes, come on Raiña you can do this! Miramusa swung out and a large streak of lightning shot out striking a nearby monster but the lightning chained and passed through a cluster of them causing them to drop out of the sky. Miramusa swung again unleashing another large lightning attack.
“Miramusa sit down, this is gonna be rough!”

Miramusa turned around and sat down, Ludminton was right in front of him and they were about to enter it.

“When we enter, there is a barrier around cities that prevents monsters from entering, those things won’t be able to follow us but also neither will Tronny,”

“You’re saying we’re going to fall into Ludminton?!”

“We have no other choice! Tronny will bring us at the barrier then we’ll have to jump into the city!”

They got closer and closer and Miramusa could see the barrier appear.

“Okay! Let’s do it!”

Miramusa leapt from the saddle and jumped into the city, they were falling from about fifty feet up and they were descending fast. Miramusa closed his eyes and tried to remember what Lucretia did when they jumped off the tower. He extended his energy and created a large bubble around the three of them. They slowly came down to the ground and landed.
“That was one heck of an entry,” said a walking by player.

Miramusa smiled and looked around. He was finally in Ludminton.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa was a little lost around the town not exactly sure how to navigate the city. Spire and Estrella already left as they had to get back to patrolling the Strangelands. Miramusa had come to find new equipment or anything that would be useful against the PK13. He strolled around the markets looking around to see the new equipment that was exclusive to this location. He saw new pets that you can have things like tigers and birds. Miramusa brought out Navi and it spun around in glee, Miramusa greeted and was glad that he had a sprite instead of those pets. He kept walking on and something caught his attention. A sign with big letters said, Attention all Mystic Knights! Miramusa walked over to the store and went inside. The store was quite luxurious and all the items being sold were very pricey. He looked around at all the new swords and marveled at their beauty.

“Don’t you think of going and replacing me Alex!”

Miramusa smiled and went over to the store owner as he was the only person in the shop. He was dressed in a tuxedo and seemed very high class.

“Hi, I saw you’re sign out front,”

Miramusa looked at the owner and realized that it was a player.

“Hold on, when did players get to run their own business?”

“It’s in the update that’s coming soon. Anyway you wanted to see the new equipment for Mystic Knights?”

“Yeah what is it,”

The owner looked around to see if anybody was in the shop. He went over by the door and locked it and turned the open sign to closed.

“follow me.”

Miramusa followed him to a book shelf on where he pulled out a blue book. The bookshelf turned and opened inside, Miramusa followed the store owner and they walked on some stairs that went down. Inside were equipment he had never even seen before, he looked at the strength of the items and was left in awe at how much they protected people. The store owner stopped and showed him the Mystic Knight armor. It was made of a fine metal one that he had never laid eyes on. It was had a chest plate decorated with blue paint and gold ornate patterns, the armor covers the right shoulder but leaves the left shoulder unprotected probably for easier magic use on the left side and to fight with on the right. It came with leg protection but it wasn’t plate armor it was a strong fabric that protected against magical attacks well and allowed Mystic Knights to move well, also a dark blue cape came with it with a gold designed collar.
“How much for this?”

“One million.”

“One million?! Are you crazy?!”

“I made this myself! I should be charging even more because you won’t see another set of armor as strong anywhere else!”

“Why the secrecy then?”

“If word gets out that I have this armor then people will flock to my store like rats and start begging me to give it to them and there’ll be thieves! I don’t want beggars and thieves coming to my shop I only want high class high paying customers and you Miramusa I know who you are and why you want this. And I know you can afford this.”
“Uh… I kinda spent about all of it making the D.A.R.T HQ,”

“You did what?! Then go out there and find some money!”

The store owner shooed Miramusa out his store. Miramusa sighed and saw two familiar faces. They were approaching him.

“Raiyu? Darki?! What are you doing in Ludminton?!”

“Calm down. My master wants to talk to you.”

Darki approached closer and came face to face with Miramusa.

“Miramusa. I want to show you skills that you will need in the future.”

“What you want to help me?!” Miramusa was confused and scared, these guys were PK13 and yet they wanted to help him.

“You are the only hope we have, if you allow me I’ll teach you to use your body as a magical conductor and teach you to achieve you’re Aria.”
“Can you teach me that in a short amount of time?”
“We will work at our most efficient speed.”

“Then …”

Miramusa had to stop and think about his offer. He was the enemy and yet he offers to train him to fight them.
“Let’s train.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode VIII- The Final Countdown

Raiyu ran forward and swung his sword ferociously at Miramusa who was able to reflect the attacks. Raiyu’s sword stabbed forward and Raiña turned a bright blue, Miramusa struck at Raiyu’s sword and sliced it into half. Raiyu took steps backwards unable to fathom what had just happened. Raiyu dropped the rest of his weapon and put his hands into the air.

“I give up.”

Miramusa smiled and went to sheath his sword but Raiyu charged forward and tacked into Miramusa knocking him down, before Miramusa could react Raiyu landed a punch onto Miramusa’s face, Miramusa exerted lightning and shot Raiyu off of him. Raiyu was smiling on his hands and knees.

“You can’t let them just say that they’ve given up, they won’t quit, so you better learn to not take mercy.”

Miramusa took Raiña and stabbed it into Raiyu. Raiyu’s image started to fade away. Darki walked up to him.

“That is quite a strong attack with Raiña. How do you achieve such moves?”

“I believe that Raiña is alive…”

“Stop messing around. Now go over there we are going to learn to conduct magic.”

Miramusa put away Raiña and stood over by the oak tree that Darki wanted him to stand by.

“I want you, without using your sword, to cut this tree down.”

Miramusa focused and warmed up his left hand, he raised his hand and aimed it at the tree. Miramusa took in a deep breath and exhaled unleashing a massive wave of energy in the form of wind, a large wind blew on the oak tree and almost tilted it over.

“No! Are you deaf? I said cut it down!”

The tree reset and Miramusa prepared himself again. The energy he needed to use would have to concentrated and able to cut it down and not push it over. Miramusa focused and shot out a strike of electricity but it struck in the wrong place and struck the ground but the lightning stayed in the area, Miramusa was confused and didn’t understand what was going on, Miramusa moved his left hand and saw that the lightning followed. Miramusa moved his hand up the lightning unraveled and shot upwards and stayed at that position. He could see the energy diminishing as he held it so he quickly brought it back down and shot it forth horizontally at the base of the oak tree. The oak tree creaked and started to move. The tree slammed downwards and Miramusa jumped into the air with glee. A powerful force then knocked him down, while on the ground he looked behind him to see that it was Raiyu.

“Congratulations, woohoo, whatever you still need to train!”

Raiyu had another sword and this sword was large as himself and wide as six inches. Miramusa ducked under it and shot out an electrical strike, Raiyu blocked it with his sword and the energy stayed there behind him, Miramusa pulled it forward with his left hand and hit Raiyu in his back,
“What trickery is this?!”

Miramusa unsheathed Raiña and sliced Raiyu’s new sword in half. Miramusa walked forward while Raiyu was stilled stunned and sank Raiña into his stomach.

“No mercy remember.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa walked around Ludminton and saw the new things in the markets. Somehow he had to get one million dollars to get the armor. It wasn’t imperative of him to obtain it but he’d imagine the fight against PK13 would be a lot easier. He thought about that shopkeeper that was a player. Maybe he should start his own shop, but what would he sell? Miramusa paced the plaza he was standing in and wondered what products would he have then he remembered of someone who always had something unique in situations. Gizmo. He was going to start a business with Gizmo’s gadgets, Wow what a clever name, Gizmo’s Gadgets, I think I’ll use that. He messaged Gizmo and told him of his idea to set up a business. Gizmo came over to Ludminton and Miramusa already bought a space where they could sell items.

“This is the space you bought?!”

“It was all I could afford.”

It was five feet across and five feet down, the only thing occupying the space was a wooden stand.
“What do you expect to sell? Lemonade?!”

“Wait Gizmo… What if we sold a special kind of lemonade… One that helps increase your stats and restores a lot of your energy?”

“We would need a special kind of fruit… Like a uh… Filena fruit,”
“Where do you get those?”

“They’re really expensive, like five hundred per pound. You can get them in the Strangelands but their usually in the middle of forests and the leaves are golden.”

“Golden leaves? Do they do anything special?”

“No but they look pretty,”

“We should sell those too, oh man we’re gonna be rich!”

“How do you expect to find the Filena though? They’re really rare and there’s like a ton of tree groupings out there.”
“I have a friend.”

Miramusa send out a message to Spire and Estrella asking them if they were working on Dragon Brigade duty but they just finished so they were free. Miramusa told Gizmo to stay at the stand and sell stuff he had plentiful of and Miramusa ran off to the gate to meet Spire and Estrella. Miramusa pushed open the gate and stepped outside the city limits. He scanned the area but couldn’t see any sign of a dragon. A strong wind blew from the east and pushed Miramusa a bit to the left. Tronny came in from the right landing right next to Miramusa’s feet.
“Hey Spire, hey Estrella and Tronny. Um… I’m looking for Filena.”

“Like the fruit? Forget it man, Filena fruit are considerably shorter than the canopy on most the forests. We wouldn’t be able to see them from the sky unless we had someone with exceptional eyesight.”

Miramusa stopped and thought for a second. Hawkeye!

“I know a guy, but he’s in Aquaria so we’re gonna need to pick him up.”

“Why don’t you just tell him to ride the airship to Ludminton?”

“This guy never speaks, if I told him he wouldn’t respond and I wouldn’t know if he was coming or not. Better to meet him face to face.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa jumped off Tronny and went into the gates of Aquaria. A sense of home came over him and he forgot how much he loved this city. Miramusa shook his head and headed to his house. Recently he’s been seeing Hawkeye at the meetings and events. He’s been at the D.A.R.T HQ more than once. Miramusa entered his house and almost ran into a passing by member.

“Hey! Watch where you’re- Oh Sir Miramusa I did know it was you,”

“No it’s okay, hey have you seen Hawkeye?”

“He’s out back practicing on the archery range.”

“Archery range? When did I add that?”

“Oh Master Marco added it when he upgraded the HQ.”

“What?! Upgrades?!”

“Yeah, don’t worry all the stuff you made is still there, he just added a few more military upgrades as defensive towers, barracks, and training areas for specific classes.”

“Wow we’re going into war aren’t we?”

“Yes we are Sir Miramusa.”

“Thanks a lot,”

Miramusa ran out a back door and looked at the archery range. The size of it was grand and at least a hundred people were practicing on it, he looked around and tried to spot Hawkeye. He couldn’t see the archers as they were in boxes almost except without a front, but Miramusa had an idea to find out where he was. He looked at the targets and saw they were all bare. A man off the side yelled out,

“Ready?! Aim! Fire!!!”

A volley of arrows entered the air and fell onto the targets. Most players hit their mark but a few missed. Miramusa discounted the ones that failed and waited for the next wave.

“Fire!”

A wave of arrows entered the air and were soaring down to their targets then all of a sudden a flash of bright light and a group of five arrows of light shot from a booth and struck it’s mark faster than those that shot before him. That’s Hawkeye! Miramusa rushed down and went onto the range.

“Hawkeye, I need you come with me for uh… Filena hunting.”

Hawkeye lowered his bow and put it on his back. Miramusa smiled and took that as a yes. Miramusa walked on back to Tronny Hawkeye silently trailing behind him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Tronny grunted as Miramusa and Hawkeye got on probably because of the weight of everyone on aboard. Spire rubbed Tronny neck and whispered something, Tronny roared and took off the ground. The day was sunny in the Strangelands so it made trying find the golden leaves less of a challenge but it still proved a problem. They had passed over at least ten gathering of trees and spent a quite a while at each trying to spot any kind of glimmer but Hawkeye shook his head and they moved on. Tired and on the edge of giving up they headed in the direction of Ludminton. Hawkeye suddenly moved and shot an arrow into the forest, the arrow had a long red ribbon that was attached to it. Spire told Tronny to land and Miramusa jumped off.
“Is there a Filena tree in there Hawkeye?”

Hawkeye turned and shrugged at Miramusa then started to walk in the forest. Miramusa shook his head and started to follow him. Hawkeye picked up the red ribbon and gave it a tug. Estrella and Spire stayed behind to watch over Tronny as he was working extremely hard today.
“Wow that’s brilliant Hawkeye!”

Hawkeye just continued walking forward following the red ribbon. Miramusa found it pretty hard to be around Hawkeye, the silence and unresponsiveness makes it very awkward for him. Hawkeye stopped and turned around holding the ribbon but the ribbon was cut off. Hawkeye took out his bow and pulled out an arrow.

“What? Is there someone with us?”

Navi busted out of Miramusa’s pocket and created a barrier of light. A sword was thrown and bounced off the shield made by Navi. A man dropped down from the trees and showed himself. It was Bushido, one of the PK13. He pulled out another katana and started to attack at Miramusa, Hawkeye shot off an arrow into Bushido’s helmet. Bushido stopped and fell over. Miramusa was still trying to review of what had happened and somehow he had Raiña in his hand when he didn’t remember drawing her.

“Nice shot,”

Bushido moved and jumped back up, the period samurai mask face stared deep into Miramusa’s eyes. Hawkeye shot off another arrow into Bushido’s heart but was quickly deflected by his blades. Bushido jumped around swing and slashing getting closer and deadlier.
“Don’t let his fancy tricks get to you Alex, trust in me.”

Miramusa swung out with Raiña and Bushido caught it in a cross of his swords. Hawkeye shot out a group of arrows made of light but Bushido deflected them all and threw a katana into Hawkeye. Hawkeye staggered backwards and dropped his bow. He looked down at the katana then fell to the floor, Bushido turned his head around and slashed forward. Miramusa barely fast enough to dodge the strikes that came like lightning strikes. Miramusa jumped backwards trying to get some distance between him and his enemy. Miramusa focused and shot a bolt of lightning at Bushido who quickly deflected it but didn’t anticipated it to come back. Bushido staggered forward and Miramusa ran forward and stabbed Bushido in the chest while he was still stunned by the strike. Bushido dropped his katana’s and took a few steps backwards holding onto the wound. Then Miramusa could hear a soft laughter.

“Ha ha ha. Did you think you could stop me with that?! You don’t have the virus or the ban hammer! You can’t stop me!”

Bushido walked forward unarmed and Miramusa slashed away at him but none of the attacks seemed to take any affect. Bushido laughed and grabbed his neck and lifted him off the ground. Miramusa could feel the air escaping him every second and death inching nearer. A flash of light entered his eyes and Bushido lost his grip on Miramusa. Navi returned to Miramusa and gave him energy to return to fighting. Although Miramusa was feeling replenished with strength he felt hopeless and lost. He didn’t have the proper equipment to fight this enemy. Bushido walked over and picked up one of his katanas. Bushido stood over Miramusa with his sword,

“Goodbye,”

As Bushido’s sword was coming down Miramusa swung out with Raiña and sliced it in half and rolled out of the way.
“That’s impossible!”

Miramusa could feel a power inside him awaken and his body started to glow a faint yellow. Miramusa stood up and stared at Bushido.

“Stop! What are you doing?!”

Miramusa walked forward and slashed at Bushido creating a large wave of energy that shot him back and cut him diagonally on his body. He slammed into a tree and his armor cracked, blood poured through to the outside of his helmet.

“That’s impossible, how can you be doing this?!”

Miramusa ran forward and struck him the chest with Raiña.
“No… The mighty Bushido cannot… Die…”

Miramusa pulled the sword out of his body and heard his last gasp escape his body. Miramusa ran over to Hawkeye who was still lying on the floor with a katana inside of him. Miramusa looked around to try and find Navi but it wasn’t there. Miramusa turned back his attention to Hawkeye, he was still alive but barely. Miramusa took a deep breath and removed the sword within Hawkeye and Hawkeye shuddered through the pain. Miramusa looked at Hawkeye and started to his eyes wander off.

“No! No! Don’t die!”

“I’m…I’m sorry about Myraluna…”

Then Hawkeye closed his eyes. A sound came from behind him and Miramusa grabbed Raiña and turned around prepared to fight. Two people came into his view and he realized it was Spire and Estrella.
“Estrella! Can you heal him?”

“Yeah, hold on Hawkeye!”

Estrella went over to Hawkeye’s side and started to tend to his wounds. Spire came over and handed him Navi.

“The sprite almost gave its heart out trying to find its way out the forest to find us and then it lead us back to here. Amazing little creature Navi is.”

Navi was barely glowing and Miramusa thanked it and put it into his pocket.

“We were walking to the Filena then all of a sudden Bushido one of PK13 jumped out and attacked us!”

“Is Hawkeye okay?” asked Spire

“I don’t know, he got a deep wound into the chest.”

“Miramusa you need to stop them, but first you’re gonna need that armor.”

Spire walked over to Bushido and took the samurai helmet.
“This thing has a damage protection unlike anything I’ve ever seen, here take this and get a good price for it.”

They walked out the forest Spire carrying Hawkeye while Estrella healed him with her magic. They had gotten on the dragon and Estrella healed him while Spire steered. Miramusa couldn’t stop wondering if Hawkeye was going to be okay and also how he managed to stop Bushido. Something inside had awakened, but what was it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa walked to the store and opened the door and approached the store owner.

“Well this is payment enough?”

“What is that? Is that even real? I thought there were rumors about it but I didn’t know it was real.”

“There were rumors about this thing?”
“It’s the legendary Shogun Helmet that is said to give it’s wearer awesome strength. Where did you get this?”

“I got it from a PK13 member,”

“I though they didn’t exist!”

“Ah… I mean no, they don’t exist so don’t panic or anything.”

“I would gladly take this as payment now follow me.”

Miramusa followed the man downstairs and into the room with the armors. Miramusa walked up to the suit for Mystic Knights and picked up the chest piece.
“Thank you a lot for this   

Thanks a lot for everything, I feel can take on an entire army with this suit."

"No, thank you for this samurai helmet, I'll make a fortune!"

Miramusa took off the armor that Myraluna had given when he first started his training. Miramusa felt nostalgic over it but as he fit on the new equipment he felt powerful and protected. Miramusa smiled and thanked the store owner once again. He stepped outside feeling like he had put another mark down on his checklist of things needed to defeat the PK13. He had his suit of armor, his weapon and a good relationship with it, his strong magic, and WARP. The only thing left was to learn his aria. Firstly Miramusa wanted to find out something before he continued on and to do that he would need to go back to Aquaria. Miramusa closed his eyes and used WARP

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa reappeared in the D.A.R.T HQ and went to the lower level of the building. As he suspected Phantom was there.

"Hey Phantom I need to talk to you."

"What about?"

"Well, you see I saw another PK13 member,"

"Which one was it?"

"Bushido,"

"Nope, I don't know him, I don't know much of the PK13 as I only work with three of them. That's also another reason why I quit was because I barely knew those guys."

Miramusa smiled as he was glad that Phantom wasn't just staying quiet about Raiyu and Darki. He really didn't know much of the PK13.

"Well, I didn't have a banhammer and I don't have the virus but somehow I think i killed him."

"You mean kill him in the game or kill him like in real life?"

"I think I killed him in real life,"

"That's bad, how are you able to do that?"

"I don't know I came here to ask you that question,"

"I think, that... Wait, did you feel a sense of power?"

"Yeah, yeah I did just as I was able to kill him."

"You must have awakend the piece of key inside you allowing a glitch in the code which probably reverses the virus! You did kill him!"

"It was me or him, I didn't have a choice."

"Yes you did, you always have a choice."

A person's hand dropped onto Miramusa's shoulder, Miramusa twitched and freaked out, still paranoid to when Geist did it to him.. Miramusa turned and saw that it was Hawkeye.

"Oh Hawkeye it's you. I'm glad you're okay you feeling better?"

Hawkeye nodded and went to sit at the round table.

Merlin entered the room following the six people that usually oversee the meeting.

"You should attend this meeting Miramusa, you've been absent for the past five meetings."

"I've been busy,"

"So I'm told."

Master Marco passed by Miramusa and stopped to stare at his armor.

"Nice armor!"

"Thanks, I got it from Ludminton"

"That explains why I've never seen anything like it,"

Master Marco brought out a finely jeweled dagger touched the tip of the blade to check it's sharpness.

"Do you mind if I test my dagger agianst your chest plate?"

"It won't hurt so... Sure,"

Master Marco garbbed the knife sabre style and stabbed it into the chest plate. A sound of metal shattering soon followed and Master Marco's blade was split into pieces.

"That's quite amazing, it causes weapons to corrode when it's struck. You see this weapon is quite cheap but for it to explode requires something special."

"Thanks for the demonstration I need to know how strong it was,"

"No problem, now let's have that meeting."

Miramusa walked down and sat down on a chair. The others all carried grim faces and hard expressions. Merlin cleared his throat announcing he was going to speak.

"These are dark times and even more darker hours. Our enemy is acheiving their goal soon and we almsot have no hope of stopping all of them at once. But as long as we have our hero, our resolve will stand strong. We will not bow down to them when they gain the keys to Aria. We will not give up if they successfully get all the pieces of the key. We will not stop this fight!"

Miramusa realized that when Merlin said hero that he meant him. They think of him as the savior of the impending demise. I'm no hero...

"Oh but you are to me Alex,"

You're a sword!

"These people believe in you Alex, you give them hope and it's all that they have. Don't take that away from them Alex."

Miramusa looked around the table and saw that all faces were looking at him. Miramusa stood up and cleared his throat.

"I don't know what you expect of me, but I will plan to do my best. Whatever happens I want you guys to know that I poured my entire soul for it and that if I die that I died in a honorable battle. I want you to know that I too am scared but I will not let that bring me down because I still have a master that has to be avenged and I am not going to die until I get my vengeance!"

Hawkeye stood up in respect to Miramusa, then Phantom stood. Slowly one by one people rose to their feet honoring the man who was going to certain death. Lastly Raiyu and Darki raised to their feet.

"Thank you, thank you all."

"No Miramusa, thank you," said Merlin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Right after the meeting Darki approached Miramusa and told him that he had one last training session left if he wanted to have a fighting chance against the PK13. It was to learn his Aria. Miramusa agreed and followed Darki to The Main Gate. He opened up a sub-gate and they went through it. Went Miramusa went through it was unlike anything he had ever gone into before. It was black, black all around the only other thing was Darki. Raiyu had logged off so this gave Darki time to train him personally. Miramusa walked around the area curious as to what the place is.

"It's called the Dark Room. Anything and everything can be spawned here but none of it can be taken back. It is said that you go here if you have all the pieces of the key to get your wish."

"Why are we training here?"

"Because training your aria is very difficult, it takes time and lots of training which we don't have. But here time is relative and we can speed up the writing of the code."

"So if I learn aria here then I'll learn like ten times faster right? But will I be able to use it back in the game world against PK13?"

Miramusa could see Darki grin then start to laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"You won't have to bring it back the fight is going to happen here. All the PK13 members and the pieces of the key here. So you see, you just have that aria you get today and use it here on the day of the fight, which happens to be tommorow."

"How do you know all this?!"

"Don't play coy Miramusa! I saw you spying on us that day!"

Miramusa pulled out raina.

"You're one of them Darki, why?"

"Because i love to kill."

Darki used WARP and appeared in front of Miramusa and slashed away using his own sword. Miramusa frantically tried to block all the incoming attacks but Darki used WARP after every strike making it hard to predict his movements. Miramusa's defense faltered and Darki kicked Miramusa at the exposed body part. Miramusa stumbled backwards and Darki slashed diagonally, Miramusa quickly raised raina and blocked it. A sense of power started to reawaken within him his body slowly gaining an aura of energy.

"There it is, your aria."

"This is my aria? Then I already have used it before."

"Usually an aria is in the form of an attack, but since you have a piece of key inside you it's not a attack it's a form."

Miramusa loked down at the aura growing around him and the power within rising. He pointed his blade at Darki.

"You are my enemy and you guys killed Myraluna. Sorry I have to do this."

Darki grinned.

"Then do it!"

Raiyu had entered at this time and wasn't sure of what was happening. Miramusa used WARP and appeared in front of Darki and attacked at a breakneck speed. Darki blocked all the incoming strikes still however. Miramusa stopped and slashed diagonally at Darki causing him to raise his sword into a vertical position. Miramusa struck again but with raina's power and sliced his sword into half. Miramusa followed up quickly by thrusting at his chest but Darki blocked it with his hand. Raiyu was now very confused, he thought that his master was only teaching Miramusa how to achieve aria. Miramusa swung again but as a feint attack and WARP behind Darki stabbing him in his back. As Darki turned around to fight him off Miramusa straffed so that he kept his positon behind him and Miramusa raised raina. raina glowed a bright yellow light and then Miramusa slashed in very direct locations with precise manner. The image of Darki started to fade away. Raiyu yelled out and ran over to his withering master.

"Why?! Why did you kill him."

"You two are PK13 and besides I didn't kill him. I banned him. I severed his connection to the game that what the banhammer does and apparantly raina knows how to do it also."

"We aren't actually PK13."

"What are you talking about?"

"We are spies for D.A.R.T, the first time they ever heard about it they freaked out and sent us to investigate and at that time they were recruiting so we decided to go under cover. We told PK13 that we could go undercover as D.A.R.T memebers and feed them information so they hired us. We were undercover ever since we met you. Myraluna was able to see that you had a piece of key inside you and so he took responsiblity of you so that the piece of key would not go to PK13. He only became your teacher so he could watch over the thing inside you."

"You're lying! I asked him about PK13 and he said he never heard of such thing! He doesn't lie to me!"

"Fine. Because you know what? You're right. So you should pick up your sword and ban me. Ban me because I am tired on being on peoples sides, fighting with you and watching people die. Ban me!"

Miramusa picked up raina and raised it into the air. Energy gathered around the blade and Miramusa slashed at precise locations. The body of Raiyu started to fade away,

"Ah... I can breathe again..."

Miramusa closed his eyes. What if he wasn't lying?

 

 

 

Episode IX- The Key

Alex grazed his fingers over the smooth solid cover of the casket. For entire months now Alex had worked on the coffin and it had been quite a challenge. He had to spend a lot of money and time trying to get the coffin to it’s current form. It was a solid wood and had a nice glossy finish. Inside was filled with a soft comfortable walls and a comfortable floor. A pillow sitting on a diagonal finished the look. It was a decent casket especially one of Alex’s skill or his range of possibility. Alex smiled and turned to out the door. He and Roger decided to have him buried a few weeks from now but Roger protested at first as they weren’t sure if he was going to make it through. He had tried to image the battle that was going to take place over and over in his mind and in almost all scenarios the would up badly hurt or dead. They were few of them left, only about seven left but just the thought of having to fight one puts his life in danger. Alex smiled knowing that he could take them out also, probably causing fear in their hearts. I will have my revenge!  But first Alex wanted to enjoy life around him more. He ate breakfast with his parents and talked to them about everything he was thinking off, they had asked him if was feeling okay and he laughed and responded “Yeah,” He had walked around and saw the snow start to slowly melt away and the plants take back over the land. He smiled as he saw flowers start to bloom and grow. Alex bent over and breathe in the scent of a tulip. It could very well the last time he’ll smell that scent. Alex continued and walked over to Olivia’s house. He smiled then started to walk away but then stopped. He took in a deep breath and knocked on her door. Olivia answers the door unsure of who it is.

“Alex?”

“I’m sorry I want to apologize for that other night, I shouldn’t have just left like that.”

“Yeah so why did you leave like that?”

“It was because I saw something very familiar, like a phantasm or a-”

Alex stopped before he explained any more realizing he was starting to sound like he was crazy.

“The point is, I didn’t mean to leave you and I wanted to tell you something really important.”

“Alright, then tell me it without running away this time.”

Alex took in a deep breath and smiled.

“As you know there is a video game called Aria. In this game there is this terrorist organization of actual players who want to control the game. These men are evil and would stop at nothing just to get a lot of money. For some reason these men can kill people. I’m going to have to fight all of these men and somewhere in the process I may not make it back alive. If I die I wanted you to know that you are my first and only person I ever truly want to be with and that I love you.”

Olivia carried a face of skepticism but in the end she smiled.

“It took you your death to finally admit your attraction to me?”

Alex laughed and nodded his head.

“So Olivia, would you please take this walk with me? It might just be my last one.”

“You’re serious aren’t you?”

“Unfortunately I am.”

“Please don’t you dare die Alex.”

Alex walked down the street and took in the beautiful day while his hand held onto Olivia’s tight. He at this moment had everything to lose but if he did not fight then everyone will lose. Everyone except the PK13. Alex danced down the street ignored what others thought of him, Olivia stood back trying to calm him down with words but Alex wanted to enjoy this last bit of life remaining. Is it such a curse to know your impending doom? To know that your next actions could be the last time you perform them forever? I don’t think the time to your death once you know of when it is should be dreadful. I think you have to live your live during that time so that when you die you die not with dread following your soul but happiness. I stand here in the street waltzing around like a madman and yet I’ve always wanted to do it. Cars have stopped because of me and kept on dancing. Olivia finally dragged off to the side so that the gathering of cars could pass through. Olivia struck Alex in the chest,

“You are going crazy aren’t you?”

“No, I’m just living.”

Olivia laughed and they walked down to the beach around Alex’s house. The water was partially frozen the sun melting it away and water slowly starting to move again. Alex and Olivia sat down underneath an oak tree and stared over the melting ice in the lake. Alex laid down staring at the top of the oak tree and replayed the scenarios that could occur in his mind. Olivia laid back with him and faced him.

“I will miss you Olivia,”

“No, no don’t say that, you’re not going to die!”

“If only I had your courage,”

“Here, let me pass it on to you,”

Olivia leaned in closer and placed her lips over his. Alex stopped playing the scenes of his battle and now scenes of the ice, slowly departing our world until it will become nonexistent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa entered the lower floor and looked at all the faces that were gathered around. Everyone he had ever meet or saw was there and they all shared a common expression. Hope. Hope that he could do his job and they can have better tomorrows. He entered the room slowly unsure of what to say or do. Miramusa cleared his throat and turned to all the people.

“Listen, listen all of you. There is a storm coming and it is not going to be a calm quiet rain. No it has refused to stand down and has turned into this huge mess. I look around at these people and I honestly don’t know half of you, but I want to say that I feel honored just to around men and women like you guys. You guys have hope in me when I see certain despair. You believe that I will win when I do not even know how. I wish I knew where the battlefield was so I could have you guys along side me but I do not know the name of that dark hell. Please, don’t stop believing.”

Miramusa finished with speech watched as the crowd started to clap. One person started to then the entire room fell into applause, Miramusa thanked them but was really mentally preparing himself for the challenge that was about to take place. Phantom stepped out of the crowd.

“Miramusa. When they activate the magnet and you’ll be sucked in and I will too-”

He held out a piece of key in his hand.

“I want to follow you and make things right with the PK13 members. I will go if only you allow it so.”

“Phantom, I honor your wishes to fight. Come stand beside me as they could activate it any second now.”

They stood together and waited for the PK13 members to act. A thunderous crack shot out and was audible through the underground floor. A large lightning strike struck through the building and struck Phantom and Miramusa causing them to get transported.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa was in the abyss once again but this time he was with company. Phantom stood beside him and the opposite end were seven PK13 members each holding a piece of the key except Reaper.
“Ahh… Miramusa, you brought us a piece of key and the traitor.”

“I am no traitor, it is you who struck men down! You are a traitor to humanity!”

“Oh save your heroism for the elementary schools, there are no real super heroes in real life, just look at what happened to Myraluna.”

Miramusa drew out Raina and started to take a few steps forward Phantom blocked him with his arm and told him ‘not yet’. Reaper walked forward and got face to face with Phantom.

“Have you ever had a birthday party and had a delicious cake?”

Miramusa baffled by the question and slightly confused, he remained silent.

“But you have to share the delicious cake with your guests, but what if you want it all to yourself?”

Reaper’s hand moved up then all the PK13 members started to shake and twitch, they started to fall down and die, Phantom was doing this also.

“What are you doing to them?!”

“I made a counter virus that kills anyone with the virus. This way I don’t have to share. I’m surprised you didn’t get the virus, oh well no matter I’ll just have to kill you myself!”

Miramusa started to pull Raina but Reaper had moved faster and punched him in the gut, causing Miramusa to stumble backwards. Reaper used WARP behind Miramusa and kicked him into the opposite direction. Reaper had six floating pieces of key around his body and Miramusa only had one inside of him.

“Why didn’t the counter virus kill you?”

“What?! Do you think I would create something that could harm me?”

Miramusa pushed himself off the ground and tried to stand back up only to be thrown back down again by Reaper.

“This is no way you can win against me Miramusa, you have one little tiny piece inside you and guess what? I have six!”

Reaper shot out a large blast of energy at where Miramusa was thrown down. Miramusa used WARP and escaped the blast radius. Reaper smiled and laughed as he realized that defeated Miramusa might prove a challenge. Reaper shot another blast, Miramusa tried to use WARP but didn’t have enough strength after using it so soon. Miramusa got shot back and landed far back with burn wounds all around his body.

“And you know what Miramusa? I turned the virus back on after they died, so I can still kill you!”
He could feel the pain of burns all throughout his body. It ached every second but He stood back up and ignored the pain that came with it.

“Oh yeah? Well I can still kill you!” yelled out Miramusa as he charged forward with WARP. He appeared in front of Reaper thrusting his sword haphazardly until he strikes an opening. The pieces of key were acting like a shield and deflected strike after strike that came from Miramusa. As Miramusa’s attacks were getting sluggish and starting to falter due to lack of energy Reaper shot out a blast of power and knocked him backwards. Reaper teleported and grabbed Miramusa’s neck.

“You lose.”

Reaper lifted his free hand up and threw it into Miramusa’s body fishing for the piece of key.
“Gotcha.”

Reaper extracted the piece of key and Miramusa started to slip into death. Miramusa closed his eyes and feel a tiredness go over his body. When he opened back his eyes he could see Reaper laughing and doing something with the keys. The seven pieces were flying around each other joining up together as they flew around. Miramusa closed his eyes again and rested his head back. The pain he was under was excruciating and he could move one muscle. He remembered all the people that had counted on him. The entire D.A.R.T team had counted on him to defeat them but he had failed. All his friends in the game, they wanted him to live and beat the bad guy but he only accomplished. A breath of life entered his body and Miramusa looked up.

Reaper held the key in his hand and he held it up high.

“I wish… TO RULE THE WHOLE WORLD OF QUINTA!!!!!!!!!”

The darkness slowly start to turn into a vast array of colors and the colors crept into the key. Reaper was glowing a strange colored aura as if he had a borealis around his body. Reaper rose into the air the colors encircling him as he rose. A bright flash of lights filled the dark realm and Reaper disappeared. A small blue ball of energy jumped out of Miramusa pocket and started to tend to his wounds. He couldn’t move but he did feel… Alive.
“Thanks Navi…”

Miramusa slowly regained his balance and stood back up. Right now Reaper is out there and he has the ability to do anything. A lot of people are in danger right now!  Miramusa stood back up and felt extreme pain from the burns. Miramusa, stopped and gasped in pain. He took a step forward but a pang of pain ran through his leg and Miramusa stumbled and fell over. Miramusa pushed himself back up and tried to regain his stance. He needed to get out the realm and back to Aquaria. He closed his eyes and gathered all his energy left and used WARP.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa shot out of the WARP and landed on the round table. A few D.A.R.T members were there and they had their weapons drawn.
“Miramusa?”

“Gizmo is that you?”

“Yeah, what happened we thought… We thought you failed because Reaper is going around unleashing monsters that have the virus.”

“Miramusa we lost a lot of people, Estrella is outside healing wounded but I could bring her to tend to you,” said Spire.

“No, I’m okay, let her do her work. Besides I’m not powerful anymore Reaper took my piece of key.

“Really?!” asked Voroger

“You think your power comes from a piece of key?! With or without it we still hold hope in you because after all that you have been through you hung on, you not only just hung on you prospered and got strong. That’s what gives us hope, not your strength but your strength through the hard times. You are that powerful, piece of key or not. Just believe.”

“Just believe…”

Miramusa slowly picked himself back up and he unsheathed Raina.

“Just believe.”

Miramusa started to glow a yellow aura and his burns started to heal. His weariness was escaping his body and energy was soon replacing it. Miramusa eyes regained their vigor and his stance carried finesse once again. A monster entered the lower level and Miramusa instantly used WARP and took it out in a blink of an eye.
“Where would Reaper be?” asked Miramusa.

“Uh… I think we saw him at the clocktower.”

Miramusa disappeared and left the area.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miramusa from the top of the clocktower could see the city burning and people screaming and running. He saw Reaper in front of him watching over it all.

“Hello Miramusa, how are doing? Fine well great. I’ve made it impossible to log out and then I sent my dogs to chase after their prey.

“Why don’t you just instantly kill them, can’t you do that?”

“I would if I could. People are the only independent variable in this equation and I cannot touch them. But since you’re here that shows how much I’m slipping up. Let me correct that error now.”

Reaper teleported behind Miramusa and shot an blast of energy at him causing him to get blown off the edge. After the light and dust blew away from the blast Reaper saw Miramusa standing in mid-air holding Raina ready to fight.

“How?! I stole your power! You shouldn’t be able to do that!”

“This is my power. This is my aria!”
Miramusa teleported next to Reaper and threw his sword down, Reaper moved in time to avoid the devastating strike. Reaper pulled out his own sword and took aim. Their swords clashed each strike thundered across Aquaria and their metal nicked and grazed each others skin. Reaper quickly blocked a strike then struck Miramusa in the ankle causing him to lower on one leg. Reaper kneed Miramusa’s stomach and grabbed onto his hair. Reaper threw him over the edge but the Miramusa was able to stay in the sky.

“How are you able to do that?! I have the power!”

Reaper lifted his hands into the air and the top of the clocktower slowly started to break off. Reaper shifted the top of the clocktower towards Miramusa and threw it down at him. Miramusa sheathed Raina and stood and waited for the top of the clock tower to strike him. The large chunk of the building flung forward and Miramusa’s body turned transparent and the top of the clocktower passed through him.

“What?! No! How?!”

“None of it is real.”

Reaper threw his sword at Miramusa which flew right through him then Reaper started to shot energy blasts. Miramusa calmly walked forward as the attacks passed right through him. Miramusa stood face to face with Reaper and Reaper was backed up against the wall.

“I am the master of death! The master of pain and despair!”

“On Myraluna’s name I swore to avenge him and that I will!”

Miramusa raised his hand, his hand glowed a bright yellow. Miramusa swiftly created strokes with his hand and Reaper started to glow a bright yellow. Miramusa took out Raina and stabbed it into Reaper’s head. The body of reaper slid down the wall and everything in game slowly seemed to break apart. A loud voice from boomed across through the lands.

“This is the staff! We are going into emergency shut down!”

The walls and sky seemed to break apart and Miramusa was logged out of Aria. Alex instantly got off the console and stood up. He was alive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex just finished with the PK13 paper he had created, underneath Phantom he put, died honorably in battle fighting against the establishment which he believed to be right. Alex threw the marker down and also crumbled the piece of paper and threw it into trash. He headed downstairs and met Roger in his garage. Alex checked his outfit and straightened his bowtie. They pushed the coffin into the back of the car and got inside. A cemetery had agreed to bury the closed casket of a person without a funeral because no one but the two would know him. They entered the cemetery and already saw the hole dug out for him. Miramusa brought out the coffin which was finely polished and brought it over by the grave. A priest stood by and the two stood over the grave.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex laid down some flowers and looked at the gravestone. In memory of Myraluna. One of the greatest soldiers ever lived. There was no birth date but there was the death date. Miramusa touched the gravestone and smiled. He got back up and walked to Roger.
“Come on Roger let’s go grab something to eat.”

“Yeah okay let’s go, and Olivia said that she wanted to see you,”

“I’ll call her and tell her to meet us at the diner.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex and Roger opened the diner door the sweet aroma of food greeting them as they walk in. A raised hand caught Alex’s attention and he saw that it was Olivia. They sat walked over and entered the booth that Olivia had chosen for them. It was facing the T.V. and most of the entire diner as it was the corner.
“Oh my god Alex you had me scared for the entire day.”

“I came out victorious didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you only did it because I lied about your power.”

“You lied?!”

Roger smiled as the waiter came over and handed them the menu.

“So what are we eating?” asked Alex

“I don’t know how about some chicken?”

“While I was waiting for you guys I put in my order for an omelet.”

As Roger and Olivia were discussing food, Alex’s attention turned to the television. He had thought he saw or heard something that caught his attention. He wasn’t sure what it was until the news came on and it showed a screen shot from Aria. Alex dropped his menu and turned his full attention to the television.

“In this special report we are going to go over a videogame that had a unprecedented event happen in history. It happens that a group of people who played the game banded together and created an organization called PK13. In the game PK13 were cyber terrorists and created terror into every player of that game. It is said that a group called DART banded together and fought this terrorism but in the end it is said that DART failed their job and instead the day was saved from a player unknown player. No one is quite sure who he was or how he was able to take down the entire PK13 crew but he eventually saved the day in the end. That is all of that never heard event in gaming history.”

A man about tweny five short brown hair jumped out of his chair and yelled,
“DART did not fail there job!”

Alex stood up from his chair and walked over to the man who yelled out in the diner.

“Alex, where are you going?” asked Olivia.

“Alex, leave him alone.” said Roger.

“No, wait. I…”

Alex walked off and didn’t finish the sentence. He walked over to the man who was tinkering with his laptop inside the store.
“Hi, I haven’t seen you before around here, are you from out of town?”

“Yeah, I’m from New York, big city, crowded place, kinda wanted to get away and I’m kinda traveling now.”

“So, do you play Aria, I heard you yell out at the T.V.”

“Oh yeah, sorry my emotions get the better out of me sometimes. What’s your name son?”

“I’m Alex, may I ask you your name and uh screen name too.”

“What you want to add me as a friend? I’m Peter Harkin, my screen name is…”

“Did you forget?”

“No, it’s just I’m not sure I exist anymore, I tried getting on but it doesn’t let me.”

“So what is your name?”

“Myraluna.”