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Chapter 8: The Candle Flickers

Dallas, Texas

Stella had never been more nervous and self-conscious in her entire life. Sitting across from her was the President of the United States. HERE! In her house! His secret service detail is outside and also standing on the other side of the couch and the local news is parked outside with cameras at the ready. He had arrived a few minutes ago and had asked to come inside. The only thing she could say was ‘of course’ and after that, she had poured him some tea. Now, after taking a seat on the couch, the television was on showing the news. A news reporter was talking about the recent call for volunteers amongst the disabled veterans to join the game and fight alongside the players inside to help them survive. Already there were many volunteers but not enough. The camera shifts and shows a house, HER house, where the President had gone in.

“You get used to it, somehow.” President Madison says, looking at the television. “You are probably wondering why I’m here. I came to meet the mother of the man who is leading my daughter in battle in the game.” He says, smiling to her.

This snaps Stella out of her dazed state. “Your daughter is in there?” She asks, shocked. She would have sworn that the daughter of someone like the President would have been able to be pulled out. Seems that’s not the case.

“Yes. She fought alongside your son during the big battle that happened a few days back. She speaks highly of him. Honestly it’s the most I’ve ever heard her talk about someone else before.” President Madison leans back in his chair and sighs. “From that I’ve gotten one of my generals in contact with your son. He’ll give him all the advice he can, but in the end it’ll be your son and my daughter, along with everyone else in there, who will have to actually do the job.”

“You are sending in veterans. That should help.” Stella says, sipping from her tea.

The President nods. “Yes, we’ve reactivated all the ones who have volunteered so far and sent them in. We’ve also gotten into contact with many of the hackers from outside the game and gotten them to work on it. There’s not much they can do, the game’s AI is constantly adapting to keep them out, but for some reason it does not correct what it considers to be minor changes to the game. That’s how we’re able to email back and forth.”

“That’s surprising. I never would have thought people like those in Anonymous would have a nice streak in them.”

“You’d be amazed what people will do to help other people when it comes right down to it…” He trails off as a man comes up to him and whispers into his ear. “Right, I’m on my way there.” He says, then turns to Stella. “It was nice to meet you but sadly, duty calls.” He says, standing up.

Stella stands up with him. “It was a pleasure, Mr. President.” She says, giving him her best smile.

“Call me Henry.” He says, smiling back, then heads on out the door to his limousine.

DMZ Headquarters

Bordraab looks up from the sights of his M4A1 and at Bardock. Bardock brings the target up to him from downrange at the shooting range at the DMZ Headquarters building. “Nahbad.” He says, looking at the grouping. It was a little bit more spread out than he wanted for a target at 100 meters, but Bordraab had been firing in automatic bursts of 5 rounds roundabouts. “Still wish you’d stay behind since you’re not in your element here.” He says, looking at his commander.

The tanks being produced by Kthla wouldn’t be done for a little while yet and Bordraab flat refuses to be left out of the fighting. “Yeah, but I’m not going to. I can’t send you guys into the thick of things and not be there with you.” Bordraab says. “I will at least be staying with the platoon.”

“Bet yer ass.” Bardock says, chewing on his toothpick. “Your shooting is getting better at least. I think you’ll do fine on single fire now and full auto when they close in.”

Bordraab nods, putting his rifle on safe, pulling out the magazine, then pulling back the bolt, a round popping out. He sticks his pinky into the chamber to make sure there’s nothing in there, then holds up the carbine and looks down at the bolt. Upon seeing light reflecting off the metal, he slides the bolt back into place. He goes over to the weapon clearing container, unsafes the weapon, aims it into it and squeezes the trigger. Nothing but a click. He resafes it and slings it across his back. “You have a good habit there.” Bardock says, kneeling down and picking up the unused round and handing it to Bordraab.

“Well, thank my father for that. I don’t know if it’s the right way to do it for an M4, but I did this all the time in reality with my pistol. My father drilled into my head that you safe the pistol, then remove the clip, then pull back the slide and lock it. Stick in your finger to verify its empty then look for light in where the clip goes in. In that specific order. He kept bringing up the example of some colonel who didn’t do it that way and shot himself in the foot.” Bordraab says, taking the round and putting it in his clip.

“Smart man.” Bardock says. “Come on, time to get ready for battle. We’ll need to load up ammo and also get the platoon loaded up. Thankfully those new Bradleys are ready.” It had been a long time since Bardock had been in a Bradley. He taps his foot without thinking about it, the one that wasn’t blown off.

“Yeah, their firepower will be a great help.” Bordraab says as they walk out the door and into the platoon’s ready room. All of the soldiers are there loading up magazines and preparing for the battle. A few of them are doing it by hand with practiced ease, a habit formed in reality from years of doing this. Others had already done it through the menu system, that system having an automatic way to load your weapon’s magazines which all of the soldiers use in the field. Soon enough, they each have 440 rounds of ammunition. The M60 gunners have a slight problem of it, their rounds are heavier than the 5.56 rounds the riflemen will be using but Kthla had assured them that he could have M240s and M249s ready in time for the next battle. The 240s would be for those who prefer the larger round while the 249s would be ideal for squad suppressive fire.

“How’s everyone doin? No problems?” Bardock asks Silver. Silver looks up from his rifle and grins. “No problems at all. Everyone knows what they’re gonna be doing, and with Boss there calling in the rain, we shouldn’t have any problems.”

Bordraab ducks his head a bit. ‘Boss’ was a term he hopes to shake in this battle as well. He had shown that he has the ability to come up with a good plan, every one of his people likes the plan he came up with, it remains to be seen if he can flow with the battle. Hence the name Boss and not some battlefield nickname like ‘Blood and Guts’ Patton. He doesn’t know this IS the affectionate nickname his troops have given him.

Bordraab gets to his locker and starts taking out his combat gear. It’s not quite up to modern yet, so he has a basic kit. An LBE with canteens, ammo pouches, a field aid kit on top, and an L shaped flashlight. Luckily the LBE in the game is a clothing piece that has more space to hold specific things and does not require you to adjust the straps to get them just right, an experience anyone who had to wear these things will never forget doing. He equips it, his pistol, all the ammo, a ruck sack that has his extra ammo in it, all of his combat gear such as helmets, boots, that kinda thing. When it’s all said and done, his equipment gives him quite the boost to attack power and ranged defense. He looks around, seeing that all the other soldiers are the same. He uses the menu to load his magazines, something that takes roughly two seconds to do, then turns to them and nods. With that, they all walk silently out the doors and into the garage where the Bradley fighting vehicles are.

The Bradleys are to the old M113s what a pitbul is to a Chihuahua. Bigger, with heavier armor, heavier firepower, and moving faster, the Bradleys are a welcome sight on any infantry battlefield. The platoons mount up, Bordraab following Bardock into one of the Bradleys. The backs close up and the vehicles move out, heading from the guild zone and into town. Once they are out, Bordraab uses the third person view of the vehicle to look back at the base. Spacer and his men were all set up and waiting by their guns to fire the first shells of the day. He knows that Phoenix is overhead and that Snake is waiting in his Cobra for the orders.

The plan was simple and blindingly obvious now that the idea had been put to him. There were several major intersections in town. Those had been fortified during the night while the enemy had advanced. Each place had a position for an M48 or M60, with infantry dug in around it and in the buildings. The infantry would engage at range with anti-tank missiles to draw the enemy in and then the enemy infantry would be ambushed as it hit the various strong points. Hopefully they could drag enough of them into the killing zones that they could deal out a massive slaughter in the opening exchanges of the street fighting.

Overhead, two Hueys fly by for medivac purposes, fitted with attachments that heal up and stabilize casualties while they fly away. Those casualties could be brought back into the fight once healed up. Unlike the real world, this one has magic, so even a catastrophic injury that would require an amputation in reality could be healed here. For now, there were designated points farther back from the combat zone but once the skies were clear they could set down wherever there wasn’t heavy fighting.

Washington, D.C., United States of America (Virtual)

Fifteen minutes later the Bradleys come to a halt and the ramps go down. Bordraab gets out with fireteam Alpha, under the direct command of Bardock. They head into the building nearby as the Bradley backs up, getting next to the building but out of sight They get set up in the buildings just behind the tank sitting in the intersection. The machine gunner, a big brute of a Siberian Huskie named Otis, sets up his M60 in the window overlooking the tank. He and the tank’s driver would be getting a whole lot of use out of their machine guns today. Flanking him is the regular squad leader, Kenichi. Bordraab is at the next window over with Bardock, both of them readying their M4s and making sure everything is ready. Their squad designated marksman, a beagle named Missy, lays down several LAW rocket launchers to deal with any armor or any groups of enemies in an entrenched location. She then heads upstairs to a location she can pop targets with her M14 Marksman at, Miu following her up and armed with an M16A2 and a M79 Thumper. Now all they have to do is wait. An anti-aircraft APC, basically an M113 with a Vulcan chaingun instead of a regular machine gun, pulls up next to the tank.

“Boomer, this is Boss, come in.” Bordraab calls.

“Boomer, go ahead.” Spacer calls back.

“Do you have our location marked?”

“Affirmative, got you and Bravo locked in. We’re presighted on our targets and waiting for the go ahead.”

“Roger, stand by.” He says, cutting the link.

The waiting feels like it stretches out, a lifetime going by when only a few minutes pass. Finally, a radio call comes in over the command net. “This is Jordan’s Dunk, enemy is entering into artillery zone!” Dude was a little too excited on the radio but oh well. Probably his first fight.

Bordraab is on with the artillery a second later. “Commence firing.” He orders.

DMZ Headquarters

That was the order Captain Spacer had been waiting for. He turns to his men. “Send em!” He calls out. The artillery starts pumping out 33 pound high explosive shells at their maximum range of 7 miles. He can only imagine the carnage as he watches the howitzers rock back, the spent shell being pulled out by hand by the loader and then a new shell put in place. They get a steady pace going, managing to pump out five rounds per minute thanks to the crews’ higher endurance and strength, being horses. He had done good picking his crews. “Shot.” Spacer calls on the radio.

Outskirts of Washington, D.C., United States of America (Virtual)

The artillery’s impact was immediate, if not quite as shocking as hoped. A full day of airstrikes had gotten the Endarkened force wary of incoming fire. As the shells start whistling in, the infantry starts diving for cover nearby, taking advantage of the lulls between shots to advance, the whistling noise causing them to take cover, but they are advancing. The artillery stays on them though, forcing them to spread into battle line sooner than they had expected to do in order to reduce their casualties. Seeing the order of battle, the outlying troops ready their TOW missile launchers, aiming them carefully at their targets as they close in. The large gunbeasts aren’t really affected by artillery, just like the tanks they match, unless a shell directly hits them. That is unlikely and they advance steadily.

The infantry had tried the Dragon launchers but there was one really bad factor for them. The sudden loss of the weight of the missile in the tube caused them to lose the missile due to grounding. They had opted to use the TOW. While it wasn’t easily man portable, they had set up in two man groups, dismantling it quickly and reassembling it at a new firing position. They didn’t have to deal with fast moving targets, the gunbeasts are kinda slow. With their targets coming into range, the TOW operators fire, the missiles streaking downrange en masse. The gunbeasts, seeing this, bellow a challenge at the missiles and lower their heads to take the shots. The mages in their group who would normally add a shield to them, however, are pinned down and sucking dirt thanks to the artillery falling and don’t fling up shield.

The missiles ram into the gunbeasts, most of them scoring headshots. The lucky ones get about two thirds of their health taken away, but most of them die as the HEAT rounds impact and blow molten copper into their brains and bodies. The crews, not taking the time to cheer, quickly dismantle and relocate as the beasts recover from the hits and look for where the missiles are coming from. The second volley reaches out, the beasts this time getting some help as the artillery slackens off. Shields flare up around the beasts, but there are so few now that they have more than one missile tracking on each beast. One of the beasts fires back, scoring a hit on a building where a missile had just fired from. While not hitting the launch site, it hit the story below it, causing the front of the building to collapse and the explosive force of the shot sends the gunner and assistant flying back, saving both of their lives. The soldiers pick themselves up and limp out of the building, the launcher ruined.

The beasts aren’t so lucky. All of them fall to the continued missile fire. “Beasts down.” The radio call goes out, and the missile crews quickly abandon the front lines, falling back into the city before the horde. The artillery also stops, the infantry starting to pick itself up and advance, still numbering thousands strong.

Washington, D.C., United States of America (Virtual)

With the gunbeasts down, the gryphons were the next biggest threat. They come swooping in at the missile positions, slamming into the buildings and looking around but finding nothing but abandoned positions. One crew had gotten smart and with a thundering explosion, a Claymore detonates as a gryphon lands, peppering the beast with thousands of BBs but not killing it. The gryphon cries out in pain and leaps out of the building to fly away. The other gryphons take to the sky, searching for prey. Instead, they find the strong points and the tanks in them and start to dive.

Bordraab looks out at their strong point, a particularly large intersection with one of the main roads into the city, and sees the Vulcan anti-aircraft gun elevate. He can’t see the barrels start to rotate, but the ripping sound it makes as it fires is unmistakable. Tracers race up in a seemingly continuous wavy line, like a kindergartener drawing a straight line, and swat a gryphon out of the sky. “Alright, launchers up!” He says over the radio. Miu breaks her window and aims out of it with her stinger, finding a gryphon in the sky. She gets a lock and fires, the missile racing from the tube and arching upwards, intersecting the gryphon before it really has a chance to react and detonating. The gryphon’s wings are torn and it falls from the sky straight to the ground, crashing into a street headfirst. The fall is what kills it and it shatters upon impact with the ground.

“All units, reminder. Do NOT pick up loot. All loot will be distributed after the battle. Repeat, all loot will be distributed evenly after the battle. Do NOT attempt pick up.” Bordraab calls over the radio, remembering the story Phoenix had given him.

A loud roaring sound comes out loud and clear. Bordraab looks up to see Phoenix fly over in her F-16. She was the eyes in the sky and the one in charge of the helicopter force. “Excellent.” He says, looking at Bardock. “Things are going well.” Bardock gives a thumbs up. Her overflying so low means that the Gryphons are down. The F-16 pulls up and rockets skywards.

DMZ Headquarters

“Snake flight, you are go.” Comes Phoenix’s call over the radio.

“Roger that.” Snake says, looking at the two Hueys sitting next to him. He points up with his index finger and moves his arm in a circle while calling over the radio, “Start them up and get up there!” He says, “We’ll swoop in and fire along the entire line. After reloads, we’ll assist the infantry.”

Washington, D.C., United States of America (Virtual)

The helicopters arrive a few minutes later. Coming into hover over the strong point Bordraab is using, marking it as the central axis of advance by the enemy, the Cobra comes into hover overhead with two Hueys loaded up as gunships. The noise of the helicopters’ rotors thumping in the air is deafening and acts to draw the eye. Bordraab and Bardock watch as the helicopters start unloading their rockets towards the advancing enemy infantry. This sends a thrill of fear through Bordraab. If they were close enough for rockets, they would be entering the city soon. “Prepare yourselves!” He calls out to the troops.

“Boss, this is Snake. Enemy is entering the city.” Comes the call. “We’re out of rockets, I’m sending the Hueys back and starting my patrol.” He calls. The two Hueys peel off and head back to base, the Cobra immediately starting to patrol back and forth along the line of defense.

A few minutes later the radio call comes in. “DMZ Boss, this is the Roughnecks. Enemy sighted advancing into the city. There are at least several hundred of them, if not several thousand. Looks like something out of your worst nightmare.”

“Roger that. I see them too.” Bordraab says. The radio call had come in as he had seen shapes moving down the street from him.

“Stand by to engage!” Bardock calls out, the soldiers getting ready. They wait for a few minutes for the enemy to close in. “Fire!”

All along the defensive position DMZ is holding, machine guns and rifles start to crackle with fire, shots rushing downrange. The enemy down there takes cover behind cars and in shops, returning fire. It was too late for many of them, about ten being cut down in the street by the withering fire. The tank they are watching over traverses its turret slowly to the right at a store a squad of Endarkened had taken cover in. One of the Endarkened jumps out, wings unfurling as it takes to the air just as the tank fires. The HE round explodes in the store, shattering it and killing the squad of shadowed humans even as Bardock and Miu shoot the fleeing Endarkened out of the sky. The Vulcan in the middle of the street aligns its guns for ground fire and opens up, sweeping the street clear of enemy troops that simply ducked down in the street to return fire. The steady stream of lead quickly ends them.

Bordraab ducks down from the window to reload and smiles. Things are going very well here, the first wave of enemy attackers has been stopped dead. Reports start coming in from across the line with much the same result, the enemy had come and been stopped dead. It was almost as if the enemy hadn’t expected a solid line of resistance so they had not sent their next wave in immediately after the first.

“Well, this is going well.” He says, looking over at Bardock who nods in agreement, then both are up and shooting.

Gryphon Lair near Alaria, Fantasy Faction Territory

“Well, this isn’t looking good.” Rias says, peering down from the top of the hill she and Miya were laying down on and looking at the entrance to the Gryphon Lair. There is a Gryphon laying on top of it, a dark one. How they’d get passed it without it noticing was anyone’s guess. “Any idea how we can get inside?” She asks, looking back at Miya. Miya hmmms. “Well, I could distract them with something or…” She ducks down quickly as the gryphon they were looking at suddenly gets up and looks around, then leaps into the air, flying in another direction. “What a lucky break.” Miya says, getting up. Rias is right behind her and once again the pair is visible as they sprint. It takes minute to reach the lair’s entrance, then they are invisible again when they slow to a walk and go inside. Rias takes a half second as they get far enough inside for the light to fade to cast a night sight spell.

“I don’t know what called it off, but it was good for us.” Miya whispers. “Stay behind me and we’ll find out what’s going on down there.” She says, leading the way down, appearing as nothing more than a blue outline to Rias, visible only because she’s in her party. The two of them go further into the cave system, turning off to a right hand fork with Rias leaving a small magical mark on the wall to act as a sign post.

Fifteen minutes of exploring later, Miya stops abruptly. “Do you hear that?” She whispers to Rias. Rias strains her ears. She had not heard anything while they were walking, but now, very faintly, she thinks she hears crying. “This way.” Miya says. She leads the way at a quick walk, the fastest she could go without her invisibility dropping. A few minutes later, both she and Rias are peaking around a corner. A white dragoness is there, her armor damaged and her sword nowhere to be seen. She is where the crying is coming from.

“Come on.” Rias says, starting to move forward, only to be stopped by Miya. “Look.” She says, pointing. There are four gryphons in the small cave room sleeping. Rias stays in place, she and Miya alone would only be overrun by those gryphons.

“We will need more people to get her out of here.” Miya says, looking at her.

“Them, you mean.” Rias says in a cold, low voice. Upon Miya’s look, she points out into an adjacent room. There are eggs in several nests and several characters sitting there with blank looks on their faces. A good number of them are players, all of them are female. “Just what is going on here I’d like to…” Miya slaps a hand over her mouth quickly as the gryphon from the surface comes in, carrying a struggling fox morph in its beak.

The gryphon drops the fox to the ground, the fox is a female and is unarmed. Her armor is tattered too and there are tears streaming down from her eyes. Her health bar is low, very low. Almost dead in fact. The gryphon pushes the fox back into the corner, next to the four sleeping gryphons, then looks at the dragoness. The health bar for the dragoness pops up, half health. The gryphon walks over and all at once the girls know the thing is male. His red dick is sticking out between his legs, visible just barely against the black fur. The dragoness starts to try to crawl away. “No…please…” She cries.

The gryphon pays her no mind. With a swipe, a portion of the dragoness’ health disappears, bringing her down to about a third health, and shattering the armor and clothing over her legs and rear. The gryphon then grabs her, moving her into perfect position. “No! NO! PLEASE!” Yells the dragoness, realizing what’s about to happen to her and trying to struggle herself free. The gryphon slams a paw onto the ground next to her head in warning and the dragoness stops, crying fiercely. “Please…”

With a single fluid motion, the gryphon humps down, his cock going into the dragoness’ pussy in one fluid, well-practiced motion. The dragoness yells out in pain and horror as she feels the avian’s tool slide inside and starts crying even harder as the gryphon starts humping hard into her, using her as little more than a tool for its enjoyment. Miya and Rias gasp and back away. “What kind of computer program is this?” Miya asks in shock. “What possible reason could there be for this?”

Rias, almost completely consumed by a cold, aching anger, is thinking more clearly than Miya is. “The eggs.” She says, looking at the eggs and the hanging girls, more particularly one in the corner with a swollen belly. “They rape these girls, impregnate them, and the girls lay eggs that hatch into more dark gryphons.” She says.

The crying from the dragoness starts to die down, drawing their attention back. The dragoness is starting to get the same dull expression on her face and has stopped struggling as the gryphon pounds into her. The fox female stares in horror at this, unable to move for the sheer terror.

“We have to go.” Rias says, grabbing Miya by the shoulder. “Slowly. Out we go, while he is busy.”

Miya nods and the two of them start making their way back to the surface. As they near the top, they can hear the gryphon let out a loud call, the same call one of them makes when victorious in battle. Then they are out and sneaking away, keeping their invisibility spell up.

Washington, D.C., United States of America (Virtual)

Cheering is going up along the line. Bordraab stands up and looks out over the battlefield. They had held. Against a force of over two thousand and with a force of only a couple hundred, they had held the line against the enemy. A smile starts to creep over his face. “Alright! Take that you endarkened bastards!” Yells out Bardock, watching as the few remaining endarkened flee from the battle line.

“It was close.” Bordraab says, grinning. “Next time, we’ll see if we can’t bring more fighters into the battle.”

“Next time, perhaps almost all of the players here won’t be too low of a level to help out in the first place.” Miu says as she comes over to Bordraab and Bardock, the squad regrouping.

“Yeah, I think we just bought the time to make that a distinct possibility.” Bardock says, “Let’s get back to base and we’ll figure out what to do next.”

Thirty minutes later, Bordraab and his team are back at their base. He’s surprised as he gets off the helicopter to see Kthla standing there, with about ten samurai standing there with him. “Uh…K? Who are these guys? Did you get in trouble with the Japanese Mob or something?”

“You funny bastard.” Kthla says, “These guys flew in on the civilian liners while you guys were out there fighting. They’re asking for transportation out to the Fantasy zones so they don’t have to walk.”

Bordraab winces at that one. “I don’t know how receptive they’ll be. Human and Fantasy faction don’t mix well.”

One of the Japanese speaks up then, a man who looks like a Kitsune. “You mean here they do not mix well together. In Japan, we had to work very well together in order to survive.” He says.

Bordraab blinks at this heavily accented English and figures out a second or two later what he said. “Well then, while I think about whether or not to take the risk, how did you get all the way over here?” He asks.

“We fought our way to our airport and once there, we got on an aircraft. Travel time was roughly eight hours. We landed arrived at the airport and went to the most powerful guild headquarters we could find, since NPC do not fly us to Fantasy areas.” The Kitsune says, once again leaving a silent moment in his wake as those present decipher what was said.

“Wait, you left eight hours ago. We restricted airspace here yesterday. How did you manage to get in?” Kthla asks.

“I do not know. When we flew here, it was like we stepped into the NPC aircraft there, sat down, and then all of us went to sleep. We woke up and were told to disembark. We did so and were here, in Washington.” The Kitsune’s ear flicks, something Bordraab knows from Kthla’s example means he’s slightly confused by it.

“Well, at least we can drop you off with our Fantasy faction people. They took a beating like we did, so at least they won’t be picking a fight with us.” He says, going to his helicopter force with them. He stops as a single message pops up.

Player Nation United States of America Destroyed