Unlike her fellows, Sunbird was almost completely unaware of the brewing tension on the streets. She’d dodged Cannoneer’s invitation a few days prior not due to any lingering awkwardness. Her memory was clearing up just as his was, but she honestly found the experience more intriguing than anything else. It made her want to do something risky.
No, that had nothing to do with why she was blissfully unaware. Instead, she’d been taken out of action by something both more mundane and more dangerous. Someone that she’d pissed off had found the entrance to her base. Normally this wasn’t a problem; she had placed it fifty feet in the air for that exact eventuality. And she’d used her knowledge of game exploits to hide a good chunk of her comings and goings. It had been a perfect plan.
Then one morning she’d opened the gateway and found herself staring down a familiar white and blue wolf, static electricity crackling along its fur. She’d fought it before, alongside the villain who could summon it. They were stronger than she was, and they apparently had her dead to rights.
“Well, [BLEEP]. What a way to start the [BLEEPING] day.”
She’d been hiding in her base ever since. Not that she wasn’t active. She’d been trying to find ways to exit through the back of the portal. That would give her enough of a head start to relocate her base and go back to her normal life. And she knew that it was possible; she’d seen players do it before.
The problem was that it wasn’t an exploit that had ever interested her. It was one of those incredibly finicky, pixel perfect nightmares that had you jumping around like a crazy person for five minutes before anything happened. The exploits she’d mastered were more useful and shorter. She’d never cared to learn the exact, complex procedure, and now it was coming back to bite her.
She’d spent days trying to recreate the process from memory, but it wasn’t going to happen. Even if she miraculously could remember, it would be significantly harder to perform a pixel perfect maneuver when the world around her was not made of pixels. At last she’d been forced to accept that as fact.
There had been only one time when the gate hadn’t been guarded by the lightning wolf: when the gong had first sounded and the world reset for a couple of days. The wolf had vanished as its master undoubtedly took to the streets for some honest crime rather than obsessing over her. It was the perfect time to make her escape, and Cannoneer’s distress call had only made it more pressing for her to do so.
She’d gotten to show up in like the cavalry in true Big Damn Heroes fashion. In fact, her only complaint about the affair was that she’d forgotten to drop the relevant quote. Of course, it sort of required a call and response, and she still wasn’t sure who she could trust with that responsibility.
That had been a good day, right up until lightning had started crackling through a clear blue sky. Her pursuer had realized her escape and was back on the chase. Whoever he was, he was a stubborn bastard.
So after picking a new location for her base, she’d stayed inside to hide for a few days. It was slowly driving her insane, but it also gave time for her trail to go cold and finally get away from the guy. She didn’t know why he was chasing her so determinedly; even if she’d killed a friend of his, it wasn’t permanent. No reason to keep up this much of a vendetta.
And so it was that four days after Lightforge went to sleep, Sunbird had finally had enough. She would truly lose it if she had to stay indoors for even one more day. And so it was time to stop acting like a coward and get out there again.
She opened the portal and took a careful look around. All clear, so she darted through and closed it behind her. She didn’t look twice as she flew between buildings, up and down narrow streets and alleys. She wasn’t going to clear the roofline until she was at least a few blocks away from the entrance to her base.
It might have been simpler to move her base more frequently, but she hadn’t thought of that. There were only so many tall places where she could place it, and that just wasn’t how she wanted to live. She’d already lost one area to call home, and she didn’t want to do it again.
Despite missing a lot of the excitement over the past few days, she was still feeling optimistic as she finally turned skyward and soared towards the sun. She wanted to check out the barrier at the edge of the world; it had almost certainly expanded since the last time she’d looked, and maybe she’d be able to figure out how fast it was moving. Would that be helpful? She had no idea, but it intrigued her so she was going to do it.
Or at least that was the plan. Right up until the moment that she heard the howling start. With as high as she was, there weren’t a lot of sounds that made it all the way up to her from the streets below. If they did they were soft and distant, so the sudden, piercing howl of a wolf instantly grabbed all of her attention. Her stomach dropped as she looked down to confirm what she already knew.
There he was, flying directly toward her with his wolf in tow. She sighed and started focusing for a Charge Bolt, but she doubted she’d have enough time to make it matter. The only question was to stand and fight or run away. Of course, running wasn’t working, and she’d lost a week from trying to do so.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
She straightened and faced the oncoming villain. Better to face the music and finally get this over with. Even if he killed her, she’d be back within the hour. Let him have his petty revenge if that was really what this was about.
Just as she was about to release her attack, his voice cut through the distance between them instead.
“Stunning Charge!”
The wolf glowed and vanished in a flash of blue light in the same moment that lightning coursed through Sunbird’s body. It was painful, but that wasn’t the problem. This wasn’t an attack meant to put her down. Oh no, it was worse than that. The electricity overran her nervous system, making her muscles seize and spasm as she completely lost control of her own body.
It was a distressingly familiar sensation as she shut her eyes and waited to feel the air ripping past her on the way to the ground. At least they were high enough for her to die instantly on impact. So long as she kept her eyes closed, the lack of pain should reduce the trauma of the fall. After all, it was just like screwing up a dive. Just a mistake, and not a reason to be scared of flying. That was the one thing that she couldn’t lose, no matter the cost.
But the air around her stayed still. There was no dropping sensation in the pit of her stomach. Cautiously she opened one eye and saw that she was not falling. She was still hovering in the air, unable to move but otherwise not in danger. Well, not in any more danger than she already had been.
The villain and his wolf were floating a few feet away from her, just watching her. The wolf was growling and baring its teeth, but its master looked more amused than anything.
“You haven’t played a flier before, have you?”
“Oh [BLEEP], no monologues. Just kill me already.”
“I’m not going to kill you. I just needed you to stop fighting long enough to see that.”
Sunbird glared at him, as that was all she was capable of at the moment. It was quite the glare, though he was either unaffected or merely pretending to be. She decided it must be the latter, as that one made her feel better.
“Alright, fine. What do you want?”
“To talk. You’re quite unusual, you know? Not many would willingly invade villain occupied territory and openly kill one of us.”
“Calculated risk. I’ve always been fast enough to get away.”
“Until you weren’t.”
“I got away from you just fine, you [BLEEP].”
“And yet, here we are. Given our little game of cat and mouse, I’m going to assume that you’re out of the loop regarding the rising tensions around here?”
“Huh? What, like fallout from that little fight I got into? Don’t tell me some little dumb-[BLEEPS] are trying to make something out of that.”
“While I disagree with your language, that is the main point. It looks like open war might break out in the streets at the rate things are moving.”
“That sucks. And I’ll stay out of it. Thanks for the warning.”
“On the contrary. I believe that you’re poised to take center stage of this conflict if you so wish. You’d be all but guaranteed to level from it.”
“Uh huh, sure. And how does that help you?”
“It doesn’t. But I thought that we might be able to exchange information from time to time. That way we both win.”
“[BLEEP] off. Either kill me or leave me alone.”
“Think this through. I’ve already proven that I can effectively hold you prisoner if I feel like it.”
“And in doing so, you lose your source of XP too. So why don’t we just go our separate ways and maybe you can scare someone else into working for you.”
“I’m not alone, you know. We’re good people to have owe you favors.”
“Oh, really? Well then, let me think about– [BLEEP] off you steaming pile of [BLEEP]!”
The man sighed and shook his head. He didn’t even have the common decency to look annoyed! His suggestions were anything but, and he was apparently planning to float there talking at her until she agreed. Either that or the torture would start soon.
But Sunbird was smiling, because she knew something that this guy didn’t. While wall-clipping glitches had never caught her interest, animation skipping had. It was a simple process, you just had to activate a Skill while a few other inputs at the same time. The Skill would still go off, but its animation wouldn’t play. It was banned in competitive PVP as it was considered too powerful for that setting.
She’d never cared much for PVP, but it was a fun skill to have in your back pocket. And so she smiled.
She smiled because she could feel the energy raging inside her, hidden completely by a few well-timed squirms. She smiled because she saw the timer on her paralysis run out. She smiled as both arms snapped forward and burst with light.
“Charge Bolt, mother-[BLEEPER]!”
Light engulfed the man and his familiar before he could react. Despite being her own blast, Sunbird also found herself blinking the glare from her eyes. She blinked a dozen times to clear her vision.
The wolf was gone and the villain was smoking around the edges, but he was still there. Veins were popping out on his forehead and he was white with rage. He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by another blast to the face. And the blasts just kept coming until he finally vanished.
You have defeated Boltfang!
Experience Gained
You have reached Level 7!
She continued to smile as she turned and flew away. He really should have just listened to her the first time when she’d told him to leave. But, then again, she wouldn’t have gotten the XP that way.
She flew away with a smile on her face. Whatever he’d been selling, she wasn’t buying. And now she did need somewhere to lay low for a while. But that was fine; she had some ideas already.