Ruzo was mowing down the enemies from the purple knight mission. Any enemy that came in his direction stood no chance against him. “Looks like you’ve been practicing with this new character.”

Ruzo slashed down a knight with a great sword, “Yeah this is the first time I am using the assassin/mage class, I prefer to play as a fighter/mage class, but this is really fun!” Ruzo said grabbing a knight and using him as a meat shield to protect him from the incoming arrows.

“Interesting, but why did you keep the same outfit?” I asked, looking at the other monitor. Tom was sitting on the edge of a cliff in Gleley, staring out at the virtual ocean.

“This equipment gives me great stats, and it looks cool. You know what they say. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” Ruzo said, kicking the head off a large knight.

“Fair enough.” I said. I clicked on another window on the screen above me, “Just a heads up when you go through that door, you will be at the end of the mission.”

Ruzo stood in front of the door and pushed it open. “Thanks for the heads up. I am going in now.” In front of him was a knight sitting on a throne. The knight looked uninterested, with his fist resting on his chin.

Standing up, the knight grabbed the large broad sword next to him and stood up. With each step, the earth rumbled. Ruzo pulled out both his daggers and then ran towards the knight. When Ruzo was in the Knights’ range, he swung his sword at him and Ruzo slid under it, at the same time slashing at the knight’s ankles. The knight stumbled and was brought down to one knee.

Ruzo quickly got to his feet and ran towards the knight. He must not have noticed the knight started healing his ankles. “Ruzo, be careful. He can heal.”

My warning was too late as Ruzo was already mid-air, ready to stab the knight in the back. The knight quickly turned around and grabbed Ruzo by the neck. “Geez Vin, you couldn’t have told me before I jumped in the air?”

“You were moving too quickly. I didn’t have time.” I said.

The knight laughed as he held Ruzo in the air. “You are the weakest player I have ever met; I’d barely call this a scuffle.” The knight gloated.

“Whatever dude, you made a mistake by not cutting me in half midair. Now you’re going to be a donut.” Ruzo said, pointing two fingers at the knight’s chest. The knight’s eyes widened and then Ruzo shot a cone shaped laser beam through the knight’s chest.

The knight dropped him, and he looked down at the large hole in the center of his chest. He then fell to his knees and landed on his face. Ruzo stood in front of him, and he cracked his neck in the game. On his player window, he received a notification that he was now level 57 and not a second later, he received a notification for a player's match. “Right on cue,” Ruzo said as he accepted the invitation, teleporting to Gleley.

“Vin, something is wrong.” Tom left the cliff, and he was now running into town. “I was disconnected from the party. What’s going on?”

“That’s impossible. I was masking your party assignment.” I looked over to my masking and it showed that my masking was canceled out by a system process. “Shit, when he programs that invitation, it must have a conditional on it that if it was a 2 v 1, then it converts to a 1 v 1 and my masking can’t override system processes.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Hurry and warn Ruzo that he is on his own.” Tom said, pushing past people. “Where is he?”

I turned to Ruzo’s camera. “They’re in the colosseum.” I said. We're too late. Ruzo was already fighting Glitch_Slasher.

"Ruzo, you have to be careful this is now a 1 v 1, he created a fail-safe to ensure he wasn’t put into a 2 v 1,” I said but my warning wasn’t quick enough as Ruzo already brought him down to 20% health.

Glitch_Slasher was now on one knee, and he looked up at Ruzo, pointing his sword at him. “Please show me mercy, sir. You are so much stronger than me.” Glitch_Slasher said.

Ruzo didn’t lower his sword. “Give it up Rick, the FBI is onto you; we know you created your own skill to lock players into a death match. I won’t let you slash me, so surrender now and I can talk to them to give you a lighter sentence.” Glitch_Slasher’s face soured. “There is nowhere left to run. They have your house surrounded.”

“Ruzo stop! This isn’t a game. If he can land a hit on you with that skill, he'll put you in a death match!” Tom shouted from the colosseum banisters. He leaped over the ledge and ran towards Ruzo and Glitch_Slasher. “Get out of there now!” but Tom was too late. Glitch_Slasher activated the skill and leaped towards Ruzo. However, Ruzo was prepared and smacked the sword away with his dagger, causing Glitch_Slasher to stumble to the side.

A message appeared in front of Ruzo’s face.

You’ve now entered a one-sided death match. You will be at an extreme disadvantage. If you can defeat the player in front of you, then you’ll receive a huge coin reward, but if you lose, you will die in the real world. In other words, no HP, no life.

Glitch_Slasher laughed maniacally. “You and the FBI should have looked into the skill a bit more. The deathmatch activates when a person connects the sword, not when it causes damage.” Glitch_Slasher, with a grin that spread from ear to ear, raised his sword and slashed down at Ruzo.

Ruzo Caught his sword in between his daggers and smiled back at him. No damage was inflicted on Ruzo.

Glitch_Slasher’s eyes grew wide. I patched into the fight’s intercoms, Glitch_Slasher stepped backwards slowly, stunned Ruzo did not receive any damage. “Hey Rick, it’s Vin over in Quality Assurance. I don’t think we’ve met at work. There’ are probably a lot of questions running through your mind right now. I was shocked that you thought of having a counter measure for accidentally getting placed into a 2 v 1 battle, but it’s fortunate for us I thought about adding a counter measure of my own.”

Glitch_Slasher pulled up his stats. Nothing had changed. He was still at 20% health and his level did not double Ruzo’s. “What did you do to my skill!?” Glitch_Slasher screamed.

“Absolutely nothing. That code you wrote was way too advanced for me. However, I added a new skill to Ruzo’s daggers. If his daggers come into contact with your virus blade, it would cancel both skills and reset the match to the beginning, making so the match never happened.” I sat back in my chair. “I have to give you some credit, though. The code you wrote for the virus was extremely complex. It might have taken me a month to figure it out. I wish you used your abilities for good. You could have become one of the exec’s here.”

Tom sheathed his sword on his back. “There’s nowhere left to run. The kid's right, FBI agents and police are right outside of your condo. We’ve also been recording this entire interaction. You not only admitted to creating the skill, using it to kill multiple people, but you also attempted to murder a minor.” Tom said, now standing next to Ruzo. “It’s over Rick.”

“Fuck this! You’ll never catch me.” Glitch_Slasher took the sword and activated the flicker this time as he plunged the sword into his chest. His character started to fritz, and he fell to his knees, then his character disappeared.

Ruzo whipped around. “Tom, he’s trying to run! We have to get word to the agents.” Ruzo said, pulling up his player's menu, ready to log out.

Tom walked over and put his hand on Ruzo’s shoulder, “There is no need kid, he’s not going anywhere.”

“What do you mean, he logged out? He could try to make a run for it out of a window.” Ruzo said.

“I got a message from the agents outside his condo that the lights flickered, and when they broke into his condo. They found him fried on his bed.” Tom said, opening his player's menu. “He must have realized that he was bound to get caught and put a conditional that, if he used the sword on himself, it would kill him.”

“Ruzo, when you log off, go home; Tom and I will handle the rest. We’ll call you when we are going to start the raid.” I said.