Cruising out of the building’s parking lot he took her out for a spin, speeding around the city, testing out guns on garbage cans and rowdy looking players. Launching missiles at other cars, interrupting a high speed car chase, and defaulting each player.

He even found a few who wanted to race him. He revved up the Bat mobile and took off down the straightaway, rounding corners at top speed and bursting turbo to get some good air off of a ramp.

Darren Wiznitskiy, CEO of Omnicorp inc. laughed in exhilaration as he flew midair, riding in his Bat mobile, and landed perfectly.

But, that was all the fun he was going to have for a while. Or least a little bit. He had some business to take care of.

The city was an exact replica of Hilux city, the actual city where Omnicorp inc. is located. So Darren didn’t need to check the map to find where he was going. And the first stop was the biggest news broadcasting system in the world.

He didn’t waste time, speeding down the roads and prepping missile launching systems in the Batmobile. As soon as he had located it, he launched the missiles and the front doors of the building caved in. He drove through the rubble and his machine gun on the roof of the Batmobile, shot a full 360, tearing up the place. Darren stepped out and started towards the stairs, gun ready.

As soon as he had stepped out a few other gamers came in and started to watch his back, perfect SWAT team formation. He looked back and gave an order, “You search the floors, shoot anyone on sight. I’m going to the boss’s office.”

They all nodded and ran up the stairs with him, a couple peeling off at each level.

Darren had made it to the fifth floor and kicked the door in. It was a posh governor’s suite with articles all over the walls. There wasn’t anyone in there except the NPC sitting in the chair, he had his hands above his head and had jumped out of the chair, crouching on the floor. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I’m innocent!”

Darren didn’t listen to the incoherent babble that ensued. He shot him and continued until he was an unrecognizable piece of meat. He turned around, hefting a grenade, walked out and demolished the room.

“Mission accomplished,” he said to himself.

Achievement unlocked! Kill the Chief Editor. “Who needs headlines and front covers when you have guns?”

Darren laughed and called his unit back to meet in the lobby.

It wasn’t really his team, but the game had configured it that way once the fellow gamers had followed him and he gave orders.

He walked slowly down the stairs and met everyone in the lobby. He didn’t stop to speak to anyone but had just transferred 1000 gold to everyone’s account as he got back into the Batmobile and sped off to his next mission.

This mission he did need a map. It was actually something not on the order of taking revenge, or playing around. This was work.

He had to check out various places and make sure they were set up as he had ordered. Being CEO was easy when you had a host of over 300 staff and multiple AI engines to just build the software. But there was always insubordination and people having their own “better” ideas.

So he travelled around the city making sure everything was exactly as it was IRL. Check.

Next was the suburbs, every house the same. Check.

And finally the first invented area of the game: the forest.

Darren was really looking forward to playing around. There were a few quest lines he had made for himself to keep himself busy for quite a while. But that was only after he had finished his rounds.

He sped all the way up to the top of the mountain to get a good look of the place. It all seemed well. Forest has trees. Check.

Now for a bit of interaction with the wildlife.

He took his time, inspecting a few of the animal markings and tracks, moss and lichen, various shrubs, they all seemed real enough. He continued to venture further down the small mountain.

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This is where the game had it’s fun. Right in front of him spawned an Elite Forest Mage, the AI’s concept of an enemy for a maxed out modern knight.

The green robed mage spun and waved his staff as he teleported into “reality” with a lot of magical lights and glitter. The Forest Mage locked eyes on his first enemy, the modern knight, Kevlar N. Lead.

Darren fired a bullet to test his reaction, and the mage spun his staff and deflected the bullet, countering with a high speed hex.

Darren jumped out of the way and waited for the next attack while taking cover behind a tree.

The mage waved his staff and three portals opened up, letting through high level beasts. First there was the Elite Elk, then the Banished Bear and finally the Mythic Moose. All of their eyes were bloodshot with fury, they stamped and shouted, waiting for their next order.

Darren peeked around and swore. He knew those animals, he programmed them himself. Each of them by themselves would be an difficult fight. Now three of them, and a forest mage.

While swearing, he simultaneously blessed the AI, any player would take years to even get up to this level of spawned enemy and then take another few years trying to beat it. The CEO’s heart tingled with glee.

But, nonetheless, those monsters were his own creation, and despite their incredible power, his own tactics and knowledge as a gamer were woven into his very heart and soul.

Darren reloaded with mythic level bullets, checked his primary and secondary weapon, located his plasma sword on his back and got ready to fight.

His first attack consisted of sending a salvo into the Mythic Moose. The Moose shuddered violently as it’s HP dropped to half. But as predicted, anger and attack tripled… wonderful game perks.

The Moose charged Darren at an incredible speed, letting the other beasts follow while the Mage sent missiles towards him.

Darren activated his shield and jumped with bionic legs. He vaulted over the beasts and shot the Moose with another round, sending it to it’s Mythical Moose mortuary.

Darren grabbed a tree branch and swung himself up. A moment of respite to planning another attack.

But the Forest Mage wasn’t stupid, he summoned a lightning bolt to come down and split the tree in half, sending Darren flying through branches, impacting another tree and falling twenty feet to the forest floor. He didn’t land nicely. Not at all with 50% HP lost in one hit.

He groaned and his heart tingled again. Oh, would he love to watch a regular player battle these creatures.

He activated a Health Pack injection from his suit, his HP rose at 10/sec, beginning to top up, and would continually, boosting for another 5 minutes.

The Mage had already located him and sent another spell causing craters. Darren hadn’t even stood up when he was hit with this. He flew another twenty feet and hit a tree again. More magic missiles flew and impacted him again. His health was drastically low after all of that, and just to put the cherry on top, the tree fell over and crushed him entirely.

Darren would have been dead if he didn’t activate his shield. Thankfully the shield took the brunt damage. There was just enough energy to save him from the stampeding Elite Elk… and a bite to the head from the Banished Bear.

This was where he started to take it seriously. He brandished his plasma sword and dual wielded his machine gun. Standing up suddenly and slicing a clean cut through the Bear’s neck. It didn’t die, but it took the critical hit. Darren blasted it with the machine gun while the Elk skewered him and pummeled his carcass across the forest floor.

Darren would have been dead if it wasn’t for the Health Pack. He being plowed through the ground, the Elk as the engine, Darren, the plow. He watched as his HP bar battled between 1 and 11.

The Elk stopped as he had pummeled straight into a tree. Darren got up quickly and came down full force with the plasma sword. The Elk took minimal damage, it’s head bony and strong, but it still wheeled back from the force. Darren gave it a round with the machine gun, sweeping over to the right as the Banished Bear came barreling through. Darren had just enough time to jump to the left and… take the Mage’s magic missiles straight to the chest.

Boy, this AI sure knows how to fight!

His HP went into the minus, something that has still yet to be explained, except when you’re CEO of Omnicorp inc. time froze, and took the prompt he had given:

Activate Undead Knight?

A special that only he had, but maybe some lucky person might win it as a prize, somewhere on a completely impossible quest.

Undead Knight didn’t do much for his stats, he took a pretty big toll now turning undead, but the upside of it was that he now had an “extra life”, something not exploited much in this game. Secondly, he could start casting spells, one of which would be Summon Cavalry, and undead of course.

He used the spell, and a fellow Death Knight appeared, riding on top of a ethereal horse. Darren pointed to the Bear and the Elk and shouted, “Attack!”

The Death Knight’s horse reared and galloped off to slay the beasts.

Darren occupied himself with casting Buffs; Attack, Magical Attack, Magic Defense, Enhance Death Magic, Enhance Dark Magic…

The Forest Mage watched as this happened, taking in the very unpredicted transformation. The Modern Knight should very much have been dead… well, he was now, at least undead, turned black and gaunt, red beady eyes, darkness emanating from his very core… all the dead trimmings. And then he had summoned a mounted knight and was casting spells…? Strange.

The Mage had something up his sleeve though. He twirled his staff and a few trees moved circling him and caging in the Undead Knight.

He twirled his staff again and the wind picked up, green and blue energy flowered like a whirlpool, the Forest Mage at the center. The forest’s energy came to the mage.

Darren watched as he recognized this spell, it had a very, very long cast time and, once cast, would absolutely annihilate anyone and anything in a quarter mile.

He squinted through branches of his new cage of trees, analyzing the situation… He was doomed. Period.