When Lilith entered her temporary ‘office’ as she called it, which was actually just a plain room with a desk and a chair inside, she slumped down in the chair with a long suffering sigh. ‘Why did Aiden have to make things so difficult…’

She obviously knew this was the stupidest idea ever, this was the most obvious feint in the history of the game, they would most likely send a few hundred units and wait until the beginning of the update if they see their large army.

She argued with her parents for multiple days that giving his little brother all the help he needed was not necessary, and improving the existing guild was better, but no. They told her to do everything she possibly could to ensure his guild built up as quickly as possible.

Funny thing is, he didn’t even like this game. This was basically just another for her parents to expand the already existing guild by using some exploits her parent’s lawyers cooked up.

But that’s what being the daughter of parents having large shares in multiple international companies gets you.

When the other guild realized how strong their defenses were, they would die from laughter.

She was honestly mad. And not only at her parents, but Aiden as well... And for that matter all those little shits in the meeting room were at fault for letting that situation escalate into this garbage by keeping silent.

Aiden was avoiding her all the time.

When she exclusively went around and asked everyone to help her with this useless mission, and told them the circumstances, almost everyone immediately agreed to help her… Except for him.

He did all the tasks given to him by the company but as soon as she asked to meet him, he did everything in his power to avoid her.

She just didn’t get it, he used to always stay around her and helped her with everything in the guild, they were together all the time. She thought that he liked helping her, that’s why she always relied on him for help.

He was obviously used to be in love with her, anyone could tell that, and she couldn’t lie to herself, the feeling wasn’t one-sided by the end.

But one day he suddenly started ignoring her and she didn’t know why…

“Intruder alert! Enemy sighted to the west of our position! All personnel take your positions. Enemy estimated to arrive in… “ Suddenly the confident feminine voice stuttered a bit. “Umm… maybe... 5 minutes… I guess… Damn it I messed up again! Sorry guys I..., so like get ready or.. something… Thanks.”

With that the voicecom stopped. ‘That’s Luna for you’ Lilith was rubbing the ridge of her nose as she smiled.

After a few moments she abruptly stood up and after a quick glance at her inventory she steadied her expression, and the usual stern one replaced it. She loved roleplaying the cold, confident leader character, but this might have been one of the reasons Aiden got sick of her.

At that thought her expression weakend a bit, but after shaking her head to get rid of the thought, she quickly left the room.

…

The vehicles that have not lined up yet quickly took their positions on the battlefield and the weapons on the fortress were all initialized and readied for battle.

The Shield Carriers moved a few hundred meters forward of the other machines and the globe shaped device fixed on them started to glow and spin very fast before projecting a large energy shield in a half sphere. After a few seconds the shields linked up creating a large wall.

All the artillery weapons charged up a shot waiting for the beginning of the battle. Many of the players were just casually chattering as they waited for the enemy to reach the walls.

Before attacking in an official battle, one of the sides had to announce the start of the battle and it would begin 1 minute after the declaration.

Once an official fight is decided, it had to be carried out, or the side that initiated it would be punished.

After about 15 minutes everyone was getting impatient, their opponents have yet to declare the start of the battle.

“Okay this is so damn disrespectful! It’s obvious that there is not nearly not enough of them to attack!” Noted one of guys through voicecom

“I fucking knew it…” Grumbled Aiden as he glared at the enemy’s lineup which seemed to have only about a few hundred units.

“Oh for god's sake Aiden, stop sulking already! You just majorly fucked up and that’s it! Not like your life is over or anything.”

“I don’t think you’re helping Sven…” Said one of the girls.

“Don’t worry about it, I think he still has the hots for Lilith and he just lost any chance he had with her.” Said one of the other boys in a clearly teasing tone.

“Whoa, whoa dude, don’t say that through public coms, he’ll kill you!”

Sven waved his hand“Nah, I wouldn’t be too worried, he has been standing in one place not moving an inch.” He waved a hand in front of his mech. “Hello, you still in there?”

“I think he quit since he was so embarrassed.”

“*Sigh* You boys are really dumb sometimes… Leave him alone already.”

“Why, I was just…”

“I’m going in.”

Everyone went silent as Aiden’s mech started moving forwards. Sven quickly got out of the way, since it was not fun getting trampled by a mech even if pain was majorly decreased in the game.

“You knew this would happen…” Said the same girl as she facepalmed her mech.

“Murphy, please do us a favor and shut the hell up next time.”

“Give me a break Nira, I was dying from boredom, and Aiden is a beast when he is mad.”

“Okay, WOW, what… What is going on?!” Suddenly the Luna’s voice could be heard through the radio and it sounded she was just eating something just a second before. “Aiden stop! I mean, uh. Stop soldier uh… M-23..., you are infringing military… uh. Damn it! Like, Stop him already guys! He is going to trigger the battle!”

“Finally! come on guys, let’s get going.”

“You know this is your fault Murphy right?” Asked Nira with a sigh

“Come on, I might as well lie down and sleep if I had to wait another minute.” With that he quickly stepped on the gas of his Hover-Tank and started following Aiden as he gradually sped up from a walk to a run.

“STOP GUYS! STOP! What are you doing?!” Luna’s shout bellowed through to voicecom, but there were many who ignored it and moved ahead of the Shield Carriers.

“Hey Sally, can you disable those shields? I can’t snipe well enough with them in the way.” Asked Nira betraying the word she said just a few seconds ago.

“Eh, sure.” With that all of the vehicles that were projecting the shields deactivated the shields. Similar exchanges were going on everywhere too

“You are coming too right?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

"Don't leave us behind either guys! "

“Listen to me guys! Come back!... Okay! Screw you guys, I hate you all!”

The commander's shout didn’t even register in Aiden’s mind as he ran through the fields leaving deep footprints in the ground.

He was too immersed in the thought that he was apparently retarded. He has not for one second thought to ask why they were doing this battle. When his friends told him why they were doing this mission it was like he was hit in the face with a brick.

He hated Lilith, but she never did anything that wasn’t for the benefit of the guild. The guild which granted one of the best subscriptions for basically a fraction of its price and everyone did their best to help each other.

But he was addicted to this game and he knew it. Not being able to play nearly as much as he used to because of those stupid interviews and having to work part-time while he found a proper job was taking a toll on him, this update was the sole good thing for him in his life at this point.

Still, he acted like a 9 year old child.

A notification popped up on the side of his vision.

“You have started the official battle. The fight starts in 1 minute.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

He was still far away from the enemy so this basically didn’t mean anything.

“Combat system activated and in peak condition, Our chances of victory, as always: 100%, good luck.”

He clicked his tongue at the sound of the preprogrammed cheesy AI message that always played before a battle.

Arriving closer to the enemy made it obvious that this was indeed just a small force of enemies despite the fact, that when they fought against the them usually, they had at least five times this many units. It was obvious however that they wouldn’t go down without a fight as the millisecond the clock ticket to zero, all the artillery weapons placed behind their shields fired.

Before the shot could hit their own shields, a small hole appeared on the mostly transparent shield and the lightning fast projectile shot through it.

And most of them were aimed right at him - the prime target, as he was in the front.

Expecting this he activated his mech’s emergency shield a few seconds before the battle begun and overcharged it as much as possible. “Red Alert! Systems in criti...”

Before the AI could finish the sentence he ripped out the chip that contained it a placed it in his inventory. Doing so would make the mech less responsive and slower, but that didn’t matter, he hit the eject button.

a split second after he was practically fired from the mech, all the shots connected and there was a large explosion. The noise was deafening and he thought he blacked out for a moment as hit the ground with tremendous force and rolled on the ground keeping some of his momentum.

But the mech did its job, even though the mech was reduced to atoms, he was safe. He quickly jumped up and scanned the area… or at least tried to but air was full of smoke after the huge explosion. This was good, if the enemy couldn’t see him, they can’t shoot him.

Just as he thought that a plasma bullet hit the side of his helmet knocking his head to the side.

“Fuck.” He quickly started running towards the enemy. Using his power armor’s strengthening he started running fast. ‘Obviously the enemy has these damn sensors’ He thought to himself but the large explosion did seem to confuse the sensors a bit as many of the shots seemed to miss him.

In the rush of things he didn’t remember how far away he was from the enemy, but if he didn’t get enough close, his gameplan was useless.

After a few seconds the smoke seemed to get less dense. This was the moment of truth.

As soon as he got out of the smoke he could only say one thing. “Oh shit…”

He appeared right before the enemy, and suddenly all enemy AI weapons and players turned towards him and almost immediately fired. He closed his eyes waiting for death… But it didn’t come. When he opened his eyes, there was one of the Shield Carriers right in front of him blocking all the shots which exploded on the shield.

"And I have to save your idiotic ass again."

He blinked once upon hearing the monotone voice sigh, but then got a hold of himself.

“Thank Sally, and I’m taking this for a ride.”

“Oh, no you don't, I still remember what happened the last time you took one of them.

“Oh don’t worry, there won’t be any scratches on it.”

“If you think about destroying it just like you mech, keep dreaming.”

Aiden rolled his eyes “Fine, just get me in there already!” He jumped on the remote controlled hover vehicle.

“Not that one, jump to your left” The shields of the Carrier did seem to be wavering as continuous shot bombarded it. Aiden raised an eyebrow but looked to his left to see another one of the Shield Carriers speeding towards him and jumped quickly not to miss his ride.

The Carrier ran through all the gunfire like an unstoppable monster as it got him closer to the edge of the enemy line. Aiden quickly grabbed his gun from his back.

“Pulling all brakes… Now.”

Aiden launched himself forward just a the truck stopped and his brain stepped into overdrive as he was flying in the air. He was heading towards an enemy player very quickly and they had no time to react as Aiden’s feet connected with their face.

He planted the player’s head into the ground and used him a surfboard. As they slid on the ground Aiden fired a point blank shot in the head of an enemy instantly killing them as he passed by on his new toy.

Stupefied by this sudden ridiculos attack, the mech rider right in front of Aiden couldn’t react to him jumping right at him still having some momentum from the slide soon enough. Right as he started wanted to react somehow, Aiden crashed through the wall of the mech using the power of the momentum

He jumped from his seat as the enemy landed next to the control chair.

After fumbling for a second he managed to fish out a handgun from his inventory and tried to fire it at the sudden intruder.

His opponent however reacted too quickly and punched him in the face sending him into the side of the control room, then finished him off with a quick shot from the shotgun to the head.

Aiden pulled the same AI chip he used in his mech and quickly slammed it in the place of the original, then he jumped out of the machine.

The mech stayed still for a few seconds, but after a few seconds took control of the mech. The AI followed its programming and immediately started following Aiden using the damaged but still functional mech.

Meanwhile Aiden quickly grabbed a remote controller from his inventory, which was a futuristic looking glove and had the controls on the palm side of it, so the user could control the mech with one hand.

It only had a few functions, being able to move the AI based on preprogrammed basic movements such as running, jumping, turning and if the AI managed to hack the weapons/shield systems of it, it gave a basic control of them.

But what made the glove special was its special function, which let him manually control all of its movements.

Aiden tried to dodge as much gunfire as possible while the AI was done and tried to return some fire as well.

And he was not very successful, he was hit by countless bullets, while his relatively short ranged weapon didn't do much.

He managed to block enough shots with his glove to survive at least.

However as soon as the AI arrived to his side, he started running right at the enemy, and the mech copied his movements.

It being bigger meant it was bigger in size and so took longer steps, leaving behind Aiden.

While hiding from gunfire behind his mech, as the controlled mech reached an enemy Hovertank, he pulled back his gloved hand and punched the air with all he got.

The tank fired a shot at the mech, but it wasn't enough to stop it.

Mimicking its controller's movements the mech punched the tank with its fist making flip on its side.

Now that everyone was focusing on the mech, Aiden quickly approached the enemy and before the controller of the vehicle he targeted realized, he jumped on top of it.

The jeep like car he jumped on was fitted with a plathera of weapons on it, and one by one he started destroying these weapons by kicking or shooting them.

And just as the mech returned he took manual control of it and punched at one of the players trying to stop him from destroying the vehicle.

The player had to dodge backwards, but the mech was not done as after hitting the ground, it dragged its hand across the ground. The enemy reacted quickly, jumping on the hand and grabbed a grenade and threw it at the gaping hole which was on the mech.

Just before it landed however, Aiden jumped in front of it and holding his shotgun by the barrel, he hit the grenade as if it was a baseball.

The enemy fighter quickly moved his head to the side barely dodging it.

The grenade exploded behind him, making the mech's right arm not functional.

After clicking his tongue, Aiden used the controlled mech other arm to catch him and fired a shot at the enemy in the meanwhile.

The player took the shot, but it didn't seem to have enough power to kill them, so he answered by showering Aiden in bullets with a machine gun.

Using the manual control, he turned the mech's arm so the shots didn't hit him.

He quickly scanned the area to notice that the battlefield has turned into chaos as his teammates also got close enough to fight.

This was good, he thrived in chaos. In the quick second he scanned the area, he noticed some enemy mechs a few hundred meters away. He grinned and activated manual control. The mech raised its one functional hand, and stood in a throwing pose.

The enemy player realizing that something was about to happen, quickly jumped into the mech.

Completely ignoring the enemy however, Adien made a throwing motion sending him flying like an arrow.

"AI retrieval!"

The enemy guild member cursed as the AI chip disappeared right before his eyes, and just as he looked at the screen he notices a flash of yellow light coming from the direction of the fortress.

"You've got to b…"

Aiden turned around while flying to see the mech explode. He couldn't stop grinning as he quickly said: "Nice shot Nira."

"You are welcome, by the way you owe Sally and I a drink."

"Sorry, but I'm flat broke."

He nailed one of the mechs right in the middle just as he finished the sentence.

The mech stumbled a bit at the sudden impact and there was a dent where Aiden collided with it

This one in particular seemed to be controlled from far away, so it didn't have a place for a driver.

These mechs also didn't have an easy to find place for an AI, so Aiden fired a pointblank shot at the mech and slapped his AI in the created hole.

This was risky, because the controller might try to fight the hacking, but Aiden didn't give them an opportunity as he fired another shot at the mech to overwhelm the controller with damage reports as to hide the hacking process, while hoping he didn't actually destroy something important.

The controller obviously noticed that one of their mechs had an enemy on it, but hesitated with shooting at it with their other controlled machines, since they didn't want to destroy it if possible.

In the room he controlled the mechs from he was frantically trying to make the mech shake off the enemy, but failed and in his panic he didn't realize for a few seconds that it was being hacked.

As he realized, he took a sharp breath through his teeth, and reluctantly, but quickly hit the self-destruct button.

Aiden was still hanging on the side of mech when he got the signal the mech was hacked, but just as he was about to use it…

"Self-Destruct activated."

For a moment Aiden was scared shitless, but realized that it was his AI that said it.

This meant it was prolonging the process as long a possible.

He reacted quickly and sent the mech running towards another one.

"5… 4…" Aiden grit his teeth and made the mech jump towards the enemy.

"3… 2…"

He quickly grabbed his AI and jumped…

The AI continued the calculated estimate: "1… 0"

The mech collided with another just as the countdown finished and.

*BOOM*

Aiden covered his face as the debris hit him, but one of the bigger chunks hit him in the torso, and pinned him to the ground.

He tried to desperately get the large metal object off of him when he noticed the other mechs coming right at him and pointing their guns at him.

He cursed one last time before being pell…

Suddenly the screen turned black.

"Dear user, the next update is about to be released. The servers will be offline for approximately 16 hours while the update is finished."

At first Aiden was stupefied but then sighed as he felt his real senses return and he read the message.

"Seeing you were in battle right before the maintenance, you will be teleported to your or your allie's closest safe spot. Thank you for playing"

He laid on his bed silently for a few minutes staring at the notification, and sighed one more time before standing up and started getting ready to sleep.