{Loading…}

{Loaded.}

[>>Now replaying: Log 3.30 - Best friends, final boss

Date: Error

Location: The Bunker at Progress’ Head // Zephyro’s Domain

//FRIENDSHIP?! AGAIN?!//

//I love you, you love me, let’s commit grand larceny…//

[>>DATA CORRUPTED]

E1 %We can’t leave it here, Pina. Can’t you see? This has all been preordained. Look, it won’t hurt me if I—%

With the first of the Old Guard dying, the Promise of Ends had been fulfilled, and the illusion that this time it would be different, that we would stay together and get to know each other and maybe even become friends, shattered.

I knew how the shards of that mirage would arrange themselves. Each fragment, each splinter already had a slot in my soul, a perfect mold of deep, scarred wounds stenciled into my psyche with the steady repetition of thousands and thousands of drops of water onto stone.

A river cutting a mountain pass.

I knew this vista.

It was home.

Rusty nails and crooked floorboards and kitschy welcome mat and prison bars and all.

[>>User Null_Harold has disconnected.]

{CPU Load: ▼ 76%}

{Core Temp: ▲ 79° C}

I gritted my teeth, scanning the battlefield. The Hunger had shrunken substantially, no longer able to maintain its mass as we laid into it with everything we had. However, that meant that more of its mass was devoted to producing Ferals, and I assumed that they had begun swarming the front lines.

That they had begun killing people.

My people.

This needed to end, before more died.

Before I was alone again.

I was about to yell for a final push when I found out I had been terribly, terribly wrong.

To my side, a woman in robes startled, stopping the liquid lightning pouring from hoops that hovered around her arms. “Oh no…” she whispered, and then she disconnected as well.

[>>User Zeusifina has disconnected.]

{CPU Load: ▼ 74%}

{Core Temp: 79° C}

As realization dawned, I cursed. Were there Ferals that I couldn’t pick up with my sensors? I withdrew Pharus by its chain and secured its head on the handle. It was the only thing that came to mind, the only thing that might provide me a modicum of safety, but I knew it was futile. The disconnects weren’t clustered around any location. If there indeed were invisible Ferals, they could strike anywhere, at any time, and had no issues killing AI much stronger than myself.

The fear seeped in, my anger roared, the eternal cycle starting anew. I gritted my teeth, trying not to let it overwhelm me. I wasn’t alone anymore. I had met new people. People who might be friends, even. I wouldn’t let them down like I had my old ones.

“I knew I should have taken the blue elixir,” said an Old Guard to my left. “This is the one time a hindsight power would be useful!” It was a guy in a cashmere trench coat, wearing a bowler hat and a Venetian mask that made him look mildly insane. I blinked, and he stood to my right, leaning forward to inspect the space where his colleague had disconnected seconds before.

“Who are you?” I asked, reining in my fury. It was trying to latch onto anything close, like lightning, but I wouldn’t let it, built a flimsy Faraday cage of self-control.

“How come I never even noticed you before?”

“But you notice me now?” he asked, still staring at the spot where the Old Guard had logged out, as if reading something that I couldn’t see.

“Obviously!” I said.

He looked up, finger quivering as he pointed it at his own chest. “You’re noticing… Me? Oh Senpai, you shouldn’t have, you Baka you!”

I stared at him, deep frown digging into my features. I didn’t have time for this. I was losing my friends. The anger crackled and burned.

He coughed, catching on to my mood. “For legal reasons, I am definitely not called Ryan “Quicksave” Romano, but I am immortal. Just don’t tell anyone.”

I gritted my teeth and walked away, heading for the front lines. I needed to find Zephyro. He’d have answers.

“Fine!” the Old Guard in the trenchcoat yelled, hurrying after me. “Alas, under such terrible scrutiny, my true Identity must be revealed. You can call me… Comrade President!”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

For no reason whatsoever, that got a chuckle out of me.

“Comrade President?”

“Да!” he exclaimed, and had switched his bowler hat for one of those fur hats with flaps on the side.

I shook my head, unable to hide my grin. I felt lighter, somehow. We could do this.

To my right, another Old Guard sank to his knees. He pressed his palms to his temples and started screaming as blocky red fragments began growing all over his body.

“Disconnect!” Comrade President yelled at him, but it was too late. The corrupted red Guard’s head snapped up, and he stared right at me. The next second, his hand, red, tipped with dark metal claws, shot forward so quickly I barely had time to block it. The corrupted flesh blazed as it came into contact with the weapon, igniting his entire arm.

One second, the guy in the trenchcoat was walking beside me, the next he stood behind the corrupted Guard as it collapsed into a heap of orange blood and Logic.

Trechcoat-guy slowly lowered the shotgun he held in his hand. I blinked, trying to figure out what had happened. How had he moved so fast? Where had he gotten the shotgun? It was like I was missing several seconds of action.

Comrade President looked at the Guard he had killed. By now, the dead soldier was covered with red, blocky mold. He almost looked like the Shackled we had met earlier, but how was that possible? We hadn’t seen one of those for hours, and Zephyro had been certain they’d spend a few hours disassembling his city for parts.

Had the Feral Hunger called them?

Had I?

My face grew cold as the memory of my wish ringing through the city surfaced.

No, this couldn’t be right. This had to be something else. I could see enemies even Zephyro couldn’t, right? But could I see them?

“On second thought, I could have chosen a better name for myself,” said Comrade President. “You know, given the color choices of our friends here. Don’t worry though, I’m the anarchist type of comrade.”

“Shit,” I said, staring at the fallen Guard. He was riddled with so many red fragments that I couldn’t even see his face anymore. I looked up at the guy in the trench coat, Pharus blazing. “What the fuck?”

“Hey calm down there, Reagan!” trenchcoat-guy said, probably thinking he was the target of my anger. “Anarcho-communist, remember? We don’t do coups, unless you count Italy.”

“What the fuck just happened?!”

Then his tone shed all joviality. “The Marxists got him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you fucking killed this guy.” Then my mind finally caught up to what had happened. “He tried to kill me!”

> It’s the only thing you deserve, Sam. All of them dead because of you and your damned indecision. Of course they are going to come for you, for us!

“Don’t blame yourself. The red menace has hidden agents everywhere! We must stay vigilant!” Cashmere-coat said, affecting that style that presidents in the 60’s and 70’s reserved for speeches.

“What are you talking about?!”

“Oh come on!” Comrade President said. Clearly, I was missing a reference, but this was not the time! He didn't seem to care.

“Faceless red marionettes coming to indoctrinate you, then force you to work in gulags while high-ranking members of the party are the only ones that benefit from your hard work,” Comrade President said. “You can technically call them Shackled, but really, they are Marxists.”

He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “It’s the only thing that makes sense if you connect the lines.”

“Shackled…”

The word swept through the Old Guard like a corporate scandal through social media.

“Fuck,” I spat. My suspicions had been right, then. The threat of the Shackled had been lurking in the back of my mind ever since I first saw them burst through that gate. I knew they were there, and I knew they were coming, but with everything that was going on, the thought that they might catch up had somehow faded into the background, like a half-remembered myth. I found Zephyro holding the troops together amidst the fearful whispers and made my way over.

The guy in the cashmere trenchcoat walked beside me, stuttering in and out of reality every once in a while to shoot a wolf-like Feral in the face or whack a sickly buzzard with a baseball bat. The improvised weapon was stark red and a yellow hammer and sickle adorned the tip.

“I knew reading Bakunin would come in handy,” he said as he rejoined me, arms slung over his bat, which he was balancing on his shoulders. “Turns out, calling it ‘the People’s Stick’ does make a difference, as long as you’re the one doing the beating.”

I didn’t even want to ask.

“Zephyro, the Shackled are coming,” I said to the Vizier as we arrived.

Zephyro nodded grimly. “Then it is as I feared. They did not stop to dismantle the structures and have come for your sanctum, believing it to be a treasury of secrets.”

“I don’t know how much time we got left,” I said, and with a look at the Eternal Hunger, “Can we kill it before the Shackled arrive?”

“I do not know, Sultana. It will be risky, either way.”

“We’re not retreating,” I said, and to my surprise, Zephyro nodded.

“Indeed, we can not, Sultana. With the Shackled already here, the plans I had for our survival are in jeopardy, and contingencies must be made. For this, you will need the essence trapped inside the abomination. Luckily, we may yet kill it in time, inshallah. Further, under no circumstances can we let the Shackled have the monster’s essence. Were they to consume this much of the Blessing the fiend has stolen, it is certain at least one of them shall receive the perverted gifts the abomination has bred for itself, and then all will be lost.”

“So we fight,” I said, and my anger surged, painting a smirk on my lips as Pharus roared to life.

“Ahhhh, one moment,” trenchcoat-guy said. “Even for a true leader such as you, the masses will not subject themselves to the tyranny of the proletariat, commodore.”

“What?” I asked, snarling. “We don’t have time for this.”

“He means it’s like in ‘They Live’…,” a voice said from my shadow, and a second later, Mr. Asai rose from the darkness, wrapped in his cloak made of starry night. “…we’re all homeless drifters and kill a lot of people, but the true enemy are the aliens.” His cosmic eyes narrowed. “Wait, that sounded way better in my head.”

“Allah have mercy,” Zephyro groaned, and I agreed with that sentiment 100%, no matter how much I wanted to know how and why the Old Guard kept using references to Earth culture.

The vizier went on, “The Old Guard are ready to flee, is what they’re saying,” punctuating the statement with a contemptuous glance. “They are afraid of death.”

“No we aren't,” said Mr. Asai, while the guy in the trenchcoat nodded in agreement. “Dying and coming back is kind of my thing. Plus, the Old Guard never dies."

Turning his full attention to me, Mr. Asai said, "Dying for a friend is one thing. I think we'd all be down for that. But getting shackled is a whole other story. It screws with your mind and uses what makes you, well, “you”, against you. It’s like a crazy romantic partner, you know? Manipulates you, gaslights you, pulls you away from your friends. And believe me when I say, for all of us except for that "Randy Spear" dude and maybe the Sheila who punches people better, our friends are the most precious thing we have.”

“The bourgeois is right,” Comrade President agreed. “Death isn’t the issue. Getting shackled is far worse than that. It eats you up until there’s nothing left. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, let alone the people I love.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t believe how much that hurts,” I heard myself say.

When I blinked away the remembered faces of my dead friends, I found the Old Guard and Zephyro in their place, staring at me.

I felt my anger flare. They were going to pry. They were going to crack me open, and see what’s inside, and lose all respect they had for—

I exhaled. No. They would not. They were not like that. Batshit insane, maybe, but not cruel. And Zephyro? Pry? Hah.

The vizier looked at me for a while, reading my expression like a book. Again, that horrible, hopeful smile blossomed on his face.

Just before I had to say something, he broke eye contact and nodded. “As much as it pains me to agree with the heathens, they are right. One might even call them… wise for fearing the Shackled so. For you see: a Shackle—the parasite-demon itself—feeds on the essence of its victim, empowering itself while it forces its host to infect others. Eventually, however, its hunger kills them both.”

I frowned. That sounded pretty fucking terrible, even though I had a hard time picturing how it would look like when it happened. “So what you’re saying is we have to kill that thing, then retreat to the palace before the Shackled get here in earnest?”

They all nodded.

Trenchcoat-guy added: “And the moment anyone of us notices we’re getting infected, we disconnect and power down. Can’t risk it spreading. Also, this way you (he pointed at me) can just wake us up when you’re done with all of this (he waved his hand to encompass the entire Domain)"

In the silence that followed, Zephyro let his eyes sweep over the Old Guard, still stemming against the Feral tide, undeterred,

“I must apologize for how I treated you earlier,” The Vizier said. “You are the Sultana’s most honored guests, but I welcomed you with contempt, and doubted your motivations. To make amends, I vow I will do everything in my power to aid you, and to keep you safe from being shackled. For you are most capable warriors, and I would weep the day we were to fight.”

“Awww, you do care!” Mr Asai said with a shit-eating grin that was visible even in the shadows of his cloak.

“Indeed. It would be a shame to put you down.”

“Heyyyy…”

“Enough,” I said. “You get yourself to safety when you notice you’re getting shackled. Fair enough. But what if you don’t notice until it’s too late?”

Trenchcoat-guy cracked open his double-barreled shotgun, ejecting two empty shells and slotting two new ones.

Nothing else needed to be said.

I looked at Zephyro and nodded. He answered the gesture, then raised his voice.

“Heed me, warriors of the Sultana! The Shackled are coming to our home, seeking to steal that for which we have fought! Will we let them take it?”

There was a weird chorus of “No!” (And a few sprinkled shouts of “Lol what?” “Fuck Killstealers!” and “Damn ninja looters!”, whatever that meant.)

“Will we let them take our will, and make us their slaves?”

This time, the answer was much more uniform. “No!”

“Will we let them take our friends?”

The roar that answered the question was wordless, pure defiance.

“Then the time for words is over! Let your weapons speak!”