In the morning, when Millie was milking the Ape-Goats, Nadine went to main community center in order to find a quest, but found that it was largely empty, aside from some slaughtered game world pets. She stared into the back of a man in a large trench coat, with a note able metallic arm, that vaguely resembled an arm from a knight in shining armor. “Nadine! Nadine! It’s good to see you...”
“What did you do with the pets?” Nadine asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, vampire girl.” Dantino turned around slowly. “You know that you would do the same.” Dantino then took out his claymore, sharpened it with his sharpening stone, and began walking out of the door.”
“How did you not die from your injuries?”
“Come with me, you must see something.”
When they reached the town center, Dantino asked what happened to the town. It seemed as if the culture had changed over night. And that what was once snowy countryside, was merged with a sprawling complex of pyramids and sky scrapers. “Both of our homes are no longer as it was, what sense anymore does it make to continue fighting, when we both no longer have a home to go to?”
“I didn’t take you as the peace maker.”
“People can change Nadine, even you have. I see it in your face.” Dantino requested a cigar. Nadine obliged merely for the fact that she was basically trying to quit the habit, and the only reason she started up again, because her and her relationship with Millie had not been quite the same. No longer was there a purpose for her to continue being a damsel in distress, she also knew what some of Nadine’s sexual fetishes were, and could only oblige a couple of them, without risk to herself. “You see, you and me are not so difference. I have some of the same interests. I also have liked watching pretty ladies get their heads chopped off. So why is it then, that you continue to fight me?”
Nadine wondered if this was a new part of Dantino’s ambition, and was not entirely sure of what to make of his question. But she wasn’t a traditional game character, she was her own person. She took out her punching dagger, “Oui, but I’m not a King Killer.”
Dantino drew first blood with his claymore, then pushed Nadine on ahead. “Is that what you think of me Nadine? After all my efforts of trying to make amends? I suppose it cannot be helped. But know this, I can bring back the dead.” He waved his fingers across the air as if he were pressing keys on a keyboard. Rassie, Ellen, Malcolm, and the others were manifested a holograms. “What if I told you these people are wanting to kill you? And we can work together. I can make you a knight.”
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“I wont give into your mind games.” said Nadine.
Malcolm, Rassie, and Ellen as translucent figures in the simulation, draw out their guillotines guns, as if to attempt an assassination strike on her person. “Choose wisely Nadine, I can’t always be there to protect you.” Dantino split the holograms in two with his Wallacian great sword, and they turned off like a dead television channel. “I could even let you train with me.”
“What are you wanting exactly?”
“Millie’s severed head.”
When Nadine returned home, she left Dantino behind to attend to his affairs. At home Millie asked Nadine what had taken so long to return, and she spoke of the fact that the community center had been completely emptied by the chaos that Dantino brought with him, and that all the pets the players had were completely slaughtered. Millie reacted more than Nadine did, but eventually a feeling of calm was able to reign supreme. She completely changed her dress from a princess inside of a royal court, to that if a female archer in a black leather outfit. She wore two Birkenstock Arizona sandals, and carried a small black dagger inside of her purse.
“Don’t you think you’re overdoing it?” asked Nadine.
“What if Dantino chooses to attack me?” said Millie.
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“I can’t rely on your word.”
Along the way to the community center, they were attacked by a tribe of giant Ape-Goats, but eventually they were able to slaughter it, and take its hide to make some water pouches for the trip. Day came and went, changes hex positions while taking turns on the battle field from different angles. It was easier to attack these creatures from behind, as their main advantage was in surrounding you. Eventually Nadine was able to punch the ape-goat’s head of, and they went along their merry way.
“How much longer till the community center?” asked Millie.
“Only a few more more miles to go.” Nadine said.
Mostly they ran across different neighborhoods, mostly seeing broken mailboxes that looked as if they were ransacked by teams of bandits, with the head of the mail box having long sense fallen to the ground. Like everything else in this neck of the woods, it seemed as if there was a giant fire that burned the little hamlets down. But every now and then would run across an abandoned interstate highway. They would be attacked by abandoned robot drones that were the pets of different scientists across the different periods of the United States, across their two factional battle royals.
Eventually they arrived.
All the shops collapsed.