Rick yelled at the sky, “Come back, you son-of-a-bitch!”
Thunder boomed nearby, and he sighed. “We’re not done yet!”
There was no response. After waiting a few seconds without getting a reply, he approached the loot left behind by the AI bots, checking the two human AI bots first.
The boxes from the shorter man gave him two blue icons.
Victory!
Passive Skill Acquired!
Mountain: This passive skill makes you harder to knock off your feet. Passive resistance to throws.
Active Skill Acquired!
One-Two Jab-Hook: A powerful non-dominant jab followed by a dominant hand hook. Extra powerful strike with reduced chance to be blocked, but not an unblockable move. Does not affect opponent’s dodge.
Next, he approached the icons that hovered above where the lean, taller fighter had fallen—one yellow, and one orange with a golden star on it.
Victory!
Halo Boost Points!: +4 Speed. (Rare loot!)
Rick had seen these special boosts before. Instead of giving him the choice to allocate points wherever he saw fit, these boosts were pre-selected. He’d only ever gotten three other such boosts in all his practice time. Though he couldn’t choose where to spend the points, they always came with multiple points. Alex had explained that the developers of Ruckus Online introduced them two years prior because players were gravitating toward only certain player-perceived OP builds. To encourage new play styles and increase spectator enjoyment, the developers made the multiple boost point loot, and now many of the best builds required them. A player couldn’t get guaranteed “Halo Boosts,” as they were called, but targeting enemies built around certain skills increased a player’s chances.
Rick tried to imagine the possibilities as he took the boost, increasing his speed to five. Such a massive increase in speed in one boost would make it hard for him to adjust, but if he dumped more points into speed, Sonny would likely have a hard time adapting as well.
Strength: 2
Speed: 5
Stamina: 3
New Cosmetic Item Acquired!
Unique Tattoo: Convictions Tattoo
Rick groaned. This tattoo was the word “anger” written in Old English. It looked as though it was meant to be an abdominal tattoo. He threw it into his inventory without giving it further consideration.
As lightning flashed in the distance, he approached the four icons left behind by the massive stone hybrid beast.
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Victory!
Active Skill Acquired!
Charge!: Player may charge up to 25 feet without affecting stamina. Must charge toward opponent. 3 minute cooldown.
Passive Skill Acquired!
Stone-faced: Reduced damage from strikes to the head.
Boost Point +1
Boost Point +1
Rick dumped both points into speed.
Strength: 2
Speed: 7
Stamina: 3
He did a few practice moves and almost lost his balance. “Holy shit!” He looked up; the ring approached. There was no more time for practice moves; he had to keep moving toward the center of the map.
The next fifteen minutes were uneventful, except for the questions bubbling within his churning mind. Who was Ditto and what did he want? The game hadn’t been stopped, so he believed what Ditto said about doctoring the AR feed of the match, but he was at a total loss as to how anyone could edit the feed that quickly. From what he’d read, the action for these games was always streamed live. Players had never reported any significant inconsistencies in the timelines of their fights.
What did it mean when Ditto said, “We need you”? If he asked Alex about this second encounter with the strange fighter, would she report her concerns about his mental state to Hector? The extra money had already helped. For the first time in years, Rick finally had hope he might be able to secure a real future for his wife and himself. He wouldn’t intentionally douse that spark if there was any way to avoid it.
He grunted as he moved a rock suspiciously located in the center of a ring of smaller stones and found a cache of cosmetics. There were two more tattoos and a headband—hardly enough to distract him from his worry about an AI bot that could mask its activities so well.
Minutes later, he’d left the rocky terrain and had been jogging down a grassy path when the next enemy bot appeared.
This one was dressed like a professional wrestler. He had long, blond hair and wore white face paint with red and black marks all along it. Red wrestler’s boots and a pair of black boxer’s shorts completed the look, though the man’s chest was also oiled and shaved, and it gleamed in the sunlight. For once, Rick welcomed the unrealistic nature of the game. Athletic as they may have been, professional wrestlers weren’t fighters.
As Rick stepped closer, the wrestler took note of him, taunted him with an obscene gesture, and said, “Welcome to the house of pain!”
Rick burst out laughing, but the bot appeared unphased. He activated his Charge! skill and dashed at the bot while it was still in the middle of its next taunt.
The wrestler had no chance to get out of the way, and the force from the collision knocked the man off his feet. More graceful than he looked, the overbuilt bot rolled to his feet two paces away from where Rick stopped, then lunged toward him with open palms.
Rick twisted away from the man’s grip, then performed Four-Handed-Windmill as the wrestler’s face entered his reach. The first two open-handed strikes battered the man’s neck, and the elbows struck the side of his face and the back of his head shortly thereafter.
The wrestler bot shook off the strikes. “Ooh yeah! I like that. What else ya got?” The bot’s eyes were wide, like that of a deranged drunk. Rick tried to stifle his laughter, but failed.
The bot didn’t register the disrespect, instead jumping and trying to kick Rick with both feet. Rick stood still and allowed the bot to strike him, relying on Badger to let him dismiss the strike as a mere glancing blow, then jumped on the fighter as the bot touched down, face up.
Thirty seconds of struggle later, and it was over. One orange icon floated in the air.
Victory!
Active Skill Acquired!
Ooh Yeah!: Active skill taunt. Using the taunt leaves you open to attack, but if performed before a grab, success of the grab or throw is increased. Relies on speed and strength stats—the greater the strength and speed, the more effective the taunt.
Rick shrugged. “Beats getting another fucking tattoo, at least.”
He continued down the grassy valley path, but saw no signs of other fighters before the terrain changed again as he crested a hill. The grass became patchier, intermixed with sand and rock. Microclimate transitions were quick within the game world of Ruckus Online, which made sense from a game perspective. In the real world, it would take days or weeks to walk from a forest to a desert, but it took only the better part of an hour in Ruckus Online.
If this was a desert, however, it wasn’t typical. The sky darkened, and not from the approaching ring. Rick hadn’t heard its thunder since shortly after his encounter with Ditto. After a few more minutes’ walk, flakes fell from the sky. He held out his hand to examine one, and it didn’t melt. Not snow. Ash.
Why was ash falling here? The sky steadily darkened. Though the map of Ruckus Online constantly changed aside from a few constant landmarks that served as directional cues, Rick had yet to encounter anything like ash-fall. Was it unique to the matchup with Sonny?
He kept walking. Before long, a silhouette of another walking figure appeared on the distant horizon.
Rick kept his eye on the figure as it slowly resolved. The sky reached a set state of gloom and stopped darkening.
The figure appeared more Sonny-like the closer it got, until finally, Rick had no doubts. The last battle—and the only one with a true character player—was about to begin.