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ambiguouslyliterate-blog · 6 years

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Respawn Point Ch. 4: Kill it with Fire

“I think that’s everything...” I sighed, looking at the pair of empty chests and bare floor.

The Desu Skull incident was only the other day, but it was more than enough to convince me to leave. This place was turning out just like Vanillakings. And I knew I’d had to leave here too. Why wait to screw up or get burned alive when I get get a head start, y’know?

I'd decorated the small room with nick-nacks, all of which had made their way into my pockets. Patches of carpet I could buy around town with the little bartering items I had. A dead tree from the desert just outside the server's northwest wall. A record player with no records. I smiled, looking around at my mess. I would say that it was a partially intentional, an "organized" mess, but that almost made it worse. Occasionally as I packed, San’s smile tried to push its way into my mind and Slenda’s patient gaze alongside it, calming me. But behind their soft gazes were the cold stare of a swordswoman, the crazed eyes of a weaboo boxer, a pair of glittering skull stickers, and a pair of flaming orbs, all baring down on me. Shaking my head, I punched the button next to the door. The iron swung automatically in front of me and I strode forward, nearly crashing into the figure lingering in the doorway.

“Hello Cyrus.” Teeth glinted from the figure. The lights in the hallway were dark, like the power had gone out, but I failed to notice at that moment. The figure stepped closer. I stumbled back, bumping into the foot of my bed. “H- Hi Roxxie,” I stammered, placing a hand on the end the bed to look natural—my hand slipping--“What’s up?”

Her eyes traced the room, taking note of the empty chest by my bed and the expression on my face. It felt like being caught in the eyes of a jungle cat, her claws digging into the ground, teeth bared. Ready to pounce. I started sweating.

“I’m going to cut to the chase, since it looks like you’re heading somewhere,” Roxxie sighed, leaning against the doorway. Her eyes were cold like ash, her voice heavy. She offered me her hand, which I couldn’t help but stare at. “This server is a mess. Always has been, there’s no point in denying that. But I was thinking that we could potentially start it over. Hit the reset button, y’know?”

The tips of the hair on Roxxie’s ponytail burned like the ends of cigarettes, ashes gently falling from the tips of the charred lengths. It burned like that when she was thinking deeply sometimes, or when she was irritated. Sometimes I thought it was a side-effect of her powers, but now I couldn’t help but think she was using it to intimidate me. The conversation she was making now felt like an echo of the past few days. Whether I ran into the others or not, I could always count on Roxxie tracking me down, asking me how I felt. What I’d do to change Weebtown. It was strange before, but never this eerie. Whatever she was planning on doing, it was close. Why can’t I ever meet anyone normal, I thought, With a normal agenda, like killing mobs or finding treasure? Why deranged griefers obsessed with pranks and corrupted officials with ambiguous “big plans?”

“So,” She smiled at me, perching a hand on her hip, “What d’ya say? I mean, you must be getting pretty tired of all the weeb jokes at this point, right?”

As much as I wanted to go with her, I felt like it wasn’t my decision to make. The weebs here were a little wild, sure. I thought a lot of them were nuts, but then again, I didn’t feel like it was my place to decide whether that should change. If being nuts works for them, it works. I could barely make my mind up for myself half the time and I wasn’t about to start making decisions like this for others.

“Nah.” I breathed, my teeth clenched as I spoke, “I just don’t think I’m your guy.”

The operator tried to force a smile as she pushed up away from the wall, the fire in her eyes sparkling. “That’s fine, no worries.” She moved her foot away from the iron door she’d been propping open, the heavy steel swiveling closed behind her. I shot her a concerned look, wondering if she was really just leaving, but she just popped off a pair finger guns, her fingertips smoking, “Take care of yourself alright, streets are dangerous.”

Her face disappeared behind the pane of iron, the small rectangle of light closing, an anxious smile left smeared on my face. For a second I forgot what I was doing, that I intended on being gone by now. I figured it would be fine though. Roxxie was certainly up to something, but it was probably fine right? I’d leave the spawn town, descend the long stairs to the ring of high schools and be long bone before she does anything. A tremendous crashing sound shook the air around me, and the building. Roxxie was angery, and it was my time to leave. With shaking legs, I hit the button next to the door and took a long step forward, my arms swinging… Only to meet a street filled with flames.

The hallway of the building was gone, the open street and the sides of neighboring buildings filling my vision. Fire lapped against and spilt from the insides of a giant wool creeper in the center of town, spreading across the wires and paper lanterns that intersected the spawn town’s buildings and leaping to the other buildings in the square. Homes, shops, benches, and even some of the weebs were ablaze as the world spun in a wild, hot panic. The sides of the opening were molten, still burning wildly as if a burning drill had just bore through the wall. Large masses of magma thrashed through the streets, like the claws of some flaming beast, the streams of molten rock smashing the foundations of buildings like they were blocks of sand. It was like a demon tearing through the server; its cry was the roar of the fire and the screams of weaboos and its claws the streams of molten amber that tore through everything in sight. My body shook, my head a mess of fear, frustration, and heat.

The gatekeeper Zolo burst through the side of a nearby building, bricks blown in every direction as she flew through the air, smoke trailing behind her. Before I could question it, I saw the belt-covered gatekeeper Jortaro step out from the crater left in the building, his boxing glove smoking. He looked forward with a hungry grin, launching from the ruins of the structure less like a human and more like a rocket, flying towards the battered swordsman. I fell back into the door to my home, head banging against the warm steel. “What.. In the Nether--!”

“You think you’re better than me?!” Roxxie shouted from the rooftops above. I looked up to see her standing on top of the creeper statue in the middle of town, the blaze surrounding her like a burning frame. She brought a hand up, nearly white from heat, and pointed her palm in my direction. The beast reared its head; the flames tugged by her every movement like they were tied to her fingers with invisible strings. A bile of magma spilt forth from behind a nearby building, like a beast’s maw open and screaming with the roar of the fire, filling my vision as it barreled towards me towards me.

I leapt back onto a nightstand as the magma poured through the street and consumed the entryway to my room, forcing its way in. I scampered back on a pile of books, my back slamming against the back wall. Before I knew it, I was watching my bed sink inot an amber sea. I took time from my escape to stare disapprovingly at the smoking mass where the bed used to be. Back to my old server if I die here, I thought, This day just gets better and better. Though at that point, going back to the old server almost seemed better. If only for a moment. The ground began to rumble and I instinctively dove for the window, smashing it just as the room behind me was ripped in two, the magma like a blade erupting from the ground. I rolled into the alley outside the window, hoping that the side of the building or the building’s shadow between would keep me out of her sight. All I had to do now was find a way out of the alleyway and to the stairs that would take me down from the spawn town. I’d probably get a little lost in the high schools, but at least it was better than burning to death.

As I took my first steps towards the alley’s entrance, I heard Roxxie’s laugh echo through the air like a clap of thunder, magma quickly spilling into the alleyway. Of course! I couldn’t just get away safely. That would be LAME.I swung in the opposite direction of the fiery flood, running towards what I quickly realized was a dead end—the end of the plateau. The middle of the server was like thick raised cylinder, the only way down being the long staircases that connected the spawn town to the ground. Well, the only way without taking fall damage that is. Before me was a wide blackened sky with cherry blossoms at its feet, a drop of hundreds of blocks below, behind me a wall of lava, roaring at my back. I felt the flames licking at my heels and inched forward, mentally preparing myself for the drop below. Was I willing to risk the pain from fall damage to escape the fire? Maybe once I reached ground level, if my legs weren’t too broken, I could run away. I could drill my way through the outside walls and get away from here. Away from all of this. I took a deep breath, the magma ready to make the decision for me.

A sound cut through the air as the building across the alley from mine burst open, the wall blown open by a glowing steel blade. The green-haired swordswoman appeared from the dispersing smoke, offering me her hand and literally pulling me from the fire. More lava began to pour into the alleyway as Zolo pulled me up the stairs of the structure, the fiery mass beginning to chase us.

“Nanishiterunda, baka?!” She cried in her weeb language.

A warm grin filled the space between my cheeks. “Trying my best!” I answered, figuring she was asking how I was. She flashed a weary smile and grabbed my arm, pulling me forward once more. Her face was so much brighter when she looked at me, but still flashed back to her dark, dutiful stare when she ran forward. I could just barely see her eyes behind her long bangs, but I could see the determination in them. The anger. Her dark anger was no longer directed at me, but at the real danger to the server. At the fire, and at the server’s operator. Magma rushed up the staircase below us like water filling a well, my pace quickening to match Zolo’s. We could hear parts of the building crumble beneath as Roxxie’s burning hands swiped through its foundation, our footing uneven and rushed as we reached the top.

The rooftops above the blaze were cracked, smoke pouring up through them and fire clawing at their insides, desperate to reach the surface. Flame clamored around the building below us, stray embers stinging my skin and licks of flame biting my legs. It was like standing on a tree trunk as it burnt below you, except I was looking across an entire forest. In the center of the square, atop the head of the building-sized creeper effigy, the only human shape stood surrounded by pillars of smoke and amber waves. Her silhouette was hazy, the black fading into the rage that surrounded us. I swallowed hard. Her back was to us, but I wasn’t sure how long that would last. Beyond the square, I could see the high schools surrounding us in a grand circle, all ablaze. Explosions burst through the burning alleys, the screams of the inhabitants scarcely rising above the roar of the fire. Some screamed in weebish tongues and others in english, all scattered and frantic, all trailing into the smoke-filled air. As I tried to get steady, explosions rocked the ground. Sudden bursts of smoke came from adjacent streets and the mass of high schools that encircled the server. I wondered for a moment if San was the source; if everyone but Zolo, Slenda and I were working to destroy this server. I thought of Zolo earlier and how she was fighting against the other guardian, the belted weirdo. Was he on Roxxie’s side? Just how many were working with her? I looked at the swordswoman standing beside me. And just how many has she taken down?

Zolo glared at the dim silhouette in front of us, her eyes burning furious and green. A flourish of yellow flame leapt from Roxxie's ponytail, her hands clapping gleefully as she spoke to herself, "We’re finally going to see Weebtown at its full potential. Rebuilding without all its unnecessary infighting and underage idol worship,” She placed a cobblestone slab on the charred surface of the effigy below her, plopping down onto it like one would a park bench. She let out a long sigh, looking out over the destruction, “…I hope.”

The swordswoman growled under her breath, words crunched between grinding teeth. A click resounded through the air as she unsheathed a sword, then a second click as she pulled another, one after the other until she had at least four, no, five, no—ten swords pointed towards the operator. She had them clenched in the bridges of her fingers, squeezed in the joints of her elbows and knees, and she had at least two held in her teeth. The yellow trails from the operator’s ponytail turned from yellow to a cold blue, her body pivoting on the slab. Her expression was obscured behind the flame, the cerulean streams pouring around her face, only the pure white-hot pupils inside of them visible. She stood up, and I could swear the fires in the streets below rose with her, their roars now deafening. The green-haired weaboo ran towards the operator, bouncing off of each rooftop in the square, bouncing across every concentric ring undaunted as she flipped and spun through the air, her body like a ball of angry shrapnel.

Just as Zolo neared the operator, an explosion shook a building behind Roxxie, a bulky form emerging from the smoke, climbing from the hole in the building with a grunt. It was San, her turquoise blue hair glowing as smoke pulled away from her form. Roxxie turned towards them, away from the approaching Zolo and away from me, the color of her fire changing again to bright auburn. As she ascended, another figure came with her, San’s free arm pulling her up through the crack in the structure. The second figure slammed a book onto the rooftop as they clambered up, their glasses crooked on their face and sweat streaming down around their furious violet eyes. “So glad you could join me.” Roxxie giggled, rising to her feet. Slenda glared at her. The operator stuck out her right arm, pointing backwards towards the nearing Zolo. Before any of us could react, a pillar of fire erupted from Roxxie’s palm, scorching the front of Zolo’s body, then enveloping it, the swordswoman disappearing in the sudden river of fire. Unable to stand, I fell backward on my hands, horrified. I was right, my mind screamed, I’m not ready to do this. She isn’t just some bully like from my old server. She’s a monster.

"Now, I know what you may be thinking, Slenda…” Roxxie laughed, hand on her hip, speaking to the admin. I felt the fire below us grow cooler, the fire on her head changing again to sunlight yellow. Her face had turned away from me, but I could tell by her voice that she was wearing that same smile she always wore. The smile of a predator, “But This is what I’ve been talking about. It’s just like what we did at Goldenworks, we destroy everything and start over. But we don’t have to run away from it--”

"THAT’S NOT THE POINT!!” Slenda cried back, tears in her eyes. Roxxie recoiled slightly, “The server deserves so much more than this! We can’t just throw away everything they’ve worked for and built here if we don’t know how to rebuild it ourselves. Stooping to griefing doesn’t make us revolutionaries, Roxxie, it just makes us jerks!!!”

Roxxie's white hot grimmace creased burned against the blackened sky, the curls of her flaming maw arcing up around her face, the fire around her arms stirring and growing. Even from behind her I could feel her white hot malice burning towards San and Slenda as if they’d fed a thousand trees into her fire. “I guess I’m just a troublemaker then…” Roxxie breathed, her sigh broken by creeping laughter. Her flames began to change once more, passing the soft yellow of a campfire and passing the amber of a house fire, passing even the searing blue of her rage, her flames now pure white, “After everything I’ve done, everything I’ve set up, everything I’ve been planning to fix this server, that’S ALL I AM!!”

Slenda’s eyes snapped downwards to her book of usernames, clutching San tightly, “BAN XxFieryQueenRoxx--”

Roxxie spun atop the creeper head, a wave of magma following her arm, buildings smashing in a row as the claws of her invisible beast tore through them, shattering the ground beneath San and Slenda. San managed to grab onto a nearby windowsill, clinging for dear life as burning bricks and stone ricocheted off the building around her. She turned to see Slenda, engulfed in flame, collide with the building next to her, tumbling into the abyss below with the admin’s tome. San reached a hand out, cursing as she grasped at the air, her eyes desperate.

“Just let her fall…” Roxxie smirked, her voice a cold growl as Slenda disappeared in the fire, “Our deaths don’t matter anyway! do they? We all respawn. She’ll just waking back up in her bed soon. And if it burned, she’ll go back to Goldenworks where everything’s normal and terrible. Just how she likes it.”

I felt something stirring in my gut, white electricity surging through me, straightening out my shaking limbs. Smoke was filling my lungs, scraping my throat, but I still yelled as loud as I could, “MAYBE SHE WOULDN’T TRY TO STOP YOU IF YOU WEREN’T BEING SUCH A DICK!”

Roxxie turned to me, her eyes white hot, edges tipped with blue fire, as if an entire forest had been fed to the fire inside her. I didn’t realize at first that I’d even spoken. That I’d snapped at a blaze in human form. I really didn’t bring my survival instinct on this journey. Molten masses broke through the rooftops around us, spiraling into the air. The crests of their flames were like spines, their serpentine bodies dripping magma that seared the buildings below. My foothold shook as more molten forms broke through the buildings next to me, closing in too quickly. Roxxie continued to laugh, "Go home, Cyrus."

My eyes creased, and I saw Bernadette. I saw the others from my home. And I was angry. As she began to shift her weight and the burning maws sped through the air, an explosion shattered the atmosphere, causing her beasts to destabilize. An explosion that struck Roxxie in the back. Roxxie and I turned to see San on the rooftop nearby, blocks of TNT in each of her hands. She lobbed another block of TNT at Roxxie, then another, then another, the creeper girl sending a volley of explosions at the flaming operator. Roxxie quickly whipped magma streams of magma around her, the streams creating a half-cage of flame that blocked any blocks heading her way. She seemed impenetrable. Invincible. But I saw an opportunity. She was completely focused on blocking San’s volleys, and her back was turned to me.

The events that had led up to this moment began to replay in my mind, from being kicked out, to finding San in the forest, to talking with Slenda, to the fire-- everything seemed to be pointing me towards this moment, towards this fight. Spawning Zolo's swords in my hands, I felt for one strange moment that everything had been planned, that my foolish desire to fight against people like Roxxie would actually be paid off, that I would actually be able to help a server, rather than just being some stray element of it. That I would have somewhere I truly belonged. I finally had a chance to protect an entire server from a bully and do it right. And I wasn't going to run now. I couldn’t run now. No disappointing Bernadette. No killing some innocent idiots. Cyrus would be the hero today, and I needed to do was stab her in the back.

My feet stomped across the rooftop, the shaking in my legs beginning to disappear as blood properly rushed to them, my body feeling hot somehow, even when I was surrounded by fire. I pushed off the end of the roof, the building crumbling as my body left it, the next building in my path coming up under my feet as if it was flying up to catch me. Searing air pushed against my body but I pushed forward, my body moving naturally, automatically, running and kicking off of another rooftop, clearing another ring of buildings as I approached the center and approached Roxxie. I saw Zolo in my mind, leaping towards the burning figure, struck down without a second thought.

I started screaming as I ran across the last building. It was just as stupid as it was vital, the intensity of the moment and the intensity of the fire spiraling around and within me as the operator’s white flames filled my vision, her cries reverberating in my mind as the world around us grew silent. The fire on her body died as I burst into her, the world fading from white back into the charred cityscape of crumbling stone. The towers of magma began to topple around us as I and the operator lay in a heap on the creeper’s head. Little was left but its brutal steel frame and every part of me slammed into it at once. Pain throbbed in my limbs and my chest was heavy, my mind fading in and out with my breaths. The oxygen in my lungs felt completely depleted. Maybe I shouldn’t have done so much screaming... I thought for a moment, joking on my breath, incredulous.

Roxxie began to rise however, a sword still jammed in her back. She spat out some blood onto the rooftop, grunting with a visceral frustration. The hairs on the ends of her ponytail burned like cigarettes, the fire creeping up them, quickening, crawling closer to her head. The fire in her eyes spraying out from the sides of her face like geysers, her head lighting up completely in a mane of pure, unadulterated, blazing rage. A scorching eye locked onto me, sword still lodged in her crooked abdomen.

“You… You too?”

As she raised a hand already covered in a mane of fire, the embers of the air swirling and collecting around it, adding to its fire, we both heard a voice from somewhere. A voice as stoic as it was livid, the growling of a mother bear.

“BAN…” The voice began, the fire on Roxxie’s body growing weak and cold. She spun to see Slenda, covered in ash, a book in her hand.

“Slenda!” San called out, beaming. There were tears in her eyes. Slenda’s admin command continued, her eyes trained on Roxxie, the flames glowing in transparent images on her lenses, “XxFieryQueen--”

“NO!” Roxxie ran for the edge of the rooftop, the flames on her body going out, her voice frailer than before. The monster in her gone as she was chased into a corner. As she was trying to jumped from the top of the creeper’s charred skeleton, a figure leapt up from below, shooting from the charred streets below like a sniper’s shot.

“Omae wa.. Mou shindeiru.” Zolo murmured, her eyes burning with anger, her tunic spattered with blood. She drove three more swords through Roxxie, pinning her in place. Roxxie cried out, broken. Nailed to the rooftop. Realizing all too late that she was trapped, fire sparked on her arms in a futile effort to escape. Slenda pushed her sleeve up against her eyes, failing to dry them, finishing her command, “RoxxiexX--!”

Roxxie was ripped from the air between Zolo’s two swords, her blades and mine tossed as the air burst around us, like we were being sideswiped by a jet, her screams echoing through the air. I coughed on the smoke as it filled my lungs and choked the corners of my vision. The swords… Did they kill her, too? I raised an arm weakly into the air, my sight blurring, dimming as my heartbeat slowed to a crawl. Roxxie had been sent farther than the edge of the server, she’d been sent back to her spawn, back to whatever distant server the admin and operator had come from. I barely managed to let out a weak, “Wooooo!” my voice cracking as my head fell, my lungs closed and my consciousness gone as I made contact with the cold, charred steel.

Time stirred as light flashed in front of my eyes, the world flickering back to me. There was a mass of blue and green moving in front of my eyes between front of the sun’s light. Sounds from around me began to come into focus, San’s concerned voice echoing in my ears. As my vision cleared, I began to recognize her features and her smile. I felt her pull me close to her chest. My mind was racing, filled with sentences, questions, images. I remembered San fighting on the rooftop. And I remembered fighting with her. Fighting with Slenda.

My words came out slowly, my body still waking up, “The admin… Is she okay?”

“I’m here...” Slenda grunted, her form pushing out from behind San, her shadow towering above us. She looked around us, body pivoting as her shoulders fell, “I’m here.”

My eyes rummaged the smoking ruins around us, my heart sinking with the admin’s. Only the frames of some buildings were left, but that couldn’t be said for all of them. Slenda glared with hollow eyes, both irritated and broken, looking as if she was searching for something. Her body slumped, leaning into San. So much had been happening, it was hard to keep my head straight. But now that I knew we’d taken down the ringleader, there was a strange twinge of pride in me. And I didn’t even get kicked out of a server for it.

"HEY YOU!!"

A voice broke from the ashy cloud that seemed to spread from every block of charred ground around us, a weeb striding out. He was barking accusations at San, Slenda and I, and was followed by others. Right on cue…

"Are you gonna do anything about this?!" A weeb screamed, pointing at Slenda. She shrunk behind San, “Your operator caused this, didn’t she?!”

Another shook his fist from the back of the mob. “We’ll have to rebuild almost two-hundred high schools, two-HUNDRED!”

“I bet you don’t even like anime!” One barked, stomping towards us.

“And what if I don’t?!” Slenda shouted back, a fist immediately meeting with her face, breaking her glasses and sending her falling into San’s arms. The creeper girl’s eyes surged with bright blue lightning.

San pulled a sword as Slenda reached for the book in her back pocket, but the two of them cringed with pain, both unsteady. The fires of the town had not gone out, but rather moved into the eyes of the weebs as they encircled us. Fires that wouldn’t go out until we were killed. And killed again. And again. But yells began to split the crowd, and soon we saw heads further away from us duck under the wall of bodies. Weebs yelped as they were thrown to the side, blood spilling upwards as players were forced aside. A head of green hair in a messy ponytail pushed out from the wall of bodies, her swords and eyes shining. Zolo put herself between us and the other weebs. She started screaming at the crowd, her voice pleading, foreign words spilling from her mouth like a river, tears pricking her eyes.

Slenda rose to her feet, taking San by the arm. She looked at the both of us with concern in her eyes, "Zolo's trying her best to defend us, but it's only gonna buy us time.” Zolo looked back over her shoulder, the burning eyes of the mob digging into her, and into us. Slenda gave an exasperated sigh, clutching her admin book tightly in her hand. “Most weebs only pretend to know Japanese… There are only about 3 people in this mob who know what she's saying."

Slenda leaned towards Zolo, placing a hand on her shoulder and whispering into her ear. The weeb turned to us, face strained in confusion, but Slenda slipped away before she could respond, leaving the book of usernames at her feet. Slenda quickly broke into a sprint, yelling for us to follow her as the mob picked up speed. The three of us ran towards the edge of the server, escaping through a hole in the outer wall left by the griefers’ assaults. The mob screaming behind us split around Zolo like a river parting around a stone, the swordswoman struggling to hold them back, even with her sword.

We soon cleared the forest, but kept running, running onwards until we ended up into a jungle, then crossed over into the sandy shores of a desert. We kept running until the shouting of the crowd faded into the trees behind us and we were almost sure we’d lost them. My body had already been on the verge of exhaustion when we left, so at the first sign of relief, my legs crumpled, my body splashing in the sand.

“So what,” I gasped, “Are we supposed to do now?”

Slenda fell to her knees in the dirt beside me, her hands sliding down her head and pulling on her face. San rested a hand on her shoulder, a worried look in her eyes. She didn’t seem nearly as crushed by what had happened, her legs straight and her arm moving softly, caressing the admin. But her face still twinged with a certain sadness and her eyes were moist. It wasn’t the world crashing down around her, but the loss Slenda had gone through, the broken expression on her face, that’s what was getting to her.

“You can do whatever you want… Roxxie’s a jerk, and you’ve seen the damage you can do. I need to… I don’t even know, I need to find her. I need to talk to her. Something.”

San blinked, looking as if she was trying to search for something to say, but couldn’t. She didn’t seem to know Roxxie as well as Slenda did. Pain throbbed in my sides, but I pushed myself from the sand, offering Slenda my hand.

“Well, whatever it is you’re end up doing…I’ll go with you.”

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ambiguouslyliterate-blog · 6 years

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Respawn Point Ch. 3: Waifu Ruckus

"These are the crop fields. They aren't maintained especially well… The players we assign to work in them usually ditch to rp or go dungeon crawling."

It had been a few days since San and I had arrived in Weebtown. San quickly went her own way after she was healed up; the aloof creeper girl venturing into the server to go cause trouble in a way that I wasn't surprised was her standard. I was left to explore the server on my own, only occasionally bumping into her or Roxxie as I walked the streets, the pink petals of cherry blossoms blowing around my feet.

"Here are the mines. There used to be a systematic branch mining system here but now everyone just does what they want. A lot of people have even built little secret bases inside the mines, making other players pay tolls. It’s… A thing."

Weebtown was more like my home server than I'd expected; there were fields of crops, areas squared away for mining and private building, and even a few cool landmarks like the anime-haired creeper that towered over the server’s spawn point. The major difference however, was the mods. My home server, the server where I spawned, was "vanilla," meaning that mods were outlawed, although that didn’t stop the mod users that forced their way in. Either way, anyone who used a mod was seen as an outsider, which was in stark contrast to the streets I was walking now. Modded weapons, armor, special blocks, and plants littered the server, players walking by them as if they were a normal part of the world, as if they hadn't been brought into existence through an otherworldly power. It was a welcome change, even if I had to see players walking around with the occasional overly-graphic body pillow.

"What are all of these for?" I asked, looking around at the legion of bland stone buildings surrounding us. The admin chuckled.

Slenda had been taking me on a tour of the server, both of us hoping that I'd be able to find a place there, or at the very least help me socialize. Slenda didn't seem keen on either, her eyes cold and her voice tired during most of her walk. Though, I suppose I'd be just as broken if I had to run this mixed deathtrap and playground barely disguised as a functioning society. When we reached the edge of the spawn town the ornate buildings and semi-organized gave way to a sea of grey and pale colors, all belonging to buildings of nearly identical structure. They all had a similarly shaped main building with wings to either side, the walls lined with windows. Every roof had a small walkable area with a fence around it and in the dirt beside the buildings' bases there were chalk lines for some kind of sports. The only thing differentiating the buildings were the signs in front of them, all written in that indecipherable weeb language.

"Oh, these? They're all high schools."

"ALL OF THEM?!" I questioned, my mind spinning, "B- But, why?!”

Slenda shook her head, letting out a weary sigh. It didn't seem like it was the first time she'd had to break this to someone.

"That’s anime!” She said with a weak smile and a flash of her hands, “To get to all of the beauty and nuance, you need to dig through a bunch of high schools and horrible waifus."

Weebtown was the peak of superfluous, taking every unnecessary excessive element they possibly could and finding a way to squeeze it into every day server life… But high schools?! What's so exciting about high schools?! Most servers didn’t even build schools in the first place since most players spawn in with a decent amount of knowledge. But this server had what looked like thousands. It felt like being on the top of a mountain where the air thinned, except here you were left gasping for standards and moderation rather than oxygen. I didn’t even want to know what a “waifu” was. I looked to the admin; stern, tidy, straight-laced. Though I'd run into San a couple times around the server, Slenda felt a lot more tangible, for lack of a better word. It didn't feel as if asking her questions would end in cryptic answers or unrealistic spells of unconsciousness.

"Why in the Nether would you want to work in a place like this?” I asked, gazing out over the sea of bland cement and distant neon pink blossoms, trying to ignore the churning disgust in my stomach. Slenda looked at me, her thick eyebrows pulled together in a strained look of confusion. It seemed like she saw the excess, but wasn’t put off in the same way I was, or at least wasn’t on the same page, "I mean you and Roxxie are like... Normal."

Slenda tilted her head to either side, lips parting to laugh but closing as if she wasn’t ready to speak, still putting the story together, grunts and sighs filling the space. I smiled at her, glad that part of this crazy world was finally starting to budge. "Well yeah the server’s messy, but it’s not that bad, y’know? Besides, how Roxxie and I got here isn’t much of a story...”

She let out a deep sigh, scratching her head. Her expressions were more and more fluid as she spoke, her exasperated smile beginning to crack, “Me and her just got tired of the way things were run in our server that we decided to try making our own, y’know? So much land is taken up by established servers, though, so we just started looking for one to join, and we found Weebtown."

“You’ve been in Weebtown for a while then, I take it?”

The admin dusted off a stone slab bench and sat on it, smiling incredulously at herself. "No actually, we’ve only been here a few months… When we arrived, the admin was already begging people to take her place. No one here wanted the responsibility so I took the position and made Roxxie my operator. It's been non-stop weaboo nonsense ever since."

I took a seat next to her, Slenda keeping a slight distance between us, "I mean, you're one of the only normal people here and you stabbed my girl—" A finger pushed up her glasses on her nose, warmth flushing into her cheeks, “San, in the middle of the night.”

To be fair, it was her fault.

At the very least, I was glad to see that I was able to find someone to talk to in the server. Another boring straight with no interest in body pillows or honor fighting. The most significant difference between us however, seemed to be in patience. Where I could never imagine running this bizarre anime death carnival, Slenda seemed to be taking it in stride, or at least doing the best she could.

“Do you ever regret it?” I asked, “Becoming the admin, that is?”

Slenda shook her head, a smile growing on her face, just barely hidden behind her stooping shoulders and curly tufts of hair.

"No... Weebtown's a mess, but that's kinda why I like it,” She smiled, even warmer than before. It was the smile of a proud mother looking over her horrible weaboo child, "It's like a fixer-upper, you know? If I can improve things here, I'll actually be doing something really special.”

I smiled back at her and tried to close the difference between us on the bench, scooting slightly closer. Her eyelids came halfway over her eyes and she slid farther down the bench, the storm over her eyes returned. “I just wish Roxxie felt the same…”

Slenda’s voice trailed off, her eyes wandering upwards. Without a word, she left her seat on the bench, tip-toeing forward. I followed her eyes only to see a thin wisp of smoke rising over the far edge of the eastern district of high schools. Shouts could be heard as the black pillar grew, flickers of heat beginning to pour from its bottom. The admin’s eyes shot open, startled with disappointed realization.

The admin darted down the path, fumbling in her pocket for something as her feet forced her way forward. I ran behind her, trying my best to keep pace by throwing myself in the vague direction she was running, though I was completely lost to the situation. As we neared the swirling smoke and the fiery chaos at its base however, I started to remember what the guardians had mentioned before-- about San “trying to blow up the server every other week.” I gulped.

"Crap don't tell me that's--"

"Oh, it’d better not be.” Slenda growled back. She pulled a book out of her pocket, something I’d recognized as an admin’s book of names, and clutched it tight as she ran. She couldn’t be…

"THE WAIFUS ARE BURNING!!" A distant voice cried, pulling my eyes forward. The area beyond the high schools was clearer now as the excessive stone structures began to part. It was a clearing of technicolor figures, much like other sprite art displays in my home server, but with one major difference. The art wasn’t of innocent, normal things like flowers or mobs or tools, they were all of two-dimensional anime girls that towered over the eastern high schools. Some were blue-haired, some had dragon tails, some cat ears, but all had ridiculous outfits and horrifying cleavage. So that’s what a waifu is… I pondered, my face twisting as I followed behind Slenda, Maybe we could just… Let this place burn?

Weebs ran back and forth under the amber flames, buckets of water and blocks of dirt in their hands that they were using to snuff the flames, though the blaze seemed too much for the disheveled otakus to handle on their own. In the center of the havoc stood a cloaked figure; dark fabric swirled around their body, tossed by the wind. Their hood was pinned in the front by a skull-shaped steel pendant and chain, the little light that glinted off the face shining like a steely grin. The figure stepped forward, followed by one or two weebs, breaking off from the crowds of onlookers. Slenda moved to address the cloaked weaboo but he spoke first, cutting her off with a voice that was such a stark departure from his form it felt like it put a crack in the air. It was somewhere between the shrill cry of a cat and that of a gossiping old woman. It was the kind of voice you’d imagine an old yellowed skull to have, not a living player.

“No need to worry, administrator. We’ve got things under control here.”

His voice may have been annoying, but looking behind him, I found that he wasn’t completely wrong. Though the blaze still roared, the players had been pushing it back, or at least keeping it contained. But, why would he hold someone back from helping, especially Slenda? Weebs climbed and jumped along the structures, some crowding around their feet to stare upwards in disheveled awe while others went to stand behind the cloaked man, their eyes burning a hole through us and their hands restless. Slenda took a heavy breath, pushing a loose tuft of hair back behind the side of her glasses.

“Well, I have to admit,” She said, still gasping from our run up here, “I wouldn’t expect the leader of a weeb gang to do such a good cleanup job, Desu Skull.”

I shook my head. Excuse me, WHAT?

“It’s pronounced Deathzu Skuru.” The cloaked figure gave a fake cough, a hand on his hip, his other hand gesticulating dramatically in the air. His primadonna-of-the-undead voice seemed a perfect fit, “But that’s close enough I guess...”

As I continued to survey the scene behind the sassy skull-faced weirdo, something suddenly caught my eye. There was a structure of iron beside one of the waifus, a hasty assemblage of iron bars like a makeshift cage. There was a blue and green form inside, one that instantly pulled me in. I leaned in to try and get a closer look but “Deathzu Skuru” stepped in front of me, his arms outstretched. He was closer now, and I could see two white lights inside of his hood, glowing brightly, offensively. “Now now, you really don’t have to be here. We’ve got this all handled.”

Slenda strode through his hasty blockade, a look of impassioned disapproval on her face. It didn’t take long for the image within the cage to become clear to us, the neon blue mass of hair flipping to the side to reveal San’s dumb grin.

“Hey guys! I’m being detained!”

“YOU LET HER OUT RIGHT NOW!” Slenda barked, spinning on her heel to face the hooded head honcho. Deathuzu Skuyuru (or however you pronounce his name) simply stood and laughed, his snicker growing to a high, overpowering cackle. He moved a metal-clawed hand to pull back his hood, revealing his face--or rather—a mask. He wore an iron mask in the shape of a skull without a lower jaw, the teeth extending to a cartoonish exaggerated length. A white skull was painted on the metal forehead (because I guess the skull-shaped mask wasn’t enough) and in front of his eyes he wore a pair of sunglasses, each lens of which had a holographic skull sticker that shined a powerful white in sunlight. I wasn’t surprised by the weeb’s outfit at this point, given the other players in the server. Just disappointed.

“IF we let out this little troublemaker, she’ll just do something like this again, and again, and again! You definitely don’t seem intent on doing anything about it. You just give her a slap on the wrist!”

“It isn’t your decision!” Slenda snapped, pulling back out her book of usernames, “I’m the admin here and I decide how griefers here are punished. If you do anything to her, I’ll ban you for PvP in a neutral area, Death Skull!”

The skull-faced vigilante coughed again, “Deathzu Skuru… BUT ANYWAY, you can’t ban me unless I’ve already attacked her, and so you’ll be unable to stop me with my mod—“ The cloaked figure spoke laboriously, epically, reaching into his sleeve. He pulled out a sleek black weapon that fit snugly in his hand, its squared end pointed towards the sky like some ancient and powerful obelisk, “A GUN! THAT KILLS YOU!!”

“YOU FIEND!” Slenda gasped.

That could literally be any weapon, I thought, it’s functionally the same as a bow and arrow why would you even mod that? I rolled my eyes, materializing one of Zolo’s swords in my hands. It barely took any thought to summon my mod anymore, the last weapon I copied appearing instantly, like the press of a button. Like a reflex. “Okay, this is dumb,” I interjected, “Can I just like beat him up or something?” I stepped forward and Desu Skull flailed back, yelping at the weapon in my palm, his gun waggling in every direction. “Hey! Careful with that thing, normy! That’s a dangerous weapon!”

He stuck his feet firmly on the ground, his arm straightening, pointing his firearm at San’s cage like an arrow. I stepped forward, twirling the sword in my hand like a bat, the steel slicing the air. It was only then that I began to think about how little training or understanding I had of swordplay, but I hoped it would work out. These things usually… Well. Okay, maybe I did have reason to be worried.

Slenda would have to punish me somehow for fighting Desu Skull, and I’d probably end up injuring a stray weeb or two, but I figured it was worth it. Maybe it was a weakness of mine, but I couldn’t stand jerks like him bullying other players just to make a point. If I couldn’t kill him, I was hoping at the very least I could give get him away from San, get her to safety, even if it meant getting myself in trouble.

Slenda grabbed the back of my collar, yanking me back and growling at me through gritted teeth, “I know you like stabbing my players, but this situation is a bit more complicated than that, “Cyrustheslayer.”’ I could swear I saw the weeb’s skull mask smirk at us. I scowled at him. This situation felt too familiar to me. Standing across from a twisted modder with a metal mask and a bizarre sense of justice, “We can’t let him kill San. There has to be another way to handle this.”

I pulled my sword to my side, but didn’t despawn it. It still didn’t make sense to me why Slenda was so protective of San; threatening to ban players who hadn’t done anything to her, scolding those who put her in even mild danger, even though she could respawn. I’d heard of players before who couldn’t respawn, whose deaths were permanent, but they all lived in special servers, “hardcore” servers. Was San a hardcore player too? I clenched my sword, ready to take Desu Skull down. Just in case.

Desu Skull cocked his head and chuckled, observing Slenda’s leash-like hold on me. “Oh! Well. I wasn’t expecting you to just let me exact vigilante justice, but I guess it do be like that sometimes!” The modder waved his gun around joyously, nearly dropping it.

“That’s not what I meant!” Slenda cried back.

“NOW WATCH, ADMIN! AS I MAKE YOUR HORRIBLE WAIFU DISAPPEA--”

Desu Skull looked dramatically towards San’s cage, his shades narrowed down the sights of his modded firearm, only to see empty space. A cage with no captive, a hole carved in the bars. “Wh- Wha--” His gun shook in his hand, first with confusion, then with frustration, then with anger. The weeb stomped his foot, pointing at members of his gang who stood in the crowd, crying out and demanding an answer to where she was, , “CAN’T I TRUST MY GOONS TO PERFORM ONE SIMPLE TASK?! WHICH ONE OF YOU LET HER OUT, HUH? STEP FORWARD!”

As Desu Skull spoke the air began to swirl, the air hot, dry, and unnatural. It was as if the air around us was angry. Just as Desu Gun moved to point his gun towards us, to threaten us for an answer, a searing gust burst through the air between our two groups, sending bodies flying in every direction. Burning air whipped around us as if we’d been caught in a tornado, throwing us against nearby walls and dispersing the crowd of weebs like a sand castle kicked by a beach bully. The only thing left standing was Desu Skull, his steel-armored body resolute against the supernatural winds. A figure appeared in the hot, swirling cloud behind him, eyes glowing with yellow fire. The figure’s hand reached out, taking the gun in her iron grip.

Roxxie crushed the gun in her hand, the firearm bubbling out from its corners like hot wax. Death Skull tried to break away but Roxxie pulled him close, her flaming claws moving forward against his verbal protests. Trails of broken flame came up from her eyes, her ponytail bursting into a flaming halo. “N- Now now, no need to be a tsundere..!” He gasped, trying and failing to wrench his hand away from her grip. Though Slenda and I were both pushed against the cement of a high school’s outer wall, Slenda pulled herself to her feet, pushing off and trudging through the harsh wind.

“Lucky for you guys, I just happened to be in the area.” Roxxie grinned, holding her prize high like a hunter. San stepped out from behind her, waving at Slenda. Desu Skull managed to writhe out of Roxxie’s grip only to end up in the dirt where Roxxie pinned him under her boot. The operator smirked down at him, then looked up to give a beaming smile to Slenda.

“Roxxie, let him go!” Slenda cried.

“What, are you’re saying we should just let him off?” She questioned, her tone stirred with a genuine confusion. The operator grimaced, pushing Desu Skull’s steely mask farther into the dirt, “He just tried to execute San for a crime she didn’t even commit! We’re supposed to just let crap like that fly?”

I hoisted myself up, summoning a sword to anchor myself in the dirt, and another to pull myself forward, bringing myself closer to the pillar of flame. One overpowered jerk down and one to go, I guess. I grunted against the whipping gusts. Streaks of flame were beginning to form as well, falling from her body like streamers and spinning in the air around the scene like the beginning of a fiery hurricane.

“Just let him go!” I yelled, Roxxie’s eyes snapping to me in condescending surprise. Slenda stared at me, her half-lidded eyes as unamused as Roxxie’s, as if this was their private squabble. I wondered how many times they’d done this, “I don’t like this guy either but it’s not like being a dick isn’t going to make the players like you any better!”

The operator growled, turning to Slenda. The fires were beginning to die around her as her expression became more weary, “Slenda, you know if we keep letting them do more and more of this, the server’s just going to fall apart!”

“I don’t care!” Slenda cried back, clutching her book of names tightly in her hand, “We can’t do stuff like this!! We are not like this!” Roxxie squinted at her, the fire in her eyes burning brightly, flickers of the flame flying back from her face in streams. Though I felt less than intimidating being that I was pitted against this experienced mod user, I pointed a sword in her direction, holding firmly onto the one I had planted in the ground. Together, me and Slenda stared her down until she reluctantly released the weeb from under her, stuffing her hands in her pockets. She plunged them deep, as if resisting the urge to hurl a fireball at the rebellious weaboo as he rose to his feet, dusting off his cloak. “The admin’s right, Roxxie, that was rather rude of you.” The skeletal loser sneered, tossing the melted remains of his weapon into the dirt. I felt a blood vessel pulse with opposition from deep within my brain.

“However,” The skull-faced gangster interjected, reaching for a black shape that materialized within his cloak, “It is going to take hundreds of man hours to restore the damage done to these precious murals, so I’m afraid as an honorable weeb my hands are still tied--!”

Before any of us could react, a shot rang out, Slenda shrieking as the bullet grazed the top of Roxxie’s forehead, sending her flying back, the fire in her eyes bursting. Desu Skull then turned to us, his gun pointed right between right between my eyes.

“BAN GUNGALEFREAK10. PvP in a neutral zone.”

Slenda clapped her book of usernames shut and after a second’s pause, Desu Skull became a blur of grey, his body launched at an incomprehensible speed towards the server boundaries. Roxxie laughed, smiling coldly as she brought her eyes level with ours, blood trickling down her forehead. San soon came down a path to the side, seemingly gleefully unaware of just how much trouble she’d caused, her eyes beaming as she caught Slenda.

As she passed by Roxxie however, the operator caught her shoulder, laughing as she spoke to her, “Sorry for all of this by the way, didn’t mean for you to get in so much danger.”

San smiled and folded her arms behind her head, seemingly content just to be caught up in all the drama. I turned to Slenda, only to see her eyes brimming with purple fire, her knuckles white on the book she clasped in her hand. She stomped towards her administrator, ignoring San, her body moving like a loosed arrow towards her target.

“Excuse me Roxxie, what in the Nether did you just say?” Slenda questioned through gritted teeth to a smiling operator.

“I set the fires,” Roxxie said with a shrug, as if it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Slenda looked like she was going to erupt, “I got tired of looking at all of those waifus and figured I could just get rid of them. If any of the high schools caught fire I’d consider it an added bonus.”

Slenda grabbed her by the collar, pulling her close enough for the blood from Roxxie’s forehead to drip onto the round lenses of her glasses. I tried getting closer, but I realized there was nothing I could do. This wasn’t an isolated event, but the last straw of a fight they’d been having for months. “YOU CAN’T JUST DO THAT!” Slenda screamed into Roxxie’s face, her arms shaking.

“And why not?” Roxxie chimed back, squinting at the admin, “I’m the second most powerful person in this server since I’m your only operator. I should be able to start controlled burns like this! It’s cleaning up land that we run!”

Roxxie shook Slenda from her collar, staring daggers for a few seconds before finally stomping off. She launched into the air with a burst of flame, flying to some unseen corner of the server like a loosed arrow. Her eyes wet with anger and exhaustion, Slenda collapsed to her knees, San running to her side.

“You okay Slenda?” Asked San, her hand moving instinctively to pet Slenda’s mounds of curly dark brown hair.

The admin smiled at her, wrapping her arms around the creeper girl. “I should be asking you that, you doofus. You almost got shot!”

“I probably woulda been fine,” she smirked back, burrowing her forehead into the admin’s like an overly blunt eskimo kiss. The two smiled, giggling at each other for a few seconds, but Slenda seemed to be holding onto something. Her face never seemed to pull into a full smile, her eyes always a little strained, pointed just over San’s shoulder.

She was worried about the operator, or more accurately, what she was going to do. And so was I. Shivering, I looked to the stream of smoke that followed Roxxie, my stomach churning. Weebtown was just like home to me now… The only problem was, it was just like home.

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