Before Beezy and Serena could react the twin heads of the newly formed
Chimera let loose with a set of fireballs aimed directly at them. Thinking
quickly beezy positioned himself between Serena and the attack. He brought
his swords up in front of his body and crossed them in order to block the
fireballs but was still thrown back by the force of the blast. He and
Serena both fell to the ground as they colided.
The Chimera extended its wings to their full span as it roared into the virtual night. "Much better," it growled. "This form is much more appealing then those two weaker ones. I can see why those two young men used this tactic to try and save themselves. It was obviosly futile though as they still died."
"And how did you kill them?" Serena asked, stalling for time as she and Beezy pushed themselves to their feet. "Did you use the avatars of the other users that you killed or did you use your own body and kill them yourself?"
"That would make it very easy for you wouldn't it?" The growling voice of the Chmera responed to her with a question of its own. "If the program that you were hunting came in the form of some monster right? Something that you could just eliminate and then go back to your normal life?"
"What are you trying to say?" Beezy asked.
"Nothing," came the gutteral reply. "You're just too eager to see this problem as black and white, dilemma and solution."
"What is it then," Serena said. "If not that?"
"A trap," the monster replied calmly as it lashed out with a massive claw. Serena ducked and rolled under the Chimera's swiping attack as Beezy leaped up and over it, aiming him swords to attack the winged beast from above.
"Riryoku!" beezy shouted just before he tried to drive his into the monster. But instead of the familiar glow that came the last time, ntohing happened. Before his attack could strike the Chimera flapped its huge winged and jumped out of the way forcing Beezy to slam into the ground.
"Too bad Beezy, you should know better then to try the same trick twice," the Chimera taunted. As it moved forward to strike Beezy a sword came flying and spinning through the air, slicing the base of a nereby tree and causing it to crash to the ground, right between the Sword Hunter and the Flying Mythical Beast.
The sword boomeranged itself perfectly into the hands of the waiting Serena. "I thought I was the one you wanted?"
"Oh you are," the twins heads spoke in unison. It turned from the fallen tree to face Serena, only a dozen or so meters from her. "But you can't help my desire to epand my essence into a new avatar, can you?"
"No, I can't," She conceeded. "But you're not going to. You're not going to expand your essense, or whatever the hell you want to call hte murder of individuals. You're going to be eliminated."
"Kaiba, you don't understand, but I will enjoy seeing the look on your face when you realize what is going on." It roared and lunged at her, its claws glinting in the moonlight.
"Mirror Wall!" Serena shouted. Before the claws could find her a glass shield grew up out of the ground in front of Serena, cutting off her attacker in its tracks. "Now Beezy!" As the Chimera was frozen in place, locked by its own relfection Beezy leaped from behind the fallen tree and landed between the two heads, a sword in each hand. Seconds later the heads fell from the beasts necks and in a digital explosion the Mythical Beast was gone, leaving Beezy kneeling alone where the monster had stood just before. The Mirror Wall fell and Serena stepped forward to help Beezy to his feet. "Good job," she told him.
He looked at the ground. "I screwed up, and I don't even know why."
"What do you mean?"
"My support ability. It didn't work the second time I tried to use it."
"It's not your fault. I should have explained it befroe we logged in. Each support ability has a limited number of uses, power points. the rarer and more powerful the card is the fewer number of times that you can use it. Riryoku is a very rare card so you only got one power point."
"So I won't be ablt to use Riryoku at all anymore?"
"No,no," Serena said, shaking her head. "The power points of the support cards regenerate over time." She watched Beezy sheath his swords and then she pointed to the horizon behind him. "There's a city system just outside the woods in that direction. It's used as a rest area for user characters where they aren't attacked by monsters, and is also used as a transit hub to the other servers." They began to walk through the field towards the city. Beezy was silent as they walked. "Something else bothering you?"
"The world isn't as cut and dry as I thought it would be."
"How so?"
"I mean those monsters we just faced; the Gazelle, Berfomet and even the Chimera. In the real Duel Monsters game they're all weaker monsters. I should have been able to destroy them all without any help."
"Well when this world was first created it was very much like the real duel monsters game; get a monster stronger then your opponent and destroy it, but this time we wanted something more realistic, a richer experience that anyone could play no matter how strong the monsters they had were. But something was different about the Chimera, it was stronger then we intended to make it." Serena stopped dead in her tracks when the field went dark. The two of them looked up to see the snaking form of a monster flying across the sky, blocking out the moonlight and casting its shadow to the ground below.
"That was," Beezy started to speak. "That was a Serpent Night Dragon right?"
Serena swallowed hard in her digital body. "Yes, and it was headed straight for the city, and our only way out."
* * *
"A trap."
"What?" Serena asked, turing her head to look at Beezy as they walked. They had just about reached the edge of Tropius City, the forest server's transit hub. It hadn't been long ago that they had seen plumes of smoke and the amber glow of flames over the city walls.
"Chimera said it was a trap," Beezy continued.
"I know."
"So don't you think what we're about to do is a little foolish? Walkin straight into what is almost positively going to be yet another trap?"
"I don't care," answered Serena, shaking her head. "There are still hundreds of people trapped in this game."
"None of whom you can help if you die by leaping into battle after battle without thinking." Beezy stepped in front of Serena. "They know who you are. That Chimera referred to you by name. And for some reason that means that they need you."
"We need to help those people."
"I'm not saying that. What I'm asking you going to go so far in your crusade to save these people that you have to die?"
"Yes!" she shouted. "Is that what you wanted to hear? That I'm willing to get killed to save people because it is my fault that they're having this problem.
"You're carrying too much guilt about this program. Yes you created it, but it is not your fault. You have to be careful. You said it yourself, people are dead. And if you don't some at this with a clear head then you're going to get yourself killed."
Serena took a deep breath. "Then you're going to have to make sure that I keep a clear head."
"I promise."
The door of them walked up to the twins doors of the city walls. "Ready?" Serena asked Beezy. He nodded. They grabbed a hold of one of the doors and pulled them open. What they found inside was nothing short of mayhem; buildings and shops everywhere were on fire and falling apart. Serena and Beezy stepped cautiously through the rubble, examining the city and looking for any signs of survivors.
"It's hard to imagine that one Serpent Night Dragon could cause all this damage."
"It didn't," replied Serena. "Look over there." Beezy peered through the rising smoke that was crawling off the wreckage; he could make out shapes behind the plumes. Several small shaodws were moving around in hte air and one medium sized one was in the center. He couldn't make out any features but could hear the sounds of fighting. Suddenly there was the sound of an explosion and the larger shadow was thrown throught the smoke and landed at Serena and Beezy's feet, unmoving.
"A Fire Princess," Beezy said as he regonized the form.
"Vega!" Serena shouted, pushing past Beezy and dropping to the girl's side. "Vega wake up! C'mon girl!"
"You know her?"
"Yes," Serena replied as she rested on her knees beside the unconcious girl. "She was in Battle City. She left after she lost to Fader. She showed some good technical expertise so I asked her to join the Duel Monsters Online Project. She was the first user."
"She's the first DMO user? But DMO went online weeks ago, has she been inside the game that whole time?"
"Not the whole time," Serena explained. "She and I went through the initial trial runs of the game together. Nothing wrong was happening so I went back to Fader's home to spend more time with him and we launched the game. Then the problems started happening, and the first death. Fader and I were at home when I found out, about a week before he fell into his coma. She volunteered to go in and investigate the problem. Because she had the most experience with the program I didn't object. I was going to go in with her, but she said I didn't need to worry about it." Serena paused as more explosions could be heard. "We lost contact with her after that. She never logged out. She's been trapped in the simulation ever since. And with all the problems with Fader's coma and the trip to Egypt with Evo I couldn't come to help her. I was worried she was dead." Serena turned from Beezy back to Vega's still form, trying to wake her up.
"Serena," Beezy shouted at her. "I know you're worried about your friend but we've got another problem." he drew his swords and took a battle posture facing where Vega had been thrown from. Through the smoke the smaller shadows they had seen before pushed their way towards them.
"Kuribohs," Serena announced. She got to her feet and drew her own sword. "Careful, the Kuriboh's attack by exploding on contact."
He nodded. "I know." The two of them rushed forward to engage their tiny adversaries. Beezy jumped ahead a few paces, tearing thorugh the first two with quick, pecision strikes. Serena used her own sword to dispatch another of the small, furry attackers. She then saw another Kuriboh pass through the smoke and head for Beezy, whose back was turned as he attacked more of the fiends. Without any time to give warning she jumped and dove at her partner, knocking him to the ground and taking the force of the exploding Kuriboh herself. Stunned she was knocked off her feet. Beezy rolled to a standing position just in time to destory two other Kuribohs that were trying to attack Serena. Taking a quick look around and seeing no other Kuriboh he went to Serena's side.
"I'm fine," she said as she got up off the ground. "I just have to wait for the Horn of Heaven to stop trumpeting in my head." She looked around. "I don't hear any more explosions. All the Kuribohs are gone."
"Not all of them," Beezy said pointing behind Serena. She turned and saw what Beezy was talking about. A single Kuriboh was floating in the air. "One more furball left, then we can turn our attention to the real threat, the Serpent Night Dragon. Stay back. I can handle this one."
"Wait Beezy!" The Kuriboh began to glow. "I don't think it's going to be that easy," She tried to warn him. He stopped his attack shot in time to see the single Kuriboh split into two, then to four, and then to eight as it continued to multiply to even larger and larger numbers. "At the rate these Kuriboh are multiplying they'll wear us out long before we can even worry about the dragon."
The Chimera extended its wings to their full span as it roared into the virtual night. "Much better," it growled. "This form is much more appealing then those two weaker ones. I can see why those two young men used this tactic to try and save themselves. It was obviosly futile though as they still died."
"And how did you kill them?" Serena asked, stalling for time as she and Beezy pushed themselves to their feet. "Did you use the avatars of the other users that you killed or did you use your own body and kill them yourself?"
"That would make it very easy for you wouldn't it?" The growling voice of the Chmera responed to her with a question of its own. "If the program that you were hunting came in the form of some monster right? Something that you could just eliminate and then go back to your normal life?"
"What are you trying to say?" Beezy asked.
"Nothing," came the gutteral reply. "You're just too eager to see this problem as black and white, dilemma and solution."
"What is it then," Serena said. "If not that?"
"A trap," the monster replied calmly as it lashed out with a massive claw. Serena ducked and rolled under the Chimera's swiping attack as Beezy leaped up and over it, aiming him swords to attack the winged beast from above.
"Riryoku!" beezy shouted just before he tried to drive his into the monster. But instead of the familiar glow that came the last time, ntohing happened. Before his attack could strike the Chimera flapped its huge winged and jumped out of the way forcing Beezy to slam into the ground.
"Too bad Beezy, you should know better then to try the same trick twice," the Chimera taunted. As it moved forward to strike Beezy a sword came flying and spinning through the air, slicing the base of a nereby tree and causing it to crash to the ground, right between the Sword Hunter and the Flying Mythical Beast.
The sword boomeranged itself perfectly into the hands of the waiting Serena. "I thought I was the one you wanted?"
"Oh you are," the twins heads spoke in unison. It turned from the fallen tree to face Serena, only a dozen or so meters from her. "But you can't help my desire to epand my essence into a new avatar, can you?"
"No, I can't," She conceeded. "But you're not going to. You're not going to expand your essense, or whatever the hell you want to call hte murder of individuals. You're going to be eliminated."
"Kaiba, you don't understand, but I will enjoy seeing the look on your face when you realize what is going on." It roared and lunged at her, its claws glinting in the moonlight.
"Mirror Wall!" Serena shouted. Before the claws could find her a glass shield grew up out of the ground in front of Serena, cutting off her attacker in its tracks. "Now Beezy!" As the Chimera was frozen in place, locked by its own relfection Beezy leaped from behind the fallen tree and landed between the two heads, a sword in each hand. Seconds later the heads fell from the beasts necks and in a digital explosion the Mythical Beast was gone, leaving Beezy kneeling alone where the monster had stood just before. The Mirror Wall fell and Serena stepped forward to help Beezy to his feet. "Good job," she told him.
He looked at the ground. "I screwed up, and I don't even know why."
"What do you mean?"
"My support ability. It didn't work the second time I tried to use it."
"It's not your fault. I should have explained it befroe we logged in. Each support ability has a limited number of uses, power points. the rarer and more powerful the card is the fewer number of times that you can use it. Riryoku is a very rare card so you only got one power point."
"So I won't be ablt to use Riryoku at all anymore?"
"No,no," Serena said, shaking her head. "The power points of the support cards regenerate over time." She watched Beezy sheath his swords and then she pointed to the horizon behind him. "There's a city system just outside the woods in that direction. It's used as a rest area for user characters where they aren't attacked by monsters, and is also used as a transit hub to the other servers." They began to walk through the field towards the city. Beezy was silent as they walked. "Something else bothering you?"
"The world isn't as cut and dry as I thought it would be."
"How so?"
"I mean those monsters we just faced; the Gazelle, Berfomet and even the Chimera. In the real Duel Monsters game they're all weaker monsters. I should have been able to destroy them all without any help."
"Well when this world was first created it was very much like the real duel monsters game; get a monster stronger then your opponent and destroy it, but this time we wanted something more realistic, a richer experience that anyone could play no matter how strong the monsters they had were. But something was different about the Chimera, it was stronger then we intended to make it." Serena stopped dead in her tracks when the field went dark. The two of them looked up to see the snaking form of a monster flying across the sky, blocking out the moonlight and casting its shadow to the ground below.
"That was," Beezy started to speak. "That was a Serpent Night Dragon right?"
Serena swallowed hard in her digital body. "Yes, and it was headed straight for the city, and our only way out."
* * *
"A trap."
"What?" Serena asked, turing her head to look at Beezy as they walked. They had just about reached the edge of Tropius City, the forest server's transit hub. It hadn't been long ago that they had seen plumes of smoke and the amber glow of flames over the city walls.
"Chimera said it was a trap," Beezy continued.
"I know."
"So don't you think what we're about to do is a little foolish? Walkin straight into what is almost positively going to be yet another trap?"
"I don't care," answered Serena, shaking her head. "There are still hundreds of people trapped in this game."
"None of whom you can help if you die by leaping into battle after battle without thinking." Beezy stepped in front of Serena. "They know who you are. That Chimera referred to you by name. And for some reason that means that they need you."
"We need to help those people."
"I'm not saying that. What I'm asking you going to go so far in your crusade to save these people that you have to die?"
"Yes!" she shouted. "Is that what you wanted to hear? That I'm willing to get killed to save people because it is my fault that they're having this problem.
"You're carrying too much guilt about this program. Yes you created it, but it is not your fault. You have to be careful. You said it yourself, people are dead. And if you don't some at this with a clear head then you're going to get yourself killed."
Serena took a deep breath. "Then you're going to have to make sure that I keep a clear head."
"I promise."
The door of them walked up to the twins doors of the city walls. "Ready?" Serena asked Beezy. He nodded. They grabbed a hold of one of the doors and pulled them open. What they found inside was nothing short of mayhem; buildings and shops everywhere were on fire and falling apart. Serena and Beezy stepped cautiously through the rubble, examining the city and looking for any signs of survivors.
"It's hard to imagine that one Serpent Night Dragon could cause all this damage."
"It didn't," replied Serena. "Look over there." Beezy peered through the rising smoke that was crawling off the wreckage; he could make out shapes behind the plumes. Several small shaodws were moving around in hte air and one medium sized one was in the center. He couldn't make out any features but could hear the sounds of fighting. Suddenly there was the sound of an explosion and the larger shadow was thrown throught the smoke and landed at Serena and Beezy's feet, unmoving.
"A Fire Princess," Beezy said as he regonized the form.
"Vega!" Serena shouted, pushing past Beezy and dropping to the girl's side. "Vega wake up! C'mon girl!"
"You know her?"
"Yes," Serena replied as she rested on her knees beside the unconcious girl. "She was in Battle City. She left after she lost to Fader. She showed some good technical expertise so I asked her to join the Duel Monsters Online Project. She was the first user."
"She's the first DMO user? But DMO went online weeks ago, has she been inside the game that whole time?"
"Not the whole time," Serena explained. "She and I went through the initial trial runs of the game together. Nothing wrong was happening so I went back to Fader's home to spend more time with him and we launched the game. Then the problems started happening, and the first death. Fader and I were at home when I found out, about a week before he fell into his coma. She volunteered to go in and investigate the problem. Because she had the most experience with the program I didn't object. I was going to go in with her, but she said I didn't need to worry about it." Serena paused as more explosions could be heard. "We lost contact with her after that. She never logged out. She's been trapped in the simulation ever since. And with all the problems with Fader's coma and the trip to Egypt with Evo I couldn't come to help her. I was worried she was dead." Serena turned from Beezy back to Vega's still form, trying to wake her up.
"Serena," Beezy shouted at her. "I know you're worried about your friend but we've got another problem." he drew his swords and took a battle posture facing where Vega had been thrown from. Through the smoke the smaller shadows they had seen before pushed their way towards them.
"Kuribohs," Serena announced. She got to her feet and drew her own sword. "Careful, the Kuriboh's attack by exploding on contact."
He nodded. "I know." The two of them rushed forward to engage their tiny adversaries. Beezy jumped ahead a few paces, tearing thorugh the first two with quick, pecision strikes. Serena used her own sword to dispatch another of the small, furry attackers. She then saw another Kuriboh pass through the smoke and head for Beezy, whose back was turned as he attacked more of the fiends. Without any time to give warning she jumped and dove at her partner, knocking him to the ground and taking the force of the exploding Kuriboh herself. Stunned she was knocked off her feet. Beezy rolled to a standing position just in time to destory two other Kuribohs that were trying to attack Serena. Taking a quick look around and seeing no other Kuriboh he went to Serena's side.
"I'm fine," she said as she got up off the ground. "I just have to wait for the Horn of Heaven to stop trumpeting in my head." She looked around. "I don't hear any more explosions. All the Kuribohs are gone."
"Not all of them," Beezy said pointing behind Serena. She turned and saw what Beezy was talking about. A single Kuriboh was floating in the air. "One more furball left, then we can turn our attention to the real threat, the Serpent Night Dragon. Stay back. I can handle this one."
"Wait Beezy!" The Kuriboh began to glow. "I don't think it's going to be that easy," She tried to warn him. He stopped his attack shot in time to see the single Kuriboh split into two, then to four, and then to eight as it continued to multiply to even larger and larger numbers. "At the rate these Kuriboh are multiplying they'll wear us out long before we can even worry about the dragon."