Asuna held the black crystal in the air allowing everyone to see it, however by the looks of sheer confusion on the faces of the people on the outside of the dark shield it had produced you could quickly see that no-one had any idea what had just happened or what the item Asuna held in her hand was. She slowly sheathed her white and blue rapier in its red sheath and began to slowly walk towards the dark, glass like dome which now contained the ten surviving members of the player killing guild. She walked up towards the barrier, still with the crystal raised and stared down at the spear-man who was looking at her with a look of pure hatred, while the others sat on the ground knowing they couldn't do anything more.
"This is a containment crystal!" She shouted to the surrounding players and loud enough to be heard through the barrier. "It is used to capture monsters, or in this case players and it allows me to teleport them to any given location which I have explored. This specific one is one of the rarest of these crystals, it reflects any damage dealt to it back to the item that caused the initial damage. Obviously your spear was too weak to withstand the blow back damage from its own attack." She waited a few seconds for this to sink in before continuing. "Now that we know where we stand let me ask you one question, Why? Why has you and your dammed guild killed so many innocent players seemingly without remorse or mercy. Why? Just tell me why?" She asked the question, still shouting but obviously holding back her sheer anger and disgust at these murderers.
A visible smile could be seen on the spear-man's face as she shouted the question at him, while one or two of his guild-mates could be heard laughing absurdly as if the answer was right in her face. "You want to know why we did all of this." The spear-man started speaking, muffled slightly by the dome's wall. "If we are in a world that knows no rules, who says that killing another is a crime. In a world created by a single man, shouldn't that single man be responsible for the thing he created and not how those cursed people within it have to do within it to survive and progress. And the only thing that proves that we die in real life is what that single creator has told us, no real proof, for all we know we've been sending people back to the happy world of reality. When this is all over Akihabara is going to be jailed or killed, not those who simply used his program." He ended with a short laugh and a slight bow of his head as if this was a large stage on which he was playing his part.
Asuna's free hand clenched into a tight fist, turning her knuckles a whitish colour, some were either still trying to take in and understand what had been said while some had understood what he had just preached and were looking at the murderers with absolute disgust and a slight surprise. They're reason for everything they had been doing was that in the big scheme of things they would not be held responsible for what happened to their victims when we finally ended this game and when the survivors of this game returned to the real world.
Asuna opened her mouth once more to say something to the murderers trapped in the dome when a slight beeping sound interupted her and a small white panel appeared in the air in front of her. With a few irritated swipes at the panel she opened a slightly bigger panel with what looked to be a long list visible, she quickly scrolled down it until she reached the last item on the list, the letters were highlighted in a bright red. For a few seconds she stood there with her finger hovering slightly over the panel before swiping her arm to the side, ridding her of it. She clenched her fist once more and stared down at the spear-man who was still looking smug behind the barrier.
"I am correct in saying that your leader went under the username of PoH?" She asked with a forced slowness and heavy breathing. The spear-man simply looked at her with his smug smile and began to laugh once more, this time it was much colder, much harsher, the joyousness of his previous speech seemingly vanished at the mention of the name.
"You've lost girly, you and your wannabe crusaders have lost to us once again." What he said was simple yet it hit hard to the players standing around the dome. We had let their leader escape from us, the man who created the killers guild, who had convinced these murderers to do what they were doing, was gone. Asuna strengthened her hold on the crystal making it shatter into hundreds of sharp splinters of the dark stone, as the black crystal shattered in her hand three small and flickering purple flames rose into the air to form a triangle facing the centre of the dome. The three flames began to get brighter and bright pink strands of light lashed out from the flames together, connecting themselves to each of the other flames and it began to spin. It started spinning slowly but it got faster and faster, as it got faster a ball of dark red light began to build up in the centre of the floating triangle. By the time the triangle was now a blur of speed the red light had reached where the flames would have been and without another second of waiting it shot out a massive beam of red energy at the dome.
The red light spread around the dome completely engulfing it, within a few seconds it was a ball of dazzling light before it vanished with a loud crack. The dome had disappeared leaving a gauge in the earth where the dome had tunnelled underground to create a capture sphere, wherever the crystal had sent the defeated killers a large chunk of hard earth had gone with them.
Asuna stood looking at the empty space for a few seconds before quickly turning on her heels and angrily began walking to the entrance of the battle ground back towards the mountain pass which we had entered through. "I expect all of you to be at tomorrow's dungeon meeting! We need to tell the others what happened and get back to finishing this dammed reality!" Asuna shouted over her shoulder in her usual authoritave, yet unusually hostile tone to the players still standing around as if waiting for something to happen.
For me I stood there frozen looking at the scar that had been left in the ground, it had taken Oliver's prized axe through with the killers when it teleported. I slowly walked over to the edge of the small crater looking into the centre, still not truly realising what had just happened, Oliver was dead and nothing left of him remained in in this world apart from his store which would now lie empty, a body with out a soul or heart. I looked away and up towards the rocky cliff where the ambush team had been sent to flank our enemies, now all I could see was a few weapons reflecting the light of the falling sun. As I looked at the dropped weapons I spotted a red shield next to a grey short sword, weapons I recognised to be the ones that Andrew B had been fighting with as he fell to the merciless spear-man.
I turned to move over to the cliff but a firm grip on my shoulder stopped me, I looked over my shoulder to see Sky standing behind me, sorrow in her eyes, and with tears just visible in the corners of her eyes. However I reached over and gently moved her hand from my shoulder, with a surprising ease considering the strength of her grip and began to walk over to the cliff face. The cliff face was approximately 10 meters high and had enough extruding rocks for it to be climbable. With an unrealistic simplicity I manoeuvred my way up the cliff face and dragged my self up next to a large battle axe.
I picked the axe up with both hands and held it above my head for a few seconds before ploughing it into the ground, shattering the axe head causing the whole weapon to burst into a flurry of glowing particles which drifted away into the air. I then slowly moved over to the red shield and sword, all that was now left of one of my oldest friends, nothing more than metal and paint in a fantasy world. I picked up the light sword by the soft leather grip and stabbed it blade first into the hard ground, the blade sliced through the dirt and rock and stuck in place. I then picked up the shockingly heavy shield and laid it upwards against his sword.
I slowly got up from the ground and stood back a few paces, I then lowered my head, arms at my side and with closed eyes, fighting back my swelling emotions at this final warrior's homage to a fallen comrade and friend. To my side I heard someone dragging themselves up from the cliff face, however I didn't bother opening my eyes to the sound. But within a few short footsteps from whoever the source of the sound was I was enveloped in a huge embrace, I returned the embrace resting my head on their cold armoured shoulder and stood there crying as the mountains descended into the darkness of night.