The PVP zone is a mostly destroyed
city that’s a lesser version of the cities of today. It’s from the 2000s so
about a hundred years ago. Players face each other in this city for loot, equipment,
and money. The better you do, the better stuff you get. You enter the PVP zone
by being mid-rank or level fifty. If you bet money, you can earn real money,
but if you don’t you only gain equipment and guns. To get more money, you do
well in a game and then the amount of money you earn is based on the game, your
number of kills/deaths, and if your team won or not.
I wish I was still playing the
normal game now because everyone is shooting at each other for some reason. As
far as I know, killing each other in the PVP zone is the easiest way to earn
back lives. The people over here have found out that you can’t earn anymore
lives over three and what lies in the developer’s building. Some people have
given up and are trying to make other people give up as well. There are others that
are earning back their lives and the lives of their friends to try to challenge
again. Unfortunately, we’ll have to go through them in order to beat the game.
Despite how large the city is,
there are few open sections. Most are close to medium engagements, so my
shotguns and submachine guns are the best in this area. Angel covers us from
longer distances while Kerano shoots the people I miss. The three of us work
like a well-oiled SWAT time until we get to the area near the developer’s
building. It’s completely surrounded by people who are protecting it. They aim
their sights and fire on whoever approaches the building. This is going to be
tricky, so we huddle together to make a plan.
“I could put turrets around the
perimeter while you distract them,” Kerano suggests.
“That sounds decent, but what I
just blow them all up? A few shots of my purple dragon should be able to clear
most of them and the smoke screen it creates should be able to give us cover,”
Angel says.
“That sounds like a good plan, but
what about this…we shoot them all,” I say.
“I’m being serious!”
“I like his plan,” someone from
behind us says.
I turn around to see my gunslinger
bro Dante.
“Hey, Dante! I was wondering where
you were,” I say to him.
“I was gathering people so we could
secure it to investigate it. I think we can take the building if we use all three
of your plans.”
“Well, my plan is a joke plan, but
I like your idea. We’re one step away from freedom, are you guys ready?”
The crowd of people yell together.
“Shh! You don’t want them knowing
we’re here yet.”
The crowd then does a silent yell
before we start enacting our plan. Everyone gets into positions so that we
attack in a pincer formation. Once we’re ready, I message Angel, and she shoots
a rocket in the area with the most people in it. Kerano then begins to set up
his turrets in key positions to give us cover as we attack. Our plan is
executed so well that most of the players defending the building are dead
within seconds.
Unfortunately, we have attracted
the attention of neighboring players who are hunting for lives. Angel, Kerano, Dante,
and I quickly run for the developers building under a hail of gunfire-Oh shit!
Someone just sniped half of Dante’s head off!
“Don’t worry guys, I’m sure you can
do it without me!” he says as he begins to disappear.
“Don’t talk with half your head
off! It’s weird, and we got it. Just you wait,” I say before we head further
into the building.
Most of the upstairs floors are
just abandoned spaces with posters referencing the developers' favorite video
game, movie, anime, comics, manga, and TV shows. There are also pictures of the
developers and their families along with testing rooms for their games. I’m a
bit surprised they made more than this game and RHO. Since there isn’t anything
really here, we check the basement and find an elevator that’s operational. I
don’t remember this being operational and there are no other elevators in this
building besides this one. When we look at the elevator’s controls, we see that
the only button has a down arrow.
I look to Angel and Kerano and ask
them, “Are you ready?”
“We are if you are, babe,” Angel
says.
“I’ve been ready,” Kerano says.
“Let’s do this then.”
We press the button and the elevator
doors immediately shut and the elevator quickly descends to the bottom that
makes us hit the ceiling then the floor of the elevator when it hits the
bottom. What a way to give us one last scare. Once we exit the elevator, we see
that we’re in a somewhat dark mass room with pillars everywhere, and three massive
floating figures that are among the pillars as if they’re what’s keeping them
together. Those must be the developers, the people who trapped us twice in a video
game.
“Welcome, Kaylen, Kerano, and Angel.
We knew you would make it here,” one of the developers say.
“You shitheads shot my son. Of
course we were going to make it to you and end this game of yours.”
“Even though it was you who beat
our first game, you won’t beat this one. I’m sure you’ve seen the others out
there who have come here and left only to turn on you.”
“We’re not like them.”
“That’s what they said as well. Do
you know that some of them came here first instead of the tower? They were clever
enough to follow a hunch they had and come to the only place they may find us.
There have been so many people that have lost all of their lives and others
that are turning on their friends to get them to stop fighting against us. You
may have a fair chance of beating us, but we will be the ones who decide when
the game stops.”
“Oh really? We’ll see about that.”
“Not so fast. There’s a special condition
for this fight since it’s the last one. You may not know it, but you only have
one life left. We took the other ones you had in order to make this choice more
difficult for you.”
Assholes. No wonder why those
people outside are fighting for lives.
“Okay, what is our choice?”
“You have two choices. Your first choice
is to fight us together, but you lose, you don’t have anyone to give you a
second chance. Your second choice is to sacrifice two of the people in your
group for the last person left to face us with a powerful weapon of their
choice. If they lose, they can choose to leave and earn back all your lives.”
What a choice to make.
I look at Angel and Kerano who are
nervous, so I say to them, “What do you think we should do?”
“Well…Our safest option is to have a
singular person fight and if they lose, then at least someone can try again,”
Kerano explains as he tries to keep it together.
“I guess that’s our only real choice
because we don’t know how the boss fight with them will go,” Angel says, “But
we also don’t know if a singular person will a special weapon can beat them.
Who’s going to be that person anyway? If I pick the rarest heavy weapon, I
could possibly take them out in minutes.”
Kerano says, “If I’m the one who
fights, I could use the best turrets in the game to even the numbers and get a
better shotgun to increase my chances of winning.”
“But if I’m the one who fights
them, I could pick a weapon that I can dual wield for double the massive damage
while also being aided by my critical hits and agility,” I say.
There’s silence for a couple minutes
before Kerano says, “I think Kaylen should be the one to fight for us. His
build is the best that can adapt to whatever they might throw at him.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Angel…”
“We don’t know what’s going to
happen when we fight them. Besides, I trust that you’re going to kick their
ass.” Angel hugs and kisses me.
Kerano and Angel then disintegrate
as if they were killed.
I turn to the developers and say, “What
the hell?!”
“They already decided their
champion. Now, pick your weapon.”
A room opens near the elevator door.
In the room is an armory of all the weapons in the game. I wonder if they have…oh
boy they do! I pick it up and exit the room with the best gun for my build,
Hell’s Shredder. It’s a minigun that can also shoot homing rockets that can
turn into one big fuck-off buster sword when I put them together.
“You done fuck up now!” I scream at
them with my sights on them.
They look surprised and they should
be. This is a gun that only the max ranked gunslingers mixed with sword builds
can have once they complete their hardest quest. No one has obtained it and
there’s been teases of its existence, but now I have it, and now I’m going to shred
them to pieces! They open fire on me with their homing lasers, but my homing
rockets meet them in the air to destroy them. I then sprint around the room
while firing everything the gun has at them. This gun basically makes me a one-man army. It’s no wonder why the only downside is that you have to wait until
the next day for an ammo refill, but I have so much ammo that I’ll be able to
beat these people.
The minigun cuts through the developers’
health while the rockets block and deflect their attacks. The attacks that do get
through I dodge. Despite its size, I can still move fast while firing Hell’s Shredder.
It’s one of the things that make it so overpowered. Once they’re down to
critical levels of health, the three developers become one cloaked figure with
a white mask with three faces and a crown on its head.
“Come at us with everything you
got,” they say as they unsheathe their sword-like fingers and charge towards me
head-on.
“Bring it!”
I continue to fire my minigun and
rockets at them as I charge towards them. Before they reach me, I switch my gun
to a buster sword and hit them with buster sword. They block it with their
sword fingers, but I struggle against them until I let out a yell, cut through
their fingers, and cut off their head. There it is. It’s over.
The developers say, “Congratulations.
We knew you would be the one to finish the game since you knew about the best
weapon in the game.”
“That’s not all. It’s because of my
wife and best friend that I’m here.”
“Of course. You seem to have grown
up since you last played. We don’t see you joke around as much as you used to.”
“Being a father does that. I’ve grown
in spirituality, been more responsible, and I’m more goal-oriented for the
betterment of my family. The father is the head of the family after all.”
“We’re sending you our address so
we can have a talk. Come whenever you want. We’ll be expecting you.”
They’re not really going to-oh,
they did. This address is only a few hours away from where I am.
“I’ll be seeing you soon then.”
All three faces on their mask smile
at me before disappearing. Keep smiling jacks. You won’t be soon enough. As soon
as I log out of the game, I make sure Angel, Kerano, and Allen are okay, and
sure enough, they are. Kerano and his wife hug and kiss, but I have to cut
their reunion short with what I tell them. They understand and get ready to
meet the developers. After making some preparations, we go to the address I was
given.
It’s a small inconspicuous house in
a nice looking neighborhood. We knock on the door and a woman answers the door.
She says, “We’re so glad to finally
meet you. Welcome to our home.”
“Sure,” I say as I go into the
house.
There are seven people sitting
around a TV playing video games on a console with snacks and sugary drinks on a
large table near them. These people look like the average people that you
would see on the streets. They’re dressed casually as if they were having a
sleepover. The woman who answered the door sits on the couch near them. A man
pauses the game and stands up as the seven people look at me.
“Welcome to our home, Kaylen and friends,”
he says with a smile.
I really want to punch them all,
but I can’t.
“You told me to come here because you
wanted to have a talk. What is it that you wanted to talk about?”
“As you can see, we’re just normal
gamers like you even though we still play on consoles. I hope it doesn’t make
us look like try-hard old school gamers.”
“No, it doesn’t. Millions of people
still play on PC and consoles. VR is just for professionals and people who want
to make a living playing games.”
“And that’s what we were aiming
for. It’s been the dream of millions of gamers to make a living doing what they
love, and we’ve made that a reality. You can’t deny that we’ve helped millions
of people by giving them the opportunity to make a living without having to
break their backs.”
“I guess I can’t.”
“Right. Think about the job market
right now. The jobs once meant for the middle class are now filled automated
with robots and AI. The rest of the jobs are low paying and will soon be replaced
as well. Going to college for a job you probably don’t want is the only option
and you know how shit modern academia is right now. Our game has not only given
people jobs they want to work, but it has also brought them together, so we
work together like we used to so many centuries ago. Hunting, gathering, adventuring,
fighting together, and such, but with the added bonus of no one getting hurt.
People have even grown more spiritual and religious because of it. We’ve seen you
at the Catholic churches in the game. This was the point of our game. It was
shown in the game’s story, its world, and the everyday occurrences.”
“You’re right, and I’m thankful for
what you’ve done, but what you’ve done to prove your point was wrong. You can’t
force people to see your point by trapping them in a game twice, and you sure
as hell can’t shoot someone’s son to egg them on even if you didn’t cause any
real harm. You have to pay for what you’ve done.”
I take out a collar and put it around
the man’s neck. The other developers get up in shock. A SWAT team enters the
building to make sure they don’t move.
I continue saying, “You should know
what this collar does. The police use it to get the truth out of people, so lying
to them will cause you to have more than some minor burns on your neck.”
“We knew this would eventually
happen. Part of us always knew that some of what we did was wrong.”
“Then I hope you change for your
sake.”
“Don’t worry, we already have.”
I leave the house with my family as
the police arrest the developers. At their trial, they are charged with
kidnapping and the endangerment of children, but because they caused no actual
harm and the law hasn’t evolved for this kind of crime, they only get thirty
years in jail instead of the life in jail that I thought they would get.
Because they’re prestigious members of society, they get their own special room
with gaming systems to play with. I hear that they invite other people to play
with them and that they’re upstanding members of the jail. I hope this is true.
As for us, we’re still playing
video games to make a living and have fun. Video games bring joy and fun to
people. They can teach lessons while also bringing people together for a shared
goal, but we still put them down now and then to enjoy real life. Today, I am
going out with my family to the beach. I hear that it’s crowded at this time of
year.
The End
No comments:
Post a Comment