The Eternal Sleep

The Fight for the Throne Begins

Luca had to admit that he was stunned at the force of her gun. A feeling of breathlessness hit him like a wave, he stumbled back, the sound of the gun echoing loudly in the enclosed area. She grinned and struck her foot out, tripping him.

“That’s it?” he growled, “You’re not going to finish me off?” She didn’t grace his question with an answer with words, her sultry chuckle reverberating off the walls. She chose to walk away with her held high, never turning around.

Luca pushed himself of the ground with a small grunt, a hand on the ‘wound’. He wasn’t in any pain, but ‘injury’ still left him slower than usual. He cringed at the crinkling sound, pulling back his jacket and lifting his hand gently to see the damage. As disorienting as it was, there was an actual hole in his side, the area around it resembled broken glass and flashes blue code visible if he moved to fast.

He groaned and pulled his stats up, cursing as he realized the single shot took out almost his entire health bar. Her ‘pistol’ was clearing something much more powerful than he’d originally thought. He pulled himself to his feet, cursing his lack of any healing bars.

He leaned on the wall near the edge of the bridge, watching his team pick off the remaining fighters like professionals, the enemies pulling away from the fight. Luca has an inkling thought the sniper was more their leader than the man they fought in the beginning.

“Yea, run back to your mamas!” Luca chuckled at Jay’s enthusiasm; his fists raised like a re-enactment of a cartoon hero. “Nobody wants you here.”

“You heard him!” Armando followed along, laughing as he fist bumped Olivia’s outstretched arm. The trio looked quite successful in their fight, coins and guns littered the battle ground.

“Look who decided to show his face.” Rena snarked, looking over to him with irritation, a hand on her hip and knives still drawn in the other. her hair had fallen out of it’s neat tie, the red stands sweeping around her like flames.

“What’s got your nickers in a twist?” Luca frowned, sub-consciously noting the others turning to face him. He pulled his jacket tighter, relaxing in the small comfort it offered him.

“Where were you? I ended up taking a couple hits.” she waved her hands, not angry as he originally thought, just miffed. He cringed at he remembered her shout for aid just before he was cornered. “And to you, it’s none of your darn business what I wear.”

“To be fair, I never asked.” He recoiled, wrinkling his nose, “And I was kinda busy with my own problems, unfortunately.”

Luca pushed off the wall and turned to face them fully. He fought the natural instinct to cover the ‘wound’ and pulled his hand away to properly show them the damage. He barely fought Jay’s rush to his side to pull his arm over his shoulder and keep him upright. “That doesn’t look too pretty.”

“For a game, it definitely doesn’t feel pretty.” He grunted as Jay leaned him against the wall and sat beside him. “It doesn’t hurt but I still weirdly feel like I’ve been shot or at least aware I’ve been shot.”

“What happened? I didn’t see when it happened.”

“Sniper just like me, didn’t see when she got behind me. Really good with a gun and pretty much everything else.” He sighed and pulled up his stats and watching them wince at the damage, “She definitely wasn’t kidding around.”

“Dang, that looks serious.” Olivia frowned as she kneeled next to him, “I’m sorry we didn’t notice.”

“You guys kind of had your hands full.” He gave her a ‘duh’ look, chuckling as she rolled her eyes. “Besides, it’s at least nice to know I can handle myself in hand-to-hand against someone I don’t know.”

“To think people would be will to fight like this just to get what they want.” Jay sighed in frustration, “Coins is a normal thing, it would usually be a mugging, but to go as far a killing your enemies even after you’ve gotten what you want?”

“It’s not much different from before the quest.” Luca bumped his shoulder. “We’ve dealt with things like this before.”

“Yea, but it just rubs me wrong you know… is this what Sun was looking for, to see people go at each other’s throats for money?” he ran a hand through his hair, “If he wanted that, all he had to do was look at news in the real world.”

“Look, Sun is starting to sound more and more like a madman, I don’t really care what he wants or doesn’t want.” Rena hissed, rubbed her legs, “What I do know is that we can’t just let something like this knock us over. I think we handled it really good.”

“If it’s of any consolation…” Armando spoke up softly, rubbing his hands as he usually did when he had a plan that he questioned the morality of, “I didn’t actually give them the cards.”

“What do you mean Mando?”

“I figured sooner or later, someone was gonna come after us for them or at least something like this could happen… so I created fakes, look-a-likes essentially.” He rubbed his neck, “They’re actually bombs, they’ll activate ten minutes after the next time the holder logs in.”

“I really want to hug you right now.” Luca grinned widely, singing praises at Armando’s genius. “That is absolutely brilliant.”

“Nope, don’t move, I rather not be the cause of your death from hugging with that injury.”

“It would be a pleasant way to go.” He put a hand to his chin as if he was genuinely considering, smacking Jay’s hand as he tried to poke him.

“Speaking of which, do you have any health bars you can use?” Jay looked at him.

“Nope, but it doesn’t make sense anyway, we’re not in any immediate danger at the moment.” He propped himself up, wincing as the sound of cracked glass reached his ears, “I can just log out for a while.”

“What a day today turned out to be.”

“At least we got a ton of coins and we got to prank what could be a very powerful, dangerous person.”

“You make that last part sound like a good thing.”

“Look, I was thinking…” Luca started, not knowing how to approach the topic, “I know you guys said you don’t want to continue the-“

“I’m in.” Jay didn’t even wait for him to finished, raising his hand.

“But I didn’t-“

“So am I.” The rest raised their hands.

“Look, I know what I said but I think I saw the same thing you guys saw out there just now.” Rena smiled, “I want to fight one last time with you guys.”