"Here he comes," Van said as he looked at the small silver pod in his hand. He wasn't sure if he had enough power to kill the Emperor, but he was going to try. The game clock was in Sleep Time, at least, so that meant there would be no innocent players around to endanger with the biofeedback system. It was time for the end.
"You fools!" the Emperor screamed as he landed on the ground, causing the entire beach to shake. Waves crashed up high as the shockwave pushed through the water. "Have you any idea what you two have done? The entire game was being run through that ship, and they're all dead!"
"Ha!" Van laughed. "Not so tough now, are you? Try blowing up the world without your precious army of brain slaves!"
"You don't understand," the Emperor growled, his voice quivering with fear. "You didn't just kill the workers… you killed the game itself!"
"How?" Sang asked.
"Do you want to know why our technology is so powerful?" the Emperor asked. "It's because we all work together in perfect sync. Every single programmer aboard that ship was responsible for running the game in real time. Every aspect of this universe was operated by them – 10,000 minds trained only to make a simulation as realistic as possible. And now they are all dead."
"Good!" Van shouted back. "They had no problem watching the world burn for their sick cause. I'm glad every last one of your programmers is dead."
"When the game has no more programmers," the Emperor growled, "the Ragnarok Sequence begins. The game self-destructs."
"And how is that our problem?" Sang asked as she took a few steps back and began to wave her hands a little.
"We're all stuck here," the Emperor said. "I cannot leave this game because there is no one left to initiate the exit procedure for me, and I certainly will not allow you all to leave. This game will purge all data and then self destruct. We will be killed in the process."
"Aren't there thousands more Draco in this game?" Sang asked.
"They have all left, as per the final protocol," the Emperor hissed. "And so… I find that we are all in a precarious position."
"You want to make a deal, don't you?" Van asked.
"I am forced to make an offer that we will all find acceptable," the Emperor replied. "Sang's mastery of infiltrating the system would allow for her to eject me from the world. With my logging out, you two will be free to return to your real world before the game obliterates you. With the game gone, we will not be able to affect your planet any longer. You have won, humans. Now reap the rewards and get us the hell out of here."
Sang glanced over at Van, who shot her a concerned look. He leaned over to whisper to her.
"If we let him go, he'll just do this to more planets. Who knows… he might even try to take us out again. He's the Leader; he's the one responsible for bringing this invasion to dozens of planets. We can't just let him walk away."
"Yeah, but if the world is ending, we don't have much of a choice," Sang said. "I'm not sure it's worth trying to fight him."
"We can kill him," Van said. "I know we can, and even if we fail and he manages to kill us, he'll remain trapped here until the game self-destructs. We'll save not only humanity, but the rest of the universe from these guys."
"But we could die," Sang replied.
"How is that any different from any other choice we've made in the last three weeks?" Van asked. "Don't wuss out on me now."
"I'm not wussing out," Sang replied. "I… I just don't want to see you killed, Van. There's no way we can take him alone."
"And so what? We condemn the rest of the galaxy to enslavement and destruction because he's tougher than us?" Van asked. "Screw that. I'm not here to save the world, Sang, I'm here to save the freaking universe."
Sang nodded slowly at the comment. "I'll do whatever you're doing, Van. I'll tell Neil to pull you out ASAP. As soon as they get you out, they'll kick me out."
"Good," Van replied as he grinned fiendishly. "Now gear up!" He waved his hand and a rush of light came over Sang, equipping her with a high level bow and dragon-scale armor.
"Whoa!" Sang said.
"You forgot you gave me developer tools and left me in a pod with eons to learn how to use them!" Van said as he spun around to face the Emperor.
"So you would condemn yourselves to death?" the Emperor replied as he stretched his wings out. "You think that a few wall-hacks and an item creation kit makes you a god? You haven't even begun to see my power!"
"It's your funeral!" Van said. "Even if you manage to kill me, at least I get to die knowing that you'll be killed by your own creation."
"The universe will quake before my might!" the Emperor replied. "I tried to be civil! I tried to be kind, but I will kill you and torture her until she sets me free! You cannot kill a god!"
"I agree that you can't kill a god," Van replied as he flexed his muscles, activating a power-up that he had developed inside of the creation pod. Energy swirled around him as his skin gained a Damage Reduction of 100 points. "But the good news is that I’m not looking at some god – just a weak little lizard hiding inside the skin of a dragon."
The Emperor roared in rage and came flying at Van hard, slashing its claws at him with all of his might. Van tried to dodge out of the way, but was unable to avoid the fierce attack. The slashing pain overwhelmed him for a moment as he watched his health go from 3,000 to 1,800 in a matter of seconds. The damage reduction wasn't working.
"Do you see?" the Emperor screamed as it dug its claws into Van's flesh, causing blood to spray everywhere. "Your power-ups are nothing compared to me!"
"Ahhh!" Van shouted as he tried to get away from the Emperor. Sang snapped a few arrows off, but they merely bounced off of the monster's flesh.
"Now then!" the Emperor shouted as it towered above Van, its right claw raised high in the sky. The blood-soaked claws were glistening in the sunlight, but the dragon refused to bring them down into Van. "Free me of this place! Sang! You can choose now to watch him die or you can set me free and we all get to walk away from this!"
Van checked his character sheet to see if there was anything that he'd be able to do, but much to his dismay, he didn't really have anything useful. Any of the skills he had would help him only in a fair fight. The Emperor was planning on using power that was far beyond anything that Van could reasonably fight against.
There wasn't much that Van had at his disposal in the programming department, either. Even though he could screw with the game code a little, he wouldn't be faster than this gigantic red dragon. It could kill him in an instant if he wasn't careful. But all he had to do was stall for time until Neil and O'Hara pulled him out of the facility.
"Wait!" Van shouted. "Okay, okay, you made your point. Sang, figure out how to log him out."
"Really?" the Emperor and Sang asked at the same time.
"Well, it's not like I'm stronger than you," Van replied. His health bar was slowly beginning to regenerate thanks to his Spirit of the Warrior ability, but it would be a few minutes until he was back to full health. Not that it would help much anyway.
"Very well," the Emperor said as it pressed its claw against Van's throat. "Figure it out or I kill him."
Sang shot a look over at Van with a "what do I do?" expression on her face, and he shrugged. If there was someone who could get them out of this mess with electronic trickery, it was probably her.
"My patience is growing thin," the Emperor said. In the distance, there was a loud rumbling sound, as if thunder were rolling. Van glanced to the right to see that there was a large mass of red clouds which were beginning to form around them. Lightning was streaking across the sky and Van felt a sense of dread well up within him. He wondered how long it would be before the game destroyed itself.
"I'm trying to figure this all out," Sang replied as she waved her hands around some more. "Huh," she said.