31_Victory

Everyone just stood there, desperately trying to remember, yet too afraid to ask, lest risk the ire of their leader. Finally, Scull_Crusher_15 relented under the pleadings gazes of the troops. They all knew that he alone was unaffected by their intimidating commander’s aura, thus guilt tripping him to save them.

Dave shuffled his skeletal feet toward the intimidating commander, then spoke in a hushed voice.

"Amm dudete, which one was that one, perk.. perko..." He said.

"Perkotus 5! Oh come on guys we practiced this one so much." The girl complained, rising her arms in frustration.

“It is page 56, sub point 4.5” She finally said to her sheepish army.

All the raiders proceeded to pocked out their pad diagrams and formation manuals, loudly shuffling through the digital pages, searching for that specific formation maneuver. After a few minutes of reading though, the troops seemed more confused than anything else.

"Urgh…" Judiper facepalmed and slumped down on her plastic throne. "Alright alright. Just move forward and kill everything in your path."

"Oooh, right, why didn’t she say so." A chorus of voices mumbled from the army as they finally began moving.

"Sigh…" The mighty raider commander groaned from atop her throne of power.

"It’s like herding cats…" She groaned, placing a palm on her face.

___

The battle was won. Well sort of…

After the mysterious old man had put out all the fires, the rest of the camp defenders emerged from the safety of the inn. And since the remaining barricades and mud huts were made out of materials impervious to fire. All that the artillery attack had achieved was wasting ammo and time.

Still, Judiper’s raiders were clearly superior in levels and tactics. The internet people had easily surrounded the camp, and after peppering a few key points of the barricades with their plasma weapons, they proceeded to walk right through.

To her surprise the defenders put much more of a fight than last time. Yes her raiders had higher levels, but every now and again her people died from a barrage of magical bolts.

“And that is what happens when you feed the enemy right before the attack. If it wasn't for that idiot Big_Chungus_88 the camp people would still be at level 2, rather their current level of 10.” The unicorn commander complained.

In any case, the battle was as good as won. Well sort of…

Her forces were steadily advancing and pushing the enemy back, yet a single man remained. That old geezer was single handedly fighting his way through her forces with nothing else but a gardening shovel. So far he has been shot by fire, plasma, various bullet's, grenades, knifes, swords and lots of creative curses and insults. Yet the man refused to die.

"Hmm…" Judiper analyzed the situation.

"What could be causing this…"

"Maybe some unique elemental resistance build?"

"Mmnoo… if that was the case, direct physical attacks should have worked."

"What about a personal shield device?" She had seen some of the fancier higher level models being able to withstand a direct, point blank tank blast. But those required the user to carry a bigass accumulator backpack, and the old man wore nothing but a dark gray shirt.

This was quite the mystery…

As she contemplated this puzzle, the bald man cried out, his face etched with pain and frustration, falling to his knees and clawing at his face, all the while shouting gibberish as if talking to some demon possessing his mind.

At the unexpected display Jupiper perked up, rising up in her plastic throne to better see what had finally managed to slip past the man’s impenetrable defenses.

However what she saw next was not what she expected at all.

___

"AAAAA this is so stupid!" Herman cried with frustration.

"What is even the point?!"

"Slippy are you absolutely sure that we can't shut down this super duper legendary thing? I mean, I like winning as much as the next guy, but winning without effort is meaningless." Herman said, ignoring the raiders attacking on all sides.

He then gripped his garden shovel with both hands, then snapped it in two. He needed a much worse weapon than a garden tool, he thought as he absentmindedly hurled the broken shovel at the enemies surrounding him.

Congratulations you have killed an enemy! + 1000 xp!

Congratulations you have killed an enemy! + 1000 xp!

Congratulations you have killed an enemy! + 1000 xp!

Trrrriiippple killl! + 3000 xp!

"Oh for the love of god not again…" Herman managed to mutter before his old enemy the popup windows emerged.

Congratulations, congratu, cccooooongratuuullatiooons!!!

SLASH!

The evil popup disappeared into a cloud of pixels, from behind it appeared the ninja avatar of Slippy.

"I am sorry Herman San, I am at my wits ends here, I can't keep up with the flow of notifications. They are so many of them that I am having trouble with…"

"Aaarghhh!" Slippy screamed with surprise as more popups shoved into him, flooding Herman’s digital overlay with their presence.

Congratulations, congratulations, you have leveled up, leveld up LEVEL UP

Skill gained LEGENDARY SKILL GAINED

Skill type unique SHOVEL SAVANT!

+ 15 strenght

+ 4 endurance

+ 9 intimidation…

+ 12

+23

45 , 23, 2, 5, 3, 4,13 112341256856,………

Herman clutched his head at the barrage of notifications. The number chanting gaining momentum, now that Slippy was incapacitated.

The ninja avatar of the paper slip heard the voice of his friend. He needed his help, Slippy had to do something or both of them would be buried under an endless barrage of congratulatory messages.

As he flew in the digital void, being attacked by a flock of angry can'trip notifications starved for attention, the baby AI closed his eyes and let his avatar disintegrate under the relentless attacks.

"Slippiyyyy!" Herman cried in panic as he saw his friend getting overwhelmed by the enemy popups. Before he could do anything more though…

BRRRTTT!!!

The unmistakable sound of twin machine guns spitting a flurry of bullet's rang in Herman’s ears. From the ashes of the defeated ninja avatar, appeared an armored warmec. It had two stumpy mechanical legs attached to an armored cube with two twin machine guns protruding on both sides, with only a tiny rectangular slit in the front for the digital slip to see through.

“Waghahah!” Slippy laughed maniacally as he kept firing at the popups, each shot tearing through dozens of the floating windows. The mighty armored warmec lumbered forward on its stumpy legs, each step echoing with a heavy CRUNCH as the popups died beneath its mechanical feet.

In a short time, the enemy notifications were nothing more than a vortex of charred pixels, swirling around the armored warmec’s hulk.

"Good job Slippy!" Herman shouted akin to a proud father seeing his son ride a bike on his own for the first time.

"Happy to help out (:" The AI’s cheerful voice rang out from within the mechanical beast. "And also I think I have a solution for your predicament. Well it isn’t a permanent solution, but it will give you more challenging experience for sure."

"Oh?" Herman inquired with curiosity.

__

"FISH SLAM!"

The raider berserker sailed through the air, his digital teeth scattering away from their owner after the mighty blow the old man had dealt him.

"FISH STRIKE!" Herman yelled with glee as yet another raider flew back.

Judiper stared in bewilderment as the old man held a fish, of all things, by the tail and proceeded to batter her unfortunate troops with it.

"I mean… well… I …" Judiper stumbled for words. What even was that? Hell he was doing more damage with the shovel than his current “weapon”.

The fish was flashy but didn’t outright kill her forces, rather than just push them back and tax her dental plan to its limits.

She wasn’t a monster and had provided full healthcare and dental plan for each of her subordinates. Yes they were digital avatars, but that didn't mean they didn't deserve to be treated from their injuries.

Pushing these thoughts away, Judiper took a long breath and released it. The old man was having fun alright, but he was nothing more than a distraction. Despite his obvious power, he was only a single man.

So rather than confront him, she ordered her troops to ignore him entirely. Whenever he came near, they were to keep their distance at all cost. The result looked like an old nature documentary, a shark drifting through a school of fish while the fish held a perfect bubble of space around it.

Now that the cheater had been dealt with, she put all her attention on dealing with the camp defenders.

The giant leader and the frowning woman were nowhere to be seen, which sort of explained the disorganized manner in which the defenders fought. She briefly considered that the two enemy leaders might be preparing a sneak attack, but neither her scouts nor the reserve forces of bear-serkers stationed to stop such a move reported anything unusual.

She did see a flock of chickens flutter their wings though, the plump critters trying to fly away from the battle. She quickly dismissed them, they were of no consequence.

Hell if all the people had ran away like the feathery critters, instead of fight her, she would have already been over the wall and on her way to finding her grandpa. But anyway, soon she would get the thing she needed from the camp and then she would be out of here. So Judiper simply continued commanding everyone to push forward.

The enemy, despite constantly hurling magic spells at them, was steadily loosing forces. They constantly pulled back, until their backs were pressed against the wall. One by one all the surviving defenders began retreating to the safety of the inn once again.

Instead of following them, Judiper simply let them hide there.

Her number superiority would mean nothing in such confined space, plus she wasn't really after the people of the camp. She just needed to get to their respawn booth. It was the thing she wanted all along.

___

The defenders were safely contained inside the inn and the old man was still aimlessly chasing after her people.

So, Flufy_Pink_Unicorn_16 declared victory!

Standing from her plastic throne, she hopped over to the battlefield, heading straight for where the respawn booth was supposed to be at the base of the wall…

Thud!

"Ouch! What the…." Judiper exclaimed after colliding with a table that had just materialized in her way.

"Chicken?" The girl said with surprise as she saw the buckets of fried chicken wings on the table.

Looking around her she saw more tables with similar delicacies. Her raider troops quickly abandoned their neat formations as they swarmed over the tables and began devouring the fried chicken with glee.

"Hey, hey! This isn't the time for partying! We haven't finished the mission yet!" The raider commander futilely squeaked, but her protestations were unheard or ignored. In no time at all the raiders materialized big barrels full with alcohol along with loud music boxes that spewed disco music.

"Sigh… whatever…" Judiper just sighed and accepted things such as they are. It was honestly a miracle the party-like internet pirates didn’t do that sooner…

"Chicken lady, chicken lady, chicken lady!" The defenders from inside the inn chanted, poking their heads from the windows of the inn fortress and cheering for their champion.

Judiper’s face immediately paled. She began to frantically look around, searching for the dreaded hero. During her research she had seen what the famous chicken lady could do, and she wanted nothing to do with that crazy necromancer. Especially not now…

Her army wasn't obeying her, they were deep inside enemy territory and no doubt everything would go bonkers at any second.

…

Right above their heads, in mid air there was a woman, wearing a full body metal necromancer armor, spreading her hands wide as 4 plump chickens clutched her outspread hands, keeping her in the air.

"BARBARIANS OF THE INTERNET!"

"You are to leave immediately or suffer the wrath of the mighty Chicken Defender!"

The woman boomed with a well practiced superhero voice. Her eyes glowing with fiery necromantic flame.

Thump…

While the chikenmancer was monologuing in mid air, Judiper heard a faint thump noise at the sand near her. She located the source of the noise to be a small bag of purple seeds, no doubt fallen from the pockets of the hero.

Seeing that she didn't have much time, Judiper pocketed the small package and skulked away from her forces.

She had a mission to complete!