February 27th, 2027.
"Its good to be back." I told Trace.
He smiled at me and laughed at me for a second.
"You're still crazy as ever. I said holstering my gun. "Have you been living here?"
"No," Trace swung the chair back around and sat down. "There's a lot you need to catch up on my friend, but first we need to get your things and get the hell out of here."
I followed Trace outside to the back yard were I found a sci-car sitting on the grass.
"How'd you know I was here?" I asked.
"After you died I saved all your player's data. I helped make the game you know. I have some tricks here and there, but when I tried to reactivate you it didn't work." Then he paused for a minute and looked at me."How'd you get back?"
"Your dad." I said. Trace looked back at me in shock for a moment.
"You-you found my dad? How is he?" Trace's eyes got shaky for a moment. I thought he was going to break down right there.
"Never mind." He blurted, "That's not important. Lets get going." He said get in the driver's seat and started the car.
We started driving making our way our of level 16.
"Okay, Its been a while. I need to know what'd I miss?"
"Okay," Trace said, "I'm about to give you a shit ton of information so get ready."
"Just tell me."
"Okay here goes. Kyoko is leading the resistance and King Lucifer is after her head. Her army is hiding somewhere. I think they're hiding on level 6 because that's where Kyoko was last sighted. Word is out that the Elves are back in the game and the game is starting to fall apart really bad. The E.M.P's are moving around on all the levels. So there could be dragons, zombies, pixies, anything could be out there."
I sat back trying to take it all in.
"Okay, that was a lot of info just now." I told him. We moved through the transport door and drove through all of level 15. It felt so strange, it was normal to me. Being back in the game it was like I never left. I was so used to the game that it was like this world was part of me. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about it. I was in the real world just a little over three hours ago. It was a while but we kept driving till we got to level 12 then Trace stopped the car. I looked around for a second.
"Why'd you stop?" I asked.
"This mate, is the part were we go our separate ways."
"What?"
"I'm on the run. I kinda broke out of prison, so as you can see Lucifer will be looking for me, but he won't be looking for you. You need to make a break for it, find your friends and get the hell out of here."
"Where the hell do you think you're going?" I snapped, "Are you insane?"
"Well of course I am. That's how I got here. Now get out Ethan. The king doesn't know you're here yet, use that to your advantage."
I got out of the car and backed away from it.
"Trace do you know what you're doing?" I asked him.
"Nope." He smiled in the way he always did, "That's the fun part." He tossed a helmet out the window at me.
"You know what to do." He drove off in the direction we came from, leaving me alone in the forest. I put the helmet on and took a deep breath. Already my first day back and I'm on my own again.
Being on level 12, meant I was on the wizarding level so there had to be a market or village near by.
It was a quite walk for the most part, then it wasn't so quite.
"Hey, hey, hey." I heard a voice behind me. I turned around to see who it was. There was about three or four wizards around me and I saw three more hiding in the trees.
"Look at this?" One of them said. "You're no wizard. You don't belong here."
"How'd he get past the knights?" another on yelled.
"You know they slack off, come on lets just get this over with."
Their leader smiled at me. "Now," He smirked.
"Here's the deal. We're reasonable people, just hand over all of your weapons and money and we'll let you pas through safely."
No way. I thought. You've got to be kidding me. I shook my head telling them no.
"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue " He asked. I shook my head no again.
"Come on talk damn it!" The ones in the trees jumped down and brought their staffs out.
Shit, I really don't have time for this.
"Stop messing around he's just an ass wipe, lets take his money and go." The marched towards me.
I put my hands up signaling them to get away from me but they didn't care.
"Fine. You're choice." I sighed.
The first three came at me. I swung my leg up and blocked his attack with my leg and shot his friend in the leg , just a flesh wound.
"Hey." He shouted at me. I jumped up and kicked jumped off of one wizard and knocked him into the other.
"Get him." their leader shouted. We were fighting in circles. I caught one staff with my hand and broke it with me knee.
"Uh-uh." I said waving my finger at him. "You shouldn't do that." I jumped up and tornado kicked the wizard in the face. The leader stood there speechless as I was kicking his teams ass.
By the time I finished they were all passed out on the ground.
"Who the hell are you?" Their leader asked. I looked at him then back up at the sky.
"I'm the Hunter."
