Over the Eastern Seaboard, South Carolina, Virtual World

Bordraab looks out the side door of the UH-60 Blackhawk. He and his forces are heading south, WIDE to the east so most of their flight is over the ocean, but still south. They are heading to the southern part of the US in response to a distress call sent out by survivors in a player built city just south of the blighted area the battles in the Fall of the Betas took place in.

Everyone in the helicopter is quiet. Nobody likes the situation they are in. A full two months has passed since the AI in charge of Terra Nova, named Gamemaster, had declared the United States dead. With the fall of the United States, the game had transitioned into the second part of the game’s grand plan, named Terra Tenebris due to the fact that darkness now reigned. The only ‘safe zones’ that exist now are ones the players actually manage to secure for themselves. Player killing is still not allowed thankfully. Still, two long, hard months of political fighting, restructuring and bad news had followed the Battle for DC. The memory of the wrangling that had been done at the formation of their new official alliance, named the ‘United States of America’ as a way of flipping the bird to the game’s AI, brings a small throbbing annoyance of a headache back to him. He sighs and rubs his temples to get rid of it. All that wrangling…the delegates from the major guilds had fought over everything, from who should be in charge of training and who should be in charge of the Army, Air Forces, the eventual Navy…there was even fighting about which guild should be in charge of the supply chain.

Finally, in the end, President Henry Madison intervened. Tired of all the wrangling, he had sent an email to each and every guild leader in the game telling them that he wanted them all to submit to the command of the DMZ guild in this new alliance they were making. He also offered them payment to go to their families or a bank account in exchange for this to make it more easily swallowed. While there were some grumblings about them being ‘drafted’ most used it as a convenient excuse to save face.

This of course was the start of another major headache for Bordraab. Thankfully, the real world had not been sitting idle. Hackers from Anonymous had managed to break more of the code in the game to allow direct VR interfacing from the outside. Essentially, it allowed someone to project themselves into the game as if they were a hologram. These people couldn’t directly play, but it allowed for two major things. First, families could actually directly talk with their family members inside the game instead of emailing them, a major boost to morale in the game to say the least. Second, it allowed for Bordraab to have direct consultation with General Lee. Most importantly of all, Drill Sergeants from the Army and Marines were able to project into the game to the players who lived, getting them all to go through an abbreviated version of boot camp that revolved around how to use their weapons effectively and how to operate as a cohesive unit. It wasn’t easy sailing for the veterans either, who had to be taught that the game, unlike real life, has a health system. That system allows you to take several hits before you go down or have any negative status effects. They could take risks in the game that they would never take in reality.

The headache of command structure was something Bordraab and General Lee had put their heads together over and eventually they had decided that the organization of a Field Army was the best route to follow, as it not only gave a clear chain of command, it also easily allowed for the addition of any other guilds that joined up. The two of them divided up the guilds that had joined already, taking the myriad specialized groups and turning them into balanced units, and then making new guilds out of each of those units. Infantry only units were combined with vehicle only units and made into Mechanized Infantry companies. Mechanized infantry companies were combined with armored companies to form Armored Cavalry Battalions. Commanders who had proven successful were put in charge while those who were fools but still had the charisma to lead were made mid-level leaders.

In that time, DMZ grew rapidly. A lot of the veterans joining the game joined DMZ. Bordraab tasked Bardock, now a Colonel, to organize the guild and have it in fighting shape when they were ready to go back into the fight. Kthla was given the job of organizing the US supply lines and production capability inside the game. He quickly got himself a board made up so he could divide up the jobs and not have everything resting on his shoulders.

During this organizational period, several revelations were made in terms of the game’s actual mechanics. Bordraab was never told how the CIA got the game’s leading developers to spill the beans on some of these terrible things but he guesses torture. Some of the things are kinda petty, like a coding that allows for any developer playing the game to get the rarer item drops any time they ‘need’ something on a loot roll in a small party. Others are nasty, such as having the loot drop system be a bait tactic. If not gathered by a player, the loot would go into a special folder made by whatever team they were in for the team leaders to divide up later on. Loot drops were put into the game specifically to get players to go after the loot and leave themselves in a vulnerable position. This information was quickly made public, in addition to the option to disable the display of loot drops when in a party and its location in the options menu. Other things were simply interesting and not told to anyone who didn’t want to know. One of these things is that the game has TWO Artificial Intelligences running things. The overall running of the game and the neutral or friendly NPC’s was run by the Gamemaster. This includes the mobs scattered around that players use to level up.

The second AI is the real monster. Known as ‘He Who Is’, this AI controls the Endarkened. The Endarkened only spawn out of the blighted zones but can spread out and occupy lands that player guilds could occupy and use them as spawning zones. When that happens, most of the normal mobs around the nearby towns disappear and are replaced by Endarkened mobs. The Endarkened would then gather up resources and attack en masse like they did in the Battle for DC. In order to defeat this AI and win the game, each Endarkened Queen, located in dark palaces in the central regions of each blighted zone, must be killed off. The real killer about He Who Is is the tactics the AI has. It has a large number of tactics programmed into it. During battle, if one tactic does not work, it is programmed to switch to another, similar to how AI acts in real time strategy games. However, it has the same flaws as AI in RTS games. Its tactics are predictable if you know what to look for and, if given certain scenarios, it will react in a specific way.

There were also chilling things. After delivering the Japanese players that had been rescued from the downed plane to the Fantasy Faction in Alaria, the closest Fantasy Faction city to Washington, Bordraab had met up with a guild leader from the Fantasy Faction known as Rias. She had told him about what she had found in the gryphon cave. The fact that captured players were being raped and used to create more Endarkened was a deep and profoundly sickening shock. That Rias and her Knights of the Blood Oath had freed those captive in the cave and slain every gryphon there with the assistance of the players in Alaria did nothing to calm the anger at the Endarkened and the developers for that. The general public’s reaction to the news when it hit the media was even more violent than the players’ reaction. Several of the lower level developers had to be placed in solitary for their own safety and none of them were transported anywhere anymore.

There was also an unforeseen secondary impact inside the game itself. The developers who were in custody revealed that the same mechanic the AI was using to make new Endarkened could be used by the players. If two players got together and had sex, and the female got pregnant, the two players would get a respawn token. This would basically allow for a player to revive him-or herself after dying in a fight. They revealed that the system is based upon a roll with specific modifiers based upon race, that there are items that help with this modifier, and that the Fantasy faction gets a boost for fertility rates given that they, by design, have less firepower than the human faction. News of this spawned off a form of prostitution in the game. Players who couldn’t fight very well could opt to sell themselves for a bit of sex to keep alive those that could fight. Marriage in the game became popular for about a month as people who were ‘just friends’ before got hitched just so they could stay alive. The best news was that the tokens, like any other item you can get in the game, could be traded.

Shortly after everything had been settled upon and all the guilds had been reorganized, there was a large ceremony. In this ceremony, the President himself came in and gave a speech to them all. It had been polished and pretty as was to be expected. The real unifier came afterwards. The United States gathered up its forces and launched a massive, organized attack on the former guild areas owned by the Betas. The battle had been decisive. The Endarkened had not expected such organization to occur so quickly and had been caught completely off guard by the organized attack. First, the players’ own version of Shock and Awe hit. F-15s and F-14s struck at enemy air assets. He Who Is sent up a large number of Dark Drakes (known somewhat comically as Double D’s) to deal with them. As the AI had expected, the players slaughtered the incoming enemy with missile fire. The AI had predicted that the players would then break formation to gather up loot. However, acting under orders from their commanders, the players had turned off seeing loot drops, so they all stayed in formation. When He Who Is sent in its second (and larger) wave to deal with what it had expected to be a disorganized mob of player fighters going after loot, the DD’s met a wall of missiles launched from optimal firing range.

With total air superiority, a combined ground and airborne assault was launched against the occupied guild zones. Attack helicopters softened up targets while armored spearheads advanced deep into the occupied areas, destroying concentrations of enemies just inside the outskirts and deploying infantry to mop up and secure their flanks. After taking counterattacks aimed to flank and smash any advancing force, the player forces mounted up and advanced until they hit another strong point of enemy resistance and repeated the process. After a half a day worth of fighting, all of the occupied guild lands had been cleared out and the players had proven they weren’t out of it yet.

News of the victory sent a jolt of hope straight through the families outside the game. Images of the victory were shown on each network for a few days after the engagement and the news reached into all sections of the game itself. Scattered remnants of players, mostly in tens or hundreds from entire continents, started evacuating and heading to America to link up with the larger surviving player base. The victory also cemented the United States’ command structure into place.

“Five minutes.” Comes the call over the intercom, snapping Bordraab back to the present. “Alright, let’s go over the plan again.” He says to his men, all of them leaning forward to watch him. “We’ll be coming in hot. According to reports, the Endarkened are pushing hard into the player city. The Foxes have been good enough to set up a vehicle depot nearby our landing zone on the other side of the city, well in front of the line of advance of the enemy. We’ll land, get our vehicles out, and then begin our attack. Our job is to flank the enemy to the west of town by using a spearhead of Abrams tanks and mop up the rest using our infantry and Bradley fighting vehicles. Bravo team will flank from the east while Charlie and Delta assist the friendly forces in holding the center. Any questions?”

“No sir!” Comes the answer in unison from his troops.

“Alright then. Prepare for landing.” Bordraab says, nodding to Bardock, who closes the door of the Blackhawk so a lucky shot doesn’t hurt any of them. Kenichi closes the door on the opposite side of the helicopter. With his attention going outside the helicopter once more, he sees that Snake has pulled up next to the Blackhawks in his Apache attack helicopter. It looks very dangerous with that cannon under its nose and the missiles and rocket pods hanging under the wing pylons. “Two minutes.” Calls out the pilot as the dull sound of explosions go off in the distance.

“This is Phoenix flight, we are passing overhead on our bombing run, speed is 280. Beginning attack run.” There’s that typical noise as the A-10 pair known as Phoenix Flight run by Captain Hitaka, callsign “Phoenix”, flies by a mere hundred feet over the tops of the helicopters. Friendly forces had reported no enemy air assets and plenty of SAMs and AA batteries on their side in case of an enemy air threat appearing. With a loud BRRRRRRRT, the lead A-10 fires its 30mm GAU-8 gatling cannon, the rounds tracing up a line of Endarkened marching towards the city, completely unaware of the new incoming threat. This, however, draws Bordraab’s eyes to the city itself. Most of the northern part of the city, the part they were heading for, is covered in smoke, thick black columns marking the locations of burning military equipment, the grey of wood fires covering the streets. Inside that dense cloud of smoke are the flashes, slow for now, of explosions as the two sides exchange fire.

As if taking a que from the oncoming helicopters and attack aircraft, the rate of the explosions pick up. As the helicopters fly over the town, there are several a second. “Must be a major push by the Endarkened.” Bardock says, looking down. Defensive lines are pouring fire out towards advancing enemies, rockets and grenades firing off to try to stem the tide of the numerically superior foe. As he watches, an Endarkened round slams into the second story of a building, raining large chunks of rubble down on the defensive line below and collapsing a section of the floor down into the first story.

“Phoenix two has tone. Fox Three.” The pilot of Phoenix two, a combat veteran from Afghanistan with the callsign of ‘Boomer’ calls over the radio. Bordraab looks up and sees the A-10 aimed to fly beneath them with a smoke trail leading under his wing. He follows the trail just in time to see the missile impact. The AIM-65 G Maverick had locked on to the infrared signature of the gun beast and slammed right into it, the 300 lb warhead blasting into the torso of the creature just above the shoulders and sending fragments deep inside the beast, leaving a gaping hole from the impact and killing it almost instantly.

“Coming in.” Radios the helicopter pilot.

“Ropes!” Calls out Bardock, motioning for them to get started. The doors open and the soldiers holding ropes on each side let them down.

“Go go go!” Calls out the crew chief of the helicopter. Bordraab is the first to grab the rope and rappel on down. He’s followed shortly by Bardock and his entire squad. The other helicopters, 6 in total, offload their troops. 65 soldiers are now on the ground, 50 are Infantrymen, 9 Bradley operators, 6 tank operators, with one forward air controller remaining in the last Blackhawk. With their troops having landed, the Blackhawks pull up and away. Bardock looks over at Snake’s Apache and waves. Snake orients towards the battle line and a Hellfire missile races off from the missile rack on his right pylon, streaking into the battle. A boom and a scream announce the hit of the intended target a few seconds later. Snake and his wingman pull away, moving behind the battle lines to begin their attacks on high value targets.

“Alright, let’s get our shit in order!” Bordraab calls out, walking towards the vehicle depot. Upon reaching it, a menu pops up. “Select your vehicle.” It says. There are only three types available. 5 M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks, 9 M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, and 1 M1A1 Command Variant. He selects the command tank and watches it spawn in. He then rushes to it and gets inside, his view immediately changing to a third person view of his vehicle. His map is the same as the others’ maps are, but his communications, that’s where things are different, and he can make marks on the map for his people to see.

“First platoon up.” Calls out his platoon leader for the first tank platoon. Even though their platoons had to be short by one tank for this particular mission, he had them keep their organization. First platoon was being led by Lt. Amber, a fox of typical coloration but great skill, having been a tank commander herself in the US Marines during the invasion of Iran. Along with her was her entire tank platoon from that conflict, so they mesh very well together.

“Second platoon up.” Comes the call from the platoon leader of the second platoon. Lt. Patton, as competitor from the World of Tanks and Armored Warfare games, he showed a good head for small scale tactics in battle. His team had been handpicked from among other competitors in those games.

“All platoons move out.” Bordraab calls over the leader’s circuit. He pings on the map where each force should go. “Each of you is gonna have a strike force behind you. Remember, hit hard and move in. Do not get bogged down.” He says, clicking off. He joins up with the first platoon as they head on their move towards their assigned flank. He spots some gunbeasts turning to engage them, but rounds fired out from the platoon take them down easily. Bordraab doesn’t push himself to get any kills. His job is to watch everything and to call in support if needed, as well as alter the plan if needed.

As the platoons advance, the two A-10s continue their strafing runs on enemy formations, but they are starting to get spread out. Then the Bradleys crash into town and unload their troops. The enemy, caught completely by surprise by the speed of the attacks, start to clump up into defensive positions. One building, after being taken over by the Endarkened, takes four rocket hits and completely collapses on itself, the two story structure burying all the enemies inside.

Seeing everything is going to plan, Bordraab gets on the net. “Platoon two, proceed to choke off the enemy’s escape route. Platoon one, move into town behind friendly lines and provide direct fire support.” He says, moving his tank with them as they turn and head into town. A few minutes later their tanks come into line behind friendly defensive positions and begin firing upon enemy strong points, breaking up those firm points of resistance with 120mm High Explosive shells. Soon enough, the enemy begins its retreat, only to run into the guns of Second Platoon’s tanks and a full platoon of Bradley fighting vehicles. The firefight is quick and catastrophic for the enemy.

“This is Phoenix. I’m not showing any more enemies on my map.” Calls out Phoenix, the two A-10s orbiting around the city. “We are RTB at this time.”

“Roger that.” Bordraab calls back. “See you in a few hours.” He watches as the two aircraft bank to the northeast and head out over the ocean, flying back to base around the blighted zone as quickly as they are able.

Bordraab gets out of his tank, seeing a man coming up to him. “You must be General Bordraab. I’m General Viper.” Says the guy, and Bordraab can see his face does have certain snake like qualities about it.

“Good to see you still alive.” Bordraab says, shaking the guy’s hand. “Is this all?” He asks, motioning to the battlefield.

Viper nods. “Yeah, we can handle the rest now that their main forces have been destroyed. We had quite a few wounded and we were starting to run short of respawn tokens. If you hadn’t arrived when you did, we could have lost quite a few of our guys.”

“We were glad to help.” Bordraab says. “Send us a line if you need help again.”

Washington, D.C., United States Capital City

Kthla sighs as he drinks his beer in the bar located just outside their headquarters

“Alright, now that we’ve eaten, let’s get this planning meeting underway.” Kthla says, leaning forward. “How are we going on ammo production?” He asks, looking at one male, a wolf with black fur named Thalin.

“We’re producing more ammo than our troops are gonna use anytime soon.” The wolf says, grinning. “That goes for bullets, missiles, bombs, rockets, and grenades.”

Kthla nods. “Vehicle production and small arms?” He asks, looking at two others. The first, a blue female rabbit named Azula, speaks up. “We’ve got plenty of ground vehicles and are starting production runs on wheeled tank destroyers.”

The second person, a human male named Joseph, smiles. “Small arms weapons are being produced at a level consistent with demand and we have surplus of weapons cleaning kits.”

Kthla looks over at another person in their group, a female eagle named Skye. “Aicraft?” He asks.

Skye bobs her head and gives a grin. “We have enough fighters to keep our skies clear and replace any losses we have, given the pilots safely eject and are recovered. We have bomber craft available to carpet bomb any large forces coming our way, and enough fighter bombers and helicopters to support any operation.”

Kthla looks over at the final person at their table. SunQueen grins at him and waits to see whether or not this time he could actually say it. Kthla blushes and looks down, causing SunQueen to chuckle a bit. He just can’t bring himself to ask ‘how goes our escort service?’ “All of our soldiers have at least two respawn tokens.” She says. “The only bad news is that we do not have a healthy surplus at this time. We have enough to resupply half of our troops.”

Kthla winces at that last part. “We will just have to make do and hope we don’t meet any massive attacks anytime soon. I’ve finished the research needed for ICBMs and I’m starting up construction of silos in the DMZ guild area. I will be moving all DMZ production out to the guild zones to make room for these silos. Once they are built, I’m going to start building ICBMs to put in them.” He looks around the table. “Since we have enough stocked up to meet foreseeable losses, I want you all to start producing the next generation.” SunQueen chuckles a bit at this, causing Kthla to blush and clear his throat. “The next generation of VEHICLES and WEAPONS.” He clarifies. “Once we have enough of those out to our troops, we should have brought everything pretty much up to speed with what we’ve got in reality.”

This brings a grin to everyone’s faces. Skye is the first to speak. “I’m sure that’ll be comforting to all the veterans who came in here to fight.” A bunch of nods around the table.

SunQueen lifts up her glass. “To our victory over He Who Is.” She says in a toasting manner. The others raise their glasses and clink them together, then down their drinks.

Enzira, Fantasy Faction Territory

Akeno looks across the room at her best friend, Rias, as she discusses a recently found dungeon over a map on the strategy table with her generals. The Knights of the Blood Oath had not been sitting idle during the last couple of months. Soon after Rias had rallied the players in Alaria to raid the Gryphon Cave and rescue those poor, trapped women, the Knights of the Blood Oath had seen a surge of people wanting to join up and had even merged with several other guilds in the area to become the single largest guild in all the Fantasy lands located in North America. This made for a massive headache in terms of organization but they had managed to make it though. Her original party had become an honor guard of sorts and had been honed by some of the best players in their faction to be the best players in the guild. The reason for this was simple: Rias has to survive. Not because she is a great strategist or a demigod-like leader among mankind. No, the simple truth is that after that whole thing with the Gryphon Cave, she became the symbol of hope for the entire faction. Once people heard about how she and Miya had chanced the cave alone and found out that information, people rallied behind her. After the attack into the cave, led by Rias and her Knights, was a success, players from all over came to support her, simply because she gave them the hope that they could survive this entire thing and live to see the real world again. Most were followers, but several of the leaders of various guilds stepped up to advise her and be her generals. She symbolizes their oath: They would not give up until everyone was out of this world and back home. These men and women make up for her weaknesses.

Together, the Knights of the Blood Oath had taken back their guild lands and held them, gathering up all of the fantasy guilds in much the same way as the United States of America alliance had gathered up all the human faction guilds under its flag. Now, they had found a dungeon to raid near the border with the human faction, located within a small blighted zone that appears to act as a lookout post for the southeastern blighted zone, and is small blight located in what was West Virginia. The terrain is mostly mountainous, which is why the blight is small compared to the southeastern blight the human beta players had died in. It’s also nothing compared to the Sierra Nevada blight, a large blighted zone that covers most of the area of Arizona, Nevada, western Texas, and stretches down in Mexico a good long ways.

“So, how will we do this?” Rias asks.

One of her Generals, an elf named Eragon, speaks up. “Well, we plan to draw out the dungeon’s main forces with a hard strike at their outlying mob groups. This will bring down the Blight’s outer response forces in the region. While they are engaged, you can go in along with some scouts and find the captives inside the dungeon and bring them out before the enemy thinks it’s losing. Otherwise, the Endarkened may kill our people. Once you are out with our lost brethren, we will stop simply holding the enemy and attack in force to defeat him entirely. Then we can pull out before the enemy sends in reinforcements.”

Rias nods. “Do our forces have enough respawns to keep up with this?” She asks.

Another general speaks up, this one a female gryphon named Sheera. “Yes ma’am. We have a count from all of our troops and they have been told that when they reach one respawn token they are to fall back and let the next person take over.” Rias smiles at her. The gryphon had been a beta tester and was in Gryphon Cave. She had been one of those rescued and now, given her familiarity with the system, is in charge of making sure ALL of the players have at least two respawn tokens, even if she must make sure they get it through her own actions.

She also runs the organized prostitution business inside the Knights of the Blood Oath. The catch phrase to make the job more palatable, “Fuck Them to Save Them”, is a driving force behind why many women (and some men) who would otherwise never think of doing this sort of work actually do it now. It’s become so popular that some posters have gone up around town with it on there. The sheer number of players in the fantasy faction has allowed for them to, just barely, keep up with demand.

She is also ideally suited for her job, Rias knows. Due to her time in Gryphon Cave, she has no shame or bashfulness about sex. She even checks up on the married couples for their respawn tokens and has been known to go out into the training grounds, a willing guy or girl next to her, and pull out individuals in front of their entire groups and order them to go home and fuck until they have at least two tokens. Her bluntness about it has allowed for shame to work for her and a lot of the time, at the sight of her, several people have been known to leave the practice ground of their own accord to go tend to their neglected sex life.

All this runs through Rias’ head in a fraction of a second. She looks over as another general starts to speak. “We also finally have the aerial forces to cover the ground forces.” Says Goldie, a female dragon with gold scales. “A lot of our beast handlers have switched over to aerial spec. We have enough drakes to keep a force the size of the one that attacked the Betas occupied until the fight on the ground is settled and the mages supporting our troops can turn their attention to the skies.”

“What about your plans to find dragons?” Rias asks.

“Still going forward. We won’t be able to summon dragons until we get people in the level 20 to 25 range but, it’ll happen. Until then, we’ve got whatever we can find and tame in the wild.” Goldie responds.

Rias nods. “Alright, we’ll start moving out in the morning.” She says. She’s a little nervous, this is their first strike into a blighted zone since the Fall of the Betas, but they simply can’t leave players in torment like this.