CHAPTER 24: ABSOLUTE DOMINATION

The crossbow guy took a full step back, his eyes filled with horror and confusion. If only he was a girl...

"...What did you do to him?" He asked, "WHAT DID YOU DO?"

He didn’t reload the crossbow this time, instead, he blankly stared at his friend. His expression could be compared to that of a racoon learning how to use a vending machine only for that said vending machine to started humming in Latin.

I smiled wider with my teeth out.

"Just a little trick," I said, turning my head ever-so-slightly, tapping my temple with one finger. "A little wittle cutie patootie trick that only works when you understand the real pipeline of how this game processes input. Something that only me, yours truly, can comprehend, well, maybe a handful of other people but that’s beside the point."

They still looked confused.

I sighed, like a disappointed teacher.

"Okay, I’ll put it in simple terms for you neanderthals," I said, raising a hand and sketching lines in the air like I was explaining geometry to toddlers. "When you move, uh... When you press a key, flick a stick, issue a command in general, but in VR, it’s any movement really. Your inputs get sent away, we call that a package for some reason. First to the server, yeah? Then the server thinks about what that input means... Then processes and sends the result back to everyone’s clients."

They blinked, all confused and surprisingly patient, with only Hailie not hearing anything, just straight up staring blankly at me on the dirt.

I leaned in.

"There’s a lottttttt more that happen in between, especially with a game that have so much probabilities and maths like this. But think about it, what happens if packages were still sent to you, by means of you seeing everything, you can still breathe, you can acknowledge what’s happening, you can think. But, you, can, not, move~" I giggled in order to sound like a mad twink scientist, people love that trope online, I think, "It’s like being trapped in a prison where you can only be conscious but not alive. Horrific ain’t it, welcome to VR, buddies."

I pointed to the shortsword guy, still in the same stupid pose I left him in, with his eyeballs twitching, muscles locked, face sweating. Apparently, stuff you can’t control like your sweats and trembles can still be sent to the server.

"And to activate that, I reach for your... Nah fuck this, why am I explaining to such a boring crowd? One of you’s deaf and the rest is probably some fat unemployed nerd who piss in a bottle, this TED-Talk could’ve been an email."

"So you glitched him?" the crossbow guy yelled, backing off away from me, "That’s bannable! That’s cheating!"

"Oh, please," I rolled my eyes, swayed my hips with a hand on it, the other resting on my shield on the ground. "This isn’t cheating, it’s just skill issue. You’re the idiot who stood still while I poked around his ass"

The hook-chain guy had taken his foot off Hailie’s face. His arms were tensed, unsure whether to fight or run. That was the correct response, quite appropriate, a mix of fear, confusion. Maybe even awe.

Hailie, meanwhile, had stopped struggling. She was still wrapped in those chains, herface smeared with dirt and bootstain, but her eyes were now locked on me, perhaps she was amazed by how I managed to grab the attention of 3 audiences.

"Your friend’s waiting on a packet that will never come," I added casually, walking slowly toward the other two. "I bypassed it, maybe if he logs out, that’ll work. But when he logs back in, all the data’s gonna crash and his avatar is going to glitch, noclip into the backrooms or something and he’ll feel immense pain that no human could endure, probably a 3 months psychological recovery."

That part was fake, I bullshit it up, log in and out then you’re fine. But these guys don’t know that.

"Bullshit," the chain guy said, but his voice cracked, enough for me to deduct that he didn’t know any better.

I shrugged. "Then tell him to logout, go ahead, be my guest~"

They paused.

"Maybe he just lagged out," he muttered.

"Oh? Did he?" I chirped, turning my body to the side. I held up a hand, index finger pointed straight at the guy with the crossbow. "You want to test it too?"

"You do that to me," he said, stepping back, "I swear to god..."

"You’ll what?" I tilted my head. "Call the police? Cry to mommi?"

He hesitated.

But the chain guy didn’t, he yanked his hook back and charged at me.

He lashed the chain at me with a loud snap, and I ducked under it, the iron links whistling above my ears. I dashed forward into a knee takedown.

Naturally, he would knee my face if we were in equal terms of speed and reaction time. But we weren’t, so I easily tackle him down on his back.

An arrow pierced straight into my nape from behind.

"You’re a good shot. But you know what the grim reaper said, The Good Die Young."

Ignoring that arrow completely, only losing 8HP, I easily out-muscle and flipped the hook chain guy on his stomach. He tried to fight back, to turn around and face me, but I was already reaching behind his back, fingers dancing over the seams of his armor.

"Touch touch touch," I said with a sing-song lilt. "Let’s see if your hitbox is as stupidly exposed as your buddy’s was..."

"No... Please DON-"

Click.

"There we go~".

And there he was, laying on the ground, mouth open, eyes twitching, back exposed, laying on his stomach with one arm trying to crawl away and one arm trying to reach whoever that was riding on his back. Obviously, holding back to not deal any damage, because apparently tackling is fair game.

"Done and done," I said, twirling in a little circle like I’d just won a spelling bee. "These devs really did a terrible job sanitizing the input queue. Exploitable garbage, but hey, not my fault. And they surely got their handful already~"

The only one left was the crossbow guy. I usually leave the last one to tell the tale, like how I did with DreamDream, that’s if these guys worth any damn. But right now, I think they’re just... Pathetic, they totally definitely absolutely planned to rape the two of us.

"You wanna join your friends?" I asked sweetly. "Or maybe you’d like to run. Go report me to a mod. Go tell the world some unkillable cute ’n’ hot chick defeated 3 muggers, see what they’ll call ya. You’ll have a worse nickname than Bouncing Boy."

He aimed the crossbow at me with trembling hands.

Then, at Hailie, who already got up and ran to hide behind a rock after the chain guy released her.

"Didn’t we already established that it won’t work?" I said.

He pulled the trigger anyway.

And uh... I didn’t stop him, yeah, no, not my jurisdiction. And tooooootally not because I didn’t want to see a cute little helpless girl suffer.

Voot

Nothing happened.

CJS69Real: 86/102

Hailie: 20/20

No damage were registered for our little Hailie, even when visually the damage was inflicted. The arrow was embedded in her body like a prop toy, and she started squirming, despite totally not feeling pain and stopping after only a few seconds.

"Now," I whisper, approaching and leaning towards him, "What do you want to be put on your gravestone, dear?"

The crossbow guy fell to his knees, "What the hell are you people..." he whispered weakly.

I walked over slowly and crouched in front of him, my eyes locked on his.

"We," I said gently, "are your patch notes."

"Wait, fuck no, no no no no no, delete that from your memory, that was cringe, I am NOT about to let that be my one-liner. Fuck, one second."

I stared jumping up and down, running around his body for a second, while Hailie looked at me dumbfounded.

"We are veno... FUCK."

"I am your fathe... NO NO NO!"

"Just... Urg, tell the world I’m CJS69, that will be suffice."

I took a deep breath, a really, really deep breath.

And with that, I wrapped my fingers around the back of his neck, pulled him close in a mock-hug, and whispered: "Pupupupup... Where is it..."

He screamed in terror, then he froze.

The three of them were now statues. They do not move, they do not breathe, they can not hug their wives and children, they must spend eternity of consciousness staring into one direction, hoping that their mind stay intact, and hoping that the heatdeath gets to them before the wolves does.

Just kidding, of course, they can just log out. So, with my hands on my hips, I witnessed my great sculptures; three disgusting little examples of what happens when you were born to be fodders.

I turned back toward Hailie. Her bright white hair was ruffled and dirty from all that dirt, and her little ranger cloak was torn, leaving only the basic clothing behind. As I looked into her eyes, I can make out absolute confusion.

Because from her perspective, things went down basically like... She got stepped on by a random dude, she couldn’t hear anything because of deafness, then with the power of friendship, yours truly came around and hug everyone until they’re frozen in place as if they just got Medusa-ed.

"You’re welcome," I spoke first, patting her on the head and dusting off dirt from her body. Of course taking the opportunity to touch her mostly.

Hailie Sonders then pointed at the still-frozen players, before looking at me with her head tilted.

She didn’t speak, again, she was not mute, just confused about deafness.

I grinned in repsonse, "They’ll be fine, just think of it as a timeout corner." with a thumbsup, just in case she didn’t catch any of that.