JohnWillStab looked around, seeing the jGuardian base in the distance, his character stood naked in the centre of a small town, the homes were white and covered in plaster while the rooves were a dark yet vibrant green which made the whole place look very fantastical.

“♛: John?” the frogwoman awkwardly stood before JohnWillStab.

“JohnWillStab: …”

“JohnWillStab: WHO ARE YOU, IMPOSTER?!” he demanded, reaching for his weapon only to remember he put them away.

A swift whack from ♛ proved she was, in fact, the real deal.

“♛: I’m not a f#*king imposter, John! What the f#*k are you doing here?!” she demanded.

“JohnWillStab: Alright… you convinced me…” he admitted with streaks of blood streaming down his face after ♛’s attack.

JohnWillStab quickly caught ♛ up with the recent events, including the boat ride, the accidental charge and the fishman.

“♛: You guys… laid siege… TO THE F#*KING JGUARDIANS?!” she demanded, noticing the distant sounds of warfare.

John nodded sheepishly.

He couldn’t help but feel he was on the wrong end of the interrogation table here, but he chose not to press the issue.

“JohnWillStab: Well, you disappeared and Bonifacius got sad and was all like ‘I shall go rescue Crown’ but then it looked so cool I wanted to go too and then we all kind of left…” he explained.

♛ pinched the bridge of her nose.

“♛: dude… you are all… so dead…” she remarked.

An uncertain smile spread over John’s face in contrast to ♛’s bored expression.

“JohnWillStab: Don’t you mean, we’re so dead?” he asked shooting ♛ finger pistols.

Her lack of reply began to seed doubt in his mind.

“♛: Nope, you guys got yourselves into this mess, don’t get me involved.” She shrugged before turning away.

“♛: I made the whole jGuardian thing up, so you guys leave me alone,” she shrugged.

The same smile remained glued to John’s face, his finger pistols remained unfazed by the cold nature of the frogwoman.

“She’ll definitely be back!” he thought as ♛ disappeared with a puff of smoke, she reappeared on a beach in Ajuan.

John’s statue-like performance was applauded by a blue-haired swordsman.

“Atwoz: Great job, running-man!” he exclaimed.

John turned to face the grinning human.

“JohnWillStab: You can see my username… right?”

“Atwoz: Of course I can, running-man.”

“So this is what moss-guy feels like…” John thought.

“Atwoz: Anyway, I came to let you know you did great back there!”

“JohnWillStab: I just ran…” John replied blankly.

“Atwoz: I don’t think we ever made it that far into the jGuardian base before!” he exclaimed with a hearty laugh.

“JohnWillStab: That’s sad…”

“Atwoz: Legends are spreading amongst our ranks of the one known as the running phantom of the forest, untouchable by bullets and easily capable of dodging charging foes!”

“JohnWillStab: I have projectile dodge, so I can dodge like one bullet… also, what kind of legends spread less than five minutes after an event?!” he demanded.

“Atwoz: That’s right, your legend inspired our men to fight bigger and fight faster!” he exclaimed enthusiastically.

John breathed a sigh.

“JohnWillStab: You forgot better and stronger…”

Atwoz shook his head dismissively and laughed.

“Atwoz: We already tried that, we’re not great at those two! But we can fight BIGGER AND FASTER!” he cheered, lifting his over-sized sword into the air remarkably quickly.

A few more players wearing the same tabards cheered as well, John didn’t notice them until this point.

“JohnWillStab: Were you guys always there?”

“Atwoz: So, running-man! Will you join our charge once more and help us bring down the jGuardians once and for all?” he asked with a look that told everyone the question was but a formality.

“JohnWillStab: God no…”

“Atwoz: GREAT! Let’s go! To liberate the server!” he cheered, Atwoz proceeded to lead the group of two-dozen respawned players out of the town and towards the jGuardian base.

While John sat on the ground, contemplating his plan, he never realised five minutes already passed.

“Atwoz: Your legend lives on, running-man!” he exclaimed.

Listlessly, John looked up and noticed the strange, blue-haired man looking down at him once again.

“JohnWillStab: You again?” he asked, visibly annoyed by the repeated interruption.

“Atwoz: I hear tales of the running-man so quick nobody could even see him!”

“JohnWillStab: Because I didn’t go with you guys…” he said plainly.

“Atwoz: That’s right, running-man! Fast like a bolt of lightning, capable of dodging bullets and blades alike so quickly not one of us managed to spot you!” he exclaimed.

A few players behind him cheered as well.

“JohnWillStab: The others respawned…” he remarked matter-of-factly, John saw the other Silverlight players reappearing one after the other, they were one or two short, meaning some were probably captured.

He turned back to the leader, Atwoz.

“JohnWillStab: You’re the guy in charge, right?”

Atwoz nodded proudly.

“This guy is going to get them all banned…” John thought.

“JohnWillStab: Then, are you giving up… or?”

What John hoped would become a look of defeat instead became a valorous look of determination upon the blue-haired man’s face.

“Atwoz: EXACTLY!” he spun around to face his guild.

“Atwoz: Our friends have been captured! Those jGuardian cowards are too afraid to leave their base and fight us!”

He lifted his blade into the air once again.

“Atwoz: So, like the hero of our war, running-man, I shall ask you this once again…”

“Atwoz: ARE WE GIVING UP, OR ARE WE GOING TO GO GET OUR FRIENDS BACK!?”

No actual reply came, there were just cheers and battle-cries.

As the men marched towards the jGuardian base, Atwoz waited back for just a few seconds.

“Atwoz: You have my thanks, running-man! I know we were all feeling down after our crushing defeat!” he said with a smile.

John didn’t bother looking at the man as he began brainstorming a plan to attack the jGuardian base.

“JohnWillStab: Sure thing, I gotcha buddy, head down to the battle field, I’m going to light-speed zip right over there like before!” he said with a dismissive thumbs up before shooing him away.

Atwoz nodded and followed his guild to their deaths while JohnWillStab continued sitting around and scratching his head in search of a plan.

“Maybe I can sneak inside?... Then what?”

“I can’t sit around all day waiting for ♛ to show up!... Which she will definitely do!”

Meanwhile, ♛ was sitting on a beach in Ajuan, drinking pina colada from a coconut while watching a video of a fat cat trying to jump out of a bath.

JohnWillStab leaned back in his chair.

He went through many possibilities in his mind and came to the conclusion that needed several people to pull off, a siege.

That was when he was approached by Atwoz once again.

“Atwoz: fantastic work as usual, light-speed-running-pervert-of-the-field-charge-and-bullet-dodging!”

Just a John was about to ask Atwoz to lend him his army for a siege, he read over his “nickname”.

“JohnWillStab: WHERE’D THE PERVERT PART COME FORM!?”

Atwoz pointed behind him to a large, bearded human wielding a giant hammer.

“Atwoz: Steve said he felt somebody smack his a$$ while we were fighting, it’s alright though, he said he liked it!”

John jumped to his feet.

“JohnWillStab: HOW CAN I SLAP A GUY’S A$$ IN REAL LIFE!?” he demanded.

“Atwoz: Are you looking for a tutorial or are you asking about the moral implications?”

“Steve: There is no need for instructions! His technique was impeccable!”

John pinched the bridge of his nose.

Atwoz looked down to John.

“Atwoz: Also, you’re naked.” He added.

He clicked his tongue a few times.

“Atwoz: I told the crew it’s for aerodynamic reasons but I don’t think they all bought it…”

“Steve: It’s alright, I really don’t mind!”

“JohnWillStab: WELL I F#*KING DO!”

He shook his head.

“JohnWillStab: Anyway… how’d your invasion go?” he asked.

“Atwoz: We got kill and half of us were imprisoned!” he exclaimed with a thumbs up.

Some of the other Silverlight players cheered.

“JohnWillStab: Are… are you guys ok?” he asked with a hint of concern in his question.

“Atwoz: No!” he cheered; the others joined his cheer.

He spun around on his heel towards the jGuardian base.

“Atwoz: Now then! Let’s go!” he pointed to the jGuardian base once again.

As the group began their brain-dead march once again, this time the light-speed-running-pervert-of-the-field-charge-and-bullet-dodging stepped in before them.

“JohnWillStab: You could!” he began.

“JohnWillStab: Or… And hear me out, you could actually make it past the gates!”

The Silverlight players muttered amongst each other.

Atwoz’s expression grew serious.

“Atwoz: Is such a thing truly possible?” he asked.

JohnWillStab smiled.

“JohnWillStab: If you guys follow my strategy, I’m sure we can bring the castle down!” he said with the confidence of someone wearing clothes.

Several minutes later, in the jGuardian base.

PastaPerfect patrolled the walls.

“PastaPerfect: Any damage?” he asked, glancing at the big cannon.

“Mundanec: Nah, I don’t think any of them were over level twenty…” he remarked.

“PastaPerfect: Hah… alright…” the man smiled.

The large cannons-like devices were made from metal, they were player-made, the words “Kevin’s Arms Guild” were engraved near the base of the weapon.

Basically, they were low-level cannons found on ships with dozens of modifications done by the secretive weapon-making guild.

The officer of the jGuardian guild continued his patrol, passing the regretful fishman, sitting watchfully on the edge of the wall.

“PastaPerfect: Still here?” he asked.

The fishman nodded, blankly looking off into the forest.

“Olivionion: I’m sure the edgelord will be back… His kind don’t like people getting in the way of their power fantasies…” he replied casually, playing with his dagger.

“PastaPerfect: It’s just a game, man. You shouldn’t be wasting your time doing nothing~!” he said with a flick of his hair.

“Olivionion: Wasting my time? Nah, it’s more like… hunting…”

PastaPerfect breathed a sigh, abandoning any hopes of finding a halfway normal guildmate.

“The guild leader is a psychopath; the officers are never online and anybody above the rank of a recruit is a combination of both!” he thought before collapsing to the ground, dead.

A splatter of blood flew out as the bullet from a sniper rifle pierced his skull.

Looking down to the corpse, Olivionion already made several assumptions.

“Judging from the splatters they’re firing from out there…”

“They must know I’m a dagger class with bullet dodge since I’ve been out here this whole time…”

“They’ve taken the shot in clear sigh of several players meaning they are trying to get our attention…”

Olivionion still sat on the wall, he turned his head back seeing a group of guards falling to the ground in panic, some grabbed their bows while others rushed to the ladders leading off the walls.

“This isn’t a brain-dead attack like before… they have a new leader…”

“Maybe… it’s an edgelord trying to get back at us for something…” the fishman grinned glancing down to his daggers.

Tensely, Olivionion waited for the charge to begin.

“They’re going to have to move fast… otherwise Pasta will respawn…”

Still, nothing happened.

He slumped his shoulders as the realization it was a lone sniper came over him.

“Olivionion: how lame…” he breathed a sigh.

He hopped off the wall and down to the blood-soaked ground below, Olivionion made a break for the woods.

Not long after that, an explosion went off in the forest, was it a bomb? Or maybe a spell? Nobody knew, especially Olivionion who was too far away to even notice it in the thick trees, the other jGuardians didn’t know that though.

A few of them began to panic.

“What if he fell for some trap!?”

“They’ll be charging soon!”

The gates opened as from inside the base emerged over a dozen short and long ranged players.

As they waited for foes to come appear from the forest, they never expected them to come from behind.

While all the jGuardians ducked for cover and Olivionion waited for the charge, a group of several players including John crawled, one by one amidst the corpses and blood.

They blended in perfectly.

By the time the jGuardians understood that, the close-range players took care of the long-ranged players positioned behind the melee fighters.

As the fight devolved into one-on-one melee fights, reinforcements appeared from the woods, in total, exactly twenty Silverlight players were present.

After taking care of the main force of the jGuardians, who, if not for the Alexander crisis would have been far more equipped to combat such a measly force of players, John and the others moved into the jGuardian base.

“JohnWillStab: Remember the plan, you three go to the gatehouse to close the gates, that way none of those jGuardians we killed can respawn and come back inside,”

“JohnWillStab: You two, go push the PastaPerfect guy off the wall to make sure he doesn’t respawn here, then go man the cannon things and fire on the main building!”

“JohnWillStab: Five of you need to stay here and secure the gates,”

“JohnWillStab: The rest of you will follow me into the building, split into groups of three, preferable have one tank, healer and DPS per group,”

“JohnWillStab: Atwoz will come with me!”

“Atwoz: EXACTLY! LET’S GO!” he cheered, of course, the others cheered too.

With the strongest group in the front, they entered the main jGuardian keep.

The walls were made from large, dusty, stone bricks with metal lanterns, the floor was wooden and covered in patches of dirt and dust, it was nothing like the fancy design of the floors above.

The hallway split in two, John commanded one group to go left as he and the weaker group headed right.

“Atwoz: Great job, where are we going now?” he asked.

“JohnWillStab: The dungeon, some of your people should be there, plus my friends!” he explained.

As the first group ran past a metal door everyone presumed was locked, it became a projectile, smashing one of the three group members into a red mist.

“Dorpificus: What a splendid assault!” he exclaimed.

“JohnWillStab: Keep going!” he ordered the remaining tank and DPS who looked at their mashed-up comrade.

“Dorpificus: Indeed! I will go finish you two off later!” he said waving them away.

JohnWillStab and Atwoz stood before the massive harpy which left the now doorless room, he looked perfectly human except for a pair of angel-like wings on his back.

He wore a fancy black suit with a jGuardian officer’s cape on his back.

Upon his head, he wore the world’s most magnificent top hat, it was black and made from a soft, silky material with very intricate patterns.

In his hand was a rapier.

Two curly feathers served as a moustache on the harpy’s well-defined face.

“Atwoz: Are you ready?”

“JohnWillStab: F#*k no…!”

“Atwoz: Then let’s do this!” he grinned.

“Dorpificus: Not bad, not bad at all! For a pair of hatless barbarians that is!” he exclaimed before running up to the two with his rapier at the ready.