It made no god damned sense. Absolutely no fucking god damned sense at all…

For some unknown and completely inexplicable reason, the Bestiral Kingdom’s military was somehow able to predict exactly where a decently sized warband of Beastmen would attack. True, the fact that the forces of the kingdom would neither pursue nor actively attack the Beastman warbands made things slightly less damaging, but it still meant that there was either a mole or that someone, somehow, had managed to predict the targets and time 13 separate attacks in merely a day and a half, then march a large group of soldiers and militia over to said target before coopting the local people into building improvised defenses.

And, let me remind you, this was all done in less than a day and a half.

This alone made Vaile, Dur’kor and Blaer very concerned. And why wouldn’t they be? Someone had either leaked the information about their plans or they had to deal with a precognitive foe, and neither of those two potential things were optimal or desirable. And, in the event that it was both? Well, that was a nightmare just waiting to happen…

As a result of this turn of events, the Unified Tribes were ordered to avoid engaging with any decently sized force belonging to the kingdom and engage in heavy reconnaissance before any attacks on supply trains or caravans. However, this did not apply to the proverbial ‘ace up the sleeve’ the Beastmen had, even though they did not wear clothes with sleeves. This ace was an extraordinarily powerful being who just so happened to be able to enter places controlled by the Races and trot around mostly undisturbed.

And that ace was Vaile.

…

Vaile walked through the medieval city he found himself in. Having evaded any military patrols leading to this place and having followed the gossip and rumors, his little ‘quest’ had pointed his attention to this one city. On the surface, nothing seemed all that special about this city. The roads were clean, the people were happy, the buildings were in good shape and everything just seemed to be perfectly fine and dandy here. This was all well and good, unless you counted one teeny-tiny itsy-bitsy little problem.

And that problem was that there was a war going on between the kingdom and the Beastmen and that the price of a single loaf of bread was currently greater than that of a fully customized and complete suit of steel plate-mail, with all the bells and whistles added in for good measure.

By all rights, this city should have been in the midst of riots and/or martial law, and yet there was none of that here. Vaile’s sleuthing had led him here, to where the ‘genius military commander’ supposedly was stationed, but something about this whole place just felt… off. This did not sit well with the veteran VRMMORPG player that Vaile was, and as soon as the major alarm bells in his head started blaring, he decided that he had seen enough and turned to leave.

But, as if he had been followed by an army made of some kind of super-rogues, he turned to see a sizable martial force that had somehow creeped into position behind him and followed him all the way to where he was now, having further increased their numbers and fortifying their positions as Vaile had moved.

“Well, shit.” Vaile said with a sigh. Apparently, he wasn’t as sneaky as he had thought, or maybe there really was a mole or precognitive mastermind leading the Bestiral Kingdom’s military.

From the mass of soldiers and militia that had gathered behind him, and were now in front of him, a single Lion Werean emerged. He was young, handsome and held himself well. The problem was that he was dressed in a mix of Bikini Armor and a button-down vest made of toupees, along with a whole lot of belts.

“What are you supposed to be?” Vaile asked, not really understanding what he was looking at. “Are you some poor idiot’s attempt at min-maxing that didn’t get access to a transmog station? You look ridiculous, and not in the good way, either. Did you just walk out of a convention and forget to change or are you really so dumb that you can’t even realize how stupid you look?”

The sight of this person in his absurd getup was putting Vaile on edge, as it was just so bizarre that he couldn’t really begin to process the sight before his eyes.

“Me? A fool? No! You are the Fool, Iggy the Dog!”

The oddly dressed Lion Werean said something that stunned Vaile nearly senseless.

“And! And you are a monster! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!”

Once again, the words flowing from the idiot’s mouth stuck Vaile in a ‘loading’ state, too confused to comprehend what was going on. But, soon enough, he managed to collect himself and ask a singular question.

“Are you… a Player?”

“Player? I’m a baller! Haters gonna hate and playas gonna play! You mad, bro?”

The Lion Werean drew a hand-and-a-half sword that was at his waist before lunging forward at Vaile with a thrust towards his neck.

“Take off every Zig! For great Justice!”

Unfortunately for the Lion Werean, Vaile had grown a bit more used to the weirdness spouting from the mouth of the foe he was facing and was able to move aside and dodge the thrust.

Or at least he thought he was being thrusted at, because as soon as he began to move the sword shifted its movement and began a slashing motion which shifted into various other types of attacks with every move Vaile made.

“You… you’re good…” Vaile remarked as he kept up his dodges with the ever more challenging swordplay of his current foe.

“Good? Bad? I’m the guy with the gun!” The Lion Werean who, might I remind you, was wearing a scale-mail bikini and a button-down vest made of stitched-together toupees, cried out with potent passion.

“Yeah, you are good. Really good… Too good for your current level… But…” Vaile said, kicking off the ground and managing to make more than seven meters of distance between himself and his unusual enemy.

“But?” The Werean fighter asked in a rare bit of sane dialogue.

“You are not facing someone with a level like yours…” Vaile said, a smile forming under his mask. Vaile began to stretch and limber up as the mass of military men and militia watched him with visible distain. After a few seconds, Vaile seemingly disappeared from view, much to the shock of the crowd. They had thought he had pulled a fast one and teleported away, but this could not have been further from the truth.

…

Crown Prince Laiyunoh moved his sword to seemingly block the air coming from his left side, only for an invisible force to hit him from the right and deal enough damage to his liver that he collapsed to the ground in abject agony. The invisible enemy could be heard to utter, “I’m not done yet…” before the oddly dressed Prince was knocked up into the air and then slammed down into the ground, having taken an uppercut to the jaw and then an axe kick to the stomach.

The prince Fighter popped a healing potion and stood up again and looked around, but his foe was moving too fast for even his superhuman eyes to see, and his insanity-enhanced precognitive abilities could not keep up with the rapid movements of the white and red clothed man. He was barely able to perceive where his enemy was in time to do anything about it, and his opponent kept going faster and faster. He was just about to request a draw, but a vision assaulted him with a dire warning only he could understand. He tried to face the side that his foe was going to come from in time, but was unable to stop the ludicrously fast person from ripping through the barriers in his way and knocking him out with a solid left-hook to the face.

He was only able to mutter his prophecy a mere moment after it had happened, mumbling a single exclamation in a singing voice as he faded into a comatose state.

“He came in like a wrecking ball!”