Jones spawned into the ruined meeting room, looking around to take stock of the situation. Multiple bodies were strewn around, but he noticed that a few of them were fading into digital noise, meaning that the player would be respawning soon. He saw Logan’s body pulled off to the side, and noticed that the livestream camera was still on. That was strange, because usually the camera would disappear when the player who started it died or logged off.

The camera turned to Jones as he approached. He stepped to the side and it tracked him. Great, he had an audience to his return. He looked at the ground, seeing all of the broken equipment that was there. Torn armor, broken guns, and the shards of furniture that used to exist in the room, covered the room from wall to wall, one of which had a new hole that wasn’t there when he left.

He saw one gun that looked to be repairable, or at least useful for Logan’s ability. Jones picked it up, noting that only the handle was broken, the rest of it was still in working order. He pulled up its stats, just to see what it was, because it looked a lot fancier than the rest of the weapons in the room.

Bird of Prey

Unique

Pistol

Damage: 22-30

Durability: 12/25

Range: 30 meters

Ammo: 6(5)

Special Effects

Raptor Strike: Firing from above your target gives this weapon two (2) times damage.

Updraft Glide: Headshot kills refresh the ammo in the current battery.

That was certainly a good weapon. Not as good as Logan’s for damage, but for something that could be fired multiple times per battery, it was certainly better than what he had available. Jones wasn’t much for the strike from above type of combat, so he put it into his inventory to give to one of the girls later on.

Stomping sounds from the new hole in the wall drew Jones’ attention. A massive insectoid centaur stalked into the room, the queen close behind. They seemed to recognize that Jones was friendly, because they didn’t immediately charge or try to attack him. He took another glance at the camera, before moving off to the side of the room, to look at repairing the pistol before the others got back on.

—

Meghan was the next to log back in, appearing in the middle of the debris that was still on the stage. She saw that Jones was working on something off to the side, and that there were two large devourers in the room. Besides them, about a dozen other players had returned, taking a much more serious approach this time, having moved furniture from the neighboring rooms to create cover for themselves.

The others gave her a nod of recognition, coming from the same rebel group they all used to belong to. She walked over to Jones to see what he was working on, and was surprised when he had a beautiful looking pistol on the small table in front of him, taken apart as he was working on shaping a new grip to fit onto the frame. His repair kit was on the table next to the weapon, but instead of just using it from the menu, he had somehow opened it up and took the tools out, just like Logan had shown them.

The frame was polished steel, which was strange as most of the guns in this game were made from reinforced plastic, and the pieces of the grip that looked broken were a dark stained wood. Engraved into the weapon was an eagle in flight, its beak near where the energy emitter was. Jones was working on putting a new grip together, and while it wasn’t as fancy as the wood, the chitin material they had gathered a load of in the caves was a good alternative.

Meghan sat on the ground nearby, letting Jones keep working, and pulling up her social menu. Pat was still offline, as were Tony and Wendy, but those two had already made the choice to stay away for a while. Logan was still online, but he was dead, so his name was grey as well. She couldn’t see how long it would be until he respawned, but she hoped it wouldn’t be too long, as the news she saw right before she jumped in showed the push into the city was making headway.

She tried to avoid looking at the devourers in the room, having watched clips of the carnage that the centaur creature was able to bring in just a few minutes. The timer for the capture of the planet was ticking down, and there were just a few hours left. Browsing the forums brought out a laugh, the amount of people who were talking about what might happen if they don’t stop Logan. Would newer players be devourers, stuck being a mutant insectoid creature? Would the starting sector change, allowing people to get even further away from the Free States? There were plenty of theories going around, and a lot of people arguing that no matter what happens, the militia being taken down a peg would be for the better for the entire game.

In a discordant tone, Logan materialized in the middle of the room. He looked around, and locked eyes with the centaur. A grin broke across his face, and he walked over to the big devourer.

“Good job, buddy. I’m glad that you were able to surprise them the way that you were.” Logan patted the creature on the clawed arm. He turned to the queen next, “Is he an elite, compared to the model we can mass produce?”

“Yes, my Hivelord.” The queen bowed as she answered, short and succinct. Logan looked back into the middle of the room, where the shadow of his blood still stained the ground. He walked over to where the camera was still floating, locked onto his every move. His helmet slid back out of his suit and sealed over his head, golden eyes glowing once again when the seal was complete.

“Hello again, everyone. I see that even your elite squad couldn’t take down my special surprise.” Logan motioned to the large creature behind him. “I hope you enjoyed seeing what we can do, if you just keep throwing yourselves at us. You’ve surely encountered the devourer workers, warriors, defenders, and even the queens before, and now that I’ve taken the city, my improved warriors, with hands, and guns.”

“Of course, this is new. Welcome my new butcher devourer, and you’ll see more of these in the next few hours. As you try desperately to fight your way here, please enjoy the terror of one of these charging at you, tearing and rending its way through your lines.” He grabbed the floating orb, carrying it to the butcher, who grabbed it in its claw. “Please enjoy this next part, because I’m looking forward to seeing what happens when we win.”

The butcher then squeezed, the camera orb becoming a haze of digital noise.

—

Logan let out a sigh, allowing his helmet to come back off. He walked over to where Jones and Megan were sitting, noting that Jones had a repair kit opened. That meant that he had figured out what needed to happen to get the Tinkerer skill, which he had been working on in their downtime. Logan was happy, because that meant that he could focus on his own gear for a while, or help Jones when they had a lot of things to repair or improve upon, which was likely in the near future.

Meghan stood up from the ground as he approached, and threw her arms around him when he was close enough. They stood there awkwardly, neither really knowing when was the best time to let go. After a minute or so, she relented, stepping back.

“I’m glad to see that you’re still okay, even if you were executed last time anyone saw you. I can’t imagine what it was like, having to live through that, knowing there was nothing you could do.” Meghan said, upset that she couldn’t be here when Jackson and his crew had attacked.

“Don’t worry too much about it,” Logan replied. “I was able to give them some false hope with my death, and then…” He just motioned to the butcher standing in the room, letting the presence of the imposing creature speak for itself.

“Still, though, I wish we could have been here, because it felt like we all abandoned you in your time of need.” Meghan wanted to find a way to make it up to him, especially since he had been online for a lot longer than was healthy. “Maybe you should log off, and get some sleep, we can watch over all of this for you.”

Logan’s face twitched at the mention of logging off. He hadn’t told anyone about his condition, which made him feel guilty that he was keeping such a big secret, but it couldn’t be helped.

“I’ll be fine, but thank you for the offer, Meghan. I want to see this thing through to the end.”

Jones opened a display window over the table he was working on, almost done with shaping the chitin to the gun. It showed aerial footage from outside, focusing on the militia’s frontlines, or what was left of them, now that the butchers had been released.

“I don’t think you’ll have to wait very long,” Jones said. “I’ve had the audio playing for a while now, so I could keep up on what they were doing, and the butchers you created have pushed them back by about three blocks.”

The others in the room started to relax after hearing that, pulling up their own browsers to check on what was happening. Logan wasn’t so sure that was a good idea, but didn’t want to say anything, for fear of bringing morale down. He hadn’t shown all of his abilities in combat, which was good, because it would give anyone who attacked him a new surprise, but he wanted to keep as much as possible hidden away.

Hopefully, Logan thought, things might turn out okay for a while.