90

The Choice

Kat’s heart sank. Rian was…gone? All the things that had happened to him—fusing with that Loyalist and whatever had happened in Yindra’s tower—had it all come to this? Wearing away the person that had been Rian piece by piece until nothing was left?

The moments they’d had together were brief, but Kat had seen something in him she’d been looking for. If they’d had a bit more time with each other, she was sure that something special would develop between them. And yet the future she’d imagined had vanished. So suddenly. So inconsequentially. A literal god was hovering in the sky before her, and all she felt was grief for what could’ve been.

As for what he’d said about this game being a cover-up for a military operation…she wasn’t sure she could believe that. Hell, this whole thing seemed fishy. But she couldn’t deny that she just saw him smite a GM out of existence.

“For those who’ve remained until this point,” Rian said, “across all of Miracia, hear this: I offer you a choice.

“There exists a portal between my world and yours. I will soon seal it forever. If you log out of your Vessel, you cannot return here. But if you choose to stay—and leave your body on Earth behind—you will live here instead, indefinitely. And we will rebuild this world together.

“But know this: if you choose to stay, I will undo the protections that the GMs’ System has provided you. They have obscured the violence you’ve inflicted upon this world and its inhabitants, and they have dulled your senses so that you have not experienced what your Vessel is truly capable of feeling.

“I do not wish for unnecessary atonement, for you were deceived, and I wish to believe that those who stay here will understand their wrongdoings. But for every Vessel who becomes a permanent resident of Miriad, know that you will feel the full breadth of pain and suffering if such a thing is inflicted upon you. And if your Vessel is to die, your fate will be in my hands. I will resume my position as the arbiter of souls in Purgatory and judge your actions as you pass through into another life within this world.”

“U-um…excuse me…”

Everyone in the stadium turned to look at the person who’d spoken up. It was a mid-level mage flushed with embarrassment, raising a hand as if to be called upon in a classroom. “Can we…you know…still level up and get stronger? If we choose to stay?” He winced, bracing himself, fearing for his life.

Rian said nothing, still hovering there in the sky with the clouds parted around him. Then he descended further until he was standing upon the arena inside the stadium. The intimidating godly aura around him had diminished.

Rian smiled. For an instant, Kat thought she saw the old him still in there.

“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”

The dour mood in the stadium lightened as people whispered to each other, their shocked gazes turning to sparks of glee. It was like they didn’t even care about what Rian had said earlier. Really? Kat thought. Is that all you people want?

I mean, I kinda do, too. But…

“In fact,” Rian said, “I’d like it very much if the Fata Morgana tournament were to continue someday. Rebuilding Miracia will be our first priority. And once that’s accomplished, everyone will be free to seek their own paths to power through the new System I’ll create.”

“You really have that much faith in humanity?” someone else said. There was a brief rustling as everyone turned to face him. It was a top ranker in the stands, a Rogue in black. “Everyone called me crazy for thinking this world was real. But I knew what was going on. Do you really think this won’t all happen again with the people who choose to stay? That they won’t just abuse whatever System you design, for their own gain?”

Rian seemed to consider it. “Systems aren’t inherently bad. It’s how they’re used. Now that I have complete control, I can make sure no one else tries to abuse their power to pull off a grand-scale deception like Reflect Systems did. Everyone on Miracia can hear me right now, and I can see everyone.”

“So, what, we’re supposed to trust you to make the only decisions?”

“Again,” Rian said, “it’s your choice to make. Go back to a world of chaos, or stay here and follow my guidance.”

The crowd was getting restless. All who remained at this point were the ones who were either undecided or staying. Kat hoped no one was about to press their luck against Rian to test his power.

Rian’s gaze narrowed. “And if you wish to kill me or overthrow me—”

Everything scattered. For a moment, Kat felt as if the wind had passed not by her but through her. Like a space had opened between every atom in her body for an instant.

Everyone in the stadium was suddenly shivering, glancing around, restless. They’d felt it too.

“You’re welcome to try,” Rian said. “I invite you to challenge me, in fact.” He slowly turned to look across the stadium. “You will be capable of so much more. The limitations of the GMs’ System have been removed. The accumulation of power may now proceed beyond anything that came before, for those who wish to pursue it. But remember: in the end, it is I who will judge you.”

“Can we have like…a day to make a decision?” the Rogue said. “This is, uh…kind of a lot. I mean, we’d be leaving everything behind, wouldn’t we? Some of us have families.”

When Rian’s expression darkened, so did the entire sky. “You have the next hour to decide. If I keep the portal open any longer, there’s a chance that more people from Earth will invade. I’m already being as gracious as I can in offering you a choice to begin with.”

“And what’ll happen to our bodies?” someone else chimed in. “Are people just gonna…find our corpses?”

“No,” Rian said, “your Earth-self will not die if you choose to stay. I will create a reflection of your consciousness and send it back to Earth. It’s within my power to do so. Neither choice you make will result in death, but the you on Earth will not retain their memories of this world regardless of your decision. I think that will be for the best.”

The excitement and anticipation in the air rose noticeably at that. When it seemed no one else had any concerns, Rian straightened up and closed his eyes for a moment.

All across the stadium, hundreds of shining blue text windows opened. There was one for every player.

The time has come to decide. What will you choose?

(Stay / Leave)

Kat and Maia turned to each other.

Maia’s eyes were somber, reluctant. She took Kat’s hands in her own. “Kat,” Maia said, “it’s been fun. But I’m afraid I’m gonna have to leave you behind.”

“What’re you saying? You’re…” Kat made a face as she realized. “You’re staying too, aren’t you.”

Trying to hold back laughter, Maia said, “Hope you have fun on Earth, Kat. I’m gonna miss you.”

Kat shook her head, trying to deflect Maia’s joke for once. “But shouldn’t we at least think this over? I mean, we have a whole hour to—”

“To what? Think about our cruddy lives back home? I don’t think you understand, Kat. We’re besties. I’m going wherever you’re going. And I already know you’re…” Her expression turned to worry as she saw the look in Kat’s eyes. “Are you seriously second-guessing it?”

“I just…” Kat sighed. “I don’t know.”

“He even said our Earth selves won’t die if we stay. He’s gonna…make a copy of us or something? Come on, Kat. It’s not even like you’re leaving your IRL partner.” She glanced off. “Well, I guess you are. But it’s more like he won’t be alone? I don’t know.” She threw up her hands. “Honestly, I don’t know what the hell’s going on. But if this is actually happening, I’m just saying, you should probably go with what your heart says. I mean, your MMO boyfriend’s a literal god now.”

“But I don’t know if he’s even still…” Kat trailed off.

“Hah! So you’re admitting it, finally?”

“What?”

“You didn’t deny it this time. The boyfriend part.”

Kat blushed, then scratched the back of her head.

“Well,” Maia said, “I have some good news for you.” She glanced and nodded aside—at the seat on the other side of Kat.

Rian was sitting next to them, smiling like he’d been waiting for Kat to turn around for the last minute. Kat glanced back at the center of the stadium, and the four-armed version of Rian had vanished. The Rian beside her looked like his old self, the horns gone and his eyes normal again. He was even wearing his old equipment, a white karate uniform.

“Hey,” Rian said. “It’s been a hell of a day, huh?”

Kat leaped up and threw her arms around him.

***

Sidna sat in her personal arena in Nostdal and listened. The voice was everywhere, like a global message that couldn’t be ignored.

It was him, all right. His voice was a bit different than last time, but she knew it well enough by now.

The first time Sidna had fought him in ranked PVP, he hadn’t said much.

The second time they’d met was in the first Sacred Tournament, a year ago. After their match, she had confronted him about his potential, and they’d talked about his plans, what wish he would have Yindra fulfill. It’d been as if he was a different person entirely, though he’d still been a Knight, and his name tag had still been Raven. When Sidna recounted their first meeting to him, he hadn’t seemed to remember it.

And then the third time, most recently, he’d changed his name—and his class—and had arrived in her domain in Nostdal to advance to a Monk. There’d been something special about him, that time. A little more self-awareness. A stronger adaptability to his tactics, even if he were weaker at that moment. There was a wealth of potential within him that he didn’t seem to realize he had.

She was glad he seemed to’ve found that potential after all.

The time has come to decide. What will you choose?

(Stay / Leave)

Sidna smiled. It was about damned time.

***

A cold wind outside the Temple of Altir fluttered through Chrono’s robes. She gripped the rim of her wizard hat as the breeze passed by, carrying a strange voice like multiple people speaking the same words at once.

Even so, she recognized one of the voices.

It was that Monk that she, Enishi, and Bree had run into in the Gorgheit Rift. The player with reluctance in his eyes like he’d been holding a deep, sad secret.

What will you choose?

(Stay / Leave)

What in the world was going on?

***

Sven had been weeping for several hours now, feeling as desolate as the rocky, Aetherian wastelands that surrounded him. Even Yatagara had abandoned him moments ago, disappearing into a strange runic circle.

It just wasn’t fair. If fate had put Sven up against Trini in the first round of Fata Morgana S, then it meant that Yindra herself had denied him victory. He had never been destined to find her in the first place.

He had no reason to live anymore.

And then a familiar voice entered his head, talking about the game being over, the GMs’ defeat, and Miracia’s restoration.

That voice. Was it really the Monk from the end of 3-2? Had he won the four-man tournament from the other side of the bracket? Was this the wish that he’d asked of Yindra?

What will you choose?

(Stay / Leave)

Sven’s eyes widened. The System text shone like it was delivered from the heavens themselves.

“Yindra!” he cried, fists raised to the sky. “I’ll find you yet! Wait for me!”

***

Trini chewed on a piece of cooked mei as she listened to the booming voice in the sky.

It was him. The Monk that had defeated her in the final round.

So this was his wish. Somehow he’d convinced Yindra to change everything after all, but something didn’t seem right. He was making it sound like this world was more than virtual—that the real world was involved, and that they’d been invading Miriad since the very beginning. How could that be true? Maybe it was some kind of prank he was pulling with his newfound power. The GMs hadn’t stopped him yet, so there was no way it was actually—

Then she saw it in her System feed. She’d missed it initially: the global alert about a GM being banned.

The piece of mei she’d been eating fell out of her hands.

A GM, banned by a player? It couldn’t be real.

Could it?

Trini didn’t know where her version of Corvis had gone or if he was ever coming back. But she felt such an urge to interrogate him, pry the answers out of him. The answers that he’d been reluctant to share with her since the start of their journey.

She sighed, closing her eyes. What was she thinking? Getting swept up in all this. It was absurd. Ridiculous.

It was just a game. No one, nothing, could convince her otherwise.

But there it was: just a tinge of doubt in the back of her mind. Everything that Corvis had told her since she’d gained the Mark of Yindra—had he been telling her the truth? All this time, she’d dismissed his remarks as being part of the game. As part of the lore. And yet she’d never been able to bolster their companionship beyond the first level.

But that Monk had done it. That Monk had fused with Corvis—not the Corvis she knew, but another one. A parallel self.

The same self, a different outcome.

Trini gritted her teeth. She didn’t want to admit it, but the truth was staring her in the face. She couldn’t deny it. If the other Corvis had reached level four companionship with that Monk and fused with him, then it had to be true. It could only have worked if the Monk truly believed in Corvis, with the System as a judge.

She had been wrong—about everything. The words that Monk was broadcasting to everyone on the continent were true.

A parallel self.

Life had made her a bitter person. Cynical. Full of deep-seated rage. She could admit that. Anyone who’d lived the life she had would’ve ended up the same way. But sometimes, she wondered, it seemed as if she and her twin sister, during the early years of their life, had been the exact same person. And yet here they were, on two different paths.

Where had it all begun?

Life began with nothing. That was a cardinal truth. Growing up in poverty had shaped both of them but in different ways. With a mother who was constantly working and with little oversight, Trini and Kat had used video games to escape. A paradise of worlds to journey to. New challenges to overcome. Different challenges than the ones they faced.

At first it had been them against the games. At some point it had evolved into something else. A way of measuring themselves against each other, putting their pride on the line. Maybe that was where it had begun, she often wondered. The moment when a rift began to open between them.

Time drove things apart. It always did. As they’d gotten older, Trini had known things couldn’t last, couldn’t stay the same forever. And Kat had shied away from it all, retreated into herself over time.

Different roads for each of them.

Trini had gone into enormous debt for her law degree, had spent countless hours working to support herself, studying to pass the bar. At times, it had been so hard, so stressful, that she wasn’t sure she could keep going. Or that life was worth it at all. Games had been her out, her escape—at first for stress relief, until it had become just another medium in which to prove her worth. To herself. To the world.

And then nothing else began to matter. Nothing but that sliver of control that Trini had found when so much else was ephemeral and meaningless.

And all the while Kat had stayed home, had done nothing with her life. She’d merely gotten lucky, dating a well-off man who did nothing but enable her habits, her addiction.

But if that path of escapism had resulted in Kat being less alone, not any less loved, then was it truly worse than the other path?

In the end, Trini couldn’t deny that what she and the rest of LastWhisper had done to her sister in this game was out of a misguided sense of hate. She didn’t want Kat to suffer. She didn’t want to deprive her of the joy of games. She just wanted Kat to realize what she was doing to herself, to get her life sorted outside of the game. To know that there was a way out after all.

Trini had only wanted her to find a greater sense of purpose in a world that seemed so eager to strip everything away from everyone.

And now, it seemed things were about to diverge between them once again.

Two paths for the two of them.

Trini covered her mouth, closed her eyes, bit down against the sob that was trying to find its way out, but she couldn’t hold it back any longer.

In the end, she realized what she was about to lose: one last chance to apologize to her sister.

Make your choice.

(Stay / Leave)