Alice’s eyes clenched tight as she lay on the ground, surrounded by her friends and some onlookers. Why was it impossible to even touch that girl? Why was Alice forsaken to forever be powerless against her? Slowly, her fingers gripped tight against the cobblestone path beneath her – pushing her torso up in order to seat herself; blonde lengths of hair whipping about in front of her face momentarily.

“They were most likely making their way to the next area for more grinding. They’ve never used the very first day for that before, though.” Jacob sighed flatly, scratching at the side of his head as the sight of the two disappeared beyond the gates leading out into the dangers beyond. Returning his gaze downwards, to the blonde that sat in a defeated heap at his feet, he shook his head slowly.
“How many times have I told you not to attack her blindly? Are you trying to make everyone hate you?” he squatted at her side, cocking his head some to get a view of her expression. Her gaze lowered, as though she were a child that had just been caught stealing from the cookie jar. With a moment of silence falling over the group, Alice slowly pushed herself to her feet and brushed herself down – taking a moment further to calm herself down completely. It was true; she was being stupid. Next time, she would do her best to view the situation as logically as possible. She inwardly promised herself this, returning her blade to her side and following the others as they wandered off – noting that Jet had been staring at her through the corner of his eye.

“What?” she grunted, raising her head some and furrowing her brow at him. His features softened slightly and he glanced away, pretending not to have been found out. 

A month zoomed by, the floor’s boss not even touched by Rose or the Masked Man in the meantime. People had the chance to catch up in levels – or at least, that is what they thought. Rose continued grinding at her usual pace, building up quickly and efficiently. The fact that they had been leaving the boss was leading people to believe that even Rose could not handle it alone – at her level. 

The Red guild had been extorting more and more people as time crawled onwards, causing more and more of a panic amongst especially weak players. Alice and her followers had since taken it upon themselves to bring them to justice of their own accord – but were currently unable to find any leads on their whereabouts thus far. In the end, they decided to try and take on the Boss without Rose – hoping to get some good experience and drops from the battle.

The door parted, the crowd of near 50 players slowly making their way inside in groups of 7. They had been careful to use the utmost limit of possible players at once; being sure that Rose could not enter with them. As the two-headed creature stepped forth and raised its weaponry, the sheer enormity of its frame and HP bar dawned upon the players. It had been so long since they’d fought anything beyond a field boss that they’d forgotten how perplexing the situation always ended up being.

“Alright! We all know the drill; switch out constantly, make sure the AI can’t keep up and above all else – stay alive!” Alice roared, turning to face her comrades and raising her sword high. Even if she was childish, impulsive and immature – she certainly had the aura to command morale. Returning her attention to the monster that lunged towards the large group, she braced herself for combat.

To put it as simply as possible, it was a massacre. Most of the players were only barely within the safety margin for this Boss, some others a few levels behind and easily left in the dark when it came to experience in battle. Casualties were granted with one each minute they spent there, the giant picking them off when they got careless or made a mistake. They had been fighting for an hour by the time they’d gotten it down to the last bar of HP – having lost easily half of their fighting force in the process. 

“Alice! Get back into position! You’re going to aggro it!” Jacob barked, shoving past Jet and Nero to get closer to the blonde who was practically trembling in fear. The fear of losing more of her friends to this monstrosity that Rose probably could have handled without casualties. His club came crashing against her side, swiping the poor girl into the air and sending her hurling into the nearby wall – a small crack appearing in the surface of the solid structure. She crumbled to the ground in a heap with a cry of pain, curling up a little as she nursed at her wound; her HP bar dropping dangerously low.
“Shit!” Jacob cursed, turning and ushering in the remainder of their forces, “We have no choice! It’s do or die here!”

The ogre stopped dead in its tracks as the sound of its domain’s doors creaked open slowly. Rose and the Masked Man slowly stepped inside, the doors slamming shut behind them. The male gazed up at the giant for a moment, humming in wonder to himself as he slowly crossed either arm over his chest.
“Looks like we’re late to the show… Rose, go ahead and show them why they should be waiting for you.” He sighed aloud, slowly leaning back against the door. The red-headed warrior nodded slowly, before striding towards the battle, drawing her blade quickly and tossing the sheath upon the floor. It was only when she had moved a few steps farther did she stop before Jet, whom had intercepted her and blocked off the route to the boss monster.

“Sorry, Flower.” He grimaced quietly, slowly raising his blade before her and taking on a defensive stance, “These guys have been sweating tears of blood to kill this thing. I can’t let you take this away from them.”

Jacob hurried people into once again charging the Boss, hoping that Nero would take on the Boss too to kill it more efficiently in the now waning time remaining before Rose could get to it – while he himself went and checked on Alice, sprinting over to her crumpled form. She had been in the process of healing up slowly. Dragging her to her feet, he sent her off to fight the Boss again – as her hp had filled up enough to take on another couple of hits. It was all up to whether or not Jet could hold Rose off long enough for them to dish out the final damage.

Rose charged first, her sword jabbing forth with a strength known only to those of her level – crashing against Jet’s own blade, causing him to stumble back with the strike. Without hesitation, she followed through with a sideways swipe – her movements slowing as she evidently lowered the amount of effort she put in for him. He grunted aloud, blocking the strike too and using its momentum to carry him through a roll – throwing a leg out and swiping it beneath hers, knocking her from her feet. The sight of her being tricked by someone much weaker than her had caused the Masked Man some concern, leading him to slowly begin walking forwards – drawing his knife. 

“Just a little longer Jet!” Alice called, roaring loudly as she struck at the Giant’s side with her sword, deflecting one of his weapons quickly and backing off to let others have a go – turning to watch the duel happening in the sidelines.

Rose slowly got back to her feet, her expression having changed from uncaring, emotionless stoicism to an irate version. Her brow had furrowed and her lips distorted into a scowl. Wings slowly spread form her ankles, revealing that her shoe’s ability was coming into play. She suddenly burst forwards, landing just behind him in an instant – a cut slowly appearing along his chest and through to the other side. His hp, which had been full, dropped down to yellow immediately – Rose having gone easy on him seeing as she didn’t need to kill him. She turned slowly, wishing to inspect his resolve – before nimbly dodging a thrown dagger, readying her weapon again and charging at Jet once more – her sword clashing against his own as he anticipated the strike, utilising the single second of delay he caused with the thrown weapon. Rose grit her teeth as the irritation grew, her sword coming back to strike in again with a stab – only to have Jet spin about and knock it aside from an odd angle, the weirdness of his movements causing her a single moment of flinch – his sword carrying through all the way until it scratched against her cheek; a small, red line streaming along it to indicate damage being taken.

“W-… He just… Landed a hit?” Alice muttered to herself, breath having left her almost entirely at that point. She started his way to try and help, thoughts of beating the red-headed warrior now flooding her mind once she knew of Jet’s potential. But before she could get there, Jet cried out in pain – a knife dug in through the gap between his shoulder blades. He dropped to his knees, HP boiling down to a deep red. The Masked Man stood behind him, slowly sheathing his weapon and hiding it in his sleeve again, sighing to himself.

“Please don’t get ahead of yourself.” He stated firmly, leaning down and over his shoulder to whisper through his mask and into Jet’s ear directly, “Else you’ll find yourself somewhere other than the world of the living.” The silver-haired male whom had just gone toe-to-toe with the best fighter in the game and then taken a sneaky blow from the most secretive man in the game, trembled visibly. But what they took for fear was actually sheer excitement. Rose and the Masked Man left him there in his knelt position, moving on towards the Boss whom as they approached suddenly exploded into beautifully turquoise particles of data – having been defeated by Nero and the others. The two stood in silence, watching as the particles slowly cascaded down around the material hunter, Nikolai humming in wonder once more.
“So there are some capable people here after all.” He chuckled softly, gently patting Rose on the shoulder, “Let’s go. We aren’t needed here.”

The two left as quickly as they’d come, oblivious to how much of an impact they’d had if any at all – returning to their grinding and whatever else it was they did while nobody was watching. Alice rushed over to Jet’s knelt form, bracing his shoulder and back and checking his status to be sure he wouldn’t die from the damage he’d taken. Apparently, the blade he’d been stung with from behind was laced with a poison that inflicted paralysis. Just who was that man? And how did he get his hands on something so deadly?
“Jet, you fool.” She grunted, biting her lower lip. The sight of someone actually making a hit land on Rose was almost salvation to the blonde Russian, her eyes beginning to shimmer with the moisture that clung to them, “You could have died…!” she was the worst person to be saying this, though. Resting her forehead on his shoulder, thanking him silently for not dying and for showing that Rose was not a Goddess in disguise, she wept quietly.