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Taro staggered back as the mass of players flooded in. He figured they were players, most of them were syleant, no ice people at all. He told himself this was just a raid. He'd taken part in plenty of raids before. This was no different.

Except someone's life hung in the balance, and as much as he tried not to let it, it made this so much more real than just a game raid and Nori just didn't think he measured up. He'd run the moment he'd felt scared. He'd told his captors everything he knew by the time he was rescued. He wasn't the hero of movies. He didn't even qualify as the comic relief. That role was clearly Tuck's, and the syleant monkey was having a grand time leaping on people and ripping part of armors off them.

"Taro!" Omar yelled, "snap out of it and heal Tuck! Marc, forget fighting, get to the caern, extract the file. This isn't about beating them."

"Got it," the skeletal bull answered and began extricating himself from the fighting.

"Taro!"

"On it!" he answered, pulling out a bottle and throwing it at the monkey, then preparing an acid potion to help reduce the attacker's armor rating. Omar gestured, and a fireball carved its way through the attackers until a dog of some kind slammed their staff on the ground and a wall of ice rose to stop it.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch!" Tuck yelled, his tail smoking, and Taro couldn't help the thought that the trailing smoke looked a lot like cum coming out of that phallic shape. "You did that on purpose!"

"Fuck yourself with that tail of yours," Omar yelled back, sending a jet of water at another group, throwing them off their feet and locking them in place as the water froze over them. "This is too important for me to waste time making sure you get caught in the edge of my attacks. Just pay attention to what's going on around you instead of trying to see everyone's cock!"

"It's a fucking general rated zone!" Tuck replied, grabbing a rhino's crotch armor and pulling, ripping it off the man. "See?" He pointed to the exposed cock and balls. And for a few seconds, everyone paused to look.

Taro thought the emotes for implant user were impressive as the rhino's face leaves turned a brilliant shade of red before he covered himself up with his hands. Not an Orr citizen, Taro thought.

"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle," Tuck exclaimed, a grin forming. "I thought this place was G rated until one of us changed it!" He did a backflip off the rhino and onto a knight in full armor. Taro watched him reach down the back of the knight, drop as he pulled, and armor went flying. There was the sound of an ass slap and the fighting restarted.

"I think Bobby broke the damned keep," Omar whispered, then sent lightning through the attackers.

Taro set an explosion potion to fabricate while he threw a healing one at Tuck. He couldn't see Marc, so he'd untangled himself and should be in the process of extracting whatever Bobby had left for them to find.

"Tuck! Will you fucking forget about their crotch and focus on removing more armor? There's only three of us fighting, we need them as debuffed as possible!" Their opponents had remembered this was a game and were ignoring their exposed midsection.

It made for something to watch as they fought, Taro thought as he threw the explosive potion in a large group, but Omar was right, it served little purpose otherwise. The group was sent flying, but they immediately got back to their feet. Taro wasn't the right character for this situation.

A scream shattered the air, crystallizing it around them for a few seconds, and Taro turned in time to watch Marc's body stretched back into the distance before vanishing. The pain on the bull's face was beyond what should have been possible with only bones.

The chapel was silent again. Even their attackers were shocked by the sight.

"Uncle?" Omar asked, tone tentative. The brass tiger let out a breath and relaxed. "He's okay," he said. "Caduceus pulled him out before any serious harm was done. There's some sort of protection on the caern. It tried to insert itself in his implant."

"That's going to be a problem," Tuck said, back next to his brother, pockets overflowing with underwear. "But on the plus side, it means they can't get to it either." The monkey looked at the other players. "What do you guys say? If none of us can get in there, is there a point in continuing to fight?"

Taro quickly typed a message on the group chat. 'Was the information in whatever tried to get in, or was it just a virus?'

'It wasn't a virus,' came the reply, 'or at least not one Uncle ever saw before. There was information, but not something he was able to make sense of before Marc was pulled out. Horace is talking about feeling fear and pain, but he's pretty much out of it.'

'Okay, I'm going for it.'

'No, Taro! It's too dangerous. You don't have someone looking out for you, whatever that is, it could do serious damage.'

'I don't have anyone looking out for me because I don't have an implant. The worst that's going to happen is that my interface is going to be burned out. Tell that Uncle of yours to set up a direct transfer off it into a storage vault so they can study what it is.'

Taro turned from the stilled battle scene and ran for the caern wondering when sacrificing his interface had become no big thing? It was his life, digitally if not literally. He made it halfway to the caern when a voice stopped him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Paul said, walking toward them in the path formed by the attackers stepping out of his way.

Taro stared. "Paul? How are you here?"

The syleant knight smiled. "You really think they could do anything serious to me in here? You don't want to touch that. The security on it will hurt even you."

"You know I--"

"It isn't Bobby," Omar said. "It's the fake one. I don't know how he managed to get into his Lands account, but that isn't him."

"Come on Trevor, you know me, you know I could--"

"And there's the proof," the brastok said with a smile.

The raccoon knight looked at them. Taro's hope deflated, anger replacing it. "Paul would know better than to use our real names in here," he told the fake, pleased at the exasperation that caused.

"Fucking kids. What is it with you and taking this game so fucking seriously? Fine, you got me. I'm still warning you not to step closer to that control node." The knight raised a hand, fingers ready to snap.

"Fuck you," Taro said and turned back to the caern.

The finger snap came, far too loud to Taro's ears, and on its heel, pain pierced his mind. Another snap and the pain was gone. Omar was holding him, yelling something. Taro tried to get to his feet, but Omar held him in place.

"Don't move, he threatened to do it again."

"What happened?" Taro asked, wondering why his throat hurt so much. This wasn't game pain. His throat was raw.

"You didn't tell him?" the fake called.

"Tell me what?" Taro looked at his friend, fear mixing with curiosity. That had sounded ominous.

Omar hesitated. "The doctors were going to tell you once this was done. Once you were rested and in a position to process the information."

"What information?" Taro demanded.

"When they captured you, they injected you with an implant. It's not doing anything," he added as Nori felt his blood grow cold. "It takes years before it's sufficiently developed to--"

His friend's voice faded away.

He'd been infected, tainted, corrupted. He wouldn't be himself anymore. He'd be a machine. The machine growing in his brain. It would control him. He'd be nothing more than a puppet. He'd heard the stories.

"Take it out!" He pleaded, and Omar's expression became pained.

"Can't be done," the fake said. "You're one of us now. You should be happy, you won't be stuck in the dark anymore. You'd be a lot freer."

Taro raised his head to glare at the fake who still had his hand in the air, ready to snap his fingers.

"Right." The knight stretched the word as he grinned. "Except you have to do what I tell you or die a very painful death."

"What is he talking about?" Taro tried to get to his feet, but Omar held him down. "Fucking stop that, I'm going to face this on my feet, not on my back like an invalid."

His friend helped him to stand. "We don't know how he's doing it. But Uncle says that ten percent of the nanites in your brain self destructed. It's not enough to have caused serious damage, but..."

"Just imagine what will happen if I tell all of them to go boom," the fake finished after Omar trailed off.

He was going to die. Nori had trouble breathing.

He felt hands on him and realized they came from outside the game. No, they couldn't.

"Stop!" his vision of the Lands faded as that of the real world faded in. He pulled his hand out of the giraffe holding it and tapped the controls before him to stop the transfer. He could see both, and by the still figure in both worlds, he'd spoken in both. He quickly muted himself to the Lands.

"Nori," Omar's father--Trevor's father, this was the real world--said, "we need to pull you out and move you into an isolation chamber."

Nori pushed the giraffe away. "No, I have to see this through, I'm the only one who can save Bobby now."

"That man can kill you," the colorful tiger said.

"I'm already dead!" Nori snapped back. "They killed me when they shoved that abomination in my head."

"Nori, you need to calm down, it's not--"

"Fuck off. Don't sell me your bullshit. Nori Maeda is going to die when you activate that thing. You might be happy being what you are, and who fucking knows, whatever wakes up on the other side might be too, but it's fucking not going to be me."

Someone out of his line of sight commented about ignorant independents and Eric glared at them.

"I'm going to make this fucking easy," Nori said. "I don't consent to you pulling me out. That's how it works for you, Orrs, right?"

A tiger in a suit appeared next to Eric. "Nori, do you understand the danger you are putting yourself in?" Uncle asked.

"Can you get that thing out of my head?"

"I'm sorry. It's designed to fully integrate. There are methods to remove it, but the odds of anyone resembling who you are remaining by the time it's done are extremely low."

Nori nodded. He hadn't known there was even a chance, but if the risk was that high, he didn't want to put his family through that.

"I need you to say that you consent to the risk involved in refusing medical intervention."

"Uncle, you know I can override that on medical grounds. Nori clearly isn't in a mental state to make those kinds of decisions."

"I consent to the risks involved in refusing medical intervention," Nori stated and looked at Eric.

"You can," Uncle said, "but we both know you won't. This is Nori's decision. It's his life, his identity, his choice."

Eric moved close to Nori. "I'm warning you, the instant I read brain death, I will do everything in my power to save your life. I don't care what you think of the result. If I can bring you back, I will, and we can all move on from there."

"I'm not consenting to that," Nori said.

"Tough luck, feel free to sue me afterward." The tiger glared at Uncle and walked away. A second later, the other medical staff also moved out of the suit's field of motion.

"Good luck," Uncle said before vanishing.

Like luck had anything to do with this at this point, Nori thought as he adjusted the setting to only be in the Lands.

He looked around and Omar seemed ready to catch him. "I'm okay. I had to have a talk with your father so he wouldn't pull me out."

The brastok relaxed. "I thought he'd done something to you."

"I said I didn't," the fake replied, sounding annoyed.

"Like we're going to believe you," Tuck said.

"Why didn't you let dad pull you out?" Omar asked.

"It wouldn't have saved him," the fake said, which earned him a glare from the three of them.

"I'm seeing this through." On the chat, he typed. 'You need to let me do this. I'm the only chance Bobby has.' He looked at the fake as Omar stepped away from him. "So, you snap your fingers and I die?"

"Eventually, before that, you'll be in excruciating pain."

"How long?" Taro tried to remember how far he was from the caern. The stab of pain had brought him down, but he'd been surprised by it.

The fake shrugged. "It's not like this is something I'm in the habit of doing. You're the first time this situation has presented itself. It's not often someone without an implant crosses my path. Although now I can see possibilities. My allies can certainly benefit from having access to people without an implant history."

"So my choices are what? Log out, abandon my friends, and be turned into your puppet?"

"If you cooperate, I'll let you live as yourself."

Taro snorted. "Right, because this implant is going to give me any choice once it's all done. It'll force me to do whatever you want."

"That's not how implants work," the fake said. "I can't control it. I'm just taking advantage of loopholes in the system that are going to vanish as it develops more." He motioned to himself. "And you have no idea the amount of tech involved in making this happen. Although the technology involved in this game is surprisingly compatible. The architecture is very similar to that of a fully developed implant."

Nori hoped that the people in the real world were getting this, because now that the fake was distracted by explaining things, he had to make his move. He turned and made it three steps before the snap.

The pain brought him down, but he bit back the scream and forced himself back to his feet; the caern was a dozen more before him. He couldn't recall if that was closer or further than he'd expected. He pushed forward and over the pain made out the sound of fighting behind him. He cursed, his guildmates were in trouble he needed to--no. They were protecting him so he could do this. Save Bobby. At least he hoped that's what this would lead to. It would have been nice if Bobby had included a description of what they'd find in the caern.

He staggered and had to hold on to the structure before him to avoid falling. Where had it come from? Hadn't he been a dozen steps away from anything? The pain made the shape fuzzy, or maybe he no longer had enough brain cells to see properly. He might also no longer have enough to be scared because he couldn't imagine he should be this calm right now.

He pulled himself along it until he saw the caern's controls. Really, instructions would have been really nice here, Bobby. He placed a hand on it, and instead of the usual options to manipulate the keep's settings, his vision filled with static.

No--no--no, he couldn't be burning out already. He had to remain conscious longer. He couldn't give Eric the chance to pull him out until all the information was transferred. He grabbed onto a decorative loop on the caern pillar to keep himself in place even after he lost control of his body and kept thinking through the static.

He forced himself to remember his mother and his father and... he had a sister, right? He could swear he had a sibling. A family, friends. People he was suffering for. A reason why this pain was worth it.

Yes, there was a reason.

It didn't matter if he couldn't think what it was.

He knew there was a reason for the pain.

And as he thought it, the pain began to fade away.

Oh, good. Maybe it's going to end soon.

* * * * *

"Uncle, How long?" Omar yelled as he flung a fireball. Tuck was in the middle of the melee, a short sword in each hand, finally acting like this was serious.

"I don't know. The volume of information is beyond anything I expected, beyond what something like this control node should have been able to contain. No, Eric, you can't pull him out!"

"Five minutes, tops!" Tuck called and flipped away from the would-be Bobby's sword. He might be inhabiting Paul, but he had no idea how to play the class. He was swinging blindly and even if Tuck was a good twenty levels lower, he had no problem avoiding it.

"What's Tuck talking about?"

"No idea," Uncle replied, and Omar almost missed the bolt of energy coming at him in surprise.

"How do you not know what he's up to? You know everything." He threw a quick deflection spell but it only caught part of the blast, the rest sending him off his feet and scrambling his settings since he should be stunned.

"Exactly, so you should get a sense of how involving this is turning out to be."

Omar staggered to his feet as his controls returned, and he sent a lance of heat at the wizard. Unlike him, his defenses didn't stop any of it. The wizard combusted and turned to ash.

"I hope that hurt," Omar grumbled. "Taro," he called, seeing Tuck was bleeding, then remembered Taro was already busy. "Tuck, get back here, I don't have any healing spells!"

"Can't, got to keep them busy a bit longer." The monkey groped a warrior before stabbing them and launched himself at Paul, who hurried out of his reach, eying the men without their crotch armor. Tuck made a grasping motion at Paul's crotch, which sent him backing away even faster.

"I think he's female exclusive," Omar called.

"If he wants to pass himself off as your friend, he's going to have to get over that," Tuck replied, slicing two fighters and not dodging fast enough to avoid the arrows.

"Damn it, Tuck! You're going to get yourself killed."

"Nah. I'm just a bit below half hit points. I should last long enough."

"That's not the point!"

"Kind of is! Trev, this is a game."

"No it's--"

"You can't die for real in here!"

"Doesn't mean you don't have to take it seriously, I've told you, for me this--"

"What's the mission objective, Trev?" Tuck jumped at a woman trying to stab him, running his crotched over her face as he pulled her down.

"Save Bobby."

"How do we do that!" he rolled, grabbed the closest crotch, squeezed hard, and stabbed the stomach.

"We keep them from reaching Taro until he's done."

"Only partially, but so long as the objective is met, it doesn't matter if our avatars die."

"You going to tell me what the other part's about?"

"Not with them listening. But you should be able to figure it out pretty soon." Tuck launched himself at Paul, grabbing only an arm before being flung away, bringing some of the plates with him.

Omar threw fireballs after fireballs, downing his last mana potion. He couldn't remember when a fight had drained his resources this much. He sent lighting through the approaching group and half of it vanished before it reached them. Had they scared them into logging out?

"There we are," Tuck said, rolling away from Paul and walking back toward Omar.

"What's going on?" Paul demanded as more of his people disappeared. Omar wanted to know, too.

"Well," Tuck said, "as much as my brother keeps harking on me to treat this like the real world, it isn't. It's virtual, with people connected to it. Under normal circumstances, tracking specific players is basically impossible. But this isn't normal. Not only do I have the assistance of the whole Orr corporation behind me, and everyone of you is assembled on a server without any other players, but you pissed off the creator of the Lands and he gave us special access. I set our teams to tracking your connection the instant we found the town." He indicated the vanishing people. "As you can tell, they've now reached where they are located in the real world." He smiled at Paul. "And, where you are hidden."

"No!" Paul yelled before vanishing.

Tuck smiled at Omar. "Objective met, and we didn't even have to die." His smile vanished as he looked beyond the brastok tiger. Omar turned. The satician bat was still frozen, grasping the caern.

"What's going to happen to Taro?"

"Do you have any idea how weird it is that even now you're still referring to him by his character's name?" Tuck asked. "And I don't know. It's more dad's area now."

"If there's anything left of my friend by the time the transfer is done."

Tuck nodded and squeezed Omar's arm.