"Who called in the fleet?"
I grinned as I teleported my fleet of battlecruisers right on top of my psionic alien opponent's golden armada. The crescent-shaped ship killers were deadly from long range, their siege kinetic overloads dealing bonus damage to my massive starships. However, up close, my battlecruisers' laser batteries could rapidly blow them up. That, and…
"Fox one!"
Slamming my finger against the hotkey, I rapidly clicked on the row of golden crescent-shaped ships and blasted them into oblivion with a barrage of focused nuclear beams hurled from the prow-mounted cannons of my battlecruisers. Even as I hunted down the surviving psionic ships, I watched as slow-moving carriers drifted into range, dozens of interceptors unleashed from their cargo bays to rain devastation upon my battlecruisers.
However, they did little more than tickle my heavily armored, fully upgraded battlecruisers. 3/3 battlecruisers were all but invincible in this game…and to be honest, unless my opponent had the jump on me with his crescent-shaped capital ship killers and kite me from afar, he would find it difficult to destroy my fleet. Instead, his golden armada was getting wrecked in close range.
"Fuck this Terran teleporting bullshit!" He typed furiously. I simply laughed and continued moving my battlecruisers, who could fire their lasers while moving ever since that revolutionary balance patch several years ago. Before that, battlecruisers were utterly useless. The buff made them viable…no, not just viable, but actually pretty good.
Obviously, much of it came down to me catching my opponent off guard and teleporting on top of his golden armada when he least expected it. It was fortunate that his mothership no longer had the vortex ability, or I had to be careful when pouncing. I didn't want my fleet to be sucked into a black hole and then decimated by the splash damage of the massive psionic beings wreathed in blue spheres of tempestuous energies.
Once, combined with the mothership's black hole spell, they…uh, spelled the doom for any battlecruiser fleet. Fortunately, the game designers saw how ridiculous it was for a single spell to destroy 180 supply worth of battlecruisers, and removed it. Thank the Terran Emperor for that.
In any event, despite the brutal mauling my battlecruisers had taken from the crescent-shaped capital ship killers, my fleet was still mostly intact whereas the golden armada was in ruins. My opponent would need a long time before he could rebuild the tattered remains of his armada, but my damaged fleet was powering toward his bases, intent on razing the production facilities – the stargates – before he could crank out another army.
Unfortunately, before I could deliver the killing blow, he rage-quitted the game, just like the bug alien opponent before him. Good heavens, what was with opponents these days? Whatever happened to good sportsmanship? I hated losing too, but I wasn't going to throw a tantrum and storm out of a game like a spoilt brat.
I was about to search for another game when I saw someone come online. I raised my eyebrow when I saw the ID of the new player who jumped into my lobby and sent me a direct message. It wasn't either of my two opponents, but it was a name I recognized.
"Lin Xue? I didn't know she plays this game."
I typed a quick response in the chat window. "Hey, senior. You play Starcraft 2 too?"
"Not really. But I was wondering if you're up for a match against me."
"Hmm? Sure."
We started a game, and I began teching up as quickly as possible. I didn't want to let my guard down, and so I focused on upgrades. Turtling like a stereotypical mech Terran while steadily expanding my bases and repelling Lin Xue's attacks. I repelled her offensives several times, slowly eating up the map and cornering her.
And then…
"What the?!"
Suddenly, Lin Xue came up with a huge army from out of nowhere and rolled over my mechanical units, blowing up my robots. To be more precise, she had hi-tech scientific ships disable my mechanical units with interference matrixes before blasting them apart with precise volleys from her own tanks and gunships. Her infantry dashed across the map, burning their health away with stimulant packs and destroying my units before the interference matrix spells ended.
I stared at the devastation she caused, stunned. And then Aegis spoke up.
"Your opponent is cheating."
"Excuse me?"
"She is making use of an AI to cheat," Aegis explained. "I've been monitoring your games and scanning the system, and the AI hacked your match…giving her full map vision and no fog of war, and unlimited resources. That's how she suddenly had an army that could destroy yours so easily."
I was stunned, but I shook my head in amusement. This was just a game. If Nuo Nuo…I mean Lin Xue wanted to win so badly that she would resort to cheating, she could have the victory. I typed "gg" and surrendered.
"That was a good game." Even after the match, Lin Xue typed a few words in the chat window. "You are really skilled."
"Uh, yeah." I tried not to burst out laughing. She had no idea that Aegis had already told me about her cheating. "You too."
"Anyway, are you available later today?"
"Yeah? What's up?"
"Come to HQ in the afternoon. They still want to ask you about the portal and Carmarthen. I have no idea what to tell them, so I told them to ask you. I'll leave it to your discretion how much you want to share."
"Understood."
I wondered what the hell was the whole point of that. She could just text me on the phone. Why the weird thing with gaming? Oh, right…because she wanted to rip off Dragon Raja, I guess. Speaking of which, when is season 2?"
Unfortunately, I didn't have time to worry about gaming or the season 2 of Dragon Raja. The next thing I knew, I was stifling a yawn as I staggered into the HQ for Sprue. At some point of time, I had dozed off, and woke up pretty late in the morning. I spent too much time gaming or something. The loss to Nuo, I mean Lin Xue hurt but whatever. I was happy if I could get back to Diamond League.
"You shouldn't spend too much time playing games," Lin Xue chided as she led the way. She had met me in my neighborhood, offering to give me a ride in her flying car. Except that there was no need to fly this time. The trip was relatively short and we reached the headquarters in less than twenty minutes.
"Says the lady who resorted to cheating with a super AI," I muttered without thinking, cranky because I was lacking sleep. Lin Xue turned red.
"What?! How did you know that?!" Then she stopped and buried her face in her palm. "Right. You have all those hi-tech alien devices. Of course you would know…" She then frowned. "You didn't report me?"
I shrugged. "It's just a game. Who cares? Am I supposed to kick up a big fuss, waste my time submitting reports to a company who has abandoned their game, and get myself all worked up because my MMR tanked? I have more important things to do with my life."
Such as collecting the relics. I was waiting for the portal to be installed so that I could waltz in and link up with Lionel Johansson. From there, I would plan my next move…or the next star system to visit. I was thinking of exploring the neighboring systems of Carmarthen so that I could get Johansson's legion equipped.
I was already thinking of a name for them. The Angels of Death…nah, that would get me in copyright trouble. Ahem. Let's stay away from anything that sounded like angel, shall we?
Those plans were thrown out of the window when we entered the Sprue headquarters. After crossing the lobby, we noticed that something was amiss.
"Where's everybody?" Lin Xue asked, looking around with a scowl. "There should at least be security patrols down here. Where did they go?"
"You tell me," I said, staring at the counter. "The receptionists are absent. Is it a holiday today? Are we supposed to be off?"
"Of course not! I wouldn't have called you here otherwise!" Lin Xue folded her arms. "Also, the chief was the one who told me to call you here today! If you want to blame anyone, blame him instead! It's not my fault!"
"Yeah, sure. I'm not blaming you. Just making sure, you know?"
I carefully scanned the lobby, trying to locate any sign of struggle or anything. Did everyone evacuate while we were away?
"Over here."
Lin Xue strode in front, a stark contrast to my caution. I had Aegis and Arondight activated and actively sweeping the area, but so far, they hadn't detected anything. At least not in the vicinity. Lin Xue didn't wait for me to report and went straight for the elevator.
At least the elevators were still working. Now that I looked around once more, I saw that there was still power. That was a good sign. Whatever happened here hadn't cut off the electricity.
Exhaling, I leaned against the wall and watched Lin Xue hit the button for the lowest level. There was a hum as the doors shut and the elevator began ascending. My senior was still in a bad mood, her arms folded as she stared blankly into space.
"This had better not be a joke."
"I didn't see any damage or bodies or blood, so it shouldn't be an emergency. I hope." I tried to smile and offer some reassurance, but Lin Xue simply acknowledged my words with a tight nod. She didn't glance at me, probably too worried with what was happening.
However, my optimism ended the moment we reached the bottom. The moment the doors opened, one of the security guards stumbled in semiconsciously and almost toppled over. Lin Xue caught him before he fell flat on his face.
"What happened?!" She demanded. "What's going on!? Report!"
The security guard moaned before he fell limply. I shrugged.
"I don't think he's in any shape to report."
"Take care of him!" Lin Xue shoved the security guard to me and drew her lightning gun. "And stay here!"
"What?!" I caught the guy and glared after her sprinting figure. Dragging him out of the elevator, I placed him in what I hoped was a comfortable position. I checked on him as best as I could, but I wasn't a doctor. I didn't know how to help. He needed proper medical attention that was way beyond any basic first aid skills I could muster.
And when I looked up, I saw that he wasn't the only one. Across the basement, bodies were strewn about, unconscious and injured security guards laying motionlessly over broken furniture or slumped against walls. Finally, there were splashes of blood, and I wasn't sure if there were a few deaths. I didn't want to know.
Gritting my teeth, I hastened forward, following Lin Xue's trail. Clearly, there had been an attack here. And if I recalled correctly, the basement was the location of the chamber where they installed the portal.
My portal. Well, not exactly mine, but it was the portal to Carmarthen, and I was damned if I allowed anyone access to it. Especially someone who attacked my company and beat up the Sprue's security guards. From the looks of it, the assailant wasn't an ordinary person. Hell, I wasn't even sure if there was only one attacker. There might be an entire group.
"What are you doing?" Lin Xue hissed when I caught up to her. She was holding her lightning gun in both hands, stopping by the door that served as an entrance to the portal chamber. The trail of bodies ended here, but there was a lot of blood and a lot of damage. Judging from the craters and bloodstains in the proximity, this was where the most violent conflict took place. No wonder Lin Xue was so wary. "Didn't I tell you to stay put?"
"Do you think I'm as useless and cowardly as Chen Jun?" I scoffed. "Nope, I'm going to help. Besides, with all the security guards down, you're going to need all the assistance you can get."
"…that's true," Lin Xue conceded. "But if it gets too dangerous, fall back. We'll have to regroup with Colonel Shang and the rest of the psychics to contain whoever attacked us."
Lady, you had just witnessed me cut down cyborg mutants and called down an orbital lance strike capable of smashing a crater several hundred meters deep and wiping out an entire cell of dinosaurs. If anything, I was the dangerous individual here.
Rolling my eyes, I bit back a retort and nodded silently. Satisfied, Lin Xue placed one hand on the biometric scanner, punched in several numbers, and took a step back as the reinforced double doors began grinding open. Gripping her gun in both hands once again, she aimed inside. Beside her, I drew Arondight and activated him.
The doors had barely finished opening when Arondight shouted a warning.
"Evade!"
And then something blasted out of the room and toward us.