The Staff Chick

Hey guys, I sent this one in for the story bank but it was never added, figured I'd drop it here.

--
The Staff Chick

The glowing white Doom Moon hung larger than ever over the world of Hrima, and the monsters of this world grew more agitated by the hour.

“Super fire slash!”

Renthon’s latest mighty sword, recovered from a sunken treasure in the island ruins his party had recently mined for EXP, tore a blazing swath through the assorted goblins, slimes and repaints which squealed and bled floating red damage stats.

“Dude, check it!” shouted Garry, the iron-knuckled pugilist of the party.

Renthon ducked and parried just in time to avoid the poison fangs of yet another purple bipedal swamp rat, and Garry finished the poor thing off and greedily collected the gold coins that showered out of its vanishing remains and packed them away.

“Glad we got that NPC to give us these super hammerspace bags!” crowed the archer Koltos, beaming as his comrades racked up a small fortune murdering roving multispecies bands of wildlife. “And Leefa’d thought rescuing that kitten from that ten-headed hydra would just be a waste of time!”

“Shut up and keep these damn vermin away from me, I need to summon,” replied the sexy sorceress Leefa evenly. Together these four brave, barely nineteen-year-old heroes comprised the world’s frontline of hope.

“Why,” Koltos drawled disinterestedly, now quite accustomed to seeing bizarre hellspawn and demigods rise forth from the netherworld to bat away small lizards on their behalf. He picked off wave after wave of a specific breed of helpless marsh flies with his arrows, hoping in so doing to amplify his accuracy stat significantly after the level up around the corner. “Hunter strike, hunter strike...”

“Because there’s a motherfucking dragon coming after us.”

“Shit!” seethed our fearless protagonist Renthon. The ominous silhouette of a Dark-aligned dragon, just barely visible against the evil moonlight, loomed ever nearer with every beat of its massive wings. “We just found the EXP smorgasboard we’d been hoping for nine dungeons ago and now we’ve got to teleport out? It’ll take forever to solve those goddamn puzzles again! Fucking ancients had nothing better to do...” he grumbled as he briefly stopped to chug potion for health.

“Relax, Ren, I’m thinking we just might be able to keep it from annihilating us long enough to grab that Kill All Monsters multiplier. And then we’ll be strong enough to skip one or two bosses entirely. So focus on keeping me safe!” Leefa ordered, the intricate magic circle spinning more and more rapidly beneath her.

“Are we sure about this?” Garry countered, even as he pounded the very existence out of a smog frog with his re-equipped gauntlet and felt the EXP surge up his arm. “We still don’t really know how Dark-aligned attacks jive with our elements, or how strong it is! If we’re not careful we’ll get wiped out in no time and waste a Continue Coin when we could have made out like bandits.”

Renthon ignored this sensible suggestion and instead chose to gripe some more (between vigorously depleting health potions). “Dammit Garry, I wish your sister could mass heal during battle, she’s useless! Fucking staff chicks.”

“Well if you’d ever just pause and set her in the main party as opposed to demanding she be an eternal reserve member she’ll never level enough!” he hissed. “But no, you only ever slog through the goddamn menu system to slap on your shiniest new armor and leave the rest of us to do it in the middle of battle.”

“Hey, I can’t help if I’m the main character!” he barked back. “Fire slash! Fire slash! Super fire slash!”

The dragon bellowed, a horrible, hollow sound which chilled all their hearts.

“No time to bicker, ‘twould seem,” observed Koltos, sweating profusely. “Let’s just port the hell out of here,” he told Leefa.

“Almossst, there...” she said. Her body began to glimmer faintly, the door inside her soul slowly prying open.

“C’mon, there’s got to be at most twenty left!” roused Renthon. “We all want that multiplier don’t we?”

“Oh fine, but if we die, I’m killing you a second time,” said Garry. He squared his shoulders and lunged to strangle a lone prarie dog. “Must say I’m glad Ihira is safe.”

“That’s the spirit,” Renthon enthused. “Whirlwind blade!”

Two fen-snakes bled 999s and disintegrated. Double critical! X 10 EXP!

“Whoo-hoo! This is fun! Good guys get to have fun don’t they?”

“Not looking so good, guys,” Koltos swore, training his fletch on the sky shadow spreading its dread wings ever thicker, blotting the stars cluster by brilliant cluster. “Can’t get a bead on it at all... it’s like my accuracy is stat is decreasing!”

“But isn’t that the notorious 'constant stat decrease upon targeting’ ability of Tholt every townsperson we speak to keeps expositing? As in, final overlord Tholt!?” Garry reminded everyone.

“That thing’s Tholt’s dragon!?” Koltos panicked.

“Remember, we don’t know what Tholt looks like after he kicked the moon down from orbit; for all we know he could BE that dragon! If it kills us, that could be it!”

“That’s that, I’m whipping out my teleport orb and--” Koltos started, but...

“Don’t you dare.”

Renthon plunged his blade deep into the skull of a swamp rat headed at Leefa’s shining heels and gave Garry and Koltos a cold, wrathful stare.

“Can’t you see?” he smiled crookedly. “This is meant to be.”

He clutched his heart and gazed upon the dragon defiantly. “The dragon is a test. To prove my mettle. A protagonist never backs down from vanquishing evil, be it against moon-mad mosquitoes or mysterious dragons! If I stand my ground my courage shall be rewarded!”

“Not that ‘hero’s destiny’ drivel again!” Garry yelled. “Watch out, another rat!”

Renthon sliced it in turn. “Leefa, are you all right? Lend me your strength!”

Leefa laughed at Renthon’s ambition and nodded. “My strongest light daemon in five...”

The dragon was near to poking its dread snout through the programming’s official fight dome...

“Four... three..”

Koltos shakily managed to skewer the second to last enemy in the Swarm Sequence into digital oblivion...

“Two...”

Garry stomped on the very last enemy just as...

“One!”

The Daemon of Light sprang up from the abyss and the dragon entered the fight sphere, depriving the party of the Kill All Enemies multiplier unless they managed to swallow their flight extinct and take it down.

“We were not prepared for this,” said Koltos.

“No kidding, that’s some understatement,” Garry almost squeaked.

The sight of the dragon touching ground made everyone spontaneously blanch. Probably a bad sign.

Renthon gritted his teeth and gripped his trusty blade tightly. “Get ready.”
“Daemon,” Leefa commanded, eyes closed, hands clasped as in prayer. “Use Torrent of Dawn!”

The dragon spoke one simple sentence. “Tonight, you all shall perish.”

“CHARGE!” Renthon screamed.

And so they clashed.

--

Ihira gasped in shock, trapped inside the dimensional breach of the back-party as its sole member, though still able to watch through a window in binary code as one by one her comrades succumbed to the devious dragon’s overwhelming might.

“Hahaha, so this pathetic planet’s one hope is this weak?” the dragon taunted, rearing up a gout of flame. “KNOW MY NAME AND FEAR IT!”

Garry, Ihira’s brother, was the last to vanish before her eyes.

“N-no...” she whimpered, utterly powerless. “NO!”

“And now for the real coup de gras...” Tholt ambled towards Garry’s dissappating data and shoved a claw through him like a portal. “I shall no longer let your party revive at the nearest inn. I will obliterate every trace of your miserable data, and to do that I’m afraid I shall have to murder the device I have realized is your link to life.”

“Link... to life?” Garry blurted. “You mean--”

“Your thrice-damned Continue Coins are merely the toll, not the vessel. No, the instrument by which you continue to revive is your reserve party mechanic--your sister!!”

And so the claw somehow halted Garry’s data from recycling and Tholt used him as a gateway to reach Ihira. Ihira was pulled from safety into Tholt’s terrifying grasp.

“Now you may die. Make your prayers to whichever deity you please, but don’t expect to be coming back. As soon as I pry the secrets of her dimension from her lips, consider every hope for this planet cleansed,” he cackled.

“Ihira... remember... be brave!!” Garry smiled. “I know you’ll find a way!”

--

“Fucking puzzles,” Renthon moaned.

“Don’t worry, I’ve come up with the solution for this one, too,” said Ihira brightly. She switched the colored blocks up in the correct order and the great stone door slid open, allowing them further passage.

“Man, that’s all your good for, isn’t it?” Renthon quipped, half teasing, half resentful.

This insensitive jab was all it took to set the staff chick crying.

“You mean apart from healing your sorry ass every time you lose an arm rushing headlong into the jaws of a monster like an imbecile?” Garry charged, not amused. “Shh, it’s okay...”

“She’s eighteen and she still cries like a baby,” Renthon added, now in full-on mean mode. “Prolly ‘cause her stats are so pitiful,” he shrugged, clearly used to the idea of advancing ever higher in level and prestige with a protagonist’s ease.

“Yeah, well you know what? At least she doesn’t whine incessantly whenever something doesn’t go her way, oh hero.”

“Break it up, you idiots,” called Koltos. “Renthon can be thoughtless at times, but it was his bravery and steadfastness that saved me from Tholt’s minions. And Garry, you really do have to keep a rein on her emotional outbursts.”

“That doesn’t give Ren the right to belittle her,” said Leefa.

“I’ll handle this,” said Garry, finality evident in his voice as he steered the sniffling Ihira to the side.

“Honey, you’ve got to be be brave,” he told her. “Against all the assholes in this world.”

“But he’s dead on,” she sobbed, “...about me. I’m just no use in battle. I’m... weak.”

Garry just smiled and adopted his typical older-brother-by-one-year parental tone. “Different people have different strengths. No one can excel at everything. When the time comes, your true strength will come to the fore, but you can’t run away from the opportunity. Seize it. You’ve got to be brave,” he repeated.

“O-okay,”

--

“Savor how truly ineffectual the power of love is,” the dragon boomed. He lifted her in his massive claw to gaze upon the hurtling moon. “Reality admits only death. Death after death after death after death. I shall transcend reality. By helping me, you too shall transcend reality, if but for a moment, but it will be a glorious moment, more satisfying than your entire pitiful life thus far, and you shall be remembered as the girl who sacrificed her life to grant the new universe’s master a life everlasting. Now surrender the secret of your pocket dimension.”

Ihira took a deep breath and put up a front of bravery.

“That’s at the very heart of this world’s code! If you’d ever understood the meaning of friendship and fought alongside a group of friends you’d have felt it too!”

“Friends like the ones who kept you weak?” Tholt thundered back. “Rich, that is.”

“You just don’t understand laying down your life to protect your loved ones!”

“Your loved ones have ceased to exist. Your words are moot. I tire of this pointless banter. If you want to die so badly, die for me. The secret, and then your tragedy will finally end.”

A plan was formulating in Ihira’s mind. “I concede. I’ll die for you... for posterity.”

“As any human with half a brain ought,” Tholt deadpanned.

“You want the code for the reserve? I’ll give you much more than that!”

--

“You’re too innocent for this,” Koltos averred, avoiding direct eye contact.

“Excuse me?” replied Ihira hotly.

“Too innocent for battle. The promise of adventure didn’t end up being all it was cracked up to be? Expending all your efforts just slogging from inn to dungeon to inn... not as fun as it sounded when your brother dragged you into this mess. Am I right?”

“That’s--”

The hot desert wind kicked a wave of sand in her face to punctuate his point.

“Leave her alone,” said Leefa.

“I’m not in it for fun!” she contested. “I’m in it to become strong and smart and proud and sexy and self-sufficient, like, like Leefa!”

“Oh honey,” Leefa giggled.

“That so?” Koltos mused. “I underestimated you. I apologize.”

“What are you dummies lagging for!?” Renthon waved from far ahead, his figure wavy in the heat. “You need a break?”

“Let’s stop here for a light meal and set off come sundown. Legs are killing me,” said Garry.

“All right!” Renthon agreed.

Leefa cast a shade bubble with a cursory flick of her wrist and everyone sprawled on the sand within it, munching on egg sandwiches and aimlessly rifling through inventories through this world’s irritating menu system, which had to be guided in large part by Renthon in lieu of a player.

“Leefa,” Ihira confided in whispers, “how can I get strong like you?”

“Well in my case it’s really no fair. I pretty much have gods on my side.”

“H-how does that work?” Ihira had been afraid to ask until now

“I appealed to the Spirit of the Code and made pacts with various sprites.”

“Is it that easy?”

“Hell no. Every time you do it you’re almost hacking the code, the very fabric of our reality. There’s a good chance your data will be corrupted, preventing you from reverting to normal even after spending Continue Coins. It’s damn scary,” she admitted. “But I’ve enjoyed something of a special connection to the Sprite Lords and Daemons since I can remember.”

“I wish I had a special connection,” Ihira pouted.

“It’s possible, you know. For you to summon as well. To converse with gods.”

“What.. IT IS!?” Ihira was flabbergasted.

“You just have to come close to hacking the code. There are plenty of Daemons and their ilk that have yet to be called down, and I could teach you the essentials in a snap, if nothing else but for a little fun to spice things up. To be honest, you could be a huge help to me.”

“I... I COULD!?”

Leefa smiled her sexy smile. “Mm hmm. You see, it all started on my seventh birthday, when the ultimate god appeared to me in a vision, speaking only its name. From then on, it’s been that god I’ve been searching for.”

“What’s its name?”

Leefa playfully looked once left, once right, and spoke it into Ihira’s curious ear.

--

“‘Gameshark’?” Tholt stroked his dragon chin. “Can’t say it rings any bells. If you’re lying you will be tortured without release, alone and forgotten” he added, as an afterthought. “Forever,” he further clarified.

Ihira could only gulp at this.

“It is indeed an intriguing conjecture, and I cannot say it has occurred to me before. But what could provide the energy to rip open a stable enough portal into the very code itself?”

“I’m looking at it,” Ihira choked. The dragon’s grip had become a tad too tight.

“Ah yes, of course, the collision. My wonderful doomtide come to call. But it’d have to be potential energy--the very second the moon hits. Afterwards the fallout would be too chaotic to properly harness; chaos befitting my new reign of darkness, of course, but not conducive in the here and now. Can I dig my Code Claw into the moon at the precise instance of impact? Will the resulting rift provide secure access to this ‘Gameshark’? Risky, very risky. Though the benefits of being bestowed godlike stats probably outweigh the deleterious effects of any glitches I might incur--in fact, half the glitches may even prove handy. Yes! I shall do it!” the dragon monologued. “I originally only desired immortality, but now my ambitions are set on outright deification.

I sure hope this works! Ihira could only wince and wait for the moon to crash. Garry... is this bravery? Or just stupidity?

The moon soon eclipsed the whole sky.

“Lo! Doomtide is nigh!” Tholt exulted, crouching down on all fours and preparing to thrust up his Code Claw at the point lowest to the ground as possible. “Are you prepared to gaze upon the horrible unknown with me!?”

Tholt whipped his scaly black tail, his slit eyes alive with sacrilege.

Ihira could only cough up blood at his feet, she could hardly move. This is what it had come to.

The moon burned hellish red as it entered the earth’s atmosphere.

“Whatever happens...” the dragon breathed, almost reverently, “calamity will fall!”

That’s all he was able to say before he thrust his claw into the moon and brought it to a stop.

Just as temporarily halting Garry’s state had provided enough energy to rupture Ihira’s tiny pocket dimension, decelerating such an enormous celestial body down to such a snail’s pace caused everything they saw to turn pitch black and they plummeted down through the darkness.

“Aaaaaaaah!” Ihira braced herself for impact.

Tholt beat his wings, but he could not right himself.

The darkness gave way to strands of binary code, undulating all around them in spirals and tentacles.

WHO DISTURBS MY REALM

“Is that... the Gameshark?” Tholt asked.

THAT IS ONE OF MY MANY NAMES

The otherwordly code shark emerged from the crashing waves of ones and zeroes and skipped along down to regard these curious creatures. Its voice filled every pixel of their beings.

WHO ARE YOU

“I am Tholt, future master of the earth!” said the dragon. “Grant me your blessing, so that I may rule in your name and make your worship known!” he lied.

ANOTHER EVIL OVERLORD. HOW QUAINT.

“What!?” Tholt snapped.

DON’T ASSUME WHATEVER GAME YOU’RE FROM IS THE ONLY ONE. WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT YOU. YOU’RE NOT ANYONE SPECIAL.

“But surely I have proven myself a paragon of power unparalleled in history!” he said, confused. “If it is not power that impresses you...”

SIGH. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY MANIACAL TYRANTS I’VE HAD TO WATCH MOUNT THEIR OMNICIDAL EVIL PLANS, AFTER THE TEN THOUSANDTH RPG IT GETS OLD.

“E-even if it’s a Kick Down the Moon plan? That’s gotta be original right?”

NOPE. FOURTH TIME. IT’D BE MORE INTERESTING TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU’RE TAKEN OUT OF THE PICTURE. OH HI BY THE WAY, HADN’T NOTICED YOU.

Its jagged teeth curled into a smile.

To say this intimidated Ihira was a vast understatement.

WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU. I UNDERSTAND YOUR PLANET IT ABOUT TO BE CRUSHED BY THE MOON. WHO ARE YOU THAT I SHOULD I CARE ABOUT YOUR PREDICAMENT.

“I... I’m a friend of the girl you came to in a dream!”

HMM, DON’T SEEM TO REMEMBER THAT. MUST HAVE BEEN A DIFFERENT GAMESHARK. YES, THERE’S MORE THAN ONE OF US. SOME OF US ARE CONTROLLED BY PLAYERS. IN ANY CASE I’M AFRAID YOU’VE ENCOUNTERED THE WRONG GAMESHARK. IS THAT ALL?

Ihira racked her brain to figure out what she could say to save everybody. The roaring whoosh as she fell headfirst into the yawning abyss where nothing made sense was disorienting, to say the least. This adventure had certainly taken a turn for the unfun.

That’s when it came to her.

“You want to be amused, right?”

CORRECT.

“What if I told you I wasn’t the protagonist, but the staff chick?”

REALLY? I FIGURED YOU WEREN’T THE MAIN CHARACTER DUE TO YOUR GENDER, BUT WHERE IS YOUR STAFF?

“HE crushed it!” she said, pointing at the dragon. “But if you need proof I can recite the spells!”

NO NEED, NO ONE WOULD WANT TO ADMIT SHE’S JUST A STAFF CHICK UNLESS SHE ACTUALLY WERE ONE.

“Yeah!” She briefly swallowed her pride. “And wouldn’t it be really interesting if instead of the main character receiving godly stats, the humble staff chick were to instead?”

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH SUCH POWER.

“Save the world!” she said without hesitation. “And, um, maybe... have a little fun?”

HAHA. I LIKE YOU. ALL RIGHT, IT’S A DEAL. JUST DON’T DISAPPOINT ME. WHEN I SPIT YOU BACK UP, THE MOON WILL RESUME NORMAL SPEED--WHICH IS TO SAY, TOO FAST--IN PRECISELY THIRTY SECONDS, AS IT IS A MERE THIRTY METERS FROM IMPACT. GOOD LUCK.

The strange negaverse cut away abruptly. Ihira and Tholt were suddenly placed exactly where they had posed previously, as though none of that had just happened. Except, of course, for one crucial change.

Ihira looked down at her body.

“I’m... super!” she realized ecstatically. “I’m... super super!”

“This... this can’t be!”

“BELIEVE IT BITCH!”

Ihira stood naked and confident, transformed into a voluptuous, shapely bombshell whose every movement radiated grace and power. With a single effortless jump she seemed to teleport to the surface of the moon and spread her arms to embrace it. She dug her fingers in the soft moon dirt and pushed with all her might. The moon--the effing MOON--shot back into the stars and she hadn’t broken a sweat! (As to how the moon simply reset in the same orbit as previously: it’s a video game.)

She landed entirely unscathed, leaving a modest crater beneath her feet. Time to gloat. “I just single-handedly foiled your evil plan! Now it’s time to clean your clock!” She cracked her knuckles.

The dread dragon promptly fainted.

“Awww,” Ihira pouted, arms akimbo. “Oh well, I’ll make you my pet until you bore me. Or maybe you’ll make a good ingredient in Leefa’s gumbo!”

Smiling, she tugged the unconscious, drooling overlord by its dread tail and sprinted off towards the nearest inn at roughly Mach 4.

Wait til the everybody hears what I did!

--

The following morning, after recouping, the gang decided to take Ihira to a nearby clinic to check for glitches, since Renthon seemed to freeze in place temporarily each time he tried to access Ihira’s status window to check her stats.

Ihira had been fitted with their spare equipment, but looked no less ravishing as she awaited the doctor’s diagnosis, sitting cross-legged and haughty on her waiting room chair as though as it were her throne.

“Hey guys, I just came up with yet another insight about being irresistibly gorgeous, frighteningly intelligent, virtually immortal, stronger by several orders of magnitude than any force on this planet, and similarly blessed in practically every other way,” Ihira teased the rest--particularly Renthon.

“What’s that?” Leefa humored her. As the only other female in the party, she was the only one who could look her straight in the eyes without immediately ejaculating--not even her own brother was so immune.

“It’s really, really awesome.”

At this the men in the room involuntarily whimpered, each hiding their massive erections behind pillows and back issues of HP Monthly. Garry was blushing especially hard. None of this was lost on the now mentally hyper-aware Ihira, and she was thoroughly enjoying the thought of her body being so flawless and unmatched in sexiness.

“Here comes the doctor now!” said Garry, relieved to have something to focus on besides Ihira.

But the doctor was walking backwards with his documents in order not to look Ihira in the face.

Leefa and Ihira giggled immoderately.

“Ma’am, I hope you understand why, under these extreme circumstances, I must alter my physician’s manner this way. Please do not take offense.”

“None taken.”

The doctor wiped the sweat off his forehead, and Ihira could tell quite easily that he was equally afraid she’d effortlessly rip him limb from limb on a whim, and aroused and piqued by this once-in-a-liftime chance to hold a conversation with a veritable goddess in the flesh.

“Getting to the heart of the matter, it’s just as we thought: all of your stats are maxed to four digits at 9999, including Beauty, Luck, Intelligence, Longevity, Spell Resistance, Poison Resistance, Charm, HP, MP, and the like. All of your stats, that is, with one exception. Your Strength stat.”

“Ha, I knew it, that fucking Gameshark wouldn’t max out the strength stat for a staff chick,” said Renthon. “I’ll, I’ll train forever to surpass you! I’m the main character! It should be me everyone adulates!”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, young man,” continued the doctor. “You see, her Strength isn’t maxed at four digits. It’s maxed at eight.”

Renthon did the math. By comparison, Tholt’s Strength was around 5000, and his own Strength was a measly 1000. The average person’s was 50 or 100.

“So I’m 99,999,999,” Ihira tittered. “I’m a hundred thousand times stronger than you and a round million times stronger than the average fit man. So... don’t you have some training to do, young man? After all, I won’t be retiring from the adventurer game any time soon, and the world is quite vast. Unless you have millennia more to live like I do, I suggest you get started right away! Meanwhile, I’ll play with your protagonist perks. Like universal love bordering on worship and plot-invincibility.”

Ihira leaned over to whisper in Renthon’s ear. “In fact, my destiny is headed in rather more interesting directions than yours ever was. You were probably anticipating loads of girlfriends after you saved the world, but myself? I can envision grand orgies on a regular scale, with the choicest cuties among all the boys and bishounen I pass by almost tripping over their heels to pleasure me. Of course only the strongest will suffice. Perhaps, instead of training, you’d like to join my roving harem? Unless you’re... dare I say it?”

Renthon fainted for the fourth time that day when she said “too weak?”

ROFL! Encore! (Albeit this particular vein may be mined out.)

(And I'm sure the "failed to appear in Story Bank" was just a glitch. Er, unless ElF was too weak.)

Great work... Was toying with these theme myself but never posted anything, maybe I will.

Fun stuff. Thanks for writing this, hope that it does get into the story bank, bye for now.