Rave, Rave, Revolution! Third Beat!

--- Maya ---

The faint thumping of a bass surrounded her on all sides as a series of lines lit up in a square around her marking the walls, as each line rose and fell to the beat of the music.

“Oh, yes!” A voice called out as dancing spotlights flickered on from the ceiling above.

“What’s going on?” She demanded as lines of light lit across the groundbreaking the room into eight long tracks.

“What’s happening?” The voice chuckled, “Is you went after a raid boss all on your own!”

A flash of red, blue, and green lights along side one of the walls drew her attention, allowing her to see a shower of sparks blast out of the ground revealing a massive tower of speakers, with DJ Decker sitting at the top.

“Now, let’s raise the roof on this party!” Decker shouted, his music growing ever louder as the walls began to shake.

She glanced around the room expecting more pixel monsters to start showing up, and while she did spot a number of flying drones fluttering about, she didn’t see anything that was an actual threat. “Is something supposed to be happening asshole?”

Decker just smirked at her, and- (Fuck!) -something slammed into her from behind with enough force that she was sure it was going to leave a bruise, what’s worse whatever it was also somehow managed to burn her through her jacket.

By some instinctive means she managed to force herself out of the thing’s path, leaving her panting as she caught sight of a long wall of light moving from the back of the room to the front, before fading. “The hell?”

“What’s wrong girlie? Never played this game before?” Decker laughed as another wave of light erupted from the back, forcing her to dodge it.

She frowned, eyeing the light as it faded and another one appeared in the same lane as her.

(Alright, so there’s his light power I guess… But it looks like he can only project it from the back of the room forward… Meaning I should be able to just run up and smash his tower without risking anything.)

Nodding to herself, she sprinted forward ready to climb up the tower, at least until a wave of sound threw her back as soon as she was in arms reach of the speakers.

“You didn’t think it would be that easy did you?” Decker taunted, as he looked down on her. “I’m a lieutenant of the Gamer’s Guild, I’ve got more than few tricks up my sleeve, such as…” Two pixel storms swirled together before throwing out another pair of the wolves in a burst of light. “My blitz wolves.”

“More of these guys…” She growled, before glaring at Decker. “You know minion bosses are the most annoying and cheap assholes in video games right?”

“Nope that’s escort missions.” Decker argued without even looking up from his mixer as he sent out two waves of light along the floor tracks.

(Damn it! I can’t even argue against that!)

The wolves danced around the light before lunging at her, their vicious teeth snapping through the air.

“Shit!” She cursed, diving out of their path, before forcing herself to keep moving as she avoided another trail of light.

“Oh? Did I set the difficulty too high?” Decker asked with false sympathy. “Are you actually a bronze tiered scrub?”

“Fuck you, you bot using motherfucker!” She shouted, wishing she’d picked up more curse words from her mother as Decker laughed at her.

Eyeing one of the wolves, and timing the pattern of the lights, she rushed forward slamming her electric hand cannon into the wolf, before skirting around and blasting it towards a wave of light with her sonic one.

“Not a bad shot, counter placement.” Decker admitted, “But sadly, friendly fire is off for this game.” The guild member added as the wolf stepped out of the light, a few sparks of electricity still dancing along its fur as it glared at her.

(Damn it…) She thought backing away from the wolf, while keeping her eye on the other one, unwilling to take another tackle to the ground like she had on the stage.

Of course, she was so preoccupied with the wolves that she ended up missing the wave of light coming up on her from behind. “Aaaagh!”

Through a bit of luck and a force of will she just barely managed to throw herself out of the light’s path, though that did very little to stop the burn that was beginning to overtake her body as she laid on the ground. “Shit…”

One of the wolves began to walk up on her, and she idly cursed herself for not inventing something with a little more range than the meter blasts of her cannons. (Just going to have to time this right…)

Knowing she wasn’t quite skilled enough to just get up and dodge the attack, she instead waited for the wolf to rear back and lunged forward herself sending out a burst of electricity as she climbed on top of the beast and finished it off with another sonic blast into the ground.

(Alright, one down, one to go…)

Pushing past her various aches and pains, -something she’d picked up after running with and having her ass kicked by Izzy- she forced herself back onto her feet, before rolling her shoulders as she turned to the other wolf.

(Okay, starting to feel the burn now… going to have to be careful if I want to win this.) She told herself, as the whispers in her head buzzed with excitement. (Right.)

As she eyed the wolf for the ideal moment to strike, she was forced to leap back as she caught sight of another wave of light rushing for her.

This of course cut off her sight of the other wolf, something it used to its advantage as it suddenly tore through the light lunging at her.

“Shit!” More on reflex than anything else, she ended up sending off an accidental burst of electricity from her hand cannon rather than anything intentional.

Luckily this was more than enough to finish off the already damaged pixel beast.

Seeing a flash of blue, and feeling a cool breeze as the wolf pixelated, its bits harmlessly bouncing off of her, she couldn’t help but sigh in relief at her luck.

(That was a little too close…)

Shaking her head and steeling herself, she turned back to Decker who was giving her an impressed look. “It’s just you and me now.”

“Heh, you really would make one hell of an addition to the guild you know.” Decker told her as he continued fiddling with his board, the thumping of the music changing to something just a touch mellower as he did so.

“I’m good right where I am, thank you.” She told the guild lieutenant as the various drones pulled in closer.

“If you want to play this MMO solo, well, to each their own.” Decker shrugged, “But I know for a fact you’d fit in with more than one party in the guild.”

“Yeah, like I said I’m good.” She refused. “Besides your party is just about over!”

Decker smirked, before snapping his fingers sending three more clouds of pixels swirling together as the music once more began to pick up. “Oh, don’t worry I brought plenty of tokens to keep this game going all night!”

“Shit…” Her eyes darted between the clouds as they shattered into another pack of wolves. “This is getting really tiresome asshole!”

“Aw, was the party over because you want to quit?” Decker asked. “I mean it’s only round two of the fight!”

“I’m not done yet!” She told the guild member, wishing she could just get close enough to wreck him, but every time she did he hit her with a sonic blast. “Wait…”

(His attacks hit me, but his don’t hurt his minions…) Once more she eyed the three wolves, and then the tower of speakers. (Alright, there’s an idea… but it’s too risky while I’m so outnumbered.)

Nodding to herself, and more than thankful she’d gotten used to pushing through the pain with all of her sparring and running with Izzy, she rushed towards one of the wolves while using a sonic blast to push the other two back when they tried to intercept her.

Dropping to her knees she slid across the ground, narrowly evading her target pixel beast nipping at her, she grabbed one of its legs before driving her hand into its chest and letting loose the last charge of her electric cannon’s clip.

She wasn’t entirely sure it would work, but as luck would have it having the entire burst delivered point blank was just enough to pixelate the beast.

“Ooh, a critical hit!” Decker cheered for some reason. “Not bad zappy!”

“Hey, that’s Miss Zappy to you!” She yelled at the DJ, hoping to stall just long enough for her electric attuned hand cannon to reload.

“Pfft, Miss Zappy isn’t exactly the best Mask name.” Decker warned.

“I- That’s not my Mask name!” She shouted at him, before jumping out of the way of another wave of light.

“Really, then what is your gamer tag?” Decker asked leaning forward. “Who knows I might send you a friend request after all of this.”

She smiled. “Oh, it’s go fuck yourself FTW, because it’s the only one you’re getting.” She finished in a droll tone as she inched closer to one of the paused wolves.

“Ouch, that actually hurt a little.” Decker admitted with a hand over his chest.

“Good, because this whole thing is going to hurt a lot more!” She told him, rushing for the nearest wolf and jumping as the pixel beast lagged for a moment as it switched between it’s passive and aggressive states.

Grabbing the wolf by the side of its head, she used a sonic burst to send it skidding across the ground and towards the legs of the second wolf who was forced to leap away or be toppled over.

Not letting up for a second she chased after the downed wolf, before slamming an electrical burst into its side, pixelating it and giving her the ideal opportunity to start her plan as she rushed towards the tower of speakers Decker stood atop of.

Stopping just short of the line where she’d been blasted away before, she set her sonic hand cannon to reload and turned back to the last wolf, waiting for the best moment to strike, and hopefully end this fight before Decker thought to summon anymore wolves.

(Just have to time this right…) She thought to herself as she heard the guitar riff of her Hand Cannon’s reload.

“Ooh, got yourself cornered now!” Decker taunted as he looked down on her. “Back to my sonic speakers, and a blitz wolf just begging to tear you to shreds. Oh, what are you going to do?!”

Ignoring the DJ’s words, she kept her focus on the wolf stalking her from just a few short paces away, waiting for the beast to lunge at her like the rest had when they tried to close the distance.

(Right, it’s just like a game ai. That’s why it’s so easy for him to copy them, they’re not real creatures, they're just hard light programs following a few preprogrammed codes.) She figured, the excited whispers chittering away as they slowly tried to piece apart how these pixel beasts worked, without actually diving into the madness and magic that made them possible.

With that idea in mind, she was fully prepared to counter the beast as it made the same movements its brethren had before lunging. And so as the wolf leapt into the air, she dropped to the ground and slid forward just under the beast’s claws, leaving it to collide into the speakers with minimal damage to them or the wolf, but leaving it stunned just long enough for her to run forward and use it as a meat shield as the speakers tried to push her back.

The force of the blast was completely nullified by Decker’s lack of friendly fire as she sent burst of sound after burst of sound into the beast in order to drive the wolf further into the speaker system. At least until the pixel beast finally gave under all of the pressure, shattering it into a swarm of blue lights and giving her the chance to shove her electric hand cannon into the cracked chassis of Decker’s speaker system and unleash enough power to overload the system.

“Wait, hold up! What are you doing?!” Decker called down with just a touch of panic as sparks began to trail all around her, and the faintest tingling sensation buzzed through her hand.

As soon as the electricity started to die down she began climbing up the tower as fast as she could, savoring the panicking sounds coming from Decker as he continued to mess with his mixer board in hopes of undoing the damage she’d done.

Cresting the top of the tower and standing on the edge of Decker’s DJ table she looked down on the fumbling guild member with a baleful glare.

“Hey, come now! Let’s not do anything you’ll regret; the cameras are rolling!” Decker warned her as he backed away from the table.

“Yeah, well that’s fine, because it’s game over!” She told him as she raised her foot above Decker’s mixer board.

“Wait! No! Don’t!” Decker shouted, reaching forward to stop her.

Only he was too late as she crushed the board underfoot, shattering it and sending out a bright wave of blue light as she destroyed the source of Decker’s powers.