(Author Note: Since a certain someone commented, I give you more! MORE!)

Daphne was in shock, staring at the giant lizard baring down on her. Edge shook her out of it. “Run Daphne. Don’t stop!” he yelled, straight into her starstruck face. She nodded dumbly at him, and fled across the wet field.

Sakura was a sorceress; her speed and agility weren’t high enough to outpace the slow Gecko King. ‘Keep running,’ she told herself. ‘Don’t think about what’s behind you.’ She scrambled up the nearest hillside, slipping and sliding in the muddied grass, certain that if she looked back the Gecko King would be there to eat her.

Edge picked up a rock, weighing it in his hand. Sakura sprinted right by him trying to grab at his shoulder to pull him along with her. He stepped to the side, easily dodging the agility deficient sorceress, instead slowly jogging toward the huge charging beast. His life wasn’t worth much anyway. At least, this way someone might remember him. He let loose the stone in his hand, and it hit the Gecko King in one of its massive frog-like eyeballs. All he had to do was buy time enough for the girls to escape. Pivoting, he changed directions in a slippery flash. The Gecko King stampeded through the vacated space, still tracking Sakura. Edge unleashed a full double fisted machine gun of tiny pebbles before he got a reaction from the giant gecko.

The Gecko King was abnormally slow to turn, but once it was again facing Edge its speed increased. Apparently, the Gecko King could only sprint in a straight line. It was indeed a low level boss. Anyway, Edge was faster. Now, it was time to test his maximum range theory. If he could make it far enough away from the spawn point, perhaps the boss would reset. Edge didn’t get very far before the Gecko King stopped its pursuit, slowly revolving and reversing its enormous elongated body.

“That was easy.” Wait. It wasn’t aiming back toward the pond. It was on a straight course for Baldor’s Loft. “I had to say it.” Eugene chastised himself, catching his breath before chasing after the pseudo dinosaur. He tried chucking another half dozen rocks at the Gecko King’s back, to no avail. “I’m here. I’m right here! You big green lizard,” he taunted. His efforts weren’t generating enough aggro. He’d really need to work on better taunts. Maybe, bigger rocks.

You’d think, since Edge was the only attacker, he should have all of the aggro, regardless of the minor damage dealt by his pebbles. That could mean one of a few things. Either this was a pre-generated confrontation, and the Gecko King was programmed to play out a scene at Baldor’s Loft . . . or boss aggro was different than normal monster aggro . . . or someone else was adding aggro . . . by the dozen. And then it hit him, “The eggs! How can I be so stupid?” Sakura was carrying all of the looted eggs, and she ran back to the loft with Daphne. The Gecko King was targeting the player who stole its eggs. That was the reason it kept charging after Sakura as soon as it appeared, not only because she was closest. The Gecko King was an event spawn. It was meant to target the robbers who stole its eggs.

His friends were in trouble, and a minute ago he’d been lamenting about dying as a hero. Eugene was no hero. If that big gecko had been a little faster, or he a little slower, Edge would have died for nothing. It still would have turned around and stomped his friends. Eugene rested his hands on his knees, panting from the chase. Could he let it end here? Would he give up? What difference could a guy like him make anyway, against a boss like that? A boss . . . This was a game. Eugene wasn’t good for much. He wasn’t talented in anything. But . . . he could play video games. He could win video games. A lot of things in his life beat him down, but in-game, he was the one who dealt the deathblows. In MMOs, he was the predator.

Edge turned on the jets, metaphorically, as [Adventurer]s didn’t start with any special abilities, which seemed like a big rip-off. He had to make it to Baldor’s Loft before the [Gecko King]. He had to warn them, give them a chance to escape, no matter what.

Sakura glanced at the empty glasses hanging behind the bar, as they vibrated from the nearby impact. It was too late. Edge’s plan didn’t work. Daphne was screaming across the bar, pleading with the NPC innkeeper for help. Not a particularly efficient use of her time, as far as Sakura was concerned, but it wasn’t like she had any better ideas herself. She could run, go out the front door, and keep going. It was the only plan that made sense. The loft began to rumble in earnest as the inevitable approached. The NPC’s sitting in the common room ignored the earth shaking disturbance, but Daphne turned to her with those giant worried eyes. It was obvious that Daphne cared for Edge. Sakura was scared for him too, she realized. Good guys were hard to find, but heroes were rare as diamonds. “Let’s go out the front,” she suggested.

“What about Edge?”

“I’m sure he’s fine. But we won’t be if we stay here, and Baldor’s Loft could be in danger as well.” Didn’t Daphne realize that if the monster switched targets then Edge was already gone?

“I’m sorry Sakura, you go,” Daphne said, using her dash ability to jump to the opposite side of the loft, near the backdoor. “I have to help, Edge.” Daphne squeezed the raindrops from her eyes and sprung outside into Baldor’s garden.

Only this afternoon, Sakura’s hunger and thirst had been enough to drive her to desperation. She didn’t know if it was possible to die of thirst in Levia Online, only that every second she went without either food or water was strikingly painful. None of the farmers, nor Baldor himself would help her, regardless of how sincerely she begged for any form of sustenance. After all, they were only computer programs. It was Edge who finally helped her. He hadn’t even given her a chance to ask. She owed him something for his kindness, for their kindness, in taking her under their wing. Whatever fate was in store for her in this death game, she wouldn’t face it alone again. “I’ll face it next to him,” she pledged, next to the man who’d rescued her from dying alone with his kindness, and didn’t even realize it.

Edge watched Daphne burst out the backdoor and sprint along the garden path, leaping over the short picket fence. The Gecko King wasn’t far behind him. “Daphne! Get the gecko eggs from Sakura and bring them to me!”

Daphne skidded to a halt, reversing her direction and leapt back over the fence, a wide smile plastered on her face. She dashed toward the door, she’d left open.

What was she smiling about? ‘Girls are weird,’ he thought.

Sakura and Daphne collided full-tilt in the doorway. For some reason the pair of girls were wrestling on the ground. Daphne sat on top of Sakura’s chest with her tail caught in the front of Sakura’s corset. Sakura was trying desperately to unhook it from between her breasts.

“No no, don’t t-t-touch me there,” Daphne squirmed.

“Stop fooling around you two! Hurry up and give Daphne all your eggs,” he yelled. The Gecko King was already catching up, and Edge was barely hanging on. The run had used too much of his stamina. His body didn’t want to move another inch.

Sakura transferred all four dozen eggs from her inventory into Daphne’s, handfuls at a time. Edge veered out of the lumbering Gecko King’s path, but he wasn’t quick enough this time. The green lizard pursed its large ruby red lips, and a stream of high pressure water squirted from its mouth. Edge raised his shield in front of his face, bracing it with both hands. The water pushed him backwards across the wet field, and he tumbled head over heels, slamming his back against the white picket fence. His health bar had dropped to [50%] in one hit.

“Edge!” screamed Daphne. She raced to his side, using [Dash] repeatedly.

“Don’t get too close, it’s dangerous,” he warned.

‘For her supposed hero, Edge could be pretty dumb sometimes,’ thought Daphne. Of course, she wasn’t going to go anywhere near the boss. Instead, she sung her healing song and helped Edge get back on his feet, dashing them both out of the path of another water beam. The boss slowly rotated itself in her direction.

“Okay eggs,” he said. His life points were climbing fast thanks to Daphne’s song. He stashed the eggs in his inventory, breaking a few in the process. If that didn’t get him some aggro, he didn’t know what would. “Thanks. Now go get Sakura and meet me at the pond. I have an idea.”

Daphne gave him a worried look with a thumbs up, and kept on singing until the end, dashing them in a circle around the boss. Edge broke free of her unrelenting grip, and ran up the hill toward the pond. ‘His idea better not be as dumb as the last one,” she thought.

Edge threw another rock at the Gecko King, which bounced off its forehead. “Over here, you big dumb lizard.” Yes, his taunts were getting better. He lured the Gecko King away from Baldor’s Loft, a voice in the back of his head, praying for enough stamina to keep going. He ran right passed the pond and kept on running until he put some distance between himself and the boss. When he thought he was far enough, he practically collapsed in the mud from exhaustion. The mud actually felt nice against his cheek. “This isn’t me giving up. This is all part of my master plan,” he told himself, while he sat up, desperately catching his breath. Sitting made your stamina recover faster, he hoped. It wasn’t like there was a stamina bar. “I wish there was a stamina bar.” These developers were really cruel.

Sakura and Daphne hustled toward the pond, but there was no trace of either Edge or the boss. “Where did he go?” asked Daphne. Sakura merely pointed at a distant hilltop in reply. A mud man scampered down the hill, a moment later followed by a giant gecko.

“Hi guys,” he said, nonchalantly, though extremely winded.

“Sorry we took so long. My movement speed is terrible,” apologized Sakura. “Now what is your plan?” The ground was already shaking from the quickly advancing boss.

“We are going to kite it. It’ll be perfect. These eggs generate aggro so-”

“I’ll blast it with a [Firebomb], and run away with Daphne’s [Dash] until aggro returns to you. But we don’t know how many life points it has, or if it will spawn minions or get increased speed or attack power or special abilities when it reaches low health,” said Sakura, astutely. She wasn’t a noob, she was a gamer. And she could talk really fast when she had to.

“Okay, if it spawns minions . . . then Daphne you’ll have to use your DoT and gather them all up and then run around the boss with them until they die,” he replied.

“Me?” Daphne asked, surprised. “Okay Edge, I’ll do it,” she added resolutely, after taking a moment to think about it.

“Are you sure you’re up to this? You look like you’re about to collapse,” mentioned an extremely worrisome Sakura.

“Well . . . I’m all out of rocks. But I think I’ve found something better,” he said with a sly grin, holding up a fist sized gecko egg.

The plan was working. Sakura’s [Firebomb]s were definitely having an effect on the Gecko King. Even when a dozen of the eggs in Edge’s inventory burst out all around him and spawned Geckos, he managed to fight his way out of the trap, and keep running before big daddy lizard caught up to him.

‘Big daddy lizard.’ He needed to write that down for next time.

Had their group been a traditional party with a traditional strategy, they would have been in real trouble. As it was however, they were anything but traditional; they were desperate.

It took hours of back and forth chasing for them to defeat the Gecko King. After one of Sakura’s mighty firebombs, the boss would chase after her, until Edge had thrown a dozen rocks, or one egg, and then he’d take aggro back again. It was this gamer patented back and forth attack strategy that was known throughout all MMOs as kiting. When even Edge became too exhausted to continue, Daphne took over the egg tossing to give him a short rest. Luckily the egg spawn was a one time occurrence during the boss fight. He was tempted to crush every single egg after the first time it happened, but resisted do to the lack of readily available rocks to throw.

The Gecko King finally fell. Its huge body collapsed into the muddy ground it had trampled into a pig sty. The body turned a statue grey, and a beautiful golden boss flag appeared. It had a [30] second timer instead of fifteen.

[50 EXP]

For beating the boss? So unfair! Eugene silently cursed the developers.

A popup appeared in front of each of them [Secret Quest Rank E: Defeat the Gecko King Completed] [You have gained 2000 EXP]

‘I take it all back,’ he thought. It was almost enough to forgive the whole death game thing. ‘Not.’

[You have gained a level: 2]

Worth it.

An overeager Daphne looted every item from the boss, while Edge decided that this exact spot in the mud was the perfect place to fall down, splashing onto his back. He’d gained one more point of speed, one more point of agility and two more points of stamina during the lengthy boss fight. It was a miracle he survived. Rain cascaded down his face, and he opened his mouth for a quick drink. He hadn’t ever worked so hard or pushed himself so far in his entire life. His real life body wouldn’t have been able to handle it; he was weak. But it was all over now. Taking a break seemed the right idea, just letting it finally end.