Commandment of Hero and Slay Every Dragon returned to Vanilla Stage not with posters waiting to be signed but with swords, lenses, and a hundred of their closest friends. A horde streamed out of the toilets in a way no janitor of such a respectable establishment that paid well and attracted a clientele unused to the vibrant bathrooms of less sophisticated venues would ever permit.

“Thank you for your applause!” the talents shouted at the backs of their highly mobile audience.

“I knew those drills on running and clapping at the same time had their place,” Trainer Eumorsedio said, and even Darlotte Glofal confessed her error in believing such expedited courtesy would never have practical applications, no matter how high a level of perfection they reached in it.

The invasion force formed up on the street outside as planned earlier before dashing for the Sit Snug. The short delay in the campaign occasioned by all the drills had sufficed to change the local defense situation, as the attackers learned when shrubs bust apart to reveal machines of unknown purposes.

“Turrets!” Half the army hit the deck.

“Advertising jingles!” The other half made fun of the first half while still advancing toward the objective despite opposition from promotional music far less pleasing than the song they had heard for the few seconds between the bathroom and the street. Angels dropped wards along the way to warn of any reinforcements, Always Leveling Titan and Paradise the Enchant spread themselves around the shopping center to stop or at least detect runners, and Slay Every Dragon prepared to breach the first Sit Snug, a task of the highest responsibility which the slayers had begged to be assigned. Commandment of Hero and Holy Legend Army asserted their presence all over the place and escorted Construction in for some heavy work.

Skay Pact Elizonas kicked open the first door, which was not how that kind of door worked, and littered the spotless floor with glass shards. He grunted, searched the building, and went on to the next, signaling on the way out to Eten who nodded and waved Vinnette Melban's landship over.

“Back, back, that's good, back more, keep going, good.” The Sit Snug crumpled under that behemoth's might behind Skay while in front of him Society Page Lasva's camera went nuts.

One shop after another received the same treatment. Over their corpses, Vampire Lord directed the raising not of some ghoul, a shambling revenant, but a great mead hall finer than any yet built in Holy Legend Army. “That will change,” Ragnar said. “It will be like this, but twice in every direction.”

“Isn't that too big?” BigGuy30 asked.

“Only until you come. All of you will be welcome!” The army roared and redoubled its efforts.

“Hey! You guys were slacking off!”

“We certainly were, Quircy. We most certainly were.” Serdon winked at the whole crowd simultaneously, a trick mastered only by the most able showmen, which caused the workers to redouble their efforts yet again.

“One quarter effort. You guys are unbelievable.”

“Thanks, Quirce. By the way. Skay says his team found some people.” Zimley Boe jerked her thumb over where a ring of slayers guarded a smaller ring of kneeling instances. “Not a patrol, either. They were fixing a coffee machine.”

“Great news. We'll ransom them for tips on running a chain of stores with consistent branding and quality that make people feel at home even when they're away from home.”

“Are those ads getting to you?”

“Yes. Destroy those loudspeakers!”

With the ads out of the way, the shopping center came down. The mead hall rose, and the bowling alley, and the auditorium Lua bribed Construction to erect, and statues that looked like nothing in particular.

“A wobbly triangle, a pretzel half-unbent, and an umbrella tailored for a camel's use.” Asmodeus contemplated the decorations of the park in the middle of the three new buildings, arms crossed, expression grim. “This day has taught me that I neither know art nor know what I like.”

Elsewhere, Information Gathering examined the captives. “So this is how cyberpunks dress? We could have sent Zimley Boe. Remember that for next time.”

“Nay, Wruden Calx. Consider her behavior now.”

“What, jumping up and down and asking when we can finish up and go to a concert? Are those rolled up concert posters she's holding? I see.”

Quircy Rau waited till after she received responses from the messengers she had sent to every venue bearing demands for unconditional surrender. “Sure,” they said, or something similar.

“OK, we did that, and that's there. Did we remember to . . . Yes, there it is. All right, everybody! Great job, eventually. I'm now the Queen of Producers of Vanilla Stage. Remember that. Now go have fun!” They did. Have fun, that is. They never again remembered the Queen of Producers part, since it sounded awkward, and who would associate awkwardness with either Quircy Rau or any of the deeds they accomplished that day?

The era of strife had ended, bad news for strife investors, and the era of musical chairs began. CoH/HLA/etc. seized Vanilla Stage from Convergence/Divergence, which had sent its main force to occupy Gold and Dynamite and expel Furious Galaxy, whose main fleet at that moment encouraged Radiant Illusion Country to rethink its adherence to the coalition of fantasy aesthetic-havers. None of the three great empires could both attack and garrison its holdings beyond its key games: Paradise the Enchant for the first, Calamity Online and Legendary War Chronicles for the second, and as Information Gathering discovered, Project Contrails for the third.

“Some of the plane fuel there makes FG ships go cuckoo. That's the technical term. They use it. Honest. They can warp to Opuwa with it. They don't fly well that way, but that doesn't matter against anyone but Project Contrails anyway.”

“What of Brave Cumulus?” Metatron and the rest of the officials, both ministers and representatives from member games, listened to the report onboard the Brave Cumulus, the massive aerial carrier that the good guys from Brave Cumulus used as their base.

“Never heard of it,” Inorrea Vacationer said.

She had heard of fleets cruising endlessly around Project Contrails through midair mine fields, above ground-based mine fields, and around towers loaded with railguns and missile batteries on every floor, but that was no news. She reported also on the fences and grids which encircled Legendary War Chronicles and Calamity Online consisting of lasers, both the kind that trigger alarms and the anti-HP kind, not to mention the drones, the nanomachine dispensers, and the turrets with guns and rockets rather than loudspeakers. Recently some with loudspeakers had also been installed.

Planning called it a war of maneuver, but most of the maneuvering occurred in Vanilla Stage venues as imperial subjects attempted to snatch the best seats. “Raise the flag when the dread winds stir themselves to wave it over fields soon to be watered by blood,” Ivar said, speaking for most of the empire's fighters once they figured out what he meant. Deprived of action, they amused themselves in the games they had already won: Commandment of Hero and Holy Legend Army of course, along with Always Leveling Titan, Dust and Highway, Everyday Pin, Slay Every Dragon, Styleful Happy!! The Battle, Lovely Interest, Lunacy Bike, Dungeon Express Re:Development, Vanilla Stage, Brave Cumulus, and, most importantly, Paradise the Enchant. Divine Providence too, if you wanted to count that.

They bowled, waved glowsticks, bet on air races, carved messages in the post-apocalyptic wastes with skilled tires, deepened their elemental understanding or else fended off bands of wild Luas, Reginalds, and slayers who dragged them off to involuntary elementercise sessions, and generally carried on while they waited for Quircy Rau or Metatron to propose something of martial interest. Pleasure seekers developed rules for unconventional sports, such as timing how long it took Society Page Lasva to figure out the inside information Zimley Boe was feeding her consisted of anecdotes calculated to make Quircy Rau seem winsome, or the new classic guessing game, “Corporeal or Incorporeal?” The latter led the officers to knowledge all crusaders possessed already, which was that while one might suppose Corporeals would be more fun at parties, the Incorporeals could engage in discourse on a wider variety of topics, plus they showed greater consideration as hosts.

“If good guests capable of enlivening the occasion you seek for your celebration, seek them among the Lands, not Corporeals,” Nimue assured outsiders. There was no self-aggrandizement there, since she happened to be Evil, though in a helpful kind of way.