“Would you like to have a tea party, Zozo? Would you? Of course you would. You always want to do things you oughtn't. Why, what hot tea would do your tongue! I, however, will come out of it unscathed. I must think of whom to invite.” Adigail Zem, noted breeder, trainer, and shower of dogs, toured Freegate's courtyard with her terrier, Zozo, at her heel, where it would stay if it knew what was good for it. The natural gloom of that adamant-walled fortress was pushed back in normal times by the shining liveliness of its inhabitants, but settled in again with half of them gone, replaced by UTASes, and the other half also replaced by UTASes while out Vigilant Patroling or relaxing on the sunnier, breezier beaches of Ittora which had hosted the finest summer event to date.

Any elegant young buman who devoured the glamor of the dog show circuit as greedily as food, or rather more so, being incapable of starvation, would resent the heavy atmosphere of the main keep and turn her steps toward the garden. She drifted that way while thinking of which officers might accept an invitation for a pleasant diversion. General Wakve perhaps, Wilma Greenhill (though her garish Christmas alt might be out of theme), Ballroom Neur. Oh, she must not forget Night Shift Lynissia, the cutest little thing in Freegate.

Those distracting concerns prevented her from realizing for some time that the garden already overflowed with occupants. “Excuse me. I had no intention of interrupting you gentlemen,” she told the two-dozen professional-looking fellows fully equipped with suits and shades. They had guns too, and miniguns, and rocket launchers, flamethrowers, all the appurtenances of employees who navigated the modern corporate environment with hopes of advancing their careers with a view toward personal enrichment.

“Not at all. We're sorry to barge in without an appointment, but they say time waits for no man, and neither does opportunity. We had the opportunity to ask where you store your building materials and noodle carts, and we took it. Here's my card.” The man handed Adigail Zem a plain white card that identified him as Vice President Lane, a 5* Gunner in the Security affiliation of the mobile game Convergence/Divergence. His management position must have been what entitled him to add a second pistol to his armament and forgo the sunglasses portion of the company uniform.

“I know you'll laugh at me for this, but all my cards were given out in the last event. The pigeons haven't brought my new ones in yet. I know! You stay here and make yourselves comfortable while I check if my package has arrived.”

“We'd hate to put you to the trouble . . .”

“The only trouble is when guests aren't made welcome, my grandmother always said. Pardon me.” Adigail curtsied and dashed for the main keep.

“Mr. Lane. That shiny woman is going to alert the defenders.”

“I know, Mr. Foley. I hate to interfere with politeness, though. Remember that our target is the stockpiles the letters claim are stored somewhere in this game. That seems to be the location of highest probability.” He jerked his finger toward the main keep and dropped his hand to one of his pistols. “Go.”

The corporate stooges ran, ties flapping, cocking guns all the way to the main entrance where they took up positions to defend a man carrying a portable pneumatic ram. Riflemen covered anything that looked like a window or arrow slit while the flamethrower owners and gas-mask-havers set up at the front corners in case a counterattack came around the sides.

“In position, Mr. Lane.”

“Ready to go, Mr. Lane.”

“Understood, Mr. Sutch, Mr. Harsky. Start on the door, and don't let urgency trick you into mistakes. This strike team can handle anything Commandment of Hero can scrape together while they're busy with Furious Galaxy.”

“That's if your correspondents are telling the truth, Mr. Lane.”

“They said 'sincerely,' Mr. Foley.”

“Ah. Of course.”

Inside the keep, the few officers around had listened to a summary of Adigail's encounter. After promising he would be happy to hear to a fuller account later if she wished to spend some time embellishing it, General Wakve conferred with local Strategists General Anstralia and Saptres Muria. He subsequently ordered everyone to sneak out the back door.

“Hurry now,” he told them, himself in motion as an example. “Public Service will release a few groups from duty in about ten minutes. What say we circle around to the front gate and have them reinforce us, eh? Pin those scoundrels against the portal they're trying to break down.”

“Break down? Break down the door? Nobody said anything about that.”

“Really now, Ben I. Sloup.” The first thud came then to bolster General Wakve's argument, which might have convinced the officers there to follow him had they not all decided to do so already. UTASes alone roamed the main hall or stood in the hallways, awaiting commands while the permanent asset contingent of under three groups slipped out the back of the keep and through the postern gate in the black walls, thick and high, to execute the rare reverse siege maneuver.

“Unconventional! Though not unprecedented.” General Anstralia peeked around to observe C/D's progress through the front gate and ducked back. “It used to happen in certain MMORPGs when players were building empires and playing to crush, I hear. We were told thrills awaited out in option world. As if I have not been there myself. Yet here they are!”

“They?”

“Thrills, Ben.”

“Gotcha. There are probably some thrills out there, one or two maybe. We can't discount that.”

Thrills? Metatron felt nothing but confidence when he pressed the button inside the fake bowling alley, or fauxling alley as no one had allowed Quircy Rau to print on a sign. “Warpers aren't exactly the stealth class, huh?” Thief Noriko noted then, and every officer and slayer confirmed her understanding.

The front ranks of Furious Galaxy's forces were nearly clear of the building when explosions shattered its walls and propelled chunks of them into startled crewmen. “Ouch!” they yelled to indicate their feelings on that matter, and then “Hey!” when they saw the horde revealed by the planned demolition. Only a moment was given them to analyze that army, how lacking in uniforms and plentiful in swords it was, how full of eldritch knowledge and improbable techniques, before it separated like the sections of a chocolate orange to cause havoc in Furious Galaxy's stomach.

The main characters fell first, and in their dying moments ordered the ships to begin their bombardments. Before even that could be done, several battleships fell to Warper blasts and the swords of Angels. They did not fall without consequence. Both enemies and friendlies felt the effects, but a one-time impact hurt the ambushers less than repeated barrages from intact ships would have.

The unexpected attack wiped out the entire ground presence of Furious Galaxy save for a few quick thinkers and quicker runners before the crews could make any effective response, but allied dinosaurs and grim ultraknights marching on the flanks soon collapsed on the center. Allosauruses seized the beefiest Demons and boxers to shake in their terrible maws. The monster chasers of Slaughter Pandora matched their flamboyant individual techniques against the more standardized but still extravagant skills of Slay Every Dragon in scattered duels of teleports, sword waves split by whistling arrows, and rising tackles that met screaming downthrusts. The combatants could barely see for all the effects.

The last capital ship succumbed to anti-air fire just in time for Brave Cumulus's return. The motherplane began to clear away the fighter cover, firing flak from countless turrets and disgorging flying girls inspired by real-world aircraft to demonstrate to the mundane Project Contrails models the superiority a lively imagination conferred in both the financial and mechanical realms. A dance of missiles and vulcans began in the sky.

“Let's make this fast. Some of us could be sent into Suppression at any second. I mean me, mostly.” Tiboleus the Experimenter's statement smelled pure and boast-free, as lemony-fresh as expected of Commandment of Hero's strongest Warper. Suppose Bel Felicitious Fasde had said that. What a braggart he would have looked. Bel said nothing, however, but waited for General Wakve's signal.

He and a few dozen other officers fresh out of idling, dispatches, farming, and PvP. Wakve took stock of his army: some gangsters, a king, a lord protector, an oligarch, a panda, a pair of Christmas centaurs. A vampire cosplayer, too. Not every homebody had mustered, but enough of them, and strong ones. Tiboleus, Nonneros Under the Moonlight, and Sibyl especially topped tier lists as a matter of course. If the attackers were too strong for them, they were too strong for anything Freegate could muster, he reasoned.

“I'd give a speech, but you know what's expected of you.” General Wakve raised his voice. “In we go!” The C/D suits whipped around and fired at the onrushing officers without hesitation, except for the rammer whose focus never wandered from the door, but Tiboleus's Forceful Alignment and a Wild Whiplash courtesy of Minsie of the Waves shoved those attacks back at the attackers and bowled them over. Technically, Wild Whiplash caused Flinch, dealt extra damage to targets in the middle of an attack, and had a chance of knockdown while Forceful Alignment displaced targets, stripped their buffs, replaced each with a debuff selected randomly from a list, and gave all allies a damage shield which increased in intensity with each attack reflected in addition to resistance against each type of damage they took for eighteen seconds, but none of the combatants had time to read skill descriptions. In Tiboleus's case, they would have required not just a minute or two, but rather a team of grad students working in shifts.

Convergence/Divergence brought its flamethrowers around, which discouraged the legions of howling Eclipses and Floods not at all, and the non-howling ones not much more. The Quakes preferred to avoid that Inferno damage nonsense. They dealt with the Security personnel who wielded chemical and biological agents as their weapons. That is, the Quakes except for one, very Formal and no less Figro, who blew all his cooldowns and made a surreptitious exit while adjusting his tie.

The defenders, or attackers, the home team at any rate, cut down the invaders. Not without loss, if free SR officers such as Coremel and Xentas could be considered losses. A quick voice vote decided they could not. Vice President Lane's paired plasma pistols, which made him an Eclipse as far as Commandment of Hero cared, fried a couple real fighters in Liya and everyone's favorite Aurebecktoemnire before Ozric Orn Pallad separated him from his HP. Flamethrowers claimed Count Poitula, Quake's fake vampire, and Hyl DeMereanch died most SRishly somewhere in there. Even so, the battle went Wakve's way. The enemy leader died, the riflemen succumbed, and Local Fisher's deft rod and line yanked the ram right out of its operator's hands. The invasion had failed.

“Lusin's harp, but you all look radiant right now. That's victory for you. Excellent, simply excellent. We aren't done yet, mind. Our prodigals told us they'll respawn at the garden, and you have my permission to cashier me if they take a step beyond it.” General Wakve gathered his triumphant militia and marched it toward a field that never saw the anticipated battle.

The Convergence/Divergence interlopers accepted reality, produced their Cracked Orbs, and withdrew from Commandment of Hero, though not before discussing the situation under shade trees which, unknown to them, sheltered in their higher branches that dapper secret agent from space, Formal Figro.

“Remind me, Mr. Foley. The Espionage Department presentation claimed what about the garrison here?”

“'There can't be that many characters there.' That was the general thrust, Mr. Lane.”

“I see now that I'm the idiot for believing that. They did have charts, though.”

“They did. We should have suspected a problem when they failed to include an infographic about the size of this game's roster.”

“But, Mr. Foley, I've never heard that CoH had four times as many characters as us. Why would anyone think that?”

“Hyperbole, Mr. Sutch.”

“I don't think so, Mr. Lane. We only have a few 5* Gunners such as yourself or 5* Hackers like Mr. Foley.”

“Multiplication, Mr. Sutch. You named one rarity of five and two classes out of four. Multiply those, then double the product to account for Security and Underground. The result is considerable. We're getting out of here.”

The team disappeared, leaving behind only these final words: “All these games have too many characters. The whole thing's just silly.”