The Red Hand

Side Story 3 – The Misfits Make a Decision!

The Misfits were relaxing in a small tavern in the nearby village of Elso after a hard day's work. They'd begun to steadily level up over the past year and were confident that they'd soon be able to handle the dungeon within their forest home.

"See, I told you that I could make C4!" Daikael said as she put a ball of putty onto the table.

"I didn't say that you couldn't. I said you shouldn't." Shiru sighed.

"Why are you putting that on the table?" Alveron scooched away from the explosives. "That's dangerous!"

"Nah, it's fine." Daikael began to smack the putty. "Without a blasting cap, it's harmless." She began to sculpt it into different forms.

"Danger putty meow~!" Ara hissed at the C4.

"How much damage can that stuff do?" Avahn looked closely at the small snowman Daikael had created. "Is it more powerful than your grenades?"

{I wonder how it would feel to get exploded by it?} (Avahn)

"I don't know!" Daikael said with a massive smile. "We need to test it!"

"Preferably not in my forest..." Shiru knew what happened last time Daikael did weapons testing on her trees.

"It will be perfectly fine!" Daikael smiled. "Remember, I've been in the military for a while, so I'm a trained professional."

{If you're a professional, then I'm worried about the American military's readiness level...} (Avahn)

"I thought you were in charge of landmine clearing? You know, like how they have animals walk into conflict zones where they couldn't remember exactly where they put them." Alveron laughed.

"For you're information, I only exploded three times." Daikael chuckled. "After that, they transferred me to Okinawa so I could teach others my ways!"

"Kaboom meow~!" Ara made an explosion noise.

"I wonder if this counts as AWOL?" Shiru asked. "You've been gone for nearly two years now."

"I have no idea, but seeing as my CO isn't breaking the laws of reality to come to drag my ass back to base, it's probably fine." Daikael didn't really like her commanding officer and thought he was a bit of a hardass.

{I wonder what would happen if he did that, though? It would be kinda nice to run around Earth as a fox girl.} (Daikael)

"Hey, guys?" Avahn interrupted their conversation. "Are you seeing this?" She was referring to the global chat.

"What's going on?" Alveron opened up an additional screen. "Silfana... attack.... Hassan?" He began reading a few chat messages aloud.

"Silfana is leading an army to attack Hassan?!?" Shiru's eyes went wide. "Is this real?" Even this far detached from the wider events of FWO, the Misfits generally knew what was going on and who the World Bosses were.

"I assume this isn't part of the plan." Avahn knew from talking to other players that Silfana was dangerous, so to hear that she was leading her army of monsters and Demons was both concerning and exciting.

"I didn't think Bosses could move from their locations?" Daikael mulled over this information. "There's something about Akagi in the flurry of messages."

"People nyare saying that nyakagi caused Silfanya to move nya~?"

[People are saying that Akagi caused Silfana to move?] Ara wasn't really sure if that was the case but passed along the info she caught from the chat.

"Is that even possible?" Alveron asked. "You can't even talk to World Bosses let alone influence them."

"Silfana is a bit different, so maybe it's possible?" Avahn said. "She is a vampire and, from what I've been told, she can speak." There were claims by some players of speaking to the Vampire Queen, but unlike other NPCs, she didn't seem willing or able to work with players.

"I heard that someone got turned into a Vampire because of a questline from her." Shiru thought back to the stories she heard. "But I can't be sure."

"Regardless, this nyis bad meow~!" Ara thought that such an attack would prove devastating. The Assault Team was hoping to fight Silfana later, but this might force them into a battle earlier than expected.

"If she destroys Hassan, there's no telling what she might do next." Daikael pointed out that the Fortress was the only thing keeping her forces hemmed into that portion of the continent. "So the Assault Team will probably have no choice but to react."

"I feel like we should do something..." Alveron thought for a moment.

"I do too, but I'm not sure we'd be of much help." Shiru gave a wry smile. "The Assault Team is much higher level than us, and this kind of battle is probably beyond all of us except Avahn." She looked at the Demon cat. "What are you going to do?"

"Hmmmm." Avahn thought for a moment. "I'm pretty sure that my abilities would allow me to cleave through plenty of the normal monsters, but I'm not entirely sure how I'd fair in a fight with a World Boss. Though regardless I'd love to try, just getting into that kind of epic battle sounds amazing." She was powerful, but a World Boss was an entirely different animal to the normal dungeon bosses she'd faced, though the Demon cat was not one to care for her own well being. "Plus, from what I've been told, Silfana fights more like a player than a monster..."

{Her blood blade is apparently able to give her several different attacks, one of which can bypass my Demonic protections. But damn if that doesn't sound like an amazing battle!} (Avahn)

"Everyone is wondering where Shining Blade is during all of this." Alveron said while reading chat messages. "I can't imagine Eris sitting this one out, but we all know how much Blade can't stand Hishya." Most of that guild had bad blood with the Assault Team leader.

"Who knows, she might just leave this up to the Assault Team for now." Daikael shrugged. "Wouldn't shock me if she and the others wanted a bit of payback."

{Wouldn't be the first time something like this happened.} (Daikael)

"But this isn't some stupid game!" Shiru exclaimed, causing the room to go silent. "We can actually die in here! So we all need to band together and help!"

{Letting people die just to make yourself feel better is awful! I don't care what Hishya did to them!} (Shiru)

"People nyare saying that nyover fifty-thousand monsters nyare nyon nye myarch meow~! That's too myany nyenyemies meow~!"

[People are saying that over fifty-thousand monsters are on the march! That's too many enemies!] Ara couldn't really deal with mass waves of weaker mobs, so throwing her into such a fight would be dangerous.

"I do want to go and help, plus this would be a good source of experience." Avahn smirked. "I think I can handle a group of monsters like that, at least for a while."

{My entire body can't stop shaking at the thought of so many enemies!} (Avahn)

"Hey, don't leave me out!" Daikael grinned. "If there's that many in one space, I can try out my experimental artillery!" Her eyes shined with excitement.

"Nyif nyu're going, I'm going meow~! nyi nyan zoom between nyenyemies to nyasukete nyu meow~! myaybe nyi nyan nyeven nyasukete nyagainst silfanya meow~!"

[If you're going, I'm going! I can zoom between enemies to help you! Maybe I can even help against Silfana!] Ara wasn't going to let her two friends go alone.

"You hear these three?" Alveron shook his head. "Ready to dive head first into danger with no regard for their own safety." He cracked a smile. "I guess I'll have to come with and make you idiots get home safely."

"And I guess that means that I'll have to come with to make sure that you don't do anything stupid either." Shiru giggled. "The babysitter needs a babysitter of his own. Or should I say ratsitter."

"I AM NOT A-" Alveron stopped himself. The army of small rodents he'd been making via his taming magic had basically turned him into the Rat Lord, and that was actually one of the titles he'd gotten. "I hate you all..."

"We love you too." Shiru said while petting him on the head.

"Yeah, meowhat would we do without nyour resident seasoning nya~?"

[Yeah, what would we do without our resident seasoning?] Ara enjoyed making fun of Alveron for falling into the soup pot back home.

"That was only two times! One of which was your fault, cat!" Alveron growled. Ara had thrown a pan at him while he was floating next to Shiru in the kitchen and caused him to fall into that night's dinner.

"One of these days, Shiru's just gonna trap you in the stew and eat you up." Daikael laughed.

"I don't need him in the stew to do that." Shiru's comment caused everyone but her and Daikael to go red.

"Why did I fall in love with such a woman?" Alveron sighed. "There must be something wrong with me..."

"As if you aren't happy with things." Shiru rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, at least you've got a girlfriend." Daikael said. "The rest of this team is hopelessly single."

Ara and Avahn exchanged looks and sighed. "She really is stupid." Avahn said.

"Yeah..." Ara agreed. The two cats had already gotten together and so technically only Daikael was single, but it seemed she hadn't noticed this fact yet.

"Well then, let's get you a boyfriend." Shiru decided to mess with the fox.

"Hmmm." Daikael thought about it. 

"Nah I've got a better idea." Alveron's lips curved into a nasty smile. "Let's find a way to clone Daikael, that way she can be her own waifu!" He laughed and got a bonk on the head from Shiru.

"That's just...." Shiru shook her head. "I don't even know what that is, but it seems bad."

"Hmmm." Daikael thought for a moment. "If I cannot find a waifu, then I can become my own waifu!" It seemed she took to this idea quite well.

"Oh no." Avahn had a bad feeling.

"Snyupid rat meow~! why would nyu put that nyidea nyin her head nya~?"

[Stupid Rat! Why would you put that idea in her head?] Ara figured the fox was crazy enough to try it.

"Hey, I kinda wanna see it for myself." Alveron said while rubbing his head.

{Not like she could actually do it anyway...} (Alveron)