The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Ray looked around his army standing scattered across the rocky plains. He had made this assault unit himself—handpicking the best of his guild both humans and NPCs and he was truly proud of them. There was not a mission they have failed till now and today would be no different. ‘Nothing can stop me today‘ he thought smugly as his apparatus scanned for nearby dragons and drakes. He spotted a group of ice drakes just ahead of him and more of them in the mountains beyond. He called forth Zephire and Rollo. “You 2 go and gather around the dragons in the mountains. Do not kill them—just chase them my way and I will deal with them.” Seeing the shocked look on Rollo’s face he added, “Don’t worry, you won’t go alone—take 2000 of these fine warriors with you.”

“Ok boss,” said Rollo, “but are you sure you can handle the guys we send your way? I hear they can be a sturdy bunch, those ice drakes.”

“Well I can handle them and I will be having 500 men with me,” replied Ray. “Just do as you are told and it will be fine.” Rollo and Zephire gathered the army and teleported away and Ray started his advance towards the nearest dragon pack.

The creatures looked up from some food they were eating, immediately sensing the intruders but not seemingly interested for the moment. Ray, however, put up his hands towards his followers and activated a special feature of his Crusader class—he could borrow the battle abilities of his subordinates. His speed, normally being the lowest, increased dramatically, and his already high attack and defence shot up.

Feeling satisfied for the moment he took up his weapon Beelzebub’s WarHammer—a huge golden hammer with a cuboidal head decorated with spikes for maximizing damage. Made of golden steel said to have been forged in the fires of hell itself, it gave a boost to fire magic users. Even more impressive, it was reinforced with a special metal Ray had programmed into the Reality specifically for himself that made it about as hard as the armoured steel used in tanks. Ray could channel his own fire magic into the hammer making the hit explosive. His dexterity with focusing fire magic through his hammer in combat had earned him the epithet ‘Blazemarshall’. The weapon was massively heavy, but Ray moved it around with the grace with which a majorette handles a baton.

The drakes finally sensed the danger approaching, and one of them broke from the pack and charged towards Ray. But with the speed he had borrowed from his subordinates, Ray blitzed towards the creature swinging the hammer directly at its head smashing its skull. The drake fell to the ground twitched and became permanently still—the stillness of death. Its hit points deplete, the body began to disintegrate back into its base program, but Ray stuck out his hand where he wore the new gauntlet he had recently made. It began to glow and sucked in the baseline data program of the drake. It continued glowing for a few seconds as the device integrated the program into Ray. Then Ray turned to the nearest person and said “jump!”

The guy looked surprised and Razor who was monitoring situation from his comm link replied, “It’s still English Ray. Are you sure it will work?”

“Of course it will!” bellowed Ray, turning towards the other dragons and then to his army. “Tell you what. All of you, beat these drakes to near-death. But don’t kill them.” He smiled a wickedly evil grin. “I hear dragon blood is most effective when it is near death—their essence would be strongest then.” Acknowledging their orders, the 500 men ganged up on the group of 15 drakes.

All too soon the ground was littered with drakes—brutally beaten, skulls crushed, limbs broken or cut, eyes gouged out. Some were twitching or moaning pitifully, others were too wounded to do even that—bleeding slowly to a painful death. Ray seemed to be enjoying thoroughly himself as he moved around the littered bodies—often coming to stand and watch as some unfortunate creature died a horrible death, sucking up its essence in his gauntlet to check if it used the correct frequency. ‘Huh. Razor seemed to have left,’ thought Ray, ‘but, then again he was never fond of long drawn deaths.’

Suddenly his eyes fell on something at a little distance where something seemed to be moving. He advanced towards the movement and found a young drake with what seemed to be its mother. It was not very badly injured but the mother surely was. It was rubbing its muzzle on her sides to wake her but she was too wounded to move.

An evil grin spread across Ray’s face as he approached the young drake. “Well, well, well, what do we have here?” he said in mocking curiosity. “I was just starting to wonder if I’d exhausted all the fun, but look—here you are!” The young drake saw Ray and started backing away but Ray was already upon him. He raised his hammer high above his head ready to bring about a crushing blow when suddenly, out of nowhere—WHAM! He had been gutted by the spiked tail of the mother drake. “What?” he said more shocked, than injured, and rightly so. The mother, which was too wounded to even move had managed to attack him—ready to fight him with her life.

’Wow. A dying mother struggling to protect her child. I have to admit... even I’m a little impressed. Hard to believe those original programmers were able to impart something like that to a collection of zeroes and ones.’ Shaking his head ruefully, he raised his hammer again. Ray smirked “Okay, Momma. Let’s see what you got!” He went all out attacking the badly wounded drake, hitting it with his hammer to floor it. He then proceeded to crush its limbs one by one and even after it had stopped moving he continued to beat the limp body for what appeared to be hours until finally, with a shudder, it began to disintegrate. Ray did not even bother to collect its essence. He merely turned to the young drake which appeared was paralyzed with fear—witnessing the brutal murder. Behind the drake he could see a human player being sick violently from the act.

“Well that stupid drake gave you... hmm, let’s see—42 seconds. It merely delayed you death by 42 meagre seconds. Hah… What a shame!” As he advanced on the drake it stopped fidgeting and seemed to accept the inevitable. He raised his war hammer over his head and brought it down….

Hollowclaw was sitting on a small hillock overlooking the plains where the rest of his pack was lounging. Most of them were resting but a small group of 20 were preparing themselves for the adventure they were going to take part in against the unknown foe. There was a rustling sound behind him , the slightest sound of footfall, a whiff of a new scent but these were enough for Hollowclaw. “Hello, old friend,” he greeted without even looking back as Jeffrey Danzig came and sat beside him. “So what brings you to this part of the Hinterlands?”

“Well I mainly came to meet you,” said Jeferry. “Truth be told, I was a little worried about you, given what Kormak has been doing lately. Also I heard that you have selected a beta for your pack? First one since you started playing?“

“Yes,” said Hollowclaw gruffly. “That one, Willowfang.”

“Hmmm... doesn’t look all that strong to me,” said Jeffrey, “At least not as much as Reinhert or Moonclaw anyway.”

“Well fights are not always won by strength do they?” said Hollowclaw smiling slightly.

“That’s true of course,” Said Jeferry, chuckling. “We’ve both proved that time and time again. Hey are you all right?’ he added noticing that Holloclaw was hardly himself.

“Yes…..Well no,” Hollowclaw admitted. “Moonclaw died yesterday and I don’t know what killed him. I don’t believe anything from these parts could have taken down someone as strong as Moonclaw.”

“Wait, what??” Jeffrey exclaimed. “What happened ? How did he die?”

“He was literally bitten in half. It was a miracle he managed to drag himself to us in the first place.”

“Did he manage to say something? Anything at all, about his assailant?” asked Jeferry.

“Yes he called for Willowfang and said only 2 words: ‘Twilight’ and ‘Ears’, and when we checked, we found his ears were bleeding.”

The two friends sat in silence for a while when suddenly Jeffrey spoke up. “So what are you going to do now? Do you have any special plans on where to go from here?”

“Well I personally wanted to take the pack deeper into The Hinterlands... but Willowfang wanted us to stay here for some time. He is against going deeper into the Hinterlands and with good reasons. He believes we may even face more danger there.“

“Hmm, interesting.” He glanced over at Willowfang again, frowning. “Still... why did he call for Willowfang? Why not you or Reinhert? I don’t understand.” asked Jeffrey.

“They have history,” Hollowclaw explained. “A connection of some kind. Moonclaw became Willowfang’s partner when he first joined the pack. He knew Willowfang even better than me,” said Hollowclaw.

“I think Moonclaw calling Willowfang meant something…. something he wanted to tell as his dying message.” Jeffrey mused aloud. “Tell me something Hollowclaw. Willowfang has been in your pack for quite some time now. What do you think must have gone through his mind when he saw Moonclaw?”

“I can almost tell that for sure,” said Hollowclaw. “Revenge, plain and simple. Willowfang is the type of guy who may not come for you if you hurt him but he will definitely come for you if you hurt his friend.”

“Just a second. Let me think. Something about what Moonclaw said at the end... OH!” Suddenly Jeffrey sat bolt upright. “Wait! I think I know now what he was talking about,” said Jeffrey his face glowing with excitement. “You may not know this so listen carefully, There is a mountain far south from here, extremely difficult to reach. The mountain is hollow from inside where certain types of creatures live . These creatures have a specialty -their eyes are normal in the day but change to biological night visions at night and they share only one common weakness—the twilight. You see, during the twilight hours when the light is fading their eyes are in a transition from normal to night vision but as a result of this change they don’t function properly making the creatures temporarily blind and vulnerable. I think by some very unique circumstances one of them has arrived here.”

“But why did Moonclaw not describe the creature? And if it’s a creature, why is it killing all the animals here? Isn’t it normal that it would hunt only as much as it will eat?”

“No, it actually makes more sense this way,” said Jeffrey. “Moonclaw knew he was dying, and he also knew Willowfang will want to avenge him .So he passed on the only information he thought will help Willowfang—The creature’s weakness—Twilight. And as for the killings, the creature is trying to find its place in the food chain.”

“Hmmm. Fascination. So can you tell me more about this creature?” asked Hollowclaw.

“Not specifically, no,” admitted Jeffrey. “There are a wide variety of creatures in that area with those traits. I must know which one among the many types of creatures is this. No choice... I will go and have a look myself to know for sure.”

“Wait!” Hollowclaw protested. “It is my pack which is after it. Let it be us who discover and defeat it. I appreciate your help and information, but we don’t need it for this!”

“Well ok, if you insist,” said Jeferry with a shrug. “Oh and what are you doing about Greensteel?”

Holloclaw’s expression soured. “We think that after taking care of this creature, we will simply run around and try and avoid him.” said Hollowclaw worry etched on his face. “I would rather that we go deeper into the Hinterlands and just avoid that maniac... but Willowfang is right, it won’t be very safe for us in the long run.” To his surprise Jeferry smiled at this.

“If you want to go into The Hinterlands, I think I can arrange for that. I know a guy who can do it. Actually you know him too and he owes you a debt which he will be glad to repay. You remember James ? Windsaber?’’

“James…err…. Oh yeah! I remember him,” said Hollowclaw, face palming himself, “why didn’t I think of him? Yes of course. Yes, I think he will be our best chance in the Hinterlands. But how can I….”

“I know how to reach him. I’ll inform him about your problem.” said Jeffrey answering his question. “You just concentrate only on getting ready to face the creature ahead.” He sighed softly, glancing back at Willowclaw once more thoughtfully. “Well, Hollowclaw, if there’s nothing else pressing, I will take my leave now.” Saying this he brought out a crystal and giving Hollowclaw a parting smile teleported away.

A shearing pain burned through Ray’s hands, bringing tears to his eyes. He had expected the hammer to crush the baby drake in front of him, but the hammer seemed to have hit an iron wall. Looking up Ray was left speechless for some moments. A young boy of about 20 dressed in blood red robes was standing in front of his holding his warhammer with one hand, using the spikes protruding from it as grip for his hold . As Ray tried to wrench the hammer out of the boy’s grip, the boy turned slightly towards to drake cowering behind him, and muttered a single word ‘Zhaan’. The drake jumped liked it was whipped, then turned and ran as fast as it could. Ray gave a mighty pull to his hammer but it would not budge...

As the drake ran further away the boy turned towards Ray and surveyed the scene of macabre behind him. Then his eyes focused on Ray. “Are you responsible for that?” he asked in an oddly calm but cold voice.

“Huh? And what if I am ?” Ray shot back. “You have no idea who I am, boy. You just earned yourself a dance with the Devil!”

“I don’t give a shit about who you are,” said the boy in the same cold voice. “But I am going to make you pay for what you did, rest assured.”

“Make me pay? Ha!!” laughed Ray. “Who the hell are you anyways, and why do you care for what I do? These are fucking monsters, just digital data. It’s not as if they even feel it at all. And anyway, it’s not like you own this game.”

“You know nothing, you arrogant narrow minded bastard.” the boy spat back. “My name is James Windsaber and I may not own this game,” he continued, “but it was my parents who helped make this game and I won’t allow anyone to destroy it.”

Ray was stunned by this revelation for a few moments but then his face curled into a cold and cruel smile. “Well well. Now this is a pleasant surprise! You really should have learnt who I am before you told me that, boy!” he stated, his voice like ice. “Allow me enlighten you. I am Ray Blazemarshall, the leader of the greatest guild in this game: The El Dorado. I am also the guy whose family killed your parents.” Enjoying the shocked look on the James’s face he continued. “So... which one was it, eh? I have seen some of the videos of how they were killed the 7 scientists in the archives. There was one, who ‘lost control’ of his car,” he said making quotes over the statement. “Really funny how he drove randomly before plunging straight into the river. ‘The Drunk Nerd ‘ we called him. Then there was the couple who hid their lab in the hills. Ran around like jack rabbits when they were shot down—like actual rabbits.”

James’s face had gone very white . In a flash he remembered JD telling about it long ago... “The Grangers could have escaped, you know—save themselves. But they stayed and acted as distractions for the mercenaries—to buy you guys time.”

Ray continued on heedless. “And then there was one hiding like a rat in his little hidey hole. That one was the most troublesome one of all... tried really hard to be the hero by hiding the mind control frequency, but he died in vain like the rat he was—betrayed by his old friend. Oh, and yes of course ‘The Traitor’ the one who gave him away. She was shot right here in the middle of forehead. We made sure her family followed. You know, she had a daug—”

Slip James’s hand seemed to have slipped from the hammer and it suddenly pulled free. Ray had been expecting this and prepared for it. Using the momentum of the freed hammer he turned it in a full circle above his head and brought It down hard on James’s head. ‘Got you, boy!’ he thought in triumph.

What happened next was so fast he could not register. As his hammer came down, James took a single step back so that the hammer just brushed the tip of his nose. Then using the descending hammer as a spring board James lunged on Ray. Ray was holding the hammer by both hands and as his arms became parallel to his body James pinned them to his body with his legs. He held with his left hand Ray’s shoulder for balance and with his right hand started punching Ray’s face like a jackhammer. Ray’s Armour of Judgment was one of the most sturdy armours in the game and he had reinforced it with his programming skills making it as hard as a tank armour. But as James punched away, it started buckling, and distorting. Blood was oozing from James’s fist but he continued without care or notice. It took one whole minute for Ray’s companions to register and recognize that their leader was being attacked. Then one of the swordsmen came to Ray’s rescue. He slashed vertically towards James who in the last second did a backflip ad landed some 20 feet away. Ray, bleeding, hurt and injured, looked at him with murder in his eyes and checked his own health bar to find it has decreased by a quarter.

“You bastard!” he bellowed raising his hammer but it felt a little odd. Looking down on it he froze with shock. It seemed that the boy had NOT lost his grip on the hammer during his story about his parents’ death. In his rage James had actually torn a large chunk from the hammer with his raw power and strength, and hence it had been freed from his grip. For the first time as far as he remembered, Ray felt pure terror, it was as if he was facing an insurmountable force.

But he pushed the fear out of his mind—after all he had an entire army at his disposal, and his opponent was alone.

With a wave of his hands he signalled his men to form ranks . The NPC’s which followed his every orders were the first to be ready. “Diamond formation!” he shouted, with the confidence and authority of a great general. “Go! Crush and destroy the enemy!” Twenty or so NPC’s dashed towards James, who stood calmly, seemingly chanting something under his breadth though nothing appeared to have happened. For one moment, James looked taken aback, then he too attacked. Holding his two hands forward, he chanted ‘Ventus Sagittas’. Compressed air in the shape of arrows shot out from his open palms quickly impaling and destroying the attacking forces. The normal players seemed quite nervous by this display of ferocious power but Ray seemed determined. “Reaper squad, engage him as well!” he shouted, and a group of NPC swordsmen rushed in to attack.

James was already chanting ‘Aer celeritate cogendi’ and ‘Exigeretur vires aeris’ . The air density started changing around James increasing his speed and attack power. He then started gathering air into his hand compressing it into the form of a sword and blitzed towards the attacking force. He moved between their ranks, slashing them with his sword or simply blasting them with torrents of air from his free hand. The elite reapers could not land even a single blow on him before he eliminated them. He then turned to the rest of the army. Ray opened his mouth to order them to attack again but suddenly there was a gust of wind emanating from James that blew through their ranks. There was a murmur, a slight whisper in the wind—like leaves rustling in the breeze, and Ray suddenly found himself frozen on the spot. The only part of his body moving were his eyes and to his horror he found all the players in his army frozen too, and no matter how much he struggled his muscles refused to move.

“Air Magic :Whisper,” said a voice in his ear, “works exactly like a telephone just without the phone itself.” There was another gust, and Ray found his mouth opening on its own accord and shout, “All personnel, freeze, don’t move a muscle. That’s an order!” To his horror the NPCs under his command froze on their spots like living statues. And then the penny dropped: the frequency that he detected in these parts had not been coming from the drakes at all—it was from the boy standing in front of him! ‘So this boy has to be a dragon,’ thought Ray in shock. ‘One of the so-called mythical Dragonlords... standing right here in front of me! Gaaaahh! If only I could move!’

James started eliminating methodically the frozen army before him—the humans he himself froze and the NPCs frozen by Ray’s command. Within 10 minutes the only people standing were him and Ray. He faced Ray and smiled. “You were right, you know! It IS fun killing helpless people. Though it’s probably not so much fun for you, being on the receiving end. You must be thinking how rude it is for me to do this to you, so I suppose I should at least give you a chance.” He smiled a devilish grin and another gust of wind swept the area. He then turned away and started to leave.

Ray suddenly found himself freed from his frozen state, and the anger and humiliation hit him like a ton of bricks, far outweighing the fear he’d felt earlier. Without thinking, blinded by his rage, he shouted in his communicator, “ZEPHIRE! ROLLO! Get over here right now, dammit! Bring you full force here at once, bring everyone from the guild too.” James turned back towards him, taking out a crystal from his pocket, merely standing there, waiting. Suddenly a huge number of men and women, both actual humans players and NPCs, appeared behind Ray. At the same moment, James threw the crystal on the ground which send forth thin threads from it and encased them all in some sort of dome made from thin threads of light. “The Cage,” James explained serenely, cracking his knuckles. “Once you are trapped inside you cannot escape, even with a teleport crystal. Only the last man standing can leave.”

Ray laughed with glee. He had him trapped! “YOU FOOL! YOU SEALED YOUR OWN FATE!” he shouted. “NOW YOU WILL PAY! YOU CANNOT ESCAPE AND I HAVE AN ENTIRE GUILD WITH ME! I WILL SKIN YOU ALIVE !!” He turned to his army. “What are you waiting for? Kill him! ATTACK!”

James merely smiled and said “Correction. You think YOU called for reinforcements? Not at all. I’m the one who made you call them. And it is not me that’s trapped here with you but you and your guild who is trapped with me.” There was another wind gust and Ray found himself frozen again.

‘AAAGGHH! That fucking bustard!!’ he cursed inwardly. ‘He messed with my head with that goddamn frequency! SHIT!’ The only difference from before was that this time he called the attack and the NPC’s were attacking, charging towards James with the human players. But then all hell broke loose. The players started attacking the NPC’s instead of the target. Unfortunately, the number of human players were only 20% of the full force, and James found that had his hands full with the NPC’s though he seemed to be actually enjoying the fighting.

At a free moment, he glanced up to find Ray in front of him. Taking aim, he shot a single air arrow towards him. Zephire intercepted it and some other projectiles with his black hole. He then advanced towards James sucking in and eliminating a whole flank of soldiers between them. He raised his hand to finish off James whose wind magic could not harm his black hole magic but before he could charge up Rollo appeared behind him. Without a second lost Rollo thrust his sickle through Zephire’s back and his health started plummeting and went to black. Rollo’s surprise at what he had done was cut short by James who blitzed to him and slashed him with his sword instantly killing his character.

“You know the funny thing?” he said to Ray, panting, as he came up to him. “They won’t even remember this fight at all after they wake up. They will just remember getting killed in a random skirmish, that’s all.” Then another wave of NPC’s swept in, and James’ attention was turned elsewhere.

He sank to 1 knee panting heavily. The battle was almost over—the attacking army was destroyed save for Ray frozen on his place. James looked around at the destruction—the battle had taken a huge toll on him—his health meter had reduced to red and magic almost exhausted, his whole body was covered in blood from the many attacks and bruises he had received but his spirit was unbroken.

He had finally got the chance to avenge his family and he was not ready to give up the opportunity. Though he hated to do it in a battle he decided to make an exception this time—he started a special dragonic ability The Zen .Air rushed towards him which his body absorbed—and his wounds started healing and the pain started diminishing. As his health bar increased to yellow he let out a pulse of air towards the frozen Ray.

The pulse was imbued with a command in the mind control frequency—James’s greatest weapon. James had been able to use the frequency by default being a were dragon and he had developed and honed his skill of it over the years. Now his control of it was so great that he could hide the commands themselves with the sounds found in nature—like the rustling of leaves in a breeze or flowing of water in a river. This acted as a form of subliminal—directly bypassing the conscious hearing of the brain and altering the subconscious. With it James could implant fully fledged ideas , memories or commands into the enemies mind without him even being aware of it—giving him the impression of James being able to see the future and predict his moves.

With his skill of the frequency he could have killed Ray in a matter of seconds but it would not have given him the satisfaction of hurting and killing him with his own hands.

The pulse freed Ray from his frozen state and he flexed his limbs. Then in a flash he touched his ears sealing the hearing ability of his avatar. “You have caused me a great deal of trouble, Bastard—hours and hours of effort poured into the creation of that guild... and you destroyed much of it. But you are still a fool, much like those scientists you revere so much! And now you will pay for that foolishness!” he said, glaring at James. “Let me show you the overwhelming power of a true guild master!”

He bringing up his menu, he pressed some buttons on his console, and suddenly, another army appeared behind him. James looked on in shock. “What? That’s impossible!” He exclaimed. “I ordered you to bring forth your full army with that previous command!”

“And so you did,” said Ray with satisfaction, “but at that time this army was not there. I called for them, yes, but their loading was not complete, and it took some time for them to fully assemble. What you fought was merely the troops I had on hand at the time! Oh, and how nice of you to create this cage of yours! It IS managing to keep us from getting out, despite my insistent attempts to disperse it... but there is nothing preventing me from bringing more people IN!” he laughed evilly. “And now, the full power of my guild will spell your doom! Meet the Three Disasters!”

From the masses of black faceless ninja-like avatars came forth 3 white robed figures each having a coloured belt around his waist and a coloured insignia on his chest—Red , Yellow and Blue. “My three captains. Each Disaster,” gestured Ray towards the 3 figures, “commands an army of 3000 soldiers, and controls a special element each—lava , ice and electricity. I originally thought of giving each of the army a special ability but had to finish them prematurely thanks to you .But no matter... your death will be a sufficient compensation to it.”

He began punching in some more buttons on his menu, and his armour began to melt and merge , completely covering the exposed portions and repairing the damage. He then loaded a new program, summoning a hammer exactly like the one James had not long ago destroyed and channelled his own magic into the weapon. The head of the hammer opened up—the sides of the head held together by some sort of red electricity revealing a fiery core inside. “Now let me show you the fearsome power of this new hammer of mine!” he yelled, lunging towards James bringing down the hammer.

James jumped back to avoid the blow but as soon as the hammer touched the ground it gave off a huge explosion, sending James flying—crashing into a rock 30 feet away. He jumped to his feet and unleashed a slicing hurricane of compressed air but it merely bounced off Ray’s improved armour. “Hah! Magical protection, bitch!” gloated Ray. “Your puny little wind cannot win against Metal empowered by magic!”

The blue belted warrior appeared behind James and let out a stream of ice. Only on the last moment could James divert the freezing stream with an air blast of his own. But the yellow clad warrior had also started his assault—he let out a bolt of electricity which struck James and he fell on one knee. “Too bad, kid! It seems this is the end for you.” Said Ray approaching, hammer at the ready. “Guess you should have taken me out when you had the chance. You made a big mistake by messing with me.”

James, having survived electricity induced paralysis because of his high resistance to it looked around at the huge army in front of him . ‘Shit! I can’t beat the 4 of them like this, let alone the army behind them,’ he thought desperately. ‘I’m still too drained from earlier. Looks like I’m out of options. It’s dangerous... and not perfected yet... but I’ve got no choice. I have to use it now...’ “All right. You seem to think you have me right where you want me. In that case, let me show you something interesting,” he said aloud to Ray, forcing a smile.

He stood with his arms outstretched towards his sides and screwed up his face as if concentrating hard and chanted:

And as he clapped his hands. Ray noted a sudden spike in his power levels. He quickly scanned James, then blinked in surprise. “WHAT THE HELL!!” he cursed loudly—it was not an increase in James’s own powers, but increase in the power of the actual air around him, which seemed to be changing! A breeze of wind seemed to be coming from his body now, fluttering his clothes, as if he’d somehow become a living breathing fan. As Ray watched with apprehension the small breeze changed into a roaring gust, and the colour of the wind changed to black. James’s robes shrank into a fitting bodysuit with markings like that of Dragon scales. His muscles became more prominent and his hair grew longer and spikier. His teeth seemed to become longer and sharper and 3 scratch marks appeared on his cheeks giving him an animalistic appearance. His magic too seemed to have been laced with malice and rage. James engulfed himself in a sphere of black wind.

“So... what? That’s it?” jeered Ray trying to sound confident. “You dyed your hair and clothing, and covered yourself in a big ball of foul smelling wind? Well, let’s see how well you stand up against THIS!” he yelled, sending a blast from his hammer towards James. As the explosion approached James’s sphere, a tentacle made of pure black air suddenly struck out from the sphere and straight into the energy discharge, but instead of increasing the fire element of the explosion it dispersed the explosion instead, completely neutralizing it. Two more tentacles struck out like snakes and impaled the blue and yellow warriors. Within moments their health bars decreased to red then black and then they disappeared.

“WHAT?!? What the hell!!” cursed Ray again as he jumped to avoid the tentacles which were striking like snakes and then retracting behind James making him look like a huge tailed beast. “What the hell is that?”

“This is Air from the lowest levels of Purgatory itself,” growled James. “These winds cut and destroy everything in their path! Everything!!” He started assaulting the faceless ninja army. Their attacks could not penetrate the air sphere which sliced even the magical attacks thrown at it and the tentacles struck and retracted like a scorpion’s stinger—slicing and dicing whomever or whatever it struck.

Ray began charging up his hammer and the red warrior charged his magma when suddenly a tentacle broke out of the ground and struck the red one tearing him from the middle and quickly ending his life. Another made a grab for Ray who quickly ducked but it scratched his armour. “Impossible! It can damage my armour?” exclaimed Ray.

“It has magic negating particles,” James rasped from inside his sphere (which was providing him protection from Ray’s attacks) “Your magic enforcements mean less than nothing to it, and it has more than enough power to slice through your armour metal!” With a cry, James sent out horizontal tornado which engulfed Ray and sliced up his armour throwing him across the cage wall. He managed to get back up on his feet, but found his armour badly damaged and his life points decreased to its last quarter. Seeing no choice Ray gave out a mighty bellow and charged towards James as the tentacles approached him—

Ray woke with a start in his office drenched in sweat. Razor was by his side, looking anxious. He looked excitedly at Razor. “I found him,” he said excitedly. “The dragon we’ve been searching for. He called himself ‘James’.” Razor looked thunderstruck for a moment but Ray did not notice and continued. “He beat me. He fucking destroyed the guild with the frequency and those weird dragon powers. Hah! The ENTIRE guild, by himself!! What power!!” He sighed, shaking his head in awe. “Just imagine what I can do with that power!!”

Razor looked anxiously at him. “You should have gotten the hell out when you had the chance. Now you lost everything you worked up till now.”

“That won’t be a problem,” said Ray. “I have a backup of that data. I will get it all back.”

“What of your guild ?” asked Razor. “Or rather, what’s left of it, I should say...”

“Well obviously, a bunch of the players are gone, having start over from scratch again... but I still have those who were not online then. Besides, he said they won’t remember the battle anyway when they come to, so they won’t blab to the other guild masters about it. Of course, I can get back the NPC’s... except Zephire, his code was unique and can’t be recreated. But Razor, we can do this. We have 12 more days to pull this off... and after facing that bastard, I now know exactly what I need. I just—”

Ray was interrupted by the tell-tale ‘PING’ of the console. He had a message from another player. Though tired, he could not contain his curiosity. He opened the message in a smaller computer on his desktop and his brows furrowed. He turned to Razor, still thoughtful. “It’s from the Guardians. Looks like their great and exhaulted leader Stein wants to see me.”