I don't get it. Why will people pass over my Fanfic without giving feedback or making a character?
I've posted 15 parts, mostly all of them containing humourous material.
Am I doing something wrong? Do people look for specific text styles? Did the Help Wanted sign from earlier make me look like a noob?
-sigh- Is it because I 'threatened' the audience by saying:
Other people reading: Apply damnit. Just because I'm a wizard doesn't mean that I can mind control my audience. SO apply!...
.....theres at least fifteen (I think) surveying Treasure Vault about every day and I don't get why most of them ignore me. So I'd like some comments and I want you guys to let me know why people aren't reading this.

Sincerely, Blaze

Alright then.
Devilite Parts 1-5 are just about random things crammed in for fun.
Devilite Parts 6-10 is about conspiracies and scumbags.
The Knight Chapter is four 'days' before the Chapter 1 Finale and focuses on an impending threat that I just randomly made up.
Chapter 3 is the meetup between the Businessman and the Rookie.
Chapter 4 is a bunch of alternating stuff.

Edit: I'll put that into Part 2-1.
And also please someone try to guess the code.

Code Failure
“BZZZT! WRONG PASSWORD. FAILURE AGAIN WILL RESULT IN TERMINATON.”

Darkred stood up and backed away from the chair.

“Eh. I think I got it.” Creaves said.
“So the 1 in 128 matches up with the letter A, and the 2 means B, and then it says what comes second. So… the A goes to AA-Batteries, and the B goes to Abraxas! The H for 8 goes to Ahead. And then, it asks for the order. So the password is 314.”

*be-beep*

Darkred took a quick look around the area. How did Herex put a mainframe into one of the rooms without one of the sprites noticing?

“PASSWORD CORRECT.”

Darkred ran through the files, finding a peculiar one called S.N.I.P.E. he opened it.
-------------------------
Shatter Nodes, Imbeciles & Pests Eradication

That title didn’t look very impressive, but whatever.

He downloaded all of the files to the flashdrive and proceeded to the meeting point. But not before placing a mine on the computer.

-Herex-
“Hiss! You cheaty, cheaty, jerks! Spamming stun and freeze!?” Herex snapped.

Akerom was charging up another shot. “It’s in the business.”

“Grrr… you may have beaten me, but you haven’t stopped my plans.” And with that, Herex disappeared.

Darkred walked up to the crew, with a gremlin following. “Hello! I’m Creaves.” The gremlin says.

“What are you doing here?” Desna said.

Creaves shrugged. “It’s a request from another of my kind… Pakrat? Nah, it’s just another person.”

Akerom walked up the stairs to the loot room. “Hm. What a nice guy.”

Darkred popped open one of the red boxes, and it contained a revolver. It looked very similar to an Antigua, but it was pure black with a brown handle.

He tried firing it, and it clicked. So he examined the cylinder, it had real, REAL bullets. Not those energy shots that we usually have in the Antigua types.

-12 Hours Later, NPC Guild Hall-
“So… according to our intelligence, we have received intel noting about a new operation to annihilate Haven.” Said Feron.

Kora pulled up a projector and a screen, and pointed to pictures with a Flourish. “So, as you can see, they have set up a new system slightly similar to Compound 42. Except that instead of fire, they brought sleep into the mix. This time, you can’t heal. Unlike that random sloom thing last year.”

The crowd murmured.

Feron sat down in a chair. “Alright, as ridiculous as this may sound, we have to get lower ranking knights on this mission. The reason being that they deploy 36 Jade Greavers for every T3 knight that is detected in there.”

Tylen raised his hand. “But sir, isn’t attacking prohibited in Haven?”

Feron thought for a moment. “Oh, and the poison is probably gonna kill all the snipes.”

The crowd gasps.

Due to either laziness or technical difficulties or missing flashdrives, my work speed will be slowing down. Thanks for reading my fanfic and... That's about it.

It's probably laziness. I don't really like using Google Docs that much.

Trymal? Ember-Break? KingTinkinzaar? Spirals-Ore? Other people? Hellllllllllo? *sniff/cough*

Part 2: Next Track
An ice block isn’t an actual ice block, but a battery. The guns that devilites use are crappy, as they regenerate energy slower than the usual ones that the knights use. Using a battery speeds up the time it takes to reload a handgun, and gives it one extra clip size temporarily.

-Depth 19, Radioactive Recycling-
Joseph equipped his pistol, and reloaded it with an ice block. Then he screwed a silencer onto it. (Even though every person relied on sight.)

He stepped forward and started firing recklessly at the gremlins with his gun sideways, like from his favorite video game that he played too much of.
The shields did NOTHING. They were 4* and resisted elemental, which meant that they sucked.

Joseph sat on one of the golden keys, because he was extremely sleepy from his coffee deprivation. “Ugh… can’t… go…”
…
…
...?
He picked up the pack of potato chips off the ground and started to munch them. “Much better.”
Joseph took a quick snooze anyway.

One Thing-Were-We-Went-Around-That-Glowing-Thing Ago…
Joseph was sitting at the application booth, because new applicants were coming in for a job at being a courier or making coffee.

Ike was busy making sure that the sparkly lights were working, and Ulvi was doing who knows what. Probably getting axes for his collection.

Joseph had two cups of coffee, because he was sure that this would be a long day of pain and torture.

A firebrander with a tie marched up to the desk. “Hello, my name is Mark, and-”

“Hey Mark, why don’t you fill out the application, ya dingus?” Joseph blurted out. He passed Mark a clipboard.

The next applicant was a devilite who looked like he was attempted to be blended by someone, but not quite. “H-Hello, sir, m-m-may I get a j-j-job a-application?”

Joseph was playing Pocket Snipes on his phone and wasn’t paying attention. He just said: “Nah. You need to clean yourself up.”

The devilite seemed desperate, he put his hands on the desk and looked like he was about to cry. “Please sir! I-I-I need a job b-b-badly, and there’s a-a-a f-factory over there! It’s just about l-l-l-labor in there, isn’t it?” His pleas were met with a clipboard.

Joseph was really into his game and regularly drank from both of his coffee cups at random. “Yes, I got my lavender snipe to level 10! Now it can do Snipe Aura!” He glanced at a firebrander with a tuxedo and tophat. “What.”

“So, i’m pretty fancy. But I need a job. So…?” he said.

Joseph turned off his phone and pocketed it. “Okay fancy suit guy. What’s your name?”

“Bigday.” he replied.

Joseph didn’t get that Bigday was actually named Bigday. “What, are you monologuing or something? What’s your name?”

“It’s Bigday.” Bigday said again.

“Yeah yeah I get it, it’s a big day for you. I’ll just write Johnson in the name, you can just fill out the rest.” He was sure he heard a slap somewhere. Joseph scribbled in that name and then passed Bigday the clipboard. He erased Johnson after he took it.

Mark came back with the clipboard, and then shoved it rudely in Joseph’s face.

-Depth 25, Charred Court-
Something wet hit Joseph in the face. “Wakey, wakey!”

He opened his eyes, it was a nature sprite. “Ugh, it’s you.”
“You betcha!” The sprite said. “What are you doing here?”

Joseph stood up, coughing from the ashes in the air. “Hey, do you have any coffee?”

“Really. You’re really asking ME for coffee.” the sprite said.

He picked up his handgun and reloaded it. He took a look at the sprite. “Have you seen my friends around here?”

“Probably not, the only fiends we see around here are those trojans.” the sprite said.

Joseph started to walk off. “That’s just great.”

The sprite didn’t move. But started to shout: “H-hey! You want any coffee packets?”

-Depth 18, Emberlight-
“Okay, kid. Here’s how to play chess.” a gremlin said. He started to blab about all of the units which included but were not limited to: A seerus, ghostmane stalkers, and several knockers.

“What about that thing?” Kiera said, pointing to the noob in a pith helmet.

Creaves looked disappointed. “That’s a pawn.”

Kiera pointed at the line of knockers. “But those are pawns.”

“Look here kid.” Creaves said. “Those knight guys are basically like our other chess people, but they just look different, okay?”

“Okay. How do I win?”

26 Minutes Later…
“Ha! I win again! 4-1!” Creaves said victoriously, to which no one cared about.

Kiera was really bored of this. “I want to play a different game.”

Part 3: Ice and Ions
“This party stinks, I #@&$ing hate these people.”
-Tony, Hotline Miami 2

-Depth 16, Annihilated Blaze-

He was opening his eyes. It was very bright. Very white. The air was cold. And it was snowing 24/7. Ike sat up, and before he knew it, he started shivering.

Ulvi was collapsed next to him, but he was a Layoafer, the cold wouldn’t have any effect on him.

Ike started to slowly shake Ulvi, trying to wake him up. “Ulvi wake up i'm freezing.” he said.

Ulvi stood up very easily, stumbling slightly. “Ah no. What happened?”

Ike nervously poked Ulvi in the back. “H-h-h-h-hey. I’m f-f-f-f-freezing h-h-h-here.”

Ulvi passed Ike his scarf, which he graciously wore. “This place looks familiar to me. Have I been here before?”

Ike pulled out a Freezeopedia and started to read it. “Maybe, it’s likely that you may have been a Clockworks Tunnel dweller before you got a job.”

“Well, we need to get out of here. There’s nothing useful we can do here.” Ulvi started to walk through the bridge of steel. With Ike following behind him with some shivering.

-12 Minutes Later-
“Are we there yet?” Ike nervously asked.

Ulvi kept walking, occasionally stepping on Pale Scarabs, which didn’t seem to care. “You seem different today, Ike. Aren’t you supported to be a smart person?”

“I feel a strange feeling… a fear.” Ike started to mumble. “A fear.”

Ulvi said nothing and kept walking.

-Depth 17, The Frozen Garrison-
Ike snapped out of his daze. “I hear something. It’s… laughing?” There was a huge field of snow.

Ulvi squinted. In the distance, he saw a huge fort, with a crack, like a stalactite fell from the sky and impaled it. “Keep quiet, it could be a bunch of those aliens.”

“You mean lichens?” Ike said.

“Lichens are aliens, but that’s not what i’m talking about, it could be those… sword guys.” Ulvi gingerly said.

“You mean mecha knights?”

“Forget it.”

The devilites finally reached the sound of the laughing, past the wall, it was a group of layoafers having their own snowball fight.
One of them spots Ulvi, and tries to shoot him. However he ducks, and it hits Ike, knocking him down. He could’ve sworn he heard him say “A fear” again.

“Hey! Stop stop stop!” Ulvi shouted. Surprisingly, they stopped throwing snowballs around.

One of the layoafers walks up to Ulvi. “Hey, what’s the big idea? We’re trying to have fun here!”

“What are you idiots doing, huh? Preparing for your next week of Winterfest?” Ulvi asked.

“Yes.” he said. “Why don’t you get a real job and start trying to get presents?”

Ulvi checked his phone, then looked back at him. “First off, you guys were bums. The reason I quit is because everyone kept running with MSI and crap like that. It was basically impossible for us to steal any of the presents.”

Ike stood up and rubbed his head. “Ugh… Guys? Can I go home? This place is very chilly.” He tucked his arms under his scarf.

“The elevator to Emberlight is on lockdown for a few days because of-”

“Ughhhh-”

“Y’know what? Try that second elevator. It’ll take you somewhere where it isn’t cold, pricks.”

Ike quickly made his way to the elevator, followed by Ulvi. “Oh and guys; if you can’t get a real job, then don’t blame me.”

-Depth ??, GENTAVIE DVOI EFILAUR-
The area was pitch black, but it appeared to be shiny. “I feel it again, it’s a fear.” Ike said. He didn’t look too good.

Part 5: Infantile Collision
“What was that noise? Hmm… must’ve been the wind.”
-Sentries, Any Sneaking Game

-Levii-
Levii was sitting on a swivel chair in front of Reilly, a blarful, and Penny the devilite. He has holding a clipboard and a pen. “Alright, so i’ve been assigned to review you for your promotion. Here’s how it’s gonna work, i’ll ask a question, and then Reilly answer first, then you, Penny. Sound good?”

“But aren’t ladies supposed to go first?” Penny asked.

Levii tapped his lip with the back of his pen a few times. “Hmm… I guess so. Okay, then.”

Reilly just started eating a donut because he felt like it.

“Alright then. First off, what is the average amount of donuts that you make every 19 hours?” he said.

Penny blinked. How was she supposed to know? “Well uhh…”

“Oh that’s right I have your statistics on this 2nd clipboard right here… hmm…” Levii’s facepalmed. “Whoops. Looks like I didn’t need to bring you guys here. Well… sorry about this but you can leave now.”

Penny steps up and angrily walks away. Reilly finishes his donut and stands up, saying: “I uhh… know that you have great leadership skills, Levii, but maybe it could use some work.”

Levii started to scribble notes on the clipboard. “Really? You think so? I’ve been trying hard to be a great leader but nobody wants to listen to me.”

Reilly slowly walked a few feet, then turned his head to say: “I’m not sure, I don’t know what i’m saying.”

Levii put the clipboard on one of the chairs, and stood up to take a walk. After a while, he saw a tiny shard of glass on the ground. He picked it up, examined it, then saw more. It looked like someone tried to step on someone’s glasses.

-Reilly-
Mark was gathered around a table with his friends for a game of Poker. Again. They invited Reilly to stiff him just like they did everyone else, but he knew Poker well.
The two firebranders that joined up with Mark were nicknamed Ace and Volley, they were two bratty kids looking for a quick coin.

Ace was out of the game, to try and give Reilly ‘tips’ on what to do. When Reilly had two pairs, he smirked and started his cheap plan. “This is definitely not a good hand, you’re gonna want to fold before Mark does something outrageous.”

Long story short, Reilly got 146 crowns from the trio of thieves.
“Arrgh! What happened!?” Mark yelled.

Reilly was laughing and rolling around in his seat. “Haha- you should see the look on your faces, all of you! Pwahaha!” when he finished his laughing, he took a bite from a donut and started. “So, I assume you all were trying to trick me into making the wrong moves in your game of Poker. However! Your act looked really sketchy.”

Reilly kept eating his 2nd donut and started to walk away. Mark was breathing heavily. “Tomorrow. Kill him.” he whispered to Volley.

“No witnesses.” was the reply.

-Penny-
Penny was in her apartment room, being a couch potato and watching television while eating from a pack of mini donuts. The show was about kids saving the world. Probably.
The intermissions between parts lasted about 6 minutes each. And in that time about 20 commercials would appear showing products like Hawaiian shirts, croissants, donuts, pizza pies, chairs, repellent, kat food, and more chairs.
Penny wasn’t sure where the term Hawaiian came up, but if you looked it up in the history books you’d find a legendary devilite named Tueller Hawain who loved to decorate his T-Shirt with flowers. However he died because he was allergic to half of those flowers. His fashion sense was viewed by many as legendary, and they made new shirts with fake flowers and named them Hawaiian themed. End of story.

The telephone rang. Penny leisurely walked over to it while it rang 7 times and picked it up. “Hello?” she said.

“Hey Penny,” Mark said. “Want to go hang out at the bar?”

“No.” Penny slapped the phone down. Then she picked it up after three seconds.

Mark seemed desperate. “Come onnn! I’m bored! I’ll pay for the first round, okayyyyy?”

“They don’t have drinks, just maple syrup and milk.” Penny slapped the phone down again.

She yawned, then walked over to the mini fridge and opened it. There were packs of donuts covering every shelf. She grabbed one and walked back over to the television to do nothing.

-2 Days Ago, Mark-
Mark was at the Poker table, but without Poker. Ace and Volley were sitting at the table, relaxing.
Mark was looking at his charts. “Alright, boys, if all goes smoothly, we should have this place under our thumbs in a week.”

“Why can’t we just send in a bunch of guys to take over the place?” Ace said.

Mark waved his pen in front of Ace, shaking his head. “No no no. That’s exactly what we don’t want to do. Our operation must remain a secret. If anyone gains wind that Firebrand Co. is dominating companies then this could go straight to the desk of the aliens.”

“So what if the aliens come? We can take ‘em, right?” Volley said, nibbling on the end of a pen.

Mark grabbed a deck of cards because he was bored, and started to shuffle them while rigging the deck. “That’s impossible, they’ve defeated Vanaduke on elite. We cannot hope to oppose them.”

Ace swiftly grabbed the spade from Mark’s deck while he was shuffling. He held it up and grinned. Mark snatched the card back and kept shuffling. Ace frowned. “Alright then, what’s the next plan?”

Mark put the deck down and started to point to pictures on his billboard, and starts to rant. “First of all we’ll have to take out Levii’s commanding pit boss, then Levii later. We know for sure that they will oppose us. After the takeover of the place we will lock down the elevators and capture everyone. We will then disable the phone lines and then take every phone that exists, after that, the place is ours.”

Mark turned around and sat down. He began to reshuffle the cards fairly. “Alright then, let’s play.”

Part 6: Aversion
“Our friend is back, and he’s now got a new creepy face skill. Sound normal to you?”
-Cille, ?????

-Depth 25, Charred Court-
Joseph just sat idly near the shadow fire, thinking of his next move. “Why don’t you try to dial up your friends if you can’t find them?” The nearby sprite said.

Joseph pulled out his phone, then frowned. “What, do you think that I’m receiving bars from a medieval castle on fire?”

The sprite started to spawn water and shoot it at the nearby fire. “Well… I don’t think you’ll be able to find them around here… maybe you should try retracing your steps.”

“They’re probably lost, the clockworks will have probably cycled around by the time I find them.” Joseph said, and then he started to play Pocket Sprites.

“You should probably leave.” The sprite implied. “A place full of fire, zombies, and wheel launchers probably wouldn’t suit you.”

-Depth 18, Emberlight (72 Minutes Later)-
“So I’m trying to access your internet here, but I need a password. Can you input it in for me?” Joseph said to Creaves.

Creaves thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Mmkay.” He inputted the password: Unlock into the phone.

“Thanks.” Joseph said, and then checked his contacts.

Contacts
[][][][]_ Home Phone
_____ Ike
[][]___ Johnson
_____ Ulvi
[][][][]_ Terminated
[][][][]_ Terminated
[][][][][] Terminated

Joseph dialed the obvious number. “Hey, hey Johnson? Are you there?”

“I’m… I-” He heard Bigday sigh. “Joseph, it’s Bigday! My name is Bigday! How many times do I have to tell you!?” Joseph heard explosions from the receiver too.

Joseph starting eating another bag of potato chips. “All you had to do was say so… Big. Day…? Anyways, where are you? We need to regroup.”

There were still explosions. “I’m in the middle of something here, I’m with Red, though. We’re having a blast here! ...are you eating chips?”

Joseph started to talk with his mouth full. “Moh. Bifeyh, geh zoo Emerfuyt wun-” He swallowed. “Get to Emberlight in depth 18 when you’re finished.” He hung up, without knowing that Bigday was about to say that his phone’s battery was running low.

-18 Minutes Later-
Joseph was sleeping on a table, and everyone was too busy watching White Staticky Skull Episode 19 to care.

Nonna came back from her 2 hour expedition with several monsters ready to walk around aimlessly with.

The electrolisk on Petrode’s head decided to shoot out an electric spike ball for no reason. The sound of the shock woke Joseph up. “Wh, what?” He shouted, panicked.

“Relax.” Nonna said. She had retrieved a chroma whelp, and a love puppy. And that was it. She put them in cages and sent them through some mail.

Joseph scratched his head. “Hey… where did you send the animals? I thought you sold them in Haven.”

Nonna pulled out 7 tickets. “Nope, it’s just easier to send them to the accessorizer in Haven, Bechamel. The animals are a lot more suited to sunlight then down here.”
“Hmm… say, want to come visit Haven with me?”

Joseph thought for 8 seconds. “Hmm…………… Okay sure.” Joseph, Nonna, and Petrode stepped on the elevator, and it took them to the surface.

It was bright. Very Bright. Joseph was not used to sunlight. (Sound familiar?) He covered his eyes. They were at the gates of Haven. Joseph looked around. There was a guy with a bucket hat, a really big knight, and a person with a spookat mask talking to a chef. There were 15 people sleeping near the entrance. And for sure he heard lots of people talking about numbers and variants.

“So? How does this place look?” Nonna asked.

Joseph stared at the group of sleeping people. “Is it always like this?”

Nonna nodded. “Oh, definitely. Unless there's a party or holiday. Then it’s way louder and busier.”

“Kill it with fire!” Joseph turned to see what looked like a recruit with a toasty scarf throw a stun vial (which looked pretty orange in the sunlight) at Joseph, it knocked him out.

Ow, that hurt. That sob.

-NPC Guild Infirmary-
Lewis was sitting in the newly installed rocking chair near Joseph, waiting for him to wake up. Calagray was sitting on one of the beds. “Jeez, why’d you have to hit this guy, Lewis? He’s probably a very special person because of his bandana.”

“Sorry, it’s just that the lady surprised me, there was a retrode, an electrolisk, and a devilite. It looked a lot like a monster invasion to me.” Lewis said.

Calagray started to drink a can of soda. “That gremlin you saw was Nonna, part of the Emberlight Adoption Agency. She sells monster pouches to knights.”

Lewis’ wolver, Fluffy, came into the room. It jumped into Lewis’ lap when it saw him. Lewis smiled slightly. “How much do they cost?”

Calagray scratched his head. “Err… they’re a little out of your price range. The love puppy, chroma whelp, and mewkat all cost 175k each, and the hoptimer costs 250k.”

Joseph started to wake up. “Gaaah… f***, that hurt a lot.”

The profanity caused Lewis to quit petting Fluffy and Calagray raised an eyebrow.

Calagray looked at his watch. “Welp, gotta go on my daily prestige mission. I wish I could stay, but you know how it is.”

“I don’t.” Lewis said.

Calagray looked at his watch again and then said: “Okay, here's the gist: Prestige missions at 12AM everyday. If I miss one day, i’ll be booted from the team of other prestige friends. So yeah, seeya later!” and he vanished in a blue mist.

Lewis turned back to Joseph, who was holding a painted Umbral Blaster and was pointing it at Lewis. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you for hitting me with a beaker.”

“That wasn’t a beaker it’s a-” Lewis looked at Joseph’s eyes, which were giving an impatient look. “I’m sorry, it was an accident, I thought you were gonna attack us!”

“Arf!”

“Wah!” Joseph dropped the gun, which Lewis didn’t want to pick up, and then pulled the blanket over his face.

Lewis smirked a bit. “What’s wrong?”

“No no no. No beasts, they are too hazardous.” Lewis said very quickly.

Lewis picked Fluffy back up while he was trying to dig on the blanket. “Calm down, it’s just my pet.”

Joseph peeked out slightly, and looked at the wolver. It kept barking at him. “Just make sure it doesn’t bite me, i'm sure it has rabies.”

“Fluffy doesn’t have any rabies, I give him a bath every two days.” Lewis checked his digital mailbox. “Hmm… I should take a round at the training hall. I got a mission to do later.”

Joseph hopped out of the bed and ate one of the peppermint candies from the bowl on the counter.

“Uhh… those aren’t candies. Those are health capsules.” Lewis said.

Joseph ate another one. “They are candies and I say so. They are definitely peppermint flavored.”

“See you later, don’t cause any trouble.”

“Oh really? Well let me come to the training hall, so I can see your sloppy aim.” Joseph picked up his gun from the ground and started to follow Lewis.

[...]
Subject
[___________]
Description
[ I can feel it, the void... It's killing me. Soon, I'll die. But... No! I can't die here! ]
[ I, am zxdfgyu iop i will not die. it will happn. I can feel it. In a little while, ___ ]
[ everyone else will succumb to this strange plague. But not me. I will never ]
[ die as long as I can feel my heart. _______________________________________ ]

Subject
[ Arc______ ]
Description
[ Its been 2 weeks now. I can't even remember my name. What... what is it? ]
[ I... I am darkred now. Do I have to do everything around here? ____________ ]

Subject
[ _____Il|___ ]
Description
"Where is he?"
"Find him!"
*click*
"Hey, gentlemen. Miss me?"
"What! How did you sneak up on us?"
"If you must know, I wear socks. All the time."
"Really? That's-"
[A face of a maniacal killer.]
"Go home, both or you."
"No, you can't stop us, you brat!"
"Then that's your problem. Say goodbye."

Part 8: Incessance
“Upftcrhthrchffooo-”
-Mayor Zao, Freedom Planet (Yes, he literally says that)

Levii was relaxing in his flat, not sure what to do. Strangely, in the past week, he hasn’t gotten a call from his boss asking for coffee.

He pulled out his phone and dialed up Mark. “Hey Mark, have you seen my boss around?”

“I don’t know, what’s his name?” Mark asked. There was an obvious sound of a stack of crowns being knocked over.

Levii stood up and took one of the powdered donuts from his fridge. He sighed before answering. “We just call him Mr. Winslow.”

Mark took about five seconds to respond. “I don’t think so…” Mark thought for a second. “What does he look like?”

“He…” unless he wasn’t tired, Levii would’ve questioned something as dumb as that. “He looks like a devilite, but he’s blue and he’s bigger than everyone else. He also wears glasses.”

“Naw, I haven’t seen anyone who looks like that, ever.” Mark quickly said, suppressing a chuckle.

Levii threw the remaining half of his donut in the trash bin. He wasn’t hungry anyway. “Oh well, thanks I guess.” He hung up.

He equipped one of his pens. He clicked it open. The sharp end of the pen was a bright green, he tapped the black button on the pen, turning it black.
Levii took out a piece of lined paper and started to write on it.

…

. . .

*ring ring ring… click*
“This is Levii, hello?”
“Hey, something’s come up, it’s really cool. Come over to 98th street and we’ll show you.”
“But uhh… we only have 2 streets.”
“Okay, come behind the donut lab, this is gonna be pretty awesome.”
“Alright.”

-Lab Area, Pop: 4-

Levii saw something extremely peculiar. But the environment was green all over so he couldn’t tell what it was. He ran over to the strange object and got a good look at it.
It looked a lot more alien than the aliens themselves. It was some sort of robot, with some clasping claws and some sort of giant, round shield on it’s back. The shield had stitches on it and there also seemed to be some darkmatter crammed in it.

Levii scratched his head while he looked around. “Mark? Hello? Anyone there?”

Mark was in one of the nearby swivel chairs, and he turned around like some incredibly sinister villain. “Hey, Levii. Didn’t notice you there.”

“What is this?” Levii said, pointing to the giant robot.

Mark put his fingers together in a spire formation like some incredibly sinister villain. “It’s a tortodrone. We hauled it in yesterday, we think it could be used as an alternative for the trojan.

Levii gave a “Hmm…” and looked at the billboard. It had notes on the tortodrone and etcetera.

Suddenly, two hands grabbed Levii and started to restrain him. “Hold still, damnit!” Mark yelled.

“Grrr…!” Levii panicked, he defensively pressed the teal button on his pen and jammed it into Mark’s hand. The shock caused him to let go.

Mark grabbed his arm, spasming a few times. “You’re going straight to hell.” He said coldly.

Levii’s pen started to glow white. “Wh… what are you doing!?”

Mark waved his hand around, then started to walk around in a reserved manner. “Don’t worry about it, it’s just business.”

Another person grabbed Levii, he quickly turned his head to face the barrel of a handgun. Out of fear, Levii swatted the gun, causing the projectile recently fired to fly over Mark’s head.
The aggressor pointed the gun back towards Levii. He grabbed the enemy’s arms and threw him over his shoulders with all his might. Ace was slammed onto the pavement, and his gun clattered behind a desk.

Exhausted, Levii dropped to one of his knees, his right arm was bleeding from the strain he put on it, but he kept his pen in his left hand. “You’ll… die here. I’m taking you with me.”

Mark had a handkerchief in his hand for some reason, and wiped his forehead with it. “Too bad, Levii.”

An orange projectile came into contact with Levii’s shoulder, scalding him and causing him to collapse to the ground.

Mark stepped over Levii’s broken body, smirking. “Any last words, a**hole?”

Levii’s eyes were about to close. He nodded, then raised his megaphone to his lips. “You’re fired!” he said. It was weak, but that was all he could do.

Ace handed Mark a Pierce Blaster, and he pulled the trigger.

“There are about five more targets to go.”

-60 Hours Later-
Reilly was punching in the codes to operate the donut making machine. He was feeling discouraged today. He needed someone to encourage him.
As soon as he finished, he pressed [ENTER] and left the donut factory to look for Levii.

He walked down the street, expecting to see Levii, carrying his signature megaphone.

Levii is supposed to be walking around here, saying something like: “We’re about 400 donuts away from our daily quota!” or something like that.

Maybe I should go see if he’s having a sick day. The air around here is poisonous, after all. Reilly thought.

He stood at the apartment block. It was cheap. A giant eight story building with twenty rooms each floor, with the exception that they had ten rooms at the first floor.

The lobby was… ‘nuff. He guessed. The rug was green and the floor and walls were made of the same material that every other building was comprised off. Poison Stone or Poison Marble.

Reilly called up an elevator and had a long examination of the buttons. He couldn’t remember which room that Levii lived in for the life of him. Was it 213? Or 413? Could it even be 713?

-Floor 2-
“Nah.”
-Floor 3-
“Nah.”
-Floor 4-
“N...nah.”
-Floor 5-
“Come on…! Y’know what? I bet for sure that he’s on Floor Seven!”
-Floor 7-
“...”
-Floor 6-
“Seriously? The last floor?”
-Floor 8-
“Damn, this elevator sucks.”
Reilly stepped out, and took a seat on the ugly rug. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths to clean out the elevator music that has been tormenting him for the past 15 minutes.

He stood up. He was considering eating a donut, but he felt like it wouldn’t taste that good today.
He walked up to Room 813 and knocked on it twice. He waited, he started to think about something stupid. Generally, aren’t you supposed to give sick people flowers? But then again, aren’t some people allergic to those?

Reilly tried the doorknob. Surprisingly, the door wasn’t locked. He walked in slowly, looking around. “Levii? Are you here? You didn’t call in a sick day, so…” He saw the sheet of paper on the desk. It stuck out like a sore thumb, considering purple started to trend as the new evil color as of last year.

...

Dear Boss,

I’ve been thinking, lately. And I think that today I’d like to ask for a promotion. I-
*smudge*
After an entire year of effort and blood, I think that i’ve
*smudge*
For some reason, even as the Work Encourager. Nobody feels encouraged. Can you please explain why nobody listens? Maybe if you could tell me if the last Encouragers were successful. But the point is, I think that this position that I’m in isn’t helpful to
*no smudge?*

Reilly let go of the letter. It slowly descended before reaching the ground. “Where have you gone?”

Ulvi’s Story
Reception (1/2)

For a while Ulvi had been working as a saboteur for the faction of Grinclins, attacking knights and trying to foil their attempts to get Winter Wishes. It was all he could do to scrape by.

Get a real job, kids.

------| 12 Months Ago
----| Mount Krampus: Layoafer Quarter
--| Height 19

The frozen devilites were all gathered around a fire, discussing whatever interested them.
The smartest and the most cunning were all named: Warner, Florel, Ulvi, Alex (is a girl), and the nominated boss: Larry.

“So…” Warner started. “What do we do now? Those jerks got magic pets or something.”

Larry held out a box of cigarettes, which only Ulvi and he took. With a match, he lit both of the cigarettes and fed the splinter to the campfire. “Map is switching today, they’ve got those fire vents.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” Florel said. “So does that mean that we can attack them while they’re clustered?”

Ulvi looked at the table map, and pointed to the area with the Slush Puppy. “See the gun puppy there? It’s facing the wrong way. So if we rotate it it can do some real damage.”

“We’ll have to take two units out to keep the Difficult-o-meter good.” Warner said.

Alex takes a good look at the map. “I got it. Ulvi and the Scorcher near the entrance can go.”

Ulvi shook his cigarette a bit, raining down several tiny embers on the map, which disippated shortly after. “But i'm good at my job.”

“You’re attacking a useless turret.” Florel said.

Larry looked at the group expectantly. “Alright, let’s have another review of the footage from the last go at this.” he activates a projector.

-Recording Loading… 56%.-
-Recording Loaded.-
-Recording Start.-

Ulvi: I could use some help here!

Ulvi takes cover behind a block while the Scorcher tries burning the turret.

Scorcher: Hey! Get over here and help me disable this thing!

A chromalisk dressed knight with a big red present starts running through the area.

Whiskers: Coming through!

Whiskers takes a swat at the gremlin and runs through the barrier.

Scorcher: Stop him!

Ulvi: Sure, because I totally won’t get hit by a turret aiming straight for my face.

Another knight starts to run through the fire.

Blaze: Outta the way! Gotta SaVe WiNtErFeSt!

Ulvi throws a snowball at Blaze while the Scorcher finally breaks the turret.

Blaze: I need help!

Scorcher: Got you now!

The scorcher aims at Blaze, but one of the flame cannons thaws Blaze. She dashes past the gremlin and the newly regenerated Mecha Turret.

Ulvi: Aw crap.

Whiskers runs away, easily dodging the snowball that Ulvi throws at him.

Scorcher: This isn’t working…!

Ulvi: No, really?

The turret fires a beam, chaining damage on the Scorcher and killing him.

-Cut, Recording End-

“Hey…!” Ulvi angrily said.

Warner was stifling laughter. “H-h.. hehe; Looks like you’re having some there, bud.”

“Just deal with it.” Alex said.

------| Silent Emberlight
----| Depth ??

Ulvi was drinking cocoa and was looking at the ‘satellite-fed’ cameras. He was pretty bored and wasn’t interested in looking at the cameras.

“Hey! Don’t bring Blitz!” a voice said.

“But it’s the only gun I have.” A deeper voice said.

The first person let out a sigh. “Your funeral, pal. You won’t even bring a Proto Gun?”

The team of four knights stepped on the button, then went into action.

“Yo, when are they coming? They should’ve been here 15 seconds ago.” Warner asked.

The knights ran forward and started grabbing presents. Ulvi activated his communicator. “They were busy with their arsenals. They’re coming your way now.” Ulvi said.

The riot was the same. Knights running, Layoafers throwing, Humbugs being bugs… they needed to score some hits.

Two of the four cameras went static, the usual tapping on the screen didn’t do any good, unfortunately. “Hey guys? I’ve lost sight of the flamethrowers and the arena.” A loud sound came through the headphones, louder than those bombs that the knights used.
“Arrrgh!” Ulvi, panicked, flailed his arms around until he grabbed his headphone, he instinctively threw it in a random direction to get the noise away from him.

Lol. It crashed into and broke Camera 3. Now the only working camera was just locked on to the starting area. “Hey guys! Where are you? What’s happening?” his question was met with static.

-12 Minutes Ago-
Larry was smoking a cigar. Sitting in the swivel chair, lantern that keeps rocking… it was perfect. Alex walked in. “You wanted to see me?” she said. Larry’s chair was turned to face the nonexistent window.

Like a generic swivel chair user he kept his back turned to Alex. “Something’s come up. I forgot to tell you all this at the meeting, so you can tell them all.”

“Sure thing, what is it?” Alex pulled out a coffee flavored sucker and started to eat it.

Larry turned the chair around faster than he usually did. “During one of our missions, we discovered a cache of platinum crowns. Do you know how much those are worth?”

“One-hundred.”

Larry shook his head. “Nah, that’s the value of Plat-Gold ones. My crown guide says they’re worth 250 each, if we grab those crowns, we don’t have to do this dangerous job anymore! You get what i’m saying?”

“Yes, sounds good sir…” Alex received a hearty amount of surprise from the value of the cache. 2500? 10000? Maybe 25000? “Err… I uhh, I’ll tell everyone.”

-----

Florel: “...this is too good to be true, isn’t it? But i’d give anything to get out of this dead end job. Thanks Alex.”

Warnel: “Is that so? Guess that means we gotta come up with another game plan quickly. Make sure you tell Ulvi.”

Alex: “Y-yeah. I’ll tell him....”

Ulvi: “This is stupid.”

Alex told everyone… except for Ulvi. Err, whoopsies.

Part 10: Next Stop
"...sorry. I don't have a choice, and I'm sure I'll lose. But I can't not try."
-Will, ?????

Penny wasn’t sure what to do. She was ordered to do her monthly examination all the camera tapes, and some disturbing results were yielded.
Winslow and Levii were assassinated by Firebranders. She couldn’t wait any longer, she had to take action. She dialed up a number. “Reilly! We got an emergency!”
-----
Reilly: Emergency? But I don’t hear any alarms.

Penny: It’s Mark, he killed Levii!

Reilly: What? Why would he do that!?

Penny: I don’t know, but we have to stop him from doing anything else!

?????: Hello, kids. How are you doing this fine day?

Reilly: Who the f#@$ is there?

Mark: It’s me, you delinquent nincompoops. I’m just letting you know that you’re too late.

Penny: No! You’re… not gonna get away with this. We’ll stop you!

Mark: Too bad. -click-

Reilly: This is screwed up. Move out and find him. Them.

Penny: But I don’t have a weapon.

Reilly: ...yeah you do. You have your Company Regulated Nightblade, right?

Penny: But it’s really hard to use!

Reilly: Sorry, but you don’t have anything else to use. -click-

-Blarful Bonuses: Company Square-
Reilly ran forward, looking around for a suspiciously colored individual, even though it would be a dumb idea to stand out in the open.

Penny was just walking around aimlessly. Until she heard something rather strange: The sound of an alarm clock near one of the fake trees.. Then it stopped. Penny blinked, panicked, she yelled: “Look out!”

The square exploded, sending several employees flying and dying. Reilly got hit by a chunk of asphalt, knocking him onto his face. “Reilly! Are you okay?” Penny asked.

Reilly slowly stood up, while saying “It’s just a scratch… we gotta move.” He started to run in one direction while Penny went in another.

Then he saw it. A red shadow in one of the windows, holding a remote no less! Reilly dived through the window into Ace, who got pinned to the ground.

Ace struggled with futile effort, he pressed the 2nd button on the remote. Nothing happened. He pressed the 3rd button. Nothing happened. Ace angrily threw it into the corner and looked at Reilly. “It’s over, Reilly… goodbye.”

-Static-
Penny ran to the donut factory; someone had to be there. A pillar of flame erupted from an apartment building several yards behind her, sending a dramatic, powerful shockwave through the entire area. The wave of force hit Penny, but she held her ground and turned to look at the building. “No…” was all she would muster.

A dart flew into her shoulder from behind. “Looks like your stupid friend Reilly is dead. Just one more idiot to go.” Volley said.

Penny quickly turned around and feebly threw the dart at Volley, which simply landed at his feet. “You… you monster.”

Volley shrugged it off. “Sorry, lady. But this only ends one way.” He brandished a Flamberge.

Penny brandished her Nightblade, though her arms were shaky and numb. “Wh… what did you do?”

“It’s something special. A poison labelled C42. I don’t know what it does, but it looks like it’s doing his magic.” Volley started to charge up his attack.

“Sorry, lady.” Volley launched forward, swiping and thrusting his fiery foil at Penny. However, she crouched, causing Volley to trip over Penny, allowing her to take a single swipe at him.

He finished somersaulting to cover his trip, and turned around. “Not bad for a rookie, but let’s see how you handle this!” He started swinging the Flamberge left and right while running forward.
Penny panicked and attempted to swing her Nightblade downwards with both her hands. She got a lucky strike, but her neck got a small scratch. She was panting heavily, this was too much for her, but it didn’t matter. “I’m not scared of you anymore.”

“I was going easy on you, but screw that!” Volley went into a position like he was about to swing a baseball bat, and Penny tried blocking. However, the power of the swing broke the sword block.
The impact caused Penny to crouch, and she felt like her arm was going to rip off if she kept ahold of the sword as it flew backwards, but she didn’t care. She could die now... or die later, but she was really tired.

“Not yet…” she whispered. The pain of the dart ceased to exist in a second.

Volley had enough, he prepared to stab Penny. “See you later.”

Penny quickly made a diagonal slash with the sword at Volley with all her might. It did the job, with him getting knocked back by a wave of explosions. He collapsed with a confused expression on his face.

She sighed and dropped to her knees… she had done the impossible. Penny closed her eyes…

…
…
…

Suddenly, Mark kicked her over and aimed a sawn-off at her face. “You guys are very tenacious. Unfortunately, it was all in vain. As we always have backup plans.”

Penny tried reached for her sword, but Mark stepped on her hand. She growled angrily as pain coursed through her entire body. “Arrrgh! I thought Firebrand Co… took over companies! Not destroy them!”

Mark shrugged. “Sorry, boss says we’ll have to destroy the place. We can’t make enough offa this dump.” He lifted his foot and put the gun away. “I’ll let you live, and we’ll see if you can tell everyone.”

Mark’s footsteps slowly faded. After two minutes, Penny finally had the strength to stand up. She was jobless, everyone she knew had died, and she was left to die.

She started to limp away, in an attempt to find hope, or tell someone.

“I’m just kidding.”

…!

“Just kidding.”

…!

-On that same night, in another location...-
Joseph gasped. He choked slightly, and rolled of his bed in a hurry.

...he calmed down. Joseph closed his eyes. He knew what he felt, what he saw.

At first, he saw the strange event of himself in the world of Hotline Cradle 1.
It was fun at first, killing a bunch of jerks with one shot of his Black Phantom handgun.

From a mile away he was mowed down from a shotgun shell.

Now of course, he died a few times from unlucky movements or lumbers… but that last shot… it snapped him awake.
It wasn’t even shock. He saw the bullets coming, but he couldn’t move.

Joseph drank a cup of water. It tasted like $#@%.

Chapter 4: Red Scarves Poker Night
Part 1: Stolen Fears
“No help at all… Nobody will listen… am I really so useless?”
Aizu, World’s End Chapter 2

Note: Red Scarves Poker Night was the name of a short story that I made on another game.

-Depth ??, oPSTViei DiVo-
Ike fought it, he fought the darkness trying to take him over, it was futile… until several dark tendrils grabbed the person next to him!

Ike felt a sense of urgency. He shot at the tendrils that were coming for him with his Voltech MkII. A flurry of electric shots were scattered everywhere, hitting several of the targets, which simply went back into the ground from any contact with damage.

He had a deep breath. Ulvi was taken by the host of this dreadful area, and he might be next. I can’t give in. Or everything I have done up to this point will have been in vain! I must find all of my friends! Ike thought, and he started to walk through the obsidian halls.

-Meanwhile...-
Ulvi felt fear for once. The last time he felt fear is when he thought his computer hard drive got corrupted, but it was just the wrong computer.

He stood up to get his bearings. He looked around, black, black, and… What the hell? he stepped in something wet, when he had a closer look, it appeared to be just water, a trail of it, even. It led to a small green figure leaning against the wall, apparently dead or sleeping. He’d probably been crying while he was here.

Ulvi had another look before he talked to the figure. He was in a room with 3 black walls, and the final end being a set of pink bars blocking his way. Basically some sort of prison.

Ulvi walked up to the person’s shoulder and shook it. He twitched slightly but didn’t turn to look at who shook him. Ulvi grabbed him and turned him so that he could see his face. It was Yeller.

Yeller didn’t look very well. He looked like he had been awake for at least 48 hours, and dry tears ran down his face. Ulvi stepped back a little. “Yeller? How did you get here?”

The dialogue was barely audible. “s a m e _ a s _ y o u . c a n _ i _ p l e a s e _ g o _ t o _ s l e e p ?” It looked like he was and wasn’t trying to sleep at the same time.

“Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. Do you realize that this is partially your fault?” Ulvi said angrily.

“i t s _ n o t _ a n _ e x c u s e . b u t _ y o u _ w o u l d n ' t _ b e l i e v e _ m e.” he feebly said.

Ulvi started to chew some wintermint bubblegum because he felt like it. “You sure about that? Tell me anyway, I think I need a laugh after all that’s been happening.”

Yeller closed his eyes. “i t _ w a s _ m i n d _ c o n t r o l. i t _ o n l y _ w o r k s _ o n _ y e s m e n . . .” He opened one of his eyes.

Footsteps were heard. “Ulvi? Yeller?” Ike said as he saw the two in the prison.

Ulvi looked up and walked to the bars. “Oh hey Ike… can you get us out of here?”

Ike had a look around. There was a single floating obelisk, emitting a pink line to the cell. He shot the obelisk, which turned the bullet into smoke quickly.. “Hmm… I don’t think I can get you out of here right now. These things are made of obsidian; extremely tough and also full of black magic.” Ike got himself a good look at Yeller. “Uhh… are you okay?”

He didn't respond. He probably would’ve given a ‘No’ anyway.

Ike shrugged and walked off.

-Static-
Dark whispers came. You think you’re special, aren’t you?

No not really. I’m just an IT. Ike thought. The voices followed him as he kept walking.

You’re right. Look at this place. You’re gonna fail. Your friends will regret ever knowing you.

Quit it, i’ve been busy and I can’t afford any distractions. So i’d like it if you’d please-

Is that all you have to say, Ike? You will fail. Better say your goodbyes.

Do you know who i’ll be saying my goodbyes to? Ike instinctively raised his gun into the air and fired. Several scarabs scattered from the ceiling. “Phew, false alarm.” Ike said.

Suddenly, tentacles started springing from the ground and started to move towards Ike! He broke into a sprint and started running.

Running, running…
still running…
But it wasn’t enough, the tentacles were about 2 feet away from him and were about to snatch him any second now!

Adrenaline kicked in and Ike thought for a good few seconds, thinking of some plan…

Ike started to dash forward multiple times, unhindered from anything that protagonists were limited to… pretty soon, the tentacles were barely audible.

He skidded to a stop. There was a giant obelisk in his way. Ike had a good look at it. It was different from the other obelisks that he saw…

A strange force took hold of his gun, forcing it out of his hand before he had time to struggle against it, and the alchemer exploded with a purple light emanating from it.

Ike braced himself, he opened his eyes when the small amounts of remaining light faded.

What was left… was an obsidian gun, looking like a Magnus or that weird two-shot pistol he found buried two months ago. Ike picked it up. Very shiny. He used his pocket analyzer on it, which only brought up the result of:

Name: Double
Attack: Shadow
Ammo: Double
Effect: Poison

“Interesting…” he said to himself. “Looks like the effects of Apocrea are being affected by some sort of third party power.” Ike didn’t have any of his research equipment, not that he owned any, so he’d have to do his risky research later.

You’ll be back here… and when you are, you’ll die.

Can it. When i’m back i’ll prove you wrong.

Do not challenge our powers, weakling. You’re going to have to learn some manners.

Shut the f@#$ up. How about you talk to me face to face instead of acting like it’s Halloween?

Hiss!

Ike came back to the cells. Ulvi was sitting down with his arms crossed, with a blatantly impatient look on his face. “About time! Let’s get outta here!”

Ike charged up his alchemer and fired off a blast into the power obelisk. It shattered for a short 5 seconds, then reformed. “Maybe we can…” Ike blasted the obelisk again, then looked at the bars. They disappeared, then reappeared.

“Way ahead of you.” Ulvi stood up and walked up to the bars. *pew!* Ulvi dashed through.

“So, what do we do about him?” Ike said, gesturing at Yeller.

Ulvi shrugged. “I seriously don’t know. He’s pretty much useless; he’ll easily die if he follows us.”

And they left, after realizing that they were actually on Depth 19.

Part 2: Dark Reprisal
“The bar was surrounded. You were as good as dead.”
-Death, Hard West

-Depth 20-
-Completely Un-Wild-ed Path-

“I’m hungry.” Harvey said.

No one responded. They were too busy being hungry.

A loudspeaker activated. “Attention, we got three suspicious individuals near the grass! Detain them because they’re suspicious!”

Whoosh. Four enemies with shade hoods appeared out of the blue and held up Calibur Daggers. “Surrender, suspicious individuals.” One of them said.

Bigday started. “Heck no, now why don’t we just-”

“HAVE AT YE!” Red swung his sword at one of the ninjas, knocking him down. “I’ll never surrender to a bunch of cowardly assassins as long as I live!”

Bigday and Harvey brandished their company-regulated Nightblades and started to attack the ninjas. The ninjas were bad fighters, they couldn’t handle a knife correctly and simply wore the mask to intimidate.

“Hey! Suspicious individuals!” The announcer said. “Quit being suspicious! Y’know what that’s it, those people are Dangerous Individuals!”

Oh snap.

A trojan approached the trio and attempted to smash them with it’s crappy machete. The attack was so slow that everyone easily killed it with their shadow weapons.

“Is that the best you got?” Bigday smugly said.

Harvey groaned slightly. “I’m still hungry.”

“Quiet, boys. Someone’s around…” Red whispered.

Harvey’s eye started to twitch. “Maybe it’s because we’re in a base?”

A single firebrander stepped up in front of the team, with four T3 trojans standing behind him. “Remember me?”

Bigday’s eyes widened. “Mark!? I thought you died!”

Mark scratched his face slightly. There were several glowing purple cracks in the left side of his face. “That’s right. It’s no problem, though. We got plenty of rituals of hell to revive the dedicated.”

Red raised his sword. “That’ll change soon, you double crosser. Prepare for a furious defeat!”

Mark crossed his arms. “Hey Red, I got something to tell you.” he started to shuffle a deck of cards. “Some time ago… there was a vast kingdom; those who served Lord Vanaduke by sending him trojans for his army. However, that kingdom fell.”

Bigday gave a suspicious look while Harvey started eating some gummy bears that he looted.

“A legion of knights had infiltrated the place and destroyed it forever due to an insider. That traitor, was me.” Mark smiled, causing his eyes to start glowing. “Anything you want to say, Fury?”

Red thought... he thought, he thought, he thought. “Y-yes… My kingdom and my father… were all destroyed… by… YOU!” He angrily swung his sword at Mark, who easily dodged. He kept throwing reckless attacks at Mark over and over until the trojans surrounded him.

Bigday tried to attack one of the trojans, but his attack was deflected by Mark, who threw a laser edged card. “Nuh-uh-uh. You’re gonna have to deal with me, first.”

Harvey weakly gave a generic taunt. “You’re not gonna get away with this…!”

Bigday threw Lutz’s mug of misery at Mark, which didn’t work. “Welp, i’m out of ideas.”

“Pwahahahahahahahahahaha-ha-ha… It’s just a prank.” Mark prepared to throw seven cards, but a massive explosion of fire erupted from behind him, killing all of the trojans. “What the f@#$?”

One of the guys might’ve taken this opportunity to attack Mark, but that explosion was just too bright. “What’s happening?” Harvey said.

When the flames died down, there was a lone Red standing there, with a his Khorovod shattered, but charged with an orange energy. “Revenge will be mine! PREPARE TO FACE JUSTICE!” He leapt forward and sliced Mark with the giant sword, knocking him back several feet.

Mark went into a crouching position, trying to catch his breath. “You were luck- Gah!” Red had hit him like a truck again. Mark spasmed a lot from the ionized salt shards that had randomly hit him. “I…”

“DIE! VERMIN!” Red leaped up and threw the volcanic sword down with all his might.

Bigday took several steps back. “Holy crap!” Another explosion was made, followed by several heat embers flying in him and Harvey’s direction.

A minute passed.

Two minutes passed. His ears were ringing.

Red stood up. His vision was blurry. He scratched his head, but his fingers took ahold of something, a crown of Shadow Steel. He put it back on his head. “Who’s there!? Show yourself!”

When his vision returned, he saw what looked like him, except taller, with a grander crown, and a better cape. “Father…” he kneeled.

“Do not bow.” Ryden said. “Because I am not who you think I am.”

Red stood up. “Then… who are you? Why do you look like the king?”

“I am the King. I am you.” he said. “In a little while, you will lead an onslaught against those who oppose you, when your finest hour is over, you will be a king that serves Almire. Just like your father.”

Red’s eyes teared up. “What? I don’t understand.”

You will… King Red.

Three minutes passed. Harvey was eating roasted marshmallows and Bigday was reading the stolen file. “What… what?” Red said as he woke up.

“So, you finally woke up, Fury.” Bigday said, closing the file. “Probably should’ve told us you had some, ultra hidden power and such.”

“Boy, don’t give me that attitude. Something like that has been absent from me for years now.” Red replied.

Harvey passed Bigday a marshmallow when he motioned for one. “Well, looks like Mark is dead. Again.”

Red rubbed the back of his head, because he had a massive headache. “Good, then my father has been avenged.”

Harvey was finally able to swallow the marshmallows which were stuck in his mouth. “Phew. By the way, what’s on that paper, Bigday?”

Bigday opened the file. “It’s the gate schedules for PheariumCorp. I think giving this to the right people, would allow us to reclaim our stolen company.”

Part 4: Double Down
“Weh.”
-Bird Officer, Freedom Planet

Calagray cleared his throat. “Err… would you mind telling us how you triggered an army of thwackers?”

Lewis tried his best to walk backwards while firing his gun. “It’s not my fault!”

Emilia ran up to the group, and socked a nearby gremlin on her way, knocking him over the edge. “Alright, who screwed up?”

Calagray shrugged, and stood on a box, firing the magnum with a ‘height accuracy bonus’. He whispered something into Lewis’ ear. If he actually could.

Lewis gave a subtle nod. “Ah.” *ahem* “They were waiting to ambush us; yeah. But we got this, right?”

Meanwhile…

“Hey boss. Our men are taking heavy casualties out there! I suggest that we send all of our troops against them like a sensible person!”

“Nah. Our guys totally have this in the bag. Just keep sending them in waves.”

“But sir-”

“Oh shut up! Your voice is obnoxious and terrible. Get out of here before I feel like harming someone.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“Those fools… how can they handle the might of the thwackers, in pairs of 15 at a time! Grr…”

Wak

“Those are blast doors! Someone close them down!” Calagray ordered.

Emilia fired her gun at the Activation button, destroying it. “Why are you still trying? You’re so hopeless!” She said as she fired at the gremlins sliding under the door.

The door finally closed.

“Stop right there.” A dramatic voice said.

Lewis turned around to see five elite looking gremlins, all with their hands behind their backs. One of them looked a little familiar… “Hey, you’re Mack! I thought you were captured!”

Mack chuckled. “We have ways, you little brats.” He whistled.

A cloaked figure leapt from above and landed between the knights and the gremlins.

“Darkred?” Calagray said. He had stepped back a couple of steps.

Mack stepped forward slightly. “He’s not one of yours anymore. He suggested that we spring a trap on you. And of course, it worked.

“And you trust him!?” Emilia said.

“Oh yeah, plenty.” Mack pointed at the knights. “Attack!”

Darkred walked forward without brandishing his sword. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for days.

“Is that… mind control?” Lewis said.

Calagray shook his head. “You believe that crap that Joseph told you about? There’s no such thing.”

“B-but-” before he could finish, Darkred grabbed his arm and threw him at a nearby wall.

“What do you think you’re doing, you traitor!” Emilia aimed her Sock Gun at Darkred, but he already delivered a roundhouse kick to her.

“You stop that!” Calagray took a swing at Darkred, and unbelievably, it connected.

Darkred started to flail his arms around trying to hit something, with Calagray keeping a safe distance away. “What are you doing!” Mack snapped. “Don’t tell me that you’re this weak!”
Darkred collapsed, slightly twitching.

Emilia was struggling to stand up. “Was it space madness? Was it true?”

The gremlins started to laugh. They laughed and kept at it. While the T2 knights couldn’t believe that they had killed another knight.

Something caught Lewis’ interest. “Hey, what’s this button on this gun?” He picked up the revolver that Calagray had dropped near the gremlins, and pressed the /!\ button.

…?

*BOOM!* Several explosions rang out, one of them in the room that they were in. Smoke clouded the room. When everything had settled down, the lights appeared to be off. And Darkred was standing up, breathing heavily.

“What the!” Lewis turned to fire his chaingun at Darkred, but he leapt up into the air to react, and backflipped off of the gun.
The force of the kick caused Lewis to aim his gun at the gremlins, and he had already pulled the trigger. Bullets rained down against the gremlin elites. “Damnit! Counterattack!” They equip their elemental brandishes, and start attacking.

The group looks at Darkred. He just shrugs, and brandishes a katana.

Emilia dodged an attack, and slammed her guns on the gremlin’s head, then finished him off with a vindictive blast of bullets to his face.

Lewis shoved his assailant to the ground, and filled his target full of steel.

Calagray charged up before the gremlin got close, and let loose, his sword emitted several blades of air in every direction, badly wounding the gremlin.

Darkred just slashed his enemy once, and that was enough.

Mack stepped back. “No, DAMNIT! What the hell did you do!?” He steps back a few blocks, only to fall to the floor. “Killing me won’t do anything, you hear? There are plenty of people like me! And then you’ll all die!”

“What’re you gonna do?” Lewis asked.

Darkred harshly kicked Mack’s chin, with a clear snapping sound.

“Alert! Alert! Plan A has failed!” A voice on the loudspeakers said. “New plan: Send everything that we’ve got! Don’t attack in waves! ALL UNITS, GO GO GO!” The blast doors malfunctioned and started to open. So much for that.

Emilia sighed. “Ugh, now what!? As powerful as I may be, I cannot take on my enemies by the hundreds!”

Darkred pointed at a hole in the wall caused by an explosion, about ten feet off the ground.

“That’s too high.” Calagray said.

Darkred ignored him, and ran up the wall and through the hole.

“What was that?” Lewis said, panicked from the incoming enemies.

Calagray stood back and prepared to run. “We don’t have any choice! It’s try or die!”
Somehow, he sprinted up the wall and ran through the hole.
Emilia was right on his tail.

“I… I can’t… it’s not possible.” Lewis stammered.

They were closing in. “Stop right there you twit!”

Lewis started to run, slowly accelerating.

12 blocks away…
10 blocks away… maybe if he gave up, someone could rescue him?
7 blocks away… it wasn’t looking so hot.
3 blocks away… from hitting the wall.
1 block away...

Through the power of SEGA, Lewis ran up the wall, he looked back, and saw two knockers bringing a ladder. He took two deep breaths, and said: “Later, suckers!”

He ran to what looked like some sort of garage, tools everywhere, and there were hoverboards leaning against a wall!

Darkred ran into a hoverboard and backflipped with it, and immediately boosted away.

“Show off.” Emilia took the hoverboard at a semi-slow pace, stood on it, and then started to move.

“I got this!” Lewis kicked the stack of hoverboards, knocking them everywhere. Lewis and Calagray took a random one, and sped away.
----------
“And then we escaped on the hoverboards!” Lewis said.

Ulvi yawned. “Is that all? Weren’t you followed on those hoverboards?”

Lewis grabbed his pet wolver nearby and sat on a couch. “Well- yeah, but i’m really tired. I’m too tired to continue this story.

“Well, i’m going to sleep. Throwing snowballs at people really takes it out of a person.” Bigday stood up and walked outside.

Ike glanced around. “Where has Joseph gone? I haven’t seen him around for a while.”

“That lad’s on the roof. May have had a few issues to think of.” Red answered.

Lewis put Fluffy down, causing Ulvi and Ike to walk outside. “Uhh… are you gonna leave? I gotta go to sleep.”

“Of course, let me just say that that there was a rather remarkable story of heroism and… anti-gravity, indeed.” Red replied, and stood up to leave.

“Thanks… I guess.” Lewis said. He sighed, and went upstairs to his bedroom.

Part 7: No Chance in Hell

Present Time

“Have you guys seen one of these?” Lewis held up a screenshot photo of some sort of fiendish gate, adorned with fiery glyphs.

Bigday, Red, and Joseph all said “Yes.”.

Lewis put the photo in his pocket. “Alright, there’s one on a floor nearby, can one of you open the gate?”

“Yeah.” Joseph said.

Lewis stood up off his seat. “Alrighty, Joseph. Come with me. There might be some neat stuff behind that gate.”

“Oh, it’ll be far from neat. That’s for sure.” Joseph said, grimly.

Ike was reading Ulvi’s Freezopedia. Ulvi expectantly looked at Lewis. “What do we do?”

Lewis took a Strike Needle out of his holo-arsenal. “I dunno, play chess?”

“Oh hell no!” Bigday snapped. “I’m not playing any more of that stupid board game!”

“Then try not to die of boredom, because i’m sure it would cost me if you died in my house.”

“Jerk.”

Red poked Ike. “Hey, where’s the training hall? I need to hone my powerful swordsmanship!”

Ike kept reading the book. “If I remember correctly… it’s in the NPC Guild Hall, top floor on the west.”

“Really? And when did you learn such details?”

“Had to do some work for Mr. Sullivan.”

Red gave an OK and marched to the Guild Hall.

Depth 19
South Quadrant ~ Flame

“So, how do you plan to open this thing?” Lewis asked. Examing the twelve glyphs mounted on the gate.

Joseph chuckled evilly. “Just watch.” He closed his hands, then held his right hand out to the gate. “Pywrath Disrupt Negatis Defi ATRA!”

All twelve glyphs shook violently, then dissipated. The gate shattered as the last glyph faded.

“How come you’re the only one out of all your friends that knows that technique?” Lewis said, amused at the destruction of the gate.

Joseph took several deep breaths. “An old friend taught it to me. He said that it dispelled barriers of chaos.”

A big blue devilite was seen as the dust settled, with a single tortodrone behind him. “I didn’t think that you’d use that spell against me, boy.” Lutz said.

“It was you who taught me to use it against chaos, Lutz.” Joseph scowled at the pit boss. “But you’re not him. I knew it the moment I saw you. You killed the real Lutz and replaced him like the b@#$% that you are.”

“Who are you!?” Lewis demanded.

Lutz smiled. “I am the founder of the Firebrand Corporation. I am the most powerful being in this world. You are fools to challenge me.”

“That’s- funny!” Joseph lunged forward with Darkred’s dark katana, which missed its mark but hit the big brute.

The tortodrone roared at Joseph, knocking him back. “Too bad. You could’ve been useful. But you decided to choose death.” Lutz faded into the shadows with his last comment.

…

“Shouldn’t have brought a Piercing weapon on this one.” Joseph said.

“Hey! This thing resists shadow, too! So don’t tell me about what I did wrong! Besides, I brought a Fiery Pepperbox just in case.” Lewis angrily replied.

Joseph switched his grip on the katana. “Don’t worry, this is the sword that i’ve heard about in the legends, known as Archfiend. The traitor demon.”

“You stole that, didn’t you?”

“No, your hooded friend just gave it to me.”

The tortodrone stopped delaying. It charged at Lewis, who jumped onto it’s head and ran to the top of the shell to start pumping firecrackers into the darkmatter on it’s back. The tortodrone countered by preparing to fire rockets, knocking Lewis off with a slight amount of injury. Joseph fired rounds from his Umbral Blaster at a safe distance, which were doing a fair bit of damage. Lewis assisted by shooting the Tortodrone in the back while dodging the falling crystals.

It had ENOUGH. The Tortodrone got really angry, and started to run to the nearest person and attempt to punch them. Joseph slid under the tortodrone, swinging a poison vial into it’s underside. “Is that the best you got?” He taunted.

Lewis was having trouble, because the Tortodrone was moving at the same speed as Lewis, which meant that he couldn’t fire back at his pursuer. “Joseph! I need help!”

Joseph triple dashed behind the Tortodrone and swung his sword upwards. Three inky explosions exploded on it’s back, dealing a harsh amount of damage.

“Let’s see if you can take this on!” Lewis yelled, as he fired a 15-shot barrage into the Tortodrone’s face. A lucky shot ignited the construct, causing it to roar in anger from the fire and poison.

It started to launch crystal rockets again, except with greater rate and quantity. The shards lasted for a while, so they were running out of space. “Tell me you have some sort of plan!” Lewis said.

Lewis had to sheathe his handgun and shield to run faster. “I… can’t…” he was getting really tired.

A bright blue beam pierced the Tortodrone straight in the side of it’s face, hitting both of it’s eyes.

Darkred ejected an empty shock cartridge from his sniper and lowered it.

The tortodrone was no more. Amazingly, it didn’t fall over and died from a standing position. Joseph clambered up on the tortodrone’s head and sat down on it. “Haaah. Heh. Thanks hooded guy.”

Darkred put his weapon on his back, then turned and left.

“I’ll never know how that guy works.” Lewis commented.

They walked forward, toggling switches but not encountering any enemies for awhile. Then the party button appeared with the usual spikes surrounding it. “Charge up.” Lewis said.

Several rabid wolvers spawned and prepared to bite the two.

Joseph jumped on one of the wolvers and impaled it with his sword, instantly killing it.

Lewis threw his Strike Needle on the ground, causing it to hazardously fire needles in every direction.

Calagray and Emilia appeared, having joined Lewis’ party. “You think that you could just go into a new and unsettling dungeon without us?” Calagray smugly said.

Emilia now had twin Magnuses (because she could) and started to fire randomly at the wolvers. “I can’t miss!”

Joseph checked his phone, which recently updated. “Listen, Lewis, I’ve got an emergency! I gotta go!”

“No problem. We got this.” Lewis said, charge shotting an Alpha Rabid.

Meanwhile, at the NPC Guild Hall...

“Watch out!” Ike yelled, dashing out of the way of Pookie’s assault.

They were having a skirmish in the council room.

Red prepared to take a swing at Pookie. “Have at ye, beastly foe!” Pookie shielded, but one hit was all it could take.

“Trying to fight us with that wooden stick you have, huh?” Ulvi said. “Bet you can’t hit me!”

Pookie threw his Snarble Barb at Ulvi, which hit and broke his shades.

“Hey! Do you know how much those cost? You’re f@#$ed now, bud!” Ulvi swung at Pookie, knocking him down.

The situation was semi interrupted by Bigday entering from the nearby ledge, being chased by Whiskers.

Bigday jumped off the ledge and into the council room. And slammed a chair into Whiskers’ face while he was recovering from falling. Whiskers was out cold.

Pookie had recovered, and axe kicked both Ulvi and Red, knocking them away.

A purple energy mist appeared behind Pookie, and then Joseph. “Too bad.” He pistol whipped Pookie.

“Ow!” Pookie sounded like a woman.

Ike lowered the Obsidian Alchemer that he was about to shoot with. “What was that?”

“F@#$ you.” Pookie said. She sat down out of exhaustion.

Bigday put the chair he was holding back where it belongs, then sat on it. “I thought you were a guy.”

“I’m not.” Pookie menacingly said. “I just used a voice changer. But you better not tell anyone, or i’ll find and murder you!”

“Last I checked you failed to murder any of us the last three times you tried it.” Joseph smugly said. “Give me those phearium coffee packets that you have on you. I smell them.”

Pookie angrily threw 8 coffee packets on the table.

“Thanks. Alright, guys, time for a well deserved drink!” Joseph said. “Hm?”
Joseph received a message on his phone from Lewis.

The sector is clear.

Joseph’s Story

[Someday i’d bring this up. You may or may not have figured this out, but I had a little sister once. Her name was Penny. In the days that I was a better person, who didn’t find fraud and murder common. I had done a disgustingly terrible task here and in the end, she shunned me for it. She left me. I was devastated to lose the only person that mattered to me.]

[All hope was not lost? I told her that i’d send her emails to stay in touch. She said yes, and she went off to find a new life. A contact found her working at some job in an unknown location. So I did indeed email her. However Firebrand Co was starting their syndicate and was already jamming our emails. Penny is gone now… she’s been gone for a while. My little sister is dead.]

16 Months Ago…
Probably Secret Underground Passage

“Thanks for picking us up, Mr. Lutz.” I said to Lutz, walking forward with Penny.

Lutz turned to look at me. “Don’t worry about it, kiddo. And you can just call me Lutz. I don’t need the formalities for a good company.”

“So where’s this place that we’re going to?” Penny asked.

Lutz subtly shushed Penny. “Sh sh. It’s a secret. Can’t have rival companies finding us and sabotaging our efforts.”

Lutz checked his watch, then continued to talk. “Alright, our company is called PheariumCorp. Do you kids know what phearium is for?”

“Ooh, I know!” I said. “It’s uhh- that stuff you use for coffee, right?”

[At first, PheariumCorp wasn’t that special. But given a few months it would become the biggest coffee producer in the Clockworks.]

“That’s right. We are a coffeemaking company. We don’t have much money or employees but i’m pretty sure, that with more people like you we’ll become big.”

Penny giggled. “We won’t let you down, boss!”

“Oh i’m not the boss.” Lutz said with a slight chuckle. “The boss of the company is a man named Pickles. I think he used to own a cake company.”

Ooh, a cake company. Cake sounds more delicious than coffee. “What happened to the cake company?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Anyways, here we are!” Our attention was directed to an elevator. The icon was a blue coffee cup.

We took the elevator down. Trying our best to not step into the grate that the floor was made of.

Penny yawned. “Auuuuuuuhhh… I wish we could’ve baked cakes instead. It sounds more fun.”

Lutz checked his watch again. “You’d like that, huh? Pickles’ company used an Easy Bake Oven. That’s how they ran things.”

Our eyes were finally exposed to the dim light that we were always accustomed to. It was an average company complex. Buildings everywhere, fire hydrants, mailboxes, and blocks. Blocks blocks blocks and gates as far as the eye could see.

We were led to an apartment, taking the stairs up to Floor 3.
[Elevators would be invented 2 months from now unfortunately.]

“Well, here’s your room, kiddos!” Room 314. It had two generic beds, a desk, and a window. “Get some rest, work shifts will activate in 7 hours.”

“Thanks, Lutz!” I said once again.

We didn’t have anything interesting to do so we just closed the blinds and slept.

The next morning… there’s no such thing as morning. The clock above the door that we didn’t notice started ringing until we got out of bed, took a chair to reach it, and turned the buzzer off.
[Eventually I shot and destroyed the clock because it was annoying the hell out of me.]

“I hope this job isn’t too hard.” Penny said as we were walking down the stairs.

I was in a rush. I was ‘excited’ for some reason. “C'mon Penny hurry up we don’t wanna be late!”

It took us about eighteen minutes to reach where we were supposed to go. Because nobody gave us instructions and we were lost.

Pickles was there, slightly bigger than a regular pit boss, wearing amber tinted glasses, and had a chrome tie. He looked a little irritated about something.

I tried to strike a mature pose when I reached the boss. “Hello sir, I’m Joseph and this is my sister Penny, it’s our-”

“Shut up.” he snapped. “You’re late. Don’t waste my time with your silly greetings. Now explain to me why it took you so long to get here.”

My eye twitched. “A-as I was about to say, it’s our first day. Nobody told us where to go or what to do yet.”

Pickles put on a childish mimicking voice. “‘It’s our first daaay. Nobody told us where to go or what to do yeeet.’ Is that it? Get to work now.”

Penny huffed when we walked out of Pickles’ range. “Ugh, why’s he such a jerk? I bet he’s gonna bully us all our lives.”

“Oh i’m sure we’ll get on his good side someday.” I said, trying to make the situation more cheery.

We met a cyan colored devilite wearing thick glasses. He sounded like he was missing some teeth when he started to talk. “Hey. You must be new. I’m Ike, i’ll tell you how to work these coffee machines here, okay?”

“Are you a layoafer?” I blurted out.

Ike chuckled a bit. “No, i’m a Devil-IT. I just have a rare skin condition that makes me look like this. Anyways that’s beside the point. Joseph, you’re going to operate the press mechanism. Penny, you gotta use that giant coffee machine.

A few minutes later (thankfully without Pickles’ breathing down our necks) we had found the items that we were looking for from the storage. A bag of phearium nuts, sinful brew, and powdered phearium. We had also been given instructions.

How to Powderize Phearnuts
1. Insert up to 8 phearnuts into the auto-press.
2. Press the button labeled [START].
3. Wait 10 minutes.
4. Take the new phearium beans out of the auto-press.
5. Insert the beans into the auto-powderizer.
6. Press the button labeled [START].
7. Wait 10 minutes.
8. Dump the Phearium powder into a bag.
9. Repeat steps 1-8.

I read it over several times as to not miss anything, then got to work. A half hour later I realized that I could use both the auto-press and the auto-powderizer at the same time.

“No no no don’t do that!” Ike exclaimed, noticing my idea.

I stepped back as he took the phearnuts out of the press. “What? What’s wrong?”

“You don’t do that.” Ike said, pointing at me. “That’s against regulation!”

Against regulation? I waited 11 minutes for the auto-press and it didn’t explode or anything. “Why?”

Ike started waving his arms around. “It just is! You cannot do that!”

I facepalmed. “But it’s more efficient. And it’s not a safety hazard, is it?”

“Just don’t.” Ike said, and walked away, occasionally glancing at me.

“Aww.” So I went and did the job like some stupid idiot.

“No no no don’t do that!” Ike exclaimed, running in a different direction.

He noticed that Penny had an idea too. Which probably meant something was wrong with this company. I walked over to Ike and Penny.

“What’d I do wrong, mister?” Penny asked.

“You don’t do that. That’s against regulation!” He started chattering about random stupidities and I took the time to read the instructions.

How to Make Coffee
1. Bring a ⅓ cup and a 1 Cup to the auto-mixer.
2. Fill the ⅓ cup to the brim and then pour it into the 1 Cup twice.
3. Pour the powdered phearium from the 1 Cup into the mixer.
4. Add a drop of sinful brew for flavor.
5. Press the button labeled [START].
6. Wait 10 minutes.
7. Collect the super vial filled with coffee.
8. Repeat steps 1-7.

I guess she knew that pouring ⅓ of a dose into the mixer twice was easier than pouring those two doses into the 1 Cup, then pouring it into the mixer. Which did indeed make a lot of sense since the mixer wasn’t activated yet.

-11 Hours Later-

Work shifts were divided into 12 Hour Shifts with 8 Hour Break Periods in between. Fortunately we had a knack for having an extreme amount of energy unlike those aliens, able to frequently dash and also having the ability to jump.

We just slept, since we didn’t have anything fun to do and that’s usually what everyone else did.

[Correction. Some of the other kids liked to play Go Fish during the break time.]

I heard something in the middle of the night, my ears twitching ever so slightly. I rubbed my eyes and opened the blinds to see what was happening. Pickles seemed to be arguing about something to Lutz.
[Yes, I could recognize each individual Pit Boss but I don’t have the skill to do so with just regular devilites, as you clearly know with my experiences with Bigday.]

I quietly opened the door outside and slipped through. In a bit I creeped outside and I saw the two still arguing.

“Why do you keep hiring these nincompoops, they can’t do anything useful!”

“Patience, Pickles. They have potential, hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”

“Pffft. That sounds STUPID.”

“I bet, because you used that Easy Bake Oven for your Cake Business, huh?”

“You shut your damn mouth you f@#$ing s@#%.”

“Hey, hey. Language. I’m sure that you’d be regarded as a popular person if you used profanity to everyone that you meet.”

“That’s it, you f@#$. I’ve had enough of your lollygagging.” Pickles kicked Lutz back and pulled out a black painted blaster.

“H-hey, calm down! You don’t know what you’re doing!” Lutz said, holding his hand in front of his face.

Pickles made an evil laugh. “Say goodbye.”

“HEY!” I yelled.

Pickles and Lutz looked in my direction. “Kid, get outta here or he’ll kill you!”

“Shut up!” Pickles yelled. “And you, if you make a move i’ll make sure you’ll die here and now!”

“Don’t kill Lutz! He’s a good person!” I said.

Pickles shook his head. “The hell he is! He’s just a stupid piece of s@#%.”

I’m not sure why, but I blindly ran at Pickles, hoping to achieve something. He opened fire at me.

This wasn’t some movie with stunts. I got hit seven times. The bullets burned my skin a bit, but I felt like I was absorbing their power. I shoulder rammed Pickles, which toppled him somehow.

I quickly picked up the gun that he had before he had a chance to stand up. “Stay back!” I said, trembling. “Don’t come any closer or i’ll… i’ll shoot you!”

Pickles stood up with a look of curiosity on his face. “If the gun didn’t work on you, then what makes you think that i’ll be any different?” He started to march towards me menacingly.

I pulled the trigger, closing my eyes. I expected nothing good to happen, I thought that he was gonna grab me and choke me to death there. But it didn’t happen. I opened one eye at a time. The bullet obviously hit him, but he didn’t absorb it. There was a smoking, burning spot on his chest where he had been shot.

“Arrrrgh… what the hell…” Pickles tried attacking me again. I shot him two more times. He fell onto his knees, then his face met the pavement. He didn’t stand up.

I breathed heavily. I killed a person. The gun dropped to the floor.

“...Joseph?”

I turned around, with a fearful expression. It was Penny. “Penny?”

“Did… did you…?” she said, as frightened as me.

I stood there, frozen. “I-I-I I didn’t mean to! H-he wanted to kill me!”

“You’re a murderer, Joseph!” she screamed. Penny ran away in a direction.

“Penny, please-” I tripped. Tears flooded my eyes, and I started sobbing. My life was likely ruined.

A hand placed itself on my shoulder. I had forgotten that Lutz was here the whole time. “Joseph. You did the right thing.”

I felt angry now. “How!? I killed a person! That’s never a right thing to do! Never!”

The next few hours were a blur. Lutz talked to Penny, and apparently handed her a phone. He then gave me a phone also. Penny calmed down. Apparently we could contact each other when we wanted, because my sister had felt the need to leave. But she didn’t hate me as much as she thought she did.

The only person in my life that I had cared about had decided that I wasn’t a brother anymore. Lutz let me have the day off, to ‘reflect on the day’ and ‘calm myself’. He made me keep the gun, too.

[I found the exact same phone 7 months later. Ike analyzed it, finding multiple DNA prints on it. One of which resembled mine. He told me that it wasn’t thrown on the ground or just dropped. And that there were donut crumbs on it.]

Several weeks later I had the experience to become the Co-Owner of PheariumCorp. Lutz became the company manager. Everything that i’ve worked for taken from me again when the real Lutz died and a jerk replaced him.

And now… it’s time. The edge is sharpened.

Hm. You're the first person that has posted on this forum in the last few months.

Since the story was expected to have just the five main Devilites, I'll make a fancy side-segment for your character, since he can't just abruptly appear. Eyepatches are real fancy.

Part 1.5

“You… killed Pickles?” Ike said.

Joseph felt unfazed from telling his tale. “Yes. He’s was just a bratty a$%hat who doesn’t deserve to live.”

Ulvi came up to the roof. “Hey guys, want some smokes?”

“Yes.” Ulvi tossed Joseph a cigar, and Joseph magically lit it.

“I’m not smoking… health issues.” Ike said.

“Health issues, smealth issues. I’m sure they just say that stuff because they didn’t come up with something better.” Ulvi said.

Ike scratched his head. “I don’t know about that… I hear about people getting sick from smoking.”

Joseph stared at Ike. “Shut up Ike, everyone is naturally resistant to sickness. You know those times when aliens poison us and crap? Well it doesn’t do jack because we get it out of our system in about eight seconds.”

Someone shoved Ulvi up the ladder and onto the roof. Red stuck his head out of the trapdoor. “Hey lad, when will those honorless cowards face vengeance?”

Joseph checked his SolarCalendar V1.105 on his phone. Then closed it. “In two days, on Thursday.”

“Two days?” Ulvi said. “Thursday is the last day that PheariumCo. is gonna be active! Why should be wait until the last moment!?”

“Because it is my say-so.” Joseph said. “Now… if you don’t mind… i’ll be going to sleep.”

Joseph climbed downstairs to see Lewis and his friends drinking soda. “What the heck is that?” he said, pointing at Calagray’s battle sprite.

“It’s my Battle Sprite, a Seraphynx.” Calagray replied.

Joseph really didn’t care. He grabbed a pillow from the sofa, threw it on the ground, and started to sleep on it.

“Just a pillow?” Emilia said.

“Not much worse than what i’m used to.”

“Arf arf!”

“I shouldn’t be staying up this late. I gotta go to sleep.”

“Agreed, I deserve a good night’s sleep after what i’ve been doing today.”

“See you guys later.”

“Arf!”

I'm too lazy for this.

Part 3: Party Split

July 14th

“Found you.”
Hemlock turned to see Nonna, observing him in the alley he was hiding in. His expression turned dark. “How'd you find me?”

“I followed you… so, what're you doing here?” Nonna said, crossing her arms.

Hemlock turned his head away. “Mind your own business. I do what I want here."

“I can't, sorry.” Nonna held out a Gran Faust in front of Hemlock, standing a reasonably safe distance away from him. “See this?”

“Give me that back or I'll kill you.” Hemlock angrily barked.

Nonna shook her hand slightly, and the Gran Faust disappeared from view, apparently a hologram. “Someone told me to give you a message, he says its really important and he needs just you to do it.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I just need to get back to selling monster pockets so take this okay?” Nonna hands Hemlock a recon module, which he grudgingly takes. “See you around.”

“You better hope that you don't have to talk to me again.” Hemlock says to Nonna as she walks out of the alley. “Grr…” he activated the recon module.

[ If you want your precious Gran Faust back, you will do as I say. There will be a target in a hidden area of Silver Bishop gate Depth 10. Find and detain the target and you'll receive your sword in a hidden cache. The target can be identified by their use of a Masamune. If the target is killed, there will be consequences. ]

“Ughhh…” Hemlock threw the recon module on the ground, and of course it didn't break, but a small device fell off the module. “What's this?” Hemlock examined the small object. It looked like some sort of robotic spider thing, probably a Jammer or Hacker.

Hemlock smirked a bit, then started to think of how to sneak to the locked gates.

-----

Darkred watched the devilite the security drones he secretly placed around the area.

“Are you sure this is gonna work? Your machines haven't been tested yet!”

Darkred ignored the voice behind him, and started typing a hacking algorithm into his computer.

“Why don't you talk, anyway? Tch… you're not answering that, are you?”

Darkred pressed [ENTER]. Nothing interesting seemed to happen on his end. But things were about to get interesting.

“You've betrayed those gremlins, haven't you? What's in it for you, helping me?”

Darkred turned around to give the figure behind him an annoyed look, then went back to monitoring the security cameras.

“I'm sure you know that if you betray me, you're toast. So don't try anything funny. I checked the places for bombs or any of your bugs but it seems that you didn't place them this time. Can't be too careful, you know.”

Hemlock hacked and boarded the elevator, and descended to Moorcroft.

“Anyways, I got some business to run. When I come back you better be finished with your business.”