THE ONE CALLED J

Chapter 44

The Orcs and goblins were about a few miles away from the city, Joshua and Dave grinned to themselves, it was nearly time for them to implement their plan.  "This is impossible," the grandma thought to herself. "The population of this city remains 210, the same it was when my entourage created it, if they are here, it should have increased to 212. I trust them not to have entered those traps, the pits are endless and I am sure those two were smart enough to try shouting into it to determine its depth via echolocation. They aren't in the city, then where could they be?" She kept pondering until finally, her eyes opened up. "They are cunny f***s, those two. They would want to get out of my hair in a way that they would still be making plans to get out of here. They know the risks of being left here," she smiles evilly as the orcs and goblins suddenly stop.  "And what better way to do that than hide in plain sight, they know I can use aerial view so they probably attached themselves to the front of one of these creatures, I would say the orcs and they must be using the tranquilizer darts to keep them asleep. It's not difficult to deal with this," she ends with an evil smirk.

"Why are we stopping?" Dave looked tense.

"Bro. Tear off your ropes," Joshua cut off his. "There's only one reason why we'd suddenly stop now when we this close to the city, somehow, that old hag figured out we must be traveling amongst these bastards."

As soon as Dave cut his off.  A large blade cleaved through the body of the orc he was attached to. The orc fell to the ground with a thud. BAM!!!!

"Come on, Dave," Joshua tugs Dave's neck. "We have got to get out of here."

The two teens ran as fast as their legs could carry them towards the city.

"Knowing them," the old woman kept smiling to herself as she looked beyond the battle amongst the orcs and goblins to the city. Two figures were running as fast as they could. They both had signs drawn on top of their heads. On it was written. "We are certainly not Dave and J."

"And those two have a combined IQ of 431, what stupid f***s!" she ends with a cruel laugh as she sends several bolts of lightning in their direction.  It strikes them turning them to powder.

"She fell for it," Dave smiles to himself, he and J were both running but they had taken a longer route, they didn't run straight to the city. They ran to their left and once they saw the lightning strike. They began to head towards the city.

"It's my plan," Joshua was smiling confidently. "It always works, after all.  I am the J."

Earlier;

Dave had suggested they took a roundabout run after his orc had been cleaved in two, he said the reason was that the old woman would be expecting them to run straight to the city, and if she didn't see anyone running to the city, she would begin to doubt her earlier inference and get confused.

Joshua had then suggested they used bait.  "The best way of defeating anyone is making them think they have won and while they get comfortable for a while in that fake victory, that's the time to strike," Joshua had told him as they attached some fireworks between two goblins. Then they had drawn, written up signs and put them on their heads, lit up the fireworks, causing them to move rapidly towards the city.

The present;

Dave and Joshua kept running as fast as they could.  "Dave," Joshua said amidst rushed breath. 

"What?" Dave asks.

"That girl?" Joshua kept running. "She looked strangely like the one I saw with Max today at the game store. You seemed to know her."

"Yeah, I do," Dave answers him. "Or a little about her, the old woman who touched her is her grandma."

"I was sort of listening to your conversation with her, I already know that!!"

"So why are you asking about her?"

"The name you called her, what was it?"

"You mean Zenaida, what's the matter? Is it the same name as the first babe who broke your heart?"

"Wanna know why the word unbreakable was invented," Joshua grinned arrogantly at Dave who had begun shaking his head in disappointment.  "My ex tried to describe the state of my heart."

"Why were you asking about her? I have never known you for the type to be inquisitive about others," Dave ignores his earlier comment.

"That's the name Terry gave me, he said that was the name of his wife."

"So it's just a coincidence."

"The J don't believe in coincidence," Joshua kept running as fast as he could. "I am surprised you still believe in coincidence. From the moment our journey began till now, every tiny detail had been planned. Our enemies didn't just stumble upon us by coincidence, we are being watched carefully and they make accurate deductions from their observations. So also is the case with this Zenaida and Grandma, there's more especially to this Zenaida girl that we don't know."

"I am sure we will figure it out as we keep moving," Dave reassures him.

"Norms, we are gonna enter the city and not even God can stop us," Joshua grins at him. They were about one mile from the city when the gates opened up.  Joshua and Dave leaped for joy, they were really happy.

Two figures emerged from the gate. As soon as Joshua and Dave saw the two figures, they stopped and began running as fast as they could do the other way.

It was Zenaida and Maxingham who were running towards them. While Zenaida was riding a Rhinoceros, Maxingham was riding on top of a stallion.  Maxingham stood upon his stallion, stretching his right arm, a spear appeared in his fist, he launched it towards Joshua.

"How the hell did they get there before us?!" Joshua grit his teeth as he narrowly dodged the spear, it hit the ground before him decimating it as a huge crater was now found in its wake.

Joshua jumped over it as he lands softly on the ground, rolling to minimize the impact of his fall.

"You know nothing about RPG," Dave shakes his head. "Judging from Zenaida's clothes, she's a mage or witch. She must possess the basic skill of teleportation. She predicted my plan so she's stopping us from entering the city."

"Why do we need to enter the city?" Joshua asks.

"A map, we need the layout of this virtual world so we can find the demon king and get out."

"So this is where you have been," Dave and Joshua sighed unhappily as they heard that voice.  "You tricked me into thinking you were dead."

"Guess what, it was easy," Joshua put on his haughtiest smile as he raised his two middle fingers towards the sky. "And there's a saying, it's not easy to trick an intelligent person."

The horde of orcs and goblins stopped warring against each other as they dashed after Joshua and Dave.

"I have had it with their disrespect," the old woman was visibly shaking with anger.

"I don't understand," Max says.  He could see Dave and Joshua fighting against the incoming horde. "I thought they were all bad guys, why are they fighting against each other?"

"The orcs and gobs are my summonings, they are completely harmless to players, they only go after other enemy spawns," Zenaida answers him, even though Zenaida couldn't see Max's reaction as he was in the real world, he was only watching what was happening on his console, she quickly added. "When you first met them. They were fighting with a group of hobgoblins, they had no weapons, and they looked like they would die if they didn't get help, right?"

"Yeah..." Max mutters.

"They have done that s**t to a lot of players, it's why this game doesn't get many players.  Those two are the worst AIs. It's thanks to them that I have had to restart my progress severally. If we don't stop them now, there will be more players who will suffer the same fate I did."

Max couldn't help but feel red on his cheeks as he reminisced over how Zenaida looked.

"She's so hot," he thought to himself.

Dave jumped from the head of a hobgoblin to another, he held a freeze rifle in one arm, in the other, he held a plasma rifle. Shooting around, he was causing heads to blow to bits while freezing another set.

An orc swung its weapon in his direction, He narrowly evaded it as he slid to the ground, reloading his weapon as quick as he could. He fires it towards the creatures' left leg, it turns frozen as it broke under the unbalanced weight of the Orc's body.

"AHRRGHHHH!!!!" It shrieks in horror as its body fell to the ground, his head had gotten to Dave's knew level.  Dave grinned evilly as he strode over to him, pointing his plasma rifle to his head, it blew it, splattering it all around.

Joshua was holding two long blades, he dashed through several goblins as he was rapidly swinging and thrusting the weapons.

"ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE!!!!!!!!!!!"Joshua screamed at the top of his voice as he had thrust his weapon rapidly towards a group of goblins that surrounded him. When he was done, he swung his weapon skillfully causing the blood smeared on it to fall away.  Goblins dropped in a circular fashion around him, there were several injuries around their body. They faded away as they became nothingness.

The largest orc swung its club towards Joshua's direction.  Thanks to his quick reflexes, Joshua rolled away from the point of attack, he quickly got to his feet as he turned to face the monstrosity. "This is gonna be fun," Joshua grins evilly to himself. "Dave, do you think you have tall genes?"

"It's not I think," Dave answers him as he evaded a swing from a goblin, he counteracted by charging his weapon and freezing the creature's head from its body, propelling himself in the air, he hits the frozen head causing it to fall to bits. "I am 193.7 cm, and I am just fifteen years old, I definitely have tall genes."

"So tell your brother to take a time-out," Joshua grins as the giant orc before him. "Else, I am gonna put him in one."

"Dickhead," Dave bit his lower lip.

"I take that as a yes," Joshua smiles to himself as he ran towards the orc.  The orc brought his weapon speedily towards Joshua.  Joshua slid away from the attack, the orc charged on as it tried to kick the blonde away but Joshua put on a sly grin as he did a backflip over its incoming feet. Holding the two hilts of his weapon as tight as he could, Joshua swallowed as much air as he could, he began to thrust his weapons as furiously as he could hacking into the feet of the orc.

"ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE ODE!!!!!!!"

The Orc began to wail like a little child as blood began to spurt out of its legs, Joshua could hear bones breaking against each other, the left leg collapsed to the ground. The orc and Joshua were now about head level.  The orc still tried to swing his weapon towards him but Joshua bent as fast as he could, he wasn't hit by the weapon but immediately he dodged.  A projectile from his right hit him sending him several miles backward.  Joshua crashes against the ground vehemently as his body kept rolling.

"This is getting insulting," Joshua grunted to himself as he got to his feet.  Maxingham was directly in front of him, he held a sword which he grabbed the hilt tightly. 

"This is working perfectly," Zenaida thought to herself. "Thanks to grandma controlling those freaks of nature, she easily manipulated that orc into not fighting Max back."

Dave had finished the goblins and orcs that he was dealing with.

As fast as he could, he ran towards Joshua's position. "It's useless trying to speak with him, he can't hear us," he whispers to him.

"But Zenaida is finding a way to communicate with him, we also have to," Joshua mutters back.

"Way ahead of you on that, I paid a keen eye on her, she isn't wearing any special item that can't be found in this game.  Her grandma must be directly connecting her to the outside making her able to communicate with Max."

"This s**t is annoying," Joshua bit his lower lip. "Don't look like this is ever gonna be over."

"It's because it goes on that it's interesting," Dave smiles at him. "It's what makes life so unique.  The fact that there's always going to be challenges, and even when one is solved, another surface. It's the continuous existence of challenges that test the resolve of a man. The man with the infinite resolve is the one who never falls short of any challenge."

"I don't understand how that relates to the issue on ground," Joshua had a puzzled look on his face.

"Don't worry about it, "Dave was exasperated as he tapped his forehead. "In case you haven't noticed, we can't enter the city. If we stay here longer, we are going to die. We have to get the f**k out of here."

"Chill," Joshua grins as he turns towards Max. "I am not leaving till I do this," he ends as he dashes towards Maxingham.  He threw a box at Maxingham but he dodged it effortlessly.  Joshua slid underneath Max, he caught the box which he has thrown in the mid-air.  Opening the box, he rapidly took the lightning rifle, he grinned as he shot it at Maxingham electrocuting him. The avatar danced like an i***t as he collapsed to the ground. "God, that was fun," Joshua grins as he fired at Zenaida. Zenaida tugged on the reins of her rhinoceros, it dashed away from the line of danger, barely dodging. As soon as she evaded, Joshua appeared directly in front of her, with a wicked glint in his eyes, Joshua connects a punch to her face sending her rolling on the ground. He was about to keep hitting her until lightning fell from the sky to his butt.

"YAHHHH!!!!!" Joshua screams in pain as he turned away from Zenaida towards Dave, running as fast as he could.  The entourage kept firing lightning at his butt, the Grandma couldn't help but laugh as she watched from the real world.