When the three teams in the dome made their move, Lianna and I were back to munching potato-esque chips and watching the show.

  The first Player out the door was one of Kiki’s crew, the one with the biggest shield. Behind them, the other Players followed one by one, adding their shield to the collective protective barrier.

  The demons began shooting right away and there were a lot more arrows coming at them than they expected — four times as many to be exact — but the tortoise formation held and all of the Players managed to get out and reach the safety of the inner wall. Nobody was badly hurt, only a few people took one of the arrows that snuck through the gaps between the irregularly-shaped shields.

  They could have made a break for the buildings at that point, but for some reason they chose to fight the eighty demons. Five minutes before the next team was due to arrive, just as the combined three teams managed to finish off the big mob, the next twenty demons reported for duty and the Players had to fight them too. They finished off this fresh mob with a power very similar to Annabelle’s explosion, wiping nearly all of them out at once in a single flashy blast.

  The Players had won mostly by using area effect powers that were particularly effective against the demons because they tended to clump together. It worked well, but it also drained the mana of the Players using them to what I thought was an excessive degree, considering that the game was only just starting. Especially that explosion power that took out the demon reinforcement, it was a costly thing to use and depleted the mana of the Player who cast it by a truly inordinate amount. They’d be useless for a while until their energy recovered.

  Explosion magic may have been among the most powerful, and certainly the flashiest, but it tended to leave the tank empty. Despite how much fun it looked in the anime, I was neither a fan of being carried home after blowing my mana wad in one burst, so to speak, nor of having to carry home a drained comrade.

  Plus, as well as taking a hit in mana, in taking down the hundred demons the three teams also took some significant personnel losses of their own: nine Players had been killed fighting the big demon mob. Team Overgeared had started with the fewest people and was now down to only ten, while Karma had twelve and N3m3s1s had fifteen Players left.

  I tried not to think about how two more Players would never be seen again thanks to the fatality factor, but it was too haunting. I’d have to put a stop to this kind of fighting. The three teams weren’t going to make that easy. After they’d mopped up the demons, they took up the demons’ positions to set up an ambush for the next team coming out of the dome, Team Spice.

  Nope. Not on my watch.

  I did notice something particularly interesting. Kiki hardly did anything at all. I’d seen her Status without all the hiddens and I knew she had some impressive powers — like, seriously impressive — but for some reason she wasn’t using them. Was she saving her mana? If so, was it because she was being smart or just selfish?

  “I just thought of something,” Lianna said as I was watching Kiki through bug eyes. “Originally I thought going first gave you a big advantage, like how Team Ninja managed to take those rooms quickly. By the time it’s our turn to start they’ll have eight rooms and be well on their way to twelve.”

  “You think differently now?”

  “Sort of. It was still good to go first, but a team going last has the advantage of coming in with a full roster. By the time that happens, skirmishes with demons and other Players will have whittled the other teams down, making them easier prey if the last teams choose to go for other teams instead of trying to capture rooms. Assuming that because Team Ninja went first they’d have the most tokens, going after them to take theirs would be the smart move.”

  I nodded, once again pleased with my choice of teammate.

  “I agree,” I said, “but setting aside the fatality factor, there’s still one glaring problem with that strategy.”

  “Yeah. Our full roster is still only two people.”

  “So what strategy would you suggest?”

  “That’d depend on what happens with the other teams that go before us. Tiff’s team is next, then the Droogs and Invictus, so a lot could happen but I guess maybe if Maple Leaf is still in the dome when we get there we can join forces and go from there?”

  “And if they aren’t?”

  Lianna’s forehead wrinkled as she considered. “You have a power to turn invisible, right?”

  “More or less, yes.”

  “Then we use your ability to sneak around and spy ahead to find smaller groups of other Players, and your ability to take down a T-Rex to convince them to give us their tokens.”

  “Not bad,” I said. “What will you do while I’m doing all this?”

  “Um, polish my guns and look sexy?”

  “Someone let a few compliments get to her head.”

  Lianna pouted. “Maybe you give me all the tokens you get and I find a nice secluded place to hide.”

  “That’s actually not a bad idea.”

  She brightened again. “So is that what we’ll do?”

  “Nope.”

  “You want to wait and see what happens first.”

  “Nope. It doesn’t matter what the other teams do, our plan is set.”

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  “So we’re gonna win this quest?” Lianna said.

  “Nope.”

  Big sigh, but not her best. I’d give it a seven out of ten. “You know, I really don’t get you,” she said.

  “Yes you do. Think about it.”

  Her forehead crinkled again, then she smacked it with her palm. “Us winning this quest won’t help make others stronger.”

  “Got it first try.”

  She smirked at me. “So are you going to tell your teammate what our plan to get out of the dome is?”

  “Who says we have to start in the dome in the first place? Speaking of which, we should go there now.”

  “Huh? It’s not our turn. It’s Team Spice’s.”

  “Exactly. Let’s go greet them.”

  “I thought we were going to let people solve their own problems.”

  “Do you think Spice has any chance of escaping the dome without getting massacred?”

  “The odds are not in their favor,” Lianna said.

  “I’d like to prevent as many people from getting killed as possible.”

  “Then let’s go,” Lianna said.

  Needless to say, when Tiff’s team arrived they were a bit startled to find us waiting for them in the dome, but strangely not that surprised. Half of them weren’t, anyway.

  “Daniel,” Tiff said. “I know better than to ask how you managed to get here way before your turn, but I am curious why.”

  “We wanted to save you from being ambushed,” I said.

  All of Team Spice crowded around us as I summarized what had happened since the first team arrived. The ones who knew me from the catacombs were all knowing smiles, while the new members had the most confused looks on their faces you could possibly imagine. Once again, Tiff didn’t ask how I knew all this, but she did want to confirm it. I let her do it her way.

  She sent one of her teammates with the power of thermal vision to peek out the door. I could hear the thunk thunks of several arrows striking the dome. “Houston, we have a problem,” the Spice girl said after slamming the door shut again.

  “So we need to figure a way out, then,” Tiff said.

  “Oh, that’s not a problem,” I said. “We could get you all out of here right now if you wanted.”

  One of the new members of their team snorted. “Like how?”

  Tiff turned on her. “If Daniel says he can do it, he can,” she snapped, a bit more defensively than I thought necessary, but I appreciated the support.

  “What happens in the dome stays in the dome,” Grace said with a grin.

  Tiff shifted her attention back to me. “So why wouldn’t we just do that?”

  “Because I want to give someone a chance at redemption,” I said.

  Tiff thought about it for a moment, then said, “You’re talking about Kiki.”

  “I think she might flip if we give her the opportunity. If it doesn’t work, I can still get you safely out of here, but if you’re up for it I’d like to try.”

  “I do enjoy a good redemption story,” Tiff said. “What’s the plan?”

  “Do you trust me?” I said.

  “Of course,” Tiff said, then heaved a sigh. “You can stop asking me that now, or don’t you trust me?”

  “Preach,” Lianna mumbled.

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Sorry. Okay then, be back in a bit.”

  I went over to the back of the dome and created an opening using Earth affinity, then went through. After stepping out of line of sight from the inside — no sense showing all my cards yet if I didn’t have to — I used the same power Akari had used to spy on us in the catacombs as well as her ability to fly, then zoomed invisibly up to the top of the wall. It wasn’t total invisibility, more like a kind of spatial distortion effect, but unless someone was paying attention or particularly perceptive it was as good as being invisible.

  I scouted around to see where everyone was hiding and was relieved to see that the three teams allied against us hadn’t mingled together, each team occupied their own area along the wall. N3m3s1s was on one side, Karma in the middle, then Overgeared on the other side. I was a bit surprised that Overgeared hadn’t taken the central position, but I figured they probably put Karma central because they figured that’s where most of Spice’s attacks would likely go.

  I flew over to Kiki on top of the wall and hovered over her, then opened a telepathic link.

  Me: Kiki, it’s Daniel. Don’t freak out.

  Apart from a slight jolt when I said her name, she caught on quickly and made no outward reaction to having my voice suddenly in her head. Inwardly? Oh, she reacted.

  Kiki: What the fuck? How the hell are you in my head?

  Me: I’m using telepathy to talk to you.

  Kiki: Get out! Stop reading my mind!

  Me: Don’t worry, I can’t read your thoughts, only communicate with you.

  Kiki: You’d better not be lying.

  Me: I’m not, although that reaction makes me wish I could read your mind so I’d know what’s in that pretty little head you don’t want me to know.

  Even hovering above her I could see her flush.

  Kiki: Shut up!

  Me: Listen, do you or do you not want to flip sides and join up with Team Spice?

  Kiki: What about you?

  Me: Us too.

  Kiki: And what if I did?

  Me: I can help make that happen. Is it okay if I loop Tiff in on this conversation?

  Kiki: You can do that too? Well, okay, I suppose.

  Me: Tiff? You’re the next caller on the line, did you have a question to ask our special guest Kiki?

  Tiff: Idiot. Hey Kiki. Wanna pull one over on those Overgeared assholes?

  Kiki: More than anything.

  Tiff: I’m really glad to hear that.

  Me: Me too. Okay, here’s what I was thinking...

  When I finished telling them my plan Kiki asked me if I was crazy, but then I explained the whole fatality factor thing and they agreed to give it a shot.

  The three opposing teams were all in their own areas along the wall, but they weren’t all bunched in one place. Those with the best ranged attacks were along the top of the wall, while the melee-focused ones were on the ground.

  Kiki’s job was to get her team on board with the plan and get them into position while I flew back to the dome. When I got there, Tiff was organizing her team and getting them ready. I kept the telepathic three-way open so Kiki could let us know when she was all set, then it was my turn to share the plan for the next phase with my team.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lianna said, shaking her head vehemently. “I can’t do that!”

  “Of course you can. It’s just like we practiced.”

  “Sure, with the small exception that there will be live people fighting back instead of target dummies standing there waiting to be shot.”

  “If things go as planned, we’ll hit them before they have a chance to fight back so they’ll all be as good as dummies, you know?”

  “And how often do things go as planned?” she said with a huff.

  Up next: Who brings guns to a knife fight?