The Final Season

This is not how I thought it would end...

"Get down Happy!" I pulled one of the scouts to the ground as a thin beam of energy nearly took his head off.

He dusted himself off, and I helped him up. "Thanks, Ronan."

Originally, I had thought that everything would end with me being carried in the pocket of some of our strongest warriors. I thought that humanity's strongest heroes would clear season five for me, and all I had to do was hang around for the ride and survive. This was supposed to be a simple scouting mission, but somewhere down the line, everything just turned sour. We were on the last season, ready to put everything behind us.

"Haley, catch!" I tossed Haley, one of our scout team's mages, a smoke bomb. She immediately detonated it to get away from a group of Shadowspawn converging on her.

Humanity was finally able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I won't be there in the end. We, along with over a hundred other worlds, were competing with our lives on the line in a series of games that were meant to be a source of entertainment for some fucked-up gods. 

"Watch it!" I dove for cover as someone threw an energy coated spear that missed its target and flew in my direction. Thankfully, my agility was master-tier; otherwise, I would have gotten impaled by the advanced spear energy.

"Sorry, Ro-!" I turned just in time to watch the scout get shredded by another Shadowspawn. 

I surveyed the battlefield and watched as dozens of Shadowspawn tore apart my scouting party. Think of Shadowspawn as some weird amalgamation of a scary demon-like shadow monster and any random kind of weird alien creature that just so happened to be unfortunate enough to die to one. This meant one of several things. The first was that there were literally thousands of weird combinations that could make up the monsters that lived on this layer, which was a very bad thing. The second was that any one of my friends could end up as one of these Shadowspawn, and I would very much not like to be the one to have to deal with Tank.

I looked over at the huge, boulder-sized Russian man who everyone called Tank. He had focused on maximizing his vitality and had a trait that converted his vitality stat into damage, which made him the strongest member of our scouting force at the moment. He was currently engaged in combat with a Shadowspawn twice his size that was shooting laser beams out of its eyes at him. Literal laser beams out of its fucking eyes. I took a deep breath and tried my best to calm my nerves, but the situation was not looking good.

"Shit, this is bad."

I turned to face a large human-sized praying mantis-shaped Shadowspawn. It had all the characteristics of a Shadowspawn, which included the thick black hide that blocked most non-energy-based weapon attacks, along with deep red eyes that looked as though they were cutting through you at a glance. An ominous smoky aura seeped out of the skin from all over these monsters, which made them look unreal, as if they were over-the-top hyper-realistic movie props.

The mantis was about 5 meters from me, and it took several seconds just looking at me before it made a strike. It lifted one of its meter-long blades up above its head and made a vertical slash, causing a blade of shadow energy to fly at me at a speed that would overtake modern firearms. I let my body fall backwards as I brought my sword up out of its sheath. I angled the blade to deflect the shadow energy upward and used the force of the momentum to push myself backwards. With the added momentum, I did a really cool backflip, which under any other circumstance I would have been very proud of if it weren't for the fact that my life was literally going to be snuffed out by dozens of Shadowspawn. The thought that my body would just end up being used as a puppet to go attack and kill all my friends back at the main camp wasn't helping either.

I activated my sword energy, causing a rich, dark red glow to cover my weapon. I pointed it at the mantis and activated my Flash Step to appear behind it. "Goodbye bug."

I thrust my sword into the back of the mantis' neck with the blade pointed vertically. Once I felt the sword pierce all the way through, I used all my strength to pull the sword upwards, splitting the head in half. A burst of dark green ichor and the remains of what I could only assume were that creature's brain splattered everywhere. A familiar blue screen popped up in my vision, notifying me that the Shadowspawn had been slain.

Notification

You have slain a Lesser Shadowspawn, Level 86!

Experience +21,240

I looked horrified once I saw the notification pop up. "Wait... No..."

I looked around and realized for the first time that this was a group of Lesser Shadowspawn. These were the bottom of the barrel here in the Shadowed Abyss, the absolute lowest tier of monster that we would be facing here. While contemplating this, I heard a shout that was growing in intensity at a worrying pace. I turned my head to see my best friend, Punisher, flying through the air directly at me. "You've got to be..."

We collided, and there were sounds of snapping, crunching, flying debris, and the occasional cursing as we tumbled together. Punisher's real name was Joseph Young, but I just called him Punisher because that was his gamertag that I knew him by back when I first met him in college. We were both attending the same community college and had joined the same gaming club. He was a few years older than me because he was just getting out of the military at the time, but we hit it off well after a couple nights of duoing lanes together in League of Mythos.

Being a military guy, he used guns even though they did not grant any particular advantage in our fights with magical space shadows that ate and mimicked alien creatures. As if the universe itself rewarded him for sticking to what he was best at, Punisher had acquired skills that made guns actually useful when he was using them.

I stood up and dusted off my armor. A cloud of dust kicked up from our impact, which momentarily obscured the area. "Dude, you got me all dirty; I need to look good when we meet our inevitable doom."

Punisher tried to laugh but instead coughed up a chunk of dirt that had found its way into his mouth during our collision. "Damn, that was rough. Hey, I have some good news and some bad news, bud."

The dust began to settle as I looked at him inquisitively. "Damn, what's the good news?"

"You broke my fall, thanks." Punisher looked at me with a straight face; I could tell he was trying his best not to laugh. We looked at each other for a good couple seconds before we both burst out laughing.

"Okay, ass hat, what's the bad news?"

The dust settled, so I looked around and saw that Punisher and I were the only ones left. He turned to me and smiled sheepishly. "We're the last ones left of the scouting party. I know that because Tank was the one who threw me at you so violently."

Punisher pointed over at the newly shadowed version of our beloved Tank. He appeared larger than before, and his new shadowy aura made me almost piss myself in fear. Although I was scared, something felt off about the way the Shadowspawn were acting. They were not approaching us or attacking. I looked over at Punisher and saw that he had noticed it as well.

"Hey Pun, why are they just standing there?"

Punisher looked over at me and whispered, "...menacingly."

We looked at each other again, and we both laughed. Apparently, knowing that you're about to die and that there is nothing you can do to save yourself is best experienced with a friend. Once we finished laughing, as if on cue, we both felt an energy that we hadn't expected to feel. I don't know what Punisher felt, but for me, the energy brought back memories of someone I did not want to see ever again. 

"Punisher, you feel that?"

Punisher nodded, reloaded his assault rifle, and turned around, already aiming down the sights. I turned around at the same time, sword in hand and already emitting dark red sword energy. A familiar human-shaped figure emerged from the shadows, slowly becoming more visible as it approached us.

Standing before us was a man in a tan suit covered by a dark brown trench coat. He was handsome, probably in his mid-thirties, and had brown hair and glowing red eyes. He reached up, removed his silver-framed glasses, and began to clean them with a cloth he pulled out of one of his trench coat pockets. "Hello there boys, how have you been doing?"

Punisher glared at the man. "Doing pretty shitty now that you're here, doc."

The moment he finished responding, Punisher's assault rifle glowed with a dark purple energy as he opened fire on the doctor. Streams of dark purple bullet-shaped energy flew towards his target, who made no effort to dodge or block them. Immediately, the Shadowspawn that had once been Tank threw himself in the way of Punisher's attack, sacrificing himself to block every shot.

In support of my friend, I rushed towards Tank and slid underneath his legs to bring myself closer to the doctor, only to find that he was no longer standing there. I turned and saw the doctor already standing next to Punisher with his hand dug into Punisher's chest.

"No!"

I tried to rush back, but it was already too late. The doctor pivoted and made a diagonal strike with his other hand at Punisher's neck. I heard a loud snap as I watched my friend's body hang limp, supported only by the hand that the doctor had dug into his chest. I fell to my knees at the sight, feeling completely defeated. The man who just killed my best friend was Doctor Victor Trauss, a man responsible for an unspeakable number of deaths. He had almost singlehandedly slaughtered half of humanity's players before we got to the final season. He was responsible for the plague that swept across the Verdant Abyss, a monster horde that appeared in the Frozen Expanse, the apocalyptic eruption during the Volcanic Desolation, and the fall of the main floating island during the Ethereal Enclave. This man was a calamity that had turned every season humanity competed into a literal hell, and somehow he had survived and made it to the final season.

I looked up at the doctor with tears streaming down my face. "You're supposed to be dead..."

Doctor Victor waved his hand, and I lost the feeling in my body. I was no longer able to feel my arms or legs, or even move them. I tried to turn my head and felt a sliding motion from my neck as my head slipped off of my body and fell to the ground, followed a second later by my body. It was at this moment that I saw a notification pop up, but my vision had already blurred, and I couldn't view its contents. The only thing keeping me somewhat alive right now was my vitality stat, but even 124 points could only keep me alive as just a head for so long. I looked up at Doctor Trauss, unable to do anything but listen.

He smiled condescendingly as he walked over to me and crouched down. "I don't have the time to explain how I survived, but I'll put it plainly for you. I am no longer considered a human fighting for the sake of humanity in the games. I already killed your friends in the camp. In fact, you, as this disembodied head, are the last remaining human in this season of the games. Once you close your eyes, the gods will destroy all of humanity. It is pitiful that Earth's last remaining hope is a head, providing what? Thirty seconds left of life for the remaining eight billion humans sitting on the sidelines as you suffer?"

I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I mouthed the words, Fuck you, and conserved what little strength I had left to stay alive for even a few seconds longer. What I really wanted to do was punch Doctor Trauss in his perfect jaw, but I can't do that when I don't have a body anymore, so I just glared at him.

The doctor stood up and pushed his glasses up with one hand. "I killed so many of you because only the strong survive. The weak only left openings in the armor provided by the strong; I was thinning the crowd so we could survive. Your champions died by my hands back at that camp; they tried their best. Perhaps in another timeline, if they did not kill me in the last season, I could have fought alongside them during this season, and we could have saved humanity. But alas..."

I felt my vision fade, and everything began to go black as I heard Doctor Trauss' last words.

"No one gets a second chance."

With my vision fading, I had one final thought.

I wish I had a second chance.