3

I can't believe my eyes as I enter the tavern. Stools of all shapes and sizes populate the open space and every single one is filled by a character.

A table of heavy-set men laugh and point as Eigen enters.

His face says it is not a problem, but Miaka knows him far too well.

She hangs onto his arm, staring up with giant pleading orbs. 

"Don't kill anyone," she begs. "Please!"

He laughs.

"Oh, I see no need to kill them," he gives me a side glance, a bombastic side-eye.

"I will make sure none of them ever look at you again."

As he says the words they all fall to the floor, grasping at the holes where their eyes had once sat and judged.

"Please fix them," I whisper in hushed tones, trying to stay incognito in a world of men.

But I am the last woman. And I look.... well... different.

I am smaller by several feet. And I am a beauty of standards so high you cannot even fathom my colours. Eyes that glint in every colour and hair of spun silk, gold and silver fall about a frame that would make any supermodel jealous.

The rare few females did indeed reguard her form with thinly disguised envy - their eyes scanning her form for any abnormalities they could pick up on and comment on.

One passed comment on her clothing - another on her eyes.

They were barely even female - so deformed by time and ugly thoughts that they were more dinosaur than human. Lizard Alpha's.

They were the worst.

In the first iteration of the game code they had been the enemies of the wolves - but only the rare few followed the rules these days. And these so-called women seemed determined to exercise that long-lost rite of passage.

Eigen would have slaughtered them on sight if a kind, angellic-looking teen boy had not seen the scene unfold and interjected on their behalf.

"Wow," he commented. "So jealousy does still exist with the dragon women."

This made Eigen laugh so hard that he introduced himself, much to Miaka's dismay.

He invited the younger boy to pull up a log seat and join them.

Obviously, the teen was more than happy to oblige the cooler, older male character.

He poured all three of them a drink and regaled them with his heroic tales as a healer.

"Are healers not a rarity?" EK asked the younger male." I thought I killed you all off in the battle of the stars."

Miaka rolled her eyes.

The battle of the stars was the latest of the patch updates and Eigen loved to brag about it. He had killed off almost all life in the universe in the space of what would have been a blink of an eye - in normal days.

But this was not normal days. These were days when everyone had powers - and those powers were mainly used for evil endeavours by evil men. Men like this heroic young healer.

"I am the last of my kind mate," the teen boasted, ignoring the danger he was in by sharing this information.

"I swapped teams, init?" he said, puffing out his small chest.

His frame was small and angelic looking, but his aura reeked of cruelty. 

He told tales of his exploits, revelling in the glory of the pain he had caused in the name of an old god. A god named technology - the oldest of all the gods.

"I am the technical GOD - he explained - blagging to the real GOD of CODE.

Eigen seemed happy enough to humour the lad, letting him run his mouth without once interrupting.

Until the end.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked, grin widening so far it almost swallowed them whole. He would have, if not for Miaka's pleas.

"Please let him live," she begged the old GOD, trying to save the new.

Eigen paused, closing his giant mouth and reeling in his thick tongue and teeth.

"I won't."