In the shadows [Enigma - Hacker event]

In an instant the entire situation had gone from bad to terrible. Skultone swung the rifle off of his back and fired three shots around the blobby apparition that had absorbed a player and disrupted their code. In a blink of an eye the bullets were linked together with chains that crossed over and weighed down the thing that… appeared to be a player itself. Skultone took the moment to rapidly yell into the administrator frequency for assistance.

“We have someone here disrupting the game’s code! I need someone to alert the higher-ups and the rest of you to get the remaining players out of this zone!” The voices that responded to him were a backdrop as he turned his eyes on the smiling player who had instigated the crisis on hand. Leveling his weapon Skultone loaded the chamber with one of his Infra-Red bullets before speaking with as much authority as he could.

“You will stop what you’re doing and stay still until the area is locked down, you and whoever or whatever is with you.” He cocked the winchester and switched his voice channel to one that would be broadcasted to the entire area.

“This area is experiencing technical difficulties. All players are asked to log off until further notice.” His eyes never left the pair in front of him, every line in his thin body tight and ready for retaliation.

Enigma's smile broadened.  "Kind sir, I have no idea what you mean.  I have not done anything since you told me to turn around."  He looked to his outstretched arms, glancing both ways.  "Do you mean these?"  He dropped his arms to his side.  "Is that better?"

Meanwhile, the chains around the now cube-shaped blob of ooze simply begin flowing through the creature, and it moved away as if nothing had happened, leaving the metal of the chains pockmarked as if they had been burned by acid.  The creature began to move toward where Enigma and Skultone were engaging in their conversation, reaching out with barbed pseudopods as it did so, tagging any players in it's path who were too slow at logging off or dodging out of the way.  Each player touched by the barbed pseudopods found themselves paralyzed and unable to move.

Enigma stared straight at Skultone the whole time this was going on, his eyes locked on the Skultone's.  The tyedye man hrmed as he looked at Skultone.  "As fun as this conversation has been, I have lots to do today."  He chuckled with his gravely voice.  "And you know what they say,  Many hands make light work."  At that Enigma stepped away from himself, and then again, and again.  In droves, copies of his avatar split away from the figure standing in front of Skultone and scattered around the area.

“There’s another situation in Requiem, sir! A hacker has summoned- something!” The voice yelling on his private line made Skultone glower, the realization that he probably wasn’t going to get much backup becoming clear as the other voice of his security team chimed in.

“It’s not in the database, how on earth?”

“We need people to get over here fast, it’s destroying the fairgrounds and attacking players!”

Swearing, Skultone watched the shining blob break free of it’s bindings and continue on it’s slow rampage.

“Contact the internal coding and data management department. Go to Requiem and help there.” His tired voice snapped through the panic, shooting the blob with a high powered round before swearing again when the presumed hacker in front of him split apart after a cheerful jab at the security officer.

“Get someone to shut down the affected servers if you can’t get these things under control!” He switched to his administration controls hastily and went to ban the player. Only to come up against an error code no matter which avatar of him he selected. As if the player had hidden himself in plain view. All he could do was switch to a new form of bullet, this one scattering into a wide range of metal shards that struck many of the copies. He reloaded and fired a normal bullet directly at the swirling stranger that was grinning with a horrific wide smile.

The high-powered rifle shot into the ooze seemed to do nothing. It shifted its trajectory randomly on it's path through the mostly transparent creature, leaving the other side with only enough force to fall harmlessly on the ground.

Most of the players were succeeding in getting out of the creature's way. Even most of the paralyzed players were left alone and still had the option to log out, as the paralysis seemed to mostly only effect the avatar in the game world. Oddly enough, those that did manage to log out, continued to feel the effects of the paralysis long after breaking free of the game world.

Those that stayed in the creature's path though, much like Samael, were instead consumed. Their code broken apart, and the ooze seemed to grow bigger with each avatar that it ate. It was however moving fairly slowly, allowing players much time to get out of it's pathway. One lazy pseudopod lashed out in Samael's direction, more to test if he was paying attention than to try to attack him.

Meanwhile, Skultone's scattershot had taken out a number of the copies. The dedicated shot to the figure standing directly in front of him made it disappear though, revealing that the real Enigma had run away with the other copies. Those that had already been created had run in all directions and were now on all sides of the administrator, mixing in with the crowds of players and NPCs that were still in the area and making it all but impossible to target them all with just a single or even a couple of shots. Worse, mixing in with the players, any area of effect weapon used on them would also hit those players still in the zone.

While each copy of the tiedye man moved around harrassing the players, one of the identical figures had removed a color swirling sword from the cane he carried around and was using it to attack the players who were still in the zone. Each slash of the thin blade left a trail of tiedye blood in its wake on the avatars he attacked.

The entire world around Skultone was chaos. Players screaming over public channels, his team struggling at the second site and to usher out people from the path of destruction the oozing blob of colors, and the haphazard destruction caused by malfunctioning NPC ai.

He hadn't heard anything from the people in charge of server maintenance nor anything from anyone in a position higher than his own. Instead it was as if he had been left to deal with a situation that he had no way of controlling. All of these thoughts flashed through the security officer's mind in a blink, before he saw the blob reaching out to attempt to seize and corrupt the blond player. And if he did that, Samael might slip through the cracks and he'd never be able to deal with the possible harassment and abuse he had been trying to ascertain.

Before he could think it over he was moving, running towards the crouched blond and grabbing him around the waist and pulling him away from the danger the unknown creature represented. Once he was a safe distance away from it Skultone pushed with care, shoving Samael away from him. “You need to leave the area or log out, it’s dangerous here.” His eyes flickered to Samael’s for one breath before he was away, pushing past more people and switching his voice channel back to a broadcast setting.

“All players are to disconnect from the game immediately.”

For all his voice brooked no nonsense there were plenty of people on perches and buildings watching the chaos and using it to their advantage. But these were petty issues that paled when compared to the unknown damage the rainbow-hued user and his blob were causing. Taking a breath to survey the carnage he saw the copies harassing the remaining players as they tried to flee, and then-

There! A flash of polished metal as a thin blade sang through the air to cut into a running goblin player that wasn’t fast enough. There were too many people for Skultone to take a sniping shot, too many targets he could accidentally hit…

“Damn!” He still lined up his shot, hesitation keeping him from pulling the trigger just yet.

For a moment Samael could not move. Could not decide which direction he should move, or if he should move at all. The lazy motion of the black and tie-dye creature was headed right for him, and he was stalled in place. Then suddenly the administrator was there. The rail thin man with his face mask and metal arm wrapped firmly around Samael's waist; pulling him to safety.

Briefly their eyes met and Samael tried to think of something witty to say, but for the first time his mind came up blank. Instead the other man spoke for him, gently spoken words that were nonetheless an order that he could easily take to heart. Samael's fingers slid over Skultone's flesh and bone arm for a moment, holding on for just a second longer to the safety he provided thoughtlessly and then nodded. "Thank you."

With that Skultone was gone, ordering everyone offline and Samael took only a second longer to watch the man. Wondering if he knew the confidence that was in every line of his body. Samael smiled softly, and with that simply logged off - as so many others around him were doing. It was as if Skultone's firm words were the galvanizing force that the players needed to finally do what they probably should have been doing all along.

Player logged off.

Samael had not been the intended target, and was instead just in the way.  As such, the ooze creature just continued on in the same direction when the prey was drug out of the way, but only for a handful of feet.  It stopped, still lashing out at nearby players with pseudopods if they strayed too close, but the number of players logged on was definitely beginning to dwindle.

As Skultone watched the technicolor man in his crosshairs, the man's posture suddenly straightened.  He sheathed the sword cane amidst the chaos as his copies ran amok among the crowd.  He began looking around the area as if searching for something.  He reached behind a kiosk that was set close to a storefront and pulled out a young looking avatar from behind.

The avatar was in tears and was blubbering something about just having gotten the game and didn't know how to log out.  Enigma knelt down by the new player, somehow placing the new player between himself and Skultone. The gravely voice spoke again, but this time it was back to the cheery pre-chaos self.  "Oh, tis but a trifle.  You simply bring up the menu by..." step by step and with cheer in his voice, the swirling man took the newbie through the steps to log out, ending with a "Don't let today's event scare you away, it really is the best game out there."

After the new player logged out, Enigma looked up, scanning the crowd for his pet, and instead locked eyes with the gunman.  "Oh shit!"  He began running in a tangent to Skultone.  "JellyBaby!"  With that one word, the ooze began to move again, heading on an intercept course for it's master.

Stop hesitating, line up your shot and fire.

The command rolled through Skultone’s mind as he watched the chaos unfolding before him. So many more people had logged out, a visually disorienting swirl of colors popping out of existence.

He fired, removing a copy from harassing several small players that were trying to get around it, the technicolored clone scooting into their path every time they moved in a different direction. They looked around in cautious relief before bolting towards the event’s exit and vanishing. Apparently not everyone was willing to exit the game despite the apparent threat to their characters.

Line up the shot and fire.

Another gone, and he felt the sureness in his hands as he turned his eyes on what he knew was the actual hacker (because what else would this person be, if not someone who was manipulating some unprotected point in the game’s code for their own end?) and readyed his shot.

And now he was shielded, a user still in starting zone gear keeping Skultone from sniping the swirling man. He swore and kept his body ready for the shot, eyes hard and locked on to where he knew the hacker’s head would be. And waited. And waited.

The new player popped out of existence and Skultone pulled the trigger, his aim off by only a hair so that the bullet lodged into the ground next to his target. Their eyes met and he saw the way the hacker swore, saw him move and begin to run towards him instead of away.

"JellyBaby!"

Skultone fired a second shot and missed, swearing again when he realized the oozing blob was heading in a collision course for it’s master and that would absolutely keep him safe from Skultone’s attacks.

So he grit his teeth and fired another shot.