Further south, near where the group first started, a slim man with a large head, standing five feet seven inches tall, almost bald with a light brown goatee, stood surrounded by a group of bikers. He was wearing light leather armor and two katanas. One of the katanas glowed white, while the other was covered in black mist.

  "I'm warning you guys, this will not be fun for you. I'll give you a chance to walk away now with your lives," Parker said.

  "Shut up, puny man," the six-foot-seven-inch Neanderthal of a man grunted, holding two hand axes.

  "Yeah, what he said. Haha, give us your swords, and we will let you live," said another man with long blonde hair, standing nearly seven feet tall and holding a two handed ax. The rest of the guys started laughing, following what their comrade had just said.

  "I find that hard to believe," Parker continued.

  The guy just grinned and nodded with a wicked, sick look on his face.

  "Okay, I warned you," Parker said with a smirk.

  Two men charged from behind, their weapons—a great sword and a short sword—held high, swinging towards Parker. Parker, the swordsman, spun around, aiming both of his swords for their necks. A second later, two heads rolled on the ground while two bodies fell behind him.

  "See, this all could have been avoided…" Parker proclaimed.

  Two more men moved from each side, with one coming in directly behind him, interrupting while he spoke. With a sigh, Parker backflipped high in the air over the guy to the rear and crossed both blades like scissors, taking the guy's head off as he landed behind him. Parker pivoted to the right and spun around low, tripping the guy on the right. Then, he cartwheeled towards the guy on the left. In mid-cartwheel, he pulled his knees to his chest, went low, and shoved his hands so hard into the ground that it left imprints of his swords and fists, fully kicking up into the guy's chest and knocking him back off his feet.

  Parker landed in a crouched position, one sword sunk into the guy's chest, the other blade pointing towards the tripped biker getting up from the ground. The biker finally got to his feet and came running once more, not learning his lesson the first time. Parker pulled his blade out and rolled backward to then do another leg sweep.

  The biker fell to the ground with a loud thud as Parker lunged forward with both swords in front of him, piercing the armor and hitting both lungs of the now-sitting-up biker.

  Parker stood up, cleaned both blades, and sheathed them.

  "You said you wanted my swords, right? Well, come get them," Parker said with a cheeky smile, holding the hilt and sheaths at his right side.

  The last guy stopped for a second, looking as if he was in thought, before he charged. "For the Guild!" he yelled, a two handed ax held high above.

  “I guess they never learn.” Parker laughed.

  Parker shot forward, staying low, unsheathing his sword but spinning it in his hand to hit the chest with the backside of the blade. "See, you could be dead right now," Parker declared.

  The large guy looked down to see no damage on his chest and roared with anger. Parker decided to put his blade away and deal with the biker with his bare hands. He motioned for the biker to come towards him like Bruce Lee and danced back and forth. "Let's cue the music," Parker said while humming the theme song of Reptile from that Mortal Kombat movie.

  The biker smacked his head a few times and bolted forward once more. This time, he held his ax low and pulled it at an upward angle. Of course, Parker dodged to the side and threw a roundhouse kick to the backside of the biker, throwing him off balance and sending him running into a tree stump. Looking a little staggered after hitting his head on the tree, the biker got to his feet and turned around to attack again.

  Parker danced around in front of him, waiting for the right moment to strike. The ax came down directly at him but missed as Parker sidestepped and threw a hidden kick to the head. By "hidden kick," using his right hand to block the view of his right leg, and at the last moment, the leg came up over his hand and knocked the guy square in the chin. But he didn't finish there. As he brought his foot back down, Parker used an axe kick to disarm the big fella, kicking the hands hard while the biker fell backward to the ground with a loud thump.

  "Time to stop playing around and get serious," Parker said. He got on top of the biker and hit a few pressure points, and the biker began to suffocate and convulse in front of him.

  "Okay, now you can come out, Nile Batten's," Parker said.

  "Heh heh heh, Bravo, bravo, such a spectacular show you put on there, Parker," Nile said while walking out from behind a large tree. Nile was a short man, even shorter than Parker, standing at five feet four inches with gray, combed-over hair.

  "Thank you, The Great Dildo Battens. See, that's how it's done," Parker said while taking a bow.

  "Heh heh, you're too kind," Nile replied as he magically pulled out an item "we won't speak of" out of nowhere, then made it disappear, taking a bow.

  "Let's do a quick loot and be on our way before the rest of them show up," Parker said.

  "Aye aye, captain," Nile agreed.

  Scott floated up to the roof and stared at a beast chained and beaten, covered in blood. He took a step forward and lowered himself onto the castle roof into a crouched position. "You must be Atlar Sharptooth, or what's left of him," Scott said.

  The massive dire wolf slowly turned his head and growled a little before sniffing the air. "Master?" Atlar grumbled.

  "I'm not sure who your master is, but I can assure you I'm not it," Scott said growled.

  "You smell like my master, or father. He went by many names," Atlar continued.

  "Okay, I'll bite (pun intended), what is your so-called master's name?" Scott growled.

  "Oh, he went by the name Scott—at least that's what Mama called him. I was once called Diesel," Atlar growled.

  "Puppies! I've missed you!" Scott exclaimed with a huge smile. Atlar began wagging his tail and whimpered a little.

  "Okay, let's get you out of these chains and heal up," Scott said with tears running down his face.

  Scott walked over and bent all the chains one by one until each one broke. He pulled out a healing potion to give to the once-Pitbull, now massive dire wolf, known as Atlar.

  Just as Scott was about to give him the potion, a paper bird came flying in. Atlar turned and growled at the bird, crouching down next to Scott, ready to pounce. "Hold on, Atlar, I believe this is David's pet," Scott said while petting him under his chin.

  Atlar backed down and enjoyed his pets, and the bird landed in front of Scott before opening up before them. The paper said "Find Scott." "Well, that's simple enough, you found me. Now find your master and bring him to me," Scott commanded.

  Scott gave the potion to Atlar and sat on the roof for about twenty minutes until an owl flew up to the roof and landed on the wall in front of them.

  Like before, Atlar began to growl and paced back and forth in front of Scott. "Stop it, Atlar, sit," Scott commanded once more.

  "There you are! I've been looking all over for you, and who is this?" David asked.

  "It's my pup, Diesel, well now known as Atlar." Scott said with a smile while scratching his sweet spot on his side.

  "Ha ha, You're fucking with me, aren't you?" David asked.

  "Nope, it's him alright. He goes by the name Atlar now, and he is also the Alpha we were looking for. Oh, and could you heal us both up?" Scott asked.

  They shared with each other what had happened to their comrades and figured out that Rick and Anthony were stuck in the shadows below on the wall. They decided to heal up and get them first. Hours passed as they healed, ate, and rested, with nobody bothering them.

  Scott thought for sure they would have had a guard come up there by now, but he believed the place was on lockdown, looking for them below. David and Scott devised a plan and descended down the castle wall to the last location Scott saw the rogues. The idea was for Scott to distract the guards while David opened up the shadows to let them out. At least they hoped Rick and Anthony were still there and alive.

  Once down on the wall, Scott couldn't see any guards outside, and the bodies were now gone. "They must be on lockdown," he said to David. He snuck around the corner, letting David do his thing, and still found nothing outside. “This is too easy,” Scott thought. “I wonder if this is a trap, or maybe they are inside getting ready to eat the rest of our crew or something.” A few minutes passed, and using his mana, David put the tower back together piece by piece. He even grew vines to hold it together, and moments later, both Rick and Anthony appeared with daggers drawn.

  "Welcome back," Scott whispered. "The rest of the crew is in need of our help, and we need to get to the roof above to infiltrate the castle."

  "Why not go through the tower doors?" Rick asked, pointing at the doors in front of them.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "Well, because we have another Dire wolf that is going to aid us in getting the crew back together," Scott said with a smile.

  They filled Rick and Anthony in on Diesel/Atlar and the current status of the crew, then went back up to meet with Atlar. Once on top, they found Atlar sitting there waiting, staring at the hatch below, waiting for a giant to come out.

  The guys greeted Atlar, and they all gave him a good pet before heading down into the castle.

  They jimmied the hatch open and descended into the first room. This room was covered in ice, making it hard to walk. Multiple beds lay all around, with a few Ice Giants sleeping near them. Each of them took out an Ice Giant without any issue and headed for the door. "You two want to shadow jump around this door and see what's on the other side?" Scott whispered.

  The rogues, Anthony and Rick, jumped through the shadows and back again. "Clear," Rick said.

  "I do believe there are more Ice Giants down the hall, and this place is lit by blue sconces all around, giving off a cold flame," Anthony reported.

  "Okay, stay in the shadows; we'll deal with the giants. If we need you, we'll call out 'pumpernickel'," Scott said.

  "Why 'pumpernickel'? That just seems lame. How about a bird call or something, or maybe a howl like a wolf?" David whispered.

  "Okay, does a howl work for you guys?" Scott whispered.

  Everyone nodded, even Atlar, and they got moving. Once through the door, they stealthed their way through the hall and around the corner.

  Two giants stood there near the stairs, guarding who knows what? Maybe the sleeping quarters. They would have to deal with them before making their way deeper into the castle.

  David transformed into his Owlbear form, and Scott went into his Beast form. Each of them snuck up to the guards, not making a sound, until Atlar ran forward past them and attacked the guard to the right. “Maybe he has some beef with that one, I don't know?” But Scott and David ended up running up to the one on the left.

  By the time they reached the doorway, Atlar had pulled one of the giants down, and the other giant swung at him with a great axe. Scott ran and jumped through the air, knocking into the giant's side like a boulder, making his body heavier to 250%. Let me tell you, it felt crazy until he hit the giant. The giant was hit so hard that they both went tumbling down the stairs, with Scott standing on top of him like he was surfing and the giant was a surfboard. The problem was, when he hit the giant, Scott could feel every part of his body bruised, and he could barely hold himself up from the sheer weight. “If I went to a higher percentage, I think my body would break from the pressure. Let's see if I can go higher. (Activate 251%).” He got a message from the system and checked it. “Yeah, probably not a good time for this, but I'm dying to know.”

  **System Error Can't exceed -250% to 250%**

  "Okay, system, thank you for that update," Scott thought.

  **Your welcome Scott**

  “Oh shit, did the system just respond to me?” Scott mused. “I didn't know that I could communicate with the system. I thought this was like a computer program that only tells me information. This is an all-new thing; I really need to tell the crew later about this.” Another system message popped up.

  **Your in a fight Scott get with the program and kick some butt**

  At that point, they were almost down to the bottom of the stairs, or rather, the halfway point where there was a landing that turned and went down a ton more stairs. They hit the wall with a big boom that shook the castle a little more than Scott wanted, guessing it would alert more giants. The good news was that the giant beneath him had exploded. The bad news was that Scott hit the wall super hard, nearly knocking his shoulder out of place. He lowered his gravity to 10%, making it easy to get back up the stairs with a few jumps, and rejoined the battle. Both David and Atlar had the giant crawling away; both of its legs beneath the knees were now torn off, and a streak of blood lay behind it.

  Atlar lunged forward and got a hold of the giant's neck, tearing it up. By "tore it up," Scott meant he separated the head from the shoulders and spat it out on the floor. “Boy, am I glad he is on our side.”

  One moment they were dealing with one giant, then the castle started to rumble as footsteps rang loudly from down the stairs. David was already ready, and Scott decided to go all out because he knew this was going to be a big battle. Which was good for XP, but bad for maybe dying in the midst of the chaos that was coming.

  They were already at the top of the stairs, waiting for the horde of giants, until the rumbling stopped. Scott looked down and noticed a few figures looking at the corpse on the landing below. They turned, looked up the stairs, and said some command word—at least that's what Scott was guessing, because he still couldn't understand a word they were saying—as multiple Ice Drakes came running up the stairs. Scott pulled out his bow and began shooting down the stairs as roots came out of the rocks, capturing the drakes inside them.

  "Looks like your vines actually work now," Scott said to David while shooting more arrows down the stairs.

  "Yep, I got an upgrade, and that should hold for a moment—" David was interrupted as the drakes broke through and continued rushing up the stairs, nearly knocking each other over trying to get to them.

  Scott released all his arrows, finally taking out the first drake in front, making it more difficult for the rest of them to get past. David pulled out a potion of orange substance and hurled it down on top of them, setting the stairs and everything around them on fire. Multiple drakes died in the process, running through the fire and burning alive in front of them. An Ice Giant from behind waved his axe so hard that it blew the fire away, revealing all of the corpses below, and stepped over the now dead drakes.

  "Hey David, do you have any more of those fine fire elixirs?" Scott asked.

  "Nope, only had one," David replied with a disappointed tone.

  "Well, fuck, I guess we do this the old-fashioned way," Scott said while putting the bow away and pulling out his two short swords to play.

  Scott ran down the stairs headstrong and met the Ice Giant partway down. The giant swung not one but two axes down in front of him as Scott dodged to the right side and attacked his hand, attempting to get him to lose his grip. The giant let go of the right ax and went for a backhand.

  Scott lifted both of his blades and pointed them at the incoming hand. Both blades sunk into the hand, but the giant didn't stop there. Scott figured two swords to the hand would make him pull back, but no, of course not. The giant slammed Scott into the wall, knocking the breath out of him and pinning him there. He began to push back and turned his head just in time to see Atlar flying through the air for the giant's face, catching the giant off guard. At that point, the giant pulled his hand back to block Atlar, setting Scott free, and both of them went tumbling down the stairs from the massive impact of a 1000 lbs. Dire Wolf Alpha hitting the giant's chest.

  “Man, that reminds me of one time I was sitting on the couch and Diesel/Atlar got the zoomies, and he was running around like a hotrod with his butt down. Next thing I saw was him running towards me, jumping up and flying in mid-air to slam into my chest. At that time he was only 55 lbs., but if you've ever felt that before, it takes your breath away, and not in a good way. Anyway, back to the fight.”

  David flew down the stairwell freakishly fast as a hawk, flying up and over Atlar, who appeared to have the Ice Giant's forearm in his mouth. Then David transformed into the Owlbear and smashed into the Ice Giant behind. Scott joined in and attacked the same giant Atlar was gripping, biting into the Ice Giant's neck. He might as well get a bit of healing and the extra boost while draining the energy out of him.

  Once the giant died, Atlar and Scott moved forward to help out David, who was now fighting two Ice Giants, literally holding both of their weapons in each claw as the giants tried to crush him. Scott slid in down past the right side while Atlar attacked the giant on the left side. As soon as Scott got behind the two, he found three more Ice Giants lurking behind them.

  "Okay, time for some close-quarters combat. Cue the music: 'Eye of the Tiger'!" Scott said out loud, while the song played in his head. “I don't know a lot of people that can hear music like me, but I can literally hear the song in my head playing while I dance around these giants. Each short sword, hand ax, and spear came by as I'm running like Captain Jack Sparrow, flipping in the air like a turtle of the ninja kind, and rolling like a certain blue hedgehog.”

  Scott got the bright idea to move up close to the giants David and Atlar were fighting, and he managed to get the giants in front of him to attack the ones behind him. Every time they missed was a gash, stab, and slash into the back of the giants, taking both of them down in the process. Scott jumped up and over the three as the two hit the ground right where he stood, landing back on the platform where the Ice Giant's head had exploded. At that point, he could see down the stairs, and he noticed tons more coming up.

  Scott attacked the giant in the back that was turning around with the spear. As it turned, he cut into one of its Achilles tendons through the leather boot, making it fall back toward him. The giant managed to stop its fall using the spear, and of course, Scott wasn't going to have that. He jump-kicked the spear so hard that it flew out from underneath, and the giant fell flat on its face. Scott climbed on top of it and shoved both blades into the back of its neck, taking this one out.

  "Can I borrow your spear?" Scott asked the dead Ice Giant as he sheathed both swords and grabbed the spear. Since, of course, he knew the last Ice Giant wouldn't be needing it, he took aim, making his body heavier at the last second as he launched the spear down the stairs. It gained such extra momentum and speed that it impaled three giants together, sending them tumbling back down the stairs in a domino effect, taking down a ton more giants in the process.

  Scott began running down the stairs, howling to see both Anthony and Rick jumping out of the shadows, stabbing the giants' legs and ankles, then jumping back into the shadows once more. Once he reached the few that managed to get past the rogues, he slid down below the giants on the stone stairs and spun around like a turtle in a shell with both blades out, slashing into the three Ice Giants' ankles and legs. The two behind him brought up shields to block, forming a wall. As Scott met the shields, he planted both of his feet onto their front to jump back towards the guy in front, plunging both swords hilts-deep into the back of the Ice Giant, making it stagger and fall backward. Scott used the momentum of the fall to push off and swan dive up and over the shields, like the infamous circus boy Bat, through the small gap in the shields to get behind them, hitting yet another Ice Giant hidden behind the shielded giants.

  Like a ninja, Scott pushed off the giant and jumped for the wall, howling. He saw both of the shielded giants take blows to their legs from the shadows, forcing them to drop their shields and attack the threats below. Scott leaped back and forth like the little green guy battling a super bad evil lord with laser swords, off the walls, slashing for the giant's face. He managed to cut one of the giants' right eye, blinding it on that side. The giant began to freak out and spun around, looking for Scott, but couldn't find him because Scott had jumped up above its head and hovered just out of sight. Just as the giant thought he was gone and began to take a step, Scott dropped down and sank both of his blades into the back of its spine, severing the connection from its brain to its body, making it crumble to the steps like a puppet who lost its strings.

  Both of the Ice Giants spun around to find Scott standing behind them. One of them shield-bashed him further down the stairwell until he landed near the bottom. Scott spun around to find two Ice Drakes running down the hall toward him. "Well, fuck, this just keeps getting better," he said out of frustration. He needed more mana because he was starting to get low.

  Both of the drakes lunged at him, flying through the air as Scott dove between them and spread his arms like wings, gashing both of their sides. Then a problem arose: his sword got lodged behind one of the drakes' legs. Once he landed on the ground, Scott spun around to go after the drake, which was now limping and trying to get his sword out of its side. Meanwhile, the other drake spun around and began its breath attack down the hall toward him, trying to protect its comrade. Scott ran toward the drake with his sword in it and added a layer of mana surrounding him. He ran up and across the wall through the Ice Drake's breath to try and get to the other side.

  Two things happened. For a moment, his mana shield froze, forcing him to slow down and drop right in front of the drake. “Man, this drake is about to make me its meal.” All of his muscles were ice cold, and it took a lot out of him just to move. Every step felt like he was walking through a pile of deep quicksand as his feet began to freeze to the floor.

  Once the drake stopped and the area cleared up, it stared at Scott, waiting to see what he would do. As soon as it realized he was frozen, it lunged for his head. That's when Scott's life flashed before his eyes. “Well, at least I have died amidst a great fight against some crazy foes.” He had thought for sure his body could handle the cold, but he guessed he had just overestimated the power of an Ice Drake’s breath. Seeing the drake move in slow motion as its jaws spread wide, about to wrap around his head, was utterly surreal. Scott closed his eyes and accepted his fate.