: Gradation of Emergency (2)
“Don’t think you have accomplished much by killing Qiong Qiong Qiong Qiong, only a coward like Cuo Cuo Cuo Cuo would be scared away!” Ai Ai Ai Ai shouted. “Me, Ai Ai Ai Ai is on a completely different level from the two of them…”
“The whole sentence not only does not sound threatening in any way, it is filled with jibes at his allies…” Feng Bujue mumbled.
“This armor that I am wearing is one specially made for me by Prof Sui, compared to one those two wear… they are markedly different.” Ai Ai Ai Ai continued.
“So the difference is only in the armor…” Brother Jue replied, “What is so great about that… can that even be counted as your own ‘ability’? If anything, this is all the prof’s work! And… your armor is ‘custom-made’ because you are so short, isn’t it?”
“Hmph… I know, at this moment, you must be thinking, ‘If the three of us work together, we can still have a chance of defeating an opponent as strong as this one’, right?” Ai Ai Ai Ai continued to say.
“No…” Feng Bujue replied. “I believe Pi Li Dance Hero can handle you on his own just fine. Me and Tap Monster can be his back up dancers or something…” Ai Ai Ai Ai was still caught in his bubble and Brother Jue’s words had no effect on him. “Meh ha ha ha ha… But you have miscalculated! I have brought along the prof’s elite unit with me—IWNBB Mecha Robot Elite Battle Army!”
“What in the world is that…” Brother Jue narrowed his eyes and the urge to mock was already rising.
“For your information, IWNBB stands for I Will Never Be Back.” Ai Ai Ai Ai explained.
“Why not just called it the Terminated army? Even the creator knew this bunch of trash will not live to return, doesn’t he!” Feng Bujue roared.
“Meh ha ha ha… Are you feeling despair already, dumb superheroes?” Ai Ai Ai Ai laughed.
…
“Despair? That is so far from what I am feeling I don’t know what to say. Even I feel there is no hope for you anymore!” Feng Bujue already did not know what kind of expression to face the antagonists on this planet. At this point, one had to explain… even though the general tone of this whole universe is a bit parody-ish, it did not mean that all the aliens had low IQ… Feng Bujue was going through such a maddening journey for now due to the purposeful ‘arrangement’ by the system. After all, this was the first ‘quest’ that he encountered after he entered Free Exploration Mode, naturally the difficulty was going to be suitable for ‘beginners’. So… the enemies were all relatively dumb and it was easy to gain the trust of NPC. Put it like this… for this whole sequence, it would not have mattered if Brother Jue just stood to the side and watch. He could easily reach the next development of the plot and find his next safehouse. Of course, this was not limited to Feng Bujue, all the players of Thriller Paradise would experience something similar when they first entered Free Exploration Mode.
This was because the scenario in this mode was not generated based on the player’s data but based on actual existing multiverse. So the system could not adjust the difficulty according to the individual player, so as compromise… they uniformed the difficulty at least at the beginning. This kind of set up would effectively prevent noobs (even some players at max level could still act like noob) from accidentally stepping on a cockroach which was the pet of a God and was forced to switch to another new universe… that would definitely lead to some complaints.
“Go! IWNBB army!” Ai Ai Ai Ai proudly finished his entrance and then ordered the robots to charge at the superheroes. With his order, the robots activated themselves and marched towards the superheroes. And then…
[Billie_Jean_Is_Not_My_Lover]
[Shes_Just_A_Girl_Who_Claims_That_I_Am_The_One]
[But_The_Kid_Is_Not_My_Son]
The song… started to play. This was Micheal Jackson’s classic, Billie Jean. For some reason… The song skipped most of the bridge but kept on repeating the refrain ‘but the kid is not my son’….
Pi Li Dance Hero got into the groove. He pretended to fling away a hat even though he was not wearing one. But even so, this one motion caused a wave-like energy to knock the robot army over. Then, Pi Li Dance Hero got into some passionate robot breaking dance moves. It was like MJ was reincarnated. The dance movements were authentic, especially the crotch grab… it was strong and powerful. Each grab exploded a grand burst of energy, causing a small radius of explosion.
30 seconds… that was all it took for Prof Sui Sui Sui Sui’s IWNBB Mecha Robot Elite Battle Army (The term elite is being called into question here) to collapse. In the end, on Ai Ai Ai Ai was left, standing in the middle of the street.
“Hmm… You’re stronger than I expected…” Sweat poured down General Ai’s face like waterfall. “But… I believe Prof’s armor will help me defeat you!” There was backing behind his confidence. At least the armor had protected him the fatal attack that took down the rest of the robot army, but…
[But_The_Kid_Is_Not_My_Son!]
With the repetition of the last lyric, Pi Li Dance Hero segued into a moonwalk and his body literally split into shadows of him. Suddenly, he materialized beside Ai Ai Ai Ai, opened his arms, pointed to the side and blasted the enemy into pieces with one blow…
The music stopped and Pi Li Dance hero turned around to ask, “Where were we?’
Feng Bujue gave a long sigh as he walked forward. Tap Monster shrugged and followed. For these three, the massacre was just an interlude in their journey forward…
“We were at Grade B…” Feng Bujue said as he walked. By then he was testing his luck and walked at the front of the group.
“Oh right…” Pi Li Dance Hero added, “Grade B danger means ‘criminal activities that can destroy a whole galaxy’. Naturally USL will have to step in for events of this grade. The standard protocol is… a star-grade or above hero will lead a team to handle this. The team has to be more than 5 people. Other than specific situation like a certain superhero’s power was needed, normally a city-grade hero was not allowed to be a part of Grade B emergencies.” He paused for a few seconds before adding. “Then… it is Grade A events, or ‘great danger that might destroy multiple galaxies’, thankfully this does not happen that often. Based on Earth’s way of time calculation, it occurs in average once every 3 to 5 years.”
[Hey Hey… that is already much too frequent…] Feng Bujue thought to himself. Pi Li Dance Hero was still saying, “To be able to cause that kind of danger normally it is a group made up for many supervillain, or in special cases… where the individual could be someone like Frieza.”
[What… you don’t know the Avengers but you know Frieza?] Feng Bujue gasped in shock.
“Eh~ You’re from Earth right? So you should have read that manga.” Pi Li Dance Hero asked. “Bakira Toriyama’s Dragon Sign is a classic.”
[What in the world is that? Both the author’s name and the manga’s name have been butchered but the character name Frieza is the same?] Even though he had many things to say, Brother Jue still answered evenly on his lips. “Ah… I’ve browsed through some of them.”
“Ha ha… Sorry for leading the topic away.” Pi Li Dance Hero laughed. “In any case, the protocol to deal with Grade A event is normally a team lead by a universe-level superhero and the team will not be less than 10 people; other than specific situation, planet-level and city-level superheroes will not have the right to join.”
“Oh…” Feng Bujue nodded. “By the way, you said there were seven level, but from F to A, there are only 6… or you’re saying…’
“Indeed, there is a Grade S Emergency.” Pi Li Dance Hero confirmed. “Or… a tragedy large enough to cause the wipeout of all intelligent being in the whole universe.” At this point, Tap Monster added, “So far, there has only been one Grade S emergency… it was to deal with that even that the superheroes across the universe cooperated and the aftermath of that was the creation of USL.”
“Indeed.” Pi Li Dance Hero added, “The superheroes that survived that event are the first batch of members for USL’s highest committee.” He paused. “But that is a long story and there are many details that we are not privy to. We will talk about it in the future when we have more time.”
As they conversed, they had covered quite some distance. Soon, the three reached the office building of Ja Ja Ja Ja’s government office.
Lifting their heads to look, this skyscraper was at least 100 floors tall. It was shaped like a Christmas tree and the whole wall shone in the glint of metals. From the perspective of an Earthling, this building could not have been stranger.
By then, Feng Bujue had already abandoned the idea of ‘setting up a plan’. With the two overpowered superheroes beside him, all he needed to do was to follow them. So he suggested. “Then… shall we kick down the door?”