Johnny's game

Johnny Storm, took the brief moment of calm from the battle he was in had allowed for and used it to look around at his surroundings.

Even in the chaos, he had to admit that he couldn't believe just how truly beautiful the countryside he was in truly was.

Granted, at the moment, he was in a virtual reality video game, but the fact that it all felt real enough to him was more than enough to astonish him.

Unfortunately for him, the calm was quickly broken through by his current opponents.

He (and his companion, Lustae) were running though a countryside, in a fight with a large (and rather fragile) army of skeletons.

"Is this really the best that whoever is in charge can send after us?" He asked Lustae and he took out a chunk of those skeletons.

"Probably just a warning shot from them, so you might as well use this as an excuse to have some fun." Came the response,he knew she was right and that Johnny was starting out with some light work and that things would soon ramp up.

Of course, Johnny was more that ready for that.

He'd dealt with some of the biggest and toughest monsters that terrorized the universe.

So this was, in the grand scheme of this game, nothing to sweat over and he certainly wasn't adverse to having some fun during this battle...but that didn't mean he was going to slack off at all.

Despite the rather weak fight the skeletons been putting up, he was completely merciless with them, hitting them with repeated fireballs (thankfully his real powers transferred into the virtual world).

As he did that, he occasionally looked over to Lustae for her approval, which she was happy to give him.

He made sure to put on a show for her as he did so, doing little muscle poses when he could.

That got a smile and a few chuckles from her.

He had to admit that Lustae was truly beautiful and he certainly would have liked to try his luck with her.

Given her real size, he was pretty sure it wasn't possible in the real world, but they were in the virtual world, so who knew if he'd actually have any success.

Of course he had other things to worry about at the moment.

He eventually finished off the skeletons and noticed that the last of them had dropped a treasure box.

He figured it would be gold or (he hoped) a more powerful shield.

What he saw, however, when he opened the treasure box immediately caught his eye.

It was a pair of feet.

A completely normal pair of feet, no wings to symbolize flight, no steel to symbolize increased durability, but a simple pair of feet that he was sure belonged to a woman.

That confused the hell out of Johnny, but, as of now, he wasn't asking too many questions.

He trusted that the game would eventually let him know what was going on when it was ready.

So he simply packed away the feet and moved on to the next group of foes.

And, much like he expected, this group was clearly going to be tougher than the skeletons.

They were snake like humanoids who had a green fluid drooling from their mouths.

He turned to Lustae to ask her about them.

"They're tougher than the skeletons thanks to their skin and I know they spit an acid that does a lot of damage, but, if you make sure to avoid that, I know you can beat them." She said, placing a kiss on his cheek.

That was more than enough to motivate Johnny to tear through them.

Sure, it took a bit longer than the skeletons, but, once he realized their weak spot (their eyes) he achieved this part of his goal and, once he was done, he received his next loot: two long legs.

That did little to lessen his confusion, but he still went along with it, packing them away and moving on.

He continued on in the game beating more and more difficult opponents and receiving more body parts as rewards, all of which he kept.

It was all very bizarre, but Lustae repeatedly reminded Johnny to not think too much about it and just focus on beating the next bad guys, after all, if he lost to them then he'd never fully unravel the mystery of the body parts.

He hoped whatever rewarded it was, it would be a memorable one.

The goal was getting closer and closer to being archived and Johnny knew that had to keep pushing forward.

He had been doing exactly that, but something started to feel weird.

The more parts he collected the more they had this odd familiarity to them, he couldn't place it, but all that did was make him even more eager to have this riddle solved.

As they moved forward, Johnny noticed something.

"Do you feel something odd?" He asked, he looked up and, sure enough, the skies were getting darker, also it was feeling colder and colder by the second.

Then he heard a loud rumbling and a ear piercing snarl.

"HE'S HERE!" Lustae cried out with pure fear in her voice, as she quickly hid behind Johnny.

"Who is 'he'?" Johnny asked, not liking her reaction one bit.

"The Destroyer, the beast that had crushed all those that made it to him." Lustae responded in an almost whisper.

"He kills the male and, if they have a female companion, he takes that companion to be a breeder." She said, fear obvious in her voice.

"I'll make sure that doesn't happen." Johnny said in his most heroic voice.

He was good at projecting that kind of image when he wanted to.

Then The Destroyer showed up.

The Destroyer, as it turned out, had no real form, he was a mass of pitch black, which allowed him to take multiple forms.

He hopped from form after form of species that Johnny had already fought, but he was slightly tougher than any of the others had been.

After he ran through those forms, he took the form of a massive bear with steel skin.

Johnny used a fireball to hit him as hard as he could.

It clearly did damage, but that almost meant that The Destroyer was now pissed off and on fire.

It was a bad combination to say the least, but Johnny had dealt with some seemingly unstoppable monsters before and he knew there was a way out of this situation.

He just had to figure it out.

He toyed with the Destroyer for a bit, hoping he'd find a weak spot or trigger some kind of cut scene if he could hold him off for a little longer.

So far, however, he found nothing, although he did annoy the crap out of the Destroyer, sending him into small fits of rage before he claimed down refocused on Johnny.

Eventually he and Lustae reached a cliff.

He scanned the area, trying to find something to help.

He looked before and found that the pit below was covered in spikes.

The perfect place to stop something unstoppable.

He knew that The Destroyer was approaching and, as soon as he saw the pit, he'd know avoid it.

He was a lot of things, but stupid was clearly not one of them, unless, of course, he was pissed off.

That's when Johnny figured it out: that was his greatest weakness, his temper.

He just had to send the big fucker into a blind rage and get him to charge at them.

It would be a big gamble, but it was one that he hoped would pay off.

He was gonna have to wind the Destroyer up soon, or he and Lustae would be in a lot of trouble.