Chapter 2

"Come with me, k'winny," the stroppy little devil girl ordered.

"Fuck off," Jackson retorted.

Pihanga pulled out a gun and shot him in the face.

From his position on the floor of the factory Jackson looked up and saw a white number--forty-four--floating up into the darkness beneath the roof. Oh yeah, computer game physics. Boy was he glad for those stupid role-playing game physics. It meant he could be shot right in the face with a gun and it do nothing so long as the damage was less than his total hit points.

He wondered how many hit points he had. Normally he was able to see his full status. Not here for some reason. Maybe this was some kind of intro and the game hadn't actually started yet.

He got back up to his feet.

Schreck stared at him with his blank fish eyes opened wide. The angel girl had hands on her cheeks. Pihanga was turning her gun over in her hands with a puzzled expression on her face.

"One shot is normally enough to kill a level one k'winny," she said, looking at her gun suspiciously.

"He doeth theem rather hardy for a k'winny, mithtreth," Schreck said. "Are you thure--"

"He's an uber k'winny!" the angel said. She bounced with excitement like a tween standing in line for a Justin Bieber signing. "I told you they had a sixth rank."

Schreck looked up at the numbers floating away into the darkness of the ceiling. "It doeth theem to potheth an unusually high number of hit pointh."

At the mention of 'unusually high number of hit points, ' Pihanga's pointed ears pricked up and she switched her attentions from the gun to Jackson. Her eyes lit up and her lips curled up in a crafty smile. "High hit points..."

She skipped forwards.

"I'm Pihanga, Empress of Elegance and Overlord-to-be of all the Nether Regions. You'll be a perfect addition to my k'winny mob."

"Uh ... okay," Jackson said.

He didn't want to test if he had enough hit points to survive a second shot from her gun.

"Good." Pihanga turned to the side and a giant ghostly blue keypad appeared before her out of thin air. "Now to name you."

"Um. Actually, I already have a name," Jackson said.

Pihanga ignored him and tapped keys on the ghostly floating blue keypad. D, a, B, i, g, B... Jackson saw letters appear above the keypad.

"There. Perfect," Pihanga said.

DaBigBoom? What kind of stupid name was DaBigBoom? Only an eight-year-old could come up with a character name as stupid as that.

"Hey. I have a name. I'm--"

Pihanga moved her hand to the bottom right of the screen and tapped the enter button.

"--DaBigBoom," DaBigBoom finished.

He paused. Wait, that wasn't right. His name was DaBigBoom not DaBigBoom.

Huh?

No. His. Name. Was. DaBigBoom.

DaBigBoom tried again, but every time he thought of his name, DaBigBoom came up instead of DaBigBoom.

This sucks, DaBigBoom thought.

"Come along, DaBigBoom," Pihanga said. "We have the Nether Regions to conquer."

"And then it's the Post Game content," the angel said, jumping up and down with girlish excitement.

DaBigBoom looked at them--the trashy devil girl, the blue-haired angel, and the cartoon Nosferatu caricature. What kind of insane game had he fallen into? Shaking his head, he followed them out of the factory.

He walked out onto a landscape somewhere between Burton and Bosch. A spooky castle with spires sticking out at odd angles pierced the sky. Scattered around them were vast lakes of molten orange lava.

"Where are we?" DaBigBoom asked.

"These are the Nether Regions, home to demons, monsters and k'winnies containing the souls of mortals that sinned during their lives in the Living World," the angel said.

"So hell, basically," DaBigBoom said. "Hey, what was that about k'winnies?"

"Anyone who sinned during their life is reincarnated in the form of a k'winny. They must work off the debt their sinning incurred during their life before they can be reincarnated back to the Living World. In heaven we set them all kinds of boring tasks to do. In the Nether Regions it's much better. They get to fight for the glory of the Overlord!" The angel finished with a rousing flourish.

DaBigBoom looked at her fluffy white wings and white robes. "Heaven? Are you an angel?"

"Trainee," the girl said. "I'm Angel Student Fiore. Or was," she said, her nose wrinkling into a grimace. "They kicked me out for downloading shota porn."

Her breezy smile returned.

"I don't mind. It's far more exciting down here. We get to go on missions and kill people."

DaBigBoom didn't know what to say to that.

They walked into the castle and DaBigBoom was surrounded by a motley collection of monsters--rotting zombies, hunched over dragons shuffling on their hind legs, lions with scorpion tails and even girls standing inside giant roses. It was odd, weird, but not very scary. More Jim Henson than Nightmare on Elm Street.

The girls in the roses were also kinda hot and not wearing much more than a few strategically positioned bits of foliage. One of them winked at DaBigBoom and blew him a kiss.

"They're hermaphrodites," Fiore whispered in his ear.

DaBigBoom's hand froze mid-wave.

"I'm not sure what they're doing here either. They're not supposed to appear until the sequels," Fiore continued, making absolutely no sense again.

Pihanga made her way to the main hall. A spear stood in the centre of room. At first DaBigBoom thought there was a severed, moustachioed head impaled on the spear. Impaled so hard the point came right out of the top of the skull. The head seemed surprisingly well preserved. Then Pihanga picked the spear up, the head's eyes flicked open and DaBigBoom realised the head was actually part of the spear itself.