Frank Iero and the Meaning of Life

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Hail to the King

Just a mere three days later, I had it all.

The throne was mine, the military police was mine, and the entire site was mine. The bots that oppressed and slaughtered my men now stood under my thumb, and every single slimy politician that spent years ruling like tyrants now sat rotting away in prison. Almost all normal activity on the website ceased, and most people now freely moved around as they pleased. Most importantly, all of the citizens were finally free. No more fanfictions, no more responsibilities, no more bullshit. Just freedom.

Of course, some degree of chaos remained in the streets. It isn't exactly easy to let people have freedoms right away.

That evening, I sat on my throne (which is very comfortable, by the way) and contemplated my options as I stared out the window. Streams of light stretched across the island and lit up the inside of my office; Poison sat to my right, Jet sat across from me, Kobra sat to the left of me, and the rest of the crew sat at the very end of the table. Jet seemed especially busy with the digital map on the table and scribbled away at it with a stylus.

"We've got some more problems in the Anime district," he said.

"What is it now?" I muttered.

"The Shonen District is forming a rebel alliance in an attempt to restore the former government."

"Can we put them down?"

"For now, we can. I'll just send over some more ground troops."

"You got any good news for me?" I asked.

"Well...the Hetalia Pavilion wants to forge an alliance with us."

"Tell them that I accept their offer and that their first job is to put down any Shonen rebels."

"Yes, sir."

I still had absolutely no idea why the hell anybody would want to put those rat bastards back into power, especially considering all the hell we went through to overthrow them. Then again, I suppose some people just can't handle freedom.

Suddenly, Sandwich Gerard burst into the room with a few papers in his hand.

"Sir Frank!" he cried. "I've got some terrible news!"

"What can it be this time?" I growled.

"Well, it's...it's, um...Jet should explain this. H-here."

He handed Jet the papers and trembled with fear; Jet then read off of it and looked up at me. "Sir Frank..." he said. "This could be a very serious problem. It has to do with the website itself."

"Well, what the hell is the problem?"

"The CEO and Korse have done several reports," he said. "According to them, if their research is correct, the entire site could be shut down."

"Why?"

"Almost all normal activity on the cite has ceased," he said. "Some fics are still active and a select few are still obeying their authors, but most districts have descended into a light form of anarchy that we're still trying to keep under control. Because of this, a lot of users have been filing complaints to the people in the physical world...if they're not able to fix the problem, they could shut this whole site down and kill us all."

"If it's a fight they want," I said, "it's a fight they'll get, then."

"I don't think you understand," said Jet. "To them, we're a DDOS attack."

"A what?"

"A denial of service attack," he explained. "Basically, we overloaded the site and now almost none of the users can get in. To the people in the physical world, we are a virus. And all viruses must be exterminated."