As the explosion closed in on Bugz, the heavens opened up and what looked like a giant black eagle screamed down from the sky. It swooped down to Bugz, snatched her in its talons, and lifted her up to the clouds. Another energy blast tore a huge chunk out of the mountainside and triggered an avalanche. This buried the first lines of Clan:LESS warriors on the hill and sent the others running back down the slope until the rockslide abated.

Bugz rode the Thunderbird over the peak of the mountain.

“Monff: HOW are you so lucky?”

“BhadBhab: Nice save!”

“**-GirlGirl-**: No way!!”

Her chat screen continued to flood with comments from fans. These ranged from cheers for this latest twist in the theater of war to the sort of random abusive comments women gamers always faced. And, of course, spam.

“DerkWerk: You’re a fraud!”

“Yalta187: Affirmative action at its finest.”

“ManTan1997: Win a new phone, DM me to find out how!”

Bugz paid them no mind, her awareness completely consumed with setting a trap for the approaching horde. With a slight nod of her head, she conveyed to the Thunderbird the arcing flight path she wanted her to take. Closing her eyes, she marshaled every other living being in this virtual landscape to her side.

CHAPTER 2

“How does she do it?” Feng asked. Though he stood among his clan brothers, all of whom were blocked from pursuing Bugz for a moment by the landslide, he wasn’t speaking to any of them in particular. Feng’s virtual assistant assumed the question was directed at it and popped to life in his heads-up display, launching a user-generated video tutorial explaining the ’Verse.

“The Floraverse is different from other virtual worlds before it,” the young voice said over a montage of idyllic scenes from the Spirit World. His phone played the English language video inside his visor and translated the audio instantly into Mandarin for his earbuds. Feng scanned the battlefield and half ignored the feat of computer translation. “Rather than letting users build their environment out of minerals and tools, or forts and wood, the game engine that powers the Floraverse is modeled after living, growing things…” Feng swiped past the video and on to another one as he began to climb the boulders the avalanche had left in his way. This video was labeled “The Bugz Conspiracy.”

“While many other players in this world seek to exploit the Floraverse, Bugz lives in concert with it, appearing to be able to call anything she can imagine into existence,” an on-screen host intoned. Feng’s boot slipped momentarily from a crevice. He stumbled and regained his footing as the host continued. “No one knows exactly how she does it, but the result is that she has become the best player the game has ever known.”