The Link Arc

## The Link Arc (Virtis Tales Season 1 portion)

The Link Arc is the second and final Arc for Virtis Tales Season 1, consisting of eleven episodes from MineZcraft - The Link Opens, running from September 14th 2018 - February 24th 2019. This Arc mostly takes place entirely in Minecraft servers just like The MC Story, although some real life sections are shown for Origins Arc characters Lillie Sweet and Malcolm Lang.

The Link Arc takes place many years after The Origins Arc, with the Virtis purge at the hands of Perseus, Yldir and Nodis fully in motion, showing the effects it has on two servers. The Arc also leads to the first setup of Anti Virtis, occuring at the end of the last episode. The two servers shown in the arc have been added by Virtis to their 'Link' project; two ambiguous characters are investigating its purpose, who turn out to be Lillie and Malcolm.

## Plot

Years have passed and the Virtis Purge is ongoing. Two unknown individuals are investigating "a link" Virtis have been working on, and one of the connected servers in this "link" is play.VIRZ.net.  A player called Peron connects to this server and is shocked to find it barren and empty. He quickly runs into a zombie whichs sprints at him, shocking Peron. He manages to find a sword at a well and kills the zombie, but a player called Michalak emerges from the well and threatens Peron, but when the latter explains he doesn't know what is going on, as it is meant to be a mini games server, Michalak says its a zombie server now. He doesn't have time to explain as a horde closes in. Michalak runs to the well and instructs Peron to follow him, but the latter can barely move due to becoming infected. As the horde closes in, Michalak must defend Peron and himself.
Michalak defends Peron, and agrees to team up with him. The duo retreat down a well and Michalak decides to use his last cure bottle to save Peron, but is infected himself. The ambigious people focus their attention to another server in the link, in which Scorpion has taken over with an army. Dr\_P3 attempts to sneak around avoiding the army, but it spotted, however, is then saved by Blue.
Blue and Dr\_P3 fight the Scorpion army members, with the latter using a fishing rod to pull them in closer and the latter using a bow to shoot at them. Blue shoots an arrow at one, but he grabs it, converts it in a plague arrow and launches it back at Blue, but P3 kicks the other army member into the arrow's line of fire, giving him the plague. The two work together to tie the other member to a fence post, and leave as the other one evaporates. The two conclude they are a good team, and head toward a mesa biome to gain access the the servers old subway station in order to find Blue's old crew.
Blue and Dr\_P3 try and sneak into an old train station to get to the next town, and dig a tunnel underneath to avoid being spotted. Dr\_P3 splits up to find iron for minecarts while Blue digs to the station to gather wood, making a workbench, sword and pickaxe. Scorpion army members find Blue and Dr\_P3, but Blue escapes while P3 gets captured, and interrogated at the station. From a vantage point, Blue attacks them with his bow, allowing P3 to get into cover and build a furnace to smelt the iron he collected. Blue is forced to kill the three army members, sending in backup. P3 only had one minecart, so Blue takes responsibility and sends P3 on the track while he stays back to fight.

Peron and Michalak have found all but one ingredient to make a cure bottle for Michalak to cure his infection. They loot a house but get incapacitated by players B1ll1e and Ab3l, and taken to the survival camp The Zeta. They introduce the camp, how they are a big community and do well with their own farm and supplies, and say they can join the community in return with helping them with daily errands. Michalak is quick to accept the offer as they completed his cure bottle, but Peron is hesitant as it seems fishy that they have essentially forced them into the community. Michalak goes on lookout duty and a player named Milky\_bar approaches Peron and hands him a book before fleeing. A guard notices this. Peron reads the book in his dorm and is shocked by its contents. He reads on to find out that he was chosen by Milky-bar to be given the book as he resides in his old dorm, and pinpoints a chest he hid there. Peron finds the chest and takes out an invisibility potion, and Peron says he can use it to fulfil what is said in the book. He drinks the potion and sneaks into the staff only area, only to find Milky\_bar strapped to a table and being interrogated by B1ll1e and Ab3l over the book he gave Peron. They reiterate the warning they gave about keeping quiet about their operations, and as punishment, a lever is pulled, which opens a block in the ground with lava in it, and also releases the table restraints, causing Milky\_bar to slide off the table and into the lava, and perishes without a death message. Peron watches in horror and B1ll1e says to Ab3l they must find Peron.

Peron retrieves Michalak from guard duty and pulls him to a room, where he explains the situation using Milky\_bar's book as evidence. Peron explains the Zeta secretly kill players for loot, and Milky\_bar noticed this and investigated. MB then went onto try and start a rebellion, and hid a stash of TNT in his dorm and dug a tunnel underneath the camp ato plant it all to escape. Peron and Michalak complete the tunnel and place all the TNT, but Peron forgot the redstone torch and goes back to the dorm to get it, while Michalak digs up to get everyone's attention at the main ground. The camp members, B1ll1e and the snipers, all hunting Peron and Michalak down after B1ll1e declared them as traitors, aim their guns at him. Meanwhile Peron is found in the dorm by a player named Maxw3ll, but manages to convince him to join his side by handing him the book. Michalak tries to convince everybody to join him in the uprising, and Maxw3ll comes and aims his gun at Michalak, pretending he is on B1ll1e's side. Maxw3ll then shoots B1ll1e in the abdomen, and is gunned down by snipers as a result, triggering an all out war in the camp as survivors choose their side and gun each other down. Michalak hides behind the stage and an injured B1ll1e wanders off, as Peron ignites the TNT, causing a gigantic explosion in the camp.

After the Zeta is destroyed by Peron, he reunites with Michalak and rushes out of the camp during the battle. Michalak supporters follow them, as well as Zeta supporters keen on killing them. Ab3l and B1ll1e, the latter wounded after being shot, instruct those on their side to hunt down the rebels, with some on horses. Ab3l then says to B1ll1e that he will turn the Zeta into a forced labour camp. Michalak is shot in the leg with an arrow, and two rebels defend Peron while he helps but are both killed by a stampeding horse and zombies respectively. Peron and Michalak finds rebels defedning themselves in a small make-shift hut, and help by distracting the Zeta members, allowing the rebels in the hut to fight back and escape into the woods. Peron and Michalak go to follow, but are cut off by B1ll1e, who shoots Peron. In retaliation, Michalak shoots her thrice in the chest, and she stumbles to the floor and is devoured by zombies. Ab3l and a zeta member capture the pair and confine them to cages, with Ab3l blaming them for turning the zeta into a prison camp. The cages are tied to horses and ride off back to Zeta.

Dr P3, being pursued by Scorpion's army members, is rescued by two other players who take him down to their underground base; they run through an underground tunnel and drop into a pit, with their falls broken by water before falling into minecarts and riding off the broken track into the base. The players then disguise the track by fixing it via a command block. The duo introduce themselves as SGS6B, who prefers to be called Seth, and Sar1ta who looks after things in the base. They reveal they rescue rebels, and when Dr\_P3 states he is looking for Blue's old acquaintances: the old operators of the server, Sar1ta reveals they are them. At a table, they discuss what happened with Blue, and that he went to go and rescue rebels even with barely any tools. Finally, they ask for Dr\_P3's help on an assault on Scorpion's base.

P3 agrees to the plan and he meets a base member called Peet\_er who plans to fight with them. Sometime later they finish preparing, and Dr\_P3, SGS6B, Sar1ta and Peet\_er use boats and invisibility potions to raid Scorpions base, and advance toward the his throne room, all the while a fifth intruder climbs to the room's roof on the outside. The invisibility potions wear off and the four burst into the room, held at gunpoint by army members with bows and plague arrows. The fifth intruder bursts in through the ceiling, and crashes to the floor injured, and turns out to be Blue, having survived earlier. Scorpion decides that they are capable fighters and decides to spare them to take them for initiation instead of killing them. Seth then tries attacking Scorpion with his sword, and is promptly shot through the head by a guard, killing him instantly. Blue however recovers the plague arrow used to kill Seth, and shoots Scorpion, dooming him to die.

They are then stripped of their weapons and armour by Scorpion's guards, and sent off to initation camp in a cage tied to a horse. Meanwhile, Scorpion's chair is turned into a life support machine; a dispenser above it constantly shooting healing potions, to keep him alive and constantly delay his death after contracting the plague from being shot by Blue.

At the camp, Sar1ta blames Blue for getting them captured, but defends himself by saying somebody had to do it. The four, and many other prisoners, are cuffed and placed in formation, and a guard announces to them that they will be held in cells until either submitting to Scorpion's rule, or being forcibly turned. In Blue and Dr\_P3's cell, they exchange a brief discussion where P3 defends Blue, the latter blaming himself, by saying that he has weakened Scorpion and they would've been captured anyway. Blue talks about how he escaped the station incident; digging down and hiding until they pursued P3, and heading straight for the castle afterwards. Finally, Blue says that if they escape and anything happens, he wants to revisit his base room a final time.

Later, Sar1ta tells P3 and Blue of a collaborative escape in the works, planned by all the inmates, and should try to find anything to aid it, all the while still blaming Blue, and now P3, and swaying Peet\_er to believe her. Blue and P3 find an inmate serving water, and takes some with the intention of using it to swim out of the cell after puncturing a two-block hole in the wall. Sar1ta and Peet\_er cause a distraction by getting two inmates to agree to fight, so they won't notice P3 and Blue digging out the wall. Blue digs a two block gap in his cell wall facing the outside, and pours the water, with every inmate escaping out this way.

The scene turns into chaos as every inmate runs from the flying guards, using lightning and plague arrows. Sar1ta ends up electrocuted and shot in the head, killing her. A guard manages to shoot Blue in the leg with a plague arrow, dooming him. Peet\_er and P3 notice this, but Peet\_er runs off while P3 goes back to help. P3 drags Blue to the woods and to the station, keeping him alive via a few potions acquired from the prison medic until they reach the underground base, and into Blue's room where he previously requested to go. With no options left and P3 in tears, Blue succumbs to the plague and starts to disintegrate. Meanwhile in the real world, the ambigious people note that Virtis are opening the link.

Moments away from death, Blue remembers he previously stored a Totem of Undying prior to the purge in the chest next to him, and reaches in for it; death is averted and he is cured of the plague. Blue is astonished it actually worked, and only tried it to see if it would. He speculates that it countered the plague either because the plague was coded before Totem's were added to the game, or the plague actually killed him and left his body and the totem then revived him in an instant. Suddenly, earth quakes occur, and the ambiguous people note that the opening of the link is causing it as well as multiple portals manifesting in worlds. Blue and Dr\_P3 enter a portal to Peron and Michalak, killing Ab3l and a henchman to rescue them. They deduce their two servers have merged, and agree to wipe out the remnants of the Zeta and release their prisoners. Following this, Scorpion, and owner of the zombies server: Icarus, establish a communication channel via the Link, allowing them to communicate. The ambiguous people pick up the signal and amplify it to P3, Peron, Blue and Michalak; the four players being the only hope. This allows the four to hear Scorpion and Icarus' conversation, but the two being able to see all Link activity makes them aware of this, and announce themselves to the players, and ambiguous people. Icarus and Scorpion reveal Virtis left them with some tools, and summon zombies and army NPCs to attack the players; they take refuge in a nearby abandoned house.

As the players hold the zombies and NPCs off, the ambiguous people talk with Scorpion and Icarus, the latter two revealing they know who the ambiguous people are. Scorpion and Icarus also reveal they are 4534 and 3123 from the Origins Arc, and since they were demanding with their requests, Virtis opted their servers for testing in the Link. The ambiguous people deduce that the Link is merely an experiment to see if it works; Virtis plan to merge all servers should it work to create a giant Link. The ambiguous people cut themselves from the communication channel and establish a new one to the players; the four can hear both the ambiguous people on one channel, and Scorpion and Icarus on the other, though both parties can't hear eachother. Via Milky\_bar's book, Michalak tells the ambiguous people that the server consoles are locked to the admins, Scorpion and Icarus (much like Mob Destructor locked the console to Frost and Anfinious back in Season Five). This means they must kill the two to allow the ambiguous people to use their Virtis technology to hack the consoles and shut down the Link.

As the crew are about to die inside the house, overwhelmed by zombies and NPCs, the floor opens when pistons pull it back, sending them plummeting to safety. It's also revealed that besides portals, worlds are connected at ungenerated ends. Ready to finally kill the four, Icarus teleports them to outside his tower and summons more zombies; the crew hold them off until TNT detonates outside the tower, letting the crew in. Inside, they push Icarus out his own window, landing on a lone iron bar which pierces his body and kills him. The ambiguous people begin to hack Icarus' server console. Scorpion notices Icarus gone and demands the tower to be defended. After looting Icarus' tower, claiming a diamond chestplate for each, they enter a portal and charge to Scorpion's castle via boats. With many members of Scorpion's army dead, the army become torn between defending or betraying him, causing them to become divided and fight each other, all the while, the escapees from the initiation camp also arrive in boats, assisting the crew. The crew arrive in Scorpion's room, and when a guard attempts to kill them, his skin is reverted to normal and stops flying. Peet\_er steps out from the shadows, revealing he entered Scorpion's control room in the back and managed to revert the army template, stripping all of them of their powers and reverting their skins. Peet\_er goes on to reveal he was responsible for saving them from the house and blowing up the enterance to Icarus' base, having navigated the servers with the portals, just because he regretted leaving Blue; Blue forgives him.

Scorpion, fed up with Virtis' limitations posed on him, gives up his Link password to the ambiguous people and allows himself to succumb to the plague and disintegrate. With the server locks gone, the ambiguous people gain full control, and detonate the castle; the four and Peet\_er jump out the back window, landing in the ocean below. Later, they shut down the Link, seperating Blue and P3 from Peron and Michalak, whom salute eachother from their own worlds before being separated. Peron and Michalak then continue to survive in their server, and Blue and P3 live in the underground base, pondering the events which occured. They're glad to have met each other and hug.

Meanwhile, the ambiguous people log into Scorpion's Link account to destroy the Link, planning to take the evidence to court, to advance Anti-Virtis. The two ambiguous people are revealed as Lillie Sweet and Malcolm Lang from the Origins Arc.

## Trivia

* This Arc is the longest of any sub season.