Aria studied Jace's troubled face speculatively. He had something to get off his chest and didn't know how to approach the subject. Hmmm, maybe if she provided an opening ...

"So, who are you that I am blatantly leeching off you?" Aria asked Jace playfully. "It's not like I can take your hard earned Gold in the Game unless you Gift it to me or buy me stuff." She smiled to inform him it was okay if he did not want to answer.

Ash stopped chewing immediately and tensed, his half eaten fries sticking out his mouth. "Huh?" he glanced at Jace.

"It's o'kay Ash," Jace assured his friend. "Time to come clean. Rose came by earlier and let the cat out of the bag ... not that I was purposely keeping the cat in the bag. It might have suffocated or something."

At that, Aria's eyebrows lifted in query at Jace's nonsensical ramblings as she reached for more delicious cheesy nachos. Ash rolled his eyes at his friend's gibberish. It was a sure sign that he was nervous. It was time to spill the beans.

"What are you talking about, cats and bags?" Lorenzo asked in mild curiosity. "You are not making any sense, my friend. Please pass the ketchup, Chloe."

"She still doesn't know, does she?" He shifted his attention to Aria. "Do you?" Ash asked the petite goth girl.

"Know what?"

"That he is rich."

"I know that."

"You do?"

"Of course. Look at all the gear and clothes Laz has. One needs a lot of Gold for all that awesome equipment. Have you seen his beautiful new silver bow, it's an OP (over powered) weapon for sure. I think his city is also completely rebuilt and producing at top rate again. I'm on my way to being rich too," she added smugly.

"I'm not talking about the Game. I'm talking about him." Ash jerked a thumb at Jace.

"Him?" She looked questioningly at Jace than back at Ash. "I'm sorry but we all know where he lives ..." she glanced at Jace, thinking of his tiny shoebox studio, "not that I'm looking down on you or anything. It's a really cosy place. A little bare but conveniently near school, that's what is important."

"Gah, you tell her," Ash said giving up.

"I'm ... Jonathan Carter," Jace stated slowly gauging her reaction.

"I know, Jace. And I've met your mom and your sister."

"You haven't met my dad, Grayson Carter."

Aria looked blankly at him and shrugged. "Who is he? Are you supposed to be famous or something, a celebrity perhaps?" she laughed slightly embarrassed at her ignorance. "Sorry, I really don't know. You are just Jace to me, also known as Lazarus the Assassin and Legendary Gatekeeper."

"Just Jace? Just Jace?" Ash echoed uncomprehendingly. "Oh my God. I'm seriously dying here."

"She is from out of town," Jace reminded Ash solemnly. "She wouldn't know." Then he blinked and gave a genuine smile as something dawned on him. Exactly. She wouldn't know who he was.

Lorenzo and Choe were reacting better than Aria. They had stopped eating and were both staring at Jace open-mouthed.

"Grayson Carter? Oh wow. Are you telling us that you are the Jonathan Carter, Grayson Carter's son? As in the Carters? As in the heir to the Grayson empire?" Chloe mouthed in awe.

"Yeah," Jace looked away, cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

"Aiyayayai, you are rich! Really, really, really rich. You should have told meeeeee. So, you can afford to pay for this meal and the next and the next. Ah, this is good, very, veerrry good. Now that I know, there is no more escaping, yes?" Lorenzo announce happily and continued eating. "No need to bug stingy Ash from now on."

Ash rolled his eyes. Was that all Lorenzo cared about? Who was the Nut now?

"Carter?" Aria frowned realising something, "He is a Carter so why did Ash call his mom Ms.Anderson?"

"It's her maiden name, Jennifer Anderson. It sort of just stuck cos everyone calls her Dr.Anderson," Ash clarified. "Plus I had dibs on her cos she is my best friend's beautiful sexy mom but now that she is back with his dad ..." Ash sighed mournfully making an exaggerated sad face until Chloe poked him warningly in the ribs.

"Your parents were separated and are now back together again?" Aria smiled, "That's good news. I'm happy for you."

"Thank you."

"She is not getting it. Here, see this." Ash showed his phone to Aria and let her scroll through the pictures, articles and videos.

"Oh, I see," she said softly. She looked at the news, there were a lot of them. Her eyes were drawn to several malicious blatant headlines making her heart skip a beat. He was linked to a beautiful platinum blonde woman. She clamped down on the sudden jealousy that rose in her chest she felt but promised herself she would check it out later, preferably when she was alone. No need to make a scene here. She made a mental note, Jonathan Carter son of Grayson Carter and Jennifer Anderson.

"So, what do you think?" Ash prompted watching Aria carefully.

Aria looked at Jace. He still had his head down like he was expecting a death sentence. Why was he so uncomfortable? He seemed embarrassed ... ashamed? Was he ashamed of his wealth? Did he think he would lose all his friend because of who he was? Or that their friendships were not genuine ... or maybe their attitude toward him would suddenly change? She glanced at Lorenzo and Chloe, other than gleefully accepting Jace's newly exposed wealth, they had continued as if nothing had changed. Ash treated him like he always had. That was it. Nothing had changed, she realised.

"It doesn't change anything. Jace is ... still Jace to me."

She smiled when Jace looked up tentatively. He was so cute. It was not a big deal really, who his parents were, she didn't understand why he would react like that. Maybe it was because she was from out of town.

Well, she guessed it was time for her to come clean too and tell them a bit more about herself. It somehow suddenly seemed very important that Jace knew more about her too. The people here, her friends, she looked around the table and smiled, friends, she liked that term, should know who her grandfather is.

"I have a confession too."

"Huh?"

"What?"

"My grandfather is Jared Cruz."

Stunned silence greeted her.

"The Jared Cruz? " Lorenzo's jaw dropped at her sudden announcement. "I'm having a heart attack here, someone call the doctor!" The curly headed blond suddenly jumped up pointing accusingly at Chloe, "And you, who are you? Are you going to tell me you are some long lost princess? Or the Mayor's daughter? Perhaps his niece? Ahhh, am I the only poor one here? Poor me. Poor, poor me," he lamented shaking his head theatrically.

Ash jabbed Lorenzo hard as Chloe giggled good-naturedly. "No, I'm just an ordinary person with extraordinary rich friends." She winked at Lorenzo and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at him, "You should learn to enjoy it. I know I will."

"Hey, I'm right here!" Ash complained indignantly. "And you are not poor, Lorenzo, only poor in manners for flirting with my girl in front of me."

Lorenzo laughed good-naturedly, "Sorry my friend, but pretty girls bring out the best in me."

"You mean the beast."

"That too."

"So, you are Jared Cruz's granddaughter? The infamous CEO?"

"Umm, yes. The other day I went with him on a tour at Simtrixx, that's why I couldn't hang out with you guys," she looked apologetically at Jace.

"Oh my God! A tour! At Simtrixx! Why didn't you tell us?"

"I meant to. There was so much happening there really was no time," she explained. "I went for the tour because grandfather wanted my input as an active player. Then when I came back we all logged on for the portal crossing. I didn't see you all again until now."

"Ahhh, the portal crossing," Lorenzo said. "It seemed so long ago."

"I saw Laz and Val running the vampire dungeon. I was in the games control room. They had you up on multiple screens. They could even listen in on your conversations , view your chats and read your messages!"

"Wow, that's really cool. I wish I had seen that," Chloe chimed in. "It would be like watching several peoples view point at the same time so you know what is happening everywhere, wouldn't it?"

"Yes."

Jace and Ash exchanged worried looks. They had been laxed. Simtrixx could listen in and view their messages? Wow, talk about invasion of privacy. Then again, the company did make it clear that everything linked to Orc Was were theirs, even their avatars. It was a rude reminder of their status.

"You saw us running the dungeon?"

"Yes and I ..." she frowned in distress remembering something, "Laz's Health is at forty per cent now, isn't it?"

"Ahh, you saw that?" Jace winced. "It was unexpected, I thought I'd have more time."

"You should have had more time!" Aria exclaimed indignantly to their surprise. "If they had left you alone and let the system run it's algorithm, your Health would still be at sixty per cent."

"What are you talking about? I thought the poison was behaving erratically and progressing faster than expected but I thought it was just Orc Wars. Other games have standard algorithms for this sort of thing but my calculations are always off on this one. It must be one with a random factor or variant in the formulae," he mused.

"You calculated it? Lazarus' death?"

"I tried. I wanted to see how much time I had so I could organize and plan stuff before he became completely useless," Jace said. "I have some stuff to take care of ingame."

"Idiot," Ash muttered under his breath his voice cracking.

"No Jace, it's not you. When I was at Simtrixx, the Director, Nadine, she overrode the system to make you worse. I saw her advancing Lazarus' poison manually to Stage Four. She accelerated Lazarus's poor Health!"

"She did that?" Jace frowned. "Is that allowed? Is that ethical?"

"I don't know. Lazarus is not in competitive mode. All the gatekeepers are in normal game play mode. They are not on a reality show now like they were in Season One."

"Nadine? Why would she do that?" Lorenzo asked in astonishment. "Is she not in charge of taking care of all of us? We are the Gatekeepers for Orc Wars!"

Chloe too was dumbfounded. "Why is she is so mean?"

"It's because ..." Ash started thinking aloud.

"The orc realm is not completed and she was trying to prevent us from crossing," Jace concluded.

"Exactly," Ash agreed. "Remember that orc village with all that blank grey around it? Yeah, it was not finished alright."

"Ahh, but we crossed anyway," Lorenzo said gleefully. "We are the best, yes?"

"That is so twisted," Aria said angrily. "It's not fair."

"No it's not, so now that we know, we have to come up with a plan to counter it. Any ideas?"

"You know, I couldn't 'see' Valentine after you all went through the Portal. I could only chat him," Chloe said thoughtfully.

"She likes to stalk me because I'm cool," Ash boasted grinning shamelessly.

Chloe smiled, "Yes you are. Usually I can zoom in and watch him play if I know his current coordinates and if he is not Shielded in his City but the orc realm was totally off limits. I was really curious what the place was like."

"You can't see us in there? That's weird. I thought Simtrixx would want to show off and promote the new maps."

"I know right?"

"That means Simtrixx is not risking showing their incomplete world." Lorenzo smirked," Tsk, tsk, tsk, they are big scaredy cats." Then he sobered, "But it is also good that you cannot see us. If Sophia saw me, she would have cried rivers, no?"

"Why? What happened?" Aria asked curiously.

"We met a girl ... Owww!!" Ash yelp as Chloe hit him. "... an ugly orc girl ..." Ash amended hastily as Lorenzo smirked.

"Don't be fooled, pretty Chloe. The young orc girl was not ugly at all. She was a sexy green and did not have many clothes on. Valentine, he ..."

"ANYWAY ..." Ash cut in loudly before Lorenzo could do anymore damage, "... our group had to split. Laz and Constantine stalled a group of imperial orc warriors while I escorted Kasakh, the ugly orc girl back to her home."

"Why you? And not Laz?" Chloe asked arching one brow.

"Because, because ... because he told me to!" Ash pointed at Jace. "It's all Laz's fault!! Blame him! Not me!"

"You told my Valentine to escort a sexy orc girl alone? Jace! How could you! You know what he is like!"

"Ugly! She was ug-ga-ly!" Ash moaned miserably, trying to defend himself.

Aria laughed. She knew Chloe was just having fun teasing poor Ash. She had winked at her before starting her supposed tirade. It was ridicules to be jealous of a NPC in the Game. Poor Ash.

Jace's eyes twinkled mischievously, "I don't know why but he was the only one out of us that she trusted. I really had no choice. We had to get Kasakh to safety, she is the only lead we have."

"Argghhh!! You guys! I was not alone with her! Tania and Anya went with me to protect her! I didn't do anything. Tell her Jace! Lorenzo! C'mon you guys, back me up."

"Oh! The wolves went with you? That's okay then," Chloe said settling down and calmly took a sip of her drink.

"Huh?" Ash asked blinking in confusion. "That's it?"

"Yes, I forgive you for not being alone with the ugly NPC," Chloe announced primly.

Ash made a face. Everyone was laughing at his expense. "I'm so going to get you guys for this." He tickled Chloe, "You too."

"So what happened?"

"I took her back to her home. It was on another mountain not too far from where we were. We fought off some orc who came after us. One survived and ran off."

"Yeah, he came back to the main force to report. His Captain was not happy you escaped."

Ash grinned. "Poor guy. When I logged out, I left Kasakh at her father's place. She had found something and was figuring it out."

"Her father?"

"Yeah, her father is Sharak, the Banished One. He is dead by the way."

"Oh!" Aria's hand went to her mouth. "So many things happened in there."

"What about you two? What happened to you?"

"Well ..." Lorenzo hedged. Jace had told him not to tell the details of their brutal experience. It would only upset the girls.

"We stopped the main force from following Valentine and Kasakh. The orcs were really strong, stronger than Season One, weren't they Lorenzo?"

"Yes, but I fought them brilliantly. I was so brave. My powers, they are awesome. I am so awesome."

"There were too many of them for us to handle and they captured us," Jace continued picking up the story. "But luckily we managed to escape," he said glossing over the gruesome details.

"And we went back to get revenge."

"Revenge? Why? You could have gotten away and caught up with Val," Chloe said.

"No! It was imperative to get revenge! They killed my poor, poor Xico. My poor helpless baby."

Aria smiled in amusement. "Lorenzo, Xico is not a poor fluffy helpless baby bird. He is a magnificent ferocious fighting machine."

"Yes, he is that too," Lorenzo said proudly. "Ahh, that reminds me, I have to tell you something."

"We, especially you, my friend," he indicated Jace, "must absolutely not die in there." He paused dramatically. "When Xico died, he re-spawned at home and couldn't come back to me."

"Wait, what? Home? Are you saying that once we die we don't re-spawn in the orc realm? I would have thought Orc Wars would have a different re-spawning point for us in the new map, you know, how it is a 'new world' and all," Ash argued.

"Apparently not, I was wondering why it took so long for Xico to find us again," Jace said quietly.

"They are not making it easy for us."

"No, they are not. Now that we know we have to keep our guard up. That means no more risky fights."