Member
I haven't been here in SO long, and my friend and I had an idea for a story. I'll be writing a Sword Art Online inspired book series. I will NOT be accepting character requests.
BOOK ONE
BOOK ONE
Spoiler (Click to View)
PROLOGUES
As I logged out of GGO, I rushed the amusphere off of my head and didn’t pull the power cord out of the wall. When I had gotten to the front door of the apartment, I scrambled through the front closet for my jacket and toque. After I yanked the red jacket out of the nearly full closet, I grabbed my toque out of the basket on the floor. I grabbed my apartment key and dashed to the bike storage hut next to the building.
Once I got to the hut, I put my apartment key into the door for our apartment number, where mine and Thomas’ bikes were locked. Mine was black with streaks of blue in spots. I pulled my bike out of the hut, got on it, then bolted towards the local hospital.
As I arrived at the hospital, I quickly locked up my bike at the rack and then rushed inside. I knew Lucina’s room number- 607 –and so I went up the elevator to floor 6, and walked quickly towards her room. I reached into my pocket for my phone to turn it off, but it wasn’t there, I had left it at home, and sighed.
As I turned the corner and stood in front of room 607, the door open. It’s 9:00 now. Visiting hours are over in half an hour.
I proceeded into the room to see Lucina, sitting up with a hospital gown on, looking at the window. Her hair was down, no ties, clips, or elastics. Her hair was a blond color, flowing down over her shoulders to just below her chest. I walked towards her, and she looked back over at me. She opened her arms for a hug and fell into them. She rested her face into my shoulder and started to cry.
“I-I’m c-c-c-c-cold…” Lucina whispered in my ear quickly. I felt her shivering on my chest. I saw the red on her cheeks, tear stains under her eyes. I saw the desperate look in her face, the worried look somebody has when they are not sure how much longer they have to live. The look someone wears when they don’t know if they’ll make it.
“Don’t worry, I’m here for you.” I replied smoothly, embracing her in my arms. I stroked her hair slowly.
“O-o-okay…” Lucina said gloomily. She started to cry again, and she sobbed into my chest. “I-I don’t know h-h-how long I h-h-h-have…” She continued to bawl into my shoulder.
“Don’t worry, it’ll be…” I started to say, being interrupted out of the blue. Lucina pulled away from my shoulder, rubbed her eyes quickly and softly pressed her lips to mine, holding my shoulders. I pulled her closer to me, holding her by her hips. Lucina was just my best friend, but I was enjoying this nonetheless.
This continued for a few minutes until she pulled away from me.
“You’re w-w-w-warm. Can I hold you?” Lucina whispered in my ear again and I nodded. She hugged me again. I put my hand on top of her head and she kissed me again. This one only lasted a few seconds, as we had heard the doctors coming.
“Sir, visiting hours are over.” The doctor said to me, and I nodded, letting him lead me out of the room. Lucina looked in my direction and spoke.
“I l-l-l-love you Ethan…”
I heard gunshots in the distance as I ran across the sandy ground, Lightsword and pistol in hand. A prediction line appeared in the middle of my forehead, meaning a bullet was coming my way. I was in a quest party at the time, but we were being attacked by another squadron on the way.
They were probably trying to kill us before we had the chance to finish the quest, especially because the squadron that finished the quest got a really cool reward, at least from what I’ve heard.
I heard a gunshot. A bullet was coming towards my head at high speed. I blocked the bullet with my Lightsword, like it was nothing. I’ve had worse moments in GGO. I’ve taken a bullet to the head many times before.
Gorax charged ahead of me and shot at my attacker about ten times before he was dead. Gorax gave a tough smirk and charged further. I stayed behind, blocking bullets left and right. Erick kneeled down beside me, loading his minigun and firing at the opposing squadron members. There were about fifty of them, while our quest party only had around seven to start, and none of ours had been killed yet.
The opposing squadron leader called for a retreat, but our party ran up and killed off the rest of them before they could get away. A few of us leveled up from that fight, me being one of them. I was now level 83.
Normally I would be very hesitant about killing people IRL, but here, in GGO, they just respawn. I sat down on the ground, while the other party members decided to heal up before the quest boss. I was sloppier in that fight than before, and I knew why.
The previous night in the hospital with Lucina made me think of nothing but those events. Her shivering, crying into my jacket, and kissing me. That made me think of her words before the doors to the room closed.
“I l-l-l-l-love you Ethan.”
I wondered, were those words sincere? I brushed off the thought, but couldn’t stop thinking about Lucina.
I remembered why I’m entering BoB, and that I had to carry on Lucina’s wish of becoming the best GGO player ever. That’s why I’m doing this quest. The reward is supposed to help our quest party in the tournament.
I saw a strong looking player in the distance, he must have been the one to call the retreat. He was all alone in the distance standing there. He had a rifle in hand, aiming at my head. I ducked down as the bullet came rather than blocking it with my Lightsword, as I had retracted the blade a moment before and hung it off of my belt. I quickly took it into my hand and flicked the switch to bring out the blade. Another bullet. It had hit me in the thigh. If it were a real bullet, I would be in much more pain than I am now, but it still hurts.
More gunfire. It was coming from the rest of the quest party members’ guns. The player in the distance put away his rifle and got out a handgun, loading it. Erick started shooting at the player, with Gorax and the other four players following with gunfire. He kept dodging the bullets, even the rapid fire coming from Erick’s minigun. The player was talented and when he started shooting at us, our party leader told me to go fight the boss, and I went ahead. I got a bullet in the shoulder on the way to the cave, and it stung a lot. It was in my left arm, the arm I use for my Lightsword, and that meant my main weapon was useless. I still held onto it anyways, because I could still use it, but only by moving my arm lightly.
I sprinted to the cave, but I had forgotten that I had a bullet in my thigh and the run was painful. I saw the cave up ahead, but had to start walking because my leg was killing me. I had realized just then, that if I ran with the bullet in my leg, I would gradually lose HP. The bullet sits there until I use a healing pack on the spot. It would go away if the bullet was shot there during a duel or in BoB and either situation had ended, but now I was left with a bullet in my left shoulder and in my left thigh. My HP bar had decreased to half a quarter compared to the seven eighths that was there before my desperate sprint.
I knew that if this kept up, I would be dead and unable to finish the quest before the other squadron had time to finish it first, but I decided to run anyway.
The cave was just a few kilometers away, and I was sprinting to the point I was at by then. My health bar was in the red zone, and I was still running, hoping my health bar would last me. I probably wouldn’t have survived the boss fight later on, but I HAD to get to the cave.
I ran as fast as I could, my heart racing, my shoulder and thigh felt like they were about to fall off of my body. I checked my health bar, only to see a sliver of HP left, and the last thing I saw was black.
“Etho? Etho!”
My eyes opened to the sound of a case opening. I was still laying in the desert, Robin standing over my previously unconscious body. I wasn’t dead, because when you die in GGO, you lose some EXP, and no EXP in my bar was depleted. You also get a bold text surrounded by a red hexagon reading ‘YOU ARE DEAD’ when you die. I was surprised, and then I saw my HP bar fill up. Robin used a health pack on me.
“Huh?” I mumbled slowly as I pushed myself into a sitting position. Robin had opened up her menu and then took a few health packs out of her inventory and gave them to me. I took them and nodded thankfully, smiling. She smiled back at me roughly and looked back the other way.
“The others were killed in the fight…” Robin said to me dimly, like she had just lost someone very dear to her. “The other player was too strong.”
I had realized that the only HP bars in the corner of my view were mine and Robin’s, and the reason being is because when you’re in a party in GGO and you die, you’re removed from the party and your HP bar disappears from the other party member’s interfaces.
“He must have been playing far longer than we have…” I replied softly, standing up. “I’ll take the rest of the mission.”
“Alright, I’ll leave it to you.” Robin said confidently, putting her hands on her waist giving me a thumbs up. She then opened her menu, left the quest party, then ran back to the main city. She waved as she left, and I waved back.
I proceeded towards the cave, sprinting. The bullets in my leg and shoulder were gone, and so that meant I could safely sprint the rest of the way. I had around thirteen health packs on me as gifts from Robin, so I was safe for the boss fight. I got to the cave and proceeded through the entrance.
The cave was dark, so I had to use my Lightsword to light the way through. There were monsters on the way to the boss room; in fact the cave seemed like a whole dungeon.
After the nightmare of navigating through the puzzling path in the cave, I finally came to the boss room. But there was a catch. The door was locked. I nearly freaked out to discover that I had to go through the whole thing AGAIN to find the boss key. More monsters, more darkness. This might as well just been some immature joke by the developers of GGO, and I ended up nearly rage quitting halfway through the FIRST time, and then I would probably nearly have done it AGAIN without a map. This cave was just stupid, the most annoying thing I have ever experienced as a gamer. I yelled out a bunch of swear words, I think I yelled every one I knew at the time.
I had killed all of the monsters in the cave, but EVERYTHING WAS LIKE HELL AND I HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO DO. I NEARLY RAGE QUIT LIKE TWENTY THOUSAND TIMES. Seriously, that event was the most annoying and painful I’ve been through in GGO.
The boss fight needed to be good to be worth this much rage fuel and oh my god, this was too much RAGE FUEL. A room to the left, NOPE. Room to the right, NOPE. Keep looking and oh there was another on and NOT A CHANCE.
The pain kept going ON and ON and ON. This was just plain stupid, trippy, annoying, and total carp. I could not believe the immature prank that was this cave. I felt like I was going in circles. This stupid quest made me almost log out. I remembered that there was a reward that I needed.
And I ended up back in the pathway in front of the entrance. And guess what. The location was RIGHT THERE. Like how could I have missed that? I felt like a complete and total idiot. I opened the door to the room with the key and fought a few monsters before grabbing the boss key.
I opened the box and picked up the key and sprinted to the boss door. I felt completely stupid and unlocked the boss door, and pushed it open. Not only did I waste tons of time finding a door in the most OBVIOUS spot, but the boss was a freaking huge PIG the size of a T-Rex. It was super weak and I killed it in one hit, and the reward ended up just being a ROPE with a claw at the end. A ROPE. A ROPE OF ALL THINGS. I screamed out all the swear and curse words that I could think of and started bawling because of the useless time wasted on a ROPE.
THIS. WAS. THE. MOST. IMMATURE. PRANK. IN. HISTORY.
I would’ve felt like a complete and total idiot if I told everybody at the bar about the Pig fight for the rope, so I told everybody that I had been killed in the fight because it was against a level 147 Troll King. The rest of the former party members sighed. Realistically, I had fought against a freaking PIG for a stupid ROPE. I saw Erick at the bar counter having an argument with the bartender. It wasn’t Robin this time because she was offline, the bartender today was a darker skinned man with long, brown hair. It was greasy and he reeked of sweat. He was freakishly tall
“I TOLD YOU I WANTED ORANGE JUICE!” Erick yelled at the bartender and the bartender sighed.
“I said we don’t serve orange juice!” He replied and Erick slammed his shot glass on the counter and it shattered.
“BUT THIS PLACE ALWAYS SERVED IT. I SWEAR.” Erick screamed in his face and the bartender smirked.
“Fine then, you got me. I’ll make some right now.” He said, sarcastically. He went into the back of the bar and bought out a glass with an orange liquid. It reeked of fish, and I had just realized that Thomas is allergic to fish. Any real life allergies are kept in-game and knock the player out. Erick raised an eyebrow.
“Why does this smell like fish?” Erick inquired suspiciously, glaring at the bartender. He shrugged his shoulders as Erick proceeded to chug down all of it. “Umm, this tastes like fish. Oh god I’M ALLERGIC TO FI-ugh……………………..”
Erick’s head fell to the table and he fainted. I went wide-eyed and opened my mouth, my face went red. I marched up behind the counter and grabbed the guy by his collar.
“Hey, you can’t be here. Employees only.” The bartender said in a sarcastic tone as I glared at him. His hands dropped to his sides.
“I don’t give two s**ts you f***ing b***ard!” I shouted angrily at him, and he shook his head.
“I was annoyed at the guy, if you wanna fight, I’ll duel request you.” He replied angrily back at me, and opened his menu. A message appeared in front of me notifying me of a duel request, and I accepted. “Let’s take this outside.”
He gave me a soft smirk.
Everybody circled around the bartender and me as we arrived outside the bar in the barren parking lot. The pavement was cracked and the lines marking the parking spaces were barely visible. The bartender got out his weapons. In between us was a countdown clock.
3, 2, 1, BEEP
The bartender carried two Uzis and began to shoot at me, aiming for both my shoulders. I swiftly brought out the beam of my Lightsword and blocked both bullets, one nearly hit me. Half of the time I was busy blocking bullets while I was trying to approach the bartender, but I ended up having to backflip a few times, so I ended up going in the exact opposite direction of where I was aiming for. A bullet cut a tiny strand of hair from the side as it brushed the side of my head. It kinda tickled a bit.
The fight lasted around ten minutes by this point, I was still blocking bullets. One brushed my shoulder, only depleting my HP a tiny bit, and another skimmed my side. I eventually had enough time to get close and impale him with my Lightsword, badly depleting his HP. It was below a quarter, and he opened his menu for a second to bring out a Lightsword. I was in total shock as the bartender tried to slash at me. With the amount of blocking I had done, this was nothing compared to the speed that the bullets came at me. I blocked the slash and pointed my pistol at his head. He pulled his Lightsword away from mine and blocked it quickly, and that distracted him enough for me to behead him.
After a few minutes of cheering at my victory, we all walked back into the bar to wake up Erick before the bar closed. The bartender left due to humility of the match and somebody had informed Erick of the fight. It was 9:00 at night now, and I hadn’t had dinner yet so I logged out of GGO for the night.
“WHAT?!”
“Ethan, what’s wrong?” Thomas asked me calmly as I gasped. I looked at my laptop and saw that signups for BoB ended in an hour and a half.
Thomas and I weren’t signed up yet, and we had to get in.
“Bullet of Bullets signups are almost over, we need to get into GGO!” I relpied restlessly and darted towards my bedroom and put on my amusphere.
I spawned at the minigame hut, the last place I had logged out. The bar fight was two nights before, and that event disgusted me. Erick spawned in front of the laser tag rooms and walked over to me swiftly.
“Let’s go!” Erick shouted and I nodded.
We began our sprint to the island. We only had around an hour left, meaning we had low chances of making the signups. I began to accelerate speed and Erick tried to catch up so that he wouldn’t be late either. All of my friends had signed up already, but I had to see Lucina and had no time to sign up after I played around on GGO. The frantic sprint continued, and I couldn’t stop to catch my breath.
Forty minutes left.
Erick nearly fainted a couple times, we had a few miles to go to reach the bridge. There were crowds in the main city, so Erick and I had lost some time trying to get through them.
Thirty minutes left.
A third of a kilometer left until the bridge was left to the island, and we were running out of time. I checked my menu while I ran to check the time and I gritted my teeth. I waved for Erick to go faster and he nodded as we sprinted more.
Twenty minutes left.
We were at the island now, going through towns to get to the registration building. I swear that one town had reeked of smoke on the way, slowing us down.
Ten minutes left.
We found the registration building, but we were too tired to keep running. We were walking as fast as our bodies allowed us to, but that wasn’t enough. We only had five minutes left by the time we got to the signup booths, and registration took a bit.
By the time I had to fill out the last field, we only had a few seconds left and I started to sweat hard. I couldn’t miss out, and Bullet of Bullets is what Thomas needed to become better.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Beep!
With Thomas and I signed up, we decided to sit down at a nearby table and wait for the tournament to start. We saw Robin and Gorax sitting at a table at the far side of the signup booths, so we sprinted over to meet them. They had drinks in their hands.
“Alright, unequip your Minigun Erick.” I whispered to Erick as he gave me a puzzled look.
“Why, I’m trying to scare players?” He replied, as if he knew more about GGO than me.
“Listen, if you show off your weapon before the main tournament, you’re gonna get countered.” I answered quietly as Erick nodded, opened his menu and unequipped his weapons.
“Hey, Etho, Erick!” Gorax called us over as we continued to the table swiftly. “The tourney’s gonna start soon!”
“What block did you get?” Robin asked us as I opened up my tournament interface. “I got block A, and Gorax got block D”
“We both got block E.” I announced to them grimly with my tournament interface floating below my head.
“That sucks, man that means the four of us won’t make it to the main tourney!” Gorax remarked in a rather upset tone, rubbing his head.
“But if Etho and I face, it’ll be the finals.” Erick replied happily.
“The two that get to the finals of the qualifier make it to the main tournament!” I acknowledged casually as I closed my menu, therefore closing my Tournament interface.
“PLAYERS. THE BULLET OF BULLETS QUALIFIERS WILL BEGIN IN ONE MINUTE. READY YOUR WEAPONS. THE DOORS TO GET OUT OF THE WAITING AREA ARE NOW LOCKED AND YOU CANNOT LOG OUT MANUALLY UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN DEFEATED OR CLAIM VICTORY IN THE QUALIFIER. GOOD LUCK” The loudspeaker blared as the clock started counting down. Players were being teleported to the waiting spots until the timers finished counting for players to get ready for their fights. Soon, I was floating in a black space of nothingness. The only thing other than me in it was the timer. My opponent’s name was Seth289.
Five, four, three, two, one. BEEP
I was teleported to a city, much like the city of Toronto in Canada. We had visited the city a long time ago, when I was only four years old. We lived in America then, and we had been going to visit family in Ottawa. Toronto was on the way and everybody was tired. We stopped at a hotel downtown.
I was shocked to see how much this battlefield resembled Toronto, all the glass buildings and Go Stations. Subways and the CN Tower. I decided to go up there first for a viewpoint.
Surprisingly, I had a cheap sniper rifle in my inventory to scope so I could see my enemies from afar. I sometimes used it to shoot my enemies, but I used it for that purpose very rarely, so I carried a low amount of ammo for it.
Fortunately, I had spawned close to my target location, so I could swiftly arrive there and take the elevator up the tower and find my target. I opened my menu and equipped my sniper rifle.
I looked through the scope for quite a while, still unable to find my target. I sighed, thinking he had hid inside a building or something. I unequipped my rifle and I saw a bullet coming my way.
I ducked rather than blocking it, because my Lightsword was currently unequipped and I needed to equip it from my inventory. Luckily, before the next shot, I was able to equip my pistol AND Lightsword, but had no time before the shot to block the bullet. I swore under my breath and flicked the switch to bring out the blade on my Lightsword, and began to pursue my target.
A few shots came my way, and I had blocked all of the shots as I ran through the city. I found him at the top of another tower, reloading his gun. He was using a sniper rifle. I swiftly ran towards the tower he was on and went into it. I navigated my way through the building, and found an elevator. I clicked the button for the roof and waited for it to take me to the roof. I ran around stealthily on the roof, looking for my target. I saw him lying there, trying to find me through his scope. I walked up to him slowly while he wasn’t looking, and impaled his head with my Lightsword, instantly killing him. I was teleported to the main lobby after receiving a ‘Congratulations’ Text in front of me.
“Etho, nice assassination on that dude, man!” Gorax congratulated as he patted my back hard. Since the Amusphere can’t send pain through your nerves, it didn’t hurt that much.
“Thanks, and sorry I couldn’t see your match. Trying to locate that dude was a total pain in my a**!” I replied, trying to sound excited. I felt like something was burning inside me, as I was forcing myself not to get upset at the fact that I had pulled a cheap move on some noob who was stupid enough to join BoB without any detection skills. I felt bad, I probably should’ve gone easy on the poor guy. He WAS overreacting to the loss though, I saw him in a far corner bawling his eyes out with a female player rubbing his back to reassure him.
I saw Erick’s fight on screen, but only caught a glimpse of his winning blow on the opponent. He DID have physical skills with guns, explaining how he’s this good at GGO as a rookie. The game takes your physical capabilities into account to realistically simulate things in the game.
I caught a glimpse of Robin’s match, and it had a devastating finish to it.
Robin was running to get a jump to a nearby building, holding her assault rifle, and her opponent was nowhere to be seen. I got a clear look from the camera angle to see a landmine a step away from where she would land. Her foot came into contact with the hazard and the last thing we saw of the fight was an explosion, and it showed the winner’s name on the screen.
“Luck”
After Robin’s first round fight ended, I realized that the player she fought looked the same as the one back during the quest on our way -or I should say my way- to the cave where I fought that giant pig.
I only got a glance of him before the explosion, but I swore it was the same guy. I looked back and saw Robin respawn behind me as I unequipped my weapons. A lot of the first round fights had ended soon after, and Gorax lead Erick, Robin and I to a table.
“That was the guy!” Robin blurted out as soon as we sat down at the table. Gorax and Erick unequipped their weapons.
I knew it!
I looked at my menu to see that there was only one match left to finish before round two.
“What guy?” Gorax inquired as Robin sighed.
“The guy we fought before we sent Etho to the cave. That skilled fella who just beat me, I swear…”
“Lighten up Robin, he may just be a lookalike!” Erick interrupted swiftly as Robin frowned.
“That dude DID seem like the guy from the big fight. I saw most of the match Erick, my fight was short as hell,” Gorax objected as Robin and I nodded in agreement.
“See, we have a witness, tough guy!” Robin bragged, nudging Erick hard. He gave Robin a not-so scary glare, Gorax just shrugged.
“Hey, Etho! What’s up?” A voice said from beside the table. His name is Makkus. We used to play a lot together before about a month ago. He stopped playing because of work. He was the supreme general of Lucina’s old squadron before they disbanded after Lucina’s pneumonia came. Lucina was the general, and she was the third ranked GGO player before last spring. There was Makkus at rank two, and Nicke who was ranked first. When I started to get better, I challenged Makkus and lost to him.
“Hey, what’s good buddy!” I replied while standing up to go give him a fist bump. “Long time no see!”
“Meh, just got back to GGO yesterday, just finished my match before you. Say, you’ve gotten better!” Makkus replied in excitement and scratched his head. He checked his tournament interface quickly. “Umm… take a look at the tourney interface…”
I opened the interface and checked for my second round match. The last match had finished a minute ago and was shocked to see who my next opponent was. The name beside mine in the first round lineup was one I wouldn’t expect.
Makkus
And we were teleported to the arena.
With my weapons equipped, I swiftly brought out the blade on my Lightsword and made a run for the nearest cavern. We were dropped into a desert-like battlefield, and I could see an abandoned city in the far distance.
I had a feeling that Makkus was dropped in the city area, as I saw it on the opposite side of my spawn location. Players in the BoB qualifier who are in matches are spawned in opposite sides of the battlefield.
I charged as fast as I could and stopped to regain some run energy. I saw NO caverns whatsoever on my search, so I decided to go to the city. Besides, Makkus was probably hiding somewhere around that area.
Once my run energy completely filled back up, I began another sprint towards the city. The faster I went, the more run energy I wasted, but the closer I got to the city. I decided to go slower, as the city came closer. I needed to retain my run energy as the city is more dangerous to me in this fight and can’t afford to rest. Makkus uses a Lightsword, like me, but he uses a sniper rifle rather than a pistol as an extra weapon. He usually makes the opening move as a sniper shot rather than a slash of the sword.
I heard footsteps behind me, so I ran to the nearest building and hid.
Luckily there was an elevator, but I know it wouldn’t help too much other than stalling an attack because Makkus is smart and would know to check the elevator if he found me. I decided to go find a hiding spot where I could attack him from with my pistol, then finish off with my Lightsword. I heard the automatic doors to the building open, and he was holding his Lightsword in his right hand. I use my left hand for my main weapon rather than my right. It’s how my account is set up.
He looked around the building, unable to detect me before I went up the elevator. My hiding spot was near the entrance to it. Makkus found me but was unable to get to me before I got to the roof of the building. While it went back down to the bottom after I reached the top I had time to find a spot to hide so I could go for the ambush.
As Makkus reached the roof a couple minutes later, he walked to the middle of it and I came out to attack. He swiftly turned around to block my attack as I pulled out my pistol and aimed for his head and pulled the trigger.
VRRMMM
The bullet didn’t hit Makkus’ head, he blocked it with his Lightsword. I wasn’t expecting an easy fight, but his back was turned when I pulled the trigger and I was surprised he could find a prediction line behind him. He looked back at me with a smirk and I fired another shot. He swiftly blocked it and sprinted in my direction. I put away my pistol and got out my Lightsword and flicked the switch.
Our blades crossed and the fighting became a full-on sword fight in no time at all. I was sweating by this point, Makkus had hit me more than I could even take a slash at him. I smirked at him confidently.
“As good as always pal!” I remarked at him as he smiled back at me.
“You’ve been getting better too!” Makkus replied, he seemed like he was getting tired too. He took more slashes at me and I quickly blocked them. His blade was coming at me faster and faster and it kept speeding up to the point where I had to duck and slash at his legs. He fell to the ground and I quickly used a medical pack to regain HP. He pulled out a pistol and shot at me and I blocked his bullet. I rushed up to him and quickly turned my Lightsword to face down at his avatar and held the handle in both hands. I sighed.
“Looks like I win…” I whispered loud enough for Makkus to hear and I impaled him until his HP fully depleted.
“That’s right dude!” Were Makkus’ last words in the match before he died and we were both teleported to the main tournament lobby. The winner’s screen appeared in the lobby and it turns out my match was the last to end.
I looked at my tournament interface, and saw that my opponent wasn’t anybody I recognized. I breezed through many of my matches up to the semifinals, and my opponent’s name there was Fortified. I was intrigued by the name, but shrugged it off like it was nothing.
In the meantime, before the 7th round, (which was the semifinal) Robin, Gorax, Erick, and I went and got drinks to celebrate. Gorax’s block had already finished and he had made it to BoB, but Erick and I needed to make it through one more round before the final, and make it to BoB.
When the timer finished counting down, the four block E semifinalists were teleported to their matches. I equipped my weapons and waited until the teleport finished.
When I arrived in the battlefield, I felt a cold breeze across my face. My eyes were closed up until I got out my Lightsword a few seconds later, and found myself in a snowy, deserted plain with nothing but snow. I saw nothing but snow-covered ground in the distance. There were no places to hide. I sprinted to find my opponent but only saw footprints where he would’ve spawned. They were leading to the right, and so I followed the tracks. I was getting really cold, and all I had to keep warm was my jacket.
My jacket isn’t even a proper winter jacket either, it’s just a jacket that makes my avatar look cool. There’s no snow regularly in GGO, so they don’t sell winter jackets in the outfit shop.
My fingers were getting numb by this time, and I was shivering. I heard footsteps behind me. I walked a few steps forward, and then looked back. I saw a figure behind me and all I heard was a gunshot.
Spoiler (Click to View)
Prologue: Episode 1
"Alright, see ya tomorrow!"
"Ok, I'll be on GGO at around six! I'll meet you at the minigame hut!"
Walking home from the park seemed weird today, the breeze was much windier than usual. The thing is, I'm used to small breezes IRL (In Real Life), compared to in-game. I play this really cool VRMMO (Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) called Gun Gale Online (GGO) on most of my free time, and since I don't go to school, that's pretty much what I'm doing 24-7. My brother- Thomas- and I live in an apartment in Tokyo, it isn't that luxurious at all. Thomas is a police officer in training at the Tokyo Police Department, and isn't really into gaming. Thomas just finished interning at the Department, and currently is learning to carry a gun. He works with rifles.
When I walked home from the park after hanging out with my best friend Lucina, I usually walk with her because her house is on the same street. Today though, she had to meet her family at the local pool, just outside of the police base. Thomas usually gets home from training around 7:00, so I'm usually playing around on GGO. The thing is, I usually get on GGO as soon as I get home, but I had to do laundry today. Normally Thomas does it because he's off on weekends and that's usually when we do laundry, but I change about ten times a day, so I had to do it early.
The leaves on the trees behind me are blown by the breeze. I'm lucky I didn't bring my bike today, because when I ride in strong winds, my bike slows down a lot. Last time we had winds like that was two years ago, when a tornado struck and the power was out, so the Japanese GGO server was down. I was fourteen at the time, and that was two days before I dropped out of high school. When my parents found out that I dropped out, they kicked Thomas and I out of the house and we took our belongings with us. Since Thomas was working at the nearby McDonalds for the ten years prior to that event, and saved all of his money from what he had earned. That's what landed us in this apartment. He only had enough for this because we still needed internet and furniture. If it weren't for our amazing internet, then I wouldn't have become as hardcore of a gamer as I am now.
As the sidewalk came to an end and a set of stairs came at the end, the apartment building I live in towered above me. As I walked up the stairs and continued into the building, I came to a stop after I walked through the entrance doors and they came to a close, I pushed the button under my apartment number where they are planted on the wall, and the system asked for my passcode. Since it is voice controlled, I said my passcode and the doors into the stairs unlocked. I fished my apartment key out of my pocket and held it in my right hand while walking upstairs. When I reached my door, I put the key in the keyhole, twisted the key and then opened the door. As I walked in, I took my boots off, carefully placed them in the closet, and then closed the apartment door behind me.
As I walked through the living room into my bedroom, I heard my cell phone ring, and I picked it up. Turns out it was Thomas.
"Hey bro!" Thomas shouted at me over the phone. Since I have the newest Sony phone, the sound projected so loud it nearly deafened me.
"Dude, no need to be so loud, what do you want?" I replied calmly. "That could have deafened me!"
"Just letting you know that I'm working late tonight, and sorry Ethan," He said softly, then for a second, sounded like a snicker in the background. I rolled my eyes.
"What for?" I asked him, concerned, and I heard static then he hung up.
When I reached my room, I picked up my Amusphere from my dresser and then plugged one end of the power adapter to the wall. An Amusphere is what goes around your head that allows you to play VRMMOs. The Amusphere puts you to sleep in the real world, putting your mind in a state where you're in a selected game that has been downloaded into the console.
After I plugged in my Amusphere to the wall, I laid down on my bed and put the Amusphere on my head.
"LINK START" And then I am away from the world around me, and another surrounds me.
I'm back in Gun Gale Online.
Prologue: Episode 2:
“Hey, Etho, what’s up?” A friend of mine shouted at me. His name is Gorax- or, at least his IGN (In game name) is Gorax. He had an army buzzcut in a dirty-blondish coloring. It complimented his blue eyes and his silver piercings. He wore a camo patterned snowcover and black track pants. Everybody else in the bar that I had just walked into started chuckling.
“Etho, what happened to Lucina?” The bartender shouted at me after the crowd settled down. The bartender had long black hair down to her waist, wore a necklace with a bullet shaped diamond at the tip around her neck.
She had pale hazel eyes and wore a green toque on her head. She stood behind the table, only exposing her teal tank top.
“Umm…” I started to reply dimly, scratching my head. “She had to tend to some things in the real world…”
“Awww… Come on. She missed the quest group… They were waiting HOURS for her. And a quest reward was a really cool crossbow too…” The bartender had said, sounding gloomy.
“Who cares?” Gorax told her, raising an eyebrow. “You aren’t a crossbow user, so why do you care anyway?”
“Because Lucina has no way to contact the squadron, unlike me!” The bartender shouted at Gorax while banging a wine glass on the counter. It made a loud noise and the glass shattered. “I stayed behind and waited for her, but she’s been gone for a while!”
“Alright ladies, break it up, you’re both pretty OK?” A voice from the crowd shouted. Everyone else in the bar started laughing.
“Um… While my brother is getting home soon, it’s 8:00 at night where I am…” I say quickly. “I’ll have to log-…..” And everything was pushing away from me. I saw large bolded text in front of me saying: POWER DOWN. YOU WILL BE LOGGED OUT MOMENTARILY.
Prologue: Episode 3
Spoiler (Click to View)
"Alright, see ya tomorrow!"
"Ok, I'll be on GGO at around six! I'll meet you at the minigame hut!"
+ + +
Walking home from the park seemed weird today, the breeze was much windier than usual. The thing is, I'm used to small breezes IRL (In Real Life), compared to in-game. I play this really cool VRMMO (Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) called Gun Gale Online (GGO) on most of my free time, and since I don't go to school, that's pretty much what I'm doing 24-7. My brother- Thomas- and I live in an apartment in Tokyo, it isn't that luxurious at all. Thomas is a police officer in training at the Tokyo Police Department, and isn't really into gaming. Thomas just finished interning at the Department, and currently is learning to carry a gun. He works with rifles.
When I walked home from the park after hanging out with my best friend Lucina, I usually walk with her because her house is on the same street. Today though, she had to meet her family at the local pool, just outside of the police base. Thomas usually gets home from training around 7:00, so I'm usually playing around on GGO. The thing is, I usually get on GGO as soon as I get home, but I had to do laundry today. Normally Thomas does it because he's off on weekends and that's usually when we do laundry, but I change about ten times a day, so I had to do it early.
The leaves on the trees behind me are blown by the breeze. I'm lucky I didn't bring my bike today, because when I ride in strong winds, my bike slows down a lot. Last time we had winds like that was two years ago, when a tornado struck and the power was out, so the Japanese GGO server was down. I was fourteen at the time, and that was two days before I dropped out of high school. When my parents found out that I dropped out, they kicked Thomas and I out of the house and we took our belongings with us. Since Thomas was working at the nearby McDonalds for the ten years prior to that event, and saved all of his money from what he had earned. That's what landed us in this apartment. He only had enough for this because we still needed internet and furniture. If it weren't for our amazing internet, then I wouldn't have become as hardcore of a gamer as I am now.
+ + +
As the sidewalk came to an end and a set of stairs came at the end, the apartment building I live in towered above me. As I walked up the stairs and continued into the building, I came to a stop after I walked through the entrance doors and they came to a close, I pushed the button under my apartment number where they are planted on the wall, and the system asked for my passcode. Since it is voice controlled, I said my passcode and the doors into the stairs unlocked. I fished my apartment key out of my pocket and held it in my right hand while walking upstairs. When I reached my door, I put the key in the keyhole, twisted the key and then opened the door. As I walked in, I took my boots off, carefully placed them in the closet, and then closed the apartment door behind me.
As I walked through the living room into my bedroom, I heard my cell phone ring, and I picked it up. Turns out it was Thomas.
"Hey bro!" Thomas shouted at me over the phone. Since I have the newest Sony phone, the sound projected so loud it nearly deafened me.
"Dude, no need to be so loud, what do you want?" I replied calmly. "That could have deafened me!"
"Just letting you know that I'm working late tonight, and sorry Ethan," He said softly, then for a second, sounded like a snicker in the background. I rolled my eyes.
"What for?" I asked him, concerned, and I heard static then he hung up.
+ + +
When I reached my room, I picked up my Amusphere from my dresser and then plugged one end of the power adapter to the wall. An Amusphere is what goes around your head that allows you to play VRMMOs. The Amusphere puts you to sleep in the real world, putting your mind in a state where you're in a selected game that has been downloaded into the console.
After I plugged in my Amusphere to the wall, I laid down on my bed and put the Amusphere on my head.
"LINK START" And then I am away from the world around me, and another surrounds me.
I'm back in Gun Gale Online.
Prologue: Episode 2:
Spoiler (Click to View)
“Hey, Etho, what’s up?” A friend of mine shouted at me. His name is Gorax- or, at least his IGN (In game name) is Gorax. He had an army buzzcut in a dirty-blondish coloring. It complimented his blue eyes and his silver piercings. He wore a camo patterned snowcover and black track pants. Everybody else in the bar that I had just walked into started chuckling.
“Etho, what happened to Lucina?” The bartender shouted at me after the crowd settled down. The bartender had long black hair down to her waist, wore a necklace with a bullet shaped diamond at the tip around her neck.
She had pale hazel eyes and wore a green toque on her head. She stood behind the table, only exposing her teal tank top.
“Umm…” I started to reply dimly, scratching my head. “She had to tend to some things in the real world…”
“Awww… Come on. She missed the quest group… They were waiting HOURS for her. And a quest reward was a really cool crossbow too…” The bartender had said, sounding gloomy.
“Who cares?” Gorax told her, raising an eyebrow. “You aren’t a crossbow user, so why do you care anyway?”
“Because Lucina has no way to contact the squadron, unlike me!” The bartender shouted at Gorax while banging a wine glass on the counter. It made a loud noise and the glass shattered. “I stayed behind and waited for her, but she’s been gone for a while!”
“Alright ladies, break it up, you’re both pretty OK?” A voice from the crowd shouted. Everyone else in the bar started laughing.
“Um… While my brother is getting home soon, it’s 8:00 at night where I am…” I say quickly. “I’ll have to log-…..” And everything was pushing away from me. I saw large bolded text in front of me saying: POWER DOWN. YOU WILL BE LOGGED OUT MOMENTARILY.
Prologue: Episode 3
Spoiler (Click to View)
“What was that for?!” I exclaimed as Thomas stood over me as I lay in my bed with my amusphere on my head.
“Umm, what was THAT for?!” He exclaimed as he pointed at the amusphere around my head. “You know you shouldn’t be using that thing when I’m home! It overloads the wifi connection and I can’t do my work!”
“Excuse me, but you don’t need to use the wifi for your job!” I yelled angrily at him. His face went red, the only other color in his face being the blue in his big, round eyes. He’s not usually that wide-eyed, but he gets this way when I’m in GGO because he doesn’t like when I’m unable to hear him when he calls me.
I still wonder why Lucina wasn’t on GGO tonight… She said she was going on at 6 to the minigame hut with me.
The only reason why I was in the bar was because Lucina wasn’t where she said she’d meet me.
Thomas stomped out of my bedroom door and slammed it, taking the cord of my amushpere with him. I was in shock, how my own BROTHER took my amusphere away.
I opened my bedroom door and walked to the kitchen and started cooking my dinner. I usually don’t eat this late, but I was distracted with GGO and lost track of time. I realized it was now 8:15, so I decided just to cook a couple of hot dogs. I opened the freezer, took about 3 hot dogs out of the package, and went to fill the frying pot with water. Once it was full and on the stove, I dropped the hot dogs into the pot and a bit of water bounced up and hit my hand. I got out a plate and then realized that there was no buns. I shrugged my shoulders and blew it off, it’s not too vital.
As the hot dogs started to cook as I turned on the stove, I realized something. I had no way to make any money without GGO. Although I was really bad at it, Lucina and I shared the money earnings between us and I converted it into real cash. Same routine every week. Now I have no way to do so. Lucina trained me a bit and I got better. I’m still no good at GGO.
After a few minutes, my hot dogs were cooked and I started eating. I’m a fast eater, so I ate them very fast. When I finished, I darted for the front entrance to the apartment, grabbed my jacket and toque, and then yelled to my brother:
“I’m heading to the park!”
As I walked to the park to see if I could find Lucina, I was very cold and my fingers became frozen- on the verge of becoming numb –as I walked swiftly up the cracked sidewalk. The breeze didn’t blow my hair back as much as it normally does as my hat was covering most of it except for the front, as I have long bangs. I ended up putting my hands in my pockets because they were so cold, hoping they would get warm this way. It didn’t end up working, however.
When I got to the park, I looked everywhere for Lucina, but not one sign of her. Nobody was there but me, so I decided to go to her house to see if she was home.
When I arrived at her house, I saw a note on the door, and I grabbed it and read it. It read:
To all whom this may concern:
We’re in the local hospital as our beloved daughter, Lucina Dontell has been recently diagnosed with Pneumonia and won’t be able to come home for a long time. Hopefully she will be alright soon, and thank you for your understanding of the situation.
The Dontell family.
“Umm, what was THAT for?!” He exclaimed as he pointed at the amusphere around my head. “You know you shouldn’t be using that thing when I’m home! It overloads the wifi connection and I can’t do my work!”
“Excuse me, but you don’t need to use the wifi for your job!” I yelled angrily at him. His face went red, the only other color in his face being the blue in his big, round eyes. He’s not usually that wide-eyed, but he gets this way when I’m in GGO because he doesn’t like when I’m unable to hear him when he calls me.
I still wonder why Lucina wasn’t on GGO tonight… She said she was going on at 6 to the minigame hut with me.
The only reason why I was in the bar was because Lucina wasn’t where she said she’d meet me.
Thomas stomped out of my bedroom door and slammed it, taking the cord of my amushpere with him. I was in shock, how my own BROTHER took my amusphere away.
I opened my bedroom door and walked to the kitchen and started cooking my dinner. I usually don’t eat this late, but I was distracted with GGO and lost track of time. I realized it was now 8:15, so I decided just to cook a couple of hot dogs. I opened the freezer, took about 3 hot dogs out of the package, and went to fill the frying pot with water. Once it was full and on the stove, I dropped the hot dogs into the pot and a bit of water bounced up and hit my hand. I got out a plate and then realized that there was no buns. I shrugged my shoulders and blew it off, it’s not too vital.
As the hot dogs started to cook as I turned on the stove, I realized something. I had no way to make any money without GGO. Although I was really bad at it, Lucina and I shared the money earnings between us and I converted it into real cash. Same routine every week. Now I have no way to do so. Lucina trained me a bit and I got better. I’m still no good at GGO.
After a few minutes, my hot dogs were cooked and I started eating. I’m a fast eater, so I ate them very fast. When I finished, I darted for the front entrance to the apartment, grabbed my jacket and toque, and then yelled to my brother:
“I’m heading to the park!”
+ + +
As I walked to the park to see if I could find Lucina, I was very cold and my fingers became frozen- on the verge of becoming numb –as I walked swiftly up the cracked sidewalk. The breeze didn’t blow my hair back as much as it normally does as my hat was covering most of it except for the front, as I have long bangs. I ended up putting my hands in my pockets because they were so cold, hoping they would get warm this way. It didn’t end up working, however.
When I got to the park, I looked everywhere for Lucina, but not one sign of her. Nobody was there but me, so I decided to go to her house to see if she was home.
When I arrived at her house, I saw a note on the door, and I grabbed it and read it. It read:
To all whom this may concern:
We’re in the local hospital as our beloved daughter, Lucina Dontell has been recently diagnosed with Pneumonia and won’t be able to come home for a long time. Hopefully she will be alright soon, and thank you for your understanding of the situation.
The Dontell family.
PART ONE: GGO
Spoiler (Click to View)
EPISODE ONE
Sun's Out, Guns Out
Sun's Out, Guns Out
Spoiler (Click to View)
It was just last spring that Lucina was diagnosed with pneumonia, and I have been visiting her countlessly in the hospital since I had figured out about it. Thomas has given me back my amusphere privileges out of pity, so I have been training hardcore since Lucina first got landed in the hospital. I have been getting good, but I had to transfer money from my bank account to GGO so I had enough for a new Light Sword. My previous one sucked, as you had to keep holding the trigger to use it. It was shaped like a gun and the blade emerged when I held the trigger. My new one had a switch that you clicked and it the blade would emerge and only retracted when you clicked the switch again.
My brother had recently been told that he had to do some special training that had to do with virtual reality. I was getting suspicious about it when I heard, and Thomas had been less hostile when it came to my gaming habits.
I had decided to go into GGO to do my training for the next Bullet of Bullets (BoB) tourney qualifiers, which registrations opened for in two weeks. Lucina was always the BoB champion when she was still around, and now there are other people taking the crown for the top. Gorax was last month’s champion, so everyone at the bar was celebrating.
I walked into my bedroom slowly and then plugged my amusphere in, and then hooked myself into GGO…
As I walked into the training area, I saw a figure fighting with a punching bag, and walked towards him. He has familiar eyes, and black hair. He has an army buzzcut, like Gorax, but this person’s cut seems much thinner and it looks like he’s shaved. He has a rifle across his back.
Could that be Thomas?
I poked him quickly and he stopped, and sharply turned around to face me. He has a camo tanktop with a bullet strap across his upper body, and I see a pistol on his belt. Right there, I could tell that it was Thomas, when he yelled:
“What the hell was that for!?!?!”
“It’s me, Ethan!” I replied to him, and he eyed me strangely, and seemed like something about me looked familiar.
“ETHAN!!!” He shouted. Luckily, there was nobody around to hear.
“Shush… Call me Etho here. What’s your IGN, and is this your training?” I replied calmly.
“Oh, ok. My name here is Erick, and yes, I have to train here until I can reach the top three of this ‘Bullet of Bullets’ tourney thingy.” Thomas responded quickly, and I nodded.
“Haha, I want to get into BoB this month too!” I said, laughing. I rubbed my eyes quickly in tiredness.
“Wow. Is this place where you always were when I wasn’t home?” He said back.
“Yes. It is.”
“It’s REALLY COOL”
Thomas- I mean Erick- and I walked down the road to the bar. Erick was wide-eyed, looking at the lights all around the town. I looked at him and when he saw a gun shop nearby, he pulled me toward it.
“DUDE. THIS WAY.”
When we walked in, he saw a really cool minigun on one of the shelves and he picked it up right away.
“I NEED THIS MINIGUN NOW!!!” He screamed in excitement as he held the huge black minigun in his hands.
“I thought you worked with rifles?” I replied coldly. “And you’re never THIS childish…” I put a frown on my face.
“But I’m just SOO excited!” Erick shouted. Everyone else in the gun shop gave him cold looks and I facepalmed, rolling my eyes. Everyone started laughing hard and the cashier was joining in.
“Let’s just pay for this thing and some bullets and get outta here… You’re embarrassing me…” I whispered to Erick quietly as possible and he nodded slowly. He scratched his head as I brushed the string of hair between my left eye and my nose. That bit is only there in GGO, as my bangs IRL are swept to the side all the time.
We walked up to the counter, everybody watching, still left chuckling a tiny bit. My face turned red and luckily, we got out as quickly as humanly possible. I ran ahead and Erick was struggling to catch up.
“Hurry up!!!” I called to him as he opened up his player menu quickly.
“Ok, just lemme put my weapons away, they’re slowing me down!” He replied swiftly as he quickly let his minigun, rifle, and pistol into his inventory. Soon after, he started charging back after me and soon caught up.
When we made it to the center of town, we saw crowds of players in the main central plaza. Gorax noticed me as Erick and I walked up to the crowd and waved. He walked towards us quickly and pulled us into the middle of the crowd.
“Hey, Etho, who’s this?” Gorax inquired in a loud-ish tone, trying to make it possible to hear over the noisy crowd. I had barely heard it anyway, and the crowd just ended up getting louder.
“Umm…” I started to reply.
“I’m his brother! My name’s Erick, nice to meet you bud!” Erick interjected, headlocking Gorax while he gave him a gentle noogie.
“Dude! Can you let go?” Gorax yelled the question over the crowd. They didn’t seem to care, but then they got louder again. Erick let go and gave Gorax an apologetic handshake. Gorax pointed at the screen on top of the statue of a five time BoB champion. I believe his name was Exo67. He doesn’t play anymore though.
On the screen, a BoB trailer played, and announced that there will be early signups for this month’s Bullet of Bullets tourney and the tournament will be early due to scheduled maintenance on the server during the original tournament’s scheduling. Everybody cheered quickly, and then players rushed out of the plaza and ran towards the registration building.
My brother had recently been told that he had to do some special training that had to do with virtual reality. I was getting suspicious about it when I heard, and Thomas had been less hostile when it came to my gaming habits.
I had decided to go into GGO to do my training for the next Bullet of Bullets (BoB) tourney qualifiers, which registrations opened for in two weeks. Lucina was always the BoB champion when she was still around, and now there are other people taking the crown for the top. Gorax was last month’s champion, so everyone at the bar was celebrating.
I walked into my bedroom slowly and then plugged my amusphere in, and then hooked myself into GGO…
+ + +
As I walked into the training area, I saw a figure fighting with a punching bag, and walked towards him. He has familiar eyes, and black hair. He has an army buzzcut, like Gorax, but this person’s cut seems much thinner and it looks like he’s shaved. He has a rifle across his back.
Could that be Thomas?
I poked him quickly and he stopped, and sharply turned around to face me. He has a camo tanktop with a bullet strap across his upper body, and I see a pistol on his belt. Right there, I could tell that it was Thomas, when he yelled:
“What the hell was that for!?!?!”
“It’s me, Ethan!” I replied to him, and he eyed me strangely, and seemed like something about me looked familiar.
“ETHAN!!!” He shouted. Luckily, there was nobody around to hear.
“Shush… Call me Etho here. What’s your IGN, and is this your training?” I replied calmly.
“Oh, ok. My name here is Erick, and yes, I have to train here until I can reach the top three of this ‘Bullet of Bullets’ tourney thingy.” Thomas responded quickly, and I nodded.
“Haha, I want to get into BoB this month too!” I said, laughing. I rubbed my eyes quickly in tiredness.
“Wow. Is this place where you always were when I wasn’t home?” He said back.
“Yes. It is.”
“It’s REALLY COOL”
+ + +
Thomas- I mean Erick- and I walked down the road to the bar. Erick was wide-eyed, looking at the lights all around the town. I looked at him and when he saw a gun shop nearby, he pulled me toward it.
“DUDE. THIS WAY.”
When we walked in, he saw a really cool minigun on one of the shelves and he picked it up right away.
“I NEED THIS MINIGUN NOW!!!” He screamed in excitement as he held the huge black minigun in his hands.
“I thought you worked with rifles?” I replied coldly. “And you’re never THIS childish…” I put a frown on my face.
“But I’m just SOO excited!” Erick shouted. Everyone else in the gun shop gave him cold looks and I facepalmed, rolling my eyes. Everyone started laughing hard and the cashier was joining in.
“Let’s just pay for this thing and some bullets and get outta here… You’re embarrassing me…” I whispered to Erick quietly as possible and he nodded slowly. He scratched his head as I brushed the string of hair between my left eye and my nose. That bit is only there in GGO, as my bangs IRL are swept to the side all the time.
We walked up to the counter, everybody watching, still left chuckling a tiny bit. My face turned red and luckily, we got out as quickly as humanly possible. I ran ahead and Erick was struggling to catch up.
“Hurry up!!!” I called to him as he opened up his player menu quickly.
“Ok, just lemme put my weapons away, they’re slowing me down!” He replied swiftly as he quickly let his minigun, rifle, and pistol into his inventory. Soon after, he started charging back after me and soon caught up.
When we made it to the center of town, we saw crowds of players in the main central plaza. Gorax noticed me as Erick and I walked up to the crowd and waved. He walked towards us quickly and pulled us into the middle of the crowd.
“Hey, Etho, who’s this?” Gorax inquired in a loud-ish tone, trying to make it possible to hear over the noisy crowd. I had barely heard it anyway, and the crowd just ended up getting louder.
“Umm…” I started to reply.
“I’m his brother! My name’s Erick, nice to meet you bud!” Erick interjected, headlocking Gorax while he gave him a gentle noogie.
“Dude! Can you let go?” Gorax yelled the question over the crowd. They didn’t seem to care, but then they got louder again. Erick let go and gave Gorax an apologetic handshake. Gorax pointed at the screen on top of the statue of a five time BoB champion. I believe his name was Exo67. He doesn’t play anymore though.
On the screen, a BoB trailer played, and announced that there will be early signups for this month’s Bullet of Bullets tourney and the tournament will be early due to scheduled maintenance on the server during the original tournament’s scheduling. Everybody cheered quickly, and then players rushed out of the plaza and ran towards the registration building.
EPISODE TWO
The Path to Glory
The Path to Glory
Spoiler (Click to View)
As everybody else had decided to take the train to the registration area for BoB, Erick, Gorax and I decided to go find a car to rent. When we got to the rental cars area, we saw a bunch of cheap cars with hand registration plates beside them. I went to the nearest one and paid, and the system for GGO gave me the keys.
After we paid, Gorax and Erick decided to high five quickly.
“I’LL DRIVE” Erick shouted in dire excitement as he took my keys from me and got into the driver’s seat.
After we all got seated, we were in for a bumpy ride up ahead, and not because of the terrain. It was the reason we didn’t have a car IRL.
Thomas is a horrible driver, and since this is a VRMMO…
It’ll be the same…
Erick constantly crashed into things, and ran over some NPCs and players. The thing was, this was a safe zone, so players won’t get hurt and NPCs just respawned. Every time we crashed, the slower the car got.
“Didn’t you tell me Erick was 25?” Gorax asked me in surprise.
“Yeah, but he’s excited because it’s his first MMO…” I answered calmly and quietly. “And I know his excuse for the driving too…”
“What is it?” Gorax asked back.
I told him about how when we were in Russia seven years ago to go skiing in Sochi, he took his driver’s test while we were there because a cab couldn’t take us all the way from where we had arrived to Sochi. We never ended up reaching Sochi, because we had to stop because he was a horrible driver and it wasn’t safe. We had to go back home.
Gorax nodded while I told him about it, and Thomas had always thought that the cause for his horrible driving habits were because he took the driving test in Russia. That was his excuse. Always.
After the long, horrific ride that the car only made it half a quarter of the way to the bridge to the island where registration was, we decided to stop at a nearby restaurant. Gorax, Erick and I all decided to call it a day and log out. We still had about a week to sign up for the BoB qualifiers.
When I woke up after logging out of GGO, I sat up quickly and took my amusphere off of my head. I dropped it onto my bed while walking around the other side to unplug it from the wall, since the power outlet was to my right. I have no idea why I wasted a perfect two minutes walking AROUND my bed rather than just leaning to my side, but two minutes isn’t too much to waste.
I approached my door, turned the knob and slowly walked out of my bedroom and went into the living room. The treadmill was sitting there, unplugged. Thomas had always told me to keep it unplugged when I wasn’t using it. I was going to use it now though, so I plugged it back in and turned the power on. The treadmill started up and I started running on it.
Once I finished on the treadmill, Erick was back home around five minutes after. He was sitting on the couch watching an anime about World War 2.
I was sweating way too much when I finished on the treadmill, and since I was going to the park to meet up with Lucina’s sister- Robin -to see how things were going with Lucina, I was forced to shower.
After my shower, I had to dry off, get dressed, and style my hair. I decided to wear a thin sweater under my red jacket because it was so frigid outside. Although my jacket was very warm, I still felt a bit cold in it so my sweater made me nice and toasty for the frozen air outside.
I still wish that Gorax would’ve driven so that we would’ve gotten closer to the registration building. I pushed that thought from my mind as I walked to the park, hands in my pockets because my mitts were completely wrecked in a fist fight I got into about a month ago. It’s February now.
As I made my way into the park, I saw Robin run up to me quickly. She’s the bartender in GGO at the bar I went to before I found out about Lucina’s illness. Robin stopped in front of me, and said:
“Lucina isn’t in very good condition right now Ethan…”
After we paid, Gorax and Erick decided to high five quickly.
“I’LL DRIVE” Erick shouted in dire excitement as he took my keys from me and got into the driver’s seat.
+ + +
After we all got seated, we were in for a bumpy ride up ahead, and not because of the terrain. It was the reason we didn’t have a car IRL.
Thomas is a horrible driver, and since this is a VRMMO…
It’ll be the same…
Erick constantly crashed into things, and ran over some NPCs and players. The thing was, this was a safe zone, so players won’t get hurt and NPCs just respawned. Every time we crashed, the slower the car got.
“Didn’t you tell me Erick was 25?” Gorax asked me in surprise.
“Yeah, but he’s excited because it’s his first MMO…” I answered calmly and quietly. “And I know his excuse for the driving too…”
“What is it?” Gorax asked back.
I told him about how when we were in Russia seven years ago to go skiing in Sochi, he took his driver’s test while we were there because a cab couldn’t take us all the way from where we had arrived to Sochi. We never ended up reaching Sochi, because we had to stop because he was a horrible driver and it wasn’t safe. We had to go back home.
Gorax nodded while I told him about it, and Thomas had always thought that the cause for his horrible driving habits were because he took the driving test in Russia. That was his excuse. Always.
After the long, horrific ride that the car only made it half a quarter of the way to the bridge to the island where registration was, we decided to stop at a nearby restaurant. Gorax, Erick and I all decided to call it a day and log out. We still had about a week to sign up for the BoB qualifiers.
+ + +
When I woke up after logging out of GGO, I sat up quickly and took my amusphere off of my head. I dropped it onto my bed while walking around the other side to unplug it from the wall, since the power outlet was to my right. I have no idea why I wasted a perfect two minutes walking AROUND my bed rather than just leaning to my side, but two minutes isn’t too much to waste.
I approached my door, turned the knob and slowly walked out of my bedroom and went into the living room. The treadmill was sitting there, unplugged. Thomas had always told me to keep it unplugged when I wasn’t using it. I was going to use it now though, so I plugged it back in and turned the power on. The treadmill started up and I started running on it.
+ + +
Once I finished on the treadmill, Erick was back home around five minutes after. He was sitting on the couch watching an anime about World War 2.
I was sweating way too much when I finished on the treadmill, and since I was going to the park to meet up with Lucina’s sister- Robin -to see how things were going with Lucina, I was forced to shower.
After my shower, I had to dry off, get dressed, and style my hair. I decided to wear a thin sweater under my red jacket because it was so frigid outside. Although my jacket was very warm, I still felt a bit cold in it so my sweater made me nice and toasty for the frozen air outside.
I still wish that Gorax would’ve driven so that we would’ve gotten closer to the registration building. I pushed that thought from my mind as I walked to the park, hands in my pockets because my mitts were completely wrecked in a fist fight I got into about a month ago. It’s February now.
As I made my way into the park, I saw Robin run up to me quickly. She’s the bartender in GGO at the bar I went to before I found out about Lucina’s illness. Robin stopped in front of me, and said:
“Lucina isn’t in very good condition right now Ethan…”
EPISODE THREE
Ill
Ill
Spoiler (Click to View)
As I logged out of GGO, I rushed the amusphere off of my head and didn’t pull the power cord out of the wall. When I had gotten to the front door of the apartment, I scrambled through the front closet for my jacket and toque. After I yanked the red jacket out of the nearly full closet, I grabbed my toque out of the basket on the floor. I grabbed my apartment key and dashed to the bike storage hut next to the building.
Once I got to the hut, I put my apartment key into the door for our apartment number, where mine and Thomas’ bikes were locked. Mine was black with streaks of blue in spots. I pulled my bike out of the hut, got on it, then bolted towards the local hospital.
+ + +
As I arrived at the hospital, I quickly locked up my bike at the rack and then rushed inside. I knew Lucina’s room number- 607 –and so I went up the elevator to floor 6, and walked quickly towards her room. I reached into my pocket for my phone to turn it off, but it wasn’t there, I had left it at home, and sighed.
As I turned the corner and stood in front of room 607, the door open. It’s 9:00 now. Visiting hours are over in half an hour.
I proceeded into the room to see Lucina, sitting up with a hospital gown on, looking at the window. Her hair was down, no ties, clips, or elastics. Her hair was a blond color, flowing down over her shoulders to just below her chest. I walked towards her, and she looked back over at me. She opened her arms for a hug and fell into them. She rested her face into my shoulder and started to cry.
“I-I’m c-c-c-c-cold…” Lucina whispered in my ear quickly. I felt her shivering on my chest. I saw the red on her cheeks, tear stains under her eyes. I saw the desperate look in her face, the worried look somebody has when they are not sure how much longer they have to live. The look someone wears when they don’t know if they’ll make it.
“Don’t worry, I’m here for you.” I replied smoothly, embracing her in my arms. I stroked her hair slowly.
“O-o-okay…” Lucina said gloomily. She started to cry again, and she sobbed into my chest. “I-I don’t know h-h-how long I h-h-h-have…” She continued to bawl into my shoulder.
“Don’t worry, it’ll be…” I started to say, being interrupted out of the blue. Lucina pulled away from my shoulder, rubbed her eyes quickly and softly pressed her lips to mine, holding my shoulders. I pulled her closer to me, holding her by her hips. Lucina was just my best friend, but I was enjoying this nonetheless.
This continued for a few minutes until she pulled away from me.
“You’re w-w-w-warm. Can I hold you?” Lucina whispered in my ear again and I nodded. She hugged me again. I put my hand on top of her head and she kissed me again. This one only lasted a few seconds, as we had heard the doctors coming.
“Sir, visiting hours are over.” The doctor said to me, and I nodded, letting him lead me out of the room. Lucina looked in my direction and spoke.
“I l-l-l-love you Ethan…”
EPISODE FOUR
Bullet Wound
Bullet Wound
Spoiler (Click to View)
I heard gunshots in the distance as I ran across the sandy ground, Lightsword and pistol in hand. A prediction line appeared in the middle of my forehead, meaning a bullet was coming my way. I was in a quest party at the time, but we were being attacked by another squadron on the way.
They were probably trying to kill us before we had the chance to finish the quest, especially because the squadron that finished the quest got a really cool reward, at least from what I’ve heard.
I heard a gunshot. A bullet was coming towards my head at high speed. I blocked the bullet with my Lightsword, like it was nothing. I’ve had worse moments in GGO. I’ve taken a bullet to the head many times before.
Gorax charged ahead of me and shot at my attacker about ten times before he was dead. Gorax gave a tough smirk and charged further. I stayed behind, blocking bullets left and right. Erick kneeled down beside me, loading his minigun and firing at the opposing squadron members. There were about fifty of them, while our quest party only had around seven to start, and none of ours had been killed yet.
The opposing squadron leader called for a retreat, but our party ran up and killed off the rest of them before they could get away. A few of us leveled up from that fight, me being one of them. I was now level 83.
Normally I would be very hesitant about killing people IRL, but here, in GGO, they just respawn. I sat down on the ground, while the other party members decided to heal up before the quest boss. I was sloppier in that fight than before, and I knew why.
The previous night in the hospital with Lucina made me think of nothing but those events. Her shivering, crying into my jacket, and kissing me. That made me think of her words before the doors to the room closed.
“I l-l-l-l-love you Ethan.”
I wondered, were those words sincere? I brushed off the thought, but couldn’t stop thinking about Lucina.
I remembered why I’m entering BoB, and that I had to carry on Lucina’s wish of becoming the best GGO player ever. That’s why I’m doing this quest. The reward is supposed to help our quest party in the tournament.
I saw a strong looking player in the distance, he must have been the one to call the retreat. He was all alone in the distance standing there. He had a rifle in hand, aiming at my head. I ducked down as the bullet came rather than blocking it with my Lightsword, as I had retracted the blade a moment before and hung it off of my belt. I quickly took it into my hand and flicked the switch to bring out the blade. Another bullet. It had hit me in the thigh. If it were a real bullet, I would be in much more pain than I am now, but it still hurts.
More gunfire. It was coming from the rest of the quest party members’ guns. The player in the distance put away his rifle and got out a handgun, loading it. Erick started shooting at the player, with Gorax and the other four players following with gunfire. He kept dodging the bullets, even the rapid fire coming from Erick’s minigun. The player was talented and when he started shooting at us, our party leader told me to go fight the boss, and I went ahead. I got a bullet in the shoulder on the way to the cave, and it stung a lot. It was in my left arm, the arm I use for my Lightsword, and that meant my main weapon was useless. I still held onto it anyways, because I could still use it, but only by moving my arm lightly.
I sprinted to the cave, but I had forgotten that I had a bullet in my thigh and the run was painful. I saw the cave up ahead, but had to start walking because my leg was killing me. I had realized just then, that if I ran with the bullet in my leg, I would gradually lose HP. The bullet sits there until I use a healing pack on the spot. It would go away if the bullet was shot there during a duel or in BoB and either situation had ended, but now I was left with a bullet in my left shoulder and in my left thigh. My HP bar had decreased to half a quarter compared to the seven eighths that was there before my desperate sprint.
I knew that if this kept up, I would be dead and unable to finish the quest before the other squadron had time to finish it first, but I decided to run anyway.
+ + +
The cave was just a few kilometers away, and I was sprinting to the point I was at by then. My health bar was in the red zone, and I was still running, hoping my health bar would last me. I probably wouldn’t have survived the boss fight later on, but I HAD to get to the cave.
I ran as fast as I could, my heart racing, my shoulder and thigh felt like they were about to fall off of my body. I checked my health bar, only to see a sliver of HP left, and the last thing I saw was black.
EPISODE FIVE
Hell's Door
[spoiler]Hell's Door
“Etho? Etho!”
My eyes opened to the sound of a case opening. I was still laying in the desert, Robin standing over my previously unconscious body. I wasn’t dead, because when you die in GGO, you lose some EXP, and no EXP in my bar was depleted. You also get a bold text surrounded by a red hexagon reading ‘YOU ARE DEAD’ when you die. I was surprised, and then I saw my HP bar fill up. Robin used a health pack on me.
“Huh?” I mumbled slowly as I pushed myself into a sitting position. Robin had opened up her menu and then took a few health packs out of her inventory and gave them to me. I took them and nodded thankfully, smiling. She smiled back at me roughly and looked back the other way.
“The others were killed in the fight…” Robin said to me dimly, like she had just lost someone very dear to her. “The other player was too strong.”
I had realized that the only HP bars in the corner of my view were mine and Robin’s, and the reason being is because when you’re in a party in GGO and you die, you’re removed from the party and your HP bar disappears from the other party member’s interfaces.
“He must have been playing far longer than we have…” I replied softly, standing up. “I’ll take the rest of the mission.”
“Alright, I’ll leave it to you.” Robin said confidently, putting her hands on her waist giving me a thumbs up. She then opened her menu, left the quest party, then ran back to the main city. She waved as she left, and I waved back.
+ + +
I proceeded towards the cave, sprinting. The bullets in my leg and shoulder were gone, and so that meant I could safely sprint the rest of the way. I had around thirteen health packs on me as gifts from Robin, so I was safe for the boss fight. I got to the cave and proceeded through the entrance.
The cave was dark, so I had to use my Lightsword to light the way through. There were monsters on the way to the boss room; in fact the cave seemed like a whole dungeon.
After the nightmare of navigating through the puzzling path in the cave, I finally came to the boss room. But there was a catch. The door was locked. I nearly freaked out to discover that I had to go through the whole thing AGAIN to find the boss key. More monsters, more darkness. This might as well just been some immature joke by the developers of GGO, and I ended up nearly rage quitting halfway through the FIRST time, and then I would probably nearly have done it AGAIN without a map. This cave was just stupid, the most annoying thing I have ever experienced as a gamer. I yelled out a bunch of swear words, I think I yelled every one I knew at the time.
I had killed all of the monsters in the cave, but EVERYTHING WAS LIKE HELL AND I HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO DO. I NEARLY RAGE QUIT LIKE TWENTY THOUSAND TIMES. Seriously, that event was the most annoying and painful I’ve been through in GGO.
The boss fight needed to be good to be worth this much rage fuel and oh my god, this was too much RAGE FUEL. A room to the left, NOPE. Room to the right, NOPE. Keep looking and oh there was another on and NOT A CHANCE.
+ + +
The pain kept going ON and ON and ON. This was just plain stupid, trippy, annoying, and total carp. I could not believe the immature prank that was this cave. I felt like I was going in circles. This stupid quest made me almost log out. I remembered that there was a reward that I needed.
And I ended up back in the pathway in front of the entrance. And guess what. The location was RIGHT THERE. Like how could I have missed that? I felt like a complete and total idiot. I opened the door to the room with the key and fought a few monsters before grabbing the boss key.
I opened the box and picked up the key and sprinted to the boss door. I felt completely stupid and unlocked the boss door, and pushed it open. Not only did I waste tons of time finding a door in the most OBVIOUS spot, but the boss was a freaking huge PIG the size of a T-Rex. It was super weak and I killed it in one hit, and the reward ended up just being a ROPE with a claw at the end. A ROPE. A ROPE OF ALL THINGS. I screamed out all the swear and curse words that I could think of and started bawling because of the useless time wasted on a ROPE.
THIS. WAS. THE. MOST. IMMATURE. PRANK. IN. HISTORY.
EPISODE SIX
Stupidity + Humility
Stupidity + Humility
Spoiler (Click to View)
I would’ve felt like a complete and total idiot if I told everybody at the bar about the Pig fight for the rope, so I told everybody that I had been killed in the fight because it was against a level 147 Troll King. The rest of the former party members sighed. Realistically, I had fought against a freaking PIG for a stupid ROPE. I saw Erick at the bar counter having an argument with the bartender. It wasn’t Robin this time because she was offline, the bartender today was a darker skinned man with long, brown hair. It was greasy and he reeked of sweat. He was freakishly tall
“I TOLD YOU I WANTED ORANGE JUICE!” Erick yelled at the bartender and the bartender sighed.
“I said we don’t serve orange juice!” He replied and Erick slammed his shot glass on the counter and it shattered.
“BUT THIS PLACE ALWAYS SERVED IT. I SWEAR.” Erick screamed in his face and the bartender smirked.
“Fine then, you got me. I’ll make some right now.” He said, sarcastically. He went into the back of the bar and bought out a glass with an orange liquid. It reeked of fish, and I had just realized that Thomas is allergic to fish. Any real life allergies are kept in-game and knock the player out. Erick raised an eyebrow.
“Why does this smell like fish?” Erick inquired suspiciously, glaring at the bartender. He shrugged his shoulders as Erick proceeded to chug down all of it. “Umm, this tastes like fish. Oh god I’M ALLERGIC TO FI-ugh……………………..”
Erick’s head fell to the table and he fainted. I went wide-eyed and opened my mouth, my face went red. I marched up behind the counter and grabbed the guy by his collar.
“Hey, you can’t be here. Employees only.” The bartender said in a sarcastic tone as I glared at him. His hands dropped to his sides.
“I don’t give two s**ts you f***ing b***ard!” I shouted angrily at him, and he shook his head.
“I was annoyed at the guy, if you wanna fight, I’ll duel request you.” He replied angrily back at me, and opened his menu. A message appeared in front of me notifying me of a duel request, and I accepted. “Let’s take this outside.”
He gave me a soft smirk.
+ + +
Everybody circled around the bartender and me as we arrived outside the bar in the barren parking lot. The pavement was cracked and the lines marking the parking spaces were barely visible. The bartender got out his weapons. In between us was a countdown clock.
3, 2, 1, BEEP
The bartender carried two Uzis and began to shoot at me, aiming for both my shoulders. I swiftly brought out the beam of my Lightsword and blocked both bullets, one nearly hit me. Half of the time I was busy blocking bullets while I was trying to approach the bartender, but I ended up having to backflip a few times, so I ended up going in the exact opposite direction of where I was aiming for. A bullet cut a tiny strand of hair from the side as it brushed the side of my head. It kinda tickled a bit.
The fight lasted around ten minutes by this point, I was still blocking bullets. One brushed my shoulder, only depleting my HP a tiny bit, and another skimmed my side. I eventually had enough time to get close and impale him with my Lightsword, badly depleting his HP. It was below a quarter, and he opened his menu for a second to bring out a Lightsword. I was in total shock as the bartender tried to slash at me. With the amount of blocking I had done, this was nothing compared to the speed that the bullets came at me. I blocked the slash and pointed my pistol at his head. He pulled his Lightsword away from mine and blocked it quickly, and that distracted him enough for me to behead him.
+ + +
After a few minutes of cheering at my victory, we all walked back into the bar to wake up Erick before the bar closed. The bartender left due to humility of the match and somebody had informed Erick of the fight. It was 9:00 at night now, and I hadn’t had dinner yet so I logged out of GGO for the night.
EPISODE SEVEN
Run for it
Run for it
Spoiler (Click to View)
“WHAT?!”
“Ethan, what’s wrong?” Thomas asked me calmly as I gasped. I looked at my laptop and saw that signups for BoB ended in an hour and a half.
Thomas and I weren’t signed up yet, and we had to get in.
“Bullet of Bullets signups are almost over, we need to get into GGO!” I relpied restlessly and darted towards my bedroom and put on my amusphere.
+ + +
I spawned at the minigame hut, the last place I had logged out. The bar fight was two nights before, and that event disgusted me. Erick spawned in front of the laser tag rooms and walked over to me swiftly.
“Let’s go!” Erick shouted and I nodded.
We began our sprint to the island. We only had around an hour left, meaning we had low chances of making the signups. I began to accelerate speed and Erick tried to catch up so that he wouldn’t be late either. All of my friends had signed up already, but I had to see Lucina and had no time to sign up after I played around on GGO. The frantic sprint continued, and I couldn’t stop to catch my breath.
Forty minutes left.
Erick nearly fainted a couple times, we had a few miles to go to reach the bridge. There were crowds in the main city, so Erick and I had lost some time trying to get through them.
Thirty minutes left.
A third of a kilometer left until the bridge was left to the island, and we were running out of time. I checked my menu while I ran to check the time and I gritted my teeth. I waved for Erick to go faster and he nodded as we sprinted more.
Twenty minutes left.
We were at the island now, going through towns to get to the registration building. I swear that one town had reeked of smoke on the way, slowing us down.
Ten minutes left.
We found the registration building, but we were too tired to keep running. We were walking as fast as our bodies allowed us to, but that wasn’t enough. We only had five minutes left by the time we got to the signup booths, and registration took a bit.
By the time I had to fill out the last field, we only had a few seconds left and I started to sweat hard. I couldn’t miss out, and Bullet of Bullets is what Thomas needed to become better.
Five, four, three, two, one.
EPISODE EIGHT
A Shot and a Bang
A Shot and a Bang
Spoiler (Click to View)
Beep!
With Thomas and I signed up, we decided to sit down at a nearby table and wait for the tournament to start. We saw Robin and Gorax sitting at a table at the far side of the signup booths, so we sprinted over to meet them. They had drinks in their hands.
“Alright, unequip your Minigun Erick.” I whispered to Erick as he gave me a puzzled look.
“Why, I’m trying to scare players?” He replied, as if he knew more about GGO than me.
“Listen, if you show off your weapon before the main tournament, you’re gonna get countered.” I answered quietly as Erick nodded, opened his menu and unequipped his weapons.
“Hey, Etho, Erick!” Gorax called us over as we continued to the table swiftly. “The tourney’s gonna start soon!”
“What block did you get?” Robin asked us as I opened up my tournament interface. “I got block A, and Gorax got block D”
“We both got block E.” I announced to them grimly with my tournament interface floating below my head.
“That sucks, man that means the four of us won’t make it to the main tourney!” Gorax remarked in a rather upset tone, rubbing his head.
“But if Etho and I face, it’ll be the finals.” Erick replied happily.
“The two that get to the finals of the qualifier make it to the main tournament!” I acknowledged casually as I closed my menu, therefore closing my Tournament interface.
“PLAYERS. THE BULLET OF BULLETS QUALIFIERS WILL BEGIN IN ONE MINUTE. READY YOUR WEAPONS. THE DOORS TO GET OUT OF THE WAITING AREA ARE NOW LOCKED AND YOU CANNOT LOG OUT MANUALLY UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN DEFEATED OR CLAIM VICTORY IN THE QUALIFIER. GOOD LUCK” The loudspeaker blared as the clock started counting down. Players were being teleported to the waiting spots until the timers finished counting for players to get ready for their fights. Soon, I was floating in a black space of nothingness. The only thing other than me in it was the timer. My opponent’s name was Seth289.
Five, four, three, two, one. BEEP
+ + +
I was teleported to a city, much like the city of Toronto in Canada. We had visited the city a long time ago, when I was only four years old. We lived in America then, and we had been going to visit family in Ottawa. Toronto was on the way and everybody was tired. We stopped at a hotel downtown.
I was shocked to see how much this battlefield resembled Toronto, all the glass buildings and Go Stations. Subways and the CN Tower. I decided to go up there first for a viewpoint.
Surprisingly, I had a cheap sniper rifle in my inventory to scope so I could see my enemies from afar. I sometimes used it to shoot my enemies, but I used it for that purpose very rarely, so I carried a low amount of ammo for it.
Fortunately, I had spawned close to my target location, so I could swiftly arrive there and take the elevator up the tower and find my target. I opened my menu and equipped my sniper rifle.
I looked through the scope for quite a while, still unable to find my target. I sighed, thinking he had hid inside a building or something. I unequipped my rifle and I saw a bullet coming my way.
I ducked rather than blocking it, because my Lightsword was currently unequipped and I needed to equip it from my inventory. Luckily, before the next shot, I was able to equip my pistol AND Lightsword, but had no time before the shot to block the bullet. I swore under my breath and flicked the switch to bring out the blade on my Lightsword, and began to pursue my target.
A few shots came my way, and I had blocked all of the shots as I ran through the city. I found him at the top of another tower, reloading his gun. He was using a sniper rifle. I swiftly ran towards the tower he was on and went into it. I navigated my way through the building, and found an elevator. I clicked the button for the roof and waited for it to take me to the roof. I ran around stealthily on the roof, looking for my target. I saw him lying there, trying to find me through his scope. I walked up to him slowly while he wasn’t looking, and impaled his head with my Lightsword, instantly killing him. I was teleported to the main lobby after receiving a ‘Congratulations’ Text in front of me.
+ + +
“Etho, nice assassination on that dude, man!” Gorax congratulated as he patted my back hard. Since the Amusphere can’t send pain through your nerves, it didn’t hurt that much.
“Thanks, and sorry I couldn’t see your match. Trying to locate that dude was a total pain in my a**!” I replied, trying to sound excited. I felt like something was burning inside me, as I was forcing myself not to get upset at the fact that I had pulled a cheap move on some noob who was stupid enough to join BoB without any detection skills. I felt bad, I probably should’ve gone easy on the poor guy. He WAS overreacting to the loss though, I saw him in a far corner bawling his eyes out with a female player rubbing his back to reassure him.
I saw Erick’s fight on screen, but only caught a glimpse of his winning blow on the opponent. He DID have physical skills with guns, explaining how he’s this good at GGO as a rookie. The game takes your physical capabilities into account to realistically simulate things in the game.
I caught a glimpse of Robin’s match, and it had a devastating finish to it.
Robin was running to get a jump to a nearby building, holding her assault rifle, and her opponent was nowhere to be seen. I got a clear look from the camera angle to see a landmine a step away from where she would land. Her foot came into contact with the hazard and the last thing we saw of the fight was an explosion, and it showed the winner’s name on the screen.
“Luck”
EPISODE NINE
Long Time no See, Old Friend!
Long Time no See, Old Friend!
Spoiler (Click to View)
After Robin’s first round fight ended, I realized that the player she fought looked the same as the one back during the quest on our way -or I should say my way- to the cave where I fought that giant pig.
I only got a glance of him before the explosion, but I swore it was the same guy. I looked back and saw Robin respawn behind me as I unequipped my weapons. A lot of the first round fights had ended soon after, and Gorax lead Erick, Robin and I to a table.
“That was the guy!” Robin blurted out as soon as we sat down at the table. Gorax and Erick unequipped their weapons.
I knew it!
I looked at my menu to see that there was only one match left to finish before round two.
“What guy?” Gorax inquired as Robin sighed.
“The guy we fought before we sent Etho to the cave. That skilled fella who just beat me, I swear…”
“Lighten up Robin, he may just be a lookalike!” Erick interrupted swiftly as Robin frowned.
“That dude DID seem like the guy from the big fight. I saw most of the match Erick, my fight was short as hell,” Gorax objected as Robin and I nodded in agreement.
“See, we have a witness, tough guy!” Robin bragged, nudging Erick hard. He gave Robin a not-so scary glare, Gorax just shrugged.
“Hey, Etho! What’s up?” A voice said from beside the table. His name is Makkus. We used to play a lot together before about a month ago. He stopped playing because of work. He was the supreme general of Lucina’s old squadron before they disbanded after Lucina’s pneumonia came. Lucina was the general, and she was the third ranked GGO player before last spring. There was Makkus at rank two, and Nicke who was ranked first. When I started to get better, I challenged Makkus and lost to him.
“Hey, what’s good buddy!” I replied while standing up to go give him a fist bump. “Long time no see!”
“Meh, just got back to GGO yesterday, just finished my match before you. Say, you’ve gotten better!” Makkus replied in excitement and scratched his head. He checked his tournament interface quickly. “Umm… take a look at the tourney interface…”
I opened the interface and checked for my second round match. The last match had finished a minute ago and was shocked to see who my next opponent was. The name beside mine in the first round lineup was one I wouldn’t expect.
Makkus
And we were teleported to the arena.
+ + +
With my weapons equipped, I swiftly brought out the blade on my Lightsword and made a run for the nearest cavern. We were dropped into a desert-like battlefield, and I could see an abandoned city in the far distance.
I had a feeling that Makkus was dropped in the city area, as I saw it on the opposite side of my spawn location. Players in the BoB qualifier who are in matches are spawned in opposite sides of the battlefield.
I charged as fast as I could and stopped to regain some run energy. I saw NO caverns whatsoever on my search, so I decided to go to the city. Besides, Makkus was probably hiding somewhere around that area.
Once my run energy completely filled back up, I began another sprint towards the city. The faster I went, the more run energy I wasted, but the closer I got to the city. I decided to go slower, as the city came closer. I needed to retain my run energy as the city is more dangerous to me in this fight and can’t afford to rest. Makkus uses a Lightsword, like me, but he uses a sniper rifle rather than a pistol as an extra weapon. He usually makes the opening move as a sniper shot rather than a slash of the sword.
I heard footsteps behind me, so I ran to the nearest building and hid.
Luckily there was an elevator, but I know it wouldn’t help too much other than stalling an attack because Makkus is smart and would know to check the elevator if he found me. I decided to go find a hiding spot where I could attack him from with my pistol, then finish off with my Lightsword. I heard the automatic doors to the building open, and he was holding his Lightsword in his right hand. I use my left hand for my main weapon rather than my right. It’s how my account is set up.
He looked around the building, unable to detect me before I went up the elevator. My hiding spot was near the entrance to it. Makkus found me but was unable to get to me before I got to the roof of the building. While it went back down to the bottom after I reached the top I had time to find a spot to hide so I could go for the ambush.
As Makkus reached the roof a couple minutes later, he walked to the middle of it and I came out to attack. He swiftly turned around to block my attack as I pulled out my pistol and aimed for his head and pulled the trigger.
EPISODE TEN
Friendly Fire
Friendly Fire
Spoiler (Click to View)
VRRMMM
The bullet didn’t hit Makkus’ head, he blocked it with his Lightsword. I wasn’t expecting an easy fight, but his back was turned when I pulled the trigger and I was surprised he could find a prediction line behind him. He looked back at me with a smirk and I fired another shot. He swiftly blocked it and sprinted in my direction. I put away my pistol and got out my Lightsword and flicked the switch.
Our blades crossed and the fighting became a full-on sword fight in no time at all. I was sweating by this point, Makkus had hit me more than I could even take a slash at him. I smirked at him confidently.
“As good as always pal!” I remarked at him as he smiled back at me.
“You’ve been getting better too!” Makkus replied, he seemed like he was getting tired too. He took more slashes at me and I quickly blocked them. His blade was coming at me faster and faster and it kept speeding up to the point where I had to duck and slash at his legs. He fell to the ground and I quickly used a medical pack to regain HP. He pulled out a pistol and shot at me and I blocked his bullet. I rushed up to him and quickly turned my Lightsword to face down at his avatar and held the handle in both hands. I sighed.
“Looks like I win…” I whispered loud enough for Makkus to hear and I impaled him until his HP fully depleted.
“That’s right dude!” Were Makkus’ last words in the match before he died and we were both teleported to the main tournament lobby. The winner’s screen appeared in the lobby and it turns out my match was the last to end.
I looked at my tournament interface, and saw that my opponent wasn’t anybody I recognized. I breezed through many of my matches up to the semifinals, and my opponent’s name there was Fortified. I was intrigued by the name, but shrugged it off like it was nothing.
+ + +
In the meantime, before the 7th round, (which was the semifinal) Robin, Gorax, Erick, and I went and got drinks to celebrate. Gorax’s block had already finished and he had made it to BoB, but Erick and I needed to make it through one more round before the final, and make it to BoB.
When the timer finished counting down, the four block E semifinalists were teleported to their matches. I equipped my weapons and waited until the teleport finished.
+ + +
When I arrived in the battlefield, I felt a cold breeze across my face. My eyes were closed up until I got out my Lightsword a few seconds later, and found myself in a snowy, deserted plain with nothing but snow. I saw nothing but snow-covered ground in the distance. There were no places to hide. I sprinted to find my opponent but only saw footprints where he would’ve spawned. They were leading to the right, and so I followed the tracks. I was getting really cold, and all I had to keep warm was my jacket.
My jacket isn’t even a proper winter jacket either, it’s just a jacket that makes my avatar look cool. There’s no snow regularly in GGO, so they don’t sell winter jackets in the outfit shop.
My fingers were getting numb by this time, and I was shivering. I heard footsteps behind me. I walked a few steps forward, and then looked back. I saw a figure behind me and all I heard was a gunshot.
EPISODE ELEVEN
The Lights Flash
The Lights Flash
Spoiler (Click to View)
Whoosh!
As the bullet flew past me, I sighed as I brought out the blade on my Lightsword. I was so focused on the fight right now, I totally forgot why I had entered BoB this time. My opponent shot again as I quickly blocked the bullet and ran up to him, my weapon at my side. I took my pistol in my right hand, and shot at my opponent. All of the bullets were dodged and my opponent ran up to me, shooting a large assault rifle in my direction. I jumped up in the air and kept blocking attacks, while I shot a few bullets at him. He shot again before I jumped up to do a backflip, my intention to make a cyclone of bullets around me as I shot constantly while in the air.
I looked forward and my opponent wasn’t there. I looked back and there he was, right behind me. He pulled out a pistol and held the barrel to my head, and nearly pulled the trigger before I slashed at the arm he held it in with my Lightsword. He got out another pistol and started firing as the snow blew in my face. I guessed that I had slashed off his arm, as I heard the sound that the game makes when something breaks, dies, or teleports. I sighed again and ducked to dodge a bullet.
I stood in the same spot, blocking bullet after bullet, waiting for my opponent to reload so I could attack, but he never reloaded. He somehow was able to keep firing bullets without having to reload at all. I started to block bullets while walking up to him for an attack, and my opponent just kept shooting. When I got close, he started running away and I ended up having to shoot at him.
As the fight went on for around fifteen more minutes, my opponent ran off into a far off village and I had to hunt him down. I felt a sharp main in my left shoulder. I saw him behind me with a butcher knife in hand. He had a hood, so all I could see on his face was a smirk. My left arm was my good arm, and he had cut it off. I couldn’t use my Lightsword for the remainder of the fight, and I wasn’t very good with my pistol. Rather than 90% Melee,
I had to go full ranged. I shot him behind me, and I must’ve hit his shoulder because he dropped his weapon and grabbed his shoulder. I aimed at my opponent and shot until I had to reload, and his HP bar depleted by a lot. I smiled as he just stood there with a frown. He didn’t seem hurt at all, and he had no bullet wounds other than on his shoulder that were visible to my eye, and I came off with a shocked expression. My opponent ran towards me and punched me across the face, and I fell to the ground at the impact.
As the bullet flew past me, I sighed as I brought out the blade on my Lightsword. I was so focused on the fight right now, I totally forgot why I had entered BoB this time. My opponent shot again as I quickly blocked the bullet and ran up to him, my weapon at my side. I took my pistol in my right hand, and shot at my opponent. All of the bullets were dodged and my opponent ran up to me, shooting a large assault rifle in my direction. I jumped up in the air and kept blocking attacks, while I shot a few bullets at him. He shot again before I jumped up to do a backflip, my intention to make a cyclone of bullets around me as I shot constantly while in the air.
I looked forward and my opponent wasn’t there. I looked back and there he was, right behind me. He pulled out a pistol and held the barrel to my head, and nearly pulled the trigger before I slashed at the arm he held it in with my Lightsword. He got out another pistol and started firing as the snow blew in my face. I guessed that I had slashed off his arm, as I heard the sound that the game makes when something breaks, dies, or teleports. I sighed again and ducked to dodge a bullet.
I stood in the same spot, blocking bullet after bullet, waiting for my opponent to reload so I could attack, but he never reloaded. He somehow was able to keep firing bullets without having to reload at all. I started to block bullets while walking up to him for an attack, and my opponent just kept shooting. When I got close, he started running away and I ended up having to shoot at him.
+ + +
As the fight went on for around fifteen more minutes, my opponent ran off into a far off village and I had to hunt him down. I felt a sharp main in my left shoulder. I saw him behind me with a butcher knife in hand. He had a hood, so all I could see on his face was a smirk. My left arm was my good arm, and he had cut it off. I couldn’t use my Lightsword for the remainder of the fight, and I wasn’t very good with my pistol. Rather than 90% Melee,
I had to go full ranged. I shot him behind me, and I must’ve hit his shoulder because he dropped his weapon and grabbed his shoulder. I aimed at my opponent and shot until I had to reload, and his HP bar depleted by a lot. I smiled as he just stood there with a frown. He didn’t seem hurt at all, and he had no bullet wounds other than on his shoulder that were visible to my eye, and I came off with a shocked expression. My opponent ran towards me and punched me across the face, and I fell to the ground at the impact.
EPISODE TWELVE
Sibling Rivalry
Sibling Rivalry
Spoiler (Click to View)
“Agh!”
I scrambled to my feet fast, and my opponent stood before me and gave me a confident smirk. I kept taking punches to the face as my HP depleted badly. I looked at the corner of my eye to see my HP bar below half a quarter, and I had to hold my ground. I pulled out my gun and he grabbed it from my hand and smashed it. I was totally helpless. I never thought I was going to be in a fist fight in GGO. I remembered just at that moment that my old Lightsword was hidden somewhere in my inventory. As long as I had time to get it, I would do so. I quickly ran away from my opponent and opened my inventory. My opponent followed as I searched for my old Lightsword I had replaced about a month or two ago.
“Please find it, please find it!” I whispered to myself before I looked back to see my opponent catching up to me. “Aha! Finally!”
VRRMMMMMMMMM
I brought out my Lightsword and swung it at my opponent after I turned around. I impaled him and he muttered a few words too softly for me to hear, and I pulled the Lightsword from his body as his HP hit 0 and he teleported from the arena. I was teleported back to the lobby soon after. I saw my broken weapons on my belt again, and I sighed.
I looked at my tournament interface, to see that my final opponent was my very own brother, Erick. I looked shocked, to see a rookie in the finals of a huge tournament qualifier. Robin, Gorax, and Erick all congratulated me for my huge win. I never noticed before, but Fortified was in the top five of tons of BoB tournaments before this one. This, in fact was his first qualifier loss since his rookie years.
I looked back to Erick as he patted me on the back.
“Good job bro, you did well!” Erick remarked as I looked up at his soldier like face with a grin.
“Good luck in our match!” I replied as he nodded.
“You too!” And Erick and I got teleported to the arena.
I found myself in a ski resort, at the top of a chairlift. It seemed abandoned, and the weather felt the same as my last fight.
I traveled to the bottom of the lift to see if it worked, and to my surprise it still did. I went back up to look for the highest part of the mountain, where a chairlift hut would be. I looked around for it, and it was on the other side of the mountain. I had to trek through deep powder as I heard soft footsteps coming towards me. I looked to the side to see a heavily armed Erick climbing up the hill after me. He held his minigun in his hands, he seemed to be struggling to get up. I pulled out my pistol and shot in his direction. The bullet missed.
Erick held his minigun up at me and shot tons of bullets at me. I pulled out my Lightsword and started blocking bullets galore and as he had to reload I ran down to catch him. I ended up slipping on ice on the way and started to slide down the mountainside on my feet. Erick tried to follow, shooting at me in the process. I couldn’t block any of them without turning around. If I turned around I would fall on my back.
I took bullets to the back, and I lost a fair amount of HP before Erick had to reload and I tried to stop myself. I fell face first into the snow before I got a foot slammed into my back. I struggled to push myself up, but soon remembered that Erick was much stronger than me. I had no hope of getting back up. I just had to wait for my HP to reach zero. I would still make BoB anyway, since the finalists of each qualifier block both get to go. I didn’t wanna give up though. I pulled my Lightsword back out and tried to stab Erick’s foot, he lifted it and I got back up. I slashed my sword at him as he got his minigun ready to fire. I blocked many of his bullets; I couldn’t afford to lose any more HP if I ever hoped to win this fight. Erick has had training with guns IRL. I haven’t.
I tried stepping forward as I blocked bullets, but it was too risky. I didn’t wanna be pinned like I was before. I was already at half HP by now, and being stepped on depletes HP over time. I quickly tried stabbing Erick multiple times, but it didn’t do much damage because I wasn’t getting direct hits to his arms. I was only skimming them. The arms are usually my first target for attack because if enough damage is done to them, opponents drop their weapons to grab the arm and I can take a shot at them. I tried to get him in the forehead, but he just ducked and dropped his minigun. He had me in a headlock. I was cornered, I couldn’t hit him because my left arm was stuck in between my head and his arms.
“How does it feel to lose?” Erick shouted in my ear as he snapped my neck before I could speak. All I saw was black as my HP hit zero and I got the message saying:
YOU ARE DEAD.
I scrambled to my feet fast, and my opponent stood before me and gave me a confident smirk. I kept taking punches to the face as my HP depleted badly. I looked at the corner of my eye to see my HP bar below half a quarter, and I had to hold my ground. I pulled out my gun and he grabbed it from my hand and smashed it. I was totally helpless. I never thought I was going to be in a fist fight in GGO. I remembered just at that moment that my old Lightsword was hidden somewhere in my inventory. As long as I had time to get it, I would do so. I quickly ran away from my opponent and opened my inventory. My opponent followed as I searched for my old Lightsword I had replaced about a month or two ago.
“Please find it, please find it!” I whispered to myself before I looked back to see my opponent catching up to me. “Aha! Finally!”
VRRMMMMMMMMM
I brought out my Lightsword and swung it at my opponent after I turned around. I impaled him and he muttered a few words too softly for me to hear, and I pulled the Lightsword from his body as his HP hit 0 and he teleported from the arena. I was teleported back to the lobby soon after. I saw my broken weapons on my belt again, and I sighed.
I looked at my tournament interface, to see that my final opponent was my very own brother, Erick. I looked shocked, to see a rookie in the finals of a huge tournament qualifier. Robin, Gorax, and Erick all congratulated me for my huge win. I never noticed before, but Fortified was in the top five of tons of BoB tournaments before this one. This, in fact was his first qualifier loss since his rookie years.
I looked back to Erick as he patted me on the back.
“Good job bro, you did well!” Erick remarked as I looked up at his soldier like face with a grin.
“Good luck in our match!” I replied as he nodded.
“You too!” And Erick and I got teleported to the arena.
+ + +
I found myself in a ski resort, at the top of a chairlift. It seemed abandoned, and the weather felt the same as my last fight.
I traveled to the bottom of the lift to see if it worked, and to my surprise it still did. I went back up to look for the highest part of the mountain, where a chairlift hut would be. I looked around for it, and it was on the other side of the mountain. I had to trek through deep powder as I heard soft footsteps coming towards me. I looked to the side to see a heavily armed Erick climbing up the hill after me. He held his minigun in his hands, he seemed to be struggling to get up. I pulled out my pistol and shot in his direction. The bullet missed.
Erick held his minigun up at me and shot tons of bullets at me. I pulled out my Lightsword and started blocking bullets galore and as he had to reload I ran down to catch him. I ended up slipping on ice on the way and started to slide down the mountainside on my feet. Erick tried to follow, shooting at me in the process. I couldn’t block any of them without turning around. If I turned around I would fall on my back.
I took bullets to the back, and I lost a fair amount of HP before Erick had to reload and I tried to stop myself. I fell face first into the snow before I got a foot slammed into my back. I struggled to push myself up, but soon remembered that Erick was much stronger than me. I had no hope of getting back up. I just had to wait for my HP to reach zero. I would still make BoB anyway, since the finalists of each qualifier block both get to go. I didn’t wanna give up though. I pulled my Lightsword back out and tried to stab Erick’s foot, he lifted it and I got back up. I slashed my sword at him as he got his minigun ready to fire. I blocked many of his bullets; I couldn’t afford to lose any more HP if I ever hoped to win this fight. Erick has had training with guns IRL. I haven’t.
I tried stepping forward as I blocked bullets, but it was too risky. I didn’t wanna be pinned like I was before. I was already at half HP by now, and being stepped on depletes HP over time. I quickly tried stabbing Erick multiple times, but it didn’t do much damage because I wasn’t getting direct hits to his arms. I was only skimming them. The arms are usually my first target for attack because if enough damage is done to them, opponents drop their weapons to grab the arm and I can take a shot at them. I tried to get him in the forehead, but he just ducked and dropped his minigun. He had me in a headlock. I was cornered, I couldn’t hit him because my left arm was stuck in between my head and his arms.
“How does it feel to lose?” Erick shouted in my ear as he snapped my neck before I could speak. All I saw was black as my HP hit zero and I got the message saying:
YOU ARE DEAD.
EPISODE 13
Lucina's Struggle
Lucina's Struggle
Spoiler (Click to View)
As I got teleported back to the lobby, Erick and I high-fived in congratulations.
“Dude, that was a great win!” I said to Erick as he shrugged.
“The arena was just a good place for me,” He replied, trying to sound like it wasn’t really a win. “We have to wait and see what’ll happen in the main tournament tomorrow!”
“You got that one right!”
As I arrived back into the real world after logging out from GGO, I grabbed something to eat quickly before grabbing my jacket and toque before heading out the door to the hospital so I could see Lucina. I needed to tell her that I had made it to BoB.
Now even though I lost that match, I still made it to the main tournament because I was in the finals for my block. Both finalists go, regardless of the winner.
I rushed down the stairs to the door to exit the building, and literally sprinted down the sidewalk to the hospital. By the time I reached the park it was around 6pm. The qualifiers started at around 1am, so I hadn’t eaten or slept at all during the day. Erick was probably on his way home by now, since he was told he should get home to eat something after the qualifiers for BoB. He knows where I am.
By the time I reached the main lobby of the hospital, I was asked to wait for somebody to escort me to room 607, where Lucina was waiting for me to arrive. Somebody came within fifteen minutes of my arrival to the hospital, and I had to go up an elevator to floor six where Lucina’s room was on. When I reached her floor, I speed walked as fast as I could to get to the room.
When I arrived I saw her coughing into an air mask, shivering when I peeked through the window. The door was closed. Did she get so cold that she couldn’t breathe? I looked back to see Robin rushing up to the window to see what was going on. I had left my phone at home, so I couldn’t let Erick know to get here. Besides, I wouldn’t be allowed to be on my phone up here.
A doctor opened the door to the room for us to go into, Robin and I rushing to Lucina’s side. I gasped to see Lucina in this condition. Lucina tried to grasp my arm for warmth, and she slowly stopped shivering. She pulled me towards her and hugged me.
“Y-y-you’re finally h-h-here…” Lucina stuttered softly.
“Yeah, I know it took forever to finish qualifiers…” I replied, I felt bad about how long I took.
“How did you do?” She asked, curiously as I sighed.
“I came second in my block, I made it!” I answered excitedly as Lucina smiled.
“That’s awesome!” She replied excitedly. “What about you, Robin?”
“I lost round one.” Robin answered grimly. I looked Lucina in the eye.
“Listen to me, Lucina…” I whispered to her.
“Yeah?”
“Promise me you’ll be better soon, OK?”
"Alright,” And Lucina took off the air mask and pulled me closer and pressed her lips to mine. Robin smirked. She knew that there was more between Lucina and I than just best friends. She suspected the whole way.
I pulled Lucina closer, embracing her in my arms like it was our last day on planet Earth. We stayed like this for minutes to pass, the feeling of her being this close to me was amazing. I had to win Bullet of Bullets,
For her sake.
The doctor cleared his throat as Lucina and I separated.
“Alright, visiting hours are over, you two can go now,” Said the doctor to Robin and I. As we walked out, I waved at Lucina, and she gave me a confident smirk and a good luck gesture before the door closed behind me.
I walked home with my hands in my pockets, taking the walkway through the local park that Lucina and I used to meet at. I looked back at the lightpost. It was dark, maybe 8:30 by now. The lights and sky exchanged brightness. The stars illuminated the parts of the sky that the lightposts couldn’t. It was beautiful. I understood why I lost to Erick now, I was thinking about Lucina’s safety too much. I realized that if I wanted to win BoB, I had to think about just being the best GGO player of all time.
I arrived at my apartment building and entered the doors. I got out my apartment key and went up the stairs and proceeded to enter my apartment. I saw Thomas there, eating a bag of potato chips while watching a TV show about teenagers who are trying to save themselves by killing man-eating titans. It was weird. Lots of blood and gore. I walked into the kitchen to grab dinner before I was stopped by him with a question.
“How’s Lucina?”
“Not doing so well…”
“What happened?” He asked as I looked down at my feet.
“She had an air mask, she seemed like she was in bad condition,” I replied grimly.
“Oh god…” Thomas half-whispered sympathetically. He knows about my secret from seventh grade.
Up until sixth grade, I lived in the USA. My dad worked for an agency that travelled worldwide, they dealt with crime. They were those kinds of people that investigated major crime scenes. My father was in the American part of the agency, until the Japanese part had employees suddenly ‘Disappearing’. It was a major suspicion, so he was requested to work in Japan.
We had moved to a small town called Kyoto, but global warming had caused a lot of different weather phenomenons. These included tornadoes, large thunderstorms, and vice versa.
Our house was able to handle many different storms, but not earthquakes. Not like those happened near our house anyway. Not often.
I attended a small school a few blocks away, and I didn’t have many friends. All of mine were still in L.A, but I had no way of talking to them.
Then one day, we had a thunderstorm during the school day. It was unexpected, there were no storm warnings for today’s forecast. All the power went out. The whole class went and hid in the corner of the room, I was squished in with the other sixth graders in my class.
I noticed a girl beside me and I remembered who it was. Her name was Lucina, she had moved to Japan from Canada a couple years earlier. She was beautiful, all the guys wanted her. She had long, brown hair that flowed perfectly over her shoulders. She was right next to me, I had never been this close to a girl before. She looked at me and smiled. I was the shy type back then, I also got scared easily.
“Don’t worry, It’ll be alright,” She whispered to me, still smiling. She could tell how scared I was. She had the sound in her voice that she was just as afraid. The window across the room was hard to see through. I heard another clap of thunder. A flash came down from the sky. I looked closer and saw a tornado forming in the distance. I gasped and opened my mouth. I had to cover it with both of my hands, and tried to keep a scream from escaping my mouth.
After that day, Lucina and I became best friends. In seventh grade, she was being bullied. Someone started a rumor that she did something terrible, and then everyone turned against her. I was the only one she had. We were there for each other. She gave me the strength to stand up and say something to the people who treated her poorly. She helped me through my loneliness. I started crushing on her soon after I got into a fight with some eighth grader and I lost a tooth after he punched me across the face hard enough. She kicked the carp out of the guy, and the guy was already wounded enough from my punches. She got the nurse and I was sent home for the day.
Then the day came. I had dropped out of high school when I was fourteen because I was failing. I had to keep it secret from my parents, or I would be dead meat. Lucina was homeschooled after grade eight. Thomas knew about my high school dropout, and he was working at McDonalds at the time. I would hang with Lucina during school hours, and Thomas would pick me up after work. My parents had found out about me dropping out of high school. We were told to take our belongings and get out of the house by that Friday. Thomas took his money and we bought a cheap apartment in a small building near Lucina’s house. Thomas had to take a full-time job at the police department to make some extra money. At the time, we had no internet, so I used to bring my Amusphere to Lucina’s to play GGO. Since the game has a money conversion system, we would complete quests and duel for in-game money to convert into real money. I was terrible at GGO, so Lucina would help me get better. We split the earnings in half, and if there was any uneven numbers, I would get to keep it because of what I was going through.
Thomas and I lived together in the apartment, we were able to have a normal life again by the time I turned fifteen.
Tomorrow was the day of the main tournament for Bullet of Bullets. It started at 2am, so Thomas had permission to bring the police department’s Amusphere home to train with me. We didn’t sleep that night.
I’ll win for Lucina
“Dude, that was a great win!” I said to Erick as he shrugged.
“The arena was just a good place for me,” He replied, trying to sound like it wasn’t really a win. “We have to wait and see what’ll happen in the main tournament tomorrow!”
“You got that one right!”
+ + +
As I arrived back into the real world after logging out from GGO, I grabbed something to eat quickly before grabbing my jacket and toque before heading out the door to the hospital so I could see Lucina. I needed to tell her that I had made it to BoB.
Now even though I lost that match, I still made it to the main tournament because I was in the finals for my block. Both finalists go, regardless of the winner.
I rushed down the stairs to the door to exit the building, and literally sprinted down the sidewalk to the hospital. By the time I reached the park it was around 6pm. The qualifiers started at around 1am, so I hadn’t eaten or slept at all during the day. Erick was probably on his way home by now, since he was told he should get home to eat something after the qualifiers for BoB. He knows where I am.
+ + +
By the time I reached the main lobby of the hospital, I was asked to wait for somebody to escort me to room 607, where Lucina was waiting for me to arrive. Somebody came within fifteen minutes of my arrival to the hospital, and I had to go up an elevator to floor six where Lucina’s room was on. When I reached her floor, I speed walked as fast as I could to get to the room.
When I arrived I saw her coughing into an air mask, shivering when I peeked through the window. The door was closed. Did she get so cold that she couldn’t breathe? I looked back to see Robin rushing up to the window to see what was going on. I had left my phone at home, so I couldn’t let Erick know to get here. Besides, I wouldn’t be allowed to be on my phone up here.
A doctor opened the door to the room for us to go into, Robin and I rushing to Lucina’s side. I gasped to see Lucina in this condition. Lucina tried to grasp my arm for warmth, and she slowly stopped shivering. She pulled me towards her and hugged me.
“Y-y-you’re finally h-h-here…” Lucina stuttered softly.
“Yeah, I know it took forever to finish qualifiers…” I replied, I felt bad about how long I took.
“How did you do?” She asked, curiously as I sighed.
“I came second in my block, I made it!” I answered excitedly as Lucina smiled.
“That’s awesome!” She replied excitedly. “What about you, Robin?”
“I lost round one.” Robin answered grimly. I looked Lucina in the eye.
“Listen to me, Lucina…” I whispered to her.
“Yeah?”
“Promise me you’ll be better soon, OK?”
"Alright,” And Lucina took off the air mask and pulled me closer and pressed her lips to mine. Robin smirked. She knew that there was more between Lucina and I than just best friends. She suspected the whole way.
I pulled Lucina closer, embracing her in my arms like it was our last day on planet Earth. We stayed like this for minutes to pass, the feeling of her being this close to me was amazing. I had to win Bullet of Bullets,
For her sake.
The doctor cleared his throat as Lucina and I separated.
“Alright, visiting hours are over, you two can go now,” Said the doctor to Robin and I. As we walked out, I waved at Lucina, and she gave me a confident smirk and a good luck gesture before the door closed behind me.
+ + +
I walked home with my hands in my pockets, taking the walkway through the local park that Lucina and I used to meet at. I looked back at the lightpost. It was dark, maybe 8:30 by now. The lights and sky exchanged brightness. The stars illuminated the parts of the sky that the lightposts couldn’t. It was beautiful. I understood why I lost to Erick now, I was thinking about Lucina’s safety too much. I realized that if I wanted to win BoB, I had to think about just being the best GGO player of all time.
I arrived at my apartment building and entered the doors. I got out my apartment key and went up the stairs and proceeded to enter my apartment. I saw Thomas there, eating a bag of potato chips while watching a TV show about teenagers who are trying to save themselves by killing man-eating titans. It was weird. Lots of blood and gore. I walked into the kitchen to grab dinner before I was stopped by him with a question.
“How’s Lucina?”
“Not doing so well…”
“What happened?” He asked as I looked down at my feet.
“She had an air mask, she seemed like she was in bad condition,” I replied grimly.
“Oh god…” Thomas half-whispered sympathetically. He knows about my secret from seventh grade.
+ + +
Up until sixth grade, I lived in the USA. My dad worked for an agency that travelled worldwide, they dealt with crime. They were those kinds of people that investigated major crime scenes. My father was in the American part of the agency, until the Japanese part had employees suddenly ‘Disappearing’. It was a major suspicion, so he was requested to work in Japan.
We had moved to a small town called Kyoto, but global warming had caused a lot of different weather phenomenons. These included tornadoes, large thunderstorms, and vice versa.
Our house was able to handle many different storms, but not earthquakes. Not like those happened near our house anyway. Not often.
I attended a small school a few blocks away, and I didn’t have many friends. All of mine were still in L.A, but I had no way of talking to them.
Then one day, we had a thunderstorm during the school day. It was unexpected, there were no storm warnings for today’s forecast. All the power went out. The whole class went and hid in the corner of the room, I was squished in with the other sixth graders in my class.
I noticed a girl beside me and I remembered who it was. Her name was Lucina, she had moved to Japan from Canada a couple years earlier. She was beautiful, all the guys wanted her. She had long, brown hair that flowed perfectly over her shoulders. She was right next to me, I had never been this close to a girl before. She looked at me and smiled. I was the shy type back then, I also got scared easily.
“Don’t worry, It’ll be alright,” She whispered to me, still smiling. She could tell how scared I was. She had the sound in her voice that she was just as afraid. The window across the room was hard to see through. I heard another clap of thunder. A flash came down from the sky. I looked closer and saw a tornado forming in the distance. I gasped and opened my mouth. I had to cover it with both of my hands, and tried to keep a scream from escaping my mouth.
After that day, Lucina and I became best friends. In seventh grade, she was being bullied. Someone started a rumor that she did something terrible, and then everyone turned against her. I was the only one she had. We were there for each other. She gave me the strength to stand up and say something to the people who treated her poorly. She helped me through my loneliness. I started crushing on her soon after I got into a fight with some eighth grader and I lost a tooth after he punched me across the face hard enough. She kicked the carp out of the guy, and the guy was already wounded enough from my punches. She got the nurse and I was sent home for the day.
Then the day came. I had dropped out of high school when I was fourteen because I was failing. I had to keep it secret from my parents, or I would be dead meat. Lucina was homeschooled after grade eight. Thomas knew about my high school dropout, and he was working at McDonalds at the time. I would hang with Lucina during school hours, and Thomas would pick me up after work. My parents had found out about me dropping out of high school. We were told to take our belongings and get out of the house by that Friday. Thomas took his money and we bought a cheap apartment in a small building near Lucina’s house. Thomas had to take a full-time job at the police department to make some extra money. At the time, we had no internet, so I used to bring my Amusphere to Lucina’s to play GGO. Since the game has a money conversion system, we would complete quests and duel for in-game money to convert into real money. I was terrible at GGO, so Lucina would help me get better. We split the earnings in half, and if there was any uneven numbers, I would get to keep it because of what I was going through.
Thomas and I lived together in the apartment, we were able to have a normal life again by the time I turned fifteen.
+ + +
Tomorrow was the day of the main tournament for Bullet of Bullets. It started at 2am, so Thomas had permission to bring the police department’s Amusphere home to train with me. We didn’t sleep that night.
I’ll win for Lucina
![[Image: 2fb87259-bba0-443e-b3a8-3f3f163c35ab_zpsbrar5clc.png]](https://i1375.photobucket.com/albums/ag445/Dezyr/2fb87259-bba0-443e-b3a8-3f3f163c35ab_zpsbrar5clc.png)
