His First War With Himself - Chapter One - EDIT

I decided that I still wasn't happy at all with this chapter so I re-re-wrote it. Chapter 3 coming soon!

=X=

The moment his name was called, Piko knew exactly who he would choose.

He barely heard it through the deafening cheers of the crowd, each person in it waiting for their name to be called. He himself was dying from the suspense, he had only been waiting for, oh, three whole years for this chance.

Nonetheless, he heard robotic voice say "Utatane Piko, choose your teammate," and his breath caught in his throat.

All eyes in the seemingly endless sea of people surrounding the boy were on him, wondering who he would choose, and some hoping it would be them.

He cleared his throat and tried his best to flash a smug smile to mask his nerves, "Kagamine Len!"

Everyone collectively let out a breath. One's partner in this game could be the difference between victory and defeat, and with Len by his side, there was no way he could lose.

A new name was called as he searched through the mass of bodies for the short blond boy from his spot in P section in the crowd. When he found him, Len was moving his stare from the screen, to Piko, and back again, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. What a weirdo.

Piko looked up at the huge screen in the centre of the square they were in, towering over the everyone for miles.

His eyes widened, too, at what was illuminated there.

"Utatane Piko + Kagamine Rin"

=X=

In a rage, Piko tore off his headset, disconnecting his player from the online networking site, Third World. Technically he wasn't supposed to disconnect during the selection, but he had chosen his partner so there wasn't a lot the admins could do about it.

His partner. He grumbled and spun around in the blue leather chair that was positioned in front of his dinosaur of a computer. He didn't use it, nobody ever used computers any more, but he liked to keep it around. Old things fascinated him.

He had almost anticipated that something like this would happen, TW's vocal recognition system was always faulty, but he couldn't believe that he was paired with Len's sister, the one who had told him he was a dingus several times. That was a terrible understatement, he thought. Several times a day, probably more.

He flopped on to his bed, imagining his dreams and four years of hard work being flushed down the toilet. Four. Years.

Piko and his friends had spent four years slowly clawing their way up to the top of the heap to get the chance to enter the online battle royale called the Third World War. People from all over the world trained their butts of for the opportunity that Piko just had, and somehow he had found possibly the dumbest way to mess it all up.

He was such a dingus.

Ok, no. He had to stop with this self-loathing thing, he needed something to take his mind off of how disappointed his friends must have been with him.

He lifted his hands off of his face and tapped one of his palms. It lit up and a small, bright screen appeared under his skin, showing different little icons and a small clock. It was 12:30. Piko groaned, somehow he had managed to stay up past midnight every night this week.

He tapped an icon of an old style television, with a frame and a stand and everything. Most people, Piko thought, wouldn't even know what it was, all they knew was that if they tapped it, they could watch TV on their palm.

'Advertisements' was a better word to use than TV now. Nobody bothered to produce movies or TV shows anymore, why watch someone else do something when you could just upload yourself to TW and experience it yourself?

Piko had heard stories about times when people lived in separate houses instead of monstrously tall skyscrapers and actually watched TV for entertainment. He had to hear them from creepy old people on the Internet, though, so who knew if they were true. Nowadays, the he only time when anything good actually came on the TV was when the war was going on. It was covered live on almost every channel in every language. Nobody missed out on this virtual war.

Piko had watched it as many times as he could in the past. He thought it was actually kind of cool. The war was the equivalent of a particularly gory horror movie with a huge cash prize at the end.

Some people called the participants violent and greedy, but nobody ever really died in the war, it was all virtual. The greedy part was usually right, though.
The goal wasn't even to kill everyone in your path, either, like people made it seem. You won by identifying and destroying the goal item, which could be anything from a place to an animal to an object, but there were always clues hidden in the place the war was located in.

He swiped his finger along his palm, flipping through channels. Ad, ad, boring, boring, boring...

After a little while of browsing aimlessly and slowly falling asleep, Piko came across a channel showing profiles of the participants in the war. He was instantly wide awake again.

They were into the L's already. There were at least two hundred people in the war each year, and there were two commentators, a man and a woman, giving a bit of background information on each of the pairs, so the list was moving excruciatingly slowly. He knew who's name was coming up soon though, so he stuck around.

"Len Kagamine," said the female voice enthusiastically. A picture of him in the real world appeared on the screen, he was sitting on a patch of unnaturally green grass and flashing a smile. He looked almost identical to the online Len Kagamine, that was how TW's character creation system was programmed. The first time you upload yourself, it stores all of your information (that means all of it) and uses your DNA patterns to create an extremely accurate online character. Only the best hackers could trick the system to make themselves taller or curvier or all around more attractive, but those people were either insane, or terrorists. Piko shuddered and decided not to think about the net terrorists.

He turned his attention back to the screen.

"Only eighteen years old, and already passed the required level to enter the war, isn't that amazing, Leon?" Piko groaned. It was too late at night to listen to these peppy Internet addicts.

"That it is, Lola," Leon replied with a laugh, "Kagamine lives in the USA, and his twin sister, Rin Kagamine is also participating in the war.

"Kagamine specializes in magic, usually powerful healing magic, and has said that he doesn't like hand to hand combat," the two voices paused to laugh a little there. The chances of surviving though to the end of the war without using weapons were slim, especially when they may not end up in a place with virtual magic enabled.

The female, Lola, continued, "His partner is Gumi Kamui. She's nineteen, and lives in Japan with her family of six." He squinted at her picture. So her hair was that weird shade of green on person, too. She was at some sort of beach, her arms around the shoulders of two people who were cut out of the image, and she was grinning like a maniac. Piko was starting to think that was her normal face, he had never once seen her not smiling, "Kamui specializes in long range combat and has..." Piko tuned out the commentators, realizing what Len being partnered with Gumi meant.

It meant that he would have to spend the war with not only Rin, but Gumi, who had the hots for Len and didn't make any effort to be subtle about it. On top if that, Rin wanted to be partners with Gumi, so now they would have to join Piko's team, and the boys would have to split the prize money with them if they won, which they were already splitting between the four of them.

He lay there staring at the ceiling, fuming once again. He knew there was no way around it, but it still made him angry. He didn't like Rin and didn't like being around Rin.

Piko's attention snapped back to the screen again when another name he recognized was called.

"Next is Oliver , born and raised in Scotland," Leon announced in the exact same way that Lola had announced Len's name. A picture of him popped up on screen, too. It looked like it was supposed to be a school photo for a yearbook (he guessed they still had those is Scotland), but Oliver had stuck out his tongue with a goofy smile and made a rude gesture with his hand. Piko imagined that whoever had paid for that photo didn't appreciate his sense of humor. Typical Oliver.

Lola took over, "He specializes in close combat, and uses a variety of weapons. appears to be a very well rounded fighter!" It was true, and Piko was glad. Oliver and his partner were both part of his team, but the two of them had known each other long before either of them met Piko and Len.

"His partner is Lui Hibiki. He lives in Japan, and both he and his partner are 16," he had expected her to say more, but instead she paused to let the picture appear on screen, and didn't say any more about his personal life.

Piko peered at the photo. It was strange. It appeared to be taken from behind, and it looked like Lui didn't even notice someone was taking a picture of him. He was laughing down at what appeared to be the top of Oliver's head which was cut off at the bottom of the screen as Lui was almost twice as tall as Oliver.

What struck him as odd, however was how it was obviously not from the real world. The photo was done just a little too well to be taken by a real human, and the orange sky in the background was much too vibrant for a normal sunset. Not to mention that Oliver, who lived an ocean and a half away from Lui, was in the picture with him. Whoever took it had obviously tried to fix it up to make it look more real, but they didn't to a very good job of it.

Why, Piko wondered, didn't he have a photo? Maybe he was fat and ugly in person and had hacked his player to look like it did, and he didn't want to ruin his image. Piko snorted. Yeah right, Lui wasn't a terrorist or insane. He was a total pushover and incredibly shy. If anyone in Piko's group if friends was going to be a net terrorist, it would be Oliver. Possibly Gumi. Lui was probably just so shy that he didn't want them to put up a picture of him for the world to see, which was fair enough. Piko himself was nervous to see which of the many terrible pictures of him they would use.

Leon finished off, "Hibiki specializes in offensive magic and close combat,"
Piko stuck around through a few more names, knowing his would come up soon.

When it did, Piko was less than impressed with the picture they had chosen. It was one of him digging through a local junkyard, before it was paved over to make room for more skyscrapers. He had dirt smeared on his face and clothes and looked kind of like he had crawled out of an oil pipe. They could have used any if the many photos of him on the Internet, that one of him at a soccer tournament holding up a trophy, or the one with his champion sister. It was almost like this broadcast was trying to make him look bad in front of everyone. He felt his face heat up.

"Piko Utatane, from Australia, age 19! He specializes in physical offence, usually close combat. Earlier tonight, it appeared that something went wrong at the selection, and he actually ended up with the wrong partner!" Leon laughed. Piko felt his face heat up even more.

"It did! That's really too bad!" Lola chuckled in response, "But I'm sure he'll be alright, because his partner is Rin Kagamine, 18 years old, who lives in the USA with her twin brother. She also specializes in close physical combat, she's fast as a bullet, and very powerful for her age-"

Piko covered the screen with his other hand, turning it off. He didn't care if Rin was good or not, he and Len had trained together for this, came up with plans and special moves together. It all meant nothing now!

Great, he was angry again. Instead of rolling over and going to sleep like he probably should have, he wend back over to his desk and put his headset back on. Killing NPCs always calmed him down.

=X=

The net had quieted down considerably since the selection ended, which was better for Piko, he hated wading through crowds.

He had made his way to the area of TW that his team always met in. It was an RPG themed world that when you entered you gained classic RPG-esque classes and powers, like magician or thief, suited to your personal strangers and weaknesses.

Piko liked that part, he got mad swordsmanship skills to better beat the snot out of NPCs.

He had hoped that maybe he could meet up with them and make sure everyone knew what to do the next day when the war started.

Lui, who acted as the team's strategist, had suggested before the selection had started that they all head towards the highest place in the area so that they had a definite meeting place and whoever made it there first could look out for the rest from above. The boys agreed, but that was before Gumi and Rin were part of their team, so he wanted to make sure the girls knew what to do.

But mostly he just wanted to beat some enemies.

He wandered about the deep forest, the huge, leafy trees, which were warm autumn-y reds and oranges, towered far above him, making him feel small and insignificant.

He didn't like that feeling, so he chopped one down with his sword in one swipe. After a few hours, it would respawn, leaving no trace that Piko had ever been here, so he didn't really feel any remorse for the virtual tree.

The tall top part of the tree wobbled and began to tip. Piko smiled, feeling satisfied with his work, until he heard a shreik.

Oh no. Oh god no.

He ran out from behind the wall of trees, heading to the source of the scream. He couldn't see who it was through the darkness of midnight, but whoever had made the sound was about to get crushed by the top of the tree that he had cut down.

Without thinking, he lunged toward the figure and shoved them out of the way, the two of them tumbling over each other in the grass. The person, a girl, Piko realized with a flushed face, let out another cry, and this time, he recognized it.

"Rin!?" He yelled once they had stopped rolling in the long grass. She gaped at him.

"Piko!?" She made a noise of disgust in the back of her throat and shoved him off of her roughly, "Get the hell off of me, ugh! What were you thinking!?" She gestured wildly at the giant log, now sitting heavily in the grass.

Piko stood, and brushed the dirt off of his clothes, "What was I thinking? What were you thinking, stalking around a combative area in silent mode? Do you have a death wish!?"

She threw her arms in the air, "You dropped a tree on me, in what way this my fault!?"

"Do you know the plan?" Piko yelled. Rin looked at him, taken by surprise.

"Excuse me?"

"Do. You. Know. The. Plan?" He lowered his voice to a growl, "I didn't come here to argue with you. I wanted to make sure you knew the plan. So?"

Rin narrowed her eyes, staring daggers at him, "Yes, I do," she pulled out a small translucent screen that lit up the moment her fingers made contact with it, showing a log of messages, "Your friend told me. The pretty one."

Lui. Thank goodness for Lui. He was probably the only person in all of TW who used the messaging system, so it had to be him. He said he didn't have a working mic, so never used the real-time speech function, but he had never taken steps to get a new one, so everyone just assumed he was mute or something. Either way, he had told Rin so that Piko didn't have to, so Piko probably owed him now.

That was all he had to hear from Rin, so without saying another word, he disconnected.

=X=

Aaah, I changed a lot of things. I was just going to tweak it, but I ended up re-writing the whole chapter,,,
I'm so much happier with this, though, and I hope all of you guys are, too! d(ovo)
Thanks for reading!