World Division System
AN: I decided to do a reboot of this series which I wrote a couple years' back, hopefully you readers will enjoy this version just as much as the first. Please review!
Working under the dim lighting of a small rusted desk lap, which had seen better days, I looked very closely at what I was creating a pair of long tweezers in each hand as I was connecting small wires under a magnifying glass.
I had glanced up and through the basement window and I noticed the sky was becoming light. I surmised that it was around five thirty in the morning, since it was early summer and the days became much longer. I had yet to sleep, but I wasn't bothered by working through a sleepless night, I did so often.
I was nineteen years old, I thought I knew the world, thought I had everything figured out and that I was indestructible, but I suppose most people at that age would think so. My life was just beginning and I had the universe at my disposal, anything was possible so long as I believed it, I could make it real, no matter how unrealistic, even fairytales could be brought to life if I wished it. Then again maybe that wasn't the case, I mean wishing wasn't exactly what caused a small spark come from the connection of opposite wires.
A whippoorwill's song ended finally, it always amused me how I could only hear such birds late at night. The sky's dull grey color began to turn into a medley of oranges, and purples, shadowed clouds mixing in with the scenery as the world came to life. A fresh coat of morning dew, the only indication of the earths rebirth, on the basement window.
Looking back to my work I was quick to finish up the connection of the devices inner workings. The only thing left was to put the small machines covering on, once that was done I looked on my invention with a tired smile, I had finished the creation process the only thing left was to test it out.
"You made an iPhone?" Cecily questioned with a raised eyebrow, "don't you think Apple might have a slight problem with you completely stealing their idea?" Cecily was my long time best friend; sure she was a total dick, but so was I which was why we got along so well.
We had enrolled in the same college; had completed our first year together and had been enjoying a very lax summer.
We were roommates then, her parents owned a slot of land not far from the University we went to, we stayed in a nice two story house which was actually far too big for only two girls to live in, but, Cecily's parents, who were wealthy politicians, saw no reason to let a perfectly good townhouse go unlived in so they gave it to us. Cecily had grown up with money and had never wanted for a thing, lucky girl.
"Well, I'm sure if any idiot were to do such a thing then, yes, there would be some problems coming from the company." I answered as I scratched the back of my head, causing my already messy raven locks to become even more untidy.
"Alright, Idiot, why'd you waste your time doing it then?" She crossed her arms and began to tap her foot impatiently.
"Uuuugh," I flopped down onto the living room couch, she was such a Negative Nancy! "If you would've let me finish explaining then you would know, Ya Little Shit!" She tried to stifle a chuckle but failed miserably, kind of like with her Psychology class.
"Okay, Lyric, go ahead and tell me this big invention of yours!" She said as she moved her hands from side to side in a mocking manor.
"I call it: World Division System." I began as I leaned forward and handed her the device.
"Weird name, sounds like something from those terrible Syfy original movies." She said as she rolled the device over in her hands, inspecting it jadedly.
"Bro," she looked up from the device and her chocolate gaze fell on me, "shut up." We both cracked small grins.
"Well, you should make it an acronym, ya know? Like: W.D.S." She tossed it back to me and I juggled the thing as I tried to get a good grasp on it, ultimately it clattered onto the floor. I breathed a frustrated sigh causing my fringe, which covered the entire left side of my face, to fly up slightly and I reached for the mechanism.
"Why would you do that, Man?" I questioned, "why would you throw something I just made, knowing I can't catch worth shit?" I slumped lazily in my seat, "and W.D.S sounds even more lame."
"Yeah, yeah, ya gonna tell me what the thing does or not, huh?" She questioned as she took a seat on the arm of the couch. I sat up as I began to explain once again.
"Well, this device is something like…" I began to move my hands around as I searched for the words to describe it. "A universal gate way."
"'Kay, Lyric, seriously, no more Syfy Originals." Cecily said with a crude laugh.
"I am serious!" I exclaimed in slight frustration, "of all the shit that I've managed to blow your mind with why do you doubt me now?!"
"Because its pure science fiction!"
"You said that about all the other stuff too! And what happened with that?" I questioned with venom, her tongue stretched her check out as she moved her mouth to the side and bounced her leg.
"You created a successful holographic imaging device so that it appeared as though STARISH was preforming a concert live in our backyard." She answered with a sigh, "it was the best birthday ever." She added with a roll of her eyes.
"So you still gonna doubt me?" I questioned, she thought for a moment.
"Yes, but since you made me recall all your other success stories, less so than earlier." That was as good an answer I could hope to get from her so I continued.
"It works the same as customizing a character in a video game. All you have to do; is scroll through the options to choose which world you'd like to enter. Then once that's done, you choose your lifestyle."
"So, basically SIMs."
"Get the fuck out."
"I'm sorry! I'll be good! Continue."
"As I was saying: you choose your own lifestyle, for example, if I were to enter the world of, Durarara, then I could choose to be a gang member, a student, an Idol, exedra… If I picked Naruto then I could choose to be a ninja, or a civilian, and if I picked ninja I could choose what type, Leaf, Sand, rouge, medical, so on and so forth."
"I thought you said this was a universal gateway thingy, you make it sound like a video game."
"It is a gate way, but, it's very similar customization wise because it's just easier that way, ya know? But it's not actually a video game, like I said it's a gate way, we will physically be transported into an actual anime world, a separate universe."
"But that's not poss- "
"If you say: 'that's not possible' I swear to god I'll jack you in the throat." I glared and she threw her hands up in both annoyance and surrender.
"Okay so, you say all that's customizable but what about food and shelter? We won't have to build a house will we? If so then I'm out, I don't do hard labor." Cecily ran a hand through her long blond curls.
"No, we don't build anything."
"Well then I guess it's not exactly like the SIMs."
"I know where you sleep." I threatened, she threw her hands up once again. "Where we want to live, what occupation we'd have, how much money we'd own, we could have an infinite amount of income. It would all be at our finger tips."
"Okay, you've peaked my interest." Cecily said as she looked back to the device.
"Anything to do with a lot of money always peaks your interest, Gold Digger."
"I'm not a gold digger!" She exclaimed loudly, "I just like money."
"Are ya feelin' it, ?" I questioned with a smirk tugging on my lips.
"You SpongeBob referencing, Dick!" She laughed.
"Anyway, we can customize ourselves too. Not our appearances, I mean we'll look like how we do now only in anime form but- "
"Okay that actually sounds really cool!" She exclaimed.
"Hey! Thanks for interrupting me, really appreciate it!" I said with a sarcastic snort. "We'll be able to customize our abilities, like: what fighting skills we want, martial arts, or boxing, something like that, no training necessary." My ice blue eye looked to the iPhone like device, "and we'll be able to meet all our favorite characters too, become friends with characters we've always favored."
"Awesome!" Cecily jumped up from the couch with sudden enthusiasm, "what're we waiting for! Let's try it! Wait! Is it safe?"
"Yeah, I tested it this morning when I finished it, totally safe." I answered as I began to feel excitement as well, then Cecily crossed her arms again and gave me a suspicious look.
"What did you use to test it?" My eyes fell to the floor upon hearing the question and I began to rock back and forth from my heels to my toes.
"Oh, I might've used… The dog…" I answered hesitantly, Cecily's arm dropped to her sides and her mouth fell open.
"WHAT?!" She screamed, and she began to search the living room. "Dusty! Dusty! Come here boy!" She cried and the devil creature came running, a tiny Pomeranian, Cecily was quick to pick the creature up. "How could you use, Dusty as a test subject?!" She questioned, as her anger faded upon seeing the slobbering mongrel was just fine.
"Well, he looks enough like a rat so I figured- "she slapped me on the arm, hard. I jumped and began to rub the offended area.
"She's just jealous of how cute you are," she said to the dog.
"Put it down and focus!" I ordered, she snapped her head to me.
"Him!" She corrected.
"Like it matters! Just release it!" She finally did as I told her and I continued an explanation that really shouldn't have taken as long to say as it was. "Because of the experiments I did," upon hearing the word experiment Cecily growled and gave me a stern look causing me to pause for a moment. "I discovered," I continued quickly, knowing that I had crossed a line. "That time passes by differently in the universes we'll travel to, I'm not sure that time passes the same in each but we'll be able to find out easily thanks to the two clocks I've got installed on the device. One is set to the time here, in reality, the other is programed to automatically set to whatever the time is in whatever universe we go to."
"Jesus Christ, you're even smarter than I thought you were!" Cecily cried, "Lyric, how long you been holding out on me?"
"Not long, considering it took lots of hard work," as I emphasized the words she hated most she made a gagging noise, "to get this smart."
"Alright, alright, let's go ahead and test this thing out, I'm tired of listening to you go on and on about how incredibly smart you are!" She teased playfully, as she picked up the device which I was quick to take from her.
"Forgetting something?" I questioned as I looked to the mongrel at my feet.
"Dusty? What about him?"
"Cecily! I just told you: time passes differently in each universe! Which means a second we spend there could be twenty-four hours here, or twenty-four hours there could pass as a second here. We can't leave the rat in the house alone without knowing how long we'll be gone."
"Fine, fine, I'll put him outside."
"Which is where it should be any way." I said as she picked up the mutt, she stopped beside me before passing.
"Animal Hater." She said as she continued on to the back door.
"I don't hate animals! I only hate dogs… And fish, which I don't see the point of having as a pet since they live in a bowl and you can't pet or play with them and they die within five seconds of- oh," Cecily was nowhere to be seen and then I heard the backdoor slam shut, "I'm talking to myself…"
Once the mutt was released into our, fenced in, yard, I began to mess with the settings on the W.D.S.
"Where're we going to first?" I questioned as Cecily leaned on my shoulder to watch me fiddle with the device.
"Hmm… Let's see… Um… Some place exciting but not overly dangerous, but not a high school anime, I mean we only just escaped high school a year ago why go back?"
"How, 'bout Durarara," I suggested as I laid eyes on the option, "it's not too dangerous, not too safe, and even if we choose to be students we won't actually have to be in school ya know? Also, most characters in anime are in high school, it would be a hard thing to avoid." Cecily groaned.
"Lyric, we've become older than most of the main characters of the thing we love most!" She cried in genuine distress.
"Not in Tokyo Ghoul, everyone there is around our age or older." She raised her head at that, "no, too dangerous, we're not ready for that yet, I don't feel like being eaten alive." I pressed my finger to the touch screen and 'Durarara' was highlighted in blue and white as I selected it, then I began to pick the other settings.
Name of Traveler 1: Lyric Ryan
Name of Traveler 2: Cecily Carrington
Language: English
Place of living: Ikebukuro
Occupation for traveler 1: Illegal Weapons Distributor
As Cecily saw what I put for my occupation she gave me a strange look.
"I would be more likely to run into some main characters with a job like that." I explained, she understood immediately.
Affiliation for Traveler 1: Dollars
Abilities for Traveler 1: Martial Arts
Occupation of Traveler 2: Raira Academy Teacher
"What the hell don't put that!" Cecily cried as she tried to swipe the device from hands, I moved and she ended up falling on the floor, she was quick to get back on her feet though. "I don't wanna be a teacher! I can't teach kids especially not teenagers!"
"You'll automatically be equipped for the job; you'll know everything there is to know about teaching without having to go to school for it! And you'll be seeing a lot of the main characters so shut up!" I ordered, "besides it's not like you'll be there a lot!" She gave me pout but didn't argue any further. "Now who are you gonna be affiliated with?"
"Dragon Zombie! I wanna be in Izaya's gang!" She exclaimed and I only sighed.
"You and your weird Izaya obsession, Freak."
Affiliation of Traveler 2: Dragon Zombie
Abilities: for Traveler 2: Martial Arts
All that was left was for me to hit the 'submit' button and then we would be transported to another universe, I glanced at the clock: 3:37pm, then gave the button a light tap.
"Processing data... Processing complete." Said a synthetic voice, "World Division System now in progress." Nothing happened for a short moment, just as I thought the device had failed I was suddenly falling, there was light surrounding us, Cecily and I were clinging to each other. "Travel portion activated, please wait as the transformation process begins." The synthetic voice said and I squeezed my eyes shut. Just as quickly as the process started it ended, with a harsh crash.
Cecily and I had fallen hard on the floor of a space which very much resembled the house we had back in our world, only the duplicate was clean.
For a long while we stared at one another, we were two dimensional and it was quite the shocker as you could imagine. Then we spent some time inspecting ourselves in the mirrors of the house.
I didn't look very different, my hair was still unkempt, my fringe still covering the left side of my face, though when I moved the hair from my eyes I noticed the peculiar coloring of my orbs was much more desirable in anime. My left eye was a pale green color and right was an ice blue, the different pigmentation of my eyes was why I kept half my face hidden behind my hair, but at that moment I didn't feel particularly self-conscious about it, anime made everyone beautiful. My baggy sweater made me look much thinner than it did in my world, my faded skinny jeans only solidified my tininess, and my usually pasty skin appeared like porcelain.
Cecily didn't look much different either, still sporting long blond hair, narrow brown eyes, and sun-kissed skin which appeared even more attractive in anime form. Her clothes had changed from pajamas to work attire though, black blazer with a purple top underneath and a black skirt cut just above her knees.
"Man!" Cecily exclaimed, "I'm totally hot!"
"I hear those exact same words out of your mouth every morning. Give it a rest." I said as I shook my head at her.
"Oh my god! Lyric! You're so cute!" She cried as she hurried to me.
"Yep, hear that every morning too." I sighed.
"Your totally moe!"
"Shut it, Jackass!"
"Oooh, moe/tsundere!" She exclaimed excitedly.
"Would you get away from me?!" I pushed her away playfully and she bounced in delight.
"I can't help it, Lyric! We're in an anime! In an anime!"
"I know! I'm the one who sent us here remember?"
"And I love you for it!" She squeaked happily, "we have to go explore! Right now!" I glanced out the window and saw the sun was setting, knowing it would get dangerous at night time I agreed so long as we hurried back.
I was nineteen years old, I thought I knew the world, thought I had everything figured out and that I was indestructible, but I suppose most people at that age would think so. My life was just beginning and I had the universe at my disposal, anything was possible so long as I believed it, I could make it real, no matter how unrealistic, even fairytales could be brought to life. I had done just that. Brought a twisted fairytale to life, and was ready to explore it to the fullest extent.