7:00 AM
Ikebukuro, Tokyo
Today was the day. Today was the day the much-awaited world's first VRMMORPG known as Martial Arts Online would finally get released. The game, building up hype for the past 5 years, has finally been released in select few Japanese game shops. Me being the early planner that I am, camped outside the doors of 'Super Potato Ikebukuro' for 16 full hours before getting a copy of the game for both me and my sister. This would be it, I thought. This will finally be the day my sister gets to walk again. Running home as fast as I could after getting the game, I noticed just how long the entire queue was. Holy shit that's long, I thought to myself. My camping experience really wasn't that superfluous now that I think about it. Finally spotting the hotel where my sister and I would live for the rest of the week, I quickly ran into the building. It was Sakura hotel. Although pricey, it was worth it, for I've heard that the cleaners don't disturb there, and I've got no time for disturbance while playing.
I thought of the people in the line. They weren't your average gamers, oh no, sir. The demographical gender-group for MAO was more one-sided. So many polls dictated that 78.2% of all MAO players were male, and of that percentage, 70% are in their late teenage to early their twenties. Most of the players were most likely delinquents, as most average geeks shied away from the game after realizing how painful and dangerous it looked. With a pain dampener at around 65%, most people wouldn't risk feeling pain in a video-game at all. The result was a game packed to the brim with bullies, delinquents, and criminals. There were, of course, some nerds playing, and there was also a significant amount of professional fighters from dojos all over the world playing. I walked up the stairs, greatly fatigued by this. At that moment, I wondered if I could create a body so strong, I could run like the shinobi of Naruto.
As I unlocked the door to our room, I saw my sister still sleeping on her bed, with her wheelchair next to her. I walked up to the wheelchair and stared at it.
"We're not gonna need you where we're going", I told it in a ridiculous attempt to spite it. We'd been through a lot, and that wheelchair has aways been giving me shit. At the airport, in bus stations, when we want to go to places that only had staircases. That wheelchair was the epitome of douchebags.
"Hey, don't talk to my wheelchair like that!", my sister suddenly said revealing that I woke her up. She scared me half to death, but I believe that was mostly because of the fact that I was so hyped for the moment. After quickly recovering from my shock, I grabbed the plastic bag containing the culmination of all my hype over the past years. The reason why I both learnt AND taught my little sister Japanese.
"Enough English and sleep, nee-chan", I told her in half English, half Japanese as I was fishing out the two headgears and both the games I bought with it. "Today, history will be written. We can't afford to sleep for any longer." I continued on while trying to open the clamshell packages that seemed harder to open than a bank vault. "It's exactly 5 hours and 35 minutes until the servers are opening. Before that, we'll have to log in the users we made in the website, take the personality survey to determine which martial art we get and then we- dammit these clamshell packages should have died out decades ago- ehrm, and then we're all set, after we calibrate by patting your body. I'll help you with that." I finished as I finally managed to open the package. I walked up to her and sat her on her wheelchair. I rolled her to the closest ethernet port. I crouched over and plugged the ethernet cable inside the port and gave my sister the helmet for her to put on. Although diving right now wouldn't allow us to play the game any faster, it would, at least, prepare us to dive straight into the game once the servers were opened.
"So watch the video and pat yourself. If the person in the video wants you to pat any of your bodily extremities that you can't reach, just ask me for help," I told her. She promptly began patting her body, asking me for help when she needed it. After finally completing that, I layed her down on her bed, completely straight.
"Alright, now you say link start after checking the icons on the HUD. Any errors?" I ask her before she says the magic words.
"Nah, so can I say it yet?", she asked me impatiently. She had waited so long for this, so who am I to tell her to slow down?
"Alright, say it. After you pat your body and take the survey, simply log out, kay?" I asked.
"Alright, boss", she replied. Now more anxious than ever.
"Link... START", she shouted. Immediately getting knocked out by the Nerve-Gear.
"Now, time for daddy to get a piece of that VR action", I said to no one in particular, not realizing how perverted that sounded. I quickly set up my gear and patted down before laying down on my bed. I looked into my visor and checked the icons on the HUD before saying the magical words.
"Link start!", I shouted with using all the air stored in my lungs. Suddenly all I saw were colors and polygons whizzing past my eyes. It was a peculiar feeling. I couldn't move anything, mostly because there was nothing to move. Suddenly I felt my body materialize right before a button titled 'play game'. I click that one, only to do the Martial Art personality correspondency test. After answering about a hundred questions related to my personality, I get a few options of which to choose from: Muay Thai, Savate, Tae Kwon Do and Tong Il Moo Doo. Aw, sweet, I get to pick Tae Kwon Do! That was the skill that I originally set out to get, so I was happy with the options. I picked Tae Kwon Do, and was refused any further access into the game before the servers started opening.
12:40 noon
Sakura Hotel, Ikebukuro, Tokyo
I reread the booklet that came with the game for the 76th time. I now know all of the martial arts that are available in the game, as well as some basic background info about the setting and about the company that first patented the Nerve-Gear tech. My sister, still watching TV up until this point, groaned: "what time is it" for the sixteenth time.
"12:41. Still 19 minutes left til the servers open. Honestly, are we actually going to find something fun to before the release?", I asked her flustered.
"There's probably nothing that can top this, dontcha think?", she replied in a bored tone.
"True. I swear, if this clock doesn't go any faster, I might just kill myself right now", I exclaimed loudly. Words cannot explain how long I've waited for the stupid servers to open. Earlier at around 8 am, we were both really excited for what's to come. Alice would finally get to walk, and it would be because I made it possible for her. We discussed our fighting styles - She got Kickboxing, and I got Tae Kwon Do.
"Oh lord, it's 12:42 why is this taking so damn looong?!", I shouted to no one in particular.
"Why don't you just wait?", she replied although I can't remember that I ever said that I was speaking to her at the time.
"Easy for you to say. You always wait. Wait for people to carry you, wash you, feed you, work for you, and the list goes on", I replied.
"Not funny... when we enter the game, I'll show you just how furious I can get. You just watch your back, boy", she said in an ominous tone. The usage of the word boy took me by surprise.
"lol, we'll just have to wait and see", I told her.
"Who the hell still says 'lol' in this day and age? Go back to the 2000s, the future has no need for you", was her comeback. Not a weak one, in particular, although she sure does know how to harass people psychologically if she wanted to. Right now just wasn't her time. She was just way too hyped for this to care about devising great lines for the sole reason of hurting my feelings. We continued arguing for a few minutes before I, realizing that we might have talked ourselves past the servers opening, checked my watch.
"12:58, get your stuff ready", I yelled as I quickly pushed her wheelchair next to her bed and carried her off to her bed to lay her down perpendicularly. I did the same thing. I prepared everything for her before the moment and we were both staring at the HUD built in the visor in the helmet.
"First one who says the magic words when the clock strikes 13:00 pm gets a cookie", I said, trying to lighten the tension. We were both waiting in bated breaths as we monitored the clocks like a vulture monitors its prey. As the clock hit 13:00, we both said the magic words.
"LINK START", said the both of us, a split second later getting knocked out cold by the Nerve-Gear transporting us to what would quickly turn out to be a harsh battle of life and death. The routine whizzing of different colors and polygons made me feel a bit giddy. I saw the play button and quickly pressed it by simply wishing it to be pressed this time. Before the game could be played, there was character creation. DAMMIT, I FORGOT ABOUT IT! Me being the non-vain person that I was, I simply settled for a taller version of myself, simply so I could run faster. I mean, I already look badass as myself, right? hehe. After around a minute of two of sculpting that handsome face of mine, I clicked continue and chose my nickname. Tony Adams doesn't seem to sound like a nice nickname, despite it being my name, so I simply went for Ryuuma. Simple, strong and badass, and also because it's based off a character from my all-time favorite anime. After materializing from thin air with an explosion of blue particles, I looked around and saw my sister in the middle of the crowd. My, oh my, she must have had fun with the Character creation kit. The most important thing, however, is the fact that she's standing. Not only that, she is walking. After spotting me, she ran to me as fast as she could with her new legs and hugged me, effectively knocking me down. A system message quickly came up, wondering if I should send her to jail for her offense in a safe zone.
"Should I click yes or no?", I asked her teasingly.
"Haul me in, officer", she pleaded, jokingly. I pressed No and we stood up again. As I was looking around, I noticed we were in an Edo-Period town stuffed with strong looking people wearing different colors of karate gis and other types of martial arts clothes. Apparently my sister has this unrealistically perfect figure 8 body with long hair flowing down to her waist. She wore a black gi but had bandaged hands, most likely something connected with her skill. She also had shortened her sleeves all the way to her armpits, and her eyes were really wide. She had a pretty face, courtesy of mom's DNA. The only thing she changed in the game were her 'proportions'. Meanwhile, I was here with shaggy brown hair, a stubbled chin and wore a Dobok, a Tae Kwon Do gi. It was really baggy, and I felt really comfortable in them, so how could I complain?
"Well, what're we waiting for? Let's get the hell out of here, there's an entire country to explore", I yelled. And so began an adventure not worth forgetting.