15th of September, 2016

9:23 AM

Green Hills, South Island

"Man…" Ren sighed as he walked down the dirt path. "I'm so bored." The seventeen year old had his hands in his jacket and walked at a very slow pace towards town. He hadn't had an adventure in quite a while, and was just lounging around the house most for most of his days. He tried to keep his schedule busy, but things went by too quickly, and he ran out of things to do before he knew it. His little sister Seri and his best friend Ethan had school to attend, and his older sister Ami was off at some scientist's convention somewhere representing V-TEC, his family's company. And he sure as hell wasn't going to try to spend time with dear old dad, not that he wanted to anyway. He sighed deeply again. "Maybe it's time I went on a vacation somewhere…or learnt how to swim for once." Eh, he'll learn how to swim later. That vacation sounded just right for now. "Where should I go to?" He thought as he walked. "Maybe I could go someplace away from the island? Or just close enough to it?" Even though he didn't know how to swim and hated being in the water, he always liked the relaxing feeling of just lying around a beach. "Maybe I'll head to one of the neighboring islands and hang out there for a while. Something's got to be happening over there…" He thought for a second. "I'll go to Westside Island. There's always something fun happening there." With that thought he turned on his heel and ran back to the house.

As he entered, a small mew came from the other side of the couch. He looked over it and a black and forest colored ball of fur promptly attached itself to his face.

"Yeah, nice to see you too little buddy." He said with his voice muffled. He pulled the cat off of him and started to pet him garnering a purring response. "I wasn't even gone that long Dagger. You're so clingy sometimes. Now, I'm gonna be gone for just a few days, you know the rules. No scratching the furniture, no raiding the fridge, and keep watch over the house. I'll call Ethan's place so they can come and feed you." He put the cat down and refilled his food and water. Then he went upstairs to pack. "Let's see, got some spare clothes…gonna need some SPF…some trunks….maybe a radio too. Can't relax without my music! Hmmm…maybe a rash guard in case I'm unlucky enough to fall in a pool or something. And...I'll take a hat and sunglasses too. Might as well."

As he threw the items into a small backpack, his eyes fell on a blade that hung from the wall. He recognized it as the old Mk 1 Saber he used before the Mk 2 GunSlash became his weapon of choice. It didn't have any ranged ability (other than throwing it, which seemed to work consistently enough.) but it was great for what it was designed for, hacking and slashing. He took it off the wall and in his hand then activated it. A quiet hum sounded as a white energy edge surrounded the blade. "Good to see the old girl still works just as good as when I left her." He thought for a second. "Maybe since the GunSlash is being worked on, I can use the Saber instead? Yeah! It'll be just like old times! But if I pull this weapon, it would have to be for a good reason, since it doesn't have a cutting power limiter like the GunSlash does." He searched the hilt still he found the blue button then pressed it. The weapon disappeared in a white flash from his hands, storing itself as Esper Energy within his body. Now whenever he needed to use it, he would only have to think and it would be there for its master to use. He only hoped he didn't have to use it.

"Alright then. That should about do it." He said while zipping up his back pack a few minutes later. He made his way downstairs and quickly called Ethan's home and left a message to care for the place and feed Dagger, then he went out towards the hangar. There was a ferry going to Westside Island, but he liked the feeling of going there on his own terms. Besides, he had a bi-plane, so he was going to use it! However, when he was about halfway, he sensed some shimmering energy sources in the woods. It was kind of empty feeling, but powerful and not of this world. "Another world in trouble?" he thought. Being the curious adventurer he was, he followed his senses to a small clearing in the forest. There in the middle of it was a portal, looking out into another world. Ren went up closer to examine it. "This world seems….kind of different somehow. But I can't put my finger on why that might be…"

As he looked closer into it, he heard a rustling in the bushes to his six o'clock. He whirled around to face the source of the noise, but it was too late. A humanoid figure had delivered a strong kick to his midsection, knocking the wind out of him and sending him hurtling into the portal. The figure followed him in, but disappeared to parts unknown. Through time and space he fell for what seemed like an eternity, then he was dropped out and falling towards the Earth. Ren flipped over in the air only to face the rushing ground coming to meet him. "Shit! This is gonna hurt!" He braced himself as he collided into the ground, blacking out.

Date Unknown

Time Unknown

?

Ren's fingers twitched as he slowly regained consciousness. He groaned and sat up, his head and arms pounding in pain as he did. "Uggh…" He was lying in a pile of rubble and debris and looking at a somber greenish gray sky. "Where…am I?" Standing wobbly he looked around him. There were buildings broken and demolished, with some even having vegetation growing out of them. The roads and sidewalks were cracked beyond all repair and cars sat abandoned and scattered around the place. Eerily, there was not a soul to be found. It felt like a ghost town or city.

He mind thought back to what kicked him into this place. Who or what was it? It was too fast for him to get a good look at it. Whatever it was, it was smart enough to lay a trap for him, and he fell for it hook, line, and sinker. He then remembered his pack. It didn't land too far from him, but as he checked it he found that everything except his extra changes of clothes and shoes were all gone without a trace. "Damn, so much for my vacation…well…as long as I'm here, I might as well get moving…" Holding one of his arms with the other with his pack slung snugly on his back, he began to explore the city. After what seemed like an hour of walking, he sighed and looked to the skyline. "Maybe I'll get a better view from up top." He searched around for a tall building and found what looked to be a black corporate building. "That should do the job." With that, he took a running ready pose even though it hurt his arms to do so, then he blazed off directly towards it. Speeding onto its walls he started to run directly up the side and all the way up onto the roof. Once he reached the top he walked to the far edge and looked out onto the city below. He whistled in amazement. The entire city seemed like something out of an old zombie movie. There didn't seem to be anything or anyone around, and the city was falling into deep disrepair. "What a mess. What could have happened here? I need to find some people so I can figure all this out, and maybe try to figure out what I'm supposed to do here."

Suddenly, he heard some loud pops a few blocks away accompanied by shouting and screaming. "Gunshots?" he wondered. "I don't like the sound of that…" His right hand, while still badly injured, twitched to have the Saber in its grasp. He was glad he decided to take it along with him after all. "I'd better be careful going there…the people there could be hostile…" With that he hopped down the broken and mangled pieces of the building and landed on the ground while rolling to cushion himself. Then he jogged at half speed to the source of all the commotion. As he got closer, the gunfire became louder and explosions rocked the foundation of the earth causing him to stumble a little bit. "The heck is going on over here?" He didn't have to wait long for his answer. He reached the source of the commotion and looked out below him. Soldiers in some kind of black armor were shooting at something far ahead, which in turn was shooting lasers back at them with brutal accuracy. Close to him was a trailer truck of some sort guarded by more soldiers. One was typing into a console on the side with great frustration, while the one that stood out the most was a man with a muscular build and a bare chest. "I do some pretty crazy things I'll admit, but nothing like that guy. Why doesn't he just paint a big target on his chest that says 'Shoot me here'?" Ren thought to himself. The soldier typing on the console slammed his fist down on it and growled. "Come on wake up!" He looked over his back and saw a soldier vaporized by the attackers in the distance and stared in horror. The bare chest man walked up to him and pinned him against the trailer.

"Wake her up dammit!"

"I've done all I can!" The soldier cried out. "We just have to wait!"

His radio crackled to life. "We need a prince to wake her up or something!" Off in the distance, another soldier moved up to the corner of the street and motioned them to move up.

"Can it will ya!" The bare chest man barked. "And get back over here or you'll-"

He was cut off by a laser cutting through the far off soldier's chest, killing him instantly.

"Tonio!" Another soldier rushed over to try to vainly save the other before suffering the same fate.

The bare chest man sighed. "Just twelve of us left. Then humanity will be extinct."

The soldier he was pinning brushed him off. "Don't just count it down like that! You'll jinx us!"

The bare chest man then pointed his assault rifle at him. The soldier yelped and jumped out of the way just in time from the other's incoming fire. Ren instinctively took cover behind some rubble as the bare chest man rained bullets at the trailer. "Wake up damn you!" he shouted as he emptied the weapon.

Just then, the top of the first car of the trailer burst open. Ren peeked from behind cover to look as the man stopped firing his weapon. Inside the trailer lay a girl maybe about his age with long raven black hair tied into twin tails with one end shorter than the other. She wore a black jacket with white stripes running down the sleeves with a star stamped to one side, with the jacket exposing her midriff and belly to show a black and white string bikini with some kind of barcode text along her lower left rib and her right kidney. He also had black short pants, several pouches around her waist and one strapped to her right leg and black and white boots. A small mechanical device of some sort was attached to the back of her waist. She then opened her eyes, which seemed to shine a brilliant light blue. Ren and the soldiers alike watched her get up and walk casually over to the other trailer car, then pull the top off it with little effort and toss it away. Inside was a large black cannon and a black sword. She picked the two up, the cannon in her right, the sword in her left, and then leapt off the trailer high into the air, landed on the ground, and rushed towards the attackers.

Ren was stunned for a minute. Just what did he just witness? Who were these soldiers? Didn't they say there were only twelve humans left? How did that all happen? And that girl…just who was she?

"Well, only one way to find out!" He jogged back a couple feet then stopped. He then began to run in place until his feet became a figure eight to the naked eye. "Here goes! Hopefully I don't get shot or something!" He burned out and started to run with blinding speed to the edge where he was observing and catapulted himself off of it. He landed just in front of the point the girl had landed and startled some of the soldiers.

"Whoa! Who the hell!?" The soldier on the console yelled. Not waiting for another word, Ren ran for all he was worth towards the girl's direction until he finally reached her. She was fighting against what looked like mechanical weapons of some sort, some greenish hornet looking bots with purple dog robots. The girl shot her cannon at the dogs and destroyed them with ease, but the hornets weren't staying still and were trying to shoot laser stings at her and physically trying to sting her. Ren pushed his speed as fast as he could go in his normal form and leaped up into the air towards the hornets. In the air, his Saber materialized in his right hand and he slashed a hornet in two before it exploded. Another hornet noticed him and tried to shoot him, but the girl found her mark on it and took it down in an instant. The last one was within Ren's range. Tucking into a ball and bringing the Saber out in front of him, he flipped in the air with great speed and collided with the hornet head on, the super fast slashing of the Saber sheering right through it, making it nothing more than scrap. Ren landed on the ground and screeched to a halt with a confident grin on his face.

"Heh. That was too easy." He said while the Saber de-materialized back into its master. As he started to pick bits and pieces of scrap from his jacket, the girl walked up to him with her sword pointed at him.

"Who are you?" she questioned him with a soft voice.

He noticed the sword pointed at him and slowly raised his hands in defense. "Whoa whoa! Easy there! My name is Ren Vortex! Hero, adventurer, too handsome to get his head lopped off!" He said trying to joke around a little despite his situation.

The girl wasn't fazed by this and continued to hold her stance. "Are you an enemy?"

Ren lowered his hands and looked at her puzzled. "Huh? Enemy? In case you didn't already realize, I kinda helped you kick these scrap heaps to the recycling bin?" He kicked one of the destroyed remains of the mechs to emphasize his point. "I'd say that makes me a friend, right?"

"A friend…" The girl lowered and sheathed her sword. "…Okay."

"What's up with this girl?" Ren thought. The soldiers he had rushed past had finally caught up to them.

"Hot Damn!"One of them said. "Look at her!"

"That's got to be the cutest ultimate weapon I've ever seen!" Piped up another.

Another turned to the bare chest man. "Looks like there's still hope, eh Phobos?"

The bare chest man, Phobos scoffed. "She's still just a kid."

The soldier that operated the console glared behind his helmet. "Hey! She saved us remember? At least show some gratitude!" He walked up to the girl. "Right?"

The girl was silent for a second, then whirled around and pointed her cannon at the soldier, stunning the rest of the cadre and Ren too.

"Are you my enemy too?" She asked.

"No no no!" The soldier cried. He started to remove his helmet. He had short dirty blonde hair, hazel eyes, and had a short stubble of hair on his chin. "The enemies are the ones who attacked you. We're your friends!"

Again, at the word friend she relented and she slung the cannon over her back. "Okay."

Ren's heart skipped a beat when she pointed the cannon at them, and sighed a deep sigh of relief when she pointed it away from them.

The man named Phobos turned his attention to the brown spiky haired teenager behind the girl. "Who's this then? A survivor?"

The soldier looked around the girl. "Oh! Another human like us? Great! Say, are you alone? Or do you know of any others? Where's your family? What's your name?"

Ren was silent. He wasn't sure if he should let them know he was from another world or not.

See, from his first ventures outside his own world to the present situation, he was always reminded by his sister Ami that the collective universes had one thing that separated yet bound them all together: The World Order. It was said that once, all worlds were as one, and that they all co-existed in harmony. However, evil desires shattered this harmony and threw the world into chaos. To prevent this from happening again, the heroes of the world split the world as they knew it into millions upon billions of fragments. Each of these fragments was a new world in itself. Some, like Ren's own Earth were comprised of multiple fragments while others were solitary. The gods then devised the World Order. In this Order, the primary law of all the multi-verse was that one could not meddle in the affairs of other worlds unless the world itself called for one's aid or grants one entry to it, and no one world must know about the existence of other worlds as a whole, and that only the heroes of that world may bear such a secret.

In his adventures, he had met many heroes with whom he had trusted with this secret. So could one of these people be one of them? He couldn't be sure. He didn't know any of them well enough yet to guard the secret, but then again if there were only twelve humans left in this entire world, then would it really matter who he told it to? He decided to make up a story for now and then tell them all later when the time was right.

"Um…yes, I'm alone. I just arrived in this city two days ago. I lost my family to these…things. My name is Ren."

The soldier looked down solemnly. "Ah, I see. I'm sorry Ren. We all know how you feel. All of us here have lost a lot in this damn war. Sometimes I still can't believe that everything, everyone, they're all gone."

"Damn kid." One of the soldiers said. "It's pretty rough for us as a group, so I can't imagine what it might be like for you all by yourself."

A lot of the soldiers agreed with his statement. Even the girl next to him looking his way seemed to show some pity, if only slightly.

Ren put on his best act as a loner teenager. He could be able to get some information this way. It wasn't right, but it was the only way to keep The World Order AND be able to find out just what was going on in this world.

"How did this all happen anyway? How could it have come to all this?"

The soldier in front of him and the girl put his hand on his shoulder. "Hey hey, we shouldn't worry about that right now. Right now, we have to focus on getting the hell out of here before more of those Armaments show up."

"Armaments?"

The soldier looked toward the broken piles of scrap that the girl and Ren had destroyed.

"Oh. So that's what they were called…"

While they were talking, the girl looked up to a billboard up on a building. The billboard had an image of a woman on it.

"Who's that?" She asked.

"You mean you don't know!?" The soldier talking to Ren exclaimed in surprise. "She's Sing Love. She was in all the D'dario Next commercials. She was pretty popular back when the war began. You sure you don't know her?"

Both the girl and Ren nodded their heads in unison.

"Geez." He replied in embarrassment. "Guess I made myself out to be a fan boy then just now."

Then the radio buzzed with life. "Marion here. Status report Phobos."

"Jon, Koichi, and Tonio are KIA." Phobos replied.

"…Roger that. Anything else?"

Phobos looked at Ren and the girl. "Sleeping Beauty is up and around, and we found one human survivor. Caucasian male, late teens, gray and red clothing, brown spiky hair, gray eyes."

"Good. Then we'll be heading out as soon as possible. We'll be meeting up at the Cisco Portal."

"Roger that. Phobos out."

Then the girl looked up at something else.

"What is it?" Ren asked as he followed her gaze. The soldier traced her sight as well and the three of them spotted more green hornets and purple dogs climbing over the cliff where Ren jumped off of.

"Multiple enemies!"

"Dammit, run!" Phobos yelled.

"What about the trailer?" A solider asked. "Are we just going to leave it behind?"

"Of course not!" Phobos replied. "If we stick around any longer they'll destroy the trailer and us along with it. We have to retreat for now; we'll come back for it later. Got it?"

"Yes sir!"

"Good, now run!"

The soldiers started to move out. Ren was about to make tracks when he noticed the girl hadn't moved an inch. She looked like she was lost in some kind of dream.

"Hey!" Ren called to her. He ran back to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "What's the matter, you asleep or somethi-AAAHHH!?" Something inside of him started to react to her and he was suddenly shown a vision.

He saw an old man and a young girl. The young girl had black hair tied into short twin tails while the man had a small facial beard. The girl was crying, and the man spoke to her. "Now, run." He gave her a small stuffed bear. "Take this with you." He hugged the girl as she tried to say something. "Don't cry; just run as fast as you can."

Just as quickly as the vision appeared, it disappeared. Ren found himself on the ground, the girl knelt next to him.

"Are you alright?" She asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, I'm okay." She helped him up to his feet.

"Let's run." She said.

"Alright then..." He replied woozily.

The two of them ran from the onslaught of enemies that soon overtook the trailer space. As they ran together, Ren's mind was full of questions and not enough answers. "What was all that just now? Was I dreaming somehow? Just what the hell is going on here!?"

It's time to play the New Game…

Black Rock Shooter Vortex: The Game