AN: Right so this, among other things, is the reason I haven't updated my other story recently. I had some problems with my back which left me with a lot of time to think. During that time I realized that the romance I wanted wouldn't work with the story, I still however really wanted it to happen which is why I decided to write this story. This does not mean I'm giving up on the other one, it just means that updates will be less regular. With this story I believe I have a goodstory-linein planned so I hope you'll give me a chance with this. I'm still a rookie when it comes to writing though so beware of mistakes.
A quick side note: I'll probably update my first story within the next few day,Wednesdayat the latest if everything goes as planned.
Anyway on with the story
What is the point in living a life if you're all alone? This was the question a young man leaning up against the railing of a bridge in NY asked himself quite frequently. He didn't understand why he was going on with life, his parents were dead, his "guardian" or aunt, beat him every time she saw him. The only reason kept him in school was because the school might get suspicious if he suddenly pulled out. He had stood there for almost two hours now. Pondering, trying to come to a decision. Finally he made up his mind, a life lived alone wasn't a life worth living. Nobody cared about him, nobody would miss him, those were things his aunt and even he himself told him. And he had started to believe it. He made up his mind, he grabbed the railing and climbed over. He looked out for a few seconds swearing he heard someone screaming, and then he let go.
POV charnge: Alexis
Alexis had been walking home along the same route for years now but never had she seen a sight such as this. On her way home from studying in the library she saw someone standing on a bridge. She immediately recognized him as one of her classmates. His name was Johannes Koivisto often refereed to as John, he was a student who came to her school 8 years ago all the way from Finland. He had blond/golden hair, a very pale complexion and azure blue eyes. Back then he used to be one for the top students in their year. But that changed when his parents were murdered, on the news they said the person who did it got away and from what she knew they were still out there. Right now he was just standing still looking out over the water, she was about to continue on her way home when she saw something that shocked her. Johannes started to climb over the railing. Alexis started to panic when she saw this. She started to run towards him while screaming at the top of her lungs for him not to jump. but she was to late.
There was another person standing nearby, she yelled at them to call an ambulance and rushed over to the riverbank. it took her around a minute to reach the riverbank and in that time she had lost sight of him. She jumped into the water trying to find him in the shallow water. after another 30 seconds of swimming around she felt something brushing up against her leg, that told her enough and she dove down. She started swimming towards the bank with one arm hooked around his torso. When she reached the riverbank she checked if he was still breathing, he wasn't. She tried to keep calm, she had taken courses that taught things like self defense and CPR. She started to preforming CPR in the hopes of restarting his breathing, the sound of his ribs cracking made her shiver. After several minutes she finally heard what she had hoped for, he coughed up water but remained unconscious. She felt relief wash over her when she saw this, she took a minute to check him over which was when she saw a sight she would not forget any time soon. There was blood coming out of his eyes.
She heard the sirens ringing and saw the medics approach, they asked her to come with them so she could tell both them and the police what had happened. She agreed and got in the ambulance, after recounting what happened the medics thanked her and told her she probably saved his life. She felt pride and relief wash over her. She fished her phone out of her now drenched pocked checking if it still worked, and she was relieved to see it did. She called her father and told him what happened, this made him panic quite a bit. He told her that he would be at the hospital as soon as he could with a fresh change of clothes. She thanked him and he told her he'd see her soon.
She finally arrived at the hospital a few minutes later and was told to wait outside the room they brought Johannes inside and then all she could do was wait. After waiting for around half an hour her father arrived together with his "partner" form the NYPD. Her father had been working with the homicide division for about 3 months now and in that time both he and Alexis had become good friends with his partner. Her father grabbed her into a bone-crushing hug she did the same but once she started to have trouble breathing his partner spoke up. "Castle I don't think she can breath" she said, as her father looked at his daughter with an apologetic look. "sorry sweaty guess Beckett was right" he said with a little bit of a sorry look on his face. Alexis shrugged it off and was then questioned by bother her father and Kate. They talked for about half an hour before a nurse came out of the room. she walked over to their group and told them of Johannes' condition. He had bruised and cracked ribs, courtesy of CPR, a sprained wrist and some other minor injuries. That all didn't sound to bad considering but then the nurse said what she had feared ever since she saw his eyes. it seemed that he was going to be permanently blind.
POV change: Johannes
Ding
Congratulations, due to a traumatic experience you have unlocked your mutant powers.
The Gaia system has been unlocked. You have gained a few new skills, however, unfortunatelyGamer body has been excluded due to a system error. Thanks to that same error you are now also probably permanently blinded. Normally you would be able to heal this through either scientific or mystical means but your body will not allow this to happen due, in part, to the glitch. We are terribly sorry for the inconvenience and as recompensewe have given you a few gifts in your inventory along with a 1000x skill level up speed bonus and the skill "Perfect Spacial Perception" this skill will aid you in you day to day life along with anything else you decide to do. There is a tutorial that accompanies the Gaia system, do you wish to take the tutorial now of do you wish to postpone it to be done at a later date.
Johannes had woken up to a noisy ding and then felt the voice in his head speaking, he declined the offer for a tutorial and thought about what it had said. He was alive, blind and had unlocked some for of power. Now in a world where gods walked among men he wasn't to surprised but still. He then thought back on the first thing, he was alive. the thought settled in for a few minutes before he started to laugh. It wasn't a happy laugh quite the opposite, the laugh devolved into tears before the gamer's mind skill kicked in and calmed him down
the heart monitor spiked for a moment due to the emotional distress and nurses seemed to rush the room as he had woken up they asked him if he was in any pain, he wasn't. He guessed they had him pumped full of anesthesia due to his eyes and other injuries he assumed he had. He realized there was no point in crying about things that were over and done. The nurses left the room and left him alone to his thoughts.
POV change: Alexis
I heard an alarm sound that came from the room where they had put Johannes to rest. Nurses seemed to rush the room presumably to see if he was alright. I wanted to go take a look at how he was doing but they told me I would have to wait until they had made sure he was alright, something my father seemed to agree with. My father may not have been the brightest but if there was one thing he was it was protective of me, even overly so at times.
After having waited for a few minutes I asked once more if they could let me in. They still seemed hesitant but Kate told them she would accompany me into the room. Kate had had an interest in him ever since she heard his name, maybe she had been on his parents case? The nurse agreed to let me in with Kate supervising, so we entered the room.
Once we got inside we saw laying on the bed bandages covering his body. It didn't make sense until Kate checked his sheet at the foot end of the bed. Seemed the nurse had forgotten to mention signs of abuse, it had numerous cuts and bruises all across his body on the report. I shivered at the thought and Kate seemed to frown. We were both snapped out of our thought processes when he spoke up in a hoarse voice. "Who's there?" he looked up as he asked the question. he seemed to look at both of us as he said it which should have been impossible considering he was blind and had a bandage covering both his eyes. I was the first to reply as Kate seemed to be even more confused by the fact that he knew where we were.
"My name is Alexis and this is Detective Kate Beckett" I said. After I'd spoken up I could almost see the realization dawn on his face.
"Alexis huh... The same one from school going by the voice" he mumbled just loud enough for both of us to hear. He was silent for a while before he asked a question
"So you're the one who pulled me out of the water then." he said in a bit of an irritated tone.
"A tip for the future, if a person jumps of their own volition don't 'save' them." he said before speaking once more.
"Generally they have a good reason to jump or at the very least no reason not to." he said in a cynical tone. I was a bit taken aback by the tone he used, there was both loneliness and annoyance in his tone. This was when Kate decided to jump in.
"She saved your life and this is how you repay that kindness? By telling her she shouldn't have?" she said slightly annoyed by Johannes' comments.
"Do you know what you "saved" me from?" he asked before sitting up. He let out a painful groan as he turned around and undid one of the bandages. there were several scars both old and new, all on such a small part of his body. He then spoke up again.
"this is what you saved me from. More beatings, especially now that I'm blind and can't even defend myself." he said before continuing,
"You should have just let me die. it's not like anyone cares anyway." he said. This statement shocked both me and Kate, a boy my age had such an outlook on life. Like it was nothing but a burden, that wasn't normal. He then spoke up again pulling us out of our thoughts.
"Now if you'll excuse me I have to try to recover as much as possible before my aunt shows up and takes me "home". You've never cared enough about my existence at school to even talk to me, I doubt you even knew that we were in the same class." he said before redoing his bandage and lying back down.
I felt so bad for him I wanted to do something, anything, but I couldn't think of anything. Then it hit me, he didn't want to go back home for fear of beatings and other things we possibly didn't even know about. So I'd take the first step in ensuring he didn't feel like his life held no value.
"For what it's worth, I do remember you. We're in the same class in school how could I not. Also it may not mean much coming after the fact but if you need someone to talk to you could could stay with us for while and I can help you figure some stuff out?" I asked hesitantly. That question however was enough to rattle him a bit. I felt like an idiot, I hadn't even asked my dad about him living with us, but knowing him he'd probably be okay with it. Johannes started to shake a little, I could hear him trying to keep himself together but it wasn't working. He broke down crying through the bandages covering his eyes. If someone asked me why I did it, I honestly couldn't have been sure. I admired him before his parents died, he was one of the best students in the school, always happy. He was something I looked up to but now seeing him like this I just felt so bad. I had looked up to him but when something happened I didn't do anything about it, maybe if I had talked to him this wouldn't have happened. This time I wasn't going to sit idly by and let him hurt himself more, I would try to help him this time around.
Me and Kate were about to leave the room when I heard him saying thank you in a slightly quivering voice. It brought a smile to my face seeing that it made him happier to know someone cared. We left him in the room and headed over to my dad. Kate said she was going to make a few calls to some friends about the abuse while i stayed behind and told my dad what I had told him. My dad didn't seem too happy about the fact I had invited him to stay but when I told him about the scars from the abuse he seemed to be a lot more okay with it. He said he would make a few calls to some friends to see if he could get temporary custody of Johannes while they investigated his aunt for neglect and abuse. This was one of the craziest days I had ever experienced and I was the daughter of Richard Castle so that was saying something, but, I didn't regret it. I just hoped I could help Johannes get back on his feat and make him realize his life did have meaning. I sat down in one of the chairs and felt tears welling up in my eyes, this had been one of the scariest days of my life.
POV change: Johannes
I lay there in the bed with a soaked bandage around my eyes. I could smell the copper coming from the bandage, it seemed like I didn't cry just normal tears anymore. Admittedly my outburst wasn't very mature, Alexis wasn't the one at fault and neither was the detective. I sighed while thinking back on what Alexis had said, the more I thought about it the more I remembered. It felt really nice to have someone care and worry about you. I thought back on the years I had spent at school with her. I had had a crush on her for longer than I could remember but I didn't even think she knew I existed. I could feel the warmth welling up inside me, and thus with a little bit of a smile on my face I drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
Ding
you have slept in a recovery zone, HP and MP recovery has been doubled.
I woke up in the bed to the same sound as last time, the Gaia System woke me up after exactly 4 hours of sleep this had happened several times already but it was still weird. I had been in the hospital for 6 days now and had only slept a total of 24 hours. at first i thought it was insane but the nurses and doctors were amazed by my rate of recovery, honestly so was I It wasn't instant by any means but it was fast enough that most of my wounds were already completely healed. I assumed that the Gaia System had some way of optimizing my body, which would explain my limited need for sleep and my quick recovery. The only thing that wasn't healed was my sight, but then again, the Gaia System had informed me that it wouldn't happen either. I decided I wouldn't care about it, the ability the Gaia system had given me was, arguably better than sight for practical purposes. the skill build a 3-D blueprint like, model and project it into my mind. This meant that thanks to Perfect Spacial Perception I now essentially had 360 degree "vision".
But I hadn't been lazying around while I was stuck in the hospital, now that I had this power I could make a difference, as such I had learned a few skills while I stayed here. Thanks to the tutorial I knew that I could base a lot of my knowledge off of The Gamer. that meant I had to preform special actions to gain skills and stat points, but what can you do in a hospital bed? you may ask. Well simple, watch TV or more accurately in my case listen. I had picked up several languages from the TV for example I now spoke Russian, Spanish, Portuguese among many others. Turns out one of the gifts the system gave me instead of the Gamer's body and mind was the ability to max out skills at a 1000* increases rate which meant that in a week I had learned 8 different languages, Braille and thanks to a bunch of science programs my Science skills had leveled up tremendously. This of course did not come without and increase in INT stat increase, and for coming up with the method for learning languages I had gained WIS.
But throughout the week my mood had been steadily improving, Alexis' visits played a big part in this. I had forgotten how good it felt to have someone there when you needed or wanted them there. I had spent years in a near isolated state without any human interaction save school, and there everyone just avoided me since the incident with my parents. But anyway today was the day, Alexis had informed me that she would come by again after school, and we would wait for her father to get here so that they could take me to their apartment. When Alexis was outside the hospital I already knew about it, ever since Perfect Spacial Perception had maxed out I could effectively get a map of the entire city of New York in my head. Doing so was very taxing though so I usually stuck to between 10-100 meters. I noticed Alexis was coming around the corner so I greeted her before she got into the room causing her to stop before walking in. "How do you do that" she asked me her heart beating a little faster because I had startled her. "Magic" I replied with a bit of a grin. She just sighed and sat down next to my bed and started talking like we had done every day since the incident.
"You know I really appreciate you coming around every day after school but don't you want to hang out with your friends?" I asked her with a bit of a sigh. I imagined that eventually she would stop worrying about me and we'd go back to our separate lives. She seemed a bit confused by my question but grabbed my hand and responded nonetheless.
"First off you are my friend, second, I enjoy talking to you and you don't have to worry about me leaving anytime soon. We'll be living under the same roof for a while now." She said with quite a bit of conviction in her voice. It confused me a little to hear her that serious about sticking with me but it still managed to bring a smile to my face.
"Thanks, it means a lot" I told her looking in her general direction. Even if I knew exactly where she was I couldn't give away that I could "see" her. One thing that did bother me was that I could no longer see any colors. I couldn't see her fiery ginger hair, not her beautiful blue/gray eyes. I was forever doomed to see just a 3-D model. I know I should be thankful that I could see even that but it still bothered me.
My thoughts were interrupted by Richard who walked in the door.
"Hey Johannes, how are you going. Ready to go to our place?" he said startling Alexis, who quickly let go of the hand she had forgotten she was holding. I sighed, I had asked Richard to call me John several times already but he either forgot or just ignored it.
"I have told you to call me John several times already. All you Americans butcher my name in every single way possible, yes I'm doing fine thanks for asking, And I can't wait to get out of this stuffy hospital." I said with a bit of a grin. He just chuckled at my reply and told the nurse he would sign me out. I got up, grabbed my stick, and was about to start walking when Alexis grabbed my hand and started to lead me after her father. She seemed very insistent on treating me like a cripple, which in all fairness I did appear to be. we arrived at the car waiting outside and Richard told the chauffeur to head to his home. Richard Castle was a rich man who made a lot of money writing books, murder mysteries to be precise. I used to like to read his books, and a few months ago I heard he had someone playing out his books murder scenes in real life. This got him working with the NYPD as a consultant according to Alexis. We got in the car and started to drive to their apartment.
During the car ride I went through the Gaia Systems shop menu, while in the hospital I had done the tutorial earning me a few bucks and some XP though not enough to level up. I had learned that I could buy both skills and items in the shop which was pretty cool. Along with that I learned that with every level up I earned 5 stat points and one Bonus point. Stat point were pretty self explanatory but Bonus points piqued my curiosity. Turned out I could earn certain buffs by saving them, like for example, less xp per level up or increased xp gain. That sounded like something I would want to invest in. I also learned that I needed to work on my resistance skills because I had learned that for better or for worse, once a resistance skill maxed out it became a "nullify" skill. How did I know this? Meds, I no longer felt the effects of painkillers, but not poison or disease either so I figured it was a fair trade-of.
After about an hour of standing in traffic we finally arrived at the apartment. We walked inside and Richard offered me a bag, I grabbed the bag asking him what was inside.
"That bag contains your new school books all written in Braille, I don't know when you want to return to school but at least now you have the option." I had already thought about it, If what I knew about the Gamer still applied I would gain free stat points from going to school.
"I'd like to go back tomorrow if that's alright?" I asked him in an unsure tone. I didn't know if that would inconvenience him in any way but I felt it was a good idea not to piss off my host on the first day. My statement seemed to not so much annoy him as shock both him and his daughter.
"If you're sure then I'll call the school but you can take a few more days to get used to your... situation." he said unsure. I know he was just trying to consider my feeling but Alexis seemed to be a bit annoyed at his statement.
"I'm sure sir. I would like to get back to my studies as quickly as possible." I said. He was about to respond when someone else came down the stairs. I hadn't noticed them because I had kept my perimeter to 10m so I jumped a little when I heard the woman ask a question.
"Ah Richard, has our guest arrived?" the woman asked. I quickly checked out her model and it informed me it was Richards mother. I had heard she was living with them from Alexis but I seemed to have forgotten about it. I chastised myself for my oversight and and was about to greet her when Richard spoke up.
"Yes mother, this is John" he told her. She seemed to be looking at me but I couldn't show that I knew that so I looked in her general direction and greeted her.
"As Mr. Castle said, my name is Johannes Koivisto or John. It's a pleasure to meet you Miss Rodgers." Alexis seemed to want to help me out and turned my head a few degrees to the left, making me look at her grandmother.
"Oh such a polite young man I can see why Alexis likes you. And Martha is fine dear." Alexis seemed to panic a little as she yelled out.
"Gran!" she yelled out. Richard seemed to turn in my direction and I could see his model raise an eyebrow at that comment. He was probably going to ask some questions after I left. Alexis then pulled on my hand almost making me fall over at the sudden movement, she said she'd bring me to my room, and so we went up the stairs. I could hear Richard in the background
"Mother we will talk about that later." he stated in a concerned voice. From what I understood he cared about Alexis a lot and according to her he was a bit overprotective sometimes.
I arrived at the room I'd be staying in and I noticed some of my stuff was there. I was grateful it would be a lot easier for me to learn stuff from my laptop than from books. Alexis sat me down on my bed and asked me if it was okay if she left. I told her I'd study while holding up the bag of newly acquired books. She smiled and told me she'd get me in time for dinner and that I should just yell if I needed anything. She then left the room closing the door behind her softly.
I had learned that after PSP had maxed out I could read screens and books because it was detailed enough to see atoms if I wanted it to be. I whipped out my computer and started doing research for about two hours straight. During that time I had maxed out most of the normal school subjects plus programming, that one lead me to hacking. It was nefarious but I decided that once I got a secure Laptop from the System store I could "borrow" money from some better known criminals. That would allow me to buy some skills and other things that I would need. I noticed Alexis got up from her bed and started walking towards my door, I hid my laptop and grabbed a book. She knocked on the door and I told her to come in.
"Dinner's ready." she said in a gentle tone. I nodded and got up, she walked up to me and grabbed my hand again bringing me downstairs.
The meal was pizza, which they apparently ate that a lot because no-one here could/wanted to cook according to Alexis. during dinner I asked her to describe the living room to me since it would be weird if I knew where everything was without having been told so. She started talking about the room telling me about the bookshelves, the chandelier, and most importantly, the piano. I decided to test how far my 1000* multiplier could take me by telling her I could play the piano. This seemed to catch the adults' attention, especially Martha's. She asked me if I wanted to play something and I told her I'd need a little time because of my lost sight. Alexis led me to the piano and I sat down. I pressed one of the keys ad saw the piano skill pop up and smiled internally. I pressed all they keys a few times and the skill maxed out. every single song I had ever heard I could now play on the piano as the sheet music and muscle memory just appeared out of seemingly nowhere. I stretched out my hands and began to play "The Moonlight" by Dobravka Tomsic. I somehow knew what keys to press and how fast to play. It was amazing if I do say so myself. I could almost feel the eyes boring into my back.
"That was... Impressive." Alexis said with shock evident in her voice. her father and grandmother simply both nodded, not that I could see that as far as they knew. I saw the clock in my system switch over to 22:00 and decided to ask what time it was. Richard looked at his watch and told me it was 10 o'clock, before turning to Alexis and telling her it was time for bed. She was about to protest but I then said I should do so as well if I wanted to go to school tomorrow. Alexis then gave up on arguing and took me to the bathroom upstairs. She decided to help me for as much as she could but I drew the line at actually brushing my teeth. I told her I could do that myself so long as I knew where the toothbrush was. She agreed and after all was said and done she brought met back to my bed and bade me good night.
I decided I would hop into my ID for the first time before sleeping since I only needed 4 hours now a days. I stuffed some items under my blanket in case anyone came to check on me and when I was satisfied I opened up my first dungeon. The first one was an empty one but the skill intermediately leveled up to 28 so I now had access to time-dilation dungeons. The options available were: Very Easy, Easy, Normal and then time dilation all the way up to 1:24. I opened up a Very Easy dungeon at max dilation and I was off to train.
When I got to the dungeon I looked around, It looked like a sort off barren wasteland with zombies all over the place, I decided my best bet would be to take one on and level up slowly as to not risk myself unnecessarily. I extended my PSP to 1 kilometer and crouched down, I hoped this would give me some form of stealth skill and to my relief it did. I stayed crouched for a few minutes and I heard it got maxed out, now I did 32x as much damage if I snuck up behind one and then once more double if I used daggers. since I was barehanded I went after a lone zombie and bashed its head in from behind, I leveled up once and proceeded to hunt the others one by one. Because I did so much damage while sneaking I didn't need to put any stat points in any of my stats which made me happy that I didn't have to waste them. after a few hours of grinding I was exhausted. I had used my bonus points to get xp reductions so I leveled up at an almost insane passe. I was now finally ready to head back to head back. I checked the internal clock and saw only about 10 minutes had passed since I left. I called up my status and looked at it with a satisfied smirk on my face.
Name: Johannes (John) Koivisto
Title: N/A
Level: 27
HP: 972/972 STR*LVL (Regeneration is DEX*LVL/m)
MP: 1,431/1431 INT*LVL (Regeneration is WIS*LVL/m)
STR: 36
DEX: 28
INT: 53
WIS: 23
LUCK: 13 (LUCK*LVL = drop-rate%)
SP: 135
BP: 3
BP skills: 1/2 XP/level up(cost 8 BP), 1/4 CP/level up(cost 16 BP)
Money: 23,000$
New skills:
Assassination(Extra damage if target is unaware of your presence)
Hand-to-hand combat (do more damage with your fists + you have mastery over hand to hand styles.)
Loot:
23,000$
53 HP Potion quality (Low 100HP)
34 MP Potions quality (Low 100MP)
I sighed as I the status floated around in my mind, this was what a few hours of grinding could do. I looked forward to tomorrow which was something that was becoming a common occurrence now a days, I didn't mind though. This meant I could attain vengeance for my parents. I went to bed sweaty and tired. When I woke up I would do some more grinding before the rest of the household woke up.
AN:
So what do you think? I know the first chapter was a bit of a mess but It'll get better in the second chapter I promise, I went back and changed a few things from what my originalidea was which is why it's a bit weird in certain places. Anyway that's it for chapter one and hopefully I'll see you back here next time.
signing off