A/N: Selfcest. Because I can, hohoho!


Year 2100 AD. Technological advancements have exceeded all human expectations.

Sleep-based machines revolutionize the gaming concept, as 80% of the world population now assumes second identities in virtual reality.

Everywhere, holographic billboards showcase a tunneling landscape of evergreen and frozen mountains, a translucent fairy dipping past.

Dear players of The World and Life, the creature announces, fluttering her wings. Today is the birth of a new era. An era in which we will be taking MMO to the next level. An era with 99 percent realism.

Today, we introduce you to Second Life.

.

Chapter 1: The Birth of an Anomaly

"Hey, bro, check this out," says a level 115 mage, presenting her wand.

"What!" Her twin brother lifts his helmet for a better look at the weapon. "The Blue River Goddess? You win the lottery?"

She grins. "My husband gave it to me!"

"Of course," he grumbles. "Must be nice being a girl. Just look cute and hordes of guys come to give you equipment. You never need to work for it on your own."

"Hey!" With an angry wave, she fires a bolt of ice, slicing his HP by half. Only retrospectively does she remember that despite pain being reduced 20% in-game, the spell still hurts. She winces as her brother collapses in a clash of metal, scavenging for a health potion.

"Fuck! That hurts, bitch!"

Her eye twitches. Who's he calling a bitch? The tip of her wand rises.

As the siblings fight, exchanging blasts and blows, a tail wags in the distance.

"You've got no sense of shame, sis!" her brother yells, swiping his sword. "Admit it, all you do is sit in the corner. Guys do all the work while you reap all the goods!"

"Well, it's not my fault if boys want to give me stuff!" she snaps, dealing another blizzard attack.

"You-!"

Her eyes widen when a fire gorilla slams into the ground, punching her brother into the afterlife. Before she knows it, a blast of fire is flashing before her. Pain courses through her nerves.

The world blackens.

"Ugh." Feng Xiao Lan throws the game helmet off in favor of heaving in the toilet.

In the mirror is a reflection of her brother, Feng Yang Ming. He pulls his hair in disbelief. "You died too? How! Why didn't you teleport when the boss was after me!"

"I didn't get a chance to react." She dropped her shoulders in misery. Death in The World meant a full drop back down to level one. "Sorry. It's my bad for getting you killed..."

"Whatever," Yang Ming grumbles. "It doesn't matter anymore." He throws his game cartridge in the trash. "Second Life's coming out anyway."

Xiao Lan raises an eyebrow. "Second Life?"

"Haven't you seen the ads? It's the latest game. 99% realism!"

Her expression flickers from skepticism to intrigue to apprehension. "Wait, does that mean you're quitting The World?"

"Well, yeah. Everyone will be switching. Once Second Life hits, both The World and Life will end up shutting down anyway."

"Huh." Xiao Lan follows her brother out the bathroom. "Guess I'll play that too then."

Wait. She has already made a promise to go training with her in-game husband later tonight. Oh well. She'll ping him a notice that she's quitting. They were a great team while it lasted though.

.

Xiao Lan punches in the game cartridge, mumbling to herself in the bedroom. Stupid bro, she'll show him. This time, she will out-level him, fair and square.

A holographic glow appears, before the world falls to black.

Her feet lands on a tiled floor, as a geared cyber-beauty hovers before her, seated inside an orb chair. The cyber girl smiles through her helmet. "Hello, welcome to Second Life."

Back in reality, Yang Ming feels his eye twitch at the sight of his twin sister sprawled in bed, helmet already in place. Looks like someone used his bathroom trip to gain an unfair head start.

Fuming, he is about to enter the game too when the overhead lights dim, then flicker. What the-

However, the power stabilizes. The lights return to full power, so he shrugs it off and clasps on his own gamer's helmet.

In the virtual world, the cyber girl concludes her introduction with, "Please begin by creating your avatar."

Xiao Lan glances at the variety of races collected before her. She thinks back to her brother's words and pouts. So what if most girls play support roles? She could fight on the front lines too if she wanted. Yeah! She will.

"Can I look at the human and beast archetypes?" From her experience, they are the most common tanks, and popular choices amongst boys.

"Certainly."

Hovering in front is a warrior girl with identical looks as her real life self. As for the beast...

"Eugh." She cringes at her hairy alter-ego and shoots that possibility down.

Her brother is never going to take her seriously posing as a human girl though. He'll claim she leveled through a guy's help again.

"What if you made me a boy?" she inquires. Not hairy or ugly, but all masculine and heroic and stuff.

The cyber girl tilts her head. "You are the second person today to have this odd request. Unfortunately, your character will have the same gender as your real life persona. It is to keep in-line with the realism of this game."

Xiao Lan hangs her head. With that much realism, what's the point of virtual reality?

When her settings are confirmed, Xiao Lan, now assuming her online alias of XiaoXiao, finds herself standing in a bustling medieval style town. Newbies scatter around, starting quests, collecting goods, or shouting for their real life friends. She catches her reflection in a window and notes the plain tunic, leather skirt, and boots. A single buckle and sack rest at her waist. Inside the sack is a wooden dagger. She shuffles through her clothing. No coins.

Guess she'll have to do this the hard way.

With a hop, she flips over the fence guarding the newbie village. The hills beyond has snail-like creatures dotting the landscape. When one squirms close to her, she steadies her dagger.

The shell looks solid, she observes. There's no way this chunk of wood is going to crack it. The monster snail looks passive now, but hitting it might also trigger a counter-attack. The thought of the slimy creature on her skin makes her shake in disgust. Aw gross.

But just then, her brother enters her mind. She could hear his laugh, mocking her for running away from a level one snail.

She growled. Well, she'll show him!

"Here goes nothing!"

Holding her breath, she raises her dagger, and with as much force as she could muster, stabs the shell full center.

Conk.

The tip of her dagger meets the shell. Conk, conk, conk. Nope, nothing.

As she thought, wooden dagger is wooden. Unfortunately, the hit has indeed triggered a counter. The snail now hisses, revealing a circle of teeth.

Oh shit.

Dagger forgotten, she bolts. Once a few meters away, she slows and looks back. Far behind, the snail is furiously wiggling forward, inch by inch.

She snorts. Thank gods that the monsters here are damn slow motherfu-

Her face is pelted by a splash of goo.

Attack successful. XiaoXiao HP -5 .

Oh gods, it stings.

Half-blind, she hurries to wipe the goo off her face, only to feel another slobber pelt her shoulder. The snail spits out a third round of poisonous goo.

Delirious, she hears the system announce her health drop, her legs tripping to get away. This is bad, this is really bad! She can't get out of missile range in time.

Swinging Sword Attack!

There is a shattering explosion, before strong arms support her body.

"Hey, you okay?"

She blinks away the tears blurring her vision. Her eyes widen. Whoa, hottie alert!

The player digs through his sack before presenting a jar. "Here, this will help."

Nodding, she accepts his offer and chugs down the potion. The acidic goo evaporates from her skin and clothes. She breathes in relief when the system announces her return to full health.

Once she is out of the arms of the stranger, she rubs her neck, laughing meekly. "Thank you, ah..."

"Oh, BrokenSword's the name," the player introduces, extending his hand. "And you?"

"Feng Xiao Xiao. XiaoXiao's fine."

"Cute name."

Her heart flips when an embarrassed smile breaks through his features. Oh dang, he's flirting with her!

Her eyes scan him over. Not bad-looking, sharp and angular, with broad shoulders accentuated by bare biceps. The sword on his back is impressive too. The game could not have gone on for more than half an hour, yet he is already far ahead the other newbies.

She giggles. "Cool name yourself."

The player looks pleasantly surprised.

Now, XiaoXiao does not think herself as particularly narcissistic, but her family do carry the beauty genes. Her brother, though a bag of douche, is undeniably attractive, with a tall figure and prominent cheekbones. She herself can be easy on the eyes, especially when she turns up the charm.

"Do you want to team up maybe?" she says with a smile. "I don't know much yet, but I'd like to return your favor sometime."

When he nods, she inwardly grins. Score!

There is the sound of a system ping in her ears. XiaoXiao has learned a new ability – Sweet Talk. Charisma +5%.

She collapses.

BrokenSword turns to be as generous as her husband from The World. She soon finds herself carrying a stack of new armor, weapons, and potions. He is serious about gameplay too, sharing all of the tricks he has uncovered thus far, everything from good grinding spots to hidden items.

"The snail just got lucky with you," he says on their stroll through town. "Eyes are weak spots. You could have easily handled it had it not harmed you there."

He's sweet too, she internally squeals, jumping at her good luck. Somewhere in the back of her mind is her brother's smug grin, but she pushes the image away. Okay, okay, so she does take advantage of her sweet, helpless look to get ahead, but between getting showered by disgusting goo and being in the arms of a hottie, yeah, she'll take the hottie.

He trains her to handle future snails with ease. Don't hit the shell, but the eyes. Alternatively, whack it sideways so it cannot crawl, then stab the belly. Afterward, they move on the the red-tailed minks, in which ten furs allows her to complete the quest for a class change.

"If you don't like melee, you could be a mage or priest," BrokenSword explains helpfully.

XiaoXiao nods, pretending to be awestruck. Internally, she rolls her eyes. No shit. You'll be hard-pressed to find a teenager who's never played MMO before, and Second Life has been conventional so far in terms of race and class.

"What if I want to be like you?" she says.

"Me?"

"Yeah, I want to fight beside BrokenSword-gēgē! I still have to return your favor and save you like you did me!"

BrokenSword watches her with amusement. "In that case, we could be warriors together."

When XiaoXiao locks in the warrior class, she is presented a choice of three skills and one weapon. After much contemplation, she decides to never repeat the snail experience and maximize her defense and speed.

The Life Extension technique is tempting, but she figures with BrokenSword protecting her, she can forgo it. And if he fails, she would hate to endure more pain by not dying quickly enough. Instead, she opts for the Blazing Determination skill. Short duration, high mana, but enough power for an instant KO. The choice is similar to her former mage attributes.

As for a weapon, her gaze flickers across the four main categories for a human warrior: the staff, the spear, the knife, and the sword.

Without thought, her hand touches the first holographic image. The image reconfigures into an ascension of words and calligraphic figurines demonstrating various battle poses.

Staff, the Grandfather of Weapons. To sweep. The style of this archetype is passive and distributed. Subcategories include the gùn, the canne d'arme, the bō, the scepter...

Next.

Spear, the King of Weapons. To pierce. The style of this archetype is aggressive and concentrated. Subcategories include the qīang, the javelin, the pike, the trident...

Next.

Knife, the General of Weapons. To slice. The style of this archetype is aggressive and distributed. Subcategories include the dāo, the cutlass, the katana, the scimitar...

Next.

Sword, the Gentleman of Weapons. To protect. The style of this archetype is passive and concentrated. Subcategories include the jiàn, the espada, the spadroon, the épée...

XiaoXiao feels her head spinning. "You know what, I'll take my chances and go random."

"Random?" the NPC questions.

"No wait! Give me something pretty!" she demands, grabbing the good uncle by the shoulder. All weapons have advantages and disadvantages, to counterbalance one another and ensure fair gameplay. As such, to justify the superiority of one over another is splitting hairs. But there is no denying that some weapons are cooler-looking than others!

The NPC strokes his beard. "An odd request by an odd young lady. Unfortunately, only fate may dictate such outcomes, for it will be the weapon to choose the master, not the master to choose his weapon. Just as the Yangtze parts in East, the robin bird flies-"

Sensing another long, obscure ramble, she waves. "Yeah, rivers, birds, got it. Can I get my weapon?"

At the gate post, BrokenSword sees XiaoXiao dash up to him, pouch in hand.

"What weapon did you get?" he asks. He blinks at her cheerful "I don't know!" then watches her pull out a long item.

"Wah!" XiaoXiao turns her wrist, examining the elegant weave of white gold. She frees the sword from its scabbard. To their surprise, the blade is also bone white.

"It's so light and thin!" she says, giving the sword a whirl.

"I think that's a rapier," BrokenSword muses.

"Rapier?"

"It's a smallsword that evolved from the cut-and-thrust swords of the Bolognese schools of the Renaissance. It rose to popularity in the 16th and 17th century and remains a popular weapon of choice in many fencing tournaments. Think of it as the European equivalent of the jiàn."

This time, XiaoXiao does not have to fake her interest. "European? Is this English then?" She turns over the scabbard and reads the print in gold. La Striscia. She frowns. Maybe not.

While XiaoXiao primarily prides herself in her literature savvy, her foreign language abilities are also top tier, second only to the internationals. It might be one of the other romance languages, she thinks. She can look it up back in reality.

"Wait, so a smallsword, you say? Huh, that's perfect then!" she exclaims.

"I guess it does match to your name quite well," BrokenSword says, scratching his nose.

"That, and BrokenSword-gēgē carries a longsword! It means we're complementary!"

Attack successful, BrokenSword HP -3. Sweet Talk ability has reached level 2.

XiaoXiao sticks out her tongue. Well, little bro, is it really considered cheating if it's a part of the game?

.

Xiao Lan looks up from her translator tablet. La Striscia. Italian for rapier. Well, it's official: the game designers have the creativity of a nit. Redundant names aside, at least La Striscia sounds cool, being all foreign and stuff. Much better than naming a black knife, Hēi Dāo.

"Are the noodles ready yet?" Yang Ming grumbles from their kitchen table.

"Patience! It's a virtue!" Xiao Lan directs a knife at her brother, before uncapping the pot. She waves away the steam and smiles at the perfect strands of gold.

Between slurps of noodle, the siblings discuss their Second Life adventures thus far. As it turns out, they are both on the Central Continent, both human race, both 30% beautified, both warrior class. Xiao Lan collapses. No differentiation at all! Days like these, her identity crisis deepens.

"Huh, can't believe we missed each other," Xiao Lan says. "Have you gotten to the gate yet?"

"Psh, gate? I'm already on my way past the Northern caves."

"What! You got past the mink den? What level are you?"

"Fifteen," Yang Ming says with a wiggle of his eyebrow. "And you?"

She regrets giving him the pleasure of saying that. With a growl, she pokes her noodles with chopsticks. "Eleven." Or is it ten? "But I've been handling all the monster on my own!" she counters. Actually, no, that's not right either. BrokenSword has been doing all the heavy grinding for her. "And I would've gotten even further ahead had it not been for all the girls holding me back!" Girls? What girls?

What is she saying?

"Excuses, excuses," Yang Ming yawns. "Guess we'll know for sure in game. What's your alias?"

"Pri-!" Xiao Lan stops. Was she going to say Prince? Like, a prince on a white horse? At her brother's waiting look, she recomposes herself. "Ah, XiaoXiao."

"Again?"

"Well, what's yours?" she snaps.

At his silence, her lips pull into a smug grin. "Like you have any right to talk, Feng. Wu. Qing."

For the rest of the night, Xiao Lan finds herself playing retro games on her brother's PS13, examining the fighting techniques of street fighter Chun Li. In particular, she studies the wall-jump, the crouching light kick, the lightning kick, the slide kick, the palm strike, the ax kick, and of course, the signature spinning bird kick. Her eyes flicker across the screen, ingraining the movements into her memory, her muscles twitching in anticipation.

Licking her lips, she punches away at the controllers. Heh, let's see how those wolves fare against her now!

Her fingers pause. Wolves?

Are there wolves in Second Life?


Chinese 101:

Gēgē = older brother. Chinese equivalent of "nii-san".

When BrokenSword says the rapier suits her name, he is referring to the fact that Xiǎo Xiǎo ("Little Little") obtained a xiǎo jiàn ("Little Sword").