Chapter 2

The city I'd warped into was familiar. It took a few seconds to realise but although I hadn't kept up with the Pokémon games or Anime I could assuredly see the resemblance. As I looked around a few players faced me with interest. Just as I wondered why their avatars were doing that I'd discover that whenever you move the cursor over another player your in-game avatar would also turn to face them, thanks to my assistant with her helpful messages. I looked again at some of the characters, a few were levelled 1-2, some were 3 -5 and a small amount were already higher than 7.

"Whoa...I didn't realise I was in training that long." I said to myself quietly.

"Yea most of us were there for some time."

I turned around to look at the person who was speaking to me, a small audio icon popped up over their head. It was then that I also realised I could hear other players talking too, but their voices sounded quite distant. I came to the conclusion that players who were further away sounded less distant and you would only hear players at all within a certain distance depending on your race, skills and perhaps special items. My assistant then confirmed this as I rolled my eyes at the attentiveness of the AI and looked back at the player who had spoken to me.

The Warrior who was clearly a Smasher too wore Black hair, styled upwards like an anime character. He also had brown eyes, a regular body shape and wore a short-sleeved T-shirt with some shorts.

"Oh, I didn't expect anyone to hear me. Anyway I'm Lucas, nice to meet you."

"I'm Reece, I'm guessing you haven't started any proper quests yet so how about you join my party and we go on one. I have two friends of mine waiting to play."

"OK, why not..."

I clicked on the invitation that Reece had sent and accepted it. Immediately the sound of other players talking silenced.

"Wow, quiet."

"Yea team speak is like that..." Reece replied.

Reece started walking towards a tall building in the distance I quickly followed and looked around at the other players. All sorts of races were present. A Pikachu looking Pokémon that had metallic stripes on its body seemed to be walking with a female Hylian who was proudly leading it. Behind the two, a human was walking that sported a purple suit and was carrying a weird contraption on its back. I turned away to ask Reece a question but he started sprinting ahead, so I quickly pressed random buttons until the right trigger button allowed my character to start sprinting and catch up with him.

In front of us were two humans, one Male and the other Female.

"Hello, I'm Creed and this is my sister Eclypse. Are we ready to set off Reece?"

I said hello to them and quickly checked on their stats whilst they decided what quest they wanted to go on. I noticed something weird and decided to bring it up.

"Eclypse, how come you only have one class?"

Everyone paused and looked at me; Reece was the first to speak.

"You know, I don't know too, why is it that you have one class?"

Eclypse's avatar did a little motion where she put herself into a meditative state.

"I don't know. Perhaps we will find out later on or perhaps I've hacked the game."

"Nonsense, I'm right next to you, if you hacked the game I would notice." Creed spoke up.

I shrugged and looked at everyone's items, apart from Eclypse they all had that special Smasher armour. So that meant that they were also as broke as me.

"Alright so what quest are we going on?" I asked.

"Well, we thought it was best if we followed the story line of this game, you know...getting the max enjoyment out of this and all that...so we are going to go on Sky-world – Rush 1!" Creed said slightly excited, "Plus it's like the only free one available..."

"That sounds awesome, let's start then!" I quickly replied and followed the other members as they entered a building with the letter Q on it.

Inside the building, I could see many players sitting down and talking at tables. One or two waved to me and I quickly learned how to wave back. As our group walked up to the front desk I was reminded of another game where quests were started in this fashion. I waited for Reece to finish setting up the quest and before I knew it a cut scene started.

A woman, dressed in a white Chiton, flew into the room. She looked exhausted, covered in bruises, cuts and a strange green slime. Seeming to only notice Reece, she approached the male and knelt at his feet. Text appeared on screen as the woman spoke, the style similar to that of a Zelda game.

"Brave warrior, please help me. My people have been keeping the forces of Medusa back for as long as we could but our Captain has disappeared and we have no real strategy. I fear the monsters may break through our ranks within a few days. Will you help me and of these creatures."

I looked at the word "Captain" that was bolded and coloured red in comparison to the cream text. It was quite obvious that this character was important. I noticed that Reece's character nodded as well as the other members of the party. The woman smiled a bit and continued to talk.

"Thank you, I believe if you slay their commander, known as Krakow. We may be able to push their forces back onto the lowlands, where it will be easier to hold them at bay or possibly drive them off." The woman produced a bag and gave it to Reece, she then bowed and left quietly.

"Umm...what now?" I asked, but before anyone could reply another cut scene had already started.

A huge metallic ship sporting a rather boastful smash logo was seen flying through the clouds as quick as possible. Four figures jumped off the ship and landed on what could only be thought to be the scenery from the Kid Icarus Uprising sequel. The screen then turned to black and changed back into game mode. I noticed a few things at first, that being my screen being spammed with messages from the game. I tried to read them all, but I ended up losing my patience and closing them. Everybody else was still silent, obviously reading. I decided to look at my own equipment and check out my sword. Dragon Blight was of level 7 rarity and according to the scale on the weapon window; it was half way up the rarity ladder. I checked its stats and found them to be more complicated than a standard MMO, but at this point everybody else had finished reading.

"Are you all done yet?" I asked.

"Umm...yea, did you read it all Lucas?" Creed asked.

"Not really, I got annoyed with the amount of windows and closed them."

"There was some useful information" Reece now finished.

"Yea, did you know that in-between battles we have full 3D control over our characters, but once we come close to an enemy we go into Smash Mode or the 2D perspective like the games?"

"Wow, I had no idea Creed. Thanks, I guess I need to pay attention next time." I replied, my voice practically dripping with sarcasm.

I could feel Creed sporting a smug smile behind his avatar.

"Alright enough chat let's go!" Eclypse almost shouted.

We all agreed and ventured into the clouds.

(Line Break)

About 5 minutes into our mission we found ourselves witnessing one of the most beautiful sights we ever expected to see. In front of us a valley expanded for what seemed like forever, a path no bigger than 6 meters wide, was formed between two rock formations and the path seemed to lead to a huge city in the distance.

"Wow...I haven't seen graphics like this since I used to game on PC!" Creed moved forwards then paused for a second "Damn it, look guys!"

We all rotated our cameras and were immediately greeted by a team of 2 Primids. The camera changed position going into that 2D state known as Smash Mode and a countdown began.

"Alright, ready guys?" I asked with confidence.

"Yea..!" Everyone was pumped up this was our first proper battle after all and we had the advantage.

An indicator came up on the screen showing the lives of the two Primids and the level. It seemed that both Primids had a level of 5 and had roughly half the health any of us had.

Once in Smash Mode I was in my zone, immediately I ran towards the closest enemy and slashed with my sword, then Creed appeared above our heads and slashed the Primid with a dagger. The move took away a quarter of the enemies HP but left Creed in a temporary helpless state. Reece and I backed him up with our melee attacks, Reece giving out a barrage of quick punches; this was a taxing move and also put Reece in a state. It was then that we all saw the power of Eclypse. She appeared to be a light pink Primid with similar moves to the monster and even boosted stats. She had already defeated the second Primid with ease using a mixture of her dagger skills and the newly adopted Shadow Bug Punch.

I performed a special move with my sword, swinging it in a great arc; this resulted in a wave of red energy consuming the Primid and in result causing it to explode in defeat.

"That was easy enough..." I said to no one in particular. Both Reece and Creed were astonished at Eclipses' power. After receiving our XP and a few coins, we continued on our journey. Back in Free Mode, I was able to run ahead and scope the land however Reece was more suited for the job with his faster speed and better stealth abilities.

After about 15 minutes of journeying, I got bored of the silence and started up a conversation.

"What do you prefer Melee or Brawl?"

Creed started sniggering like I said something dirty unintentionally.

"Please don't start that now, I had like, a 2 hour discussion with my friend the other day and we still didn't come to an agreement." Reece sighed.

"Oh...right, no problem."

Another 10 minutes past and we came into contact with a larger group or Primids. However this time they were all carrying beam swords.

"There must be like 100 of them!" Creed complained.

"Or to be more specific 20" Eclypse answered even though no one asked yet.

"Whatever, let's just get in their!" I said and with that rushed into the large group. As expected Reece got their first and had already decimated the first Primid with a uncharged Hammer Fist smash.

"Guys these are level 1, we can take them on!"

We all saw this for ourselves as we entered Smash Mode. Everyone took out 3 Primids each before Eclypse got hit. The Primid had slashed at her ankle, giving her temporary paralysis.

I went over to back her up and unleashed one of my specials known as Archons Kiloton, where I smashed my sword down into the ground, dealing major damage to the Primid I hit and also causing shockwave damage to the nearby Primids. The battle was soon over as Eclypse quickly recovered and got back into action.

"Well that was easy, what else is there?" Creed boasted almost laughing.

However his celebration was cut short as a cinematic started showing the entrance of what can be assumed to be the Mini-Boss of the level. A big Primid holding duel swords that crackled with electricity entered the area, walking very calmly, unlike normal Primids. This monster looked directly at us and I would have thought that it would be smiling, if it had a mouth.

The cinematic ended and a window popped up.

QUEST UPDATED: KILL BIG BOOLIN THE GIANT PRIMID

The computer showed its level as 9 and its health to be more than all of our health combined. I groaned slightly and got ready for battle, this was going to be a long fight.

Instead of the monster attacking straight away, it jumped backwards and started charging it's swords, we were mostly confused and Creed started running towards the monster. With less than 2 steps between Creed and the Monster I thought that the guy would successfully get an attack in. However as Reece would say a moment later, it was a trap.

"Look out!" we all shouted simultaneously.

The Primid unleashed a powerful wave of electrify that hit Creed and also travelled towards us. We managed to dodge it but Creed suffered dearly. His health was now below 10% and was clearly in need of help.

Eclypse rushed in, now looking like a normal Primid with a beam sword. She fought valiantly however her efforts were not enough to defend Creed and both their lives were taken.

"Damn it!" I shouted, annoyed that my newfound friends had died on the first mission, however neither Creed nor Eclypse could hear us; they were now probably re-spawning at the Quest centre. I got angry and launched a counter attack at the monster, Reece joined in and we unleashed a combo of our specials, this move alone brought the CPU's bar to just above half. However Reece had used up most of his MP and he was unable to perform any special moves for a while. I wasn't faring any better with just enough MP for one move I hadn't tried yet.

Reece's normal attacks were barely scratching the CPU, whilst the Primid slashed with its swords and halved Reece's life.

"Be careful!" I said moving to help again, and quickly realizing we couldn't win like this.

The Primid charged its swords again, however using a different animation. As it released its attack, both of us got hit and found that we had taken no damage. That was of course the good news, that bad news however was that we were paralysed and were sitting ducks for the Primid. I tried to move but nothing happened.

With no thought in mind, I realised that we were given some items from the lady in the quest. I quickly brought up my inventory as the Primid started walking towards us slowly. I found a bottle of Mysterious potion. However when I used the item all that happened was that my MP got restored.

That would have been useful if I could move.

As the Primid raised its twin blades I looked at my life, I had barely taken any hits but at this range, the blow would be enough to wipe out both of us. The creature looked directly at us, tilting its head down. I could hear Reece quietly cursing at the situation. However the monster didn't bring down its sword. Instead a blue arrow hit the Primid straight in the forehead and knocked it back slightly. Then a barrage of smaller arrows quickly depleted the Primids life until it was a tiny fraction of its former health. These few seconds gave me the time to recover from the paralysis effect first and attack; I wasted no time and unleashed another of my special move, this time spinning in a tornado towards the Primid and finally giving the level 9 CPU the final blow needed.

A small cinematic showed the creature crying in pain as it dissipated into Shadow Bugs. As the game went back into free mode I looked at my XP, I gained enough points to go up a level and now I was only 2 away from the next level after that. I looked towards the direction the arrows had come from, wanting to thank the person who helped.

The angelic person who seemed to be called Matt had blue wings on the back of his robes and two sets of archery equipment in his hands. One a normal bow and the other looked to be made of bronze and silver.

"Thanks a lot...um, Matt!" I said, looking at his nameplate while I walked up to the guy. "We really appreciate it; we were almost done for back there!"

"Yes, but I have no time for that. You see I was travelling with two other people and we fought that Mini-Boss, who seems to be weak against Angel weapons. As we finished the fight I had decent health, but my companions were almost beaten. Also we had used up our items beforehand. As we got closer to that city over there, we were ambushed by some player who killed my friends!"

I was shocked but not surprised, people killing other players was common in these type of games. I did wonder why people would try to do something like that this early but I was instead wondering how Matt had managed to help them, I was sure that this mission would have been an instance for just our group.

"Who was this PK'er?" I asked my voice had a hint of annoyance in it.

"His name was Major Marin and he was following me, in fact there he is now."

A character wearing heavy armour slowly walked towards us, in his hand a huge axe made of silver reflected the light of the sun. The smile on his face looked incredibly devious. I stepped forwards and almost shouted.

"Are you Major Marin!" the breeze creating an awkward silence, suddenly cut by the raspy voice of the other player.

"Yes, yes I am..." He slowly walked Axe in one hand now, then he charged ready to attack.