His First War With Himself - Chapter 2
I don't consider myself an author, I'm definitely more of an artist. I actually only wrote this to flesh out this AU, so it's not going to be the most beautifully written thing.
Just keep that in mind while you're reading, ahahah,, orz
=X=
Piko woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and raring to go. Today was the day! He squinted at the hologram clock hovering beside his bed, he was blind without his glasses in the real world, something he didn't have to worry about in TW. It read 7:45am, which was perfect, his parents wouldn't be up for at least another twenty minutes, so he had plenty of time to grab some breakfast and upload himself without having to convince his mom that he didn't need to go to school. It's not like anything would be happening at school anyway, everybody there would be preoccupied with the war, too.
He slipped out of bed, grabbed his glasses, and tiptoed down the dark stairs, where the kitchen was located. He sighed at how sluggish he felt, even if he was on all the sports teams at school, he was still a thousand times slower in the real world than in the virtual world.
He walked silently into the kitchen and grabbed what was left of a loaf or bread, and downed it whole. He shuddered. The bread was dry and bland (and possibly over it's expiry date), but Piko was too half asleep to put any more effort into breakfast, so it would have to do.
He began tiptoeing back towards the stairs when he almost bumped into someone in the darkness. Oh no, Piko hoped that it was anyone but his mom.
"...Good morning," It was Miki, his adopted sister, she didn't like to talk much, so she was much easier to deal with.
Piko waved and started up the stairs, "Yeah, you too," He was halfway back up to his room when she spoke up again.
"I came down to wish you luck," Surprised, Piko stopped and turned to look at her, "I think you have a good chance,"
Miki was pretty cool, she was already at the level that you needed to be to enter the war long before Piko and his friends had even started training, but she had declined every time she was asked to enter. It was probably because she was always so busy with university and real life things. Piko still thought that if Miki did enter the war, any competition wouldn't stand a chance, so hearing praise from her actually meant a lot.
"Uh, thanks, Miki," He tried to come up with something more meaningful to say, but she interrupted first.
"Try not to die, that would be embarrassing for all of us" She deadpanned, then stalked off into the shadows of the kitchen.
Piko rolled his eyes and walked back to his room, "Gee, thanks,"
He plunked down on the chair by his computer and took a deep breath before putting on his headset.
=X=
The Internet was a blur of activity and sounds the second he connected. It was always like this on the day the war started, there were festivities in every world, and in less than an hour, thousands of people, online and offline, would be watching TW's best try to beat each other to a pulp.
Piko had known that much, but it just dawned on him now that they would be watching him, at first he felt like he was going to throw up, but then he felt kind of powerful. He liked showing off.
He was currently in the world that served as sort of a town square for TW, where the selection had taken place the night before. Today, the huge cylindrical screen in the centre of the area was split into sections, each one showing a different tv channel talking about war, instead of the names of the pairs that were entering like it was during the selection.
Everyone on his team had agreed to meet in this world today and upload to the world that hosted the war together, so he was constantly searching through the crowd for his friends, but Piko could hardly see two feet in front of him, the square was packed that tightly. He wandered blindly in circles for a little while, trying (and failing) to not bump into anyone, until someone in the crowd grabbed his arm and pulled him off to the side.
He yelled in surprise, and tried in vain to wriggle his arm free from whoever was gripping it so tightly.
He had expected it to be Len or Gumi, but this was not even close. The second he saw a flash of a jungle of blonde hair, he knew he had somehow gotten himself into a bad situation already.
"Piko-ko~," His filled with dread a that voice, it was Avanna. She was one of the more famous participants, and her team, made up of Seeu, Cul, Miku and herself, was known for being so silent and deadly that if you encountered them, you hardly stood a chance. Piko was strong, but her partner, Seeu, the one who had seized his arm, was stronger, "That's your name, right? Chat with me,"
Piko glared daggers at her, "Seriously? The competition hasn't even started yet and you're already trying to kill off players half your age?" He put on his best innocent face and tried to tug his arm away, but failed miserably, "How low can you go?"
Avanna merely laughed at him, and slowly moved closer, "Beat you up? Oh Piko, don't be like that! I really just want to make you an offer, I think you might like it, too!"
Piko looked towards Seeu to see her with a slightly crazy grin on her face. She didn't say anything, just stood there, staring at him through her tangled bangs. Nobody in the crowd of people constantly moving around them payed them any notice, either, it looked like Piko would have to get himself out of this one alone.
"I think you'd be wrong," He snapped. He had to come up with a way to escape from Seeu's superhuman grip (he was probably going to have bruises on his arm after this), and the message flashing in the corner of his vision wasn't helping him concentrate.
Hold on- message?
"Piko, where are you? We need to upload soon!" It said. Piko silently thanked Oliver for introducing him to his mute friend.
Avanna was still talking about whatever, but Piko tuned her out and squeezed his eyes shut, spelling out a message in his mind. It wasn't as simple as he thought it would be, and he was unskilled, so the message looked kind of like "Avvanra anf hwr psrtnwr corn eterd me, neaf help!", but he sent it anyway, hoping that Lui would get the idea. A new message appeared a few seconds later.
"Wait. What? Avanna?" Piko was about to attempt a reply when a knee to the gut snapped him back to reality. He yelped in shock and doubled over.
"Are you even listening to me!?" Avanna leaned down to him, getting as close as possible and growling, "Your team. My team. Alliance. Got it?"
"And what if I decline, dare I ask?" Piko hissed through gritted teeth. He had tired of this conversation as soon as it had started, and his arm was starting to hurt from Seeu's heavy grip. He needed to get out of here, now.
Avanna clicked her tongue, "Just know that as good as you think you and your little band of misfits are, my team can erase yours-" She snapped her manicured fingers, "-like this. So, what do you say, Piko?"
He had hardly opened his mouth before something slammed into Seeu's side, which caused her to stumble, releasing Piko's arm. Avanna straightened and called Seeu's name, so Piko seized the opportunity to kick Avanna's feet out from under her and take off running down a side street, barely hearing a screech and a thunk as the woman hit the ground. He knew he had gotten lucky, nobody caught Avanna off gaurd, except, apparently, Rin.
The girl ran along behind, easily catching up to Piko, who was the fastest runner in his entire school. She must have been the one who tackled Seeu, she was incredibly fast, plus, there were no special abilities in the world they were currently in, which meant that this was how fast she was offline. Piko hated to admit it, but he was impressed.
He slowed when he was sure that Avanna and her partner weren't following him, and waited for Rin to catch up.
She stopped in front of him and smiled, "You're welcome," Piko just rolled his eyes.
Another message appeared in his vision, "Piko, do you even know how the message system works? ^^^"
What were those arrows for? He looked up, and surely enough, Gumi, Len, Lui and Oliver were leaning over the edge of one of the large, sleek black buildings that lined the sides of the stone road.
"I know how the goddamn system works," Piko called up to them, "I was just... Under pressure!"
Oliver snorted, "He can't even admit he's bad at something as insignificant as texting,"
"Like you could do any better," he snapped, "Does anyone besides Lui even use it? I bet you're all just as bad as me!" Piko knew he was being childish, but he couldn't help but bicker with Oliver.
"C'mon guys, don't start," Gumi said, even though she was giggling at him herself, "We only have three minutes left to upload!"
Piko and Rin scaled the building using nearest fire escape and the six of them took off across the roof. There were so many winding streets and places to get lost in this area that it was much quicker just travel over them, rather than through them.
They reached what everyone in TW called 'The Gate' with only a minute and a half to spare. It was a huge, extravagant doorway that stretched up to the roofs of the buildings on either side of it, with blue engravings on it's metallic frame that changed between anything from dragons to robots to superheroes depending on where in TW you wanted to go. Once you stepped into the darkness inside the doorway, it could take you anywhere in TW within seconds.
The group jumped down from the rooftops and stopped in front of the gate, keeping close together so that they wouldn't get separated in the crowd.
Everyone stood there for a second, taking it all in. Once they stepped through this gateway, they would be entering what was essentially a fight to the death. The thought made Piko laugh a little, it sounded like such a stupid idea, but he was more excited than ever to get in there.
Gumi poked his side and giggled, "You look a little dazed, it's not too late to back out!"
Piko laughed, "Are you kidding!? There's no going back now!" The rest of the group nodded in agreement, they had worked much too hard to just go home, and nobody actually died in the war, so the had nothing to fear, right?
"That's what I like to hear!" Gumi sang and linked arms with Len, pulling him into the gate, "C'mon, let's get going!"
Piko ran after them, not waiting for Rin, and entered the familiar darkness inside the gateway he had gone through many, many times in the past to get to the group's meeting place.
Only this time, it was different.
=X=
When Piko came out of the darkness, he found himself alone in an unbearably bright, white room. It was almost as if the walls themselves were emitting light. He wasn't sure what was supposed to go on before the war, as this was his first one, so he thought that he might have gone to the wrong place for a second, until Rin came out of the gate, too, shielding her eyes.
She squinted around the room, slowly adjusting to the brightness, "Is this it?" She said, her voice echoing lazily off the walls.
Piko hoped this wasn't all there was to see, the room was about the size of a small apartment, and it was completely empty, no windows, no doors, save for the gate the two had just exited.
"I guess this must be some kind of waiting room," he said slowly, checking the digital clock in the upper right corner if his vision. it read 8:59, "We won't be here for long though, there's like, less than a minute left,"
Rin nodded and crossed her arms, staring intensely at one of the perfect white walls so that she didn't have to look at him.
Only a moment of silence passed before room filled with a loud whirring noise, causing Rin and Piko to jump. Ever so slowly, the wall on the opposite side of the gate began to slide open like an incredibly well oiled garage door.
Two of them stared at the opening that was forming, an even brighter light shining through it, and wondered what could be on the other side. The air outside of their little white room didn't seem to be any colder or warmer than the air inside, so at least they didn't have to worry about freezing or burning to death.
The whirring stopped as soon as it had started, and soon silence filled their ears. Rhe wall was completely gone, yet they still couldn't see anything outside through the bright light.
Rin turned to Piko, looking at him for the first time since they had arrived. She was smiling like she didn't have a care in the world, "Shall we go?"
Piko closed his eyes and stepped through the opening, not wanting to blind himself, and immediately felt a cool breeze on this cheek.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a completely different place, the white room gone, and Rin still next to him.
The first thing he noticed was their clothes. When they had entered the area, it appeared that their normal outfits had changed too. Rin was in a simple yellow hoodie and a black pleated skirt, while Piko was wearing a sky blue hoodie and dress pants. They looked sort of like rogue high school students, so Piko assumed that they didn't get any special abilities in this area, which disappointed him just a little bit.
They were in a city, much like the one that they had left only minutes before, with pretty stone streets and incredibly tall, sleek buildings with fancy golden accents on the doors and roofs, only this city looked completely abandoned.
In some places, the road looked torn up and some buildings had their doors thrown wide open, as if whoever had left, they had done it in a hurry.
The sky was filled with large rainclouds that looked like they would pour their contents out on Piko and Rin at any moment, but in the tiny cracks between the clouds he could see that the sky itself was a deep orange, much like the colour of a sunset, only a little brighter. The two of them stood in the middle of a road, with no other teams in sight. As real as it all looked (he had to remind himself that it wasn't), the whole experience seemed so surreal to him.
Rin tapped him on the shoulder, "Over there," she said. She was pointing to a huge black skyscraper that towered over the rest of the buildings, "Think that's the tallest thing around?"
"Looks like it," he replied, scanning the horizon for anything that could be taller. Somehow, he felt like other teams might have had the same plan that Piko's was following, and that meant that he and Rin would be running into other, more bloodthirsty pairs very soon. He knew for sure Avanna and her team would be there, waiting for him, and he was in no hurry to see her again. There was no way around it though, he had to meet up with Len, even if that meant taking on a team of creepy twenty year-olds, "I guess that's where we're going, then!"
=X=
Whee, now the fun parts can start! Depending on how graphic later chapters get, I may up the rating to M, but I don't think it's going to come to that, ehe,,
Also, what do you guys think about POV switches? There would be one POV per chapter, and the story would still be Piko-centric, but I may switch to another team every once and a while to change things up. That is, if everyone is ok with it. (óvò)
=Review replies=
iDontCare: Thank you for the review! Ahah, I really like GumiLen too, and it will most likely be endgame, unless I suddenly change my mind and make it PikoLen and GumiRin instead (I like GumiLen better though, so don't worry)!
I've never watched Future Diary, so I wouldn't know, but I hope it's not too similar, ehehehe (v)
Thank you, I'm really glad you like it!
Japaneserockergirl: Thank you for the review! Ah, I'd say this is more like The Eye Of Minds than The Hunger Games, it's a great book (by James Dashner) and I really recommend it, if you have any free time!
I've been writing all my recent fanfictions on my iPod, and it doesn't let you double space, but I went back and fixed the first chapter (I hope), is that better? (óvò)
I know I should have spread out the information a little bit, but I didn't know where else I would have put it, and I wanted to get it all out in the first chapter so I can focus more on the plot in later chapters. This chapter should have more action in it, if I did a good enough job writing it,,
I also went back and explained about that a little bit. He needed to explain because they had only ever watched it on TV, never participated, so they wouldn't know /exactly/ how it works. Also, it was a way to explain to the reader how the war works, I guess I should have found a better way to do that, though,,
Being descriptive is something I'm really, really bad at. I went back and tried to add a little more detail to chapter one, but there wasn't a whole lot I could do. Hopefully I was a little more descriptive with this chapter? ( let's all agree that chapter one never happened and I'll redo it later, orz)
Ack! That's a little embarrassing, but I fixed it! I must have missed that while I was editing,,,,,,,,, Thank you! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Thkjas09: Thank you for the review! I'm glad you like it, here's an update!