Chapter 4

~ Gamer Boy Syndrome ~

It was the next morning when Jared was woken up by none other than the Neville Longbottom himself. He was lucky that in this life his whole family had been morning people, because once he was awake, he was awake. If he hadn't been that way, he would have given up his secret way too fast for his liking.

Neville was the one who was waking everyone up, as he was probably to most use to this sort of thing. Once they were all up and dressed, they headed out and formed a line outside their quarters, in the dark, damp morning.

It was a few minutes later that Kevin showed up. He walked directly over to Jared, "Jared, because of you situation you will be training with me. We also have some things we would like to try with you." Kevin smiled and Jared grumbled.

With a sigh the teen crossed his arms, "And what, Kevin, Have you signed me up for this time?"

Said man chuckled and slapped the younger male on the shoulder in good spirits, "All in good time, my friend."

Jared looked over his shoulder as Kevin pulled him away; "Watch out for this one," he pointed to Kevin, "He's the spawn of Satan, I swear." He turned and faced the direction he was being pulled, hearing the chuckles of his new friends behind him.

To ease the slight tension that had formed, Jared pulled out the cross his mother had given him at birth, "Dear eight pound, and six ounce baby Jesus! Save me from the fate I am to face!"

Kevin decided to play along and dramatically grabbed his heart, "No! This can't be! You're supposed to be pagan. My father WILL hear about this." He put the back of his hand to his forehead, "Father, Satan, my liege, I have failed you…"

"What is going on?" It was the big burly man from last night, "Kevin, you're supposed to scare the new recruits, not make them feel all warm and fuzzy!" Despite his short rant a small smile pulled at his lips, "Leave it to you, softy."

Kevin smile, "Yeah, well I'm going to be taking this one off your hands, Stephen. He's with the SSD crew." Kevin had whispered the last part so the other recruits, who weren't that far behind them, couldn't hear.

Stephen, as the man had been dubbed, nodded his head and patted Jared's shoulder lightly, looking as if he had something to say, but didn't. This made Jared look to Kevin skeptically, who was giving his a "I'm caught" type smile before pulling him again.

They had walk through a building and by the looks of it, was an office building, and made their way outside again. They then headed to a giant tent looking building that said "Testing Station" on it.

"You're taking me to a lab? With needles?"

"No." Kevin said shortly, "This is a testing lab for new ways to train and develop those in the SSD."

Jared nodded and kept walking, "Will you tell me now?"

Keven smiled, "It's to my understanding that when you were younger, you had a case of the Gamer Boy Syndrome, more commonly known as GBS?" Jared nodded. "Whelp," Kevin continued, "we are going to try and find a way to use the technology borne illness as a way to help improve a SSD's skills. Though, if this works, you will be in intense training. So far, every time we've tested, we've tried putting a person into a situation where the character we were… downloading… into them was already a high level with intensified skills."

There was a pause, "And!?" Jared urged.

"And… The people we tested it one had… negative reactions. So we are going to try one more time, on you. Though, this time we are going to start you off as a level one inst-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! I didn't sign up for this!" Jared looked slightly betrayed and yanked his arm away from Kevin.

The old man sighed, "Technically you did…" He pulled Jared's contract from one of the many pockets in his cargo pants and handed it to the blonde. Jared ran a hand through his hair as he re-read the same contract he read just a few weeks ago.

… Therefore agreeing to testing new methods of training under any circumstances and necessities… … also agree to the terms of multiple copies of the contract under the preconception that one or more may be damaged or tampered with by an unknown party for any reason…

Jared crumpled it up and threw it at Kevin, "When I read that, I assumed you mean physical training, not "tamper with my mind and screw me over" training!" Jared was practically shouting now.

Kevin sent a quick silencing spell at the teen and dung in his pocket for the calming draught he'd brought, having guessed that this might happen. Jared drank it down and waited.

When Kevin saw the potion take effect he continued, "You are also the first person we are testing this one with a history of having the illness before. Besides, it's not even really an illness, it's merely your magic going into shock, causing it to quickly adapt to new information being fed to it." He took a breath and looked to the teen. Jared look like a small child, head down and hunched slightly.

"You've already passed your coming of age, you magic is fully matured, yet is still in a state of acceptance. You are… Like a ripe fruit. You're perfect for the testing. We will reverse everything the best we can if things go wrong." Kevin placed a hand on the tall blonde's shoulder, "We made mistakes with this in the past, and we've really done our research this time. Not that we didn't before, but we knew we would be testing it on a young core, and didn't want to risk damaging it." He sighed, "Just trust me, we've gone through every possibility and trained ourselves for many different scenarios, should anything go wrong. Please, Jared, try?"

Jared swallowed and nodded, looking up. He didn't meet Kevin's eyes though. The younger male pointed to his mouth and Kevin removed his spell.

"Will you be there when they are… downloading… everything?" Kevin simply nodded.

"I don't have to be-"

"I want you too." Kevin nodded again and Jared looked into his eyes smiling, "Well, how's that for dramatics? Few, this tension is killing me!" The teen chuckled and patted Kevin's back, "Let's not have any more of this seriousness, okay? It's weird and I don't like it."

Kevin gave a short laugh and nodded, "I agree." He stepped back a little, looking at Jared and giving off a posh look. He slowly extended his arm towards the lab, "Ladies first!"

Jared nodded, "Right, Kevin, go on!" Jared looked smugly at his fast, and much older friend, who looked at him in mock hurt.

Kevin turned away and crossed his arms, "You misogynous white males! I am a woman and I don't need no man!" Jared barked out in laughter as he watched the General march 'angrily' into the tent.

Chapter 4

~ End Gamer Boy Illness: Downloading ~