His First War With Himself - Chapter 6
Gumi and Len are easy to write.
Please be aware that not all the characters will always be together in the same place and thus they may not be in a chapter.
Also, not all information is given out at the beginning of any story, please wait until we are further in the plot to ask some of these questions. Answers will be forthcoming, I swear, just give me a little time.
=X=
Gumi saw the building go down in the distance.
It wasn't too far from the tower that Len and herself were located in, so she could clearly hear the explosion. It had toppled, almost like a game of jenga, into a neighboring building, and the two crumbled so easily that it sent shivers down her spine. The same thing could be about to happen here, and she would never know.
Gumi shook her head to clear her mind and reached out to touch the cold, smooth surface of the window. She had to stay positive, or else the pressure would start eating her alive. Ever since she had set foot in the game, she had a terrible feeling bubbling in the pit of her stomach. This war seemed unlike any other before it, and as she stared out at the landscape through wide eyes for the nth time that hour, she noticed just how real it all looked.
There was a certain degree of surreal beauty that you can only get from true, cruel reality, and Gumi was feeling it. Games always tried so hard to seem real that it all became too dull, too mundane, but this bright, horrible place made it look so easy, as if all the people out there in the endless sea of concrete and metal that had already been taken from the war, had been taken from real life, too.
She squeezed her eyes shut, drawing away from the window, and forced herself to laugh. She was being absurd. This was all a game. It's always been a game, and it will always be a game, and she had to remember that.
=X=
The admins of the war refused to take any shortcuts when it came to realism, Oliver was beginning to realize.
First, there was oblivion. It was amazingly quiet. And dark. Everything was dark. His thoughts were all blurry and he couldn't quite latch on to any one, except for the feeling that this wasn't the right time to be taking a nap. So he opened his eyes.
Then there was the pain. His senses came rushing back with vengeance and stabbed at every part of his body. His head was throbbing and his arms and legs felt like jelly, bent at painful angles around him. The blood red sky swirled behind vague figures looking down at him and a loud ringing filled his ears, just like it did when the bomb went off- bloody hell, the bomb! Where was he? What happened to Lui? Crap crap crap crap-
He was mildly aware through all this that he was screaming his head off, although he couldn't hear it through the ringing and his stampeding thoughts, and that there was a burning numbness where his right eye should be. How long had he been like this? An hour? No… more? Less. God, he couldn't be sure.
There was one thing he was sure of, though. He wasn't dead. If he was dead, he wouldn't be feeling this. He would be back in his room, cursing at the computer screen.
He was trying to decide whether or not that would be better than diving back into the war when the darkness came back again.
=X=
"Gumi?" Len's voice broke through the girl's hysteria, like only he could, "are you alright?"
Len stretched his arms above his head and yawned. He had been out for at least half an hour, and after resting, he felt better about what had happened with the girl from that other team. It wasn't like he had killed them, and even if he had, it was those two or Gumi and himself.
Gumi, on the other hand, looked like she was on the verge of a mental breakdown. She was pale as a sheet and wide-eyed. Len knew that Gumi was very perceptive, she often felt things that others overlooked, so it honestly scared Len a little to see her like this.
He moved towards her from the spot on the round marble slab which made up the floor that he had been sleeping on, and placed a hand lightly on Gumi's forehead, "You look terrible, is everything alright?"
Gumi, sitting in a small patch of synthetic grass on the floor, lifted her head a little and looked him straight in his bright blue eyes. She shuddered a little from being so close to the blonde, but managed to smile and keep her rising blush (and bile) down.
"Yeah," she said, trying to sound light-hearted, "I'm fine, just, uh, thinking."
Len paused, his lips forming a straight line, and took a seat next to her, "about what?"
It wasn't hard to see that something was wrong with Gumi, it shone though even let's thick skull, but he thought it best to let it be for now. She would tell him if it was that important.
Gumi took in a long breath, and went back to staring out the glass dome ceiling of the room at the now deep blood orange sky.
"Nothing in particular. Mostly just what the target item with be," she flopped backwards to get a better view of the stars beginning to appear in the rapidly darkening sky. She could even make out the beginnings of constellations, "any ideas?"
"Well… maybe it's something to do with a school?" He unzipped his hoodie, revealing the traditional school uniform underneath, a dark blue blazer and yellow tie to match his hoodie, "everybody's wearing these, maybe it's a hint?"
He paused and peered out the window through the darkness, "although it does seem a little too obvious, and I can't see a school from here…"
Gumi closed her eyes and shook her head, the fake grass tickling the back of her neck, "at least it's a good start. I don't think anybody's thinking about the target yet, they're probably just focusing on PKing everyone in their path," she sighed through her nose. She would never understand the kick that some people got out of killing.
Silence filled the little lookout point as Len stared at the wreckage of the office building. He was glad that they were here out of harm's way, and not stuck out there, but he had a feeling that the moment of peace wouldn't last long.
=X=
Piko didn't know he didn't like blood. He was generally pretty good at holding down his lunch in the face of violence, but it started to get to him after a few minutes.
This was bright, sunny, ever invincible Oliver, and for a few gut-wrenchingly horrifying seconds Piko seriously thought he was truly dead.
And that's when he realized two things.
One: this is why there were some people who would outright refuse to enter the war, and two: he probably should have one of them.
He was about to voice these thoughts to his teammates who weren't passed out, but the sound hurried footsteps climbing the rubble echoed through the sudden silence. Piko took a breath in through this nose and picked up a shard of what could have been a metal pipe before the bomb, turning in a slow circle to try to pinpoint the source of the noise.
When a head appeared over the horizon, Piko sent the shard sailing towards it without waiting to see who it might be. Rin made a high, disapproving noise in her throat, but Piko ignored her. He didn't exactly see another choice in this situation.
The approaching figure swerved out of the path of the projectile at the last second, a hand flying up to steady his hat and shouting something panicked in a language Piko couldn't understand.
"Don't kill us!" He hurried forward, pulling another smaller person behind him over the rubble. They were close enough for Piko to make out their general features through the darkness, but it made him nervous that he couldn't see their faces. He scooped up half a brick and let it fly.
"Give me a reason not to," He yelled back, already groping the pavement for another thing to chuck. It felt good to let out the stress that had started to build up inside him. Rin shouted his name angrily and strode towards him from her place beside Lui and tried to pry his new-found ceiling tile out of his hands.
The taller figure, a man, stumbled closer to the shorter figure, a woman, judging from her long hair, to avoid the brick, but he seemed to slow his pace a little.
"I'm serious, don't come any closer-"
"We aren't going to hurt you, I swear!" he said, sounding slightly exasperated, and coming to a stop a few feet from Piko, "If we wanted to kill you we would have don't that by now, you're wide open,"
Piko ground his teeth and narrowed his eyes at the man, "you're not making a very good impression, y'know," he tightened his grip on the ceiling tile, "you better just tell us why you're here or I swear to god I'll bash your-"
"Piko!" Rin cut in and tugged the makeshift weapon away from him.
"What?" Piko snapped angrily at her, leaning in as he did, "I was just trying to-"
"Trying to what?" Piko flinched and stared at Rin.
This partnership would not work out, and he realized again just how much he needed to find Len.
Text floated on screen and nudged Piko out of his stupor.
"Where did you get that?"
Piko turned to look at Lui, who had turned his attention to the crumpled boy on the ground to the shadowy man, his eyes wide with a mixture of emotions.
Piko followed his gaze. The man was now bathed in soft green light, emanating from a small, vague object in his palm. Piko had seen it enough times in other games to know what it was immediately. He took a step towards the man unconsciously.
"How did you...?" He trailed off. It was almost too good to be true.
He laughed a deep, genuine laugh, "I thought this would get your attention. Ring and I, we're programmers, so we know where admins hide all the good stuff. Bruno's my name, by the way," he added quickly, and gestured to the girl beside him, "this is Ring"
Silence filled the area for a moment, until Bruno raised an eyebrow at Oliver, still unconscious on the ground, and spoke up again, "you do want this med pack, don't you?"
Lui answered quickly for the group, "YES. Yes." and moved away from Oliver to give him some space. Rin breathed out in relief and let the tile fall to the ground with a metallic thunk. At least Oliver would be safe for now. She followed the two outsiders carefully through the rubble and Piko heard her say something under her breath that he could just barely make out to be, "I want Gumi."
He scoffed, they would never be partners.
=X=
Shellshocked teenage angst, anybody?
Anyway, sorry for the wait, I hope this was a good enough chapter. I think it'll start getting more interesting soon, but we need to do a little exploration first.
Remember that the war is just another mmorpg, essentially, if you're confused about the med pack.