Hey guys! It is time for another chapter of Thorn's Legacy! So this chapter will probably on the shorter side but that's okay because I can always make a chapter that is way longer! It really sucks though because I have to go to a Saturday study session tomorrow. It's basically for my AP history test in April even though I'm going to pass it anyways but they drop a test grade if I go so I might as well just in case I screw up on a test. But that doesn't happen often XD. So Chris is finally meeting the team and he might just go into the game for the first time even though he doesn't like VRMMORPGs but I won't tell you why. That's for you to find out! I expect the chapter be a little awkward haha. Please review and comment on the story if you have not already done so and if you have already, do it again. Finally, thanks so much for reading and here is the chapter!
Ch. 15
(Chris's POV)
I walked up to the front door of the house and took a deep breath before ringing the doorbell. I heard some rumbling in the house and stood there for about five seconds before the door suddenly opened. A boy, probably seventeen or eighteen, looked at me and gave me a smile. He put out his hand in introduction and he nodded his head.
"Uhh...Hi! You must be the Zaskar employee right?"
He said cheerfully. I blinked a couple of times before shaking his hand and nodding.
"Yep, that's me. I'm Miles."
I said with a forced youthful grin as I used my fake name. Oh God, this is so different. I'm not used to acting so...full of emotion. As a marine, discipline and seriousness is the first thing we learn before we even get out on that training field. So me all grinning and acting like a teenage guy was really weird. Thorn returned the expression and shook my hand.
"I'm Thorn Royer. Umm, why don't you come in! It's kind of chilly outside so come in, come in!"
He said to me with hospitality. I stepped inside to see five more teens look up at me with a smile. I returned the smile and they all started to introduce themselves to me after Thorn gave a brief speech about me.
"Guys, this is Miles. He will be staying with us for a while to see how our progress is going so start introducing yourselves to him and we can get started on showing him the game."
A girl with long black hair stepped up first with a greeting smile on her face and a blush on her cheeks. She stuck her hand out and laughed a little.
"Hi, I'm Suguha!"
So this is basically how the introduction went. I shook hands with her, and then the next person introduced themselves to me. This was a lot easier than I thought because they actually seemed like decent teenagers but I was still waiting for something to happen. Like, when they get used to you, that's when they start showing their true colors to you so you have to be cautious about being around new people. I scanned each person as they shook hands with me. The girl, Suguha, seemed very nice and also pretty optimistic. The second, Arkady, had an obvious Russian accent but he seemed like he was the type of guy that just went with the flow. The girl after him, Sinon, was very shy when she greeted herself to me. Her face was all red and she kept glancing down. Asuna was very sweet and her English was pretty good! And the last guy, Kazuto looks very smart and confident. So all in all, this group probably works well together.
"Alright, now that that's out of the way, let me show you the house and the room you will be staying in."
Suguha said with a grin. She gently grabbed my arm and pulled me her way through the hallway. I was surprised by her openness with me. She kept talking about where the bathroom was, where the shampoo was, what time everyone took a shower, what time everyone went to sleep, and what kind of food was in the fridge. My facial expressions were probably changing every second because honestly she was talking about so many random things at once. At least she's nice...She showed me the backyard, every single room in the house, and the room where I would be staying for some period of time. It was a simple room with a tv, a queen-sized bed, and some other things that caught my eye.
"We don't really have a set curfew here so you can stay up as late as you like. Why don't you get settled."
She said as she patted my arm and closed the door behind her. I blinked a few times in shock and put my bag down on the ground.
"Okay..."
I said to myself. So this is what I would be dealing with for the next few days or even weeks. I shook my head out of thought and set my bags down; one had my clothes in it while the other had my weapons and supplies concealed within it. I decided to organize all of my weapons in the second bag before pushing it under the bed. It had a long code on it so I wasn't worried about anybody cracking it. As for my clothes, I was instructed to wear something a...ugh...video game designer would wear so I had to wear dark jeans with a t-shirt with the triforce, I guess, on it. I wore a beanie on top of my bright blonde hair and my shoes were black vans that matched the pants. I cannot tell you how uncomfortable I am but it's not like I'm gonna whine about it out loud. I looked in the mirror and shook my head with a sympathetic chuckle before going back to the living room. Thorn and Suguha were at the counter while Asuna was busy cooking some type of dessert. She had a pink apron on with a tiny anime bunny on it that said "Usagi-chan"; which meant rabbit in Japanese basically. I can speak a lot of languages since I had to learn them to travel around the world. Currently at twenty-two, I know English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese, and some Mandarin and Korean. It took some time, don't get me wrong. I had a lot of nights of getting red-faced and just closing my notebook but I got them mastered now.
"Oh hey Miles! You look nice. I'm making cherry cheesecake right now!"
Asuna said with a smile. I smiled at her.
"Oh cool, that's one of my favorites."
I replied as I sat down next to Thorn. He turned to me and smirked.
"Asuna is like our personal cook. She can cook anything essentially...So since you're here, why don't you tell us some things about yourself?"
"Well...My full name is Miles Layman. I am from Anchorage in Alaska and I work as a video game assistant and moderator in Zaskar headquarters in Atlanta."
I said, remembering everything that Brooke told me when she was giving me my alias. Thorn's face brightened as he leaned towards me.
"Atlanta!? No way! I was raised there as a little kid! I work at the Zaskar building in Birmingham right now but I love visiting Atlanta every once in a while."
"Oh that's cool."
I said with a smile. So I could tell that they were trying to make some conversation with me but I realized I wasn't really letting them. I just decided to keep going on about myself.
"Uhh...I love first-person shooters like Call of Duty or Halo. I also kind of like anime games like Naruto or Dragon Ball Z. You know, something like that. Umm, I've been playing ever since I was a kid when someone showed me Legend of Zelda so that game was basically my starting point in the industry. I then went into college and became what I am today. I'm only twenty-two so it's not like it took me a long time to master my degree haha...How did you get in Zaskar at sixteen?"
I asked him. This I was actually curious about. Thorn thought about it for a minute before shrugging his shoulders after a few seconds.
"Honestly I'm not sure. I applied for the job because I love gaming and designing games and I guess my record came through. I got real lucky and I'm so glad I did it because I met the love of my life because of it."
He said as he looked at Suguha. She blushed and giggled as she looked down at her lap. I felt the corners of my mouth turn upward as I continued.
"How did you two meet? Were you two working on the same game together or something?"
"Actually we met in ALO. It was weird because it was my first time trying out a VRMMORPG and I was a serious newbie until she came along and showed me how to do stuff. And now we're together."
Oh. They got together by meeting in the virtual world...Maybe I should go get some air or something...
I got up from the counter and took a deep breath.
"I uhh need to go to the bathroom real quick. I'll be right back."
I told the teens. Thorn and Sugu gave me a look but nodded with a smile. I turned to head for the bathroom, but actually went outside just for some fresh air. The thing is I don't fell comfortable talking about VRMMORPGs or even hearing it in a sentence. I'm not going to say why but I cringe every time I think about it. Normal games are fine, it's just the virtual reality world makes me...restless. I just need some air right now...I looked around the back yard and leaned my body against one of the pillars they had supporting the porch. The koi fish in the tiny little pond rose from the water and moved their mouths at me as if they were asking for food. I rolled my eyes at them and exhaled slowly. The wind outside was blowing slightly and the sky looked like it might storm sometime later tonight or tomorrow. I stood there for a second before a saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. I shot my head in the direction the flash came from and stared at the next house in the neighborhood which happened to be a few stories tall. It was probably an apartment. I continued to stare at the window for a minute long before I started walking over to the edge of the yard. My eyes narrowed at the apartment building a few yards away and took a mental note. If there was another flash, I was going to investigate it, no question. I kept waiting for something to happen and jumped out of instinct when a cat ran across the yard. I sighed and made sure to remember that flash. It might of just been my imagination but if you have seen the things I have, you are suspicious of everything around you. I don't know, maybe I'm paranoid. I turned to go inside and closed the door behind me quietly. I walked through the hall and stopped when I heard a distinct noise from one of the bed rooms. Was that...moaning? Holy crap, was that Sinon!? She was moaning Arkady's name every few seconds. I shook my head in disbelief as I went back to the kitchen. I pointed at their room.
"Are you guys aware that Arkady and Sinon are..."
I stopped and gestured to get my point across. Thorn laughed and nodded.
"Oh yeah...Sorry about that. They got together like a couple of weeks ago and haven't left each other's side for more than a few hours. So...I'm really sorry about that Miles. I guess they just love each other TOO much haha!"
He said with a chuckle. I was still shocked but chuckled alongside him. These guys were weird. That was for sure...
(Thorn's POV)
I took a sip of my drink that I had on the counter as Miles sat next to me once again. My first assessment of him would be that he seems pretty cool but maybe a little shy? He knows this is just as awkward as we all thought it would be but whatever. He will get used to it as we go through. The group seems to like him so I really have no problem with the guy. I'm just glad he isn't some jerk from New Jersey or something. Not to say New Jersey is a bad place but...ehh...You know what I mean. He also doesn't seem like the kind of person to be wearing the clothes he was wearing right now. He dressed really cool but he seemed almost uncomfortable about the whole thing. Good thing I wasn't by myself on this because it would be even more awkward than it is now. But he was here to monitor our game right? So maybe I should show him the game so he can see all of the work we have done. That'll work right!?
"So we're almost done with the game, we just have to make some little adjustments and also create a few more game modes for it so it won't be boring. We have the language system done though which was a bitch to finalize."
I said. He flinched when I said 'bitch' which made me lower my voice when finishing the sentence. Okay, this was getting kind of weird. Did he not like cussing? That's going to suck because our group says bad words all the time. We're teens! That's what we do! We stayed silent for a second and I thanked God when Asuna broke the tension by setting a plate of food in front of Miles. It was a ham sandwich with potato chips. Hey! Why didn't I get one!? I gave her a look and she giggled.
"Don't worry, I'll make yours next."
My cheeks turned red as I smiled brightly. I was always hungry for some reason. Good thing I had a high metabolism!
"Thank you for the meal."
Miles told Asuna before he started eating. I watched him eat and he did it in an...How do I put it? Organized way. So let me list all of the things I have noticed so far. He dresses in ways that don't fit him, he flinches every time someone says a cuss word, he acted weird when I mentioned meeting Sugu in ALO, and he seems out of place with what he feels about video games. If that even makes sense. So I do this with every person, not just him. My specialty was in forensics in school after all. Breaking my thought, Sugu snapped her fingers in front of my face and poked my mouth with one of the chips Asuna had set before me. I laughed and ate it as she began to feed me. That just meant I didn't have to lift my arms to do it myself. I'm just kidding, I'm not that lazy.
"You need to get out of space Thorn and eat."
Sugu told me with that cute laugh of hers. I chuckled nervously and nodded as I continued eating. When I was halfway done, I looked at Miles's plate and my eyes widened when I saw the plate empty. What the fuck!? How did he eat so fast!? He dapped his cheeks with a napkin and thanked Asuna again for the food.
"So after you guys get done eating, we should really show Miles the game. I've been dying to work on it anyways. I'm almost done designing this one flower garden I set in the middle of the Middle East. It will be the only peaceful place there haha. Most of it is desert so I thought a flowery garden oasis would be a nice touch to the vagueness of the region. What do you think Miles?"
Sugu questioned him. Miles blinked his bright blue eyes.
"Huh?"
"Do you want to see how much progress we have made in our VRMMORPG? We are still trying to figure out a name so that whole acronym will have to do hehe."
Miles shifted in his seat a little before giving a nervous smile. Oh yeah, I noticed.
"Y-Yeah! That sounds pretty cool! I can't wait to see what you guys have made so far!"
He said happily. Sugu grinned and nodded as she grabbed his arm again and led him to the room he would be staying at. I followed them because I was finished with my meal anyways. Once in the room, Sugu rummaged through the closet for something. After a few seconds, she made a "ah-ha" noise and showed us an amusphere helmet. She blew some dust that had gotten on it and wiped the whole thing with a cloth. She instructed Miles to sit down on the bed so she could set him up. He hesitantly did what she said and kept staring at the helmet as if it was going to lunge itself at him like a snake. Once Sugu plugged the helmet in and started the whole thing up, she handed Miles the helmet and nodded her head.
"Okay, you should be set up. Thorn and I will be logged in in the next room so don't worry if you're all alone at first. Okay, see you in a bit!"
She ran out with an excited giggle and I followed her with a laugh. Miles put on his helmet slowly and laid on the bed with a sigh. I closed the door behind us and followed Sugu to our room where we could log in. This should be interesting...
And that is the end of the chapter! Ugh! Finally, I'm finished! I've had some major writer's block with this story lately for some reason. It will go away as I get on with the cool stuff but for now I'm just stuck. I think I'm stressed because of school and all but that shouldn't really matter. Anyway, Burke is a marine so he is used to be organized, mature, and well you know. And I'm not telling you about why he hates on VRMMORPGs just yet. But Thorn is starting to find things that are suspicious about him. Usually he is a great alias, but this particular sore subject is personal. Please review and comment on the story or I will kill you. No I'm serious. I will kill you. Finally, thanks so much for giving us your time and we will see you next time!
