Wooo I updated. AT 1 AM AGAIN. LMAO. I'm such an unhealthy child.
Edit: OMG there were so many errors. DX I fixed most of them.
Chapter 3
It didn't take long for Mikan's chatbox to be filled with purple-colored texts, indicating it was from her new guild.
DarkBrawlerx0: Ah, you've joined.
TobyIllusion: Welcome to our guild!
PermKitty: Welcome, girlie.
ICanReadYoMind: YO! Welcome!
RuPyon: Welcome. C:
Her eyes nearly shot out of her head. RuPyon?! And TobyIllusion?! Weren't they on the top five ranking list of Gakuen Alice? If Mikan could recall correctly, RuPyon was number three and TobyIllusion was number four...Her hazel eyes trailed the purple texts floating to the top as more and more replaced them.
RuPyon: Is she scared of us? D:
PermKitty: What makes you say that?
RuPyon: She's not responding :C
Mikan's mouth formed an 'O' as she typed.
HazelOrbz: I'm here!
Yet, however, the brunette realized her message was in white as her guild members' were in purple. The conversation continued as if Mikan had never replied to them.
TobyIllusion: Maybe she's just scared of Sumire.
PermKitty: Hey!
ICanReadYoMind: I wouldn't be surprised.
PermKitty: Koko, I swear...
DarkBrawlerx0: Oh, I know what's up. -_-
DarkBrawlerx0: Hey, noob. Just press F4 on your keyboard. It directs your chats to the guild.
Silently thanking her new friend (And why was he still calling her a noob? What sort of nickname was that?), the brunette pressed F4 to see the same black chatbox pop up at the left-hand corner. However, instead of saying 'To All' next to the chatbox, it said 'To Guild.'
HazelOrbz: ...
HazelOrbz: Hiiii...
DarkBrawlerx0: Knew it. Noob.
TobyIllusion: That's mean. Don't call her a noob.
Mikan's eyebrow immediately quirked upward. She had been curious about it. Because he called her that out of nowhere, she thought it was some kind of nice nickname. Now after seeing TobyIllusion's message, she really doubted it was something good.
HazelOrbz: ...What's a noob?
PermKitty: Er.
ICanReadYoMind: It's a rather derogatory term...
ICanReadYoMind: for people who have no hopes in doing anything well, I guess.
The brunette's jaw immediately dropped to the floor. People who have no hopes in doing anything well?! Well, whoever this DarkBrawlerx0 person was, she was going to slap him good.
After a few minutes of confirming the definition on urban dictionary, she angrily clicked back to the game.
HazelOrbz: What the heck?!
HazelOrbz: Dark, you are a jerk! And I thought you were nice!
DarkBrawlerx0: Who said I was nice?
TobyIllusion: Well, that's Natsume for you... ^^;
TobyIllusion: Oh by the way, what's your name, HazelOrbz?
TobyIllusion: I'm Tobito.
HazelOrbz: I'm Mikan. Nice to meet you, Tobito!
HazelOrbz: ANYWAYS, NATSUME.
HazelOrbz: You've officially irritated me!
HazelOrbz: Congratulations!
HazelOrbz: I would quit the guild to avoid your stupid avatar, but everyone else here is nice!
HazelOrbz: Like Tobito! ^
TobyIllusion: ^^;
ILoveKrab: Can you guys stop spamming the guild chat?
ILoveKrab: It's irritating.
ILoveKrab: If I get anymore disruptions, I'm going to charge each of you a million gold coins.
Immediately, the brunette gulped at the message. She didn't mean to be annoying.
And what's more, of course, was that Mikan immediately recognized the name, ILoveKrab, who was fifth in GAKUEN ALICE ranking. So far, she had joined a guild with three of the top five players.
Dang, what luck she had. Surprisingly, it was DarkBrawlerx0's doing.
Suddenly, RuPyon came back into the guild chat, somehow sounding entirely different than he had when he greeted Mikan.
RuPyon: Hotaru! :D Hi!
ILoveKrab: What do you want?
RuPyon: ...
RuPyon: Wanted to say hiii...I haven't talked to you in forever~
ILoveKrab: If that's all, I'm going to continue bossing.
ILoveKrab: I'm going to out-level you.
ILoveKrab: And Tobito.
RuPyon: ...Ok. :C
ICanReadYoMind: Hotaru.
ICanReadYoMind: The typical Ice Queen.
The brunette couldn't help but smile.
ICanReadYoMind: Anyways, since Mikan seems super new to this game...
ICanReadYoMind: You should help her out, Natsume.
HazelOrbz: WHAT?!
DarkBrawlerx0: What.
DarkBrawlerx0: Why should I?
ICanReadYoMind: Dude, she's one of us now. Comee onn.
ICanReadYoMind: She's your guildiee
ICanReadYoMind: And you invited her anyways.
DarkBrawlerx0: So now, she's my responsibility?
HazelOrbz: Wow. I feel loved.
ICanReadYoMind: Sure Natsume, if you want to think of it like that.
ICanReadYoMind: Besides, your brawler is around her level. Just help her out.
HazelOrbz: :C
DarkBrawlerx0: I was planning to spend only a day on brawler.
DarkBrawlerx0: I need to get my duelist high enough so the other duelist can't surpass me.
RuPyon: Natsume, there's literally
RuPyon: 20 billion EXP in difference between you and that guy.
Mikan's face paled. Twenty billion EXP? She glanced at how much the walnut monsters gave her.
Ten EXP.
RuPyon: You have enough time.
DarkBrawlerx0: ...
DarkBrawlerx0: Fine.
DarkBrawlerx0: But if he surpasses me, all of you are going to help me train.
DarkBrawlerx0: No matter what.
Even though it was virtual, Mikan could feel the guild grow nervously cold. It was a few long minutes of silence before ICanReadYoMind (known as Koko, as Mikan watched from the chat) decided to cut to the chase.
ICanReadYoMind: Well, that's been settled.
ICanReadYoMind: Have fun, Mikan!
HazelOrbz: Why.
To her dread, a familiar-looking brawler appeared, running and halting just a few inches before her avatar.
DarkBrawlerx0: Press F1 to go back 'To all' chat.
She pressed it. It was like he always knew what she wanted to ask.
HazelOrbz: You don't have to do this.
DarkBrawlerx0: You can't even survive these walnut monsters.
DarkBrawlerx0: Just follow whatever I'm doing.
HazelOrbz: Ok...
DarkBrawlerx0: ...Anyways, accept this.
A box appeared, similar to the guild invitation Natsume had sent to her. Instead of it being purple for guild however, it was pink and read 'DarkBrawlerx0 wants to invite you to his party.' Next to the dialogue was either an O or an X.
She hesitantly pressed 'O', seeing how Natsume's HP and mana now appeared below her own on the upper left hand corner.
DarkBrawlerx0: Follow.
DarkBrawlerx0: And don't be slow.
Mikan watched the brawler run back the way he came. Sighing, she placed her hands on the keyboard and the mouse and began following her guildmate.
HazelOrbz: Are we going to do quests?
DarkBrawlerx0: No, we're going to grind in dungeons.
Grind? As in grinding radishes? She wasn't quite sure.
HazelOrbz: What's
DarkBrawlerx0: If you ask what grinding is, I swear...
The brunette didn't type anything as she trailed behind the impatient brawler. For some reason, she could hear Natsume sigh in annoyance.
OuO
HazelOrbz: Gotchuuu!
DarkBrawlerx0: Bind
DarkBrawlerx0: Now.
HazelOrbz: Dude, I gotchuuu.
Mikan pressed '7', observing how yellow chains floated from her harp and down onto the boss. The three-headed Cerberus shrieked but stayed in place. As she drummed out musical notes that whacked the monster, Natsume clawed at the boss, delivering blows five times more effective than Mikan's.
Eventually, it died after another round of Mikan's binds and Natsume's cascade of attacks. A small yellow light erupted from both their avatars, indicating they had leveled up.
-HazelOrbz is now Level 22-
-DarkBrawlerx0 is now Level 23-
TobyIllusion: Congratz, you two!
ICanReadYoMind: Gz
PermKitty: Gz~
She watched the guild fill up her chatbox as she thanked them. Natsume however remained silent.
After a few seconds, he finally responded, although it was 'To All' rather than 'To Guild.'
DarkBrawlerx0: One more dungeon. It can probably get us up three levels.
HazelOrbz: Oh, ok.
DarkBrawlerx0: You know the procedure.
HazelOrbz: Yep!
They both hopped over to the dungeon's exit and continued toward another one that glowed red. As they passed by portals, Mikan used the advantage of arriving first to buff her passive skills. A yellow shield covered the two avatars as their attack range increased by double.
When the two entered, Mikan stood to the side while Natsume charged headfirst into the mob of monsters. She quickly healed the male brawler, but occasionally, she would stun a couple of the mobs, just to get an extra bit of EXP. It continued for six more stages.
As much as Mikan hated to admit it, she worked well with Natsume. At first, it was hard since she had no clue what she was doing. But after short lectures given by Natsume and the first-hand dungeon experience he had given to her, she was already feeling natural at the game.
After they defeated the boss, they stood around, awkwardly hopping on the rock crevices. She picked up a necklace, which to her delight, was better than her old one. Mikan immediately equipped it and hammered her old one into blue fragments. She wasn't sure why, but Natsume told her to do it. So whatever.
The brunette felt slight disappointment when she saw his message.
DarkBrawlerx0: I'm going to go train my duelist now.
DarkBrawlerx0: Thanks for the company.
HazelOrbz: You too...
HazelOrbz: Is your other character in the guild?
She could've sworn she heard a snort from him.
DarkBrawlerx0: He's the leader of the guild, you noob.
HazelOrbz: Woah, really?
HazelOrbz: And you mean NEWB, not NOOB.
Mikan was beginning to associate herself with game terminology, thanks to her new guild mates and Natsume.
DarkBrawlerx0: ...
DarkBrawlerx0: Well, I'll see you shortly.
DarkBrawlerx0: Be right back, logging.
-DarkBrawlerx0 has left the party-
-DarkBrawlerx0 is offline-
She huffed a small sigh, twisting off a cap and pressing the tip of the water bottle to her parched lips.
He was the leader of the guild? That definitely was surprising.
She was about to take another swig of her water when something caught her off-guard. She rubbed her eyes. That couldn't possibly be that name going online.
Perhaps, it was a glitch his in-game name appeared. That's right, a glitch.
The guild chat however warmly welcomed him back, using the name, Natsume.
He was the guild leader.
He was a duelist.
He was 20 billion EXP in front of whoever the other duelist was.
Of course.
So it really was him.
She gulped. She had spent the last four hours not knowing who Natsume was until now.
This guild didn't have three of the top five players; it had four of the top five.
And what's most of all was that he was number one of GAKUEN ALICE.
Flame.