Chapter 1

Volker

The only feeling in my body was the pain surging through the back of my skull, occurring in an infrequent but definite pattern. Instinctively, I threw my hands over my head in a deliberate swing that caught a bar, wet and cold, and tried pulling it. I focused on moving the rest of my body and heard leaves scraping across the ground as my legs worked themselves closer to my body.

I felt my body shake as someone kicked me in the stomach and the rest of my nerves and senses jump started. My eyes flew open as I pushed off the ground and , finding myself blind, scrambled away from my attackers, and tackled someone else. In a panic, I reached out to push him away, but his arms caught me and opened his switchblade. I froze as he twirled me into his arms and put the blade up to my throat.

I saw the other two stop in place and ready their weapons, a red bat and a shovel, but the person holding me didn't kill me.

"Get lost, you punks," the person ordered, and my attackers fled. The man put away his blade and walked over to where the other two were. I couldn't see well, but the man was a rather tall and wide person.

"How're ya feeling?" He said beside me, and I turned to see the man, who was actually as tall as I was. "I'm assuming you're the one I'm supposed to meet?"

"Huh wha?" I heard myself blurt, my mind empty as can be.

"Here," I heard the first person, a girl, say, and I could barely make out that she was holding something out to me. I reached for what I thought to be her hands and took the glasses from her and put them on.

Beside the bits of dirt on the sides of the lens, I could clearly see the two of them and the grove we were in. I could also see the blood that the attackers had probably beaten out of me. I could tell I wasn't doing exactly what I thought and tried to drop to my knees slowly, but my legs disappeared and I couldn't move my arms fast enough to keep me from kissing the ground and blacking out.

Long before I was conscious I could hear my mother yelling at someone to get out of the house. Without waiting for her to stop, I jumped up and found myself topless, which would have shocked me more if it wasn't stranger that I wasn't myself in another sense. Dismissing the oddness for later, I fetched for clothes and hurried downstairs, finding my mother slamming the door with a sense of urgency.

"He's not going to come back for you, is he?" she asked. I recalled the two that had saved me in the grove, and made an uncomfortable connection, but he had also mentioned...

"No, I don't know him and I won't deal with him anymore," I told Mom, and she relaxed, before locking the door and walked toward me.

"Are you feeling alright? Are you sick?" Mom started, checking my scalp for something before I waved her off.

"I'll be fine, Mom," I tried to reassure her, but I hardly felt like it. For one, I was tired, despite being unconscious for far longer that I thought was healthy. Second, I have to figure things out, like who I was now...

Memories of myself doing things and going to school swamped my visions, but I just didn't feel they were mine. I knew subconsciously who I was, but not who I am.

I can tell you that, Trainer.

Mom let go and told me to get some rest while she contacts the police about the boy that had gotten under my clothes. I let my feet take me to my room, and upon entering found that he left his belongings on the desk. I picked up his bulging wallet and took out his various cards, many of them fake ID's of various places I couldn't imagine where on earth they'd be. However, the one piece of information that I wanted was on most of them.

Joshua Loiusa Ender. Male, 27 Blue Eyes Black Hair from somewhere in Arkansas. Doesn't matter, I looked through the rest of the cards to see if I can get back at him and found an unsigned Trainer Card and a letter from Abrikorn Studios, asking for help on a mission to beat a malicious AI at their own game.

"You were apart of that mission too, until I made a mistake."

I turned around and saw a woman made up of condensed computer code sitting on the edge of my bed. "What mistake?" I asked, not interested in small talk.

"The person you inhabit died from the baseball bat. Josh showed up just in time that you weren't killed again. The mistake..." she trailed, looking away.

"...is?" I asked, trying to get the information out of her.

"When you entered the system, you wanted me to make your trip as smooth as possible, so I put a lock on your memories and while you were the one who asked me to separate your sorrows from this adventure, it was my mistake to agree."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Either I was an absolute genius and wanted a challenge or I was just an absolute genius. My choice and I decide to mess it up.

"So tell me, about Josh and his partner," I asked, furious and anxious about my condition.

"Josh's partner is named Minorin and she's registered as a Squirtle."

"What."

"It'll make more sense when you start your journey, but Josh himself I don't know much about, other than he was your partner."

"So, I have to play your game and... I'll get myself back, AI?" I asked, and the woman laughed.

"Please, call me Athena. It's a bit ridiculous calling someone artificial intelligence when there as natural as the world around them," Athena chimed. "To get you started, I recommend that you find the Roman."

Tsk. That's not... It's a start. "Fine, good night. Athena," I said softer than I intended.

"Hmm," Athena muttered, before dissolving into air. I sat on the bed next to where she sat and, as an observation, checked where she had sat, and it was warm.

An uneasy feeling emerged from my chest and I reached over and grabbed my jacket and, pocketing the unsigned card and leaving the letter, Josh's belongings and left my room. I walked down the stairs and just entered the living room as Mom ducked out into another room. I swiftly hurried to the door and out it. The sun was setting, so the crisp in the air wasn't strong, but even so, I ran onto the main road and threaded through the neighborhood until I found the exit and sprinted down the path until my feet dragged me off the road and toward a shack.

I knocked on the door and sure as hell Josh opened the door. "I was going to come back in the morning-"

"Shut up. You need to tell me some things, and you'll do it now or I'm going to the cops about that stunt you pulled earlier," I told him. The smile he greeted me dropped, before turning around and taking a seat beside a makeshift bed where Minorin slept.

"What'dyou want?" He asked.

I tossed him his wallet. "What I want, Josh, is the rules to Athena's game," I asked.

He caught his wallet and put it in his pocket, before starting. "I don't care what she told you, we are not working together if this is how you're going to be. All you need to know is that you just have to beat the League and then her. If you beat her, we're done," Josh explained, before I dumped the rest of his stuff in a small pile and left.

I hurried back home before long and to my room before my mother could get a word out. I stripped the coat off my shoulders and tossed it onto my desk, threw my shirt and pants into the laundry basket and ducked into bed. The door opened and Mom stepped in, but after a moment turned and left. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize what the Roman would be like.

Strangely, I teased myself that he was built like a spartan warrior but as gentlemanly as a German professor. I chuckled a bit, before letting darkness take hold of my conscious again.