ENTRY 2: THE BATTLE ARENA

“Why miserable? You had a sudden shift from being positive about the experience, at least once in your life only to revert back to the negativity, so why?”

Simple, I regret that choice. Then again, I wasn’t even living a life up to that point as this has been very uneventful up to the point in my life, but things were about to begin for me, and very quickly.

So we were hurdling to the earth, when we made a huge crash, causing this enormous crator in the ground. Coughing, I stumbled out, grabbing onto the side of the capsole to brace myself as the dust began to clear around me.

Figures soon became visible, and they weren’t human. This was going to be interesting, I had thought to myself before moving into a defensive stance, readying for whatever may come at me.

They all looked funny, some were humiod, but others weren’t. They were mainly the typical creatures of fiction, such as faries to ogres, even a dragon appeared before me.

‘So, are you gonna stand there all day, or are you actually going to play a little?’ A fimilar old voice came from behind me.

Turning around, there was my grandfather, yet not.

‘So what are you supposed to be?’ I asked.

‘I am king of the elves here in this world that I call Pandora. And what are you supposed to be?’

I looked down at myself for the first time. I had dark red almost maroon paint done with black and orange lining (guess the system did listen, but just a little) and I couldn’t tell what I was however. He pulled out a mirror, saying ‘here,’ as he pointed it at me. What I saw was an android, or a robot in my eyes. My eyes were black, with a hint towards orange, but it didn’t have all the lines and junk covering my skin, it was like an actual human with metal skin. It truly was impressive to look at now that I think about it.

“So what were you?”

I will get to that soon enough. Anyways, I just thought I was an android, which there was a class for, now did I have a creature type at the time.

“How could you tell?”

On the main menu, which then my grandfather proceded to show me, in order to know how everything works with that and how to log out of this game, along with what I needed in order to fight and use equipment and spells, and all that fun stuff. Throughout this, some of the players would leave and go back to whatever they were doing, but a good group of them, about a little over a dozen, stayed to watch this scene. But it was weird that I had a blank next to creature type, even my grandfather was mystified by that glitch, or what we called a glitch in the system at the time.

“Was it?”

All in good time, I believe is what I should say at this time. So we moved on, like nothing happened, going through the rest of the information as the rest watched with ever so peaked interest.

“Who were they?”

If you would give me the ample amount of time, I will get to it all, and then the real questions can be asked, but for now, just endure and go along with this story.

Grandpa did everything he could to get me ready In that moment, for you see, those people that were watching were all like him, testers that had reached the top of their game. He couldn’t force me to join his party, he had to allow me to have equal chances with the other groups in order for me to make a choice, at which point would truly set me off on my quest.

But I wanted to play the game differently then what it was intended to be played. I wanted to be the first solo player in that game, since that wasn’t a thing up to that point, according to my grandfather and the stats sheet in the menu.

“Why?”

Now you are asking the right questions, just give it time. I didn’t like playing with others, or with a team for that matter. I would feel usless and disposable at that point. I wanted to make a difference in the games that I participated in, and my grandfather knew that best. So he didn’t push the matter, knowing that I wouldn’t join a faction in this battle, but to instead take the award at the end all to myself.

So we finished and I felt like I was ready.

‘And finally,’ he stated, ‘Today is the last day of the beta, and tomorrow is the actual launch of this game, so we are having a contest, hosted by the creators of the game and the leaders of all the groups. Each player will participate if they choose to, and enter a huge bracket. You lose once, and your out. You win, you keep the avatar and everything attached to it. I think it will be fun, and thought that you wouldn’t mind entering it, since you like the fighting games more. So how about it? Wanna join this?’

So I joined. The others followed to the stadium, much like the collsium that is in Rome, and got ready for the fight that was going to erupt there.

Many of the gamers that were partaking in the beta test were in there, the seats seemed to be filled to compacity, as if there wasn’t room for anymore people. We all found a seat near the field, close to the bottom of the stands were there were more of the fancier seats. Each one sat in one, my grandfather creating a new chair next to his. The seats seemed to be unique to each of the leaders and their powers. My grandfather was an elf, so his was a tree, with a hole in the center as a place for him to sit. What he did was create a low hanging branch that reached down next to him and was thick and steady enough for the support to hold me.

I took my cue to sit as the announcements began

‘Hello testers, and welcome to the Christmas eve brawl! (followed by much meted applause.) Today is the last day of the beta test, and so we are allowing you all to fight one last time before we conclude this. As a prize to the winner, they get to keep the avatar, all the goods that they have collected, and progress made in the game up to this point. So enjoy and please put up a good fight!’

Then the bracket appeared, with many names created by players appeared, with one question mark. Suddenly, I received a notification as I popped it open.

It was a name request, and thinking about it, it was the only thing not asked of me throughout this. I clicked on it, with then the option to have it randomly picked. I opted to that one for more of a fun way and was received with a bunch of questions. I was getting tired of all of these questions, but finally, reached the end with my name flashing in front of me:

74X1c, demon of hades.

My grandpa looked at me, ‘well, that is original, now isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, I guess grandpa.’

The others kept looking at me, pointing at me and speaking to whomever was sitting next to them. Then they had the first two competitiors head on out into the battlefield, and the day began to seem very long. Soon grandpa went out, he created this massive tree that was basically a creature in of itself that went after the player. He defeated it, only to be met by two now. He soon was consumed by the multiplying tree people that just chased him all around the perimeter of the field while grandpa stayed in the center.

He came up extrodianarely calm after the fight, which I can agree, wasn’t much of a fight.

‘For the final battle, may we have 74X1c and tina4536 come on down?’ However, when they said my name, it sounded like they were saying ‘toxic’, which is completely different then what I had thought it to be.

So I headed on down. I was met by this leopard skinned individual. She began to pur as she looked at what she thought was her first victim. ‘Looks like you just started playing not even an hour ago, guess this ends here for you, even before it truly begins.’

‘Guess we are about to find out’

She gets into a ready stance while I just stand there, arms extended low, but close to my sides. Her stance is much like a boxer, and based on the tape on her fists, she does a little fist brawling, good enough I thought.

The three horns blew to signal the fight beginning, and she tried to pounce me, as I swung with an arm, that shifted into a blade mid swing, so upon contact, sliced her right underneath the breast.

She rolled away, clutching her top, the red on the fur being evident. ‘woah, who the hell do you think you are?’

I moved closer to her, seeing the terror in her eyes ‘I am the demon of hades, the man who killed you. I am 74X1c.’ as I said this, I pierced her right through the abdomen, seeing the terror along with the light vanish in her eyes as she went limp.

I whipped my arm, sending her corpse hurtling clear across the field, to the other side of it. I then turned and headed up to my seat. The stadium was quiet, whispers could be detected, but I couldn’t make out what was exactly said. I could guess, however, that they were asking about me, or having thoughts and conversation about me in some form. My grandfather greeted me with a smile.

‘Well, thought you would be good, but not that good.’

‘So who was that?’

‘She was Tina, a girl who is second in command for the animal folk of Pandora. Her leader is over yonder.’ He said, pointing over to the snake lady who sat with a snarl on her face, her eyes more like daggers hurtling at me. ‘And it seems that who managed to piss someone off right off the bat, way to go.’

So yeah, that happened. I had made myself the new target in this world, enemy number uno, and as a solo player in a place that was built on teams and working with other gamers, way to go. But at least I had this sweet character build to work with, and I could tell from that point, things were just getting to become fun. What I didn’t think was how badly this was also going to head downhill, or quickly for that matter.