SIXTEEN: A NEW WORLD
(Tyrone Lee)
The Haloed Rota darkened. It became lifeless as all the Orbs were exhausted and and were now mere glass balls. Alex looked shocked. Jenny was looking at the spot where the Gateway had been, and Nolan just frowned.
I got up, and went over to Alex. "Kid, it ain't our fault, we did what we had to do. And he isn't dead, he's in a better place hopefully. Anywhere is better than here right now."
He slowly stood up and walked away. Jenny ran after him. Nolan grunted, "You okay?" I nodded and motioned him to follow the others. There was nothing more we could do right now. We had wiped out and entire city to clear a Quest.
DING!
DING!
+1 Transgate Disruptor
But the next message was the interesting one:
[CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE ASCENDED TO EVICTOR CLASS]
New Skills Include: [Expel Lv. 1]
Do You Wish To Continue On The Evictor's Journey or revert To Pyromancer's Journey?
A new class! That was exciting. I selected the Evictor's Journey. I received a admirable amount of Shards from the Pyromancer class being sold. As excited as I was about the new Disruptor and Skill, I had to put them on wait. We had to regroup with Alex and Jenny and wait for the next Quest.
We spotted them on a bench in a ruined park. Alex had his head on Jenny's shoulder and appeared to be fast asleep. Jenny spotted us and waved.
We made our way over there and sat on the grass, leaning against the bench. Nolan put his Carbine back in his Inventory and sighed.
"So? Is this how we live the rest of our lives? Killing people, doing Quests?"
I didn't have any answer, neither did Jenny. A rythmic snoring told me Nolan had dozed off too. I told Jenny to get some shut eye too, as I kept watch. We were all terribly exhausted and needed our rest. I pulled up info on the Disruptor, but it wasn't much informative. All I learnt was that it could jam the Transgate signals and destroy the connections.
I had no idea what a Transgate was and neither was I interested to know. It was weird how we received no new Quests. It had been hours now. Maybe the Quest things were over now. I felt a bit relaxed and sleepy on these thoughts. I closed my eyes for a second and before I knew it was out.
Huh? Where am I? I woke up inside a moving vehicle. The others were there too. Nolan was still unconscious, but the other two looked at me with grim expressions which told me even they didn't know what was going on. I tried blasting us out, but nothing happened. I grunted again with my right hand outstretched to shoot fire. Nothing happened.
They were blocking our powers somehow. I knocked around the walls and realized we were in a security truck, the kind used to transport money in banks. That also meant we were in layers deep steel. Too strong to break with raw power.
I flopped back down on my seat and asked the other two if they were alright. They nodded slowly. I was growing frustrated now. I kicked Nolan in anger. He jerked awake shouting something about Fire in the Hole.
He then saw us and took a look around us. He asked me, "Lee, what's this? Where are we?"
I told him all I had guessed so far. I punched the walls as fast and hard as he could till his knuckles turned red. All he could do was make two small dents on the wall. He fell back, his hands shaking. All we could do now was wait. They used a similar power to that of Camp Krypt basement. We couldn't summon the System in here.
We sat in silence for the remainder of the journey. We all stood up and stanced ourselves for a fist fight as the carriage slowed down. It stopped. We felt two soft bumps as people got off from the front. Then with a soft buzz, the doors opened. We charged outside.
THUD!
WHACK!
"OWWW!!"
I landed a successful hit on the guy standing by the door. He disappeared in a puff of smoke. Alex had crashed into the ground as the guard swiftly dodged him. Nolan took a hit to his nose and cried out, as Jenny landed a solid hook on him. That guard disappeared too. Now was our chance to make a run for it.
And that was then, that we noticed where we were for the first time. It was a military base. My immediate thought was these guys were related to the Director at Camp Krypt. But they seemed friendly. Soldiers and Players were training. They were sparring with their Skills and hand to hand combat. As we stood, looking around, Nolan rubbing his nose, a high-ranked official stepped towards us.
He had a warm smile on his face and he held out his hand to me. I shook it. He started to speak in a deep, but cheerful voice.
"Welcome to our Base. We recently made this department, to tackle with the latest developments to the World. We have some extremely strong Players among our ranks and everyone here is a hard trained soldier, trained with the purpose to tackle the Quests with the least amount of damage."
Alex opened his mouth and closed it, at a loss of words. Jenny had an expression of awe on her face. Nolan was still cursing about his broken nose.
Seeing that, the officer offered to take us to a Medical Player. Apparently that guy was an army medic before this. We followed the official through some tents and some training grounds before we reached the hospital tent. The Medic looked cunning. However he fixed Nolan up in a minute, so yeah, he was good at his job.
The official introduced himself as General Kent. He was a pretty chill guy. He showed us around the basecamp and explained to us about how the government planned to create new laws for the Players and a new ProtoForce to enforce the laws on the Skills users. Everyone had skills, but some had weaker skills than others. So to protect the weak, this new Force was created.
It was still an work in progress, but we were picked up because we were the only survivors of the last Quest. We had survived and slain an entire city. But murders uptil now was ignored. But from now onwards we were under the new Laws. They figured out a way to dampen the System, so they were in the process of fitting prisons with the dampeners.
DING!
[WARNING!]
HAZARDS INCOMING IN 2 MONTHS. EVERY REGION WITH A HALOED ROTA WILL HAVE TO FIGHT A HAZARD TO SURVIVE. FAILURES WILL BE ELIMINATED.
What the heck? So this was the next Quest? And we had two months to train? Guess the basecamp was certainly useful after all! Nolan and me instantly signed up as soldiers. Jenny took a passive role to fight from covertly with her Plague skills. Alex however didn't sign up. He preferred to train alone, due to his inability to connect with the System.
We had two months to spare before the next Quest. The Hazards didn't sound very friendly. We had to fight against the horrors once again for the sake of our lives and the world. It had only been a week and a half since we started the Quests, but it feels like a long, long time has passed.
Two months of training was of course aided by the System as well. It opened a new Daily Quests window to train and hone our skills and powers. To level up enough to even have a fighting chance with the Hazards.
Soon it was time to bid farewell to Alex, and Jenny who was going to an undercover training site. Me and Nolan were going to train together. We stood outside the camp gates, Jenny crying, even Nolan looked depressed, Alex was trying his best not to cry.
"Take care of yourself Kross. Don't get into unnecessary fights, and try to kill as less as possible."
"Yeah, thanks Nolan. You take care of Lee, I'm sure we will be in touch sooner than we think!"
Nolan grabbed Alex in bear hug which looked more painful that comforting. Then Jenny came up, and hugged both of them tightly. I felt like I should join in. I went over and joined in on our team hug.
"Take care of yourself, kid!" I called out to him, waving, as he walked into the sunset, on the way to his new adventures and experiences. We wouldn't see each other for two months. He looked back one final time and grinned, before calling back, "Stay safe, Lee! It's a dangerous and crazy new world we're living in!"