The morning was awkward. Everyone woke up without being told, Kristen much earlier than usual. By the time Darith got downstairs, Liana and Kristen were already working together to prepare breakfast, and Darith could see how Kristen wasn’t sure how to handle the situation.

“Did you think about it yet?” Darith asked, sounding like a kid waiting to unwrap his presents on Christmas morning.

“You’re going to your classes today.” Kristen replied without looking at him.

“What about me, can I go to class too?” Liana asked.

“That’s not how high school works sweetie. You can come to the hospital with me today or stay at home.”

“Do I have to go in my wheelchair?” Liana asked as she finished setting a plate down for Darith with toast on it. Kristen paused to think about it.

“Not as long as you don’t mention who you are, okay? Don’t make anyone suspicious.”

“Okay.” She replied cheerfully. They made it through the morning routine without much talk, Kristen had to stop herself a few times from trying to help Liana do things, up until when they were getting into the car, as Darith walked down the driveway.

“Remember Darith, no funny stuff, okay? I promise I won’t drag this out, but it’s not as simple as you think for me.” Kristen called to him.

“I got it.” He replied.

While he was walking to school, he checked his phone for messages. Now that it was morning he was hopeful someone might’ve replied, but no such luck. When he got to his first period classroom and sat down, he felt his discomfort at an all time high. More than ever he felt like he was in a place he didn’t want to be. As his classmates all sat down and prepared for the start of the day, his mind wandered off, planning on how to get stronger, and thinking of all the factors he’d not taken into account so far, things about the game he still didn’t know, but the bigger concern for him was finding the last few members of his group.

When his teacher arrived he walked straight to Darith’s desk and put down a thick stack of papers, bringing him back to reality.

“Finish that by the end of the lesson to the best of your ability. Don’t get frustrated if you can’t answer it all, some of those questions are tough even for me.” His teacher said. Darith looked at it and read the title.

“High School Math Proficiency Examination.” He mumbled to himself, while a blue mark appeared from his teacher.

Quest: Complete the test within the allotted time.

Reward: +1 intelligence, 100xp

Accept(x) Decline(x)

He quickly accepted it and got to work. At first it felt difficult, he saw equations he hadn’t seen before, but the more he looked at the pages, the more the logic began to flow through him. As long as he understood the meaning of the symbols, he was able to deduct most of the questions, much to his amazement.

The test was in total 12 pages long, and Darith was just barely able to finish it before the bell rang, not giving him enough time to double check his work. As the other students began packing up their books and heading out of the room, the teacher walked over to him and picked up the test.

“How’d you do?” He asked as he began flipping through the pages.

“I think I got most of it. That was way harder than the stuff you’ve been teaching.”Darith replied.

“Incredible. That’s because some of this is at the University level. I can’t say how well you did, but I’ll grade this and get back to you tomorrow. You know what this means, right?” His teacher asked with wide eyes.

“I’m really good at math suddenly?” Darith shrugged.

“This could be a first step towards a scholarship. There’s always universities looking to snag up students like you.” His teacher replied excitedly.

“Oh… I hadn’t thought about that yet.” Darith replied as he began packing up his things.

“You might want to, by the looks of this test, you might have learned all you can from Highschool already.” His teacher chuckled, but as Darith faced his back to him to leave the room, he felt guilty more than he did happy - knowing he likely wouldn’t have been able to complete that test without the help of the game.

Quest Complete

Gained: +1 Intelligence

100 Experience

By the time he reached his Lunch period he managed to shake it off and tried thinking that it’d be stupid not to take advantage of it. He entered the cafeteria while checking his phone for messages, but still nothing. Looking around the room he was able to spot Jacob already sitting alone eating his lunch and quickly joined him.

“Sup.” Jacob said with a nod.

“Hey. How’s it going?” Darith replied.

“Not bad. Hey you talked to Ryan at all? Haven’t heard from him, can’t get him online or on his phone.” Jacob asked. Darith hesitated, pulling his lunch out of his bag.

“He’s probably just playing another game hardcore.” Darith shrugged.

“Hey.” Elise said suddenly, as she shuffled into a chair beside Darith and plopped her bag on the table beside him. “What the hell happened yesterday?” Her sudden appearance left Jacob and Darith shocked, both for different reasons.

“I auhh- what do you mean?” He replied nervously.

“You asked me for a ride to the Hospital. Don’t you remember? I remember driving, but then it goes all fuzzy and suddenly I was standing around.” Elise asked.

“Oh, yeah… me too, a bunch of people had that. I think it was a gas leak or something?” Darith said, remembering a line used in a movie during a similar situation.

“Really weird. Well was everything okay?”

“Yeah man, something happen with your mom?” Jacob asked, now sounding concerned as well.

“Ah, yeah it ended up being okay, just needed to take care of Liana.” Darith replied, fumbling his words a bit. Elise only looked at him more confused. “My mom works at the hospital, Liana is kind of like my little sister.” Darith added.

“Ah, gotcha.” Elise replied, then began pulling out books from her backpack.

“So how do you two know each other?” Jacob asked.

“He’s helping me study.” Elise replied.

“Oh, like Karin?” Jacob said as he bit into his lunch. “Oh, there she is.” Hearing this both Elise and Darith turned to look where Jacob was looking and saw Karin, who had been walking towards them but slowed down after seeing Elise.

Jacob and Darith immediately felt the atmosphere thicken with tension.

“Hey Elise.” Karin said, but Elise didn’t answer. “Where did you go?”

“None of your business.” Elise replied, looking away.

“Your little favor yesterday got Elise in a ton of trouble, did you know that?” Karin asked Darith.

“Sorry… it was an emergency.” Darith replied shyly.

“It’s alright, but since you did borrow my car you owe me now.” She changed her tone to her cutesy voice. “Could you please help me out again? Mr. Hensworth is really giving us hard stuff these days.” she pleaded. Darith watched the quest icon appear in his peripheral vision, and he almost reactively reached out to touch it, then glanced at Elise who was angrily staring down at a textbook, pretending to not care about the situation.

“I can’t, I’m busy today.” Darith replied, then hit the decline button.

“Huh? With what?” Karin’s tone changed.

“Helping Elise study.” Darith said, trying to show confidence, but in truth, without his game body he wanted to avoid confrontation, and practically winced after saying this - he wasn’t used to saying no outright to people like Karin.

“You’re wasting your time, she’s a lost cause.” Karin said coldly.

“Hey yo, that aint cool. Don’t be bringing people down like that, aint like you’re doing your schoolwork any better.” Jacob stepped in.

“Ugh whatever, I’ll find someone else.” Karin groaned. “Have fun with these losers.” She said as she turned and walked away.

“Man what the heck is her deal.” Jacob replied while shaking his head to himself. Darith turned to see a small smile on Elise’s face.

“Thanks.” She said without looking up.

“You guys are fighting because of me, so…” Darith replied as he looked at his lunch.

“Nah, we’re always fighting, I hate the way she is. Always takes advantage of people, never does anything herself except dancing. She’s not even that good and she only practices stupid ballet.” Elise replied.

“Aren’t you also practicing it though? I mean you’re in the club room usually.” Darith asked.

“Not by choice. It’s because- it’s just complicated.” Elise replied. “I’m not going to be going back there anymore anyway.”

“Oh, okay…”

“How come we’ve never see you during third lunch before?” Jacob asked.

“That’s because I use it to practice usually.” Elise shrugged.

“I thought you just said ballet was stupid.” Jacob looked at her confused.

“Not ballet, I practice contemporary and hip hop.” Elise said with a sparkle in her eye, but the two looked back at her confused.

“I know hip hop music, what's contemporary?” Jacob asked.

“It’s like ballet but a lot more floor movements and more fluidity, it’s more free. A wider range of moves, and when you mix it with hip hop you can use it to transition into the harder moves that pop out, since hip hop focuses a lot on directing people’s eyes to more specific body movements.” Elise said passionately, but Jacob just looked more confused.

“Do you guys know anything about dancing?” She followed up.

“Darith got an S on Butterfly in DDR a few years back. He was moving like crazy then.” Jacob said, and Darith could tell Jacob thought he was bragging on his behalf, but it didn’t sound impressive at all in light of what Elise was saying.

“You play DDR? I used to love that game, got really easy after practice though.” Elise said as she pulled out her phone.

“I had to stop playing it, kept getting leg cramps… I’m surprised you played.”

“My Dad bought an arcade machine of it for my Birthday two years ago.” She said nonchalantly, but Darith and Jacob both looked at each other wide eyed, knowing the general price range of something like that. Jacob mouthed ‘She’s loaded’ to Darith, but Elise didn’t notice as she was flicking through her phone.

“Here, this is what I’m talking about.” Elise said, turning the screen to them with a video on it. It was a youtube video showing a group of people performing a dance routine on stage. The music started slow but as it picked up they went faster. Jacob lost interest, but Darith watched with amazement, just as Elise said, the dance moves drew his eyes to certain movements and they were spinning and doing flips all over the place. Once the video finished she pulled the phone away.

“That’s what I do.” She smiled. “I’m not a pro like those guys but can do most of that stuff already. Hard to practice alone though.”

“You’re tellin me you can move like that?” Jacob asked.

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t have a teacher or a place to practice and my mother hates that style so she tries to keep me from doing anything related to it. That’s why I usually use this lunch break to do it.” She shrugged. Darith was awestruck, his mind running through thoughts.

“You can move like a thief, or a rogue…” He said in half whisper.

“Huh?” She said confused, Jacob blurted out a laugh.

“I think he means you can move like a cat.” Jacob replied.

“Oh. Yeah I guess you can put it like that?”

“It’s more than that. No matter how high my ag- no matter how agile I get, I’d never be able to move around like that. Stats aren’t everything…” Darith said to himself.

“Alright now I’m lost too.” Jacob shrugged. Elise shook her head as she began opening her school books.

“Anyway, I’m here to study!” She exclaimed. “If I get stuck on something you’ll help me out, right?”

“Y-yeah sure.” Darith replied then looked at his phone. Still no messages. He went deep in thought for a moment, then turned to her. “Elise, why did you decide to help me yesterday?” Darith asked. She paused to think on it.

“I dunno. You looked like you needed help, and I knew I could do it, so I just did it. I don’t want to be like my sister, only taking help all the time when she could do it herself. Pisses me off.” Elise replied, then began scribbling in a notebook the questions from a textbook.

Darith turned from her, looking at his lunch, then his phone, then Jacob.

“What if I told you I know a place where you can practice dancing, unlike any place you’ve ever been to before?” Darith asked as he began nervously tapping his fingers on the table.

“Where is it?” She asked with intrigue.

“I can’t tell you… I mean, the place has some rules, really strict rules that you have to follow no matter what.” Darith replied.

“I can follow strict rules, no problem.” She replied confidently, she was hooked in already.

“Are you free after school today?”

“Yeah.”

“I can take you, but you’ll have to agree to the rules first.”

“Alright so what are the rules?”

“I can’t tell you them here, but if you come over to my house after school I can.” Darith said excitedly. He already had images in his head of Elise bending around monsters with blades in her hands, but this was shattered quickly by her next words.

“Wait is this a weird trick to get me on a date to your house or something?” Elise said, taken aback. Darith turned to look at her, then Jacob’s expression as well, staring at him with crazy eyes.

“That sounds like a whole lotta weird and mysterious to me.” Jacob said. Darith’s face went bright red.

“N-n-no, nothing like a date, I swear. It’s real! You have to just trust me.” He replied, avoiding eye contact with Elise. She eyed him for a moment, watching him squirm nervously.

“Okay, but if it sucks then you’ll have to help me study for the rest of the semester.” Elise finally replied.

“Deal.” Darith said back with a smile and a sigh of relief.

“Hey what about me, I like dancing.” Jacob said.

“No you don’t.” Darith replied.

“Yeah you’re right I don’t.”

[Jaese][Mourning]

The sound of bagpipes filled the air as Jaese stood shoulder to shoulder with several other men. Some were wearing black suits and ties, other wore their police uniforms. They stood in a field of graves with bright green grass. Many of the people present were in tears.

Before them lay a beautifully carved auburn casket being lowered into a 6ft hole. Jaese watched it go down, full of emotions. He was angry, sad, and frustrated, but tried his best to hold it in. His breaking point was seeing Chris’ parents crying across from him, his empathy forced him to imagine how they must feel to have lost their son, and this forced the tears out of him. The next emotion was regret that he didn’t do anything to stop it from happening.

Jaese stood there long after the service had concluded and the last of the dirt was piled onto the coffin. Many of the officers and family members had gathered on the pathways leading out of the fenced graveyard, but finally Chris’ father approached Jaese. He was a much older gentleman with white hair and wrinkles. Tall, like Chris, but hunched over in his black suit.

“You were his partner.” He said, it sounded like a mix between a question and a statement.

“Yes sir.” Jaese replied.

“He talked a lot about you. Said you were a dreamer, wanted to work for the FBI someday. Dudly do-right.” He said, his voice raspy. “He talk about me at all?”

“All the time, he said you were his inspiration for joining the force.” Jaese replied.

“Lotta good that did. I knew a lot of guys like you in my day. I heard the stuff you’ve been spewing about who did this to my boy. From how my Chris talked about you, you don’t seem to be the type to jerk around on this. You’re the type that takes this to your head and blame yourself.”

“I keep thinking if I had done something differently, if I had told him not to stand up or-”

“Hindsight is always 20-20. Listen here.” He said as he put his hand on Jaese’s shoulder. “You don’t waste that energy on blame, guilt, or self-pity. You use that energy to catch the son of a bitch that took my son away. You’re the only one that can. You got it?”

“Yes sir.” Jaese replied. The old man patted his shoulder.

“Good. First you oughta get that checked out.” He motioned to Jaese’s other shoulder, and through his white shirt, a red blood stain could be seen.

“Ah shit. my stitches.” Jaese replied as he touched the shirt and got blood on his fingers.

He said his goodbyes to the other officers quickly and rushed to his vehicle, driving to the hospital with his emotions still hanging over him. still unsure how to proceed with the investigation. He knew Richard and his team were looking into it, but wasn’t sure what they’d find. He tried again to recall the events in the warehouse, but nothing came up.

When he walked into the front foyer of the hospital he was quickly directed to wait in a side room and instructed to take his shirt off. He ended up sitting there shirtless with a small stream of blood trickling out of the wound for 10 minutes. He couldn’t take his mind off of what Chris’ father said.

Eventually the door swung open to reveal a familiar doctor and nurse.

“Jesus, you got out yesterday didn’t you? I said take it easy and it looks like you went straight to the gym to lift weights. What’d you do?” The doctor asked.

“I - yknow I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure I just went home to rest.” Jaese replied with a shrug as the Doctor inspected him.

“Sure. Alright, well it doesn’t look that bad, you’ll need new stitches though. Can you handle this?” The doctor turned to ask Kristen to which she nodded. “Great. And this time, really, just take it easy.” He said as he left the room.

Kristen nervously shuffled through some of the cabinets lining the room to get what she needed and pulled a tray up beside Jaese as he sat on the side of a poorly padded hospital bed.

“Does it hurt at all?” Kristen asked.

“Yea- I mean no, it’s alright.” Jaese replied. Kristen began working on the stitches. “I’ll try and get it done quickly, let me know if I’m hurting you, and try to stay still.”

“Got it.” He said. Kristen couldn’t help but notice his attire, and quickly concluded where he had just come from. The two stayed silent, Kristen focusing on closing up the wound.

“Finished.” She said, pulling back and looking to see tears running down Jaese’ face. “Oh no, was I too rough? I’m sorry, you should have said something!” Kristen replied anxiously.

“No, no, you’re fine, it’s not that.” Jaese replied. “So I’m good to leave?” Jaese asked.

“Yes, all patched up.” Kristen said as she turned from him to clean up the tools, nervously fumbling around which was unlike her. “Take care this time and try not to open them anymore okay? Just get some rest.” Kristen said.

“Yes m’am.” He replied as he began putting his shirt back on. Kristen opened the door as if to leave, but then hesitated, and shut it again.

“You’re frustrated, aren’t you? About all those officers dying.” Kristen asked, turning to look at him.

“Yeah…” He mumbled back.

“And no one believes you about what happened?” She added. He didn’t reply, instead broke eye contact and finished putting on his jacket.

“We’ve got a lead now though. Once we find him we might get answers.” Jaese replied.

“I saw. On the news. Gabriel, right?” She asked.

“That’s right.” He replied. Kristen took a deep breath, looking distressed as she stared out the window of the narrow room.

“What if I told you I can help?” Kristen said, she instantly got Jaese’ full attention.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s conditional. You can’t tell anyone else.” Kristen hastily replied.

“If you know anything about this investigation that you aren’t saying, please tell me.”

“You have to promise, only you can know. Just you.” Kristen said sternly. He looked her in the eyes and thought on it. A light of hope in his clouded mind.

“I promise.” Jaese said.

“Alright.” She let out a deep sigh of relief. “You’ll have to come back with me to my place.”

“Your place, why? Is something there?”

“Yes, well, sort of I’m not the right person to explain it to you. My shift is over soon, so just wait for me in the lobby okay?” Kristen said, and Jaese nodded. As they swung the door open, a young girl with beautiful brown hair was standing here.

“Lian-li-Linda. There you are.” Kristen said, stopping herself.

“H-hey there.” Liana said awkwardly as she watched the two step out of the room.

“Officer Jaese here is going to be coming home with us today, make sure you get your things and are ready to leave.” Kristen said, to which Liana looked at her wide eyed. Jaese however politely reached out to shake her hand.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Jaese, and you are Linda?” he asked.

“Y-yes, I am Linda, Kristen’s uhm... niece. Nice to meet you.” She smiled back.

“I’ll see you in a bit.” Kristen said while turning down a hall, Jaese watched her and ‘Linda’ as Liana rushed after Kristen.

“What did you say to him?” Liana said in a shout whisper.

“I had to to say something, he was crying! They’re chasing some poor guy named Gabriel!” Kristen shout whispered back.

“I don’t think Darith’s going to be happy about this.” Liana replied anxiously.

[Darith + Elise][Non-confrontational]

“Hey!” Elise waved at Jacob and Darith as they walked out of the school with hundreds of other students. “You weren’t joking about that stuff at lunch, right?” Elise asked.

“No, completely serious.” Darith said excitedly.

“You really taking her to some secret dance place?” Jacob asked apprehensively.

“Y-yeah.”

“How’d you find something like that?”

“Y’know… from a guy, that uh- my mom works with.” Darith replied with a forced shrug.

“Feels weird leaving this early.” Elise said, walking beside the two, now out of the school grounds but turning to look back at the building.

“It’s alright, high school clubs don’t mean much anyway.” Jacob said as he walked with them.

“Isn’t your house the other way?” Darith asked.

“Yeah, I thought I’d come check this dance thing out too though. That a problem?” Jacob asked. “Or is this really like a date or something, you two want to be alone?”

“It’s not, right?” Elise asked

“N-no, I swear, its not!” Darith replied nervously.

“Cool, then it’s no problem.” Jacob smiled triumphantly. The three made their way around the corner from the school and the amount of students around them dwindled significantly.

“So what do you guys do for fun? Obviously not dance.” Elise asked.

“Oh we play games. Online, competitive, single player, especially team based stuff, and we’re pretty sick too. Won some small tournaments here and there. You play any aside from DDR?” Jacob asked.

“Nope, not really, bu-” Elise was interrupted by a large figure pushing her back with his shoulder, as a man in a black hooded shirt grabbed Jacob by his shirt collar and pulled him off the sidewalk, pushing him up against a tree.

“Whoa what the hell!?” Jacob shouted in surprise as Elise and Darith both took steps back. Staring at Jacob from under the hood was Gabriel, but none of the three recognized him.

“I don’t want any trouble, I just want answers.” Gabriel said.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about man, let go of me.” Jacob shouted as he struggled to get free, at which point Gabriel flashed a knife in his free hand. “Oh shit what the fuck dude?!” Jacob panicked, as did Elise, but Darith remained calm.

“Shit, I know this won’t hurt you, but c'mon, those guys killed my little brother. I know you aint with them, so just tell me!” Gabriel shouted desperately.

“That thing will definitely hurt me man, what the fuck are you talking about? Call the cops Darith! This guys on drugs!” Jacob shouted, but he was unable to break free from Gabriel’s grip.

“Let him go!” Elise screamed. Gabriel carefully watched Jacob’s reaction and got progressively more annoyed.

“I’m tired of this shit. Stop fucking with me!” Gabriel shouted angrily, thrusting the knife forward towards Jacob’s hand.

Darith quickly dashed and held his hand up to catch the knife, moving faster than any of the three could see. As the knife went into his hand, no blood came out, instead Gabriel could pull it out cleanly with no wound, he then let go of Jacob and turned to Darith.

“He’s not lying, he doesn’t know anything.” Darith said as calmly as he could, but all three were looking at him with disbelief. “You’re saying that someone who can do stuff like this…” Darith pointed to his hand, while personally noting the 10 damage he took to his hitpoints. “Killed your brother? You were at the club the other night?” Darith replied.

“What the hell is goin’ on Darith?” Jacob said in confusion.

“Y-yeah.” Gabriel replied hesitantly. Darith looked between them and took a deep breath, he was caught between the fact that he revealed himself, and that this person was the victim of another bad player.

“Okay. I can explain but not here. And you have to promise to keep it to yourself. And not try to hurt anyone else, okay?” Darith replied, holding his hand out for the knife. Gabriel looked at his hand, then looked back up at him.

“You’re not even a little bit afraid of me and I’m twice your size with a knife.” Gabriel said while shaking his head, then handed it to him.

“You better be explaining it to me too.” Jacob added.

“How did you move that fast?” Elise said in amazement.

“Come on, my house isn’t far from here.” Darith replied. The three followed him quickly, Darith’s mind racing on how to sort out this situation with the best possible outcome.

“Have you seen him do that before?” Elise whispered to Jacob.

“No fricken away, that was some ninja shit.” Jacob replied. When they got to the house, Darith saw his mother's car in the driveway.

“This is going to be complicated.” He mumbled to himself as he motioned them up the small lawn of the townhouse and opened the front door. The four of them stepped inside and closed the door.

“Welcome home!” Kristen said awkwardly as she turned around the corner of the living room to look down the hall towards them.

“I uh, brought some friends.” Darith replied while scratching his head and looking at her nervously, but he noticed she had a similar expression.

“So did we.” Liana called out, turning the corner as well to join in on the awkwardness, and a moment later Darith could see Jaese standing behind them. Jaese went from looking at Darith in the front of the 4 in the hallway to staring at the tallest figure, Gabriel, and the two locked eyes with immediate recognition.

“Gabriel.” Jaese shouted.

“Uh oh.” Liana said to herself.