They all looked at each the panic evident on their faces. Ned looked out the many men in black attire storming the building with weapons again and he gulped.

“Alpha Eye said the gunshots here actually hurt, despite it being a game,” said Ned.

Gars looked around at them, “Anyone here got shot before?”

“I have,” answered Rook. “Well not shot, but tasered, it hurts pretty badly.”

“This is not a taser, that was completely unrelated, there was no need to even mention it,” said Clinton adjusting his glasses.

“Getting shot by actual bullets I suppose is worse,” said Rook thoughtfully.

“No,” disagreed Gars. “It should be better, you die pretty, quickly don’t you?”

“Stop being idiots!” said Ned. “We’re not going to die, worst case scenario, we have to do the tutorial again, now what the hell’s our plan?”

At this they all looked at Clinton who seemed to be looking forward to this as his face for the first time displayed a hint of a smile. He pushed up his glasses and looked outside where the rain was still showering, it had not yet turned into a full-blown water fall.

“If it’s escaping the bomb we need to do then we just need to jump out of the window,” said Clinton at which all three of their mouths fell open.

“That’s your brilliant plan?” asked Gars. “Weren’t you supposed to be a genius and all?”

“Be quiet,” ordered Clinton. “Let me finish, now we still have our optional mission of killing fifteen men, the thing to take into consideration is should we complete this side mission.”

“Of course,” said Rook. “I’ve played enough games to know that if you can do it perfectly you might as well.”

“How many games exactly have you played?” asked Gars and Ned stepped down hard on his foot.

“Shut up!”

Ned nodded to Clinton to continue. Clinton turned away from and paced from side to side in a thoughtful daze.

After the pacing he turned inquisitorially to the three. “What I am asking is whether any of you have had experience with murder or killing.”

“It wouldn’t be like real, would it?” asked Gars nervously, even Ned felt a little horrified at the thought.

Clinton shot out another question. “Can we even handle fifteen armored and armed men?”

“They wouldn’t give us something we couldn’t do,” Rook said lifting the shotgun he was holding onto his shoulder. “I’m all for it.”

“I do not mind it so much either, I think,” said Clinton and they both turned to Gars and Ned.

“Well I don’t think I’ll be able to,” said Gars. “If it’s anything like real…”

“It’s fully immersive is what Alpha Eye told us,” said Ned. “So, I assume it’s real-life.”

“Precisely what I was to say,” said Clinton.

“Which means like blown brains, spraying blood and all that right,” said Rook.

“Somewhat like that,” said Clinton and Gars gulped.

“Uh no, I don’t know,” said Gars stepping back.

“What did you get as a weapon?” asked Ned.

Gars opened his inventory and tapped on his weapons, his pistol attached itself to his thigh with a holster and a large canister appeared on his back with a wire attached gun in his hand.

“A flame thrower,” said Clinton with a glint in his eyes.

“That will help us, won’t it?” asked Ned.

“Definitely,” said Clinton. “It’s better than your assault rifle Edward and, Rookfield’s shotgun, in something like this.”

“Hey if you’re worried about blowing them up all over, then you don’t need to worry, you’re going to fry them,” said Rook in a comforting manner and Gars paled, Ned turned an angry glare at Rook who shrugged.

“Right, everyone else gets bullets and guns, I get a flamethrower, if anyone needs barbecue they can come to me,” said Gars weakly.

“It’s alright, if you don’t want to,” said Ned grasping Gars’ shoulder.

“Just stay behind us,” said Ned.

He opened his profile screen and scrolled across reading it one last time before executing whatever plan that Clinton had when he noticed his skill >. He quickly turned to the others.

“Do any of you have skills?” he asked excitedly.

Frowning Rook and Gars opened their interface as well, however Clinton nodded, it seemed he had read through the interface very well.

“Gun turret, I can summon a gun turret that doesn’t move and has a steady stream of fire.”

Clinton folded his arms as he looked at the others whilst Ned became a little excited. With skills their chances of mission completion increased.

“Mine is called solar flare, and it essentially does the same thing as a flash bang,” said Gars frowning. “It’s not as amazing a gun turret.”

“Mine is something akin to a small grenade, it’s called firebomb apparently it also inflicts burns,” said Rook. “Ughh, I sound so geeky.”

“Oh I’m sure your friends will forgive you considering we’re about to be drilled by so many bullets that we’ll probably look like a strainer by the end of it,” said Gars sarcastically.

“They’re not–,” Rook hurriedly stopped himself, looking furious with himself, he turned away.

Ned gave Gars a ‘what happened’ look to which Gars shrugged. Ned clapped his hands together to get everyone’s attention.

“Right, we have skills, we have weapons,” said Ned. “We are also running out of time.”

Ned looked at the timer showing up at the side of his vision now, he was going to have to get used to this strange way of looking at the world.

“We have less than eighteen minutes now, and–,” Ned continued and as he was about proceed on he suddenly stopped as he heard the marching footsteps coming up.

“And they’re here,” said Gars. “What do we do Clinton?”

“Formation,” said Clinton. “We face the enemies and cover each other’s blindspots, I read it in a book, follow behind each other.”

“Right,” said Ned. “Gars will have to be at the back,” Ned looked at his best friend apologetically but Gars nodded. “Clinton or Rook will be at the front.”

“Do you wanna?” asked Rook pointing to the door and Clinton ran up.

“I’ll be up front, my gun turret is immovable, maybe I can use it at the start,” said Clinton.

“Excellent, we have a plan,” said Ned.

They carefully moved towards the door with Clinton and Rook upfront, Ned a little further back but between them, his assault rifle trained on the door and Gars picking up the tail. It seemed to be like an ‘action thriller’ movie scene until the door in front of them blew up. None of them had any time to even gasp before they were pushed back with such force that it left them stunned for a moment as they lay on the floor gasping. Coughing and with his eyes watering Ned scrawled back further as he hit the wall and through the haze of the smoke he saw footsteps coming in.

“Fucking shit!!” roared Rook from somewhere in the room.

“Is everyone alright?” asked Ned still trying to clear his eyes and right himself.

He heard positive groans from around the room and then he saw the barrels of guns. He didn’t even know what he was doing or thinking, his body reacted on its own. He reached back and clasped his hand onto the window sill and somersaulted back. His foot broke through the window glass cleanly as he fell clear out of the window of the third floor of the unfinished hospital. He heard yells form above, mostly his name. As he fell to the ground, the only thing on his mind was > and his entire body lost feeling for a millisecond as his fall slowed. He hit the ground gently and he saw other men in black downstairs. So noiseless was his landing however that none of them had however turned towards him. He grit his teeth and trained his assault rifle. With a snarl he opened fire. Never had he thought that he would be capable of such brutality. He mowed down three before they even opened fire on him and he hide behind a pillar taking in deep breaths. He looked upwards towards the window he had broken and prayed that the other three were alright, especially Gars. Suddenly atop his gun the bullet count showed up. It showed up 111/128, he still had a hundred and eleven bullets remaining but with the constant stream of fire from behind him he could not turn to even glance. After a minute or so he closed his eyes to calm himself down. If he didn’t do something, the timer would run out and they didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. Suddenly from above he heard a huge explosion, the window he had broken was billowing flames and smoke now, along with several other windows on the same floor. He heard loud firing sounds, they were not akin to the sounds that his or the men in black’s assault rifles made and therein he was glad. Gars, Rook and Clinton were alive and they were fighting back. He heard another explosion go on inside and loud shots from what he guessed was Rook’s shotgun rang out. The firing on him slowly began ceasing, there were fewer sounds now. He took in three deep breaths and turned pointing his assault rifle from the corner he glanced around, there were merely two now with the rifles still on him. He closed his eyes and prayed and then fired the gun without even looking from the corner of the pillar. It hit, he heard the bullet piercing the flesh and a body hitting the floor. He turned to look and that was all the other man in black with the assault rifle on him needed. A shot fired hit him right in the shoulder and sent him toppling back. He heard the robotic voice inside his head.

Warning, you have been injured. Mode of injury, yellow, you are bleeding.

At the corner of his eyes under the timer he saw a yellow bar appearing. It appeared to be dimming little by little however. He looked at the timer, it had just hit the twelve-minute mark and was counting down. He tried to get up but there was intense pain from his shoulder. He clutched the assault rifle next to him and looked up. The man in black ran towards him, he guessed it was to finish him off. He blinked twice and hoped that Gars, Rook and Clinton could complete the tutorial. Looking at the barrel of the gun in his face panic slowly welled up inside him when suddenly the man was enveloped in flames. There was an unholy scream from him as he dropped his assault rifle and struggled back trying to douse the flames. He was by now nearly entirely on fire. Ignoring the pain in his hands Ned clambered onto his knees and with his assault rifle he fired two shots to the man. His target the head but he hit the chest and a leg. The man keeled over backwards and the scream stopped. He saw Gars behind with a shaking flamethrower in his hands.

“I…I,” but Gars before could finish it before he was clapped on the back by Rook.

The flames slowly died down revealing what was a horribly deformed figure burned and sizzling and Gars couldn’t take it anymore, he vomited. Rook jumped back in shock with a loud shout. Ned himself wasn’t faring any better whilst looking at the dead body in front of them. He looked past Rook and Clinton and a pile of dead bodies.

“Holy hell, did we do all that?” he asked, there was a cold feeling welling up inside him.

“Indeed, we did,” said Clinton adjusting his glasses which was balanced on the tip of his nose.

Rook to looked back and suddenly his face turned pale. Gars vomited again and Ned ran to his friends’ side despite the queasy feeling inside his stomach and slowly patted his back as he emptied the contents of his stomach entirely onto the floor.

“I think I get where Hurst is coming from,” said Rook clenching his teeth.

He turned and walked a fair few feet away from them and then vomited himself. Ned himself felt the bile rising up his throat, there was the aftertaste of the juice he had for morning tea and he spat down and gulped back in the bile. It was a complete mess, blood was seeping over the floor, flesh was strewn across from the heavy fire and there was something grey oozing out of a man’s head into his blood. The worst thing however was the crisp burnt body’s smell.

“Why hasn’t the tutorial ended?” asked Ned in a weak voice as he gulped in again.

“I suspect that we still haven’t escaped the blast radius,” said Clinton. “It didn’t say kill everyone but escape the blast radius, that is our main objective.”

Ned with panic looked at the timer but then he sighed, there a little over eight minutes left. He looked at Rook who appeared to be vomiting again and Gars who seemed to have calmed down. There was dreary, tired to look in all of their eyes. Gars walked over to the pillar behind which Ned hid behind and sat down.

“I just want a moment,” said Gars in-between deep breaths.

“Me too,” said a faint voice from the side.

Ned looked at Clinton who nodded and they came to tacit understanding, they still had time. It wouldn’t hurt to rest. Ned looked opened the interface and looked at the mission board. On it showed the mission details and information. The optional mission had been accomplished, but the main mission was still yet to be finished.

Mission: Escape the Building and the Blast Radius in 30 minutes.

Optional Mission: Kill 15 Enemy Soldiers with you weapons.

Number Killed: 15/15 (Optional Mission Completed)

Brief: Infiltrating the enemy headquarters you have planted a bomb at the center of it for maximum casualties. The enemies have however converged on your point. You must successfully escape the enemy soldiers and make it out of the blast radius in thirty minutes. Failure to do so will risk in death.

Rewards: 75 Rank Points, Tutorial Gift Pack

Failure: Mission will restart. Fail it three times and your AR Matrix will be removed.

“Edward?” called out Clinton and Ned turned towards the stout boy with glasses. “I want to ask you something because this is beyond technology border-lining actual magic, you said Robert gave this to you, how did he get access to it?”

Ned looked at the ground thoughtfully thinking back to the night. “I don’t know, he never told me.”

“I wish to know the origins of this game,” said Clinton. “And also, however many others are playing it.”

“No one’s ever even heard of this game, how the hell are we going to figure that out?” asked Gars.

“We just need to find out more about that freak Hudlow,” said Rook walking over still looking a little green and he glanced at Ned and Gars. “Can’t be that hard, you three were friends, weren’t you?”

“We still are friends,” said Ned.

“Except Robbie hasn’t really been in the right mind recently,” said Gars. “He had delusional something or other order.”

“Delusional Disorder,” corrected Clinton. “Are you sure it was delusional disorder and not this game.”

“The truth is we can’t tell right now,” said Ned. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I need answers,” said Rook. “But apart from that this seems like a cool enough game.”

“Cool,” spluttered Gars. “You just vomited everything from yesterday’s dinner to today’s lunch.”

“It’s a little too realistic but we can get used to it,” said Rook shrugging.

“Yeah sure get used to it, after we get used to vomiting that is,” said Gars with a shiver.

“You’re all fine right,” said Ned cutting across as Rook was about to say something. “If you’re not going to vomit anymore then let’s escape the blast radius or whatever.”

“Where do you think we’d need to move to?” asked Gars slowly standing. “To escape the blast radius that is.”

“I don’t know,” said Ned shrugging and together they moved out towards the gates, leaving devastation in their wake.

“Wait…stop,” said Clinton pausing his walk as he examined his pistol. “Can people see us with these?”

Ned too frowned as he realized the sudden problem but then the light went of above his head. “We just put it back in the inventories, we took it out of it right?”

“Yeah that works,” said Gars opening his inventory and fiddling with his flame thrower.

“How do we put it in?” asked Clinton frowning as he examined the pistol then his inventory interface.

“Just shove it in,” said Rook and he did just that, he pushed the shotgun into the inventory.

Ned however had another idea as he opened his profile interface and he tapped next to the item icons on his body displayed on the profile interface and options came up, amongst it was unequip. He gladly pressed the button and then turned to the others who appear to be contemplating taking of their body armor to shove into the inventory.

“Go to the profile window and click unequip,” advised Ned.

With that soon they were outside the abandoned hospital grounds and a beep resounded in their heads. In front of their eyes words popped up.

Mission Completed!

Rewards have been sent to the inventory.

75 Rank Points Earned

20 Rank Points Earned from killing the enemies.

Ned opened his interface again with that and the stats showed up. As he had expected the rank points had increased. Though the twenty rank points he obtained after the seventy-five rank points for mission reward were surprising.

Name: Edward Matthew Caesar

Displayed Name: Thunderbird

Status: Progenitor/Alive

Class: Sky Razer

Rank: Gun Novice (95/150)

Skills:

Weightless (Active)

Cooldown Time: 15 seconds

An ability to make the body weightless for a short duration of five seconds. During this period the player’s agility is increased by four points. This is added as a buff. The points return to normal once the skill ends.

Buffs:

The Firstborn (Permanent)

As a player that has received the status of progenitor, the player gets a permanent +1 to all their status points. This increase once your rank upgrades by +1 for each rank upgrade.

Stats:

Strength (STR): 12 (+1)

Agility (AGI): 16 (+1)

Dexterity (DEX): 15 (+1)

Intelligence (INT): 14 (+1)

Stat Points: 0

Ned turned to the others who like him seemed to sate their curiosity by looking at the profile interface.

“How much rank points did you get?” asked Ned.

“Eighty?” answered Gars excitedly.

“That makes sense, you only killed one enemy,” said Clinton. “I have got a hundred and five rank points.”

“I have ninety-five rank points as well,” said Rook.

They made it to Rook’s car and then it happened. In an almighty glorious blaze, the building behind them exploded for all it was worth and they were pushed back onto the ground from the impact. At the impact Clinton’s glasses fell of his face.

“Oh god of hell!” gasped Gars as he looked at the blazing inferno.

“I agree with your notion,” said Clinton searching and picking up his glasses.

“What in the hell of fucks just happened?” asked Rook sitting on his ass just dazed.

“The building exploded,” answered Ned dumbly.

“I know that.” Rook gave Ned a withering look.

“So, does the whole neighborhood I think,” said Gars looking around but there was not a single soul in sight. “Or maybe they’ll know soon enough.”

“We need to get out of here,” decided Ned and he turned to Rook.

“Already on it,” Rook unlocked his car and opened the driver’s seat.

Gars clambered into the back but Clinton was still on his butt looking up at the blazing inferno. Ned ran to Clinton and forcibly picked him up and dragged him to the car.

“You can watch the fireworks later Clinton.” He pushed the chubby boy into the back seat and slammed the door and he himself clambered into the front seat next to Rook and car took off.

Leaving the haze of orange and the sky of grey behind them.

“I thought this was a game,” said Gars. “Why did the building just explode, we cleared the mission didn’t it.”

“We cleared the exploding building but that doesn’t stop the building from exploding,” answered Clinton.

“Yeah full immersion,” agreed Ned and looked to Rook. “What do you think’s going to happen to the building and the place now.”

“I don’t maybe firetrucks will come,” said Rook. “If dad ever finds this out I’m screwed.”

“Your dad just got a free demolition done something half constructed,” said Gars. “He should be happy.”

Rook glared at Gars through the rear vision interior mirror which made him shut up. He turned to Ned who gulped as he caught Rook’s sight.

“If you ever find that Hudlow, I will twist him into pretzel,” said Rook angrily as he floored the accelerator shooting through the streets.

An alarmed Ned clutched the edges of his seat. “I will tell you when I find out where Robbie, but please just slow down.”

The car slowed slightly but it was still over speeding, driving at seventy kilometers in a fifty-kilometer zone. Finding new ways to fear for his life Ned sat in Rook’s car as it sped in the direction of the arch’s exit.