[Current mission: Survive]

“Really helpful!” I snark as I duck out of the way of a rouge spear. The chaos has only gotten worse, blood painting the cave’s unnaturally smooth ground, yells and screams echoing in the cavernous space, the strange taste of ozone as magic sparks and crackles. Every way you look another body either dead or dying.

This situation is already confusing enough as is! It hadn’t even been 10 minutes since we all woke up here, 100 random strangers forced together and stuck in bodies that weren’t our own, this had been the thing to cause the most confusion, even I was momentarily taken aback by the new bright pink color of my hair and the pointed ears.

All of us were now “players”, with powers and skills that shouldn’t be possible and yet somehow were real. There was no refusing this “gift” as the system put it, not that it said much of anything, only flashing a vague goal of [Pass the tutorial to advance!] before blinking out of view.

I honestly couldn’t care less about whatever weird situation I’ve ended up in, you spend long enough bouncing between foster homes and you see far stranger things than an 7-foot tall orc in a bathrobe holding a wand and summoning lighting to electrocute a businessman with rams horns and hooved feet. Though I will admit this is probably at least in the top 3 strangest things I’ve ever seen, but I’m still not sure if this is truly happening or if I’m having the worst nightmare of my life.

But dream or not, I wasn’t taking the risk of it being real and me not take it seriously. My only concern was finding my brother, who I know was with me before I ended up wherever I am now. At least the last memory I have is of us together, I was just about to drop him off for his senior capstone presentation. He had even promised to bake me my favorite cookies if he did well. (And it should have been me doing something for him, since it was his achievement, but Zeke’s affection has always been a bit odd like that, it was the reason everyone adored him and why he was so gullible to bad intentions. Which means I need to find him quickly before he gets sucked up into the idea of playing hero in this stupid game and gets himself hurt)

Unfortunately I was no longer able to keep searching for my brother because some idiots upon realizing this is a game, deiced to test if PVP is on, and sadly for everyone it very much is. thus, leading to the crazed bloodbath I’m currently stuck in the middle of.

I wanted no part in any of this, but the stupid system that constantly hovers nearby with its cheery blue glow didn’t care about mine or anyone else’s protests.

Reincarnation or a new start are fantasy tropes for a reason, sure my life was bottom of the barrel, and sucked more than a bad soap drama plot; with tragic deaths, mysterious deadbeat fathers showing up years too late, and a never-ending stream of people trying to scam us out of the tiny inheritance that wouldn’t even have let us pay rent for a tiny apartment for more than a year. But it was still my life, and I still have people I would like to see again, magic powers or glory be dammed. Sure magic is cool and it would be nice to be truly respected but it's only tempting in the same way a midnight dream about being a superhero is, mildly amusing to ponder but hell to actually live through. It’s never good to be different, power lets you make the rules, but getting to that level is a dangerous game I would rather not play, not when I have someone else to watch out for. Best to keep your head down mind your business, and keep living.

Which is why I’m finding my brother and then getting the fuck out of here. If these losers wanted to kill each other what do I care?

[Current Mission: survive]

“I heard you the first time! Repeatedly showing me that isn’t going to make me die any slower!”

As if cowed by my glare the system blinks away and for a blissful moment, it’s just me running for my life and scanning the thinning crowd for a familiar face, as screams and sobs echo around me before it blinks back on.

[Activate ability: Shield of Peace?]

“Ability? What are you—” my sentence ends abruptly with a gasp of surprise as I find my body lurching, my sneaker catching on the edge of a body and sending me crashing into the hard stone ground and a sticky splatter of drying blood.

“Fuck,” I hiss to myself, frowning down at the red now staining my hands and clothes, Zeke is going to give me such a long lecture for this. “Should have warned me about that stupid system instead of giving me weird prompts. I should—”

I get cut off as a new voice echoes from behind me, “Player located.”

I spin around, but not fast enough to dodge the hand clamped down on my shoulder forcing me to stay half bent on the ground.

The person is… strange and I’m not entirely sure a person at all, even though they look mostly normal. Minus the elf ears and the bright system blue light of her eyes. Her expression is hallow, unseeing even as she turns to face me with intent.

I had caught a glimpse of this women earlier and assumed she was part of the fools currently going on a rampage around us. But now I realize she’s only ever been moving in a straight line, a path of neatly cut bodies in her wake and yet a blood free sword in her hands.

I’ve been in plenty of fights before, even ones where people had to seek medical attention, but a good old-fashioned fight for survival is different from the massacre happening all around me. Sure fighting is fun, pushing your body to the limits and indulging in our buried needs as a predator species to come out on top. The rush of victory a thrill I will never forget and ever hunger for, but it’s just that, a sport and a thrill, it's not... this. 

Mindless and uncaring, there isn’t even any joy in the hunt just medical slaughter, as if a machine is the one performing the killings. It makes a sour taste dance across my tongue, something I recognize as disgust. It would be one thing to lose to a victor stronger than me, who earned the kill and who I know will relish in it, but it is completely another to be a forgotten face in a sea of blood that served no purpose.

Snarling I pivot around and slam a hand kick right into the side of her torso but she barely flinches even though I can feel one of her ribs crack. I’ve seen people take pain before but this isn’t taking the pain, this is not feeling it at all.

It's unsettling enough that it makes me pause for a second too long and she catches me off guard, hand tightening around my collarbone and t-shirt and hauling me into the air. Her hand is like a vice, and no matter how I claw or snarl or how much blood I draw she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even really look at me, eyes blank with a glowing blue glow. Effortless holding me aloft so only the toes of my sneakers barely brush the ground. An impressive feat of strength for a woman who is barley 5 feet.

“Anomaly confirmed,” she says, eyes flashing a bright blue before dimming, “proceeding with integration to assess how the error appeared.”

Great and she even talks like a robot, but if there’s magic that lets you shoot fireballs out of your hands, it probably isn’t that much of a stretch for there to be human-like robots. ‘But I’d sooner swallow poison than let some mindless hunk of metal kill me!’

“I don’t know who the fuck you are or what you want, but get your filthy spinless hands off me before I kill you myself!”

She tilts her head at me like a confused dog a rather human reaction, but as she moves my eyes catch on her neck, and where veins would be on a normal person, there are instead weird and branching lines too perfect to be an organic bloodstream that glow from under her skin. She really is some sort of robot. The sour taste grows stronger as I snap my teeth with a snarl, kicking her in the side and punching her shoulder, it feels like normal flesh, but she doesn’t react to any of the pain.

“Anomaly confirmed,” it repeats completely ignoring me, which earns it a kick in its robotic shin. “Target under the false belief of being able to terminate player 45327. Unknown why anomaly would believe this, the target player is a [acolyte] and therefore has no offensive skills or abilities. Target has no way of defeating player 45327 who is a [fighter].”

I snarl at the no offensive abilities comment and give her a knee to her guts but she doesn’t flinch or even let out a noise of pain, just continues to stand statue still, not even breathing.

“Conclusion,” she says uncaring of how I struggle in her grip to get free, “Target is delusional and can provide no further information to system error.” The machine blinks, eyes shifting from the bright blue of the system to a dark red, her grip on my throat tightening to the point where I can’t breathe. “Conclusion, target anomaly must be terminated immediately.”