VR

The elevator stopped, and we stepped into a sort of lobby. There was a receptionist gal that waited right outside the elevator to the left of us, and then just a huge room full of rows of VR pods. There had to be at least a hundred of them in here. Ethan walked up to the desk, and talked to the receptionist for a little while before coming back to me.

"I reserved us two hours," Ethan handed me a card, "I'm in pod C3." he held up the card which clearly showed C3 right on it, "You're in C2." Ethan forged ahead towards row C, "You insert the card, and then you can scan stuff in the little slot right next to the opening." Ethan stopped, and showed me the slot on the my pod, "Once you've scanned the equipment it saves onto your account so you only have to scan stuff once. Then you hop in, and go through set up. I'll send a link from my pod once I'm in."

Ethan took my card, and inserted it into the pod. I climbed in the pod, and laid back against the soft padding. The door closed once I was in, and the padding tightened around my body as a dull light scanned me. Then a white room appeared, and I realized I was on all fours in my real body in here.

"What's going on here?" I was startled by this sudden development.

System has synchronized to VR pod C2. Physical Camouflage is still active outside of VR system. Activities inside of VR pod do not affect user's body directly.

A window appeared in front of my eyes asking me to create a username. I clicked away typing in dragonbeast, and hitting enter. I couldn't use my name, and it was better to just keep things like this simple. An invitation to join telemaster25 popped up. I accepted, and an avatar popped up in front of me.

He was dressed like a viking, and his after had a big beard. It was still clearly Ethan. Ethan looked just as surprised as I was. I transformed back into myself with none of the usual drain on my body, and lucky me my uniform appeared as I transformed. I didn't know why being naked as a human bothered me so much, but it just did.

We started talking as I customized my human character form with a mask, and a plain black jumpsuit covering all of me accept for the back of my head. I didn't want people to know who I was in here since I was planning on using a lot of my dragon abilities.

"You think this'll work," I turned to Ethan.

"Yeah," Ethan smiled as he changed his character as well, "I don't think anyone will be able to tell who you are. These pods are on a restricted network so no one can figure out who we are without seeing our faces. The whole thing is programmed in a way that makes it impossible to connect people to usernames."

"Why would they do that?" I was looking through the masks again making sure I had chosen the mask I wanted.

"Some really angry dudes would track down people that beat them in the game," Ethan changed his avatars outfit to a black set of light armor, "And kick their asses in real life."

"Really?" I chuckled, "Did anyone tell them it's just a game?"

"So," Ethan pulled up a screen, "Do you want to go in a one on one match? A team battle? or a free for all?"

"What's the team battle?" I leaned over to look at the description.

"Oh you pick out a five man team," Ethan started, "And then you try to wipe out the other three teams."

"There's only two of us," I stated.

"We can create a team of two, and then the game randomly selects three more team members from lone players," Ethan explained.

"What about free for all?" I wasn't really interested in one on one right now.

"Every man for himself."

"That doesn't really work for us does it," I pointed at the team battle, "We should go for the team battle."

Ethan selected it, and entered out two usernames in a team. Starting the match. The white room turned into a destroyed city. There was a large wall behind us, and three more players popped up around us. They had a green outline around their bodies.

"Do the other players have red outlines?" I looked at Ethan.

"Great a newb," one of the three new people groaned.

"No," Ethan snapped, "They look like normal people. The green outline just stops you from killing your teammates."

I felt pretty energized so I bounced up, and down a few times. This was how I felt when woke up in the morning. The only difference right now was I was in human form.

"Try not to drag me down," the same dude that complained about me being a newb shoulder checked me as he walked past me.

Readying his weapon. I growled under my breath, and hoped we ended up on different teams later on.

"I'm gonna go all out then," I switched forms the instant the start signal went off.

I heard a few gasps from the players that were still behind me, and darted off in a random direction away from the wall. Ethan used his telekinesis, and picked up a fallen chunk of wall. Going off in another direction. I didn't care what happened to the three randoms on our team, and was pretty sure Ethan could handle himself.

He didn't flinch away from my human form in the VR so he probably didn't think of avatars as people. I spotted movement to my right, and ducked down in a hole. Slinking down a little further to observe from my hidden vantage point. Three guys rushed past my hiding spot in tight formation. I switched to infrared, and noticed two more guys behind the first three.

They were moving much slower than the first three. My guess was that they did that on purpose to catch hidden enemies that tried to attack the others from behind. I poked my head out slowly, and clung to the wall as I went up above them slowly. Checking around myself quickly for any other heat signatures. I ended up above one of the two back guys as I switched back to my normal vision.