1 Before the Fall

Dressed in a red, white and blue hooded sweaters a group of six men and women made their way through the densely packed international airport of California. They stood out amongst the people bustling about, trying to catch their last minute flights, as they seemed to be the most relaxed people there.

Nonchalantly, there was single man which stood out from all of them. His sweater was made from shiny fabrics with hexagonal patterns. He wore a olive green backpack, and instead of shorts he wore black cargo pants and oil-slip resistant shoes.

A soft full goatee decorated his delicate chin, right beneath his supple lower lip, and a decadent mustache. His chin was rounded, he had a gentle flat nose and emerald green eyes with golden flecks.

His thick short hair was a dark black, styled with just enough gel to create spikes. Though even without it, the water would just roll off his hair and onto his shoulders. This man had two diagonal streaks near the outer ends of each of his thick brows.

"Hey, M. What'cha doin?" He called forward, giving an upward nod towards the girl which was next to him. He had a cheesy grin across his lips.

"What do you think I'm doing, ass?" She gave a punk tone filled reply, punching his arm with her knuckles, aiming to give him a light bruising.

This man was known as Tyfon Ladas, son of a former Japanese Dignitary and some random Greek immigrant who lived in the United States. While they never married, Tyfon lived most of his life in the United States with his good-for-nothing father until his Mother moved to the United States and took custody when he was eight years old.

By this point his mother had married into a financial group's family hierarchy. While she originally chose to come and take him back to Japan, she found that he had gotten into various activities which would give him merit in the future.

They moved to California together so that they were never far away from the International Airport. When the game 2436 came out, he was one of the first pro players having gotten it only a few days before its actual shelf-release. This guy was so good, he was even able to join the United States team which formed two years after the game came out. Of course it slowly became a international wargame event where contestants from all over the globe would come together to fight it out.

The nature of this game was fights between mercenary groups of six players and dozens if not hundreds of NPCs. The higher the rank of the player, the larger amount of NPC soldiers they could command and customize. On top of that, the game took place in the distant future where theoretical and prototype weapons and gear could be freely used.

"Railguns? We got'em! Point Defense Lasers? We got'em! Drone Defense Grids? WE GOT'EM! Power Armor? We got it! Hover Tanks? Exo Skeletons!? WE GOT IT ALL!"

The commercial never got old. It showed all the basic gear one would have access too and all the advanced items which would come on as they leveled up in rank. The main seller however was the cross-game platforming, allowing the game to emulate characteristics, abilities and skills from other games in order to fight players from a different game. It was the first time it had ever been done and it was state of the art.

…

Boarding on to the private jet which was purchased by the country's team after various rallies battles and funding events, they waved to dedicated fans which were allowed to see them off. Cheers and shouting filled their ears. Forget the sounds of the engines of various other jet planes, all they heard was the screams of people.

If only they were able to shake the earth with all their tenacity and excitement.

Security made sure no one was able to pass and run up to them. There were plenty of gamer girls out there, watching. Either that or they were all just here to appease their boyfriends annoying tastes in game idols.

Tyfon made his way to his favorite seat in the front of the plane. Sitting down he put his bag between his legs and grinned to himself. Day dreaming about the whole event that they were going to arrive in after several hours of flight. Yet right now if felt as if the world was moving all too slow for him.

Someone sat beside him.

"Maaaaan!" A loud masculine voice called out and placed his arm around Tyfon. "I can't wait to get into some Korean gamer girl pants man!"

His emerald green, golden touched, eyes moved to the side to take a look at the person who sat beside him. "… You really like saying those cliché perverted things man. No girl's going to respect you if all you want is funk." Tyfon was a man of self-proclaimed honor. While he had no honor in fighting, he was known for respecting people as long as he was mutually respected as well.

"You're just saying that because you're a virgin my man!"

Tyfon's gaze grew cold, his face turning a bit darker. If they were in a Xianxia novel, this guy would definitely feel his killing intent. He was flooding the plane with it.

"Hey, hey hey~" M, the girl from before, spoke cheerfully as she reached over and shoved the man's arm off of Tyfon's shoulders. "Don't touch the merchandise. Remember, he's the team Beauty Mascot."

Tyfon's eye twitched slightly as he glanced over his shoulder and towards the girl. She was pure Japanese. She had a bob cut, a lock of purple dyed hair. Her personalized look seemed to be that of a punk rocker. She even had a blue and white star over one of her left eye and a red stripe bleeding from beneath it and covering the other eye and vanishing into her hairline.

"M. Throw him out the plane for me, would you? Betta' yet, give him a swirly mid-flight!"

"Hey… That's not very nice." The blond man huffed and crossed his arms with a childish demeanor. This guy was Marvin Jones, all-time team clown. He had long blond hair, a white hair clip keeping the hair out of his eyes. He actually had a very masculine and sharp jawline. The shape of his face was reminiscent of a trapezoid and he had a very angular nose. "My scalp might get ripped off."

"Good. Then you'd no longer need that little hair clip to keep that hair out of your face."

"He's Blond Jesus," M stated with a giggle snort. "He needs the hair."

"Blond Jesus… I like the sound of that." Stroking his beard, his brown eyes looked towards the window as everyone had been seated.

"Either way, let us get a game going once we're airborne. Don't want to be rusty when we get over into Korea." One of the boys from the back of the plane stated with a tone conjoined with a laugh due to the joke prior.

"Hey Ty." M called to Tyfon from behind.

Glancing over, he found a purple and black smart phone shoved in his face. Blinking a few times he stared at the screen. It said memo at the top. Why is she showing a memo?

Slowly his eyes moved down towards words which were written. Reading them silently to himself, his mouth slowly opened.

'Defeat me in one on one, I'll pop your cherry.'

Personally this could be taken two different ways. He could either be getting laid by her, or literally fucked in the ass, by this punk rock wannabe. M was an enigma. Anything she offers may not be what she actually allowed you to think she offered. She had a tendency to gage people. She had several degrees in psychology too, she wasn't just weird.

Slowly nodding in acknowledgement, he would give her a slight wink before looking forward. M let out a girlish squeal and then the proclaimed blond Jesus began looking at him with a raised eye brow.

…

Two hours after departure the game had begun. Like Chinese checkers the map was built as a six edged star. It was a sparing map which each of the mercenary squads could build their bases and then personally command their attacks against one another.

The mini-map would show who owned each corner. If any of the soldiers ran, they would be seen on the map as red or white dots depending if they were allies or enemies. It was currently a free for all. So everyone was an enemy other than their own soldiers.

Each group had a prefabricated cement base which they started in and could build around.

Opening his character status menu, there was a third person view of his character with various other bits and pieces of information along the side. He could hide some status categories as everything was separated into folders. However his main status would always show directly beneath his animated character profile.

Name: Tyfon Ladas

Gender: Male

Mercenary Association: Onyx Divine Sect.

Rank: 6th

Eminence Points: 0/2500

Tyfon's character looked almost exactly like him except he had more of a pale peach skin tone, closer to that of a pure blooded Japanese other than his green eyes. He also increased the Japanese prevalent features, but still kept a lot of his own facial features since he was part Japanese to begin with.

As a Sixth Ranked Mercenary he was capable of summoning, commanding and customizing six squad members. He had six presets. All of his members were female soldiers. In a sense, he had his own personal harem even though the game didn't have any settings to allow such a scheme to work.

The main hub which was used throughout the game could be turned on and off via thoughts of the user. It was a very typical system which increased the performance of the user by tenfold. Giving them access to various menus, such as shop, music-player, inventory, backpack, etc.

…

Tyfon's loadout was rather simple, mainly for the use of stealth and ambush. He and his six other NPC soldiers were all the same except for their chosen weapons. Tyfon had a BR-75, it was a futuristic laser rifle which was sleek and blocky. While it usually had silver and purple as its main colors, he had a tropical forest camo-skin on it.

His spotter was Jemma, her main weapon looked like a supped up FN P90 which had four small rotary barrels instead of one. Like the rest she was wearing a stealth set of power armor which kept them safe from standard issued weapons for several seconds of exposure.

His medic was Ginnie, she had a maser based scattershot and a medical bag on her back.

The other four front liners were Zyphr, Rosalie, Fox and Velvet. Each was armed with a molecular knife, several grenades and enhanced kinetic rifles which fired explosives metal slugs.

Just as they were about to set out in order to find their enemies whom were obviously outside the base and in the jungle somewhere. Everything glitched.

Tyfon felt a sudden jolt, it was just turbulence from the flight. He could hear the Captain speaking over the loud speaker. There was no need to worry.

"Commander?" Ginnie called out to him as she was peering out the front door. She had seen movement in the jungle outside. "There seems to be multiple hostiles closing in from seven o'clock. Sha–010200100400002010302000410…"

Blinking a few times as the language portion of the game began to glitch, he arched a brow. All the graphics were twitching. What was going on? Opening the pause menu, a blank square appeared before him. The buttons were coming in and out of view; no matter how many times he tried to click them, nothing happened.

He could hear several jolts, feel them even. What was going on?

"BRACE BR–"

Tyfon's body was suddenly engulfed in an unexplained warmth. The screen went black and then there was nothing for a few moments.

Then a loading screen appeared. A blue box began to fill up slowly with the words "New World Loading," shining above it.

Wait what?