2 The Beginning or The End?

The whole canteen was suddenly as silent as a grave. With what terrible event unfolded in front of everyone right now, a grave might have been dug after all.

Who knew what had possessed the poor girl causing her to suddenly jumped into the arms of the school's devil reincarnate, and as if that wasn't shocking enough, she even kissed him.

"Sylvie!" Lance quickly pulled Sylvia off Dax, but before he could get far enough, Sylvia's other arm was grabbed.

If the other person wasn't the school's number one rebel, people might have misunderstood this situation as a love triangle quarrel.

"Let. Her. Go." Lance said slowly in silent warning. Despite the fear everyone has towards Dax, Lance didn't back away from his deathly stare.

"Your girlfriend seems a bit loose, isn't she? Jumping and kissing a stranger just like that."

"She slipped."

"Oh, a clumsy one. I'm not hearing any apology though. Should I teach her how in your stead?"

"Let go, Dax."

"Not a chance," Dax was seething with anger now at being directly challenged.

"You-"

"I'm sorry. I really am," Sylvia apology came, cutting Lance's words off, as the situation became more intense. "I-I slipped. I'm really sorry."

"You sure have an interesting way of slipping, Girl. It looked a lot like you had willingly hopped onto my arms, lifted your head and kissed me."

"That's enough! You had your apology, so let go." Lance said, pulling Sylvia, but Dax still held tight her other arm.

"I haven't accepted her apology, yet."

"What do you want, Dax?" asked Lance.

"Good question, what exactly do I want?" Dax piercing gaze turned toward Sylvia looking at her with such unwanted lover's gaze, making her body shake involuntarily in fear.

Before anyone knew it, a punch had suddenly flown towards Dax's direction.

Finally, letting go of Sylvia's arm, Dax moved sideways and easily caught hold of Lance's fist. He flashed a devilish grin at him, before throwing a hard punch that hit its mark squarely.

Blood started flowing out of Lance's nose. While he was still disoriented, Dax swiped Lance of his feet, causing him to fell down flat on the floor.

However before Dax could continue with his one-sided assault, Sylvia grabbed hold onto his arm with her hands, and shouted out, "STOP!!"

"Stop! Just, stop, please. What exactly do you want me to do?" Sylvia asked in a pleading tone.

"Oh, sh*t she's so dead now."

"That demon hates being touch, especially by girls."

Surprisingly, despite whatever scary imaginations the spectators had conjured in their mind, none of them came true. Rather than all that, Dax simply stared silently at the hands holding his arm tightly, with his brows furrowed seemingly in annoyance. His sudden inaction sent chills down everyone's spine. Just then, his gaze shifted toward Sylvia.

Sneering, Dax said, "Phone."

"What?"

"Take out your d*mn phone and give it to me now, stupid girl."

"Sylvie..." Lance's voice came weakly, he probably had a mild concussion. With that, Sylvia knew she shouldn't waste any more time and took out her phone.

Dax forcefully grabbed the phone. He entered a contact number and when he dialed it up, the phone in his trousers' pocket rang out. Satisfied, he threw Sylvia's phone back at her, saying, "Come when I tell you to. No excuse."

Then, he left the canteen without glancing back even once.

Once the devil had left, conversations started to spring out again, but not as lively. It was as if everyone was afraid that the devil might change his mind and came poking his head again.

On the other hand, Sylvia immediately ran up to check up Lance laying down on the floor in a half-conscious state. Looking back at the crowd that was shamelessly only stared at them, she said, "What are you guys doing? Help me." At first, no one seemed willing to help them, but then a couple of their classmates approached, carrying Lance to the school's infirmary.

******

~In an unknown dark and empty space~

"Wow... That was totally suspenseful, the girl almost got herself killed," said the tiny voice, wiping off the sweat beaded on her forehead.

"System, what did you do?" condemned the tiny voice.

"I simply followed your instructions, Guardian."

"I said you can include unexpected candidates, not a psychopath! Delete that boy from the List of Candidates immediately. There's no way I'm going to get our User involved with that devil."

"Even if his Love Matching Percentage is the highest?" the System asked for confirmation in the Guardian's decision.

"I don't care- Wait, what? Highest? I don't see him anywhere in the List of Candidates."

"Owh, it's this one, Guardian." The System highlighted the Candidate's name at the very top of the List for the Guardian to see, but the name wasn't 'Dax', but something else.

As if the System had noticed the puzzled look on the Guardian's face, it flashed out the profile picture of that particular Candidate on the Main Screen. Despite the difference in name, the picture that on the screen was definitely that of Dax's.

Glancing through the background information on the Candidate, "Hmm…" was the only thing the Guardian said before putting up a playful smile. "Now this is an interesting fish to play with. Hihi…"

Sylvia who was currently in the school's infirmary waiting for the teacher's assessment on Lance suddenly shivered. She looked around, wondered where the cold feeling had come from.

******

'The number you have dialed is currently unreachable, please try again later.' Sylvia called her Editor for the fifth time tonight. She had been trying to reach him for the whole day with no luck. Uncle Sammy must have a business out of the city right now.

Putting down the phone, Sylvia turned towards the metallic bracelet trying once again to wrench it free from her wrist. "What is this thing? Come on! Come off me already!" screamed Sylvia in frustration.

Sylvia wasn't sure about their connections, but all those weird things had happened after she had worn this godd*mn THING! "Ugh... Fine!" Sylvia gave up, throwing herself on the bed.

Today was definitely an awful day, what was with Lance being sent to the infirmary. Luckily, he walked away with just a small bump on the head and a bruised nose. Though they sure had a hard time convincing Aunt Marie, Lance's mother, that they hadn't caught themselves in big trouble. Well, at least one of them wasn't.

Dax.

Full name Dagger Xamin.

Who was in school, doesn't know about that guy's devilish reputation? Even for Sylvia, she had heard enough since day one at the Falcon High School.

Being the son of one of the school's main donor, Dax was untouchable. He was free to execute his reign of terror at school without anyone with authority batting an eye at any of his faults. If any report were received, rather than that devil, it will be the reporting person that will be prosecuted by the higher-ups of the school. For a school that was reputed to be cleared from any discrimination, this bias action seemed to indicate otherwise. Guessed anyone can become a slave in the face of money. Unless there was something more to Dax's Family, that the school deemed it unwise to anger them.

Either way, Sylvia had been careful not to have a mark put on her head, by any of the problematic-type of students, and yet today...

"WORST DAY EVER!" shouted Sylvia, letting out all of her pent-up stress.

"What is that guy going to do to me..." sobbed Sylvia. She had heard before, that Dax had no mercy even toward girls. Last time, a girl was thrown down a staircase just because she accidentally brushed his shoulder in the school hallway. The way that guy had creepily looked at her before, "He's not going to rape me out of spite, is he?"

"I haven't even got close enough to have a boyfriend. I don't want to throw my purity away just because I accidentally pissed someone off!"

"Then why not get one up on him?" suddenly out of nowhere a tiny voice spoke out.

Startled, Sylvia jumped off from the bed, looking around her bedroom for the source of that voice. "Wh-who's there?!" No matter where she looked, there was no one else other than her. Despite that, that voice just now had sounded so close that it might have been right next to her.

"You can stop looking around, Girl. I'm not in your room," said that same tiny voice. "Well, now that we have the opportunity to, let's talk, shall we?"

Then, with the snap of the Guardian's fingers, Sylvia's consciousness dimmed out before becoming clear again as she found herself in total darkness.

"W-where am I?" asked Sylvia worriedly.

"In your Mind Space, User," answered the tiny voice, then, "System, lights please."

"Yes, Guardian," the System answered.

As lights flashed on, adjusting her vision to the sudden brightness, Sylvia finally saw the owner of that tiny voice.

"You're a fai-"

"Pixie! I'm a pixie! Why does everyone get it wrong every single time? I'm not that pretty princessy thingies, okay. Those things spend all day long beautifying and gossiping amongst themselves, which I am not and will never be part of," claimed the Pixie in a self-dignify manner.

"Well, I'm sorry... Umm... You are?"

"This is why I keep telling the Master to prepare a manual book for our User BEFORE using the system, not DURING program progression," sighed the Pixie.

"System, go and explain," ordered the Pixie nonchalantly.

The System sweat-dropped.

"Shouldn't you be the one explaining everything to our User, Guardian?" thought the System silently, but it obeyed the order nonetheless.

"User, I am called the First Love System. I have been programmed with the Matchmaking Program to help you-"

"Blah blah blah... System, you'll be practically singing our User a lullaby like this. Let ME explain," the Pixie cut in the System's self-introduction causing it to sweat-drop for a second time. "Look, Girl, we're basically here to help you find a boyfriend, which looking at your current situation, something you need desperately."

"And who exactly were the ones who put me in this desperate situation in the first place?" After hearing the two spoke for a while, Sylvia recognized them as the voices that had spoken to her earlier that day in the canteen before those unfortunate 'accidents' had occurred.

"I beg your pardon, Girl-"

"Stop calling me, Girl. I'm Sylvia." Having been called 'girl' by that devil was enough for Sylvia, she didn't want one more person to call her that. "That's enough, whatever you both are doing I'm done with it.

"Alright, Syl-Vi-Ah..." the Pixie repeated Sylvia's name in a mocking tone.

"You-!"

"It will shut down."

"What will?" asked Sylvia getting irritated with all these 'people' talks.

"The Matchmaking Program will end once you find a boyfriend, and that IS the only way to shut down the First Love System — to make everything end."

"End the program, with a boyfriend? Wait, are you saying that I have to continue with this absurdity until I do whatever you two wanted?"

"Daahhh…" The Pixie sighed exasperatingly, before instructing, "System, bring up all the Candidates profiles for our User to see."

Suddenly, on a large screen beside Sylvia, pictures of mostly unknown teenage boys appeared, including that of Dax's. She immediately has a bad feeling about this.

"Okay, I'll now explain how the First Love System works..."

******

Next day, at Falcon High School.

Students at Falcon High were separated into three buildings according to their years. Although the buildings were interconnected with each other by a walkway situated on each floor, usually other than during school assemblies, events or clubs' activities, students of different years would probably not meet with each other.

However, strangely today, a second-year female student was lurking around at the back corridor of the First-Year Building. Well, 'lurking' was an overstatement of her credibility as anyone passed by near that area can easily make out her suspicious action, but let us gave her a bit of credit for trying, at least that was what most of the first-years was politely doing.

It was obvious that the senior was looking for someone, with the high chance of that being among the first-years, but interestingly none of them were willing to help her. Those who almost came near to intrude her will back away immediately when they reached the last three steps. Suspicious actions aside, the senior was mumbling alone, talking to herself. Furthermore, she frequently had her attention on the thing on her wrist – a metallic bracelet – moving her hand mid-air somewhere on top of it. This definitely scared the h*ll out of those first-years.

Despite the strange looks, her juniors gave her, the second-year continued lurking as if waiting for something or perhaps someone.

Suddenly...

BEEP! BEEP!