8 My First Side Quest

It was now later in the day and the trio could not find a wyvern to slay. "I swear upon my membership that I will beat them if this was all to play hooky," said Logan in an agitated tone.

"How would you play 'hooky' if we're not at school," asked Vanessa.

"People will sometimes task people out with fake missions for the sake of wasting their time" answered Andres, "in which case you have to beat them up so they don't do it again".

Vanessa was a little disturbed by this as she did not want to get into any real conflict with other players.

"Alright! Time to play bait" yelled Logan.

"Upon that mountain over there," asked Andres.

"Anywhere" replied Logan in his agitated state.

Vanessa, Andres, and Logan ventured to the top of the mountain. Andres stood on top to skyline himself as bait while Logan, along with Vanessa, hid at the cliff.

As the trio waited, Logan came to deep thought. The guys who gave Logan the mission never said what type of wyvern it was. Nor did they know the kind of attack it shot out. Perhaps this wyvern attempted a quick ambush and left when they escaped. This gave Logan a hunch as to what they were dealing with.

Logan kept himself low to call out, "Hey Andres, it's a lightning wyvern. Stop pacing".

Andres was rubbing his forehead as she came to a halt from his pacing. He remained alert by looking through his peripherals to see when the wyvern was coming. Nothing was seen, but a sound of a shuriken spinning in the air was soon heard with Logan's command, "Explode".

He looked back seeing a blue wyvern with darkened wings soar down at him. Andres quickly put up his shield as the wyvern let out a lightning blast from its mouth.

"Nooo!" yelled Vanessa in fear as Andres was hit by the lightning attack and Logan's shuriken exploded on the wyvern.

"His shield is magic resistant! So don't worry!" yelled Logan as he charged towards the wyvern.

After tanking the lightning blast Andres clenched his sword and jumped for the wyvern's head. The wyvern, still in midair, had attempted to fly back to get away from Andres. Logan stabbed into the wyvern and called, "Paralysis".

The wyvern was paralyzed in midair when Andres slammed his sword on top of the wyvern's head. He drove it down into the dirt while Logan fell off with his sword.

The wyvern quickly turned now that it was on the ground, knocking back Andres with its tail. The wyvern bit at Logan who had just gotten to his feet. Vanessa intercepted by jabbing it in the head with her extended batons.

The wyvern bit Vanessa's arm as it flew away.

"Vanessa" cried the two boys as they took off running for the wyvern.

Never in Vanessa's life was she more scared than now. Knowing she was being bitten by a wyvern and flown into the air with no safety meant she was only a second away from really dying. She watched as the wyvern soared higher and faster while she was losing her breath and consciousness.

Logan was barely able to keep up with the wyvern while Andres on the other hand fell way behind.

Luckily, the wyvern was extremely fatigued from Andres' attack. Once it approached the end of the mountain, it stopped and landed on top of the now barely struggling Vanessa, squeezing her with its claws like an eagle would a baby kitten.

Logan was approaching which prompted the wyvern to take a bite out of Vanessa regardless of the risk.

He threw out two shurikens, calling out, "Explode" just as a giant hammer was hurled at the wyvern before it bit Vanessa.

The wyvern fell dead to the hammer and Logan's shuriken flew past it, exploding on a large ogre.

Logan, who had seen the ogre while running, ran past Vanessa towards the charging ogre and yelled, "Fireball".

He blew out a giant fireball from his mouth towards the ogre.

The fireball had hit the ogre, leading Logan to call out, "Burn".

The ogre did not stop despite the flames. It continued to race towards Logan enraged with its skin on fire and drool dripping from its mouth.

Vanessa swung its large hammer onto the ogre's knees, causing the ogre to drop to the now-injured knee. She jumped and jabbed her baton through the ogre's temple.

The ogre quickly punched Vanessa away towards its back enabling Logan to quickly attempt to slice the ogre's neck with his sword. Missing his strike, Logan jumped behind the ogre next to Vanessa before the ogre was able to counter.

The ogre was quick to turn and face his two tiny opponents giving Andres a full blind spot.

Andres launched himself into the air and swung his sword as hard as possible to slice off the ogre's head. He then landed into a perfect combat roll away from the ogre.

Music played as Logan and Andres jumped to their feet to perform their respective victory pose. Vanessa was frightened, yet still stood up with a frigid smile, bent at the hips, and held out two fingers with her tongue sticking out as her victory pose.

..................................................

Later that night at the market place, the remains of both the wyvern and the ogre were sold and traded in for great weapons for the three Vanessa, Andres, and Logan. They collected their points for the mission at 2,00 points each.

Vanessa looked at the hammer from the ogre and asked, "What should I do with the hammer"?

"Trade it for an ability," said Logan, "You need an actual ability to use now. Just head over to Oaka. He will help you. My advice, get either a damage-dealing ability or a debuff ability".

Iku walked up with Andres and said, "Hey, I heard of your fight today".

"It was horrible," said Vanessa with a distressed look on her face. "It flew me up into the middle of the air while it was biting by my arm and then it slammed me down to eat me".

Iku gasped, "Wow. Did Andres or Logan explain to you that it was all fake"?

Vanessa's brows shot up with her body explaining quickly "no, it was real and I was in the air with no safety".

Iku took notice of her racing heart while Logan and Andres were laughing.

"You were only like 8 feet in the air," said Andres. "If Logan had caught up he could have pulled on your feet and the wyvern would have brought you down".

Vanessa started to blush in embarrassment for she had sworn she was higher in the air.

Iku laughed, "And these creatures are robots. Their inner mouths are made so that they don't actually harm you when they bite you. But they can still latch on to you and hold you tight. If not, then they won't fly with you".

Logan stated, "Additional pain is created using sensors that make it feel like it's piercing your skin. If you don't believe me, check the bite marks on your arm versus the bruises on your chest when you go home tomorrow".

Vanessa sat back down in shock as everything she went through was mostly fake and exaggerated from her perception.

"How many points do you have now," asked Iku.

"Reality check: player menu" called Vanessa.

The four looked at Vanessa's stats to see she had 743 stunt points and a power score of 597.

"Congrats, you grew in less than two days," said Iku.

"Now make sure you all show her how to use her points and build her power score," she said to the two boys.

"This is it, Andres, with one more person like Vanessa we are sure to make it to pro in June," said Logan, holding his fist in the air.

Andres smiled saying, "Just a matter of time and hard work".

Vanessa smiled as she was happy that she made it to the right group of people who were just as driven, committed, fun, and committed to becoming pro players as herself.