My System doesn't Work!

"Do you want to go home?" Bucho asked Jayden.

"Not really, I was just curious. There isn't anyone at home to miss me. I'm probably better off here. I've been here for less than an hour and I already have more friends now than I've had in my whole life," he said. Wei Anli and Ofan Blaise nodded their heads in agreement with Jayden.

The adults were immediately sad hearing the comment. Maddy happened to walk up behind the kids at that time bringing some drinks for them. "Oh my, you poor dears, that's the saddest thing I've heard! You don't have to worry, you've made some good friends today. These rogues better take good care of you or they won't be getting any more free meals! That goes doubly for you, Bill," She said to her husband.

"Of course these are our friends. If anyone messes with them they're messing with us!" Bucho said as he glared at everyone in the restaurant. The people took the warning and made sure to remember the kids' faces and to keep from ever offending them.

"Mr. Bucho, how do I activate my system?" Wei Anli asked.

"Did you do the tutorial?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, but after the tutorial, I haven't been able to activate the system. I don't even know how it turned on in the first place," she said.

"I know what the problem is," Nigman said. "You have a G8 system, the G8 people for some reason like to make their systems so it can only be activated under certain conditions. I don't know if its an intelligence test or what, but I once met a man who has been here for thirty years and has never been able to activate his system," Nigman said.

"Thirty years, and he couldn't activate his system!" Ofan exclaimed. All three kids were worried. Bucho could see the kids were getting worried. It seemed none of these kids had an easy life before coming here and Nigman was crushing their hopes for changing their lives.

"Nigman, what the heck, don't freak the kids out! You make it sound like they're probably going to be stuck like this forever. These are good kids and G8 wouldn't set them up to fail. Geez, man, think before you speak," Bucho said before turning back to the kids.

"Look, don't let his comments worry you, I've also met a lot of G8 system users and all of them had no problem activating their systems. One of them even told me the secret to activating the system, do you want to know what it is?" Bucho said in a conspiratorial tone as he leaned in close to the kids. The kids likewise leaned into him.

"Yes," "What is it," "Please, you must tell us, we have to know!" they all hoped to hear something that would help them.

"He said, to activate your G8 system you just have to be yourself," Bucho said like his comment solved everything.

"What does, be yourself mean?" Ofan asked.

Jayden laughed as he looked at the worried faces of his friends. "It means don't worry about it, it will happen when it will happen. We just have to be true to who we are. The only problem is what should we do in the meantime while we're waiting for our systems to activate," Jayden said. He was slightly worried because he found Bucho's comment too vague to be helpful but he knew he and his friends needed hope and didn't need to get lost in depressing thoughts and worries.

"I c...can teach you guys some martial arts," Wei Anli said.

"I'll teach you guys things about potions and magic stuff useful to non-magic people!" Ofan added in.

"I'll teach you guys the wisdom of the fiction genre," Jayden said. "But...I didn't mean what are we going to do with our time. I meant what are we going to do to feed ourselves? Where are we going to live," Jayden said.

"You kids, what are you thinking about!" Maddy said suddenly. "Of course you can stay here, I have a hotel after all."

"We can't stay here for free; please let us work for our keep," Jayden said. "Well, I don't know," Maddy began.

"A wise man once said a person who only receives charity will come to hate those who give him charity. We can only appreciate kindness when we earn it," Jayden said. Wei Anli and Ofan were thinking about his words. Even the other bounty hunters were interested in this idea.

"Not bad, I like what you've said. You kids can earn your keep but we're going to train you. You kids training each other? It's like the blind leading the blind," Bucho said.

Maddy led the kids to their new homes. Jayden and Ofan would share a room, while Wei Anli would share a room with Betty Boom. It was Betty's idea, she lived alone and always wanted a little sister. None of them owned anything but the clothes on their backs, so there wasn't anything to unpack.

Over the next few days, Maddy introduced them to their jobs. They helped serve the food and drink orders, clean the rooms, do dishes, and any odd jobs Maddy had. Maddy loved how thorough Wei Anli was with any chore given to her. Ofan was good at most of the things he did. Jayden was the least helpful. Life on Earth was too easy and he wasn't very good at doing anything at first. He had to put in twice the effort to do half the work.

The Wild Demon Hunters earnestly started training the kids. They couldn't use their systems, so they were pretty weak. It was amazing, however, how much even a weak person could accomplish. Especially, when they had the help of a dedicated teacher.

Jayden decided to take Bucho's advice literally. He figured since his system was Superhero based; he should train in areas typical for heroes. He asked the Assasin Greg to help him develop his stealth. He explained how there were heroes who fought using their wits and martial mastery. Bucho helped him with his martial fighting skill, and the futurist, Nigman, and developed some gadgets for him to use. He even asked Frog to teach him some thieving skills. His idea was to create a persona of a night based vigilante that he dubbed, The Tarantula Hawk. Thanks to Nigman's design abilities his costume allowed him to have abilities both on the ground and in the air.

On the ground, he could use four powerful mechanical spider legs to climb up walls and dangle. Each of the four legs had spinnerettes in them so he could create spider webs and cocoon people. He could also attack with poisons and use the strength of the exo-suit to overpower enemies.

When he wanted to take to the air, the four legs would transform into wings. He could fly to the top of any building and thanks to the enhanced vision of his helmet, he could see in a complete 360 degrees and from incredibly far distances.

He used his quick wits and other gadgets Nigman created for him to find and fight crime in the town. Jayden was actually surprised by the amount of crime in town. Nigman really enjoyed creating superhero gear for Jayden. Without even asking for things, Nigman began creating the strangest devices that were surprisingly effective. The only problem was none of this helped him activate his system.

Ofan and Wei Anli faced similar challenges. They copied Jayden's approach and tried to get training suitable to their system but it didn't seem to help. Would they be stuck for the rest of their lives in this world without being able to activate their systems?