Level One

Staring across at the man he once called a brother, Devyn steeled his nerve and gripped the gun. With one last look at the man he no longer knew, Devyn chose the future and-

*Ding!*

Yawning, Devyn quickly forgot whatever silly dream he was having and dragged his phone from the nightstand. He opened it, blinking a few times to get used to the light.

[Congratulations! You have been deemed fit to receive your first level up on behalf of the Game's moderators. To begin, simply download the app and then create an account.]

"Finally," Devyn muttered, "I was beginning to think those lazy ass mods would never get around to it."

*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

Some heavy-handed asshole was knocking on Devyn's door. Again.

"Get the hell out of bed, Dev, we've got things to do!" a loud and boisterous voice came from outside Devyn's door, with just a hint of the hidden pride he'd begun to pick up on.

"I don't think I will, Nikky," Devyn shouted back, "I just got some top-tier, brilliant news so I think I'll just lay in bed wallowing in it!"

"What good news could you possibly receive when you've done nothing to warrant it? And don't call me Nikky!" Nikky shouted back, angrily.

"If you want to know you'll have to come in here and find out."

"Fine," Nikky grumbled, "but if you're having a laugh here I'll beat your ass so hard you'll be limping for the next month."

Devyn smiled, barely holding back a laugh.

Nikky threw open the door, slamming it into the wall. He was big for a seventeen-year-old and built with muscles from a lifetime of running and fighting. He had a buzz cut and deceptively innocent hazel eyes, contrasted by the grim scar running down his cheek and under his plain black t-shirt. He wore a pair of dirty jeans and black trainers.

Smiling, Devyn chucked his phone at Nikky, who nimbly caught it out of the air.

"Finally, you took your time though, you're already thirteen," Nikky said after glancing at Devyn's phone.

"Come on, Nikky," Devyn moaned, "can't you at least pretend to be happy?"

"No time," Nikky said, frowning, "they're onto us."

"Already? And doesn't this mean we can stop running?"

"Not yet. You'll still only be level one, we need more power before we can fight them."

Devyn fell back onto his bed and groaned loudly as Nikky watched with a sad face.

"Pack your stuff, Dev, and meet me at the car in five minutes."

Nikky carefully shut the door as he left, leaving Devyn alone, as usual.

***

In the car, Devyn unlocked his phone, downloaded the app and opened it, staring at a particularly annoying line of text.

[Please enter a username.]

Sighing Devyn typed in a username and then deleted it. Then he typed in another one before deleting it again.

Sighing Devyn turned to Nikky, "how in the hell am I meant to pick a name?"

"A lot of people just have their name as what they do. There's a guy on the leader board called Doctor, can you guess what he does?"

"That's boring, and you're just trying to make naming yourself Rebel seem normal."

"Hey! I was ten years old when I made that! But if you can't think of anything, just use our surname. You get a chance to change it at level five anyways."

"I'm not using our surname, that's stupid."

Five minutes later Devyn finally typed in a password and pressed enter.

[Welcome to the Game, Blakely.]

"What did you name yourself, Dev?"

"I used our surname."

Nikky snorted, barely holding in a laugh.

"Good, you should feel pride in being a Blakely, we're destined for greatness. Just like dad was."

"Somehow, a life of constant running doesn't feel that great. Now that I've got the app, will you finally tell me who's after us?"

"These are just some bastards who were jealous of dad's power before he was stabbed in the back. Now they're trying to kill us because they're worried we'll be as powerful as dad was.

But don't worry, once you level up, we'll find out who these people are, kill them, and then live like Kings. Just you wait and see."

"So you don't even know who they are?"

"Just finish the damn sign-up process, Dev! We don't even know what class you are yet!"

Devyn smiled, Nikky was getting annoyed again. But he did want to know what class he was, so he focused back on his phone again.

[Spin the wheel to determine your class.]

The wheel consisted of five different segments, one for each tier of class. A Common segment taking up half the wheel, an Uncommon segment taking up a quarter, a Rare segment taking up an eight, and an Epic segment taking up almost all the remaining space, with the remainder being the minuscule legendary segment, right next to the common segment.

Devyn's dad and brother both had legendary classes, so whilst Nikky was confident the pattern would continue, Devyn was shitting himself, worried that he would fail.

Taking a deep breath and silently thinking screw it, it was it is, Devyn spun the wheel.

It spun round more times than Devyn could count before finally slowing down.

Right in the middle of common!

'Come on!' Devyn mentally urged it, 'just a bit more and it'll tip into legendary!'

The wheel kept moving closer and closer towards legendary until it stopped. Right on the line between common and legendary!

'Come on! Please!'

[Congratulations, you have received a legendary class.]

"Yes!" Devyn shouted, glee in his eyes.

"Did you get a legendary class?"

"Who do you think I am Nikky? Of course, I got a legendary class."

"You didn't sound so confident earlier, besides, what's the class name?"

Devyn looked back down at his phone and clicked [Claim].

[Congratulations, you have unlocked the Director class.

'The world is but a project for you to direct.'

Congratulations, you have reached level 1 unlocking the class skill 'Extras'.

Level 0's are the extras in your project, thus they will listen to your commands on how they should act.]

"Director?" said Nikky, "sounds interesting."

Devyn looked up and saw that Nikky was staring at his phone, then he looked forward and saw that the lorry in front of them had braked whilst they were still speeding towards it.

"Brake!" shouted Devyn.

"Shit!" Nikky shouted back as he slammed on the brakes and swerved to the side, just barely avoiding a crash.

"For fucks sake Nikky! We can't live like kings if we die in a car crash! Keep your eyes on the road."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever Dev. Now shut up and let me drive, we're going to London."

Devyn sighed and leant back, shutting his eyes whilst silently praying that a merciful god would stop Nikky from crashing the car.