Chapter 13: The shame, the new beginning

David sprints all over the place. Each time, he catches dark creatures with his fangs, or cut them apart with his claws and splatters them with his strong paws and hind legs.

He's at the very forefront killing dark creatures one after another.

Suddenly, a big bat aims at him but next, it is bombarded with countless projectiles of various elements.

Another soldier with a full body morph ability made out of hard rocks fights alongside David. However, he's quite slow and couldn't have as much killing rate as the agile Wolf morph form of the other. But him just standing there with his large and tough body could create a shield for the other ability users behind him. Those being shielded by him use their abilities to produce projectiles to attack the dark creatures at the forefront.

The townspeople mixes along with the men in green uniform. They couldn't be distinguished from their fierceness except their outfits with casual combinations that creates the mesh of varying colors if looked from afar.

A girl screams when her hair gets caught by a dark creature with the form of a crow. Her hands are defusing cold smoke and immediately grab the claw of a crow, solidifying its whole body in ice and then breaks it like a fragile glass art. However, there are still many crows aiming to scratch the ability user's faces and intends to dig out their eyes. She creates an umbrella made out of pure ice to protect herself. Unfortunately, not all are as lucky for a catalysis ability users as her.

Some morph ability users that could transform their physics and uses their body as their main weapon could be scratched by the bird-type dark beast and insects.

Suddenly, she sees a zapping figure rapidly traversing the maze of people. Leaving the trails it passes by are the birds and small insects falling on the ground.

"Hah! These are just small fries compared to Tom's shuriken! I could just cut them in a half if they're made out of meat!" Rick arrives at the scene, seemingly dominating the battle ground at the center of the army of ability users.

Rick already ditched his kendo techniques and swap his weapon with two daggers in each hands. With his ability, not only his body could act fast, his reaction speed also raises exponentially along with it. In rick's eyes, the battlefield looks like they're in slow-motion and he could slay even the tiniest dark insect.

The girl with ice ability looks at him zapping all over the place in awe. Then, she focus in the battle once again. Now that the smaller and flying beast that broke through from the vanguard are slowly getting eliminated, she could now try her luck at the forefront.

Transforming her ice umbrella into a cane, she slides among the people and arrive at the vanguard.

Here, the dark beast are significantly bigger and harder to deal with. She swing her cane and it's tip shoots a few sharp shards of ice crystals at a dark deer fighting with a soldier that has his arms and legs transformed into shiny metal.

The ice shards hit the dark deer, making it distracted from the morph metal soldier for a moment. Seeing this, the soldier wrap his metal arms at the deer's neck and snap it inwards. The dark deer falls lifelessly on the ground with a thud.

"Thanks kid..." the morph metal soldier thanks the catalysis ice girl.

The girl nods but then, she exclaims. "Lookout!" she swings her cane once again and shoots ice shards near the morph metal soldier.

The morph metal soldier immediately knows where the catalysis ice girl is aiming at. He reacted fast and backflips to destroy the ice shards with a kick.

"Please stop! Harming a military personnel could put you behind the bars!" He exclaims.

"What?! No! I..." The girl then witness the large wolf fight and defends against a dark bear. His silver fur looks distinctively different from the dark beast.

That's when she realizes that the wolf must be a morph wolf soldier.

"That's Major General David Sampson. Please inform the others who don't know if you can..." The morph metal soldier left those words and then fights against a dark coyote.

"okay!" she replies. She then focus in attacking flying dark creatures as she don't know which else of the morph animal ability users are there on the ground.

Above the horizon, she sees shards of glasses looking thing shining. Like footsteps, it heads to the forefront of the battle.

She knows that those must be done by ability users so she don't have to worry about it. She focus once again in assisting the soldiers. A lot of townspeople like her, the catalysis ability users are helping the soldiers like this.

Then, close by, the earth suddenly rises and covers the few ability users. They were startled at first, but then they realize that it's done by and imperium earth ability user who could control the earth element. Next, the earth shield shakes from being collided with something strong and big behind it.

"There's another dark bear!" The imperium earth ability user informs the others.

"Please leave this to me. Don't shoot anything or you might hit me..." Jess appears out of nowhere undetected. The others jerks when they suddenly sees her in front of them.

"O...okay... are you going to be okay?" the imperium earth ability user asks skeptically.

"Don't worry I could slay anything without them even noticing it" Jess leaves those words behind and disappears once again. Never leaving a sound or scent as if she was never there to begin with.

Being covered by the earth wall, Jess could show her ability's power without worrying about stray attacks. She sneaks at the dark bear attacking the earth wall and cuts its neck with a very sharp knife given to her by Will.

The others under the covers of the earth wall could only know what happened based on the fact that the earth wall stopped being hit from the other side.

The imperium earth ability user removes the earth wall and sees the fallen body of the dark bear. Its head rolls on the ground, separated from its body.

"I did it! As expected, Sean's summons are harder to deal with. Speaking of Sean... Everyone! when you see a dragon or slime, please don't attack them, they're friends!" Jess says and wipes the blood from her small knife on the dark bear's fur.

The others hesitantly nods. This girl looks only about twelve years old, however, her assassination ability is top-notch. She even slayed a bear several times bigger than her size. How did she even manage to cut the thick bear's neck to begin with?

"Attention everyone! A dragon is upcoming to join the battle! But don't worry, because they're allies! Oh, Jess? Did you do this by yourself?" Rick appears zapping around the whole area informing everyone. He stop when he sees Jess proudly stepping a foot on her slayed monster.

She laughs and flaunts a big fat "Of course!"

Rick couldn't believe it. Jess's residence is quite close to the military base and dark mountain. She must have killed far more beast than him before he arrived.

Rick disappears and starts rampaging in the battlefield.

Suddenly, a reverberating sound of the earth crumbling after bursting from the impact of something very heavy falling shakes the earth up ahead. Far more further than where they're fighting.

Liam falls from the sky. He and his wife arrived by creating solidified force field stepping platforms. If looked up from the ground, it resemble shining glass shards moving towards the center of the warzone.

Tom is under Liam's belly to protect him from the large impact. Liam made his and Tom's weight as light as a feather while his new and improved retractable stick two tons of weight. This attack killed a large dark bear and other smaller ones.

From within the smoke of dust and debris from the center of the crater, three shuriken comes out, defusing the surrounding dust in the air.

David could see with his enhanced wolf eyes the two familiar figures after the initial fear for what caused that large impact. He snorts in relief and continues wrecking havoc once again.

The dark beast seems to have identified David as the one who caused them the largest damage and pounce at him all at once.

He claws, bites, and stomps at them to resist.

Out of nowhere, rats, mice, worm hogs, and every small rodents focus their attacks at David, coming from all direction. Either along the grass and under the earth, like a sea of small dark rodents, they all drown David's figure.

The nearby ability users couldn't just randomly shoot their projectiles as they might also hit their major general. They could only eliminate the ones that are gathering on the ground near him.

The morph metal soldier picks up the small rodents from David's body one by one, however, he's soon to drowned in their numbers.

Suddenly, David could feel a surge of energy in him. He leaps up and shake off the small rodents attaching themselves to him. The next thing he notice, a small fairy is helping him by healing his small wounds. This creature must also be the ones who gave him strength just now.

David then notice flying dark creatures falling one after another. He looks up and sees Claire's figure holding a sword that resemble a shard of glass. Then, a dragon is slaying the birds and bats. He seem to be angry that his territory is being infested with these pesky flying small fry.

Sean also appears alongside Claire. A small blue slime is on his arms.

David feels relieved. He know the capabilities of these people. He was waiting when they would finally arrive after hearing the war cries of the townspeople back then.

David's wolf head nods at Claire when she also notices him. "Long time no see..." She says.

The morph earth ability user stomps his large heavy feet on the ground, killing large groups of small pesky rodents each time.

Will, is somewhere on the ground salvaging the workable drones and enchanting them once again. One after another, his drones starts helping the ability users.

Will looks at the war and couldn't help but think that this is far of a divergence from his calculations. Not only that, he's the cause of all this.

Taking advantage of the fact that there's energy gems in the bodies of the dark creatures, Will collected them one at a time. Soon, he finds a topographical advantaged location and controls the situation with his drones. These drones could now directly absorb the energy gems right out of the corpses of the dark beast.

Since Will couldn't think about using the gems to something else rather than helping with the war, he decided to do this instead. The now fixed drones filled with energy finds the other ones and fix them themselves. Consequently, once they're fixed, they also starts absorbing the energy gems from the corpses of the dark beast.

Soon, all the drones are now fully retrieved and attached back to the system. Fully functional an ready to fight. Will and the three AI control them all with different roles.

A group of drones help in slaying the dark beast, while another group starts an array and creates a barrier to seal the dark mountain once again.

The rest of the drones absorbs enough energy to make them burst and head to the sinkhole where the cave used to be.

Now that the mountain is defenseless, Will is trying his luck to slay that thing lurking in there.

As if realizing this, all the dark beast stops their war against the ability users and rush back to the dark mountain. Unfortunately, the dark mountain is already sealed off with Will's barrier.

"This thing is wise despite haven't been born yet... the primordial vampire is as terrifying as they said. How did it survive my all out attack to begin with?" Will murmurs. His drones approaches right above the sinkhole.

However, unlike what Will thought. The mountain is not defenseless. Its strongest fighters are still there, fixing the broken embryo and attaching it to the wall of the sinkhole. Then, the rest of them attacks Will's drones.

"Shit!" Will curses. His drones are being dominated by these large bats. They are far more stronger than all the other dark creatures. They seem like the generals left behind to protect their king, while those dark beast are just pawns.

The war between ability users and the dark creatures unexpectedly ended briefly. The dark creatures all tries their hardest to break into the barrier. Flying dark beast attacks the drones once again to damage them and somehow break the system setting up the barrier for them to pass through.

While the ability users are celebrating their success in dominating the dark and scary creatures, David could feel something off.

He head to the direction the dark creatures are fleeing and sees their hordes being stopped from moving further.

It seems to be an invisible barrier. Whatever that is inside seems to be having a fierce match. David's eyes sharpen. He starts killing off the dark creatures one after another.

The dark creatures didn't even mind them getting killed, and only tries breaking into the barrier.

Will's focus is all in slaying the thing lurking within that sinkhole. Stronger laser beams attacks the large bats but the could still go on after getting their body pierced and burnt.

Fierce aerial fight is ongoing inside the barrier. The wind blows strong by the bat's large wings and the fast movements of the drones.

Ultimately, the energies stored within some of the drones that are producing the barrier depletes while some still remained. That is because Will couldn't afford the time to fill them in uniformly since the dark beast might get back to the dark mountain before he sets the barrier up.

Will grunts in frustration. Will knows that this would happen soon. However, he's taking too long to slay that thing inside the fleshy embryo.

Ultimately, the barrier tears open and all the dark beast dash back towards their home and protect their king.

Will's furrowed eyebrows deepen. A drop of sweat fall from his chin onto the ground. His eyes moistened from tears of frustration and anger.

So regretful. Will could only watch as his drones gets destroyed one after another. He falls on the ground and starts crying.

"It failed..." His chest that has been crunched by an invisible hands couldn't handle it anymore. He breaks down into wailing.

Everybody celebrates their victory with cheers and hugs while Will cries all alone.

The aftermath of the war produced an estimated four hundred casualties from the civilians and about three hundred from the military. This totals to an estimated seven hundred people that died because of that short war against the dark creatures.

More military personnel are sent to seal off the dark mountain to prevent what just happened from happening once again.

Major General David Sampson's feat this time caused him the wartime temporary rank of a Lieutenant General and retain this rank as he set up the base inside the barrier at the foot of the dark mountain. It was confirmed that he's immune to the poisonous bodies of the dark creature and fight in the midst of a horde of them. This makes him an indispensable force that could protect the base as its being build from ground up.

Will locked himself in his room for three whole days thinking for the fault of his seemingly faultless plan.

"Maybe I shouldn't have done it..." Will buries his face under the pillow.

"What happened to Will?... Is he creating something again?" Claire mutters and glance at Will's room.

"Maybe. The unexpected monster attack just happened after all, maybe he's creating something to counter it better this time..." Liam replies.

The war of the town versus the terrifying dark creatures spread to the world. This event becomes the backbone of humanity's courage and tells them that they could fight and win against the apocalypse and the unknown.

This is already the second time the town faced unexpected outbreak from creatures that should be feared and then triumphs.

Great fame and praises rains on the whole town itself. More and more 'superheroes' comes to this town and try to figure out the secrets of the resident's victories. Or perhaps, when the time comes, they could show their worth and save the town from any other unexpected attacks.

"Mom, dad... I have something to tell you..." Will finally comes out from his room and called his parents over to tell them something.

Will slides a calling card on the table towards them. Clair looks at it and looks back at Will with surprise. "Will?"

"I'm sorry for telling you guys just now. Actually, a person from the GEPCA came personally and said they wanted to recruit me. I was thinking about it and finally decided..." Will solemnly looks at his parent's faces. Will's failure this time caused a lot of people to die. It was his fault. He was the one who poked the hornet's nest. He couldn't even slay the queen.

Although Will bought more time, the primordial vampire would probably turn cautious. It would gather more knowledge about the world and learn as it waits for one day it would finally be born. Nothing is more scarier than an injured beast.

Will don't know all the capabilities of the primordial vampire, as his knowledge are only limited to his previous world's fairy tales.

No one else knows what's lurking inside that mountain. While Will wouldn't want anyone to know as it will expose his failure and damage. Will want to gather strength to defeat it before anyone could know. So what he did wouldn't be treated as failure.

He could only watch as the military and government obtain all those energy gems without the ability to utilize them to the fullest. With this Will thought up a plan.

"Mom, dad... I want to work for the GEPCA. You know I could just ditch my studies and wouldn't have to worry about my future prospects since I would now be working. Also, my time would be wasted in studying since I have Brain2.0..." Will explains.

"Oh, Will..." Clair scoops up her son into a tight hug.

"We're so proud of you Will... We know that you would make the right decisions. We love you and only wants for you to be happy and do what you want. Is this what you really want?" Liam ask.

"Yes dad... I thought about it a lot of times. I want to do this" Will says. But soon, what he just said will become his another regret in the future.

Working under fifteen is considered illegal. The fastest way to work his way up and gather power is through GEPCA's offer. This is what will thinks currently. But in the future, Will would know that there are more than enough ways for that to happen. A lot of dark methods.

Unfortunately, as of now, Will couldn't think clearly for his heavy regret and burden of knowing what is about to be born in this world in the future.

"Actually, we also found ourselves a new job! Your father and I will work alongside the military in a job by GEPCA to seal off the dark mountain and research about it!" Claire proudly exclaims.

"What?... I mean. It's the first time I'm hearing this" Will couldn't believe it.

"Well, you were in your room for days. The GEPCA came by and explained their offer for you. They also invited us to a new job. Well both be researchers. Because of the big changes of the world, previous educational attainment and job history were also scratch off, well to some extent... They told us that if you accepts the offer, you would be trained by them and treat you with special attention" Liam rubs Will's head and looks at him proudly.

"You mean, you already knew? Why didn't you say anything?..."

"Well, we figure that the decision is yours to make. You were most probably moping by yourself to figure out your response to the offer... we'll probably be separated after all" Clair tears up.

Liam hugs the two of them and reassured them. "We'll still meet in the VR world right? There's nothing to worry. My brilliant son will just blind the world with his bright light... it's just... happening a bit too fast..."

"That's right! Your satellite and Point Link could reach us anywhere in the world!" Claire remembers what her son said before.

Will recalls that the satellite already exploded, defused, and went back to the atmosphere along with earth's natural energy.

Will should ask Sean a favor once again.

"T-that's right..." Will replies hesitantly.

They hug tightly for a while as if wordlessly relaying their good luck to each other. Tom who have just logout from the VR world sees this and joins them too.

Later, Will heads to Sean's room and knocks.

"What did you want me to make you this time Will?..." Sean says after opening the door. Will sent him a message while he was in the VR world earlier about a favor.

"Can we come in first?"

"Right..." With that, Sean welcomes Will inside. Will didn't wait anything and immediately felt his motive.

"Actually, I need an additional satellite. It seems that some parts of the world couldn't be reached with one satellite. Also, I wanted to add new features to it. It would be much easier to make a new one instead of bring the current one back here... With this, we'd hit two birds with one stone" Will couldn't help but cook up a lie. He can't tell anything about that satellite is now gone, or else, Sean would ask where it has gone to.

"Oh?... Well, its good that I still have its image and parts memorized clearly in my mind then" Sean put all efforts in pasting this in his memories after all.

"That's great..." Will feels a relief.

"I can do it now. I have a lot of energy reserved. Or, should we do it... now?" Sean becomes awkward. He could tell that something in Will seems odd. He looks rather solemn. Vaguely different from his overbearing and serious front.

"Yes... if that's alright with you..."

"Okay then..." Sean couldn't just pry too deeply since he still don't know where Will's landmine lies. Will somehow looks unenthusiastic this time despite that every time, he used to look forward to seeing Sean activate his ability. Sean couldn't help but worry.

Sean materializes the satellite far more easier and faster this time. It is actually relatively easier to materialize it since its and inanimate object. Compared to his summons with complex personalities and thoughts programmed in them, this is just a piece of cake.

Will receives it and grabs thirteen energy gems to enchant it to make it his own and then integrate it with various functions and abilities.

"Actually, I have another request... do you think you could produce something like the AI in the VR world? Your current image for it is enough. I will do the rest..."

"Yeah... maybe, their personalities are quite bland after all. Do I have to put it the same personality?"

"No, just make it as if it's alive... nothing complex"

Sean does it again with his ability. Unfortunately, he just used up most of his energy in making the satellite and the final product of the cat is as small as a mouse.

"Oh" both of them utters at the same time.

"This is fine too. In fact, it's convenient... thank you. In exchange you can have this" Will hands Sean twenty energy gem in a bag.

"Actually, I obtained some during that war... also, I don't want to upgrade my summons any time soon. I'm fine. This is nothing anyway" Sean don't want to accept the energy gems and shoves it back to Will. "Also, wouldn't you need that for the cat?"

"Oh, right... I forgot..." Will takes the bag back and looks at Sean with an awkward face.

Sean thinks that something really must have happened to Will. His behavior doesn't seem to match the usual him.

"Will?" Sean observes Will. He seem to be in daze as he watch the black cat on his palm. The cat also lazily looks at him.

After a bit, it looks like he finally awakens from his daze and grabs an energy gem and defuse it for the cat to absorb. He does this consequently for the rest of the twelve energy gems in the bag.

"Thanks... I'll go and launch the satellite then. Would you like to come?"

"Ok, sure!" The two of them promptly stands up and gather along the two adults and a small child on the courtyard. Rick who seem to doesn't want to be left out arrives once again.

The group is once again composed of the same people as before. All of Will's important people.

After the launch, Will looks at everyone and tells them about his plan of accepting a job training offer by the GEPCA. He then grab the calling card and calls them right then and there.

"Hi... I'm Will Merlin. Yes... about that offer... yes. Really?... Thank you... to the city?" Will looks at his parents and sees them nodding. "Yes. They also already agreed. They have my permission... You'll come get me in two days? That's fine. Yes please..." The call ended.

"You're going to the city? Will?" Jess starts crying from the communication from the Point Link. It then promptly gets cut off.

"Will... You're a kid. How could you go and start working?!" Rick finally broke from his stupefied, wide gaped mouth and then exclaims. After that he hugs Will tightly.

"They said that this should be kept a secret... but your considered as one of my important people... it should be fine. It's them who said to explain it to you so you wouldn't ask where I've gone to. But you should keep this a secret" Will just let Rick do what he want.

Liam rub Will's hair and smile proudly at him. Claire cries but she's smiling. Tom hugs Claire and looks like he's about to cry too.

"Hey. We're still going to meet everyday in the VR world though right?" Will taps Rick on the shoulder.

"Oh... that's a genius idea. Your satellites and Point Link could reach us anywhere in the world" as if lightbulb lights up on Sean's head, he says in realization. Sean now figures out Will's odd behavior.

The last two days, Will's friends and family didn't login to the VR world. They celebrated and bonded in the real life instead. They did a lot of fun things. This time, Will tries his best to play along as well.

Everyone thinks that Will looks awkward and doesn't seem to be used to the intimacy and stupid laughter. But seeing him try his best to play along makes them feel happy and realize how important they are in Will's eyes.

"It's a sad thing that no commercially operated entertainment facilities are still left open in the apocalypse..." Will murmurs.

"Right... we missed our amusement park day out this year too" Claire says and reminiscence those times before the apocalypse.

"We could do that in the VR world but it defeats the purpose of what we're doing now to save Will's last days staying with us with bonding with him in the real world..." Liam grab the remote and switch the channel of the TV. Every channel only reports the situation around the globe and what the people are doing at the post-apocalyptic phase.

"This makes me realize that the things we could do in real life is rather bland. The VR world is just too amazing as expected..." Sean says and sink his body in the sofa lazily.

Everywhere they go outside the town are all danger zones.

"How about we go out of town and slay as much magical beast we could find then?... That could be fun!" Rick suggest.

"That's illegal. Unless we're in the government or military, we couldn't get out of town unless we get a permit from the town hall or GEPCA branch" Sean replies.

"Couldn't you just get trained and work at the GEPCA branch here Will?" After that communication got cut off when Jess heard that Will is going to work in the city, she convinced her parents to let her stay at the Merlin's residence for two days. However, her parents didn't allow her. Without any other choice, she sneaks in and out of her house without her parent realizing with the use of her ability. She only gets back home when its time for breakfast, lunch, and dinner time. For the rest of the time, she stays at Will's. She even sleeps here.

Her parents couldn't have known. Her living pattern didn't change because this is what she always do to login to the VR world anyway.

"The branch here couldn't afford to raise an intern. Plus, this is supposed to be a secret. The townspeople shouldn't know. They also already arranged my dorm and the trainers..." Will reasons her.

The last day finally ended with unfortunate bland times. The GEPCA arrived and discusses with Will and his parents and then they sign a contract.

Jess and Rick boldly tried their luck to make an appeal for them to be hired too, rather poorly planned and impromptu, after they see Will is really going to the city and they wouldn't know when he could get back. Unfortunately, Will's case was a one time exception. However, the GEPCA told them that maybe in the future, after they show great performance in their curriculum, they might get recruited personally by a GEPCA personnel.

They could only cry and nod. Will looks at them and released a troubled sigh.

There isn't much contents inside will's luggage and as practical as he is, he have already done packing it two days ago.

They said they goodbyes and good luck with each other. Their faces are filled with emotions. Even Will's eyes produced a tear that falls on his face without him knowing.

Will thought for himself. He still haven't broken his vow that time. He still has the VR world where they can meet whenever they want, wherever they may be in the world. However, for some reason, his chest feels tight and he weeps silently in the backseat of the GEPCA car.

"Are you okay Mr. Will?" Laurine Dementres beside him asks. She was the one who personally came to Will's house that day and recruited him.

Laurine has Wills biometrics and knows quite a lot about him. However, that is now proven that what she knows is only on the surface. She looks at Will who's weeping beside her. Her heart also feels heavy for the child knowing that he rarely shows his fragile side to anyone. This must really have been hard for him.

She thought Will was okay only a minute ago. He looks so composed and went along to everything with a cool manner. However, after entering the car and the door closed, he starts showing a different side of him.

Although matured, he's still just a kid after all. Being separated with their family is even hard for other adults.

"I could see that your family is very proud of you... you will be fine. Mr. Will, you're doing something amazing for the sake of the humanity itself. It's okay to cry now but you should remember that your doing and about to do more remarkable things in the future. This day marks your new beginning. A new phase of your life... you being a kid now will not stop you from doing what you want. Just remember the positive things for your future prospects" Laurine tries her best to appease Will. However, she's not quite used to treating younger people cordially when they're crying. Although, she's rather energetic and rather jolly at the rest of the times

End of chapter.