Chapter 16

"Boring!" Isabelle interrupts Josh's story.

"Hey!! I was getting to the good part, shrimp!!" Josh says with fumes coming out of his ears.

—Jayson sat still and listened to his friends once again argue as they always do. It was a tradition at this point. Josh was just finishing his explanation on his training, but Isabelle had to bug him, it seemed.

"So, what happened next? You used 'Ash-burn' for the first time and scored?" Jayson asks.

"Oh!! Well, half of your guess is right..." Josh explains, "I did manage to pull off that new move for the first time, using the power from my lift-off to 'fly like mike'!!

Jayson smiles, and so does Isabelle. Seeing this side of Josh being super excited for what he accomplished was a break from his usual self. However, Josh's face turns sour after he finishes his sentence.

"But that Crash guy just blocked my shot as soon as I loomed over him. What a piece of work!!" Josh says.

Isabelle's eyes widened, "So he ended up beating you while giving you advice anyways?"

"Yep," Josh says.

"What a jerk!" Isabelle claims.

"Well, he never said he would give up his 'King of the Hill' title just because I learned a new move, so it wasn't too hard to accept after the game!!" Josh responds.

Jayson remembers the first time he saw Axel use "Ash-Burn" in the race during the first section of the tryouts. Axel seemed to be able to use it reliably, to an extent. He barely got off the ground and could glide for a short amount of time, but we'll see where this takes him.

"So you just played basketball for a week?" Jayson says with a laugh.

"Shut up!! I did other things!!" Josh says, "But after the game, Crash sent me a message in-game."

"What did it say?" Isabelle asks.

"It was an invitation to play another king of the hill game." Josh explains, "And ever since then, we meet at a private court daily until I manage to score on him."

"Well, have you?" Jayson asks.

"No, not yet..." Josh says, lowering his head in disappointment.

'He sure had a busy week!' Jayson thinks.

Crash, the Captain of the Sharks and a Guildmaster in the Slayer's Pack. Helmet and Crash are two people Jayson didn't expect any of his friends to get to know so soon. First, they got referrals from them, and now he and Josh had gotten personal training from them in some way or the other.

"Still sounds boring!" Isabelle retorts.

"Well then, what did you do for training?" Jayson asks Isabelle.

"I thought you'd never ask!" Isabelle responds, standing up out of her chair at Josh's desk.

"«Assassination Missions»!"

The way that the Nexus is built, players can pick up two types of missions in the five main cities. One of these types is the famous "Bounty" class missions, which sends players into the Wilds to hunt and kill a high-value monster.

The other—less frequently accepted—mission type is the "Assassin" class missions, which are rare to appear on the ~Mission Board~ themselves and contain little to no information to go off. They also break the game's own rules in most cases.

The way an Assination mission plays out is pretty simple. A player who accepts the quest is given a player's name that has picked up a Bounty mission, who is either in the Wilds or in a major city trying to cash in their prize at a specific vendor or has just started their Bounty mission.

If the player is in the Wilds, any player can attack them, so assassins have to act fast. If their target dies, then the player who killed them will become the assassin's new target. However, it causes some issues later on in the line.

If the assassin manages to kill their original target, they will receive all of the loot, XP, and gold in their «Wilds storage», which can only be gained in full at unique vendors in cities, like mentioned before. On top of this, that loot will be doubled if the assassin kills the original player on their hit list and not a player who had finished their initial target.

Here's the particular part about assassin missions. Once activated, the player who starts the quest receives the «Assassin» title above their heads for players to see—of course—if a player wants to see their name and stats. On top of this, the player who is being hunted will receive a notification on their game menu telling them that an assassin is stalking them. This all seems to have adverse effects for the player hunting and not the hunted.

But players with the Assassin status can do damage on their targets in safe zones.

This means that the hunted player has to complete their Bounty mission *and* reap their rewards To be safe from the assassin. If they don't meet these requirements, the assassin can damage them anywhere in the Nexus, regardless if it contradicts the game's ruleset.

"I met some fascinating characters during it, that's for sure. For one of the missions, I had to kill a brand new player! I kind of felt bad..." Isabelle explains.

"How many missions have you been doing a day?" Jayson asks.

"Hmm, I would estimate around five?" Isabelle responds.

"What?! Only ten appear on the Mission Board in a single city a day!!" Josh says.

"Well, I stayed until one appeared and accepted it right away!" Isabelle responds.

Jayson and Josh are both stunned. She really does five assassination missions a day? Completing a single one would take the average player an hour!

'How much time did you waste waiting for a mission to spawn then?' Jayson thinks.

Looking out of Josh's window, Jayson notices the setting sun, with its rays lighting the world around them a fiery orange hue.

~Just like that day~.

All of a sudden, Jayson feels a dark presence overcome him. He closes his eyes in reflex, but he isn't in Josh's room anymore when he opens them.

Scared over his mind, Jayson looks up and notices the sky is tucked away with a blanket of dark grey clouds, sorrowing over the land. Rain pelts his cheek, and thunder can be heard in the fairway distance.

'*Not this again*! *Not now*!' Jayson thinks, trembling from head to toe.

In front of him was the scene he tried desperately to forget. The ash floating in the air, with a fire breathing heavily through the rain, all emitting from a turned-over car in the distance. The street and the trees were soaking wet, but Jayson felt dry. He felt so dry. He felt too dry.

He bends his legs and sits awkwardly on the floor. He starts to cry. Then a familiar voice rings in his head.

"J-Jayson..." It mumbles.

Looking up at the voice, Jayson sees the exact figure he saw last time when he had an episode like this. It was his mom, with her long hair covering her face and red lines streaming up her body, walking over to him from the fire.

"C-come here..." She mumbles again.

Jayson's eyes were furiously moving in every direction, and he could feel his hands and neck start to cramp up in response to his fear. He covers his ears and closes his eyes tightly, tilting his head down at the floor in a panic.

"*YOU AREN'T REAL*!" He screams.

"Jay—" The figure says, grabbing him by his right shoulder, "—son!"

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-

"Jayson!" Isabelle shouts, grabbing his shoulder, "It's ok! It's just me!"

Jayson opens his eyes, withholding his tears in front of his friends. His shaking slowed, and he breathed in and out at a controlled pace. Josh walks closer to him.

"Are you ok?" Josh asks in a shaky voice.

"Y-yeah, it's just that reoccurring dream I have. It's been happening while I'm awake recently..." Jayson says.

"I remember you were telling us about that," Isabelle says.

Jayson stands back up, still taking deep breaths. Isabelle looks at Josh, and Josh looks back. They nod, and both turn to Jayson. He was still panicked.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Isabelle asks.

"Um," Jayson starts, "Maybe you could get me some water?"

"On it!!" Josh says, running out of his room.

As Josh bolts away, Jayson shambles over to Josh's desk, where Isabelle was standing. He sits down in the chair next to hers and pulls it forward. He then lays his folded arms onto the table and lays his head on them. Isabelle sits down next to him.

"So, who do you see in your dream?" Isabelle asks.

"Huh?" Jayson responds.

"You said 'you aren't real' earlier. Who wasn't real?"

Jayson shifts his eyes away from Isabelle as she talks.

"I don't wanna talk about it..." Jayson mutters.

"Fair enough," Isabelle says, "But if you want to talk about anything, I'm open ears!"

Jayson smiles and nods his head, resting it once more on the table. Josh appears, still running through his house, and gives Jayson some water. After the entire situation diffused itself, the pair of friends chatted some more and talked more about Josh and Isabelle's training.

Josh lied about the school project that they all had to do to his parents since he wanted to log in to the Nexus instead, so they just hung out in his room for their entire stay afterward.

Eventually, Jayson noticed that it was almost twelve o'clock and motioned to Isabelle to check the time. After seeing it for herself, she stands up and faces Josh.

"We'd better get going. It's almost past curfew!" Isabelle laughs.

"Yeah, you're right. Hopefully, next time you guys are here, we can play some Nexus all together!"

Isabelle and Jayson walk downstairs, say goodbye to the rest of Josh's family, and exit the front door, heading to Isabelle's car. It was almost pitch black outside, which sent goosebumps up and down Jayson's spine. He hated the dark.

Hopping inside of the car, Jayson and Isabelle relax a little bit and start the short drive to Isabell's house.

"That was fun," Jayson says, breaking the silence on the ride there.

"Yeah, too bad we couldn't play any games there." Isabelle responds, "But it was fun talking about what everyone has trained for..."

"Wait, what about you? I don't think we ever asked!" Isabelle says.

"Oh! Uh..." Jayson mumbles, "I just tried out some new attack patterns and stuff! Hehe..."

"Really? Nothing else?" Isabelle insists.

"Nope!" Jayson says nervously.

"I mean, I guess you can't really *train* your Aspect like we can..." Isabelle says.

Isabelle checks her NIE to see if she is going the right way and spots Jayson turning to her. He seemed to be uber-focused.

"How does it feel, by the way? Using Aspect?"

"Now that's a question!" Isabelle responds, "I guess it's like using a muscle that you thought was always there. You get used to it over time, but it definitely takes some patience to control it properly!"

"Like a muscle..." Jayson thinks out loud, "Well, how do you exercise said muscle?"

"Hmm, well, I'd assume it's different for each player," Isabelle says, "But for me, I usually try to keep high focus while using my Aspect, especially while using my floral powers. Josh probably just punches the air a bunch!"

"So you keep high focus?" Jayson asks after Isabelle finishes her sentence.

"Yeah, why?" Isabelle responds.

"No reason, just interested..." Jayson ends.

The car slows, and Isabelle parks the car into her house's driveway. The vehicles' lights come on as the two friends exit through their respective doors and start to walk to the front door of Isabelle's house.

As they enter, they do so silently. Jayson knows that Isabelle's parents are bound to be asleep at this hour, so he wanted to avoid waking them up. Isabelle does the same. After slowly closing the front door, the two of them sigh in unison.

"Well, are you gonna be on tonight?" Isabelle whispers to Jayson before she heads upstairs.

"Probably, I'll have to think about it," Jayson responds softly

"Sounds good!" Isabelle whispers back.

Jayson smiles back at Isabelle. She's done a lot for him in the past couple of weeks, and he had no idea how to repay her. He heads over to the couch he usually rests on in the living room.

Suddenly, a message notification appears in Jayson's vision. It was from someone in the Nexus. Since the LucidCast and the NIE work together, there is software that can track player stats and messages from the game and relay that information to the player in the real world. It's handy for getting updates from within the game while not being logged in yourself. Jayson opens the message and reads it.

>MEET ME AT THE FRONT OF THE DECIMATION.

>NOW.

ˆˆsent just now

The person who sent Jayson the text was someone he wasn't expecting. He thought it must've been Josh wanting to game it out tonight, but this was definitely more serious.

The message was from Helmet.

Jayson rushes to the couch and plugs into his LucidCast immediately. He would message his friends once he was in the game due to the urgency of Helmet's text. Once he is ready to go, Jayson logs into the Nexus.

Once he actually spawns into the game, he rushes through the game menu and pulls up a group chat with his friends in it. There were already new texts inside of it.

>I just got a message from Helmet saying to meet him at the Decimation!!< Axel types.

>Same!< Ivy responds.

>Me too.< Jay adds.

>Oh hey Maguire!!<

Rendezvousing with his friends in Spahn, Jayson makes his way from the clearing where the tryouts have been taking place. He had previously logged out of here the last time he was online, but his friends had probably done training during that time.

Entering Spahn, Jay spots Ivy and Axel both making their way to the city entrance on their own. He waves to them and continues to run ahead towards the Decimation.

'Why would he want to meet us there?' Jay thinks.

Helmet wasn't the type to meet in open places where he could get recognized so quickly. Why was he planning to meet them at the Decimation of all areas?

Making his way down the streets of Spahn—with his friends close behind him—Jay spots main street and heads down it straight to the Decimation's entrance.

Upon getting closer to the professional arena, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. There wasn't a large gathering of players at the arena's foot, so Helmet was probably somewhere disguised in the vicinity. Axel and Ivy catch up to Jay as he slows down and looks around for Helmet.

"Do you guys see him?" Jay calls out.

"Nope!" Isabelle responds.

"Not yet, at least!!" Axel says.

Jay looks around at the shops surrounding the Decimation, wondering if Helmet was hiding out there. As he was surveying the area, Jay felt someone tap the back of his shoulder.

"Uh, Jay..." Ivy mutters.

Jay turns around to see Ivy right behind him, turned around. Axel has also turned around, with his back to Jay. Looking in the direction they were both facing, Jay sees a familiar figure standing right behind them all.

"Long time no see," Helmet says to Jay and his friends, who were all surprised to see him show up so fast,

Helmet wasn't wearing a disguise at all, and he just appeared out of nowhere. Jay listens to the rest of what Helmet has to say in anticipation.

"I have good news for you all—" Helmet picks up from where he left off.

"—You've qualified for the third section of the tryouts. Good job!" He finishes while raising a thumbs-up.