Taking a tour

Gray and Xyra watched as the many new players started to leave their incubation pods. Xyra kept her head down mostly and didn't make eye contact with the other players if she could help it. Gray noticed most of the new players were a little confused at first as games usually just let you dive right in, but here they couldn't even leave the facility they just woke up in.

The initial batch were getting acclimated and were looking for their friends, Alterra Corporation let players pick up to 7 players they wished to spawn with for the mass release where as the initial 800 players from the Diamond-Tier were completely random.

The players started to mingle and naturally a lot of the male gamers were trying to flirt with the female gamers, but most female gamers were used to this so it didn't phase them too much. Several groups began to form naturally as the gamers all found their friends.

Eventually Major Valen decided they had a enough time and shouted "Ok, listen up!" He continued after the chatter started to die down. "Everyone has a number on a slip of paper in your pocket on the pilot suit next to your incubation pod! That is your team for orientation! If you want to trade or change teams, talk to the team captains, the twelve Diamond-Tier players in front of you with the lists of players! The teams go from Team 1 on my right to Team 6 on my far left! Consider this a tutorial mission, find your team, and you can get started as soon as you're completed with the mission!"

As soon as Major Valen finished his speech the new players started to return to their incubation pods to look for the pilot jumpsuit that was left for each one of them. Most of the female players had noticed it right away and had already put it on once they realized they were basically in a swimsuit upon leaving the pod.

Gray figured their will be confusion so he walked over to a white board, grabbed a marker and wrote the number 6 on the back of his clipboard and held it up over his head. The few players that had already found Gray and Xyra were a little confused when they saw Gray raising a number over his own head.

"Team Nine? I thought this was Team Six..." said one of the male players while laughing.

Gray looked up and noticed that he was holding the clipboard upside down making the 6 look like a 9 and quickly flipped it back around. "I... was just testing everyone, yep, that's it... just a test" said Gray sheepishly.

Even Xyra smiled and let out a slight giggle at this. Gray was happy to see that she still wasn't completely absorbed in herself so he decided he would play a fool if it would help her loosen up.

As the teams started to divvy up, Gray noticed that Stacia and Yurika's team was made up completely of girls... It seems that a lot of the girls all signed up together, which made a lot of the other guy players ask for permission to leave their current team and join Stacia and Yurika's team. After every single transfer request was rejected by Stacia and Yurika, the teams started to leave the medical facility.

"Hmmm, we all can't go to the same places at the same time as the other teams, so we should coordinate with the other team leaders to arrange ourselves." Gray thought to himself.

Gray sent a message to the 11 other Diamond-Tier players at the base saying he wished to meet up and discuss where each team would go during the orientation. Everyone except Xyra replied since she was standing next to Gray.

Once the 12 Diamond-Tier players gather, Gray said "Ok, let's try and stay out of each other's way while we do this. Let's do this...".

Gray pulled out the marker he took earlier and made a list of six places he thought they should all visit.

1. Armory

2. Cafeteria

3. Mech Bays

4. Mission Board

5. Player Quarters

6. Simulator Pods

"Go in this order but everyone start with their team number... so Team 4 will start at the Mission Board and finish at the Mech Bays." said Gray

"What about the classroom and officer quarters?" asked Paul

"They're next to the Player Quarters so you can hit all 3 places at once." said Gray.

Everyone nodded their head in agreement and returned to their respective teams. The teams were finally separating and Gray noticed that almost all of his team was comprised of mostly girls. Gray figured this was due to having the only other girl of the Diamond-Tier from this base as a leader.

Major Valen noticed Gray taking charge of everyone and finding a good solution to taking everyone to the different locations without running in to each other more than necessary and nodded his head with satisfaction.

"Don't flirt Gray, you are awful at it, and girls talk... don't become known as a womanizer!" Gray started thinking to himself trying to not say or do anything too stupid. "I'll need a fall guy, someone to be the butt of every joke, wish Geoff was with me... Wait, this might be why Major Valen split us up..." thought Gray.

As Gray was thinking this, the girls in the team started to drift away from a guy that seemed unable to read the situation as he kept trying to chat the girls up. Gray was unable to see who he was as he was a little shorter than average, but as the girls started to avoid this guy, he finally came into view.

Gray's face lit up with a smile as he realized he had found his victi... I mean fall guy... "Jono! Glad to see you!"

Jono looked in the direction he heard his name being called from and then noticed Gray "Gray! Who knew we'd be in the same spawn location!"

Gray shook Jono's hand firmly and after a bit of small talk, Gray and the rest of Team 6 headed towards the Simulator Pods.

__________

Moscow, formerly the nation known as Russia, now the political capital of the Terran Hegemony. After the formation of the Terran Hegemony, the former countries were divided up into different fiefdoms and led by provincial lords or ladies. The current leader was Queen Manyeo from the Kwin family that were the royal family of the Terran Hegemony that originated in Korea. In the Hegemony, leadership was hereditary so you could at most become a small duke if you were not related to nobility.

Queen Manyeo stood in front of the throne in the interior of the Kremlin Palace, she had fallen in love with the palace and thus moved the Political Capitol from old Korea to Moscow. As gold was a color only suited for royalty, the heavy gold accents and spotless sheen of the floor made her feel like this was truly a palace fit for royalty. St. Andrew's Hall was even blocked off from anyone not of the nobility as Queen Manyeo didn't even dare to sully the floors with common feet. The only exceptions were the 4 maid servants that had to clean St. Andrew's Hall 2 hours before sunrise every day without fail. The maids had even polished the floor to a near mirror-like shine which pleased Queen Manyeo even more since she could now see her reflection in the floor.

Queen Manyeo wore a traditional royal hanbok, the long pink petticoat had several gold symbols embroidered upon it to symbolize virtues such as luck and longevity. The hem on her hanbok was embroidered in gold with phoenixes showing her status as a queen. She wore a ceremonial hair wig that was thickly braided on the top and looped around in the back with white and gold hair ornaments. The vast golden embroidery truly could only be compared to the golden architecture of St. Andrew's Hall. Queen Manyeo would strut around like a male peacock when she was fully decked out in her royal hanbok as just putting it on can take hours after all of the makeup and layers.

Today was a special occasion for the Queen as she was going to declare war on the evil Alterran Alliance that was holding back the nobility's divine right to rule the Earth. Assembled with her St. Andrew's Hall were the 12 provincial lords and ladies, 9 of which were directly descendants of the Kwin family, the rest were married in to the Kwin family.

The provincial Lords and Ladies also wore ceremonial hanboks, each hanbok was generous with gold embroidery and had layers of red, yellow, blue, and black to represent the traditional elements in Oriental Cosmology.

"My Queen, everyone has arrived at your summons." a short middle-aged man had knelt down before the Queen and delivered this message clearly without making eye contact.

"Then let us begin..." the Queen stood up from her throne and with a majestic voice that was heard clearly by all present. "One month from today the Eurasian Treaty expires! We will immediately attack! What is the status of our combined forces?"

One of the Lords cupped his hand over his fist and gave it a shake in the direction of the Queen and said "My Queen, we currently have a combined total of 19,142 pilots after failures to increase compatibility with medication and neural pathways that ha_"

Queen Manyeo interrupted him by saying "Enough! We don't need to know how you do it, just get us more pilots."

The other Lords and Ladies yelled out in unison while bowing "Yes My Queen!"

Queen Manyeo walked over to one of the windows in the hall and could barely see a few inches out of it due to the thick fog. "For far too long has the rest of the Earth, my Earth, been denied of our divine right to rule! Force compatibility of as many pilots as you can if you need to, offer knighthood to any pilot that joins and contributes to our cause! I want my daughter to inherit the Earth, not just half of it!"