prologue 2.0

When Ryga Axcel opened his eyes, he was gone. Everything was gone.

His body, his bed, his whole world. It was all a black nothingness, like he'd been

transported directly into the void. He tried to speak and couldn't. He wondered if he was dead.

He hoped that he was dead, because if he wasn't he was either having some really shitty sleep

paralysis or going absolutely insane.

The void started to brighten. Color started to emerge into it. Too much color, actually.

Neon reds and blues and yellows like he was at a goddamn circus.

"Welcome to the System, Ryga."

Okay. Yup. Going insane confirmed.

"Loading World Zero."

Everything went blinding white, and Ryga tried to close his eyes before remembering

that he didn't seem to have eyes anymore, didn't seem to have anything - and then he felt his

feet hit the ground.

Well. They didn't hit the ground, exactly. More like he was suddenly aware that the

ground existed to begin with. Given what he'd been working with so far, that seemed like a good

start.

Ryga looked around, blinking, wondering if he'd been kidnapped. Then wondering who

the hell would have the time to design something like this just to kidnap somebody into it. Just

one room, with blinding multicolored lights and a wheel spinning slowly and ominously in front of

him. Most off-putting of all, there was no sound. Not just silence but the complete absence of

any sound at all. Ryga didn't think that was actually possible, and he most certainly did not like

it.

"Welcome to the Waypoint." Ryga yelped as a small packet dropped into his hand. "You

have one Starter Pack."

Things were starting to line up here, which was good. But what wasn't good was that

none of them made any fucking sense. But also what was good was that it was completely

fucking awesome. Ryga looked down at the packet, prodded it suspiciously, then shrugged and

tore it open.

"Ten Skill Tickets acquired."

Ryga held up one of the shining papery slips in his hand. "Uh... would I happen to be in a

Gacha System right now?"

"Correct."

"And we're doing physical tickets and wheels? That's a little outdated, don't you think?"

"...Humans seem to enjoy inserting tickets and spinning wheels." It sounded almost hurt.

"But if you'd prefer I can store them digitally."

"No, it's okay! I do like inserting tickets and spinning wheels. Just, that's gonna get kinda

hard to handle when I get a lot of 'em."

A mailbox-looking thing popped out of the ground next to the wheel. "Place any number

of tickets in here, and the wheel will instantaneously spin for all of them."

"Oh, awesome!" Ryga jogged over to the mailbox and dropped his tickets in. "C'mon,

c'mon, show me what I got."

The wheel spun around, dizzyingly fast, and Ryga noticed with mild amusement that it

didn't actually have anything printed on it. Just a wheel for wheel's sake, I guess. It slowly

clicked to a stop on an indistinct blue slice, and the world dinged. "10 Skills acquired. Check

Skill Log?"

"Sure!" Ryga said, bouncing in place excitedly. If he'd really been kidnapped, he had to

give his captor credit - he was getting Stockholm Syndrome already.

"Skills: Bullet Seed; Minimize; Grassy Terrain; Bonemerang; Double Slap; Core Enforcer;

Flip Turn; Telekinesis; Simple Beam; Hammer Arm. No tickets remaining. Enter World One?"

"Wait, I get to use Pokemon moves?" Ryga tried to concentrate despite his excitement.

He got on one knee and placed his hand on the ground. Grass sprung up all across the floor.

"Holy shit! How did I do that??"

"Acquiring skills also imparts instinctive knowledge of their use."

"Nice! Convenient!" Ryga stood up, and the landscape reverted to normal. "So, uh...

what's this World One you're talking about?"

"You know it as the world of Avatar: the Last Airbender."

Ryga's heart pounded. "No fucking way. You can really take me there?"

"Of course. Are you ready?"

Ryga started to nod, then hesitated. He'd just been launched into an insane situation

from a completely ordinary life. Did he really want to leave that all behind?

Yeah, because losing my shitty friends and barely-there family is gonna leave a real big

void in my life.

Ryga grinned. "Hell yeah."

"Loading World One."