Cursed Earth Online (First Cycle)

Prologue: Alter Ego

 Titusville, Florida; a desolate field of bones, pavement and shattered buildings. 

Or at least this was what remained of it on Cursed Earth. 

Usually it was a good place to gather materials from rare and weak monsters native to the area, but currently it was the site of a handicapped Player-versus-Player Team Match.

The blue blur of her bracer passed the eyes of her intended prey as they were impaled almost half a second later by arrows as the girl clad in full-body spandex that resembled a ninja landed meters away from them. 

In just a split-second, she had fired five arrows and impaled all three of her targets in one move. At school, she was one of the most popular girls in school; here she was the Assassin-Archetype player, NerdyNinja1.

"Your back's wide open!" came a voice from above her as a straggler she never noticed closed the distance and attempted to crush her with a giant hammer, only to be felled by a barrage of crossbow bolts and a flying ax-kick to the skull that finished the assailant and caused a splash of blood to land squarely on the ninja's face.

"You owe me one this time, Nerdy!" said the Assassin's saviour as her foot lodged the poor corpse's body into the hard earth and landed somewhat gracefully onto the pavement.

She wore handmade leather armor from the neck down that had the embroidered silhouette of a crouching wolf on the breast pocket, her face covered with a hood that had speckled brown and white feathers.

Nerdy admired her partner's unique character design, she wished she hadn't rushed her own character.

The blue glows on their bracers suddenly disappeared as the system put them out of combat mode and allowed them to relax.

"We finally won! I seriously thought we were gonna be down for the count!" the girl with the feathery hood exclaimed as she lay limp on the asphalt and breathed easily.

Although she was an excellent gamer in real life, this game made her tense up the most as it was by far the most challenging for her.

"If you thought we wouldn't survive, then why'd you pick a fight with them in the first place?" the ninja calmly asked her friend as wiped the blood off her face.

"Well.... those dicks were saying bad things about me. I actually know them IRL (in real life)", the girl said as she raised her bracered arm and looked at her username proudly.

"AshenOcean must mean something to you if you keep looking at it that way after every win we get", the ninja said as she looked at her partner fondly, to which she only nodded in response and continued looking at her username.

They were the closest of friends, and knew a lot about each other. Yet, they did not know each other completely.

At school, they barely talked to each other and often passed each other in the halls, the cafeteria and even in class.

She was one of the popular girls that were loved and envied by the entire school, the other was a nerd that everyone knew only enjoyed the company of video games and had almost zero friends.

The Somebody and the Nobody. Little did both of them know the truth about each other.