GEOVRU: Repticatch

Lesson 5

"Drake!" I screamed. "I'm sorry alright! I just have to getthat title!""Mödare, that title is ruining your life, and you haven'teven gotten it yet!""If I can just...""Shut up already! Just shut up and listen! Have you evenrealized how your grades are doing?! Sure you're turning them in, but you'refailing every class!""I don't care about my grades! I just need to be theChampion of Games! If I can get it then I won't need to pay for next year and...""Mö, there won't be anext year if you don't get your act together, regardless of the title, yourgrades are what keep you here, not that stupid title!"I clenched my fists, I was losing this argument, I hatedlosing, I refused. I clenched my hands tighter until finally, I snapped. "It'snot my fault you're just some school nerd!"There was silence, the words had worked. Adrakenn hadfinally shut up, I won. She shook her head and quietly walked out of the roomwithout saying a word. The door slid shut behind her as the intercom stated."Goodbye, Adrakenn."For some reason, I couldn't help but say that under mybreath. I fell backwards onto my bed and sighed. Whether or not I actually didwin that argument, she was right. On every single statement she was right. Mygrades had gone down since the end of October, which is when I started devotedmost of my time to assisting the Fortisians into building up their strength totake on the Groftonites. All the war and violence in the game made me think of allthe other things going on outside this college. All the wars that went on inChina, the Middle East, and even the attacks in the United States, people hadfought and died to keep what I had been given as a child. The Atomiton. The endof those battle didn't favor well for us either, and news was spreading thatthe chip wouldn't last another year. The world was changes, and it scared me.I let out another loud sigh and clenched the covers astightly as I could, forgetting the dreadful future that awaited me."Stupid Drake... I don'tneed you anyway." I thought, as I curled up under the covers Ijust held so tightly to, I laid my head down on the soft pillow and closed myeyes. The time was almost one-o-clock in the morning, still no sign of Adrakennreturning to the dorm room.When I woke up in the morning, Drake's bed was still empty,and they didn't appear to be disturbed, so that meant she didn't wake up beforeme. I gritted my teeth in anger and got ready for my classes. I tied the bow inmy hair, almost too tight, and headed out the door.As I entered the classroom with everyone else I made sureto get up to the back of the room first, to draw the least amount of attention.As soon as I sat down I opened up the Atomiton and began to search the internet.I looked up as much as I could about Caedes. Most of the files on the siteswere either blocked or read REDACTED. I clenched my fists and continuedsearching. For some reason, I couldn't find anything; every aspect of Caedes'life was confidential. The only things I could find where his basic biographyup to his college years, and the fact that he won the championship and wasrewarded a full ride at his first year of the college. But everything else wasa total black hole. There was no information on his character, no informationabout him currently, or his current whereabouts. But I knew. He was here, up inthe citadel, looking down on us like some kind of king. He wasn't better thanme, I was better than him in every way. I refused to wait any longer. If thatextra money didn't make the battle soon, I would start it myself.Just then, I received a message from Krystal. I quicklyopened it up.Mödare:Good news! The money ya gave us has accelerated the time until we caninitiate the war. Also the Sakeons have agreed to the alliance, and havedevoted a few million, almost enough to fulfill what's needed. We only need 'bout30,000,000 diase more to reach tha quota. We should initiate battle by tha endof the week! Still no sign of Drake, she hasn't logged on all day. Did somethinhappen? I hope she's okay, she's a valuable asset. Anyway, I'll mail ya wheneverythin is ready. See ya then.-KrystalI closed the window. Where is Drake? If she didn't sleep inour dorm last night, then where is she? Where and who with could she havepossibly slept with? As far as I knew I was her only friend. I looked over towhere Adrakenn would usually sit, but she wasn't there. I felt a void in mychest. I pushed it down, trying to ignore this sensation, but it was difficult."C'mon Mödare, get your crap together. You don't have time to worry about her;you've got a war to worry about." It didn't feel like long before class was over. I hadn'theard a single word the professor had said since I was looking up searching forinformation on Caedes in GEO, but there was none. Instead, I had begun toresearch the perks of the Groftonite race, as well as the terrain of Groftonitself. It seemed pretty barren, and in fact it looked like a relatively boringplace, the most that was going on was an underground city that seemed to bemade out of some kind of black stone, maybe charred rock? But the color seemed tooample to simply be scorch marks. It might have been made out of some kind ofmaterial that was only made on Grofton. I set that thought aside and decided tolook it up later. The actual surface looked like a massive sandstorm hadconsumed an entire planet sized city. There were massive black spires erodingaway as clouds of thick grey dust continuously slammed against them. Each toweralmost looked like it was on the verge of falling over, and they lookedancient, almost before the turn of the last few centuries. If I were to battle Caedes on the surface ofthe planet, instead of inside one of its underground cities, it would reducecivilian casualties, as well as enable me to harm him. Due to research on hisbio, I knew he had an obsession with swords, so I predicted as much for him touse a phase-blade, a type of energy made form crystals mined from beneathGrofton's surface, it might be made of energy, but it wasn't any more specialthan a normal sword like mine, it just glowed in the dark. If I could get in aone on one, my chances of victory would be highest."That's it!" I screamed. Thank God everyone had alreadyleft the room, or that could've been really awkward. I walked out of the room withmy bag across my back. I took one step out and the door closed behind me, but Ithought for a second."Haveyou even realized how your grades are doing?! Sure you're turning them in, butyou're failing every class!" I sighed. As much as I hated toadmit it... she was right. I was failing every single class but fine arts. I justdidn't care enough. I knew I could easily pass the classes, but I just didn'tcare about doing the work. I would do the least amount of work as quickly aspossible and then turn it in. I spent all of my time in game, and it wasruining my life. I turned around and went back into the door. The professor washurrying to organize his papers. "Hey, Professor Murlock?" I asked,shuffling in. He looks quickly over and looks back. "Oh hello, Mödare. Doyou need something?" "I was wondering... I turned in that essay yesterday, but Iforgot something, I can't have it back can I?" I scratched the back of my headand tried to seem as innocent as I possibly could."Sure, just remember its due by the end of the day onFriday." Murlock swiped his right hand down and navigated through his menus. Icouldn't see them however, so I just waited on his conformation. "Alright, itshould be in your inbox, turn it in by the due date and we'll be good.""Okay. Thanks professor." I say with a smile, turning around."Alright good. Now if I can just get theother classes, I can bring my grades up." I ran around to every building and asked every professor Ihad, regardless if I had the class that day or not. I managed to get everypaper back except for my phycology report. I figured as much, that professorwas always a prick.The door to my room opened and then shut behind me."Welcome, Mödare."I looked around the room and sighed, going to my desk."Still no Drake." I said, sitting down at the wooden chair. I propped my feetup on the desk and opened my email, taking out all the files that my professorshad sent me. I looked over each and every one of them, fixing tiny grammaticalerrors, even big ones. The first I had done in no time flat, but the rest tookme hours. The entire time I thought to myself; "I could be playing GEO right now." But I forced that thought downand kept going, if I didn't work on this, it wouldn't matter how good I was atthat game, I wouldn't be going here next year, not in my wildest dreams. Theleast I had to do was pass the classes, which was the least, but not what Iwanted. I wanted at least Bs in every class. I gritted my teeth and typed awayat the holographic keyboard.It was at least past midnight before I was done. Well,either done or I was just too tired to find anything else I could do. I looked around the dark room again, still noDrake. I sighed and fell onto my bed, slowly pulling the covers over me. Icurled up into a ball and hugged my second pillow between my legs. "Hurry upDrake..." I whispered. "Idiot."When I woke up the next morning, it was almost ten-o-clock.I didn't have a class until three, so I quickly navigated the menu and openedup GEO. As it brought up the menu, I reminded myself of my grades, and thepapers I was working on the night before, and closed the game, instead openingup the paper I was working on. I got up out of bed and put my clothes on; tyingmy hair into a ponytail with the black bow my grandmother gave me before shepassed away. I went to type, but my fingers were interrupted by a flashingyellow symbol at the lower left corner of my screen, right next to my heartrate. Inside the tiny triangle was the word hunger. My stomach rumbled.I minimized the documents and walked outside the dormitory.There were other girls in the hallway, talking to each other, going shopping orjust getting back from early classes, but I ignored all of them and headeddownstairs, where I walked to the center of campus. The campus itself wasmassive, especially considering the size of the student body, I knew thereweren't many students here at the college, at most probably two-thousand, butthere was still a lot of room. There were parks spread all throughout thecampus, with trees and fields of grass. There were tons of people all hangingout around these areas, but the most populated area, no matter the time of day,was the central strip. At the central strip, there were shops, restaurants,clothing stores, anything you could think of, there were two sidewalks, and oneon each side. In the middle was a long strand of trees. There was no road, andthe entire place was cut off from any vehicles, no cars were aloud on or nearthe strip, unless to load up stock. Even behind the stores, there were twomassive parks, with lakes and everything. If it wasn't the middle of winter,people might actually be hanging out there and going swimming. I wondered whatkind of fun I might be having come spring time, it would be getting warm aboutthat time, maybe me and drake would go swimming out on the beach. That would benice.I walked into a restaurant I had been to a few times. Asthe bell rung, I was greeted by the electronic voice, as well as the guy behindthe counter. "Welcome back Mödare, the usual?""Surprise me!" I told, sitting down in my usual seat by thecurved bay window. I reopened the document I was on, I believe it was thefourth paper and looked over it again, making some final adjustments andadlibs. When I was finished with that one, I closed it, and opened the next one.Before I could start, a plate was brought out in front of me. I took a Frenchfry from the plate and made one last adjustment before minimizing it andbeginning to eat. What they had fixed for me was nothing short of what Iexpected. It looked like a type of food from in game. That's how this placeworked. Each year, they would redesign and restyle the place to fit the game;they even made the food similar. This was a burnt skitter bird. They were bredon the moon of Thetive, but in real life, they were just chicken cooked in afancy way. The drink they gave me was simply a cola that had been dyed green.It tasted good, I had never had food from Thetive before, but I was surprisedof the flavor. I managed to down the whole meal in a short amount of time. Ilooked out the window before opening the document again, and going back towork. This was starting to hurt my fingers, the constant typing, but I knewthat the sooner I got all of this done and done right, the sooner I could getback into GEO. This was probably the first time all year that I had spent morethan 12 hours outside of the game. I was almost having withdrawal. I wanted tolog in so bad, forget about these stupid papers, and just play my game, but ifI did that, I wouldn't be playing it much longer.Once more, I gritted my teeth and typed away.That Friday, I ran back to my dorm room a little fasterthan usual. I had finished my essays earlier in the week, so I could log inimmediately. I jumped onto my bed and rustled to lie with my back against thebed."LINK GEO!"I regained consciousness on the bed in the guest room. Ijumped up from the bed and ran into the throne room, where Krystal stood theretalking with her subordinates in a massive group. She was wearing her usualfancy garb along with some armor on her shoulders and chest. Her guard wassporting their usual armor, along with their massive lances. "Mödare reporting for duty commander!" I screamed, freezingwhere I stood, and saluting her and her guard."At ease soldier, get over here; we'll discuss your role inthis in just a minute."I ran over to the group and looked over the guards'shoulders. "Red squads three and four will be goin after the flagship,one and two will be staying in our orbit guarding our flagship. Gold squadsfive and six protect our fleet in the Grofton atmosphere, squads one throughfour get to the Sakeon atmosphere and guard their fighters there as well astheir flagship. Green squads one through three stick with reds one and two,green four through six go with gold squads. Captains of the flagship!" Threemen in the front of the crowd stiffened. "As soon as you see a fleet ship comeout of warp speed, immediately charge the repticatch, I wanna see the glow fromthe palace!""Yes ma'am!" They screamed."Alright! All of you! Get to your fighters, we strike inthirty minutes!" They all spread out, the mass of them going in a singledirection, they all nearly trampled me. It was me and Krystal alone now. Shelooked at me with more grit than I had seen her the day the Beijing bombingoccurred. "It's time Mödare."I nodded and simply agreed. "Yeah. This is it. We've beenwaiting all year for this huh Krys?""Yeah... we've come a long way from a fine arts teacher andher student haven't we?""Yeah. Hey, you wanna grab a bite to eat at the Cantinaafter this thing?""Nah. I promised me husband I'd spend time with himtonight."I nodded. "I understand." There were a few moments ofawkward silence."You still wantin that title?" she asked."Heck yeah!" I proclaim. I gripped the air tightly in myfist with passion.She crossed her arms and smirked. "Alright. Well, I have aspecial mission fer ya. C'mere." She extended her arms and pulled me closely."All right, here's what you'll be doin."