Nerd Art Online

Nerd Art Online Part 4

       It's been a week since we tried the VR game in Tech. Every day I see Chris's spirits drop when we get into Tech and Mr. Harpers tells us what we're doing and it doesn't include the game. It makes me a little sad too. Both not playing the game and seeing him so disappointed. But, even though he's sad, he can still be the happiest person in the school. Well, tomorrow is another day...
       "Omg girl, you know what I just thought of!?" "Ohh boy. What is it?" "I totally ship Erza and Aquarius!" "Omg, I could totally see that! How did we not see that earlier!?" "I know right!?" We walk into Tech and I mentally prepare myself for disappointment. I look at Chris and I see his eyes light up and I hear him gasp. I turn to look at what he sees and I see them. The headsets. I gasp and look at Chris. He's shaking and his face has turned red from trying not to scream. He grabs my hand and squeezes it to help prevent him from fangirling in front of the whole class. We walk over and he's still grabbing my hand tightly. I smile. It makes me so happy to see him like this. We sit down and he turns to look at me. "Go ahead," I say with a smile. "OMG GIRL YAAAAAAAS OMG OMG OMG I'M SOOOOO EXCITEEEED!!! I ACTUALLY CAN'T BELIEVE IT!! OMG OMG OMG OMG GIRLFRIEND!! OH! MY! FREAKING! GOD OF ANIME!!!" He takes a deep breath, "OMG I CAN'T WAIT TO PLAY IT AGAIN IT'S BEEN TOO LONG WHY DID THEY WAIT SO LONG MAYBE THERE MIGHT BE MONSTERS AND BOSSES TO FIGHT OR OTHER PEOPLE OR CHALLENGES OR LEVELS OR MONSTERS I ALREADY SAID THAT BUT I DON'T CARE I JUST CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE FINALLY ACTUALLY GETTING TO DO IT I MEAN I REALLY MISSED IT AND IT WAS JUST SO FREAKING COOL AND AMAZING AND I WISH WE HAD MORE TIME IN OUR CLASS SO THAT WE COULD PLAY IT LONGER AND I JUST AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!" He takes a few deep breaths and leans back in his chair. "Jesus, that was a mouthful," He says between breaths. "Ya think?" I tease.
       He nods his head and turns back around to Mr. Harpers. "Alright class, everyone calm down. Now, if you haven't already noticed, I have brought out the VR headsets again. I know that you all enjoyed the game we played last time, so I decided that now, since the full version is available to us, we can play it for real over the next few days." A chorus of cheers and celebrations erupt from the class, especially from Chris. "Ok ok, calm down. The more you talk, the less time we have to play it." The class immediately got dead silent. Mr. Harpers calls a few students to pass out headsets and grabs himself one. He sits down at his desk and put it on, and we all do the same once we get our headsets. I grab Chris's hands and he squeezes mine. "Ready?" He asks. "Ready." I reply, and we both slide the headsets on, still holding each others' hands.
       We open our eyes and look at ourselves, we look the same as we did last time. I start laughing, I had forgotten how weird Chris's outfit was. Once I stop, we take out our weapons and Chris starts laughing, remembering how I spent all that time figuring out magic, and then I switched to bow and arrows, only to choose a bow called "The Bow of Magic". We both start laughing hysterically and end up getting odd looks from our classmates, but we don't care. It's too funny to let the opinions of others stop us.
       We spend a few minutes readjusting to the game, and then Mr. Harpers calls our attention. "Alright everyone, this game is based off of the game "Sword Art Online", so everything will be almost identical to it. If you don't know what that is, look it up. It's an awesome anime. Back to the point, we will be battling monsters to get stuff and there will be a main boss that you all fight in order to beat the level. If you decide to break into separate groups, the boss will reset for each group to pass the level. You cannot pass a level if someone not in your group beats the level, you or someone in your group has to do it. If you die in the game, you do not die in real life or lose your stuff. There will be quests to go on for extra money or other stuff. Aaaand, I think that's it!" The class applauds him and he takes a bow. "Thank you, thank you. Now, to teach you about how to fight monsters..."
       We spend a while learning how to properly use our weapons and fighting techniques. It's kinda fun, actually. Mr. Harpers leads us to a clearing and tells us to prepare our weapons. We don't see anything so we do so half-heartedly, well everyone other than Chris and I. We've watched enough anime and played enough RPG games to know how this works. All of the sudden, what looks like a mix of gargoyles and dogs come out of nowhere and attack us. I immediately put three arrows in my bow, hold it sideways, and fire it. I hit three of the creatures straight in the head, and a little notification pops up on the side of my vision. It says "Achievement- One-hit Kill x3". It's annoying and distracting, but I'll get used to it. I look over and I see Chris running at them and slicing them open with his sword. Floating next to him is a screen like mine that says "Achievement- Kill x6". That must be annoying to him too, but then again, he's always been better about things like that than me. I fire a few more arrows and officially get used to using it and aiming and stuff. I see my other classmates starting to try to fight them, but mainly either running away or trying to fight but end up dying.
Chris and I end up having to fight off the rest of them, with the help of this girl in our class that usually sits in the back of the class and doesn't talk at all. I hardly notice her there most days. She's 3 years younger than everyone else, but she was too smart for middle school so they had her move to our grade. She hasn't changed her look, but she did choose a weapon, "The Magic Staff of Life and Death". Once we've killed all of them, Chris walks over to her and puts a hand out for her to shake. She hesitates at first, but then reluctantly shakes it. She tries to pull her hand away but Chris doesn't let go. He pulls her with him over to me, and then lets go. I put my hand out. "Hi, I'm Amanda, and this is Chris," I say nodding in Chris's direction. He guiltily smiles. "Yeah, I forgot to do that part." The girl giggles, and then turns to shake my hand. "My name is Lacey. It's nice to meet you guys!" She says with a bright smile. I look at Chris and I can tell that he's excited to see her open up. "So," I start, "Chris and I were gonna form a party with the two of us, but we'd love to have you join! Whaddya say?" "Umm..." She looks around nervously. "Yeah, I-I guess?" Chris puts a hand on her shoulder and she jumps back in surprise. "Hey, come on. You were just so happy, don't get all nervous on us again, k?" He grins. Lacey bites her lip, and Chris gives her a light punch on the shoulder. "BE ENTHUSIASTIC!!" She giggles again and rolls her eyes. "HECK YEAH I'LL JOIN!!" She screams and then her eyes widen and she gasps and covers her mouth with her hand. "There we go!" Chris starts clapping and I join in. "Oh and by the way," He whispers, "I'm as straight as a circle." Lacey thinks for a second, "... *gasp* ohhhhh!" She giggles and nods. "Ok!" Chris looks at me. "I like her!" Lacey blushes and I wink at her. "He's normally like this, don't worry. I've known him since we were 5 and I still don't understand him half the time." She giggles. I honestly can't argue with him, I like her. "Hey, so do you know about anime?" I ask Lacey. Her eyes light up. "YES." Chris runs up and hugs her so tightly that he ends up picking her up off the ground and spinning around with her in his arms. When he finally sets her down, she almost falls over, but catches herself before she does. She giggles again, she's a very giggly 12 year old. You would've never guessed from first appearance. She's a very emo, introverted looking person. Speaking of appearances...
"Hey Lacey?" "Yeah?" "Why haven't you changed into a different outfit for the game?" She thinks for a second and then shrugs her shoulders. "I dunno. I couldn't really pick one." "WELL THEN!" Chris jumps in, "I HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO!" Her eyes get wide and she looks at me with a look of worry and concern for her own safety. I laugh, "He gets like this a lot. It's normal." She lets out a sigh of relief and then turns around and faces Chris. "Define 'work'," She says jokingly. He smiles and puts his hands on his hips. "I am the MASTER of fashion." She looks at his outfit and raises and eyebrow. "Are you sure?" I laugh and he rolls his eyes. "Yes, sweetheart. I am. Now," he claps his hands. "Let's see what we have." He taps the button behind Lacey's ear. The screen pops up and he touches the "Outfits" button. He and Lacey look through the outfits for a few minutes while Mr. Harpers helps rest of the class practice more. I have to admit, if us three weren't here, our class would've had to surrender to Level 1 monsters, which is really sad when you think about it.
"Hey Amanda!" Chris calls. I turn around and look at a girl with half light-blue, half light-pink hair in two buns, a black tank top, the same leather jacket as me but in black, a black skirt that goes down just below her knees, two gold eyes and black gloves that don't cover her fingers. "Welcome to the video game version of Lacey!" He says with jazz hands toward her. She blushes and gives a nervous laugh. "It looks good, trust me." She looks at my outfit and gives a relieved and trusting smile. "Thank you. It doesn't really fit my personality though, but I kinda like it." Chris smiles and gives Lacey another quick hug. "Yay!" She rolls her eyes at him and giggles.
       "Alright class, listen up!" Mr. Harpers calls. "It's time to leave. Everybody log out now before the bell rings." I touch he button behind my ear and reach for the "Log Out" button, but realize that it's not there. I hear a half excited, half concerned gasp from Chris. I know what he's thinking and, by the looks of it, so does Lacey. I look over at Mr. Harpers and I see him frantically search through all the buttons for the third time. He tries to put on a confident face and turns toward the class. "Okay everyone, calm down. So, I know that I said that they made this game like Sword Art Online, but I think they might've taken it a little too far." He laughs nervously. The class looks at him confused and a nervous chatter breaks out. He sighs. "We can't get out of the game until we beat all the levels." The whole class (except for Chris, Lacey, and me) gasps and one kid asks, "Wait, how many levels are there?" "101." "That's a weird number." "Yes, I am aware." "Okay then..." Welp, I guess Chris is truly living his dream after all...