Codename: Windbreaker

Chapter 1

Let me tell you of a world similar to yet different from our own.

Magic walks hand in hand with science and technology. Creatures from our world coexist with creatures from fantasy. Mana (what magic is made from) is made in a gland near the brain which some species but not all of the them, have.

It would take so long to explain more about this world, so I'll just tell this story set there and make it up as I go along.

Expect a few plot holes, many self aware moments, and all sorts of comedy.

The time: October 20xx

The place: Kilkenny city

BEEEEEEEEEEEEP went an alarm clock at half past 6 on a Monday morning.

It belongs to our hero (if you can call him that) Dax McCormack, an 18 year old human Apprentice Mechanical Engineer at Kilkenny University.

Dax drowsily went to the kitchen of the student flat that he and his 4 best friends shared (despite the fact you can't actually choose your college roommates in real life) and made himself a breakfast of sugar cereal mixed with porridge and a mug of milky coffee with 2 sugars. It was unhealthy but delicious.

He was soon joined by the 4 best friends I wrote about. They consisted of Shaun (a coolheaded 18 year old orc), Isaac or Izzy for short (a shy, brainy 18 year old reptilian), Cecilia, or for short, Cece (a ditzy 19 year old dryad) and Katherine, or Kat for short (An 18 year old, biracial half-elf who is gutsy and intelligent).

The five of them were friends since they were babies. When Dax was 12, he realised you could arrange the first letters of their names to spell dicks. Haha dicks. By the way yes, yes I laugh at the word dicks. That is how immature I am. Now where were we.

Kat: "You were at the part where we were eating breakfast".

Dax: "No, I was doing something cool as hell".

Admittedly Kat is right. They were eating breakfast and yes, the characters can hear me narrating when I want them to.

They ate breakfast and began their daily commute (by skateboard in Dax's case) together through the city to college. The five all grew up in Kilkenny together and always loved their home city.

I mean how could you not, there is so much to do and see. There are shops that you could buy practically anything from (collectively), delicious international cuisine, many entertainment facilities and so many interesting people living and/or working there.

But back to the plot of this story, when the friends got to school, they were surprised to see a bear running around the campus. There were many running away but some seemed to be chasing it. Some of those people ran after the bear but others were spread out among the premises, presumably to corner and/or ambush it.

One of the people chasing it was Mr Gormouth, an administrator and physics (and some other subjects) professor at the school. He was a tall, black human man with glasses and a smooth, hairless head. Soon he was joined by Shaun and Kat in the bear chase. They both utilised magic (Half-elves and orcs have mana and so are magical and can use magic) with Kat creating a small fireball from nothing, which the bear followed, and Shaun producing stone walls in the bear's way and trying to trap it with vines.

Okay, here is basically how magic works in this world. It can be used to do anything but some people will be better at and/or prefer to do different types of magic than others ( Like most things that people are good at and/or like to do). Like I previously stated, some species are able to do magic (these species are called magical) and others are not (these species are called immagical).

Again back to the plot. Eventually the bear was caught and brought back to the zoo. After all of this commotion, Kat and Shaun returned to their friends and Dax exclaimed "Woah, that was awesome, guys. How did ya pull that off.". "By being in the Brown badge brigade." said Shaun while pointing to a brown chevron badge he had on his jacket, and Kat pointed to an identical badge on her top. Cece replied "Ohh. I didn't know it could be that intense.". "Yeah, I thought it was just boring volunteer work and stuff like that." Dax added.

For future reference, the Brown badge brigade is basically a driving force for this story. They are basically like the scouts for adults and they do thing like fundraising, volunteering, team activities and so on. Dax always assumed it would be boring, but after this morning's commotion he was aching to join.

"Where do I sign up, guys?" Dax asked Kat and Shaun enthusiastically. Kat replied "We and fellow local members of the brigade meet in that function hall next door to O'Rourke's pub not far from here. The meetings happen on Monday nights at 7 pm each week. Just sign in, get a badge and you're a member.".

Shaun asked Dax "So are you in?". "Hell yeah I am!" Dax replied. He was so excited about what lied ahead. That day was the first day of the rest of his life.

Technically every day of your life is the first day of the rest of your life, but today was still very special for Dax.