The sun was setting on Kilo, a planet similar to Earth, with its rich forests and natural biomes littered throughout the planet. Its grand oceans hug most of the outer layer, the scent being carried through the beaches.
Standing out by the edge of the waters stood a young girl. Her long golden hair flickered in the wind, while the sword by her side radiated coldly in the sun's light. Her icy blue eyes were fierce as she watched a strange object emerge from the ocean.
It was a military carrier. One that is designed for picking up students eligible for military school. Once someone was of age for the draft, they were to be sent to be trained for two years at the end of their public school year.
Erin was ready, more than ready, to go to military school. Ever since her past and watching her parents die from the dalki invasion, she was dead set on training her skills to defeat the dalki. Erin never wanted a repeat of what happened then to occur again. Her time at the school was going to give her the skills for when war would inevitably break out again, it was only a matter of time.
The bus arrived, and she stepped on it. Not a lot of students there carried a beast weapon like she did. It was only of intermediate tier, so there were quite a few eyes pointed in her direction. Erin didn't really care, all she cared about was getting stronger.
When the gas came into the room to knock them all out, she thought of it as a simple measure to not worry herself with. Of course they wanted to make sure no one would find them at the military school.
Her eyes closed as sleep came to her.
She was ready for this.
—
At the test, Erin came across a few students there who were also taking the test with her. There was apparently a student who declined the offer for an earth book despite not having an ability. A boy with curly black hair and shabby glasses was all she remembered of him. There was also another student with slicked back hair that got some of them mumbling due to him being an original ability user as they've never seen someone with a string ability before, but he was ranked as a level 1, so Erin decided to ignore him.
Erin didn't pay much attention to them as they weren't particularly powerful in her eyes. She did her best when it came to the numerous tests. Erin had a rare ice ability, one that her parents got her before they died.
At the end of the test, she got a level 5. Looking at the number caused Erin to get infuriated. Back at her school, it was in her records that she had a level 5 ice ability, and despite her best efforts to train it, the number stayed the same.
Erin stood off to the side, and watched a brunette girl with a beast bow utilizing telekinesis with her arrows. She thought it was an impressive usage of combining an ability with her weapon. Despite the girl getting a level 2, Erin didn't forget her face so easily.
The day was over, and they were sent to their dorms. Erin and the brunette girl had actually booked the same dorm together, and decided to learn the other's name. The telekinesis user was called Layla, and she did her best to remember it.
—
Quinn was down in the dumps to say the least. He had yet to open his ability book before military school started, and he could've gotten his investment money right about now if he didn't accidentally set it to 5 years instead of months. He didn't know why his book was like this, and he had long suspected that someone glued it shut with industrial grade glue just to mess with him.
Because he was just a weak person who had no ability; he was often targeted by bullies, and they often beat him hard enough to cause him to bleed. He was sick of going to the nurse's office, and decided to return to his dorm this time since it was late.
He held his ability book as he walked down the hallway. It was something he brought with him today as he was experimenting with another way of opening it using some of the training gear in the gym. It of course didn't work because it just never did.
Quinn barely registered someone else in the hallway, it was just a bad day for him, and he was out of it. It was only when they were about to bump into each other did he realize that this other person had a few wounds too, notably around her hands. It was too late to do anything about it, and they both clashed.
The woman who he had bumped into, had long blonde hair, and shoved him back.
"Look where you're going!" She shouted.
Quinn stumbled back, dropping his book. He really was weak from the abuse that day. Without thinking, he scratched the back of his head instinctively as it stung a little. He forgot he had a cut there, and looked back at his hand with a bit of his blood.
"Sorry, sorry…" Quinn mumbled, before looking disappointed at himself.
The blonde haired woman was about to walk away, but seeing him all beaten up and bloody made her feel a little bad, so she turned around to help him pick up his book. Both of their hands were over the book, and they both touched as soon as they grabbed it. It was in that moment that their blood had mixed ever so slightly, causing a unique reaction.
What they didn't know was that due to Quinn's hand having a tiny bit of blood, and Erin's hands being cut from a rough scuffle in her weapons training class, did they manage to open the mysterious book at the same time.
Not only that, but it was mostly Erin's blood that had come across the book, causing it to light up and open right in front of their very eyes. The pages flipped through at a rapid pace, and flew into Erin's body. The last thing she saw was "congratulations, you received the vam-" before passing out.
Quinn was more than confused at the events that had just occurred. Most importantly, was the fact that his ability book just disappeared! He just stared in absolute shock as his one chance at moving up higher in the world just disintegrated and went to someone else who already had an ability.
Quinn's brows furrowed, and he punched the wall in frustration. Of course that wasn't a good idea, and he brought his hand back which was stinging in pain. Instead, he screamed and tugged at his hair, stomping on the ground.
"FUCKING HELL!" He screamed loud enough to scratch at his throat, "Does the world just hate me?!"
His eyes began to burn, and Quinn blinked at them rapidly. Just great… he was also beginning to cry. He took off his worn and beaten glasses, and wiped at his tears. Quinn was glad that he was the only one conscious in this hallway. Due to it being late in the day, the hallway was out of the way of any of the important rooms, and he picked it because he didn't want another encounter with a bully, was he at least given a moment of privacy.
—
Behind him, Erin was beginning to wake up. Her golden blonde hair shimmered as her head shook woozily. Her vision was blurry, but she was easily able to make out the boy she tried to help earlier by mumbling something.
His head was against the wall, and he was looking down. He was whispering "Are you FUCKING kidding me." over and over.
Erin stared at him, slightly annoyed that his muttering was waking her up, "Can you PLEASE shut up?!"
The black haired boy turned to look at her, a little scared, but frustration won out of his emotions and he walked up to her.
"Do you know what you just DID?! You ruined my chances of ever having a happy future!"
Erin didn't like this boy's attitude and was about to freeze him, but when her hand shot out, she noticed the number that once said 5, suddenly said 1. Not only that, but not a single ounce of ice came out. Confused, she got up, slightly towering over the curly haired boy, which caused him to stumble back in fear.
"What did your stupid book do to me?!" She yelled out.
"I-I—" The boy mumbled, just as confused as she was, "I don't know!"
Erin was not having it, and she too began to grow frustrated, "Well, if you don't explain that weird message about a—"
Before Erin could finish, they both saw a system screen appear right in front of their eyes, immediately causing them to quiet.
[User: Erin Heley]
[Race: Human]
[Level 1]
[0/100 EXP]
[HP 15/15]
[Strength: 15]
[Agility: 15]
[Stamina: 15]
"Y-your name is Erin?" The boy asked.
Slightly flustered that a stranger was suddenly able to see so much information about herself, she crossed her arms and looked off to the side. Somehow, she knew that he was able to see what she saw.
"Yeah, don't tell anyone about this, got it?" Erin scolded.
He quickly raised his hands as a sign of peace, "I wasn't planning to anyways!"
Erin decided to test out her ability again, just in case it was a fluke earlier. Holding her hand out, she attempted to make a simple ice cube, but it really was gone. She stood there slightly saddened at her current state.
"It really is gone…" Erin mumbled. One of the last things she had left of her parents, nowhere to be found.
The boy took notice of her saddened state, and walked up to her, "Look, I'm sorry about my book doing this to you. The least I could do is not tell anyone what happened. If it's any consolation, I think my book did something to me as well. There's no way I should've been able to see that message, or know about your name."
"Hey… um…" Erin began, not knowing what the other's name was.
"Quinn."
"Yeah, uh Quinn… What am I going to do?" Erin gestured to her watch, "How the hell am I going to explain this?"
They looked at each other, slightly unsure how to continue.
"Hmm, maybe I could…?" Quinn began thinking about it, but any thoughts he had seemed to be too scary to tell her. He had a few ideas in mind, but if only he could tell her without actually saying it…
{Quinn} Maybe find a hacker? There always does seem to be one at every school…
{Quinn} Yeah, alright, but how am I going to tell her that? Much less find one.
Erin's face scrunched up.
"Quinn, do you have some sort of telepathy ability? I'm hearing your stupid voice."
Quinn looked at her confused before holding up his watch, indicating a 1, "No, I don't have an ability, why are you asking?"
Erin sighed, exhausted, "Great, I lose my ability, and now I'm hearing voices about hackers from a weak nobody."
Quinn gritted his teeth when hearing that last part, but it was something he was unfortunately used to. Instead, he decided to focus on something else.
"You heard my thoughts?" Quinn asked, with a hint of excitement.
Erin squinted at him, "Uh… yeah?"
"Hold on, gimme a moment…"
{Quinn} Can you hear me say this?
{Quinn} Actually, can you send me messages?
"That's besides the point, Quinn!" Erin raised her voice, "I'll figure out the watch thing later."
"Oh, yeah, right." Quinn realized, about to scratch the back of his head before remembering the stinging pain.
It was at that moment that they both looked at their watches almost instinctively, it was nearly curfew, and they gave each other one last look.
"Crap, we gotta go," Quinn looked at his watch, "Again, sorry about my book."
Erin crossed her arms again, and began walking away.
Quinn watched her walk away, and despite being apart now, he felt a sort of connection to her. Some kind of kinship. He too began to walk back to his room, thinking about what he was going to do now without an ability book.
As Erin walked off to her dorm room, she examined more of the system messages that awaited her. She was also curious about the messaging system that… uh… That… that boy was able to do.
'Damn, I already forgot his name." Erin thought. It was a bad habit of hers to only remember strong people.
Erin wondered if she could do the same. While thinking about the system screen, numerous tabs were available to look through. There was a daily quest tab, a shop tab but that had a lock icon on it, a skills tab, and a messaging tab.
Selecting that, she was able to see the message history and remembered that the boy's name was indeed Quinn. Then she began thinking of her message.
{Erin} Quinn?
{Quinn} Oh my god, hearing your voice suddenly scared me.
{Quinn} It's kinda annoying that I could see what tabs you're looking at.
{Erin} Being linked to you is annoying.
{Quinn} Hold on, I'm in the middle of talking to my roommates.
Erin finally managed to reach her room in the girl's dorms, and entered inside. As she sat down, she could focus all of her attention on the system screen awaiting her. When looking through the tabs, nothing seemed out of the ordinary of a typical video game system, but when clicking on the shop tab, there was a message that stated "Locked to user: Quinn Talen. Unlocks at level 10."
{Quinn} Okay, I'm done.
{Quinn} I went to "sleep" early, so hopefully they won't bother me.
{Quinn} I see a shop tab, and a few other tabs too, but they state that they're "locked to user: Erin Heyley."
{Erin} Are you kidding me? I have to talk to you if I want something from the shop?
{Quinn} That's nothing compared to everything else being locked to you.
{Erin} Ugh…
Erin looked at the quest tab, and there was a daily one for drinking water every day and gaining EXP, which seemed easy enough, along with one for reaching level 10. The thing that annoyed her the most was that the skills tab showed there was nothing she can use at the moment.
{Erin} I can't even do anything. Everything's basically either locked or empty except for the quest of drinking water.
Erin got ready for bed, and began to lay down, ready to just fall asleep and leave everything for the morning. Thinking about the situation, however, led to some thoughts about the quest tab. She knew of video games due to the fact that her family was rich enough to afford some of the old vintage ones, and if she was able to level up, then she could grow stronger, likely able to put skill points into her stats.
A smile crept on her face.
"I can work with this."
It was a shame that she was pushed back in her goal of growing stronger, but she'll take anything at this point. Who knows, maybe she might even surpass her old self.
As she was about to go to sleep, she jumped up as she heard Quinn's stupid voice again, waking her up.
{Quinn} What if I got part of the system when both of our hands touched the book?
{Quinn} I mean, you definitely got more of it.
{Erin} OH MY GOD SHUT UP.
{Erin} I'm trying to sleep!
{Quinn} You know, you aren't exactly super friendly to me either.
{Quinn} You pushed me, yelled at me, tried to freeze me, then bothered me with seeing everything you're doing with the system.
{Erin} You saw me?!
{Quinn} I only saw the windows and tabs! I swear it was nothing else!
{Erin} …
{Quinn} Why was I able to hear those 3 dots?
{Erin} Are you kidding me?
In Quinn's dorm room, his other two roommates had already begun to head to bed, and flicked the lights off. He quickly glanced over to where his glasses were on the side of his bed, still safe and sound, before shuffling underneath his blankets.
Quinn wanted to say something to Erin, but he wasn't sure what exactly to ask, and if he even should. She might be asleep, and he didn't want to wake her up with his chatter, especially since they both weren't in a good mood. After thinking about it for who knows how long, he decided to say something.
{Quinn} Are you asleep?
{Erin} Now I'm not.
{Quinn} Sorry.
{Quinn} I just wanted to say goodnight.
{Erin} …
{Erin} Before you go…
{Erin} uh
{Erin} Thanks. I guess.
{Erin} For not telling anyone.
{Erin} You didn't tell anyone, did you?
{Quinn} Of course not, you'd probably cut my head off on a silver platter or something if I wanted to.
{Erin} I will do that if you break your promise.
{Erin} But anyways…
{Erin} We're in it together now, whether I like it or not.
{Erin} Goodnight.