VR WARS Volume II - Coalition Army

The beautiful early morning that seemed to precede a peaceful day soon took a turn for the worse, transforming into a thunderous monsoon in which the vibrations of mother nature’s electrifying rays shook the very foundation of the giant grey building that served as the HQ for the Bermuda System Server. The weather forecast for that afternoon predicted lousy weather, but this felt more like a storm than anything else. Despite the adverse conditions, a lot of work still needed to be done if they wanted to finish preparations for the second stage of the competition that had hooked the eyes and hears of every living person in the world. Along a dark corridor, the approaching visitor's footsteps were muffled by the heavy rain hammering at the shielded windows. “…I should’ve brought an umbrella, ” the man dressed in a lab coat sighed as he slit his access card and introduced his security code in the door’s lock. “Guess I’ll sleep in the lab…again.” The alarm made a beeping sound, and the red light that signaled that the door was locked turned green, opening the mechanism automatically. Upon entering, the man quickly took turns examining each text presented on the multiple screen monitors across the room, only realizing he wasn’t alone when he was almost finished with the task. “Oh! Bryan? I didn’t even notice you were here, ha-ha-ha!” “Yeah…I wanted to finish redesigning the algorithm for the procedural generation for Phase 2 of the competition, but—” “You’re having problems redirecting the neurotransmitter engine to replicate the data received from the central server to the rest of the PXF, right?” the man interrupted his colleague’s thinking as he poured coffee into a mug. “…R.right! Sorry, Mr.Von Kluge.” The scent of freshly brewed coffee that hovered in the air brought an exotic smell to the otherwise unscented room. “I told you to call me Henrich already!” Von Kluge exasperated, before sitting next to his colleague while scanning new data inputs from a hand-held device. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take a look at it tomorrow. Go get some sleep; you haven’t stepped out of this lab for two days straight.” Understanding his boss's worry and the fact that he was about to reach his limit, Bryan pushed his chair aside to stretch out his body while letting out a long yawn; he had been so concentrated on his tasks that he had lost perspective of how late it was. But the moment he was about to reach for the door, the urge to take one last glance at the monitors overpowered his tiredness. Always a perfectionist, he didn’t like to leave things halfway or abandon his workstation until he knew for sure everything was working the way it should be. “…Bryan—” “Just a quick peek, sir,” sensing that his boss's annoyance levels were going through the roof, Bryan quickly cut him by giving him what he wanted to hear and what he wanted to confirm, “New diagnostics just came in and…oh…boss?” “It’s Henrich! Get that in your prefrontal cortex already!” addressed Von Kluge, still beating away at his holographic keyboard at an unprecedented speed. “According to these readings, …we have another one, Henrich.” Von Kluge suddenly stopped his abuse on the keyboard and almost spilled the coffee on the silver-colored floor to redirect his attention to the most recent analysis of his creation. “Show me.” Through the coded message on the screen, he read, surprised at the most recent discovery, which was certainly unexpected. “It’s happening now! The awakening is still occurring…in group F, sir!” “Put it on the main monitor!” Bryan logged in to the live feed from the last ongoing battle in Group F’s qualifiers with a quick push of a button. Both scientists took a seat as the camera focussed on a gorge with two groups battling, one portraying Roman legionnaires while the other focused more on tribes from Germania. “I see…” Von Kluge reacted to the live stream with the look of someone who had just figured out a mystery. “What a tough nut to crack, Teutoboug, that is.” “Camera four, sir!” With the help of Bryan’s watchful eyes, Von Kluge immediately selected the transmission on camera four and amplified it to cover the entire monitor. This one showed a small skirmish behind the main frontline, where a single Roman student was holding at bay dozens if not hundreds of enemies by himself. Only then did they realize that this was the place of the latest awakening. Only then did they see a glowing aura surrounding this brave individual. With eyes shining in scarlet, like the stained ground on which the man’s feet stood, he held his ground despite being massively outnumbered with horrible wounds damaging his body beyond any salvation. Though mortally injured, the man, still drawing breath, continued to defeat foe after foe with sharp precision and speed never before seen. “…Incredible!” Von Kluge stood in awe at the incredible display of martial might happening before his eyes. Never had he witnessed such a crude brawl, not even in all the others… “Trace his PXF signal! Get me an ID!” The need to know who it was outranked all other pending work on his mind. “Already on it, boss,” thinking ahead of his mentor, Bryan found the signal and locked its location, obtaining all the information they needed to know through the wavelengths. As the company responsible for both its manufacture and distribution, Von Kluge’s company, Nautilus Enterprises, had at its disposal all the places the PXF’s were sent to and the identification of the people utilizing them. “Got it! This particular PXF is the only one from this batch to reach the first stage of the awakening transformation,” informed Bryan as he skimmed through the file, continuing to read through the document. “Dispatched to the UAT in Portugal three months ago. Serial number 23150, assigned to class 1D under the student–” Von Kluge patted his pupil on the shoulder, forcing him to stop reading as if to say, “We got another one!” His expression finally showed his real enthusiasm by letting out a confident smirk just as he finished reading the individual's name. “…Angelo.”