VR WARS Volume II - Coalition Army

CHANGE OF HEART

The sounds of the battlefield died down, and the chanting of birds replaced the dreaded Irish war-drums. Vera’s mind had returned to its original vessel.

She was annoyed; after seeing that dying message in red so often, she couldn’t stand it anymore. Every f*****g time...'You are dead, you are dead...you are...dead!' I’m tired of this, all of it! What kind of education program did I get myself into?

Vera pushed her neurotransmitter up into its resting position with such strength the sound echoed across the room, unintentionally alerting the rest of the class that had already abandoned the battle to her presence, the majority of which were watching the live feed of the ongoing struggle through cellphones or hand-held devices. But one group next to one of the windows stood out the most; her comrades, Marco and Rafael.

“I knew I could count on you. Good job out there!” The elite captain commended her, giving her a thumbs up.

“…Thanks,” Vera replied while she stretched out her body, only to be surprised by a very unprecedented sight. “What the—?!”

Out in the classroom corner, Big Richie sat in his interface with his mind plugged into the other world. But that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, considering that he was one of the core-officers leading the assault. All four captains in the UAT had a small entourage of bodyguards to protect them, so it made sense for him to be alive. Yes, it makes sense for Ricardo. But not for him!

To her surprise, and probably to everyone else’s, the person sitting next to Big Richie…the Commander of the UAT, Angelo, remained connected to the Virtual World.

“Why…how…what?!” Almost screamed Vera, turning to her companions for answers, only to get a “no idea” look splatter all over Marco’s face.

“…He’s still fighting,” Rafael apprehensively said.

To her knowledge, when the rest of the UAT broke apart from Angelo’s contingent a while ago and taking into consideration the force he was left with, everyone was sure that the rear-guard wouldn't last long. “We can buy you five, maybe ten minutes, but that’s pushing it.” These had been Angelo’s last words to them. But crossing that field while in combat would take a lot more than that, so how long had he been holding the Irish horde at bay?

“Twenty minutes,” Marco answered, reading Vera’s implicit question. “But that’s not all…”

Looking closely at the feed, Vera observed a strange glow coming from Angelo’s body. And that wasn’t the only alteration in him; the color of his eyes had also changed to a burning red. His movements had become incredibly fast, making his opponents shrug in fear as he decimated their ranks with each strike.

To them, it was like a beautiful dance: a sword dance honoring not the gods, nor the mortals, but death.

That spectacle, to Vera’s surprise, captivated her so profoundly she couldn't let her hatred for Angelo come into the equation in this matter.

Her eyes sparkled at the sight of her commander’s performance. At that moment, she found herself enchanted with his dance and had something else other than respect for him. “Incredible, right? We bet on the wrong horse this entire time…” Marco said out loud what they were all thinking deep inside.

It came with his remark that Vera remembered that he was about to say something else, so she took the opportunity to ask. The question distracted her companions' from the live-feed for a few seconds due to the almost inexcusable implications that came with it. “How did you not see that?” Asked Rafael first, to which Marco gave her a quick hint to what his friend was saying by nodding his head in the direction of the multiple PXF’s in the classroom.

“See anything different there?”

A difference? She asked herself and took a more careful look at the classroom only to be surprised by the obvious. One particular PXF unit stood out from the others; it seemed to have suffered some alterations to its design. If anything, it looked more mechanical than before.

Three small tubes came from either side of the interface pumping something or acting as a cooling system; she didn’t know. To her, it looked like that of a rainbow of colored tubes connected to the chair's main body, while to the side where the arms were, two small window screens read data at the speed of lighting. The entire chair was glowing with lights of different colors.

Even though the neurotransmitter covered the user’s head, the lower parts of his face, nose, mouth, and jaw were visible. She could clearly see the struggle her commander was going through by the grinding of his teeth and the amount of sweat dripping down his face.

“The Angel of Death has reached new heights,” came a soft voice from behind them, one of the people who had stood behind with their commander. “Not only has he been battling alone for over ten minutes, but he’s also taken out Shaun.”

“What?! Angelo killed ‘The Devourer’?!” This time, the shouting did come; there was no way to avoid it.

“Singlehandedly,” emphasized Carlos.

That was major news to Vera.

Shaun Fitzgerald, aka ‘The Devourer,’ was the acting commander of the UCD and their biggest obstacle to date. In their first clash, he took out the fifth company's officer, lieutenant Rui, severely wounded Katherine, one of the top fighters in the UAT, slew Marco, and halted Angelo with nothing but brute force. Shaun’s presence had left such a scar on the UAT that nobody thought he could be stopped, but that’s precisely what Angelo did.

“The only person out of the UAT…No! Out of the entire country to awaken his inner spirit. To attain the PXF’s first form, AWP.” Marco looked at his old rival with sympathy and respect, something Vera never thought he would do.

I guess he really changed sides. She took what Marco said to heart, thinking over all the changes the university had undergone to attain a new height. A unified and organized chain of command with capable people leading from top to bottom, lessons in history and training in tactics, and overall battle strategy, not to mention the disclosure of every bit of intel on their opponents to all students, regardless of their rank. Except he hadn’t really delivered on the last one. Yet, Vera had to admit that Angelo's improvements were advantageous, and her feelings for him had shaken up a bit.

On one hand, his heroic actions so far had won them all the battles he’d partaken in, brought a sense of unity to their fractured university, and achieved this AWP they were all talking about. While on the other hand, his ‘innocence’ gained him popularity enough to start a rebellion that took down the old system, slaughtered the Elites in a training exercise, and, worst of all, broke her nose IRL! Although this had been in self-defense during an ambush Vera and the others had set up for Angelo, the fact was she had been the only one to end up in the hospital from the entire group of assailants aside from Angelo himself.

Of course, she knew full well that this had been a very good example of what Karma could do, yet as a woman, she couldn’t believe he had actually done that.

Yeap, I hate him! Vera concluded. “Is this AWP all that important?” She asked, rejoining her friends.

All three guys gave her a straight nod, then Marco picked up the reins. “We’re sketchy on the details, but it's extremely rare. It’s not everybody that can unlock it because of the layers of restrictions. But we know that the user attains a higher level of strength by forcing its will to surpass the boundaries of human limitation…” he stopped, feeling the prying eyes of everyone upon him. The entire class wanted to hear, as well.

“Putting aside the obvious questions of what and why,” remarked Vera, opening the inquiry. “How do you unlock it?”

Unsure how to explain that any further, Marco held the hand-held device transmitting Angelo’s feed and lifted it so that everyone could see his point of view.

“…By doing the impossible, over and over again.”