《"What do you mean, 'You're an ex-familiar'?!"》


 Chapter 1: In Medias Res

    "JUST DIE!" Ein bellowed as he charged at me.


    Three seconds until he reached me.  A bar of white light glowed in his hands.  The glow shattered, revealing a large sword.


    Two seconds left.


    I was unarmed, but this didn''t seem to matter to him.  All he cared about was striking me down and making sure I never hurt his precious princess ever again.  His eyes were wild and his hair was disheveled.  All sanity had left him, leaving only a white-hot fury.


    One second remaining.


    He drew back his sword and swung it at me with all his might.  If we were back home I would have been in some very serious trouble, but I''d picked up a few tricks since arriving in Radia.


    No matter how pissed off he was, he really should have known better than to draw his Soul Weapon against somebody of the Rejection domain.


    Between one heartbeat and the next I focused my will.  With an audible "crack!" his Soul Weapon dissipated into nothingness.  He had been in the middle of swinging the heavy sword and its sudden disappearance left him very off-balance.  Taking advantage of the opening I punched Ein in the jaw.  He fell backwards and landed on the ground with a thud.


    Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then Ein started sobbing.


    Poor guy.  Ein had had a crush on Princess Marieta for several years.  Then I came along and... well, it''s complicated.  She wanted a relationship.  I wanted sex.  One of us got what we wanted.  She complained to Ein, and the poor guy''s jealousy did the rest.


    On the other hand, he did draw his Soul Weapon against an unarmed man, so fuck him.


    Other students stood around us, watching the spectacle with stunned looks on their faces.  Somebody clapped slowly.  I turned.  It was the Archmagister Gardia.


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    "Very good," he said sarcastically.  "Beating a jealous teenager up.  What''s next: will you kick a small puppy?  Steal candy from a baby, perhaps?"


    "Old man Gardia," I responded, adjusting my body language to be as insolent as I could manage.  "Fancy seeing you here.  What''s the matter, run out of important papers to sign?  You should be careful; you almost managed to catch the trouble before it happened this time."


    "I''m surprised at you," Gardia said.  "Young Master Ein here had the highest combat rating of the entire school.  I would have thought you''d be smarter about antagonizing him."


    I laughed.  "And yet, he went down like a punk."


    Gardia looked at Ein sobbing on the ground.  "Yes, it appears that he did.  And now I must do something I will greatly regret."


    I scowled and took a fighting stance.  "Bring it on, old man.  I may not be able to take you down, but I''ll be damned if I go down without a fight!"


    Gardia chuckled.  "The upcoming Four Kings tournament is only open to the student with the highest combat rating in the entire school.  Up until today, that would have been Master Ein."


    Gardia took a small white card out of his robes and flicked it to me.


    "Congratulations," he said with a malicious smile.  "You''ve earned it."


    With a brief whirlwind of dust and leaves the Archmagister disappeared.


    "What?" I asked flatly.

 Chapter 2: "Now, from the top. And remember, posture counts!"

    Chapter 2: "Now, from the top. And remember, posture counts!"


    Three weeks ago I had been a normal person in a normal world.  I had moved out of my parents'' house half a year earlier and worked a menial retail job at a soulless megacorporation.  I won''t tell you the name of the store, but you''ve probably shopped there at least once in your life.  I was being ground down by the responsibilities of adulthood, and all my high school dreams and aspirations had disappeared.  On a typical day I got up, showered, went to work, spent 4 to 8 hours doing a job I loathed, went home, watched some anime, then went to sleep.


    I hated it, but I didn''t see a way out.  I spent all my time earning money to pay off my bills, and by the time I was done with work for the day I was too exhausted to do anything else.


    And then one day, sitting in my car, staring through the windshield at the far wall of my garage, I made a wish.  I didn''t expect anything to happen because of it, but I felt the urge to make it anyways.


    Of course, if I''d known what the wish was going to set in motion, I might have seriously reconsidered making it.


    "I wish that something would happen to kick me out of this rut.  Anything.  I want to live a different life, in a different place.  I want to be a different person.  I want to go somewhere they don''t have cars or car payments or mortgages.  Somewhere my unique abilities are needed."


    I snorted.  "Hell, I''ll settle for somewhere I actually *have* unique abilities."


    My eye happened on an anime DVD case I''d left in the car.


    "Something like that show," I continued.  "A magic academy where I''m the special chosen one with powers unseen since ancient times, summoned by a teenage witch just coming into her powers."


    Unbidden, words came to me. I had never heard them before in my entire life, but I spoke them without hesitation.  "I invoke the threefold pact, in accordance with the rules imposed by the Order Triune.  Let my soul inhabit your world, let my body be reborn, and let my heart sing with joy as I become yours.  I forfeit my life as myself, to be molded as you wish."


    I felt a sharp pang of terror at the thought of being molded by some unknown entity, but whatever compulsion had gripped me hadn''t ended yet and I could only stare at the garage wall in horror as my mouth concluded, "Let the pact be sealed."


    And then I was somewhere else.  I stood in a circle of light.  Beyond that was darkness.  A doctor stepped into the light.  Well, I assumed he was a doctor.  He wore a lab coat over a dress shirt and had a stethoscope draped around his shoulders.  He smiled cordially at me.  "And how are you doing today?" he asked.


    I stared at him.  Was he addressing me?


    "Well, that''s all right," he said, not waiting for a response.  "You won''t remember this conversation anyways."  From nowhere he produced a glowing gold ring about half a foot in diameter and moved to place it on my head.


    My hand shot out and grabbed the doctor''s wrist before he could complete that action.


    "What the hell do you think you''re doing?!" I yelled.  The doctor jumped in fright and tried to pull away, but I had his wrist in a vice grip and refused to let go.


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    "You''re- you''re aware?!" he blurted.


    "Damn right I''m aware!  And you''re not wiping *any* of my memories!"


    The doctor pulled some more, but he wasn''t very strong and I refused to let go.


    "This isn''t right!" he said in a panic.  "You shouldn''t be doing this!  Just let me put this control spell on you and you can go!"


    "Like hell I will!" I yelled, furious.  "I am nobody''s bitch!"


    **STOP.**


    A deep and powerful voice called out, more felt than heard.  The doctor and I both froze in place.


    **Stand back, weak one.  I shall handle it from here.**


    The doctor yanked his arm away from me and backed away, bowing as he went.


    "Of course, your mightiness. Thank you, thank you for assisting this unworthy one."


    **Yes, yes.  Now go.**


    The doctor backed past the edge of the light and disappeared in the darkness beyond.


    **You provide an interesting challenge, little one** the voice said.  **You have been summoned, and you accepted the summons.  The words you spoke were very clear.  You promised to give yourself over to us, to use as we see fit.**


    I snorted.  "Like hell.  Those weren''t my words.  I never made that promise.  That was somebody else speaking through me.  Hell, near the end I even tried to stop, but you assclowns wouldn''t let me!"


    There was a pause.


    **Nonetheless, you made the vow, and you must honor it.**


    A glowing ring appeared in the air in front of me.


    **Put it on.**


    I felt a compulsion to do as the voice said.  After all, it wasn''t that big a deal, right?  Just one little ring on my head, then all my problems would be gone, and I could obey somebody else.  Wouldn''t that be nice?  I wouldn''t have to worry about thinking for myself ever again.


    I felt my hand twitch and start to reach for the ring.  I jerked my hand back to my side.


    "Never!" I yelled.


    **YOU WILL PUT IT ON!**


    The mental pressure became an onslaught; a torrent of subtle persuasions and direct commands.  I tried to keep my arm at my side, but I found my hand drifting to the glowing ring.


    **Yes, that''s it...**


    I reached deep within myself and called on reserves of willpower I didn''t know I had.


    **I REFUSE!** I yelled with my voice and my mind together.  As I did, the ring dimmed and the mental pressure diminished.


    **WHAT?! NO!**


    **I REFUSE!** I yelled again.  The ring dimmed again and the mental pressure was almost gone.


    **STOP THAT!** the voice bellowed in a panic.


    **I REFUSE!** I yelled for a third time.  Something inside me wrenched free. I could feel the magic around me.  I felt the summoning spell that had originally called me here, straining against invisible bindings that prevented it from completing its mission.  I flexed my mental muscles and the binding dissolved, catapulting me into a completely new world.


    As I flew through time and space, I swore I could hear a faint **NOOOOOOOOOOOO!** from somewhere behind me.

 Chapter 3: Well, here I am.

    Chapter 3: Well, here I am.


    I emerged in a stone room.  On the floor around me was a glowing circle that rapidly disappeared.  In front of me was a group of about twelve teenagers.  Most of them were wearing the same school uniforms, but three of them were dressed differently.  Though they dressed differently from each other, each of those three teenagers had a black ring around their neck, as if somebody had died their skin black where a collar would be.


    "Very good," a voice said.  "Now, Elizabeth, finish the contract."


    A female voice replied, "Yes, Professor Alba."


    I turned and looked.  Standing to my side were an older man wearing a ridiculously ornate jacket and a teenage girl holding a wand out in front of her.


    I smirked and addressed the girl with the wand.  I''d never get a better chance to use this line.


    "I ask of you, are you my Master?" I said.


    Professor Alba''s and Elizabeth''s eyes widened in shock.  Elizabeth''s wand slipped through her fingers and hit the floor with a loud clatter.  The teenagers started talking and murmuring to themselves.


    Well, that was an odd reaction.


    Elizabeth looked to Alba for guidance, but he seemed too flabbergasted to say anything.  Elizabeth retrieved her wand from the floor, then stepped forward with a haughty air.


    "I am your master, Elizabeth the Third.  You have been summoned as my familiar.  Now stand forth so that I may finish the contract."


    "Well, that''s a little rude," I said playfully.  "Don''t you even want to know my name?"


    "I- um- yes?"


    I said nothing, simply staring at her.


    "Well?" she eventually asked.  "What is your name?"


    "Alexander Balkan, but my friends call me Ace."


    "Okay," she said uncertainly.  "So, should I call you Ace?"


    "Well that depends," I said with a smirk, "do you want to be my friend?"


    The girl was about to answer, but then she looked at Alba and seemed to remember something.


    "No," she said.  "I am your master, and you are my familiar.  We are not friends.  In fact, you shouldn''t even be talking to me this casually.  Know your place!"


    I shrugged.  "Suit yourself."


    I started walking toward the exit, a massive open archway set into one of the walls.


    "Wait!" Elizabeth yelled.


    I ignored her and kept walking.  I heard the noise her shoes made on the rock ground as she ran towards me, but I wasn''t prepared for what happened next: she tackled me and dragged me to the ground.


    "Oof!" I exclaimed, the wind knocked out of me.


    "You can''t go!" Elizabeth cried.  I twisted myself around so I could face her and somehow ended up with her straddling me.  HEL-lo.


    Elizabeth quickly blurted out, "By the Goddess Melinda and the God Zacharia and the Spirit of the Void I create this pact."


    Then she kissed me.  HEL-lo!


    Now, I''d just like to say, for the record, that what happened next was totally not my fault.  This was a cute girl, wearing a school uniform, straddling me and giving me a kiss.  This was not the first time I''d been in this situation, and it went the same way every time before now, so can I *really* be blamed for acting the way I did?


    Without thinking, I wrapped one arm around her and pulled her close so that my torso was touching hers.  I kissed her lips, gently at first, then with increasing passion.  I moved from her lips to her neck and ears, nibbling and kissing them.  I heard her whimper and moan.  I would have kept going, but I noticed the teenagers still standing there, completely stunned and staring at us.


    So I stopped, gently pushed her off of me, and got to my feet.  If there''s one thing I understand, it''s the importance of discretion.  I mean, it was a little late at that point, but I didn''t want to make her look bad.  Well, any worse than I already had.


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    That''s when I noticed a mild burning sensation on my neck and wrist.  I looked at my wrists.  They were glowing white, and I suspected my neck was doing the same.  I walked to one of the teenagers that had a black ring on his neck, grabbed his hand and examined his wrist.  There was a black ring there too.


    Oh hell, no.  I reached inside myself for the power I''d felt earlier and cast it outward, shattering the glow and causing it to disperse into nothingness.


    There.  Problem solved.


    "WHAT?!" Elizabeth yelled.


    Okay, maybe not.


    "Tell me," I said to Elizabeth, "what was that?"


    "That was supposed to be the completion of the contract!  You would take the collar and manacles and become my familiar!  Hold still, let me cast the spell again."


    Elizabeth pulled her wand out, but I stepped forward and grabbed it from her.


    "Do you have any idea what you''ve done here?  You''ve taken an innocent person, yanked them from their home without giving them a choice, and thrust them into a life of indentured servitude!"


    "Preposterous!" the professor yelled.  "Every single familiar that has been summoned has accepted the contract by choice."


    I sneered.  "Easy to say when they''ve had a control spell planted in their brains."


    The professor sputtered.  "Why, that''s absurd!  I have done no such thing!"


    "You haven''t, but someone or something has been intercepting the spell before the familiar arrives here.  ''Don''t worry, you won''t remember a thing.''" I said, mockingly.


    "You''re lying!" Elizabeth shouted, but the professor looked hesitant.


    "Oh, am I?" I asked.  "Well, there''s a very simple way to test it.  Bring one of the familiars over here and let me cancel any mental spells on them.  If nothing happens, you''ll know I was lying."


    "Hah!" Elizabeth shouted aggressively.  "So I can let you cast your own mind magic on them?  What do you think I am, stupid?"


    "Let him try," the professor interrupted softly.  "He appears to be of the Rejection domain, and no familiar in Radia''s entire history has ever belonged to more than one domain.  If he tries and fails it costs us nothing, and if he succeeds... it means we have unknowingly been perpetuating a great evil."


    I walked up to one of the familiars and gently placed my hands on either side of his head.  I extended my senses, feeling for any foreign magic, and felt the control spell, clear as day.  I flexed my willpower and the spell shattered harmlessly.


    I took a step back.  "How do you feel?" I asked the familiar.


    "A little disoriented," he said with a rueful smile.  "But not that much different.  I-" he froze, a look of shock on his face.  "My mother; my sister.  How could I have forgotten them?"


    A teenage girl approached the familiar and placed her hand on his shoulder.  He recoiled on shock and fear.  "Don''t touch me!" he yelled.  "You think I''ve forgotten about the whipping you gave me?!"


    The entire room went silent as the girl sputtered denials.  "That wasn''t- you didn''t-... well, it was your fault anyways for not folding the clothes right!"


    The familiar yelled and lunged at the girl.  Several students grabbed him and held him back.  The Professor looked ashen.  "Class is over!" he loudly called.  "Damien, Ace, and Elizabeth, come with me to the Grandmaster''s office.  Lucy, you''re on academic suspension until we get this sorted out.  Head straight to your dorm and go nowhere else until we call for you.


    Lucy scoffed and walked away.  Damien eventually calmed down enough for the students to let go of him.  Eventually the rest of the students filtered out, leaving just Damien, Elizabeth, Professor Alba, and me.


    "Come along," Professor Alba said sadly.  "We have much work to do."

 Chapter 4: Left turn at Albuquerque

    We walked out of the room, through a hallway and down another hallway, finally emerging outside in a courtyard surrounded by buildings.  It was a beautiful sunny day.  The sky was bright blue, there wasn''t a cloud to be seen, and two moons were plainly visible in the sky above us.


    Up until that moment, some part of me hadn''t accepted that I was really in another world, but there, in the air above me, was irrefutable proof that this was not my homeworld.  I stared up at the moons, taking time to absorb the enormity of the situation.  I had been torn from my world, given strange powers, and placed in a world so far away that I might never return.  I didn''t really want to go back anyways, and I had been the one to make the wish, but that didn''t make the situation any easier to come to terms with.


    When I eventually directed my attention back to the area in front of me I realized the others were nowhere to be found.  They must have just assumed I was following them and left without me.  My fault, really.


    Well, they shouldn''t be too hard to find, I thought, breaking into a jog.


    A few minutes later I arrived at a group of teenagers wearing school uniforms.


    "Hello, the camp!" I yelled, drawing the students'' attention.


    "Um, hello?" one of them said as I got closer.  "Who are you?"


    I thought about his question and all that it implied.  Technically I''d been summoned as a familiar, but that really didn''t apply any more.  Best to just give them a simple lie.


    "Me?" I said with a broad smile.  "I''m a foreign exchange student."


    The students exchanged glances.


    "I didn''t think Radia Academy did that," said a male student with brown hair.


    "I just got here today," I said.  "Professor Alba was supposed to get me settled in, but I got distracted by the scenery and next thing I know I''m standing all by myself in a courtyard.  You didn''t happen to see him come by here, did you?"


    The best lies contain a nugget of truth, after all.


    "Sorry, no," said a cute girl with red hair.


    "Dang."


    "Where are you from?" asked a male student.


    "A place very far from here called America.  Ever heard of it?"


    "No," he said.  "What''s it like?"


    "Oh man, you would not believe some of the stuff I''ve seen."


    For the next half-hour I regaled the students with stories from my world.  What my school was like, some of the stupid stunts I''d pulled that were hilarious when you weren''t in the middle of them, things like that.  I was very careful not to mention my soul-crushing job or anything negative about the life I''d left behind.  Then the subject changed to something I was quite curious about: magic.


    "So everybody has their own Domain?" I asked.


    "A Domain and a Soul Weapon," Bethany (the cute red-head) said.  "A Domain limits and focuses the spells somebody can use, while a Soul Weapon is the owner''s crystallized mana.  Of the people that can manipulate mana, most people can either cast spells or summon their Soul Weapon, with some rare people being able to do both."


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    "Hey, how do you not know this stuff already?" Jason asked me.


    I shrugged.  "I never really got a chance to talk to Professor Alba, and before I arrived I didn''t know anything about magic."


    Jason frowned.  "Not even the basics?  Surely you must have picked up some information from your family or schooling."


    "Weeelllll, this is going to sound a little unbelievable to you, but where I come from there''s no such thing as magic."


    There was a stunned silence as everybody digested this information.


    "I don''t believe you," Ben said.


    "I know it''s a stretch, but it is true.  No magic, no spells, no familiars... we have a rich tradition of magic in our stories, but they''re all fictional.  Hell, I''m honestly surprised to find out that magic really does exist."


    "Then what are you doing here?" Ben asked.  "To be a student at the academy you have to either be able to cast a spell or summon a Soul Weapon."


    Ben held his hand out.  The glowing shape of a curved scimitar appeared in front of him, its hilt in his hand.  Then the glow shattered, leaving him holding an actual scimitar.


    "See?" he asked.  Then the scimitar glowed again and shattered, the pieces fading into nothingness.


    "I don''t know about a Soul Weapon, but Professor Alba said I was of the Rejection Domain.  Does that means anything to you guys?"


    Jason whistled.  "That''s incredibly powerful," he said.  "Everybody here uses magic in some manner, and the Rejection Domain is the opposite of that.  You can think of it as anti-magic.  Your power allows you to generate an area under your control, and once the area is established you can nullify any magic within it."


    Everybody stared at Jason.


    "What?" he asked defensively.  "Some of us actually paid attention during class."


    "ALEX!" a female voice yelled.  I looked around.  It was Elizabeth, the girl that had summoned me.  She stomped up to where I was standing.


    "What do you think you''re doing?" she angrily asked, fuming at me.


    "Hello, Elizabeth," I said politely.  "Have you met my friends?  This is Jason, Bethany, Ben-"


    "Cut the crap!" she yelled.  "You were supposed to come with Professor Alba to see the Headmaster with us!  I''ve been looking all over for you, and you will come with me right now!"


    "Alas, it appears I must go," I said to the group in an exaggeratedly theatrical manner.  I placed the back of my hand against my forehead.  "Parting is such sweet sorrow!  But I shall not forget you, you few friends who have come to mean the world to me in such a short amount of time! Adieu!  Adieu!  Auf wiedersehen, adieu!"


    Bethany giggled.  Elizabeth stomped off and I followed her.


    "So that went well," I said to Elizabeth cheerfully.  Still pissed off, Elizabeth didn''t respond.

 Chapter 5: Meanwhile, in the future:

    Meanwhile in the future:


    As I walked down the hallway with Jason I examined the card in my hand.  It was a white plastic card that was completely blank except for a silver stripe embossed on the bottom in an irregular pattern.


    "So what exactly is the Four Kings tournament?" I asked Jason.


    "I keep forgetting you aren''t from around here," he replied.  "The Four Kings tournament is a competition that takes place in the Virtual Realm."


    "''Virtual Realm.''   Is that something like Virtual Reality?"


    "I... don''t know what that is," Jason said uncertainly.  "Virtual Realm is just a name. It doesn''t mean anything.  When somebody enters the Virtual Realm they get a temporary body.  You can get injured and even die in the realm, but it doesn''t affect anything here in the real world.  When you''re done there you return to the real world in your old body."


    "And the tournament?"


    "The Four Kings Tournament is a competition between Radia Academy and three other schools spread out across the continent: Arcturus, Megalosembria, and Josei."


    "That sounds pretty far away," I said.  "How am I supposed to get there?"


    Jason shook his head.  "Distance doesn''t matter in the Virtual Realm," he said.  "You''ll understand in a few minutes."


    "In a few... wait, we''re going there now?" I asked.


    Jason chuckled.  "Of course!" he said.  "Where did you think we were going?"


    "To the library, like we normally do," I answered.


    Jason grinned at me.  "Nope!  You know, you happen to be in luck.  When it comes to the Virtual Realm I''ve logged more hours than almost anyone else here.  It''s a pity I won''t be able to compete for the school''s honor," he added wistfully, "but I wouldn''t mind teaching you everything I know."


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    I couldn''t help myself; I grinned from ear to ear.  Jason saw this and good-naturedly punched me on the shoulder.


    We arrived in a large room dominated by a circular platform with a polished blue surface set within a thick white rim.  A similar platform was set directly above it in the ceiling.  A large pipe connected to the bottom platform travelled across the floor and into a wall.  Next to where the pipe connected with the wall was a wooden door.


    "There you go!" Jason said.  "Just step onto the platform with the card the headmaster gave you and the platform will take you to the Virtual Realm."


    "Yeah, yeah," I said distractedly.  "In a minute.  First I want to see where that pipe leads."


    "It just connects to a storage room," Jason said.  "I''ve seen it myself.  There''s nothing there but a bunch of grey boxes."


    "Still," I insisted, "I want to see."


    Jason shrugged.  "Suit yourself.  I don''t think they ever lock the door."


    I crossed the room and opened the wooden door.  What I saw on the other side took my breath away.


    "Oh, sweet merciful crap," I whispered.


    <hr />


    Author''s note: Sorry about the small chapter but I want to hear what you guys think Alex sees on the other side of that door.  The first person to guess correctly gets to name an upcoming character.

 Chapter 6: The technophile in his element

    It was a server farm. Row after row of familiar grey boxes stacked on top of each other, each one connected to a central network. The entire room made a familiar low hum. I giggled maniacally.


    Jason came inside. "Hey Ace, you okay?"


    "Look!" I cried, gesturing frantically to the room.


    "Yeah, so what? A bunch of grey boxes."


    "Not just grey boxes! Computers! Machines of untold computational power, lifted straight from my world!"


    I pointed at the cover of the nearest server. It sported an IBM logo, though it wasn''t drawn in any style I was familiar with.


    Jason frowned. "So there''s a connection between your world and this one?"


    "No! I mean, well, yes, but that''s not the point! The word ''virtual'' means ''not real'', or ''technically real but not really'', or something like that. But it''s *also* used in connection with computers. Virtual Reality, for example, is an immersive computer-generated reality. A Virtual Realm would be one generated *by a computer*!"


    Jason frowned. "Okay, so?"


    "So," I said with a grin, "I need to find a terminal."


    <hr>


    > status


    Connected to Server 2225F:43002:EDD345, hostname: "Primary Virtual Realm" on port Z339. Awaiting transfer command.


    Installed mods:


    * Scripting engine - disabled.


    Server list last updated 4/12/2344


    > update server list


    Polling primary system...


    Primary system not found, switching to secondary system.


    Polling secondary system...done.


    Polling local host...done.


    Server list updated.


    > server list


    "Primary Virtual Realm" - passcard protected


    "Sandbox" - open server


    > connect to Sandbox


    Disconnecting from Primary Virtual Realm


    Connecting to Sandbox on local host


    Connection established.


    > enable scripting engine


    Scripting engine enabled.


    <hr>


    I grinned. This was going to be awesome. It had taken me a while to figure out the ins and the outs of the computer system, but I finally got everything working the way I wanted it to. The system was similar to what I worked with at home, but it was far more user-friendly.


    "Probably not open-source, then," I mused to myself.


    I walked back to the transfer platform. Jason was lying down on the stone ground, using his jacket as a make-shift pillow.


    "Hey! Wake up, sleepy-head. We''re ready."


    "Finally," Jason grumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "You took forever in there."


    "No way!" I protested. "I can''t have been there longer than-"


    Jason pointed to the outside window. It was night-time and the stars were out. It had been daytime when we entered.


    "Oops," I said sheepishly.


    "Yeah, yeah," Jason said. "Now if you''re quite done mucking about, let''s get going so I can show you how this works. Just try not to freak out," he said.


    "I''ll do my best," I said, as innocently as I could manage.


    <hr>


    Jason freaked out.


    "What?! Where are we? What is this? What''s going on?!"


    "What do you mean?" I asked innocently.


    "You!" he yelled, rounding on me. "You did this! You were messing with those boxes, and somehow you *broke the world!*"


    It was a fair accusation. We stood on an ocean that somehow supported our weight. In the distance a waterfall flowed in reverse, gushing up and over a cliff. There was no horizon; the land in the distance curved upwards, merging with the sky and becoming a tapestry of brilliantly-colored 3d geometric shapes that were constantly twisting and changing into new shapes.


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    "Calm down, calm down," I said. "Nothing''s broken. I just changed where we ended up, that''s all."


    "You changed where we ended up?! No! I have been all over the virtual realm, and there is *nothing* that looks even *remotely* like this!"


    A brightly-colored fish swam through the air beside us. A large bird jumped out of the water and caught the fish in its beak before gravity pulled them both back under the water with a soft "plop!"


    I grinned. "The reason you''ve never seen anything like this in the virtual realm is because we aren''t *in* the virtual realm any more. This is something called a sandbox. It''s where programmers can test out their creations before implementing them in a production environment."


    I looked around. "Judging from the looks of things, this place hasn''t been cleaned up in a while."


    Jason stared at me in incomprehension. I could see his brain freeze up as he tried, and failed, to process what I''d just said.


    My grin slipped a little bit. "Jason? You okay?" I asked.


    "Yeah," he said faintly. "I''m just going to need a minute."


    "Take your time," I said airily. "I''m not going anywhere."


    He glared at me. "You''re enjoying this, aren''t you?"


    "A little," I said with a smirk. "And I haven''t even gotten to the good stuff yet."


    "The good stuff?" he asked, eyes wide in terror.


    "Oh, yeah. You might want to sit down for this."


    Jason opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then closed it again. He did this three times before finally just admitting defeat and sitting cross-legged on the solid water beneath us.


    "Right, now for the good part," I said. "Activate scripting environment."


    A soft chime played as a computer window opened in front of me. I navigated to the section I wanted, then hovered my finger just above the button.


    "Hey Jason, are you comfortable?"


    Jason had the look of a man expecting a trap at any second, but uncertain where it was or what it would look like. "Y-yeah," he responded. "Why?"


    "I don''t think you are. That solid water can''t be comfortable to sit on. Why don''t you sit on this chair?"


    Jason glanced around. "What chair?"


    I tapped the button. A leather-upholstered armchair materialized out of nowhere.


    "That chair," I said with a smirk.


    Jason fainted.


    <hr>


    Jason woke up in bed. He looked around; he was in his own dorm room, but everything seemed odd. Like the proportions of the room weren''t quite right. It wasn''t exactly anything he could put his finger on, though. Alex was there, too.


    "What happened?" Jason muttered to himself.


    "You okay?" Alex asked. "You fainted on me, so I had to bring you back to your dorm room."


    "I didn''t faint," Jason protested. "I collapsed in a manly fashion, crushing my enemies underneath me."


    Alex chuckled. "Fine, you manlily attacked the ground with your whole body. Now come on, we''re gonna be late for class."


    Alex stepped out of the room, followed by Jason. Jason froze at the threshold. In front of him, just outside the room, Alex stood on a rock-solid ocean while the sky writhed and undulated above them.


    "ALEX!" Jason yelled.


    Alex laughed uproariously.


    <hr>


    Author''s note: NopiSoul guessed the closest to what was actually in the room, so he gets to name an upcoming character. Also, since I''m feeling generous, he may also describe the character if he wants. What school they''re from, how they interact with others, any special abilities they have in either realm (IRL or VR), that sort of thing.

 Chapter 7: Think, "Minecraft meets Goat Simulator."

    Alex and Jason emerged onto the virtualization mat in the real world. Jason frowned furiously while Alex was still chuckling.


    "I''m going to bed," Jason announced.


    "What?" Alex complained. "No, wait, what? Come on, dude, you were supposed to teach me about this virtual realm."


    Jason snorted and said, "It looks like you''ve got a handle on it already. Besides, it''s like 2 in the morning. Unlike some people, I have classes in the morning."


    Alex pouted. "Oh come on, man."


    Jason sighed. "All right, all right. I''ll walk you through it tomorrow, when I have some free time, but right now I need to get some sleep or I''m gonna be a zombie tomorrow."


    "Wait, like, a real zombie? Or is that just a figure of speech?"


    Jason stared at Alex with a deadpan, unamused expression.


    "Right, figure of speech," Alex said.


    Jason left the room.


    Alex stared at the virtualization pad. "You know, Jason had the right idea," he said to himself. "I should go to bed and get some sleep."


    Alex walked over to the server farm. "Buuuuut," he said, "I''m not gonna do that, am I? No I''m not. Because that would be no fun." Alex grinned and stepped up to the keyboard.


    > connect to Primary Virtual Realm.


    WARNING: user has limited privileges on server ''Primary Virtual Realm''. Server-side mods disallowed. Limited user-side mods allowed.


    Alex sighed. "Of course, nothing can just be randomly good. Well, let''s see what I can do."


    > list allowed mods


    1) Creative_items


    2) Minimap


    3) Optic_Zoom


    4) Recipe_list


    5) Sane_HUDs


    6) User_peek


    7) user_permissions


    Enable mods? (1-6, "all")


    > all


    Mods enabled: creative-mode items, minimap in HUD, optical magnification options, recipe list in HUD, sane heads-up dispays, observe user statistics, lock and unlock personal user permissions.


    Alex frowned. "Why does that sound so familiar?" he wondered to himself. "Oh, well. Let''s get this train wreck a-rolling!"


    Alex skipped over to the virtualization pad and hopped onto it, disappearing with a blinding white light.


    When his eyes cleared Alex''s jaws dropped. In front of him was an incredibly familiar heads-up display; a semi-transparent set of indicators that displayed various aspects of Alex''s character. Out of instinct Alex tapped an elaborate symbol that looked similar to a Biohazard warning, with curved spines emanating from a central core. A very familiar window popped up, showing what looked like the inside of a red velvet container designed to hold three small orbs. Each orb was connected to at least one other orb by a linear depression in the red velvet. There were only 3 slots for orbs, but Alex knew that as he advanced through levels the number of orbs required would increase, as would the lines connecting them into more intricate patterns.


    Alex closed out the window and opened another menu. This one was an inventory showing everything that Alex''s character was holding: stack upon stack of common and rare building materials. Each one was depicted in his inventory as a cube, with only the coloring to differentiate between the types.


    Alex chuckled. "It''s Glitch Festival. It''s Glitch Festival! Ah hah hah haaah!" Alex laughed hysterically.


    Eventually Alex calmed down. "Hoo," he said. "I''m glad Jason isn''t around to see me freak out like this. He''d never let me live it down."


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    -------------------------------------


    5 years ago, from Alex''s perspective, a game came out named Glitch Festival. It was coded by somebody who went by the online handle "Naomi" who posted in broken English. He was almost certainly not Japanese, but nobody could agree where he was really from. Some people suspected India. Others, China. A few thought he was an American or Englishman just having a laugh at everybody. Regardless, he was a dysfunctional genius. His game, Glitch Festival, was a broken, buggy mess that many, many people loved to play. At its peak one in four people had heard of it. Every few months Naomi would release patches that were supposed to fix existing bugs. They never did. The 4.5 update, for example, made the Heads-up Display invisible unless you clicked a certain spot on the screen a number of times. Even with that, the game would crash about 1 in 5 times you tried to enable the HUD. The 4.5.1 patch didn''t fix the HUD, it just prevented the game from crashing. A lot of the patches were like this; they didn''t remove the bug, they just prevented the bug from crashing the game.


    If you didn''t know about the eccentricities of the game, it was a confusing mess. If you did know all the ins and outs of the system, though, you became part of an in-group that got to lord your knowledge over the newbies.


    In Glitch Festival everything is made of 3d bricks that you can harvest by punching them enough times. The core gameplay was revolutionary; nobody had ever heard of a game like this before. Subsequent updates included monsters, villager NPCs, and a xianxia-inspired system of level-grinding. All players started at level 1 of the Green Jade realm and moved up the ranks by "fusing" with monster cores; placing them in the relevant window and permanently absorbing their strength. Each realm increased a character''s battle strength, and a character in a higher realm could almost always defeat a lower-ranked opponent.


    Moving through the realms had a chance of failure. The more powerful the rank, the higher the chance of failure. Failure to advance would completely waste the materials gathered if the player didn''t know the trick to it. And there was always a trick to it. Nobody could decide if it was intentional on Naomi''s part, or if the code just happened to bug out in certain ways, but there was always some obscure combination of events that would combine to ensure a 100% success rate.


    Alex had memorized all of them. He had wasted a large part of his life sucked into Glitch Festival, but he never thought in his wildest dreams that that knowledge would come in handy again.


    Alex checked his inventory. No monster cores. Not very surprising, really. His inventory was full because of a mod that re-enabled the normally disabled "creative mode" items, but creative mode was removed before the introduction of the levelling system, so it wouldn''t have any monster cores.


    Alex went to his crafting window and broke down a few of his emerald cubes into free-standing emeralds. Then he converted these into weapons and armor. He then placed Glass, Refined Silver, and Refined Gold onto the crafting grid, creating a full-size mirror. He placed it on the ground and examined himself in the reflection. Emerald helmet, emerald armor, emerald boots, emerald sword. Flashy, but effective. He swung the sword experimentally. The reflection lagged behind by about a second.


    Alex chuckled. "This is definitely Glitch Festival. Now let''s find some monster cores."

 Chapter 8: As it turns out, their glaring weakness was point-blank annihilation

    Alex giggled as he stepped off of the Virtualization Mat.


    "Castle go boom," he said to himself with a grin.


    Alex stumbled down the halls and out of the building, wincing at the sight of daylight.


    ¡°My sleep schedule is going to be fucked,¡± he muttered.


    Alex walked to one of the bedrooms in which he often stayed, letting himself in. He pulled most of his clothes off, got under the blankets, wiggled his arm under Aria¡¯s neck to put himself in a comfortable position, and drifted off to sleep. Aria, for her part, rolled over and happily snuggled into Alex¡¯s chest.


    A few hours later Alex woke to somebody pushing at him.


    ¡°Alex, wake up,¡± a familiar voice said.


    Alex groaned. ¡°Five more minutes, Aria,¡± he complained groggily.


    A blast of cold water hit Alex in the face.


    ¡°Augh!¡± he yelled. ¡°I¡¯m up, I¡¯m up!¡±


    Jason stood in front of him, the blue glow of mana around his hands rapidly fading.


    Alex wiped his face off. ¡°Well, that¡¯s one way to wake me,¡± he said. ¡°Wait, where¡¯s Aria?¡±


    ¡°Who?" Jason asked. "Oh, right. She already left for classes. Remember, that thing that most of us have?¡±


    ¡°Please tell me you didn¡¯t wake me up just to drag me to class,¡± Alex complained. ¡°The Headmaster already said I don¡¯t need to attend.¡±


    The Headmaster had said that with a sword-point at his throat, but Jason didn¡¯t need to know that.


    ¡°No, it¡¯s not that." Jason replied. Then Jason groaned and sighed heavily before sitting down next to Alex. "Okay, how much do you know about the politics of the Northern Continent?" Jason asked.


    "Not much," Alex replied. "It has four major schools, and Radia Academy is one of them."


    "Right, right. Okay, well it gets a bit complicated, but basically the virtual realm is heavily tied to the real world. If something big happens there it affects the people living here in all sorts of ways."


    "Okay... so what''s your point?"


    "I''m getting there. Arcturus Academy has strong connections to the Royal Family of Freemont. Their firstborn son and heir to the throne, Prince Khaled, has created a stronghold and army in the virtual realm. The call themselves the Red Dragons, and they rule the territory with an iron fist."


    "Bunch of wankers," Alex muttered.


    "Maybe, but they''re *powerful* wankers," Jason said, having no idea what a wanker was. Alex snickered.


    "Shut up, this is important!" Jason exclaimed. "As of last night, the Red Dragons were utterly destroyed."


    Alex shrugged and said, "It''s their own fault for not being immune to explosives."


    "Alex! I''m being serious!"


    "So am I," Alex replied. "Are we done here? I really want to get a few more hours of sleep."


    Jason stared at Alex with slowly mounting horror. "What did you do, Alex?"


    "Now, in my defense, none of this would have happened if they weren''t such assholes."


    "What. Did. You. Do."


    So Alex told him.


    ----------------------------------------------------


    Let''s talk about monster cores in Glitch Festival.


    Monster cores were small colored orbs that monsters occasionally dropped when they died. Monsters would occasionally spawn on the overworld, but overworld monsters had a low drop rate for monster cores and the cores were never of a very high quality.


    Underground dungeons, on the other hand, spawned vicious monsters that had a higher drop rate and dropped cores that were more valuable. The tradeoff was that the monsters were stronger and more aggressive.


    Dungeons were generally found underground, automatically generated when the world was created. This was rather well-known among the Glitch Festival userbase. What was less well-known was that an enterprising player could create their own dungeon, which would then start generating underground monsters.


    Not every cleared-out underground space could be a dungeon, though. There were certain arcane and complicated requirements that had to be followed exactly or the game wouldn''t recognize the space as a dungeon. The first player to create a dungeon did so purely out of chance, and it had taken a long time for the userbase to figure out exactly what requirements must be satisfied, but eventually the requirements had been reduced to a series of mnemonics that virtually guaranteed a player could create a dungeon and be certain it would start spawning monsters.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Alex dug out rooms to certain proportions. He created hallways in certain places, going in certain directions. He placed items in certain locations, and on more than one occasion he dug out a block of dirt, only to replace it with a different type of dirt.


    Eventually, Alex decided that the dungeon was finished and headed back to the surface. Dungeons took a while to start generating monsters once they were created, so while he waited for his monsters to spawn Alex started building for fun.


    Two hours later Alex noticed two men approaching the castle walls.


    Alex yelled from the ramparts, "Hello!"


    One of the men, a short fat man, looked around, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. The other man, a tall skinny man, smacked the fat man on the arm and pointed to Alex.


    "He-hello!" shouted the fat man, somewhat nervously.


    "Hang on, I''ll be right down!" Alex yelled. He climbed down a ladder, lowered the drawbridge, and approached the two men.


    "Right, what can I do for you?" Alex asked.


    The fat man stared, open-mouthed, at the castle. It was at least four times an average human height, and it menaced with spikes made of stone. On either side of the drawbridge was a giant human skull that appeared to weep lava into the lava moat below.


    "What''s that you''re wearing?" asked the tall man.


    "What, this?" Alex asked, looking at himself. "Oh, just some emerald armor."


    "Oh, emerald armor," said the tall man. He nodded and looked at his companion. "Emerald armor," he said again, still nodding. His companion nodded back. Then both of them realized what Alex said.


    "EMERALD ARMOR?!" they yelled at him in unison.


    "Yeah, why?" Alex asked.


    The tall man looked at his companion and they came to an unspoken agreement. The fat man raised his hands in the air, particle effects appearing around his hands. A book appeared in the air in front of him. Suddenly, Alex was paralyzed and surrounded with a reddish glow. The tall, thin man drew a dagger and circled around to behind Alex before burying it in his back. Alex''s health dropped to zero and he suddenly saw himself from a third-person perspective, collapsing to the ground and then disappearing. Then his entire vision went black, except for buttons that represented two options: respawn or quit.


    Alex glared. He was pissed. Those men attacking him for his equipment chafed against his sense of right and wrong. They killed him for their own greed. Unfortunately, taking them on directly was out of the question. One was the men was a spellcaster and the other was an assassin. Their combat roles worked together very well, and they doubtless had plenty of PvP combat experience. Without levelling up, Alex had no way of matching them in direct combat.


    Of course, nobody said he had to match them in direct combat.


    Alex respawned in a nearby forest. He found his castle again, and the two men were standing at the entrance of the drawbridge, deciding whether or not they should enter the large, forbidding building.


    "I wouldn''t do that if I were you," Alex said in a conversational way.


    The two men jumped and readied themselves for violence. One pulled out a dagger, ready to throw, while the other kept his hand on his spellbook, ready to cast another spell.


    "Yeah," the thin man said with a sneer, "that''s not really your call to make."


    "I''m just saying," Alex said with a shrug. "If you don''t activate the key before you cross the threshold, the curse will activate and kill you." Alex pulled a red cube from his inventory. "And I''m the only one with the-"


    A dagger tore into Alex''s throat before he could even finish the sentence. Alex watched himself die again, the red cube toppling from his hand.


    "Okay, now you''re on my shit list," Alex said.


    Alex respawned again and watched as the two men argued over the red cube. He couldn''t make out what they were saying from that distance, but the body language was pretty clear. Eventually the tall, thin man strode confidently to the drawbridge, the red cube in his outstretched hand, held ahead of himself as if to ward off a curse. The cube must have been activated by the man then, because it glowed for three seconds.


    On the fourth second, the man exploded.


    The fat man seemed astonished at what had happened, while Alex laughed his ass off.


    Alex stopped laughing when he realized the man was quickly creating a fargate. Within seconds he had created an upright portal of stones, inside of which was a fluid rippling curtain of blue energy that stretched from edge to edge of the portal. Within a minute a line of troops wearing black armor with red trim emerged. Rank after rank of troops smartly marched out from the fargate, assembling themselves into proper formation. After the hundredth trooper emerged and completed the square a man mounted on horseback emerged, wearing an exceptionally fancy black and red uniform. The fat man ran over to this captain and gestured animatedly. In response the captain summoned an ornate spellbook. The fat man cringed away. The spellbook glowed and an anti-curse spell raced outwards from the spellbook in all directions, spreading through the castle, disabling any magical protections. Then the captain rode to the front of the lines and gave a shouted order before proudly riding into the castle. The army rearranged itself into 8-man rows and rode through the entrance after him. Soon the entire army disappeared from view.


    Alex giggled like a madman.


    Alex reached into his inventory.


    Alex pulled out a small black cylinder with a red button sticking out of the top.


    Alex pushed the button.


    The entire castle detonated in a massive explosion. Alex was destroyed. The army was destroyed. The captain, with his exceptionally fine uniform, was destroyed, as was any items the characters had equipped.


    Alex giggled like a madman as his view turned black.


    --------------------------


    "You... blew up your own castle." Jason said faintly.


    "I like blowing stuff up," Alex said dreamily. "I build castles, set explosive cubes in the foundations, then blow it up and watch that mother burn. Those assholes in the Red Ribbon Army just pushed my timetable forward, that''s all."


    "Prince Khaled was taking his army on military exercises," Jason said, in a faint voice. "He heard reports of a potential treasure. Standard procedure for the Red Dragons is to seize any treasures for the use of the Red Dragon army, crushing any resistance. Khaled and his army were wearing gear worth hundreds of thousands of gold coins. Now, thanks to you, they''re destroyed and their power base has been crippled."


    "What can I say?" Alex asked flippantly. "When I go boom, I go boom. Can I go to bed now?"


    Jason mumbled incoherently.

 Chapter 9: Whoops.

    "Okay, so let me see if I''ve got this straight," Jason said as he walked down one of Caldera City''s streets with Alex. "You discovered a way to imbue items with your Domain."


    "Basic enchanting 101, right."


    Jason scoffed. "More like, ''forgotten lore from before our civilization was created''."


    Alex shrugged. "Tomato, tomahto."


    "And refresh my memory," Jason said, "did you do this before or after the first time you saw a slave being mistreated?"


    "Mmmmm, immediately afterwards, I believe."


    "And you''re claiming that there was no connection between the two?"


    "What?" Alex asked, pretending to be heartily offended. "Noooooo! No, no, no. It is a total and complete coincidence that as soon as I realized that slave culture was alive and well in this country I spent the next several months researching ways to apply my Rejection domain on a large scale. Total coincidence!"


    "Uh huh," Jason said, clearly not convinced. "So then you made as many Rejection artifacts as you could and handed them out to as many people as you could."


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    "Right."


    "And then... what? What did you expect would happen?"


    "Well, I was hoping the slaves and familiars would somehow get their hands on them. Poof, instant freedom! No more mind-control, no more slave collars. The ones who were treated well would be able to stick around if they wanted, but as equals instead of slaves."


    Jason gestured around him. Half the town was on fire and the sounds of chaos and property destruction could be heard from several different directions.


    "And the ones who were mistreated?" Jason practically yelled.


    "Welllll... I must admit, I didn''t see that one coming," Alex admitted. "I had no idea they would band together so quickly to free more and more slaves, and I don''t even know where they got those firearms from!"


    An explosion rocked the city quarter.


    "Explosives," Alex corrected himself. "Firearms and explosives."


    Alex and Jason stood in the abandoned street, listening to the sounds of chaos and anarchy as the former slaves turned against their former masters.


    "Let''s get out of here," Jason said.


    "Yeah," Alex hastily agreed.