Digitalization: World Next

[Metal Zeta]

OOC

The train steadily sped along the tracks, the sun setting in the distance, crossing a light over the lake, which the train tracks were built over. Within the train was a small number of people, all heading to the same place, and for the same reason.

A online game, "World Next", had an in game tournament around a mouth back, and the ones in the trains were the winners. Their rewards? A trip tot he game company's HQ, to see behind the scenes stuff, and up coming game features. They all had received a plane ticket to California, along with a train ticket to the same train they were on now. It had been an uneventful, if not incredibly long, trip, but it was to soon end.

In the train car (indeed, the only one this train had), a young man with spiky black hair sat, quietly reading a book. His name being Dest Rennins He seemed to be a bit too dressed up for the occasion, with a tuxedo, but it wasn't extravagant by any means. But, this wasn't the most notable thing about him. No, that would be the fake bunny ears he had one. They were...just there. It was quite odd, to say the least.

He looked over some of the other people in the train. It...wasn't too odd of a group, there he did get some vibes of weirdness off of them. Through, he guessed he didn't really have a place to talk, now did he? "...Are we almost there?" He muttered, looking out the window. He was almost one with his book, and didn't feel like just sitting around and waiting. One would think they would have been flown to a city closer to the HQ. And...did California even have lakes this large? "...Probably just overthinking it." He muttered

[Rinn]

Jack was growing restless. His seat was hard, his coffee was cold, and his robot fingers were anxiously tapping on the plastic serving tray. This train was taking forever. If they knew where they were going he would of drove his sportbike there. He could feel the arkward stares around him at his hideous prosthetics. Wires strewn all over the alloy "skeleton", it was like something from a horror movie to him. Why couldn't he get a normal looking set? Why did his father force such ugly prototypes on him? It was utterly irritating.

At least not ALL the eyes were on him. The man in the bunny ears and tuxedo were helping a bit. "Did he lose a bet or something?" He muttered to himself. Laughing at how ridiclious he must feel. Although he was pretty good in the tournament. Never actually going head to head with him, but seeing in-game replays of most of the winners accomplisments helps to figure out what they are weak against.

When the train passed over a large lake he knew instantly they were not even in the same state anymore. Why take the plane then? All this smoke and mirror bullshit was getting Jack aggrivated. Pulling out his smartphone, he began to tinker with his apps and games in hopes of passing time quicker.

[Shingaku]

Akashi stood, leaning against one of the vertical bars, in the middle of the train walkway, his large headphones covering his ears, the music blaring, so he couldn't even hear the train, except for the vibrations through the bar and floor. he sighed, as he cruised around online on his phone.

He didn't understand why there had to be multiple winners to the tournament he had entered. he could have beaten his opponents, if there were grown men, who wore bunny ears, and tried to act like a cyborg. He sighed, already replaying all his fights, and how he had struggled, and attempted to come up with strategies, that would make the points he struggled at, seem irrelevant. He had made sure that nearly no one got to see his matches, but somethings get leaked, and by the time you realize it, it's too late. Some of his matches had gotten leaked onto the web, so He had just given up, knowing it'd be pointless to try and halt something like that.

Akashi wasn't paying attention to the time, or the surroundings outside the train, cause it didn't matter to him. he figured that if some corporation wanted them dead, for some reason, then they'd have bombed the planes, or run the train off into the lake or something. Or, you know, just send some kind of brain frying signal through the game. That would be a rather effective way to kill someone. No one would be able to tell them dead, except for lack of breathing, if it were done while they were gaming. And even then, If the company got blamed, they could just say that it had been a faulty circuit. Cause the entire head set could be set to fry as well, making it impossible to tell the original fault.

That's why Akashi was rather calm. There would a lot more effective ways to murder tem, if they wanted them dead.

That wasn't to say he trusted them fully, though.

[Eggs]

Lee was laying down in a pair of seats, since there were so few people in the train car. He was dressed pretty normally, in a set of normal dark blue jeans, a white shirt, black shoes, and a two-toned hoodie. Grey outside, black inside. It was very warm and comfortable, but not very fancy. Outwardly, he seemed like a pretty damn average guy. Out of sheer boredom, he was playing some sort of handheld game system, enjoying a wide variety of games from overseas. There were lots of menus, numbers, robots, and flashy things going on, so he was entertained. For the sake of not filling everyone's ears with the admittedly pretty sweet soundtrack, he had a pair of earbuds plugged into the handheld, only one of which was actually in an ear. If anyone said anything, he wanted to be able to hear and answer so he didn't seem rude.

Eventually, he shut off the game and put the handheld in his pocket, then sat up and pulled the hood of his jacket off. His hair was a bit messy, but it didn't bother him. "So, guys. What's up?" He asked nobody in particular, leaning against the window near his seat and using the backs of both it and the one ahead of it as armrests. He figured making friends with the other winners would be good. Sure, they'd likely be pit against each other in some sort of extraordinarily crazy PVP tournament later, but there was no reason they couldn't be friendly off the battlefield. And, on the off-chance they got put into teams, friendliness would be even better.

For now, he just looked over the others in the train car. They seemed pretty serious about the whole thing. Not him, though. Win or lose, this was all just for fun to him. Winning would've been nice though.

[makiaka]

Mallory had her face behind a anatomy book sense the train had began. She had been fascinated by all the things she had missed in her previous skimming of the book. Like the concepts of cellular tissue, or bone marrow. This wasn't of her current curriculum she had thought at first, but why not. Though it was not, but ten minutes into the ride. that her eyes were not reading, but had in fact closed in slumber behind her book. She never stayed awake on trips, but this was surprisingly early for even her to fall asleep. This may of been because of the memories of getting the book on Christmas a few years back soothed her to sleep. After a large amount of dreaming about anything from fantasy stories, to sci-fi-, to estacy, or even a weird acid trip like dream, she had awoken. She looked down to notice her hair and drool had fallen into the pages in front of her as she rushed to wipe the drool off before setting the book down.

Them she began coming her hair before thinking about her things. Within a second her expression changed to shock as she checked her back to see if her backpack was there, but was surprised to find it not there. Her hands began scuffling anywhere and everywhere you could possibly store luggage on the train. Her movements were frantic and hasty to her neighbors worrying shed hit them on accident as she began looking in there open compartments as well. As she asked them to check there cupboard she sighed, and in no were near a inside voice excitedly hollered "I found it!" She began rummaging threw her bag checking if everything was there one by one. As she finished checking on the books and the close she noticed a man with bunny ears and a man with a prosthetic arm. She wanted to talk to them, but she didn't know how to approach them out of the blue.

[Venchi]

Danny had checked out the other people in the train trying who they were in game, since he had only seen them in armor. He had however figured that the guy with fake rabbit ears was most likely R-gunner, and the girl who was frantically looking for her bag had to be Mallory. He was wondering if he should introduce himself as Mirophet or not. After thinking it over Danny came to the conclusion that there would be enough time to do that later and started thinking back to the tournament. He knew he was lucky to come so far, since his strategy's never were stellar. If he had faced of against someone like Akira in the early rounds he would have lost then and there.

[Alex Treveney]

Aurezn laid down onto the seats. Her body comforting with the seats, dreaming of new beginnings, not dreaming more like day dreaming or thinking something other than reality. She was in high spirits at that moment, all the passengers can see from the c creeping along her face. She began to open her eyes, all she could see was a bright light. A few outlines of bodies, was that rabbit ears ?! She shut them and then open them widely and started to sit up along the seat. She sighed quietly but did not enjoyed it. Her grandmother always told her sighing makes you lose a piece of happiness, but she would always counter point that that sighing makes you assured and accepted of the situation. That went to her grave, she was the saint of the family. She went into her bag and took out her computer.

[Metal Zeta]

Dest fidgeted in his seat. There were....quite a bit of odd people here. However, before he could look any of them over, a screen came down from the roof of the car. "What the..." He muttered, as the screen flared to life.

"Welcome to World Next!" A female's voice said....as the tutorial movie played, the one that showed up in the options menu of the game. The one NOBODY in this train needed to watch if they were the winners in the tournament.

They wasted their time all day with this stupid train ride...and NOW they made them watch this? That....kind of pissed Dest off. Through...one part of it caught his interest.

"Now! The skill system! Each player has 4 skills! A week skill, a medium skill, a strong skill, and their ultimate! When they begin a game, each player has a full meter, at 100%! Using their weak skill takes away 10%, medium skills take 25%, strong skills take 50%, and in order to use their Ultimate Skill, the meter has to be full, and it uses all of it, so be careful! Taking and receiving damage fills it back up!"


Now, oddly enough...not a lot of people used their skills. He knew that everybody on this train could, for sure, but the average player...never did. That was a bit odd to Dest, and he could never figure a reason.

Still, the movie soon ended....and the train came to a stop, as the doors opened. "Thank God." Dest muttered, standing up, still pissed at the movie....he then had an idea, to show his dislike. But, he couldn't do it himself. He looked around, and saw a dark skinned, red hear man, who seemed fairly fit. Judging from his appearance, Dest guessed he was Kuroshi, the shadow using one. "Excuse me, can you do me a favor?" Dest asked, walking over to him. Once he was close enough, he handed him his book, then pointed at the screen in which the movie had played. "Before we get off this train, would you mind showing them how much of an insult to our intelligence that movie was?" He asked, trying to be mature about asking "throw the book at the screen and break it."

[Shingaku]

Kuroshi had watched the video, out of sheer boredom, and already had figured out how he'd use the Skill system. However, Dest then walked up to him, and effectively asked him to throw the book at the T.V. Kuroshi just kind of gave him this 'Are you serious?' Look, before he just casually went to walk off the train, and as He passed the T.V., he did something pretty astounding.

He put the T.V. to his right Shoulder, and, Mid-step, spun his left foot behind him, to arc it diagonally up at the T.V., And roundhouse kicked the T.V. so hard, his foot ripped a clear swath through it, before continuing to walk off the train, having returned to his original position from before the Kick, his head phones having never come off.

"Dakara bujoku." He simply stated, which then, from his phone an electronic voice Spoke. "So insulting." It spoke, in English, with a large Japanese accent. He then continued towards where he was supposed to go, his foot only a little sore, but he kept it well hidden.

[Rinn]

Jack was suprised at how the others acted about the training video. It was supposed to remind them all not to forget the basics. It wasn't insulting their intelligence. Simply showing how exactly they all ended up here. When that Japanese kid kicked the screen, Jack wanted to get up and punch him in the face. "All you guys act like your gods!" He said out loud with a disgusted hiss. "The creators certanly didn't need to bring us out here just because we play well, and you thank them by breaking shit." Jack got out of his seat and walked out the doorway. Shoving the Jap with his mechanical shoulder in the process.