Chapter 3: A Surprise Reunion

After trying out his new strength for a little while longer, he decided to walk out the front door.

'Guess I can at least help out the world and kill a criminal if I have to kill somebody.'

Doing this was the only way he'd be able to clear his conscience.

As he made his way down to a back alley where the local gangs were known to hang out, he purchased a mask of a famous superhero called Metal Man. He figured that using a mask would be better than nothing since he didn't want to be flashing his face around if he was going to kill somebody.

As he arrived at the back alley, he looked around but didn't see anything surprising. Some homeless squatters here and there, and maybe a thug or two, and some side alleyways lined the sides of the alleyway. Looked pretty on par with every other alleyway.

Just as he was about to start looking for a bad guy to kill off for his mission, he heard a scream from one of the side alleyways.

He ran over to find a woman trying to fight off a much bigger guy.

The guy looked to be around 6'5" and had muscles that would intimidate most people.

Michael donned his face mask and rushed over to help the woman, pushing the guy backward into a wall.

The man Michael had just pushed ended up tripping over himself since the last thing he was expecting was for a small kid to come up and push him. He lied there stunned at the audacity of this newcomer when he noticed that his shoulder was feeling numb for some reason.

Michael, who hadn't noticed any of this, continued towards the woman.

"Are you alright?" He asked the woman who was still on the floor, crying.

The woman didn't say anything but just nodded meekly.

Satisfied, Michael turned around and faced the guy once more, who had now gotten up.

"Looks like I need to take care of some trash first," Michael said to nobody in particular.

The guy didn't look angry, but just stated, "If you leave right now, I can guarantee that you can leave safely."

"We've already gotten this far, might as well finish too, right?" Michael said arrogantly.

Frustrated that the kid was ignoring him, the thug shouted angrily, "You asked for it!" and rushed Michael.

With the knife held out, the thief lunged towards Michael, aiming for his neck.

Michael swiftly dodged to the side, grabbing the man's wrist as it went past, violently jerking it downwards.

Stunned, the man dropped his knife and took a few steps back holding his wrist.

Without pause, Michael ran forward, picking up the knife as he passed it.

The sudden change of actions startled the man, who fell over as he backed away.

Michael grabbed the man by the neck, pinning him against a wall. Just before Michael was about to stab the man, he looked down, only to see that his hands were shaking. Sure, in Niflheim he had killed other players, but it was different. This wasn't a game.

The man laughed dryly as Michael was still holding him by the throat. "You've never killed someone before, have you? If you let go of me right now, I can promise you won't be harmed by just walking away," The man offered.

Michael wasn't sure what he should do, till he thought back to the mission.

[Failure: Essie will die in a car crash.]

He couldn't let that happen.

Michael's hands began to steady as he prepared to take a life for the first time.

The man, however, was unaware of this change and kept on laughing, thinking Michael would take his offer.

Michael turned the knife over and swiftly plunged the knife into the stomach of the man, killing him instantly

As the knife sank deeper into the belly of the man, he felt a small sense of Déjà vu, though it only lasted a moment. He was confused, as he didn't know why he felt like that wasn't the first time he had done that, but he continued with the current matter first.

Standing up, he wiped the dust off of his clothes and turned to face the lady once more. Noticing that the lady's clothes were torn, he started to take off his jacket to give to the lady.

He paused once he noticed that she was looking at him warily and starting to back away.

"Don't worry, I won't do anything to you. You can't walk out looking like that," he calmly stated to the lady.

Although still wary, she accepted the jacket which he was now holding out to her.

"...What's your name?" The lady asked.

"You can just call me Lucifer."

She was confused, but it had been the name that Michael had used for ages in videogames, and he figured it was better than giving his real name, considering he had just killed somebody.

"You should probably get out of here, and get to somewhere safe now."

Nodding, the lady stood up and hurriedly exited the alleyway, going back onto the busy streets.

Whether she noticed or not, Michael made sure she got out safely, watching her as she exited the alleyway.

After seeing that she left without any more trouble, he also turned around and started to leave.

'Store in Inventory.' Michael thought.

As he thought that, the knife and the body slowly shrunk down in size, until they disappeared entirely.

'Inventory.' He thought once more.

A small box labeled inventory popped in front of him just like at his house. This time, however, there were pictures of a knife and a dead body on two boxes respectively.

'Close Inventory.'

The inventory disappeared from in front of him.

'The inventory is so useful, I can dispose of these safely later.'

He started walking out of the alleyway.

He had just exited the alleyway when he heard someone call his name.

He turned around to see a handsome young man who looked to be in his early 20's walking down the alleyway. He had pure black hair and blue eyes, looking just like the people you'd see on the covers of magazines.

"I knew it! Michael, that's you isn't it?"

"Alan?"

The man was Michael's friend from high school who had moved away to go to college in a different area.

"What's it been like 3 years? Why haven't you called?" Alan asked confused.

"I lost all of my contacts after upgrading my phone. Besides, if you were back you could've called me first," Michael replied. He was also confused at the lack of contact from Alan's side too.

"I would've but I broke my phone when I cracked the screen and had to get a replacement phone. Anyways, enough of that. Why don't you come with me, Michael? I'm just about to head out for drinks at a bar down here."

"Down that alleyway? Isn't that place a bit dangerous? What bars could be down there?"

Michael wasn't sure if he wanted to re-enter the alleyway where he just took somebody's life in cold blood.

"Come on, the bars just down there. Besides, it doesn't look like you have anything to do right now."

"Alright, if you insist," Michael finally conceded.

"That's what I'm talking about," Alan said elatedly.

Alan turned around and started walking into the alleyway.

Michael quickly followed suit.

After a few steps, they arrived at the bar. Right before Michael entered the bar though, he heard a small dinging noise.

[You have 1 New Mission. Would you like to open it?]