Chapter 1 (Griff)

If you were told that you were about to bear the hardest burdens so others don't have to would you accept it?

My name is Griff, and I am a portal runner. As a portal runner I'm responsible for keeping this planet and all my friends alive. No slacking, no excuses, no exceptions. I am fine with this reality. As a portal runner I have to navigate through portals and realms and unexpected situations to get info on where the next power shard is or to map out the area for future preparation. When we manage to find a power shard we take a decent bunch of squads out to ensure we retrieve it. If we don't however continue collecting shards our planet will die, hence I am determined to never fail. I dream of being a legend walking through enemies no sweat saving lives and...

"Wooohhoooooo!!!"I wake up wide eyed, reality hitting me once again like a cold fish to the face. I dodge as fast as I can as James lands where my face used to be. He has a huge grin "oh hey Griff, you seem awake" I look at him and grin as I tackle him off the bed. The metal floor rushes to meet us as we travel across the room in a crazy tornado of playful fun.We continue our tussle till Liz walks in. "James... Get up we have a small job to take care of at the farmlands."his face goes bright red and he trips as soon as he hears Liz "oh uh hi Liz I uh I was just...uhhhhh yea" I laughed as he was so thoroughly embarrased right in front of Liz

On his way out I told him to try not to fall off the door. I decided to head on down towards the shooting gallery and get some better scores than that cretin Spike. I look around the room. My metal walls and bunk bed are to my side, and the door has a poster from James that nearly rips off due to how the door opens from the center line splitting apart so fast. He says that its important that Mr magic hat cat stays on the door. I look at my dresser in the corner and a small table with two chairs. I go to my dresser and activate my record using the lightboard. Still a grade three. I can't wait until I hit grade 4 and can go into the skirmishing room.

I head down the hall and take take the stairs down, metal clanking against my feet feeling just as uncomfortable as always, I head to the lightpanel on the podium across the room and look at it and select the training button. A menu comes up; Skirmish, Shooting Gallery, CQB, Hand To Hand, Running, Equipment Training, Death Games. I of course scan my card and select Death Games and just like usual it pulls up the words Death Games unavailable to grade 3 only grade 8 may enter.

There's always so many things to hold people back in organizations. I decide to move on and select the shooting gallery. My card lights up with an arrow at the end. The lightboard resets and says follow the arrow to your training room. I don't need the directions however as I've been in the bureau nearly all my life when my parents dropped me off. We communicate by letter occasionally, they work as police for the cities.

I head down the metal walls past the windows of other rooms looking in as I pass. The hand to hand room still has Sky dominating the leaderboard, then again most guys in there don't want to hit a girl due to the criticism that comes after. The equipment training room Zero, one of Prax's progidies, is zooming about testing his enhanced shoes that allow wall jumping etc. Zero has surpassed all students in his grade and two grades above that and he's just in grade 4.

I keep walking down the path to the gallery and I make an effort to see the Skirmish room. There is team Lancer and Vixen doing a musket battle. I don't really know all that tech stuff behind the Skirmish room but the armor shuts down and tightens and gets hard to move until a trainer walks in and unlocks the weight absorber thingies. When I reach the corner and turn to the gallery I see the moron walk in. Spike walks into the gallery, before I can decide if its a good idea or not I walk in and challenge him to a shootout. "Spike, right now let's go, you and me we select three guns and do a shootout!"

He kinda jumps at my sudden entrance but grins and accepts. We head over to the rack and select frfrom the default weapon stash, in other words the normal runner equipment. An ammunition drawer opens next to us filled with battery cells. "Ladies first" he says. I don't care about his petty insults I want to win and by him letting me pick first I can pick last too. "Alright" I search for the gun I've always loved, the Revolvatore. It is an electric powered smg that fires blast cells that burst some on impact. The gun has an x in the center of the end, the end rotates and alternates between shooting from the tips of the x to the center and back giving time for each barrel to recharge while the next shoots. He looks at me like I'm a mutated Mudhark. "Whatever keeps your house in orbit, I guess". He looks for the biggest gun and finds it, a Sickletranq which has three settings and is extremely hard to carry if your small and as hes pretty big for his age so he can carry it. I look to the rack and select a Tulip Bolter, similar to the revolvers found in "western" realms. It fires six shots before you have to press a button that regenerates the bullets through metal printing or something of the sort.

We step to the windows and activate competition which, hilariously closes other people's windows. The targets pop up, my hand pulls the gun cold but familiar grip to the targets rotating. I hear the banging of Spikes gun, same as mine blast down a single target. I drift the gun across my targets in a way that seems somewhat majestic compared to spikes brutal gun-it-down strategy. In the end when the targets go down we see the scores: Griff points 17... Spike points 5. I grin but remember now I have to use that huge gun Spike chose. I take it and lift it onto the window, its a large bulky and long turret looking crossbow thing. Whatever it is I just hope nobody ever tries to shoot me with it. I manage to find the spread shot button and take out a few targets but Spike sprays the entire room of targets with fire, explosions and bolts. The scores pop up: Griff points: 24... Spike points: 29

So the tie breaker is with the Tulip Bolter, we get ready to start firing and pick our targets. The buzzer goes off and my guns already there firing the first shot. All targets go down being shot by what I guess is spike, but Spike isnt even close to that fast.

I check the scoreboard, Griff points: 24... Spike points: 29... Yoshi points: 29. Yoshi! I run over to Yoshi now stepping out of a window holding an Arkay rifle. He's wearing his hood that covers half his face in a straight line down and the bottom of his face was covered in wraps leaving mainly his right eye showing. his torso is covered in wraps and wearing some tight jump pants. His arms were covered in the same texture as the pants and all together he looked both cool, deadly, and kinda odd. "Griff, I've been meaning to show you something."he smiles I can tell by the way the hood shifts. "Follow me kid"