Chapter 3 Broken

I wake up with a white haired girl sitting next to me holding a rag and a bucket of water, she smiles at me and says, "I know you don't like me that much, but i'm happy you're ok.." I then get up and groan biting my lip, "I never said that I didn't like you, in fact you're my type, I'm just not looking for a relationship. I know from the fact that this badly hurt I didn't win.. But did you all at least take him down?" She smiles and nods, then she says and she gets on the bed, "Dont worry im not gonna do anything, I just wanna sit next to you." I smile, "Thank you. If you wanna lay your head on my chest I will allow it, but that is all, nothing else." She smiles and says with a giggle, "I had no intentions on doing anything inappropriate if that's what you mean." She places her head on my chest and I then say quietly, "Where are the others?" She then says with a yawn, "They went into town for medicine, apparently the doctors think it's best if you stay here for a while." I chuckle with pain and say, "Adaptation Healing factor." My body starts to heal itself and I then say, "I'm going to be ok." She looks at me and says, "That adaptation power is a little over powered.." I smile, "That's the point." I then say, "I'm gonna go find the others you wanna join me?" She then says as she gets up, "Of course I do, but.. Are you sure you don't wanna date?" I look at her and see her sincerity and say, "I'll think about it." She then smiles, "Thank you, let's go." 

I get up and head towards the door and she quickly follows, as we exit the door a passing nurse stops dead in her tracks and turns to me, then says with a smile, "I will kindly ask you to wait until you fully recover from your in…" I cut her off showing her the fact that I am already fully healed. She then walks up to me and examines me, then says, "There is no possible way, you were just injured, I know this world is not real, but there is no power in existence that has that powerful of a recovery effect… How is this possible?" Rather than explaining to her what my unique power is, I gently push her to the side and reactivate adaptation, and I am given a new ability, like all the others that are made from adaptation, it is only mine to wield for as long as I don't reactivate adaptation. I examine the power's uses and it appears to be a tracking ability that's supposed to be unique to assassin classes, it is highly useful, and is far greater than the skill you can learn from hunting. I look at the name and chuckle, peaking Marcy's curiosity, and she looks at the data screen then laughs as well, "It's called Backtracking? Oh no we're gonna fall so far behind.." She giggles and then says, "Ok now that that is out of my system, how does it work?" I shrug and then look into the details, "It says the user of the ability, must have something that they can track from their target, and they must know it to a very high degree… whatever that means…" She looks at me and then says, "Are you slow?" my face grows red as I am looking at her both embarrassed and incredulously angered, "HEY! I am not slow, in fact I am quite intelligent." She facepalms and then says, "It means you must know what they wear, how they smell, or how they move…" I look at her dumbfounded and act like I was only joking, "Yeah… I knew that, it was pretty obvious, am I right?" She then pushes me to the side and says something I never expected, "Oi… you seem to be dumber than I had first thought.." I glare and follow her out of the hospital.

We exit the hospital and I activate backtracking and then say with a gleaming smile, "Need me to carry you or do you think you can keep up?" She scoffs and says as I pick her up, "My hero… You know you're supposed to wait for a woman's response before sweeping them off their feet, If you were someone I hated I'd scream, so be happy I like you." I roll my eyes and she smiles, "There he is!" I look at her and she says, "One of the things I like about you is the fact that, in most situations you could care less about what anyone has to say, which gives you more charm in a very strange way." I then say, "Enough, let's just get going…" I then dash off following the directions the ability tells me to go. Strangely enough the ability leads me out of the city and back into the forest.

I enter the forest and I see Kai laying on the ground badly hurt, I drop Marcy forgetting she even existed in my arms for a moment causing her to grunt and say with an annoyed tone as she hit the ground, "Ow, thanks Ryan I truly appreciate the gesture here…" I turn to say I am sorry and she points to kai telling me to go check on him. I run over to him and roll him over, he looks at me and coughs up blood, though it may not be real I can almost feel the pain he must be going through, he then says, "Ryan, the others were taken, Hector and I tried to fight them off, but.. Things didn't go as planned, turns out your brother isn't the only one with a huge hatred for you. There is a whole guild of those you have taken out, after they made a new character they came together and focused on nothing, but learning how to do as you do, counter and ability or power at the enemies disposal.. I kid.. You.. not we sat through a.." He coughs up more blood and then continues on with what he was saying, "We sat through a whole spiel about how they formed their guild, and how they plan on.." He coughs up blood again and I glare at him, "Shut up Kai, if you keep talking you're going to die, i'll send an alert to the city requesting them to come and get you, I would heal you, but I need to find the others so I…" Marcy cuts me off and says with an angry tone, "Ryan, you can't just leave him here, he will die, what's more important at the current moment? For all you know they might all be dead.."

I curse at the sky knowing she is right, then I activate adaptation again and get a healing power. I quickly heal Kai and he smiles with gratitude then there is a rustling noise and an arrow flies my head faster than I can react to and instead of hitting me, it hits Kai and it finishes him off causing him and his stuff to disappear, i was too late.. I turn towards where the arrow came from and yell enraged by what just happened, "WHO'S THERE?!? ANSWER ME AND COME OUT TO FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN OR WOMAN NOT A COWARD!!!" I see a man in a black coat jump down from the tree, he is wielding a large zweihander sword and has a bow on his back, as well as some daggers to the side of his hip, he has medium long hair but only in the front to cover his right eye, the rest of his hair is shot, he smiles at with his demonic colored red eyes and says, "Ryan, I have come to take my revenge for what you did to me the fall of last year, when I used my whole allowance to make the gear I desired, I will kill you and cause you the same pain you caused me, and I will do it NOW!" Marcy dashes in and I yell at her, "Stop, this is my fight and might fight only, don't get in this, because it will result in one thing and one thing only, either me or him seeing the dead message. I won't let you interfere with the battle, causing me to be the reason he kills you too if I die. So do me a favor please.. Let me fight on my own.." She looks at me as if she is about to cry then says very quietly, "Very well.. But do me a favor as well.." I nod and say, "Sure, what is it?" She smiles, "Promise me you won't die.." I nod and say with a forced smile, "Ok easy, I promise, this will be a quick fight and when I win we can continue to search for the others." She forces a smile knowing very well, I am lying and there is a chance I won't be able to win, then she steps back

The man in the black coat steps forward and says with a sinister grin, "Are you two parting love birds finally done with you goodbyes? I have stuff I have to do.. Sooo…" I roll my eyes at him and he smiles knowing to take that as a yes, then the fight has finally begun. I summon my sword and he steadies himself then as our eyes meet we nod. He dashes at me and begins to swing his sword repeatedly, and adaptation activates on its own and I instantly know this fight is going to be hard, I dodges his first few slashes but he manages to hit me, not once but several times in a row, attacking different parts of my body, and with each successful slash he lands I take major bleeding damage, I activate the power granted by adoption despite not know what it was and Its as if I know all his attacks, without opening a menu I can see his powers, stats and his class, he is a rare combo class, three is always the maximum, but in order to use more than one class you have to master your first then read books on a new class, then practice it until you master it, and a third class is so difficult and time consuming I am utterly shocked by how much time this man has put into this one character, just to kill me. He Is an assassin class, a swordsman, and an Archer, being an assassin he can equip and use daggers and crossbows, the swordsman class grants him the ability to not only be more agile, but also wield swords that are heavy to pick up with two hands in one, and the archer class allows him to never miss his target, this is going to be a tough fight, and i'm scared to look at his stats… I as I dodge I look at his stats, he puts most into dexterity, which will make his sword strikes hit less hard than if his main stat was strength, although dexterity will still increase his attack, but he has a incredibly high amount of points in his agility, and agility not only slightly boosts attack just like strength and dexterity, but makes him much faster.

Normally being faster or having higher stats of any kind, would put me at the advantage, but it's not high enough for my power to activate, it's as if he made himself unable to activate my power, as if he had it planned out.. He then stops slashing at me with the zweihander and stabs it into the ground and draws two of his daggers, "This is going to be a fun fight, I just hope you don't bleed out before I can kill you myself!" He dashes at me and I ready my blade to block a double strike, but instead of attacking me he slides under my legs and slashes at my back causing me to drop to the ground in pain and from what i'm assuming is poison. He kicks me in the face, as hard as he could, "Ha how does it feel to finally not be able to win, how does it feel to know you will lose everything?" I remain still and then say in a calm voice, "I wont lose everything as long as she stan.." I shut up realizing what I just did and he turns to Marcy, "Oh really!?! So the only way I'll truly get my revenge is if she dies and you live to bear the guilt? Is that what I am hearing?" He begins to walk towards her and I start to feel rage, something I've never truly felt in this virtual world before, I yell at the man, "DON'T YOU TOUCH HER!!" and he turns to me and smiles sinisterly, "BINGO!!" I look at his face and know, 'He was testing to see if I was only trying to buy time, he now knows I care about her, and he's going to kill her' I think to myself and he begins to walk towards her with the intent to actually kill her this time, and adaptation activates and rather than a basic power I gain a new skill as if it was an unlockable skill, it instantly activates and I am able to stand up despite the poison. I throw my sword at the man who drops to the ground as it pierces his back, I then quickly move over to him and say with dusgust, "You should have just restarted and worked your way back up like any other person." Then pull my blade out of his back and stab in into his skull. I drop to the ground and adaption deactivates, "I.. told you... I would win..." I say as I force myself to get back up, "what was that?" Marcy then says, "Apparently something called temporal immunity, which negates anything harmful for a random amount of time." I then look towards where the cloaked man came from and see Hectors body laying on a rock, Dead.