Quinn blinked his eyes a few times.
He looked from left to right.
Looking around, he discovered that he was in a completely empty, white room.
It was similar to the "interrogation room" he and Leo had been taken to the morning after Brandon died.
Suddenly, a screen appeared in front of him.
Looking at it, Quinn couldn't help but compare it to the "System screens" that he and Tsukuru received from time to time.
[Power Fighters
Ver.6.8.3 ]
In the empty space in the bottom of the screen, a message flashed repeatedly on the screen.
[Tap screen to begin.]
Following the instructions, Quinn reached out, and tapped the empty space on the screen with his index finger.
Pixels appeared around the point of contact.
The screen lit up, and an electronic sound was heard.
The screen vanished, only to be replaced with a new one.
[Main Menu
[Log In]
[Register]
[Play As Guest] ]
As Vorden had suggested, Quinn decided to play as a "Guest" for now.
He accessed the Power Fighter's mainframe, and brought up the "search" option.
A rectangular bar filled with a series of dashes, the first one flashing, appeared, as did a keyboard below the bar.
Quinn inputted the name "VBCopy" into the bar, and pressed the "enter" key on the keyboard.
The rotating wheel icon appeared on the screen.
After a moment, two new rectangular bars appeared on the screen.
[ [Message]
[Join Room] ]
Quinn pressed the second option.
A new screen appeared.
[Sending Room Invite.
Please Wait…]
The rotating wheel reappeared.
Quinn stared at the screen, as he patiently waited for Vorden to accept.
After a minute or two, a new screen appeared.
[Room Invite accepted.
Transportation in Process…]
In an instant, Quinn was transported into another empty, white room.
However, this time, there was a person standing in front of him.
The person had the same body build and blonde hair as Vorden, but he also had bandages wrapped around his fists, and had a long, red scarf wrapped around his face, covering his lower face like a ninja mask.
Seeing the person, Quinn tilted his head, his eyebrow raised in confusion.
"Er…Vorden?" He asked. "Is that you?"
The man stood there for a moment.
Then he spoke. And when he did, Quinn heard the man speak using Vorden's voice.
"Oh." He replied. "Sorry."
If Quinn was being honest with himself, hearing Vorden's voice coming from this stranger did feel a little…strange to him.
The figure brought up his hand to his chest, and tapped the spot on his wrist where Vorden's wristwatch would be.
Quinn watched, as a layer of pixels enveloped the soles of the figure's shoes.
The pixels spread upwards, from the bottom of the figure's shoes, to the tips of his hair.
As the layer of pixels traveled upwards, the figure's appearance began to change.
When the pixels reached the very top of the figure's hair, Quinn saw Vorden standing across from him in his military uniform.
Quinn stared for a minute, blinking a few times to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.
Eventually, Quinn spoke up.
"What…What was that?" He asked.
Hearing this, Vorden smiled.
"The game allows you to customize your in-game avatar." Vorden explained. "You can essentially make your character look like however you want." Vorden glanced away.
"What you just saw was something called a 'skin'." He continued. "Although, they cost credits, so I wouldn't worry about it."
Hearing this, Quinn smiled.
This "game" kept sounding better and better.
Since the game allowed him to create an "avatar" as Vorden had called it to be used in the game meant that no one would know it was Quinn, unless they knew his user name.
It was at that point that Vorden's head turned from left to right.
"Hey, where's Tsukuru?" He asked.
Quinn raised an eyebrow in confusion.
Slowly, he began to glance around the room, as well.
The room was completely empty with the exception of the two of them.
Tsukuru was nowherein sight.
Quinn turned back to Vorden.
"You think we should look around for him?" He asked. "Maybe he forgot, and started playing."
Vorden put his hand under his chin, thinking.
Eventually, he shook his head.
"Nah." He replied. "There's so many people on this server, it would take us hours to find him."
He then turned to Quinn.
"Plus, Tsukuru only paid for one hour for each of us." Vorden continued. "We don't have time to waste."
A long pause then stretched in the room, with the two just glancing around the empty room.
Eventually, Vorden broke the silence.
"So…" He said, glancing over at Quinn.
In response, Quinn glanced back at him.
"You wanna watch me play a few matches so you know how the game works?" He asked.
Quinn smiled.
"Sure."
Vorden then used the Power Fighter's UI to form a "party" with Quinn.
This allowed him to spectate Vorden's fights.
Suddenly, the room began to change.
Pixels began to emerge from the ground, building on top of themselves to form structures.
A set of four stands appeared along the edges of the room, forming a sort of "arena" with Quinn and Vorden trapped in a large, empty space in the center.
Instantly, Quinn felt strange.
Looking down, he saw his entire body begin to glitch, becoming glitching pixels.
A moment later, he vanished.
Quinn then reappeared among the stands, him appearing as if he had glitched from one location to the next.
Seeing it, Vorden couldn't help but compare it to Tsukuru's new "teleportation" Skill.
It seemed that whatever Tsukuru's Ability was called, it seemed that, on top of being a creation Ability, it also had the power to bring certain aspects of video games into the physical world.
As Quinn sat in the stands, he looked down at Vorden.
A screen had appeared in front of him, but Quinn couldn't see what it said.
Meanwhile, in front of Vorden, the screen had two rows of squares, with each row having four squares each.
These squares were all labeled from "1" to "8".
Additionally, below the middle section of the second row, there was a rectangle labeled "Quick Match".
Vorden pressed the "2" square.
It lit up bright, and an electronic noise was heard.
A new screen appeared in front of Vorden.
[Searching for opponent…]
Below the line of text on the screen, there was a rotating wheel.
A moment later, a mass of glitching pixels appeared in the large space, directly in front of Vorden.
The pixels clustered together, and a new figure appeared.
This was Vorden's first opponent.
A moment later, a digital countdown appeared in the air above Vorden's and the new individual's heads.
Soon, a masculine voice filled the room.
Quinn looked from side to side, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.
"3…2…1…Fight!" The voice announced, and an electronic noise was heard.
As Vorden and the new individual began to fight, Quinn quickly realized that both of them had chosen the Earth Ability.
The match didn't last very long, as it was clear that Vorden had the greater experience when it came to fighting.
The match had only lasted a total of five minutes, but watching the game, Quinn could see how the game worked.
Above each player's head was a health bar, but unlike his "Inspect" Skill there was no way to see exactly how much health each fighter had.
Looking at the health bar's made Quinn's eye narrow in recognition.
Something Tsukuru had said during their fight with Riley in the park flashed through his head.
"His health bar looks about three-fifths full. Seeing how I also damaged him with my dagger, he must be stronger than Kyle."
While he never questioned the line during the fight, as it was the least of Quinn's concerns at the time, Quinn now found himself wondering if this is what Tsukuru saw every time he fought.
It would make sense to some degree. These "Systems"did seem to be based off of video games.
In that regard, Tsukuru had an…advantage over Quinn.
While Quinn had to figure everything out for himself through trial and error, as he had never played a game before in his life, Tsukuru was a different story.
If that handheld gaming console he always seemed to be playing was any indication, Tsukuru was an expert on games, giving him a level of experience and familiarity that Quinn could never hope to have.
However, think about this, brought another thought to Quinn's mind.
'Where the hell IS Tsukuru, anyway?' Quinn thought, glancing around. 'It's not like him to blow us off like this…'