Creator

Chapter 8 - Chloe

Chapter 8 – Chloe

"Hey, Chloe" I said

A cute girl with her hair tied up into two ponytails on both sides like those in an anime is standing in front of my doorstep.

She's carrying a pretty heavy-looking backpack, and she's leaning forward just to carry it. She's a little short, almost two thumbs below my chin. She's sweating a lot, mostly because of her heavy baggage.

"Hey…" she said, in a hoarse voice.

"What are you carrying?" I said.

"Scraps. Items. Anything that I might need."

Chloe has this tendency to keep items, even if it looks useless, with her. Which is the reason why she's carrying that heavy burden on her back, but today looks special.

"Ugh.. Do you need any help with what you're carrying? It looks extraordinarily large today."

"Nope! I can carry all of these."

Despite her size, she can carry that. I, myself, doubt that I can carry something as large as my fridge on my back, tho, I think its lighter, it still looks really heavy.

"So, why are you here again?" I asked.

"Nothing, just escorting you until we arrive at school. You are precious to me, you know." she smiled

"Okay…" I mumbled as I walked out the door and closed the door behind me.

I slowly walk down the stairs, trying to keep the same pace as Chloe's.

"You should've gone ahead and went to school, you know. I really don't think anyone's gonna do anything to me. I'm a Level 0, remember?" I clarified.

"I don't care. Dad told me you're special. So I'm guarding you" she replied.

I don't think the "special" she was talking about is on the good side. I think they meant, I was special because I'm ungifted, unlike the others.

We take a turn. To my disbelief, they, the thugs who chased me yesterday, are at the gate. Only one of them is standing guard. The others must be within the vicinity. They must be mad at me for leaving them behind. They are quite the persistent bunch.

I looked at my cellphone. We haven't engaged them yet.

I stopped in my tracks and hid from their sight.

"Hey, Chloe, would you mind if we take a different route?"

"Why?" she said, perplexed.

"Those people don't look so friendly." I mumbled.

"OH! Then let me prove that I can protect you!" she exclaimed. "Can we engage them?"

"There wasn't an engagement yesterday, even after they chased me."

"Not even a signal?" she asked.

"Nope." I sighed.

Engagement is an activity between two parties wherein they duel until the other is defeated, either by subduing them, routing them or disabling them. This activity is held within the battlezones of any arena. A signal is sent to a satellite in space and relayed to a network of supercomputers, held and protected by the government, to record and manage the event. They handle pretty much everything technical in the battle.

Cellphones have built-in receivers that detect other cellphones in the area. It works by sending signals and receiving them. So, it's much like a mutual relationship. If you can detect their cellphone, they can detect yours too. You can see their exact location on the built-in satellite view map in the phone.

If you can't detect another man's cellphone, the network of supercomputers, AKA "Thor", cannot process battle preparations. Therefore, battle results are not recorded and the battlefield is not set up, leaving Thor useless inside the battle.

"Are you sure? If they attack us, we have no choice but to retaliate. We have to fight back." she stated.

She looks dead serious.

"And as we fight, we can only do a little to save them from dying." she said

Yes, battle preparations include setting up a battlefield in an arena and giving the party members barriers and protections against dying. But without those, with our skills, I mean, their skills, they could kill each other instantly.

It's like a deathmatch when you don't have preliminary protection all over you. One wrong move and you die.

I check my cellphone again, to see if there really isn't any signal. They're obviously within my phone range, and I can't detect them. They must've turned it off so we can't detect them.

Chloe let out a sigh of disbelief and laid down her backpack on the cement. She went to a corner and picked up a rock.

She walked out into the street and I gazed at her from my spot, unseen.

"Level 1, Engage" she whispered.

She pulled back her arm, as if she's gonna throw a ball then aimed it high. She threw it. It was quite far, actually, maybe about 20 blocks away from my spot.

I looked at the trajectory of the rock. It was flawless. It hit the guard at the gate right on the face. It instantly knocked him out. Then someone from within the gaps of the houses ran to the guard. Chloe was still standing proud at how awesome her aim was.

Chloe was a natural ranged fighter. She could throw anything and hit it. Launcher is her Ability Seed, which was rare, due to the fact that being Launcher requires a deep understanding of physics and everything circulating the said science. Mainly, because of this, all of her Arc Throws are automatically handled by her Ability, and with that ability, she can shoot baskets from the other end of the court.

Yes, she is really smart. A physics genius and a mathematician at that. She can process long equations in her head and she can actually solve it, along with the decimal numbers. A walking calculator, if I may say.

I ran to her and dragged her into the cover. I was panicking. The guy was calling out to his fellow thugs and I saw him pointing at us while I was trying to get Chloe.

Like I said, Chloe is a ranged fighter. And almost every ranged fighter has an obvious weakness, melee combat.

And no, she's not one of those amazing people who can handle her bows and sword in combat at the same time, unlike some elf from a movie involving the destruction of a ring in a volcano. She doesn't know hand-to-hand combat.

"This is bad. This is bad" I mumbled.

Chloe was fumbling through her backpack. I, on the other hand, am a Level 0. I have absolutely no idea on their abilities. I had to think of an idea. And I had to think fast.

And to my demise, they've already surrounded us.