Asai walked out of his garage and closed the door behind him. Work and School then sit and be bored on the computer. That was all he did now.

The house was empty for now, in an hour or so he'd need to go pick up his sister from school and then she'd take over the computer for the rest of the day. He opened the door and walked in. The tail and ears he and his friends had created for his costume lay on his closet doorknob and he dropped his backpack off there, reminding himself that he had to work on his webpage more than he had been to get it ready for the presentation on Monday. This was time to relax though, so he left the disk in it's pocket in his backpack and put on and situated his white tiger costume parts. He planned to have it complete by the next convention, and he'd found that these weren't very good props for the costume, but it helped his mindset. Nearly developing two personalities, allowing his tiger portion to rise when he was at home talking to his friends and the human when he was at school or work.

Before leaving the room, he glanced around, to see if there was anything else to do until his sister got out of school. His eyes lit on his corner of computer game boxes, started when his sister asked him to keep them safe for her. The pile was mostly of her games, since his usually got trashed before they made it here, but the one he saw then had survived somehow, though he couldn't remember putting it in the pile.

The World would be perfect for killing his boredom, talking with his clansmates or going on a quick quest could last the time needed, he would just need to keep an eye on the clock.

He loaded up the game and freed the visor from under the pile of papers his dad had hid it with. It loaded up and Asai left and Arcion took complete control as his avatar was a white tiger.

The step he took towards the clan ship was interupted when a flashmail appeared to him, one of the honorary members had been interested in questing with him and this was asking when it would happen. Since Arcion hadn't been on recently, it was possible that it had been sent a while ago, but the archer replied to it anyways. After pausing a moment and randomly choosing three keywords the tiger typed out the reply.

******
Cypher, if you're on and ready to quest I'm finally back. I'll need to leave in about an hour, but I think we can complete a quest in that time. I'll wait for you in Resonating Snowflake's Pure Defense. Don't try to locate me there, an ice field hides a white tiger well, I'll find you and we can move.
******

If Cypher was on or not didn't matter anymore, he could play in the snow until the time he had to leave if the blademaster didn't show up.

Wasteing no time the tiger archer fell to all fours, the tiger skin helped him adjust to the change in step, and ran to the Chaos Gate. The other players seemed slightly suprised at his appearance, but those that had been around a bit knew about the Figment Raiders' hacks to make them seem more like the animal they connected with. He warped to the Theta server first, his last quest and clan home being on the Delta, then moved again to the field he had chosen.

"Ah snow, such fun to be had." The tiger near growled before launching himself into a pile of snow that had built up.

“Sir…sir, we’ve arrived.”

Minuscule amounts of drool rolled off the boy’s lips, sprinkling his folded arm. A stupid look lay on his face, with darting eyes and random mumbling. The airline stewardess’s dress was neatly worn, with no wrinkles or stains. Despite her profession, she had managed to keep herself clean and ordained. After making the announcement to the boy, she gave him a smile and a cookie, and continued to alert passengers that they had arrived. He shook and stretched until he felt somewhat normal. This wasn’t achieved however. A slight pulling sensation was felt where the shoulder and neck met, making him rub the spot for hours to come. The bustle and bustle of people grabbing their carry on did not cease, and the boy decided to wait until most of the people left the plane. He knew baggage pick up was another torture, but at least he’d only have to suffer once.


Here we go…

****

The first night sleeping in was terrible. He had gotten the bad type of rest on his flight, the one where you are half asleep and half awake, yet you feel more tired than you began. Also, he had achieved several muscle spasms and aches as a result of the poor seating provided on the planes. In short, it was heck, and he could not sleep. His covers went flying off, and his feet landed on the carpeted floor with a soft thud. Upon contact, he looked straight down, a smile full of glee forming on his face. It was the first time in his life he lived in quarters that were carpeted. His feet wriggled around a bit on the soft surface, playing with the loose threads that came off the fabric. After his meaningless playing was done, he walked over to the heater. His fingers covered the power button, sliding it on and setting the temperature several tenths higher than originally. Along with his new home, colder days and nights were now present, making the Caribbean temperature adjusted teen shudder. Once the heater began to warn the room up, he downed a room temperature glass of water and jumped back to the comfort of his bed.

****

Who am I kidding, I can’t sleep…wonder if anyone is available to quest…

Along with his clothes and paperwork for the new school, the boy did not forget to bring a very valuable item: his computer. With it, a lifetime subscription of the number MMORPG seller, “The World”, courtesy of his administrative job within the game, could be found. He filled the shoes of an admin (secret to his friends!), successful blade master, rare item hunter, and clan leader. He led a character’s busy life, yet he enjoyed playing out his fantasies. Knowing he would not sleep for another few hours, the boy quickly booted up his PC, and began his session of “The World”.

Cypher accepted the quick link offer. This new feature, beta available only to the administration, made a quick summary of your last time in “The World”, allowing for quick access to any unfinished activities. So far, he had found the feature very good. Cypher was quickly transported to the Theta Server’s root town. Like the airport in a whole, Theta was equally full with players. From buying to dueling, from feeding to arguing, each player had something to do. Cypher disregarded any administrative duties and proceeded on to check him online buddy list.

Interesting field name…and he doesn’t want me to find him…

A small smile formed on the blade master’s smile. Any passerby might have thought Cypher was up to no good, but in reality, he was now happy to be back in the swign of things. Without a hint of hesitation, Cypher began to a hasty sprint to the chaos gate. Upon reaching the teleporter, his digital mouth opened and spoke the three words which, alone, meant nothing, but paired together, would provide a good training park for Heironious and him. Quickly, the three golden rings, standard for fieldtransport, enveloped him whole, destroying his body in a sea of data, only to re-integrate into the field.

Snow….not fun…

Cypher was a very tropical person, and the idea of cold didn’t quite make him gingerly. Sure, he had just moved in to a considerably colder place than before, the average temperatures of his homeland and California differentiating in about 20 degrees to the cold side. But still, eh would survive, and he’d do it with style.

“After all…I am a tiger”

With the affirmation, Cypher began his trot through the snow, hoping Heironeous would spot him quick.

Arcion heard the chimes of someone entering the field and looked back towards the area he had entered from, sure enough he could spot a player standing there and it was likely Cypher.

The tiger walked on all fours towards the player, considering finding some way to pounce on the player. He eventually decided not to, he didn't know the blademaster well enough to know if he'd be killed for it. He reequipped his bow, having had put it away to keep from hurting himself with it or the quiver that sat on his hip along with the weapon. He wasn't sure if he was glad or not that Cypher was a white tiger as well, he was still unique in his class, but not as much in his clan. The only two same species that they held was Xantos and Jeri, though they looked very different.

He stood up and greeted the fellow Figment Raider and pointed. "I believe the dungeon is that direction. Haven't seen it, but there's no other places for it to hide other than a stand of trees." He took the elvish bow off of his back and stepped aside to hopefully indicate to the player to take the lead. As an archer he wouldn't do much good against monsters, especially because this field was above his level. With a strong fighter and a range attacker with good magic, they could probably take greater challenges

Pit pat, pit pat…the noise was constant. At first, it was soft and distant, but quickly became louder and louder, signaling that it was getting closer. Cypher’s ears perked straight up, listening intently, trying hard to decipher what made such a noise. In this snow, visibility was very low, the snow creating a very white surrounding that could blind a person. This was due to technicalities with the light spectrum, something that Cypher did not wish to delve deeply into. Instead, he did his best to find the originator of the constant noise. His vision line slowly descended just over the horizon of snow. Just like First Person Shooters, his eyes became a set of red crosshairs, floating over the white sea of ice, looking for any type of discoloration from the regular no-color setting.

Where are you…?

Cypher felt out of character. He too, as an honorary Figment Raider, took on the role of an animal, but not as far as to adopt an animal “hack”. This was the harmless type of hack, the one that simply gave you a different appearance. At first, this character editing caused the big wigs up stairs to flip off their chairs and yell “destroy!” but after seeing their popularity, they fired up their PR men and sold custom editors. Soon, having no animal parts or character editing at all was seen as “weird”.

I hear the thumping louder and louder…

Cypher turned, and found Heironeous behind him. Judging from the residue snow on his paws, it seemed that he was on all fours, using his tiger appearance to blend into the snow. Speaking of tiger appearances, Heironeous was ninety percent white tiger, with a few human features in the face. It wasn’t frightening, but it was unusual. He did get used to seeing such edited appearances, but the small shock factor is still there. Still, Cypher showed no surprise in his reactions, and instead smile and greeted him.

"I believe the dungeon is that direction. Haven't seen it, but there's no other places for it to hide other than a stand of trees."

Interesting…

“Let’s do this quick…I think my sleep is returning. Señor HA, led the way. Your appearance will hide you well, especially for any battles.”

Cypher set his equipment to fire, knowing the elemental opposites with enemy produced higher amounts of damage. With his equipment ready, Cypher began to follow HA.

Maybe I should growl…

“Growl…”

Hide me well? The monsters don't look at visual I think, the World just tells them where we are.

Arcion began walking, then heard Cypher say a growl. "You can do better than that." He chuckled, then drew in a breath and growled himself. "I used to watch my cat make her noises and copied them, growling is just a step up from that."

"Monster portal," He called and drew his bow from where it sat across his chest. "Good thing about ranged attacks," He drew his Elvish Bow and the energy arrow formed. "Activating these things with room to run." He finished and loosed the arrow towards the object. Aiming was unnessessary for the portals themselves, they would active with anything passing through any part of them. He couldn't hit the target very well when he was up in Colorado, but now he could concentrate better and the class attributes raised his ability further. Long enough in this class and he should be able to aim correctly in the real world.

The portal released a Dark Witch and a Baby Worm. The tiger took a few steps back and fired an arrow at the witch, indicating that he would attack her first and Cypher could take the worm to start. Eventually it was likely that the witch would attack or be attacked by Cypher and the worm would take an arrow or two, but for starters it was ranged vs. ranged and melee vs. melee.

(OOC: Sory for being slow, I might not log on AIM, so PM me when you post. I will post right after you, promise. Sorry again)

"You can do better than that."

True…

Cypher chuckled from Bastion’s comment. The range master seemed to truly enjoy his animal form, licking his fur and executing other random actions reserved only for those of the animal kingdom. Cypher, although not displaying animal traits like Bastion, indeed had the white feline in him. Each quest, or hunt as he called it, was intricately executed so that is targets, or prey, went down with the least amount of struggle. Much like the real life tiger, he planned the attack, and then pounced, giving the desired prey no chance to run, defend or counter attack back. And at the moment, his first showing of animal ness came to him, in the form of three spinning rings. Bastion transferred from the classic all fours position back to the human stance, removing his bow in the process. His left hand grasped the hard part, cradling the arrow’s tip in between his middle and side fingers, the right hand grabbed the arrow’s butt, as Cypher comically called it, and pulled it and the string back. A few seconds passed, his gaze was fixed, and the arrow flew. It had no real target, other then activating the monster portal that loomed ahead of them

Better equip myself too…

Cypher, seeing the field showered in snow, removed his Jinsaran. Although snow attacks might deal a bit more damage on him than normal, his fire attacks would deal brutal damage. This is because the sword is all fire, but his body isn’t, yet the monster’s full element is ice. He smiled, readying his sword to smite the fiendish creation that was to be spawned from the portal. Bastion repeated the sword ritual, but this time, his cross hairs were set on the portal. From it, two fiends appeared. A Dark Witch came out first, waving its wand as if it were a queen. It twirled its weapon around a bit, did a small dance, and finally set itself to attack mode. Behind it came a Small Worm, wriggling around, emitting strange noises. It too noticed the two players, and entered combat mode. Cypher was a hasty player, and a quick plan came to mind.

“Cover me, and rain the target with arrows. I got enough HP to stand any attacks form them”

Cypher’s Jinsanran contained a red hue, glowing all around, even by the hilt. The color went well with his coat, despite the colorless setting. The red of his swords reflected upon his eyes. They burned with passion and lust; the lust to kill. Soon, the innocent white snow would join his sword in being red, the crimson color coming from the blood that would be spilt. With a firm resolve, he charged the two monsters, his sword raised high. As he ran, his lips moved.

“Vak Revolver!!!”

His sword became fire, an intense fire so strong the snow around him began to melt. His boots created schmoozing noises, the metal and leather of the footwear slipping slightly on the snow. But his charge was strong, and the fire on his sword seemed to cover him whole. He took the appearance of a burning demon, charged, burning with power. Soon, he began the spin that the Vak Revolver allowed one to do. The speeding fire top that was Cypher headed towards the foul creatures. What would follow was not pretty…

(more time, less lazy, me)

Change in tactics then. Arcion thought at the blademasters charge. He looked at the fire equipped character for a moment before he realized that his Elvish Bow wouldn't be as effective compared to the Dragon Bow. Switching quickly, he loosed a shot or two towards the combat, more to distract the monsters, and let his brother deal the damage.

His mind drifted while his other sences kept a semi-continuous flow of arrows at the monsters, how could he convince the administrators to add some point to the archer class to make it less of a support, though that's all he planned on doing as an archer, it would create more of an intrest in the class. The other classes the programmers had introduced a few months ago already had several members, but he was the only archer, seemingly for it's lack of usefullness.

He laughed as an arrow pierced one of the monsters and killed it, making Cypher's subsquent slash ineffective. This was the reason he had become an archer, keeping his friends safe by distracting and defeating the monsters, though he had no way of taking the damage for them, his ability as a light armor class let him act as healer of his party, as wavemasters had seemed to be before the introduction of the archer class, but Arcion could fire off a hundred arrows, doing much more than wavemasters could in total, and still have energy to use other abilities.

He felt more than saw the final monster fade to data it had formed from and moved towards his fellow tiger. Arcion raised his hand to cast healing over him, just in case, but dropped it as he realized that he still hadn't aquired a headgear that allowed the use of Repth. With only La Repth, it might be better to wait a bit. Besides, it wasn't like Cypher would die from a simple battle like that.