Josh pushed off from the ground and began sprinting. He kept his pace steady and focused on the white base that was his target. This was something he’d done hundreds if not thousands of times throughout his time playing baseball. He’d done it under pressure before; when he could be the winning run for the game, when he was about to beat his personal record for most runs in a game, and most of all when he knew college recruiters were in the stands deciding if he was worthy of a scholarship. None of these quite prepared him for the glare he was receiving from Eve as he ran. Her look was equal parts indifferent and judgmental, the look of someone who wanted data and did not care how they received it.
“9.67 seconds” Eve’s emotionless voice trailed behind Josh as he passed the base. Josh did a loop as he slowed down and came to the professional woman. Her announcement of his time gave Josh a bittersweet feeling. 9.67 seconds for 100 meters was incredible, it put him in the same league as the top athletes in the world. Something every athlete dreamed of reaching but he wasn’t sure if he should be proud. This was what he could do after gaining the demigod bloodline, he had gone from an average athlete to top tier in a matter of minutes. After spending all his teenage years admiring those who dedicated their lives to being the best, it just didn’t feel right to basically be given those abilities.
Josh shook his head to clear those thoughts away, he had nearly died to get these enhancements. He’d get over it being a cheat. He waited patiently while Eve wrote his results in a notebook, along with whatever observations she had made during the exercises. The run was the last of several exercises Josh had gone through to better understand the changes his body had gone under with the enhancements. Lance had said it was so Josh could get use to the new strength and they could better learn about the enhancements as a whole. The entire team were currently down in Gwen’s basement that was roughly the size of a football field and had several machines scattered around to help train. Lance was in one corner of the field with Gwen working on her new abilities while Logan and Matt sparred in the center.
“Alright now how much has your Divine energy recovered?” Eve asked suddenly. Josh took a moment to look within to the pool of energy he had recently gained. Divine energy had been such a unique experience for Josh. It came from a pool in the center of his chest and to his astonishment he had been able to move it throughout his body with relative ease.
“It’s at about fifteen percent” Josh answered a little crestfallen
“Fifteen percent in two hours” Eve said indifferently as she jotted down the data.
“Why is it so slow?” Josh asked in frustration, at that rate it would take over half a day to refill his energy if he used it all up.
“You’re still at the beginner stage” Eve answered formally “Logan said it would be slow in the beginning stages and grow as your enhancement does”
“Still it’s way too long” Josh whined. He had been overjoyed when he first gained the energy, but it slowly became a pain the longer he had it.
“Well for now let’s practice moving the energy” Eve said, hitting another of Josh’s sensitive points. The divine energy should be able to come out of his body and be used as an attack like Eve’s Life force, but he hadn’t been able to do that yet. Instead all he could do was enhance his physical body further. Logan had compared it to Qi. With the energy Josh’s physical stats grew an extra twenty percent putting him above any professional athlete in the normal world.
Josh was about to sit down and begin his energy training when a shout from Lance grabbed his attention. His stepbrother was waving for them to come over along with Logan and Matt. Josh grabbed his hammer before he went over. Physically it looked just like Thor’s hammer in the movie world. A large grey block with a handle just long enough for two hands to wrap around it. The team gathered around Gwen and Lance and began discussing their discoveries.
“The moonlight stone amulet carries about twice the amount of heart energy I have” Matt started the discussion “but it’s refill cost is insane. Only one percent for every five percent I put in their remains”
“It’s good to have as an emergency supply but it can’t be relied on too much” Logan added his opinion
“With some practice the ratio might improve but for now it’ll hurt more than help without God refilling it” the mammodo concluded
“Still it’s good to know you’ll have plenty of spells available” Logan said, “Josh how have you adjusted?”
“I’m still getting a grasp of my limits but there’s no real problems” Josh answered honestly “besides not being able to use my energy for anything outside my body”
“It might take some time” the leader tried to comfort the jock “just keep practicing. We’ll be counting on you when combat starts” Josh only gave nod in response.
“Lance what are your plans for your exchanges?” Logan asked the quiet teen
“For the time we have in here” Lance began “I’m going to try to work out how to create iron. Something I can shape into an emergency weapon”
“I thought you weren’t interested in close combat?” Gwen questioned
“I’m not” the teen answered “but it’s better to have the option to make a weapon in case I need one”
Before anyone else could comment Lance continued “on that note I’d like to discuss other exchanges”
“Like what?” Logan asked with a cautious look.
“First let’s get an idea of what we can use our free rank rewards on” the teen explained “in regard to expanding the team our top priority is to get a psyche force user correct?”
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“Yes, it’s vital we get one before the next team battle” Logan answered “their abilities are the backbone to any decent team”
“Good so what I suggest is we exchange some defensive items to give to whoever has the potential among the next group of newbies” Lance offered.
“Those can be pretty expensive though” Matt pointed out
“Yes, but that expensive would be trivial in comparison to what they can do for the team” Gwen countered
“I agree” Logan declared “I’ll pay for a couple D rank protection item”
“Excellent, I would also like to get a variety of general exchanges” Lance continued
“What do you mean?” Logan asked
“Since there’s no way to predict what kind of newbies we’ll get I think it would be best to prepare for every possibility” Lance explained “we should trade for different types of firearms, weapons, and other unique materials that a newbie might be able to use”
“Oh, like if we had a sniper rifle Steele could’ve been part of our fight” Matt concluded
“Exactly” Lance nodded “we don’t need magical or unlimited ammo versions. Just some decent quality items that might bring out a newbies potential”
“That’s still a lot of points to put into a gamble” Logan interjected
“It would be a big investment to start” Lance agreed “but most of it would be a one-time cost which could return a new member to contribute to the team”
“I think it would be worth it” Gwen added in “plus I’ll be able to carry most of them in my inventory, so we won’t have to lug it around”
Logan looked around the team and saw no one else had a problem with the idea “Fine then we’ll go through later and workout how much everything costs”
“My inventory skill is looking to be well worth the price” Gwen said excitedly “ it gives me 49 slots that I can put an item into and it allows stacking”
“That’s great” Logan said “what about your copper skin?”
“its strong!” Gwen enthused “I’m not bullet proof but most regular blades would have trouble cutting me”
“What about magic resistance?” the leader asked
“It’s just a small boost in defense” Gwen answered “no added resistance”
“Still that’s a good improvement to your survivability” Logan concluded.
The team continued discussing their exchanges and possible plans for the future but didn’t make anymore decisions aside from continuing to train. Once they were done everyone separated to do their own training, Eve and Josh continued their tests on his exchanges. Josh settled down to begin his energy training and let out a long sigh. This will be a long few days.
The next eight days passed in a blur of exercises and spars. Aside from Logan everyone had made additional stat increases to further boost their capabilities. The leader instead spent a chunk of points on several seemingly random items such as a rapier, a sniper rifle, and a spear. All on the off chance a newbie was trained with said item. He limited to only seven items so as to not take up too much space in Gwen’s inventory.
The final day before they were to go into the next movie was left for resting. Josh was spending his break in his room on his computer. Somehow they had access to the internet from their world but any message they tried to leave wouldn’t send. The jock had spent most of his free time online trying to find out who Ashley was. He was determined to try and find her brother and make sure he was living comfortably. That was the least he could do for his fallen teammate.
He desperately wanted to do it but it wasn’t an easy task. All he knew was Ashley’s first name and that she was a twin. It’s not like he had access to government databases, all he could do was search through different social media sites in hopes she had a profile. So far his search wasn’t going well but he didn’t have any plans to stop. He was about to search the next county when a knocking at his door pulled him from his work.
“Come in” he called out while closing the page he was on. He didn’t think anyone would tell him to stop but he didn’t want to hear them remind him how hopeless it was.
Eve opened the door and came in followed by Lance. The two wordlessly walked up to Josh who spun around in his chair to face them.
“Josh” Lance started “how are you doing?”
“What do you want?” Josh replied bluntly
“We just came by to see how you were relaxing” Lance said sweetly
“Bullshit” Josh accused.
“You’re right” Eve admitted “We came for a favor”
“Its nice one of you is honest” the jock said “what do you want?”
Lance glanced at Eve but didn’t let his smile fade “we’d like to ask what your plans are for your last D rank reward”
Josh leaned back, a little surprised at the request “I haven’t decided yet. Do you want it?”
“Not exactly” Lance said “I want you to save it”
“For what?” Josh questioned
“For after the next movie” Lance explained “We need to make sure we can have someone unlock the movie world for future use and that requires a D rank reward”
Josh took a moment to think about the request, he had been considering using the rank reward for a storage device. So the team wasn’t relying on Gwen to carry everything but he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to wait till after the next movie.
“You don’t think we’llget any rank rewards this movie” the jock questioned
“Theres a chance” Lance answered “and Harry Potter is too valuable to risk. This is a world that regularly produces magical items. If we can secure a good relationship there then we can stock up on anything we may need”
Josh was surprised at the idea, he hadn’t thought about that kind of use for movie world’s he had thought they wouldn’t have anything to offer outside of the mission rewards but Lance had a point. If they could get magic items from Harry Potter they could save the team a fortune in points and rewards.
“Fine” he decided “I’ll save my D rank reward”
“Excellent” Lance clapped his hands together “this should be a very rewarding mission”
With that Lance and Eve took their leave and Josh went back to his search. He wondered about his stepbrothers words. He wasn’t sure how but he couldn’t help but feel like Lance had a lot more planned for this movie.
The next day found the team waiting under God for the movie to start. Since Gwen was able to hole the majority of the items in her inventory they didn’t have the backpacks they wore in the previous movie. Matt still carried his and Eve still held on to her briefcase. Twenty pillars of light shot down from the giant orb that was God.
Enter the beam in thirty seconds. Target locked. Transportation to Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets starts.
Josh entered a state halfway between wakefulness and sleepiness. It only last a moment before his mind cleared and he found himself on a large stone bridge surrounded by his teammates and several unconscious people laying around them. With the four veterans, Eve, and the newbies there was a total of twelve people on the bridge.
“Gwen start checking the newbies” Logan ordered. The gamer began checking each newbie while Matt read out the mission, just like they planned.
Movie: Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets
Mission: Destroy Voldemort's horcrux: Tom Riddle’s Diary
A much simpler message than they had received in Jeepers Creepers. Any discussion on the mission was cut short when Gwen let out a horrified gasp. She was currently look at a young man with short cut black hair. He was very pale as if he spent most of his time inside and had on plain clothes that had stains all across them.
“What’s wrong?” Josh asked walking over to the young man
“This is Elijah” Gwen said in a breathless voice “He’s Ashley’s twin brother”