A giant blast of plasma shot right past Rick. Rick charged his Beam Sword to full power and he became angry. He charged at the tall man with the plasma gun. The man shot at him, and he blocked the shots with his sword. Every time he blocked the plasma, his sword started to deplete. The man kept shooting, and after a while, all but the hilt of Rick's Beam Sword completely gave in and disappeared; Rick immediately stopped. The man with the gun snickered devilishly, and pointed his gun toward Rick's forehead. He stood completely still, and closed his eyes tightly, accepting his defeat on account of all of his weapons were discharged. He then heard a gunshot sound and then footsteps. I'm still alive? How..? He thought, and then opened his eyes to see another man, a tall brown-haired man with heavy-looking green armor. He said, "You shouldn't waste your Saber's energy like that. I'm guessing you're a newbie here?"

"Half and half," Rick said. "This is my first time online." Rick is small, with black hair in a messed up style, seemingly on purpose. He had black armor to match his hair, that seemed heavy yet was very light. The computer terminal said, "Online training Course 3 completed. Please proceed to the next course." The door on the other side of the room opened, and an electronic plaque on the side of the door that said "Online Training Course 4" glowed red, while the words stayed black. "My name's Joey, what's yours?" He said.

"Rick," Rick replied. "Thanks for your help, but I didn't need it." Rick started to say as the two walked over to the door.

"I'll try to remember that next time." Joey said with a smile. "Be careful, this world can be dangerous. And, of course, so is the training course. Do you mind if I come with you?"

"Not at all. Just stay out of my way and don't attack my kills." They then walked through the door. Then, the door suddenly shut, and Rick turned around on impulse. "Are we locked in?" Rick asked.

"Yeah, and you can't even teleport out of here. But, look over there." Joey pointed the opposite way of the door, and Rick turned to see what he was pointing to.

He turned to see that he was standing by the edge of a cliff, and it was a very long way down. He noticed that the soil he was standing on was black, like what would be found near a volcano. And by looking straight ahead, he could see that it was night time in a large city, a great futuristic city with cars flying everywhere through the air, and in the center of the city was a giant light blue tower that, of course, was very much larger than the others and grew wider for every meter upward it went, and then curved at the top for all sides to join, sort of like a water tower. There were windows on the tower that had lights that were on, and it had a small, in comparison to the towers size itself, antenna. Rick guessed that it was for computers hooking up to the internet, but he couldn't be sure. "So, we have to go into that tower?" He asked.

"You guessed it. Not really that hard to see because of it's color, but I've seen some people completely miss it. Maybe their monitors are broken or something, but they go around it. I bet that there are still some people down there, searching every house and apartment building." Monitors are the eyewear that you use to see and pan the camera in the game. Very sophisticated technology; yet easy to control. Joey closed his eyes and smiled. "I remember when we first came here, a level 3 Gunari with all of my friends. It took about 5 continues before we all got it right. But now--"

"Hey! Hurry up!" Joey opened his eyes to see Rick far ahead, already almost half way down the cliff. "Ok, I'm coming.." He walked to the edge, turned around, and started to climb down. He hadn't done this in a very long time, but he still knew exactly where to put his hands and feet on the cliff. Rick was going a bit slower, but fast enough to get down after five minutes of climbing.

Having nothing to talk about, they started walking, as there was nothing to talk about. Joey and Rick could tell what their weapon specialty was by their armor sign; Joey's was guns, and Rick's was sabers and double sabers. Also, they both knew that Rick was a lower level, Joey didn't know how much lower, but it had to be at least eight levels. Rick did not need to recharge his sabers, because he had an item that recharges them half way to full power, and a green circular ring around his wrist that helps them recharge themselves at an incredible rate, which all of the Saburu who beat offline hard mode had. Joey also had a ring, but it was blue and had given his guns 20 percent chance to not discharge, plus any other accessory that boosted it. There were many other specials, but neither of them bothered to think about them.

Joey remembered, when he first came. He was with a party and couldn't even remember who they were, much less remember how to open the door. He couldn't see anyway, they all blocked his view. There were too many, for his friends had all brought friends onto the same server. It seemed like a mad house to him. Mad server, even. They were all talking, and he could see one of them, his friend Samnir, raise up his weapon in front of the door. He seemed to lower it lightly, though, he had no idea what they were doing. After his weapon lowered, the door opened. He thought he struck it down with his weapon, as he had some of the strongest that he had ever seen. Or maybe he did something else with his other hand. He didn't care at the time, but now he wish that he did.

They reached the tower after a long walk, and confronted the tall, metalic door. It was obviously locked, so Rick stayed behind Joey. Joey took out his Turamae, a bazooka that shot a type of red plasma in one, massive explosion. As soon as he was locked on to the door, he shot it. It blasted the door, and sent both of them flying backward. When they got up, the door was seemingly untouched, except for a bit of plasma stuck on the door that was soon to disappear. "That didn't work... Umm, your turn." Joey said as they got up. He walked to the door. "Ok. No problem." He took out the Kurama-Gaisen, a purple double saber that creates a black shockwave that paralyzes all monsters in the room from long range, and does massive damage up close. It was glowing dark purple, with sparks flying out of it. Joey immediately ran behind the nearest building. "You have THAT weapon?! You're crazy! You'll blow up the whole city!!"

"I'll let you know when I start to care." He turned to the door. He lifted the mighty weapon and said, "You're going down!" He let out a light swing of the dark weapon. A wide, dark purple eruption of energy appeared before the door and lit up the entire area. After the explosion was finished, Rick lie on the ground, and Joey way farther away. Rick got up, and looked around. It almost looked like a wasteland, all the debris everywhere. He could see others, that were not Joey and himself. He saw them getting up, and staring at him, still holding the Kurama-Gaisen. He looked toward the tower, and it still standing tall and proud, but Rick didn't seem surprised. Joey walked up to him and said, "Well, what do we do now?"

"I thought you said you've already done this."

"I have. I just never open the door."

"What do you mean? That you didn't see? That you were with a party? A giant party of maybe twenty or more people?"

"Exactly. My friends brought their friends, and they brought their friends. On one server."

"Sounds crazy to me."

"It was."

"So how are we going to get in there now?" Rick said while putting away his weapon. Another player came up to the door, an Iomide, the magic users, and pressed a button on the side of the door and it opened. They were surprised then. Joey had his jaw on the ground, and Rick just seemed humiliated. Then the Iomide said while walking inside, "If you had any intelligence, you might have seen it." Rick immediately took out his Kurama-Gaisen with an angry stare, right at him. "Whoa, hold it. Attacking him won't do you any good. Save your energy for the course." Rick turned to Joey, the angered look still on his face. He put away his weapon and walked in, not saying a word. "You'll need your energy for this course. It's much harder than the last one."

"I doubt that it will be a problem. I never recharged my weapons on the other courses."

"You'll need the Kurama-Gaisen more than you think you will." You have no idea, Joey thought. I had no problem, I wasn't even touched, but I was with a large party. We're going to get all the help we can get from that Iomide whether you like it or not. "So, do you know this Iomide?" Rick asked.

"I've seen him around sometimes, but never in battle. I've only seen one Iomide in my life battle, and he was not very friendly. A ruthless, brutal player that killed his enemies with one strike."

"I'm not interested in your friend. Just him." They walked only a little behind him, and he knew that they were talking about him. He couldn't tell what they were saying, but he didn't happen to care, either. They finally walked down to the end of the long, metal hall to find an elevator. The Iomide didn't mind them coming into the elevator with him, he seemed to know what they are about to go against and willing to take any help that is provided. The elevator went up about ten stories, and it seemed to take forever. Joey started to become impatient, and started to fidget, while Rick remained completely still, looking upward for the end, not worried at all.

But was not that Rick wasn't worried. He was deep in thought, dreaming up what this creature could be, and tactical action that he could take on it and what it's attack patterns might be. Was there any patterns? It is a very complicated game, and he did not doubt that this monster could have so many attacks, that he did not repeat one of them during the whole training program. It did not occur to him that this battle would be hard, especially with three party members. He thought of usage of weapons he had never took out to use. He knew that his Kurama-Gaisen could defeat this monster easily, no matter what it may be.

They finally reached the tenth floor. The door opened, and there was a corridor in front of them. They walked in, Rick first, and they went down the hall to see that it split; one path to the left, one to the right. "A labyrinth. This is starting to get interesting." Rick said.

"This isn't quite how it was when I came here..."