Xiao World
Chapter One: Tail Petter

A battle cry pieced the sky as the ninja threw her final shuriken directly at the axe-fighter. The throwing-star connected with his abdomen, and the axe-fighter let out a cry of anger and anguish. A moment after the cry, his character shape shattered into glass-like pieces, and then broke into separate data molecules, forcing the character to log out without saving.

“Heh,” The girl laughed in smug victory behind her mouth-cloth. She was a very secretive character when it came to her face; her hair was covered by a hood, which was the same shade of black as the cloth over her mouth. The mouth-cloth was attached to her hood via a golden pin, so that nothing was visible but two large, acid-green eyes that brimmed with warrior spirit. Though when it came to the rest of her body, she was a bit more open -- her abdomen was completely revealed, and the only thing that covered her chest was a small tube-top shaped shirt with a golden outline. A netting that came from neck down to her wrists covered the rest of her upper body, while on her lower half she wore nothing but a pair of tight black shorts that reached to her knees, which were covered by a skirt that shared the same golden outline as the shirt. The female ninja was known only by her screen name: ‘Tail Petter’, and inside of the role-playing game Xiao World, she was one of the very strongest players.

What was Xiao World? Well, then they were children, they played it on the Wii. When it transformed into an on-line game, the young teen gamers simply adored it. But now that Xiao World had turned to virtual reality, all the high school students were playing it every waking moment.

Xiao World was an international role-playing monster-adventure game. It was created in Japan, so the over-all language was Japanese. Sure, certain American and Chinese players created regions of their own, but Japanese still dominated language-wise. The game worked in a very interesting fashion. A gamer put on a specially-ordered helmet in their home, and the gamer’s DNA was instantly shifted into data. Once inside the game, the gamer took on their character’s features, such as speed or strength. The appearance remained about the same, though in certain cases, characters shifted hair color or gained markings to better suit their sort of character.

There were axe-men, archers, swords-men, scythe-users, sorcerers, demons, fliers, and accelors. Accelors were the weakest, since their only true power was speed. They could use fighting techniques, granted that their player knew the fighting in real life, but that was as far an accelor’s powers could stretch. Demons, on the other hand, were the most powerful. Demons took on the traits and battle style of animals, though in some cases, skilled players could still defeat them. And the players who defied the odds and gained many levels transformed into one of the two very strongest characters in the game: a shinobi (Ninja) or a samurai.

The samurai-character was for players who did not mind challenges in the real world, for their faces weren’t hidden at all within the game. Samurai used katana blades to defeat their enemies in one or two hits. Samurai were usually honorable, determined players who trained in and outside of Xiao World. Most had their faces remembered and were often challenged outside of the game, where they proved themselves just as powerful as they were within it.

Shinobi, on the other hand, kept their faces hidden from the players in Xiao World. A hood covered their hair and a cloth their mouth. Only the eyes remained visible to show ferocity during battle. Shinobi usually preferred surprise attacks and had something they wanted to hide about their identity. In other cases, Shinobi merely didn’t want to deal with battle offers in the real world, and decided to hide their faces for that reason. Though if a player was truly fanatical and needed to know a Shinobi’s identity that badly, he could always have pulled the face covering off of the Shinobi to find it out. Only problem was, such characters rarely survived long enough afterwards to take a proper screen-shot.

So, once a player had his character, he got to look around. There were three realms: Forest, Mountain, and Plain. All of the realms were available for different reasons. Every player got to decide their own fate in the game. Players could go around realms and try to make friends, try to battle monsters, try and find treasure, or try and free kings and queens from trouble. Anything to level up in the game.

But this one Shinobi player, the one who had just deleted the Axe-man, was one of the very, very few female players left. Most other females had left the game in fear of harassment; it had turned into a dating game on most servers, which scared girls away -- especially since their outfits usually didn’t leave much to the imagination, much like Tail Petter’s. Speaking of which, Tail Petter was rather bored with Xiao World. She had recently passed the newest Adventure Level -- level 184 -- and brought peace to the Kingdom of Darouhau.

Tail was likely one of the only respected female players left in the game, for she deleted any male that bothered her. Her fights were always both spontaneous and quick.

Tail let out a sigh and began to drag her feet towards the Departure Spot. It was an exit in Xiao World where no battle or adventure could take place, and was also called the Zero Space by the newer characters. It allowed the player’s data to transform back into DNA, save their place in the game, and return to the Real World. And so Tail sulked towards the silver portal and hopped inside.

Tail felt her data bubble back into DNA and soon, she saw nothing but blackness, meaning she was back in the real world. The blackness came from the helmet being on her head, so she removed it to find her dorm room surrounding her from all sides. She set the Digitalization Helmet next to her flat-screen, and became Bao Wong once again.

If someone only knew her as Tail Petter, the fierce female Shinobi, they would never have been able to recognize her in real life as Bao. In the Real World, Bao was a very shy, sensitive, rather book-wormish girl that no one would ever have expected to have a warrior’s spirit. Her black hair was always in a modest little braid, with her bangs in her bright-green eyes at all times. Her clothing was always many sizes too large and covered every inch of her body so that it was difficult to tell exactly how pale she was all around. Bao also wore fake glasses to further hide her identity and keep attention away from her. Nobody wanted to talk to nerds, after all.

Bao was only half Chinese; the other half was Russian. She also had freckles over her cheeks and nose and blushed perpetually in an attempt to make them less visible. It never worked, and merely made Bao look even shyer than she already was. It also explained her bright-green eyes; though they were almond-shaped, they were still bright-green in color, which threw most people off. It was also the only feature that could have given her away in real life. If someone was to look very closely at Tail Petter and then awfully closely at Bao Wong, the likeness could be spotted.

But thankfully for Bao, nobody ever looked closely at her, especially not in school. Bao hated being recognized, anyway. She was very shy about her identity in Xiao World whenever it came up, and was glad that that was extremely rare. Out of the game, Bao lost all the confidence she had and was about as social as a leper. She was a perfect student with an above average IQ, much like all the others that went to her school. But unlike most of them, she didn’t brag constantly about it. Bao truly was a shy, quiet soul. She did all of her homework, listened to authority, never cheated, and even had an innocent, secret schoolgirl crush.

Bao sighed, picking up her backpack when her eyes lifted to the clock in her room. Instantly, they widened in horror as she realized it was almost eight o’clock. Her first class began right at eight, and if she was last to show up, she would have to take a seat in the back. She hated doing that; that was where most of the students that always spoke to each other during class sat.

So in a heartbeat, Bao was out her door and running down the halls towards her Chemistry class. The ankle-long skirt and baggy flannel shirt she was wearing didn’t make it any easier to run. But it wasn’t the clothes which caused Bao to stop.

“Hey, over here, over here!” came a voice just around the corner from where Bao was. But before she could see the face of the speaker, she felt an elbow jam into her ribs, and the next moment, found the rest of her body connecting with the floor. And if the sting of the fall wasn’t bad enough, the person who had rammed into her had fallen on top of her as well.

“Whoah! Hey, I’m sorry about that!” the voice from before said. Bao felt the person get off of her, but not before accidentally jamming her in the ribs a second time. Bao closed her eyes in pain for a moment, but then looked up to see a familiar face.

It was a Chinese boy with his relatively short black hair which spiked up and was tipped in a dark blue. He had pale skin, and his dark brown eyes were usually very friendly and joy-filled, but at the moment they seemed worried. He dressed as free-spirited as he looked -- in a sleeveless white shirt and beige shorts. He was holding a small football, which had obviously been his reason for crashing into Bao. His name was Jack Zu, and Bao had seen him more than a few times around school. He wasn’t the most popular boy in school, but she knew he played Xiao World, so she had a reason for noticing him.

“...I’m fine...” Bao said slowly, sitting up. She paused for a second to sigh, and in that second, she felt a hand gently touch her shoulder.

“Are you sure?”

The voice caused Bao’s heart to freeze. Out of all of the people in the school, the boy who had seen Bao’s disgraceful fall had to be HIM...?

“Jack didn’t really mean it, he just wasn’t looking. If anything, it was my fault. My pass was really bad...” The owner of the voice kneeled down and Bao felt her face flush a dark red. He was at least half Native-American, supposedly, but didn’t look it. His skin was a very dark tan, but his hair was blonde, shoulder-long, and swept back by gel. His eyes were very wide and brown, though with an odd, almost purplish tint to it. He wore plain clothes, nothing more than a baggy green sweater and a pair of tan slacks. At the moment, he was looking worriedly at Bao, causing his features to make him look mildly confused.

Bao knew him all too well. His name was Hoido Amaunega, and he had been her crush since just about the first day in the school. He was liked by everyone in the school because he was nice, easy to get along with, and most important, extremely smart. If anyone needed help in any subject, he was the one they could have gone to. But, he was also very good at sports. He had been the first freshman on the basketball team in decades, and many other girls wanted him to notice them more than any other. The sad part was, Hoido knew nothing of it. He was simply a kind boy with many talents and too much naiveté for his own good.

"N-no!" Bao stammered before she could stop herself. She lifted herself hurriedly to her feet, not wanting to look helpless any longer than she had to. "I wasn't looking here I was g-going, anyway!" She squeaked, feeling her heart beginning to race.

"You fell pretty hard..." Hoido began, picking up the Chemistry book she had dropped and gently handing it to her. He tried to lean down to look her in the eyes and see if she was alright, but she moved out of his line of vision before he could do so. "Maybe you should see the nurse."

"No, r-really, I'm fine!" She squeaked before swallowing at a lump in her throat and turning in the other direction. "I...I have to go!"

"But-" Hoido raised a hand to try and stop her, but he was too late. Bao was already on the way to her Chemistry class. "...Okay, then, see you..." Hoido said in quiet disappointment. He had the distinct feeling that that girl, whoever she was, wanted nothing to do with him.

"Hey, yo, Hoido, buddy!" Jack said, getting Hoido to slowly move his brown eyes towards him. "You're gonna be late for class. You had to transfer 'cause of sports, remember?"

"Huh?" Hoido blinked for a second before a terrified look overtook his face. "You're right! I have Chemistry now! See you!" He quickly said, picking up his bag from the ground and bolting through the empty halls towards his classroom.

Despite everything, Bao had been late. She had entered the classroom and was now stuck in the back of the class where she couldn't hear a thing the Professor was attempting to tell them. With a small sigh, she sat down in the back row, leaving the chair in the very corner of the room empty. There were thirty chairs but only twenty-nine students, and it was one of the corner desks that was always had no one inside of it.

Bao set her book down onto her desk, feeling just about ready to burst into tears. She had been so close to him! Bao had lost her one chance to leave a good impression on Hoido! He never noticed her in school, much like the other students, but the one time she had caught his attention she had to be sprawled ungracefully on the ground!? He probably thought of her as some clumsy oaf now...

Just as Bao was beginning to feel the sting of tears in the corner of her eyes the teacher began to speak with a familiar blonde boy standing next to him.

"Class, I want you to meet Hoido, if you haven't already. Because of his practice schedule this year for the new basketball season, he had been transferred into my class to leave his evening free for training. I believe there's a desk over there..." The teacher said, gesturing to the desk next to Bao.

"Mm, thank you, sir," Hoido said politely before heading in the direction he had been instructed.

Bao's heart froze. After, after all that, now he was going to sit next to her? Right after she had rudely run off?

She turned bright red and looked down, covering her face with her hands in an attempt to keep Hoido from noticing her. But to her mild surprise, as Hoido sat down, he whispered, "Are you sure you don't want to go to the nurse? Your face is beginning to look flushed..."

He was actually talking to her! Bao could hardly believe it. She lifted her hands partially away from her face, smiling nervously. "R-really, I'm fine, j-just a little warm," she ensured him with a small stutter.

"Well, if you say so," Hoido said with an unconvinced tone. He looked at his book for a moment, opening to the page instructed, causing Bao to believe any interest he had had in her had vanished. But once again, a second later, Bao found herself surprised. "By the way, my name's Hoido," He said with a meek smile. "I don't think I caught yours..."

"B-Bao!" Bao said in a slightly louder whisper than she had wanted. She squeaked and covered her mouth for a moment, but then remembered that she was in the last row of the class now. She would have had to yell for the Professor to notice her. She blushed, and to her surprised, that caused Hoido to chuckle slightly.

"S-sorry," He said, covering his smile with his hand. He coughed once, forcing his laughter away before continuing to speak. "Either way, I guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other now, then?"

"M-mm," Bao nodded shyly, glad to hear no disappointment in his voice. In fact, he sounded mildly thrilled.

By the time class was over, Bao knew that Hoido had basketball training every day after school until about five, and after that, he spent the rest of the day in his dorm room with Jack, and his other roommate, Tybalt, doing homework. Bao had even told Hoido of how she spent most of her day doing homework as well, but how she lived in a single dorm room, so she had no roommates there. She had also, conveniently, forgotten to mention her trips to Xiao World.

After Hoido waved goodbye to Bao, for her next class was Calculus and he had AP Biology, Hoido caught sight of the familiar face of Jack. Jack jogged over to him, his grin wide as ever.

"I saw you checkin' out that shy girl!" Jack whispered excitedly, elbowing Hoido in the ribs.

"I wasn't 'checkin' out' anyone," Hoido said calmly, rolling his eyes. At this, Jack only sighed in disappointment.

"Are you STILL hung up on that girl from Xiao World?" he asked, causing Hoido to blush lightly. "I mean, we've been looking for her for weeks, and we could never find her! Tail Petter's a NINJA. We'll never catch up!"

"Maybe," Hoido said with a sigh. "But... it doesn't mean I'll stop trying. I have to know who she is..."

And with that, the two boys walked off to their next class.

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Author's Notes: Uh, I don't know if I'll write a next chapter...it depends on whether or not anyone likes this or not.