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Description
After the lecture we were released to the training area to touch up our already-very-good weaponry skills. See, everyone in the Fray has a specialty, chosen from the plethora of weapons available to us. Mine is arms, mainly shotguns, but I have gotten better at using flash guns. Flash guns are basically a cross between a flash bomb and a gun (hence the name) and they shoot miniature flash bombs that will temporarily blind the enemy.

Levels don't actually have real enemies of course, but they do have superficial yet extremely realistic mirages that a very capable of hurting us. The Fray has never told us how they make such a realistic training ground, and nobody asks because we all know that we won't get an answer.

I look through the glass wall that separates the shooting area from the rest of the training area at my fellow trainees, just to get an idea of what they are capable of. The black haired girl that was next to me in the healing room is mowing down rows of moving dummies with her throwing stars. A tall boy with curly brown hair is decapitating a fake chimera (which are mass produced by Ursa and frequently used in the war and our Levels) with his huge sword in one fluid motion. Verse seems to be making sure that none of the dummies surrounding her make it through the next few minutes without getting stabbed by her knives.

I stop staring at my Level partners and focus on practicing my sniping, since they obviously have no interest in talking to me. I put my ear protectors back on, and take a shot at the target. It hits the second ring from the middle. So close. It reminds me of when I first joined the Fray. I was only nine years old, completely helpless. The war destroyed my family. We were scattered, my older brother had been captured by the Ursans, my mother had died in a raid, and my father an I where constantly on the run.

My father and I discovered the Fray and he left me there, telling me I'd be safe. They started my training about two days after, when they took me to the training room. They treated me with no subtlety telling me to choose a weapon test it out, and if it didn't work move on to another. The last weapon I went to was a shotgun. I'd seen what they did and knew what horrors wielding one could cause. Never the less, I held it in front of me and aimed at the target. When I pulled the trigger, I expected to fail as badly as I had on the other weapons. Instead I saw a hole in the second ring from the center. The presumptuous official overseeing my training told me that I would continue with this weapon until I was a master with it. It was terrifying.

I turn my attention back to shooting and let myself get lost in a world with nothing but blackness and the thump of bullets hitting the target.

--

After the training we go to what could be called a common area for the trainees. One of the many things that the Levels teach you is how to work with and rely on your group. In the Levels, we are all put at different parts of the Scene (which is the official term for the arenas the Levels take place in) and are supposed to find each other and fight together. However, finding each other isn't always that easy when you are constantly being bombarded with enemies.

The ten of us sit in the common room, an unnerving silence between us. I look over to where the black haired girl and Verse are sitting. I still can't place her name, but I think that it was a color. Blue? Orange? Whatever. Gradually people start getting into conversations. Verse and the black haired girl seem to be getting along fine, and the guys have started an awkward chat. The other couple girls are sitting quietly, one of them is observing the scene with a wry smile on her face. She has coppery brown hair and green-gray eyes. Her pale skin is dusted with freckles that actually look nice on her, unlike mine, which make me look like a child.

I get up and cross the room to the girl, who is still looking at the group intently.

"What's so interesting?" I ask as I flop down beside her on the couch.

"Nothing, I'm just getting to know my surroundings" she replies lightly, "I'm Nessa, by the way"

"Myra. Hey, do you know any of them?"

"Nah, I'm pretty sure that in Level 26 they make sure that we don't know each other, not closely anyway. That way it will be more like the real world, when we have to get a team and trust them immediately" Nessa admits, "They're still babying us though, we wouldn't have a common area to get to know each other, much less time to"

"You said that you are getting to know them, how so?" I ask, puzzled. She must be very witty indeed if she can tell their personalities just by observing them for a little while.

"Well I can't really say I know them but this is what I've picked up" she confesses, "Don't be duped by the boy with the curly brown hair, he looks nice but he is very haughty and self-centered. Those two girls are named Verse and Violet, and it seems that they vaguely remember each other from a previous Level"

So that's her name, Violet. I remember now.

"Also the blond boy is named Toren, and the other three I haven't figured out yet"

"Awesome"

"We are all in the same game, just different Levels. Dealing with the same Hell, just different devils" Nessa recites, "That's the Fray's motto, but what do we really know about Hell? Nothing we've done has even been real"

Description
After the lecture we were released to the training area to touch up our already-very-good weaponry skills. See, everyone in the Fray has a specialty, chosen from the plethora of weapons available to us. Mine is arms, mainly shotguns, but I have gotten better at using flash guns. Flash guns are basically a cross between a flash bomb and a gun (hence the name) and they shoot miniature flash bombs that will temporarily blind the enemy.

Levels don't actually have real enemies of course, but they do have superficial yet extremely realistic mirages that a very capable of hurting us. The Fray has never told us how they make such a realistic training ground, and nobody asks because we all know that we won't get an answer.

I look through the glass wall that separates the shooting area from the rest of the training area at my fellow trainees, just to get an idea of what they are capable of. The black haired girl that was next to me in the healing room is mowing down rows of moving dummies with her throwing stars. A tall boy with curly brown hair is decapitating a fake chimera (which are mass produced by Ursa and frequently used in the war and our Levels) with his huge sword in one fluid motion. Verse seems to be making sure that none of the dummies surrounding her make it through the next few minutes without getting stabbed by her knives.

I stop staring at my Level partners and focus on practicing my sniping, since they obviously have no interest in talking to me. I put my ear protectors back on, and take a shot at the target. It hits the second ring from the middle. So close. It reminds me of when I first joined the Fray. I was only nine years old, completely helpless. The war destroyed my family. We were scattered, my older brother had been captured by the Ursans, my mother had died in a raid, and my father an I where constantly on the run.

My father and I discovered the Fray and he left me there, telling me I'd be safe. They started my training about two days after, when they took me to the training room. They treated me with no subtlety telling me to choose a weapon test it out, and if it didn't work move on to another. The last weapon I went to was a shotgun. I'd seen what they did and knew what horrors wielding one could cause. Never the less, I held it in front of me and aimed at the target. When I pulled the trigger, I expected to fail as badly as I had on the other weapons. Instead I saw a hole in the second ring from the center. The presumptuous official overseeing my training told me that I would continue with this weapon until I was a master with it. It was terrifying.

I turn my attention back to shooting and let myself get lost in a world with nothing but blackness and the thump of bullets hitting the target.

--

After the training we go to what could be called a common area for the trainees. One of the many things that the Levels teach you is how to work with and rely on your group. In the Levels, we are all put at different parts of the Scene (which is the official term for the arenas the Levels take place in) and are supposed to find each other and fight together. However, finding each other isn't always that easy when you are constantly being bombarded with enemies.

The ten of us sit in the common room, an unnerving silence between us. I look over to where the black haired girl and Verse are sitting. I still can't place her name, but I think that it was a color. Blue? Orange? Whatever. Gradually people start getting into conversations. Verse and the black haired girl seem to be getting along fine, and the guys have started an awkward chat. The other couple girls are sitting quietly, one of them is observing the scene with a wry smile on her face. She has coppery brown hair and green-gray eyes. Her pale skin is dusted with freckles that actually look nice on her, unlike mine, which make me look like a child.

I get up and cross the room to the girl, who is still looking at the group intently.

"What's so interesting?" I ask as I flop down beside her on the couch.

"Nothing, I'm just getting to know my surroundings" she replies lightly, "I'm Nessa, by the way"

"Myra. Hey, do you know any of them?"

"Nah, I'm pretty sure that in Level 26 they make sure that we don't know each other, not closely anyway. That way it will be more like the real world, when we have to get a team and trust them immediately" Nessa admits, "They're still babying us though, we wouldn't have a common area to get to know each other, much less time to"

"You said that you are getting to know them, how so?" I ask, puzzled. She must be very witty indeed if she can tell their personalities just by observing them for a little while.

"Well I can't really say I know them but this is what I've picked up" she confesses, "Don't be duped by the boy with the curly brown hair, he looks nice but he is very haughty and self-centered. Those two girls are named Verse and Violet, and it seems that they vaguely remember each other from a previous Level"

So that's her name, Violet. I remember now.

"Also the blond boy is named Toren, and the other three I haven't figured out yet"

"Awesome"

"We are all in the same game, just different Levels. Dealing with the same Hell, just different devils" Nessa recites, "That's the Fray's motto, but what do we really know about Hell? Nothing we've done has even been real"