Beta Warriors

Everyone in the class was whispering about my less than amazing introduction and I couldn't help but shy away a little. I could see Dash turn around and give an invisible signal to some of the other students which seemed to shut them up. I felt worse for having my friend stick up for me again, is been three years and I still have a problem with crowds. I really just wanna crawl up in a ball now.

"Class take out your notebooks! We're going to take some notes today!" The teacher said with a bored expression. Can't imagine teaching kids like us every day, probably drive a guy mad.

The teacher tried to turn on his projector only for nothing to happen. He kept pushing the ON button, but nothing happened. He checked the cords, then the plug, and he even checked his computer, but nothing seemed to work.

"Well class it seems that our projector is broken so were taking notes from the textbook," He said as the rest of the class groaned in frustration.

I looked at his computer for a second and decided to see for myself. I pulled out My BETA and activated my scan function, which acted like a camera that could pick up certain radio waves on the screen, and low and behold there was loads of interference with the computer.

"Umm teacher? I think I can fix this," I said as he looked at me sceptically.

"Oh really young man? You some kind of computer technician?" He asked while the rest of the class waited for a time to laugh.

"No not really sir, but your computer has a virus that's interfering with the connection to your projector," I said with a chuckle.

"Well seeing as you know so much please be my guest," He said moving out of the way for me to get to his computer.

I brought out my BETA and pulled out a wire for the bottom of the device and plugged it into a port on the side of the computer. The screen flashed red with a warning symbol flashing on it and then suddenly went blue.

"What in the world are you doing?" He asked as I continued to operate the start-up sequence.

"You see what I'm doing right now is working past the firewalls and coding that separates me from the mainframe of the computer. Once I do this my BETA software will activate and allow me to clear the system of the virus," I said as I checked a few things off on my BETA pack.

"So what's with the cell phone?" I heard one of the students ask.

"Well, it's not really a cellphone. It's more like portable computer software. Of course, it has the appearance of a smartphone, but it has many uses," I said as I finally finished all the preparations.

"Everyone get ready to see the ingenuity of modern technology! Here we go, Jack in BETA warrior!" I said as the projector sprang to life, however, the image being shown was very strange.

"What you see here is cyberspace. The digital space of this computer is infected by a virus, but it's no ordinary virus. These viruses feed of electricity and grow stronger the longer they remain in the system. If they stay long enough they will overload the server and blow up the source, or, in this case, the computer." I said as everyone stared at the image of the cyber world.

I looked at my BETA pack and decided now would be the best time to clear the system. On the screen, a flash of blue light appeared and a small grey figure was scanning the surroundings.

"That is the BETA software. It acts a separate computer program that is able to interact with the system. Finally, I found our culprits." I said pointing at the group of viruses.

The viruses were small, at least a level 2, wearing a small cap with a plus symbol on it, they were holding mini pix axes that they were using to destroy the system.

"Nows the fun part!" I said as I reached into a pouch and pulled out two cards.

"What are those?" Dash asked looking at the cards.

"These are digi cards. Basically, it's software I can download to my warrior during battle," I said as everyone looked at me in confusion.

"Just watch, ok? Alright, here we go!" I said swiping the cards throw a slot on the side of the BETA pack. "Double creation! ICE CANNON!" I shouted as my warrior suddenly charged at the viruses.

As he got closer the viruses noticed him and got ready to attack. My warriors left arm suddenly flashed and it turned into an arm cannon and then shot a small sphere at blinding speed at the viruses. After the explosion, the viruses were frozen solid in ice. I smirked and brought out one last card and swiped it through the BETA and the cannon turned into a blade and he slashed the frozen viruses to bits and pieces

"And this ladies and gentlemen is the BETA system," I said unplugging my pack and putting it back in my pocket.

I pressed a few keys on the computer and it booted back up and it ran its normal functions and the projector finally came on. I looked around the room to see everyone with dumbstruck expressions. Even the teacher didn't know what to say. Luckily for me the bell rang and I grabbed my thing and headed out the classroom. Halfway down the hall I felt Dash grab my arm.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" she asked with an awestruck expression.

"Heh, told you I changed these last few years."

I spent the rest of the day explaining to everyone in my classes about the BETA system. My demonstration earlier had spread like wildfire all over the school. It was hard to get used to this kind of attention, but It was growing on me. At lunch, Dash decided to introduce me to her friends.

"Hey guys!" she shouted while we made our way to the table.

"HIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!" the girl with the pink hair shouted happily. She was seriously weird and she was......bouncy to say the least.

"So did you and your friend get to catch up?" the girl with the frilly purple hair asked. She had fair white skin with a really posh accent that really stuck out.

"Yeah we caught up, and you would not believe what he can do!!" Dash said with a smirk.

"Honestly dash, I really don't want to be the center of attention," I said while taking a seat. "To be honest I'm kinda aggravated with all the attention."

"Too late now sugar-cube, Almost everyone in school knows about that weird computer thing you did," The girl with the strong southern accent said.

I looked around the cafeteria and noticed that everyone was staring at me intently and I felt kind of awkward. I tried to hide my face, but I still felt everyone staring at me.

I felt someone grab my shoulder and I looked up to see the girl with red hair from earlier. "Trust me I know what it feels like to be the center of attention," she said taking a seat next to me. "Maybe now's the best time to introduce ourselves. My name is Sunset Shimmer."

"My name's Pinkie Pie! Wanna be my friend! HUH? DO YA! DO YA! DO YA!" The girl with the pink hair said a mile a minute.

I smiled politely and nodded my head which she seemed to accept and somehow pulled a cupcake out of hair and gave it to me. I'm not sure how but there wasn't any hair on it at all.

"My name is Rarity. It is very Nice to meet you darling," The girl with the posh accent said with a graceful smile.

"And my name's Applejack! It's a pleasure to meet an old friend of Rainbow dash," The girl with the southern accent said as she reached her arm out to shake mine. I reached out to shake hers but when I did she shook it furiously. I thought my arm was gonna come off.

We looked over to the last girl, she had pink hair which she seemed to be hiding behind. "M-my names F-Fluttershy." She was extremely shy sounding and looked almost looked afraid of me.

"Don't worry about her, she's just shy around new people," Dash announced as everyone got comfortable.

"Thanks, my names Star Dust. It's nice to meet you all," I said as I gave a polite smile.

"So about the BETA system!!" Dash shouted impatiently.

"Honestly Dash I really don't want to talk about this again," I said with a sigh.

"I would like to know more about it as well," Rarity said cocking her head to the side.

"YEAH! TELL US! TELL US!" Pinkie said bouncing in her chair shouting at the top of her lungs.

"Ok, ok, just calm down would ya!" I said trying to get everyone to stop all the yelling because it was starting to draw attention. "For starters the BETA system is a program used to exterminate viruses. Viruses are an artificial A.I. system that went rogue several years ago after an explosion in BETA city. As you may have guessed the name of the system was based off the accident, this system was first used only by the government, but now it's become an international sport that is played worldwide." I explained as everyone listened in, even people at other tables were trying to listen in.

"Wait.... Star isn't that explosion the same one that-?" Dash asked with a worried expression.

I nodded my head and she looked away with a pained expression, "That very same accident.......killed my father" I said silently, but everyone around me looked shocked, I heard everyone around me gasp in shock. "My father was one of the scientists responsible for both the BETA system and the viruses."

It got really quiet after that, you could even hear a pin drop from down the hallway. I laughed to myself a little and decided to go for a walk. no one stopped me.

I waited on the roof for what felt like an hour and finally I decided to go ahead and head back to class. As I walked down the hallway I noticed that some guy was sitting in front of a door. Normally I wouldn't get involved, but this guy had the weirdest looking expression. Wait...is he drooling?

I walked behind him and looked over his shoulder and turned red. THIS GUY WAS WATCHING THE GIRLS CHANGING!!

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!!" I shouted which caused him to turn around and grab me and dragged me down the hallway.

He looked back to make sure he wasn't caught and sighed in relief when he realized he was in the clear. "Are you crazy you punk!? you nearly got me caught!!" He said quiet enough so no one could hear him.

"Am I crazy what do you think you were doing back there!" I shouted with no restraint on my voice. "Are you some kind of PERVERT!!"

This seemed to piss him off and he suddenly grabbed me around the collar and lifted me off the ground. "Who the hell you calling a pervert runt!" He said threateningly.

I just glared at him and said "You! Who else you big gorilla!"

He threw me on the ground and glared daggers at me. At first I thought he was gonna try and fight me, but he just laughed. I couldn't help but look confused, that was until he pulled out a BETA pack.

"I heard you were a BETA player, and if that's so maybe we can make a deal. If you keep your mouth shut about this I'll give you a rare card as well as two-thousand points, sound good to you?" He said with a confident grin.

I stood up and walked over to him and then swiftly punched him in his gut. He acted like he wasn't even fazed by it and just stepped back and looked at me like I was crazy.

"BETA isn't meant to be used like this! I won't let use abuse the system for your personal gain!" I said as I pulled out my BETA pack. "I, Star Dust, challenge you to a BETA match! Winner take all!"

He smiled and brought his pack to mine. "Fine! I, Butch, accept your challenge!"

TO BE CONTINUED!