Justin

I stared at the red holographic screen, unable to pry my eyes away from it. Not only did Jack have a HUD exactly like I did, but his stats were insane! He had to have been on Equus for a long time now. Plus, there was the shock that Discord had also summoned him from Earth like he did with me. Had Discord been lying to me? At the very least, he had definitely been keeping secrets from me, and this proves it. I know he said he didn't have much time to explain everything, but the fact that he neglected to tell me there was another HUD User on Equus is a pretty big deal.

"I... I have some questions." I said, finally recovering from my initial shock.

"I don't doubt it. Ask away, and I'll try to answer as best I can." He gestured for me to start.

"Okay, uh... where are we?" I glanced at the forestry that surrounded us.

Jack turned his head to the right as another red holographic screen appeared next to him, displaying the same map of Equestria and beyond that Discord had shown me. "Well, according to the map, we are right arooouund... here." He pointed to a spot of forestry just a short distance Southeast of where Tartarus was. Not too far away was the coastline between here and the South Luna Ocean. On the spot Jack pointed to, I could see a red dot with the words 'You Are Here' above it.

So we're not too far from where I was knocked out. That means the train station should still be close by. If I can escape, then that's my ticket out of here. I can free the other prisoners while I'm at it, too. We can all get on a train and get to wherever this 'Haven' thing is that Amber mentioned.

Speaking of the other prisoners, I shifted my glance over to them. A couple had noticed that Jack was talking to me and were staring at the both of us, but the rest of them were busy wallowing in their misery. Considering the current situation, I couldn't blame them. "And they are...?"

"Oh, they aren't anyone special. Just a few of the unlucky people that were at the train station nearby before we hijacked it." He explained.

...What?

"From what I overheard between you and that other girl, you were planning on taking the train to the nearest Haven, right? Well, I didn't want to make things too easy for you. Wouldn't be fun if there wasn't any challenge in the way, now would it? If you wanna get to a Haven, then you're gonna have to go through my guys."

Shit, so much for that idea... wait, he was listening in on me and Amber? Has he been stalking me this entire time!? And he hijacked an entire train station just so I wouldn't be able to use it?! The hell is wrong with this guy!?!

"...What do you want with me?" I asked. A few cages down, one of the other prisoners, a young woman with pony ears, started crying a bit louder.

Jack chuckled under his mask. "You want the honest answer? Alright, I'll tell you."

He stood up and looked down at me through the bars of my cage, leaning one arm on top of it. The woman's crying from a few cages down started getting even louder. "Y'see Justin, there's a lot of crazy people in this world, and I mean some real fuckin' whackos, let me tell ya. It can be pretty hard to find out which of those people you can trust. Believe me, I know that fact all too well." As Jack continued, the woman's crying was getting so loud that it was a little hard to hear what Jack was saying. "So that's why, out of the kindness of my heart, I- WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP PLEASE!?!"

Jack stormed over to the woman's cage and gave it a hard kick, rattling it. "WE'RE TRYING TO HAVE A CONVERSATION HERE, AND I CAN'T EVEN HEAR MYSELF OVER ALL YOUR FUCKING NOISE!!! DIDN'T YOUR PARENTS EVER TEACH YOU MANNERS!? HOW 'BOUT I CUT OUT THAT TONGUE OF YOURS?! HUH!?! GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO REALLY CRY ABOUT!!! SHUT YOUR GODDAMN FUCKING MOUTH!!!" He gave the cage another kick before casually strolling back over to my cage. "Sorry about her, some people are just born rude, know what I mean?"

I found myself trembling a bit as I looked up at him, a bit fearful of the masked man. He'd gone from calm and casual, to completely psycho, then back again. He didn't even take a breath to calm himself down or anything; he was absolutely pissed one second, then he was completely calm the next. it was as if a switch had been flipped on his personality.

This guy's a friggin' lunatic!

The woman had stopped crying like Jack ordered her to, though she looked like she wanted to cry even more now. The fear of what Jack might do to her was enough of a motivator for her to keep quiet.

"So what was I saying?...Oh yeah!" Jack leaned on my cage once more. "There's a lot of crazy people in this world, and it can be hard to tell the good from the bad, the sane from the insane, and the trustworthy from the untrustworthy. That's why, Justin ol' buddy ol' pal, I'm willing to be that person you can trust!" A smiley face appeared on his mask.

"...I think I'll take my chances with someone else." I answered, looking at him skeptically.

"Hey, suit yourself man, I'm not forcing you. you can trust whoever you want." He stopped leaning on the cage, raising his hands in surrender as he stepped away. "Just know that I'll always be here when you need me. Anyhoo, I've got some shit to do, so I'll catch you later. Don't have too much fun without me, alright buddy?" With that, he left through the path he'd arrived from, the other guard following him. The guard that had taken a rock to the nuts crawled back into his chair, and as soon as he was sure Jack had left, he returned to his nap.

"How do you know that guy?" I turned my head to my left when I heard a voice from the cage next to me. The voice belonged to one of those anime-looking people (who I assumed were ponies) like Amber, only this one was a guy instead of a girl. His hair was a forest green color, and he had brown pony ears, as well as pale green eyes. He was dressed pretty casually, wearing a dark blue t-shirt, denim jeans, and plain sneakers.

"Actually, I don't know him. I was just minding my own business when he walked up to me out of the blue and started spouting random stuff. Next thing I know, one of his thugs knocks me out from behind, and I wake up here." I explained to him.

"Seriously?" His eyes widened. "Why the heck was he so fixated on you?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. From what he just showed me, I know we both have this thing," With a thought, I brought up my stats screen for him to see, the blue screen popping up next to me. "But other than that, I can't think of a good explanation. Who are these guys, anyway?"

"I would assume they're marauders, since they had the balls to hijack a train station, but I'm not entirely sure. They don't dress like marauders, and they certainly don't act like them. Well, that guy in the weird mask is probably the only exception, but that doesn't explain the rest of them. They seem more like mercenaries." He hypothesized. I had no idea how 'marauders' dressed or acted in this world, so I couldn't confirm or deny what he was saying. I just nodded along with what he said.

My eyes landed back on my stats screen, and I quickly got an idea on how to escape the cage. I closed the screen and tried to summon my knife from the inventory... only for it to not show up.

Huh?

I opened the inventory screen and was surprised to find it completely empty. "What the-!? Where'd all my stuff go!?"

"The inventory is the User's own personal pocket dimension and normally cannot be accessed by other people. However, due to User: [REDACTED] being a fellow HUD User, User: [REDACTED] was able to access User: Justin's inventory while User: Justin was unconscious."

OH COME ON! THAT'S CHEATING!

"What's wrong?" The green-haired guy asked me.

"I was gonna try and bust the lock with my knife, but they took it." I sighed. The guy didn't respond, instead putting a hand on his chin in thought. He looked over at the guard napping in the chair, then to me, then back at the guard, then back to me.

"...Ok, here's the plan. The keys to the locks should be on that guard. Do you think you can lure him over here?" He asked. I thought about it for a second before spotting a rock sitting right outside of my cage. It looked to be about the same size as the one Jack had used earlier. A plan had already formed in my head, and I nodded. "Okay, you get his attention, and when he comes over to your cage, I'll take care of the rest."

"You sure he won't just shoot me?" I asked.

"Don't worry, I'm sure he won't. I overheard them talking, and that guy in the weird mask said he'd kill anyone who kills one of the hostages. Granted, he never said they couldn't hurt the hostages, but you won't have to worry about that. Once he's over here, I'll take care of him." He reassured me.

"If you say so..." I reached through the bars and grabbed the rock, aimed, then chucked it at the guard's crotch. The rock hit its intended target, and the guard was stirred from his nap again, clutching his groin. "OW! Goddamnit, not again!" He cried out in pain.

"HA! Suck it, asshole!" I yelled at him. He glared at me, stood up from his chair, and stomped over to me.

"You think that's funny, you little shit!? How 'bout I shove my boot up your-!" Before the guard could finish his threat, the green-haired guy reached through the bars, grabbed the guard by his tank top, and pulled the guard towards him. This resulted in the guard's head being smashed against the bars. That only dazed the guard, though, so the green-haired guy kept smashing the guard's head against the bars until he finally lost consciousness.

"Damn, nice one!" I complimented the green-haired man for his takedown.

"Thanks. My brother's in the royal guard, so he showed me a few tricks." The green-haired guy grabbed the keys off the unconscious guard and unlocked his own cage. After crawling out, He unlocked my cage, then moved on to the other cages, freeing the other prisoners. I crawled out of my own cage and stretched, and once the other prisoners were free, the green-haired guy had us all huddle up. I did a quick head count in my head and saw that, counting the green-haired guy and myself, there were six of us. "Ok, we're gonna have to move quickly and quietly if we want to get out of here. Everyone try to stay low and follow my lead, okay?"

Everyone nodded, except for one woman. I recognized her as the one that had been loudly crying. "W-Wait, but... what about-..." The woman hesitated. She seemed to be paying nervous glances towards... me?

"What's wrong? Don't be afraid to speak up." The green-haired guy gave her an encouraging smile.

"...Are-... are you sure we can trust him?" She gestured towards me.

Wait, what?

Green-haired guy paid a glance to me, then looked back at the woman with an eyebrow raised. "Why wouldn't we?"

"W-Well... he's a human! You know what they're like..." She said, and two other prisoners gave agreeing nods.

...Oh God, please don't tell me this is one of those versions of Equestria where ponies are racist against humans. I really don't wanna have to put up with that crap...

"I don't see what that has to do with anything. He's in the same boat as us." Green-haired guy stated firmly, and the other prisoner that hadn't nodded with the others gave them a small glare.

At least they don't have a problem with me being human. Come to think of it, Amber didn't have a problem with me being human either. I guess not all ponies have distrust towards humans, but some do.

"Alright, let's go. Remember, stay low and follow me." The green-haired guy crouched down and started making his way down the path Jack and the other guard had taken. The forestry around us was too dense to walk through, so this was the only way we could go. The rest of us all crouched down and followed him silently.

After following the path, we eventually arrived at another clearing in the forest, only this one was much larger than the one we were in before. There were several tents and a few campfires spread out amongst the clearing, and a wooden makeshift wall surrounded the entirety of the encampment. I could see a wooden gate on the far end, most likely our only exit out of here.

More thugs dressed similarly to the guards we'd seen before were wandering around the camp. Some of them were patrolling while most of them were just hanging out. I could see a couple groups with bottles of alcohol, clearly busy getting drunk. I also noticed that most of the camp's residence were humans. There were a few of those anime/pony people (one of which had a pair of wings, most likely a pegasus), and even a couple griffons, but the majority was made up of humans.

The green-haired guy gestured for us to follow him as he led us around the camp. We hugged the outer perimeter of the camp to avoid running into any patrolling guards, using the tents as cover. We occasionally stopped to wait for a patrolling guard to pass so they wouldn't see us, and stuck to the shadows as much as possible. I had to admit, the green-haired guy knew what he was doing. If you ask me, his brother in the royal guard taught him more than just 'a few tricks'.

Eventually, we passed behind a larger tent, its size and shape akin to a hut, with a couple voices coming from within. One sounded like it belonged to a female, while the other was the unmistakable distorted voice of Jack. "-nyone tries to hurt her, or even considers hurting her, you make sure they suffer. Do you want to do this?" Jack's voice faded in as we got closer, sneaking past the tent.

"Of course. I will not fail you." The female voice spoke. I could hear footsteps as someone began to leave the tent.

"Wait." I heard Jack call out, and the footsteps ceased as the other person obeyed his command. I also stopped myself, my curiosity piqued. The green-haired guy and the other ex-prisoners looked back at me, wondering why I wasn't following before realizing I was listening in on the conversation. "I'm not sure if you heard me right." I heard Jack continue, "I asked you, 'Do you want to do this'. I didn't ask 'can you do this', I asked if you want to do this. So I'm going to ask you again, and I want you to answer me honestly, ok? Do you want to carry out this task?"

"...Do you want me to?" The female voice asked. Her voice sounded... empty, like she had no emotion. Not in a robotic, artificial way like the HUD, but more like someone who didn't know what emotions were, or just had them stripped away by someone or something else.

"Oh nonononono, don't you try to flip the question." Jack chuckled. "This isn't about what I want Tyra, this is about what you want. I want you to make the decision for yourself for once, ok? If you don't wanna do this, you can say no. So tell me, do you want to do this?"

The female voice was quiet for a time. After a few seconds of silence, she finally answered. "...Sure." It didn't sound like she was actually sure, it sounded more like she was just giving an answer because he asked her to.

After a few more seconds of silence, Jack let out an exasperated sigh. "Fuckin' Christ, gimme the strength to deal with this girl..." He muttered aloud. "Fine, whatever. Just go handle it then report back to m-" Jack stopped talking mid-sentence for some reason. I couldn't see inside the tent, so I had no idea what had caused him to stop, but it left me uneasy despite that.

"...Heh." I heard him give a single chuckle.

"Is something wrong?" The female voice asked.

"...Nah, it's nothing. Don't worry about it. Anyway, if you could take care of it, that'd be great." After that, I could hear footsteps again as someone, I assume the female, exited the tent. I looked to the green-haired guy and he gave me a shrug, just as unsure of what that was about as I was. He then turned back around and continued to lead us through the camp undetected.

The gate had unfortunately yet expectedly been guarded, so we had been forced to look for another exit. Fortunately, we had gotten lucky and found a hole in the makeshift wall we could crawl through. After we made sure everyone had gotten through, we started picking up the pace through the forest, though still remaining quiet enough to not attract attention. Once the green-haired guy believed we were far enough from the camp, we stopped and huddled up again.

"Alright, we need to figure out where we're going next. Anyone have a map by any chance?" The green-haired guy asked us.

"I do." I opened up the HUD's map and showed it to everyone. A blue dot with the words 'You Are Here' above it was located in the same area Jack had pointed to on his map earlier. The green-haired guy gave it a quizzical look, as if the map was alien to him. "Uh...is something wrong?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry, but... where did you get this map from?" He asked me.

"I, uh... an 'acquaintance' gave it to me, why?"

"There are a lot of landmarks missing from this map, and some of them look different. If I had to guess, this is an old map. I mean, like, centuries old." He explained.

...Did Discord give me an outdated map? Are you kidding me!?

"Well, it should be fine. We can probably still figure out where we're going from-" Whatever the green-haired guy was going to say next died in his throat as his eyes went wide, seeing something behind one of the ex-prisoners. "LOOK OUT!!!"

His warning came too late as the thing grabbed the ex-prisoner from behind and sunk its teeth into his neck. The creature looked like a human, only its eyes were cold and pale, its flesh was rotting, and there were several chunks torn out of it, dried blood leaking out. I was in shock at the scene, not only from seeing the ex-prisoner get a chunk of his neck bitten off, but also because I could immediately tell what the creature was. I wasn't even sure if what I was seeing was real or not, but there was no question that I was seeing it.

No matter what world I was in, I'd recognize a zombie anywhere.

The ex-prisoner let out a scream, but was soon gargling blood. He was clearly seconds away from death, and there was no chance of saving him. Behind him and the zombie, a few more rotting corpses emerged from behind the tries, stumbling towards us. "Shit, RUN!!!" The green-haired guy yelled, and we all followed him in the direction opposite of the zombies.

Zombies!? There's freaking zombies in Equestria now!?! That seems like a bit more than 'slightly' apocalyptic, Discord!!!

"CRAP CRAP CRAP!!! There are infected out here!? Fuck!!!" One of the other ex-prisoners cursed.

"WHAT DO WE DO!?!" The mare that had been crying earlier asked, looking to the green-haired guy for guidance.

"Just keep running! We’ve gotta find someplace to hide-" Before the green-haired guy could finish, something large came barreling through the trees and tackled him to the ground. Before he could yell, scream, or make any sort of noise, the large beast had sunken its teeth into his head before ripping it clean off. The large beast had dark brown fur with a few patches of it missing, sharp teeth, four paws, each with long black claws, and several chunks of flesh missing from its body. It let out a deep, loud roar after finishing off its prey.

The beast in question was a large grizzly bear, and judging by its missing flesh and fur, unnaturally large claws, and severe hostility, it was a grizzly bear that had been infected by whatever zombie virus had infected the other corpses.

"OH DEAR CELESTIA!!! RUN!!! RUN!!!" One of the ex-prisoners yelled in a panic. Everyone scattered in different directions through the forest except for me. The bear had picked up the green-haired guy's corpse in its mouth and tossed it at me, knocking me over and trapping me underneath the body. I fruitlessly struggled to push the body off me as the bear quickly inched closer and closer, snarling and growling. Before it could reach me, however, a gunshot rang out and a bullet hit the bear in the side of its head. That one shot had been enough to kill the zombie bear as it collapsed to the ground, motionless.

I turned my head to look in the direction of the gunshot and saw Jack standing there, holding a large magnum revolver. More specifically, it looked like a gold plated S&W500 with a long, thick barrel, a tactical grip, and a red dot scope attached to it. Smoke poured out of the barrel before it disappeared from his hand, most likely going back to his inventory. "Sheesh, things can never go the way you want them to, huh?"

As soon as he turned his attention from the bear to me, I quickly scrambled in an attempt to get out from underneath the green-haired guy's body. Jack made his way over to me and pulled the body off, tossing it aside. I frantically tried to crawl away, but Jack crouched down to my level and grabbed me by the shoulders. "Hey, hey, kid, calm down." I didn't listen to him, trying to struggle out of his grip. "Kid! Kid! LISTEN TO ME, GODDAMNIT!!!"

I froze in place when he yelled, ceasing my struggling. I hadn't even realized I was panting and hyperventilating until I'd stopped moving. I started taking deep breaths in order to calm myself down as beads of sweat formed on my forehead. Once he was sure I'd finished trying to get away, Jack released his grip on my shoulders and stood up, towering over me.

"Look, I get it. I've been in your shoes before. Equestria ain't exactly a wonderland of sunshine and rainbows like you remember." Jack was talking, but I was barely registering his words. Out of the corner of my eye, I'd noticed the green-haired guy's headless corpse. Upon seeing it, my mind started to finally process the fact that he was dead.

"Trust me, this isn't even the worst of it. That infected bear over there is actually pretty tame compared to the other shit this world has to offer." He chuckled, but I was still focused on the green-haired guy. He was dead, and he wasn't coming back. For some reason, that thought kept repeating in my head, as if I was still trying to get myself to believe it.

"It's rough, I know it is, but it's just something you're gonna have to get used to. If you wanna have any chance of surviving, you gotta get stronger than you are now. Like I said, I'm willing to be someone you can trust and take you under my wing. Maybe I can make things easier for you than they were for me." He continued. Blood was gushing out of the stump where the green-haired guy's head used to be. It had all happened so fast. One minute he was in front of me, alive and breathing, and the next... Christ, I didn't even know his name.

"HEY!" My eyes snapped back to Jack when he raised his voice again. "You listening to me? I'm talking to you, it's rude to ignore someone when they're talking to you." He then looked over his shoulder to see what had gotten my attention, and took a good look at the body for himself. "Ah, yeah, that. You're gonna wanna get used to that too. I can tell ya right now that you'll be seeing death a lot around here. Hell, you'll mostly be the one doing the killing."

"W-What?" Was all I managed to say.

"Don't worry about it. With enough training, I'm sure I'll have you in tip top-" I didn't let him finish as I scrambled to my feet, quickly running in the direction opposite of him and deeper into the forest. "...shape. OK THEN, FINE! BE THAT WAY! WE'LL SEE JUST HOW LONG YOU LAST OUT THERE ON YOUR OWN!" He called after me, not bothering to give chase.

I didn't look back as I sprinted through the trees, heavily breathing and with sweat dripping down my face. I didn't know where I was, where I was going, or how far I was from the camp, I just kept running like my life depended on it. I was running faster than I'd ever run before, adrenaline carrying me through most of it. I was stopped in my tracks when I bumped into something, causing me to fall backwards and onto my butt. I looked up to see I'd bumped into another zombie, which was slowly turning around to face me. It growled, and I quickly got up and ran in another direction. Thankfully, the zombie couldn't move any faster than a brisk shuffle, so I was easily outrunning it.

Shit, I don't even know where I'm going!

I weaved through endless amounts of trees with no clear direction or plan. I looked around as I ran, trying to find some sort of landmark or sign of civilization, but to no avail. I suddenly skidded to a stop when I saw three hungry looking wolves standing in front of me. They looked like normal wolves, unlike the Tartarus Guardians, but that didn’t make them any less threatening.

I started running again, this time away from the wolves. I could hear them getting closer and closer behind me, snarling and barking. I didn’t dare look back, worried that doing so would allow them to catch up. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been watching my footing, and one of my feet snagged on a loose tree root, causing me to trip and fall to the ground. I looked back from my place on the ground, dreading the fact that I was about to re-experience the feeling of a wolf ripping my throat out… only for something unexpected to happen.

Another wolf, similar to the first three, came running through the trees and leapt onto one of the other wolves, sinking its fangs into its neck. The other two wolves quickly ran away, whimpering in fear. Now that I got a better look at it, the fourth wolf had darker fur than the first three wolves, and its eyes were much more pale and primal, similar to the zombies I ran into earlier.

The darker-furred wolf seemed to grow annoyed by its prey writhing around in its jaw in an attempt to break free. Suddenly, the darker-furred wolf’s back split open, and a long, six-foot tendril sprouted out. Halfway up the tendril was an orange glowing bulge that acted as some sort of joint, and on the end of the tendril was a very sharp looking stinger.

WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT!?!

The tendril whipped around before stabbing its stinger straight into the other wolf’s side, piercing its heart. The wolf’s body went limp a second later, and the definitely-not-a-wolf continued to feast on it. Then, part way through its meal, the mutated wolf noticed me, and started growling.

Oh shit...

Before the wolf creature could stab me with its stinger though, another gunshot rang out, and a bullet from above pierced the bulge in the creature's tendril. As a result, the bulge exploded and orange puss splattered across the ground, the not-a-wolf letting out a howl of pain. Jack leapt down from the trees not a second later and landed on the creature, pinning it to the ground. He didn't waste any time as he quickly and efficiently wrapped his arms around the creature's neck and twisted it, causing the bone to crack and killing it instantly. With the not-a-wolf now dead, Jack stood up and turned to me. "Are you done yet?"

It was becoming clear that I wasn't going to be able to run away from Jack, so I instead decided to do something that was, in hindsight, incredibly stupid. I stumbled back up to my feet, let out my best battle cry as I ran over to Jack, and attempted to punch him. Extra emphasis on 'attempted'. He nonchalantly side-stepped me, sticking his leg out to trip me. I collided face first with the dirt, wincing in pain. "Seriously? You still see me as a threat?" He sighed.

Undeterred, I got back up and ran at him again, throwing several slow and easily telegraphed punches. Jack just lazily ducked, tilted and side-stepped to avoid each one. Going by his relaxed posture, it wasn't taking him much effort to dodge my attacks, if he was putting any effort in at all, that is.

"Kid..."

Another missed punch.

"Can you please stop?"

Another missed punch.

"This is getting old."

Another missed punch.

"You're not getting anywhere."

Another missed punch.

"This is starting to annoy me."

Another missed punch.

"Alright, that's it!"

This time, instead of dodging the attack, Jack grabbed my fist mid-punch, twisted my arm, then struck his palm into my elbow. A loud *crunch!* erupted from my arm, the palm strike causing it to bend the wrong way, breaking it completely.

-23 HP

Overall HP: 77/100

Left Arm: 0%

"AAAAGH!!!" Jack released my arm as I screamed in pain and fell to my knees. Tears quickly filled my eyes as I looked down at my broken arm in horror.

"See? It doesn't take much to put you down, which is why I want to help you. I'm trying to help you, but you won't let me! I show you my hospitality, and you spit in my face! And for what!? What could you possibly gain by not accepting my help!?" Jack voiced his frustration.

You have a funny definition of 'helping'!

Jack reached down and forcefully grasped by broken arm, getting a cry of pain out of me, before a health stim spawned into his hand, which he promptly injected into my arm. I've never had to experience having a bone get set back into place, but I am aware that it can be painful. Now, imagine if your entirely broken arm were set back into place at the speed of sound. That's how it felt when the health stim did its thing, healing my arm by whipping the bone back into place in an instant. "GAH!" I cried out, but the pain was thankfully subsiding rather quickly. Once the arm was fixed, Jack let go of it.

+29 HP

Overall HP: 100/100

Left Arm: 100%

"If you could just take a few minutes to calm down and think about what I'm offering you, we can-" Before Jack could finish his sentence, a loud *BOOM!* echoed throughout the forest, sounding like something big had just impacted the earth. Whatever it was, it caused the ground to shake and tremble beneath us.

"Shit, he's here..." Jack mumbled to himself, looking in the direction of the noise. He crouched down to my level and summoned a few items from his inventory. "You're gonna wanna take these. It won't do much against him, but I'd rather give you something instead of nothing." The first thing he handed me was five health stims, only these ones had an infinity symbol on them instead of the M I’d seen on the moderate health stims. According to the label in the inventory, they were Full Health Stims. The second thing he gave me was a semi-automatic handgun, specifically a Walther P22.

I took the pistol and put the stims in my inventory before asking the obvious question, "Who's 'him'?"

As if on cue, heavy footsteps could be heard approaching us. A man emerged from the trees, first spotting Jack, before laying his eyes on me. The smile that spread across his face upon seeing me gave me an uneasy feeling. He was a human standing at around 6' 0" with brown eyes, chestnut brown hair styled into a side swept undercut, and a thick goatee. He was shirtless, showing off his extremely well-built muscles and tribal tattoos across his body. The only article of clothing he seemed to be wearing was a pair of brown cargo pants. He wasn't even wearing shoes, instead choosing to walk barefoot. "Him." Jack answered.

It was at that moment that I received a notification from my HUD that made my blood run cold.

"Earth God identified. [WARNING]: User: Justin's stats are not nearly high enough to engage an Elemental God in combat. [Recommendation]: Run."

I am so fucked.

"Ajax... Been a while." Jack slowly and casually approached the Earth God.

"Hello, Jack. Can't say it's a pleasure seeing you again." 'Ajax' said as he started to approach Jack in return.

"Feeling's mutual. Tell me, what brings your sorry ass out here to the middle of nowhere?" Jack gestured to the forest around us.

"Oh, nothin' much. A little bird told me a second HUD user just showed up. Figured I'd give him a proper welcome to our world. I'm not surprised to find you here too. The two of you do have something in common, don't you?" Ajax gestured to me.

I could see Jack clenching his fists at the mention of a 'little bird', but he continued on with the conversation anyway. "Well, you don't need to worry about the welcome, I'm already taking care of it."

"And since when have I needed your permission to show a little courtesy?" Ajax and Jack reached each other as soon as the Earth God finished his sentence, the two of them standing only inches away from each other. Needless to say, the tension was high between them.

"Since now. This doesn't involve you, so I'm gonna give you ten seconds to leave before I-" Whatever Jack was going to say next was cut off when Ajax threw a backhanded fist at him. The strike had been powerful enough to send Jack flying through the trees, crashing through several of them and toppling many of them over. My eyes went wide seeing the long stretch of destroyed trees that went on for miles. Any normal person would've died from that instantly. I turned my attention back to Ajax and saw him stalking towards me, a sadistic grin on his face.

"So, let me guess; You were brought to this world with the delusion that you would 'become a hero' and 'stop those nasty evil gods', or something like that, right?" He said as he got closer. "Well, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to give you a wake up call, kid. That's nothing more than an idiotic fantasy." I quickly raised up the handgun, which was shaking in my grip, and pointed it at him. He just laughed at me. "Ha ha ha! Oh, that is just adorable. Alright then, come on. Give me your best shot!" He stood firmly in place and spread his arms out wide, waiting for me to make a move.

I held the gun with both hands to steady my aim and looked down the sight. My hands were still shaking, so I took a few deep breaths to calm myself as I focused my aim on his head. I've never killed anyone before, but at the moment, that wasn't my concern. I was about 99% certain that my life was at risk right now, so I was more focused on defending myself. Besides, a small part of me knew that if this guy really was a God, then this bullet probably wasn't going to do much. I squeezed the trigger and fired, a loud bang erupting from the gun. There was barely any recoil thanks to the caliber of the gun, but I could still feel the kick as it fired.

The bullet hit Ajax square in the forehead, causing his head to cock back from the impact. He didn't fall to the ground, though. He stood firmly in place, not moving an inch. After a few seconds, he raised his right hand up to his head, reached into the bullet hole, and ripped the bullet out before flicking it away, as if it were nothing more than a puny pebble. I watched in horror as the hole in his forehead sealed up, as if he'd never been shot in the first place. "That's it? Gotta say, I'm a little disappointed."

Before I knew it, Ajax grabbed me by my shirt and threw me into the air. I screamed in terror as I went soaring above the trees before plummeting back down to the ground, crashing through several tree branches before smacking against the dirt. My body skipped across the ground like a rock across a pond before I finally tumbled to a stop. My body ached all over, the impact having broken several of my bones.

-61 HP

Overall HP: 39/100

Head: 97%
Torso: 81%
Left Arm: 42%
Right Arm: 43%
Left Leg: 19%
Right Leg: 21%

With a weak, shaky arm, I summoned one of the health stims Jack had given me and injected it into myself.

+61 HP

Overall HP: 100/100

Head: 100%
Torso: 100%
Left Arm: 100%
Right Arm: 100%
Left Leg: 100%
Right Leg: 100%

I started to push myself off the ground, my strength slowly returning to me. I wasn't sure how far Ajax threw me, but I could tell I was still in the forest. Before I could run away or come up with some sort of plan, Ajax safely landed a few feet away, cracking the ground beneath his feet. If I had to guess, I assumed he had jumped from where he threw me all the way over to here in a single bound. Clearly, he didn't have the title of 'God' for nothing. He immediately noticed me trying to stand back up and strolled over.

"Oh no, please, don't get up on my account. Why don't you take a seat?" He made a fist with his hand as it became enveloped in dirt and rocks, forming a blunt gauntlet. Just as I managed to stand up, he threw a punch to my stomach with his rock gauntlet, and it felt like getting hit in the gut with a sledgehammer. I instantly buckled over and fell back to the ground, the wind having been completely knocked out of me.

-72 HP

Overall HP: 28/100

Torso: 49%

"Y'see kid, I don't know about the other Gods, but I don't take too kindly to guys who think they can play hero. Weaklings like you who think they're hot shit, believing they can do anything..." He threw a kick to my ribs when he saw me trying to get back up. "...They really piss me off."

-5 HP

Overall HP: 23/100

Torso: 47%

Despite my whole body aching from exhaustion, I tried to crawl away. Thankfully, the Earth God didn't stop me. Instead, he just laughed at me. "Ha ha! Alright then, go ahead. Run! I like a good ol' game of cat and mouse. Let's see how far you get." After crawling a few feet away from him, I summoned another stim and injected it to heal myself. I was already down to three left.

+77 HP

Overall HP: 100/100

Torso: 100%

Revitalized by the stim, I dared a look back at Ajax as I got back to my feet. He slammed a foot into the ground, causing a large chunk of the earth to break from the dirt and fly a few feet into the air. He punched the floating chunk of earth, sending it careening through the trees at high speed like a runaway cannonball. "RUN!!!" He yelled at me. He didn't have to tell me twice.

I sprinted through trees yet again, trying to get as far from the Earth God as possible. I could hear his laughter echoing throughout the forest behind me, and it only encouraged me to run faster. When I noticed I was approaching a clearing in the trees, I looked back over my shoulder as I ran. Ajax was nowhere in sight, as far as I could tell. I returned my gaze forward just as I broke through the clearing... Only to immediately stop in my tracks.

The clearing had led to a cliff with no other direction for me to go. Beyond the cliff was nothing but water as far as the eye can see. I remembered from the map that this forest was right next to the South Luna Ocean, so I assumed that's what I was looking at. Looking down below, there were thankfully no sharp or jagged rocks waiting for me at the bottom of the cliff. Still, it was a several dozen foot drop, and I wasn't sure if I could survive jumping into the water from that height.

A loud boom from behind me, sounding like someone had moved fast enough to break the sound barrier, drew my attention. As soon as I turned around, I saw Ajax bursting through the trees at sonic speed towards me before I could even react. The split second he reached me, I felt a severe pain in my chest, more agonizing than I could possibly describe. Seeing the sadistic smile on Ajax's face, I slowly looked down to my chest and was horrified by what I saw.

Ajax's arm was sticking through my chest, having punched a hole clean through.

I didn't scream or shout in pain. I just stared at it, wide eyed. I was too in shock to do or say anything. I looked back up at Ajax, who still had that smile on his face. He pulled his hand out of my chest, now caked in my blood as he held a still beating heart in it.

-99 HP

Overall HP: 1/100

Torso: 7%

"Don't take this too personally, kid. I just wanted to make sure an ant like you knows its place." With that, Ajax crushed the heart in his hand before giving me a light shove, sending me careening off the side of the cliff. Due to the tremendous blood loss, exhaustion, and lack of a heart, I lost consciousness before I even hit the water.

...And that's how I ended up in that position, falling several dozen feet off a cliff and into an ocean with a hole in my chest where my heart should be. I bet you're probably thinking, 'Damn, that sounds like a rough day. It must've been the worst day of his life!' Well, have I got a surprise for you: That day wasn't actually all that bad of a day for me. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely up there in my 'worst days ever' list, but it was far from the worst. It was just the beginning of a long, arduous, and painful journey that I would be embarking on. There were plenty of ups and downs that I would run into, but I can assure you that overall...

...It only got worse from there.

Author's Note

FINALLY!!!

Dear God, you have no idea how badly I've been wanting to get this story out for people to start reading! There were a couple times where I was very close to just saying "Fuck it" and publishing what I had. Thankfully, I persevered and managed to finish the first chapter split up into 3 parts!

There were numerous times where I found myself going back and rewriting certain parts so the dialogue wouldn't sound cringy and unnatural, I would add extra scenes that added more to the story, I even redesigned and/or renamed characters a couple times. Now, I believe the story is at a good enough level of quality for readers to enjoy! I sincerely hoped you guys enjoyed this long introduction to the story and that you'll keep reading! If you have any criticisms, please let me know what they are and I will do my best to rectify them.

Again, I hope you enjoyed, and I wish you the best!