"Quicker Gabriel! You have to be quicker!! If that was a real knife, you would have already been killed".

Kristof was sitting in his wheelchair in the corner of his work's training facility yelling instructions and criticisms at Gabriel. After Gabriel's graduation, Kristof agreed to Gabriel's request to train him in hand-to-hand combat in preparation of the launch of Deliverance Online. The training centre they used was state of the art, with all the facilities a company would need to train elite operatives for the highest bidder.

Recently, several large corporations in America had increased their power and influence too much for the Government to leave them alone. When the American Government decided to start putting pressure on them, several of the most powerful companies and influential families decided to join together to pressure the Government back. After a cold war of sorts, both sides reached an under the table agreement.

The majority of the companies and Families moved their main offices to New York, making the city even more influential then it was before. The new coalition set their roots deep in the city and surrounding boroughs. It led to the city almost being a separate country unto itself. Even though the corporations and Families put up a united front against the American Government, that didn't stop them from competing against each other.

This lead to a massive rise of private security firms setting up in New York. They trained bodyguards that were basically private soldiers. They also trained spies for corporate espionage and other personnel with "special skills". This caused a massive need for professional trainers in a number of areas, Kristof was lucky enough even with his disability to receive a job at one of the Training Centres. Leading to Gabriel being able to use there facilities on the sly.

Gabriel was in the middle of a dojo style mat with two training axes in each hand. The axes were made with a hardened oak handle of about two feet in length. Both ends had a blunted spike protruding out. The axes had a classic Nordic style bearded axe head with a sharpened spike across from the blade, it was mainly used for back swing punctures. Gabriel also had a pair of Swarth axes strapped to his back in a holster that were used for throwing.

Gabriel was facing off against four other instructors, all masters in many different styles of weapons. One of the men was of Japanese descent, he was a master in the Odachi. He held a huge wooden two-handed sword, which would be the length of a Western Claymore. Two of the men were Chinese and experts in the Spear, one wielded a short spear and one held a long spear.

The last man, was standing behind Gabriel. He was an American and was an expert in a lot of different weapons. When it came to melee weapons, his weapon of choice was daggers. He was currently holding a pair of twin curved daggers with a slice in the bottom of the blades. The gap was used to catch an opposing blade and with the right pressure, at the right angle, it could snap some of the thinner blades.

Gabriel had been training for four months under the eagle eyes of his step-father Kristof, who roped in a couple of his buddies to help as a personal favor to him.

One of the Chinese men, who held the long spear started off the next sequence of attacks. He began with a straight thrust at Gabriel's exposed torso. Due to dual-wielding axes, Gabriel could only parry strikes and had no way to effectively block.

This was a test of agility and endurance. Gabriel was not allowed to attack anyone, he had to be purely be on the defensive. Parrying all of the incoming blades, while constantly repositioning himself will tire anyone out quickly. Gabriel always tried to keep his eyes on the four men and not let one slip behind him too often. Gabriel's personal time for this sequence was 4 minutes, which is a hell of a long time, when you're only on the defensive.

This was the last training session that Gabriel could do for a while as he would be logging in tomorrow to Deliverance Online.

Gabriel caught the long spear coming for his chest in the empty space between his blade and handle. Before flicking it to the side to throw his opponent off balance. The odachi wielder was in the same instance performing a powerful downward slice, Gabriel couldn't catch the heavy odachi like he did the spear. He had to use a straight smack with the blade of his left-handed axe to change the trajectory of the falling odachi.

The Chinese instructor with the short spear was too close in Gabriel's personal space to use any of the normal thrusts or cuts with his spear. The instructor instead put two hands on either end of the spear, taking a step closer he used the middle of the spear and tried to bash the bridge of Gabriel's nose with the shaft.

Gabriel noticed this and in the follow up of parrying the Odachi. He leaned back as far as he could, as if he was doing the limbo. At the same time he did, two daggers that were coming for Gabriel's neck from behind missed their slices and smacked into the fingers of the short spear instructor. He took the chance and did a quick roll from behind to put the dagger wielder in between himself and the other three opponents, gaining some room to move.

"Nice one Gabriel! You have to read the flow of a battle, anticipate the moves and act. We will make a great soldier out of you yet!" Kristof was quick to criticize but was also quick to compliment when you met his expectations; it was just too bad that his expectations are usually too god damn high.

The instructors were all masters though and quickly re-positioned themselves for the next attack. This went on for another 5 Minutes before Gabriel took an Odachi slice to his waist, that he couldn't dodged. Due to the blunt blade smacking instead of slicing. The impact had Gabriel on his knees gasping for breath, as sweat was poured down his face in a waterfall.

"Time! 5 minutes and 3 seconds and that makes a new record! Good job Gab!" Kristoff shouted. As he rolled over to Gabriel.

"Thanks for the help guys. Next time we are out, the tab is on me." Kristof thanked the four instructors.

"No Problem Kris"

"It was my pleasure to help"

"Anytime Kris"

"I will hold you to that old man" The American instructor shouted while patting Kristof's shoulder. The other three waved goodby and left.

The American's name was Wayne Albaster. A classic Texan, solid physique and a neatly trimmed handlebar mustache. Before retiring, he was a mercenary working for a lot of different countries. His main expertise was in helping with counter-espionage activities.

Even though Gabriel thought that Wayne gave the impression of an assassin more than anything. Especially with the way he wielded his daggers. Wayne was always the one to do the sneak attacks in the 4 vs 1 battles against Gabriel, gving off the impression of an experienced killer.

Wayne however was one of Kristof's closest friends and always helped him out. They had a history that went deeper than just this training centre. Gabriel knew that they were both trained from the same instructor when younger. Wayne was the one who helped Kristof get a job at the training centre. Wayne liked to call Kristof "old man" even though they looked the same age, if anything Wayne looked older but Kristof didn't seem to mind it.

Wayne turned to Gabriel and said, "Good job squirt, you have done well. I hope you make a great name for yourself as a warrior in that game thingo you are always on about. Don't forget about your promise though. Make sure you take care of my little princess when you can."

"No problem, Uncle Wayne. I will make sure nobody bullies Sarah when she joins Deliverance". Gabriel said, while standing back up and accepting a towel off of his step-dad to wipe the sweat off.

Wayne only had one daughter who he spoiled rotten and she just turned 18. So she planned to play Deliverance Online with her girlfriends. Gabriel promised Wayne he would keep an eye out for her in game when he could. He knew Wayne was very over protective of his daughter and due to Wayne and Sarah's mother sheltering, the girl was quite the naïve little flower.

"Alright lads. I best be headed off. I have to pick up my princess from her classes. I will stop over soon for a brew." Wayne patted his huge hands down on Kristof's shoulder again and walked towards the underground car park.

"Come on Gab it is almost time for dinner ourselves. Best be getting home or else we will be in trouble. Well, I will be in trouble. Your mother will never think it was because her little angel of a son was the reason, we are late. If only she could see you fighting like the devil here. It would probably scare the ever loving-sh*t out of her. HA!" Kristof laughed, causing Gabriel to chuckle as well at the thought of it.

As they made their way to the parking lot to grab the car, Kristof continued. "Honestly Gab I didn't know you had it in ya. You have improved so quickly. It is like you are a natural born fighter. Except for your fitness not being up to scratch just yet, I would have thought you were a professional soldier. With years underneath your belt of experience".

"Thanks Dad. It's mainly because I had such a good teacher" Gabriel said, although he knew the main reason was because he really did have 7 years' worth of battling experience. From fighting huge armies by himself, to having to defend against assassination attempts in VR and the real world, Gabriel had experienced them all.

It took a while for Gabriel to get used to his current body's reflexes and strength. He had gotten used to the sculpted physique he had in his past life. After four long months of training though he finally felt he was ready to make his debut on Deliverance Online.

Kristof couldn’t be bother to drive, so Gabriel drove the car home and had a lovely dinner with his family. He pre-warned his parents that he won't be contactable for most of the day tomorrow, as he would be in the Capsule but if it was an emergency, they could contact him via the call button on the side of the capsule.

He tried to get to bed early but Gabriel found it hard to sleep, so he spent some time looking over his notebooks he had stacked up. Before feeling tired enough to go to sleep. Gabriel woke up to the sound of his alarm. It was the ring tone from Outkast classic 'Hey Ya'.

Reaching out with one hand, Gabriel grabbed his phone and noted the time to be 6am. The servers worldwide would go online at 6:30am. Getting out of bed he had done some stretches to loosen his body up and then grabbed a quick bite. Finally he opened up the capsule that was at the end of the bed. The capsule was huge and took up the only small space he had left in his small room.

Gabriel took of his clothes, as one couldn't be wearing anything while in the capsule. It would conflict with the sensors scanning your body. He laid down inside the capsule. The inside of the capsule felt like you were laying in a water bed as you sunk into it slightly. Gabriel then felt something moving around him, as the jelly like nanites moulded around his skin before wrapping completely around like a comfortable blanket.

The reason the nanites did that was because it conducted a complete medical work up of your body. It also helped to alleviate your muscles with slow massages to stave off any atrophy, as someone people would game for days at a time.

The face was left open as a scanner came down to scan your retinas for ID verification. As everyone was only allowed one account and one character at a time. If you wanted a new character you had to delete your current one and start from Level 0 again.

After scanning his eyes, Gabriel felt a slight prick in his finger as he slowly fell asleep. Finally entering Deliverance Online: the Fall of Gods and Rise of Man.....