《System:Of The Ugly》 Chapter 1 - Pilot : Death. "**Only the most, the boldest of them all starts slow, so before the pure high octane fuckery you came here for, there is a need of a slow start to oil yourselves up.**" -Yours Truly, Phillipi P.S: Come meet me in Chapter 16. ______________________________________________ "What mood.. you drinking?!" the bartender asked, his voice was low and simply blas¨¦. Just across his shining wooden bar stand sat a man, still and seemingly out of life,"The usual please!" huffed the lifeless Phillips, leaning a sloth across the long bar-stand. His voice doing him justice, it was lazy, raspy and hoarse almost gibberish like his throat was barely letting go of any sound he did and would continue to make. Another long day of whatever Phillips does. "And that''ll be the,?" poised the bartender craning his neck closer to the weary soul. "Humor me Rich as you do so well." Phillips retorted, all with the husk energy of a corpse, his head buried in his arms and only his brimming messy blond- like strains of corns danced in his motionless stead to the beat of the swirling wind from the squeaking ceiling fan above. "One Cocktail of numbing the pain with a touch of Alzheimer''s coming up!" waving his hands to a maze like closet, filled with resting bottles, his proud arsenal of rarities. "Thaat''s the one!" drawled Phillips with a poor scrawny effort for a thumbs-up. Frisky Bear was a bar at Liendry - a town cutthroat and cruel but still a safe heaven nonetheless from the nightmares that haunts beyound the walls. Richard owned The Frisky Bear and he finds himself encumbered by men-women of all natures from every damned corners of the six sisters towns. And here they flocked together and why you ask that this rowdy and barbarous men brought no trouble to the dish, simply put his name is Dooke, a soft and loyal huge flesh of a man who stands and aced his role as the bouncer, power-born and powerful you''d be right to assume where together with Rich and his monotonic tone: they sang a blunt duet of a stern yet loose reign. As it was commonly known this bar is home to many explosive men and on this particular night came one of many regulars who would kickstart the wheel of change for the world. "It''s a new dawn, it''s a new niiight.... And I''m feeling good~" in came Paulie with an entrance so loud with his eyebrows dancing along with every word he sang and the bearer of the deafening voice even more hyper and blatherskite. Ironically however his theatrics was none but falling short to simply a tolerable noise buzzing in the background, unimpressed in turn by his audience and as the yellow dimmed lights of the bar allowed him a sight, he without a turn to any other men headed straight to Phillips in the stand. "Phil! Boy will you be glad to see me." he nearly sang a second verse, sitting besides the sloth, a sharp tongue breaking any ice but not the massive iceberg which was Phillips''s dead silence. "Oh!! So it''s downer Phil today." humoring himself. His confidence and smile however wavered when Richard with a glare that was ever dead-panned all round-the-clock interrogated the hyper, "Paulie.. Dooke told me he saw you dealing with a tall shadowy lady in the alley." jerking a larger than usual shaker all the while, with each shook getting fiercer, and more fiercer then to a life-threatening menace. "Was it me though??!!" squeaked Paulie, a puckered smile for a wheedle, yet flattery need not charm a blunt brow as Rich glared dead and dead''er. Sweating brittle brows met a chilling killer brow. Rich then sniffed his stout nose a couple but to Paulie it was a death threat. Paulie gulped down a heavy air forcing it down his throat, his sneaky fingers then gently pulls a many times at the lazing zombie''s hoodie, getting more intense then to a full on tug of war, shaking and quaking the lazing sloth. Until finally the pressure from the ever dead-panned stabbing glare cracked Paulie, "Okay.. it ain''t my fault Rich.. but I''m very very sorry." leaning back as far he could, ''This would be safe enough!'' he thought. "I said no dealing anywhere near here or were I not clear?" "See, look.. I done tried getting her inside but the broad insisted it wa-." "Do I look like I give a damn?" "No!?" wheedled Paulie cracking a tiny smile and a speck of a flash from his eye glinting innocence at Rich but he was ushering innocence against the glare of a dead man which only still vexed the loud-mouth. "Sorry Rich! My bad man, ca- can''t we just chill? let bygones be bygones? Ha-Hah!" Amidst their verse of blame and tame, the sound of channel 9 brought a news and the deep soothing voice of Harvey narrated a recent event on Ensfield, "A grim news for our world. It was around 6:45 when a horde of Hellspawns were seen inside the walls, this marked the first since-" As Harvey went on, Phillips cracked a slight peep at the noise and the incessant quake that he was trembled with, "Fuck are you two doing?" he grumbled, low and unheard. Half-lidded dungeons they were, sunken they were as two sapphire blues hued in lieu of his dreary eyes: up down and rapid they bounced along the rhythm of the shaker on Rich''s hand, while the bartender never did ceased to prey on Paulie, a glare alone killing the poor lad as he shook and shook the shaker fifty times over more than well-done. "You done Shaky?" asked the raspy cranky Phillips. "Yo Phil! -heh heh- You''re alive!!" cried Paulie, his roaming cowering eyes begged an escape from Richard''s gaze and in a zombie he finds little solace. "Fifty times over!" Richard bellowed. Reaching his arm- a weak elder for the drink, Phillips then sat upright, his faced seemed rather fresh yet he blinks a tired soul. Blue eyes charmed by the tall drink, with a quick blink he drowned his throat, a single gulped and the glass was drained. The two other men had always marveled on his erratic demeanor and his sniveling little quirk: His shallow, deep throat which seemed a mighty well to sink and let flow any beverage. The innumerable high narcotics and drugs he simply chewed in lieu of candies, not just little but a whole mouthful, ones which would and could end a life in an overdose. At a point Richard even assumed that Phillips had a perk, an useless one yet the only perk which drunkard and addicts would painstakingly yearn for. As Phillips unknowingly gave the two men a show Harvey was now on about a news which pierced the drums of Phillips''s ear anew. "Murder is a crime most red and hated. Given!the power-born fighting and the mournful incident of 43, adding the puzzling break in of today, as many said and begged and as do I, I proudly quote along with many, ''War not us!''." Harvey paused for slight a running nose and continued, "We from channel 9 as before sincerely bring our heartfelt remorse to the two boys who were victims to a horrific crime, Channel 9 news will be donating for their future and just today after a single day, thankfully the alleged criminal was caught." "A court session was held in Wilhilm where the two boys Jerome and Marcus were indeed present today as the accused Darius Mikel the murderer of Chanel Preston was trialed." reported Harvey and the news just as Phillip''s fatefully turned, the screen showed a video of the court where in a sudden burst of adrenaline, the two boys pounced at the leering smirking murderer who sat with not a dull look of regrets. This moment was of pure rightful vengeance or so Phillips smiled, heavily adoring the boys or so his then devilish smile suggests but then comes a moment that straightened his smile, the boys were abruptly tackled and bouldered by a policeman who used a perk - one which summoned a white foam which grew large to a size that incapacitated the brothers and hardens soon later pinning them to the floor. *KRANK* Bringing the news abruptly to an end was a sound of the T.V screen shattering. In a fit, Phillips threw the glass he held right at the screen making a crater in the middle - a Bullseye. Dooke in a beat stood up, a very capable man in his duty but then calmed by Rich who nodded at the Giant. The culprit of the broken screen Phillips was now at the bar stand, standing and widened was his smile, "Everyone!! Now that I have all your undivided Fucking attention.. A toast!!...but first of all, How''s that for a wedding toast?!" looking at Richard still ever bland on expressions. "Rich!" Phillips exclaimed, "Name any who that would make a toast like I just Fucking did!" Rich made no effort, a resting face of blunt blandness. "and... I''ll pay for that... ALSO A ROUND OF ANY FOR EVERYONE HERE!!" words which was met by thunderous cheers. "Motherfuckers!" eyes like sapphire daggers they stabbed at the shattered hole of the T.V. Paulie then fetches Phillips, dragging him down from the stand. "I got what you been looking for." whispered Paulie. "I want it!" as quick as Paulie could smile. "Why''d you think I came here first.. but see man?! The lady who gave me this was very shady, beautiful and sexy trust me but she''s somehow off and uhh!! it also stinks like a shady new kinda drug buttt... knowing you... strange as it is... I think you can take it!" "What is it?" Phillips prodded, he was the most intrigued as he had ever been the night. "No clue!" "You''re joking!" "Not even a single letter... only a name.. Euphoria!" "Sounds perfect... but you sure this''ll get me there?" "It better or I''ll change the name to Richie Rich." "Hahah! Gimme all you got." "I only have six man and I gotta get them circulating around if you know what I mean... but here! take three... I''ll have more later next week... I''ll ante you up then." A hurried moment of laters and goodbyes Phillips headed straight home, walking a lanky hooded figure across a dark alley, beneath the half lit street-lights of Liendry. With its rightfully claimed name as the town of vandals - the noise busied streets were reeking of petty crimes from little boys to gangs of no-goods sniveling and ricocheting about to silly motives of tomfoolery and all its other petty cousins. "Dangerous huh?!" exclaimed a lady in the dark, seductive with her slurs, she stood a leg up high on one of the many downtrodden buildings along the chilling, busy street. "I have an Eye on him." she moaned, a lustrous voice. "Yes Sir!" to an unheard order as she observed and followed Phillips from above. A sizzling rain from a showerhead. Phillips was home and solemn in a bath, drizzled and wet he held out his arm away from the pouring shower and in his palm were three pills he bought the night younger, "500 a pop." he huffed. "Oh well! You better get me there." "That idiot!" shrieked the lady, a watching eye from the high dark of a flat building. With a beep she tapped an earpiece lodge deep under, "This one''s a goner. Took three of them at once." Her eyes still at Phillips, the walls of the building in between served as no cover from the lady. To her dilated eyes of purple, the dark of night were but another lighter shade of bright and obstacles were simply see through screens. "You could''ve lived a tad longer.. Ohh!! what a waste and tastefully handsome too.... Oh well.. mmmmh!" A deep breathe as the lady moaned, "I still get to see you die.... beautifully!" as she spoke, Phillips fell dead, buried by drizzling rain on his bathroom floor. Leaning in a tad, her large chests on top her knee were squeezed hard to nigh a bounce, purple eyes moaned as a white light of life left Phillips''s body. "Ohh! Im so jealous of mistress death!!" Chapter 2 - Rebirth : Phillipi And The System - Aeyai Phillips - All he knew was his consciousness fading as his body falls deaden on his wet floor. Oblivious he was to his stiffened, lifeless body as he was feeling the drugs kicking in which brought him a jiffy of a moment of unparalleled high but not long after Phillips felt as if he had fallen to a land of encumbering darkness, a place so living as the cold cloud air he breathes and the blackend grains of sand to where he sits, ''I''m back again.'' he thought, to this sea of sands, darker than the eerie void that reigned in lieu of skies. Plentiful of times he had been here, many stories of overdoses to just bring himself here, just so he could see a treasure that none could ever claim as one, and as some of those grains of sands rises, they circled Phillips. Then as he had already twitched and readied his ear for voices that would always come, "Ohh!! there''s our little hero." "Phillips!" "Say hello to your little sister." Faint murmurs and giggles echoed in the void black desert, they called from the circling waving sands, come to jog him lost, familiar memories. "His heart stopped!" "No! Phil!" "He''s alive?" "My child I thought you were..." "You were very brave Phil." ..... "What should we name her?" "Mary!" .... "P-H-I-L-L-I-P-I!... Phillipi!" a voice then echoed more clearer and heard. "Mary?" he shuddered, as he turned his widened eyes now saw a manifestation of a memory as the sands rises, build and took shapes, they molded themselves playing out a moment from his past. Like moving dolls built of sands with colours and all, his younger self enjoyed a jealous moment with his beloved younger sister. "I think the ''I'' should be bended to an S." teased a younger Phillips in the memory. "Noo! I liked Phillipi better plus he''s,, umm!, not you silly??! He is Phillipi the Grand magus!" his sister Mary, tongue out and bit, focused on her scribbles. "Okay okay! what are his powers then?" With a river of tears he longingly watched. "He is a power-born and he has the bestest perk of them all... a strong System and her name is Aeyai, also also she has many many abilities.... here I''ve written them all!!" cheered Mary, jovial and proud, two tender mellow arms showing her brother a drawing. "Hmm! Aeyai?? Neat!" "I know... teeehee!.. now the powers, now the powerssss." "Okay chill!!! Blink, fire bolt, hex and... are these from the games I played?" Mary winked, her little eyes as Phillips saw were still angelic and pure forevermore so. "These are a lot of skills Mary." "Duh!! He''s suppose to be the strongest after all." Cracking a weak smile to the visually real memory he saw, Phillips holds out his arms reaching towards the pink smudge on Mary''s little plump cheeks. Reluctantly he halted his shaking arms, though he yearns for a touch, the many experiences he had, now have had him known that a touch would always abruptly crumbled the moving figurines of his sister and family. "Mary." he then whimpered, softly with despair. Fate was cruel he very well knew, it was now even more cruel as the vision he saw warped and faded to falling sands right before his eyes. "No not yet!" "Fucking bring her back!" cracking in his tears with nearly a torn throat. "Bring them back..." he whimpered and on his knees he wept and cursed. The silent dark desert grew even more eerie, his sobbing heart now filled the sands with broken despair. But not a cruel long after he heard sounds of rubbles, shockwaves of pressured air and desperate screams of terror coming from another moment of his past, acted out most hated and cursed as every detail was shapened breath to breath and not even horrid deaths were spared. Those blaring sounds Phillips very well knew, a past he tried burying now rang back, diabolically to trample at his dismay, forcing him to re-live his horrors. "No.." he barely made a sound. "Fuck NOO!" Covering his ears he shouted loud words of gibberish nothings, cursing at what the sands had him offered. While the sands showed a massive, brutal fight between two power-borns, punches and winds, thunders with lightnings, each shocking and ragdolling the other. Leaving but only a wake of destructions behind, piles and piles of rubbles, cars burnt to a blast, lightnings and winds broke buildings, crashing a death rain from above and with no shy numbers of crushed and mangled corpses and among them Phillips and his family were not spared. Then he heard a voice squeaking in amidst the butchery, sweet, slurred and teary, "Phil!?" she uttered barely. "Mary?" Phillips exclaimed to the memory, her voice calmed his anger. "I can''t find mommy and daddy." her dress was torn, her pinkish cheeks muddled with dirt, on her little hand she dearly held a white sheet of paper, her treasure. Phillips now lost all senses, filled with emotions he now begged his legs to run up amidst the rubbles, but in his struggle and his dismay the vision showed him the last death his tears would never be dried of. As he hesitantly looked on above, chunks of concrete: an impending death and silent black in a form of a cursed rubble, it was death''s untimely call. "Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" With a resounding scream the sands then stopped as silence again reigned. His head then shoved and buried itself underneath the sands, all the trauma, despair and loss had came back, haunting and torturing his tender mangled mind. In a sense the sands were an architect, it never fails to summon his grief, neither did they fail to temper his anger, the sands had already molded a beast to come against the power-born who murdered his all, "Murderers!!" he growled gritting his teeth, clenching his fists tight as though they were barred. Amidst his growls he then heard a lady-like voice: of perfect diction, synthesized and without the weight of any soul. Amidst his curses he saw a clear blue yet a see-through rectangular screen where it showed what the voice had just spoken in letters. <2> <1> There it spoke again and messages he saw yet again but all Phillips had still felt then was anguish and despair, and two head he yearned to see torn, a jumbled cocktail of emotions as his eyes could truly only feel black. <0> All the while the voice count down to ''0'' as his consciousness fades to a darkened slumber, fainting there in that dark desert. .... "I''m back?!" Phillips with the same voice, raspy and all but more lighter than before. He awoke with a cold body as if he was still in that place but the white and black checkered tiles of his bathroom and the white lights from above proved otherwise. "Mary, mom, dad." he mumbled, still large on his past. It was the voice he heard before with the blue see-through screen he clearly knew he saw. "Am I still high?" he groaned, wet and still on the floor. Clearly seeing the screen he winked and blinked to see whether he was hallucinating, at a point reaching out to try and touch it, he then saw his hands now curiously smaller, lighter than what he was used to and rather cold and wet as light pokes rained from above, ''Boy, I''ll be having a cold huh?'' Set straight on being hallucinated since the place he often goes to when he seemingly dies from overdoses was always pitch black and without any weather only eerie black. ''A little boy''s hand? Boy that drug is a mess and no hangovers? My head doesn''t feel like it wants to kill me.'' "Gotta get me those again.." a sudden change of mood, he yearned for more of the drugs from the night before. But then his fragile mind in a rush shifted, driving him to the side of pain, guilt he felt of his horrific past, he then stood bare, a frozen statue, "I''m sorry.. you guys.. I''m really sorry." grasping his heart and slowly his knees folded, they were weak, drizzled by the rain above he wept for as long as it took to cry his lungs off of his lingering pain. ..... "Huh?.. Still hallucinating!" Standing in front of the foggy bathroom mirror; his small rather lively body, his younger face and even his curly hairy intimates which were now but a barren desert with freckles of soft cacti for hair. "The fuck you talking about Brain.. Pfft! I don''t have time for this, I need to head out." "My?... whatever." Peculiar, he pondered that this system or whatever was rather concious for a hallucination. "I really looked like back when I was eleven or something." "You''re like a butler huh?!" he smirked, still on the assumption of being hallucinated. ''Hahah! Why does it feels like its being sassy to me.'' .... "What the fuck?.... Why don''t none of my clothes fit... they''re all way long and loose!!!" In front of his closet he stands buried knee deep by his clothes and in a panic, digging for more. "Could you just shush!!! I''m freaking out over here!" "What?? really?? are you?... Sassing me?!" <....> "Why am I seeing this dots??? you''re not even saying anything." < . > ''Haaaaa??! Am I dealing with a girl??'' He thrashes and trampled the piles of clothes, as he personified an angry pole and a waving, flowing flag with the shirt he had thrown on his little body. ''Calm down Phil... You''re just hallucinating!'' ''Ye, ye ye ye ye! It''s the drugs... bad drugs bad drugs.'' "This will fit.. It''s just my imagination, just my hallucination making me think that it doesn''t fit!'' reassuring himself while staring at the mirror. A big plain black hoodie, oversized with hills of folds he was riddled with, "The hoodie''s sick but hahah! man those pants and shoes," "thirteen huh?! I was like 4 foot 7 back then, A little shrimp!" a lighthearted approach to what he thought was an hallucination. His pants were hanging way low, like wet folded towels they stacked up under his knees and his plain black shoes were like two boats racing and flopping with every footsteps he took. Then the system showed another message. < ???????? > "Is that an emoji?" < . > "Mooody!! Fuck this.. better call Paulie." reaching for his phone at the couch where he had tossed on the night before. "Hello? Paulie?" "Sup!! wait who you?... lemme talk to Phil." "I''m Phil you dick! Don''t fuck with me man. I have,, aa very rather annoying morning." "Listen kid, I''m too busy for messing around tell Phil to call me when he can... Ciao!" *Beep* "The fuck?" cursing at his phone. His rather annoying morning was only getting boiled up by the minute, all the while getting more convinced and nervous for his situation being real. "Fuck that troll!! He''s prolly high." A moment passed as he stood, deep in the chamber of his thought which now wrestled the reality of his new young body. "Only way to test this is to go outside." Taking a deep breath as he pulled his door open. ..... Almost a minute after. "No way!! You''re real?... and I''m real?" the door was struck open. In came an awe-struck Phillips. "Phillipi!? System!? am I?" "Wait! I know these names,," He scurried to his little safe, there he took out a paper. "What in the,, Mary is this your..?" Connecting the dots it was getting clear, the name that the system had called him and a perk which is the system and then his age when little Mary drew the drawing. ''It adds up.'' Phillips came to a realisation. "Syst.. System? Brain?... Is your real name Aeyai?" Awe-struck and stunned he look at his now younger self in the mirror. "I''m Phillipi?" Chapter 3 - Perks. Staring longingly at the sheet of paper, scribbled in it was a rough drawing of Phillipi the Grand Magus and his lists of abilities. "Mary!" he teared up a runny nose of slimy green to add salt to his ''sad'', as he still longed for the moment he had first laid eyes on the paper but what soon came into his mind was his horrific past, a thing he had always hated. Always cursing himself right after, faulting himself, blaming fate for picking him as the sole survivor. It was a daydream and a nightmare, a horror which rained on his day over and over. He shuts his eyes closed, twitching his brows with every scene that played out in his mind. "If only I were stronger back then.... I could''ve.." His thoughts were then disrupted by the voice which was now his new perk, the system Aeyai which he renamed again. At the most opportune of moments when Phillips was in need, like a concious soul comforting the wounded. "...System?" he cracked slowly. "Yes.. Aeyai!... and Phillipi!" His eyes of blue beaming as he figured he was not powerless anymore, he now had a perk and be it bittersweet it was his late sister''s design. ..... Moments later. In the blue screen Phillips saw a list of things which popped up when he with direction from the system shouted,"Stats!" To which Aeyai replied with, Close to scoffing, forcing Phillips to make a priceless dumb stare at his wall of empty, bland canvas. HEALTH - 20 MANA - 20 STAMINA - 10 AGILITY - 10 STRENGTH - 08 DEXTERITY - 30 Points : 20 remaining. Phillips was comfortable and familiar with the whole stats menu as he knew Mary designed or more accurately drew this system using the RPG games he used to slaughter. "So these are exactly like those games huh?" "Buttt... whis is my strength only 8??" quick to burst with reddend face and shouting at the screen, if temper was a plant Phillips just and always grew unwanted weeds. "Oh! it''s because I''m brought back to being only thirteen years old. Hahah!" His temper then was twice removed by a quick and sudden dumb smile, a volatile see-saw of brisk swift mood-swings. "....." "Nope!!! You''re way off your analysis." "ANYWAYSSS..." he interrupted, clearing his throat. "My dex is 30.. as it should." forcing a cough. Phillips felt as if the system was just another soul, one without a physical manifestation who was quite rather sassy unnecessarily. "I mean, these eyes can see sounds ya know....hahahah!" both arms in his waist, he stood boastfully, shutting one eye and the other staring above hopefully to poke at the system. "Sure!" "Let''s see..." "I''ll take 2 on health, another 2 on mana, 3 on stamina because reasons...." he was cheeky with eyes that were slanted. "Give 3 for agilities and.... the rest will be..." "ALL ON STRENGTH!!" like a maniac his eyes widened with a wide smile to match. "There''s the nagging!" again with a cheeky smirk, Phillips was waiting for the system to react but it was rather silent. "Whelp!! Debuffs are never good." "What''s the quest again?" <8/8 Remaining>