Earth Dies

The next morning, Alice prepared breakfast for the trio, cooking some eggs that Bridgette gathered from the chickens in the yard. After a quick meal, the three sat down to plan their next moves.

"According to the system, we now have six days until - and I quote - 'the beginning of the end,' whatever that is." Colin stated. "We need to spend that time learning as much as we can about our abilities and about how to work together as a team. That way, whenever the unexpected event ends up being, we can do our best to survive and thrive."

"Okay, so what's your grand plan?" Alice asked.

"Simple, one spectacular training montage. Let's go out the barn, set up some targets, and have myself and Bridgette practice our offensive skills. Once we get a base level of familiarity, we can also lightly spar against each other, ensuring we understand expected damage outputs to not cause serious damage. That will also give you the ability to practice your healing capabilities."

"That makes a surprising amount of sense, nerd boy," Bridgette commented. "But I think it makes the most sense if I start without my extra buffs, to get used to my standard power levels. Also, I forgot to dress slutty this morning and am too lazy to go back upstairs, so unless you want me nude, you get me in my comfs."

Colin blushed, "Yea, I agree on skipping the buffs. It'll also make your damage output more manageable for Alice to heal, unless she's also boosted? I know my hearing as gotten much better as an elf, but I don't think I heard anything."

"COLIN!" Alice blurted. "You can't just tell us that you can hear everything we do! That's so embarrassing!"

"What? It's not like we did anything, anyway. You just went straight to bed. When we actually start doing something worth eavesdropping on, it's on him if his ears catch on fire."

The three went outside to the barn, walking in and looking around. Alice stared at all the farm equipment sadly. "I know the message said modern technology was disabled, but it's so weird to see these broken. My dad spent so much of his life constantly maintaining them. They kept us alive during several tough years, ensuring we had the capability to feed ourselves and earn a little money. Maybe one day, they can function again."

Bridgette walked around, finding an old railroad tie left in the corner of the barn. She and Colin lifted it up and tied it to one of the beams in the barn. "This should give you a pretty decent target for melee attacks, I think." Colin remarked, as he went and found a few milk crates and set them at various distances.

Bridgette spent the next hour, practicing a variety of martial attacks using a machete she found in the farm's work shop. It wasn't the best sword, but it was sturdy, and she was able to carve quite a few notches out of the railroad tie. In the meantime, Colin had been practicing blasting away with his spells, reducing the milk crates to debris. Alice, meanwhile, had been watching the two with curiosity between practicing some basic moves with the walking staff she had found, doing her best to focus on her friends and sense their abilities. She kept feeling like she was missing something obvious, though.

Alice glanced at the pink status dot in the corner of her vision again, bringing up her full status screen. Suddenly, she jumped up and shouted "Aha! Got it!"

<< Alice has invited you to join a party. Accept? >>

Bridgette and Colin both froze where they were, surprise evidence on their faces. Suddenly, Colin laughed. "How obvious! I should have known a system like this would support these mechanisms."

Both Bridgette and Colin accepted the party invite, suddenly appearing in Alice's status screen under a new tab, "Party Members." She could view their basic attributes, health, spell slots, skill cooldowns, and status ailments. This is going to make it a lot easier to keep track of them for healing, she thought.

After a quick lunch, the three got back to work, focusing on basic melee sparring. Even Colin got in on the action, trying to do his best to learn some basic punches and blocks. Bridgette was a strict task-master, forcing the two to continue practicing long after their muscles were aching.

Alice used her minor healing spell, easing the bruises that the three of them had picked up from sparring. To her surprise and relief, the spell did not appear to have any erotic effect when cast on Colin. Instead, it just healed his bruises and scrapes and left him scratching his head as he stared at the pink glow surrounding Bridgette. The redhead really played into it, grabbing at her tits and moaning loudly, calling out "Oh! Alice! It feels so good when you heal me like that!"

She then laughed and winked at a blushing Colin. "You don't know what you're missing out on!"

The next several days passed in a blur. Each morning, the trio would have breakfast and practice individual skills. After lunch, they would spar against one another, although still hesitant to use weapons or spells against each other. Alice would heal them all up just in time for dinner, after which they'd just hang out and chat or read books from Alice's mother's library. Then it would be off to bed and again the next morning.

On the morning of the sixth day, with one day remaining until the mystery world-ending event, Alice blinked her eyes as the sun streamed through her bedroom window and warmed the bed where she lay, tangled up in Bridgette's arms. She smiled, thinking of her friend. She really had been such an idiot, denying her own feelings for so long. At least Alice had finally gotten out of her own way and Bridgette had responded in kind.

Alice suddenly noticed the pink dot in the corner of her vision, now a constant companion in this strange new world, was blinking at her. That's weird, she thought. Normally it only does that if something has changed.