Gabriel

TLDR: Gabriel is your average boy who got teleported into another world, where he was taught by his now Master Serina how to fight.

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As an outsider looking in, people usually saw Gabriel as this dork obsessed with his Fantasy Novels. What they never saw is his frustration of the life he had been living up to this point and those books as his window into another world- a temporary escape.

The main point of frustration came from him simply being bored. Most days felt the same to him, as not much exiting happened. Secondly, he felt like he couldn't choose what he wanted to do in life, his parents never allowed him to do any martial art in his free time as they deemed it: 'too dangerous', even though he was fascinated by it. They even judged him for his dream to become an author, the only career that he thought would not only be fun for him and not too dangerous in the eyes of his parents.

In the Stories he engaged with, there was always this sense of freedom and excitement. The hero just goes adventuring in the most fantastical places or gets send on a dangerous quest.

It's just a shame he would be able to experience it for himself- Or so he thought.

Gabriel went to the library almost everyday after school, to read some Comics, Manga or Books or pick up some Movies or Shows that caught his interest. On this day he did the same.

He had been working on a story lately and was desperately trying to come up with a setting, so he was in deep thought already as he entered the building. The pensive expression on his face only faded as he was greeted by the guy at the Front desk. "GABRIEL! get over here!" That was Mike, his best friend and one of the few people who aren't overwhelmed by Gabriel gushing over his interests. As a matter of fact, he could actually match his enthusiasm. "MIKEE, hey!" Gabriel walked over, just has his friend had requested with a smirk on his face. "Did your favorite band reunite something?! Why are you so excited?". The Catboy laid his ears flat in response "Sadly not the case, no" He perked up again: "Are you still stuck with your Story?".
"That I am."
"Well you might be in Luck. Yesterday before closing down for the day, a person came in and donated a few books and... well one of them was this one." Mike pulled the book in question out of a drawer behind the desk and proudly presented it to Gabriel. "When I flipped trough it, the way the world was described jumped out at me. It made me feel like it is a real place. For example [...]" He rambles on for quite a while. in the end finished off with: "I believe it might just be the inspiration you need." He handed the book over to Gabriel who stared down the Object with a giant smile."Sounds perfect."

He immediately walked over to a table, where he could read the book.

Quite a while passed as Gabriel read, fully immersed in the world building, Characters and all the small details littered in the text. At one point he could swear that it felt like he stopped reading and instead saw the story happen in front of his eyes. That was until we was violently awoken from his trance like state he had found himself in. When he went to flip the page he noticed that he had indeed finished the book. In disbelief he looked over to Mike, who was currently sorting in a pile of books into their respective shelves, then towards the clock ticking on the wall in front of him. It dawned on him, that he had finished the Book within a few hours. Of course, he wasn't a slow reader, very fast even, but even for him this was surprising. He sighed sadly. His friend must have noticed he was done and walked over to him "You seem disappointed, maybe this wasn't as amazing and inspiring as I thought after all..."
"No I have a different Problem with it..." Gabriel clutched his fist. "It's too good and ended too soon. Do you know if there's a Sequel... or even a Prequel?"
"Wellll... no. Simply when I was looking for it in the Archives i didn't even find this one, not even any information on the Author. Search Engine's empty as well. Still need to ask the Boss what to do about this in fact, never had this happen before."
"Odd but I guess it can't be helped then. Thank you for showing me this anyways."
"Hey, always welcome idiot!"
They talked a bit more about several things, before Gabriel decided it would be time to go home.

Not one Person was around at the time, only the occasional car would speed past him as he made his way home.
With The story still in his mind, he started to daydream.

He was roaming around the forest as it was described in the book. Gabriel closed his eyes to experience everything more clearly. He now heard the river flowing next to him and the birds happily singing their songs. He reached out his arm towards a tree that stood right infront of him and could clearly feel the bark and the moss growing on it. Even the dirt that would be on it. He then began to smell the musty odor and the scent of pines.

Eventually Gabriel realized that he has been walking with his eyes closed the entire time and opened them, only to realize that the sidewalk he was on has disappeared. Aswell as the street and the houses. He stopped.

Gabriel was actually in a Forest now. Now his mind began to wander: "Wait, did I space out so much that i somehow walked straight into a Forest? ... No wait... the nearest Forest is a few Kilometers away, I couldn't possibly have walked that far..." Still, he began to trace back the steps he was walking in his imagination and eventually reached the point he first remembered when he started daydreaming. There was no civilisation far and wide. The Boy now began to panic. Distraught he let himself fall onto the ground. "Did i suddendly fall asleep ? Faint ? If that's the case then why does it all feel so real." He got up again. "Whatever the case, I might as well find some sense of civilisation, m-maybe i really did accidentally walk into the Forest". It took a while and the sun already started to set, but eventually he saw smoke rising up in the distance.

As Gabriel approached he could eventually see a Woman cooking some meat over a campfire. Behind her a shoddy looking Wooden shed.  

"A camper perhaps... No wait, what? is that Armor and a Claymore? Is she a LARPer? Cool!"

He was just about to come closer when an angry looking guy jumped out of a tree, shouting something Gabriel couldn't really hear. Next thing he saw is how the Woman took her Weapon and actually sliced the guys head clean off, taking it, throwing it into a sack sitting behind her and pulling the rest of the body into the Forest.

"WHAT THE HECK" Instead of walking towards the woman he now decided to retreat.

"YEP, definitely NOT a LARPer, but maybe a dangerous serial killer instead... I have to admit though that was impr... No she just murdered the guy. Also why am I not retching on the floor after seeing something so grisly... wtf's wrong with me. More importantly just where or even WHEN am I?"

Gabriel walked around some more, but he couldn't find much of anything other than some wild animals here and there. Besides that, he felt sore and tired. It had been long dark already and he was walking around for hours, so he decided he should rest a little.

He found a cozy enough looking spot and collected some moss to use as bedding, the night was warm enough so he decided against starting a campfire.  
The night he spent was rough, but at least he eventually fell asleep.

The Morning came and Gabriel kept looking for signs of civilization. Eventually he found his way back to the shed he previously ran away from. He saw that woman again who was now watering some flowers. He couldn't really see it the other day, but he could now see a small path leading up to the house. He was hopeful that it could lead him somewhere and he would rather test the path and walk a great bit more, before conversing with someone who could easily kill him. Before he could get a move on, his gaze shifted back to the Woman, who now looked right at him with a smug look on her face and hand on her sword.

Needless to say, Gabriel ran away.
He hid himself in the bushes for a few minutes, before making his way to the path he had seen.
However, something felt wrong, it smelled like fire in the distance. Not like a small campfire, but a big one.
Even as he walked back towards the shed again, he believed the woman had noticed the same thing. She sprinted right along the path.
Only now Gabriel could see the huge stack ow smoke coming from the direction the path lead to.
He wanted to go there anyways, but now he's curious about what's going on there.
For some reason it didn't even occur to him how dangerous this decision would be.

Gabriel now carefully followed from behind. Eventually the Forest opened up and on the horizon he found a city- a medieval one. Castle and all. Sadly also fire and all.
But he continued on.
He finally reached the gates and pressed inside trough a crowd of people who obviously would want to go the opposite way.
Gabriel had already lost the woman out of sight, but could imagine where she would go: To the center of destruction. He sneaked his way over to said place, hidden behind buildings and found some Knights and her Fighting.. a demon ??.
The demon wielded a giant Sword, with which he attacked the Woman, with the other he shot out spells towards the knights.
The Woman watched him with a lot of concentration, trying to find and opening to attack, while she blocked any damage that may come towards a helpless crowd that was trying to run away behind her. The demon suddenly shifted his attack, as one of the knights helplessly dropped to the ground.
The Woman didn't seem too pleased, ran between them and got hit pretty badly, now dropping to the ground herself. At least the Knight was saved and ran away to safety.

What worried Gabriel though is that the Woman, didn't get back up, she was tried but didn't succeed and the attacks from the demon certainly did not help.

"Wait, I misjudged her, she is helping the people and now SHE is in danger... I have to help her!" With this Gabriel grabbed a weapon that had prevously been dropped by the knight and carefully sneaked around the building and behind the Demon.
He finally found the right moment and actually managed to stab him.
In retaliation the demon had grabbed Gabriel and threw him against a wall. The impact knocked of his glasses, so he could barely see anything that happened from now on, otherwise he felt fine. Luckily he bought the Woman some time to actually get up and fight again. Due to the loss of his glasses he now saw how a blurry blob of red fought against something dark and equally blobby and the latter suddendly vanishing into thin air after the red had heavily beaten the other down. "Oh heck yeah! She won!"
Gabriel looked for his Glasses before he got back up again.
At that moment the woman was already on her way over to him: "Are you OK? He threw you pretty agressively, you must be injured all over" she seemed geniuenly worried.
"Uh, yeah... I'm fine I guess" The boy looked around to make a clearer picture of the situation.
"Are you absolutely sure? Not even I would have gotten out of a hit like that unscathed and I'm the..." She was suddenly interrupted by Gabriel shouting "CAREFUL! HE'S BEHIND YOU!"
He saw the Demon materializing out of thin air right behind the brave warrior. Right in that moment he saw something equally strange occur, The woman took her weapon and swung it so hard that it had created a shock wave that struck the demon down for good. "Damn you humans...". With that he disappeared yet again.
As for Gabriel, he now stood there with a giant grin forming on his face and eyes wide open, so wide in fact one could practically see the stars in there. For him this was the greatest thing he had ever seen. A real fanatsy come true and something he had always wished he would have the ability to learn.
Without a second thought, not even in regards about the rest of the situation he was in, that being that he was god knows where, he fell to his knees and shouted out: "PLEASE TEACH ME HOW TO FIGHT!".

The woman stared at him with confusion, then she started laughing. "YOU want ME to teach you how to fight" She stopped and calmed her demeanor. "I'll have to think about this, but in turn you need to show me how serious you are about this. Getting trained by the likes of me is no small matter, you know ?" She paused to think "Now , what do I do with you... You don't seem too well trained at all, expecting something big of you right of the bat is cruel even for me... hmm... Right how about a thousand push ups? they do not have to be in a row, however you will need to be back at my Shed by sunrise. I'm sure you know fully well where that is right? Anyways, good luck!" With the last part she said, the smug look Gabriel had seen on her face earlier that day had returned.
"A thousand... by Sunrise" He noticed how the sun was already approaching the horizon. "AH... alright".
He wasted no time and started the exercise.

The next day approached. The Woman currently stood in front of a cooking pot preparing breakfast, when a knock disrupted her.
She opened the door and lead with: "So you actually attempted that exercise... huh?"
Instead of a worded response she saw Gabriel close to passing out with a thumps up held up to his chest.
He looked disheveled, dirty and was completely out of breath.
Only a few minutes later, they both sat on a table with bowls of hot stew in front of them.
Gabriel realized he had not eaten anything since arriving at this place and dug in without hesitation.

"So, let's clear some things up here." The woman began to speak up "I said I would think about this if you showed you're serious, correct? Well, of course i wasn't around to check if you have really done all thousand pushups or not, however the way you reached my house told me everything i needed to know, that you at least tried it and hurried back here. With that you have cleared my little test and now I shall think about if i should train you or not."

"R-really ? huh" Gabriel had finally come down from the high he was on earlier and had realized that he still had no idea where he was and no one at home knew where he had disappeared to either. It suddendly felt so wrong for even asking her to train him, what was he thinking?
"You scared, or something? You don't seem so enthused all of a sudden."
"Well... It's just that... Where exactly are we? Also I'm sorry about what I had asked earlier, it was the spur of the moment... I am simply lost right now"
"You really don't know... Judging by your attire I should have guessed you're not from here... or from this time even. To answer your question though, this is the kingdom of idiots. Welcome." The last part didn't at all seem like an serious answer. "Anyways, what landed you here?"
Gabriel took a deep breath and tried to calmly explain what he had happened.
The Woman nodded after his explanation. "Sounds like teleportation."
"Teleportation? That's really possible?"
"Well... yes, you saw that demon, right ? How he disappeard into thin air? He did the same thing. Basically from what I've heard is that if your desire to be in a certain place and your mental image of said place is great enough, you could simply teleport there, that's all there is to it. However, only Demons and Angels are known to be able to do this, but humans... i only believed it to be a rumor."
"So, I could just teleport back if i tried hard enough?"
"Maybe."

Gabriel had fallen silent and closed his eyes. He imagined his home, his parents. He didn't teleport.
Next he tried the library. It also failed.
"Nope, didn't work." he let out a sigh "Guess I'm stuck here".
The Woman, scratched her head. "well, it cannot be helped then." She stood up and proudly gripped her weapon. "I am Serina, I'll be your master from now on. Now, tell me your Name"

[...]

From this day on, Gabriels life had finally changed.