Chapter 119 - The Winchester Estate

Several more days of training with Kelly's team passed by quickly. Kelly's team adhered to their scheduled time perfectly so they didn't have as much time to just enjoy themselves.

The biggest thing they worked on was organizing smaller fire teams within the group of 16 and working as a unit. Gray, Kelly, Alice, and Geoff each led one, but the members of each fire team were still up for debate.

It was now Sunday, August 17th, and it was the day Gray was going to get to meet Yurika's parents.

Gray checked his messages when he woke up and saw that he had one from Kelly that said they MUST decide fire teams today and he needs to come up with a solution if we can't reach an agreement on it.

"Sure, make me the bad guy..." Gray said to himself, he wasn't going to make everyone happy with his choices and that is why he was hoping they could've come to an agreement. Gray sent a message back to Kelly that stated he wanted her and the rest of her team to submit the names of 3 people they want to be on a fire team with and they have to pick at least one member from his team on it.

Gray sent the same message to his own team, asking them for 3 people they'd want to be on a fire team with and to include at least one member from Kelly's team.

Kelly sent him an acknowledgment and said they would have it to him before their last training session today.

Gray stretched his arms and yawned and figured it was a good time to get out of bed. He heard footsteps stomping towards his room like they were running and suddenly Yurika burst into his room.

"Gray! What the heck! I said be ready by 11am!"

Gray looked at Yurika, she was wearing a cute white dress with a single black belt around the waist and even had tied her hair back into a single pony tail, and thought this was probably the most wholesome he's ever seen her look. Gray then panicked for a second then looked at the clock and saw that it was 10:50am and was a little confused. "Yeah, so we are going to log in to the virtual world at 11am, right?"

"Yes! So why aren't you showered, dressed, manicured, pedicured, shaved, and dressed yet?"

Gray wasn't sure about the manicured and pedicured part, but the rest made sense. "Why would I have to? We're going in to the virtual world, I can smell however I want to smell and look however I want to look!"

Yurika became stunned for a moment then said, "Son of a... I got up at 6am, shaved EVERYWHERE, bathed, scrubbed, sanitized, moisturized, plucked my eyebrows, painted my fingernails and toenails, fixed my hair, changed outfits a dozen times, and now you're telling me I didn't have to?!"

"If it helps, you look very nice!" Gray said with a smile.

"Damn straight I do!" Yurika said proudly. "I just feel like it was a bit of a waste now..."

"We can go out after and you can strut your stuff."

"I might have to take you up on that."

"Good, so go back to your room and get in your incubation pod, where are you logging in to?" Gray asked Yurika.

"Um... I can only log in to my room and Alterra Corporation's Headquarters, you?"

"Same... my room or Alterra Corporation's Headquarters, looks like we'll have to do Alterra Corporation's Headquarters if we want to show up together."

"I'm a bit nervous to do that after what happened to Caleb, but since I am Edward's target or whatever I should be fine. I'm more worried about you honestly."

"Eh, I'll be fine, I'd be more worried about logging in without you since if he wanted to go after me in the virtual world he wouldn't want to do in front of you I imagine."

"Ok, in that case I'll see you there shortly!" Yurika said then gave Gray a quick kiss before returning to her room.

__________

Yurika logged in to the virtual world and appeared in the basement of Alterra Corporation's Headquarters that was designated as a common zone for Diamond-Tier players to log in to.

Alterra Corporation had setup this zone for them because after knowing the truth of the virtual world, the Diamond-Tier players would need a spot they could log in and out from privately. The concern was that friends and family of Diamond-Tier players might panic if they noticed the Diamond-Tier player staying logged in to the game for days at a time. In other words, they were just taking another step to try and protect the secret of the virtual world as long as they could.

Yurika checked the time and saw the clock change to 10:59am, then Gray started to materialize next to her. She stared wide-eyed at him once he finally appeared.

Gray was wearing a full dress suit and tie, black dress shoes with almost a mirror shine, and had his hair slicked back straight. The cologne that emanated from Gray smelled extremely classy. The sterling silver cuff links matched his pocket watch and even the clasps on his shoes. Gray strutted around, pulled out a pipe from somewhere and took two fake puffs on it, then said to Yurika, "Are you ready to go darling?"

"I'm going to assume this is just a joke... and I'm going to turn around and close my eyes and count to 20 nice and slow. When I finish, I expect to see you standing their in something that is nice, simple, and casual. If I do not see this, you will not get to see me without a dress for the next century!"

Gray's face turned white as he quickly logged back out, gave himself a few seconds to select his original outfit, then logged back in. He materialized in front of Yurika again, this time in khaki pants, a buttoned long sleeve shirt, and a pair of black loafers.

"No pipe?" Yurika asked Gray.

"No pipe!"

"Good! Now let's go!"

Yurika walked over to the elevator to call it for them, Gray adjusted his pants slightly and he smiled looking down at his socks with Mario on them.

"What are you doing! Come on!" Yurika said as she turned to look at Gray.

"Coming!" Gray felt relieved she hadn't seen his socks as they rode the elevator up to the main floor to catch a tram out to Yurika's side of town.

__________

Gray and Yurika reached the tram station nearest Yurika's house and walked the rest of the way there.

"What the..." Gray said while gawking at Yurika's family's house.

Calling it just a house would be insulting... it was an estate! The perimeter was lined with traditional earthen Japanese style walls (Kawara-bei) with roofs made from old ceramic tiles (Kawara).

Yurika opened the gate for Gray and then waved to the guard. The guard waved back and then put his finger to his ear and spoke something to himself that Gray couldn't make out.

When Gray walked past the guard house, he thought he had stepped in to Japan as every cliché he could think of could be seen from the entrance. The yard itself was extremely green due to the extensive foliage and a small pond was on one side with a large cherry blossom tree draping over it. Gray expected Koi to be in that pond and was not surprised when he heard a bamboo water fountain (Shishi-odoshi) knock against a stone.

Gray looked at Yurika and before he could ask, Yurika said, "Yes, my mother is Japanese, but my father is Russian. You can tell who got to make the decisions about the estate when it was built."

"No kidding... I'm actually impressed by the sheer size of it as well!" Gray said as he noticed that the estate was at least several acres in size.

"Well, this estate is not only our family home, it is also has a school, training center, library, and a guest house."

Gray was about to ask more but a group of teenagers and young adults came running up to Yurika.

"Sis! You're back"

"Welcome back!"

"We missed you!"

"Who's the dweeb?"

"This guy your man servant?"

"Do you even lift bro?"

Both Gray and Yurika were bombarded with questions and comments and left no room to answer, but Yurika seemed quite at home with it all. What surprised Gray was that all of the girls had black hair where as the boys were completely random it seemed like.

"Ignore them." Yurika whispered to Gray with a smile. She addressed everyone else and said, "This is Gray Wilhelm, he is the leader of the Steel Wolves! I've already kicked his butt so he knows his place! Gray, this is my family's youngest generation so all of them are brothers, sisters, or cousins of some kind. We only address each other as brother or sister now to keep it simple."

Strangely enough, that seemed to calm most of them down. Some of the girls even whispered "He's kinda cute" causing Gray's ego to inflate, but then deflated by an elbow to the ribs from Yurika.

"Remember, you're just my captain, so hands off the goods for now!" Yurika whispered to Gray again when he tried to catch her arm after she elbowed him.

"I wasn't trying to, I was trying to save my ribs from being shattered." Gray whispered back.

One of the boys spoke up, "Sister Yurika! Are you guys participating in the tournament in Alterra Online tomorrow?"

"Yes! We're teaming up with another group for the 16 versus 16 bracket, but will be going alone for the 4 versus 4 and 8 versus 8."

"Sweet! I hope we get to face you guys! Steel Puppies, was it?" one of the girls said teasingly.

"Steel Wolves stupid!" a boy suddenly shouted.

"I know! I was just being mean!"

"I know! So was I!" then the boy stuck his tongue out at the girl.

Gray suddenly realized the bratty behavior ran in the family. "Now I see where you get it from." Gray whispered to Yurika.

"My good looks, right? You haven't even met my parents yet!" Yurika whispered back.

"No, but that's about to change I think." Gray thought to himself.

Gray, Yurika, and the crowd of brothers and sisters reached the front steps to the main building and Yurika opened the sliding door completely, then slipped her shoes off and put on a pair of slippers.

"Mom and Dad already know we're here, take off your shoes and put on these slippers before we go to see them. No shoes inside the house past the entryway!" Yurika said to Gray while pointing towards a wooden cubby with various slippers.

"Um... Ok..." Gray suddenly got really nervous.

"Relax! We had a pair ready just for you since it would be weird to put your feet in a stranger's slippers."

"That's not what I'm nervous about..." Gray thought to himself as he was remembering the Mario socks he was wearing. "Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll have a sense of humor."

Gray looked around and saw a lot of katanas on display and suddenly felt that his life might be in danger if Yurika gets mad enough.

Yurika looked questioningly at Gray since he seemed to be hesitating about taking his shoes off. "What's wrong? Don't tell me you need help putting slippers on?"

"Now or never!" Gray thought to himself. Gray stood their holding the slippers in his hands, set them down, then grabbed his pants by the thighs and pulled them up slowly to reveal the socks underneath.