Chapter 3: Chapter 2: Gears - Clown and Grim Reaper
Since 3 years old, Akio had kept training his body using extreme training methods, furthermore, with the use of mana, his body was able to recover extremely fast improving his efficiency by more than double.
Training is one thing that Akio was extremely familiar with as he had been doing so for as long as he could remember.
Within his former world, Akio was an orphan who was able to garner the interest of one of the top figures in the underworld, a professional assassin, when this assassin took Akio in, he had hammered his skill to the young orphan aiming to make him his successor, the reason as to why he had a gun when he along with his class was summoned was due to the instruction of the assassin that he had to always be prepared, thus, making him bring along a gun with him all the time.
From the time that he had started training his body, 7 years had passed in the blink of an eye.
*Bang!*
A loud gunshot sound resounded within a wide training room, this was a training room that Akio had requested from his father, as rarely had Akio requested anything from his parents, his father and mother had readily agreed, they even went as far as to make it extremely grand.
The training room is a special training room with a wide variety of functions for different trainings, it could train reflex, agility, strength, and accuracy, it's walls are made of special metal synthesized with mana making it extremely tough.
Currently Akio was training with his gun, he was holding a black gun and had been continuously firing it as though it doesn't run out of bullets.
This was one of the item he received when he got the title [The Jester], it was [The Fool's Handgun].
Akio had exploited the fact that it was able to be reloaded directly, and used it to train his mana, he would always count it to the last bullet and when it's about to run out, he would inject his mana to the gun, instantly restoring it back to full clip.
Akio's gun training was not only meant to train his accuracy and mana, it also trained his agility.
Akio ran and dodged an incoming bullet as he returned fire and destroyed the flying drone that shot the bullet, without delay, he applied mana to his legs and increased his speed allowing him to quickly move and slide beneath the drone at the side and shoot it from below finishing it from behind.
As he was down to the last bullet, he injected mana to the gun returning it to full clip then jumped while sommersaulting then shooting a drone that had gotten behind him, before he landed, he fired off another bullet to a distance and destroyed the last drone.
Akio landed and holstered the gun.
*Clap clap clap clap*
A clap resounded from a few meters away as Ayane walked closer towards her brother.
"Good work, brother" Ayane said with a smile on her face.
"Ayane, you done with your training?" Akio asked towards his sister causing her to flinch and stop walking.
"I-I was about to! but then....." Ayane's expression turned grim as her brother started walking towards her.
Being with Akio since young, she already knew him quite well.
'Brother is a sadist!' this was her thoughts towards Akio when they were 5 years old as she experienced him acting like a military drill sergeant during training, every time she slacked off even for a second, Akio would give her a good wack to her head which extremely painful and causes her to tear up every time.
As Akio arrived in front of Ayane, he raised his hand and Ayane closed her eyes, getting prepared to take the usual hit from Akio, but what she expected never came.
'Huh?' she thought as she slowly opened her eyes and saw Akio patting her head.
"Ayane, always strive to get stronger, I can't protect you all the time since I'm not always by your side" Akio said as he pats his sister's hair.
"Yes!" Ayane cheerfully replied as she suddenly clung to her brother's arm.
"Ah!" Ayane exclaimed as she remembered her purpose coming to meet her brother.
"What is it, Ayane?" Akio asked, bewildered by his sister's sudden reaction.
"That thing you requested father, father told me that it arrived!" Ayane replied.
Hearing his sister's words, Akio got excited.
"Really? Let's go meet father then!" Akio said excitedly.
The two head out of the room and went to meet their father.
Arriving at a room within the mansion, Akio and Ayane stood in front of a man that looks to be around his mid-30s, he was a tall man with a good looking face and black hair, this was their father, Asahiro Yuusuke, behind him stood 2 servants each holding a small box in their hands.
"Father, is it really?" Akio asked to which Yuusuke nodded in confirmation.
"Yes....but why just the basic models? if you wanted we could've ordered for personal customized gears, you even requested for it to not have any weapons, what are you going to do with these?" Yuusuke asked as he sighed.
The Asahiro household is an influential family, not to mention basic models, they could even get the latest model of gears, however, Akio only requested for 2 basic models for him and Ayane, even saying to remove their weapons.
Having been invented 20 years ago, the gears went through great improvements reaching the 7th development stage, which means, the latest gear is the 7th generation models, and the basic model, which was the first to be created is basically incomparable with the latest and is extremely outdated.
Of course, there was a reason why Akio had requested for only the basic models, and that reason came to be when he and his sister were 8 yrs old, when they saw a gear with their eyes.
[Congratulations! You've unlocked the system function {Synthesize}, please get the basic gear model to activate]
Suddenly receiving this message, the twins had wanted to know what it does, having received the title [The Joker], Ayane who was not suppose to have the system naturally received it.
[Synthesize - Able to synthesize equipment and items to a gear, requires the basic gear model]
Akio had asked Ayane about the synthesize function as she was the one who had given them the system but it seems even she didn't know, thus, Akio had guess that it must be due to the titles or that deity that talked to him secretly.
From the day they had received the function, they had waited for 2 whole years to bring it up with their father.
Back to the current time.
"Give it to them" Yuusuke prompted the 2 servants to move forward and give his 2 children the content of the box.
The 2 servants moved towards Akio and Ayane and opened the small box as they presented it to the twins.
The small boxes contained what seems to be a hexagonal silver token with a symbol of a gearwheel on their surface.
The twins took the coins and upon picking up the tokens, a message from the system popped up.
[Detected Acquisition of the Basic Gear model! [Synthesize] is now available!]
As the message popped out the [Synthesize] function in the system which was grayed out, lit up, signalling its availability to use.
"That the Gear in its portable form, a Gear Token, to activate it, hold it in your hand and say 'Gear Start'" Yuusuke said towards the twins and instructed the 2 servants to get out of the room.
The twin continued observing the tokens for a while before saying "Thank You, Father" in synced and stormed out of the room to head back to the training room.
Arriving back at the training room, Akio had disabled the training equipment making the place completely empty.
Akio and Ayane looked at each other and nodded, they then held their tokens and said "Gear Start.
Upon doing so, the tokens turned to light, then gradually expanded to their body taking the form of an armor unit, and after completing it's transformation, the light died out, what was left was a white armor unit, it consisted of 5 parts which was the greaves, gauntlet, back, chest-plate, and headgear.
The Gears were designed after the armors used by knights in the fantasy, but unlike the armor which is only for defense, Gears have multiple battle functions, the parts are also larger, all Gears have 3 basic functions which is flying, acceleration, and barrier, and the armor itself is powered with mana having a maximum capacity that is based on the core, using the gear's functions and abilities will deplete its mana and upon depletion, the armor will shutdown and be unable to move until it's mana is restored.
Having activated their gears, the twins activated [Synthesize].
[{Synthesize} Activated, Scanning the Gear]
After the system message, a progress bar appeared which gradually increased.
A minute later, the bar was completely filled up.
[Scan complete, please select the items to synthesize]
A selection window which contained their own equipment and items appeared, Akio selected [Jester's Suit],[The Fool's Sword], and [The Fool's Handgun] while Ayane selected [The Joker's Garment], [The Joker's Scythe], and [The Joker's Scythe].
After selecting the items, both selected confirm and visible changes happened to the basic model gears, Akio's Gear gradually changed form, it's color became a mix of black and red in contrast with its originally white color, while Ayane's Gear became completely black.
Besides the color, their gears changed their outer appearance and became much better.
After the change of the gears, holographic screen display appeared in front of the twins displaying various information about the gear.
Akio's contained as such.
[Gear Upgraded, Welcome to the {Clown}]
Mana Capacity: 10 000
Barrier Level: S
Attack Level: S
Acceleration: S
Equipment: [The Fool's Sword][The Fool's Handgun]
Ability: [Body Armament]
While Ayane's contained these information.
[Gear Upgraded, Welcome to the {Grim Reaper}]
Mana Capacity: 10 000
Barrier Level: S
Attack Level: S
Acceleration: S
Equipment: [The Joker's Scythe][The Joker's Chains]
Looking at the stats, both of them were satisfied, gear functionality levels were divided to 7 ranks, F, E, D, C, B, A, and S, with the lowest rank being F and highest being S, what's amazing was of course the mana capacity, mana is stored on the core, however, currently the best core that had been created could only hold 5 000 mana, and the twins' gears could hold double the amount of that.
First, Akio summoned the sword and gun, although, the items changed appearance and became much larger to suit the gear, the effects remained the same, he tested if he could activate the item fusion, and he succeeded, the gun and sword had disappeared and what he held in his hands is a large sniper rifle, this was the fusion item [The Fool's Rifle], originally, it was much smaller.
[The Fool's Rifle]
[Fusion item from the items {The Fool's Sword} and {The Fool's Handgun}, a lethal weapon that can take a life with one shot.
Effects: {Indestructible}{Ammo Conversion}{Lethal Shot}]
[Lethal Shot - Attacks from this item completely ignores any kind of defenses]
Moving on to Ayane, she summoned her equipment, what appeared in her hands was a huge scythe larger than her gear, and behind her, 5 items that all looked the same hovered in the air, she tried controlling the hovering items and they completely move with her will, when she tried to use them to attack the empty space in front of her, each of them released chains and targeted the same spot, then, each chain connected, Ayane recalled the attack and the chains disconnected and retracted.
Lastly, Akio tried his gear's ability [Body Armament]
[Body Armament Activated, Gear Form Changing]
Upon usage, something unexpected happened, the bulky armor had started changing form once again, but instead of expanding, the armor started to shrink, after a few seconds, the large and bulky armor was nowhere to be seen, it had shrunk to fit Akio's body, the greaves covered his lower body, the chest-plate and back covered his torso, the gauntlets covered his arms while the headgear changed to a helmet and covered his head, this time, the armor became completely black with the only part being different is the helmet's windshield which was colored red.
"Eh.....Brother, why don't i get that?" Ayane said enviously while pouting which looked cute.
"Wouldn't want it to cover your pretty face" Akio replied.
"Ehehe..." Ayane giggle.
Akio then proceeded to test his gear's new form, unlike before, it was much more easier to move in, he then tried summoning the equipment and instead of the huge version of them, what appeared were their original form, the next he tried to do were activate the functions which he successfully activated, he used accelerate and thrusters appeared on the leg part of the armor, when he tried to fly, thrusters appeared from his back allowing him to hover in air, and when he used barrier, a transparent force field appeared around him.
Satisfied with the results, the twins deactivated the gears turning back to the tokens, however, unlike before, the color had changed, Akio's token had golden edges, black surface with the symbol being red, while Ayane's token had silver edges, gray surface with the symbol being black.
Although having synthesized the items with the suit, that doesn't mean the they couldn't use it at all when they aren't using the gears, Akio could feel that he still had [Joker's Suit] equipped, he deactivated [Item Invisibility] and his clothes completely changed, what appeared was a fancy suit of a jester, it looked like a tuxedo adorned in red and black, a black pants and shoes, and white gloves covering his hands, on his head is a jester's hat colored with red and black having 5 coned shape points and at the end are 5 silver bells, these were the storage bells.
Ayane also checked her equipment and disabled [Item Invisibility], she could be seen wearing a gothic lolita dress, on her left wrist is a chain bracelet which was [The Joker's Chain] and strapped to her left leg was a dagger, she had controlled mana and disguised [The Joker's Scythe] as such, as a former deity, she had excellent control when it comes to energy.
They then reactivated the [Item Invisibility].
From then on, their training routine increased as they had to get use in using their gears.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Zhiell
Zhiell Sorry if it's too long, got too engrossed in writing this chapter ngl, the Gears are designed like those armor units from the animes "Hundred" and "Infinite Stratos" and are far from looking like gundams or nightmares from code geass, anyways, with this, the stage is set, next chapter is where the real story begins!
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