Kelly explained that magic had different origins in pretty much every game that exists. They had different rules, different ways of gathering energy or mana, and different ways of casting when you learned the spell. Sometimes you had to memorize it, sometimes it was on a scroll, and sometimes it was in a book. They could be permanent or one-time use, and sometimes spells could be continuously cast if you had enough energy or mana.

Also, the energy or mana required sometimes regenerates on its own, or you need to gather it, or you needed to drink potions. Practically every game did things differently. The energy or mana could be tracked by a set of numbers, by an energy bar, or even a gauge filled with liquid. They all drained as you cast spells and they needed to be refilled for more spells to be cast. Even the same spell could have different effects in different games.

Arnold soaked all the information up and used that knowledge to gather and cast spells on the targets on the screen. When he finished the first level of the game, he put the controllers down and took off the headset.

“Arnold, what is it?” Kelly asked.

“It's all the same.” Arnold said. “Everything you said. It's all just different patterns that lead to the same results.”

“What?”

“Find or learn a spell. Find or gather energy to cast it. Cast it.” Arnold said. “The methods to do it can be anything; but, the end result is the same.”

Kelly's mouth dropped open in shock.

“What's the next game?” Arnold asked.

“It's a... skill trainer.” Kelly said after a moment. “Um... it lets you...” She shook her head, because Arnold's simplification was a bit too mind boggling to come to grips with in only a few moments. All magic is different, not the same. It's not the same. She thought. It's... not...

“Are you all right?” Arnold asked.

Kelly took a breath and let it out. “I'm fine.” She said. “Okay, yes.” She picked up the game. “This lets you practice certain skills and depending on how well you do, it gives you access to skill trees.”

Arnold blinked his eyes at her.

“You'll see.” Kelly said and saved Arnold's game and popped the disc out and replaced it with the new game. “Say, you Chop Wood and do really well at it. When you level up the skill, it opens up a path for you, or several paths, and you need to chose which path to take to become better. Your Chop Wood skill could become Cleave Wood to make it easier to chop through things with less chops, or it could become Speed Chop and you can chop faster through things.”

“Can you do both?” Arnold asked.

“Sometimes.” Kelly said. “It depends on the game. A lot of them will give you skill points as you level up and you can buy new skills or better skills. Some even let you buy levels for the skills themselves.”

Arnold nodded and put the VR headset back on, then picked up the controllers.

Kelly started the game and watched as Arnold did as she said. He went right to the nearby forest and used Chop Wood. A lot. She stopped counting when he reached a hundred. She had neglected to tell him to stop when he levelled the skill so he could unlock the next skill and make his swings more effective. She stood there and watched as his Chop Wood skill levelled up, over and over, for about ten minutes, and then it reached level ten and stopped.

“Some skills have limits to how far up they go, and some don't. It depends on the game.” Kelly said.

“What does Fortune's Favour do?”

“The skills go up to ninety-nine.”

Arnold opened up the skill tree and Kelly saw that he had six choices to choose from. He chose Speed Chop and then in five minutes had it levelled up to ten. He opened the skill tree again and saw that the original six choices now had become Speed options as well. He chose Speed Cleave and in three minutes had it to level ten, because fewer chops and faster chops made short work of the trees. When he checked the skill tree again, the options had changed to Power Speed variants.

He's destroying the trainer. Kelly thought in surprise.

Arnold's methodical mind figured out how to use the game's own options to increase his efficiency to complete it faster. By the end of the first hour, he had levelled everything up to ten for the Wood skills and Kelly was blown away by that.

It took me three days to complete those levels! Kelly thought. “You're amazing!” She said out loud.

“What's next?” Arnold asked and saved his progress.

Kelly popped the disc out and put in the third game. “This one teaches you to train your stats.” She said. “Most games have this in them, so that when you do certain tasks, your base stats increase.”

Arnold waited for the game to load as Kelly talked.

“The difficult part is that a lot of games have different base stats. Strength is usually in a lot of them, as is Dexterity and Agility, because all games need those stats just for movement. The other stats can be a mix of pretty much anything they want. Speed, Power, Intelligence, Accuracy, Luck... you name it, it's been a stat in a game somewhere.” Kelly chuckled. “This game is... completely ridiculous.”

A game world loaded in around Arnold and a popup appeared before him and it asked him if he wanted to look at his stats. He chose yes by swiping the controller at the popup and then a list of fifty items appeared in from of him.

“See? I told you.” Kelly laughed. “Everything you do here can be trained and increase a base stat, so chose the tutorial option in the top right corner.”

Arnold did so and then he was told and shown what to do to increase his Endurance by running. He followed the instructions and as he passed certain things, little flags popped up that said jump, duck, slide, punch, kick, and a few other things. He pushed the corresponding buttons when those flags appeared and his character did those options as he ran.

When he was done of the Endurance tutorial, His Stamina had increased by thirty points and Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Acrobatics, Toughness, Combat Reflexes, and Dodge had increased by ten points each. When he hit the End Tutorial button, the world faded away and he reappeared back at the 'start', where he had first appeared in the game.

“Now do it again without the tutorial.” Kelly said. “The flags won't be there to help you this time and the positions of things is different. You have to find the right places to do extra things on your own.”

“Is this a hard game?” Arnold asked.

“Yes and no.” Kelly said. “Finding and successfully doing all the extra things is really difficult, because it changes all the time, as do the button combinations needed.” She chuckled. “Then again, you can just run through it and not do anything else and still increase your Stamina.”

“Do I have to run at full speed?” Arnold asked.

“No, it just makes it harder to jump things or slide under them, because you're going slower.”

Arnold nodded, gripped the controllers tightly, then ran at full speed.

Kelly started to cheer him on when her phone beeped. She took it out and saw that Heather had texted her. She sighed when she read that it was about Arnold and his VR playing skills and not to talk to her or to see how she was doing.

'Arnold will be ready to play the game the day before graduation. We're all going to be too busy during graduation to play games.' Kelly typed back.

'What about the day after graduation?' Heather texted back.

'He's working at the college during the day. I can ask him if he wants to play that night.'

'Around what time?'

'Maybe around eight o'clock. He still has to set up a character, too.' Kelly typed.

'Thanks a lot!' Heather texted her. 'I'll let Brad know! Bye!'

Kelly looked at her phone and couldn't quite believe Heather's strange behaviour. She really let her emotions rule her actions and made some bad decisions. She thought and tucked her phone away and went back to watching Arnold's performance on the screen.

*

“The day after graduation.” Brad said with a smile and deleted the messages from Heather's cell phone, then he tucked it back into her small purse.

“They didn't have any onion rings.” Heather said a couple of minutes later as she walked back to the table in the mall's food court. “What kind of fast food place doesn't have onion rings?” She asked rhetorically and sat down with her container of french fries. They were a bit soggy with too much gravy, so she only picked at them and ate the mostly dry ones.

“Places that lose money.” Brad said with a chuckle and his friends laughed.

“I can't believe how hard it is to find a nice dress for prom.” Heather said. “I need to look my best.”

I'm pretty sure you could wear a paper bag and still turn heads at the prom. Brad thought. He kept it to himself, though. He would never say something that embarrassing out loud. His friends would make fun of him if he did. What he didn't know was that Heather would have loved to hear a compliment like that, especially from him.

“We haven't checked all the stores yet.” Eric said from the next table. “You're bound to find something good that will make you stand out at prom.” He smiled. “You're nominated for prom queen, after all.”

“She's the only nomination.” Brad said, proudly.

“Guess who is going to be king?” Kevin said from beside him with a grin.

“Naw, no one even nominated me.” Brad said.

“We did.” Most of his friends responded.

“You're kidding.” Brad looked at them.

“It's a shoe-in.” Kevin said. “The two of you are going to be the king and queen of the prom.”

Brad couldn't disappoint everyone by not having his queen dressed properly. “Let's find that dress.”

“Wh-what?” Heather looked up from her half-eaten fries.

“You need to look gorgeous when we're up on that stage together.” Brad said and stood. “Guys, let's go.”

Everyone stood and in a rare show of affection, Brad held a hand out to her. Heather blinked her eyes at the change in his demeanor, then she smiled and took the hand as she stood. The whole group of them moved out of the food court and everyone moved out of the way at the determined looks in their eyes.

*

Kelly and Arnold took a break for supper and had a pleasant and enjoyable meal with Annie in the dining room. There wasn't much talking, because Kelly knew Annie wasn't interested in electronics at all, and they ate mostly in silence until they were done. All three of them cleared the table and rinsed the dishes to put them in the sink to be washed, then they washed their hands.

“Arnold, I need to talk to Kelly for a while. Why don't you go back upstairs and play a game.”

“You need more practice with the magic casting one, then switch to Risk and Reward.” Kelly said.

“Okay.” Arnold said and went up the stairs.

After a couple of minutes, Annie took Kelly into the living room and sat her down, then she started to tell her all about living with someone. She shared her own experiences with it and managed to not cry about it, and Kelly held her hand. When she moved on to Arnold, Kelly did her best to remember everything, because this was what she needed to know. His habits, his behaviour, and the things he did when he thought no one was around.

Kelly had the distinct feeling that Annie was imparting essential knowledge to her and it gave her the feeling of responsibility that Annie had warned her about. She now knew the weight of what she was going to be responsible for and it scared her a little. Annie saw her reaction and gave her hand a squeeze.

“No, don't be scared of it.” Annie said. “You know how important it is, don't you?”

Kelly nodded. “That's why I'm scared.”

Annie smiled. “That was the difficult part of being responsible. Now I can tell you the best part.”

Kelly took a breath and let it out.

“You get to love him unconditionally.” Annie said.

“What?”

“It's all going to be on you. You will be guiding him into his life. You're the one that sets his boundaries and tells him what to do and not to do. You are going to be in control.”

“That's scary.” Kelly said.

“But, don't you see? You can hug him, and kiss him, and reward him however you see fit. He's going to be yours, Kelly. All yours. Unlike me, you don't have a built in intimacy barrier that keeps you apart.” Annie said. “I know that sounds a little weird coming from his mother.”

“Really weird.” Kelly said, then she smiled. “I think I know what you mean.”

“I gave him all of the love that a mother could while he was growing up, and now he needs another kind of love. One that will protect him just as well as my love did, except that this love will help him become the man he is supposed to be.” Annie looked into Kelly's eyes. “I know I'm kind of throwing all of this on you, and it's a lot to take in...”

“No, I... it's still scary, but... I think I understand.” Kelly said. “He needs a partner. Someone to be there with him to help him live his life and that's not really something a mother can do for her son.”

“Not once he reaches a certain age and learns about what he can do with girls.” Annie said in a teasing tone and Kelly's face flushed red. “I really am sorry that he didn't meet you first.”

“I... I don't know if I am.” Kelly said, to her surprise. “I thought he was cold and a little creepy until he started dating Heather. I don't know if I would have said yes if he asked me out then.”

Annie gave her a stern look for a moment, then it softened and she nodded. “At least you know how much he can change when he is with someone.” She said and pat her hand. “Now I believe he's with the right person and I can't wait to see what he changes into.”

Kelly sighed and nodded. “I'll do my best for him. I promise.”

“If you ever doubt that you are the right person, just ask yourself something.” Annie said and smiled. “Would Heather have ever said anything like that about Arnold?”

Kelly opened her mouth to say that she would, then she hesitated and thought about it. “I think she would try.”

“Until she realized how much work it was going to be.” Annie said. “What did you do? You accepted it and said it was scary. You didn't say you couldn't do it or tell me that you weren't ready.”

Kelly blushed again. “Annie, I... I have to be ready. He needs me.”

“Yes, he does, and I can't thank you enough for being here.” Annie said and leaned over and gave her a hug. “I really can't thank you enough.”

Tears came to Kelly's eyes. “You're making me cry.”

“Happy tears are good tears.” Annie said and when she let go, her eyes were just as tear streaked. “We need to clean up and then you can go back upstairs.”

Kelly nodded and they used tissues to wipe at their faces, went to the kitchen sink to wash their hands and faces, then Kelly went up the stairs to Arnold's room. She stayed out of his way and moved over to his bed and sat down to watch his progress. He went through Risk and Reward like it was a child's game and she smiled.

“All right, Arnold.” Kelly said and he stopped playing and saved up his progress. “Now for the test.” She said and took out a disc from the pile. “This game is like a chopped off version of Fortune's Favour. It's only single player and doesn't have all of the options, skills, or extensive magic system. We won't have the internet until the day after graduation when we move, so we can't practice multiplayer online games and this has to do for now.”

“Okay.” Arnold said.

“Oh! Before I forget.” Kelly said as she loaded the game. “We have a date to fight Brad and his friends in Fortune's Favour. It's the day after graduation at eight o'clock at night.”

“Okay.” Arnold said and the game started.

“You're not nervous about it, are you?” Kelly asked.

“No. You said I would have all the skills I needed by then.” Arnold said and then she watched as he started to play. The first thing he did was open all the options for magic, stats, and skills to check and see what they contained, then he started to do the things necessary to raise them. All of them.

Instead of blazing through the game like Kelly thought he would, Arnold never left the starting area and kept working like a machine for hours. He did everything he possibly could within the limited area and Kelly was quite surprised at his diligence and how well he raised up his stats and skills. Even she hadn't thought about staying in the easy area to only work on her stats, mainly because it was mind-numbing and boring.

Arnold didn't care about that, though. He played and increased his stats and kept playing.

“Time for bed.” Annie said from the doorway. She had watched Arnold playing and didn't understand what he was doing by jumping and punching and running all over the small area. Arnold stopped and saved his progress, then put the controllers down and took off the headset. He walked over to Kelly and gave her a hug and a kiss.

“Goodnight.” Arnold said.

“Goodnight.” Kelly said and watched him leave his own room. She felt bad about having him sleep on the couch, then she looked at Annie. “Goodnight.”

Annie gave her a warm smile. “Goodnight.” She said and shut the door.