-

'Are you sure you don't want to take the dress? You look so good in it.'

Her mother stood in the middle of the room, with the strapless dress in her hands, as the girl packed her travel bag.

"Shirts, pants, underwear, swimsuit, extras."

Tsune finished checking the main section of the bag and opened the list of necessities.

Seeing that her daughter wasn't about to answer, the woman put the blue and white bundle on the bed and turned to leave.

'I'll prepare the dinner. Make sure to eat before we go, the train ride might take a while.'

Tsune sighed, looked at the closed door, then turned to the neatly packed bundle.

"Well, if it'll make her feel better, I'll take some photos in it."

-

After she finished packing, the blonde looked at the Assistant Device that sat on the cabinet.

"Now, what to do with you."

On one hand, if she took it, it would feel like wearing a diamond necklace to a school outdoors trip. But on the other, if she showed it to her team it could reinforce her position in it. After all, what team wouldn't hold onto the pilot who owned a device of this quality.

"Wait, what am I even thinking..."

Actually, the latter wasn't a benefit, it was anything but. Even considering this half bribery, half gloating was a terrible idea. It would complete Aery's image of her as a spoiled rich girl. Especially since the brunette could take it as buying her way to Den.

But every cloud comes with a silver lining and this one's was finding yet another reason to stick it to Rhodes and his script.

With her course clear, she went to see what the script had to say to do the complete opposite.

She climbed into her wardrobe, searching for a specific spot in the darkness. Tracing her finger alongside the wall she found the packet she needed.

Opening it, she spilled a stack of papers all over the bed. Each of them had fine text on both sides and each of them held the potential future of the one called Tsune Red.

Rummaging through, she picked up the summary of summer events. Even if her career choice threw a wrench butterfly into the proverbial cogs, the side plots were usually disconnected from the main story and therefore could still happen.

"Oh, I kinda feel bad I fell asleep before I got here. They even got the classic voice actor out of his retirement for this role."

Tsune lightly hit the list with her finger, right into the event where a young majin pilot would go sightseeing alongside the rocky shore.

After an hour long trip she would find a decrepit hangar with an old mech inside and get scared by its old pilot that thought she broke in.But the next day he would warm up and tell her that he was a retired pilot who chose to live the remainder of his days to maintain the robot he dedicated his life to.

Suddenly, a mechamonster would appear from the sea and after a heated exchange, she would pilot the mech to protect the resort.

After her victory, the pilot would give the mech to her and confess that he lived there because of bad blood he had with his son. But he was ready to start his life anew and mend the old family wounds.

"A free mech? Maybe I should follow it just this once."

The temptation would be nigh unbearable if she was a regular student, but Tsune suppressed the avid impulse.

Even as much as she liked to see the classic mech come to life with her at the helm. And as much as she wanted to keep the real thing instead of it looking pretty in a single cutscene and the achievement gallery art. She simply had no pragmatic use for an outdated robot, nor did she have anywhere to keep it.

And speaking of things she had no further use for. The paper said nothing whether she brought the device with her, or not. But without the word of canon, the word of business took place. Meaning there was no need to guess whether the protagonist brought a highly marketable plot device with her, or not. It was a certainty.

She stacked the pages and stuck the packet into her travel bag.

Bringing them with her wasn't safe, but even having them be stolen wasn't nearly as bad as her mother finding them during cleaning and giving them to her father. She shuddered at the mere thought of what he could do to the entire world with nothing but this stack of paper.

-

The girl and her mother rode the taxi to the rail station. It was the first time she ever left her city block, so she was low key excited to watch the streets and buildings pass by.

Thanks to strong fandom and the developers, that left enough story crumbs in the supplementary materials and side events, the city has received so much world building that she always felt it was almost unfair.

Unfair because the player always looked down on it, either from the airspace battleship, or from the observation room of the Red Labs. With only means of interaction limited to visiting a cafe, the academy campus and the central park.

There wasn't even a cool travel cutscene in place, just a black loading screen, and that petty penny pinching from one of the biggest game companies was annoying.

As they passed the bridge, that separated the city's residential and administrative side from its industrial part, Tsune saw the central tournament arena in all of its glory.

It was too far to see in detail. But she was almost sure that the flashes from its open dome were two robots fighting each other.

-

After arriving to the train station, the women went straight to the tracks. Their phones clicked with twice as they automatically paid for the taxi and opened an outer city transport pass.

-Final warning. Arrival of the Crystal Resort train in thirty seconds. Please step away from the tracks-

The white and blue magnetic levitation train was a two story model. The first floor had a robotic cargo bay, that Tsune opened by swiping her phone near the sensor. And the second floor held the passenger seats.

Her mother, being taller, was the first was to spot her team near an open window seat. She waved to them and turned to Tsune.

'I and your father already talked to them and the hotel, but if you need us, we'll be there in less than an hour. Now be a good girl, okay?'

-

The bullet shaped train whistled through the land, its magnetic claws floating mere millimeters around the charged rail. With no trees or buildings around the rail path to obstruct the view, Tsune treated herself to another great scenic tour. And she was keen on seeing every detail of her new world without a phone or TV.

The plains quickly replaced the buildings, the forest gave away to a wide river. The breadth of cities contrasted with height of colossal spaceport domes, some of which rivaled the size of the cities in question. And all of them were full of life.

But, eventually, the most unexpected detail started to attract her attention.

At first she thought that the damage on other rails was wear and tear from extended use. But some of it had nothing to do with natural, or technological causes. Unless there was a technology that required partially melting a city rail, or leaving big bite marks all over the bridge rail for maintenance.

Thanks to nervous nature of her new observation, when their train suddenly flew up and down in one smooth parabolic arc, she found herself holding Aery's arm.

'Don't grab me all of the sudden. It was just a missing rail piece.'

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

She delivered that line with such calm that the blonde chose to shrink away in embarrassment and look out of the window. That way she ignored Aery's glare and concerned looks from others in the train car.

Half an hour later, the train descended from the high ground to the shore, And the robotic voice announced their arrival, she put this episode past her.

-

According to Den's schedule, the evening of first day was devoted to the creation of the team memories. Look your best and lets take photos before, during and after our meeting were his words.

'Hold it, I'm almost done.'

Unfortunately for Tsune, one of the team members was intent on making her look as average as possible. And she agreed with her. Which is why she subjected herself to this overly long makeup session.

But even that experience, that seemed endless, came to a finish. Aery unplugged the hot air fan and stepped aside to look at the final result.

Blonde hair, that reached below the shoulders, was styled forward. Its green tips were set to obscure most of Tsune's facial features, that had only by the basic make up.

'I swear to God, I could put a bag over your head and you'll still look good. The things money can do.'

'H-hey, my parents didn't change my natural appearance outside of the tips of my hair. I heard it from them myself.'

'Whatever you say.'

The brunette packed away the makeup as she continued.

'Don't take it personally, I become like this every time I think Den gives others too much attention. And you are his type, so I'm double worried.'

'You are safe. I don't even want a relationship.'

With makeup done, it was time to change clothes. First the legwear, then the sapphire colored long dress with a high cut.

And finally Tsune spent plenty of time before the mirror just matching the lines of dress ornament that streamed around her figure and continued on her leg. It was a minor detail but she didn't want to hear any complaints before they had their photos taken.

-

The evening passed by surprisingly quick. Instead of going on a paid tour around the city, Den proclaimed that the most important thing was companionship and chose a restaurant nearby.

He and other boys wore black suits and Aery had a strict business skirtsuit to complement, leaving Tsune as the white crow. 

But her dress made her into effective eye candy. And in addition to the group picture she took separate photos with other team members, except for the team leader. Even some of the restaurant guests paid attention to her.

-

But the evening wasn't all joy, as she suddenly felt somebody's hand on her exposed thigh during the hotel elevator ride.

The girl instantly turned to see a random passerby, that walkied away without a care in the world, and her own light buzz did nothing to stop the sudden anger.

'This guy is such a... He's definitely a...'

Something felt amiss. She wanted to use a common expletive, but her mind faltered, failing to find the required words.

She tried it again, this time in her mind, even as she was pulled by Aery to their door. She could clearly remember using them and even receiving them before, but even so she couldn't put the correct meaning into words.

Next, she tried to stitch them into the phrase one word after another. But the result made her feel like a child. The one that tried to create their own language using the words it knew. It made no sense.

Feeling like that guy was the cause for this mockery that demanded an emotional release, Tsune went to take out the nearest piece of paper she had, the game script. A written experiment would deal with this once and for all

She started to write on the page margins, but stopped after the first example. It was supposed to combine two words, but the separate words held different meanings than the ones she remembered. She looked back at Aery, who prepared for bed time, but she offered her no answers.

"How is this possible."

Tsune felt stumped as she returned to her writing. She knew the words before her, she knew their meaning and yet they didn't mean what she expected them to.

She thought this through again and again, but every attempt at explanation lost its ground as soon as she looked at the paper.

They really were the words she wanted to write, the grammar was fine, they were in the correct order, the words really did hold the meaning they had. This situation was too simple to hold a hidden answer.

Some time later, she was about to reach her wits end. She repeated the experiment with common phrases and most of them read weird. Despite them being written in the language she used for almost two decades.

Suddenly, an understanding lit her tired mind. If she couldn't see the problem with the text, that meant that the problem was with her. And as long as she used the language known to both Lyle and Tsune, the vocabulary of the latter would influence the former.

Therefore, the solution could be in the knowledge unique to Lyle. Even if it was just enough to read manuals for foreign hardware and understand the basic plot for their video games.

Writing down a test line, Tsune received another surprise. She could recognize neither letters, nor words.

The blonde remembered the meaning and could translate, but the text looked like gibberish. Same happened to the second line and the third lines.

"It doesn't even look like sentient speech."

Frustrated by the mysteries of her mind, the blonde was about to give up, but in her stubbornness decided to go through the final test.

Choosing a word she knew in a lot of languages, as she used it as a tag for fanart searches, she wrote it down in as many variants as she could. Even the stylized title from the game's box art was included into that list, drawn as close to the original as possible.

"What..."

All of them, except for the one copied from the game script text, looked completely alien to her. Even the title from the box art, that was in Lyle's native language, looked like a weird drawing and nothing else.

If she were to throw out all of the answers except for the obvious one, there was a single conclusion.

"I'm not speaking the same language I did in the previous world."

The game didn't have a made up language, so she just assumed that if she understood what others were saying, it was the same as her native language. But instead she was made to think that her new language was her native. And the replacement was subtle enough to keep up the facade until she decided to use specific idioms.

And while in hindsight it explained how the same city and even the same people inside a single game world could simultaneously exist in multiple languages, the more important question laid elsewhere.

If she was that oblivious to changes in the language she used all the time, what other less obvious things was she missing?

"Wait, stop thinking about this. You are already too far down the slippery slope, Tsune."

Suddenly. the ceiling lights went out, accompanied by a sleepy voice.

'What are you still doing there? Go to bed already, I need my beauty sleep.'

With her mission completed, Aery returned to their bed and disappeared under the covers.

Tsune sighed, her stress turned into exhaustion. She stacked the scattered papers in the darkness and took off only the easiest to remove clothing, Ignoring everything else, she slid under the covers as well.

-