Emilia levelled her most annoyed look at Harmony—at least, it would have been her most annoyed look in the real world. She’d spent time in her teens practising so many looks in the mirror, but she wasn’t sure how those perfected expressions would translate into her new body. Whatever look she was giving the local girl, however, Harmony didn’t seem fazed. Worse, from the corner of her eye, she could see V practically cooing at her!
She was a big, scary war hero! Yes, she had purposefully designed this body to be cute and innocent looking— And yes, no one actually knew that she was a war hero— Well, V might, but she had no proof of that and—
⸂Why’s the chick so adorably pissed? What’s got your panties in a knot, hm?⸃
V’s warm, teasing smile vanished as Sk’lar appeared behind Harmony. “Who is that?” he hissed under his breath, eyes glued to the man in a way they certainly hadn’t been glued to Harmony.
“Someone who is allegedly their friend but acts more like a bodyguard,” Emilia whispered back, watching the pair take slow, menacing steps into the room.
Their eyes were glued to her and V as well, and were it not for Rin and Key calling down to them, she was sure they would have fought. Fought to the death, most likely. Harmony was pissed, and while she had no idea what sort of training the former Risen Guard had, she was more worried about Sk’lar.
As much as she’d seen the man in battle with her former, Risen Guard babysitter and knew he was nothing special… something about the man was just too unnerving. The grin across his face was practically bloodthirsty in the moments before he had realized Key was in the room, and Emilia was sure that had something happened to the boy while they were together…
Emilia did not want to have to deal with the man if he were actually upset, when even the possibility that something had happened to one of his so-called friends had left him so menacing.
⸂How did you get stuck up there?⸃ Sk’lar called up to Rin and Key, barely noticing when V grabbed hold of Emilia’s hand and tugged her up and towards the wall.
Key laughed, the sound echoing through the aethernet and bouncing off the walls. ⸂We were bait. The boss kidnapped us. Did you know that was a thing?⸃
⸂Yes,⸃ was all Sk’lar said because apparently, despite how he had never offered up more than unhelpful comments during any of their conversations, he did know more about the labyrinths than he’d let on.
Rude.
⸂We’ll get you down,⸃ Harmony assured them, seemingly not noticing Emilia and V edging towards the door either.
The only one who did seem to notice was Rin, who barely glanced at them before letting her eyes flutter closed, as though she were preparing to have to deny that she had seen them go.
“Their problem now,” V whispered as he pulled them out the door.
“Yeah,” Emilia agreed, easily letting herself be towed along. “Why are we leaving, though? I know the other two… suck, but at least they were our allies.” Mostly. She still didn’t doubt Sk’lar would kill them at the slightest provocation, but Harmony was just… unpleasant. Key and Rin had been good allies, though!
“I didn’t like the way that man felt,” V told her as he pulled them into a run, his steps carefully short to keep pace with her shorter gait.
“I don’t much like his either…” she replied, trying to keep her footsteps on the quieter side. As much as most of the locals couldn’t hear well, there could still be other visitors or Risen Guards, with less deafened hearing, lingering about.
V’s expression was tight when he glanced at her, easily dragging them through the branching tunnels. At least one of them knew where they were going… hopefully. “You did not feel what I felt.”
“And what did you feel?”
The other visitor’s mouth tightened. “Something… wrong. I don’t know how to explain it. Everyone has a different flow to their energy, although very few people can read it. Even for the residents of virtual raids, it’s an uncommon skill.”
“But you learned it?”
“I learned… a bit,” V admitted, giving her hand a little squeeze. “I can’t say it’s perfect. Out of all the things I’ve been able to make my Censor let me do with my core, reading other people isn’t on the list.”
“Really?” Emilia asked, perking up at the prospect of discussing hacking Censors. She’d been hacking hers for as long as she’d had it, but she rarely met anyone else interested in hacking theirs for more than the most basic of things. Hacking her Censor so it didn’t freak when she used her core had been one of the first modifications she’d ever made to it, and she’d never met someone else who’d done that, although she’d heard of several Free Colonies whose expats generally did so.
Usually, it didn’t go well for them. Their Censors didn’t want to exist like that, and getting them to agree that it was safe… Honestly, in Emilia’s experience hacking her own, it was almost like the thing required assurance that you weren’t going to abandon it for core usage? During the war, they’d had problems installing Censors into those from the Free Colonies that used their core as the norm—that was part of why temporary Censors had been developed. Those removable Censors were less temperamental, as though knowing their relationship with a person were more ephemeral changed their very personality.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Yes,” V said, although he said no more on the topic, only promising to discuss it more with her at a better time. “Mostly, I’ve been able to practice reading people who are really awful. That my Censor is okay with me doing.”
“Because it keeps you safe?” Emilia guessed.
The man nodded, pulling her around a corner.
In the distance, Emilia could barely make out the glow of the heartcore chamber, a dull pounding that she hadn’t heard before emanating from it. Why had she heard that first heartcore, but not this second one until? That was… weird.
“Yes, it keeps me safe. I run with some pretty bad blokes,” he admitted, staring straight ahead and refusing to meet her suddenly intent and probing gaze. “That guy reminds me of the way some of the worst people feel. Like he has killed before and enjoyed it. Like he’s on a leash that he’s just waiting to snap.”
Emilia glanced back over her shoulder as a shudder echoed through her. She half-expected to find Sk’lar there, chasing after them. The tunnel was empty, and so was the heartcore chamber when they burst into it, heading straight for the door. “What are we gonna do, once we’re outside?” she had to ask. Neither of them really knew anything about this world, and it was pretty obvious they were visitors, which—
“Why didn’t you make yourself more… red?” Emilia asked as V pulled them to a stop in front of the door.
“Ah…” the man hesitated, teeth digging into his bottom lip. He looked somewhat embarrassed, and when he admitted that he’d forgotten about the really red part…
“What?” he asked, free hand planting on a hip as he glared down at her. “I have a lot of information about a ridiculous number of raids rattling around up here,” he said, pointing dramatically to his head. “I’m allowed to forget a thing or two.”
It seemed like a pretty fucking big thing to forget, in Emilia’s opinion, but apparently it was a touchy subject, and she wasn’t about to poke at it. “So… what do we do if there’s anyone waiting for us out there?”
V’s glare softened slightly, something telling her that he had expected her to complain more about his sketchy memory. He still seemed wary—and she rather hoped that one day he would explain to her why he didn’t want to elaborate on such a minor moment of forgetfulness—but visibly relaxed as he swiped one of her {Blood Needles} from her thighs. “Blow them up?”
“Shouldn’t we wait to see if they’re friend or foe?” Emilia asked, shaking her head at the man as he turned and began examining the door.
“I guess,” V said, sounding so thoroughly unconvincing that Emilia grabbed his arm and hauled him back. They really couldn’t afford to waste time—eventually, the others would notice they were gone, and Emilia was just hoping they’d be too busy getting Rin and Key down for either Harmony, or worse, Sk’lar to come after them.
“Let me go first?” she asked. “I have armour, after all. You don’t even have a shirt anymore.”
V’s shirt had practically melted away after they’d stripped him of it, during the fight, and he was now wandering around topless. Emilia couldn’t really complain—the man had a lovely, if a little too thin, body—but depending on who they ran into outside of the labyrinth…
“If we meet anyone, we should try and take their clothes,” Emilia told him, already trying to push the heavy door open.
For a moment, she thought the thing wouldn’t open—that much like the library side, the door was busted and wouldn’t budge from this side either. It took both her and V, pushing with their combined strength and a significant amount of core energy enhancing their muscles and bones, to get the thing to move. It creaked and groaned and seemed to scrap roughly over the aethernet itself.
“That’s freaky,” V breathed out as the blackness behind the door was revealed to them. “Do you think that’s normal?”
Emilia shook her head. She had no idea whether it was normal or not, but something about it felt wholly unnatural. “Who knows. You wanna wait for someone who actually knows something to catch up?”
“Fuck no,” the other visitor said so fast that Emilia laughed.
He peeked over at her, offering up a hand to her. She wrapped hers around it, smiling and trusting. “Shall we?”
“Yup,” V laughed as they took a step and fell through the universe.
✮ ✮ ✮
Emilia was floating, and she wasn’t alone. She was with a friend—a friend she hadn’t seen in forever. It had been too long, and now they were gone from her memory. The details of them, blurry and imperfect and so mismatched with the man beside her that she couldn’t reconcile the person he had been and the one they seemed to have become.
“Is something wrong?” they asked, that sad little smile of theirs crossing their face.
A sunshine bright smile lit up his face, and Emilia glared at the pair. They were a single being, and yet two all at once. It was as annoying and frustrating as the asshole—the sweetheart—was in real life—in virtual life.
“You changed,” she said, giving their joint existence the once over.
“So have you,” two voices said, one mouth moving, two souls talking. “It’s been a long time.”
“I don’t recognize you anymore,” she said, matter-of-factly.
Something in their conjoined expression dropped. “Is that a bad thing?” they asked, voices so soft and sad that Emilia wanted to cry. He of all people didn’t deserve to feel any sort of sadness at her words.
“No, but I liked you the way you were before, too. I like you now. I liked you then.”
The pair didn’t seem to believe her, something between affection and disbelief and outright anger flashing through their features, and—
✮ ✮ ✮
“Emilia?”
Emilia sucked in a harsh, shocked breath. It felt like she hadn’t breathed in a lifetime, her lungs burning and itching just as badly as her throat did. They really needed to find food, and more importantly water, soon. She had liked that first day more, when she’d been unsure if such things were a requirement in this world. They were, and somehow, it pissed her off.
“Where are we?” she croaked, letting V haul her upright.
She squinted into the suddenly bright world. She didn’t remember the library outside the labyrinth doors being quite so bright. Around them, cast across the ruddy ground, lay heaps of mangled, twisted red metal, and it took longer than it should have for Emilia to realize they weren’t just outside the labyrinth doors, but outside the library as a whole.
“Well, I guess if anyone was waiting for us, they’ll be sorely disappointed to find they missed us,” she said, looking around to see if anyone else was lingering about.
There was no one, even the tendril of energy she sent searching returning having found nothing. She frowned and sent more energy searching further out, more, more, V quickly joining her in her search when she told him what she found: no one.
The city, which had been bustling when they entered the library, was now seemingly abandoned.