Location: My Stage
Time: 4:15 PM, February 16th 2108
Oliver was suppressing all of the sounds around me, keeping me inside a completely silent bubble. Was he doing it to keep me safe, or to keep me from using my augmentation?
The look on his face made it seem like both options were a possibility.
“Stop wasting time. If you’re here, then go stop those two. I won’t let them hurt my audience.”
There was no sound when I spoke, but I’m sure Oliver was able to hear what I said.
“I can’t. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I need to protect you.”
Oliver’s voice echoed around me, coming from every direction. It was soft enough to not hurt my uncovered ears, and the sound waves were moving in every direction; making it impossible for my augmentation to accidentally activate.
“What are you talking about? The best way to protect me is to just stop their massacre in the first place. Save me and my show at the same time.”
“No, it's not that simple.”
“Of course it is. Those two might be strong, but you’re the strongest! Even if you ignore your time as a pretend teacher, you’re a member of the ARA. You’re the perfect person to deal with them.”
“Yeah, sure. If the situation was normal I would have already eliminated Kathrin and Grant for ruining your show, but now I can’t take that risk.”
“Why not?”
“Because the two of them have been dead for a couple of days.”
“That’s what I thought, but clearly that’s not the case.”
“No, it is. With Karen still missing, Vier doing whatever it is he’s doing, and Albert dealing with Kanon; Nora and I have had to deal with all of the ARA work. At first, I thought something was up whenever nothing was reported to us, but that doesn’t matter anymore. They’re both dead.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Because neither of them are breathing. Neither has a heartbeat. Their stomachs aren’t digesting anything and there is nothing happening in their intestines. Both of them are completely dead. I’m not even talking about the same kind of dead as the princess, or that kid Henry. Their hearts might not beat, but they still have some bodily functions. Kathrin and Grant are beyond that. Despite the fact that they’re moving around, they are 100% dead.”
“Then what does that mean?”
“I don’t know, but that’s why I can’t risk anything. I’m also concerned about their augmentations. The Grant I’m familiar with shouldn’t have been able to kill that many people at once. His augmentation used to be limited to his sword alone.”
That was true. I didn’t really think about it, but how did Grant bisect so many people at once?
“This is just a theory, but it sounds like Grant’s augmentation has leveled up, or at least he’s better at using it. I’m pretty sure he didn’t use it to make his blade sharp, instead, he used it to sharpen the air that was displaced by him swinging his sword.”
“So then, what? You don’t think you could beat them?”
“Given that I don’t understand how they’re moving around, it's difficult to say, but I could probably handle them if I had to.”
“Then-”
“But I couldn’t guarantee your safety if I did something like that. Even ignoring them, with your headphones off you couldn’t handle a situation this loud. If I hadn’t silenced things you would already be dead. And besides, this audience, they’re. . . No, nevermind. Either way, I’m keeping you safe. Two corpses that I have no way of detecting suddenly appeared. Who’s to say a third won’t appear? I can’t risk separating from you.”
For the first time in the conversation, Oliver’s face showed signs of genuine concern.
He wasn’t worried about my audience, and he didn’t really seem to care about why there were two dead students using their augmentations.
It was just me. The only thing that roused any sense of responsibility from him was me. Was his mind really that warped?
“Save my audience.”
“No.”
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
An immediate response. I wouldn’t be able to change his mind. Just like how I’ve based my character around being an idol, Oliver based his character around protecting me.
“Why are you so worried about this anyway? It’s not like it's your job to protect anyone. This doesn’t seem like you.”
Wrong.
Oliver couldn’t understand, he never would.
An idol represents the hopes and dreams of her fans.
Everything is for them.
Despite thinking that, I did still have some rational thought left. Obviously, I was taking my duty as an idol too seriously, and besides, it’s not like any of those people were actually my fans. There’s no way some idol no one even heard of before today would have fans in the first place.
Maybe I was just trying to imitate Oliver, or I was influenced by Emily. I guess it’s also possible that Alexis was right, and this is the result of someone I’ve never even met.
But what did that matter? I decided to play the part of an idol, so that’s what I’ll do. I’m just acting how I want, nothing has changed. Fake fans fit a fake idol like me perfectly.
It must be true though; what they say about augmenteds I mean. Even a fake like me is losing her mind.
“Oliver. Don’t hold it against her.”
“Against who?”
I decided not to answer that question, but he’d figure it out soon enough.
“And something has been wrong with Oakley for the past few weeks. You probably won’t want to, but look out for her, okay?”
I decided to make a selfish request as well.
“Olivia, I won’t let you.”
Oliver knew what I was implying.
“An idol doesn’t need permission to interact with her fans.”
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs completely before letting out the loudest yell I could.
“When I jump, explode the stage! I don’t care if it takes all you have! It's the only way to end this!”
Oliver looked confused. Of course he did.
What was I saying, and why bother screaming? Inside the area being influenced by his augmentation there was no sound. Even I knew simply raising my voice wouldn’t change that.
But where would the sound go? I doubted Oliver was doing something as complicated as eliminating every single sound in the area around me. He was almost certainly just redirecting sounds away from me. That way his augmentation only really needed to affect a small area surrounding my ears.
His echoing voice made it seem like he silenced the entire area, but even for him, that would be a waste of energy.
No, precisely because it was him, there was no way he was doing that. He would have taken the path of least resistance in order to preserve his strength in case either of them got close enough to put me at risk.
That meant my voice would reach the surrounding area, perhaps even amplified by his augmentation redirecting it away from me.
With that in mind, I decided to send a message to the one person that I knew would help.
I called for a hero.
Would she be there?
Of course. Someone else might have instantly tried to rush into the fray, but she would still be backstage, helping those people evacuate before moving on to trying to stop Kathrin and Grant.
I did feel a little guilty about using her like this. After all, she would probably blame herself for what was about to happen.
Oh well. Consider it a learning experience. She should have known better than to trust someone like me.
Before Oliver could piece any of that together I turned around and jumped.
“Oliver, I’m sorry. Feel free to take it back once I’m gone.”
The stage underneath my feet exploded, launching me farther into the air. The pain in my lower body was horrifying, and there was no chance I was going to look down to see the damage.
My sudden movement surprised Oliver enough for him to lose his control over the sounds I could hear.
The pain in my legs was quickly overpowered by a terrible headache that blocked out everything else.
Loud.
Loud.
It was too loud.
The screaming.
The dying.
The fighting.
All of it.
I lost sight in one of my eyes from the pain.
It didn’t matter.
I closed the other eye to better focus on my hearing.
That just made the pain even worse.
I forced myself to search through every soundwave that reached me, looking for the one I wanted. Doing so was surprisingly easy, it just came with the side effect of exposing myself to every other sound wave. Doing that would almost certainly cause permanent damage to both my ears and brain.
Once I found the sound I wanted I used my augmentation to ride along other sound waves to direct myself toward my target. Unfortunately, most of the sounds were moving away from where I wanted to go, so it took some time for me to get on the right trajectory. To anyone watching I must have looked like a girl teleporting around.
As I neared my target I thrust my fist out, my skin started to melt, but that didn’t stop me from delivering a punch at the speed of sound. The resulting shockwave put out the surrounding fire as I ripped her head away from her body.
I used the rest of my energy to direct myself away from the crowd. I knew I couldn’t manage a safe landing, so I needed to at least make sure no one was around.
As I slid across the ground I thought about making a cool remark about killing her for good this time, but that’s not really my thing.
My legs were in terrible shape, the arm I used to punch her was burnt, my body must have been busted up from my crash landing, both of my eardrums had ruptured, and I’m fairly certain that my brain had been damaged beyond repair.
The only thing that was working properly was my left eye, but I was too afraid to use it. There was no way I wanted to see the kind of state I was in.
An idol’s appearance is her livelihood after all.
I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry.
Yeah.
Lying there, I definitely thought that I regretted it.
Well, I was expecting that. I imagine it’s the same for most idols. We burn brighter than the hottest start, but that never lasts for long. Every idol gives their youth, sometimes even their life, for their career. Even if they retire, there’s nothing left for them. They’re dead already. An idol only exists in the hearts of their fans.
I just took things a little more literally than most idols. Honestly, I was probably over committed to this persona that I crafted. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. From the beginning, this was nothing more than a declaration on character.