Arc 7 | Chapter 249: Tired People

[Welcome to Ship’o Stars]

[Now entering the PVP Entrance Raid]

[Please, look over our rules and confirm that you have read and agree to the terms]

[Now commencing Censor Skill Scan]

[This will only take a moment]

[…]

[…]

[All of your selected skills have been approved for use in the PVP Entrance Raid]

[You are now confirmed for entry into the PVP Entrance Raid]

[Please, enjoy your experience]

“Stupid,” Conrad muttered after he finished begrudgingly reading over the additional requirements for core-ability use within PVP raids, the doors finally sliding open to reveal the first, starting room of the PVP Entrance Raid.

Emilia stepped in behind him, a timer popping up on her Censor, indicating how long they had to get out of the starting area. No attacks were allowed within the starting room, and waiting just outside one of the dozen doors that lined each side of the long, blandly white room could earn heroes a reprimand from the monitors.

“It is to keep things fair,” Hyr replied, eyes skimming over each of the doors before stalling on the seventh to the left.

Scoffing, Conrad began making his way to the door. “You say that, and yet use your

Free Colony

abilities.”

Emilia scurried after Conrad. It was so interesting, seeing another Free Colonier so openly go along with a synat’s sight because while there had been members of Division 30 who had definitely believed in the ability to read

something

through the aether, they had always been so… reserved in showing that belief in front of most of their Baalphorian members. In no universe could Emilia imagine Conrad being reserved in anything. Probably, if it came to something he clearly believed whole heartedly—such as his belief in the will of the aether—he was more likely to flaunt his beliefs, especially if he thought they might bring him into conflict with someone else’s lack of belief in such things.

“Offensive core use is different from sight. I am not capable of ceasing to see any more than you are capable of being polite,” Hyr said, sounding completely serious, only a hint of teasing hidden in their golden eyes.

Due to being a player versus player raid, the rules of the PVP Entrance Raid were stricter than a normal raid. For regular, government-sponsored raids, core abilities were acceptable, as long as they didn’t endanger other heroes. That said, due to the difficulty in monitoring core abilities, there were often disagreements between heroes over whether a core ability had actually been a safety risk. Big surprise, after an investigation by Hail, most of the core abilities were shown to have not been dangerous in the least. The complaining hero was usually just bitter that a Free Colony hero had gotten

their kill

using an ability they were incapable of using, as though there weren’t thousands of unique—and often extremely powerful—private skills allowed within raids.

Unfortunately, for the same reasons, core abilities were all but banned in PVP raids—the systems just couldn’t track them well enough. While the systems that powered raids could shut down most public and private skills—skills not approved by D-Tect could get the user arrested, particularly if used in a raid—before they were fully activated, thereby keeping heroes safe from errant and badly thought out attacks, that wasn’t possible with core abilities. For similar reasons, most heroes avoided hand-to-hand combat in PVP raids, because although it was generally allowed, it was easy to misjudge the power behind a physical attack and accidentally hurt your opponent, forcing your removal from the raid… if not an arrest for manslaughter, in the worst of cases.

An additional problem with core ability was that, for the most part, only extremely powerful defensive skills and energy-based shields could block many core abilities. As such, in an attempt to keep things safe, offensive core abilities were banned from use against other heroes in PVP raids and highly discouraged from use in general, although Emilia knew some of her raid-inclined Free Colony friends still found ways to use their offensive core abilities against the environment.

Cores could still be used for defensive purposes—most Free Coloniers had at least some training in automatically defending with their cores, making not using it extremely difficult—or accessory abilities, such as Hyr’s sight—which, as they’d said, couldn’t be turned off.

Mostly, Conrad was just being bitter, although Emilia couldn’t imagine he—or anyone else—would enjoy the raid much if he were allowed to use his core against other heroes. Considering that even the brief moment with the guy’s energy had brought Elijah to his knees…

Yeah, if Conrad were able to use his core, it wouldn’t be much of a game. Hence, she’d created a collection of skills for him!

Technically,

it was only the use of cores without an interfacing skill wasn’t allowed inside PVP raids and was vaguely frowned upon in normal ones, versus invaders. What most people didn’t realize—largely because they were really uncommon and kinda unnecessary—was that core abilities

could

be turned into skills. Essentially, skills allowed core abilities to interface more cleanly with Censors and the systems that powered raids. Assuming the skill had been approved by D-Tect, a core-based skill could also be stopped by blocking systems.

Of course, these skills could only be used by people who could already use their parent core ability, so they weren’t the most useful skills and generally needed a lot of tweaking to allow use by different people, each of their cores treating the activation of the ability a little differently. Regular skills, on the other hand, could just pull from aetherstores as needed—although, the most diligent of users would still tweak the skill as needed. On top of all that, core-based skills were extremely difficult to code, Emilia only having done so a handful of times since she was a teenager.

More often, she’d turned core abilities into normal, aetherstore-based skills because Censors actually allowed their use that way. {Blood Raid} was one such example, having originated with the Blood Rain General in Dion. Until recently, there was no way she would have been able to use the original, core ability—her Censor would have thrown a fit. Now, she could use it, but limiting its power would be a whole other thing, which was the other reason to turn a core ability into a skill, whether as a core- or aetherstore-based one: it allowed the power to be limited in a more official manner.

That

was the other good thing about turning Conrad’s ability to bring people to their knees using his core into a skill. Whereas before, the raid system wouldn’t have been able to monitor how much power he was throwing into the ability, it could now track the skill she’d designed for him, {Jamming Frequency}, so named because it could also interfere with other people’s Censors. Not so much that there would be legal issues, but enough to make fighting him even more of a nuisance than it already would have been.

Ironically, the hardest part of getting the skill to work hadn’t been connecting it with the man’s core but making it leave his own Censor, as well as those of his allies, alone. Eventually, with Sil and Rafe’s help—her friend had finally contacted her while they worked on various skills for Conrad, as well as his and Sil’s hacks—they’d managed to get it working… and then poor Rafe had been left to do more work to get the skills she’d created approved for use and uploaded into the blocking system.

There was also a chance that she’d begged her friend to fast track Hyr’s skills as well. Rafe had done his best, getting several of the skills approved in the brief time it had taken for Hyr to test them within the training system and their entering the raid. Emilia was pretty sure her childhood friend had cheated, using his reputation and trust in her ability to not ask him to approve dangerous skills to push them through.

Oh, the ways that man trusted her, despite all the things she’d put him through. Then again, he put himself through a lot as well. The reason he’d been non-communicative between her getting out of the raid and their hacking spree, earlier that evening? He had spent too much time trying to figure out the moth virus and passed out after exiting the Virtuosi System. How much time was too much? A couple of years, apparently. Worst of all? He hadn’t even gotten anywhere with the moth virus!

“It’s a nasty thing,”

he had noted, sliding into the virtual world she, Sil and Conrad had been using to code and test everything out. Sil and Conrad had gone off to deal with the secrets of their hacks at the time, leaving her and Rafe to chat.

“Even this you looks tired,”

she had teased, reaching up to rub over the dark smudges marring his gentle brown cheeks. Dark brown eyes blinked back at her from under his nearly black bangs—too long, even within the virtual world, probably a representation of his real body’s need for some self-care.

“You’re one to talk,”

he had huffed, although she knew her avatar looked fine. Probably more than he could read her just as well as always—easy, given how subdued and worn out she had been… still was, really. Plus, she’d sent him off an explanation of what was happening at the same time that she’d let The Black Knot as a whole know. Rafe could have read her report through them, of course—unlike the rest of his family, he might not be part of the organization, but he still had access to everything they knew, just as she did—but sending it to him personally had felt right.

“Have you slept at all?”

Knowing someone basically your entire life really sucked sometimes. How dare he be able to read her so easily!?

“I’ll sleep later,”

she had sighed, even as she left herself be hauled against him, the world falling away as they landed on a virtual bed.

“Virtual sleep isn’t nearly as satisfying as real sleep,”

she had noted, even as she snuggled further into her friend’s chest, just as warm and safe as it had been when they were younger, Rafe sneaking into her room to help her sleep when nightmares of being laid out in the mud wouldn’t let her rest.

Rafe had agreed despite turning up the time skew within both their minds to allow her more time to rest. As much as resting within any virtual space, especially one that was so heavily skewed, wouldn’t be particularly helpful to her flagging mind—ever her various moments of resting and gently napping in Hyr and Olivier’s laps were much better in that regard—there was something about being close to anyone, especially someone she had loved as a friend for over sixty years—had once even considered might be her forever person, before things had somehow fallen apart between them—that was restful in its own way.

There, in Rafe’s arms, she was safe, cared for, loved, even if it wasn’t in the way she had once wanted, probably still wanted a little bit, even four decades on. So, she’d rested there, falling in and out of sleep with her childhood friend, telling him extra bits about what had happened inside the raid, sharing who V was with him.

“I had suspected he was V,”

Rafe had admitted, telling her that Helix suspected as much as well.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Helix outright knew, and just never said it in such concrete terms.”

“It wasn’t his secret to share. Helix kept my exact location a secret, as well, even if I’m pretty sure everyone had already figured it out.”

“Alex keeps it secret, too.”

Laughter had followed Rafe’s words, along with an explanation that he’d visited their teammate in Piketown once, where they apparently still lived, and found them acting cagey about going down into the clubbing district—not Rafe’s idea, but one of Alex’s friends, trying to get the pair of them to come out for some fun.

“It didn’t take much to realize they’d seen you around, and were worried I didn’t actually know where you were.”

As much as Rafe had largely been the person telling the rest of their unit that she was alive and doing well—as well as could be expected, although he’d never even hinted that he knew how broken her mind was, let alone told anyone else about it—it was nice that Alex hadn’t just assumed he actually knew where she was.

“I should go visit them,”

she could remember saying, the words blurry in her mind, having slipped out in between one nap and another, Rafe warm and hard under her.

It was nice that he was still attracted to her, even tired and broken—even if he didn’t want her for more than a good fuck and friendship, not that they’d hooked up in a long time. She’d tried a few times, after what happened with Olivier, after her ex died, after the war ended. Despite the fact that he was clearly interested, he had never said yes to anything more than a little rough play.

It had been forty years, but sex with Rafe… There had never been anyone else willing to play with her like that—willing to chase her through the woods and hold her down, offering her control of a nightmare she could never quite escape through the simple act of letting her choose to let it happen with someone she trusted with every fibre of her being.

Rafe was safety and love, even if he could never give her the love she wanted from him.

The tragedy of falling in love with a black knot. The tragedy of falling in love at all—seriously, it seemed like her falling in love was the kiss of death! Rafe and Olivier? Neither wanted her back that way—although honestly, who even knew with Olivier at this point. That man was impossible to understand. Fall in love with her ex? Fucker had turned out to be a terrible person. Clearly, she needed to never fall in love again!

Another notification popped up as the three of them followed the trail Hyr was setting for them, perfectly avoiding running into anyone with their stalls and starts. Rafe had gotten another skill approved. It was a little late now, and she sent through a message thanking him for his help and telling him to rest—all the other skills could wait, something she’d already told him when they entered the raid. Silly man, not reading her messages or just ignoring them.

[

Rafe:

I’ve missed seeing your skills.

]

[

Rafe:

I’ll keep going through them, just to see how your mind works after so many years.

]

That was sweet, bringing an ache of regret to her heart. Regret for leaving, for not being a better friend, for not being the sort of person the people she loved could love back as more than a friend.

Distracted with her mopey thoughts, Emilia walked into Hyr’s chest, the syn having abruptly stopped and turned towards her.

“What’s up?” she asked, managing to smile cheerfully—if very sleepily—up at them. She really should have tried to get a proper sleep at some point. As it was, it still felt like she hadn’t done enough in all her waking hours.

“Do not give up hope,” the northerner said, brushing her bangs aside to press a kiss to her forehead, the move probably humorous to anyone watching due to their height difference. “Everything has a time and place, a thousand little steps and broken hearts to come together. Conrad should go first.”

Emilia blinked up at them, confused, before catching Conrad surging forward, a PVP version of the wartime skill {Zero Impact} shattering out of them as they flew around the corner.

[Body Count: 0] updated to show the Free Colonier had taken out three people. Poor suckers never even saw it coming.