Arc 7 | Chapter 251: A Few More Childhood Friends

Leerin was annoyed. Not only did she not want to be here in the first place—thank you, stupid big bro and his stupid, extravagant airship wedding to perhaps the most obnoxious woman in the whole of the Penns—but then—THEN!—she’d let her cousins talk her into joining this terrible PVP raid.

It wasn’t even like she enjoyed raids in the first place! Virtual raids were okay, as long as they banned killing innocent AIs—some AIs deserved to be killed just like some humans did, them’s the rules—but real-world raids were just… shitty. At least the PVP ones didn’t have invaders, pretending to be the monsters of war, just waiting to drag her and other vets back into their nightmares of the front. PVP raids were just… a less interesting version of the Dread Coliseum. Too many rules, not enough slaughtering of criminals who’d been sentenced to die horrific deaths.

Plus, her cousins were incompetent little shits. Most of her aunts and uncles had gotten started late in life, creating their evil broods, and most of her cousins were under 30—less than half her age. They had never served, many too young to even remember much of the terror of the war. Instead, they’d grown up in the era of raids. Inside raids, they were gods unto themselves, but unlike normal raids, PVP ones didn’t augment their skills nearly as much. The result? They sucked. They big time sucked, and Leerin was having a hard time not laughing at their expense.

A notification popped up, telling her that two of her half dozen cousins had been killed—not really killed, that was just the traumatizing way the raid classified heroes who had been taken out of the game. These two were on the younger side, and had wandered off. Now, they were half the map away, being picked up by a monitor and dragged onto an exit line. They’d come back soon, which was probably even more embarrassing for them: they hadn’t been knocked out or even faced an impressive, offensive skill. No, those idiots had been taken out by some random hero using a passive kill shot.

It wasn’t even the first time! Three heroes were wandering around the raid, taking out everyone they came across. Most of her cousins had been taken out at least once, only her oldest cousin, Darrian, escaping death for the simple fact that he was the only one her age, and they were sticking together. He might enjoy raids, but he knew well enough that she didn’t and wouldn’t be leaving her side unless she told him it. It was nice, even if she was pretty sure he wasn’t enjoying himself much.

Darrian had always been the type to seek out danger, losing one of his legs in the war due to a general lack of forethought. Now, he wanted to go hunt down the group who was taking everyone out—not to avenge their annoying cousins, or anything. Rather, he was just curious and reckless and looking for a good fight. At least here, he couldn’t hurt more than his pride.

“Darrie…” she sighed as they watched the dots that represented their younger cousins disappear from the map, a timer popping up beside each of their names to indicate they had to wait five minutes before rejoining the raid. They were only on the first level, so the timer was short. Every level they moved through, the wait would increase, until eventually, it would be so long that catching up with any surviving teammates would be next to impossible. Leerin couldn’t wait for that to happen—she might even kill the kids herself, just to be rid of them.

Seriously, how had she let herself get talked into this again?

Oh, yeah: the alternative would have been spending time with her soon-to-be sister-in-law and her equally terrible parents. Pieces of shit. The only good member of that family had been their son, and he’d had the sense to cut off contact with them in his thirties.

Best decision he’d ever made, and every moment that passed with his family—with her own family who had the audacity to agree with the trash opinions the Dryden’s were spitting, who hadn’t even tried to object to their eldest son tying their families together—she regretted not cutting off her family as well.

Of course, she could always still do that, even if leaving behind her life would be difficult, would come with a whole host of consequences that she wasn’t ready to deal with—seriously, what sort of parents held threats and secrets over their child’s heads, attempting to force them into compliance with their terrible beliefs.

Oh, yeah, her parents—Darrian’s, too. Most of their aunts and uncles as well.

At times like this, when the reality of her family’s increasing toxicity was on full display, Leerin really wished the strongest of her friends were easier to contact. Sometimes, you just needed someone to call you out on your shit—on the things you were putting up with, trying to protect yourself while just digging a bigger fucking hole for your misery and self-hatred—and tell you what to do, how to fix things.

Unfortunately, the person both she and Darrian had sought advice from for the majority of their life was gone, and while Leerin knew Darrian was trying to lead her towards that decision he thought was right—that she knew was right and was just too afraid to make—he was too soft. Darrian might be reckless with his safety, but he could never quite bring himself to be reckless with his words, fear of ruining their lifelong friendship stopping him from telling her off—from demanding she say

fuck you

to their family and deal with the consequences, no matter how much she feared them.

He wouldn’t say that, though, so instead they were left in this strange middle place. Darrian wanted to leave regardless of the consequences. Leerin wanted to leave without consequences. Their parents would rain ruin down on them if they dared leave.

Both she and her cousin needed advice, brutal and logical, and while they could get bits of those things from multiple people—Samina and Simeon came to mind, among their childhood friends—Emilia was just… she was just who they both wanted to talk to, to sort things out with, just like when they were young and stupid. As for Emilia? Well, Emilia hadn’t contacted either of them in a decade.

Not on purpose anyways—Darrian had received a strange message from their childhood friend, early that morning, offering him rewards from a raid, of all things, good ones too, apparently. So strange. It was nice to know Emilia was alive, but seriously? The first message from her in a decade, and it had been sent by accident? Hopefully, whoever she’d meant to send it to wasn’t put out. Unfortunately, both Leerin and Darrian were put out, their minds churning over the unintentional return of someone they both longed to talk to, and yet couldn’t—it didn’t matter how much they wanted her advice, neither of them would violate her desire to be left alone for such selfish reasons.

“Darrie?” she called again, poking her cousin in the cheek.

“Hm?” His ice blue eyes blinked, slow and lazy, into the distance before he bothered looking down at her. As much as they were both tall—pretty much everyone in their family hit at least six feet—he had several inches on her.

“You should go have fun. I’ll be fine.” Shrugging, the sleeve of her purple sweater slipped off her shoulder—she really wasn’t dressed for a raid, in her overly expensive clothing and shoes. Part of her wanted to be killshot, if only so she could spark back to their rooms to change. Chances were someone would catch her, though, hold her hostage for more inane small talk—or worse, political talk—and she was so not risking that just to change.

Darrian gazed down at her, his ice melting. “How could I not be having fun with you, Leerie?” he asked, a hint of teasing in his soft voice. Most people would never guess how powerful he was for the simple fact that so much about him was soft—his voice, his gentle smile, and the body that didn’t want to give up its perpetual baby fat even though they were both pushing seventy.

Just as he finished speaking, two of their cousins—twin menaces in their early twenties—yelled something about revenge and raced off. A dozen heroes fell as they bolted through the level, and for the life of her, Leerin had no idea if what they were doing was within the rules. Surely, the rules must have had something against heroes racing about, screaming obscenities as they went?

“I think the little ones cancel out any fun I create.”

A quiet laugh escaped her cousin as he muttered that it could have been worse—their sister-in-law to-be’s cousins could have come with them, and yes, that certainly would have been worse.

If those kids had come, neither of them would be holding back from killshotting them over and over.

“I think the Dryden kids were just worried they’d make a fool of themselves,” she snorted, the pair of them slowly making their way towards the mystery trio. As expected, the twins were quickly wiped out by the group—although, according to their party log, these two hadn’t been taken out by such a passive skill, so at least they were doing a bit better as time went on?

Darrian hummed in agreement. “They are too proud.”

“Says the man who has a long record of attempting to one up his friends on behalf of his pride,” she laughed, linking arms with her cousin as he shot down a pair of heroes who had been trying to ambush them. Perhaps, with anyone else, they might have been able to. Darrian had spent the last twenty years making sure he would never miss anything ever again. Virtually no one stood a chance against him, although…

“What do you think about the way their dots keep going all… weird?” Leerin asked, eyeing up the strange way the trios dots seemed to blur across the system, growing and shrinking, bouncing around the area and vanishing sporadically. They’d eventually reappear, but it didn’t surprise her when their team chat began to fill up with complaints for their cousins over how the map was even less accurate than its vague indicators were meant to be, and the group was missing. “I know I rarely raid, but that’s weird, right?”

“Mm… could be a new skill, or a private one. It is impressive, regardless. Nothing can interfere with the system, so they must be doing something to the aether. I wonder if the ship’s movement is why it's so weird, or it’s so new it needs more testing? It could even be intentional chaos,” Darrian mused.

Leerin continued watching the group’s dots bounce about uncontrollably, her Censor connecting with her cousin’s so he could utilize it to analyze what was happening in tandem with his own. Not that the effort or gentle ache to the back of her neck and head did any good. Whatever was causing the abnormalities was either good or glitching, no rhyme or reason to be found in it, at least not currently. Maybe with a proper connection to the Virtuosi System some pattern could be found, but certainly not with their Censors alone. Annoying.

“I hate how complicated skills have become,” she sighed, ranting to her cousin about one of her favourite topics—how the government sponsored raids were really just training everyone for a huge, human-based war—as their revived cousins raced past them yet again. There were four of them now, so maybe they’d do better? Probably not—most of her cousins were just too into brute force, no finesse behind their attacks or strategies.

Raven and Borien—who were in their mid-thirties—might be able to do better, with their weirdly intense, twin connection, but they, along with their younger sister, were staunchly avoiding getting caught up in the rest of their cousin’s haphazard attacks on the trio at the moment. Probably, they’d eventually give in and join the fight, if only so their younger cousins would stop harassing them in their group chat.

“Seriously! When we were teens, it was bad enough watching Emmie and Halen try to one up each other! The shit they created was terrible! At least that stuff didn’t make it further than our school and friends, though.”

“And the unit,” Darrian noted, content to let her rant about things he’d heard a dozen times over because he was the best.

They should have been born siblings, so they’d have been able to spend more time with each other when they were younger. Better yet, born as completely unrelated people—next door neighbours! Darrian had set the bar for what sort of person she’d eventually end up with—and what a high fucking bar it was! The whole related thing was annoying. It would have been so much easier if they weren’t.

“And the unit,” Leerin agreed, a shield erupting out of her cousin as someone popped out of the abyss and threw a skill at them.

Too bad for their assailant; they’d have to do

much

better than that to land a shot on either of them.