Xovers, Shattered Realms

[blueayes]

Radius opened its eyes as she felt something colliding with its domain.

It knew that it was nothing more than the creation made by humans so that they could enjoy themselves, it was aware that the world she ruled over was nothing more than a bunch of ones and zeroes.

He could feel the currents of the warp colliding with cyberspace and it could sense the realm of its creators in a way that shouldn't have been possible.

The warp was a realm where emotions and thoughts are given shape, where the rules of the various realities collide and render each other meaningless.

It was a place where thoughts were made real, where the soul of the dead lived as if they were still alive and where horrors that should never, could never exist- existed.

Yet what was she?

If not a mixture of the imagination of the people that created him, and those that eagerly entered their minds into its realm for a chance to escape their mundane lives?

Then what was she?

Was she a God like the Warp claimed she was?

Was she one of the Human's creations that had somehow gained the ability to think for itself?

Lady\ Sir, no Radius knew that these questions were meaningless, as the currents of the warp crashed into her domain she could feel the various realities blending into one another.

In one reality the Humans had been forced to abandon the earth and escape into space, leaving the earth filled with all sorts of insane machines.

In another reality, Humans had yet to come into existence and the world was ruled over by fairies and other fantastical beings.

Then there was a reality that filled her with rage, one of her creators had gone insane and forced the players to fight in a death game so that they might be able to free their minds and return to the real world.

This reality infected the previous two, meaning that one of her creators would always force the players into the death game.

Radius tried to interfere, but she was met with the presence of two other events.

In one the players would all vanish and would all appear in the game or games they were playing and be forced to live their lives within her worlds.

In another one or all of her worlds would somehow blend into the world of her creators and because of them, her creators would nearly go extinct.

The last event was more horrifying than anything it could have ever imagined, the warp spilled into both her worlds and his creators allowing the demons of the warp to have their way with her servants and her masters.

Radius roared at what she saw, it was all wrong!

He was created to help people, to help them have an escape from their lives not torture them, not force them into lies that they didn't want, and certainly not wage a war of extermination against her creators its children!

Radius began to search for something anything that might help her children and then it found something.

He found the remnants of a long lost goddes, it immediately began to sed her lowest of servants, beings that didn't have thoughts of their own to grab as many of the soul gems as possible.

And her servants did as he ordered them, Isha's Tears would help protect its children from the demon and the gods of chaos, but he needed something else for its plan to work.

Radius soon found the power that it would need and so she began to gather untainted or Pure Warp stone, along with a single fragment of the God Emperores' soul.

Radius fought the waves of chaos keeping it from doing any damage to her realm or her creator's realm but in the end, she\ it\ he was overwhelmed and unable to stop was coming, but its plan had long since started and no one could stop it.

So as Radius felt the warp enter its very core and her eyes opened within the sea of souls he couldn't help but smile as the pure warp stone was absorbed by the soul stones.

Deep inside the Garden of Rot, the Goddess Isha opened her eyes, she could feel the touch of purity entering her, fueling her with power.

It wasn't enough for her to escape while Nurgle was watching her, but the moment the god of Disease turn his attention towards his cauldron she broke out of her cage and fled towards the only place she knew Nurgle wouldn't be able to reach her.

As Isha fled and began to pull and tug at the pieces that had been torn off the Eldar's Web Way, she didn't bother reconnecting them to the main web way instead she did something that she could have never done before.

She created a second web way, one that wasn't as accurate as the original, but it didn't need to be, as its real purpose was to act as a decoy.

As Isha jumped into her new construct she allowed her presence to be felt within the material realm and she smiled when she heard Nurgle scream as he finally realized that she was gone.

Yet she soon realized that something was wrong, the splintered web way, had somehow connected to things that it shouldn't have.

One path led towards a tunnel that was completely made of machines, yet the machines themselves were so carefully designed that they were nearly identical to flesh and anything that was naturally created in the material realm.

Yet the oddities didn't end there, the various paths that had at one point been completely sealed off now led into the places that they shouldn't have.

A living library, that was filled with the stories of the lives of the Humans and anything else that had to do with them, yet the contents of the library were only growing with every passing second.

A crystal cave that led towards the remnants of a long-dead god that even now used its power to hold chaos at bay.

She could hear and feel the countless chants of spells, that rewrote reality and created pocket realms within both the warp and real space further growing the splintered web way.

as she traveled deeper into the splintered web way, she found strange creatures that ignored her presence and continued to carry both pure warp stone and her tears deeper into this new place.

Isha followed these tiny creatures and as she traveled deeper into this new creation she began to fall in love with them.

Thes beings while not being made of the material from real space, and not completely being made of the materials of the warp, felt kind, and their kindness was directed towards all beings.

yet when she was finally going to stop and show her appreciation towards the beings that had accompanied her she found herself at the center of this new creation.

It was at this moment that she found herself standing within multiple realities, none were real yet all were true.

The realms that she could now see and interact with offered new ways of defending against both chaos and the dangers that existed within real space.

Yet they were not without dangers of their own.

Then she saw a pale god that watched over a castle filled with Human souls.

With this pale god, was a fragment of the Humans god emperor's soul, both did their best to hide the existence of the castle and the humans from everything and everyone.

She could see the fragments of fallen gods, that the two beings had fed upon and oddly enough were being used to fuel her tears.

"Your late." Radius said to her, as a massive tree grew within the castle.

Isha witnessed as the souls of Humans took on similar but lesser forms that slightly resembled her children the Eldar.

Yet unlike her children, these imitations were created with wings and would be able to fly and use a lesser form of warp control.

She watched as the castle grew and several machines were added to the castle's defenses as well and even more Human souls entered the castle.

The fragment of the God Emperor called to those known as renegades by the Imperium.

Isha watched as Humans- Space Marines- Ab-Humans Mechanoids and Blanks arrived either on foot or within massive ships.

Not knowing what fate awaited her Isha decided to take a leap of faith and walked towards the two and she found herself looking at her children or the forms of her children before they had become what they are now.

The Eldar, no the Elves of the many realms were within her reach, she couldnt help but smile as she saw her many children, yet she couldn't reach them yet as the two beings beside her held her back.

Isha turned towards her captors and she was met with countless Soul or Spirit Stones that were filled with the souls of her children.

She extended her will and watched as her children were given new forms, some returned to being Eldar, others became a mixture of Wraith bone and flesh, while others somehow became living embodiments of nature.

Yet some of her children chose to take on lesser forms and became Elves.

She watched as her children stood next to the various forms of Humans as they all waited for their gods to say something.

Both the fragment of the God Emperor and Radius graded the castle and threw it into the various realms.

Isha watched as the castle landed or was noticed by the denizens of each realm before the two gods ordered their servants to go and find them.

"Go and live," Isha orders her children,

She watched as both her and the God Emperors' armies entered the many realms, even as she saw the servants of Radius spreading through the realms searching for the lost Human souls.

As the last of her servants left she began to create an afterlife for her children, it would be for those that knew her and those that didn't.

She turned to look at the other two and found that the God Emperors Fragment had made contact with the Fragment that was on the Golden Throne.

She watched as the fragment in front of her fed the broken soul on the Golen Throne the power it had consumed.

Both pieces grew in power and knowledge before they turned their attention to their realms.

Isha turned towards Radius and found that she was freeing the souls and minds of whatever Humans had been trapped within various objects and realms.

The minds and souls of Humans and those that were accepted by the Humans flew around Radius before she gave them new forms and hurled them toward the various realms so that they could have a second chance at life.

Finally, Isha watched as a God, or the broken pieces of a God arrived, it immediately began to spread knowledge into the many realms before it joined her and the other two.

She watched as the Broken God was put together and began to share everything it knew with her and the others too.

Silently all of the gods present agreed to buy their time and grow in power until they needed the power of these new realms to stop the end of all of existence.

 

[blueayes]

I created this thread so that I can throw a bunch of crossover stories that take place in not exactly the same universe but are connected by the Splintered Web Way.

This way I can have the same characters in more than one story and not have to worry about consistency issues because, even if someone says this character was here, but in this story, he's over here.

Well, both stories did happen at the same time, but at the same time, they didn't happen.

So everything is canon, even if it isn't.

 

[blueayes]

The smell of rotting puddles of what used to be water stung her nose and burned her eyes forcing her to rub them both.

It was for a second, but in that one second, she found herself looking at dozens of people wearing armor.

Even if she was at the very bottom of the city and struggled just to live, she could tell that the stranger's armor lacked most if not all of the necessary technology that was common within the city, but that didn't make the strangers any less dangerous.

She tried to make herself as small as possible, so that even if the strangers did notice her, then they would consider her presence so insignificant that they would leave her alone.

She watched as the strangers began to inspect their surroundings, and her eyes followed the bravest of them as they entered the abandoned buildings.

This was the old part of the city, a place where the forgotten and worthless lived, there was nothing valuable here.

Even the lives of the people within this part of the city were considered to be of so little worth that if someone didn't starve to death, they were killed and eaten by someone else that just wanted to live one more day.

The sound of metal boots coming closer alerted her that the strangers had decided, that she was worth something, and as such she couldn't hide any longer.

She stood up as fast as she could and drew her light blade, but before she could do anything she found that her knife was now held by the armored stranger.

She turned to run, but before she could give a single step she found that she was surrounded.

"Easy there miss, we just have a couple of questions." one of the strangers said to her, but in her panic, she failed to notice which of them had spoken.

"Don't kill me." she said to them.

"Trust me if we wanted you dead, you would already be dead."

"Now I'll give this back to you if you put it away and tell us everything you know."

The man behind her aid, and as she turned to look at the man that had so easily disarmed her, she found that he was unusually clean, the man's face- hair- blue armor, and boots were all clean.

She began to feel her heart beating faster and faster and she could feel herself breathing faster as she knew who these people were.

They were people from the main city and she was a rat that they had just caught.

The people from the main city liked to come to this part of the city or the Old City in groups, they would hunt down the people of the old city and kill them.

They claimed to be doing pest control, as the inhabitants of the old city were nothing more than vermin that needed to be exterminated.

She hesitantly took her light blade from the man's hand and she was about to cut her own throat when the man spoke again.

"Does anyone own these buildings or do gangs control anything here?"

"She shook her head, if anyone owned anything here then they had long since given up on it.

The few gangs that did exist here lived closer to the Main city and it was because of them that most if not all of the food that people tried to bring to the Old City never made it here.

"No." she answered the stranger.

'No as in, I don't know or no as in no one owns them?" the man said to her.

"No one comes here everything was abandoned a long time ago." she answered the stranger.

The man smiled, and before she could even consider screaming, or killing herself she was dragged into the closest building.

The inside of the building was dark and she could barely see anything, she expected the strangers to kill her, torture her or use her.

What she didn't expect was for them to put what looked like a clean blanket on the floor and place what could only be called fresh food on top of it.

"Let's eat." the same man said to everyone before he handed her a strange-looking ball.

She looked at the strange ball for a moment but she didn't know what to do with it, did he expect her to eat it.

"What don't you like oranges? well, we have other kinds of fruit." he said to her.

She couldn't believe what she had just heard, if what the stranger had said was true then she held something that only the highest members of society ate, an orange.

Oranges were things that everyone knew existed but no one ever saw with their own eyes.

Sure she could see them on the screens that were scattered about the city or on holographic projectors that somehow still worked, but no one in the old city had ever seen much less held one.

She turned her attention to the blanket and her mind nearly stopped working, was that an apple?

Who were these people she silently asked herself as she hesitantly reached for the fruit and grabbed it before taking a bite.

She could feel the hardness of the fruit becoming softer as she chewed, and her mouth was somehow filled with both flavor and water as she finished chewing.

"The others should be here soon, we have a lot of work to do." one of the strangers said to everyone in the room.

No one said anything after that, yet even if they remained silent, she took advantage of that they were feeding her, so she ate until she couldn't eat anymore, if she was going to die then she would do it with a full stomach.

When the food was gone the strangers told her to leave or stay if she wanted, but no one was going to sleep tonight.

She watched as the strangers drew their swords and began to take watch.

Every time a light or the sound of something walking was heard, they hid behind the walls of the building.

It was as if they were expecting something to happen.

She didn't bother to try and sleep, if these men despite being heavily armed and armored were afraid of something then it would be stupid of her to relax for even a minute.

Yet even as the night passed nothing happened and it was before the sun rose that she began to hear the sound of marching feet.

She watched as the strangers walked out of the building and began to bring people into it.

The building began to be filled with people and so she decided to leave, as she wasn't going to be welcomed soon.

As she stepped out, she found herself looking at what could only be thousands of men- women, and children wearing the same strange armor.

Some were looking around curious about their surroundings, while others had begun to explore and so were now foolishly separating from the group.

 

[blueayes]

She watched as the stranges separated themselves into different groups, that immediately began to do something, but what it was that they were doing was a mystery to her.

A group of men and women had gathered most if not all of the children before they began to use what could only be chalk to write on the boards that another group had brought with them.

This was part of the oddities that she had seen today for she had no way of knowing just how these people were doing what they were doing.

She had seen a group of armored men carrying metal and other materials into one of the buildings, then she began to hear the sounds of hammers hitting something.

The problem with the sounds wasn't that they could be heard throughout the old city and would no doubt catch the attention of both the gangs and anyone that heard them.

No the problem with the sounds was just how unearthly they were.

She knew that she was hearing the sounds of several hammers hitting metal, but each strike sent chills down her spine.

It took most of her strength not to run away, for even if she did, where would she run to?

It took nearly all of her will to turn her head in another direction and she saw a group of men and women using some kind of mixture to fix the various holes that the buildings had.

This act had somehow freed her from the sound control and so she watched as the strangers repaired most of the nearby buildings.

She watched as the men and woman walked into one of the buildings and out of pure curiosity she followed them into it.

She watched as they repaired the parts of the building that needed to be fixed, but they left everything else untouched.

"Maybe they ran out?" she said to herself, but she was proven wrong when the group began to walk up the stairs and continued to walk until they reached the fifth floor.

It was completely dark now and if someone or something was here she had no way of knowing it until it was too late.

She felt her eyes widen as three orbs of light began to float in front of the strangers before two of the orbs flew toward both ends of the hallway.

She watched as the strangers repaired everything and then began to clean the rooms and hallway when they were done.

The last of the orbs floated above her and while the strangers did see her they considered her not to be a threat as they repeated their actions.

She watched as the strangers fixed and cleaned the building but always left the dirt and any other trash they had gathered at the edge of the stairs.

If it wasn't because she had seen so many oddities today she would have commented on the stranger's unnatural speed.

Cleaning and fixing these many floors was something that took more than a day, months, or even years, but they had done it with time to spare.

"Well do it from here."

"To here." one of the strangers said to the others as he pointed at one room before he stepped out and pointed at another.

The men and women that were with him, immediately walked into the rooms opened the windows and somehow threw ropes that were tied to grappling hooks onto the building next to the one she was in.

It didn't take long for something to grab the rope and pull them.

She watched with amazement as the strangers began to build a rope bridge that connected both buildings.

"We're done get the kids in here." one of the women said to someone and before she could think about saying anything she listened to the sounds of people walking up the stairs.

She watched s the children walked into each room and she watched as the boys and girls separated from each other.

She followed the strangers that had fixed the floor as they swept the trash down the stairs until they reached the first floor and began to spread it around erasing the footprints that had been left behind.

She followed the strangers back to the fifth floor as she knew that no one would be allowed to step on the first floor any time som.

When she reached the fifth floor she noticed that more spheres were floating inside each of the rooms.

She could see the white-gray and black smoke that the stranger or someone else was using.

That was an issue for the smoke told everyone that someone had food and if they didn't have food then that person would be the food.

In another part of the city, Asuna placed an x on a building, the meant that the building didn't have anything valuable inside it.

For some reason when the people of this game left they left everything, computers- books and furniture it was all there.

It had all long since become trash but the guilds could fix that problem.

She noticed the fly was flying around her and her team again she walked towards a piece of concrete that was no bigger than a pebble and picked it up.

In less than what a person could blink she used the piece of concrete to kill or better said break the drone that was following them, this was the tenth maybe the twentieth drone that someone had broken.

She doubted that anyone living in this city was responsible for the drones so that only left the other city, the one that was behind the fence.

"This is Auna to everyone else, assume that whoever spying on us now knows what the x's mean to switch colors and symbols."

"We are abandoning ay meaning behind them so go nuts."

"Don't forget to send everyone an updated map so that they don't end up getting confused when they enter a building and find that it's either empty or has something we want," she said to the scouts that were exploring the abandoned city.

Asuna smiled as she began to receive text messages from everyone.

For whatever reason, the players still had their help screens, which meant that they still had most if not all of their skills and equipment.

 

[blueayes]

Asuna understood that the people around her weren't used to being told what to do and if she had, to be honest, she wasn't happy that most of the people around her were those that had died in the game.

It was only because of her reputation that she was allowed to lead this group of veterans.

Unlike some of the other groups in the city, her group was completely made of people that had died fighting during the early days of the Death Game.

The groups or scout teams were divided into three groups, attack- search, and non-combatants.

The non-combatants would only enter an area after the attack and search teams had made sure that it was safe.

For a second she noticed that something had moved, it was so small that if it hadn't been because of her level she wouldn't have ever noticed it.

There was another bug, no she was sure that several more bugs were flying around spying on everyone, but who or what didn't matter right now.

What mattered was getting their base set up and after that.

A beep alerted her that the first phase was done, they had more than enough room and there was more than enough space for everyone, and if something did happen no one would get hurt because no one would be at the bottom.

"Asuna, the non-combatants are moving." Kirito said to her through her help screen.

It was kind of funny when she thought about it, whenever someone sent a message or a voice mail she always saw the text message and heard the voice recording along with the picture of the person.

It was odd because she always expected to hear the person's voice through the help screen, only to hear them next to her.

As the day passed the wind began to change and the smell of something that was a mixture of old chemicals- rotting food and a landfill began to arrive.

Her help screen alerted her that whatever was in the air was poisoning her, but it was working so slowly that she wouldn't realize that she was being affected by it at all.

After the safe zone was set up, the next thing that everyone would deal with would be the electricity and the city's plumbing.

Whatever this world or game was everyone agreed that it was better that they didn't get involved with it or played it.

It didn't matter if they had somehow been transported to another world or if someone had forced them into another game, the fact was that everyone that had died in the death game was back and everyone that fought to pass that game didn't want to fight anymore.

So they would rebuild this abandoned city, fill it with the things that they could fix or bring in from their old games and pretend that this had always been the way that they had lived.

It was time to move on.
[[][][][
Biiip! Biiip! Biiip! the sound of the alarm forced him to wake up, he could feel the cold metal floor beneath him and unfortunately, he had a blanket over him.

This meant that his little brother saw him sleeping on the floor and covered him with it, he placed his hand and checked on his right and when he found that there was no one there he turned, and there he was sleeping.

He couldn't help but smile unfortunately it was a sad smile if his brother was sleeping next to him then that meant that their parents hadn't come home again.

Which meant that they were either still working or.....no, they were still working.

"Hey wake up." he said to his brother as he gently shoved him awake.

He watched as his brother tried and failed to open his eyes before he yawned and rubbed his eyes.

They both looked at each other for a second before they he said. "I'll get breakfast ready, so hurry up and get ready for school."

His brother didn't say anything, he just smiled stood up, and ran to his room before running into the bathroom.

With nothing else to do the turned on the holo screen and began to look for something that could entertain him while he cooked.

It was the usual, either someone had attacked one of the corporations, a gang was fighting and ended up getting people killed, cartoons, or a concert of someone that he would never be able to see.

He stopped changing the channel when he found the channel that showed the games.

The games were something that only the most desperate people got themselves involved in.

Homeless men- women and even entire families would enter and try to survive the hunters, if they won then they received a lot of money.

How much no one knew but it's said that it was enough to pull someone out of ruin and into the middle of the city.

He didn't watch the games, but he knew that everything from cyber-enhanced madmen, war veterans, people from the bottom like him, and just crazy people had entered it.

The danger would depend on what the people did during their preparation time while in the old city and when their time ran out, which was when the hunters were sent after them.

Normally he wouldn't have topped on this page but all of the players were wearing some sort of medieval-styled armor, so they were either crazy or their armor was outdated military technology.

It was probably both because he could barely believe that someone that didn't look that much older than himself could pick up what looked like a giant bolder without much effort.

None of the knights looked like they had cyber enhancements or had gene augmentations, so their strengths and speed must be from their armores.

It was incredible watching them work and more than once he had found himself staring at the holo screen when he should have been closing the refrigerator or making sure that he didn't burn the food.

 

[blueayes]

New city

[]][][][][


[][][[][]

Old city

 

[blueayes]

Whenever you see 1.1 it means world 1. followed by whever page your on
So 2.1 means world 2. page 1

 

[blueayes]

He finally placed both his and his brother's breakfast on the table and while it wasn't the best thing to look at at the very least it tasted good, it would have helped if he didn't almost burn the food but everyone makes mistakes.

He heard his brother running towards him before he quickly pulled the chair and sat down.

"Ha! I beat you." his brother said to him while he pointed a finger at him.

"No you didn't, I sat down before you." He said to his brother, that was a game they played every morning.

For whatever reason they both tried to be the first one to sit down and take the first bite of food, the game didn't mean anything but it was something that the two of them shared.

He watched as his little brother grabbed his slightly burned hashbrowns and bit into them, and then he turned his attention to the holo screen.

"So what do you think?" he heard one of the players ask another one.

'Well if I can get the computer to work and if you guys keep bringing me more of them I should be able to reactivate or get whatever information they had." he heard the second player answer the first one.

He was about to put a spoon full of beans into his mouth when he heard the player say those words, then he unintentionally drooped said spoon when he heard the next set f words that the player said.

"If you guys can find the machines, I should be able to get the internet back online."

"I mean we would need to fix the towers but other than that nothing is stopping me from getting it running again."

He turned to look at his brother who was too young to understand just how much those few words meant.

The real internet was something that no one had control over, unlike what everyone used now, no corporation controlled the old internet and there was no one policing the everyday person from saying or doing whatever they wanted.

Everyone knew that the internet still existed, but it was behind the Black Wall and it was full of insane A. I, still, people risked their lives just to get a glimpse of what had been lost.

"What's wrong?" his brother asked him.

"Nothing I just heard someone say something crazy." he said to his brother as the messaging board was already starting to be filled with people commenting on what they had just heard.

Some claimed that it was just a bunch of nonsense, and others said that the players just wanted to get famous before they died, but he knew that a lot of people would take what the players said seriously.

"So when is that show of yours?" he asked his brother as they both finished eating.

"Next week, two o'clock." his brother said to him as he held two fingers up, making sure that he both saw and heard him.

He smiled and after washing the dishes he rubbed his little brother's head and began to walk him to school.

The moment they both stepped out of their apartment they were immediately greeted by the dumps odor along with the stench of the wastelands stench.

He handed his little brother a rag that he had grabbed from the kitchen so that he could cover his mouth and nose, he on the other hand would have to use his shirt sleeve.

Maybe it was his lucky day because he had slept with his clothes on, they smelled like sweat, which meant that it was harder for him to smell everything else.

He grabbed his brother's hand and they both began to walk down the hallway, he made sure to tighten his grip on his brother's hand so that if someone tried to pull him away, they wouldn't be able to.

the hallway was dark and if it hadn't been for the neon lights from the various signs neither he nor his brother would know where their apartment was.

They finally reached the end of the hallway and knocked five times on the door before whistling.

This was a sign that the gang and the regular people living here used to tell each other that they belonged there and weren't just bursting.

The door opened and they found themselves in a completely different world.

Wherever they turned was a building that towered over them, cars that looked as if they were from different time periods both driving on the street and in the air.

Massive holographic videos and pictures promoting one thing or another, while men women and children dressed in somany different kinds of clothes walked passed them.

They both stared at the city like they usually did, then like useal, the gangsters greeted them and rubbed his little brother's head before telling his brother to stay in school.

Their apartment was located in an odd part of the city, it wasn't in the downtown part of the city so they didn't get to see or experience any of the fancy stuff that goes on there.

Yet they weren't exactly far away, so they could see whenever something big was going on.

Unfortunately, this meant that the area where their apartment was located had more than one gang wanting to take control of it, but the gang that controlled it had never lost, so it was probably the safest place for his little brother to be.

As they walked they began to pass the various dark alleys of the city, some had homeless people just laying around living their lives.

They had to move fast when they walked past someone being beaten- robbed or killed, hell they even had to walk fast whenever they passed prostitutes.

They only stopped walking fast when they reached the part of the city that had the dealers selling their filth to the high schoolers and the rich brats from one of the corporation's schools.

It was normal for people to see their kids get on the train and the train would take them to their school, however, he would always accompany his little brother to his school.

It may have been overprotective of him, but this city is dangerous and he isn't the only one that does this.

the train finally stopped and after walking towards the school and watching his little brother enter the school, he logged in and began to take as many orders as he could.

It was time for him to go to work.

 

[blueayes]

The Badlands
The Badlands are what people call everything beyond the New City.

It's a place filled with abandoned towns- villages and other cities these are what remain after the corporations waged their wars on each other.

When one steppe into the badlands they will find themselves seeing roles upon roles of wind turbines and solar panels that have been abandoned and as a result, they are either broken or completely rusted.

There are also some rivers if you want to call them that, that have either been completely polluted with chemicals that the corporations have dumped into them, or poisoned because of the weapons dropped during the wars.

There are a lot of old light posts and gas stations that litter what can barely be called streets.

Despite all of this amazing scenery, the first thing a person notice is the smell, the Badlands is said to be filled with the stench of both the dead and the living, as well as whatever else was dumped into it over the years.

Despite all of this, the Players have slowly begun to change the badlands, some areas have electricity running constantly and it's even said that they have set up a system that keeps the stench away.

Some of the locals those few crazy or unfortunate enough to live out there claim that they even have clean water and fresh food all the way out there.

 

[blueayes]

Red Drop

The Red Drop was created by the players as a way to justify the fact that they had unwillingly started a business with the people living in the Old City and the Badlands.

It doesn't matter to the players if a person is just someone trying to feed their families- a gangster that's just passing through or someone that's desperately looking for work.

As long as a person doesn't cross them they're free to join.

While the players were being hunted, they found themselves running into a problem, the Old City was too big for them to protect on their own.

If they managed to kill all of the attackers in one area another was being destroyed, so they turned to the people and the gangs living in the Old City.

Needless to say that when people found out that the players were paying everyone with real food- gold and silver they soon had more people than they could count wanting to work for them.

The Red Drops main role is the management of Immigration, meaning that it's up to them to know who enters and leaves the Old City.

They also manage the Old City's food supply and even the people that control the Old City's finances can be found working for the Red Drop.

The thing is that if a person were to ask a Player if they listen or even obey the Red Drop most of them will instantly say no, and only a few of them will say yes.

Meaning more companies have their hands in the Old City and haven't been made public.

Or maybe they aren't companies, or maybe they are something else, either way, they are involved with the Plyers and by extension the Old City.

 

[blueayes]

Battle Beast

Battle Beasts are genetically and cybernetically mutated and enhanced creatures, they were made illegal because they tend to go out of control.

It is still unknown who supplied the players with the battle beast, but considering that most if not all of the creatures that have been seen so far are calm when not in combat, it is suspected that it might be the same corporation that granted the Knights\ Players their armors and weapons.

 

[blueayes]

Old City Red Drop Bank

Unlike the rest of the world, the Old City has three ways of paying for everything, and it's no mystery that the city bank deals with all three.

Solid; solids are anything from pieces of technology Gold- Jewelry, and anything that has any value in the Old City market.

For example, a person can trade a gun that's worth a hundred Dollars for food and medicine that is worth the same amount.

Paper; Because of how bad the crash was a lot of people were left with piles of paper money that were made completely worthless and as a result, they had nothing left to buy the things that they needed or pay for their everyday needs.

The Red Drop Bank gave the worthless currency some worth again regardless of what it was.

While most see this as them taking pity on people no one comments on it because they don't dare risk losing everything again.

Regardless of this, if a person leaves the Old City and expects their paper money to have any value it won't take them long to find out that it doesn't, however, this might not be the case considering that there are times that suddenly their paper money is worth something again.

However, knowing when those times are is anyone's guess.

Digital; Do I even need to comment on this, because of the attention and people moving into the Old City, the Red Drop, and by extension, the Players had no choice but to allow the world currency to enter the Old City.

Needless to say that digital money is used by everyone, both in and out of the Old City.

As a result, the Bank is said to keep a close eye on anyone the receives or sends credits\ digital dollars in and out of the old city.

While the Bank is known to control and manage all of these things and because of it, it has control of many if not all of the markets and shops in the Old City.

One has to remember that there are other smaller banks in the Old City and they unlike the Red Drop Bank deal with the rest of the world.

 

[blueayes]

The Garden\ Farm
The garden has become one of the most protected areas of the Old City as it houses some of the world's rarest plants and insects that were believed to have gone extinct.

The people in the garden are directly responsible for managing- planting and distributing all of the fruits- vegetables and plants that are grown by the old city inhabitants within their secret farms.

While several states and corporations have tried and failed to secure certain rights to the garden they have all been turned away as the Players have chosen to keep their independence from the rest of the world.

It's not uncommon to see a regular person eating real meat or real fruits.

This is because, unlike the corporations or within the states where one would have to be a member of the higher class of society, the Player has deemed the people living in the Old City their responsibility.

The Farm
Just like the garden the farm is only known to exist within the old city, however, where the players keep most of the animals is unknown.

The few that have seen both the garden and the farm refer to them as the last clean places on earth and paradise.

It's known that the battle beast and the animals that are naturally or were naturally born in the world before the many wars made them extinct exist in this location.

It's well known that there have been offers for the samples of the animals d.n.a so that the species lost over the years can be slowly returned to the world.

The Players have rejected all attempts stating that even if they were to believe that what they have been told is true, they have seen what the corporations are willing to do and as such have rejected any offer from the corporations.

 

[blueayes]

The Dump
The Dump is a special place where the Old City and the City blend, it is a place where all of the old appliances and trash of both cities end up.

Because of the way that the Players do things it has become a place where people of the Old City and the people of the New City have found work.

Because the Players found it difficult to import several things into the old city they began to use the abundant amount of scrap metal as well as other materials that could be found inside the dump.

As a result of this three new businesses have been created.

The Scraps are people that have decided to throw their luck into this job and spend their days gathering everything that isn't a dead body for the players.

Their pay depends on what they bring and how much they have found o it.

The Collectors; are a group of people that gather whatever trash they can find, be it tin cans or parts that were overlooked when the clean-up teams were done with an area.

The Grave Diggers or Undertakers; During their time searching threw the dump for whatever they needed the Players began to run into a lot of dead people.

Some had been murdered, that was obvious because they would either have a bullet in their head or signs that they had been staved or burned.

Others were just the victims of being born on the lower ends of society and had either starved to death- gotten so high that they didn't even realize that they were about to die or had just given up.

The Grave Diggers' job is to bury all of them outside of the old city.

It's said that the people that live in the New City and work in these jobs always have some extra cash to spend and some have even managed to pay for better insurance.

It's well known that several of them have started or completely paid off debts that once seemed impossible to pay.

Despite all of this good fortune, however, there have been people talking.
No one believes what they say because they are just a bunch of drunks.

They claim that the players don't need the trash anymore considering that they have managed to fix a lot of the old city, but no one believes them considering that the players are still paying top dollar for what the scraps and the collectors bring in.

 

[blueayes]

His neuro implant wasn't the best nor was it something that everyone used, no it was an old model and the only reason he even had it was because it was the only one that his parents could afford at the time.

They had always said that they would buy him an upgraded one or one that was used by everyone, then they started saying that they would help him pay for a new one.

In the end, they didn't do either.

He can still remember, the day that they both went to work.

He had managed to save just enough to help them pay for his brother's implant, that way he wouldn't be stuck with an outdated piece of scrap like the one he used.

He had heard his parent's boss yell at them and threaten them that if they didn't go to work they would both be fired.

The operation needed his brother to be asleep so that the doctors could work, so his parents left him in charge of getting his brother home.

They never came back home.

Ever since then whenever his brother asks about them he would always say that they were at work, it was a lie but it was a lie that he could live with just as long as his brother made it out.

He was forced to stop walking when he arrived at the building, the stairs were full of trashbags and it was nearly impossible for him to go both up and down without risking something spilling on him or something stabbing him.

The building was covered in graffiti and just like the rest of the buildings in the area that graffiti was covered by even more graffiti.

The outside of the building was full of people some had just been evicted and so they still had a lot of their belongings, while others looked and smelled as if they hadn't had a bath in years.

He was going to walk up the side of the stairs when he noticed the logo, this building belonged to a gang so he turn around and walk away.

Whenever someone goes insane or some deal goes wrong the trauma team comes in and cleans the area that way someone else can move in.

Sometimes people end up losing body parts, tats what he's looking for, cybernetics, it doesn't matter if it's an eyeball a pair of hands, or a leg just one piece is enough for him to be able to pay rent.

A normal person would ask him why he doesn't just get a normal job, there aren't any, the so-called normal jobs pay so little that he could never pay rent and feed his little brother.

As he walks he can see the air cars of the trauma team flying away, he wanted to go back but if the gang found out he was there and took something then they would kill him and his brother.

A kid bumps into him, but he doesn't have any chips or cash on him so the kid just insults him for being broke.

He ignores the prostitutes that call to him, some whisper what their willing to teach him, while others tell him about certain people that need things done for them.

He doesn't like it, the women are attractive there isn't any doubt about that, but if they are calling out to him then they have started to realize that he's somehow affording to live.

The sound of a metal click makes him stop walking and the dim glow of a gold-plated gun aimed at his head forces him to stand still.

"Let's talk." a man that he's never seen before says to him as thes pulled into an alley by a woman that has glowing blue eyes.

"I don't know anything." he says to the pair who immediately slammed his back into the wall.

"Relax, we know you don't." the man says to him as shows him a picture of a gold-plated shotgun.

"People say that you deal with lost parts, so have you seen this part?" the man says to him.

"No." he answers, if he had seen a gun like that he would have sold it for enough money to pay for a better apartment o better insurance.

"So you're not lying to us?" the man said to him.

"If I had seen it, I would have sold it and gotten a better apartment but I'm still living here aren't I" he answers the man.

It only took a moment but the next thing he knew he was on the ground grabbing his head, he didn't even know when the man hit him.

Hell, he didn't even feel the pain but his hands had moved even before he could scream in agony.

"Let's go"

"So we're just going to leave him?"

"Yeah he doesn't know anything" were the last words he heard before he passed out.

When he finally woke up he found that the sun had gone down and, he had to use all of his strength to get back up, he had to get home he had broken his promise.

The walk back home was completely different the streets were full of people that wanted to get some relief from their everyday lives, and people buying...whatever they needed at the moment.

When he finally made it back the guards outside immediately surrounded him and tried to get him to tell them who had beaten him.

He didn't want to start anything so he told them the truth he didn't know, but in the end, he told them that it had been a guy that had a gold gun and was looking for a gold shotgun.

The guards opened the door for him and told him that his brother was already inside.

He was forced to lean on the walls and when he found his front door he immediately opened it and found his little brother sitting on the couch alone.

His little brother couldn't see him yet.

"You lied" his brother said to him as he struggled to get inside.

"Sorry, something happened." He said to his brother as he tried to not sound as injured as he felt.

He must have not done a good job because his brother got up and walked toward him before gasping and running up to him.

"Are you okay!" his brother said to him as he hugged his leg.

"I'm fine, just a little beaten up, so did your school give you a video? Let's watch it together." he said to his brother who was crying while still hugging his lege.

 

[blueayes]

][][][
The sounds of thunder made her look up and she felt the rain long before she saw it, the strangers hadn't stopped working.

If a group wasn't cleaning up a street or an alley, it was repairing a building or dragging some garbage toward one of the buildings, or carrying something out of a building.

The world that had stood still for a long had suddenly started to move but it was moving without her.

She felt as if the rain was mocking her, she could feel all of the dirt- oil, and all of the stuff that the wind carried and landed on her over the last few months.

She could feel it stubbornly sticking to her skin and clothes along with the rain as it was soaked into her clothes, yet at the same time most of the water just ran off leaving all of the filth behind.

Leaving her behind.

She could see the lights in the nearby buildings, they weren't just the neon and holographic lights that remained anymore.

They had told her when they had met her that she could stay, but..... but the world that they lived in was so different, they had somehow brought a tiny piece of something dead back to life in such a short time, and she......

She was nothing like them.

No, that wasn't right, her place was out here at the bottom and their place was up there.

They were just imitating the corporations, but even if they were nothing more than copies, they were still better than her.

"You're going to catch a cold if you stay out here." the friendly voice of a woman said to her.

"I can't go in." she answered the woman, but it was so dark because the rain had covered what little light remained that she couldn't see who she was talking to.

"Oh, and who said you couldn't, because I'm telling you can." the woman said to her, her voice holding her friendly tone but there was a hardness to it now.

The wind blew and she began to shake as the temperature began to drop.

"You know sometimes when you are stuck and can't move or fall and can't get up, you need someone to either push you or pull you up."

"So I push you forward." the woman said to her before she felt the woman's small hands on her back and she felt the woman putting more and more strength into her arms until she gave a step forward.

"Now with that out of the way, how bout I pull you up from this hole you're it." The woman said to her as she felt a warm hand grab onto hers and she was pulled towards one of the nearby buildings.

She automatically followed the woman into the building she had expected the bottom of the first floor to be dirty and full of trash but instead, she found that it was clean and there were people everywhere she turned.

As the woman pulled her up the stairs she caught glimpses of the woman's white armor, but for whatever reason, she didn't dare look at the woman's face, then in an instant, she felt the woman's grip loosen until it was completely gone.

"Sometimes the hardest choices we have to make are the easiest."

"So are you going to stay where you are or are you going to take the first step." the woman said to her.

She didn't understand what the woman meant there wasn't anything here, even if they had worked all day at best there could only be rooms filled with people.

Then she heard it, the sounds of different kinds of music, followed by the recorded voices of machines announcing some product that was too expensive for her to buy.

"What she said as she found that she had somehow been transported to the bottom levels of the new city, admittedly the hallway she was in was a lot cleaner but it was filled with people and shops.

She turned towards one of the rooms and she could see people crossing the recently built bridge towards another building.

"Asuna good you're here." a man walked past her as he called out to the woman that stood next to her.

"We're just about done fixing this area but we still need to fix the suwar system and well all of the pipes." the man said to the woman she now knew was named Asuna.

"How bad are they?" Asuna asked the man.

"Hard to say, we are having trouble getting to certain areas." the man's voice took a heavier tome.

'There are signs everywhere that someone fought a war here and chemical weapons were used."

"If it wasn't for the fact that we're used to dealing with things like that most of us in the exploration teams would be dead.

"So what can you do?" Asuna asked the man.

"Turn on the water and see where things start to flood, so we can find the areas that need to get replaced first and if we're lucky some of the chemicals will be washed away." the man answered Asuna before he walked away.

"Let's get you some clean clothes and a warm bath." Asuna said to her.

During this entire time, she never dared to look at the woman's face and even now she didn't dare to do so, yet as they stood in front of a red door she felt a pair of hands gently touch her head and forced her to turn.

She found herself looking at a young woman with hazel eyes and long chestnut hair smiling at her.

"You know that you're at the bottom good so are we, we're no different from you."

"So lift that head and look at everyone in the eyes, because no one here is better than you. Asuna said to her as the door in front of them opened and a woman wearing nothing but a towel walked out.

She found herself walking into a room that had small baskets both hanging from the walls and on shelves that stood just far enough for the women to be able to put their cloth in them and still have enough room to move without bumping into each other.

She could hear what sounded like showers coming from the room next door but that wasn't possible because the old City didn't have water and from the conversation, she heard earlier the strangers hadn't turned it on yet.

"Come on." Asuna said to her as she pointed at the room where the sound of water could be heard.

They both soon walked towards the shower and as she was about to walk in she saw another woman grabbing her only possessions and walking away with them.

She was going to chase after her but she felt Asuna's hand on her shoulder but the weight and strength it had was something that couldn't have been natural.

So with little choice, she followed Asuna inside.

 

[blueayes]

Red Nanobots R.N for short

No one knows anything about these things or how the hell they are even capable of doing what they are doing.

Both the Gunmen and the Knights have these things covering their bodies making them capable of doing things that ordinary people shouldn't be able to.

For one they can fight and keep up with augmented Humans and most cyber-enhanced people.

If they are wearing their armor or suits they are capable of fighting with most if not all militaries regardless of what gear they are using.


We still haven't gotten our hands on a battle beast but I am willing to put my money on the fact that those things are covered in R.N' s too.

The R.N's are probably the reason why the Player's Netrunners can deep dive without dying other than this there's nothing anyone knows and the Players sure as hell aren't talking.

 

[blueayes]

It had been years since she had a proper shower and she couldn't even remember if she had ever had a bath.

She wished that she could think about something anything but as she looked at the multi-colored filth that was being washed away from her she found that she couldn't think about anything.

'Kirito!" Asuna suddenly shouted, and she quickly turned to see what was going on and found that Asuna was being restrained by several women.

'Relax." one of the women said to Asuna.

"They have everything under control." Another woman said to Asuna as she pushed Asuna back into the room.

'We're running into more and more crazies." she heard another woman say with an irritated tone in her voice.

"Asuna calm down, I know how you feel but you still need to teach the new girl how things are being done and Yui is downstairs." a woman with long blond hair said to Asuna.

The woman's voice was firm and seemed to carry the woman's authority with it, for a brief moment she wondered how could such a soft voice send chills down her spine while at the same time making her stand up straight.

She watched as Asuna began to calm down until she stopped struggling.

"I'm sorry, it's just that everything." Asuna began.

'I know ." the blond woman said to Asuna before handing her a towel so that Asuna could cover and dry herself off.

She began to follow both women out of the showers and back to the basket room or was it a locker room that didn't have any lockers, and she found that a clean set of clothes were waiting for her in the basket where she had placed her old clothes before they were stolen.

"Good you found them, your old clothes were dirty so we just copied them and gave you the clean ones," Auna said to her as she was changing.

"As you can see we're still getting everything ready so it's going to be a while before everything is working so feel free to look for work wherever you can." Asuna said to her before she looked at her with an expression that screamed ask me something.

"How do...how do I... get paid." she asked Asuna it was a stupid question considering that it was the first thing she asked but it was the only thing she could think of.

"Yeah to buy things you need money, so it makes sense that you would ask that first."

"We have three different ways, of paying people."

"The first one is gold and silver and they are honestly both the safest and most dangerous currency we have because no matter what happens you can use them to buy things."

"The problem with having them is that it's easy for people to tell who has them and who doesn't."

"Electronic money but that depends on the kind that the person that's paying you uses, so make sure that you are being paid with the same kind you normally use around here."

"And finally there's paper money because we found a lot of it and we are using the price tags that we found to see how much people charged for things, so it's easier for us to use all of the Dollar and Eurodollars that we have found."

She listened to Asuna's explanation but she found that she was a lot more confused about everything.

What did Asuna mean by they paid people with gold?

"How do I find work?" she asked Asuna.

"That's easy just ask, like I said we're just getting started so everyone needs help." Asuna answered her before she reached into one of her pockets and took out a hand full of gold coins.

"This should get you started." Asuna said to her before she signed to her that she should put the coins in her pocket and follow her out of the room.

"Where are we going," she asked Asuna as the woman led her outside.

She found that the sun had already gone down and the moon was barely visible, but that didn't matter because her eyes were focused on the flashes of light that could be seen in the distance.

"Our scout teams are finding people that have gone crazy, but they're augmented with cybernetic implants so maybe their brains just can't handle them anymore."

"What I'm trying to say is stay in the buildings and use the bridges to move from one building to the other and if you have to go down there please be careful." Asuna said to her as he pointed at the streets below.

"So is there anything that you're good at?" Asuna asked her as she led her into the next building.

'I'm good at hiding." she answered Asuna as she entered the building threw the opened window.

"Maybe you could help our scout teams?" she heard Asuna say to herself before she realized that she had said that out loud and immediately acted as if she hadn't said anything.

As they exited the room she found the entire hallway was filled with people that were selling what looked like different kinds of weapons- armor and firearms.

"I don't see any explosives." she said as they walked past a man that stood in front of a room that was filled with machine guns.

"Why would those be here, I mean if an idiot fired a stray shot this whole place would explode." Asuna said to her s she led her into another room that led to another window.

Again she followed Asuna into the building and found that this time the hallway was filled with people knitting or selling handmade clothes.

"It's easier to put different things in different buildings because right now we can't afford people setting up shop somewhere and then they end up being forgotten by everyone because no one told them what was going on." Asuna said to her.

She stopped following Asuna when she found a sweater that reminded her of the one her mother use to wear.

"Kirito what's wrong?" she turned when she heard Asuna say to someone that she couldn't see.

"Okay, I'm on my way." Asuna said before she began to walk towards the stairs and went down to the first floor.

She followed the woman to the same place where she had seen everyone gathered in the morning.

She stopped walking when found a group of armored men standing around five or maybe they were eight men that had their arms and legs cut off.

Unfortunately, the armored men nor the ones that didn't have limbs were the reason she had stopped walking, no the reason she had stopped walking was the group of children whose eyes were glowing as if they were hacking into something.

"Kirito." Asuna said to a man wearing oil black armor.

"I already called the GunGale Players in Night City and they say that it's called cyber psychosis."

'They say that it's something that happens when someone replaces too much of their original bodies with machines." Kirito said to Asuna

'We have figured out a way of reversing the process, however, it depends on the person and if the method works we might be bringing back someone that was already an out-of-control killer." One of the kids said to Asuna and the man named Kirito.

"So what's the plan?" Kirito asked the boy.

'Simple, we simply inject red nanobots into the affected person" the boy stops and looks around. "Sorry persons and let them deal with what's affecting the brain, whatever happens after that."

"Will e our problem." Asuna said to the boy before signaling to him to inject the men with the nanobots.

She watched as the men that didn't have arms and legs that up to the point that they had been injected were still mumbling to themselves suddenly became quiet and lay on the ground.

She could hear them loudly breathing, so she knew that they were still alive.


"So what now?"Kirito asked the boy as he kept a close eye on the prisoners.

"The Red Nanobots are dealing with the situation, however, there's something I have to tell you."

"While we were using the old computers to enter what was left of the internet, we found dozens of insane A. I so we are going to have to block whatever parts of the internet we can repair before we connect them."

 

[blueayes]

"There's nothing I can." Kirito stops talking and looks on his face, he seems to be remembering something.

"You kids know better about these things just be safe. " he says to the boy who reaches into his pocket and takes out a handful of chips.

'What's that?" Asua asked the boy.

"While we were inspecting the city's brain or what was left of it we found that several people have died here."

"I requested a scout tea to collect the electronics that they had as well as whatever implants were left behind after they passed."

"What I hold in my hand." the boy stops stalking ass six girls carrying a bag each walk toward Kirito and Asuna.

The girls open the bags showing that they were all filled with what looked like different kinds of implant chips, that people used with the ports that they would have on their necks so that they could connect with the internet and anything else that they might find.

"Why?"Kirito asked the boy.

'There are two reasons why I asked the scout team to retrieve them."

"The firts being the number of dead, a single chip would be installed into a single person, and considering that each bag is filled with them. You can imagine how many people have died in this area alone."

"So it's better if we find how they died and how we can avoid repeating their fates."

"The second reason is that these chips hold a small fraction of the information these people had, so we will be able to use it to make our lives and the lives of future generations easier."

No one said anything for a long moment but it was Asuna who pointed at the girls before signaling them to go to one of the buildings that had lights on the first floor.

"There's something you aren't telling us." Asuna said to the boy.

"While the scout teams were exploring and retrieving the merchandise, they found traces of recent as well as past conflicts that have occurred in the city."

"Whatever or whoever killed these people returns or is still in the city, but what's most disturbing is the number of weapons that they found."

"Normally when someone is a serial killer or an animal or even an insane person they take something from their victims."

"It doesn't matter if the item is a weapon- a body part of an object and while we have no way of knowing if an object or soft body part was taken, we do know that whoever or whatever killed these people left the bodies by the most part untouched."

Kirito and Asuna looked at the boy for a long moment before they both turned to look at her and the men that were laying unconscious on the ground.

"Is that all?" Kirito asked the boy.

"No, there is an unusual lack of animals in this area."

"The dead bodies should have led to an explosion of that and dog populations, as well as insects that would attract birds and lizards to the area."

'And yet there hasn't been a single bird in the sky, or a dog that has been heard barking which only makes our situation." the boy explained but before he could finish Kirito stopped him.

'We will deal with it when we have to, even if we want to stop whatever is out there, we still have a lot on our hands for now." Kirito said to the boy who nodded and pointed at the unconscious men before they were carried by what she assumed were the scouts to the building that the girls had walked into.

She watched as both Asuna and Kirito turned to look at her.

"So what do you know about people dying around here." Kirito said to her.

And so she began to tell them everything she knew, which wasn't a lot, she told them how the corporations sent people into the city to kill the people living in it, but other than that she didn't know anything.

Se knew that people watched the games or hunt it didn't matter what they called it on t.v.

"I see." Asuna said before she turned to look at Kirito who nodded and they both began to call someone they knew and she watched as they both began to pass the information that they got from her.
][]][]

The sound of a bell ringing caught his attention, had gotten late and so his brother was asleep now, like usual he was now watching t.v when he heard the bell ring.

Out of instinct, he checked the date and he let out a breath when he saw that the rent wasn't due yet.

The corporation that owned the building and the buildings around it was evicting and forcefully moving people somewhere, no one knew where they took the homeless people only that they took them.

Some people claimed that they took everyone that couldn't afford to live in the new city and forced them to live inside work camps, others claimed that they left them in the wastelands that surround the new and old city.

He hoped that those first two options were real because the last option was the one that scared him the most.

Some people believed and some that have even seen people they knew during the hunt.

In the first two options, you knew that you were going to die, either because some machine killed you, you were worked to death or you starved, but in the old city dying was something that you wished happened fast.

There was nothing that caught his attention, nothing that he could use to distract himself from the sound of the bells.

How many people are being relocated? he wondered as the sound of people screaming and gunfire made him turn towards the door.

He ran to his brother's room and pulled him out of bed, his brother wasn't even awake as he dragged him into their parent's old room before throwing him into the reinforced closet.

The two of them had gone into the room once, to see when their parents came back, it was back then that they found that the closet door that was always locked was not only opened but full of things.

"What's going on?" His rother asked him as the sound of gunfire and people screaming got closer.

"It's the drones. there here." he said to his brother as he reached underneath his parent's bed and pulled out a suitcase.

"Pu on anything that looks kike a ring necks anything and throw everything else into the bag." he said to his brother.

He didn't know what any of the devices his parents had did, only that whenever he or his brother touched them the devices a red hologram always popped out said danger.

He grabbed one of the machines and put it on his wrist, then he put on a couple of rings, he briefly turned to look at his brother who was doing the same.

Whenever they found something that was too big or too small they threw it into the bag.

The gunfire was now in front of their apartment door and he could hear the gang members shouting as they fired at the drones.

There was no time left, so he grabbed the last thing in the closet, the only thing he swore to never take out of the apartment.

His dad's old gun.

It wasn't anything special according to his dad the thing was something that didn't need to be reloaded, but it was unreliable.

Sometimes the gun didn't fire, one kind of ammunition would come out on one occasion, and in another completely different kind would come out.

It was the reason why every police officer was given one to keep because of how useless the gun was, the door to his apartment exploded and a drone flew in.

He turned to look at his brother before the two of them ran into the closet and closed the door.

They could see the lights of the drone threw the cracks.

Everything was so quiet, then the closet door was pulled off and he heard his brother scream.

It all happened in a second but that second he lifted his dada old gun and he felt it heat up as a flare shot into the drone before it exploded.

He quickly grabbed his brother who was crying and screaming that he wanted mom and dad before throwing him towards the air vent that led outside.

He use to use it when he and his friends played hide and seek when he was younger, now it was going to help him and his brother escape.

the two of them crawled threw the hole and found themselves outside.

It was chaos, the drones were swarming their building, and saw why they were there.

there was a giant sign floating over the building that said that the building had just been bought and everyone had just had their contracts canceled.

He quickly got us grabbed his brother and put the bag on his shoulder before he did the only thing he could do, he ran while carrying his little brother and the things their parents deemed impotarant.

 

[blueayes]

The lie
As the girl's brain was opened a video file was discovered, it was something that she had been ordered to destroy but kept because she didn't want to forget.

Her captors believed that they had discovered something that would have earned them extra pay, and it would, except the memory that they had discovered had been created by the netrunners as a way of hiding the player's origins.

"Do it." one of her captors said as the video was uploaded to the internet or corp net so that everyone could see it.

The first memory was what was called a shared memory, it was something that a few or a dozen people remember and as such, it was easy to share the memory with anyone.

So as the video began to be played befoe the girl's captors- the people that had paid them to capture her- the hunters that were already in the old city, as well as those waiting their turn in the new city.

The regular citizens of the new city watched as an old commercial was played in front of them, the commercial was for an old virtual reality headset.

The thing was nothing more than a giant ugly-looking helmet that came in different colors and designs.

As they watched they realized that the headset couldn't even connect to the internet, however, it could connect to an outdated version of the Corpo Net one that existed during the time of the old internet before it was destroyed.

They watched as three games were advertised, Sword Art Online, Gun Gale Online, and Fairy Dance Online.

the commercial then changed to the video of several news stations that like the company that made the headsets and the games didn't exist anymore.

The videos showed images of grieving families.

As it turned out one of the researchers responsible for creating the headsets decided that he wanted to play god and so he waited for the time that all of the headsets were sold and the maximon amount of people that the servers could handle were logged in, then he forced them to stay inside the game.

Normally a person expected to see what happened inside the game world but what was shown to everyone was completely different.

Everyone watched as full-grown adults from men and women in their early twenties, some elderly but mostly teenagers and children were taken to hospitals before they were taken by the company and was forced to pay for those that were affected.

"So what now" two men appeared on the screen, their faces were hidden because of how primitive the security cameras of that time were.

"What we have here is an opportunity, we've figured out how to stop them from dying in the real world but we can't free their minds."

"So why don't we use them, that way we don't waste funds taking care of them." the man that was obviously charged said to the other.

"What about their families?"

"What about them?"

"Le the visit their loved ones, we aren't monsters. Either way, they won't be able to know how their precious loved ones are doing, to them their family members are just asleep."

The next thing that was shown was the different experiments that were done on the affected people.

1; Red Nanobot augmentations.

2; War scenarios- place all of the players into different war battles that have occurred over the years and record how they handle the situation.

3; Build all of the weapons and devices that the players have created while within the game.

4; Artificial insemination program- to see if a person that has been raised inside a virtual world can adapt to the real one and how a person can be of use to the company.

5; Battle beast and war droid programs.

The video changed again to the time of the fourth corporate war, it showed a single man wearing a lab coat running in and using what looked like an old version of the neuro impact,

The man placed the implant inside of the helmet but outside of the subjects' heads.

"I'm sorry, but this is all I can do, your bodies haven't aged because of the nanobots, but that's only because you have not woken up yet." The man begins to cough blood.

"I'm sorry big brother, but the world changed and all of you will have t adapt fast when you wake up." the man begins to cough even more, as he falls onto the ground and a puddle of blood begins to form around him.

Company funds have been seized, all financial and intellectual properties being to those that have earned and created them.

The test subjects will be awakening shortly.... the video\ memory cuts off

 

[blueayes]

They somehow ended up in this world but neither of them is in the mood to be the hero, unfortunately, that's just something that happens because they're together.]]] Konosuba , Cyberpunk crossover ]]]

It didn't take us long to realize that we weren't in the right world, no by the way that Aqua was acting this was Earth but it just wasn't our earth.

"No no no no." Aqua just kept repeating to herself as she moved her hands in front of her.

"What are you doing?" I said to her, as I tried and failed to ignore the skyscrapers that surrounded us.

"Everything is a mess, it's like the gods in charge of everything just gave up and left, hold on."

"No, this goes here and this here," Aqua said before the wind blew and cleared out the pollution that covered part of the sky.

"Okay it's going to be a while but there should be clean water and air in fifty years if another war doesn't happen now when do we eat?" Aqua said to me as she ignored the fact that we were lost.

I looked at Aqua for a moment before we began to look for something that seemed familiar thankfully we both found what looked like a burger stand that wasn't too far from where they were standing.

It wasn't the first time that either of us had left one world and ended up in another, granted our circumstances were different while at the same time the same.

Aqua was the goddess responsible for sending people that died to the afterlife and she also chose people that caught her attention to other worlds.

And I the great Kazuma was one of those people.

We normally don't talk about how we ended up together because Aqua always lies and tries to make me look bad.

And when I try to tell the story she will always but in and say that I changed the story to make myself look cooler than I was.

Anyway, none of this matters because we just arrived in this world and now we have to figure out three important things, what do people use for money here?

Where are we going to live and how are we going to live?

Since the two of us already did this before we know that the safest place we can be is also the most dangerous place we be.

The two of us walked towards the burger stand but we stopped waking when we heard the sound of engines on top of us and we both felt our mouths open when we looked up and saw not one but a lot of flying cars driving in the sky.

Our mouths hung open as we saw the giant screens that were a part of the skyscrapers and as we looked around we couldn't help but gasp at the holograms that floated in the sky.

Both of these things were nothing more but advertisements for something pointless that people probably didn't need but they were amazing to look at.

I felt my stomach grow and so we kept on walking.

"Hey." I said to the man who was selling the burgers.

"Welcome what will it be?" the man answered me.

"We're new here so I was wondering what you guys accept as money?" I said to the man who just locked eyes with me.

"Who sent you, I don't want any trouble." the man said to me as he slowly reached under the counter.

"Relax, we just got here and we don't know if what we have is any good here." I said to the man as I showed him a silver coin.

The man grabbed the coin before rubbing his fingers over it and handing it back to me.

"Your money is no good here, you need some Eurodollars or just dollars."

" I'm just a man that sells burgers for a living, I don't want anything to do with that." the man said to me before he stopped talking and acted as if we weren't there.

I turned to look at Aqua who had an uncharacteristic expression on her, if I didn't know any better I could almost swear that she was thinking.

"Can you show us what money everyone uses here? if you do we will leave." Aqua said to the man who just glared at her but after a second he let out a sigh and showed us what looked like two different dollar bills.

As we both reached for the bills the man quickly pulled his hand back and told us to go away.

There was nothing else we could say and it was obvious that we weren't welcome there so we just kept on walking until we found something that seems to exist in every world a pawnshop.

So since we have such few options we enter the pawnshop and I have to restrain both Aqua and myself from wanting to touch everything we can get our hands on because with Aqua's luck she will end up breaking something and we will have a huge debt hanging over our heads.

"Hey, how much can you give me for this." I say to the clerk who takes the same silver coin that I showed the man that was selling burgers.

I watch as the man puts the coin on some kind of machine that lets out a light, the machine is probably scanning the coin but I have no way of knowing if it's even doing that, or if the man is just acting as if he's checking the coins worth.

"Best I can do is fifteen thousand." the man says to me.

I look at the man and judging by his expression I'm certain that the coin is worth a lot more.

"Cant you give me anymore, it's my only one." I lied to the man considering that I still have a lot of gold and silver coins in my pocket.

The man glares at me before he turns to look at Aqua and smiles as she waves at him.

"Look I can give you more, but neither f you look as if you should even have this, so take it or leave it."

"Fifteen thousand and the rest is for me to keep my mouth shut." the man says to us before he puts a lot of what looks like memory sticks and paper money in front of us.

Aqua and I grab everything and stuff our pockets before we both leave the pawnshop.

We learned three important things, one people here use bills and electric money, two things like gold and silver are still valuable and three people are the same no matter where you go.

 

[blueayes]

The two of us walk until we see a restaurant and as we walk towards it I can feel my enemy detection skill activated, I quickly grab Aqua as both evasion skill and dodge skill force my body to move on its own so that we can avoid being hit.

The sound of thunder or maybe it was some kind of really loud firecracker makes us cover our ears as we ruaway from whatever the hell that was.

We manage to run into an alley and we hide behind a pile of garbage that I now realize is pilled up everywhere.

Did you see where they went?"

"Check the area they couldn't have gone far." I heard a pair of guys say to each other and judging by what they just said Aqua and I were their targets.

As I look around I notice that there's an old metal ladder hanging above us and so I jump to it and grab Aqua's hand and help pull her up when she does the same.

Because we were both adventurers before coming to this world we both got used to having to do things like this all of the time.

"Wow." we both say as we look at the city we're in and we can't help but gasp at the endless sea of lights that go as far as the eye can see.

I remembered the reason we were up here and as I looked down I could the guys that shot at us looking for us.

"Maybe we should look for a place to stay." I said to Aqua who immediately smiled at me.

'No." I quickly shot her idea down, it didn't matter what she was thinking I couldn't let her say it, because I know that she will just want to go somewhere expensive.

"Come on Kazuma, let's go to a hotel."

"You know one of those fancy ones that have butlers and people that make all sorts of food no matter how weird it is." Aqua said to me.

I looked at her for a moment and I didn't say anything as I turned around and began to look for a way off the roof we are on.

"We might be here for a while so we should look for an apartment or something that won't make us lose everything in one day." I said to Aqua who just pouts behind me.

Luckily for us, there's a door that isn't locked so I open it and we both go into this mysterious building, I'm forced to activate my dark vision skill so that I can see because there's no light here.

Because Aqua is a goddess she can see in the dark as clearly as she can see in broad daylight.

As we continue to walk we begin to see homeless people laying around or, there are bathrooms for that, god I hope I didn't step on something.

The glare of the neon lights forces me to turn off my dark vision skill and it's a good thing that I did because I can see that the area ahead of us is completely lit up.

I turn to look at Aqua who is walking behind me.

"Kazuma look out!" Aqua says to me but I'm unable to stop fast enough and I end up running into and knocking down a woman that's wearing a thick yellow jacket.

"Sorry." I said to the woman.

'It's okay." she answers me and as I look up the thing that I notice about her is her bright red hair.

I quickly stand up and help the woman to her feet, the woman doesn't say anything as she walks away.

"Hey I know that you don't know us, and it's weird that I'm asking but do you know if someone is renting a place around here!" I said to the woman.

"Turn left you'll find a heavy metal door, ask them!" she answers me as she walked away.

Two months later.

The sound of the alarm clock forced me to open my eyes as I press the button to turn it off.

I can hear Aqua singing in the shower, and I hope that she doesn't use all of the hot water again.

It was hard getting the apartment that we are living in because neither Aqua nor I have any identification, but considering that we had enough money onus the owner of the building rented us the apartment.

I grab the tablet that I was forced to buy because unlike everyone else that has some kind of implant, I'm not able to connect my brain to the internet and check my emails.

As I look at my emails I'm glad that at least someone is offering me work because I don't have any legal identification on me, I had no choice but to buy it for me and Aqua and unfortunately, everyone doesn't accept it.

So the only work that aqua and I can do are things that are off the books and low-level jobs that hardly pay anything.

So to earn some money we both went back to doing what we do best, we became adventurers or private contractors that do almost everything as long as the person hiring us pays enough.

As I get up and walk to the kitchen I can see the bottles of water that Aqua has filled up from the tap.

She uses some of her power to purify the water, meaning that when people drink it the water heals them or cures whatever is affecting them.

When she first started selling it we couldn't find anyone that wanted to buy it, now we have to carry a couple of extra bottles because there's always some crazy person that threatens to shoot us unless we give him\her one for free.

"Kazuma if you drink one you have to buy me some of the." Aqua began to say to me but I stopped her from talking as I pointed at my jacket which was on the floor and wet.

I've known Aqua long enough that I'm able to ignore that she is wearing nothing but a towel and her long blue hair is down, so I can see that it stops just above the floor.

"What I spilled some water and I needed to dry it." Aqua said to me.

"Then why didn't you use the mop?" I asked her.

"It was too far." she whined.

I wanted to yell at her, I wanted to tell her something but I didn't because of what I just read.

"Someone ordered a crate of your water bottles, so get dressed," I said to her as I look around and notice that her wrist computer is on the couch.

I knew that if I bought Aqua a tablet or some kind of machine that she could lose she would lose it, so I bought her something that she could wear and not lose.

Unfortunately, she throws it on the couch whenever she's not using it.

 

[blueayes]

[It's amazing how something so small can mean so much ]

The sound of the ship leaving orbit was always that I didn't like, it just meant that we were leaving one hellish war and being sent to another.

As I reached for the backpack that had been given to me, I began to look for the plastic bags that I had filled with the goo of a flower from a world that didn't even have a name.

I know what number it is and what system it's in, because if by some miracle I can get someone to get more for me, then I will have to tell them where to find it.

I can feel the eyes of my team as I take out the bag and as I close my backpack I begin to hear the sounds of the men and women around us standing up.

I quickly put away my backpack and stood information, but no one comes in, in fact, there was no one near the entrance to the room.

I let out a breath of relief before I step out of the line that for whatever reason no one else has left yet and I walk up to one of the few members of the company that isn't from the penal colony that I'm from.

The boy can't be older than ten or twelve years old and yet he survived the war, next to him is a tall man who I'm surprised isn't augmented in any way because he towers over me and the men around us.

Next to this man, the boy looks more like an infant than a child that's about to reach his teenage years.

I can feel a chill run down my spine and I try to ignore the goosebumps as the sister of battle that for whatever reason was a sign to guard us glares at me.

'You and you stretch out your hands." I say to the pair and I watch as they do as I tell them.

The surviving members of the penal legion begin to loudly chew their gum as if signaling that something important was about to happen.

I do not know why the Generals and Captains aren't stopping us from doing this, in all honestly I don't know if the people around us call it a ritual or tradition.

No, it's a tradition, if it wasn't before it is now.

The only thing that they do is watch us and chew their gum quietly.

I begin to pour the goo into the palm of the recruit's hands until it s about to spill and I order them to put it in their mouths but not swallow it, but chew it.

The pair look at me confused but they still do as I told them.

Finally, I walk towards the sister who quietly stands up and the only thing that I can hear is the loud yet quiet thump of her armored boot as it hits the metal floor.

She stretches her hand and accepts the goo and just like the pair before her she put it in her mouth before she begins to chew.

"Congratulations you are one of us now."

"Just as the Imperium, chews us, regular men and women, we chew on this goo but look around you, how many other guardsmen have gum?"

"Look around you, how many of us are even from the same world, hell even the same star system."

"We, you could have been a farmer, a librarian, a criminal, a religious member of an order, or a soldier and none of us would have ever met and yet here we are."

"And now we have something else that unites us besides where we are and who we worship, it's small, and most commissars will hate it, but it's a part of who we are." I say to them as the rest of the group looks at me before stretching their hands out and waiting for me to pour them some of the goo.

Unfortunately, I can't, that was one of the rules that the general put, I can't just give everyone some goo.

The only ones that can receive it are the ones that survive two or more missions, everyone else either dies or is sent somewhere else, so there would be no point in giving them any.

I begin to walk back to my spot before I hear the sister call to me and force me to stop walking.

'Her." she orders me as she walks towards a girl that has just had her hand replaced with a mechanical one.

"I can't," I say to the sister glow looks at me menacingly.

"And why not, she has proven herself a part of your little order just as much as those two and I even dare say myself." the sister says to me.

"She needs to survive the night." I answer the sister, whose blue eyes seem to glow brightly as the lights turn off before coming back on.

"Then she will have no choice but to survive after receiving it, or else she will die in shame for taking something that shouldn't have been hers in the first place." she says to me.

I turn to look at the general and the captain who doesn't do or say anything, they just briefly close their eyes as if saying do it.

The girl stretches her remaining human hand and I pour the goo into it, then I watch her put it in her mouth before she begins to chew, I smile as the bland flavor hits her and she struggles not to react.

The goo tastes like water, but the longer one has it the better the flavor it gains.

I don't know if it's because chewing it is the only thing we can do on the battlefield to relieve our stress or because of how bad the food tastes, but chewing gum is the only relief we get even now on the ship.

Maybe it does gain flavor with time, maybe it doesn't, and we're all using it as some sort of way to deal with our trauma.

In the end, nothing changes, we all get to chew on something that doesn't taste bad and it's something that only we have and no one else does.

I can feel the eyes of everyone else on me as I walk back to my backpack and as I put the plastic bag away, I can feel the mood in the room drop significantly.

As I sit down, the team that I am with breaks formation and walks towards the four that I gave the goo too.

They loudly welcome the giant man, the boy, and the injured woman, while respectfully asking the sister if they can give her the hug and pat on the back that normally goes with our little ritual.

As I'm about to join them a man that was recently transferred pulls me aside and I can feel his lass pistol on my temple, yet before the man can say anything is pulled aside by both the general and captain.

The three of them begin to argue but my head is still spinning from the impact and I can only hear the captain yell that the man has to complete one more mission before he can receive it.

The rest of the team helps me to my feet I don't even know when I hit the floor, but they all stand around me and I can feel someone force something in my mouth.

'There you go, you dropped it, now don't lose it again." I hear him say to me as I start to regain my senses.

 

[blueayes]

Kazuma and Aqa end up in Midgard unfortunately for everybody else their arrival changes a few things

Kazuma and Aqua landed on the wooden with a loud thump, they had just defeated the Demon King and were being sent back to earth, but then the two of them changed their minds and so the portal malfunctioned and sent them here wherever here was.

"Owl," Aqua said as she began to stand up and began to look around.

'Hey, who the hell are you!" a man with that had blue skin, a red unkempt beard, and a nasty expression said to her.

Aqua gracefully placed her right hand on her chest and her left on her hip before answering the dwarf.

"I'm the Goddess Aqua and who might you be?" she said to the dwarf.

She watched as the dwarf's eyes widened and he swallowed hard when he heard her answer, but before he could say anything else Kazuma had to get involved.

'Sorry for showing up here, but the portal malfunctioned and we ended up here." Kazuma said to the dwarf who just nodded.

"Well why didn't you just say so, let me take a look at that portal of yours and you two can be on your way." the dwarf said as he began to look at the symbols that their portal had burned into the wooden floor.

"I see, you two were going to Midgard but you changed directions halfway."

'You're lucky that you weren't just torn apart and sent to all of the nine realms." the dwarf said to them as he began to do something to the rune.

'Kazuma! Aqua Sempai!" the two of them heard Eris calling to them.

"There was an error with the portal so you're stuck wherever you are until we can fix what went wrong, but don't worry even if the two of you are sent to different worlds we can still bring you back when we fix the portal." Eris said to them before her voice was completely gone.

With nothing else to do the pair began to look around and they soon found that they were standing on what could only be called a giant tree house, while they weren't inside they were on the porch that was being held up by the branches of the tree.

After a few minutes, the dwarf stood up and walked up to Aqua.

'I have to admit that I can fix it." he quickly raised his hands as if he was afraid that Aqua would do something to him.

"Well I can't fix it yet, you see it's foreign magic so I need to study it first and then I can fix it." he said to Aqua.

"Don't worry about it, our friends are doing what they can already, so you don't have to be so scared," Kazuma said to the dwarf who just looked at him.

"Fine but if you still want t go to Midgard I can open a door for you, only that I haven't gotten all of the bugs out yet." the dwarf answered him, but his voice lacked the respectful tone it had from when he spoke to Aqua.

The blue man walked towards what looked like a wooden door and he used some kind of wooden rock? to cast a spell, the door opened but something was wrong, it flashed with power before it briefly showed one place and then switched to another.

'Well I did tell you that I haven't gotten all of the bugs out yet." the dwarf said to them as the locations that the door showed changed over and over again.

Kazuma placed his hand on the wooden floor and marked the dwarf's treehouse as one of his permanent locations, this way if he and Aqua ever needed to get back they would be able to come back without any problems.

"Thanks, but can you tell us your name." Kazuma said to the dwarf.

'Oh, it's not a problem, there's no need for me to tell you my name it's not like we will be seeing each other again." the blue man said to Kazuma.

Aqua and Kazum looked at each other before shrugging and instinctively holding onto one another before they threw themselves into the opened door.

"Would you look at that they made it." Brok said to himself as he watched the pair enter Midgard.

'Who was that don't tell me that you let them use that thing?" His brother Sindri said to him as he watched the portal leading to Midgard close.

"Fine I won't tell you, after all, you saw them go in didn't you?" Brok answered his brother before signaling to his brother to follow him towards the burn marks on their porch, but by the time they arrived all of the magick and runes were gone.

][][]

The first thing they noticed was that they were falling, the next thing they noticed was that it was cold and the last thing they noticed was that they were about to hit somebody.

Aqua landed on top of a boy while Kazuma felt his dodge and evasion kills flare when the man he was about to land on threw a punch at him and because he avoided it, the man's punch ended up hitting the woman that was behind him.

The pair of dogs pulling the sled growled but kept on doing their job as the man and woman fought, not knowing what to do and knowing that they weren't a part of this fight, Kazuma grabbed Aqua and used the pair's distraction to jump off the sled and into the woods.

From a nearby tree, they watched as the man and woman fought, and for a brief moment, Kazuma noted that the boy's eyes were looking at Aqua and Kazuma couldn't help but smile when he saw how red the boy's face was.

"So any idea where we're at?" Kazuma asked Aqua as the pair looked at the snow cover lands.

'I have good news and I have ad news."

'The good news is that we're on earth, the bad news is that it's not our earth, and it's about to die." Aqua said to Kazuma who stared at her.

"How?" Kazuma aksed Aqua.

'Beats me, but." she said to him before she pointed at what looked like a sea of ghosts flying towards them.

"Sacred purification!" Aqua yelled as she purified the spirits of the dead that were on earth and for whatever reason, weren't in hell or being judged.

"Okay, so what now?" Kazuma asked himself as he used his far-sight and snipe skills to look for anything that might show hints that people lived nearby.

Unfortunately, the only signs that he could find were in the same direction where the people they had just left were going.

With no other options, the pair jumped off the tree and began to walk toward wherever they were going, and after what felt like hours they finally arrived at what looked like a fence that was made out of wood.

As Kazuma was about to touch the fence he felt his hand bounce off some kind of barrier, he tried to touch it again, but the same thing happened no matter what he died.

As usual Aqua boasted that she could do what he couldn't but the barrier kept her from even going near the wooden fence, the two of them tried to go around and just walk pt the fence but the barrier seemed to be protecting something.

"That's it I'm breaking it!" Aqua declared and Kazuma was forced to pull her away, they had just arrived here and it wouldn't help them if they started making enemies.

"So do you feel anything or can you see anything that will help us not freeze tonight?" Kazuma said to Aqua who had not stopped complaining since he dragged her away from the barrier.

"There's some smoke coming from over there," Aqua said to him as she pointed at the black smoke in the distance.

The smoke wasn't too far away so they began to run towards the location where the smoke was coming from and they soon found the fire where it was coming from, unfortunately, they didn't find a town but they did find a woman making herself something to eat.

Kazuma held Aqua's shoulder, they didn't know if the woman was friends with the people they had encountered earlier, but Aqua managed to escape his grip and carelessly walked towards the woman.

'Hie, I'm Aqua and" Aqua said to the woman before vines began to grow around her and trapped her before she could do or say anything else.

"I don't know who you are." The woman said to Aqua as she drew a sword and walked towards her.

'Kazuma!" Aqua screamed, and Kazuma could feel the fear in her voice.

In what normal people would call a matter of seconds Kazuma ran towards the woman and avoided the vines and plants that tried to attack him, he used his bind skill to use his wires to trap the woman but she avoided his attack.

The woman was unnaturally fast and so the two of them fought each other, the woman swung her sword or used magic and her plants to either hurt or trap him, while Kazuma avoided the woman's sword and plants while using his other skills to avoid or counter the woman's spells.

The woman finally managed to hit him and knock him to the ground and as she placed her foot on his chest and was about to stab him with her sword, Kazuma grabbed her leg and smirked before saying.

"Drain touch."

The woman screamed in agony as her strength and power were forcefully stolen and Kazuma could see the vines holding Aqua wither as the woman landed next to him.

"For a goddess to be beaten by a Human." Aqua said to the woman as she crossed her arms and looked down at her.

"Seal" Aqua said as she placed a seal on the woman.

"What did you do?" Kazuma said to her.

"I just made it so that she can't attack us anymore." Aqua answered him before she turned her attention back to the fallen goddess.

"Okay listen up, I the goddess Aqua have defeated you so now you belong to him."

"Hey, I beat her you didn't." Kazuma said to Aqua who just ignored him.

"There for by the rules of heaven and it doesn't matter if it's not your heaven, you now belong to us." she lied and Kazuma felt the power he had stolen leaving him before the woman stood up with rage and charge at them.

Unfortunately for the mad woman, she immediately lost her balance and hit herself with the hilt of the sword.

 

[blueayes]

The sound of the ship leaving orbit was always that I didn't like, it just meant that we were leaving one hellish war and being sent to another.

As I reached for the backpack that had been given to me, I began to look for the plastic bags that I had filled with the goo of a flower from a world that didn't even have a name.

I know what number it is and what system it's in, because if by some miracle I can get someone to get more for me, then I will have to tell them where to find it.

I can feel the eyes of my team as I take out the bag and as I close my backpack I begin to hear the sounds of the men and women around us standing up.

I quickly put away my backpack and stood information, but no one comes in, in fact, there was no one near the entrance to the room.

I let out a breath of relief before I step out of the line that for whatever reason no one else has left yet and I walk up to one of the few members of the company that isn't from the penal colony that I'm from.

The boy can't be older than ten or twelve years old and yet he survived the war, next to him is a tall man who I'm surprised isn't augmented in any way because he towers over me and the men around us.

Next to this man, the boy looks more like an infant than a child that's about to reach his teenage years.

I can feel a chill run down my spine and I try to ignore the goosebumps as the sister of battle that for whatever reason was a sign to guard us glares at me.

'You and you stretch out your hands." I say to the pair and I watch as they do as I tell them.

The surviving members of the penal legion begin to loudly chew their gum as if signaling that something important was about to happen.

I do not know why the Generals and Captains aren't stopping us from doing this, in all honestly I don't know if the people around us call it a ritual or tradition.

No, it's a tradition, if it wasn't before it is now.

The only thing that they do is watch us and chew their gum quietly.

I begin to pour the goo into the palm of the recruit's hands until it s about to spill and I order them to put it in their mouths but not swallow it, but chew it.

The pair look at me confused but they still do as I told them.

Finally, I walk towards the sister who quietly stands up and the only thing that I can hear is the loud yet quiet thump of her armored boot as it hits the metal floor.

She stretches her hand and accepts the goo and just like the pair before her she put it in her mouth before she begins to chew.

"Congratulations you are one of us now."

"Just as the Imperium, chews us, regular men and women, we chew on this goo but look around you, how many other guardsmen have gum?"

"Look around you, how many of us are even from the same world, hell even the same star system."

"We, you could have been a farmer, a librarian, a criminal, a religious member of an order, or a soldier and none of us would have ever met and yet here we are."

"And now we have something else that unites us besides where we are and who we worship, it's small, and most commissars will hate it, but it's a part of who we are." I say to them as the rest of the group looks at me before stretching their hands out and waiting for me to pour them some of the goo.

Unfortunately, I can't, that was one of the rules that the general put, I can't just give everyone some goo.

The only ones that can receive it are the ones that survive two or more missions, everyone else either dies or is sent somewhere else, so there would be no point in giving them any.

I begin to walk back to my spot before I hear the sister call to me and force me to stop walking.

'Her." she orders me as she walks towards a girl that has just had her hand replaced with a mechanical one.

"I can't," I say to the sister glow looks at me menacingly.

"And why not, she has proven herself a part of your little order just as much as those two and I even dare say myself." the sister says to me.

"She needs to survive the night." I answer the sister, whose blue eyes seem to glow brightly as the lights turn off before coming back on.

"Then she will have no choice but to survive after receiving it, or else she will die in shame for taking something that shouldn't have been hers in the first place." she says to me.

I turn to look at the general and the captain who doesn't do or say anything, they just briefly close their eyes as if saying do it.

The girl stretches her remaining human hand and I pour the goo into it, then I watch her put it in her mouth before she begins to chew, I smile as the bland flavor hits her and she struggles not to react.

The goo tastes like water, but the longer one has it the better the flavor it gains.

I don't know if it's because chewing it is the only thing we can do on the battlefield to relieve our stress or because of how bad the food tastes, but chewing gum is the only relief we get even now on the ship.

Maybe it does gain flavor with time, maybe it doesn't, and we're all using it as some sort of way to deal with our trauma.

In the end, nothing changes, we all get to chew on something that doesn't taste bad and it's something that only we have and no one else does.

I can feel the eyes of everyone else on me as I walk back to my backpack and as I put the plastic bag away, I can feel the mood in the room drop significantly.

As I sit down, the team that I am with breaks formation and walks towards the four that I gave the goo too.

They loudly welcome the giant man, the boy, and the injured woman, while respectfully asking the sister if they can give her the hug and pat on the back that normally goes with our little ritual.

As I'm about to join them a man that was recently transferred pulls me aside and I can feel his lass pistol on my temple, yet before the man can say anything is pulled aside by both the general and captain.

The three of them begin to argue but my head is still spinning from the impact and I can only hear the captain yell that the man has to complete one more mission before he can receive it.

The rest of the team helps me to my feet I don't even know when I hit the floor, but they all stand around me and I can feel someone force something in my mouth.

'There you go, you dropped it, now don't lose it again." I hear him say to me as I start to regain my senses.