Notes from Emmy:

Hiiiii! Remember me?
First off, I wanna say thank you to everyone who's been following this story. I know I say it every chapter, but you guys are AWESOME! I haven't felt this excited to craft words in a long time. So from the bottom of my furry little heart, thank you!
So this story was rated for language, gore and sexual content. Obviously we've covered language, but in this chapter, we start to see signs of the gory stuff. I'm pointing this out because I don't want to upset tender tummies, so consider this a warning of sorts. And don't worry, we'll get to her play time exploits eventually. Promise.

All that being said, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Frankly I'm nervous about it, but my beta assures me it's okay. (STUPID ANXIETY...)
Emmy

                The first thing I noticed as I came back to consciousness was pain. Damn, what happened? Oh yeah, acid trip sky, weird people who don’t like being talked to… Wait, did I seriously get knocked out and abducted?

                I opened one eye and… Okay, that doesn’t help the head, nope! Not at all. Closing it again, I reached up to feel the side of my head. Okay, I could move, so at least I had that going for me.

                “I’m very sorry about that,” A booming voice said near my ear. I squeaked and quickly rolled away, my heart pounding from the adrenaline.

                Deciding I really needed to see what was going on around me, I opened my eyes against the pain and winced.

                “Please don’t be scared,” the voice said again. “I really didn’t mean to be so hard with you but you were really a hand full.”

                “Do you say that to every girl you kidnap?” Damn I liked my voice. It was small, musical almost. Not at all like the thing my real life body used for speech.

                “I was not kidnapping you,” The voice said indignantly, and it was then that I was finally able to make out the speaker through the blurry fog that was my sight at the moment.

                The guy was huge, like really, really huge, like at least seven foot tall and as wide as a truck huge. If that wasn’t scary enough, he possessed four massive arms the size of tree trunks, each ending in hands the size of frying pans.

                “You were making too much noise,” The huge guy said. “You don’t want to make noise here, at least not outside.”

                As my sight cleared up more, I found myself staring into a face that, despite its largeness, appeared kindly, if you didn’t mind the teeth as large as small gravestones.

                “You could have just told me,” I said unamused, my hand still rubbing the side of my head. “Was it necessary to crack my skull like that?”

                “Unfortunately it was,” he said. “If I hadn’t subdued you, we’d have bigger problems than your headache. Nevertheless, I apologize for the rough care.”

                His skin was the color of ebony, dark smoke encapsulated in clear orbs that served as his eyes. Despite his size though, I didn’t feel unsafe around him, not really. Okay maybe I was a little nervous. Deciding to take a chance, I glanced around at my surroundings and found myself in some sort of hallway illuminated by strip lighting high above us. There were no features here, save for the same rough grey walls as the lab minus the maze of cables and hoses. Shrugging, I turned back to this giant dude with four arms and studied him.

                “Okay, fine, I accept your apology, but I’m going to need you to answer some questions for me.”

                He leaned back against the wall, his large arms folding over his chest and belly, which, might I add, looked like, along with the rest of his massive frame, was carved out of black marble. “I can do that,” he nodded. “Ask me anything.”

                “Well, first, I guess what’s your name?”

                He smiled a large thing, all teeth and laugh lines. It was disconcerting that someone with that many large teeth could be cheerful, but well… Here he was. “I am called Gabin,” he said. Wow, that voice was deep. I could practically feel the reverberations of his speech in my very much smaller bones.

                “Okay, Gabin, I guess it’s nice to meet you. I guess my next question—”

                “Wait!” He barked suddenly, making the spinning in my head increase a few extra rotations per minute. “What’s yours?”

                Thrown for a loop, I opened my mouth to say my real life name, but something just didn’t feel right. If I was going to play a cute AF fox girl, I needed to separate myself from my RL persona. I mean, who’s ever met a fox girl called Felix before?

                “Elody,” I said as my pulse quickened in excitement. “My name is Elody.” Why was I so excited to use my character name? “Wait, I thought we had to be quiet?”

                “We do, outside. There are, things, in the sky. Very bad things. They react to sound. Once they hear you, they come for you. You don’t want to know what happens after that.”

                “But then why are there people walking the streets out there? Seems like making noise is a public risk.”

                “Oh, it most certainly is,” he laughed, “but since when are NPCs intelligent?”

                “Wait, so you’re a player too?”

                “Yup,” he grinned again. “Just like you, and might I say, You are one adorible specimen. I really like the hair.”

                I blushed. That’s when I realized how he was looking at me appreciatively. I should have been creeped out by this, but something in my belly fluttered. I didn’t seem to mind this new attention. Back in reality, I had never once had anyone look at me in any other way than barely tolerable. This was a new experience and I had to say, I didn’t mind the attention.

                “Um… Thanks? I think?”

                “You are very welcome.” We fell into silence with each of us clearly too embarrassed to take that conversation any further.

                “So, um… Can you tell me about this place?” I asked at last as my head finally started to calm down. The pain was still there, but at least now it was a dull throb as opposed to a sharp jabbing pain that brought tears to my eyes.

                Gabin extended his legs and settled in place, his massive arms still folded over his body. “Black Light Canyon,” he said ominously. “According to the games lore, something bad once happened here. Some sort of dimensional experimentation that ended horribly. These tunnels extend into the walls of the canyon and are the safest way to get from point A to B, though for whatever reason, the locals, as you saw, don’t really seem to care.”

                “Sounds like this place is dangerous.”

                “It is.” He looked at me, his large bald head tilted to one side quizzically. “What level are you?”

                I shrugged and looked at the dusty floor we sat on. “About that, I’m uh… Kind of a new player…”

                He laughed, his booming voice filling the hall with its reverberations. “Wait, you mean to tell me you’re a new player? And you picked here as your spawning point?”

                “It was an accident,” I said, my voice small, my ears drooping in embarrassment. I really didn’t want to tell him everything so I instead said, “I wasn’t paying attention and I jumped from character creation to here.”

                He laughed even more. “Oh man, that’s some shitty luck. You really should be at least level 30 to venture here, maybe higher because of some of the baddies that roam around these parts.”

                “That’s what my friend told me,” I explained. “He’s in West Haven City. He said he was going to get some transportation and would come and get me.”

                “That’s a few days out, at least, and that assumes he doesn’t run into nomads,” Gavin said, one of his large hands coming up to scratch the bace of his neck. “Well, tell you what. You stick with me and I’ll teach you the ropes and do my part to keep you alive. I usually play solo, but I can see you’re in one hell of a spot, and I don’t feel right leaving a cute little thing like you alone to face what’s out there.”

                I blushed again, this time hiding  behind my lavender frosted hair. “I don’t want to be an enconvenience or anything//”

                “Nope,” Gabin cut me off, “you need someone to look after you here, just trust me on that. The things in the sky are their own hell to deal with, but cannibals also roam these halls and that’s to say nothing about how cut throat the locals can be.”

                I thought about it for a minute. Could I really say no? Yeah he kinda abducted me off the streets, but it looked like he was doing me a favor in doing so. Besides, if I played with a higher level character, I could probably get leveled up more efficiently.

                “Okay, I guess we can do this.”

                “Great!” He said, clapping two of his large hands together. “First things first. We should friend each other , just in case we get separated at some point.”

                I agreed, and a few moments later, we were friended, partied up together, and were ready to kick some ass. Well maybe not.

                Gabin was a level 54 Brawler, which meant he focused on brute force to fight. His secondary tree was in psionics. As a Psi, he had access to telekinetic abilities that he could use to rain unholy hell upon his foes. The down side to this was the cooldown time between attacks. He could do incredible damage, but then he needed to hunker down and recover, an experience he said wasn’t a comfortable one, so he tended to not use those abilities unless he had to. Before we did anything extreme, he

Wanted to get an understanding of my own abilities, something I couldn’t fault him for. There, we sat for  probably an hour or two talking combat and how I could best use my stats to increase my odds of survival. This guy really knew his stuff, so I sat, taking mental notes as he told me what not to do and what I should do and when. It was a little intimidating at first, but he explained things in a no nonsense way that was understandable.

”Alright,” He said at last. “Think you’re ready to try combat out for yourself?”

                “I think so,” I said, that thread of anxiety that was always present morphing into a snake that began winding around my spine.

                “Good, because we’re going Chud hunting.”

                “Wait, is that safe?”

                “Normally, no. But I’ll tank, you just use those guns of yours and take out the ones I leave for you. So long as you get the kill, you’ll get the XP.” He unfolded his arms and pulled himself to his feet. Damn, he was even larger when he was standing. From where I sat cross-legged on the ground, the tops of my ears barely reached his knees.

                I stood too, though it didn’t do much to fix the height difference, though at least now I was even with his stomach. “Okay, I mean, I guess?”

                “Don’t worry,” Gabin said as he cracked his neck. “I’ll take them on, you just be sure to put them out.”

                “Could I die doing this?” I asked nervously.

                “Easily, which is why if something happens, I want to see that tail of yours running away. Don’t stick around if it looks like it’s going to get hairy. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can.”

                I nodded. “Fair. So where do we go?”

                 We didn’t have to go too far. A few corners here, a few twists there, down the obligatory dark passage that slanted downward deeper into the walls of the canyon, through a narrow passage that my companion could hardly fit through and…

                “Okay. From this point on, you stay behind me. Chuds are strong as hell, but they are slow and they like to gang up on their targets. I’ll keep them on me and you stay as far back as you can and do your thing with those little toys of yours.” He sounded excited, like fighting cannibals was the most fun thing to do in the world. I would have probably agreed with him, had I not been so squishy and easy to eat.

                I nodded, the snake of anxiety now winding around  my throat, stealing my words and robbing me of the ability to speak. Deciding it was best to be prepared, I gripped my revolvers in hand and drew them effortlessly from their holsters. One of the nice things about VR was how your avatar always seemed to know how to handle their weapons. I had never seen a gun in real life, much less knew how to operate one, but my avatar seemed to be very familiar with the ones I owned, their weight feeling comforting in my small hands.

                Okay Elody, I thought. You got this, you’re going to shoot some ugly cannibals in the face, get some XP and when you’re done, you’re going to be one step closer to not being so squishy. Just point and shoot, point and…

                The blood curling scream came from our left, and as we turned to face our foes, all thoughts of pointing and shooting ran right the fuck out of my head and ran back through that last passage we cleared.

                We were in a hall that was wide enough for three fully grown men, not Gabin, to walk shoulder to shoulder. At the far end of said hall came the Chuds, all dead looking skin and slitted eyes. They had elongated arms equipped with sharp as hell looking claws, mandibles that jutted from their deformed faces and the smell… Oh Gods the smell.

                I fought the urge to throw up a meal that I hadn’t actually eaten and brought my revolvers to bare, the muzzles pointed down range at the nearest threat, but before I could shoot, Gabin raised a hand to block my field of fire.

                “No don’t,” he said sharply as he lowered his hand. “Wait until I get them on me, otherwise they’ll tear you apart.”

                I nodded, though I never took my eyes off the things in front of me. I wondered if he was going to do something, and as though reading my thoughts, Gabin charged forward, his huge frame taring down the hall with heavy footfalls and a battle cry that rattled my bones.

                “WTF,” I breathed as Gabin slammed into our attackers, his large fists pulverizing flesh and bone, the sounds of violence reaching my ears. He was a monster wrecking monster, all powerful grace and violence incarnate.

                A mangled Chud body came hurling from the fray, slamming into the wall a few feet away from me with a bone shattering crack. Even as I watched though, the disfigured thing started to pull itself back up, despite the fact it was missing one arm and half its chest was caved in. Blood oozed from the things mangled limb, staining the grey stone around it crimson. It seemed to not care about the loss of its limb though, for once it staggered to its feet it turned its attention to me. Gritting my teeth against that ever present companion of anxiety, I brought my revolvers up and pulled both triggers.

                The sound was explosive in this enclosed space, the recoil unexpected though I managed to keep my guns. That wasn’t the most shocking part though. The head of the Chud exploded like a Mellon, sending bone and grey matter flying in all directions as the now dead thing collapsed back against the wall and slumped to the ground. Zac hadn’t been exaggerating, this game was fucking intense.

                I turned my attention back to Gabin who was currently taring the leg off one Chud while using it as a meat shield against the rest of the mob. That didn’t seem to stop them though, because as I watched, one of the hideous baddies sunk it rotting yellow  teeth into the back of the captured thing and tore a chunk away. Fuck!

                Gabin threw the now one-legged thing down the hall towards me, blood streaming out of its stump as it soared through the air. My avatar enhanced reflexes took over and before it hit the ground, I put four slugs in the thing, putting it out of our misery.

                I was doing better than I thought I would for a first timer. I mean, yeah, this was some scary stuff, but so long as I kept my wits about me, paid attention to what I was doing, I—

                “Hey, watch out!” I spun around to find a Chud mere inches from my face. The smell was even worse up close, and as I tried to back up to put some distance between mee and it, the Chud lunged.

                Suddenly I was on the ground with one heavy hungry mother fucker on top of me, its jaws snapping for my face. Okay, because this wasn’t scary at all, nope. My guns had been knocked from my hands, and as I tried to push the thing off me, I realized just how much physically weaker in this body I was.

                I frantically dodged my head from side to side, desperately trying to keep the Chud’s teeth from finding my face. If I didn’t do something quick though, I was probably going to find out what happened when you die in this game. Panic welled within me, sending my thoughts into a crazed blur that I couldn’t follow.

                Suddenly, Gabin was there, two of his hands gripping the Chud’s head and twisting violently, the sound of snapping bone echoing off the walls. His other two hands grabbed the thing around the shoulders and with a heave, he sent the body down the hall to take two more of its buddies to the ground.

                I Scrambled to my feet, heart racing and adrenaline flooding my body with uncontrolled energy. Before I could thank him, Gabin was already back in the fray  with the last two Chuds,  a fist all but decapitating one, while another hand grabbed the last one and slammed its head hard into the wall, crushing the skull with a wet crunchy squelch.

                Turning back to face me, he tossed the lifeless corpse to the ground and wiped his bloodied hands on his leather pants and jacket. “Close call, you alright?”

                “I,” I breathed heavily, “I think so.”

                “You did good,” Gabin said as he walked up to me. Damn, he was something else. Covered in blood and still cool as a cucumber. “Not bad for a newb at all.”

                “You think so?”

                “I got killed thirty minutes after spawn. You’re doing better than I did.”

                “Oh,” I shook my head. “Cool. Thanks for the help.”

                “I told you, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

                I smiled, really smiled. Despite the near death experience, I had had a lot of fun. I mean if you didn’t count the part where I went into panic mode.

                “We should clean these things out,” Gabin said as he gestured over his shoulder at the dismembered corpses. “They usually have creds on them, and money is always a good thing, right?”

                I nodded and turned to look for my revolvers. Despite the fact that I only had two kills to my name, I felt accomplished. I felt like I was making a new friend, and I was actually pretty good at shooting things. A moment later, I had my babies back in my hands. I looked to see if there was something I had to do to reload them, but Gabin’s voice called from the pile of bodies.

                “Don’t worry. You won’t have to reload those.” I glanced up to find him crouched over one of the corpses.

                “Perk of the game,” He explained. “The only guns you’ll have to worry about ammo for are bigger things like rocket launchers and the like. You’re pistols won’t ever need reloading.”

                That was good to know. I smiled my thanks and holstered my guns. I walked back over to where Gabin was pilfering from the remains of our vanquished foes. He had a pile of black metal disks sitting next to him on the floor. I leaned down to pick one up to examine it, finding that it sort of reminded me of a poker chip, though the metal felt different, almost like glass.

                “I take it these are those creds you were talking about?”

                “Yup,” You can tell what denomination they are by the little bands on the edges.”

                I examined the one I had in my hand a little closer and… Yup, there was a blue band along the edge of the thing.

                “Green is 1000, blue 10000, red 25000, Yellow 50000 and white is 100000,” he explained. “Supposedly there’s a black one worth 1000000, but I’ve never seen it.”

                “Okay, that’s easy to remember.” I said as I returned the chip to the pile.

                “You won’t have to, the game handles calculating your money once it’s in your inventory. It’s just nice to have a color coded system when you’re splitting up earnings with party members. Speaking of which,” He pushed a pile of coins at me. “Take these.”

                “But I didn’t do much but kill two of them.”

                “Yeah, so, you’re the new girl. Just take them.” My insides felt like they were flying. He had just called me a girl! Okay, I kind of was right now, but… Why did that feel so… Good?

                “If you’re sure,” I said as I scooped up the chips and deposited them in my inventory.

                “I am sure,” he said as he stood  up to his full height and rolled his shoulders. “Ready to do this again?”

                I found that I was. In fact, I felt a lot better about this now knowing what to expect. “I think so.”

                “Good,” he nodded. “Let’s go. Oh, and Elody?”

                “Hmm?”

                He turned his head to look down at me, his eyes gleaming in the light. “Welcome to Cyberplex.”

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