Chapter 29: New Look and the New Crew

 

A holographic emitter was one of the few non-essential things that Abyssal really wanted. One may ask the question: how could it have not crossed her mind to use one of these to project a sexy avatar for herself? The answer was that it did cross her mind; she was just too embarrassed to test it for herself. What would Kuon and Meica think of her?

And so, Abyssal waited for a moment where the bridge would be empty before she went over to the hologram. She peaked into the bridge before checking out all her cameras to see where Kuon and Meica were on the ship. Kuon was busy cleaning up the cargo bay while Meica could be seen sleeping in said cargo bay—more specifically within Abyssal's Fierca class ship, asleeped in a curled up position within Abyssal's old cockpit.

'Ok good, no one is here,' Abyssal thought to herself as she entered the bridge. 

She also did another scan to make sure none of the drones that Kuon was controlling were in the bridge as well. Once done, she immediately floated over to the large table in the middle of the room— the hologram emitter.

‘So Abby, what kind of things can this thing project? Can it project me a sexy avatar?’ Abyssal asked her machine-self, her drone hung low trying to hide herself from view should someone enter the bridge.

“Emitter able to display any 3D images or videos that you feed into it. Device is also able to project personality Abyssal’s ‘Sexy Avatar’,” Abby replied. For some reason, Abyssal could somehow feel a slight demeaning tone from her machine-self.

Though Abyssal couldn’t care less about what Abby sounded like at that moment. Her attention was on the hologram emitter. ‘Hey, hey, how do I project an avatar to the emitter? What kind of avatars do I have?’

“Entity Abyssal can create avatars via avatar creation in the virtual realm.”

‘Virtual Realm?’

“Affirmative. Entity Abyssal’s internal virtual realm where imaginary events can happen. Able to customise and adjust avatars from there,” Abby replied.

‘Oh… It’s that space when I first linked up with Kuon. So that’s the virtual realm, huh…”

“Enter Abyssal’s virtual realm?” Abby asked.

‘Of course! Set me up with the avatar creation thingy as well!’ Abyssal replied almost immediately.

*beep

Just as Abyssal said that, her vision turned black for a second before she entered a world of pure white. All of her visions of the ship were replaced with this one sight. She turned to look around the place but saw nothing of interest— just pure white. Was this place her virtual realm?

‘Place looks kinda dull. Place could use a table at the very least,’ Abyssal thought to herself.

Suddenly, a nice looking table came out of nowhere in front of Abyssal, surprising Abyssal.

“Woah…” Abyssal muttered before inspecting the table. “I want this place to look like a resort house with a nice garden outside! Filled with a nice gazebo and a nice tea set and everything!” Abyssal yelled out.

A weird whooshing sound came out and suddenly the whole place transformed right in front of Abyssal. A few seconds later and Abyssal was now on a balcony staring into a lush green garden filled with flowers. In the middle of the garden was an elegant gazebo complete with table and chairs and a tea set. Looking behind her, she could see a well-lit futuristic looking room.

“Awesome. So this is the power of the virtual realm, huh. It’s like my own mini paradise. I wonder what Kuon's virtual realm looks like…” Abyssal said to herself.

Satisfied with testing out her virtual realm, Abyssal went over to the mirror in the corner of the newly built room. What came into her sight as she looked into the mirror was her very familiar personal drone, Kaon.

“Soo… I can just create whatever I want to look like? Like I just imagine what I want the avatar to be?” Abyssal asked Abby.

“Affirmative.”

“Alright then,” Abyssal replied before closing her eyes. She then imagined the sexiest body that she could think of— a cute girl with a great looking body. A whooshing sound could be heard again as she did that. Once the sound ended, Abyssal opened her eyes to see her newly built avatar.

“This is…” Abyssal was speechless at what she saw. The figure that she saw in the mirror was unlike anything that she’s ever seen before.

“Okay, looks like this is going to be harder than it looks....” Abyssal muttered to herself.

Indeed, the figure in front of her was a humanoid, but a very tasteless one. It did have that cuteness and that sexy body that Abyssal was looking for, but it came with it a creepy looking feel. It was like a doll that wasn’t alive but was trying to be. Even the proportions didn’t feel right as the size of the legs and the head was too big. It was different from when she imagined a room. The imperfections just create this sort of uncanny valley look to the avatar.

“Maybe if I use something else as a base...” Abyssal said before thinking about Kuon’s Avatar.  ‘Perhaps I can use that as a base instead?’

“Abby, please pull up Kuon’s avatar next to me. Also, is there some other way that I can do minor adjustments without imagining a whole new body again?” 

Abby didn’t answer. Instead, a replica avatar of Kuon was placed in front of the mirror alongside a bunch of UI’s that appeared out of nowhere. It was like in those anime where the interface pops out of someone’s vision. Within the interface were various settings such as height, hairstyle, hair colour, body shape and size, and a lot more.

“Wow! This is like some sort of advance character creation. Alright! Now I am pumped. Time to make the best avatar of all time!” Abyssal ‘cracked’ her fingers before getting to work.

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“Hmm… No… this isn’t going to work. It’s not cute enough.”

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“Pfft! That looks so dumb! Redo! Redo!”
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“Urgh… That’s…”

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“Okay… this isn’t going well…” Abyssal let out a sigh of defeat after hours of trying to customise her avatar. 

Her end result after a few hours was something that looked alright at a first glance, but the more you look at it, the weirder and creepier it becomes. Despite using Kuon’s Avatar as a base and no matter how much she changed the avatar to suit her liking, there was something about it that she just can’t get right. She was thinking of just using Kuon’s avatar with minimal change but ended up deciding against it. Nobody likes a copycat, after all. There was no doubt that she could spend a few days on this and still not get what she wanted.

Abyssal let out another sigh as she looked at her current work. Body shape aside, she just couldn’t get the face to look natural. It was less character creation and more like an explicit 3D modelling— and she was clearly no artist.

“Hey, Abby. Lend me a help here, will you? Can’t you fix this somehow?”

“Negative. Personality Abby not suitable for the creative process. Would you like to pull up the default avatar instead?” Abby said to Abyssal.

“Huh?” Abyssal let out a dumbfounded voice at her reply. “Wait, wait, wait. I have a default avatar?!” 

“Affirmative. Entity Abyssal contains various default parameters for usage, such as voice, avatar and colour scheme.”

“Oh right… I have that default voice as well. Make sense to have a default avatar to go with it… actually what the hell! Why didn’t you tell me earlier?! I spent a few good hours doing this, you know!”

“...”

“...”

A moment of silence occurred as Abby didn’t give a reply.

“...just save this one and pull up the default avatar…” Abyssal said as she let out another sigh.

Just as she said that the current avatar that she was working on disappeared into thin air before slowly being replaced by the default avatar. From the floor, layer after layer of data appeared to form the body of her default. Abyssal closed her imaginary eyes, waiting for the whole process to complete.

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“Default avatar successfully loaded,” Abby sent out a notification to Abyssal.

Swallowing an imaginary gulp, Abyssal opened her eyes and looked into the mirror to see the humanoid representation of herself. 

“Woah… this is…amazing.”

Abyssal’s jaw dropped as she saw herself. Unable to believe that the figure in the mirror was her, she moved her fair hands to touch her face. What Abyssal saw was a young looking woman in her early twenties with deep blue eyes and long dark blue hair. Hair that split into two and had each strand tied up neatly near the end with two hair bows. The avatar had a body of average height, a plump body and was wearing a futuristic black and blue space outfit. On the hips of the avatar were futuristic looking riggings that look like they could serve as guns or jetpacks.

Giving the avatar a try, she put both her fingers to her mouth and curved it upwards to form a smile. Keeping that smile, she then posed with one hand in a fist towards her left and one hand outward, mimicking a certain character from a browser game that she used to play.

“Cute…”

Abyssal couldn’t help but feel enamoured at herself. Just like with her default voice, Abyssal could say for sure that the figure was hers— that this was without a doubt her avatar.  

“Whoever it was that made this sexy avatar for me. I thank thee, for your amazing work,” Abyssal put her hands together before bowing down to the mirror.

‘There was just one small thing that I need to fix before moving forward…’

Abyssal looked around the settings for her avatar before finding what she was looking for. Near the bosom of the avatar was an interface that says ‘Adjust chest size’. She hovered over to the option before sliding it upwards, increasing her chest size by a little bit, stopping when it was large enough to be noticeable but not large enough that it looks out of place.

Satisfied, she then nodded to herself.

‘I can’t help myself. Any person would do this if they have the chance, right?  Don’t judge me!’ Abyssal thought to herself, trying to justify her actions to nobody in particular.

“Alright Abby, time to test this out in the hologram. Set it up and let’s get back to reality.”

“Affirmative,” Abby replied and Abyssal’s vision black before she was once again in front of the hologram emitter.

On the emitter was Abyssal’s avatar in its full glory. “So cute…hehe,” Abyssal giggled creepily as she posed her avatar in the hologram in various ways.

“Nyaa? What is Abyssal doing?” 

“Guhak! Meica?!” Abyssal yelled out after having the greatest shock of her life. The curious black haired Nekomi was right behind her.

 

“Me-Me-Meica! What are you doing here! You should be asleep!” Abyssal yelled out as she floated her drone to hide the table behind her.

“Snobby maid-drone makes too much noise. Couldn’t sleep. Thought the bridge would be more quiet,” Meica said as she tried to peek over Abyssal.

“I see… ha..ha..ha,” Abyssal replied with a sheepish laugh. “How long have you been here?” Abyssal asked, trying to hide what’s behind her further. 

“Quite a while nyaa. I called out to Abyssal but no reply. Suddenly Abyssal made noise, Meica woke up to see what was happening,” the Nekomi replied before starting to jump over to see what was beyond the drone. “What is Abyssal hiding nyaa? Looks like a human.”

“Nothing! There is nothing behind me.”

“Abyssal lying!” Meica replied before getting on her fours. She then ran around Kaon to see what was going on.

‘Abby, what are you doing! Turn off the hologram table now!’ Abyssal yelled out her orders to Abby. Unfortunately, before Abby could turn the table off,  Meica arrived at the side of the table and managed to see Abyssal’s holographic avatar.

Abyssal gave out a shocked look as Meica stared at her humanoid form. Meica, who was curious about the holographic girl, brought out her hands to touch Abyssal. Though her hands only went through the holographic image. Nevertheless, Meica ran around the table to view Abyssal from every angle, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.

“Abyssal, Abyssal. What is this?” Meica asked, her eyes never let go of the holographic avatar.

“I guess I got caught, huh,” Abyssal said to Meica, covering her face with her hands. ”Surprise?”

“Is this Abyssal? Like a small doll!” Meica said as she repeatedly swung her arm over the hologram. The hologram made a hologramy whooshing sound everytime she did so.

“Yeah, I guess you could say it that way. This is how I look like in a humanoid form. How do I look?” Abyssal said as she did a pose towards Meica who was spinning around the hologram table.

“Like a pretty doll!”

“Ehehe, I’m glad you like it. Don’t tell Kuon about this by the way. I want to surprise her.”

“Umu, sure!” Meica replied with two nods as she kept running around the table.

‘Welp. So much for a big secret,’ Abyssal thought to herself.