"No. You cannot set a fire. You are prohibited from alerting passing people to the presence of the barrier."
How incredibly unreasonable. I actually had a pretty good night's sleep last night too, only to wake up with renewed optimism that the wonderful Athena promptly crushed. I did ask, multiple times in fact, how on Earth she expected me to survive, only to be met with the verbal incarnation of a shrug from her cold, irritatingly hot, robotic voice. Nevertheless, after a good few hours of moping and arguing through pained, gritted teeth.. Something occurred.
I could swear, just off in the distance there were two figures casually waltzing through the trees- Well that's an overstatement, but they sure as shit looked relaxed. I didn't know at the time but apparently that irritated me more than it maybe should've. It's not like either of them were missing an a-
Oh. Shit.
One of them IS missing an arm. Let me go see who they are..
Athena is really getting on my nerves. I looked closer, seeing a girl with snow-white hair alongside Crue. That bastard. Of course, now wasn't the time for revenge, I was down an arm. As was he.. but that's not the point. As soon as I rushed out of the barrier and called his damned name, the bitch tased me! Again!
"You are prohibited from alerting others to the presence of the barrier. Idiot."
The repeated "warning" was enough to irritate me, and the 'Idiot' at the end just made it personal. I vowed silently to get her back.. somehow. Nevertheless, Crue.. or, I guess I know he's called Cameron now. So Cam for short. Cam seemed pretty enthusiastic, especially considering he was down an arm just like me.
The girl was less co-operative. Just as Athena was already shocking me with an unhealthy voltage, she was surprised by my sudden jumping out and sent me rolling using some kind of wind gust. It was a painful combo, to say the least. I get she was surprised but lord.. That felt a little harsh.
Cameron was pretty quick to defend me, before calling me a 'fucking idiot' in the same sentence, which led to them bickering shortly about whether he should speak to others like that or not. I wasn't paying much attention. My wrist and back hurt now, oh, and if I didn't mention already, my lack of an arm also hurt a shit-ton. It didn't help that this was immediately followed by her attempting to apologise, triggering a, believe it or not, whole ass shotgun trap. That very, very nearly blew my leg off. The grazing still hurt more than it should've though.
She apologised again, helping me up and actually healing me. Which was nice.. I mean, my arm was a lost-cause apparently but at least the actual wounds had been healed. I actually felt alive for the first time in a while. All the while, I quizzed her for her familiarity. Her face just seemed overly familiar.. And no. This was not a pathetic attempt at a pick-up-line. I know exactly what you're thinking. It wasn't long before Cam and the girl answered my question in the form of yet another short bickering session.
"Arlo's sister."
"Hey! I told you that in confidence! Don't just go spouting it out anywhere!"
"He's an ally. He knows Arlo too. We all know Arlo. Me, Zeke, Conway, Lily, Alec, and the others I can't remember."
My jaw briefly went slack. Putting aside the facts that Cam couldn't remember his own teammates, and the fact that there were even more monstrously powerful people in this realm with me, I honestly could not believe I'd found the long lost sister that Athena had enlightened me to the gravity of just yesterday. By pure coincidence too. I smiled. At least this meant I had company, even if one was a literal madman and the other looked at me like I'd just flashed her. I led them into the barrier, enduring two more shocks from my brand-new abusive partner for 'leading two more people into the barrier' without permission. Ass. Hole.
It took some convincing, but at Athena's recommendation I took a sample of 'Sasha's blood. Right now, Athena's processing it supposedly. Nifty little watch, this is. I'm gonna take another break for today. Will update soon.
So that confirms it. This is Sasha Rein.
"Blood sample verified. User Account [Sasha Rein] unlocked. You currently have [LEVEL 4 CLEARANCE]. I am ready to assist."
I was excited. I had level four? Me? That was awesome! Then, as she did only an hour or so prior, she once again crushed my hopes, telling me that Sasha was the one with level four. I still had level one.
I really wanted to crush the earpiece now. But I didn't.
Sasha had since taken the journal from me, flipping through what were supposedly a combination of insane rants, research notes, and occasional journal entries in that book. All of which were written by her brother, Arlo. Me and Cameron occupied ourselves with his new look, as in the missing arm, the pale blue skin and the orc-like features I'd somehow missed previously. Apparently he ate some kind of pale-blue, glowing fruit that changed him to be like that. At first I immediately called bullshit.. but as someone who only a day or so prior was teleported into a tree, it didn't seem so unrealistic. We wanted Athena to do a blood test to find out what he was, but she was as uncooperative as usual, refusing to do a test that required clearance level 2.
I handed her Athena's equipment as she continued to look at me strangely. Had my impression thus far really been so bad? I know I can be an idiot sometimes, but seriously.. She cleaned it all thoroughly, which usually I'd have understood, but with the way she unintentionally looked disgusted made me think it was at least a little personal.. Well. At least she was trying to hide it.
She soon had all the equipment on, speaking a nervous hello as Athena came to life. Not that I heard any of what she said, but I could tell based on the widening eyes of Sasha. She was either shocked or pricked for yet another sample, based on the small jump she did from the sudden change. A few minutes later of.. well. Awkward silence, her eyes widened once again.
"So.. 'Athena' is telling me I now have clearance level six?"
Six? Fucking SIX?! Athena told me there was only five! What kind of elaborate scam was this?! To make it worse, apparently Sasha locked my account because she didn't trust me! God, I hated this realm already, but now I fucking DESPISE it. At least she didn't exclude me from the trip into the storage room. With any luck, there'd be an arm in there. Hah, as if. Will update later.
So, we entered, into some Tardis-like shit. The room was massive. Larger than the entire barrier area from the outside. I had no clue what was happening and both Cam and Sasha seemed to be talking to some kind of ghost.. so I decided to make my way to the office room over at the back.
"W-Wait! Bread Boy, if you go through that door you'll be uh.. 'instantly terminated'.. Apparently.."
I still hadn't forgiven her for locking my account, but at least she didn't let me kill myself.. though, on that note, let me reiterate how much I fucking HATE clearance levels now.
So, I resigned myself to the room in general. A great expansive warehouse with only coloured, strange cubes that reminded me of.. what was it called? The cube thingy from those superhero movies- Marvel! Well, hopefully you know what I mean.. Nevertheless, they were supposedly Arlo's storage devices. Each containing some kind of intricate or rare item. There was most colours of the rainbow, red through blue really.. apparently some purple and pink ones were in the basement storages. All three of us each picked up a cube. Sasha and Cam each went for a blue one, supposedly the most important in this room, while I played it safe and went for a red one.. Of course, the world hates me. So, I was shocked. Intensely. It damn near knocked me unconscious.. meanwhile, Cameron had it worse. Had that shock been on the common man, it might've killed them.
Incapacitation my ass.
Sasha made the decision to register both of us at level five so we wouldn't be stood around idly, making some comment like 'give a blood sample to the passive aggressive robot', which I rather quickly refuted by saying she's FAR more than just fucking passive aggressive. Of course, not even this could go my way, as Sasha asked for the 'orc' to be registered as 'Cameron' and the 'other guy' to be registered as 'Creep'.
"Understood. The Kihn will be registered as 'Cameron'. The pathetic male will be registered as 'Creep'. Accounts registered and activated. Clearance updated."
I'm sick of this place and these damned people.