The party was going in full swing when they arrived. Everybody were either happily chatting with each other, eating, on the dance floor, or playing with the space pilot simulator that was inside a medium sized trailer parked on the field. The quartet stood at the front of the field just enjoying their time watching the people have fun. Enola seemed to be eyeing the flight simulator while Inez was watching the people dancing on the dance floor as she tapped her feet the the rhythm of the music. Varian was simply staring at the food table.
"You do know we can't actually eat that since this is a sim right?," Carmen reminded him causing his brother to deflate a bit. He nodded sadly before breathing in deeply and puffing his chest out trying to look confident.
"I know but I still want to see how much work you put into the food of the sim," Varian said before pausing for a moment.
"I'm also going to get food from the kitchen real quick. Be right back."
Varian pressed a button on his glass tab and his avatar became idle for a moment. The group waited a couple of seconds until his avatar came back to life.
"Got the snacks! Now I'm ready!," Varian told Carmen who was busy messing around with a group of colored bracelets she took out from her infinite bag. She handed each of her siblings one which matched the color of their bags.
"Before we split up. Put these on," said Carmen which earned her confused looks from her siblings as they put on the bracelets. Their expression soon changed when their bracelets lit up and expanded into metal gauntlets that had a panel on the top and the face of a lion on its screen.
"Hello, my names is Prisma, your personal AI companion," Prisma, the lion AI, greeted the group which earned him expressions of awe.
"Meet Prisma, the AI that I comes with your gauntlets. This device can do many things such as communication and storage but is primarily used to get rid of"glitches"that pop up in the sim by providing y'all with weapons," Carmen explained to her siblings as she tapped the off button on her green gauntlet to return it to its dormant form. Her siblings played around with the device for a bit before turning back to bracelet mode.
"What does giving us weapon have to do with getting rid of glitches?," asked Varian, puzzled.
"Sometimes they're are npcs in this world that get out of control due to their programming learning something new and they aren't able to fully process it yet. So they kind of have a meltdown. At first I wanted to get rid of the issue by hand but since it isn't really a glitch and just an AI behavior thing I thought that reseting them would be easier than just reprogramming them. Reseting them is harmless and allows them to process experiences more smoothly. I thought that just pressing buttons to reset them was boring so I made weapons with a reset feature to make things quicker and fun!," explained Carmen as she summoned a green hologram dagger out of the gauntlet before making it disappear.
"Oh so we're like tech duelysts from that sci-fi TV show called "Duel Up!"?," suggested Inez.
"Hmm yeah I guess so."
"Awesome! We're gonna be super heroes!," exclaimed Enola, excited.
"At this rate I'm just gonna skip straight into my villain ark since we're technically going against a major tech company," stated Varian.
"Of course you want to be a villain," said Enola.
"Oh sue me if I think villains are more fun to play as than super heroes. With our luck we'll be setting fire to this world in the next hour."
"On purpose or by accident?," asked Inez curiously. The four had a reputation for attracting trouble wherever they go so it wouldn't surprise her if Varian's prediction would turn out to be correct an hour from now.
"By accident. If we were setting fire to this world on purpose Enola would have done that by now."
"Hey I have some self control when it comes to arson activities! Don't worry Carmen! This world would be perfectly okay once we're done with our mission!," Enola reassured her twin as she placed a hand on her shoulder.
"The couch pillow an hour ago can't say the same," interjected Inez which caused Varian to laugh.
Enola wiped her head around so fast at that statement that if was surprising it didn't fall off.
"It was an accident!," defended Enola.
"On second thought maybe I should lesson that one hour to five minutes," contemplated Varian.
"You guys have no fate in me."
Enola put a hand on her heart dramatically.
"Hey if it makes you feel better I bet Varian would forget that we're in a sim again in the next ten minutes," said Inez which caused Varian to look slightly offended.
"Okay now I think we've gone too far this time," said Varian.
"Karma feels sweet doesn't it?" asked Enola smugly
"Now now everyone I think that's enough "talking" for right now. You guys can go party now," said Carmen.
Her siblings cheered before they huddled together and placed their hands together and lifting them up as they shouted"Team Pantheon"before going there separate ways.
Enola rushed over to the trailer that held the flight simulator as Inez ran towards the dance floor as another song started to play. Carmen and Varian walked towards an empty table to put there stuff down. Felicitte hopped out of Varians bag and plopped herself onto an empty chair.
Carmen quickly glances to a shady figure nearby who appears to be a man in a black suit from a crime show. An eye pin with a blue iris and two black wings is placed on his chest. He appeared to be one of those Cybrim drones.
When the drone wasn't looking Carmen gave him a glare and pointed two fingers at it accusingly as if she was vowing to watch his every move.
"You that dude that looks like a shady fbi agent near that tree?," Carmen asked Varian who was scrolling through his virtual phone that was connected to his real life one.
"Uh yeah what about him?," asked Varian.
"That's one of the drones from Cybrim. You can know if he's a drone when you see the companies symbol on a them."
Carmen pointed to the strange pin on the drone as Varian nodded his head in understanding.
"So what I'm hearing is that no going near that guy?," asked Varian which Carmen responded with a sharp nod.
"I don't know what's about these drones but they just don't sit right with me for some reason. They're just to...," Carmen tried to find a word to describe them before Varian interrupted him.
"Drony?"
"Yeah they're too drony."
The two chuckled at the obviously made up word.
"Whelp. I'm going to get food from the table. Even if we can't eat it might as well act as if we're role playing instead of super heroing. You guys want anything?," Varian asked the two.
"Just a soda please. Any kind would work," Carmen said not caring for the flavor since she can't really enjoy it due to it being a sim. Felicitte on the other hand seemed to scratch her chin with her tail as if in deep thought.
"I would like a plate of spaghetti, a side of garlic bread, and a strawberry soda please," Felicitte asked in her a tone filled with elegance and class. Varian seemed mildly surprised by the request.
"Wow that seems like a very specific request. Do you think of me as a restaurant server or something?," Varian genuinely asked her which she responded with a shit eating grin.
"Well if you truly love me you would do this for me. Wont you?," Felicitte said sweetly before tilting her head. Varian paused for a moment at her response as he tried to process the fact the cat was trying to manipulate him into serving her and she was succeeding at it. He turned to Carmen to find her stifling a laugh at the scene.
"Did you have to make her smart?," Varian asked her only for Carmen to burst out in laughter which caused him to sigh in defeat. He soon left to the food table leaving Carmen alone with Felicitte.
She sat at the table with a bored expression as she played with the cutlery that was in front of her. Felicitte had decided to take a small nap on her seat so he was all alone for the moment. Carmen soon took out her glass tab and started mindlessly scrolling the social media apps she had created for the sim. Soon enough a shadow had cast over her drawing her attention to look up to a glasses wearing ginger haired teenager who looked about fourteen years old. She immediately recognized them as one of her few characters in the world that she spent a bit more attention into their creation due to the fact she wanted to see how to create a gender fluid character. His names was Piers and guessing by the blue bracelet they wore and he/him pin on their sweater they were a boy today.
"Hello. I was wondering if I could seat in one of these chairs since here are no longer any available spaces anywhere else," Piers explained to her which caused Carmen to glance behind him real quick and saw that the place got more packed than when they initially got here.
"Sure. Just take a seat," Carmen said motioning for them to take one which he did. He placed his bag down under their seat and placed his hand out for a hand shake.
"Names Piers," Piers introduced himself as Carmen shook his hand.
"Carmen."
Piers smiled a bit. He seemed scanned over the table real quick and saw that some of the chairs had stuff on them like bags.
"You came here with someone?," Piers asked curiously which earned him a nod from Carmen.
"Yeah. Me and my three siblings came here. We all decided to attend the academy together. You got any siblings?," Carmen asked despite the fact she already knew Piers entire background and family tree. She knew he had three siblings just as she did which consisted of an older brother named Matteo and older twin siblings named Ivory and Zacharias.
"Yeah I got three siblings. They all already have attended the academy for sometime. My older brother Matteo is here with me since I'm planning on entering the school. My twin siblings Zach and Ivory are currently on the moon at the moment for a mission," Piers said with pride at his siblings accomplishments.
"Wait the moon? Wow that's so awesome. You must be so proud of them."
Piers nodded.
"Yeah my siblings are kind of awesome. Matteo was also supposed to go on the mission but he had bit of an accident a month before the launch so they had to drop him," Piers said in a slight somber tone. They must feel sad about their brothers opportunity to go to the moon being robbed from him.
"Well that sounds unfortunate. But at least he's okay," Carmen said in an effort to lighten his mood a bit which seemed to work.
"Yeah at least he's alright," Piers said before he seemed troubled by something, before mumbling to himself in mild frustration.
"If only Keito could get his head out of ass and see that to."
Carmen recognized the person that Piers was talking about since Keito was one of the few characters she truly connected with during their creation. She soon grew concerned how Keito had a connection to the incident surrounding Matteo.
And most importantly, all how the hell did npcs get onto the moon already if Carmen never planned for them to go there yet?