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It's nighttime.
That's all the information Kirara has, as she blinks twice and remembers she has a physical body. Her stomach's growling, her eyes are blinking and feeling awfully dry, and her thoughts are coming by in a thick slurry of sensations. Stretching out arms, legs, and tentacles, she tugs each out to their max length, then back.
She's pooped. It's probably been about a few hours since the grinding sesh began, maybe. Maybe half a day, maybe just an entire day. She hasn't been keeping track of time all too well. Looking behind her, she sees a large lump on the bottom bunk of the bed, rising up and down as it snored. That's probably Utage, unless some weird person snuck in through the door and decided to go to sleep on the beds.
Kirara puts the desktop back to sleep mode, and suddenly the room's a lot quieter. Amazing how some good headphones and deep focus shut down the world around you, but she's still not sure how Utage managed to fall asleep with such noisy fans.
Her stomach growls again. That's not a noise Kirara can ignore for much longer, at least. She might've lost track of time and the dinner rush- or just dinner in general. It didn't seem important back when she was grinding out the Critical Set artifacts, but it sure felt important right about now. Ambriel said something about an Anura friend baking too many pastries for them to eat- maybe she could swing over and take some for herself?
The snoring stops. Blankets shifting, Utage blinks twice at the Aegir, before letting out a big yawn, eyes barely open.
There's not really any space for shame or thinking right now in Kirara's brain. She vaguely remembers she's dressed in a old T-shirt and some shorts, on the basis that nobody was actually going to see her in these. But appearances really didn't matter all too much to her right now- at least, less than getting something to eat.
Sluggishly, she gets off her chairs and walks to the door, before remembering to turn back to Utage. "Hey. I'm getting a snack. Want anything?"
Utage stretches, then settles into a sitting position. "Some toast, same as usual?"
"Gotcha, toast."
And, dressed in nothing but a T-shirt and some shorts, Kirara steps out into Rhodes Island's Nighttime.
It's about the same as usual.
The lights don't spread out to cover the entire hall. Instead, sections of shadow meshed together with steel, creating a patchwork corridor half-blended with sight and shallow depth. Closure once told her that it had been a miracle that they got contemporary lighting working with how ancient the ship's systems were- Kirara guessed that at least some of these were held together by hopes and dreams.
As long as the fridge was working, Kirara thinks. She's a bit surprised to hear herself think that, to be honest. With the noise of operations and the noise of games and the noise of Utage, she's not heard herself thinking in a long while. It's kind of horrifying, being left alone with these, to be honest. No wonder she liked Utage hanging around.
Forcing herself out of that slurry, she looks back around her.
One of the shadow was trailing her, she thinks.
Maybe she's gaslighting herself. No, wait, there's another word for that. Deluding? Fooling? Well, whatever it was, it was a particularly masterful self-delusion, considering she could see the distortion silently approaching her, like a wave of hot air against the horizon.
It's a funny sight to see space and shadow distorting behind you, like the renders on reality weren't quite as stable as you might've hoped. Like if you took one wrong step in some unfinished zone, you'd slip through the borders and fall down an endless unfinished abyss until you hit the killbox and instantly died.
Yeah, it felt a bit like that. But real.
Still, it's not nearly as interesting if you know what's going on.
"Hey, Manticore." Kirara waves, then yawns. They don't talk ever, but they have existed in the general vicinity of each other for some specialization training, and that in an introvert's mind was enough to make them vaguely friends.
The distortion stops, then shimmers in front of her. Manticore doesn't decloak- Kirara's not even particularly sure she can. "Another midnight snack?"
"Mhm." Kirara answers, then wonders how Manticore knows about her midnight snacking. Stupid question, she thinks to herself, considering she's meeting her in a darkened hallway after being stalked by a completely invisible ambusher.
Maybe she should be concerned about that? Eh, probably not.
"It's... noisy." Manticore wavers, then retreats. "You should... be careful."
"Got it. Thanks, Manty."
"You're welcome..."
Kirara vaguely pats the air where she assumes Manticore's head might be. It's not there, nowhere near close in fact, but she tried and that's the main thing. She might not have tried if she was fully awake, but again, there's no room for shame in that slurry-swallowed space she called her brain.
Manticore seems to appreciate it, though. With a tiny bump of her scaly tail, she goes on with her night.
Maybe this was her nightly routine? The day had too many people, so she got up at night and wandered around the empty hallways, like some sort of stalker ghost without a target?
What an odd habit, Kirara thinks, while half-dreaming of cold muffins.
There's noise up ahead, as Manticore warned. It's not an unusual noise, just the usual sound of screaming and arts casting, followed by what she assumes are explosions, but could also be someone playing the cymbals really poorly. The lights are also pretty bright, or at least bright enough to realize that the old T-shirt she was wearing could probably have used a bit more ironing.
Whatever, she yawns. Whoever cared about what people wore at 3 in the morning probably wasn't awake at 3 in the morning anyways.
"Hey, Kirara, nice shirt! You're just in time for the-"
Whatever Mizuki was going to say was cut off as a massive bubble slammed into him and exploded, instantly infusing him with the refreshing scent of lemons and crumpling him into a speedbump on the floor. Stepping over the unconscious speedbump, Kirara waves towards the other assaulters.
"Who's guarding the kitchen this time?"
The raiding band was a pretty ragged batch of hungry operators, banding together more out of circumstance than any meaningful collection. Taking cover under a toppled table, Catapult quickly shouts back: "SWEEP!" She cheerfully responds, loading some sort of canister into her hand-cannon. "As in, all of SWEEP. Including Aroma, who probably thought SWEEP was an actual Janitor's club."
She punctuates that sentence with a blast of her handcannon, causing some sort of bursting noise somewhere down the hall. Almost instantly, a hail of bubble shots retaliates down onto their position, putting Catapult back down into cover.
"She's doing a pretty good job, all things considered." Zima shrugs, crouched next to Catapult, watching as another geyser of bubbles slammed into a vague silhouette, sending them flying. "Ethan, shout if you're not dead!"
A vague muffled groan was heard somewhere in the direction he was launched in.
"He's good."
Kirara starts to reply, but stops as she sees some unfortunate soul (she thinks that's Chiave?) gets fully enveloped by a massive bubble. Judging by the way he was desperately banging on the bubble walls as he drifted up and towards the higher floors... He'll be fine. Shrugging, Kirara frowns at the obviously dangerous hallway.
"Vents?"
"Vent guards."
"Vent guards?" Kirara yawns, looking at a vent. A pair of yellow eyes stare back at her, followed by a swishing fluffy tail as whatever it was scampered back into the vents. "Oh. Vent guards."
Catapult doesn't react much to this, treating it like a fact of life. "Anyways, we're about to launch the final assault in. Wanna come?"
"If I get some toast." Kirara slides over- quite literally, as the floor was very slick with detergent and bubble residue. "What's the plan?"
"Do any of us look like the Doctor to you?" Zima shrugs, brandishing her axe. The fact that she taped some foam to the edge didn't fill Kirara with much confidence, but muffins were muffins and that really justified a lot of things. "We're just gonna run in and hope for the best."
Kirara considers pointing out that everyone vaguely looked like the Doctor when it was midnight and all the lights were off, but that didn't seem particularly relevant just now. "Cool. I'm game."
Without any fussing, she settled down next to a strange cross between a Liberi and an Aegir, with rounded ear tips and no feathers or tentacles of any kind.
"Idontwanttoeatmoredugeonfoodidontwanttoeatmoredungeonfoodidontwanttoeatmoredungeon-"
Zima shrugs. "She's been that way ever since Mizuki offered her a tentacle sushi. Don't mind her."
Well, lobbies were just like that sometimes. Sometimes you joined up with people who were minding their own business, sometimes people screamed in Ursus to rush B like their lives depended on it. Weirdos were just weirdos, whether they were online or in-person.
"Ahem!"
Speaking of. From the forefront of battle, Catapult looks to the wavering vanguard, the beaten and battered, the freshly washed and spin-dried. Taking a stand and holding her launcher high, the commander adressed this final bastion, the last hope of the peoples who wanted free food.
"Some of you might be expecting a heroic speech of sorts, but I'm really trash at that!" She points her launcher into the distance, before screaming her battle cry. "Just think of the food and CHARGE!"
They charged.
Or, rather, everyone else charged.
Kirara takes about two steps at a slightly faster pace, before remembering that the entire point of this was to get some snacks. If she burned more calories then she ate getting here, then what's even the point?
She promptly ambles forward instead, yawning to herself as the first wave of assaulters collided into the defenses.
They weren't doing a particularly good job at it. Rhodes Island was specifically trained in holding off mass-swarms of enemies above all else, from the simulations to the combats themselves. A swarm of Rhodes Operators wasn't particularly different from a swarm of Reunion Soldiers to SWEEP.
Was this throwing, not being in that moshpit? Meh. She just wanted some muffins- the rank points were an afterthought.
Kirara yawns and moves slightly to the side as Eureka is blown back by a particularly big burst, skidding and slipping off the hallway and far into the darkness. The void takes another soul, and squeaks in triumphant hunger.
... Squeaks?, Kirara thinks. Voids didn't squeak. But, then again, voids didn't make noise, so squeaking wasn't any different from singing and roaring.
But, whatever the void was doing, it seemed like it was approaching fast. Maybe the squeaking was a call of the void? With her last breath, Kirara turns around, and comes face to face with the sound of the squeaking- An office chair.
An office chair that was rapidly approaching her location faster than she could-
BUMP
Kirara launches upward, and through some miracle of physics lands perfectly behind the rider, who was driving recklessly ahead like a lancer into the abyss. The Aegir takes a moment to adjust to the howling wind blowing in her ears, then blinks at the rapidly retreating hallway. Huh.
With the added weight of a skinny Aegir girl, they plow through the barricade with absolute ease, scattering the defenders and bringing heart to the battered force. Not that Kirara cared, as all that mattered was her growling stomach. Dimly, she hears someone screaming at them from behind- she thinks that's Ascalon from training.
"Logos, you dumbass!"
Kirara blinks, then adresses the driver. "Logos?"
"Indeed." The driver, Logos, takes the moment to turn and face her fully, which didn't seem like a particularly good idea but she had never driven one of these so who knew? "You were hungry too?"
Kirara shrugs, one hand holding on to the seat's rim. "I wanted a muffin, and my dormmate wanted some toast."
"I'm in the mood for some eggs myse-"
The office chair crashes.
In hindsight, Kirara thinks as she flies through the air, office chairs really weren't meant for high speed rushes down very short hallways, especially ones lathered with bubble foam and the crumpled up remains of midnight snackers.
Now, if it were a GAMING chair, things might have been different, but alas, it seemed Logos was too much of a normal person.
She lands- lands is a strong word. She skids across the floor, gets her clothes a surprise wash cycle while she's still in them, and slides to a halt right next to the pantry doors.
Logos didn't seem to mind, though, as he was already back up. Maybe he was used to this sort of thing. Dusting himself off, he gets back on his feet, perfectly unharmed.
"Well, it was an unexpectedly pleasant encounter, meeting you. Until next time!" And with a flutter of cloth, he vanishes into the shadows, partly for dramaticism but mostly to avoid the wrath of a rapidly approaching Ascalon.
"Handsome guy." Kirara mutters, shaking off the bubbles clinging to her. "Now, where..." She trails off, finding the door to the kitchen pantries.
"Bingo."
The Rhodes Island pantries, in typical landship fashion, were a vast, sprawling labyrinth of supplies and consumables. The first floor, which held the kitchens, was the simplest to access. Then, as one went lower and lower into the storage, the stranger and rarer the foods became. Gelatinous Cubes, Strange Fungi, Sandworm Legs and even otherworldly dishes prepared by people not of Terrankind.
Kirara had heard rumors that the deepest sections of the abyss held the legendary cup noodles, the precious brand that would sit upon the desk of the Doctor and heighten his senses enough to command with mythic precision, ambrosia for a god amongst tacticians. But she recognized the brand he used, so realistically it was more like nobody else liked the garbage-flavored noodles he loved, so they stuffed them into the deepest depths and swore never to touch them.
Anyways... The pastries were on the first level anyways, as was probably some toast. Only issue was- No lights. No turning on the lights either, unless she wanted to alert the defenders and bring a hail of bubbles down on themselves.
But, hold on, there WAS a light. A faint hint of luminescence, just around the corner. Peeking around a large stack of potato crates, Kirara was greeted with a strange hologram of a person.
The flickering figure doesn't notice her at first. It seemed to be staring at a large pile of carrots with a frown on it's face, as if deep in thought. Which was strange, considering that the figure definitely wasn't a Cautus with those horns.
But, then again, if she were a hologram, maybe she would also spend the rest of her days staring at a console, mourning the fact that she couldn't actually play. What a terrible existence.
Still, she shouldn't watch a streamer stare at carrots the rest of the day. She had her own stomach to attend to. "Hey, Miss V-tuber? Do you know where they keep the pastries?"
The hologram flickers, then extends a faintly glowing finger in the direction of the fridges.
"Got it. Thanks a bunch, Miss-"
"Eterna."
"Thanks, Miss Eterna."
Kirara is about to walk off, but freezes in her tracks. Turning right back around on her heel, she points at the glowing figure. "Hold on."
Pink hair wavers and forms back into existence as the hologram turns to face her.
"What's your stream profile? What kind of stuff do you do?"
"... What's a stream?"
"I..."
Even in this fugue state of her's, Kirara knows mistaking someone for a streamer was a fate worse than death. With nary a word, she turns right back around, wordlessly making her escape before she's asked more questions.
Silently, as she blindly wandered the lightless labyrinth, Kirara wonders for a bit about who would even bother rigging and modelling an entire hologram just to never use it. Maybe she was a 3-D historical figure or something, for museu-
THUNK
Kirara stumbles into something cold, getting a faceful of steel before stumbling back onto the ground. She shakes her head, dazed, lost, before getting back up. That... was probably the fridge, right? Figners fumble around for a handle for a little bit, before she's rewarded with glorious golden light as she pulls the door open.
And, there they were. Sweet, glorious blueberry muffins, basking in the golden light of the refrigerator. Chilled, sure, but she wasn't picky with her food. She'd still eat these even if they were frozen in the freezer- heck, she'd eat these even if she'd be stuck in the freezer with them.
Oh, and- don't forget the toast, too. It's cold, but with the walk back it'll just be cool. Utage liked Iced Coffee and Iced Tea- she'd probably appreciate the iced toast as well.
Outside, she could still hear the rage of battle, the roar of bubble-fire and the screams of the dying. She could relate. If she couldn't have these muffins right now after grinding an overnight session, then she might as well be dying too.
Still, she's gotten sidetracked enough. Time to get back and finish the fetch quest.
Going through the mess hall and unlocking the doors, she casually walks back out into the main hallway, a good distance away from the sudded floors that might've tripped her. She lazily ambles away, completely ignoring the rest of the random encounters she might've had in that battlefield.
Looking back, she saw that some of the others- namely, Chiave, Ceobe, and Ethan- had been trapped in giant bubbles and were now despondently floating a few feet off the ground. Right below them, Aroma was giving them a good scolding over all the work they'd have to do to clean things up.
Maybe she should help...? Nah.
She keeps walking in that daze, and almost trips over a blue speedbump that smelled suspiciously like lemons. The speedbump yawns, mumbling in it's sleep.
"Mmmh."
Kirara looks down on the blue cape and cap, wondering why he hadn't moved. "Do you, like... need a bed?"
"Floor's just comfy..." The speedbump rolls over, one eye blinking at her as he yawns. "Muffin?"
Well, she did accidentally kick the speedbump awake. Kirara drops a single muffin onto his opened mouth, which he appreciatively chews while still lying on the ground. And in return, he gives her a big thumbs up, in lieu of some actual thanks as his mouth was still full of muffin. Kirara considers that well and done, and promptly leaves with the rest of the muffins and the speedbump still on the floor. He'll pick himself up eventually, probably.
She walks past the hallways, says hi to what she hoped was Manticore but could just be a trick of the light, and eventually pushes the door back open to their dorm.
There, a cascade of dancing lights illuminates the far side of the wall as Utage watches another trashy Telenovela, eyes tired. She blinks, sees Kirara standing in the doorway with some food, and shuffles partways past the couch, making room as Kirara collapses into it.
It wasn't particularly normal for Kirara to be watching a Telenovela, one arm wrapped around her as guitar music played in the background and a buff Caprinae confronted a Sarkaz about kissing his wife, but life was strange and she was tired. She bites into a muffin, not particularly worried about the touching she'll probably be freaking out over next morning.
"Anything weird?" Utage asks, looking down at her.
Kirara shrugs. "Saw a janitor named Aroma. She seemed a bit scary."
"Mm." Utage yawns, before taking a bite of the toast. "Same as usual, then."
Kirara yawns, then drifts off to sleep.
"Same as usual."