It was agonizing. The sound of her brother's scream echoed through Viper's mind even as she stayed in one place for what felt like an eternity. No matter what she tried, the whole dungeon had frozen. For a few seconds Viper thought that it was just lag, but it didn't stop after the few seconds that it took for lag to prosses. Starting to count the seconds, Viper managed to get to forty before she started doubting whether it was seconds that she was counting. The moment seemed endless; a whole eternity frozen into one second. Viper couldn't look away from the error signs that glared at Viper for her attempt. She couldn't avoid the accusation in her brother's toneless scream, the evidence that she hadn't managed to help him yet. She couldn't even despawn herself to escape this room. Nothing was happening, and Viper was left just to doubt whether she made any difference at all. Soon, even that awareness faded, numbed by an unchanging statement of what had happened.
When she collapsed, Viper realized where she was. She had spent all day in nothing and was off to the dreamland where she could move. Just looking up filled her with excitement! Viper could move! She was alive and she could move! Seeing something else move, Viper wanted to run up to whatever it was and kiss it for its existence. The things around her could move again! This didn't hate her; Viper was just another student for it to impart its lessons to. There was something real about it, and she savored in that feeling of realness.
That wasn't enough to get rid of the fear, however. No matter if she could move, no matter whether she was alive, part of Viper doubted that these enemies were real either. Most of her knew that their existence was a just a simulation, but that part of her wanted to call the creatures real so that Viper could do something about them. They were real, and Viper could slash them and… did she want to slash them? If they were real, then Viper was also real. What if they weren't real and Viper stopped being real either? No, it was safer not to use the knife that had crashed her last server-world. Was there any difference between a server and a world? It seemed that those were the only things that Viper got shuffled between.
The monsters surrounding her didn't care about her crisis. Unlike the kindness her visions said that they could bring, these didn't hesitate to attack. Nothing was happening- not to those monsters and not to her, even if the health bar above her head claimed differently. Viper couldn't even feel the attacks- did that mean that she wasn't real after all? No, they weren't real and… Viper wished that she could quit the game. Would her knife do that? No, that wasn't a good thing either. No turning a knife on herself, not even when the memories insisted that staying alive when surrounded meant lots of pain and a hunger that no one understood. Was she going to starve? The dreams said that she would. That didn't mean that Viper couldn't make them understand, filling the creatures that surrounded her with a hunger for destruction that should have aimed them at her.
They didn't understand. Feeling her confusion, the creatures turned on each other. No matter how scary they were or how much Viper wanted to quit the game, they didn't pay any attention to her, far to consumed in their domestic problems. Why did they do that? Was there a reason? Did they think that seeing their pain would make Viper feel better? The ideas in her head claimed that it was a horrible thing for her to do and that Viper should take the initiative and pretend to be alright so that they would be fine to. Viper didn't want to listen to the ideas. If those ideas didn't make sense now, why would they turn know into sense.
That confusion didn't stop with the arrival of someone else onto the scene. They were tall, they were capable, and they were… something. Viper was sure that she should remember something else when she saw them. They should remind her of pain and loss, the end of what could have been an empire! No, Viper didn't trust the memories right now, not when they weren't fixing anything. Seeing the head turn, something was off about their eyes. They should be a brighter green, something that pretended to be emeralds lit with the brightness of a star- no, the sun would better do them justice. Nothing about the plain muddled purple should have made sense. Instead, they were facing away and attacking the monsters. Did that make them bad?
"Viper, I see you made your way out of the glitch" Skull said, and now Viper realized where they remembered that person. Her friend was Skull, not only her most valued friend but also her brother. There was no reason for Viper to be scared. There was no reason for Skull to look up at Viper with tears in his eyes, fear poorly disguised as he hurried to avoid her ire. That must be a lie to.
"Skull" She said, testing out the name. Yes, this was her darling brother, and all of the voices must be wrong. "You're alright!" She exclaimed, running over to hug him. That was what she was supposed to do, despite echoes of her mind that said she should glare or intimidate. Why would she do that when she could love on her beloved younger sibling?
Strangely, Skull seemed to agree with the voices. "Sis, are you sure that you're alright?" He asked, returning the hug cautiously. That wasn't how a brother should hug. Squeezing him tighter and rocking a little, Viper fixed the discrepancy.
"No, I'm not" She admitted, even when she was just so glad that he was alright. "You're perfectly fine?" She asked. It wasn't even something that made sense, but she said it.
"I'm really doubting that you're ok. This isn't actually normal, what's gotten into you?" He asked, leaning further into the hug.
"Oh, you're my absolutely beloved little brother. Why shouldn't I love on you every chance that I can?" Viper asked him honestly.
"Because you don't like touchy feely redundant nonsense" Skull said. Really, he seemed to know her better than Viper did herself, so why ask questions.
"Ok, but I wanted to make sure that you knew I tried to protect you from the lag" She said, smiling. That didn't feel right, so she stopped and glared. That was a bit more natural, but she didn't like it either. Trying to find a mix, Viper raised her eyebrows and looked down on him, even as she didn't smother him in her hug. Smothering would be bad, and she liked this much better anyways.
"You did?" Skull asked, confused.
"You said yourself that I disliked redundant questions" Viper said, pouting.
"Sis, I get that, but why do you have to be so misty all of a sudden?" he wondered.
"Sense when you respect personal space?" Viper countered.
"Ok, while I can see the logic in that… I can see the logic in that. Whatever, I want to fight something together without the game crashing. Can we hunt something?" He asked, smiling. "I want to defeat something!" He exclaimed. "Come on sis, let's go and be so strong that they'll sing songs about how great we are"
"That practice died out with bards" Viper said, not quite sure where this change was coming from. "Wait, let's check our menus. The glitch might have tried something against our vulnerable forms"
"You aren't vulnerable, Viper" Skull protested.
"Yes I am. I'm not sure whether, whether I crashed the game or not" She said, changing her wording mid-sentence.
"You're being indecisive" Skull said, picking up the ques immediately. "Once you make up your mind, you'll stop being vulnerable again" he said, rolling his eyes at how obvious the solution it.
Opening her menu, Viper still fallowed her own advice. Looking over to the classification aria, she smiled as she found what she was looking for. Their classification had changed. Where she had been labeled a cloud when she first joined the game, now it said that she was a misty cloud. It also registered one flame bond- oh, it looks like she'd reached the point with Skull that their flames offered an overlap period. She didn't need to say anything; she just knew what it was now.
"Come on, now can we hunt?" Skull asked, eager to do something.
"If you can find them, I can join you" Viper agreed, smiling lightly. Something was happening, and she was enjoying it. Pulling up her hood, she fallowed her brother sedately. It just clicked, the way that she turned her brother's enemies against themselves. She remembered the way she showed him the best spots, and she continued the process. When something tried to attack from behind, Skull took the attack when she couldn't move away. He was fine, and she was fine, and this was a great time.
When Skull took out his net and set off another large trap that caught a whole swarm, there was another issue. Between the twins, neither was good at the lethal attacks on a large-scale basis. Skull dealt with it like he always did, taking the job one by one. His noose went out, and he would snap one neck at a time, methodically getting rid of the creatures in the net. Viper was more uncertain, unwilling to get out the knife. When Skull turned to her curiously, Viper needed to think of something. If she wanted to not hurt them with the knife, what would happen? She really didn't know, and crashing the game wasn't something that she wanted to do. Viper eventually settled on awkwardly standing there and not saying or doing anything.
Somehow, that standard made sense. It didn't click to not do anything, but when Viper was just moving out of the way so that Skull could do it, there was perfect sense in her actions. He could take care of that, and Viper didn't need to steal his attention. That worked, or at least she thought that it would. Staying off to the side, she heard a noise and realized what she could do. As she pacified the creature in front of her, something else made more sense. Viper could keep them and if something happened, they would be there. "Skull, may I please have one of your smaller nets?" she asked.
"Oh, sure, but why?" her brother wondered. That made sense to.
"I want to put an attack hyena in my inventory" She said, smiling at the thought.
"If you really want to, but I think that it's dangerous" Skull warned, passing her one of the nets.
Viper readied her intent. She wanted to capture it so that she could release it against her enemies. That worked in her mind, and it would work in the game. Trying to fallow through with the idea, Viper was surprised for a moment when it worked. Picking it up, the 'netted hyena' actually did go in her weapon slide. She supposed that there was both a logic in that. She had been considering it a weapon, so why would anything else do that? It was also rather convenient to her, as there weren't actually any unclaimed spaces in the ingredient portion of her menu. Sure, she had plenty of spaces where there was room for more, but there wasn't any empty space for her to take something new.
Still, when she managed to set the hyena off against the next group of monsters that she and her brother encountered, her idea had been validated. The next time that she asked for a net, her brother didn't hesitate to give one to her. She continued in the manner for quite some time, and she was actually fine when Skull left her game for the day. There were plenty of attack dogs for her to use, and there was nothing stopping her from keeping herself safe with the pack. There wasn't anything overly wrong anymore.
