"The manifestation of your Type energy is real funky, dude."
"I know," Zind groaned in agreement as the two gaming buddies sat side by side with their faces scrunched up in a mixture of confusion, frustration, exasperation, and also resignation. Right in front of them are the energy constructs that Zind tried to manipulate using Imaginary energy and the results are…weird.
It all started out when Silver Wolf casually questioned if creating energy shields and swords are the only things he could do with his gauntlets. He told her that he had honestly never thought to create anything other than those variants of energy constructs because he never had a need to. That led them into the training room where they experimented and played around to – in Silver Wolf's words – explore the full potential of his five star weapon and ascend it to the max level.
He told her, since you are the expert here, why don't you tell me what kind of constructs I should try creating. She decided that since the Type energy he's inclined towards is Imaginary they might as well try imagining something and her mind wandered to the futuristic FPS shooting game which they co-op a few days ago, where it's possible for players to pick up a hologram gimmick during the gameplay to fool the enemy npc mobs.
So bada-bing bada-boom, it turns out that Zind's five star gauntlet was indeed capable of creating holograms. The super lifelike Zind hologram standing right in front of them and staring right at their faces was proof of the success of their experiments. He even tried creating a Silver Wolf hologram and… it actually worked.
"Why does it feel like I should be a utility support type of character rather than a shielder."
"Congrats, you got yourself an upgrade," Silver Wolf deadpanned while poking around with her own holographic image. Granted, these holographic images cannot speak and creating solid copies of their own images will take up much more of his concentration such that it's not a feasible combat tactic until his mastery over Type energy gets another upgrade, but none of them imagined that Zind would really be able to create holographic images in the first place, much less realistic ones. Granted, there are already many devices that could already create something similar that can be bought for cheap, so Zind's new ability really is not anything too groundbreaking or shocking.
Still, it's the fact that he could create such constructs that surprised her. Did he really make such drastic improvements in mastering Type energy during his short time here ever since he joined the group, or was another reason at play?
"Try cancelling it?" Silver Wolf suggested and her own hologram disappeared into pixels of light with a simple wave of his hand. That's quite a nifty ability that her game buddy just unlocked if she does say so herself.
"What other things can you create anyway?
"Let's see… chains," a long chain manifested upon his will. "Might be useful depending on the scenario. Swords, shields, spears, clubs… most traditional weaponry seems alright."
"Yo, ever played this game? This one," Silver Wolf turned the holographic screen of her own terminal to show him one of the many games she once played. "The villain could create hundreds of copies of weapons with his noble phantasm and rain them down like artillery fire. It's freaking cool."
"I don't even know if my gauntlets can support such an output," he replied with layers of doubt in his voice. "But that idea has some merit so I'll try. That spar with Sam hammered home the point that I really need more diversity in my skill sets, especially AOE skills. I really need some of those."
"Get some CC too. That chain idea sounds good," she added her two credits about the issue. "If your power is creating constructs rather than just simple shielding… it can be very OP. You can be a tank, you can be a CC provider, you can create chaos with holograms which might also evolve to stealth related abilities in the future… Huh, wouldn't that make you an assassin type of character?"
"I was thinking if I can create clones, like solid clones, and be capable of doing it en masse… I can be a one man army," he mused.
"Oh, like the protag from that ninja anime."
"Yeah, that one."
"Or create super huge cool humanoid constructs. Have you heard of the Arbiter-Generals of the Xianzhou Alliance? They are all bestowed with formidable spirits by the Aeon Lan, and some of them are seriously so darn cool."
"Can't visualise. Got a video of it?"
"Yeah wait a sec," Silver Wolf easily found several video footage of the spirits of the Arbiter-Generals from the dark web. "This one is supposedly the Lightning-Lord spirit that's currently wielded by the Arbiter-General of the Xianzhou Luofu, Jing Yuan. Now this is some cool shit."
"Holy moly. Did he just cleave an entire mountain into two?"
"Exactly. So can you do something like this or not?"
"How would I know? And this room is too small to even try experimenting."
"We got to ask Kafka when she's back if she knows of places where we can try this out."
"What do you want to ask me?" Kafka's voice could be heard and the two junior hunters turned their heads around, spotting Kafka who must have entered the room at some point after their conversation started. Kafka took one look at the hologram that Zind made.
"It's very lifelike. Try making a hologram of my image?"
"One sec," Zind closed his eyes to focus, imagining in great clarity as he moulded the Imaginary Type energy and soon, a hologram of Kafka stood in front of them. It looked pretty much like the real thing.
"This might be useful in our jobs, depending on the situation," Kafka gave her honest feedback after examining her own hologram in detail. It would make their escapes easier if they could create copies of themselves and thereby splitting the attention of their pursuers.
"Let me try making images of Blade, Sam and Firefly too," Zind proposed, perhaps a little too eagerly, but he succeeded in his attempts. By now, the other hunters were also drawn into the training room due to the commotion.
"Is this construct solid?" Blade inquired and looked disappointed when his hand simply passed through his own hologram. He was hoping that maybe a copy of himself might be able to kill him. Alas, that paradise might be unreachable for him.
"Wow… I never knew this was possible," Firefly examined her own hologram which was mimicking her every action like a mirror and Zind's heart nearly stopped beating once again from the cute sight.
"This might have tactical use when we are on our jobs."
"I had the same opinions too," Kafka voiced her agreement to Blade's remarks. "It seems that we would need to revise our understanding of Zind's abilities, which should be creating constructs, both solid and holographic, rather than just shields."
"We should send him on a job soon, like one of those solo ones that all newbies go through when they first join," Silver Wolf suggested while chewing on a bubblegum.
"I will talk to Elio about it," Kafka noted before turning around to leave the room. Blade soon followed.
"Sam's not around, huh," Zind wondered aloud when he found that they were still missing one last person of the team, not including the head honcho. The holographic image of Sam looked lonely, just standing there without ever meeting the original.
"Um, actually–"
"Sam never really appears in our hideouts," Silver Wolf's reply just so happened to interrupt the clarification that Firefly wanted to tell Zind.
"Really? Why?"
"Cos Sam's a mecha."
"Oh. That makes sense."
Firefly looked a little confused, her gaze alternating between her two friends. Zind bought Silver Wolf's explanation just like that? How does her explanation make sense? Silver Wolf's not wrong to say that Sam never really appears in their hideouts because Firefly is the one who usually wanders this place, but…
"Enough training for today. Let's get out of here and get down to business," Silver Wolf led the way forward and they soon ended up in her room, filled with various game consoles, game related merchandise, and overall looked like what one would expect from a typical hardcore gamer.
Silver Wolf proposed that they play a few ranked games of the wildly popular moba game that's all the rage these days. Neither Zind nor Firefly were against the idea. Silver Wolf suppressed her urge to roll her eyes when she spotted how Zind tried real subtly to sit close to Firefly.
"I'm playing jungle," Silver Wolf declared her role while the three of them were queuing in the game lobby. "Firefly you take top. Zind, take mid. We are going to pwn the shit out of the enemy team and make the top half of the map our playground."
"Firefly plays top?"
"She doesn't use any strategy when she plays her games. She just go clank-clank-clank and bang bang bang, so playing top lane is just right up her alley. Top lane tank, you know? Just go in at half health, stir some shit, and get out with full health while the two of us clean up the enemy team."
"Huh?" Zind realised an oddity when his attention was drawn to the usernames of his friends. Silver Wolf's username is Banneduser, his is Creditor, Firefly's… SAM?
"Firefly's username is SAM?"
"It's because –"
"Oh, they both share the same game accounts for all the games that we play together," Silver Wolf casually spun her lie before Firefly could make any clarifications – wait, what lie? It's the truth, Firefly and Sam both share the same accounts, even their bank accounts – "Sam is not always free so when he's not around I just pass his account over to Firefly to play on his behalf."
"Ah, understandable."
"Silver Wolf…" Firefly pouted, a little displeased that she had cut off her attempts to clarify the misunderstandings that Zind obviously hold about her, her cheeks inflating like a chipmunk but she looked too harmless to be menacing and Silver Wolf simply dismissed her "threats" with a casual wave of her hand.
"Oh, we are finally in. Pick your champs, guys. Firefly, remember to take teleport."
"O-Okay. Um… which runes should I pick again…?"
"Just take the preset ones… Yeah that one's fine. Hey Zind, what you picking… You sure you want to pick that?"
"Just wait for my 0/10 power spike and then we will win the game."
"Whatever," Silver Wolf rolled her eyes and the game soon started.
"Firefly, don't push your lane so aggressively. Back back back… Oh shit the enemy jungler's here."
"I'm coming I'm coming. Go go go, engage engage engage. Enemy mid is low with no summs, he's not going to come."
"D-Do you need me to come over?"
"Yeah just come – KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL – NICE!"
"Freaking kill stealer," Zind accused, grumbling under his breath as he controlled his character to head back to his own lane.
"Don't worry, I'll carry," Silver Wolf pledged, uncaring that she stole his kill. An extra 300G on her next back, nice.
"Drag's up in 30 secs, contest?"
"Ward the place first– what's our support doing? There's no vision!"
"Must be a noob," Zind remarked after he brought up the scoreboard and saw the 0/4/0 score of their ally support and the 0/5/0 of their own adc. Guess this game is going to be a 3v7.
"Urgh just give," Silver Wolf decided but the decision was taken out of her hands when the enemy team suddenly engaged and a teamfight started, forcing them to take part in it.
"Argh shit. Fight fight fight!"
"AD no summs! AD no summs!" Zind quickly reported when he successfully managed to force the enemy carry to exhaust all his spells before making a quick tactical retreat to avoid being surrounded on all sides from the enemy team.
"I-I'm teleporting!"
"AD AD AD!" Silver Wolf hollered as her own character cut into the backlines in her attempt to one-shot the enemy carry as the assassin. Her valiant attempt was rewarded when her screen turned greyscale just one second later.
"What the–" Silver Wolf brought up the scoreboard. "HOW IS THE ENEMY AD HAVING TWO FULLY BUILT ITEMS ALREADY?!"
Silver Wolf's cry wasn't heard. To be more precise, her other two gaming buddies were too preoccupied with trying to survive the 2v5 to answer her.
"Just whack him –" Silver Wolf heard Zind shouting and she also spectated the teamfight from her own screen, just in time to see Zind controlling his character to Face the Wind! at the opportune moment to mitigate all incoming ranged attacks with a wall of wind before smoothly dashing to the side to avoid the enemy top laner's crowd control.
Whoa. That's sick.
"Hit 'em Firefly– NICE!" Both Silver Wolf and Zind shouted in unison when Firefly's game character came charging in with her ultimate just at the right timing and knocked up all 5 enemy members high into the sky, allowing Zind to follow up with his own ultimate as his game character yelled Sorye ge ton! and melted the enemy's health bars almost instantly.
PENTAKILL!
"NICE!" All three of them whooped but Silver Wolf also noticed what's odd just a second later.
"I-I got a pentakill!"
"Good job Firefly!" Zind praised loudly and Silver Wolf gave him a questioning glance that went unnoticed by the other two. It didn't miss her notice that Zind purposely let Firefly take all the kills when he could and also should have taken those kills as the carry.
He grumbled incessantly about her stealing one kill early game, but praised firefly for stealing his pentakill? Talk about double standards.
Never mind. A fed tank is an unkillable tank… and Firefly looked genuinely happy at her unexpected achievement that she honestly wouldn't have achieved without the help of a pro smurfing around their rank level.
The purpose of games is to allow players to feel happy during the process, and she's not going to take that away from her friend.
"I see, so that's why you are suggesting to send him out on a solo mission."
"Isn't this a rite of passage for all of us?" Kafka replied rhetorically within the privacy of her room. On the other end of the line is Elio, the individual that outsiders sometimes refer to by his epithet, the Destiny's Slave.
"So, do you have a job for him per the script?"
"That's the thing, I don't."
"You don't?"
"There's no script for Zind," Elio elaborated and Kafka subconsciously straightened her back from where she was seated on her chair from the surprise.
"Do you know why I decided to get you to recruit him?" Elio's voice rang out and Kafka's silence was telling. "It's because no matter how I searched, he never once appeared in any script. In other words, he's an "anomaly", an existence that lies outside of the influence of the script."
"Isn't that… risky?" Kafka's eyebrows furrowed in thought after understanding the implications of having such an existence in their midst. What if his presence derailed everything that they are working towards?
"Yes, his presence poses a certain level of risk. I could have just left him at Velura, where he wouldn't have the opportunity to venture into the galaxy and thereby, eliminate his influence on the script entirely but… just by the very nature of his existence, the converse can also be true, isn't it?"
"You mean, if there is a day where bad endings are what awaits us all no matter which script we use… He could very well be the one who might be the key to get us the script with the best outcome?"
"Yes, that was what I thought as well. Zind's presence might be a "risk", I acknowledge that, but conversely his existence also meant "possibilities", options that might not be open to us otherwise. In short, he's our "joker card". He might not be a key player, or maybe will never be a key player according to the scripts that we could currently get our hands on, but sometimes it's the supporting characters that tilts the plot of the show entirely to reach a vastly different outcome."
"I see…" Kafka fell deep in thought. "Even if you say that… just what's so special about him for there to be no script about him? Such a thing has never happened before."
"I do not know," Elio admitted, "but I would rather keep him where I could observe him than to leave him at Velura. Hence, his recruitment into our ranks. His presence here certainly wasn't part of my original plan and I'm ad-libbing as it goes. I will try to look into this enigma on my side, so help me to keep an eye on your end as well."
"Understood," Kafka acknowledged.
"Nevertheless, I also believe that he should also undergo that same rite of passage everyone else had already gone through. No matter what the circumstances surrounding him are, it's a fact that he's already a Stellaron Hunter. I have a job here, relatively low risk, whatever happens at the job location should not affect any key events in any script that I had seen, so it should be fine."
"Low risk? It's a war torn planet," Kafka's eyebrows rose slightly when she saw just what job Elio had in mind for their newest member. "Are you sure this will be fine?"
"There's really nothing I can do about that if things do derail from all the scripts we have, can I?"