"What now?" Boi grunted.
"I'm serious, I need my bike!"
"I'm giving you a ride!"
"Are you giving me one back as well? Which would defeat the purpose of escorting you home?"
She was silent for well longer than expected. "...thick."
"What now?"
"There are so many ways to travel that don't necessitate going in a straight line."
"Like teleportation?"
"Exactly."
"So – why don't we?"
"Can YOU teleport? Just say, 'Two to beam up,' and away we go?"
"Not unless someone near me can do it!"
"Then there you go. I'm going to the nearest person who can."
Vepar swallowed in discomfort. "I don't know. I've seen what these FRs try to do—"
"Not FR, idiot. DK!"
"DK? Like your prior was?"
Boi seemed as though she wanted to say something but thought better of it. "I'm starting to rethink this whole enlisting you as a bodyguard schtick."
"It was your idea!"
"Don't remind me."
They came to a small town with small houses, general stores, and something that might have passed for a mall if there were more people to sustain it. Boi made a diner dash.
"What's in here?" Vepar asked when she clambered through the front door, finally stopping long enough for him to disembark.
"Flow's on the go."
"Come again?"
"There's an ebb and flow to the entire cosmos," she explained, looking right, then left, for something he couldn't detect. "My prior told me to follow it if I needed help. It migrated, though."
"So – that means...?"
"I have to pick up the trail."
"Good top-sun to you!" greeted a wait-staff. She appeared to be oblivious to the fact Boi was snuffling through the booths. "How many in your party?"
"Are you serving trifle?" Boi asked her, interrupting her search.
"Not today, I'm afraid," she pouted. "Today, the dessert specials are pumpkin cookies—"
"Ah, pumpkin! The autumn-specific treat!" Boi huffed in a way that was either pride or disgust, but Vepar couldn't tell. "That's what I was smelling. I think I found the connection, though." She headed back toward an occupied booth.
"Come again?"
"My, uh – friend is looking for something," Vepar explained.
"Here," she continued, prodding at a point over the booth, stepping on the other patrons' dishes.
"Hey!" shouted the man seated in the booth, smacking Boi with the back of his wrist. "Get off, you stupid lummox!"
"That's my dinner!" shouted the woman. The toddler next to her agreed via loud screams.
"I'll just be a bit," Boi declared without a hint of embarrassment or decorum. "Hey, Sjakal!"
Vepar grimaced in humiliation at the sight, giving the wait-staff a horrified glance. "Really, I don't know what exactly's gotten into herHEY—DOWN, BOI!" He jogged over and yanked her back off the table, only noticing then that her snout horn seemed to disappear into nothingness. "What's the matter with you?"
If Boi was going to say anything, it was interrupted by a flash protruding from the point where her horn had vanished. The diner erupted into shrieks and squeals as the light consumed everything, then was gone.
"'Allo, Boi," greeted a woman, swishing her scaly tail.
"'Allo, Sjakal," Boi returned, bowing as best a four-leg could do. "Pretty inconvenient crossing, I would wager."
Sjakal looked around, sighing. "Didn't learn a thing about subtlety, did you?"
"This is important! I was kidnapped at the retreat!"
She stared at Boi, not comprehending her words. "You look pretty free to me."
"I got loose." Here, she indicated Vepar. "He freed me. I've agreed to give him that circuit board game thingy when he gets me home safe and sound."
"Really? Well, thank you, good sire." Sjakal bowed to him, oblivious to the stares the patrons and wait-staff were giving them.
"Uh—it was nothing?"
Sjakal glanced outside. "Oh, look. I see a Base-ES/C!" She started to leave, and Vepar got the hint.
"I'll take care of it," he insisted.
"Huh? Are you sure?"
"Yes—I know what to do. Come on."
Boi and Sjakal followed Vepar outside, where he stood near the Base-ES/C without disturbing her. He turned and worked his base on the diner, reverting half a step. The discontent patrons were eating in peace again, if having lost some time in the process.
"Ah, impressive," Sjakal cooed in delight. "I've never seen a Base-RS at work before!"
He couldn't help beaming.
"So, back to business—" she abruptly changed the subject. "Who kidnapped you?"
"I don't know who the ringleader is," Boi explained, "but HE was one of their agents before I bribed him."
"Oh, way to put it nicely," Vepar grumbled. "Ahem. I know the ringleader as Aghvesi, but I don't know if that's his default."
Sjakal stared at him, unblinking for quite some time. It made him even more nervous than before. "Aghvesi."
"Yes."
"Aghvesi the Stoik."
"Um, probably."
Enraged, Sjakal kicked the nearest thing, which happened to be a bucket. That clued Vepar in. "Wait—are you Boi's prior?"
"Of course I am, stupid," she growled, crossing her arms.
"But you were gone from this plane..."
Sjakal's arms were still crossed, or they would have been crossed again. "...thick."
He glanced at Boi. "I see where you get it."
"Get what?" Boi retorted.
"Do you understand what Base-DK is, you lout?" Sjakal scolded, giving up the polite act. "There is the plane of existence you know, then there are so many OTHERS. I can TRAVERSE BETWEEN THEM much the way you WALK!" She demonstrated by stomping off in the direction of fifth face.
Vepar was still confused. He chased after her, grabbing her by the shoulder. "So, that means – what?"
She batted his hand away. "Can't you see I'm easily bothered by persistence, one step from lashing out at you?
He backed off. "Well, excu~se me, princess!"
"Are you two done fighting?" Boi interrupted. "I was hoping to get home, like, YESTERDAY."
"Oh," Sjakal sighed. "I believe in yesterday." She poked her hand back into hammerspace, pulling as though throwing a blanket over the three of them. "Hang on."
Vepar flinched in the greatest discomfort he had ever known—something that happened especially when experiencing a base for the first time, but even more so now. It was as though he was being blinded, white, soul on fire. You must follow the hand, follow the leader—adventure unfold. Take me away, accelerate...
End of the world.
"Studio 54."
They came to a small split-level office complex, Vepar landing with a jolt. It was such an overwhelming experience, breaking the very fabric of reality!
"We didn't break it!" Sjakal scolded.
"Huh?" Vepar squinted at her, trying to get his head on straight. "How did you—"
"Latent projection from the trip. You noobs open up like a book. No, I've never studied MY, but there are similar side effects."
He mulled over it for a moment. "So, it's kind of like—"
"DON'T!" Sjakal struck him across the face to get him to stop.
"Hey!" he growled, falling back into a fighting stance in reflex.
"You can't be something you're not!"
"Do you understand what Base-RS is, you—"
"DK is different from other bases by leaps and bounds!" She was at the boiling point, without being Base-AM or even JP. "You can't just step in and try it without knowing what you're doing!"
"I'm Grade 15—"
"MASTER RSes have failed emulating DK! They get corrupted, glitched..." Sjakal's rage was potent, simmering off to an unspoken disappointment. "...they look in the mirror and hate what they see."
It was clear there was much more to her warning than jealousy that he could mimic her moveset. Vepar lowered his dukes.
"Look, nevermind. Just – be yourself. By yourself. Stay away from me."
"Are you done yet?" Boi shouted from the upper floor window. "I have that board of yours."
Vepar looked up at Boi, then back at Sjakal, hesitating. "Show me," he shouted, walking toward the office.
"Let me let you in," Sjakal barked, running to open the door for him. "You prolly don't know how to work the handle."
Sure enough, it was a strange design, perhaps modified for Boi's benefit. "Yeah..."
Sjakal heaved herself into the latch, as though struggling to push a fifty-stone weight. It gave way at a certain pressure, swinging open with ease after that.
"The living quarters are upstairs," she explained, giving him the half-pence tour as she guided him quickly past the lower levels. "The office is a mess at the moment, don't pay any mind."
Upstairs wasn't much better, however. "Here," Boi snapped, nudging a box with her snout.
Vepar hurried over in anticipation. "This..." He picked up the box, opening it with care. "...isn't it."
"What?" Sjakal asked. "That's that Garegga thing?"
"No," he complained, showing them the label on the side. "See? It clearly says 'V-V' on it."
"Vee-five?" Boi asked, staring at the symbols with a frown.
"In Shift-JIS. I mean, it's not even the same publisher!" At the same time, he wasn't exactly defenestrating it or anything.
"So – I guess someone switched the board," Sjakal guessed.
"Where did you get this?"
"It was something I stumbled upon in my travels. Ended up in a factory filled with those. Not sure how the wrong board got in the box, though."
A number of scenarios went through Vepar's head as he thought about it—someone working there exchanging a cheaper PCB for it, for instance, with the intent of making off like a bandit. Or maybe just a prank of some kind.
He put the board back in the box. "I'll take it anyway, BUT!" he added quickly, "now you owe me a hint about the hunt."
"No way!" Boi griped. "The deal was for the board ONLY."
"A board that you promised me was the one I wanted, but it's NOT."
"So you shouldn't want it, then!"
"A verbal agreement's only worth the paper it's written on, correct? Well, now I'm modifying the terms of the agreement. You owe me a hint."
"I don't owe you anything."
"BOI."
Sjakal glowered at her with a stern look, enough to even snap Vepar out of his argumentative state.
"Are you breaking your promise?"
She stammered, not certain what to say. "I – uh—"
"Look, I know how you feel about promises. Fun to make, regret keeping them."
"I'm not regret—"
"BUT! You have to keep them, because trust is something you can't get back easily once you've lost it."
"I totally kept my promise! He can have the circuit board thingy!"
"If he promised you something, and you ended up only getting half of what you expected, would you be happy?"
"It's not really half," Vepar interrupted, "more like a fifth—"
"INTERRUPTING IS RUDE," Sjakal snarled, nearly causing him to drop the box.
Boi looked away for a min, then looked away again in the opposite direction, as though trying to make up her mind. "...fine," she mumbled at last, stomping over to a pile of post. "HERE."
Getting a better grip on the box, Vepar followed her to the stack of assorted letters, bills, circulars, and other junk. The introductory package for the retreat including brochure specifically for the hunt stood out like a sore thumb. He grabbed the crumpled brochure and skipped to the bottom:
Many will enter
Few will win
What? "That's it?"
"What do you MEAN, 'That's it?'"
"That's the hint I was supposed to know?"
"What did I say?"
He thought back over the day's events. "...steam it?"
Boi glowered at him in disgust.
"I thought invisible ink was permanently visible once—"
"THICK!" She couldn't look more patronizing if she tried. "It's a WATERMARK, of course!"
"Shall I put a kettle on...?" Sjakal murmured in unanimity.
Vepar glanced at her, nodding in chagrin. As he waited for the water to boil, he held the brochure over the spout in anticipation. Ever so slowly, impossibly, letters started to form:
Few will win access to the crown
He read the words as they appeared, still not certain what it could mean. "Enumerations?"
"That's your hint," Boi grumbled, giving him the cold shoulder. "We're even now."
"We are NOT," Vepar contested. "What kind of hint is THAT?"
"It's the same hint I got!" She was adamant in following the letter of her word. "I absolutely did promise I would show you, which I did! And what do you think you'd understand? And what do you think you'd ever say?"
"I thought it would make more sense when I saw it!"
She turned her nose up at him. "I won't listen anyway."
"...and another thing—I'm still here!"
At that instant, the ground shook, and a massive quake rocked the entire building. "Oh, no," muttered Sjakal as a window pane shook out of its shoddy frame.
Hello world!
The projected telepathic voice felt an awful lot like Aghvesi... Oh, no, indeed.
"Rubah!" Sjakal shouted out the now-open window. "I should've known you were up to no good!"
On the contrary, I am up to as good as it gets.
"If GOOD is shaking my home to bits, I'll take vanilla!"
"How is he doing this?" Vepar called, stumbling into a door frame for shelter. "I thought people could only use one shift at a time!"
"THICK!" Boi accused for the trillionth time as she started to run downstairs. "Masters have an understanding of shifts that mere undergrads don't!"
Such incredible power! Vepar thought what a wonderful prize—the shift key. "Is that the winnings for the hunt?"
Boi stopped and gave him the stare to end all stares. "I wish I could HATE you to death."
"Is it, though?"
Before Boi could lambast him again, Vepar slipped as the building started to tip. "This has gone too far!" Sjakal cried, pulling down the space before her.
"Wait—"
Vepar's warning went unheard. Sjakal vanished into hammerspace, taking much of the building with her—and, from the sound of silence, Rubah with her.
Boi froze at the sight, aghast. Her home destroyed in an instant... She crept carefully around the damage, examining the structure for signs of instability.
And Vepar.
"Hello?" No answer. "Where did you go?" Emptiness began to grow. This was the last thing she expected would happen, and the thing she was least prepared to manage. Without a home or backup, what to do?
She found the spot where Vepar last stood. Just outside the splash zone of Sjakal's planar shift was the Garegga box with V-V PCB inside. She wondered what she should do with it...
Hmm. "V for..." Against better judgement, she tapped the box into her emblem, alongside her battle claws. There was more to this odd development than would seem.
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