Open - Someone else...

This wasn’t her first rodeo.

Yuriko did like to play games, despite what people thought of her. She prided in being the one sibling her seven older brothers couldn’t beat in any given fighting game. She liked creating characters and exploring worlds. She liked…searching. And so it was that she made her avatar, close to in stature to her own but with a bit more…beef? Tone? Whatever you called it, she made it happen. The world, this world, felt different, more…real? She couldn’t place it, but it was a thought for another time. She spent several hours simply wandering about the town of Brisshal, people watching and observing.

It didn’t take long for her to see the various motions and gestures that some people made that others didn’t. She kept them in mind and, later on while she was alone and not able to make a fool out of herself, she tested them out. The clenched fist into an open palm brought up a menu of sorts, which was mighty useful since this was where she needed to keep an eye on her stats. Yuriko repeated the motion to close the menu, then went to the next one; tapping her temple. She blinked several times before adjusting as suddenly names and the like popped up before her. Repeating the motion brought that mode down.

The next thing she worried about, probably more so than any sane or normal person, was how exactly she was going to spend her time here. She knew she was going to do the usual game mechanic things; quests, loot, skills, so on. What Yuriko wanted to know was how she was going to turn Yuriko Fon…into Rellan Shard. She pondered that for some hours, finding a hill to collapse on and folding her hands behind her head. She’d gotten a headache thinking about it and in the end came up with absolutely crap. She sat up and pulled up her knees so she was hugging them to her chest. Yuriko knew how to interact with people, but she didn’t want to be like herself. She wanted to be…friendlier? Maybe more open? Brash, invasive…hmmm. It would be a polar opposite of how she was in real life, and what was the harm? It was a game, not like anything bad could actually happen. She pursed her lips and nodded to herself. Brash, loud…she could do that, right? Most of all, she needed to not make a fool of herself.

“Bawk?”

“Bawk?” she repeated, looking around for the source of the noise. About ten feet away was a particularly menacing looking chicken, and it didn’t look happy to see someone around these parts. Rellan cracked her neck from side to side. “Pffft, okay. You wanna go chicken? Let’s go.” She slammed a fist into a palm and grinned.

Five minutes later…

The cloud of dust she managed to kick up as she ran was rather miraculous considering the top speed of a human couldn’t possibly generate a cloud like that. Behind Rellan was a mob of angry chickens, all clamoring to get their shot at the fleeing martial artist. She ran into the town of Brisshal intent on finding a place to hide.

“OH, THEY’RE PISSED!! THEY’RE SO PISSED!!”

So, there went that whole plan of NOT making a fool of herself. Brilliant.

 

_____Kaede was simply minding her own like any other day she asked Diabloa to seal her astral magic visions. It helped her relax more, no sight of death or issues she would have to avoid and simply peace. Well that was until her relaxing flute music was combined with angry 'bawk' sounds from below the tree she rested in. At first Kaede simply shrugged it off and kept playing her flute, then as it got closer she blinked and looked down.

_____Looking on as a girl ran from chickens was almost enough to make Kaede laugh hard enough to fall out of the tree. Rolling her shoulders and setting her flute across from her dagger Kaede jumped down between the Chicken army and the fleeing girl rubbing her eyes and trying to stiffen her laughter.

"Go bawk after a male why don't you!"

_____Right hand covering in cosmic energy and a small star began glowing just over it, not much larger then a gumball but the power of someone with a very good grasp on the magic could pack a rather strong punch. gently moving her hand up as the orb drifted up before falling down and causing a rather large explosion consuming the width of the street in a hole. Turning to the woman with a faint smile Kaede reached out her hand as it changed back to normal.

"Name is Kaede, Kaede Hoshi... hope you did not want to keep those chikens alive... think i used a bit to much energy..."

_____'A bit to much' being a slight understatement as the smoke cleared and the hole could be seen. No chicken was left standing and only a few bits and pieces seemed to escape the blast zone before they went up in cosmic energy. If her handshake was left hanging Kaede would shrug and move closer to the woman with a smile on her face.

"Seems your new to the game, if you would like a couple of tips on how to fight i can help.~ Though as payment i'd have to ask for your name.~"

@Rellan Shard

 

With a flurry of movement Rellan was saved!!

Right?

She didn’t feel saved. No, in fact she felt very much in pain. But that didn’t stop from her overwhelming need for politeness as the martial artist took a moment to shake the hand of the woman that saved her from the hoard of chickens. She blamed this on her traditional parents who, despite being open minded about their daughter’s sexuality, still insisted on politeness as a default action. Rellan had always worn a scowl easier than a smile but she did so this time, shaking Kaede’s hand.

“Rellan, thank you. Now, ummm…”

She looked down and gritted her teeth. In her legs, buried in each thigh, was a beak that had exploded from the chickens Kaede had taken care of. They weren’t that deep but that didn’t stop the tears that welled up in her eyes. She looked from beak to beak, her hands moving rapidly as if not knowing exactly what to do before she simply started screaming and making a scene not unlike this one;

​

…and then she fell on her back, sputtering a moment as the air was knocked from her lungs. There was a trick she’d learned in her martial arts classes a long time ago. Her teacher had said that if you focus on a singular point of pain for long enough it will eventually meld into your body and become one with your spirit. Or something along those lines, it sounded stupid in the real world, because the real world had rules Maybe they were different here?

She closed her eyes and breathed, trying to concentrate…before giving up ten seconds later when a particular throb of pain made her shoot to the sitting position, her eyes on the girl she’d just met seconds ago. She gave what she hoped was a winning smile, though it probably looked more like a pained grimace.

“Heya…think ya can help’meh with…this?” Rellan gestured towards her thighs and the beaks stuck in them. “I dun’gotta knife to get them out.”

 

_____Kaede had to admit, this girl was nothing short of pure amusement and slight annoyance so far. She clearly was new if beaks could cause her that much of a reaction. A light sigh escaped Keade inner thoughts before she smiled and kelt down looking over the wounded area. Taking a moment to personally consider her options in how to approach the matter before she figured the best way, was to simply distract the girl. Left hand moved to gently rest near the beak in her left thigh, a small question-like ‘hrm’ escaping her lips before she nodded.

_____There was so many better ways to distract someone, but since this was Kaede there was only one TRUE option. Right hand moving to the opposite side of the beak on the left thigh before slowly rubbing upward as Kaede moved to look at Rellan’s face while also checking to see if the girl was brave or liked cute things. The most likely result was Kaede getting hit for her actions or the girl moving away flustered. That however was what Kaede was after this time around as, the moment the girl seemed to start reacting Kaede’s hands moved in a blur to quickly pull both beakes out at once.

”Sorry, sorry. Was the only distraction I could think of to get them out without you worrying or stopping me each time I tried for one reason or another. That and if it did not scare you off I would have loved to see if your comando or cutesy,~ I personal prefer commando myself. Wanna see?~”

_____Kaede smiled playfully for a moment before blushing and pulling the bottom of her dress up slightly to hint she was actually serious, least for a moment before tearing it slightly and offering the strips of cloth to @Rellan Shard in case the girl did not trust Kaede to keep her hands where they should be. If she did Kaede would, despite any urges she got do such this time around. Either way the torn amount was a perfect fit, a slight hint that despite only a quick look Kaede seemed to know just how much she needed to tear to make a snug fit for the thigh.

 

Rellan could only blush and scratch the bridge of her nose at the attention.

She wasn’t big on…affection, but it wasn’t because of some silly selfish reason. Rellan simply believed that if one felt attraction towards another the whole ‘courting process’ was much different than that of other, more normal, people. It was yet another thing on the list of things that Rellan blamed on her parents. And while Rellan knew, without a doubt, that she was attracted to females that didn’t stop her from having a very chauvinistic outlook on the whole thing. Wasn’t she supposed to be the one that initiated contact and hit on girls and stuff?

That didn’t stop her from enjoying the other woman’s ministrations. She muttered out a low ‘thank you’, her whiskey-on-the-rocks voice a tad deeper than normal. The martial artist turned her head slightly when it looked like Kaede was about to pull up her skirt…dress…thing!!, but only lightly scoffed and took the makeshift bandage the other woman had conjured up from her own clothes. To her own surprise she only lightly muttered irritably through the process of wrapping those bandages the beak-wounds had inflicted on her before she gingerly stood up, putting weight on each leg carefully before she started bouncing on her heels.

“I’m…uhhh…” Rellan blushed again, though she attempted to hide this by looking away. “I jes have on normal panties. With a little cat on the front.”

The words spilled out of her mouth before she could stop them, though she really didn’t feel that usual amount of embarrassment she did normally. It was a mere tickling, but it was still there and she really doubted anything could stop the seemingly ever persistent blush on her cheeks. She got up with help from Kaede’s outstretched hand and gave a meek shrug and a smile.

“Well…thanks. I don’t-”

There was a sudden crash behind Kaede and Rellan tilted her head to see past the woman to see what the noise was all about. There, in front of them, was probably the biggest snake Rellan had ever seen.

​

She was fairly certain this was what happened when you attached the word ‘dire’ before any kind of animal, and so this ‘dire snake’ lifted its head up and hissed, sending a stream of liquid her way. The shot was a warning, though, as it came woefully short. Whatever it was warning them about Rellan didn’t care. She’d spotted Kaede and…well, she didn’t look too good. In fact, if Rellan didn’t know any better, she’d say Kaede was…frozen?

Hardly mattered. Rellan pursed her lips and dashed towards the other woman and picked her up handily, throwing Kaede over her shoulder like a sack of very sexy potatoes and ran.

 

_____Kaede was gonna demand to see them, she really, REALLY wanted to see them now that she had the image in her mind. But as the loud crash from behind her ruined the moment Kaede turned ready to blow whatever it was up, least till she saw what IT was. It did not need to hiss to strike fear into Kaede, just being a snake was enough, the size only made things worse for the girl as she locked up and got thrown back to her childhood.

_____Her first ever camping trip with her dad when she was five, it was one of the deepest scars on her mind outside trying to ride a horse when she was seven and getting bitten by it in the face. Her memory of the snake was just as bad. She thought it was a cute albit large snake before it sank its fangs and venom into her neck for trying to pet it back then. Had it not been for her father’s training for such things she might not have been alive to today, but that event scared her with a unrivaled fear of snakes.

_____So getting picked up by @Rellan Shard while she was locked up in terror was appreciated, although not such a fan for the way she was carried at first before Kaede tried to see the plus side of things. The view was not the best to most but to Kaede, the butt in her face was sort of tempting to squeeze while it flexed from running. Sadly she was still locked up in terror for the moment so she just got a view and trembled each time the snake hissed. If Rellan tried to ask Kaede for some explosion, well she would get nothing, that being clear by how stiff Kaede remained.

”If you see a snake stay as still as you can, don’t show fear… and don’t look away until it leaves.” -The lesson from her father ringing slightly in her head as she did everything he said about defending yourself against a snake to the best of her ability.

 

She kept going until she had no breath. And then she kept going.

The snake had given up, either because it wasn’t hungry enough to chase them or they were gone and that was all it had wanted. Regardless, Rellan would pause in her all out sprint to listen and look around and if anything even resembled a hiss she was off again. This was repeated until she could literally go no more and ended up falling flat on her face. Which meant Kaede fell on top of her, which means the girl’s face was right around Rellan’s butt.

The mad scramble was over, death or no death, and Rellan simply lay on the cold ground, breathing hard, awaiting what may come. When a few minutes passed and nothing had eaten or dismembered her, Rellan took a cautionary second to peek up from her comfortable dirt bed and look around. While everything was still she could still hear the sounds of various birds and insects but beyond that…nothing. Kaede was still on top of her, which was really no surprise to Rellan. Kaede was one of them girls, and Rellan knew how to handle them types. It really wasn’t hard.

“Having fun?” Rellan deadpanned, propping herself up on her elbows. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t fall that hard into my butt. Are you nuzzling it?” Rellan narrowed her eyes at the sensation before blindly reaching behind her and swatting. “Get up, ya perv.”

Moments later both girls were in their own personal spaces again, with Rellan feeling that Kaede was probably still making grabby motions at her butt while she wasn’t looking. It didn’t bother her really as Kaede, while persistent and worse than most boys, didn’t seem like the type to force anything and therefore was, to Rellan, relatively harmless.

“Sorry’bout all that.” Rellan lifted up a knee and brushed the dirt that had accumulated off. She repeated the motion with the other leg before going about doing the same to the rest of her mussed clothes. “Ah…I’m new, though you probably knew that. Picked a Martial Artist as my mastery, so…what about you? You don’t seem new.”

 

_____If Keade was not still scared she would have some kind of comeback comment for the girl. But without much fighting Kaede moved as she was told and sat down, her hands still trembling a bit from, seeing the snake. Hopefully the next time she saw that snake she could throw it into a blackhole, or better she never crossed paths with it again. But when Kaede recalled @Rellan Shard calling her a ‘perv’ Kaede had something to say about that as she leaned closer and pointed a finger at the girl while it sparked with cosmic energy.

”I am not a pervert! I simply refuse to let a perfectly good chance go wasted! Beside, what would that make you if you even told me what you wore?~”

_____Kaede smiled, her cosmic sparks stopping as she just kept pointing for a moment more before relaxing again. Her mind replaying the other things Rellan said as she leaned back and stretched a bit to help unwind some more. Moving one hand to scratch her head as she tried to think just how long she actually played the game.

”I’ve been playing the game since, I think it came out or few days after it started to spread out. Sure I did not start training or anything like that until a couple months ago. I was more focused on getting myself a foothold and funds before Power and reputation.~”

_____Kaede smiled as she moved to sit normal again, her legs folded under her to slightly hint her Japanese tradition, though no accent was present or other hints to such nationality. After a moment Kaede would playfully trace the outline of Rellan’s body and hum in approval about the rather scary accuracy. Pulling her dagger out in one hand, and allowing cosmic energy to coat the other before she spoke.

”I’ve changed my masteries around a bit but as it stands right now I have Peirce, Acrobat, Hunting, Astral magic, Berserker, and Cosmic retribution. With a fair decent amount of training in Peirce, astral, and cosmic ha-ha. Others I still have to train up a bit, but part of me is still unsure if i want to keep berserker and acrobat.”

Kaede took a moment to playfully hum and stretch while she sat there

”One of the great things about acrobat, i can bend and move around rather easy.~ Helps when someone in my harem wants me to get hands in a lot of places in quick succession ha-ha.”

 

The very best way to deal with a pervert was to deadpan them.

It was rather easy and Rellan had become so good at it that she’d turned it into a sort of art form. Still, she liked how Kaede moved and watched as she toyed with her powers effortlessly. The second best way, and usually worked best with combined with the first, was selective ignoring, in which yes, they said something perverted and were this some sort of weird anime Rellan knew she’d probably have a nosebleed or something, but this was why it was easy to ignore the more perverted comments, and instead focus on something else…like just how big this game was.

She really hadn’t any idea, and as she ignored Kaede’s ministrations with her finger Rellan quirked her lips from side to side in deep thought. Certainly staying around Kaede would have its advantages, right? She could teach Rellan more about the world and how it worked. It was rather lucky, really, that she’d been chased by that hoard of angry chickens. And then that snake. Yeah, lucky. Not a word she’d use, but when such things happened they really couldn’t get any worse.

So of course it did.

It was almost moment but it felt like the temperature dropped a hundred degrees and the winds picked up, hard. The rain that feel a nanosecond later felt like bullets and it was all Rellan could do for a hot second before sheets of rain began to fall harder and faster. It had picked up and hit them completely unawares and in less than a minute Rellan could barely see the other woman in front of her. The martial artist held up an arm to protect her face while she stumbled to where she last saw Kaede and groped ahead of her with her free hand until she felt the other woman’s body. Squinting, Rellan bowed in and put her face a inch from Kaede’s.

“We…need to find…shelter!!” she yelled, as by this point the noise was deafening and they were quickly approaching the need to scream just to be heard. “Towards the hills, maybe? You know the area better than I do, lead the way!! Maybe we can find some caves or something!!”

 

”We seem to have some real bad luck today ha-ha!~”

_____Kaede moved her hand to get hold of Rellan’s a gentle touch but firm grip to make sure the girls would not get separated before Kaede moved her other hand to her temple and used her hunting mastery onto top of investigation mode to navigate the area. She regained her general location after a few quick meters crossed and from there started heading for a rather familiar place to her.

_____After some time, and to be honest there might have been a cave closer but this one Kaede knew decently well could help them out. When they arrived a wooden wall seemed to block the mountin’s side. Kaede moving forward and pushing against the wooden cover before the cave and got inside. Once @Rellan Shard was inside Kaede would move to reseal the area and use her cosmic energy to light up the cavern so they could see for the time being.

_____the area looked to be someone’s home, shelves lined with preserves and some un tanned pelts. It looked clearly like a hunter’s lodge and Kaede seemed to know her way around enough to get what she needed into the fire pit before sparking it to life so she could stop her energy drain. Looking to Rellan with a blush on her face while tending the early fire.

”Wha.. What? I had a fase and time I lost most my memories of the game. Only thing I could recall at the time was hunting so I based everything around it…”

_____Hands moved from the metal rod she was using to poke the wood to her clothing as she looked over to Rellan with a playful hum. Slightly tugging them down before she stopped and used her UI to equip a different outfit and drop the wet clothing to hang nearby the fire. After a moment of giving Rellan time to decide what she would do Kaede dug around her UI and pulled out a oversized red cloak to toss her way.

”You can wear that if you don’t have anything else, it’s bad to stay in wet clothes even in the game. There is a smaller cave off to the side there you can change in if you don’t trust me to not turn and sneak a peek. Though I can’t say I won’t try to even if you go over there ha-ha.”

_____Kaede would laugh lightly as she spun around and pointed to a curtain covered section of the cave. With that though, despite what Kaede said she would not move a muscle for some time, just keeping her back to the fire and humming lightly to herself. Sure it was a missed chance, but sometimes missing them helped build trust or a bond. That and despite not saying it, Kaede was still bashful when she snuck peaks at girls.

 

Well, she did seem awfully proficient at what she was doing.

It was why she was staring. Yes, the other woman’s body was just begged for…interlocking, but it really wasn’t why she was staring. No, Rellan continued to gaze over the other woman because she seemed so…alive. It was easy to fall into a hole of disconnect, to see the world without seeing it, to be so jaded that whatever came along in life was easy to dismiss or brush offhand because you expected nothing, so you could never be disappointed. One of the reasons Rellan even thought about logging on to TerraSphere was because of the promise of adventure, to be anyone who you wanted. That was how she was sold.

She caught the red cloak and smiled, not really caring either way about modesty, considering they were in what appeared to be some kinda magical hurricane that popped up faster than a high school teenager, and that was after the chickens and snakes. She took off her clothes and carefully lay them by the fire to dr. She wrapped herself in the cloak and sat by the fire, wiggling as she pulled the comfortable cloak around her.

“I’m…not like this,” Rellan said suddenly, slowly as she waved vaguely at herself. “Back home. Out there, in the real world. Where we hafta go back to at some point, right? I gotta…hmmm…” Rellan struggled for the words before she pursed her lips tight in frustration. She pulled her knees to her chest and put her chin on top. “I gotta force it. Act different. I remember how I act out there, then remember…that’s not who I am here. And you…man, you got this all down don’t you? Seems natural. Everything I do feels…wrong. And I just got here.” A pause. “I…I guess I just wanna be someone else, ya know?”

 

”That’s simply impossible. Being someone else I mean. Any way you act, game or real life is still YOU. So in truth if you think ‘this’ is who you want to be, you already are but you just need to start being it.~”

_____Kaede smiled gently, while she thought her words seemed good, it was all in how one took it. Some might think Kaede was saying you can’t change who you are, while others would take it as Kaede simply saying you already know how to change to who you want to be, just start doing it. Moving to relax a bit more as Kaede poked the embers while turning back to the flame. It was the first time she had someone in this hunting area, annoying she did not have two beds set in case this storm chose to persist longer than a few hours.

_____Moving to stand as she fumbled around the area to get out some fur pelts she had managed to get treated before wrapping @Rellan Shard up with it and sitting back down near the fire. The girl had less on then Kaede, and she was sort of used to wearing less clothes when this wet near a fire so it was ok by her. Moving to gaze at the door with a light sigh as she still heard the rain lashing against it.

”If your tired you can use the bed over there, I’ll keep an ear out and let you know when the storm lets up so you can get away from the ‘pervert’ without risking your luck in that storm.~”

_____While Kaede was joking around with her words, it clearly seemed to hurt calling herself that if Rellan could read the way the light in the girl’s eyes dimed down a bit from it. Moving to be closer to the door so she could hear better while pointing to the makeshift bed with her free hand. A small motion to toss another piece of wood to keep the fire alive as Kaede hummed lightly.

 

Rellan drifted.

Kaede was nice company. She was a nice host, and if Rellan was being honest she’d kind of had a rough experience with the game initially. Sure, it’s fun and all but it seemed like the learning curve was steep and unforgiving. The martial artist mulled over her options and shook her head slightly the thought of logging out and simply going to an easier MMO popped up. That would be giving up, and while that wasn’t a new prospect for her it was one she thought that Rellan, the character, wouldn’t do so easily.

Because Kaede was right, though Rellan’s countenance betrayed no acknowledgement of such. She could do this, right? Be someone else? She smiled slightly as her eyes closed just a tad more each second that passed by. She murmured a thanks when Kaede wrapped the fur pelt around her, a sort of drunken happy look on her face as she did so. Kaede seemed much more adapted to the game, almost comfortable with it in a manner than Rellan didn’t experience even in the real world. Some had natural talent, it seemed, and some had to work twice as hard to be half as good. Which was fine. She fancied herself similar to Rock Lee in that regard, and that suited her just dandy.

“Hey-”

The sudden explosion of movement, combined with a deafening roar right after made Rellan jump and hit her head on the ceiling of the cave they were in. It sounded like a bear but…bigger, and Rellan could only gape at Kaede and look between her and the entrance to the cave that sounded like it was being stalked. There were a few lumbering steps followed by another roar, and how in the balls did this one seem louder? Rellan, finally finding her voice and legs, stood up and tapped her temple, bringing up Investigation Mode.

“Hey, Honeypot…” Rellan pursed her lips tightly, pausing to swallow hard before she continued. “How many dire bears do you think are in the area? Take a guess.”

 

_____Kaede was not expecting to be called honeypot, and while she was used to the rawr of a dire bear she thought they knew by now to avoid her cave. It was, her after all who drove their population down in this area whenever one tried to claim her cave or the area around it. A light chuckle as she moved her head closer to the doorway as it rawred looking for any difference in tone or defining tone. Shrugging Kaede raised one finger to giver her reply as she leaned against the doorway.

”Just sounds like one to me, and while i have not hunted a dire bear in a couple weeks so my hearing may be a bit off. That and they aren't exactly scary fast so a few would not pose much a threat if you know how to move quick and predict their actions.”

_____Kaede moved to hold her dagger lightly before her eyes turned pitch black, each route the future could take lighting up before her eyes as she chuckled at some of the low possibility routes. A light roll of her eyes as she reached her free hand over and caused the door to start lifting. Her position just well enough to not be seen from the outside as she happily waved her hand while the dire bear moved in. The fire between it and @Rellan Shard keeping the creature at bay for now.

”Well since you seem to have so much bad luck I think you should learn to fight and live here. You got about two minutes before the bear goes around the fire to think of a plan my dear. If at any point you need help just say ‘save me’.~”

_____With that Kaede moved to seal the door behind the bear to trap it in with Rellan and her as she sat down. The bear seeming to ignore Kaede entirely as the woman spun her dagger against the ground and watched to see how Rellan dealt with the situation. The cave itself was small, least enough to prevent the bear from standing up fully to fight. With her eyes still black Kaede watched the fight progress in countless possibilities, ready should the girl try something that would get herself killed to act. It was after, not fun to let a girl die when she could save them.