Chapter 40: Dragon

FieryKathy

Hilda presses a button on her HUD and suddenly the room changes, the white room turns into a pretty chic room in some kind of high rise duplex apartment. Having placed us all in a circle looking away from each other. A big holographic screen floating in front of us all. Hilda and Sam are the people closest to me.

“So, Hilda, how does this work?” I turn my head to the left, to look at what Hilda is doing.

“Overall this system is pretty similar to Turn of Destiny…” She says while scrolling through the options. “The major difference being that you will feel the changes immediately to your body if you change anything. That way you can test out if something is comfortable before you spawn in.”

“Oh, right. I actually never thought about that.”

Hilda nods. “Some people really get weirded out suddenly feeling body parts like tails and stuff. And then get turned off from playing anymore because they can’t really change it.”

“Didn’t you notify the people from Turn of Destiny about this?”

“We did.” She sighs. “Problem was that the system was already in place and changing that particular thing would take a long time to implement, and since time is money they decided to launch as is and patch it in someday.”

“And what about the races?” I say while flipping through the options myself, without selecting anything, and especially making sure I never ever touch the gender button.

“They are very samey compared to ToD as well, very customizable, and the names are less fantasy-like. For example, your nekote is just called cat-human here.”

“Thanks for explaining.”

“No problem, that’s why I’m here.” she says with a smile, which I gladly return. “Hilda looks over to my right. “And is everything okay there for you, Sam?”

“Yup!” she enthusiastically calls out. “I’m fine.”

I look over and see her energetically looking through all the options. I smile.

She looks a bit to her left and catches me smiling at her, sending her in a blush. “W-what’s wrong?”

“Oh nothing, I just really like seeing you this happy already.” I giggle.

“J-just you wait, by the end of this I’ll have you blushing instead.”

I already start blushing at the thought of what she might do.

How does she always manage to do that?

Sam laughs and continues going through the options, I might as well start too, just so I don’t make everyone wait for hours for me to finish.

As I’m flipping through the different races, it does indeed look a lot like ToD with different naming conventions.

Ugh, what race should I play...  maybe a human?

I select the human from the list and press apply. My body immediately changes to fit my selection, removing my ears and tail.

Holy mother, that felt weird. I don’t think I like this…

The lack of my ears and my tail is really distressing me so I quickly switch back. Softly squeezing my ears when they are back.

Let’s not press that button again...  

I’m actually pretty happy with my body as it is now, so I don’t really feel like changing it all too much. I could play around a bit with my hair colour and style though.

I flip through all the different hair styles when Hilda makes another comment.

“Those are just presets, if you want to change it, it’s as simple as brushing a brush through it or going to the hair salon, just like in real life.

“That makes sense, I guess.”

“I love games that are crazy customizable.”

“Hell yeah.” I hear Elise call out from the other side of the circle. Making both me and Hilda giggle a bit.

I decide not to change the hairstyle that much, although I do change the colour quite a bit. It might be a bit more comfortable in a shooter game not to stand out with bright pink hair. Changing the colour until I find the one that I think looks pretty cute, opting for a grayish colour, but keeping it a little bit more flashy in my bangs, with a couple of strands of blue and pink mixed in between the gray hair.

And finally I decide to add a couple of centimeters to my height, making me 162cm tall.

I look to my left and see Hilda has already exited the customization as well and is sitting at one of the sitting corners of the room. When she sees I’m done she motions me over to her. “That’s a pretty nice look, didn’t feel comfortable trying another race?”

I nod. “Thanks, I grew too attached to these ears and tail. What about you? I don’t see a big difference either.”

She swipes a bit of her hair away and points at her ears, “I’m a half elf now.” and starts laughing. “In all seriousness, while I like customization a lot, I always tend to make very similar characters. And in full dive VR, I do this even more. Just feels like me, you know?”

I nod again. “Exactly! Even being only a couple of centimeters taller already feels a bit weird, but I think I can get used to it.”

“Definitely gonna be a bit harder to pet your head, needing to lift my arm so much more now.”

“Wow, so lazy.”

We now both start laughing as Hilda walks over to the nearby kitchen.

“Want a drink while we wait?”

“A glass of lemonade please.”

“Orange or lemon?”

“Hmmm. Orange!”

“Coming right up!” 

When Hilda returns with my drink and a glass of whiskey for herself, we sit alone at the table for a while, just talking about life and how I feel about recent events.

“No one should have to go through what you’ve gone through, Ami.” She pats my shoulder. “But I’m really happy that you are handling it so well.”

“Thanks, I do have an amazing family and a brilliant girlfriend to support me though!” I give Hilda a big hug.

“Did I hear someone talking about me?” I hear Sam’s voice from behind me as Hilda pats my back as I slowly release her from the hug.

“Yes you did.” I smile but as I look back, my mouth falls open in amazement.

“Wow, you clearly didn’t go just as human.” Hilda says with admiration.

“Teehee.” Sam sticks out her tongue. 

While overall it is clearly still Sam standing there, she does look drastically different. Dark blue horns coming from the side of her head, going back over her ears. Scales in that same colour covering small parts of her face and neck, making beautifully intriguing shapes. A slightly spiky tail, showing behind her back and a shiny silver limbal ring around her eyes.

“Woah, dragon-lady!” I call out.

“Haha, yeah, I really loved the aesthetic and I kinda wanted to feel how having a tail was like.”

“And how does it feel?” I make space on the sofa so Sam can sit next to me and Hilda.

“Actually pretty funny. It’s so weird that it feels like a part of yourself.”

“I know right! That’s how it felt for me as well when I first logged into ToD.”

Sam nods with a smile. “I love your hair colour by the way.” As she slowly runs her hand over my cheek, smoothly continuing the brush that same hand through my hair. The back of her hand also having some of those same dark-blue scales.

“T-thanks.” I can feel my cheeks get incredibly hot.

“Told you I would get you back.” She gives me a quick kiss.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting.” Élise comes over together with Nikki.

“Don’t worry, we were having a good time.” Hilda smiles. “Maybe a bit too good.” she nods over to us and laughs.

Nikki hasn’t made any obvious changes to her body, while my sister looks, well… like my sister. She’s also opted to be a catgirl this time, just taller, more muscular than she is in real life..

She laughs. “We really do look even more like sisters now, don’t we, sis.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth.” I smile.

“How come you took so long Nikki?” Sam looks a bit confused.

“Ah, I’ve been done for a while, I was just annoying Lise a bit.”

“A bit?” Élise looks at her with a stern look.

“Ok, maybe a teeny tiny bit more than a bit.” She laughs. “Usually it's you teasing me so I wanted to do my part this time.” She gives her girlfriend a kiss.

“So you are going to play human then?” I ask, seeing Sam is still a bit confused but clearly doesn’t want to ask any further.

“Yes! I actually don’t play humans a lot, I have a bit of a vampire obsession.”

“Well, vampires are cool.” Sam nods in agreement.

“Yesss!”

“On to class selection or do y’all want a drink as well?” Hilda stands up from the sofa and heads towards the door which has a label hovering over it called ‘class’.

Weird, I could swear that door wasn’t there five minutes ago. 

“We can get a drink once we are in the game propper right?” Élise asks.

“I think so.” she shrugs. “Last time I checked the dev notes, the game spawns you in the hub city.”

“Let’s get the class selection out of the way first then.”

“Allright.” Hilda smiles and opens the door. “You do need to come over here to physically walk through it though.”

“Awwh, but the sofa is so comfy.” I pout.

Sam takes my hands and pulls my upright, only now it’s obvious to me she’s also made herself quite a bit taller. “C’mon you lazy bum.”

“Allright, allright. Can you carry me there?” I put on my begging cat-eyes and look up at her.

She looks me in the eyes and starts blushing already, and with a sigh she lifts me off my feet. “I’m spoiling you too much, aren’t I?”

“I don’t mind.” I stick out my tongue.

“Of course you wouldn’t.” She laughs and carries me over in her strong arms.

Ami feels vewwy vewwy safe uwu

“Oh my Goddess, really, Amicia?” My sister starts laughing once she sees us walking into the room. The room is filled to the brim with all kinds of different weaponry.

Hilda turns around while fiddling with some of the sniper rifles and starts giggling when she sees us as well.

That’s when Sam slowly puts me back on my own feet. “Damn, that’s a lot of weaponry.” she calls out, immediately walking to the nearby weapon rack.

“So how does this work?” I walk over to Hilda.

“This game has a very fluid class system, you can practically switch at any time. The weapon you pick now just decides which class you will start with but you can always change it up later.”

“That’s completely different from ToD then.”

“Yep.”

“So, what class are you taking?”

Hilda eyes a nearby looking rifle. “I think I will pick this one.” She picks it up. “The Springfield M1903. You also can get more weapons and equipment later on in stores, so this definitely isn’t everything available.”

“And what about you?” I turn my head towards Nikki and Élise.

“Probably a machine gunner.” Élise picks up one of the machine guns laying on the table in front of her. A couple of seconds later, several cans of ammunition spawn on her utility belt.

Nikki picks a shotgun from the wall next to it. “I was thinking of blowing things up, so demolitionist for me!”

“And what about you, Sam?”

She walks over next to me and takes a look around. “I’m not sure, a medic maybe?”

“That’d definitely be useful.” Hilda slings her Springfield over her shoulder.

“Unless you want to play the healer.” Sam looks back over to me.

“Hmm... I don’t know, I kind of want to play something else than a healer this time, maybe something more... aggressive?”

I see Hilda thinking as she walks over to one of the showcases and grabs a weapon out of it. “What about close quarters combat?” She throws the weapon over to me which I luckily don’t drop on the floor.

“Oh, I know this weapon from gangster movies.”

“Yep, good old Thompson submachine gun.” She smiles. “You could go with an MP5 as well, but these old weapons just have something to them.”

“Allright, I think I’ll try that then.” When I say that, a combat knife and a machete spawn on my belt. “Huh?”

“Well, I did say it was a close quarters combat class, didn’t I?”

“I guess that’s true.” I smile at her and look back at Sam. She already has taken a weapon and has received a red cross armband around her arm, together with a hip bag with the same red cross on it. While in the background Nikki is playing with, what looks like, a grenade launcher.

“Please try to not blow us up, I think we’ll face plenty of enemies who’ll already try that for you.” Élise laughs while walking towards the next door, marked as the exit.

“I’ll try babe, won’t make any promises though.”

“Is everyone ready?” Élise calls out.

We all nod in agreement.

“Let’s go!”

Élise pushes open the door and we follow her through, once we’re all through the door closes behind it disappears as we are left in what looks like a downtown alley, neon signs all around us lighting up the dark, rainy night.

“Ugh, did it really have to rain? Don’t they know cats don’t like water.” I complain.

“Hmm, is that so? Didn’t look like you were disliking the shower from earlier though.” Sam whispers in my ear, making me go bright red.

Gosh darn you, pretty dragon-lady.