Collide Gamer

 

John expected to be beheaded the moment he entered the room. Instead, he found Regan and Rave drinking light beer. Regan was in the process of setting up his Blood Ravens, while Rave sat on a red sofa in the back.

“Ah, there you are,” Regan declared, his voice reverberating with cheer. Walking over, he offered his hand to the Gamer. Not knowing what else to do, John took it. Forcefully, he was pulled into a hug. “If you ever bring my daughter into such a dangerous situation again, I will rip out your intestines and use them as a jumping rope.”

John had never gulped so intensely at something someone in such a weird get-up had said. “Understood, sir,” he responded and was let go. Travolta shoved his way back into the room and the two started playing.

Finding his happy place, John plopped down next to his girlfriend on the couch. “You’re in big trouble, aren’t ya?” she asked with a giggle.

“Yes… wait, that’s your fault,” he whispered back.

“Why would that be?”

“Well, you could have not told your protective dad that you almost died.”

“Are ya telling me to lie to daddy?”

“No… I mean maybe… I mean…” He communicated nonverbally that they already had skimmed over things here and there. When his eyes finally came to a still, he realized that Rave’s were reddened. At that, he clenched his fist. “Did you cry?”

No answer to that, just her shoulder rubbing his. “Just keep my mind off the stupid stuff here, okay?”

John forced himself to relax, there were many good reasons a daughter would cry when having relationship talks with her father, right? “I think I can do that,” he whispered back and they exchanged a kiss. It tasted like a secure future.

“Can you be quiet over there?!” Travolta shouted. “This is important.”

“…Why exactly are we here again?” John asked, slightly annoyed. The tone made both of the older men in the room send him a warning glance. The Gamer averted his after a second of staring. ‘You’ll be strong enough eventually, Latebloomer,’ he told himself. If the things everyone said were true, he just had to bide his time.

Regan finally supplied an answer for what this meeting was actually about. “Travolta and I have to speak about something that concerns you two as well. The whole Bloodfallen business.”

“Did anything bad happen?” John asked, immediately alerted.

“No,” Regan shot back, while shuffling some figurines around. “Everything is as expected. Which is to say that no one becomes anybody’s protector without something in return.”

“They want tribute,” Travolta continued. “Money, materials, intel, something that makes us worthwhile to keep around. As the leader, I’ll obviously shoulder most of the burden. I still need you to chip in.” John and Rave nodded, that made enough sense. “Jimmie will do some work for them, so he’s being valuable that way. Rave, your old man wanted to ask you personally what you prefer.” The tall man gestured impatiently at Regan.

Calculating whether or not his army was appropriate for the battlefield size, Regan mumbled. “Question is whether you want me to foot that bill or if you’ll do it on your own.”

“How much we talking about?” Rave asked.

“Twenty-five grand a week,” Travolta threw in.

John only felt a tad of surprise at the sum. ‘I really am getting used to this.’

Rave shrugged. “Got enough saved up for that. No need for ya to weigh in, dad. Gotta stand on my own two feet and all that, right?”

Regan pouted slightly, the prospect of not providing for his little girl visibly saddening him. “Right,” he mumbled. Then he followed with a deep sigh. “This is the Abyss. Who knows, next month I might be dead?”

He said it casually and Rave didn’t laugh. It was a real possibility, with the unpredictability of this world. With that matter covered, all eyes moved to John.

“I will need the money from you as well.” Travolta said. “Or materials of comparable value. You can provide, right?”

John looked down on his hands. To pay that amount he needed to kill three Spectre’s a week, when he could only reliably kill two without missing classes. Either he skipped out on school once a week, every week or he would have to start farming something that dropped more. Either way, he could do it.

“I can start next week,” he promised, having just given his money to Carl.

“You better fucking see to it.” His choice of words belied what could maybe be called a smile.

 “Don’t be such a grumpball, Baldy.” Rave said and protectively laid her arms around John. “Ya gonna scare my man.”

“I am not that big of a scaredy cat!” John denied that. As if to prove that, he locked eyes with Travolta.  “I will have it, don’t worry.”

Travolta nodded harshly. “That is all I wanted from you anyway.”

“Yeah, you can go now.” Regan did a shoo-shoo gesture. “Jane, I trust you to be back home for dinner.”

“Pizza?” Rave asked in a hopeful voice.

“Pizza.” Her father confirmed.

The couple rose from the sofa and went on their way, leaving Travolta and Regan as they started another shouting match. John wanted so badly to turn around. Weighing in on nerd discussions was such a rare treat…

“What did you do to pass the time by the way?” Rave put his mind off it. Raised hands, and they left the Protected Space, emerging back in the shop.

“I bought a dress for Aclysia from the cosplay area. Also wigs. Lots and lots of wigs.”

“Why that?” Rave wondered.

“Well, I needed more plastic to finally fix those black surfaces of hers.” John explained.

“Well, that sounds like an incredibly bad idea.”

“Why? We already found out that she can manipulate the plastic to make it feel like skin.” Well, it felt like skin texture wise but didn’t have the same elastic attributes. ‘I probably should just buy a sex doll and have her eat that. Should have all the necessary materials to emulate.’

“Yeah but this is an Abyss shop, right?” Rave asked.

“Yeah, and?”

“And what will ya do if getting all the levels from the enchanted stuff makes her grow real big?”

“Given how slow it’s been so far, I’m not too afraid of that,” John responded, just as a certain window popped up for the fifth time.

‘Certainly was a good purcha-‘

“There you are!” Carl shouted, when he spotted them coming up the stairs. “Come with me, quick!”

Rave shot him a ‘told ya’ glance and they hastened into the cosplay vault. There they found an about two and a half metre giant of an Artificial Spirit standing underneath the ceiling.

“Hello, Creator John. I have fulfilled the task.” Aclysia said. To showcase she chose to lift her skirt and pull aside the bottom of the leotard underneath. It was a marvellous display of smooth thighs and the appearance of a vagina. John was fairly certain that past the labia there was no hole though.

“Well, that’s… good…? What happened?” John asked.

Carl confirmed the obvious theory. “Your Artificial Spirit,” he made it very clear he knew now what he was dealing with, “got larger as her magical power increased to the point where she could sustain control over more materials – which led to her eating faster. You forgot to give her the wanted size.”

Aclysia tilted her head in what seemed to be an act of confusion. It could also have been her wanting to see what was happening a bit better. John on the other hand was wondering if the difference between his limited enchantment capabilities and wigs that could adjust their size was really that massive. More important was dealing with this though. “Aclysia, can you become smaller again?”

“Affirmative, I can move materials into storage,” Aclysia stated.

“Fantastic, please shrink until you're about my size… maybe a bit taller.” John didn’t necessarily have a thing for taller women… he actually had no real preference when it came to size. The instruction was given purely because her having more reach would be helpful in combat. At least he hoped so.

It was an odd sight. Over the course of several minutes, almost a quarter hour, Aclysia went from 2,50 metres to 1,82. That made her the tiniest bit taller than John. Satisfied, he gave her a signal to stop there.

Left behind was a truly perfect cosplay of A2 and 2B crossed (again, eye colour put aside). Rave whistled quietly, “Ya really made your own side chick – ya trying to make me jealous?” she asked playfully.

“Maybe a bit?” John teased back. Much as they said these things, Aclysia still had a Libido of 0 and John did not intend to make her competition to his girlfriend. Not until he had resolved the harem question anyway.

“I think this is perfection,” Carl declared and walked a few circles around the still as a statue Artificial Spirit.

After they had let the aged nerd get his fill, they moved out. Aclysia was placed back in the inventory. A bit of a hassle at her new size but they got it done. “Tad of a waste to come all the way out here for that talk. Was kinda worth it in the end though,” Rave voiced her thoughts as they walked away. “Ya distributed her levels yet?”

“I’ll do that later… currently thinking about how to get the money. I’ll probably have to start farming something that has more of a payback.” John rubbed his chin.

“Spectre was getting super boring anyway.” Rave folded her hands behind her head as they walked down the street. “All we do is blind him and beat him up. Spawning the guy is harder than fighting him… it… whatever.”

She wasn’t wrong. It took them upwards of five hours to spawn it and only about five minutes to kill it at this point. He could even do it on his own, throwing Possession and Gnome at it to keep it immobilized. The EXP it gave wasn’t that impressive anymore either. Something new needed to be done.