Evarus Falls

Even before entering Evarus as a traveler, she knew to stay away from tears. While they indicated the end of a season, players also reported losing data within them. It wasn’t hard to adjust her idea of tears as even worse in actual cyberspace, rips in the world from strain, players being stolen by that cloaked man and taken into them. But this was something else entirely. This froze her solid in biblical awe.

The tendrils worked in tandem with each other, some pulling back while others attacked at space, eating the literal data out of the world. Hundreds of mouths with fangs covered each tendril. Every time the tendril shifted a free mouth pierced the sky, not letting go until the blue was eaten away leaving only an absent white void. She shuddered at what the rest of the body of this monster looked like. Or did it even have a body?

Booms echoed as someone shot a cannonball at the tear. It hit the tendril dead on and exploded into a spray of exobits whisked away into the tear.

She felt like a tear opened beneath her too and found it hard to remain steady. What was happening in Evarus, in cyberspace? Were they doing this to the world? Or was this a monster within it they fought to keep at bay? Or both? She wanted answers, wanted her mom and her dad, and at this point was ready to rip the world apart herself.

She wouldn’t. Because that’s obviously a not nice thing to do, but she put serious hypothetical thought to it.

Jiyu leaned over and whispered. “Guess Fawkes was right about the world literally ripping apart. He’s like a broken clock and right about some things twice a day.”

Sadie giggled. It pulled her out of her trance, despite the massive tear continuing to eat at the world and pulling mech suits its way.

“I heard that.”

“EDSON,” someone called out behind them, “Get in your mech suit. You’re staying here to help stabilize this tear.”

“But it isn’t ready!” Sadie turned to see the boy from the dungeon stopped and arguing with another raider. “The neural pathway controls are funky, and I need to catch—”

“Do you see the sky?” The adult raider pointed to the tear above the Colosseum. “Nothing else matters right now. Get your butt in your mech suit.”

“Yes, sir,” Edson said and ran towards a far corner of the mech garage.

“Good to finally know our jailer’s name,” Sadie yelled at Edson as he ran off.

He turned back only long enough to stick his tongue out before sprinting off.

“Aw, man,” Jiyu said. “I wanted to stick my tongue out at him first.”

“Maybe next time.” Sadie scanned the crowd for Vidar. “Do you see a blonde dude with tattoo sleeves at all? Kind of hot? Looks like if Loki and Thor had a baby?”

“I thought we were escaping,” said Fawkes.

“We did escape.” Sadie pointed at Edson still running towards his mech suit. “Dude is literally running in the opposite direction, and you heard that other raider. They’re leaving us alone, which means we can do what we came here for. Maybe that video can even help with this tear.”

Jiyu nodded along. “And trade for info, so we can find our friends and family.”

“Wait.” Fawkes scrunched up his nose. “What did you mean by ‘kind of hot’?”

“Are you dumb on top of annoying now too?” Jiyu said. “Vidar is hot.”

“He’s so old! He’s like almost thirty,” Fawkes said, “And far too many tattoos.”

“Someone’s jelly,” Sadie said.

“Definitely full of jelly,” said Jiyu. She whispered to Sadie, “What’s that mean?”

“Jealousy.” Sadie pointed into a crowd of raiders. “There he is!”

They ran over to the group of raiders Vidar was shouting directions at and shimmy-pushed their way through the crowd.

“You all have your assignments,” Vidar boomed. “The mages, outlaws, and assassins will each be sending their own parties to each site to coordinate mitigation and crowd control. Move out!”

Everyone scrambled away except for Sadie, Jiyu, and Fawkes.

Vidar stared them down. “What are you standing still for? Move it!”

“We’re not raiders,” Sadie said, rushing through her words. “We have information about—”

“If you’re not raiders, then I don’t have time for you right now. Either contact your guilds or get out of the way.” Vidar turned to walk away.

“It’s about the disappearances. And the Pirate Queen.” Sadie shouted the words at the top of her lungs to be heard over the noise of mech units moving. When Vidar stopped and turned around, she added, “We have a video to show you that can help.”

Vidar crossed his arms and looked between them and the tear before settling on them with a raised eyebrow. “Tell you what, kiddos, you help get that tear in the colosseum under control, I’ll see what kind of footage you think you have. Nothing else matters until then.”

“Kiddos?” Sadie said incredulously, but Vidar stormed off barking orders before she could say more.

“Okay, he’s way hotter now,” Jiyu said. Sadie elbowed her. “What? He is.”

Sadie held in a chuckle as Fawkes griped at Jiyu’s comments. She thought spending a day with them trapped in a dungeon would make her despise them and look to ditch them at the earliest opportunity, but now she almost wanted them to join the pirates with her. Almost.

She wished her “friends” back in DC had been like this, the fun bickering and back and forth but still having your back. There was plenty of bickering with Meera, and then the breakup nose-dived south, the friend group took her side. Easy to do as Sadie sat in a car moving states away. She hoped whatever crew she joined the Pirates lived up to these two. With maybe slightly less bickering and a side rule of no dating crewmates.

“Alright,” Sadie said at a pause in their argument. “How do we help out with this tear?”

Some of the mechs filed out of the garage and took off on mech-size jetpacks while others simply ran. Only a few mechs stayed nearby, including Edson’s.

Jiyu groaned. “Ugh, that kid? Can’t we annoy someone else into letting us help?”

“Everyone else has crews of people piloting their mechs.” She pointed to Edson. “He’s over there by himself.”

They agreed to try Edson first and rushed over to him.

“Weren’t you guys complaining about escaping two seconds ago?” Edson tried to shoo them off but dropped a cord wider than himself onto his foot. He hopped up and down in pain.

“I’m sure your pen can help you lift that,” Jiyu said.

“Go away,” he managed to hiss out. “And my screwdriver’s name is Gus. He’s not a pen.”

“He’s not useful either.”

Sadie grinned sheepishly. “Can’t go away. Vidar gave us orders to help you.”

“You specifically and no one else,” Fawkes threw an arm around Edson’s shoulder. “Tough break for you given… What’d you call us?”

“Bunch of idiots,” Jiyu said.

Fawkes snapped his fingers. “That’s right.”

“No, he didn’t,” said Edson. “You’re making things up.”

Sadie shoved a finger into Edson’s chest. “Look here, man. Vidar said the only way he would meet with us to see the info we have about the disappearances is if we help, so fire up the mech suit and get in.” She felt a little bad they were lowkey bullying this guy, but they needed to speak to Vidar. They had no other leads.

He shoved her finger away and escaped out from under Fawkes. “Would you guys pipe down? I was planning on just hiding over here until they handled it.”

“To what? Study?” Sadie raised her eyebrows. “Are you serious?”

“I have a test!” Edson scowled at them. “But even if I didn’t, this mech unit still needs work.”

“Does it have standard escape parachutes?” Jiyu asked.

“Uh, yes.” Edson rolled his eyes like it was a dumb question.

“Are they functional?”

“I… yeah.”

“Then in we go!” Jiyu opened the stairway door on the side of the right foot and climbed up.

“Wait, wait, wait.” He grabbed her arm. “Just wait. I’ll agree to pilot on one condition.” He waited for them to nod and said, “I get to be in the meeting with you when you show evidence about the disappearances. Deal?”

Sadie shook his hand. “Deal.”