7/23

4th Studio Lot (Studios 16-20)

6:30 PM

Mercy isn't okay. She had to switch to regular clothes, sweats from her inventory. Once damaged her outfits lose efficacy until they're repaired.

We're outside of studio 20, taking a break on some benches.

We've healed up what got wounded. We'll patch up what got broken later. For now, we're just eating. I'm sharing plates of Denver Omelets I had in my inventory.

Mercy isn't okay. I can see it in her eyes. She's not focusing on anything in particular. Her head is slightly tipped downwards.

I finish off my eggs and address my team. They're all on one bench while I sit by myself on another. "We need to talk about that fight." Odysseus, Ivy and Quins look at me. Mercy does not.

"That was a close one. We were ambushed. We got cocky. We can't be complacent going forward." I stop myself. That's military talk. You always move forward, regardless of the danger. This isn't the military.

"Sorry, forget that." I shake my head. "I guess I'm a bit off from that one."

"It was close," Odysseus says, cracking his neck. "But we worked together."

"Yeah, we did alright," Quins adds.

"And I actually got to use the whip!" Ivy says cheerfully.

Mercy isn't okay. Wisdom tells me that she's not okay. Wisdom does not prevent me from feeling, in my heart, her pain and fear.

"Floor 20 was too far for us," I say solemnly. "I'm sorry. We shouldn't have gone in." I say it to the group but I'm only talking to Mercy. "This was my fault. Your pain was my fault. You almost died because of me."

"This isn't a game," Mercy says, a crack in her voice. "There's no balance. No fairness."

We all stay silent. She has more to say. She's trying to form the words. Trying to say the awful truth.

She hits us with the reality of the world. "We don't have HP. We don't have vitality points or whatever keeps game characters alive. We can take one bad hit and be killed. We can be ten, twenty times tougher than a normal person, and these monsters can kill us. Humans aren't strong. We aren't strong."

That's the thing in a lot of litRPGs, even ones where death is permanent. There's always HP. Or magical Xianxia bodies that can't be destroyed through normal means. The heroes are Dragon Ball Z characters who can be hit by explosions and only lose their shirts. Sometimes they don't even lose their shirts.

We don't have a buffer. Odysseus can heal but it's not instantaneous. The fight we just had lasted about 30 seconds. Our fights are fast and bloody and any mistake can mean our deaths. We are strong. We just fight things even stronger.

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"We make a difference though." I have to defend us, what we've been doing. "We're not invincible but we've closed a bunch of sites. We are doing good. You are doing good."

She's sitting there, clenching her fists. She's upset. I know why. She's upset that she got beaten again. She almost got killed. And it was by my powers. She got beaten by a different boyfriend.

She looks off into the distance. "I joined because I wanted to be strong. I want to be strong enough to never again be..." She trails off.

Ivy, sitting next to Mercy, take her right hand. Ivy holds it. "I know how it is." That's all she says, and then tears come down Mercy's face. Ivy squeezes Mercy's hand. "You are so strong, girl. Like, super strong. Whoever he was, he can't touch you anymore. It takes friggin shadow monsters to even dent you."

Mercy isn't sobbing. She's strong. There are tears, but she's strong.

Odysseus stands up and begins to walk away. He has to drag Quins with him because the Brit can't take a hint. I stay where I am on the adjacent bench. As close as I can be with this God awful Scourge running through me.

Ivy is there. Ivy has her. I want to be there. I want to be the one holding her, but I can't. That's... Horrible. But this isn't about me. This is about Mercy.

Mercy wipes her tears away. Then, after a long minute, she begins to tell Ivy her story.

She'd told me a while back. Back when we were still not dating. We'd had a few beers. She said she thought she could trust me. She said she hoped it wouldn't change how I felt about her. I said it wouldn't.

Of course, I'd said that not knowing I was already very in love with her. Yeah, having low Wisdom sucked balls.

She'd had a college boyfriend. They were close. They were living together. But he did some recreational drugs that were over the line sometimes. And one time he came home high, and tried to get with her. She didn't like what he was at the time, who he'd become. So she refused. And he got violent.

He used his belt to hit her. She screamed and yelled. She tried to fight back. But he was stronger. He was stronger than she was, and that meant he could hurt her. She did fight. She screamed. She yelled. The cops came. But by the time they arrived she was unconscious and bloody. The cops shot him. Mercy survived the night. He didn't.

She still has scars on her back where the belt buckle cut into her.

Mercy, of course, was very careful after that. It took her years before she even liked someone again. And even then, she just spent time with him for months, not really dating. She didn't want to open herself up. Not unless she was sure.

That guy, he knows exactly how lucky he is. He knows just how important it is that he's the one she trusts.

Mercy finishes telling Ivy her story. Ivy has her arm around Mercy's shoulder. "You don't want to quit, though, do you?" Ivy asks.

Mercy shakes her head. "No. I still want to be strong." I look over and see the tears have stopped. Her determination is building again.

"So how you gonna get stronger?" Ivy asks.

Mercy turns to me. "I have to get a 6th step class."

-----

[Unknown date, location, time]

/ENDIFFER/ Okay guys! Let's make a plan!

/COHOK/ The plans for the next 15 seasons are already in place.

/NENTIK/ The humans cannot be predicted. One is ALREADY AT THE GATES of clearing Scourge.

/VARREN/ We should just kill them all and be done with this Earth. I have a Tier 9 monster ready to go.

/PIT/ Now, now, where's the fun in that? We'd have nothing left to do! I have 387 futures that result in the humans blowing themselves up with nuclear weapons. That's what I vote for.

/MOND/ We do not vote. I am the only vote.

/PIT/ Sure, sure, boss, whatever you say.

/VARREN/ These human influences have corrupted our delegation matrices. We should expunge ourselves of all humanity.

/MOND/ We will escalate the time line. Cut seasons 2 through 13. We start the end upon the next season.

/ENDIFFER/ Yay! Those seasons are soooo much more exciting than the others.

/VARREN/ Excellent. Mu's introduction will wipe out hundreds of millions without a single lost monster.

/NENTIK/ The introduction of Mu was SUPPOSED to have been hinted at in seasons 5, 8 and 11. IMMEDIATELY creating the continent and wiping out the coasts IS UNFAIR. We cannot VIOLATE the fairness OF THE game.

/COHOK/ We can adjust the location of season 14 to Antarctica, carving out space without altering the land mass. That would delay the Mu tidal wave until season 15. We can move the hints from seasons 5, 8 and 11 to 14, and introduce Mu at 15.

/PIT/ Maybe we should adjust the duration of each season then? Three months at their current levels won't be enough to get through season 14's dungeon.

/NENTIK/ I agree. There ARE only 41 6th steps right now. NONE are CLOSE to 7th STEP.

/MOND/ I will give them six of their months for the 14th season. Their failure is expected regardless of the duration.

/ENDIFFER/ Soooo when do I get to tell them? Huh? Huh? I'm so excited!

/PIT/ Oh, I have just the moment in mind.

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