🌑

You reconsider your options--the dose the injector is set to administer is heavy, according to Admin Crypta. Maybe half of it would be enough for you to enter the æther properly without dissociating deep inside yourself, and maybe leave enough to take Vanitas under. A risky, impulsive strategy seems to be the only option left. You adjust the dose: ketamine - 2 charges remaining.

You message Zeta directly, cutting Anko out of the conversation.

2254-12-10 14:45:49 Ætherglow > I have a plan!

Zeta evades Anko’s whip strikes using illusory copies of itself, but with nowhere to go but back, it ends up pressed against your back, focusing its shield hard.

2254-12-10 14:45:52 Protogen > good because I don’t understand what’s going on!

2254-12-10 14:45:55 Ætherglow > there’s no time to explain, just do exactly what I say

2254-12-10 14:45:58 Protogen > I trust you! awaiting orders commander!

Taking charge in a situation for once in your life, you finalize your strategy in your mind. Zeta wouldn’t have a chance against Anko, but you might--you’ve fought him before.

2254-12-10 14:46:04 Ætherglow > take this injector and hit Vanitas with another dose. I’ll face Akiko’s headmate myself, in the æther. also take your boots off first!

2254-12-10 14:46:08 Protogen > understood!

With a deep breath, you inject yourself in the thigh, giving yourself a moment before it takes effect. As soon as the sting of the highly pressurized fluid pierces your fabric, skin, and muscle, you start to feel its effects, and hurry to hand the device off to your companion.

It takes it from your hand and slips past you on the walkway. You see it pulling itself along by the handles as your vision darkens, then brightens with the glow of æthereal stars rushing past you in the vortex.

✴

As soon as you open your avatar eyes to the dense fog of the core processor node, you hear a voice somewhere in your head: “The key, Aydan! The key!”

It’s not your own inner voice, nor your invader, it feels like...Synth? No time to consider it--you reach for your precious encryption keys. In a dissociative state, you can access the depths of your file storage--you keep the file within your avatar, where you can guard it most effectively. As you refocus your shield outward, you feel the pressure of Admin Vanitas forcing her way into your keyring, only to find it empty of what she came for.

More pressing, you face Anko’s avatar--a masculinized distortion of Akiko with his hair cut short. He attacks, and you block it, manifesting your weapon to fire back, only for the light-based conceptual attack to pass through him harmlessly. You remember--light and sound are useless here.

You rush ahead, closing the distance to escape his weapon’s effective range, and grasp his hand hard to sign to him, “Anko you bitch! Let Akiko go!”

“Why? I think I like being free and off my leash!” he signs back.

“Vanitas won’t give you what you want! She’s using you! Just like she used 7! Like she’s using Synth! I nearly played right into her hands too, you can still fight back!” you sign.

You feel an abhorrent texture cover your skin, like dense, sticky wax full of sharp regolith particles--a sensory attack by Anko. You suppress your intense discomfort.

“Empty signs, femboy,” he signs. “You’re just trying to buy time. You know nothing about communication, it doesn’t take any time at all in the æther!”

“Maybe I don’t, but I have learned a thing or two about time!” you sign.