Empour

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@Zombehs

Kayla Kirby

As the man(Ellie, wasn’t it? Cute name!) had said, in the big white area they found themselves in, they all still looked like how they did in the cafeteria. Kayla jumped for a second, realizing that she still had to keep a tiny portion of her mind focused on keeping her holosuit active. Hopefully nobody saw the little lapse in the uniform...

Anyway, nobody gave her any odd looks, so it was likely fine. They all headed to the big, red door glass thingy, at varying speeds. One of them even ran through it. Kayla went in second-to-last, and felt a sudden blur of disorientation, and then normal again. Wait, no. Something was different, this wasn’t how she felt in her dreams. She felt heavier, like she was carrying a backpack full of bananas in a lead suit.

Kayla opened her eyes. All around her, fantastical beasts and people looked around at each other, nobody able to identify anyone else(from what she could tell, anyway). Kayla felt a little disappointed, her outfit wouldn’t be nearly as-

Wait. Something was wrong.
There was something obstructing her vision, as if she had a very big nose.
Something heavy was on her back, and Kayla didn't have a backpack in her dreams.

Shaking slightly, Kayla looked down.
She was in a silver, skintight suit that looked almost exactly like her Holosuit without any holographic stuff. The material was thicker, heavier, too. No, no, this wasn’t how she was supposed to be here, where was her skirt and vest? She focused hard on them, trying to see if she could make the suit she was now in display them, but there was no luck(1).

No, no, no, no, no, this was all wrong. Why was she in her holosuit? That wasn’t how she was in the “zone”. This was supposed to be where she would make friends in this strange place! How could she made friends if she looked like a very shiny surfer? Everyone knows what happened to them! And then there was this THING on her face, what the heck was that supposed to-

Kayla accidentally hit one of the two gas tubes going from her back to her mask. Trembling, she followed it to her back, and found the big, smooth, rounded metal there. Shaking even more, she followed it back to her face. There was a hard mask there, just as she thought. No, no, this is impossible. Not only did they make her not only look like a stupid exhibitionist silver surfer, but they gave her the mask of The Choked.

Kayla was in such an awful panic at this point that she didn’t even notice the scream that went out around her, the scream that was not hers. Kayla never screamed, Kayla squeaked. Just as she did now.
There was nothing left to do. Whoever those jerks that made this nexus thing were, they didn’t like her, not one bit. She couldn’t let the others see her like this. She had to get away, somewhere where the people she had wanted to befriend couldn’t see her.

Without even thinking, Kayla was running. She bumped past a tall man in a cloak, but was in no state to apologize. The end of the tunnel went into a long, wide street, with many side streets branching off of it. She would turn at the first street, and get out of their sight. A big, scaly thing rushed past her, but she paid it no mind. Horrifying monsters that could eat her took secondary priority to getting away.

Kayla turned left on the first intersection she came across, and saw one of the buildings within view had an open door. Paying no mind to manners, law, or the minute possibility that she was a vampire, she ran in, and slammed the door behind her, collapsing behind it, panting hard. Running was really tiring for some reason, and that reason probably had something to do with the giant metal tank that was digging in to her back. Even with that moderate discomfort, Kayla was happy to be out of sight of the others. Hopefully nobody noticed her, and she could find a way to speak with the people controlling the netflix machine, and give her her old outfit back. Hopefully.

(1)Meanwhile in the Nexus’ room, Kayla’s uniform had been replaced by an exact replica of her REM form. Hopefully, nobody noticed.

ZONES: -system offline-

Happy birthday, Dona- I mean, Urban!

ZONES: -system offline-

Kayla Kirby

Kayla sat there for a while, silent. She was a lot calmer now that she knew what was going on, but in the back of her mind, she was still a little worried that someone around her would notice that she was wearing a holographic copy of the ill-fitting uniform. The door-opener-thing certainly had difficulty recognizing her, though that might have just been that she was too short. She hoped it wasn’t a camera too, her freakout in there wasn’t really something she wanted other people seeing. It let her through eventually, and somehow she wasn’t late, so that wasn’t something to worry about.

The man’s speech helped a lot to settle her nerves, though, even if she did feel like a secret agent. From what he said, the people around her had been having the same dream about the red city, and that there were other weird places too. It was kinda confusing, but she got the basis of it. So she was supposed to be the superhero her dreams said she was? That sounded pretty fun, actually. Plus, being a part of the ina.. inagurril run, that sounded like an awesome way to make some friends, and figure out what the dreams were about. Plus, she’d be able to show off her awesome outfit in there!
“I’ll go!” Kayla almost had to shout to be heard over the people talking around her, and it took the man up top a moment to find her outstretched hand. She waved it a bit to draw his attention.

ZONES: -system offline-

Don't start without me! I'm making my first post as we speak!

Edit: Post made! Wooo!

ZONES: -system offline-

Kayla Kirby

Note: for (1), (2), and the like, check Other section.

NAME: Kayla Kirby
AGE: 16
GENDER: F
ZONE: 1

PERSONALITY:
Many people in Kayla’s physical situation would grow resentful of their size, and act like a nasty, hostile little tsundere chihuahua. Kayla, however, embraces it wholeheartedly.
Kayla is the modern definition of cute. No matter which way you turn it and flip it around, every part of her is as endearing as can be. Clumsy? Check. Tiny? Check. Scares easily? Check- And many more. At one
point, it was as fake as it sounds, but as the old saying goes, wear a mask too long, it gets stuck to your face. Kayla doesn’t just act the way she does- she thinks that way too.

On the other hand, Kayla can also be whiny, cowardly, lazy, shallow, and slow, especially if things aren’t going as she wants them to. Some people can find her insufferable to be around(likely due to her seemingly infinite optimism and inability to see things seriously at times), but quite a few others just want to hug her.

As for a more brief description of her personality, Kayla is friendly, easily scared, and meets trouble with either running away or a great deal of confidence, purely determined by what the trouble is and how scared she is of it. She’ll usually meet anyone that isn’t covered in tattoos or piercings with a smile, an energetic introduction, and a vigorous handshake and/or hug. Anyone she determines as a scary person, she’ll avoid meeting at all. Kayla is a good, dependable friend(if you can put up with her), and her loyalty to a real friend will outweigh any fear she has.

HISTORY:
Kayla was a lonely child. Still is, really. She grew up as the only child in a household of two businesspeople, both of whom were moderately wealthy, but exceedingly busy. While it could not be denied that both of them loved her very much, neither of them had the time to really be a proper parent and spend time with her, at least not often. Not only this, but they also made the decision to, instead of sending Kayla off to the, well, frankly absolutely awful elementary schools, keep her at home, and teach her through a combination of homeschooling(via an AI instructor), virtual classrooms, and tutors. While this certainly kept her safe from the disgusting language and pedophile teachers of the public schools, it also prevented her from having any sort of interaction with fellow students. This was both a blessing and a curse, and as a result, Kayla grew up wishing for, but never having any interaction with, friends.

When it came time to switch from the elementary school programs to the middle school ones, Kayla begged her parents to let her go to a real school, and learn alongside real classmates, rather than the virtual ones that she couldn’t even talk to. Eventually, they gave in, and arranged for her to go to a private boarding school, Death Lake Academy(2).

However, things at Death Lake didn’t quite go as planned. Instead of finding good friends and having fun with them, as Kayla had long fantasized about, Kayla learned exactly how hard it is to make friends if you’ve never had any to begin with. Rather than the awesome, fun experience that the holo-shows had said school was, Kayla had to deal with a great many things she’d never experienced before, and not in a good way. Kayla had to deal with teachers that wouldn’t help her if she didn’t understand the lesson, uniforms, boys, sharing a room, and worst of all, Janice.

Janice, for whatever reason, took it upon herself to make Kayla’s life as miserable as she possibly could. Be it “pranks” intentionally designed to be as humiliating as possible, teasing, cutting all of Kayla’s hair on her left side when she was sleeping, or just outright traditional verbal bullying, Janice was the bane of Kayla’s well being.

Fortunately, Kayla only had to deal with Janice for one year, despite Janice’s tying her to the dumpster at the back of the school on the last day.

During that summer, Kayla was able to convince her parents to send her off to a different school. This time, Kayla was sent to Top of the World Private, a tower school built on Mt Whitney. This time, though, Kayla had a plan. A plan she had been studying, practicing, and researching for all summer. Kayla was going to be cute, Kayla was going to be loved, Kayla was going to be everyone’s favorite person.

And it worked. All the practicing, researching, and time spent on the internet paid itself off. Kayla was gifted with a large circle of friends almost immediately, and breezed through her seventh grade year in what seemed like much, much less time than it took her to get through her sixth. There were a couple of slipups at first, and she made a few enemies, people that felt betrayed by her, along the way, but nobody believed them. Kayla was cute. Everyone loved Kayla. Kayla was(nearly) everyone’s favorite person.

In her eighth grade year, Kayla kept that mask up, and she did it perfectly. There were no slipups, she hadn’t let herself slip near her parents over the summer, and continued practicing, researching, and browsing the internet for what people found cute. Her eighth grade was even easier than her seventh, thanks especially by her newfound proficiency for using the Holosuit to make her clothes look excellent.

By the first year of high school, Kayla’s personality had nearly completely converted to her image. The change, as most personality changes are, was slow, gradual, but seamless and unnoticeable. She still practiced, but she was so good at her charm now that she really didn’t need to. Kayla was 15 now, and her ninth grade classmates(and some of the teachers) fell for her just as easily as her eighth grade ones did. By now, though, Kayla had begun to notice a pattern. She was so well liked at this point that she was practically untouchable. She had friends, yes, but none of them seemed to be as close as other people’s were. Kayla was lonely.

It was hard, now, to resist the temptation to use the power she now wielded, but she avoided it, somehow. Rather than the tyrannical dictatorship that popularity usually brought, Kayla somehow managed an almost utopian organization, at least among the first years. The older students didn’t really care about them that much, and Kayla still found herself victim, as all first years did, to the older students’ whims.

In her second year, however, there was something different. Kayla had been having the most fantastical dreams, in which she was an amazing superhero, with all the power in the world. She flew around, saving shadowy figures that she couldn’t identify from great, fiery beasts that she could swear all had Janice, Markuss, or Rachael’s faces on them. The first time had been confusing, but fun. She had never had this much control over her own dreams, and it felt almost real.

The times after, the charm of them remained, but the confusion did not. She learned the ways of the city, at least, the part of the city that she tried to stay in. It was easy, really, because she could just fly over all of the buildings.
Her sophomore year, her personality was completely that of her image, but her image gained something different. She was sometimes described as dreamy, whereas before, she was always in-the-now. Many rumors circled about the school idol, most of them having something to do with a mysterious boyfriend. However, this only went on for about a month, because after that month, Kayla vanished.

APPEARANCE

• PHYSICAL:
  The first word you would think of if you were to chance upon Kayla, would be small. Everything about her is tiny, from head to toe. She stands at 5’1/2”, and hasn’t grown much since twelve. She, as she was rudely informed many times by obnoxious people, looks like a child. The only thing that really grows is her hair, which she is ever grateful for.
  
  Anyway- Speaking of hair, her hair is elbow-length, wavy blonde hair that is usually either tied into twintails or just let flow behind her. As of recently, she has pink streaks dyed in as well.
  As for her face, she has an almost entirely Korean facial structure, thanks to her mother. She did not, unfortunately, inherit her beautiful body. Kayla is very proud of her face, and puts more work into maintaining and decorating her head than she does anywhere else. She has a pair of pretty, star shaped gold earrings.
  It is worth note that despite Kayla’s Korean features, she is, and always has been American. She has no accent outside of her somewhat unusually endearing way of speaking. Kayla cannot speak a word of Korean, as her mother never taught her.
• IN-ZONE:
  Nexus:
  As she would look in real life, but in a full body, silver scuba(?) suit that covers everything but her head. The suit looks like skintight chainmail, and functions similarly well against blows from sharp edges. Attached to her back is a blue air tank of seemingly infinite oxygen, as well as a diving mask and tube made of a similar material. The mask cannot be removed, but can be talked through. Basically, as she would appear in her MTSCATRNVLEFBEHS®(1), if the Holographic Display was inactive. Plus the whole diving mask and tank business.
  
  REM:
  Kayla’s REM form is a significant deviation from her Nexus form, likely owing to a significant difference in mental state and fighting style. In her Nexus form, as she has(will) discovered, she cannot use the kind of power she is used to, and has to resort to a more reserved, choke-them-to-death-efficiently-no-im-not-scuba-vader style.
  
  Rather than looking like a small slightly sinister silvery scuba sith, Kayla, in her REM form, resembles one of the old “magical girls” from the early twenty first century. This means a pastel pink-and-white vest and skirt, with lots of frills, buttons, and lace. In her REM form, Kayla exudes cuteness even more than she does on planet earth, though if it were socially acceptable to go about cosplaying as a silly something from several decades ago, she totally would. The only thing missing from the whole ensemble is a magic wand, which bothers Kayla immensely. “Shooting magical beams from your hands looks really dumb! Plus, having the super hot gas that close is really scary...”
  
  Oddly enough, despite the scuba suit, tank, and mask not apparently being there, they still seem to supply Kayla with a constant supply of oxygen. If Kayla was the type to ask herself these kinds of questions, she might even come to the bizarre conclusion that the tank is inside of her. Kayla’s never actually taken a hit in this form- she loves putting the range to use and blasting from up above- but if she were to, she would probably take just as much damage as if she was hit in real life, too.

POWERS

• NEXUS:
  Kayla commands Neon. While this would ordinarily be pretty useless, as Neon is very low in atmospheric concentration, Kayla is able to summon it at will, from who knows where, to wherever she wants(within ten meters, anyway). Now, this also sounds pretty useless(outside of bottling and selling the stuff anyway), but she can do things with it that neon normally doesn’t do on its own. Such things involve ionizing it, whacking people with it, shooting magical love beams with it, burning people with it, and sitting on it. Neon is invisible unless ionized, and in her Nexus form, Kayla cannot ionize it. This makes for invisible “force” attacks, if you are so inclined.
• REM:
  On top of her abilities in her Nexus forme, Kayla has more range(to about 24 meters). She can also emit much greater control over more properties of the neon, such as temperature(with reason), color, luminescence, and opacity, whereas in Nexus form she is limited to just momentum and density.
  
  Her increased ease of control over the gasses allows for her to have a lot more fun with how she uses it. This means for fun like “Magic Love Beam♪!”(a jet of ionized pink neon). It also allows for her to float wherever she wants with ease, as though carried on an invisible, soft pillow.

OTHER:
(1)Kayla, to most people’s surprise, is always in her Mizu-Tech Self-Cleaning Auto-Temperature-Regulating Neurovertibrallinked Silver Edition Full Body Enviroholosuit®. This allows her to take appearance of any style of clothes that she wants, and modify them at will. Her parents bought this for her in the summer before 7th grade, when Kayla was thirteen. Their stated reason for this was so that she could dress however she wanted to, but in reality, this was just because they couldn’t spare the time to accompany Kayla to the various clothing stores she was begging to visit, and instead chose an easy alternative.

(2)Interestingly enough, Death Lake Academy is actually a very nice, highly rated school. The reason for the somewhat unfortunate name was that it was built next to Death Lake(previously known as Death Valley, filled up during California’s Great Flooding of 2022), California, and the founder was a simplistic man.

Kayla’s birthday is September 12th, 2018.
Kayla’s favorite color is, predictably, pastel pink.