Karasugawa Karako had been sitting restlessly with her group of coworkers-cum-friends at the net cafe that Natazume had chosen, shooting the shit, before everything had started rolling out of control. She was always a little frustrated being called on for gatherings like this, because it meant less time socializing with her nebulous cloud of other acquaintances. She was always happy to drop everything for work, or for these people that she had spent so long with that she called friends, but it was hard to reject the feeling that she could be gossiping with Miki and Keiko right about now, or shoving burgers into her face with Alice. So these meetups were often attended by a Karako who was fidgety at best, snappy at worst, even though she really couldn't be more glad to get together with everybody.
Just another idiosyncracy. Just like me. Something else to not think too hard about.
She'd been enjoying her time off, and this sort of gathering suspiciously resembled work, but not until just a little later did it turn into real work. Hackers on the move, or some such. They'd rented the room at the cafe for a few hours, and hopefully this would be clean work, but Karako had been sitting somewhat uncomfortably, on a chair turned backwards, her chest, arms and head sagging over the back of the swiveled computer chair. Too late did she decide this was a bad posture to leave herself in while working. Her body had already taken the shape of the seat and now it would be even more work to get up and shift positions. Screw it. she thought. It'll be, what, a few hours at most? This body of mine probably deserves that much abuse anyway. Taking a deep breath, she had logged on to Cnnt, shedding her identity and name, and becoming Cypher.
Smirking briefly as she felt the familiar weight of her Katana, she took a moment to flit from left to right feet, shifting her balance and 'getting the blood flowing' though such a thing was obviously useles when it came to a digital avatar. She had learned from her instructor that a good warm up was the most important part of any exercise. If she let herself slip just because she was in a digital body, it would breed bad habits. Karako had enough bad habits as it was.
She was met with some Gvn goon before being dropped fully into the problem, all of her friends materializing around her. 'Cypher' kept her warmup going while being talked at by the man here. As long as she was listening and could internalize, repeat, and follow instructions, odds are he didn't care what she was doing. And Cypher didn't care if it frustrated him in the process. Gvn folks might as well all use the same old conservative avatars, you couldn't tell them apart. This one was as stone-faced as the rest.
But there was something strange about his explanation. He was breaking up, Cypher could tell from his speech. A glitch? In the Gvn systems? It wasn't unheard of, but it was rare. Extremely rare. The man disappeared after giving the shakiest explanation she had ever heard, and Crystal stepped in to fill his shoes, taking charge of the group. That was nice. Crystal always knew what to do, even in a convoluted situation, she saw them through.
But Cypher was not the strongest of the group, at least in the matter of physical mass. So when the gravity shifts came, she was literally nearly floored. As the noise ran through her head, she planted the tip of her long katana in the 'ground' such as it was, barely standing on her own two feet. If this was some new virus, it was hella strong. What use was she if they were fighting an enemy that couldn't be cut? It was frustrating to say the least, but it didn't last forever. As Cypher squeezed her eyes shut, nearly blacking out, she was sure she was about to get forcibly booted out of the system. But she didn't. Instead, she opened her eyes to see a strange and bizarre cityscape surrounding her. Never seen that one before... Maybe she really did black out. Either way, she couldn't feel her legs, and she was still clinging white-knuckled to the hilt of her sword, whose tip was now firmly buried in the ground below. Her back hurt, and she'd felt g-forces as though they'd all been launched into the air by the world's largest catapult or else a theme park ride. Staying on her feet had probably been an act of stupidity that she'd curse herself for later.
Regardless, she had to get her bearings. Giving her sword a massive heave, she plucked it like a vegetable from a garden, looking around her. No Crystal, and most of her friends were missing too. BreGle and Apex were here, but... what happened to everybody else? "Tch, just me and the boys, huh? Could be worse I guess..." Shaking off her legs and her sword arm (thankfully the stress wasn't so bad. She'd already warmed up after all) Cypher ran her left hand through her hair, shaking it away from her face. Among the three of them, Apex was the most senior, but Cypher was easily the least patient. And she knew of the senior's military background, so she wasn't about to waste any time on small talk. Frankly, it suited her just fine. This place was beautiful, in its own way, but that didn't mean she wanted to be stuck here.
"What's the plan of action, leader?"
