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Chapter 9

Day 1:  Eastbell, Icewynne, Notsuoh lounge, and bar, After hours, Login Desk, Dark Hour.

"To save Icewynne?" Nova snorted, "Wow, dramatic much? What are we gonna do, hit em over the head with laptops and picket signs?"

Nova turned around to see who was talking and shut up quick. It was the bartender. Upon closer examination, she noticed that his neatly styled hair was a pale blonde and his eyes were a deep olive color, his LED suit glowed a vibrant lime green. Behind his glasses, he wore a serious I-won't-take-your-shit expression. He looked about the same age as Azure.

She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. Snow would be lying if she didn't say he was attractive. 

"Hmph" Azure glanced over at the bartender giving him a warm smile. "Nice of you to join us, Sage."

This "Sage" Character nodded before returning his gaze towards Nova, "That's not what I mean." He continued, "Remember those guys that came in earlier? You have any idea what they were looking for?"

Nova opened and closed her mouth, she looked like a fish out of water. The shock of the new dimension had ended and she was left to make normal conversation with people. Her snark had worn off and she was left with nothing but anxiety and the inability to formulate coherent sentences. She could feel Shadow's eyes on her giving her a concerned look; great now she had an audience. Nova took a deep breath.

Use your words, Nova.

"N-no." she barely managed to choke out.

"They were looking for mana. It's life force of Icewynne, the more mana you have, the more powerful you can become. You could have the potential to rule the entire realm, people fight for Mana, people kill for Mana. Those guys who came after you, you saw how their suits were blood red?"

Nova and Shadow nodded.

"They were members of a cult called the Mockingjay Unit, a group of people who follow and support their leader, Royal."

"Who's Royal?" Nova questioned.

"He's a super powerful warlord, rumored to be the strongest person in all of Icewynne. No one knows who he is, but people think he's in hiding."

  "Wait a second," Shadow spoke up, "I thought the creator guy was the most powerful" 

"Ideally, yes. But Royal's AI has grown far beyond the creator's reach. He can't do much to stop him at the moment so he's resorted to sending in people from the outside, i.e you. Don't ask who the creator is, no one knows."

Shadow blinked. "Great so this place is run by a group of mystery men. It's like the Illuminati. Is the creator Kanye West? He does claim to be a God and I mean he is running for president soon so..."

Nova rolled her eyes,  "You mentioned AI...so you, as well all of the people in here are Artificial Intelligence?"

"Yes, we're all scripts and code."

Great. So Nova wants to smash a page of code. Could he at least be written in C++? His graphics are pretty enough that it wouldn't be surprising. How does one program such a toned- ahem! Well, shit...thank you Kanye West.   

The bar that was once booming with music and people was now playing classical jazz and was completely empty aside from the four of them. A neon sign that once read "OPEN" now blinked the message "SORRY WE'RE CLOSED".

"So" Shadow cocked a brow eyeing him skeptically. If you knew what was going on with those guys, then why didn't you come and help us? How come Azure had to come save our skins when you were at the bar watching us?"

Sage took a sip of a dark green liquor, "I was busy."

"Busy doing what?"

He shrugged. "Does it matter? The whole bar was about to get shot up, you two took off sprinting and six men were stupid enough to take off after two children rather than stand their ground and rob the bar like they had planned. I think you two were fine." 

Shadow crossed his arms and pouted. "Hmph. Sabelotodo." He murmured.

"Escuché eso." Sage shot back, he had clearly heard his little comment.

Shadow did a double take. His eyes went wide as he stared daggers at the man. "How did you-"

"I have artificial intelligence. You don't think the creator was smart enough to program Google Translate? I also speak Korean, French, Arabic, and Swahili while you're at it so feel free to call me a 'smart ass' in any one of those languages as well and I guarantee you I'll have the perfect response, idiota."

The two stood for a moment, glaring at each other.

It was the first time since they met Nova had seen him in a bad mood. 

Azure let out a low whistle, "Hey now... We're all supposed to be on the same team so let's act like it huh?"

Shadow unlocked his gaze from Sage and instead fixated his eyes on Azure, his face softened seemingly returning back to his normal cheerful self. "So what can we do to help?"

"Glad you could ask!" Azure chirped just as happy as Shadow, they were both so...weird.

"The first thing you can do is-"