~Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding~
"Ughhh.... fucking fuck."
Blearily opening my eyes to an infernal dinging sound and the most horrid headache in the history of humanity, I quickly try to get back on my feet.
~BAM~
"FUCK, my fucking head!"
Promptly slamming it against what felt like a metal roof, because apparently waking up from not being dead wasn't enough, no, I had to immediately concuss myself like a fucking idiot.
"Ow ow ow ow fuck shit ow."
I fall back down into the seat, both hands clutching my head, eyes squeezed shut hard enough to make the headache worse, which is just perfect. Amazing. Incredible. Ten out of ten start to whatever the fuck this is.
~Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding~
"STOP FUCKING DINGING!"
「 Notifications Silenced 」
"...."
I crack one eye open.
Then the other.
The dinging is gone.
Good.
Probably good.
Maybe horribly bad, actually, since I apparently just yelled at reality and reality listened.
"Okay. That's not terrifying."
Taking a moment to cradle my head and assess the situation, I look around myself. I'm sitting in a car seat, different from expected. Very different from expected. I'm not in some type of cage, or handcuffed, or covered in blood or ash. I don't even have any burn wounds, or pieces of shrapnel wedged in my chest, or the smell of smoke crawling down my throat.
Also, strangely enough, my brain is still in my skull.
And I am also, very importantly, not dead.
"That's new."
I pat myself down because apparently I don't trust my own eyes anymore.
Chest? There.
Ribs? There.
Hands? Still mine.
Legs? Still attached.
Head? Unfortunately attached and currently trying to murder me.
No blood pooling under me. No restraints. No broken glass in my face. No screaming. No gunfire. No alarms.
Just a car.
A shitty car, maybe. I don't know. It has a steering wheel and seats and no immediate corpse smell, so already doing better than some places I've woken up.
The car itself seems parked in a desert. Everything around me barren and dusty with the occasional cactus or bush, lain upon uneven terrain of hills and long flat stretches, mountains stretching into the sky in the distance.
The sun sits over all of it like a hateful little bastard.
"Fuck it's hot."
Quickly looking around the car until finding what looks like the AC controls, I switch it on to full blast.
Nothing happens for a second.
"Don't you fucking dare."
The vents cough.
A little puff of dust hits my face.
"Lovely."
Then cold air starts pushing out, weak and dry and smelling vaguely like old plastic, but cold enough that I decide not to insult it further.
For now.
「 3 Notifications Pending 」
"….there it is again."
I stare at the words.
They are not on the windshield.
They are not on the dashboard.
They are not on a little screen, or a phone, or whatever stupid future glass rectangle people are using now.
They are just there.
In my eyes.
In my head?
In my soul?
"Please don't be in my soul, I just got it back."
The words stay there, because of course they do.
Either I've gone insane or I have a HUD, don't know which is weirder.
"Open Notifications?"
「 Greetings V, System Initialization request Verified
~ Designation: Chaos Theory Equation Referenced as 'CTE' the System serves the Purpose of mapping, evaluating, creating and altering/modifying the current baseline reality. This is achieved by collecting sufficient energy to execute pre-determined functions and enable further changes and ergo further Chaotic development, with the End Goal of finishing the Equation. ~ 」
"...."
I stare.
I blink.
I stare harder.
The words do not become less stupid.
"....this has got to be some sick new torture method or stupid mind game."
I wait for someone to laugh.
No one laughs.
No hidden speakers. No cameras I can see. No one standing outside the car with a clipboard and a smug little corpo smile. No sterile white room. No doctors. No guards.
Just desert.
Heat.
Dust.
The wheezing AC.
And a floating gray box talking like it swallowed a philosophy textbook and a math cult at the same time.
"Chaos Theory Equation," I mutter, very carefully, like maybe saying it wrong will make it explode. "End goal of finishing the Equation. Sure. Why not. Normal day. Normal fucking day."
「 Detecting Inconsistency with current State and Prior Values, Initializing Data Correction Function, Please input correct values and assign all available energy units 」
"Detecting fucking what now?"
Name: Vicente David Stone +/-
Alias: - (Prior Aliases are unavailable)
[Attributes]
{Energy Units Available : 14}
Body: 5 +/-
Intelligence: 7 +/-
Reflexes: 3 +/-
Technical: 7 +/-
Cool: 9 +/-
[Skills]
N/A Please assign all e.U for further information.
[Adventus]
-A King in Silver-
Life is not black and white, it is a muddy gray somewhere in the middle. Your nature lies at the peak of this divide. A King in Silver.
{Accelerates Skill Growth, Learning Speed, Reaction Speed, Thought processes, and Adaptability.}
{At the cost of pain reception enhances physical ability to the limit of potential}
{Vita Incerta, you are Immortal.}
As long as a piece of you remains you will return to Life. If nothing remains you will be moved to the closest viable vessel.
"...."
For a good long moment, I just sit there.
I sit there in the heat, in the dust, in the car, with my head splitting itself open from the inside, reading the most insane fucking character sheet I have ever seen in my life.
Probably.
I don't even know if I remember seeing one before.
That feels worse.
"....so sick mind game it is then."
Very gently resting my head on the wheel, seeing as I still feel like it's going to explode, I try to process the weird-ass situation I find myself in.
This goes badly.
Because what the fuck am I supposed to process?
Vicente David Stone.
That's my name.
I know that's my name.
I think that's my name.
The knowing feels like grabbing broken glass barehanded. It's there, but every edge cuts something on the way in.
Vicente David Stone.
Body five.
Reflexes three.
Cool nine.
"...."
I stared at that one a little longer; it refused to become any less confusing.
Body could mean muscle. Reflexes probably meant not getting shot, maybe. Cool could mean temperature, style, emotional damage, or some other stupid category invented by the floating murder-menu currently squatting in my eyes.
But nine was bigger than five.
And a lot bigger than three.
So apparently whatever "Cool" was, I had more of that than anything else.
"Great. My best stat is the vague one."
Intelligence seven and Technical seven were at least numbers with names I could pretend to understand, unless the murder-menu was lying to me, which would be very on brand for the floating gray bullshit currently haunting my vision.
And then there is the other part.
The stupid part.
The impossible part.
Immortal.
"Ha."
The laugh comes out wrong.
Small.
Dry.
Not funny.
"Yeah. Sure. Immortal. Because that's how that works. Piece of me remains, I come back to life. Nothing remains; I get moved to the closest viable vessel. Perfect. Great. Love that. Very comforting."
I lift my head just enough to glare at the text.
"Does that come with a manual, or do I have to learn through trial and catastrophic fucking error?"
No answer.
"Of course."
The headache pulses.
Something pulses with it.
Not the screen.
Not the car.
Something deeper.
A flash of heat behind my eyes.
Smoke.
Blood.
A woman's hand.
Gone.
"....Nope."
I press the heel of my palm into one eye until stars burst behind the lid.
"Not touching that right now. Fuck that. One problem at a time."
The screen shifts again.
Because why would mercy exist.
「 ~V, this is the last message that the system will give you, after this your on your own.
Assign all your e.U and in the future always remember to check if you have any new e.U to assign, as long as you act upon the world you'll produce Chaos Energy, use it to grow stronger, remember time is on your side, whether now or in hundreds of years your life is your own.
Consider all debts paid, as well as all favors.
We won't speak again in this life, but someone did want me to pass a message to you, "Te quiero pequeño demonio, cumple tu promesa."
Have fun kid.
~ G. 」
"...."
The whole car goes quiet.
Not actually quiet.
The AC is still breathing dust-cold air into my face. The metal is still ticking softly from the heat. Somewhere outside, wind scrapes sand across the road or dirt or whatever the fuck I'm parked on.
But inside my head?
Quiet.
The kind of quiet right before something breaks.
"Te quiero pequeño demonio, cumple tu promesa."
My mouth goes dry for a reason that has nothing to do with the desert.
I know those words.
I know them deeper than I know the car, the sky, the heat, the pain.
For half a second there is a kitchen table.
A voice.
Warm hands.
Smoke far away.
The memory vanishes before I can hold it, leaving claws behind.
I sit there, one hand still on the steering wheel, the other curled so tight my knuckles ache.
"...."
G.
One fucking letter.
One smug, stupid, mysterious little letter sitting at the bottom of the most insane message in human history like it explains a goddamn thing.
I look out through the windshield at the desert.
Then back at the gray text.
Then at the desert again, because apparently I expect a helpful sign to rise out of the dirt saying WELCOME TO WHATEVER THE FUCK THIS IS.
No sign.
Obviously.
I drag in a breath through my teeth.
My headache hammers behind my eyes.
My throat hurts.
My hands won't fully unclench.
And because I have apparently been alive again for less than five minutes and already hate the management, I say the only reasonable thing left to say.
"Who the fuck is G?!"