The Virtuality of Man

From the Arena, Leonard didn't immediately decide to show Ciel around the rest of the Community Center. Instead, he brought her to what the holographic screen called "The Virtual Room."

Pods lay across the floor, set up in rows, and on the side, a man stood behind a large desk, accepting money that people were all too eager to throw at him. But the money he used wasn't the same as Ciel's memory of currency.

They weren't coins or paper, just plastic cards with the words "5 RMB" written on them. The people who paid with the cards were rare though, and most preferred to just pay with their phones.

"This is the Virtual room," Leonard introduced to her, "this is where you get access to the Virtual World."

Leonard went on to explain how the room was in part based on olden-time internet cafes. You would pay to use the pods, and then pay a further subscription to the Virtual World itself.

Though "money-sucking capitalists" was what he mainly referred to the Virtual World as.

While it was a relatively costly affair, the majority of people would rather pay because the world had become necessary in any self-respecting Galactic Citizen's life.

The pods were run through magic. The magic would manipulate your nerve endings and send waves to the user's brain to interpret. In doing so, this made the virtual world seem not so different from reality.

"Seeing as you've never heard of the Virtual World before," Leonard said, "you should be eligible for their free trial."

Leonard led her to a pod.

"And since I'm the one guiding you, I'll allow you a free trial to this pod for the time being as well."

Ciel didn't question it and laid down inside. The inside of the pod was padded with something so as to not make the user uncomfortable, but Ciel couldn't decipher the texture.

"The pods are covered with Entil skin," Leonard said, "a kind of Beast you can find on any forest-based planet. Don't worry, the Community Center has made its goals to be as environmentalist as possible and the pods we have are outfitted only with the skin of invasive creatures."

Ciel didn't take much of Leonard's words to heart and closed the pod. Soon enough, a floating fairy came into view.

The fairy was made out to be a young girl with large, semi-transparent wings. Ciel realized that she was the same age as herself, or at least her body. The fairy floated to the ground with her eyes closed and her arms crossed over each other in an x-figure. As she descended, her eyes fluttered open.

"We love to have you at the Virtual World, ranking the top intergalactic company for over two hundred years!" the fairy said, Ciel couldn't help but appreciate her clearly expert marketing. "Please watch the clock as your two-hour trial begins. If you go over time you will be immediately charged or ejected from your pod. Have a nice day!"

Then the fairy sped away.

"Hmm, the first time I went into the Virtual World I was greeted by a giant alligator," Leonard said, shivering slightly, "It was a nightmare."

Ciel flipped her head toward him. She hadn't noticed his presence when the fairy had arrived. It was as if everything around her had disappeared for a moment, leaving nothing but advertising in her wake. She'd even felt herself itching for the wallet she no longer had, vaguely wanting to give the fairy money out of nowhere. Leonard noticed and gave her a sympathetic look, but didn't explain.

"Let's go check out the shops," he said.

"What do they sell?"

"Well, typically weaponry, tickets to shows, clothing, basically anything you can imagine, but," he said, turning to walk, "what I think you'll be most interested in are the Technoids."

"Technoids?" Ciel asked, walking to catch up with him.

"Yes, they're what those two kids, Dragon and Nightfall, were using to fight just now in the Arena."

Ciel thought back to those black scaled suits.

The whole world gave her a sense of novelty, but something about those suits in particular struck her as interesting. People on their own couldn't move that fast, not even with magic directly affecting them. But in the days she'd disappeared, they'd found another way to increase the strength of people: magic engineering. By working on objects instead of directly on people, individuals could use technology to further themselves past the point of humanity's capabilities.

Humans and magic weren't compatible, but that didn't mean objects were the same.

As Leonard and she left the white space the fairy had greeted her in, Ciel could see the encroachment of an endless row of doorways.

"Behind each of these you'll find a different area," Leonard said, "Usually you'll go to the map first to decide what areas you want favorited and you'll receive easy access through these doors, but since this is a free trial, these were just randomly picked."

Ciel was astounded by the simplicity. She thought the Virtual World would be more of a mirror of regular life than something completely different, but it made sense. If the Virtual World was the same as real life, why would people use it? The world was pretty interesting as is, why waste time in a world that was just a rip-off of where you already lived? And the Virtual World didn't disappoint. Efficiency was maximized in a heartbeat.

Leonard showed her how to open the menu and which areas were generally best to favorite. It wasn't very hard to tell that Leonard had a strangely large passion for fighting, but Ciel didn't worry too much about it.

She'd ended up with this assortment: Virtual Arena, Martial Technique Training, Battle Front, Technoid Shop, and, the calmest sounding of all, Training Through The Arts.

It was all fighting except for the last one. All Ciel knew of the last one was that Leonard had given her a cruel smile once he'd convinced her to pick it.

Walking over to the door with "Technoid Shop" hanging over it, Leonard bowed and motioned her through.

"After you, Ciel."

She walked through.

----

The walls of the shop were a crisp white, and people bustled inside. When Ciel walked in she immediately caught sight of three boys practically hanging off of a glass wall. On the other side of the glass was a suit.

"This is the Technoid Dragon was wearing," one of the boys gasped. Another glanced at him but quickly made sure to look back at the suit, as though it would run away from him at any moment.

"Are you sure?"

He was met with a smack on the head.

"Do you think I'd mistake it?" the first boy said, rolling his eyes.

Ciel was mildly amused by their conversation, not giving much attention to the suit they were fanning over. One of the boys caught her reflection in the glass. He squinted his eyes and glared at her, then looking back over at his friend, said, "You were talking too loud. Now that girl is going to want to look at Dragon's Technoid too."

Ciel pushed her lips together as her cheeks welled up. It wasn't her fault she was now in the body of her child self, okay? She couldn't help lamenting that she wasn't an adult yet.

Leonard soon flashed into existence next to her, letting out a snicker as he noticed the boys were guarded against her. If he hadn't known the girl himself, he would've thought she was about to cry.

Taking in a few deep breaths, Ciel walked away from the guarded children and began to explore.

Each Technoid stood in its own box surrounded by glass, and contrary to Ciel's original beliefs, black wasn't the only color they came in. Many were decorated with stripes and different color combinations, a few even being adorned with wings.

"Ah I see you're looking at an A-1 Technoid," Leonard said, "they're quite nice, but A-level Technoids can usually only be afforded by either massive corporations or the government." He trailed off, for a moment. "I stole mine though."

Ciel's eyebrows raised. Leonard winked, "Just kidding, I bought mine with cold hard cash."

As Ciel rolled her eyes, Leonard chuckled.

"Actually if you're part of specific groups you can get suits like this dirt cheap, like the Voy--" Leonard cut himself off. Ciel discerned that he was listening to something, but couldn't hear what he was listening to herself.

It took ten seconds for Leonard to come back.

With an apologetic smile -- or just his normal smile, no one could tell -- he placed a hand on her head and patted it.

"Alright, I have to leave for a bit but I'll be back in around thirty minutes," glancing behind her, Leonard continued, "and have fun with your friends." And with that, he disappeared.

Ciel decided not to worry about his cryptic messages and continued looking at the Technoids. They intrigued her not only because she herself was a mechanic, but because when she looked at them, a certain thrill ran through her. It was the same feeling car racing or rollercoasters used to give her. The pounding of her heart and the electrifying of her fingers.

As she engrossed herself in looking at the Technoids, three boys were having a secret conversation behind her.

"Look, it's the Pretty Sister," One of them said. He had bright blonde hair and wore what would be best described as a uniform: a dress shirt, under a blue blazer, with blue pants. Actually, looking at the three, all of them wore the same uniform. Ciel, who was watching them through the reflection of the Technoid's glass, made this observation quietly.

"We shouldn't have scared away a Sister who's also interested in Technoids," a boy with darker hair sulked. Once he realized she didn't suck up to him like the rest of the people at his school, he found himself immediately regretting his actions.

Unlike the other two who had hair colors she'd usually seen on Earth, this boy's hair was blue, but the roots were growing out and a light blonde revealed itself.

The third of the boys rolled his eyes, "If you want to apologize, then do it." He was promptly silenced by the glare of the other two. Finally, the blonde boy decided to take the lead.

"Um, Sister?" he said, approaching her, "We're sorry if we scared you back there."

Ciel blinked, looking toward him. The boy noticed that she didn't have the big-eyed charm of the girls he knew at school. She didn't look pretty in that sense. Rather, on closer inspection, he couldn't tell what about her made him call her the Pretty Sister, she was just pretty. Well, pretty was pretty, the specifics didn't matter much to him.

"It's okay," she said. Then she looked back at the Technoid.

The blonde boy stood in stunned silence for a moment. He'd thought she would get mad or would gloat like his younger sister; instead, she'd just accepted his apology. Something he'd groaned about his whole way here hadn't actually been so bad. As he turned to leave, the piercing voice of his friend struck through him.

"Whoa, isn't that the A-1 that Midnight uses?" the blue-haired boy said, just falling short of yelling. His somber attitude had immediately dispersed upon seeing the Technoid of one of his idols and he'd run up to the girl completely forgetting their earlier feud.

Suddenly someone grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt.

"Weren't you here to apologize?" a different boy, this time, said. Ciel looked toward them and realized it was the third boy this time, and to her joy, she realized, he wasn't bald. His white hair simply hadn't reflected well. With white hair and blue eyes, Ciel came to the conclusion that he was albino.

The boy with blue hair looked up at her, begging in his eyes.

Damn, he's better at acting cute than I am. Ciel decided to accept her loss.

"Sorry," he said, "I was just really excited about seeing Dragon's Technoid."

She nodded.

"Thanks, Pretty Sister!"

That seemed to be her new name. The white-haired boy dropped him.

"I apologize as well," he said.

The blue-haired boy had plastered himself on the glass once again.

"My name's Ash, by the way," the boy with white hair said, scratching at the back of his next, then, gesturing to the other two boys, gave their names as well, "The blonde one there is Jamie, and the little shit plastered against the glass is Blaire. He just gets like that whenever he sees a new Technoid."

Seeing that the girl didn't reply, but didn't exactly reject them from talking to her, Jamie started speaking to her as well.

"Yeah, but he only really likes Midnight and Dragon," he grinned at her, and Ciel was immediately reminded of the alligator man who constantly appeared to be grinning, she quickly rid her mind of the thought.

"Do you like Technoids?" Blaire asked, finally giving the poor Technoid some space.

Ciel thought about it. Actually, other than the thrill she had while thinking about the possibilities of using one, she didn't have much of an opinion on them. At least before Leonard brought her to see them. Another thing was, she couldn't wrap her head around why exactly he'd brought her over in the first place.

The boy, not hearing her answer, shrugged, "Well, it doesn't really matter whether you like them or not. The people at our school just talk about liking them but are too scared to even go to the shop. At least you have an interest in actually seeing them."

"Why wouldn't they go to the shop?"

After all, it was right there on her menu, it wasn't difficult to get in. And who didn't window shop from time to time? Especially with suits as different as these.

But when she looked back at the boys, they were looking at her like she was the crazy one.

Jamie was the one who broke the silence.

"Well, you have to rank pretty high on the leaderboards to get here and demonstrate to the Virtual World that you have an interest in combat in the first place. And even with that...can't you feel it?"

The boys looked at her, the blue-haired one even pulling himself away from the Technoid. But she didn't feel like it was that look of surprise anymore, it was more adoration mixed with newfound excitement.

Ciel looked over at the Technoid once more. A comfortable feeling made its way through her; relaxation mixed with excitement, a strange but familiar combination. With widened eyes -- still, not matching that of Blaire's -- it finally hit her.

The red mist became visible to her, crowding around each Technoid in the shop.

Oh, that's right. This shop was full of bloodlust.

She had a newfound respect for the boy who'd come so close to the glass.

A/N:

Here's a longer chapter for the other one going under my usual word count. It was slow in the beginning but with the introduction of characters actually in Ciel's age group -- though only in body -- it got more fun.

The writing software I use has a bunch of challenges for writing more words and I took on like 10. I have to beat twenty-five monsters that each require 2000 words in 72 hours, so if you'd like a mass release feel free to leave a comment.

Yes, this is for you, people too lazy to share. This is your time to make a difference.

As always, I'm on the verge of begging for votes, so see you next time.