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+---- Thread: Sylus - fanfic noodle idea (/showthread.php?tid=70)
Sylus - fanfic noodle idea - ChicletPrime - 05-30-2025
“Second round complete. Failure to qualify. Please indicate compliance to reset.”
If she didn’t know any better she’d swear she hears sympathy in the crisp tones, even if the scoring computer is contractually obligated to have no opinion at all. She blows the flyaway strands off her face in the forlorn hope that it will help, stares at the disappointed ceiling. Shuffles both feet and grip on the pistols.
Her first set of scores were abominable. This second set was, if anything, worse because she’d started flinching after each shot as well as before. If she’d scored like this on her first aptitude test, she’d never have made it into the Association at all.
“Please indicate compliance.”
“Yes!” she grits out, glaring down the gallery as the light-traced targets finally glitch out, leaving a barren gray space holding absolutely nothing at all, not even dust. No judgement there at least. “I comply. Please erase previous scores and reset.”
If these were real Wanderers, she’d be dead five times over. Sweat prickles on her head, another distraction she really doesn’t need. At least there are no viewing windows for the internal recertification tests, a small detail she’s never had to be grateful to before but she’ll take anything at this point. If she can just pull it together for long enough to get through her last remaining attempt, nobody will even have to know she’s screwing up so badly.
“Erasure complete. Resetting.” The gallery comes back to life without sound, the whole holographic maze in golden wireframe burning shapes into the air before compacting, twisting into stasis and then suddenly whole, imprinting a nauseating afterimage before she blinks it away. Now it's an underground transport platform, hazy shadows and pale tile and even several lights burned out where anything could be hiding or could take shelter in or could even hold nothing at all but will require her wavering attention all the same.
Every step she takes will echo in this new space, faithfully transcribed by the variable condition parameters programmed into the test, overlapping and disorienting. If she had the breath for it, she’d curse.
“One attempt remaining. Scoring will commence upon firearm activation.”
“Third time’s the charm,” she mutters under her breath, swallows down the wrongness and once more raises the guns.
At the end, it turns into a race for the door.
She’s at the back of the pack because of course she is, heartbeat throbbing in the back of her throat like a bruised plum she can’t dislodge, fumbling with her datapad and satchel and keeping half an ear on Tara’s chatter ahead of her, searching for the pills that must have fallen to the bottom - but when the boys at the front suddenly start to pull away with their stupidly long legs, the shift in the general movement from amorphous to intentional is just enough to jerk her head up.
Oh, that is not on. She doesn’t have the stupidly long legs but they absolutely reach the floor like they’re supposed to and there are definite advantages to small and not slow.
She pulls abreast and then ahead of her friends as if by accident. Slides between two more bodies and is nearly at the next cluster but then everybody figures it out probably the same way she did and she suddenly has to throw out a few elbows, nearly losing her grip on all her stuff just to keep the ground she’d gained.
Hunter’s Class 13-6A rolls across the grand foyer floor in a foam of excited voices, flashing hands and epaulets as they all break for freedom en-masse. The last of this session’s technical classes is now twelve floors above and behind and all that’s in front of them is the rest of the night, the week, maybe even the rest of the whole damned month if they’re lucky, and it’s suddenly imperative to get out and get started right away before the test scores catch up to them.
“Hey, you traitor!” Tara’s voice howls from somewhere behind and she has to laugh, stretching herself even more.
“Sorry, not sorry!” she calls back over her shoulder. “C’mon, slowpoke!”
There’s a shifting gap in front of her which she exploits ruthlessly. She’s not going to catch the front runners at this point but she still tries, the urge to win grafted onto all of them like a weld pattern but she prides herself on thinking she carries it farther than most. Just one more junior cadet with big dreams hiding in a jostling pack of them but she’s the fifth one through the doors which is nothing to sneeze at and she breaks into the cool night air with a rush of muted satisfaction that she hasn’t felt for hours.
Linkon City is absolutely beautiful at night. The towers reach for the ringed clouds like so many glittering fingers with Skyhaven’s bulk above betrayed only by the wash of darkness that shows no stars. Everywhere there is crisp air and shining lights and people cursing mildly as the flood of students pours into the street, pushing everything around for a few moments like a rogue wave.
She takes a big breath, already smiling before suddenly choking on it.
Technically, it’s just a motorcycle parked idly on the curb. Big enough for the man astride it certainly, black on silver on rainbow in the sparkling lights, but not so remarkable as all that if she didn’t know what she knows.
But she does know what she knows and the lean, tall figure lounging on the seat as if grown there is infuriatingly familiar even though she can’t see his face or hair or all too knowing eyes through the spangle of the helmet visor.
It’s funny how anger can just wash everything completely clean. She forgets the tangled, easing helix hammering in her chest, forgets the frustration of the last hour, forgets even that she’s not alone.
What the hell is he doing here?
RE: fanfic noodle idea - Coldsaturn - 05-30-2025
Hello???????
To what do I owe this gift????
Give me all the lore behind this setting, what is Sylus doing here, "but she knows what she knows" what do you know girlllllll speak!!