[ChicletPrime]

MC's first meeting with Sylus triggers that ancestral humiliation of meeting your ex after a long time and seeing that flash of "They clearly peaked when they were with me, huh" in their eyes

i facepalmed so hard. yes. yes, that, EXACTLY. oh, good lord, muahah! between all the condescending "kitten's" and "sweetie's", i am already starting to feel like maybe don't need vengeance that bad after all. sorry Caleb, but there's only so much of this i can take.

02: Breakthrough
Chapter 1: Alone

• 395mb this time. i should figure out exactly which drive this is being stored on before it becomes mission critical
  
• i have reached... Elysium. its full of graffiti apparently according to the description but the visual looks more like Sylus' library or something. there's even a black granite and/or marble fireplace frame.
  
• 50k for a name list and a map? wow. uh. maybe i still have that yogenfruz coupon I offered Sylus earlier.
  
• oh excuse me, 50k per * word *.  maybe i should pull out my hidden knife.
  
• awright, gambling hall! maybe i can WIN the 50k per word with a 5% discount entry price here. i am so good at kitty cards, you know.
  
• Solon Hotel. /scribbles that down
  
• do you know Heaven's Official Blessing? because it sounds like Sylus is this world's answer to Hua Cheng. even has the red eye come to think of it! i should start calling the guy Crimson Rain Sought Flower behind his back at every opportunity.
  
• oh, there's been a hierarchical shuffle in Onychinus while Sylus was gone? i have a feeling they don't just mean the last four days he's been busy with me. where HAS Sylus been then, if not sitting on top of the heap and feeling bored about it?
  
• wow, he's been out of the immediate action for long enough that people are speculating he's finally dead. and a group named "Sherman's Punks" have been taking advantage of the free field. boy, those guys are in for a surprise! for a dead guy, Sylus is definitely on the warm side.
  
• "If Sylus was with Onychinus, they wouldn't even dare to be so bold."  oookay. huh. /thinks  - has Sylus maybe broken with Onychinus? except that doesn't make a ton of sense, Kieran and Luke (my beloveds!) are still in bird gear. i guess these guys are in the baseless speculation end of things.
  
• pompous and contemptuous face. yeah, that's our guy for sure.
  
• (if he died, he'd drag the entire N109 Zone to hell with him - that's just now he is.) AMEN, sister. sing it.
  
• OH NO, Tiffany the Street Urchin wants to give me a flower. this is bad. very bad.  oh yeah, black flower. even better.
  
• aaaand we took it. are we dumb or what.
  
• "he's a monster with huge wings that never dies. and he has horns!"
  
• this kid has seen some shit.
  
• is it K or L that's the man-eating birdie? oh, the CROW. i keep forgetting about the crow.
  
• we're going to ... use our evol as a valuable tool against Sylus? wut? this is a terrible plan, possibly worse than the first one that Xavier had no faith in. i am not sure even how that would work, unless we want to attempt to resonate with everybody BUT him en masse and stage a coup d'etat.
  
• hey, were IS Xavier? i thought our sunshine boyfriend was supposed to be listening in! four days, lover, where you been while i was being dragged across the floor and tempted into murder?
  
• gunfire!
  
• /refuses to duck
  
• oops. uh... Sherman? I guess? and his band of merry guntoting brethren.
  
• for a second i thought for sure it would be Sylus, but since red and black tendrils didn't squeeze through the door first to choke everybody in submission, i was mislead. gunfire, really? as if he'd bother with something so low stakes.
  
• let me guess. i got abandoned, lured to this gambling hall and now i'm going to be in trouble so Sylus can swoop in and spread the Gospel with the biggest splash possible.