The Muse in the Volcano

Toni clamped her hands over her ears. Maybe if I ignore them for long enough, they'll stop being here.

Two seconds (or two minutes, or two hours - who knew?) later, when she opened her eyes again, they hadn't left.

Shit.

She minimized the writing program to discover Beatnik punching away at some viruses. Toni could not have possibly cared less at the moment. Instead, she pulled up the document she'd saved on the ride over: the day's ferry schedule.

There wouldn't be another one for two hours.

She considered hiking up the side of the volcano and hurling herself in.

If these two fools weren't going to get lost on their own, Toni was going to have to take the proactive approach.

"Not warm at all," she said. Her voice was as flat as the beach. It was mostly a lie, since she was dressed all in black: long-sleeved shirt, jeans, cap, arm-warmers. Only her scarf was white. "Not nearly warm enough to thaw out my brittle, rocky, frozen heart."

"Ookay..." Aelieth said, eyeing the black clad woman with an odd look. "Well, I guess it's good you're not letting the heat get to you..." He really couldn't think of much else to say. She seemed like a rather unpleasant person, but he wasn't one to judge. Maybe she's just having a bad day or something, he thought.

The other woman, however, seemed much more personable. "Anywhere's warmer than home? Where are you from, Sharo?" he chuckled, the fact that his 'joke' may actually be the truth not even crossing his mind.

He saw that the other two had their PeT's connected to the tree, which he now realized was in fact not a living object. Pulling out his PeT, he hooked it up to the tree to join them. "Have you busted on this network before?" he asked, leaving the question open for either of them two answer, though he figured only one would give him an legitimate answer.

"Actually, yea." Vik told Aelieth, watching him plug his PET into the tree. "From one of the coldest parts of it." She added, turning her attention back towards her PET. "And I don't see how someone dressed as her can stand this weather." Vik commented, pointing at the girl behind her.

"And have I busted on this network before? No." Vik responded, looking at her PET screen. "Although it does look like what me and my navi were expecting, which means it would be less hazardous then at home." She added.

And less then Netvegas...

"My train wreck of a Navi is working on that at the moment. Perhaps, if you jack in, you'll suffer the terrible misfortune of meeting her."

Toni pulled up her writing program again. After all, she could now draw on this miserable experience to get some hardcore poetry done. Such awful occurrences lent her work additional strength and realism.

"Now what could possibly have brought you people out to a godforsaken rock like this?" she asked in a colourless drone. "If we aren't frizzled away to nothing by a wave of lava"--she thumbed over he shoulder at the volcano--"we could be forgotten by the ferry and left to our own devices for the rest of our tragically shortened lives. We'd starve. Or drown trying to escape. Or turn to cannibalism."

"Actually, I overheard some people at Dentech talking about how this place was great for virus busting, though they failed to mention how..." he cast about for a suitable word, "...unpleasant the place is." He passed on the later part of Toni's statement. He wasn't going to let her little black rain cloud blow over to him.

Holo floated about lazily, not yet transmitted into the tree-port.

"So," he said, turning his attention to the other woman, "what makes the Sharo network so hazardous? Strong viruses, or something else?" he asked, trying to make conversation.

"Well, my navi wanted to bust here, that is pretty much it... And I really douth any of that is going to happen, sure the heat isn't getting to you?" Vik responded to Toni, not turning her head to look at her. She then looked towards Aelieth, and answered his question.

"Yea, um, why Sharo is hazardous... lets put it this way. Have you ever seen a fire navi in a sea panel?"

"Not at all. Like I said, brittle, rocky, frozen heart." She paused, then added, "unpleasant indeed."

Wait. Maybe this could work in my favour. Constructive criticism. Yes.

"I have travelled out here to fulfill my poetic yearnings," she said, injecting her voice with just the right amount of mystery and grandeur. This made it only slightly less deadpan than usual. "The harsh environment helps spur the creative process. Would you like to hear some?"

Without waiting so much as a second for a response, Toni pulled up her writing program. She straightened her back, gave her diaphram a couple of trial deep breaths, and lifted her chin.

"The Harbingers of Shadow, by Antoinette Smith. Featured in Hush, little razor blades on the doorstep of my blackened soul, a blog by Gnomon.

"Dark wings shred the sky to ashes
the nightingales of hell are at the windowsill
'Come forth,' they cry, their voices shrill,
'And meet your master and creator in the depths of hell.'

I turn and see the north dissolve into fire,
the south overcome by ice,
the east and west annihilated by some secret, destructive device,
and the stars blotted out by the smoke of a trillion burning corpses."

"It's a work in progress," she added posthumously.

"Can't say I have," Aelieth responded to the cheerier of the two women. "I can imagine how it would end up, though," he chuckled.

Then the darker of the two operators began reciting her poetry. Aelieth was by no means an expert on the written word, but the dour tone that permeated the poem put Aelieth off.

"Erm... it's, um... pretty good..." he struggled, trying not to offend. His smile faltered even as he said the words.

Holo, hidden behind Aelieth and out of sight of Toni, was doubled over in midair, silent but raucous laughter paralyzing his small frame. He bookmarked the blog Toni had cited to peruse at a later date. If they were all like this one, reading the others would be hilarious.

"And that, added with the type of viruses there, is why Sharo is hazardous." Vik said, looking back at her PET. "Unless you're navi isn't fire element, then this place would probably be worst."

And then Toni just decided to... read them a poem. Vik... didn't know how to respond to it... and just turned around a bit and looked right at Toni...

"Um... no comment." Was the only response that Vik could come up with, towards the poem she was forced to listen to. Vik never really read much poetry, and for all she could know that was actually something good... But she couldn't shake the feeling that wasn't the case at all. As she was turning back around, she spotted something behind Aelieth. Something that looks like it was... laughing?

"...Is that your navi behind you?" Vik asked the man.

When the woman in the coat pointed out the man's Navi, Toni leaned backwards to see around his back. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of Holo, but that was the emotion she showed. The real fireworks were going on inside her ribcage. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could talk Beatnik into beating that Navi up later.

"The same as all those other cretins on the forums," Toni muttered. "Classless and tasteless. Wouldn't know a masterpiece if it mugged them in an alley."

Speaking of Beatnik, Toni switched back to the main screen of her PET. There she was, in all her eye-searing glory, bludgeoning some virus to death with an ElecKnife. That automatic chip dispenser really had been a wonderful idea on Toni's part. The less interaction she had to have with Beatnik, the better. Some days -- like today -- she simply wasn't prepared for such ordeals.

Aelieth turned at Vik's remark... to see Holo making a fool of himself behind his back.

Well, this is mortifying...

"Holo, stop that! It's really rude.." he shot to the Navi in a harsh whisper, shooing him back into the PeT. He quickly pressed the "Transmit" button to send the (still laughing) Navi whizzing into the network, out of sight of the other two.

"Sorry about that... Antoinette, right?" he guessed the name from her declaration of her poem. "He's kind of a kid at heart, which makes him kind of childish at times." Invisible in the data stream almost entirely in Hades Net, a green mouth stuck out a cartoonish tongue.

"I'm Aelieth, by the way," he addressed both women. "It's nice to meet the both of you."

I... don't think any masterpieces would want to try and mug me, or can, actually." Vik told Toni, watching Holo disappear and listening to Aelieth's explanation.

"Wait... Halo, you don't mean that was Holoß the quarter-finalist in that tournament?" Vik asked, looking right at Aelieth. What the hell were the odds that she would meet one of the folks from that tournament, here of all places, on one of the last days she had before returning for Duty. "It's an honor to meet you Aelieth, I'm Viktoriya Erin." She said, extending a hand out towards the man in offering of a handshake.

"It's nice to meet you as well," Aelieth responded, taking Vik's hand and shaking it.

Time passed after that handshake, and Vik remembered something that she had wanted to do. She told her navi, but the others in the area could hear what she said. Once Arc was back in her PET, Vik turned and looked at her two companions.

"Well, sorry I can't stay any longer." Vik said to Toni and Aelieth "I have limited time before I have to return to Sharo for active duty, and I wanted to get an SP for when I'm off duty... since on duty you have to get a bunch of clearance and stuff to have one, and they give it to you so in most cases you don't get to chose what it looks like. And I would actually like to try and control that... I would like to stay here and try for the mission exxxpect, I kind of need to buy some chips to get Arc strong enough to actually beable to do one" She said , getting up. "Anyway, it was nice meeting you both. I hope I'll beable to meet you two again when I'm off duty. Now to see if I can't catch the ferry." She said, before heading off.

"Well, it's been fun," Aelieth said as he pocketed his now reoccupied PeT. "Hopefully you find what inspiration you want. Have a good one."

Holo, unbeknownst to Aelieth, blasted a quick message to Beatnik's PeT containing contact information. She was weird, like him. Also a refrigerator.

Aelieth trekked back to the ferry and began the journey home.