Void Rift (rp) - Intermission

"...What?" She asks, staring at you blankly.

 

"Video games," I say, smiling, "Watch."

I sneak up behind a goblin, before holding my sword up. A green energy surrounds it briefly, before I step back and ram my sword into the goblin. The goblin takes quite a bit of damage, and the red bar above it's head continues to drain afterwards, a green droplet next to it, until it empties and the goblin dies.

 

Ihra looks for any other indicators that are a result of the videogame.

 

There don't seem to be any other indicators.

"You know how to open your inventory, right?" I ask Ihra, holding my hand in front of me, causing a menu to appear in front of me with many different slots and tabs.

 

"Nope. Never played a video game before."

 

"What, really?" I ask, surprised, "I guess this might seem a little advanced for you, then."

 

"One, the best evaluation you can possibly give yourself is spending time away from each of them. That can be complicated with Aj, or Sivius, but the more sick you feel without them, the more they mean to you. I'm not saying if you feel more sick without Aj, then you love him more, it just means that you two have a strong bond. Two, honestly, I don't know you, or Sivius, or Artemis or Aj well enough to securely tell you what you should and shouldn't do. From a general standpoint, though, don't tell Aj that you still love him. He and Artemis are clearly very much in love with each other. As for moving on... my best advice is to not focus on him. And, I know, that whole suggestion is stupid. It's like pointing and then telling someone not to look in that direction. In fact, a lot of my suggestions for getting over him just consist of 'make your brain do this', which doesn't often work. Just... try not to think about him."

 

"Well, I've tried not to, it's just...sometimes when he does something, or we do something together, it reminds me of when we used to be together. For the most part I can look back on it and get over it, but a part of me just sticks to it, wants those times to come back," Shadow Stephanie explains, "I mean, I definitely don't love him like I used to. I see him more as a friend now, but it's just this lingering part of me that keeps trying to move back to when we were more than that. I think my own anger with him is just a manifestation of my own anger with myself. I'm angry I still want to be with him, which turns into me being angry at him because I think he's the reason I feel this way about him."

Shadow Stephanie seems to brighten up a little with her realization, "You know, maybe I should just explain some of this to him, and say that I'm completely done with him and we're just friends from now on, even if we break up with our partners, we're completely done ever being together," She says, "Our time being together is over! I'm with Sivius now, and he's with Artemis, and I'm god damn happy I get to be with Sivius because he's amazing."

Shadow Stephanie smiles to herself, seeming to be feeling a lot better.

 

"That's an understatement. It's like being trash at what I do anyways, but fake. And I'm bad at it."

 

"There we go! Doesn't it feel better to be confident in yourself?"
I smile.

 

"Well...if you really don't like it, you could always quit. We don't have to play this if you don't want to," I say, "To be fair, I think Stephanie just wanted to show off."

"Yeah! Thanks Thirteen!" Shadow Stephanie says, hugging you happily, albeit briefly, "I guess I just had a bunch of balled up problems and maybes getting me down and I needed to sort them out."

 

"This... kinda bores me. What other games are there?" She asks.

 

I let her hug me.
"No problem. That tends to be the issue with human-or-above intelligence."

 

"I'm not sure, we could ask Praecantatia," I say, "Just open your inventory and press the quit button in the exit tab."

I change the tabs in my inventory myself, before disappearing.

"God, I really ripped into Aj and Stephanie though. Like, I know I can come off as mean sometimes, but I was being overly mean to them." Shadow Stephanie says, sounding guilty.

 

"What'd you say, if you don't mind me asking?"

 

"WAIT HOW DO I-
Damnit Aj..."

 

"Well, I said we should leave Aj out of going on a fun adventure with Ihra, and was pretty mean about it. Then when Stephanie was saying about my relationship with him, I said I was going to put her into a coma if she carried on. I don't want to do that though, Stephanie's my best friend!" Shadow Stephanie says.

Ihra remembers me extending my hand to open my inventory; perhaps the same would work with her.

 

"Yeah, that seems like it'd do it."
I get up, gathering my weapons.
"Where'd they even go?"

 

She sticks her hand out in front of her.

 

He then places a circle in the exact center.