HACKERMAN

What was Seven t a l k i n g about. How safe could the Underground be? Elizabeth couldn’t imagine any place underground being safe. Her tail flicked in dissatisfaction at the thought, but even more so that Seven was still t a l k i n g. How annoying.

Wait, he said His name again.

“Maaaaaow!” she vocalized, suddenly all of her attention on Seven. “Mrraaoou! Maaow!” Even more vocalization. Was it apparent enough that she wanted to see Him again? She did not want to be stuck in that sewage for much longer. 

Okay, maybe she wasn’t in the best of moods right now. He was sure that would change when he found Jumin and gave him the news, right? He was sure she would cheer up if he were to bring Jumin to her! And maybe she’d let him pet her more if he made her happy. Everyone wins that way right?

TO: 707 FROM: Jumin Han

[Text] Yes, that would be ideal. [Text] Anyway, if what you say is true, gather up all of her fur and I will meet you so I can analyze it myself. [Text] Do you know the cat cafe in Sector Six? [Text] We can meet there when you’re available. [Text] Bear in mind though that we will not be stopping in there. Elizabeth III’s precious fur mustn’t get mixed in with any others.

TO: Jumeown Nyan FROM: Sevnyan

TO: 707 FROM: Jumin Han

[Text] Her name is Elizabeth III. [Text] You know very well why she would choose to stay away from you. [Text] You have been nothing but a menace for her since the time I’ve known you. [Text] Anyway, do you have evidence to back up your claim? [Text] Photographic evidence documented by the government and confirmed by various expert eye witnesses is preferable, though you could also send an audio clip of her dulcet meows.

TO: Jumeown Nyan FROM: Sevnyan

     Litchi was learning quite a lot  about a subject she never imagined she’d delve into. She’d always enjoyed learning new things, and this was a near untapped field for her. It almost made her want to try and improve her skill at video games. Almost. She doubted she’d have much use for it, nor the free time to do it as a hobby. It was times like these when she regretted her chosen workload.

“I see, I guess that makes sense.” She nodded. When he brushed off her temporal slight, she felt slight relief. It wasn’t a big deal that she was from a different time than most denizens here, but something about the difference made her antsy. “Ah, okay. I wasn’t aware.” At the very least, she now knew what was considered old by video game standards.

She found herself feeling even more anxious when he mulled things over, but that quickly bloomed into joy and excitement. Smiling from ear to ear, she clapped her hands together.

“Thank you so much! I’ll get you as many chips as you want!” Part of her felt as though his price was too low, but who was she to pass up a good deal like this? “Did you hear that, Lao Jiu?” She spoke to her furry friend. “You’re going to get a new bed!” As a response, the panda gave another tiny squeal. 

Seven was surprised he had been so talkative today and with a stranger nonetheless. He wasn’t sure why. Was it her? Was it the entirely too small and admittedly cute panda that lived on her head? Was it the thrill of the unknown or the thought of winning a game of chance? Who knew anymore really. Wasn’t he just Seven here, after all? Some young adult who happened to be good with computers and games. But sometimes, being just who you want to be, or who you have to be, works.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not expecting everyone to know every game that came out and when they did. It’s fine.” He wasn’t annoyed at all. If it was someone else like Yoosung or Zen or maybe Jumin he would tease them to high heaven. But while he was an asshole to people he knew, he wasn’t an complete asshole to everybody.

He watched her clap in excitement and agree to his terms. Great! If they could find them that would be fantastic, wouldn’t it? “Alright but you said it and I’m holding you to it” he promised. He looked to the small excited panda on her head and nodded as a formality. Then, he approached the machine and looked it over, going back and forth from the side to the front and back as if deciding his best plan of attack. In actuality, he was determining a rough estimate of how far back the claw would need to go by looking in the side, and how far over by looking in the front. It was a pretty smart idea honestly. He pointed to a cushion inside the machine, ready to play.

TO: 707 FROM: Jumin Han

[Text] Alright, I won’t answer that. [Text] Instead, I’ll entertain your claim. [Text] You know better than to make false claims about Elizabeth the third, correct?

TO: Jumeown Nyan FROM: Sevnyan

TO: 707 FROM: Jumin Han

[Text] Don’t lie.

[To]: Jumeown Nyan [From]: Sevnyan 

( Excuse You ) ;;

Elizabeth figured her protests would fall upon deaf ears; Seven had always been in his own little world of her absolutely adoring him. How rude. However, she had to give him credit. After all he did make that point about the ground… So, even though it would be a bit tough, she’d tolerate him for now.

Wait, excuse him– Go home with him? She let out a low rumble at that offer, showing she had no plans to do so. There was only one person she’d allow to let see her sleep or groom, and that was Jumin. Okay, Jaehee was allowed to see her sleep, too, but that was an exception.

[ Hey Elly, wanna live underground? ]

Underground? Elizabeth looked to him, looking taken aback by even the thought of her living somewhere so disgusting as somewhere underground when Jumin was around. Sure, she put up with the dark and damp atmosphere of District Alpha, but that was only to be temporary! She made sure to let Seven know that she had no intentions of living underground with a hiss. She was not one to hiss normally, even when he would torture her with his affection, because hissing was not lady-like.

Seven was so sure Elly loved him. She loved seeing him come over and pet her and play with her right? After all, he was helping train her to be the second coming of long cat! Or something like that. Why wouldn’t she like that?

He jumped a little at her hissing though. That was new. She sounded like she really didn’t want that idea. “Okay so you definitely don’t want to live underground, which I get, that’s bad for your beautiful fur, but wouldn’t you wanna be somewhere safe? Do you even have a house? Elly!! Are you a homeowner?”

( God Help Me ) ;;

“Mrrow– Mrr…”

Elizabeth made a noise to protest being lifted by Seven, but… Actually, this was better than being on the ground. Of course she would much rather be picked up by someone else, but this would have to do for now. After all, he wasn’t too bad all the time; just most of the time, pressing on her sensitive toe beans and sometimes touching her beautiful fur with chip dusted fingers.

“Maaaoow…!” she tried to respond, stating that she of course could not know as she had never been outside of her home’s grounds. Not without supervision from Jumin or Jaehee, at least. She vocalized a light chatter as she scanned the area to see if there was anything, anything at all, that she could remember from looking out the windows.

Nope, nothing.

Seven nodded at Elly’s protests, not seeing them that way at all. “Yeah I know the ground is all hot and gross and you aren’t used to that. Don’t worry though I’ve got you now.”

He absentmindedly pet her head while he thought. He saw Jumin recently so he should be able to find him to give Elly back at some point right? It was getting late for now though and he figured he should at least bring her indoors with some food and figure out what he was doing.

“Hey Elly, wanna go home with me while we try to find Jumin? Wouldn’t that be nice?”

It actually sort of worried him, taking care of her. If anything happened to this cat, Jumin Han would have his head. Maybe finding her home would be a better option than just keeping her for now.

     As if on cue, Lao Jiu nuzzled against his mistress’ finger and gave a soft squeak. The panda mostly didn’t move, but Litchi knew how to get him to respond. His fur was so soft, she frequently gave him pets throughout the day. She rubbed him absently as she listened to the stranger, nodding along and giving verbal cues when needed. She was entranced with what she was learning. It was truly a whole new world for her.

“Really? I see. I guess that would be pretty easy, given the size of these machines.” All of the arcade cabinets had such flashy, eye-catching displays. Litchi could understand why people so frequently spent time on them. “It must be fun, playing against other people and all that.” Part of her wanted to try, but another part of her knew she wouldn’t be much good. It wasn’t as though she had time to practice either.

“Oh, aren’t those games pretty old?” She asked, the words coming out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I mean… I guess those wouldn’t be considered old nowadays. Ignore what I just said, please.” Sometimes, even with the 21st century architecture surrounding her, she forgot this wasn’t her time period anymore. 

When he answered in the affirmative, Litchi gave a broad grin.

“Oh, good! Well, I don’t mean to impose, but could you perhaps help me? I’m trying to win a stuffed toy for my panda, but honestly I haven’t been able to get anything. I’m not the greatest at this.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “If you could get something for me, I’d be really grateful. I’ll pay to use the machine, of course.”

Seven’s eyes were immediately drawn upward at the sound the panda on her head gave off. Holy shit that was a real living panda, it was way too small and it lived on someone’s head? This city truly was a learning experience and he just learned he found a contender for one of those cute pet websites.

“Sometimes playing against other people is fun, sometimes playing co-op with them is too. But sometimes you just need to focus on the game on your own to really enjoy it. Just get immersed.”

He laughed when she tried to correct herself. “Nah they’re pretty old by game standards. If it’s the year I think it is, they’re all like... in their thirties at least. That’s ancient for a video game. Still though, sometimes you gotta go back to the basics.” He looked almost fondly at a Hopper cabinet next to him.

At first, Mikazuki tried to commit this young man’s words to memory. Soon though, he found that would be impossible. Not only was he talking fast, he was using terminology the sword had never heard in his life – truly an impressive feat. After pausing for several seconds, he shook his head and gave a broad smile.

“Not at all!” He proclaimed, almost as though he was proud. “Pixies? El See Dee? Crystals? I hadn’t realized televisions were full of such things. Well, I guess this modern age really is advanced compared to me.” He gave his golden laugh, then turned his gaze back to the screen. His first time seeing a tv had felt utterly magical. It took a thorough explanation of electricity for him to understand that it wasn’t magic that fueled it. He’d had a feeling that his master had stripped down their explanation for his sake, but he hadn’t realized he was missing this much information.

“But you seem to know quite a lot about these things. Are you from around here?” One look at the stranger told him that he was probably someone pretty contemporary. He fit in with a lot of the passersby, even if he was rather brightly colored.

By the large smile on his face after Seven explained, but no indication of deeper thought, Seven wondered if he truly understood it. That said, not a lot of people do and that’s alright. Maybe he was too technical? Maybe.

Oh! Okay so he hadn’t gotten it! But he was owning it at least and Seven liked that.

“By around here do you mean this city? Because no. But I am pretty good at electronics if I say so.” He shrugged a little as if that was supposed to help humble him. He did however start thinking less about this man’s entire lack of understanding of technology and more on his choice of words.

 “Wait, this modern age? You say that like you’re from another time and place all together. Well I mean...” He had a thought occur to him in that moment. It wasn’t impossible right? I mean he was here after all and not at home, so it could be... Looking both ways Seven cupped his hand to his mouth before whispering

Ango examined his new wooden wand. It honestly wasn’t much of a downgrade from his beginners wand at home. Though it was clear at this point that they were serious about his magic not functioning properly and he doubted that his flame cantrip was going to do much damage to a majority of these monsters.

After the menagerie around him, what caught Angus’ attention the most were all of the strange people he saw in this city. They seemed to be managing fine, so his next course of action should probably be to find out HOW. He tried his best to stay in a single area for awhile and just watch the others as they went about their business.

“There. They should be safe enough”

Angus walked up to the stranger with his wand drawn and mustered up his best good boy voice.

He was starting to, unfortunately, get more used to the scenery and the cityscape here after a few short weeks. One of his new main hobbies while waiting on use of the internet and a phone have been wandering around outside and getting lost while pretending to listen to music so people wouldn’t bother him. However, it didn’t stop everyone.

He had stopped walking to wait for the light of a crosswalk when he heard the smallest boy voice coming from the smallest boy he had ever seen. Wow he didn’t get out much if ten year-olds were a rarity.

He looked to the stick in Angus’ hand as he was spoken to. Did he think he was a wizard? Were there real wizards here? Seven couldn’t even joke about that without the thought that it’s actually happening here. There goes an entire book’s worth of prank ideas.