#vektoria

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Why was separating himself getting increasingly harder? Dante wanted to know before it drove him mad. Had his parents added some sort of bullshit 'gather' passive somewhere in his coding? Did they mean for Dante to somehow continue his testing out here when they hadn't told him where the computer and scanners might be? Sure, it was pretty obvious (locked towers, forbidden things, rumours; anyplace that was off limits just screamed of his parents' handiwork), but then he had no idea how to do the same work they had. He was never allowed to touch anything, after all.

He was fed up with the Rabbit Hole by this point. He never wanted to interact with another computer again. They'd left him all these constant reminders of how shitty they were willing to be, how escaping that trauma wasn't an option, and now they wanted to force him to make friends with the rest of their unwitting subjects?

Dante refused. Holy shit, he refused with every part of him that was fire and anger and done with this stuff.

Okay, so maybe they hadn't tweaked his code so that others wouldn't be afraid of him. Perhaps the other subjects simply recognised him on a subconscious level as having the same framework built into them and therefore didn't see his danger. Fiamma and Charon were easy to explain. They were just tormentors. But couldn't everyone else just stay away, like they'd always known to around a fire as volatile as him?

He'd write a letter to his parents demanding an explanation, but they wouldn't reply. They'd never reply. Not when there were experiments to run, testing to start. Not until he followed their orders and fed them the information they craved.

By this point, he'd rather burn down this school than ever return to the Rabbit Hole.

The sudden knocking on his room door snapped him out of that line of thought and back to the present moment. He took a moment to breathe again, to close his notebook abandoned on his bed (he'd tried designing some new wards, he really did, but frustration rose in him like molten magma and he ended up just pacing to get that out of him), then went to answer the door.

The Headmistress stood there, all smiles and practised politeness, as she chirped, "Good news, Vicaio. Your roommate has arrived." He had a boy behind her. A new character Dante hadn't seen around the school yet. She gestured for him to come forward, saying, "Don't be shy now, Ketziah. Meet your roommate."

The new boy seemed more interested in staring at Dante that doing much else. Maybe it was the shock of Dante's red eyes. Maybe it was the name association. This Ketziah had gold eyes, curious and almost glowing.

Whatever.

Dante opened the door the rest of the way to allow the two to enter. The Headmistress placed a box on the previously unclaimed bed (Ketziah's things, no doubt), then turned to address the new boy with her authoritative and somewhat approachable manner.

"If you have any questions, feel free to seek me out or one of the staff. Even Vicario can help you. I hope you come to think of this school as your home away from home in the meantime."

She nodded shortly to Dante, then left and closed the door behind her. Ketziah was intent on studying the room around him, a naive sort of wonder in his expression, so Dante went to sit back down on his bed. So much for having a place to himself anymore.

He picked up his sketchbook with the intent to get back to work, to make something workable in order to counteract his parents' shitty design choices, when Ketziah finally spoke up.

"A home away from home. Such an odd turn of phrase to use when every bit of code in this realm labels it as 'school' and nothing more."

Dante paused mid-pencil stroke and looked up at Ketziah, incredulous. Had he said, 'code'? Who talked like that? Why were all of his parents' subjects a bunch of weirdos and tech geeks? Ketziah caught his staring and smiled politely, straightening himself up almost regally.

"My apologies, we haven't been properly introduced yet. I am Vektor Ketziah, crown prince of the Mainframe Kingdom, golden Key and sworn protector to--"

"No."

Dante flinched at his own interjection while Ketziah paused in a mixture of confusion and annoyance. Dante had meant to voice that incredulousness, but 'Mainframe Kingdom'? That was too specific. That was too familiar. There was no way this guy was pulling a joke, a goof, as deeply cutting as that. And now that he looked for it, Ketziah did resemble that awful, awful child Dante once had the displeasure of knowing. Ketziah did remind him of worse times, of worse fucking times. Ketziah's expression decided on a grimace and he shook his head. "No one is willing to let me finish today. You, of all people, Inferno, I'd thought would understand."

"No!"

Dante stood this time, abandoning any semblance of polite and glaring down at Ketziah. The fires rose up his throat in a hotter, bubbling anger as he stared down at this torn piece of the First Child. A remnant of that tormentor from his childhood. Someone had activated those computers and gotten the two of them out and, of course, one of them still ended up with Dante. His parents had planned everything so carefully that it made this anger near overwhelming. It made him want to vomit the fires out and let them consume, to wash away all of this wrong and awful and leave nothing but ash in its wake.

He couldn't be afraid when he was this angry. There was no way the spectres would dare taunt him while he was fire and rage and burning.

And he was pressing all this heat down on Ketziah, who met all that anger with simple annoyance. He was also unafraid.

Dante had to reign in the flames, had to sit back down and force out his words with the steam and resentment and no embers or fire to spark anything. "Don't call me that. Don't ever refer to me as that again."

Surprisingly, Ketziah didn't argue. His tone only conveyed pragmatic and polite. "How would you like me to refer to you, then?"

"Dante." He didn't even need to give it any thought. "Just Dante."

He nodded once to himself, satisfied with that. Enough people here reminded him of his heritage. Ketziah frowned, but again mercifully didn't argue. "All right then. Dante."

The fires were still broiling, too upset to settle or be anything less than acceptable. Dante stood and checked the box quickly (there weren't any traces of them on it; why would there be? Caro and Lietta were careful and conniving and--), then grabbed his room key and left without explanation. Ketziah made a sound of protest, but didn't stop him. Smart decision there. Dante must have radiated enough danger to get the point across.

As he stormed across the campus, headed towards his favourite spot against the wall fencing them off from the rest of the world, he wondered if he was expected to write to his parents about this development. Seemed like their careful little plan didn't need him after all. At least, not to get it started. But no, they'd undoubtedly be forced to send him something about this, so he'd wait. He'd force them to contact him instead of being the one to reach out every time. Maybe that would satisfy this burning fire inside of him.

He exhaled a long breath, watching the steam rise into the chilly autumn air. Or maybe the fires would simply continue to grow until they consumed him, body and soul.

//

Jonathan was, to say in the least, just a little bit distracted.

Damon had been so excited when Vektoria emerged from the central scanner, saying something about the games beginning, but of course Damon would get excited about something childish like that. The real intrigue lay with the game itself, the system able to handle such a fantastical amount of processing, and everything being in goddamn Italian. Jonathan knew enough to get by, strangely, but operating this computer and its systems was a bit tricky without fully understanding what it was telling him.

And still, that wasn't the most interesting part. Or the thing that had him so distracted.

Vektoria's arrival led to the school introducing her as a new transfer. That much was expected, though he wondered how she got entered into the school's systems so quickly and without any fuss. The surprise came from there being a second new transfer, this one looking suspiciously similar to her but also radically different.

Vektor Ketziah, the 'lying prince' Vektoria was running from. His golden eyes and silvery hair were the most captivating features Jonathan had ever seen on another person.

"Hey, Jonathan! Earth to Jonny boy!" Natasha's cheery, insufferable voice (along with her well-aimed flick to his forehead) snapped him out of his thoughts and back into the moment. "Are you even listening to the conversation or are you just tuning us out over there?"

"Someone's been lost in his own thoughts more often than usual." Damon teased, standing in the place ahead of Natasha in the line to get lunch. That smug, self-important prick. "Somehow, I doubt it's over our newly discovered game we get to play."

Niculaie, who stood in front of Damon, glanced back in concern. "Is something wrong? Do you want to talk about it?"

"It's -- I'm fine." Jonathan stressed, ducking his head and avoiding their prying looks as best he could. "Even if not, it's none of your business, anyway. And stop calling me that, Zima."

Natasha laughed brightly and faced forward, placated for now. She wasn't about to stop giving him weird little nicknames, but she did engage Damon in some sort of discussion, meaning that prick at least wouldn't have another chance to prod at Jonathan. Niculaie got involved in their conversation as well (Jonathan caught something about the Fourth) and Jonathan scanned over the rest of the cafeteria. He found neither Vektoria nor the golden-eyed guy, but did spot Vicario sitting on his own again.

Vicario was Italian. Or, from Italy, at least. Jonathan could ask him for some help with the notes he'd scribbled down from the system.

He stepped out of the line and headed over, pulling his notebook out from his lab coat pocket. The others would no doubt notice (except for maybe Aglaé, despite standing directly behind Jonathan; that kid always had his nose buried in a book and honestly, what a valid way to put up with this motley gang), but Jonathan didn't really care about that right now. If they wanted an agreeable Navigator, then they'd have to just leave it alone. He was going to enjoy holding that little bit of power over their heads, even if they'd complain endlessly about it.

This time, as he neared the table, Vicario took notice of him and raised his head. It also looked like Vicario had actually eaten more of his food this time, though it also looked a little overcooked. That didn't bode well for Jonathan. He raised a hand in greeting, stopping to stand right across from Vicario's seat. "Hey."

Vicario looked a little uncertain, but waved a bit in return. "H-Hi."

"I have a favour to ask, if that's all right with you."

Jonathan held up his notebook to illustrate his meaning. Again, Vicario seemed wary and spoke slowly. "Um. We don't, uh. Share any classes?"

"Not about classwork." Jonathan shrugged and slid into the seat across from Vicario. "You can read Italian, correct?"

Vicario perked up noticeably, losing almost all of that caution. "Yes! Uh. Y-Yes, I am -- I c-can read it."

It was kinda cute how he tried to contain his excitement. Jonathan ended up smiling as he handed over his notebook, opened to the pages of scribbled notes he had on that computer. "Cool. Would you translate these for me, then, please?"

Vicario gently pushed his tray to the side, then pulled over Jonathan's notebook with a clear restrained excitement. A sort of emotion Jonathan was all too familiar with, for better or worse. As Vicario read over the words, he mouthed them to himself and it struck Jonathan that perhaps Vicario was homesick. Perhaps Vicario kept to himself for lack of having anyone to speak to using his native language. Vitayev had Ravenell, after all, but Vicario had no one, really. He pulled out a pencil and jotted words down on a blank page in Jonathan's notebook and Jonathan really, truly wished he could be friends with Vicario.

Being alone was nice and all, but having even one friend could be life saving. Jonathan knew that truth painfully welll.

Vicario paused a moment, then put his pencil down and handed the notebook back to Jonathan. "I think. That should, um, should be right."

Jonathan glanced over Vicario's neatly frantic writing and nodded appreciatively. "Thanks, Vicario. I owe you one."

"No, it's." Vicario stumbled a bit on his over-eagerness to dismiss Jonathan's gratitude, floundering a moment before picking back up. "It's, uh. Was m-my pleasure. Um, what's it -- it s-sounds like. Computer?"

Vicario pointed at Jonathan's notebook, his shyness doing a good job of masking that unabashed curiosity. Jonathan wondered briefly if he should even let Vicario know about this (the kid's parents were the heads of the Vicario Tech Industry, after all), but Vicario seemed like a good kid. Besides, it was pretty unbelievable to begin with. "Asheford found this computer thing here and it's all in Italian." He said.

For a moment, pure terror seized Vicario. It really took Jonathan aback at first. Was he afraid of computers? Was that why his parents had him sent out here instead of going to a more local schooling? The moment passed and Vicario bowed his head, his entire posture defeated. He mumbled something to himself, too quiet and unrecognisable for Jonathan to catch, then looked up and said, "I appreciate your sentiments, but. Please, don't involve me in this any further."

With that, before Jonathan had time to process the full meaning of those words, Vicario stood and left to dump the rest of his tray in the trash. He could only watch as Vicario left, too gobsmacked to react. Clearly, there was a deeper narrative here. It took a few minutes for Jonathan to collect himself enough to stand and go back to the lunch line, to collect his meal and continue on with his break. Damon and the others had all ready claimed their table to eat at, leaving Jonathan alone with these very troubling thoughts.

Was it hotter in the whole cafeteria all of a sudden? Despite the chill of late autumn outside, it wasn't enough for them to turn on the heaters yet. They usually held off until the first snows began to fall. Maybe it was just in Jonathan's head.

Once he had his food, he headed over to sit with Damon and the others. Niculaie greeted him politely enough, but Damon, ever the mischief maker, smirked at him with an incendiary, "And how was the Fireball today?"

Jonathan could go for a simple answer. Could easily dismiss things and thought more on it with his own time. But he was smarter than that. He levelled a cool, no nonsense look right back at Damon and said, "Tell me the truth here, Asheford. How long have you and Vicario known about this game?"

Damon lost all that smugness in his shock. Knocking the Kingpin off that pillar so soundly was definitely gratifying. Niculaie also seemed uneasy, however, guilty about something. This mystery seemed to keep getting deeper and more tangled by the minute.

Damon bowed his head, ready to talk. Right before he could, though, Vektoria dashed over to their table and slammed her hands down on it, interrupting all of their conversations and making them jump.

"Good for nothings, all of you!" She shouted.

Just as agitated as she'd been when they'd first met her. What a one-note character. Natasha smiled, though it wasn't out of politeness or even friendliness. "Wow. We've known you how long again? A day? And you're all ready calling us names?"

"I asked for your help and you agreed to give it to me." Vektoria huffed, standing upright and placing her hands on her hips. "So then what, might I ask, is HE doing here, allowed to roam free so uncontested?"

The entire table went silent in confusion. Jonathan hadn't noticed before, but it looked like even Aglaé had been startled from his book by her appearance. Gaëlle even snarled quietly at Vektoria for disturbing her little brother. Finally, Damon asked, "Uh, who?"

"That lying Prince!"

Again, they all shared a look with one another before Damon asked once more, "Who?"

"The unworthy, blithering fool of a royal! The one who means to stop my reign of terror back at the Mainframe! The one who is sworn to protect what I am desperately trying to erase!" She paused in her tirade, noticing that they were all still looking at her cluelessly, then groaned and spat out a name. "Vektor. The idiot Prince, Vektor."

"Ohh." Damon nodded along, finally getting it. As did the rest of their table. "Next question; why do you think any of us have the power to detain him in any way?"

"You're on my side, are you not?" Vektoria gave another noise of furstration, then took a step away from their table. "Whatever, I suppose I never formally welcomed you lot into my gang. I'll let this indiscretion slide for now."

Jonathan's eye twitched. This girl may have claimed to be a poor thief, but she had the airs of a spoiled rich brat if he'd ever seen one. Almost eerily similar to how Damon could get, in fact. Damon grimaced and Niculaie shook his head, drooping. Aglaé, who had yet to return to his book for once, aimed his unimpressed frown at Vektoria as he asked, "Are we to assume you took care of the problem yourself and that's why you're so upset?"

She seemed to perk up at this, less angry and more agreeable for once. "Right. I was here the whole time. As my gang, you're duty bound to corroborate my alibi."

She nodded once, then took off and left the cafeteria. Not even giving any of them a chance to get a word in edgewise. Jonathan was sure that she'd bring them more trouble than she was worth. And by the general air of annoyed disbelief shared around the table, he could see that everyone agreed with him on this one. Damon rubbed at his forehead and sighed heavily, slumping forward in his seat to lean against the table. "I'll tell you the whole story later, Jonathan." He said.

"I hope she didn't actually do anything bad to him." Niculaie mumbled, still frowning after Vektoria. As sensitive as ever.

Natasha leaned over to pat him on the back reassuringly. "If she did, the teachers'll notice right away, at least."

"Yeah, classes and all." Charon joined in. She stood, her empty tray in hand. "I'm going ahead, see you all later."

She grinned in parting, then headed out of the cafeteria as well. Jonathan twirled his fork in his food idly (it was spaghetti and meatballs today, because of course it would be; notably, though, not as overcooked as Vicario's portion had been) and considered all this evidence he had before him.

Damon knew Vicario long before they attended this school. That much was a certainty. And, from the little bit Vicario had revealed, Vicario knew about this game on their school's campus. Vektor and Vektoria had both come from this game, meaning Vicario and Damon had to either know of them or had known them personally before this, too.

And with two computer systems. Well. It seemed like they were going to have themselves a challenge much sooner than they'd thought.

That just left Jonathan with the privelage of paying attention to who exactly had let Vektor out of the other system. Jonathan busied himself with eating and pulled out his notebook to check those translations Vicario had graciously given him. He'd been too caught up in shock to remember to check them until now.

Hearing whatever Damon had to say about the whole thing, then cross-referencing it with whatever he could get from Vicario would be a great way to pass the time. He could even take a late night stroll to clear his head some more.

First appearance of Damon and gang in the game!!! I feel kinda bad sticking long descriptions into anything anymore, but I do love it when I get the chance to describe a character. I've been drawing these kids for years now, so I was gonna make sure to give them a moment to shine. ;w;

there are a bunch of fun details in this chapter in how the game works. like the hint that Vektoria's path through the game is actually on a parallel stretch to Vektor's! And that their systems are separated so that Paige can only hear the players loaded into hers, while Dante and Petel and them can't hear the other Navigator, Jonathan while inside the game. (Paige can't either, but that should be a given hahaha) It's an unbalanced sort of PvP setup because that's not something the Creators ever gave much thought to hahaha. and also to discourage them from befriending one another, I guess.

We also get a brief rundown of how the game's enemies work, with the Classes and the Non-Hostiles. Every single Non-Hostile, Dante recognises as decidedly not usually benign, but this is a Petel POV chapter so we don't get that detail until later hahaha. And Vektor gets offended at being called an NPC because of the literal meaning of the words. I love little moments of Vektor not quite grasping nuance, it makes him a fun character to have bounce off of these more human ones hahaha.

we also get to see that Damon and his gang don't really listen to Vektoria, kinda like how none of Petel and crew listen much to Vektor hahaha. the kids hate being told what to do! and Vektoria is wayyy worse at it than Vektor. I unfortunately don't get to show much of the abrasion between Vektoria and Damon's gang in here, but it does show through at least a little! Petel and the others see it and are constantly thankful they have an annoyance like Vektor instead of a less-forgiving Vektoria, at least. Though I feel bad for Vektoria, she's made several decisions as to why she's so antagonistic and no one understands that really. (not that she'd ever explain it, she's very stubborn)

This is also the first time we get to see Vektor and Vektoria immediately resort to battle instead of, like. listening to anyone else on their teams hahaha. the flippant way Damon and the others treat it is fun, I like that all the kids equally treat this as just a fun distraction (outside of Dante and the two AI programs).

Abraham stabbing his eyes was a last minute change hahaha. He used to just stab himself in the chest, but then I was like "wait I have a source for the bad code in him" and changed it to stabbing out his eyes. Not entirely sure how that would work, considering spoilers, but it's a game and their forms aren't completely solid so I'm using some uhhh exploits here. =7=

(Dante shouting "Liar!" at Damon is meant to have weight, but like. I didn't know how to frame it better or build up to it more. I had to cut out like several scenes in which Dante actually interacted with Damon and Niculaie before the Locked Out chapter, so this probs sounds like it comes outta nowhere in the moment whoops. Dante and Damon's whole relationship gets better explained in Book 2 I just wish I was able to fit it into Book 1 better aaaaaaa)

And then Niculaie's Berserk! I'll be honest, I followed a very simple formula for each level of the game in writing this story hahaha. The kids always get to see a Berserk from their opponents and it's just because I wanted to show them off since I designed all of them. I think, had this been in Dante's POV and not Petel's, we might've gotten more actual heartache over Niculaie becoming a giant Vampire Bat. Niculaie himself is a very fun character who gets underutised because my cast is too damn big, but Heritage and Inheritance are important themes to his character. He's inherited this vampirism from his family and he fucking hates it, my poor boy. ;w;

Petel reaching his decision to apologise to Sonya is also really nice. we love a wolf who can recognise they were in the wrong about something. ;w; and the chat they and Vektor have is honestly one of my fave little moments. I love pairing off the characters to have talks because it gives me time to really explore their personalities and motivations and dynamics. Vektor also gets to talk a bit about the story as it's been written for him (and we unfortunately don't get to see Vektoria's side on it. probs at all. ughhhhhhhh) and we get a cool Actraiser reference since the Mainframe Kingdom is built directly on top of the Mainframe in order to seal away the enemies living inside!! listen if there is one thing I loved doing in this book it was referencing some of my fave video games (there are two whole Undertale references in this book lol)

and then Petel and Sonya get to hug and mostly make up. ;w; Sonya and Petel are bffs and I wanted to get that out there a bit more, since Sonya doesn't get as much time to shine, but I love the little worry birdie as much as Petel and co. do so this was a nice little moment for that. ;w;