46: Family Gaming

As a whole, the evening passed without much note. Slade showed up around five, and the family cooked together before having a pleasant dinner. Once done eating, the five of them took a short break in the training room where Nyssa greeted Roxanne’s spirits. After she transformed into each of the spirits one by one and hung out for around half-an-hour, they returned to the living room, booted up a gaming system, and played some party games for most of the evening.

Roxanne, to no one’s surprise, wrecked everyone. As the victory screen shone for her win three times in a row, she pumped her fist. “I’m just built different, built better.”

“Have you been training?” Slade shook his head. He had managed to snatch a very close second, only losing by a hair. “I thought you were on a mission...”

“Well, you know how we get terminals issued by the hero and hunter associations?” Roxanne pointed to her wrist, where the terminal sat silenced. “There was a terminal only game released a while back, some bricklaying game, it has a ton of different features, so I’ve been playing that a lot recently.”

“Good to... know,” Slade nodded, making a mental note.

“Don’t slack off too much during work,” Kaiser reminded while raising the eyebrow. He, along with Nyssa, brought up the rear in their five-person game. “Angelica, you shouldn’t slack off either, but I trust you more than I trust the two of them.”

“HAH! Take that,” Angelica grinned, leaning back against the couch to lay her head in Roxanne’s lap. “I’ve just built up the credibility, heh.”

“Well, it’s unfair, because you can enter the zone anytime you want,” Roxanne huffed, placing her controller onto Angelica’s face and blocking her smug look. “What do you all want to play next though? We can change games if you want.”

“I’m fine with anything...” Nyssa yawned, her head bobbing a couple times as she sat between Slade and Roxanne.

“Rematch.” Slade raised a fist while turning to face Roxanne. “I’ll get you this time, trust me. If Nyssa didn’t accidentally sabotage me by sleepily pressing a couple buttons, I would’ve won.”

“Well, that’s just a skill issue. If you knew her as well as me, you would’ve been able to predict that she would do that and account for that within your playing strategy,” Roxanne shrugged and stuck her tongue out. “I’m down for a rematch though.”

With the other two, Kaiser and Angelica, murmuring their agreement, Roxanne booted up the next round. The console’s screen faded to black. A small loading emblem appeared in the corner, pulsating with light. A woosh sound effect sounded out, and the game began. It marked the beginning of a long night of their little house party. Snacks and alcohol got pulled out at some point, someone took a nap at another point, and they played through an entire playlist of music. Trailing long into the night, the five of them hung out until midnight before Slade, Roxanne, and Angelica headed off back to their own homes.

---

A crashing sound filled the lab as several monitors buzzed to black. Torn off the wall, each monitor came crashing to the ground as exposed wires sparked in the air. A gargantuan masked figure stalked through the lab, pointing at each and every other masked figure one by one. As the figure stalked through the lab, a robotic voice came out from under its mask. “WHAT. ARE. YOU. ALL. DOING?”

“W-What do you mean, supreme leader?” A more slender masked man bowed a couple times. “Please enlighten us as to where we went wrong.”

The leader swung his arm. A resounding slap filled the room and the slender masked man made a new home in the metal wall. He twitched before sliding down to the floor where the others tended to him. Unhurt, he touched his face while muttering “I'm just so honored the supreme leader spared the effort to touch me” under his breath.

“Has nobody seen the new post on the Hunter’s Society website?” The robotic voice came crackling through once more. “How has our intelligence team allowed this to happen? Who didn’t clean out the lab and who left one of our test modules unsupervised? How did our spies allow for the post to even be made? A group of STUDENTS managed to find our experimental mana module. HOW?! SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS INADEQUACY TO ME!”

“W-Well the association home page is... well, you know, run by a lot of people, we don’t have the power to just not let something get posted, after all its a very transparent organization, practically all their information is available to the public,” A different masked person answered—from the back of the room. “We did manage to lower its urgency rating though. So, it shouldn’t draw much attention. It’ll get buried soon enough and we’ll be able to continue with our plan.”

A creaking sound filled the room as the monitor in the supreme leader’s hand got lowered back to the ground. “Makes... sense. What about the rest. Someone answer.”

“As for the negligence with the lab, we had to... uh... we hired some contractors to clean it out and it seemed like... they didn’t do a very great jo-” The new masked figure got cut off as a monitor slammed into them. They fell to the floor as a couple masked medical staff workers rushed in and carted the worker off.

“Why are WE, a PREMIER experimental organization, one that’s top-secret, one aiming to change the world, HIRING CONTRACTORS????” The leader roared, the robotic voice broadcaster crackling and letting out static under the stress.

“We’ll ensure such a mistake doesn’t happen in the future, supreme leader,” A masked figure bowed. “The experimental module was an unforeseen circumstance. It was buried far underground in a nest of centipedes. Unless the centipedes themselves dug it up, there should’ve been no way for the machine to have even been exposed to air. Because of that, we decided to leave our guards with the other experimental modules. Rest assured, those are still providing great results and none have been discovered.”

“... Fine. Prepare a report for me of the rest. I’d like to see the data,” the supreme leader tapped its foot. A second later, it whirled around and left the room as everyone began rushing to complete their work.

The sound of its clanking footsteps filled the hallway. It wove through the gleaming lab as other masked figures filled the area. Doors slid open as it neared, allowing it further and further into the lab, all the way until it reached the heart of the laboratory.

A massive reactor glowed in the darkness. Towering into the ceiling, it pulsated with life as mechanical additions dotted its surface. Tubes went in, tubes came out, screens implanted into its surface glowed, and liquids of various viscosities and colors flowed inside of its translucent body.

As the last set of doors slid closed behind it, the supreme leader peeled off its mask. Instead of a human face though, the supreme leader had a faceless metallic plate. Walking forward, it sat into a cove-like depression in the side of the reactor. Within seconds, metallic and organic tendrils disassembled the supreme leader’s entire body, leaving only the face plate sitting in the cove.

A singular metallic arm grabbed the plate, lifting into the air before setting it against the wall. Light reflected off the faceplate, joining the array... as face plates decorated every wall in the reactor room.