Chapter I - A Tragic Incident - Scott, Levra

"I wasn't worried about deletion..." Levra murmured gloomily, her recent F grade still hunting her from Math class. Were she an anime character, everything around her would have been comedically covered in unexplainable darkness.

Hearing mention of problem, she popped back into reality and took a look at the display to see what Valhallen was talking about.

"Levra, there is a mist covering the passage," Fircian chimed in, stating the obvious.

"Is this some kind of dramatic Boss marker or something...?" Levra stared at the foggy hole on the screen, unsure what exactly to think. She fiddled with the various buttons on her PET to activate the scanner, wanting to avoid unnecessary surprises.

"It might be." Scott replied next to her, trying to spot anything weird on the map they'd had traveled using the computer screen, "We could head back and try another route, but this here looks different. It feels like it would be a good spot for an exit to the maze or something."

"Then... Do we jump in there?" asked Val with a tone of concern, although somewhat joking about it, "It doesn't exactly feel great to end up splatted underneath a rock or something, you know?"

Meanwhile, a few seconds after the scanning, both Levra and Fircian would get the result of a virus signal coming from that hole in the floor, more than likely a sign that at least there was 'something' in there, even if it wasn't a good thing.

"Well, we have our virus in there, so that's a start," Levra confirmed, looking at the scan results. Meanwhile, Fircian stepped up to the pit and stared down into it.

"Shall I proceed?" Her Navi's perpetually unconcerned voice rang through the PET, breaking Levra's yet unformed train of thought.

"I don't know, the fog makes me nervous," the user responded to her Navi. She turned towards her partner, "What do yohbthink we should do, Scott?"

"Well, moving back would waste a lot of time and we're still on a timer for points, right? I think it's worth risking it. Do you want Val to be the one to jump first?" he asked way too casually for the reaction his navi made, almost comically offended at the thought of not even asking him for permission. "Worst case scenario you can always go back and complete the test on your own."

Levra thought about the backtracking if something were to go wrong. Running out of time would be awful, and they had already used up quite a bit of time as things were.

"Val seems a lot bulkier than Firci, so it would be better for him to go in and take the virus's attention while we figure out what they're up against," Levra commented on Scott's basis of a strategy, paying no mind to his Navi's reaction.

Fircian turned towards Valhallen, his arms crossed during the wait for a tactic to be settled upon. "You mustn't worry. They haven't directly stated you to be a projectile shield, yet."

Valhallen sighed, "We might as well get this over with." He replied, knowing full well he'd have to jump sooner or later. Following their logic, it was better if he went sooner. He dropped down through the mist and fell what seemed like a hundred meters below the ground, his entire vision covered in nothing but mist. Even though they aren't harmed by long falls, he couldn't avoid letting out a very unmanly scream, soon vanishing the mist from his vision on the pet, which Scott was holding up in the air for Levra to see, and smashing against the a ground made out of sand, giving them a short glimpse of a coliseum with a gigantic size, suddenly voices and roars fueling the speakers on the pet during the time it took Val to get back up on his feet. At least it looked safe.

"... Is that an audience?" Levra asked in disbelief as the sound blared through Scott's PET.

"... It's an audience," she forced herself to accept the absurd scenery on the screen as she turned to her PET. "Looks like you're gonna have some fans, Firci."

"I assume you're telling me to enter," Fircian responded to Levra's comment.
"Yup. It's a long drop."
"Understood."

The Navi spread his arms outwards as he dropped through the mist, an ever accelerating swan dive as he passed through the fog. As the view cleared and the ground appeared below, he repositioned himself so as to land on his feet mere inches in front of Valhallen.

The next post continues from here.