[Maruem]

Maruem noticed the short figure to his right shake her head out of the corner of his eye, or was it his head... Either way, a head was shaken, and looking down at the purple haired child and though a private message to her, he could not be sure she would receive it, but after just a brief glance at the young faunri fox girl, he focused his mind.
"Axey, Atlas, ...Ellie, I'm very sorry for doing this, but there's something I'd like to talk to Katarina about in private, so I apologize, but I'm going to have to disconnect for a bit."
He spoke over the telepathic phone line, his right index finger pressed against his ear. It felt so strange speaking like that, as if he were playing spies or something. He was just mimicking the motions Axey and Atlas had made, and it seemed to be working out so far, but he assumed he would have to figure things out on his own eventually. He definitely would not have thought of holding his ear to communicate long distance though, at least, not at first. He assumed it worked vaguely like group calls where everyone could hear everyone else connected, but did they have to hold their ears the whole time? Could pressing their shoulder to their ear so they had two free hands work? What if someone else held their ear? These were questions that needed answers, just maybe not right this moment.

Axey spoke first, with Ellie speaking up shortly after.

"It's alright, sounds like it's important. Talk to you later."

"Yeah, you seem like we could get along really well."


Then, out of telepathy, Atlas leaned in close to Maruem and whispered to him that he was Axey's type.

"Um... Thanks" Maruem replied.
He was hardly thinking about a relationship at the moment. It just had not really come to mind since the whole 'stuck in a game for the time being' thing happened.

Yet another thing on his mind as he disconnected from the two, no, three players  was this Ellie character. He would be lying if he said he was not at least a bit surprised to hear a third introduction from the two people before him. He had never really met anyone with multiple personalities, or if he had, he did not know about it. Still, Ellie seemed like a nice enough girl, so perhaps this was something he would just have to get used to.

He focused his mind on disconnecting from both Atlas and Axey, and also Ellie. He sat down against a small stack of bricks, perhaps the remnants of a well and truly ruined old building. As he did so, Axey gave his response to the stranger about whether he had seen the man's friend or not. MAruem was not focused on that any more. Maruem casually went into his menu and sent an invitation to a private call to Katarina. After it was sent, he moved himself into position. He had his hands resting against his face, with his right thumb touching his right earlobe. He looked contemplative, deep in thought even, but hopefully his deception was not so obvious. 

Hopefully connected to Kat, he decided to test if his ruse would work. He was nervous, but not very much so. If he failed and the first few words come out out-loud he could stop himself or just play it off as him making a comment, but he would prefer not to have to. Carefully, he focused on the link with Katarina. 
"I think that..." 
Relief. He felt far more at peace now that he knew his test line worked. It was vague enough that if he had said it out loud he probably could have found a way to make it work, but as the telepathy had worked, he began his conversation. 
"Hey, Kat, are you... are you doing alright? You seem crestfallen, did I miss something? I thought what you did with that finger painting was pretty cool, so that's something to be proud of, is it not?" 

Maruem genuinely did think the writing skill was impressive, with the added benefit that it seemed to come with very nice shades of color. He spoke to Katarina with his hands covering his mouth, as intended he heard no sound escape his lips, instead all of it seemingly being sent to the young girl. If all was going well, he was connected only to her, so he hoped that it was not some strange system where anyone could just listen in, although there was still the chance that if she was still connected to Atlas and Axey, they might over hear, but he really doubted they would hear his end. If they could hear anything, it was likely they would only be able to hear any responses she made.

Maruem's attention briefly shifted back to the conversation while uttering his message to Kat. What broke his concentration was that he heard Altas say "Such as Big Time Rush" with the last three words being a little too exaggerated for Maruem's taste. And suddenly, with a look of pure joy on his face, the Axolotl faunri broke into song. It was a loooong ten seconds, and during that time Maruem, still somewhat istracted, finished his message and then waited intently, listening for a response from Katarina.

"...sorry"


Maruem suddenly became aware that the music had stopped. The small voice felt so out of place compared to the powerful and confident voice Maruem had just heard singing. He looked at the axolotl.
"Why are you apologizing?"
He was truthfully curious considering the bliss the bard seemed to have been experiencing just moments prior. Though he would not deny he was relived to have the song end, that was more to do with it being a bit of a distraction from his conversation, and hardly reason to apologize for performing.

He looked back up at the silvery winged newcomer with a simple smile adorning his face. He tried to listen intently, and fortunately it was not too much more of a detailed description from the winged man, who had introduced himself as Vincent.

Having had heard what Vincent had said about his friend, Maruem was no less certain he had not met nor even seen the man's friend. Since the man had described his friend in more detail, it stood to reason that even though he could picture the friend better, the fact that he had not seen him did not change.
"Sorry, all the extra detail did was confirm for me that I definitely have not seen your friend".

Maruem could not place his finger on it, but something in the way Vincent looked at the group made him uncomfortable. He could not be sure what was going on in the slender silvery Enoch's head, but whatever it was, the looks the group was getting from the man were not ones seeking to form a friendship, at least from what Maruem could read off of them.

He liked the three strangers he had met. The two friends, Axey and Atlas, both seemed like fine people, and he looked forward to getting to know them better. And he very much liked the fox faunri Kat. he was not entirely sure why, maybe having something or someone to protect just put him at ease, maybe he just felt a sense of kinship with the young girl... boy... god damn it, this was definitely going to take time.

He was rather neutral about the Enoch, Vincent. He liked to see the good in people, and had a feeling that the man was not bad, per say, but whether it was inherently part of Vincent, or amplified by the angelic body, or just the stress of the current event effecting all of them, Maruem felt like he was being looked at with condescension, and the gaze seemed to drift to all the others gathered there.

Maruem once again decided to contact Kat telepathically, his hands once again covering his mouth in a contemplative look.
"Hey, I don't know about you, but I'm honestly pretty curious about exploring this place. It's not every day you get trapped in a magic, half-scale, lively model of earth. Would you like to come with me? I don't know much about the layout of Rome, nor the topography of the surrounding area, but it might be fun to get to know. If this is just a temporary thing, then it's probably best to not waste the limited time we have not exploring it, that just seems like a shame. And if this is permanent, well then it can only help to know the lay of the land."

He sat up and brushed the dust and dirt from his back and bottom. Clapping his hands together to get rid of any remaining debris from pushing himself up off the ground, he spoke rather calmly, but with a hint of curious excitement. He was ready to get a move on and to discover more about where he was.
"Well... It has been nice getting the chance to meet you all. Hopefully we run into each other again at some point. That being said, I'd like to explore a bit and see if I can't find any friends who may have logged in in time to get trapped like we did."

He looked at Vincent.
"I apologize for the quick goodbye, but good luck with finding your very big Antas friend."
He said with a nod, and then turned his head to the two friends who were the first people he had added to his friends list.
"And good luck to the two of you too. Axey, you have a nice voice, so keep practicing your new ability."
And then he turned to Kat and said "Good luck to you as well, See you around, Rocky".

Maybe it was not the greatest nickname in the world, or the most interesting, but Mareum though it fit the seemingly snarky child well enough. He had a good friend in the past who was also a lefty, and even more snarky, so "Rocky" seemed like a decent enough inheritance. He had seen Kat write on the wall with her left hand so he assumed it was a shared trait between the two of them. There is no harm in giving a nickname before a goodbye he thought silently to himself as he began to turn away from the group of strangers.

Word Count: 1757
Total Word Count: 3596+1757= 5353
Tags: Katarina , Atlas , Axey , Cat
Notes: Refined, Edited, and hopefully well written.

[Katarina]

While she would prefer to keep moping over her now lost masculinity, Kat couldn't help but note that the axolotl was staring at her in apparent disapproval. What'd she do? Was he seriously going to blame her for telling the newcomer that she was pretty preoccupied with her own issues? What was the—

—she looked back over to Maruem and the others, their lips moving in silent conversation.

Ah. Right.

That's what she forgot to do.

Silently, she brought up her menu and moved over to the voice chat options, accepting the request Maruem had sent her however long ago. Why didn't she know? Seriously, what kind of game turned off notifications by default?

Honestly, it was likely that she had just clicked past it without realising in her profile image panic, but she'd never admit that. Anyway, it seemed like she had joined successfully, so at the very least—

—Huh?

She stared at the list of people currently in the telepathy session.

Katarina
Maruem

And that was it. Axey and Atlas weren't in it. Well, that was encouraging.

Kat jumped slightly as she heard Maruem's voice inside her head. Well, maybe that wasn't the right term. It wasn't that she had heard it; it was telepathy, after all. No sound had left his mouth. The words and sounds were simply just there in her mind. Honestly, it was somewhat unsettling, though she supposed she'd have to get used to it.

Maruem seemed to have realised that something was wrong, asking the Faunri if she was doing alright. Kat couldn't help but silently laugh to herself. 'Why yes Maruem, indeed you've done it! That is the question of the hour!' she thought to herself bitterly. Was she doing alright? Why, that was a very good question. The fact that she's started to use the word "she" without questioning it at all made her think that the answer could very well be "No". The fact that she used the word "her" as well while acknowledging this made her certain. Still though, she did appreciate that at least one person in this group was semi-receptive of her current problems—

「I thought what you did with that finger painting was pretty cool, so that's something to be proud of, is it not?」

He thought she was a kid.

She wanted to fucking cry.

So that was why he seemed so protective of her. Joel had latched onto the sudden gender swap and the animal body parts; he had almost forgotten that he was fucking prepubescent now. No wonder the Gladiator was prepared to die for her. From memory, she had placed her avatar's appearance at around eleven years old (she'd check her profile image again to get a better idea, but truthfully she wasn't nearly prepared to see that face again), so she had (physically at least) grown roughly seven years younger. Why the actual fuck did she think making an avatar like this was a good idea? No, she didn't; it wasn't even fully intentional. She screwed up by accidentally moving the height slider down near the minimum and couldn't be assed to fix it. No, instead she decided to redesign the whole damn avatar around the fuck up.

God, she hated past Joel so much right now.

Sighing once again and questioning where exactly she went wrong in life, she thought out a reply to Maruem. Something along the lines of 'for fucks sake, I'm eighteen you actual piece of shit', but it didn't seem like he got the message. Alright, so telepathy wasn't just as simple as that then. Good to know. Truthfully, she was only half interested in figuring out this mystery, but she really needed a distraction from all this.

The axolotl was singing the theme for Big Time Rush now. Had the universe itself forsaken her? She had a feeling she knew the answer.

Trying her best to ignore that travesty, she thought back to the various telepathic conversations that she had completely missed out on during her moping. What did everybody speaking through telepathy do?

—their lips moving in silent conversation—

Alright, so clearly it wasn't entirely based on thought. At the very least, you had to mouth the sounds you were trying to make. Part of her wished that she had paid more attention to the rest of the group during her little discovery phase, since she could distinctly remember them all doing something physically. Something to do with their ears, maybe?

A thought occurred. Well, it couldn't hurt to try.

Making sure that Maruem was still connected, she brought her hand up to her ear and uttered a quick 「Testing」. To her surprise, no sound left her mouth. She could still hear what she had said, but much like Maruem's highly degrading comments from earlier, it was all in her mind rather than due to any real noise leaving her. Though Maruem didn't reply, she could've sworn she saw him quickly glance at her, so she'll dub this one a success. Whoop-de-doo. Apparently telepathy was literally just the Codec this whole time; who would've thought. At the very least she wouldn't have to worry about accidentally transmitting any thoughts she didn't want heard.

Closing the menu but keeping the link open, Kat decided to actually pay attention to the group as a whole for once. The Enoch—who had now identified himself as Vincent—elaborated more on the Antas' appearance, though it didn't help much. She shook her head. "I haven't seen anybody who meets that criteria. Sorry." It didn't seem like Vincent was all too surprised at that, though the scoff caught her off guard. 'Well, you're a little bit of a prick, aren't you?' She made a mental note to watch out for the apparently haughty angel.

Glancing over at Maruem (while trying to swallow the bitter and spiteful feelings his botched attempts at comfort gave him), it seemed that he wasn't quite sure how to feel about Vincent either. All of the tension that had left him earlier seemed to have returned, and a slight frown rested on his face. Making use of the open telepathic line, he proposed that the two of them explore their new world. While it was said rather casually and Kat had to admit that she was extremely curious about this new land, she had to wonder exactly how much of that suggestion was prompted by the Enoch's arrival. Was he about to leave the group?

Yeah, that's exactly what he was doing. Alright then. Well, at the very least she appreciated the invitation. She wasn't 100% sure if she was going to take him up on his offer; after all, exploring meant monsters, monsters meant combat, and combat could mean deaths. Not being certain of if respawning was a thing or not was a very big concern of hers. Still though, something told her she should probably stick around Maruem. He seemed... familiar, to say the least.

Extremely familiar, actually.

Watching him stand up and brush off all the dirt off of his gear, she could've sworn that she recognised his get-up-and-go attitude from somewhere. He wasn't anybody that she knew in real life; that much she was sure of. But what about people she knew online? He had said he had been playing Gaia for a few years now; it was entirely possible that this guy was someone she had partied with once before. Plus, while she couldn't place a face to the name, "Zephyr" definitely sounded familiar. But who...?

She recalled his fifth introduction.

—Back in the real world, I used to be a lumberjack—

'Wait a minute.'

—I also enjoyed HEMA practice at the club not too far from my home.—

'Waaaiiit a minute.'

Katarina held her breath as Maruem turned to face her.

"See you around, Rocky."

Klide, you son of a bitch.

Joel couldn't help but laugh at the situation, more than likely catching everyone off-guard. "Sorry, but no." he called out to the Gladiator, who was currently in the process of leaving. "You don't get to drop a bomb like that on me and then just leave, Klide. That's not how this works." Truthfully, he had expected to run into Dumah before anybody else he used to party with, but this was a welcome surprise. Joel assumed that Klide wouldn't have logged in during this mess given the fact that he only seemed mildly interested in the expansion at best, but apparently not.

He wasn't complaining; this was the best news he had heard all day. Klide was always more reliable anyway.

"So, tell me." Joel began with mock interest. "When you were occupying yourself with shattering my self esteem, did you know it was me? Did you figure it out afterwards? Or are you just so unoriginal with your nicknames that you couldn't come up with another one that wasn't taken?"

Honestly, knowing him, it was probably the latter. The teen turned loli could always hope for option two though.

---

Word Count: 1,500
Total Word Count: 6,581
Tags: Maruem Axey Atlas Cat
Notes: The final word count for this post is oh-so-satisfying to me.

[Atlas]

"Try to calm down and describe them in better detail so we can help you, there's no need to be in such a Big Time Rush"

As soon as she said those words she realized her mistake.
Dammit, Axey's habit of nonchalantly quoting Vines is infectious. was the only thing she had the time to think before Axey started singing.
To be fair, it does work for helping people relax in tense situations. I honestly doubt we'd be so calm right now hadn't it been for Axey lightening the mood.
Atlas coudn't stop herself from showing a slight smile as Axey sang Yeah, I guess you're right.

Once Axey was done he apologized swiftly and put his hand back to his ear to use the voice chat.
Seeing Maruem confused at him apologizing he started explaining. "Atlas, can you tell Maruem that- no, wait, I'll try to speak myself."
Axey took his hand off his ear, turned to Maruem, cleared his throat and... did his best. I guess that counts as something, right? Something about missing shots you don't take.
"For interUPting an imPORTant conversAtion." he said, his voice now the complete opposite of the smooth pitch perfect singing he showed mere seconds ago, lacking any sort of grace. God fucking dammit. 

"I'm proud of you for trying, if it's any consolation. You'll get the hang of it soon enough."
"Thanks, I guess..."

Weird, if I'm moving my mouth to speak telepathically why does it come out the way I want it to? I guess it's more affected by the intention of speaking rather than the act of doing so.

Once that was done Atlas turned her attention to the Enoch as he introduced himself. There's something about the way he's looking at us I don't like.
Let's try not to judge yet, maybe his character just has a 'resting bitch face' and he's actually a nice guy.
Ellie and Atlas thought as he described his friend.
"2 meters 43? I didn't even know the slider went that high. Maybe the max value depends on race. At any rate, no I haven't seen anyone taller than me. I'll let him know you're looking for him if I do see him. One sec, I'll add you to my friends list so I can message you if I happen to meet him. The name's Atlas, this guy is Axey." she said while patting the Faunri on the back.

Maruem started saying goodbye to the group which reminded Axey that there was a literal whole new world to explore out there. Despite knowing he should be way more freaked out than he was, he couldn't help but feel excited to explore. I guess if we're really stuck here I might as well know the place I'm stuck in. And if we're not then I should explore as much as possible before going back. as he thought that he decided it was probably best to have a Paladin alongside him while exploring.
"Hey, I'm thinking of exploring a bit around the nearby area, hopefully find some secluded place where I can try to learn to speak, wanna come?"
"Ellie and I think we'll stay in the city for a little bit, try to help some people calm down and maybe talk to some NPCs- wait are they even NPCs? Do they have actual sentience now that we're in the game?"
"I don't know I guess that's for you to find out. I'll see you later."

"Axey and I will be each going on our own ways now. Hopefully we'll meet again."
As the duo was leaving a sudden "Sorry but no." made them stop dead on their tracks and turn around to see what was going on. So she doesn't wanna meet me again. Fair enough I guess. Still haven't got a single clue as to what I did.
To his relief it seemed Kat was not talking to him. She was talking to Maruem who seemed to be the most surprised of all.
"-Klide"
So they knew each other in real life then? Axey had remade his old character to the most precise detail, while Atlas was using her real name, so they hadn't thought about the possibility of not recognizing their acquaintances. Well, this opens a whole can of worms doesn't it.

Axey kept walking. Although he was curious about this he figured it was a private thing between Maruem (who was apparently named Klide before) and Kat. Weird, for some reason I can't help but think of it as "before we got here" rather than "outside of the game".
Unlike Axey, Atlas was always eager to stick her nose where it wasn't welcome. "So I'm guessing you two knew each other?"

---

Word Count: 790
Total Word Count: 710+790 = 1500
Tags: Katarina Cat Maruem
Notes: He spoke so badly the font changed.

[Cat]

"Ah, right. Sorry for the bother." Vincent sighed softly, his lips curling up in a small smile at the least. He reached up with his left hand to stroke through his hair a bit, idly putting it back in its place as he looked over the people in front of him. They seemed like they had things together more so than most, but there were obvious awkward communication errors going on. As to be expected, ten minutes after people got isekai'd.

"Oh, a friend request?" The Enoch stared blanky at Atlas for a while. Interface, friend request, telepathy. How did he do all that? A cold sweat broke out as he stammered a bit, trying to hide the obvious fact he had no idea how to do any of this. "Ah, sure, thank you, give me a minute.." "Alright, Vince, UI. There's several ways to call them up. Maybe just focus. UI. UI. Interface.." His eyes widened and his jaws' clench slackened slightly as, right before him, an interface popped up like some sort of futuristic hologram. He reached out with his hand to touch it, and his hand went right through it - but by doing so, he did push on a menu item. He quickly backed out of it, and within seconds was already familiar with the layout of it all. Social, friends.. Add friend.. A-T-L-A-S. Or, alternatively, player list, select atlas, and then send friend request. Convenient. Within a few seconds, the titaness Paladin could hear the tiny blip of a friend request being send to her.

"Oh, shit. That's a great idea, actually." "Thank you again, Atlas. You actually gave me a great idea, I could add him.. Hm, no, I can't send a friend request this way to Flavio. Bizarre." He grimaced. He waqsn't expecting anyone to really pay attention, but nonetheless he muttered out loud. "Seems we can't add friends at a distance. Seems very impractical.. Maybe this is due to what just happened? Ah well, I'll find him some way. Thanks again."

The tall Enoch, hard to miss with his wings, hair and shape, smiled much more sincerely now towards the entire group, even if they weren't paying attention. With that, he commited their faces to memory and simply strode off into the crowd once more, sighing to himself.

---

Word Count: 386
Total: 1514
Notes: tfw your thread's entire word count doesn't even surpass that of a single post of Kat

Tags: Katarina@klidecifer@mrroboto

[Maruem]

It was a very sudden burst of high pitched laughter from his side that caught Maruem off his guard as he began to walk away from the crowd of strangers. "Is... is Kat alright?" He thought as he turned around to face the group once more. She was giving him a strange look. There was a glint in her eyes as if she had just put together a bunch of details and was now at the eureka moment of the conclusion she had come to.

"Sorry, but no."
"You don't get to drop a bomb like that on me and then just leave, Klide. That's not how this works."
"So, tell me. When you were occupying yourself with shattering my self esteem, did you know it was me? Did you figure it out afterwards? Or are you just so unoriginal with your nicknames that you couldn't come up with another one that wasn't taken?" The small fox child called out with mock interest.

Maruem was at a loss of words for a moment, trying to process the words spoken to him. "I'm sorry... what? I'm pretty sure I haven't introduced myself as 'Klide', so where do you know that name from? Have we RP'ed together before?" He paused for a moment realizing that everyone could hear this conversation. “I... I guess so?” He said to Atlas before returning his thoughts to and realizing that he had never actually disconnected from his telepathic conversation with Kat, mostly in the hopes that they would be coming along with him.

Over the mind link he spoke only to Katarina, pinching his ear right before he spoke. "Kat?" No sound in his ears, the telepathy was working as intended. “Can we please talk in private? It's clear we have important information to discuss, between the two of us.” With that, he began to walk away again, with Kat catching up surprisingly fast for someone with such short legs. “Alight, Goodbye again everyone!” He said, waving to Vincent, Atlas, and Axey, as he turned away and walked with Kat in a random direction between ruined buildings.

He felt tense before he spoke, nervous even. He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly before beginning. “K...” his lips were dry and it was interfering with his speech. He licked his lips and tried again, worried about what the response may be. “Kat? What did you mean when you said 'shattering your self esteem'? Did I do something that hurt you? Did I say something that hurt you? I mean I guess obviously I did, but I promise what whatever it was, it wasn't intended in a bad way. I would never intentionally hurt a child, or anyone really for that matter. At least, not without a good enough reason to.”

It was quiet for what felt like forever. It was probably only a few seconds, but it was too long for him. “I really didn't mean to...” And then it hit him. “Wait a minute... I just did it again didn't I. You, you're not a child are you Kat.” To Maruem, it was the last line she, or should he think 'he', had spoken to him that gave it away.

“Did you figure it out afterwards? Or are you just so unoriginal with your nicknames that you couldn't come up with another one that wasn't taken?”

Kat was not just “Rocky” here, he had been “Rocky” before, he knew the nickname, and if that was the case, then Maruem, or as he had called him, 'Klide' knew him.

His hand almost went back up to his ear in an effort to keep the conversation quiet, but from looking around the figures in the area were not focused on them. There was a very big man, sobbing in fetal position with his arms tightly squeezing his knees, but Maruem only caught a glimpse of the man as he pushed further on. Ordinarily he probably would have stopped to help, but big realizations were happening and they required all of his attention, or at least as much as he could focus on the situation at hand.

“Rocky? I... I mean Blank? There's no way that's you is it? I mean, I guess there's no one else it can be, but come on! You never play Cleric! I even begged you for that one raid and you refused. And a child?! What's up with tha... wait... aw hell. No wonder you were hurt. You're not a child, so me treating you like one must have been the best damn experience of your life.” This last line he delivered with a flare of his good friend's trademark sarcasm.

“I'm really sorry dude. But it's really good to know there is a friendly face ..er person here to deal with this mess.” He smiled at his friend, genuinely extremely relieved to see him. “And at least now we know that some things won't change between us even when I don't recognize you. I still get on your nerves, and I get you protect you!” He beamed.

Any stress or anxiety about this new world was gone, at least for the moment. Maruem was a smart guy, and he was strong too, but Blank had always been someone he felt he could rely on, and with Blank's tactical knowledge and healing, Maruem had confidence they could handle a lot more boundaries than some random child with healing that he would have to focus on protecting non stop if they entered combat. He was still going to be protecting Blank, but knowing his friends' skill level, he at least would not have to worry about him. He smiled again.

Word Count: 947
Total Word Count: 5353+947=6300
Tags: Katarina , Atlas , Axey , Cat
Notes: Sorry it took so long to post.

[Katarina]

Joel blinked as Klide's reply sunk in.

"I..."

Are you fucking kidding me? Really? Really? Really. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Kat supposed she shouldn't have expected anything less. After all, Maruem had already humiliated her fuck knows how many times in the last half an hour. What was once more?

Christ, this was mortifying. What the hell was she supposed to do right now? Laugh? Cry? A bit of both?

She settled on a defeated sigh. "I have no words." she muttered. Really, she couldn't blame him for not piecing it together. He knew Blank as an eighteen year old guy; it'd probably take more than just dropping unsubtle hints to get him to make the connection. 'Still though,' she grimaced as she looked at the still extremely confused brunet, 'this genuinely hurts.'

Atlas asked if the two knew each other. Klide's hesitant "I guess so?" definitely didn't make Kat feel any better.

This may have been a mistake. Was it that she was just too physically different from his mental image of Joel for him to make the connection, or was it just that Klide really didn't know her as well as she thought he did? Something told her she wouldn't like either answer.

「Kat?」 the source of her woe called out, still extremely confused. 「Can we please talk in private?」

She nodded an affirmative, sighing once again. "That would probably be for the best..." she mumbled, forgoing the telepathy. Klide waved goodbye again to the entourage they'd somehow gathered in the last fifteen minutes or so before walking away once more, Kat offering them a halfhearted "See you around." before following suit. She didn't hold anything against them outside of the Enoch; truthfully, she probably wouldn't mind seeing them again later on. It's just that she had more pressing matters to concern herself with at the moment.

Following the Gladiator through the maze of ruined and overgrown buildings, Kat began to wonder if she should just bail out. Doing so would be completely illogical, sure, but at this point it was looking like the option with the least potential embarrassment. Actually, that was looking like a very enticing option right about now. Yeah. Maybe she should just...

...Oh, they've reached their destination. Damn. Well, there goes that plan.

Klide took a deep breath, seemingly to calm his nerves. Unfortunately, all that did on Kat's end was make her more nervous as she began to imagine all of the possible questions he could ask right now.

Taking a breath of her own, she tried to calm herself down. It couldn't be that bad, surely.

"What did you mean when you said 'shattering your self esteem'?" he asked softly.

Oh no.

"Did I do something that hurt you?"

Oh no no no. This conversation was not going in this direction. Please.

"Did I say something that hurt you?"

Oh, you have no idea. 'You're doing it right now, actually.' she thought to herself bitterly. 'By the way, if you could stop that before you say something even worse, well, that would be just great—'

He continued his train wreck of an apology, making clear that whatever he said, he didn't intend it in a bad way. 'Well, yeah, that's the problem, asshole.' she seethed silently. God, she hated the fact that she couldn't hate him for this.

"I would never intentionally hurt a child—"

She froze.

Oh my God.

She mentally retracted her previous comments about Klide being reliable before slowly reaching into her magic bag and carefully retrieving Maruem's cloak. Holding it tightly against her face, she screamed in frustration.

Could you really blame her at this point?

A long period of silence followed her muffled howl. She took a deep breath—

"I really didn't mean to..."

—and prepared to scream into the thick cloak once more.

"Wait a minute..." he began. Kat braced herself for whatever insulting line the most eloquent person to ever grace Gaia Reborn was going to come out with next.

"You," he started, "you're not a child, are you Kat?"

Enlightenment.

"Oh my God, finally." Joel groaned, the tension leaving his body. "A moment of clarity from the single densest person to ever grace this goddamn game." Alright, maybe he was being too harsh. Again, he couldn't blame him for not piecing it together. But goddamn. Surely the guy would've realised that he wasn't talking to an actual eleven year old before just now, right? Right?

He already knew the answer.

Whether it was due to the insults or just the natural progression of Klide's thought process, Joel would never know, but the Gladiator went pale as it sunk in exactly who he was talking to. He couldn't begin to describe the feeling of sheer catharsis that washed over him as he finally heard his old screen name leave Maruem's mouth.

"There's no way that's you is it?"

And now we're back to our regular routine.

"I will flay your fucking soul..." he muttered, though there wasn't any real malice behind the words.

Well, for the most part.

He was bitter; sue him.

Regardless, he'll push the salt aside for the time being and let Klide finish his sudden realisations.

...Though, it was extremely difficult not to butt in when Klide's arguments amounted to things like "You never play Cleric!", especially when he explicitly mentioned that playing Cleric was not the norm for him earlier.

Ugh. Oh well. They both knew each other's identity's now; that was the important thing.

"And a child?!"

"It was an accident, I swear!" he shouted, cheeks flushed red. Okay, maybe that wasn't entirely accurate, but still! It wasn't his original intention!

'...That just makes it seem even worse,' he decided, so he stopped his feeble defense of his character choices there.

"The best damn experience of your life"? Sure. We'll go with that.

Joel suppressed the now extremely powerful urge to strangle this man. He sighed yet again. "I despise your very existence." That got a feeble apology out of Klide, though as always he bounced back almost immediately. Frankly, Joel wasn't sure if he hated that fact or not.

He could agree on one thing though; as irritating as he's proven to be, he was extremely relieved to have met a familiar face this early on. This was a brand new world; he might have known the other Gaia servers front-to-back, but he has zero idea what dangers this one may hold. Ultimately, regardless of the fact it took the Gladiator far, far too long to piece together his age and identity, Joel wasn't shy about admitting that Klide was more than just a little skilled at the game and—when the subject wasn't figuring out his identity—extremely reliable. As far as he was concerned, his chances of survival just shot up.

Klide smiled at Joel, pointing out that at least they knew one thing wasn't going to change regardless of whether they recognise each other. Joel glanced at Klide quizzically. Okay, he was curious. "I'm going to regret asking this," he deadpanned, "but such as?"

"I still get on your nerves, and I get you protect you!" he beamed.

Joel tried to pout around his smile. He failed miserably, grin overtaking his features as he rolled his eyes.

Alright. This might not be so bad after all.

---

Word Count: 1,219
Total Word Count: 7,800
Tags: Maruem Axey Atlas Cat
Notes: Sorry for the delay with getting this post out. Probably a really abrupt end, but it doesn't make too much sense to keep things going when the whole gang's already split up.