Traversing Worlds

Arc One Ch. 1

'Welcome back Host!' The bubbly and childish voice of System-One cried out happily as a young woman suddenly appeared within the circle of light at the very center of the space.

Closing her sharp pair of eyes filled with anger, as lackluster response was all that was heard from her. "En."

'Host did you enjoy the world?' System-One asked her in a childish manner eagerly after waiting quietly for what felt like forever.

"Things could've gone better those side mission kept me from enjoying most of my time there. Find me something simpler, I want to go exploring not babysitting some volatile personalities or cleaning up after messes I didn't make." She said sounding a bit tired to System-One.

The small iridescent ball shone a bit brighter as it opened up a small black hole. A small orb entered the abyss before pulling up a world card. Her sharp eyes caught the system's iridescent body nervously twitching much like a naughty child that got caught red handed would do. Two small sparks tapped together as the world card it pulled out disappeared back into a nonexistent space. As System-One gave a nervous laugh and began rummaging around within the space and quickly pulling out another world card. 'How does this one look Host, isn't this one a good card that I found?' The system asked with a child's innocence.

With quick practiced ease she read through the description finding that there wasn't much in terms of the missions which suited her but it held a mess she would have to clean up. Holding the small holographic square up to System-One, she simply looked at the iridescent body of System-One. 'So you don't like it?' The small iridescent ball asked as it slightly deflated.

Recovering from the headache that was logic that this system used, she looked at the deflated ball hovering ever closer to the ground. She frowned slight having seen the system employ such tactics on previous world cards. "Since you want me to take on this world so much from now on you're not to play any roulette based games until I come back." Her tone came out stern though in System-One's processor it came off as both malicious and vicious.

Watching System-One as it fell to the ground as it began to leak a shimmering liquid she took to be tears. 'No! It's an all week roulette based game week even the daily spin will be a roulette; it isn't fair Host, not fair at all!' The unruly system complained while banging a small spark down onto the ground in its emotional outburst.

The young woman stood there watching as System-One threw a tantrum. "I am unimpressed by this little display One; last time you threw in a much better and well thought-out speech. This is just plain sad." She spoke while opening her arms and motioning to its posture on the ground.

Turning away from System-One's depressed form she headed off towards a room where her memories would be extracted and either stored for later or sold to the system for points. She didn't need the points yet continued to collect them regularly for System-One to play all of the provided games. Which kept it busy and away from her during the missions, the tutorial world had been the first and last time they were paired up in such a way.

The extraction device had come a long way since she first arrived in this place. What used to be a table with hook ups that gave off an impression of an illicit science lab experiment gone wrong it now looked nothing like its predecessor. She confidently walked up to the platform and stepped up onto it. After scanning through a few options and changing a few that she wasn't interested in keeping this time around. Before hitting the start button once she was ready to begin. A set of four lights came down and began to scan her whole body. Unlike a corporal body her more spiritual body held memories throughout her existence.

From the side System-One unhappily watched as its Host once again went through the process most others regularly and actively avoided, though the numbers showed almost every Host tried it out once. The pain though usually outweighed the amount of points one could receive when selling their memories, or to use the storage feature but its Host was different she actively went through with it each and every time.

The lights vanished as did the data originally downloaded and her memories of the world she had previously been cursing. Weak from the extraction she fell from the platform and landed heavily as her hands went up out of habit to her head. 'Host, you're too hard on yourself; why must you continue to torture yourself this way?' One cried out as it snuggled itself up against her cheek.

"I am not torturing myself One, if I don't remove all unnecessary information the downloading process takes longer and it's easier to get previous personalities mixed up. You've seen it for your-self the ones that don't last long are the ones who get confused by the irrational emotional attachments to those parasites. Now I have a new world to enter so don't forget no roulette till I've returned from this world." She said while carefully picking herself up and moving slowly to her mark.

System-One sniffled hating that all information related to the system would be remembered by her, making it impossible to sneak a few games of roulette past her. Watching as she disappeared into a beam of white light the system looked over and smiled using its body's natural ability to shift colors to do so. It reached out a small spark to an out of the way screen.

'Pay up.' One ordered towards the lens capturing it.

'That's cheating and you know it System-One!' The other less childish voice of another system complained.

'Didn't cheat, now pay up or should this all get back to the Big Boss?' One asked showing off some incriminating data. The system unhappily paid up as System-One just snickered thanking the other in a kind yet haughty tone as it wasn't ranked number one for nothing.

System-One chuckled happily while taking in one of its newest treasures won in this manner of betting. Then sneakily hiding the object away within the Host's inventory, before turning around and allowing a sigh to escape while watching as all the roulette based games called to it.

'Host is so unfair, look at all those prizes being missed! They could have all been mine...' It cried while grabbing towards them though unable to log into any since its Host place a ban up. 'Ah! Big Boss, why did you have to go and give Host such ultimate power over this poor system?' It cried out unhappily to no one but itself.