Hellion heaved a small sigh as he drummed his fingers on the console in front of him, being careful not to get too close to any of the buttons. It had only been a few weeks since he had ended up trapped in this game, and he was finally used to things here enough to get bored. His friend and designer of the virtual reality game set at micro scale Emily was no closer to finding out how touching her phone had transported him into her computer, nor how accidentally deleting his data had placed him into the game.
As if that was not bad enough he had also appeared at the size of a Tinykin, an all male race of enemy mobs set to be bug sized to the already bug sized players making him nigh-indistinguishable from them. Only a frightfully narrow close call kept him from being eaten by Emily in front of her friends McKenzie and Lucy, and his status was discovered by Emily herself. Thankfully she had already designed a female avatar for him since the game was meant to be girls only, and she was able to remake “Kyoto” into a mech suit for him complete with AI to run it when he wasn't available.
Now he was able to experience the game through the senses of Kyoto, given partial-Admin powers to help him out instead of just being a member of one of the four schools that were located in the mega-academy the game was hosted at. Before he might have been a member of the Genbu co-ed high school, or perhaps the Byakko college that Emily and her friends attended. He probably would not have been with the Seiryuu Catholic high girls, or the Suzaku Private school girls. Now he was a part of the limited Admin group alongside Emily, Lucy and McKenzie, although only Emily herself knew that he was trapped in the game and that Kyoto was not a real person. Everyone just assumed that she was from one of the other schools brought in.
However even being given Kyoto was not always enough to keep him out of trouble, as while the game was VR it used projectors scattered all around the entire campus to create physical avatars for the players and buildings at insect size. On the one hand this allowed real combat against real insects, but on the other it meant students outside of the game, teachers and any other person wandering by were real dire threats, and since it was a bit of a secret game not everyone knew what was going on. It had been terrifying to be mistaken as an ant while within Kyoto, but at least it also proved that both of them could respawn.
He was currently inside of the command centre of Kyoto, and the reason he was so careful about drumming his fingers across the console was last time he hit a button on accident it had activated the “escape pod” function and forcefully launched him out of the robots head in a sneeze. This might not have been so bad, except Emily had been walking past her at that time and ended up in his escape path. Of course she knew what the robotic mech sneezing meant and had stopped to help her look for him, but that was not of much use considering they were looking on he ground and he had landed in and gotten tangled in her hair.
It had taken over an hour of searching before he was found, and even then that only happened because Emily finally relented and activated her “find player” Admin power to locate him. In the meantime he had been left shouting for attention and trying to get out of the escape pod, the exits snarled shut in long blonde hair strands. He had been swung back and forth like an amusement park ship ride in her tresses, her head turns and tilts while looking for him keeping him in motion.
Eventually in frustration Emily had run her hand through her hair and knocked the pod and Hellion out of there, and the tiny boy ended up falling out of the open pod and down her body before landing in her shirt pocket. It was not long after that that Emily activated the search function, and he was semi-carefully retrieved. A short explanation of how he had gotten there later and it was agreed that something probably should be done to help the unfortunate soul out, so Emily sequestered herself in her lab to begin plugging away at the problem.
Now it was five days later and Emily finished her first project for Hellion, calling him over to her lab. The mech was busy with a short update cycle anyway, and so was not available. He left her body through the mouth as usual and walked the empty halls of the Admin area to the door to her lab, which had been left open for him. Getting him situated on top of her currently empty workbench, she pressed a few buttons that caused a brief flash of light and then a machine to appear before him. Hellion was briefly confused before its form became clearer to him, and he saw that it was a rather advanced looking wheeled vehicle of some sort. It was fairly large from his perspective, but when he looked to the side and compared it to Emily standing at the bench he saw that it was only half a foot long at most.
The machine did not look exactly like anything he had ever seen before, so Hellion turned towards Emily to allow her to explain. She obliged his silent request, saying “This sweet ride is an emergency measure, for if you ever get caught outside of Kyoto again. Unlike with her you can store it away and summon it out of your inventory like an item.” This made a certain amount of sense to Hellion, and even if it would not have solved the problem from two days ago exactly it still might have helped if he had allowed it to drop out the gap in the door, getting attention by falling and landing at any rate.
Emily continued to explain, even as she gestured the tiny male towards it to explore and examine. “Its six-wheeled design allows for decent traction and some redundancies, and it can run on a few hours of battery power before needing a recharge. I admit that it isn’t a long time, but it IS supposed to be for emergencies and not casual use. If it works out well enough I might look into increasing the battery life if need be.” Hellion finished stepping up to it and began to walk around the exterior, taking in the angled metallic shell and black tinted windows along with some other protrusions around it. Glancing up he checked and confirmed that Emily was currently in her Admin Senses mode, and so could clearly see and hear him. ‘Fascinating. What are those tubes around the outside, and how strong is that armor?’
Emily promptly responded with “Well, I figured if this was for emergencies it would not hurt to be prepared for several possibilities, including being under attack. Those tubes are some basic weapons suites, in case you need to fend off hostile Tinykin or deter some angry bugs. As for the armour, its not invincible but could probably take a hit or two, enough to make retreating a safer prospect. In short it could handle some idle attacks or accidentally getting stepped on once or twice but a concentrated assault by a player would probably spell trouble.” This pleased Hellion a fair deal, and reaching the short steps/ladder leading up to the door he ascended them and entered the interior of the vehicle.
Inside of the machine showed that it was deeply detailed, a back area with some supplies and readouts of the status of the machine visible. The tinted windows from this side were all perfectly see through, and lighting further made everything clear and easy to see. From outside Emily continued to talk, and speakers inside of the walls modulated her voice so that it was both clearer and set at a volume that was comfortable to listen to, as if she was his size and talking right next to him. “Inside everything is temperature and climate controlled, and there are access panels to most of the guts of the machine so you can examine everything if need be. I even included shock absorbers, inertial dampeners, and gyroscopic sensors, so even if it was dropped from a great height or sent spinning you would feel as if it was left upright and you just went over a speed bump when landing. It can even self-right should it end up on its side or back.”
Moving to the front of the machine Hellion saw the console and drivers seat, and taking a seat in it found it to be both comfortable and familiar in a way to Kyoto’s control room. Looking out the large front windscreen he saw Emily looming in front of the machine, expositing with enthusiasm still while a holographic display pinpointed his position inside of the vehicle to her. “You can control near every feature from the drivers seat, from manual or automatic control of the weapons, basic GPS, redundant steering options, and camera views of the exterior so you always know what is around you. Plus of course there are multiple hatches on top, behind, and underneath the floor to allow you to exit nearly anywhere.”
Hellion was now downright excited, and wasted little time in turning the vehicle on and starting to roll it around the tabletop. “Em, you might very well have outdone yourself! This thing handles pretty easily, turn radius is not half bad, and I can control the speed like a dream.” As Emily basked in Hellions praises, the tiny noted to himself that the hum of the machine was present but quiet, and probably would not be heard from outside at all. Still testing it out in the lab on top of the workbench felt like it was too simple, and he really wanted to put it through its paces.
To that end the Tinykin sized player stepped on the gas a little while facing Emily, surprising the girl as he suddenly sped up. Before he hit her however he swerved to the side a bit, missing her and going clean off the edge of the lab table. This made Emily gasp more out of shock, but she calmed down as she realized what her little buddy was doing. The vehicle tumbled a little bit in the air before it landed on the lab floor, bumping heavily on the ground but remaining mostly upright as intended and continuing on across the metal floor without issue. Laughing lightly and shaking her head, Emily remotely opened the door to the lab and said “Go on outside and have some fun, play with your new toy” as she turned her back and headed towards the console to do some other work.
Seeing the opened door Hellion headed straight towards it at moderate speed, but just as he reached the edge of the entryway a mass of brown landed in front of the vehicle, and he lightly crashed into it. This brought the six wheels to a halt, but despite that Hellion was mostly fine, just surprised more than anything. Before he could recover from his shock the buggy rumbled slightly, and was lifted up into the air. The view outside of the windscreen was a brief flash of colors, before he was brought up to a stop in front of the familiar face of Kyoto. The girl appeared to be examining him for several seconds, and not entirely sure what was happening Hellion confusedly waved at her.
What Hellion did not realize was that Kyoto had overheard the last sentence from Emily and had gotten entirely the wrong idea. Thinking that the blonde had been talking to her, Kyoto assumed that the little car in her hand that had crashed into her boot was some new toy that the Admin had created, and she had told her to have some fun with it. The mech had wanted to also perhaps see her Master Hellion again, but with that dismissal she assumed that he must be busy with Emily doing something. As such she shrugged and placed the car at her side, and walked the short distance out of the Admin area and into the guild hall of Seiryuu.
When the vehicle was shifted down to the girls side and began to swing slightly in her grip, Hellion was caught off guard and needed a moment to figure out what was going on. Then the boy recalled how from the outside the windows were all tinted black, and this included the windscreen. The mech had just plain not been able to see him, and was probably curious as to what was going on. Well he would be able to explain in a minute, either escaping her grasp and really testing the evasion potential of the vehicle or getting enough attention that he could talk to her. By now the girl transitioned through the door into the guild hall itself, and Hellion pressed forward on the acceleration to get going.
Only…nothing happened. Hellion was surprised and tried again, only to elicit no response from the machine. Still just a little confused he tried to turn the steering wheel, only for it to barely respond and feel extremely sluggish, nowhere near as smooth as it had been just a minute or to before. One by one Hellion tried various systems, but they all either failed to work completely or barely reacted at all. Then the male took a closer look at one of the displays before him, and saw a clear indicator of the problem.
It was just a simple digital compass, one that in its most basic form would tell him which directions were what and could also be used as a sort of directional finder to point him in the direction of somewhere he had marked. Only it was apparently frozen in place, staying pointing in one direction despite Kyoto making several turns, before it suddenly and jerkily updated a few times, jumping tens of degrees at a time before stalling again. Looking around at more of the console, lights and indicators that he had before seen plinking or changing seamlessly were now also frozen, or updating in slow, jerky fashions like a slideshow.
A slideshow…something about that term tickled the back of Hellions brain, and as he pondered that it came to him in a flash. An animated image on a computer could appear as if it was a slideshow if it was not fully loaded, frames dropped or paused until the system it was on could catch up with the processing. Looking back at the console and then all of the devices and features behind him, it dawned on Hellion that it all looked very good, very complex, very highly detailed.
Emily always was a perfectionist, and doubtless she had put as much detail and features into his machine as possible. The issue was while in the lab the only thing the projectors had to handle was the couple of rooms and select people including himself, meaning there was loads of data and bandwidth to go around. Now however he was “outside,” meaning the system also had to handle all of the other players, the NPCs, the buildings, the quests and event systems, how the data constructs handled real world stimuli, and a dozen other things at least. The simple fact was his machine was so complex and data intensive that it was actively lagging to a fraction of its abilities.
In a desperate attempt to try and remedy the situation Hellion tried to shut down as many redundant and unneeded systems as possible, but it only did so much. He got all of the readouts and most of the remaining systems running and no longer frozen, but they were still operating at that same snails pace and most of the weapons were still locked out. Then Kyoto arrived in the guild’s cafeteria, and Hellion looked back out just as Kyoto was sitting down.
Having taken her seat at one of the long tables, Kyoto looked over the little thing with some interest. Placing it flat on the table top the mech lightly smiled and held it by its sides between her fingers, and she rolled it back and forth across the table. The wheels seemed a little stiff but still rolled, and a small little flick sent it rolling in front of her towards her other hand. She deftly caught it and turned it around to face back the first way, but when she released it the toy began to move a little on its own.
Inside Hellion was lightly jolted by the forwards and back motion, the dampeners technically working but sometimes needing a few seconds to fully compensate and so making for a rougher ride for him. The second time that he was released he turned the wheel on accident, and found that while it was tough he could at least steer a little bit. Further testing of the controls showed that he could also change his speed again, so feeling a ray of hope he turned away from Kyoto and tried to roll away at full speed.
Unfortunately that lag was also applying to his throttle and max speed as well, and to his budding horror Hellion found that his speed, which before had been a solid run by one of the players standards was now closer to “brisk stroll.” Going from race car to go-kart was a harsh drop in capability, and so it was of little surprise that his view ahead was blocked out by fingers from above recapturing him.
Deciding that enough was enough Hellion decided to give up and call the whole thing off, and tried to dismiss the vehicle. It was to his growing displeasure that he discovered a “safety feature” build into the machine that worked against him. It turned out that the car could only be dismissed while he was outside of it, so escaping the oblivious clutches of his own mech that way was a no-go. Moving onto his other options, Hellion got up out of the seat and headed for the nearest exit. It might be a little touch and go, but the mech was probably safe to be seen by and with her focus near here anyway it seemed as safe as it could be.
Yet again the man was thwarted however, as when he tried to open the nearest door, the same one he had entered in it refused to budge. Thinking that it might just be Kyoto’s finger holding it shut he tried another one, stumbling a little as the girl moved his vehicle around. This time he tried the opposite door, and when that didn’t work h tried to roof hatch. This one had a window on it so he saw that it was totally clear, and yet it remained impassible as well. Hellion then recalled the faint hiss he had heard when the door had opened the first time, and he realized that all of the doors were not manual but instead automatic ones. With the system lagging to high hell it either was failing to detect him or was flat out frozen.
Defeated for now Hellion hurried back into his seat to strap in, as if nothing else it would at least be marginally more stable than just walking around. He arrived not a moment too soon, as when he looked out the window he saw the stomach dropping sight of two Seiryuu players walking up and sitting at the table across from Kyoto. Hellion heard the mech somewhat brightly greet them with a soft “Hello,” and the new trio got to chatting. It turned out that one of the girls was a bit of a toy car enthusiast, and as soon as she had spotted the vehicle she had wandered right over.
Kyoto was more than happy to possibly make some new friends, and these two girls were certainly nice enough. The enthusiast asked her a few questions, mostly along the lines of “where did you get this? I have not seen anything quite like this before, do you know who made it?” Kyoto was fairly quick to make it clear that she was not fully read up herself, but she suspected that it was a custom model made just for the game and was likely unique. At the girls request the mech handed it over to her to examine, which she did mildly thoroughly, testing the wheels, flipping it upside down to take in the details of the undercarriage, tapping at the metal construction and solid windows, and so on.
Then Kyoto mentioned that it could also move under its own power, which naturally peaked the girl’s interest. The semi-otaku was so excited as she tried to get up saying “Oh! We should take it out to the courtyard to test it!” that she hit her knee on the table and tripped over the seat. This caused her to fall over onto her friend, who caught off guard likewise fell over letting them collapse into a heap on the floor. Naturally Kyoto got up herself to move around the table and make sure that they were alright, and arrived just in time to see them struggling a little to get up, not noticing the toy vehicle caught between their chests. It was shaken a bit as they tried to separate, not helped by how one girl had landed on her back so the second was all but laying on her.
Eventually they did manage to separate, the car either rolling or driving down the second girls body to wind up on the floor, where its momentum was stopped by the first girl failing to get her feet properly underneath herself making her fall back into a sitting position on the ground, burying the toy under her butt. The otaku made small “ouch” sounds a few times as she massaged her sore knee, while Kyoto helped up the other girl. Eventually the first girl recovered a bit and looked down at her hands, and seeing them empty began to look around saying “where did the toy go?” This made Kyoto giggle slightly, before she pointed down below the girl. Flinching slightly the girl wiggled her rear back and forth a few times realizing the lump, and flushing slightly got up and picked up the toy with her.
For his part Hellion was left briefly stunned staring forwards, slowly processing what had happened in the last few seconds. The experience of being swung and spun in several directions one after the other as the girl examined the vehicle had been bad enough, the rapid changes in direction briefly overwhelming the dampeners. Then her tapping on the windows filled the echoing interior with noise. However then the girl had started to get up while talking excitedly about “testing,” and Hellion winced in dread. That worry was tossed out the window along with himself in a way when he found the buggy suddenly tossed in the air, only to head towards a rounded wall of green dead ahead. The impact had not been that bad, but then he looked up just to see a second wall of Seiryuu green heading towards him, and then things got confused.
A part of the boys mind realized that he was currently being rubbed and tossed around between the chests of the two catholic school girls, and the very idea was a bit of a blow straight to his libido. He was still getting used to this size, and so certain thoughts and sights were still very new to him. When the ceiling above lifted away and the ground began to tilt it was more instinct than anything that had him press on the accelerator, and after some bumpy driving he was back on mostly smooth wood. Then he made the mistake of looking up to check on what was above him, just as a mass of white cotton fabric fell from the sky on top of his vehicle, pinning it in place. He instantly recognized it for the panties it was, and he swore he could feel the heat and pressure of being sat on even within the vehicle. Perhaps one of the things he had shut down was the environmental controls.
Even as the girl stood up holding him his brain was struggling to reboot, the barrage of sexiness remaining overwhelming. Finally he snapped out of it as the girls arrived outside, and the girl holding him placed him on the ground surrounded by grass. Then her voice came down, the speakers clearly informing him of how she was saying “Well, that was a little embarrassing. Still, it seemed to hold up well enough, so why not go a little further? Lets let it start to drive around a bit, and we can try to catch it.” That was ill-boding enough, but then she emphasized the word “catch” by lifting one shoe and lightly stomping it forwards in his direction.
Perhaps it might have been smarter to just remain still, let the girls think that the toy was broken or just had low batteries. Perhaps he should have just drove towards Kyoto and been done with things, considering she was likely the safest. Maybe he even could have just tried to get out the doors again, to flee or even just accept death and respawning. Hellion did none of those things, and instead started to drive and attracted the girls attention like he was a goat and they were three sexy t-rexes. They certainly had the ground rumbling for him, and the images in his rear-facing cameras when he glanced that way often DID seem closer than they appeared.
At least Kyoto had fun for the rest of the afternoon, storing away her new toy in a blazer pocket once the girls had to leave. On the other hand, she got QUITE the surprise when she eventually returned to the Admin area after dinner, and felt really bad once she found out what had happened and what she did. On the bright side, while it was otherwise deemed a failure, she at least got to keep the car.