Ketevan blinked twice when one of the dark skinned man handed her a set of gloves and oversized boots, "This is not what they used on the stage." she took hold of them.
"Hell no," he chuckled, "Those deckjockeys are rich and experienced, you know who Germaine is, yeah? "
"She's new." Ana handed the man a card, "Don't give her this old grade crap, just the regular."
"Ain't no way anyone our age don't know Germai- Ana Bray? Ana fucking Bray!?" He nearly dropped his jaw on the floor, he refused her card and bustled out through a back door. Ketevan heard him shout orders at other men with lots of excitement at the prospect of serving Ana Bray and what it would do for their reputation. He returned half a minute later with what appeared to be knuckle braced gloves, braces for knees, elbows, shoes, and a visor.
Ketevan muttered thanks and entered a small changing room to redress herself.
"You do not need to guard me, Ana." she said while she slipped the braces on and stepped into the shoes.
"You're a gal who doesn't know how much of a knock-out she is."
"Knocking people out is..." Ridiculous, "Must I cover my ears and change the colour of my hair?"
"Nah," she stepped away when Ketevan rapped her knuckles on the door and stepped out, the glass on the changing room door moved itself upon sensing her body, which still impressed her even the second time. Wondrous technology and all hidden power sources and pipes to transfer energy.
Ketevan gestured for Ana to lead on, but instead she raised a hand in response.
"First you need something that Germaine wants for a wager," she pointed at her own ears, "You're exotic, he'd be interested in what someone who looks as out of place as you do has on their person."
Ketevan shook her head, "Anything I offer is too valuable to give away."
"I get it," Ana said, "So... I'll just walk you in and hang by, he'll understand. But your ass better win."
Ketevan stretched then hopped to keep her muscles warm, "And what would you lose, Ana?"
"Probably just some old experimental tech, best not to though, never know what that tinkerbrain can come up with." she tapped her chin thoughtfully, "Something to sell you to the crowd..." she spun on her heel, "Hey Deckjock, got a katana back there?"
Ah, those swords those Reik people love to use.
The man handed her a hilt on its own, it was made well enough despite the flimsy material that would snap on blade clash, but she could imagine the length of the blade and gave it a few practice swings.
Ana blinked in recognition, "You're awesome."
"My brothers are far more awe-inspiring," she brought the swings to a stop, "Did a player of baseball bring this to your people?"
She arched an eyebrow.
Ketevan smirked, "Thought not."
"You'll have to question a history buff 'bout that," she copied Ketevan's stretches as an amateur would, "Showtime, are you ready?"
"Certainly."
The stage erupted as Germaine claimed another victory over another stocky fellow, he looked like he'd just been made to bite off and swallow his own tongue with how red in the face he was with rage. Germaine simply lauded and raised hands up at the crowd asking if they were entertained, then he exclaimed.
"Sup? I'm gonna be runnin' this joint next tour!"
Ana halted, "Do me a favour," she pointed at the bearded young man, "If you win, tell him he can have the crown."
"Why?"
"He'll work twice as hard to respect himself," she snickered.
"You are a cruel woman," Ketevan shrugged, "Though I have no interest in running this place."
"Maybe we should just cancel out this idea, yeah?"
"No," Ketevan shook her head, "I want to have a good battle before I set off for the rest, also, this talk-fast music, the flute, atmosphere and drums are nice. What is the name?"
She shrugged and took out her phone, she showed a blue icon with a beam music note and pressed it. The note circled for a moment and came up: War With The Senses.
"Play this music while I fight this man." she marched toward the stage, much to Ana's alarm, but the woman was more than good for it already striding behind her. The crowd made note of her, pointing and comments about her ears and hair already on their lips. Germaine had turned to face her with the announcer making note.
"Another challenger who is stuck in Halloween? What could this⸺ ANA BRAY, SHE IS WITH ANA BRAY FOLKS GET READY THIS'LL BE AN INTERESTING SHOW!"
Germaine smiled gruffly with his messy beard and hair, he had broad features more like a brawler than a deskman, "Sup, Ana, who this?"
"This is Ketevan, she'd like a fight."
"You Brays usually try to buy joints out with daddy's money, whaddaya want?"
"She just wants a fight, Ger."
He smirked and shook his head, messy hair ruffling. "I don't buy, what's the catch?"
"She wants to hear this song while she fights you." Ana pointed at the DJ.
Germaine's eyes thinned to slits, "That it, Missy Elf, that's all you want?"
"A good battle in your games, that is all." she rested her hand on the handle of the 'hilt.'
"Aight," he pointed at the announcer, "No wager, we got an actual fighter from some foreign nation here on stage."
"She's-"
"Don't, Ana, I like you sister. But this here's a fighter, look at you. You a warrior from fantasy novels born and raised to slap the money and life outta fools like me." He winked and pointed a finger at Ketevan, "Notorious, that's what you are."
Ketevan glanced at him sidelong, this man will either make a fine commando or the worst kind of ganger. "Let us do battle in this cyberspace."
"You got it, sister." He settled a helmet that covered half his face on his head, a steel blue visor, and little spikes in dishes clicked into place.
Ana handed Ketevan her own helmet, "Good luck." she said casually.
Ketevan took the helmet in hand, "After this, let us eat and tour the rest of this city for its sights."
"Sure, warrior, go get em."
Ketevan settled the dish-spike-helmet into place, it locked itself down, and she was faced with a small forest space, trees packed together with enough for her to move freely between them. Her mind processed the sensations from the imagery with the aid of the gear she was wearing providing small amounts of simulation to her senses.
"Begin!" the announcer called.
Ketevan began to marched with her weapon sheathed. In the top right corner she could see three hearts, beside a bar named hitpoints. The hearts were likely expendable resources to recharge her hitpoints. Simple enough.
A rustle of leaves, no experienced warrior would make such noise. However, her expanded field of view she inherited did not apply here, she was locked to a regular human's range. She turned her head in the opposite direction, Germaine was not there. So... she leapt forward away from his descending slash, drew her blade and dashed toward him with three trained strikes intending to test the strength and speed of his guard. She had no reason to go all out, he deserved a fair match unless the 'cheating' became brazen.
Germaine arched an eyebrow, "That ain't no regular lady force impact." and smirked while they clashed blades in a circle for a short time. His movements quickened, she kept pace with him. In the background she could hear the oos and aahs of the crowd as they locked horns. With proper assessment, she decided it was time to put him on the backfoot with her superior skill through being thoroughly beaten by her brothers. Refined, trained strikes to pressure him backwards, strikes low on the blade, risky for an amateur.
Germaine stepped back again and again, his face displaying that he understood the pressure he was being placed under as Ketevan's expression was emotionless. She watched him carefully, estimating his moves accurately and forcing him to make mistakes that would take sizeable amounts off his hitpoints until he expended one heart to rejuvenate himself. His blade flickered white and his striking force significantly improved.
"And here comes the cheat gear!" the announcer said.
Ketevan staggered under the immense rise in his strength and found herself nearly cut in half when he struck at her with the might of a goliath nephilim. If this were real, she would spit blood, feel pain in her chest from the blunt of her katana striking her. She scrambled up and narrowly avoided a cleave. Now going full strength, she could not best his, but he was slow to react despite the 'cheat' that he had applied to the game. Another heart expended as she performed the greatest butterfly cutting strike she'd done in her past life. The song reached another chorus as she filled herself with Chishik's emptiness to focus before loosing a windless strike to force his blade from his hands with sheer force and precision where his fingers were.
She pointed her Katana at his throat, "You are bested."
"Shit," he laughed, "You really are a warrior from fiction or... some kinda android made by Big Clovis, eh?" his eyes glinted with satisfaction as if he'd caught her in something she didn't quite understand.
She elected to say nothing, mystery was the better choice rather than the admission that would have people making strange assumptions about her being some form of artificial construct.
The world around them darkened, Ketevan took off her helmet.
"Shit," Germaine cackled like a madman, "You're crazy strong, where you from?"
Ketevan glanced at Ana.
Ana shook her head, "She's all natural, but the rest is classified."
"All natural my ass, no way a lady packs that kinda heat in peace time." Germaine gestured at the bartender.
"No time for alcohol today, I'm afraid." Ketevan gave Germaine a smile, "Another time?"
"Can I get your number?" his leer was as obvious as could be.
"I am not interested in relations beyond friendship, sir Germaine." she said sharply, "Would you still like to exchange details."
He arched an eyebrow, "Sure, could use you on my team. A fair player competing in the cheatin' grounds gonna be somethin' to watch."
"At some point I would love to, listening to this kind of music while in combat is somewhat... invigorating."
"With that smile he might think you're a vampire." Ana chuckled.
"Shit, sister, don't mean nothin' like that." He raised his hands, "You lemme know if ya need anythin', we got your back here on."
"Respect of the underground too," Ana mused, "Warlord and gangster."
Germaine's face lit up with a question that quickly turned into a lidded eye'd smirk, "Right... best you two get on then since War Lady here's got a schedule on her."
Out from the overpass and into the clean natural airs of the city of Paris, Ketevan made note of a particularly large tower with similar dishes loaded onto its tip at least five miles away.
"You good, Ketty?"
She blinked, "Do not call me a kitten."
"Ket, Ke-tty." Ana said, "Come on its cute."
"No." Ketevan refused her flatly.
She shrugged, "You need to lighten up a bit, you know?" she opened the car door with her phone, "Where to next?"
"I wish to see the Eiffel Tower for myself, then to this Bray company where your family has its name engraved in every household." she settled inside the vehicle, the door shut itself behind her as Ana stretched with a satisfied smirk on her face. "After that, I believe it is best we get onto striking irons by showing me interplanetary travel and the other wonders you people have."
"We can go to Mars now or in the afternoon." She said, "You still want that tour?" opened a navigation application on her phone that had an 'AI Guide' feature.
"Yes," she said, "This is one of your most famous cities in the planet."
"I think the most famous currently would be between where we're at now, London in England, Tokyo in Japan and New York City in America."
"Which would have the largest of the scenes for the underground video fighting?"
"Either New York or Tokyo, London is more about sports, fantasy and shooters."
Ketevan arched an eyebrow.
"So games where you simulate sports from grounded to kicking a building over with a ball, fantasy like casting spells and dragons, shooters like you simulate combat with ranged weapons."
These people are at least clever enough be it for entertainment or not to maintain some simulation of live combat in multiple fields and perhaps the sports simulation would encourage people to play real sports eventually. Like a story of baseball encouraging the Reiks to play baseball... then why does this Rasputin not employ her family name in creation of his own simulator as that would account for a substantial reputation to attract volunteers.
"Ana," Ketevan said, "Why has Rasputin or yourself not crafted your own live combat simulation to prepare for the threat Rasputin anticipates."
"If it even exists." She said unconvincingly.
"What do you know of this threat?" Ketevan reclined in her seat, watching her carefully through lidded eyes.
"Guilty," she said her hands, "I can't say yet, nothing's confirmed⸺"
"So it is speculation to be taken with a mug of salt." Ketevan replied drily.
"Best you see it for yourself."
She shuffled closer to Ketevan and showed the display screen of her phone with a strange looking jungle. Strange in the sense that the coolours were incorrect as if the atmosphere held too much acid that had seeped into the biome. Dim mist she could almost feel the humidity of through the screen clung to trees, the ground, leaves and other fauna. Tree bark that had bright sickly green veins running through it, leaves that were yellow, brown and held the same glow as the tree veins. Excessive vines that raked the floor hanging off of thick branches teeming with bloated larvae, wiry roots over the surface spread across the ground thick with lichen between patches of thick mud and gloomy green grass that held thin strips of yellow on its surface. Dimmed sunlight filtered through clouds in shafts of golden light.
"Can one live on this planet?"
Ana nodded, "Yep, place has been terraformed by the Hespers. Think of them as machines that change atmospheres from hostile to liveable. Course, still got all the ejections from space and heavy tropical condition with radiation and some yellow acid there, but nothin'll kill ya there. Nice and humid, this area's the dense jungle, here."
Ana tapped on the screen for the video to move, over a hill and through dense jungle with animals from flying lizards with wingspans twice the size of men gliding through the sky who paid the camera no mind to large dragonflies and other strange insects she had no name for. They came to a section which had her tilt her head in curiosity. Yet strange enough, a planet so close to a sun was capable of hosting life instead of scorching all things out of existence.
Jungles became large spaces of staggering buildings much like the towers that had taken root in her current city, however this was far more interwoven with the nature on the planet. A wider variety of green plants that climbed walls, buildings, towers and platforms with people actively trimming them.
However, inside these cities she noted strange formations of minerals. Upon further zooming in, these were orderly structures of metal, strange runes and white flowed through them, darker than what she had seen in the underground and certainly older. As Ana guided the view further along into a cave where a company named Ishtar Collective had rooted themselves, she was shown an excavation site with large silos, container buildings and study rooms bustling with people in all forms of dress. Men and women from all over the solar system, she had to assume, had come together here with the purpose of studying these ancient structures.
Ketevan tapped on the window lightly, "Rasputin, is this what you are worried about?"
"THE RUINS WHISPER. THEY ARE DEEP INSIDE THE PLANET, PLEASE SHOW."
Ana took the video further underground as a map was projected before Ketevan, it formed into a large sphere and began to spin. It mapped out a generic display of the cities, towns and plant life across Venus in detail. Ana's phone displayed angular corridors and strange constructs. Carved lines inside them seemed to pulse or breathe as if these walls and circuit loops fused into the structures were alive, perfect efficiency. The map showed that they ran all over the planet and went beneath the crust.
"THEY WERE HERE LONG BEFORE THE PLANET HAD BEEN RESHAPED TO SUPPORT HUMAN LIFE."
"I understand," Ketevan clicked her knuckles in each finger, "And you attempted to contact which put your scientists in danger."
"Yeah, almost ended badly." Ana set her phone down on Ketevan's lap.
"WHAT WILL YOU DO NOW?"
"I would like to see these for myself, holiday times can wait. The mission begins."