“DAMN IT!!! FUCK! FUCK YOU MALCOLM! Why the hell didn’t you tell me about it?!” Alex shouted after we had arrived at the house we were to live until our conditions became better.

What happened was like this.

At the hospital we were taken with an escort by Malcolm and his men and taken to the airport where we got taken to Malcolm’s house first then we were taken to a beautiful farm mansion he had built for us. Two stores with a huge basement, one side was obviously for all of dads ales, the others to hold all the capsules and to make a game room down there.

The rooms were split in four, though most rooms were large to handle two single beds and the closets for all the clothes each person had. If it wasn’t for the fact that our connection can’t pass through the walls for some reason, main reason that putting us in different rooms even if we are back to back, didn’t work and we lost the strength to move as I fell onto the bed when we tested this.

Any type of wall seems to mess with whatever connection we have which makes it impossible to think of keeping us from different rooms.

Now why is Alex cursing the heavens and even one of the most powerful man on the planet to his face. Well when we arrived here Malcolm had handed Alex a card which happened to be an exclusive invitation to the World wide V2 Game tournament which had the featuring game being shooter game which he specializes in.

V2 means 2 senses virtual tech and in this case its sight and sound while he controls the avatar with his mind but his sense of smell, touch and taste are still here and he doesn’t ‘dive’ into the game like the full immersion VR tech.

I told you Alex, we didn’t know your recovery rate which is why we kept you from it. You have your coordination and everything is nice and all but we don’t know how virtual reality technology will react with your mind. We were going to test you all through simulators of different grade VR tech from V1 to full immersion.” Malcolm said trying and failing to calm Alex down.

“Who gives a fuck about that! This tournament’s registration ends tomorrow and this is a 2 person team game tournament! How the fuck am I going to find someone in that time and register in time. I can only thank god that they allow for us to play from home in case of different circumstances.” Alex said.

“Alex, calm down and think this better. We just got out of the hospital.” Luna says.

“Shut up rapist! If I couldn't move more than ten meters away from you I would have been gone already and even sued your for raping me in my dreams!” Alex said with tears in his eyes.

“Quiet both of you! Shouting will get us nowhere, Alex go register, it can’t be more than a week before the tournament. During that time we can go through the testing of V1 and V2 tech that Malcolm wants us to do.” I say.

“Noah, the tests aren’t that simple.” Malcolm said.

“Our mental recovering is fast and we have already returned to our common sleep patterns. To play a V2 game isn’t going to be hard by the end of the week.” I tell malcolm.

“Yay! Where is my PC! Get over here hussy! I can’t leave you behind so come on!” Alex said and pulled Luna through the entire house.

For the next several hours he underwent the registration and reluctantly accepted Luna as his partner since she possesses his coordination now.

She was extremely cheerful to get accepted and they both went off to play some shooting games while Alex teaches her how to play using all the different guns.

As for the rest of us, we go around examining the house.

***

Everything has really been going strangely around here. I look outside and see the massive crack and far off, one of the main rock bodies left by the planet. This side is under partial light of the sun but the area over there is under the shadow of night. From here it was already possible to see all the plants that stretched out over there.

The plants have developed long root bodies connecting and making bridges all around. It was already possible to walk from one side to the other but the danger of doing so was obvious as the psionic fish have evolved to live in this place and this place has evolved to allow the wyvern to hunt the beasts here as they please.

One curious thing this unit has noticed is that the psi has begun to form oceanic like currents that flow to the deeper part of the ‘reef’ and then return through separate passages. This allows the psi released by all the beasts to flow naturally all over and spread.

Looking up at the moon, it equally had a large area that was no longer yellowish green which was the natural color of the stones. It now radiated colors similar to down here.

The number of wyvern has risen since Medical Unit has improved them and they have regained control of psionic fish through power. Evolution of fish has been slowed to not allow high level of advancement to surpass wyvern.

A sudden violent vibration comes from the station.

I connect to the only unit that could do anything remotely dangerous.

“Brewer unit… why did you do?” I ask.

”Sorry, mixed some of the first photosynthesising psi plants on the sun size with the psisysthesising ones from the darkside. It had an adverse effect. It just burst, no fire or anything.” she said calling in.

With a sigh I float up and to the ship ignoring the many drones floating around with jump coming from the large residential area.

Before I reach the ship, Mechanic unit called me into the station saying she finished rebuilding the Blink drive as I suggested.

This unit had been unable to comprehend anything beyond 50% of this technology. There is one key feature that isn't balancing on the wormhole technology.

Beyond this, all the other technology on this station is being slowly sorted by this unit and Ship VI.

Entering, the blink drive was active and connected to what was found to be a teleport pad. Such technology didn't exist in the common factions as it also tampered with movement of matter through energy from one point to another.

This one was broken but there are many more that are working though we can only access this one because the station is still badly damaged and we require the entire place to be repaired. A job that would take decades with our number.

“Mechanic unit… are systems functioning?” I asked.

“Yep, I transformed everything to the Yhigro race’s language due to its practicality for coding complex things. It should function far better than before and it's now adapted to the teleportation pad. I already got Xeno to visit and worked with him in changing the function of the teleport pad to open a wormhole or try to.” Lia said.

“Commence test.” I said and connect to the system wirelessly and start activating everything.

At once the power failed and after a moment everything but this room lit up.

System error! Power in current room turned off for security reasons. Room systems shut down…

Room system activated, equipment deactivated.

“Too bad, seems the power consumption of this thing is no joke.” Lia said.

“Mechanic unit… requires recoding for decreased energy consumption and increased output.” I say.

“Sorry but even with Xeno this is the most we could decrease how much power it sucks in. If you want this we will pretty much need to build a separate building. Maybe we can even build a Wormhole gate or something. Would be better then this thing which seems impractical since it nearly blows up every time and we have no control where it opens to.” Lia said kicking the blink drive.

“Suggestion denied… wormhole gate would require material we do not possess…” I said.

“What are you talking about? We dismantled and filled nearly forty three accessed storage compartments with nearly every known metal and hundreds of thousands of kilometers of wire for each type not to mention they are all probably saturated with Psi by now.” Lia says confused.

“Suggestion denied… Blink drive is working wormhole generator… requires correct calculation… this unit shall continue calculus… requests mechanic unit to repair tug class ships in hangar for preparation of crews return...Mining vehicles are necessary for expansion.” I say.

“Then wouldn’t it be better to first get the stations refinery stations working. They aren’t even on this level which is hangar and ports.” Lia asked.

“Negative… mining comes first.” I say.

“You can repair them first. I won’t waste my time repairing something that won’t have a use until we have the refinery.” Lia says and walks out the door heading upwards towards the inside of the station where a working elevator was brought online.

“Mechanic unit… this supervisor unit has sent orders…” I say.

“Stop blowing your horn. Your recent actions were stupid, you ignored Tris when she needed help and then you have Baal and Ricky help her breed when they should be on lookout for the Ryu. Then you send Xeno to help Olivia with something he doesn’t know. Forget it, I'm going to repair what I feel is most needed before doing what you want.” Lia said annoyed and leaving me behind.

I just blink not knowing how to process this. Normally when I play with Ami it is easy to control the units and my plans always work…

“This is why AI unit’s are a pain…” I mutter and turn around and go to the and connect to the system in the room and shut my eyes so I can immerse myself in calculating the needed mathematics equations for this.

***

Bang! Bang

“Quick in the mansion someone killed me near it!” Alex shouted.

Bang!

Shot after shot we watch on the TV from the view of both of them as they run in the wilds.

Sitting in front of us were Alex and Luna and on their head was a big helmet covering the top half of their head. This was one of the more modern day V2 tech helmets.

Unlike the capsules that need the entire body inside, the helmets that encase only sight and sound require only the head were these two are located.

Anyway, throughout the week Alex has show off his control in both V1 and V2 tech showing that his condition was very good. The same could be said about us all, causing Malcolm to swallow his worry and letting Alex attend the tournament.

“Damn it! This is the finals already and timer is going down!! We are tied damn it!” Alex complained.

I have someone on radar! Damn I only have a sniper and no time to scope!” Luna replied.

She has been really into gaming since she woke up. Maybe because she never had the coordination as she said before, having Alex’s level of coordination made her pumped for high intensity games.

“Doesn’t matter! Just fire it with no scope!” Alex shouted.

“Ahahah! It would be amazing to see the 360 no scope sniper.” Dad casually commented. The two of them obviously couldn’t hear us and only the voice of each of them could get through because in game the idea was that ally's had comms on.

At the final 5 seconds Luna spontaneously tripped and fell off the building she was on spinning and she was above one of the guys and out of her own reaction she shot and to every last person watching including herself she hit the guy right in the head.

The bullet reached at the last second and the game always shows the last death so you can imagine that as they remove their helmet they show her tripping and causing a jumping 360 no scope sniper headshot for 1 more kill over the other team.

“AHAHAHAH!! A 360 No scope sniper headshot! Ahahahahahahahaha! Luna! You are probably the most hated enemy of the other team now! That shot is a 1 in a million shot and is considered the most disrespectful shot since the first FPS game was made! Ahahahaha!” Alex said while rolling on the ground laughing.

The screen changes to the announcer.

And there we have it people! The champion is the reigning champ and his partner who literally shamed her opponent with the 360 sniper no scope and to make it worse a head shot. The prize for this year's tournament is none other than $10,000 dollars for each one of the winning team, $3,000 for the team in second and $1,000 for the third place. We will be showing the top killcams here caught during the entire tournament so those interested don’t forget to stay tuned!” The man says and an image of the winning player's name, though no pictures for player safety.

Like that Alex and Luna won the tournament in a most spectacular method with the money soon arriving in their bank accounts. Luna did looked a bit sad and sighed heavily due to something. Probably her model job.

Sadly the distance we can separate from the entire group, if we stay in pairs, is about 5 km from each other. It’s far too little for her to be able to go around modeling anymore until this condition gets better.

***

“Alright you eight, while we have made sure that your brains can handle all five senses in full immersion this last week, we aren’t going to take chances and we have installed medical capsules for you. If anything goes even remotely wrong you will be ejected before you can even blink.” Malcolm told us.

“Finally we can go back! I wonder what kind of place we are in now.” Dad said scratching his cheek which happened to be bright red with a distinct hand print.

No one knew the details but when he woke up with Elisa she slapped him marvelously and insulted him a lot for some reason she won’t say.

Alex was similar but his attitude was more of depression while he stood as far away from Luna as he could.

The only ones that haven’t had problems with the ‘Lucid dream’ problems were Sophia and I and Maghen and Ernest. Truthfully she is happily getting really close to him and he treats her like some kind of martial arts disciple.

Sophia and I have a more or less friendly relationship. Besides the constant problem of the bathroom, yeah very awkward situation for sure, we aren’t at each other's throat or ‘over’ friendly or close like a couple. I guess roommates is a good way to say it but I can see discomfort written on everyone's face. Stress is seriously building for a few people due to the mental connection thing and… well our own thoughts have to be very cautious because stray thoughts normally fly between the connection.

“So shall we get you all into the game and see how things work?” Malcolm said.

“Might as well.” Noland said and got up.

Elisa glared at him and stood up as well. The others soon followed and each pair going to their rooms where the medical capsules were.

“Just a warning but if anything dangerous to your real world health happens you will be ejected immediately.” Malcolm's voice came from outside.

They keep it in mind as they enter the capsules and finally return.

Within The Nebula, each of the AI suddenly felt it and they looked towards their player. “They are back!” each of them thought as they moved back to the station disregarding whatever they were doing.

Six of the eight were stuck inside cryogenic pods so the AI would need to thaw them first but when they arrived they found that the two androids were already up but were moving strangely.

“Big sis Jess~!” Vivi shouted as she flew at Sophia, who here was Jessica.

“Vivi!” She said surprised as the small flying robot flew and hugged her. The scout drone size matched her mentality as a little girl.

Walking in after were the others.

“Wow! Where did…” Meghan, who was called Hilda here, began when suddenly Ricky walked forward laughing.

“Ahahah Boss your back! Now we can kick ass together!” he said.

“Ricky! You brat why did you get suck a big robot.” She asked. The robot was taller than a human but not bigger than the Psi Robot that Noah used. “Where are we anyway?” she asked looking around and noticed the cryogenic pods which stored the other six.

“We are… within an unknown… space station.” Magi walked forward meeting the two.

“Ah! Magi! So what happened exactly?” Jessica asked.

“Long explanation… let's wake up the… others first.” She said and walked forward and to each pod putting in a code that began thawing the six rapidly and when they were revived the lid opened up.

The eyes of the six began to flutter and they opened it and slowly began to walk out when suddenly they began to hold their throats as if choking. They fell to their knees while trying to breath but to them it felt like they were submerged underwater. Still, they could breath but it was like breathing water and it was too much of a shock for them to adapt instantly and so they began to thrash until at once they received a message.

Due to an unexpected event your avatars have experienced a drastic mutation.

Mutation taking effect...

At once, they all began to feel a burning from their lungs but it didn’t stop there. Soon their eyes which was currently feeling as if it was underwater began to burn in pain as well and further each of them felt their Psi openings feel like they were burning but they felt a keep presence as more were starting to appear. Lisa who was an Elf felt her openings widen and a small number appeared fully opened and gushing out Psi while for the others more and more openings appeared.

Noland who had some on his hand and feet developed them all the way up to the shoulder and knees. Noah who only had the ones on his fingers had them appear up to his elbow and part way up his leg below the knee.

Alex felt his tail burning with the open psi openings and the few on his hands grew in number as it went up halfway to his elbow and then he felt a burning on his shoulder blade as two groups of 10 psi openings open there and increase to 20 openings each side.

The others were in similar situation and their bodies underwent these strange changes for several minutes before it stopped and they collapsed but still conscious.

Mutation has been complete. The number of psi opening count has increased by 90%. Your lungs have evolved to breath and survive of Psi as well as air without psi. Your eyes have adapted to see within super Dense Psi areas.

Further undiscovered mutations have occurred but aren’t as apparent.

After the message all that was left was six groaning people on the ground coughing as their breath regulated and they got used to the psi filled air.

Noah rolled over onto his back and looked up, “What… happened?” he asked in a ragged voice but was shocked them was when they felt a psi wave come with his voice.

New mutation discovered. Your vocal cords have mutated to release psi waves as a form of communication

Psi Echo

Level 1

A unique skill learned by infusing words or your intent into psi and releasing it outwards. Creatures who communicate with Psi will all understand no matter the language because Psi can contain intent.

Instantly not only Noah but Lia also gained the skill because of her link to Noah.

“You have undergone... mutations due to... psi ionization incident. Not only you... but all creatures… on the ship… at the time.” Magi said looking at him.

Letting out another cough Noah turned around and tried to stand up and felt his sore body and noticed the armor. Then he felt the acute pain from all his psi openings and saw how there were dozens of leakage openings on the suit release psi as a mist. He examined his openings and found many more on his hands and arms and legs and all of them were fully opened but as he looked at his stats he found no increase. It was probably tied to the mutation which wasn’t a direct influence he did so he didn’t get an improvement.

“What is this suit.” He asked and looked at the armor.

“We needed to find a way to contain your psi as best as possible when it was leaking constantly so we made the suit but it didn’t help much since you guys produce psi like crazy and it almost seems unhealthy.” Lia said frowning.

As she said that Noah noticed how his body was bloated with psi and the center of his psi network in his head was extra bloated and constantly release psi.

He tried to control the flow but it was incredibly difficult and it simply gushed out almost unceasingly.

“Seems… the psi center is… damaged from the… incident and has… swollen.” Magi said and is quiet for a moment. “Ami’s analysis states it is temporary but time until fully healed unknown. Effects seem to prevent extensive inner psi control.” Magi said.

The others were getting up at this time and were getting accustomed to their body as armor as it is.

The others looked at their bodies and each tested something. Roktar tested inner psi manipulation with the armor and nodded. “Inner manipulation… works with the suits.” He said in a ragged voice.

“Come, let's get you to the infirmary so I can check on you and then we can show you where we are and what we did while you were gone.” Tris said.

They were inside their ship but they were on the inner sections meaning they couldn’t see outside and even in the infirmary they couldn’t see. Tris had seen the message for the mutation so she looked at those specific organs. First scanning the eye then used a better scanner to get a reading from their lungs and vocal cords and finally a Psi reading showing all psi openings.

“So how are the readings?” Xero asked.

“The eyes have formed a secondary skin which aides it in seeing properly in this psi. We hadn’t noticed but it seems this psi bends light and forms a medium like water which organic eyes aren’t used to.” Tris said.

“That is a big mutation.” Baal said.

“Not as much as the lungs.” Tris said. She brings up the image of a common lung and their lung. “From my scans it seems their lungs have somehow formed a method to absorb psi in the place of air. It can replace oxygen by a percentage but it's currently in its growth period so once it stabilizes it is possible you don’t even need oxygen anymore and can go into space without air and survive off psi only.” Tris said.

The jaws of all those present were open from the shocking discovery and then Roktar thought of something. “We mutated to adapt… but wouldn’t this psi be a dangerous place for anyone else?” Roktar asked.

“Its incredibly dangerous. This Psi has an invasive capability like no other and can invade metal and make it into psi metal given time and can pass through the metals of lower quality so any suit or air tank will be easily invaded and will enter the breathing air of the person.” Tris said.

“Wait! It makes Psi metal!” Noah asked in shock.

“Yes, most of the ship is already changed into psi metal and we are forced to wait for the ship to completely change or else we can’t turn it on with fragile parts breaking so easily.” Lia explained.

“We even needed to develop new coding because this psi invaded the power cores but this improved the ship's output.” Xero said.

“With just a few psi fish and maybe some mutated plants how did it change the entire ship?” Jessica asked.

“It wasn’t ‘just’ a few psi fish.” Tris said and looked away.

“Magi had Tris take care of the psi fish and open their psi gates with me helping some times and we ended up make an ocean like scene in space.” Olivia said and turned to the door and waved for them to follow.

The players looked at each other as they saw all the AI walk out and soon they followed. As they reached the door out they found it opened all the way and so they walked out to find the massive hangar with an energy barrier keeping the air inside and the AI walked to the edge.

When they finally reached it they all gasped as they saw the massive forest reef and the Space Wyvern and all the psi fish flying around.

The players could only look until they looked at Tris, “What the kind of rearing did you do!” they asked.

She laughed embarrassed. I wasn’t able to do a perfect job though.” She said.

“What wasn’t perfect?” Roktar asked.

Suddenly as psi wave hit them all. “Vi’erm! We Ria are the Dakriv of the Cra’tv!” a roar hit them.

Tris sighed as she looked out and up at the long 5 meter long serpent Ryu dragons who was the leader of the Ryu dragons. “That… that is my mistake.” She said. “Meet the Space Ryu dragons. One of the two mounts we had bred but their aggressive nature made it impossible to coexist.” Tris said. “Let me go get rid of them.” She said.

“Why get rid of them?” he suddenly asked.

“Eh?” All the AI looked at him.

“Well you can tell they are stronger than the wyvern types. Why get rid of them? If they are aggressive then that is because of jealousy which will eventually evolve into racial hate and will never end the war between them.” Roktar said.

“Problem is that they do not want to share the position.” Ricky said.

“Then threaten them. Instead of letting them retreat, threaten to kill them all off if they want to keep fighting.” He said and thought a while before turning around. “Get me an air tank. Tris teach me to talk with the Psi echo and then take me up there.” Roktar said firm and serious.

They were all shocked but after he shouted to go Lia ran off to get the air tank and Tris showed him how to transfer his intent into his psi and after a bit he got it and so he put the space helmet on and connected the air tank and Tris called the Wyvern and took them out.