Rave, Rave, Revolution! First Beat!

--- Maya ---

A loud crashing sound cut through her thoughts, as shattering glass tore through the air, forcing her to turn towards the source of the noise, where she saw beams of light cutting through the air and a faint thumping of music in the air.

“What was that?” She asked, already making her way towards the source of the noise, the thumping in the air slowly getting louder.

(I don’t know, but perhaps it’d be best to proceed with caution for now.)

“Yeah, but we should at least see what’s going on.” She told herself. “Someone might be in trouble, and we might be able to help.”

(Right, just try to be careful.)

“Slow and steady.” She agreed.

It didn’t take her long from there to make her way to the source of the light and music, a large warehouse with a number of teenagers standing around the entrance. On the positive side of things, it didn’t look like anyone was actually hurt. Unfortunately, on the more negative side of things there was definitely a Deviant involved in this party.

On their own, the warehouse rave and all of the milling teenagers, were fairly similar to the parties she’d witnessed the few times she’d managed to convince Tommy to let her follow him to one of his parties, just to see what they were like. What made this scene different, and her sure that something else was going on, however was the rave’s bouncers.

Standing to either side of the entrance was a bipedal white bear like creature wearing a sleeveless leather jacket and sunglasses, their arms crossed over their chests and their heads slowly banging to the beat of the music.

(Well, that’s certainly something you don’t see every day…)

(Awesome! Our first real fight is with a couple of bears! This is going to be epic!)

(Not yet.) She scolded her inner passion. (We don’t know if they’re actually causing any trouble. For all we know this might just be a Deviant throwing a rave. We don’t want to be the dicks that call the cops on an innocent party.)

(Fine…) Her inner child groaned in resignation.

Deciding it would be best to take an actual look at what was happening inside of the party, she began walking towards the entrance.

As she got closer she noticed a number of the party goers were wearing odd neon patterns on their hoodies, and that a fair number of these people were pinging her MAP ()’s radar as criminals.

Subtly pulling out her COMP, she used her Scan () program on one of the nearby gang members, watching her power supply tick down to nineteen, as it pulled up the criminal’s record.

(He’s a known member of the Gamer’s Guild, meaning this whole party is probably their thing…)

(Does that mean we’re going to bust them up yet?)

(No, not until we know exactly what’s going on here. They still aren’t doing anything illegal, beyond a few noise complaints.) Which oddly enough, none of which were being filed, given how her Informant Network () had yet to find any crimes being reported in the area.

(I suppose that means the people here don’t mind the party all that much.) Her inner logic attempted in a point of optimism.

(That or they're too scared to report anything.) Her inner passion countered with an equal amount of cynicism.

(Either way, we don’t know enough just yet.) She told the arguing voices in her head, before freezing as a large white furred arm covered in blue and violet patterns blocked her path.

The bouncer bear growled at her, until she took a cautious step back, at which point it crossed its arms over its chest again and glared at her.

“Uh, did I do something wrong?” She asked after standing there for a moment and receiving no other warning to leave.

The bear adjusted its glasses before pointing a claw at the door, and once more crossing its arms.

(What the hell is that supposed to mean?)

She glanced around the crowd a bit in the hopes of figuring out what the bear meant, before realizing that at least half of the party goers were wearing glasses disturbingly similar to her headset, if not a little more professionally made.

(These fuckers are trying to jack our style!)

“My bad,” She bopped a hand against her head, before reaching into her hoodie. “Forgot to put them on before walking up. I’m still sort of new to everything.” She tried explaining as she slipped her headset on, hoping the bears wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between her own and everyone else’s with all of the shifting lights.

The bear gave her a hard look, and she nearly thought he’d seen through her lie, before the bouncer gestured for her to go in.

“Heh, thanks man.” She nodded back to the bear as she quickly made her way into the rave.

Immediately she wished she hadn’t.

The main reason she’d never gotten into the parties Tommy and his friends had was because all of the noise from the maxed out speakers would cause her ears to hurt, as the vibrations from the sound made her stomach roll.

“Shit, this was a bad idea.” She groaned, wishing she’d added some kind of noise filter to her headphones.

(Come on, we’re too far in to back out now.) Her inner wild thing warned.

(She’s right, it’d do nothing but draw attention to us at this stage.)

Knowing they were right, she shook her head and forced herself deeper into the rave, trying to avoid all of the sweating bodies jumping all about as they danced to the music.

(Damn it, don’t any of these people know about personal space!)

Only half listening to her own emotions, she continued walking through the party, idly noting the way her headset continued to ping a number of gang members onto her map. And even though she could already spot a dozen red dots on her map, she was considering herself extremely lucky that the crowd of a hundred didn’t have even more of the gang members strewn about. Though that did little to comfort her in the face of so many red dots.

(It’s just a party, they’re not doing anything illegal…) She told herself in an attempt to calm her nerves.

Eventually in her attempts to avoid being shoved around she somehow made her way towards the back of the warehouse where a large stage had been set up between two massive ceiling to floor speaker sets.

Just a little further behind the stage was another raised platform where a man was playing on a mixer board rapidly tweaking a disk with one hand while holding his headphone with the other. He wore the same glasses that the majority of the party goers were, as well as the neon painted jacket of the guild, though his showed a significantly more elaborate than the rest.

On impulse she used her COMP to cast Scan () on the DJ, something in the back of her head telling her he was important somehow.

(DJ Decker. A lieutenant of the Gamer’s Guild.) She read as her Informant Network steadily sent her more and more information about the man on the stage. (His chosen powers revolve around light, music, and summoning monsters, all of which are anchored to his mixer board.)

(Meaning we’re going to have to smash the board if we want to beat him.)

(Careful now, we’re out numbered and in the center of his territory. It might be better to just keep watching.) Her inner reason warned.

(Right, after all we still haven’t seen anything illegal. This might just be a regular party to these guys.) She told her more antsy self, knowing how thin of an excuse it was since the gang members were likely selling drugs or something along those lines just out of sight.

(Perhaps it’d be best if we retreated now…)

(Yeah, that… sounds like a good idea.) She agreed, the idea of picking a fight making her want to vomit.

“Hello party peeps!” A voice screamed into a mic, as she turned to leave, killing the noise of the blasting bass and forcing her attention back to the stage. “It’s finally time for the main event of the evening!”

Cheers rushed through the crowd, the loudest coming from those dressed in the gamer’s guild’s hoodies or wearing those neon glasses, as Decker appeared on a massive screen behind the stage.

“Now as our various streamers and their recurring followers know, once a month the Gamer’s Guild holds a tutorial for our new gamers to log-in and play!” Decker explained to the crowd eliciting another cheer. “And as luck would have it for you lot, this month’s beta is being held by your boy, DJ DECKER!”

The lights and music kicked off even bigger, brighter, and louder than before making her headache and the rolling her stomach worse.

“Now since I’m the one DM’ing for the GM, I’ve decided to kick our tutorial off with the staple of any good game, the combat.” Decker pressed something on his mixer, and with a slow drop of the bass a swarm of pixels began to form in midair, gathering together as they spun faster and faster before erupting in a show of lights.

From the lights fell a large white wolf with blue patterns swirling throughout its fur, the beast’s front legs made of a humming blue energy rather than flesh and bone.

Those closer to the stage backed away as the beast snapped at them, growling as rabid drool dripped from its maul.

“Oh, come now don’t be afraid!” Decker laughed, loving their reactions. “I figured it’d be more fun for our new adventurers to start off with something a bit more fun than rats in a sewer.”

Several people wearing glasses but no jacket began making their way to the sides of the stage.

“Ah, come now, that can’t be all the volunteers we have?” Decker told the crowd with a tilt of his head.

At this signal a number of the gang members wearing both the glasses and the hoodies began to subtly push several party goers wearing neither towards the rest of the initiates. Not enough to draw attention, but enough that as close as she was, that she could see it.

(What’s happening?)

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Decker cheered clapping for the initiates.

(Oh, no…)

“And for those of our more… reluctant new players. Well, you don’t have to worry about a thing…” Decker tilted his glasses down, revealing his pitch-black eyes as he gave everyone a too-wide Cheshire grin. “After all, once you’ve had that first hit of madness, you’ll realize just how much of a game life really is.”

(Shit, he’s forcing people into the gang.) She realized as the GG members around her cheered, and their guest did so too if a bit more reluctantly, likely just glad they weren’t being forced to fight the monsters.

(We’ve got to do something…) Her eyes darted around the rave, trying to figure out what she could do.

Behind her was the warehouse entrance where the Bouncer Bears had stepped inside, to watch the initiation.

(If we hit them full throttle, we might be able to provide an opening for people to escape, while taking the bears out by surprise.) Her inner logic offered as way of escape.

(But we’d also be leaving those being initiated to the wolves…) She pointed out as her eyes moved back to the stage, just in time to see a scared teen thrown forward.

(In that case let’s take the stage and blast ‘em. We’ll have to fight our way out, but we won’t be leaving anyone behind either.) Her inner wild thing offered.

(If we rush the stage they’ll have plenty of space to attack us once we out ourselves, it’d be better to sneak away while we can!)

(No we need to take out Decker before he can hurt anyone!)

The voices in her head continued to argue, as she gripped her ears trying to block out all of the noise, but unable to silence the yelling in her own mind as her breathing became more erratic and the whispers in her mind continued on chittering excitedly.

(I don’t know what to do… I don’t know what to do… I don’t know what to do!)

Her eyes darted between the stage, the entrance, the initiates once more before closing as she tried to just think.