Work Text:
Silver Wolf’s focus on achieving this combo on a game she’s been trying at for, like, an hour, is broken by a notification on her watch. A message from Elio, which is out of the ordinary when you consider how he communicates almost exclusively through that cat of his. Normally she’d ignore things like this when she’s working on something important, but if he gathered the courage to message the group chat something must have gone really poorly. Like, bad bad. That would be hilarious, so Silver Wolf decides she can spare the time to read this.
She opens the message.
Elio (18:34)
It has recently been brought to my attention that positive relationships between group members are conducive to a good workplace environment. Starting next week we will be having monthly mandatory group bonding time. The theme and activity switch between members monthly. Kafka is picking first. Please keep up the hard work
…Mandatory group bonding. Seriously?
Silver Wolf likes Elio as a boss because he’s hands-off, sending her mission plans through his cat once a month and letting her do whatever in her off time, so long as she doesn’t, like, blow up a relatively important planet along the way. Let it be known that the omnipotent boss isn’t half-bad when he doesn’t have enough of a backbone to make you get off your phone at company meetings.
But this… monthly mandatory group bonding… it just reeks of Kafka’s picture-perfect hands. Although, she thinks, looking closer at the message, at least they get to take turns picking out activities. Silver Wolf is sure she can bully Elio into letting them play Galactic Kart on his days to pick.
Hey, this might not be half-bad. Still annoying though, her coworkers are only marginally less boring to be around than any other person.
She blows a bubble with her gum and opens one of her favorite games. She doesn’t have to think too hard about it for now, the first one isn’t for another week at least, and she only has one semi-important mission between now and then. Hey, maybe she’ll bother the old guy on the Astral Express… he always looks weirdly constipated when she talks to him, it’s honestly so amusing.
But before that, her server is opening again soon. She’s got stuff to do.
—
Honestly, Silver Wolf nearly forgets about the meeting. Like, what can she say, a new banner dropped on one of her favorite games, featuring two of her favorite characters, and the devs forgot to patch how the game qualifies them. It's the type of oversight she loves most: ones that let her absolutely wreck the max damage she can do. Then, out of the blue, Kafka messaged her “Don’t forget about the meeting~ Elio told me you’re going to be late ;)”. Ugh.
Silver Wolf would not have been late, by the way, she could have just showed up by hologram instantly anyways. Unfortunately, though, Kafka had some sort of weird insistence that she show up physically. Lame.
So show up Silver Wolf does, on time , mind you, only to be greeted by… a slumber party.
Firefly is out of Sam with a face mask on, looking as mild as ever, and Blade is in the corner, his bangs pushed back by a fluffy headband with bunny ears, as Kafka, wearing a two piece pajama set with little hearts on it, paints his nails peach-pink.
“Ah, Silver Wolf. I was wondering when you were going to show up,” Kafka says, with that stupid smug smile of hers. How anyone can tolerate her is beyond Silver Wolf. She's such a pest.
Ignoring her, Silver Wolf asks Firefly (who, while corrupted by Kafka, at least isn't the woman herself) “What's going on?”
“We're having a slumber party! Kafka got this mask for me, it smells like cucumbers!”
“C'mon, darling, you should try one. Look at Bladie's skin,” she pokes his cheek, and though Blade smolders he doesn't try to amputate her in any way. He wouldn't have been successful, but the lack of trying is impressive. Kafka really has trained him well.
Admittedly his skin looks a little softer, but “He's literally immortal. His skin is perfect anyways.”
“But all that stress from the Xianzhou made him look a little dull, don't you think?”
“Uhh, no. Not really.” Silver Wolf says.
Blade makes eye contact with her. He doesn’t normally look too alive , per say, but right now his eyes are as glazed and dead looking as a poorly-rendered zombie. What did Kafka even do to him? “You're going to have to wear one. It's in the prescript.”
No way it is , is what Silver Wolf wants to say, but she doesn't get much choice in the matter, apparently. There’s always the chance Kafka is lying for fun, but the odds are equal, if not higher, that Kafka bothered getting an entire transcript from Elio’s microplanning ass simply because she wants to prove Silver Wolf wrong.
Group bonding is seriously the worst. Why did Elio decide now was a good time to read a book on being a good boss?
“Ugh, fine.”
—
The face mask is admittedly nice. Refreshing, or whatever. Not that Silver Wolf will ever be saying that, but the looks Firefly keeps shooting her seem to be saying ‘ that wasn’t so bad, right?’, which is so gross to think about that Silver Wolf refuses to even look at her.
Instead, she decides to turn her attention to Blade, who has, at this point, gotten a full manicure and facial. Now Kafka is trying to persuade him to let her add little bows to his hair. That woman is genuinely impressive sometimes, there is probably nobody else in all the infinite universes that could or would ever attempt something like that. Silver Wolf wonders sometimes how far Kafka can push it with Blade. She seems to always know exactly the right time to stop while still being able to keep herself entertained. Interesting.
What isn’t interesting, though, is this music. Refusing to think this is her sparing Blade from Kafka, she says “Kafka, can you please put on something that won’t put me to sleep. ”
She smiles, and Silver Wolf feels a shudder go down her spine. “Only if you let me paint your nails~”
Horrible. This woman is awful. But Blade is mildly entertaining to have missions with, and if he’s braindead Silver Wolf will have to do more work, so, “If you’re that bored, just do Firefly’s.”
“I already did her nails.”
No way. Silver Wolf was literally on time, no way she had time to do that before she showed up. She looks over to Firefly, who smiles innocently, “I arrived early!”
Uuuuughhhh. Screw the grand plan for the universe, Silver Wolf is gonna quit and join the Astral Express. She doesn’t even care. All of her coworkers are the worst.
“I guess , if it’ll get you to turn this crap off.”
Kafka smiles, “Delightful!”
—
Kafka really went all out on Silver Wolf’s nails. They fit her color scheme, obviously, and they have a pixel-y design that really fits her vibe. Nobody needs to know that Kafka did them, obviously, but it's not like she’ll remove them the second she can either. They complete her image, or something. It’s not like Silver Wolf actually likes them that much, but monthly team bonding wasn’t such a drag this time, she guesses.
Especially since she managed to convince Firefly to download the ARPG she’s been playing lately. She needed more people to help her raid that dungeon, and apparently Firefly’s skillset transfers well to gaming. Maybe she’ll recruit her for more games in the future.
It’s not like it matters, Silver Wolf thinks, Elio didn’t even show up, not like anyone was expecting him to, but he did send that cat of his. Kafka and Firefly got all engaged in grooming it and giving it little treats (Silver Wolf only gave it one, ok, she’s not going to feed that cat’s already huge ego. That cat is almost as manipulative as Kafka, it even managed to get Blade to give it some attention, though Silver Wolf always figured he was the type of guy to say he hates cute things for the sake of his image, while going and feeding strays on the side.)
Somehow, Silver Wolf is the only one who ever seems to recognize just how wicked that cat is. Little bastard.
She shoots her canon at a low-level a little too hard, at that, and it explodes into a flurry of pixels. Why does Elio even send her on such small-fry missions? Kafka says its because she thinks Silver Wolf needs to ‘exercise’ and ‘get out more’, but Silver Wolf does both of those regularly!
Literally whatever, it's not like it's the most boring thing in the world.
As she finishes up, she hears a shuffle from behind her. Blade.
She slashes one more grunt, then turns to him. Now that she thinks about it, it’s his turn next.
Huh, wonder what he’ll choose.
“Hey, do you even have any hobbies to pick from for next month?” she smiles.
Blade tries to slash her in half for that one. He was probably only half-aiming to kill. Nice.
Silver Wolf laughs, “Who am I kidding, it’ll probably be something lame anyways. Lets go.”
They have work to do, unfortunately.