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There’s something pretty ironic, Silver Wolf thinks into the cold, crisp air of their ship’s stasis chamber, about seeing the very traits you asked a character to be created with biting your ass in ways you would never have imagined when you’d asked for them to be written in.
She’d had to buy a month’s worth of milk tea for Ellie from the character writing department in exchange for that particular favor, too, and Ellie drank milk tea basically every other day, so she’s justified in feeling bitter about it, alright? Besides, it had seemed like a decent idea at the time — bait all the waifu whales, piss off some of the fanbase for publicity, and get to secretly design a character who’s exactly her type? Who’d have a crush on the character she (and also everyone else, but that’s not important) would be playing as?
Hell, it had seemed like a great idea at the time. Now that she is decidedly not the main playable character, though, the only thing she regrets more is that one time she spent two hundred bucks trying to pull that one Snow Kotomi UR card just for Live Love’s horrible gacha system to hand her 5 different SSRs she couldn’t give less of a shit about instead.
“Idiot,” Silver Wolf mutters at the slumbering form within the glass pod — cold and unmoving like always, the slow rise and fall of her chest the only indicator that life still remains in it. “Haven’t I told you not to overexert yourself?”
Firefly doesn’t respond. Not that Silver Wolf had expected her to.
It’s a bit scary, sometimes, just how dead she looks when she’s recuperating from particularly bad Entropy Loss Syndrome flareups. The gray hair flowing past her shoulders looks dull and stringy from three days’ neglect, and there’s a patch of unnerving neon green lines carving its way up the side of her too-pale face, a bit like Kafka’s Spirit Whisper webs but scarier, because Silver Wolf knows those will never hurt them, but these will hurt one of her closest friends in this godforsaken ‘verse.
This stupid freaking universe that she never fucking asked to be isekaied into!
An alert starts beeping in the distance — one of their low-level ones, the ones that are basically there to say something’s happened during Kafka and Bladie’s latest Elio-assigned mission, but it’s fine, they can take care of themselves. Silver Wolf ignores it and makes a mental note to check their IPC-issued bounties later. Who knows, maybe Kafka might finally make headway towards SAM’s record with whatever stunt she’s pulled this time.
If it isn’t Kafka, Silver Wolf will eat her own ass. Bladie doesn’t pull stunts. Honestly, mentally speaking, he’s the most reasonable out of them all when it comes to missions, and cooking, and most other normal things they still have to handle as intergalactic terrorists. Which, yeah, wild thing to say about an active suicide risk, but it’s true. And probably says more about the rest of them than it does about him.
Well. At least Bladie can’t actually die. Silver Wolf is currently staring at someone who can — who is, in fact, terminally ill — and is dumb enough to risk her life to play stupid games with her stupid crush while their security system is being upgraded anyways.
“Of all the things you could’ve landed yourself back in here for,” Silver Wolf grumbles, “you chose to do an overnight video game marathon with Stelle.”
Firefly doesn’t even do overnight game marathons with Silver Wolf, and she remembers their entire history. What’s worse is, fuck, she can’t even be mad at the Trailblazers for it, because both the twins are good players, even better at banter, and super fun to be around, or else Silver Wolf wouldn’t try to match with them so often either.
(She might also miss her best gaming buddies a little more than she lets on, but that’s neither here nor there.)
It isn’t unusual for Firefly to end up here, but on these occasions when Bladie and Kafka are also gone and Silver Wolf’s the only person left in this entire spaceship on watchdog duty against the backdrop of deep space, it does feel lonelier than she’s typically used to. And something about the stasis chamber fucks with external electronics way too much for Silver Wolf to do a test run of her new games, too, so even her normal method of staving off boredom will only frustrate her to no end — the last time she tried, she ragequit six games in a row and smashed a console.
Elio and his stupid restrictions on LV.999, ugh. If he’d let her use that cartridge, she could’ve fixed the console instead of having to beg Kafka to turn herself in again.
Honestly, why doesn’t Elio’s script include budget considerations? A serious lapse in judgment by the Finality, if anyone asks her. Busting in and out of IPC jail starts to become less fun and more mind-blowingly tedious by the third time, and Silver Wolf is pretty sure they’re already on their fifth this year. With the way their current finances are looking, too, it won’t be long until their sixth.
… Well. It’s not as if they can plan one with SAM like this, anyways. As much as Silver Wolf hates to admit it, the IPC’s security measures are slowly inching towards serviceable with every breakout.
Very, very slowly.
Silver Wolf stays beside Firefly for a while longer, dutifully monitoring her vitals, administering her next dose of entropy-retainment medication or whatever it’s called, and watching her long, gray-blonde eyelashes flutter in fitful sleep until her stomach growls, loud and clear against the white-noise backdrop of the spaceship’s interior.
Aeons damn it. Couldn’t her bodily functions have waited a couple more hours for the security system to come back on?
She casts one last, totally-not-longing glance at Firefly, forcing down the stray impulse to trace the lines running down her cheek — which is dumb, anyways, it’s not like she can touch her through the glass — and heads toward the kitchen.
Their collective habitual self-neglect is one of Bladie’s biggest gripes, so he likes to leave some food prepped in the fridge for when he’s away on missions. With this in mind, Silver Wolf yanks open the fridge, expecting to see a delicious congee or maybe some nice dumplings, and is promptly met with a can of mung bean soda rolling off the overstuffed second shelf instead.
The resulting clang rings through the entire room, bouncing off the walls of the corridor as the can begins to leak fizzy mung bean juice, and Silver Wolf grimaces.
She’ll fix whatever error was in that grocery-ordering AetherPI call later.
“Demon Lord,” Silver Wolf calls out into the empty space. The tiny module pops into existence inches away from her face, expectant. “Can you clean up the mung bean soda? Thanks.”
They give her a nod, silent as always, then proceeds to get to work using the automatic sanitation preset Silver Wolf’s loaded onto PROMETHEUS. It’s a good thing Kafka isn’t here — she’d probably have forced Silver Wolf to clean it up by herself. Ugh. What’s the point of having aether editing if she can’t use it? She’s lived a whole life without these cool powers; might as well enjoy them now that she does.
Silver Wolf pries the fridge door open again, warier this time, maneuvering around the various tubs and cartons so as to avoid jostling the precariously stacked produce.
There! Her fingers curl around the vague outline of a food storage canister, and she pulls it out, left hand braced against the pile of groceries for stability, then slams the door shut with one foot.
Not her problem anymore. The AetherPI call error can wait.
She settles down next to Firefly’s cryopod as the display on the food storage canister changes from 30 to 29 seconds left. Whoever invented food containers with built-in reheating functions had been a real visionary — it’s by far the most utilized gadget on their entire spaceship, save for maybe Silver Wolf’s… okay, Silver Wolf’s everything, but those don’t count.
(Bladie does not like that it’s their most utilized gadget. Bladie, unfortunately, does not get a say in this.)
“You better heal up soon,” Silver Wolf tells Firefly when the canister slides open with a hiss to indicate that it’s done. “You’re missing out on Chef Bladie’s hand-pulled soup noodles.”
Firefly, of course, doesn’t respond.
“Bon appetit,” Silver Wolf says finally, summoning a pair of aether-edited chopsticks into her hand, and digs in.
Is it creepy to watch someone sleep while you’re eating? In her previous life, Silver Wolf would’ve certainly thought so. But all of the Stellaron Hunters are way too accustomed to caring for Firefly’s flareups at this point to give a shit.
Technically, they’re not supposed to eat in the stasis chamber, but surely Elio will forgive her just this once. It’s not like anyone else is here to take over her shift.
Without any games to distract her, the noodles are gone in a flash. Silver Wolf drinks the rest of the broth, sets the empty canister onto the floor, and instantly regrets finishing her meal so quickly because Aeons, watchdog duty is boring. There’s a reason their usual shifts are no longer than half an hour. There’s also a reason why they should’ve upgraded the security system weeks ago, but obviously, they never have the funds to do it until it’s too late.
Too late for her, that is. Kafka and Bladie are busy gallivanting off on some ocean planet terrorizing the seaweed aliens. But seriously, what is the point of having a fortune teller on the team when he can’t even prophesy extremely predictable things like log forwarders going out of date? They even have pop-up warnings about that in the installation tutorial!
Plus Silver Wolf had been stuck in solitary the whole time. If Elio could just get his rule-following stick out of his ass, all this hassle could’ve been avoided, easy.
… Maybe watchdog duty is Punishment Phase 2 or something.
At least the view is nice.
Silver Wolf pokes idly at the plexiglass, watching the various holographic diagrams and status readings dart across Firefly’s face, illuminating her cheeks with a soft, kaleidoscopic glow. By now, the cracked lines of Entropy Loss Syndrome have receded somewhat from her jaw, and some color has returned to the formerly deathly-pale pallor of her skin. It won’t be long until she wakes up.
Outside, a meteor from the nearby asteroid belt zips past. Silver Wolf doesn’t even bother to turn around — she can see its reflection off Firefly’s cryopod just fine, and it’s the gazillionth time they’ve seen that since they’ve docked near this random abandoned planet, anyways, two hundred and fifty-nine light years away from the nearest civilization. Known civilization. There are probably more out there waiting to be discovered, maybe an empire made of sentient bacterial microorganisms on one of these space rocks or something, but that’s not the Stellaron Hunters’ job.
Nah. Their job is to get into said civilizations, cause as much chaos as they can, and get back out with tiny lovecraftian cosmic horrors in their puny mortal hands. Silver Wolf would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy how the Stellarons had turned out — like, sure, it might’ve been a bitch and a half for the art team to animate for mobile specs, but the end result? Way too cool.
Might be one of the only ways Apocalypse: Star Rail had stayed true to the vision she’d originally proposed, if she really thinks about it. But that’s a bit too depressing, so that thought is officially shelved unless she decides to go brooding-edgelord, which is definitely, a hundred percent, emphatically never. Because she’s not boring. Yuck.
(And yeah, it’s also depressing watching Firefly like this in her pod, but that may or may not be a whole other can of worms Silver Wolf is even more adamant not to open, so.)
The seconds tick by with the steady shift of digits on the clock at the base of the pod, counting up for each moment Firefly has spent recuperating. It’s on a respectable twenty-seven hours, much shorter than the days — weeks, even — that the Stellaron Hunters are used to treating her for after particularly bad episodes. But that doesn’t mean Silver Wolf hates it any less; hates the wait, hates the boredom, hates the helplessness of it all.
Aether editing doesn’t work on ELS. No one else in this universe has tried to find a cure more than the Hunters have, she’s pretty sure, so if they can’t come up with any ideas, what options do they have, really? The Genius Society? Herta doesn’t even see Silver Wolf as anything more than the occasional bit of entertainment at best, which is kinda her own fault, but it doesn’t change the reality that the Stellaron Hunters can’t just ask anyone to help a bunch of terrorists. Or, they can, but the people they can intimidate into it probably won’t be very useful anyway.
… Maybe the doctor would try. He’s a super off-script solution, though. Who knows if he’ll interfere with Terminus’ vision and make even bigger problems?
“Can you please start taking care of yourself, already?” Silver Wolf sighs and slumps against the cryopod, too frustrated to even care about how bitingly cold the plexiglass is against her shoulder or about how pathetic she definitely looks talking to a girl who can’t even hear her. This is all because she can’t play a damn game in here to take her mind off things, dammit. If Kafka and Bladie don’t come home soon, she’s going to lose it.
BOOM.
Huh. Speak of the devil.
Silver Wolf doesn’t bother lifting her head to watch as Kafka strolls in a couple of seconds later — her heels are loud enough that anyone with a set of working ears can guess exactly where she is.
“How has our little Wolfie been?”
“Bored.” Silver Wolf hauls herself into a standing position — ow ow ow, her right foot’s fallen asleep — and musters the most annoyed face she can. There’s no way Kafka doesn’t see right through her act, but it’s the thought that counts. “You guys missed three whole shift rotations. She’s literally already about to wake up.”
“Alright, alright, you can just admit you missed us.” Kafka laughs and sidesteps the knee-kick Silver Wolf aims her way. “Don’t worry, dear, I’ll take over for the rest of it. Go get some sleep.”
“As if. I was one stage away from beating Arahato singleplayer when you guys left me here,” Silver Wolf grumbles as she heads towards the kitchen for a drink.
Unsurprisingly, Blade is there. Unfortunately for Silver Wolf, he is currently standing in front of the opened fridge, half-buried in what seems like ten times the amount of jars, cartons and boxes that had been in the fridge when Silver Wolf had opened it.
Probably because she… forgot to terminate the loop… ah.
As quietly as possible, Silver Wolf pivots on one heel to make her way to her bedroom instead.
“Silver Wolf,” comes a way-too-neutral voice from behind her.
Never mind. She can’t afford to be caught in another lecture again — Arahato’s co-op mode is locked behind a singleplayer clear, and she promised Firefly she’d unlock it so they can play together later.
She breaks into a run.
“Silver Wolf.”
“Thanks for the soup noodles, Bladie!” she calls, bolting up the stairs. “You’re welcome for the groceries!”
The last thing Silver Wolf hears before she closes her bedroom door behind her is a deep, deep sigh.