Chapter Text
It is objectively the best day in Chase’s life, he thinks, as Deacon smiles at him with a box in his hand no bigger than a shoebox, and says, “Happy birthday, Chase!”
Chase can’t believe his eyes.
He still remembers when he first saw the ad, nearly a month ago, accidentally stumbling upon it while checking his latest music cover’s performance on youtube. It sounded like a complete scam and he ignored it. But then he met up with Simon, Danielle, and Ross the same day, and they wouldn’t stop talking about it.
That night, Chase didn’t sleep. He couldn’t sleep. He spent most of the night scrolling away on youtube, watching early access reactions of content creators.
Since then, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. About the potential. The possibilities.
But like many things in his life, Chase can’t afford it. As it is, his mom greatly depends on the generosity of Deacon’s parents for her treatment. Chase can’t go to college, nor transition medically, and there isn’t much he can do about that other than being grateful to his family for always supporting them.
So he’d known, the moment he got obsessed with this new tech thing that’s more expensive than his old bike, that it will just stay out of his reach. Something he can dream about but not have.
But here Deacon is, holding out the very game set Chase has been dreaming of owning.
“DEACON OHMYGOD!” Chase throws his arms around his cousin, pulling him into a tight hug, not caring that he almost knocks them both off-balance. “I LOVE YOU YOU’RE MY MOST FAVORITE COUSIN IN THE WORLD!”
Chase can’t see it, but hears the goofy grin in Deacon’s voice as he speaks, “Pff, thanks, though I’m your only cousin, Chase.”
Breaking the hug, Chase looks down at the box of Ambrosia Online with awe and excitement. Deacon passes it to him and he doesn’t waste another second in opening it.
Inside, the safety case reveals not one, but two headsets. “You got two of these?”
“Yeah, turns out the ‘family sets’ were on sale— oof—” Deacon is once again engulfed in a bone-crushing hug.
“IT MEANS YOU CAN PLAY WITH ME! Oh my gosh,” Chase lets go of him, jumping up and down in excitement. “We gotta try these, like, right now!”
“Not so fast, Charlie,” Beth interrupts. “You can play that thing after dinner. We haven’t even cut the cake yet.”
“But I really wanna just try it out real quick. We’ll be back in five, no, ten minutes!”
“Oh, let him, Beth,” Grandpa says. “Kid’s been talking about it the whole summer.”
“It’s his day, Beth,” Chase’s mom speaks up, also taking his side. “You can let him have this.”
Chase smiles brightly at where she lays on bed.
Truth be told, Chase isn’t really much of a gamer. But there’s something about this game, in particular, that makes it special, unlike any other game ever created. You see, the company that owns this game has invented a new technology — one that allows human brains to enter a new, simulated world. A Virtual Reality.
And not just. If every user ever of this technology is to be believed, it feels almost exactly like being in the real world. You can feel all sensations, — except for pain which is almost fully dulled — the world feels real, except, it has elements that can only exist in fantasy. But most important of all, users can edit their appearance however they like.
And it really does mean, however they like.
For once, Chase can really feel like a boy without the tight pressure of a binder around his chest.
Aunt Beth crosses her hands, but relents after hearing Myra. “Okay fine. But you better be back soon or I’m pulling that thing from both your heads.”
Chase carefully gets the two black tiara-like headsets out of their case, only partially listening to Deacon say something about pulling the headsets being unadvisable. He still can’t believe it. All summer he’s wanted this and now he has it in his hands.
He passes one to Deacon and wears the other himself, setting it perfectly around his temples because he’s already watched countless videos of people using it. As he’s about to press the button he knows is near his left temple, a hand around his writs stops him.
“Chaaaase! Get on the couch. Were you planning to sleep on the floor?”
“Whoops.”
The two cousins make themselves comfortable on the couch. Chase presses the ‘on’ button, and feels himself being pulled into a sleep that doesn’t quite feel like sleep.
When his eyes open again, he finds himself in a white void.
There’s a single screen floating in front of him, like a hologram of sorts, except it can very much be interacted with.
Choose your Language
English ⮛
Enter your username
|___________
❌ ✅
Ⓘ Usernames are unique. You can change it twice a week.
Already have an account? Login
“Hm.” Chase hasn’t thought of one yet. He usually just puts ‘Chase Hollow Like and Follow’ everywhere, but maybe for a game account he wants something different. “How about..”
He enters StarStruck. A small green check mark appears next to the name, probably signifying that it’s available to take. He smiles and presses the green tick.
Account created. Welcome, StarStruck.
Please create your persona.
A mirror appears in front of him, showing him his self-image, wearing his signature teal hoodie and pants. There is a whole selection of tabs next to it to manually adjust every single detail, but Chase doesn’t need any of that. He simply checks the box on the very top that says “Read Thoughts”.
Now, whatever he wants to change, he can do so with his thoughts alone. The first thing he does is make his chest flat, of course. The change is instant.
Chase touches a hand to his chest, finding no breasts there. And the realness of it.. it’s absolutely bewildering to him. It makes him feel something he can’t quite name. A good something.
He takes a moment to process that before moving on to other things.
Next change is a lot more significant, in terms of how much it changes.
Now, Chase did watch some trans creators speak about the game being able to change your genitals, but experiencing it for himself is surreal on a different scale. He knows this is just a simulated world, and that none of this is real but, god, how did they make it feel so real? He actually feels like he has male parts!
I wish it was real too.
If only there was a way to grant impossible wishes. Oh well.
After a few more moments of just processing it, he moves on to add some minor adjustments here and there, making his shoulders a little broader, changing his voice just a little, but not so much that it’d be unrecognizable to his friends and Deacon and most importanly to himself. He doesn’t bother with the clothes, he knows they’re just there for modesty and in-game he will automatically get the default starter outfit, later customizable as a part of the game.
He does play around with his hairstyle a little and even looks into the hair presets tab, trying out a few styles and different colors. One of the presets tame his hair into this ‘neat and presentable’ look which looks absolutely horrendous on Chase, and he immediately decides he doesn’t need anything other than his normal hair.
And then finally, because he can, he adds a little bit of height.
Juuuust a tiny bit.
Satisfied with his look, he saves his persona and presses Enter.
The game sends him into a different plane. He finds himself on a beautiful yard with just one big house in the distance — that looks less like a house and more like a mansion — and a girl in a very fancy legendary-rated outfit stands in front of him.
“Welcome, adventurer! I am your guide Lucia, and I’ll be guiding you through—”
“Oh nonono, I don’t care, skip!” Chase then proceeds to spam the skip button as the system tries to put him through a tutorial. He watches the guide girl glitch through incomplete dialogues, which looks pretty funny. All the tasks and whatnot get skipped as well.
“Congratulations on completing the tutorial! You are now ready to join other fellow adventurers and journey through the new exciting world of Ambrosia. Good luck out there!”
A white light flashes all around Chase, blinding him. When he opens his eyes again, he finds himself surrounded by trees and greenery everywhere.
He sucks in a slow breath, taking in the detail of little leaves and blades of grass, listening to the birds chirping in the distance. The sun streams warm rays down on his skin, and the wind gently ruffles his hair. The surface of the nearby pond ripples from unseen disturbances hiding in the blue depths.
Had he not known he was entering a simulated world, Chase really would’ve mistaken this place to be some unexplored part of the forests near their farmhouse. That’s how real it feels.
A smile growing on his face, he looks all around himself before jumping high with both hands in the air. “THIS IS AWESOM —”
His vision is suddenly engulfed in fire, and then the world dulls into this dark vignette that he can barely see. Two large, bold words appear on a screen in front of him.
GothBuddy3519 =🔥➾ StarStruck
You died.
View Replay | Respawn
“What!? How??”
He probably should’ve clicked the ‘View Replay’ before respawning.
Because, as soon as he spawns back into the real-like, vibrant world surrounded by green, he is once again engulfed in fire.
GothBuddy3519 =🔥➾ StarStruck
You died.
View Replay | Respawn
“Oh for the— I just joined this game! What’s killing me?”
This time he clicks the ‘view replay’ option.
He watches what happened from third-person perspective. He sees now, there is a shadow of a player partially obscured by the trees whom he didn’t notice before. The person — their username reading ‘GothBuddy3519’ (who even picks that kind of a name?) — walks out of the trees, Chase’s back turned on him now, and hurls a large fireball at him. It hits Chase square on his back and explodes. He immediately dies, his ‘dead body’ flopping to the ground like a ragdoll. The next second he respawns barely a yard away from his death spot and the player sends another fireball at him, immediately killing him again.
Chase scowls. If this guy can kill him with nothing more than one single skill, he’s got to be a high level. Or the power level between a new player and a not-so-new player is simply just that big. Either way, not cool to kill someone at spawn like this. “Ugh, what a jerk.”
He taps respawn again. This time, when the fireball comes at him, he’s ready and dodges out of its way. The fire hits the grassy ground, the grass miraculously remaining unharmed.
Chase turns to his attacker. “Hey, can you not? I just joined the game!”
GothBuddy3519 raises an eyebrow at him, icy blue eyes somehow appearing bored and condescending at the same time. “And is that supposed to concern me?”
As Chase opens his mouth again, the player launches another attack at him. This one a large horizontal sweep of fire, an Area-of-Effect skill that Chase has no hope of dodging.
GothBuddy3519 =🔥➾ StarStruck
You died.
View Replay | Respawn
“Ughhhh come on!”
He hits respawn. This time, instead of trying to reason with this random jerk player, he breaks into a run. Can’t kill him if he can’t catch him.
Turns out, Chase is wrong. He barely makes it a few steps before he’s struck by lightning.
GothBuddy3519 =⚡➾ StarStruck
You died.
View Replay | Respawn
“How even..”
Respawn. Run into the trees.
You died.
Respawn. Run toward him.
You died.
Yeah okay, maybe that wasn’t very smart of Chase.
Respawn. Try to fight back. But wait.. he doesn’t know how to use any of his skills or abilities...
Probably shouldn’t have skipped that tutorial.
You died.
Respawn.
Running out of options now, Chase does the only thing he can think of. He jump into the nearby pond.
Being inside water here feels.. odd. Chase doesn’t feel the usual discomfort that comes with taking a dive — the water trying to press its way up your nose, the pressure on your ears, eyes barely able to see anything except distorted shapes, and, most importantly, the growing shortness of breath.
Chase feels none of that. He does feel his body being engulfed in wetness and pressure, but his hearing is normal, his vision is clear, and there is no shortness of breath despite him holding his breath. Instead there’s a bar that pops up on the side, right above his health bar, signifying his oxygen level. If he focuses his eyes on the bar, a small text appears there saying “54 seconds” and counting down.
Chase stares above. The player is frowning down at him from land, but doesn’t try to follow him into the water. Instead he does a hand motion, summoning a fancy-looking staff in his hands which has to be epic-rated at the very least. The next moment, lightning strikes the pond.
Miraculously, the powerful electrical current doesn’t even touch Chase. It’s almost as if the surface stops the lightning.
Oh, Chase realizes. It’s like the grass that was completely fine after taking a big explosive fireball. The terrain here is indestructible by players.
So if he’s hiding inside a terrain, he’s technically invincible.
He smirks, a few air bubbles escaping his mouth and floating up to the surface. Buddy watches, still not following him inside for some reason. Maybe water is like his weakness or something, since he seems to be a fire-main. Chase then remembers that his time here is limited. Checking his oxygen level, he finds it at 38 seconds. He looks up at Buddy again, who is just standing there, waiting, patient.
The timer keeps counting down.
Ugh, great. So his only options are to let his oxygen run out or surface and possibly get exploded by a jerk who looks like a cheap mall goth.
What will happen if I just let it count down?
Chase finds out the answer to that question very soon as he decides to not move.
When the oxygen bar thing is empty, it, alongwith the ‘0 seconds’, turn red color. Chase watches his large health bar lose a few points every 2 seconds. At first it’s a very small damage factor, making him falsely believe that he can survive after all. But then he notices that every next damage is actually twice that of previous one. He loses 8 points, then 16, then 32, then 64... Before he can quite react, his health points make a massive jumps from 373/500 (75%) to 245/500 (49%).
He knows what’s coming next.
He scrambles, swimming toward the surface as he mentally counts down the next 2 seconds. He’s almost there—
StarStruck 🪦 Terrain KO
You died.
View Replay | Respawn
Chase sighs as he is respawned at the pondside, probably not more than two steps away from mall goth jerk, still dripping wet for some weird reason.
“Drowning in water to avoid dying to me,” GothBuddy mocks. “How precocious ideas you have.” Chase scowls as he turns to GothBuddy, who is smirking at him, looking thoroughly entertained by Chase’s lack of experience. “Makes me want to take pity on you and let you go.”
Chase almost growls, wiping the wetness from his face with both hands. “I’ll precosh you into the freezing north pole, just you wait!” He pettily flicks his hands at GothBuddy, shedding droplets of water on him.
GothBuddy recoils away, as if burned by the cool water.
“What, scared of a little water?” Chase squats down next to the water and swings his hand through it, splashing a good amount of water toward GothBuddy who jumps away in disgust.
“Ugh, don’t make me change my mind, brat. Unless you wish to die again.”
Chase gets up in anger, stepping closer to the mall goth jerk. “Listen here, you .. GothBuddy3519. What kind of name is that even?”
GothBuddy scoffs. “That’s not my name. The system assigned that to me because I didn’t give it my name.”
“Then add your name.”
“No, why would I do that? I don’t want to give my name away to all you h—” He pauses suddenly, clearing his throat, almost awkwardly. “Players. To all of you players.”
“Dude, nobody said you need to share your real name. Just come up with a fake one!”
“Well then, I suppose the system already did that for me.”
Chase rolls his eyes. “Okay whatever, I don’t really care what you call yourself.” He steps closer to Buddy — and yes, he’s just gonna call him ‘Buddy’ from now, even though this guy can definitely be nobody’s buddy — standing close enough to land a nice punch on his stomach, but Chase is not gonna do that because you can’t even feel hurt here. He absently notes that he’s almost eye level with Buddy right now, and it irks him just a little bit, how much shorter he actually is compared to Buddy. “What I was saying is that what you did is. Not. Cool. Do you always come here to just kill every new player?”
Buddy crosses his arms. “Obviously. You’re not special, Star boy.”
“Why? Do you seriously enjoy killing players who are much smaller than you?”
At that, Buddy smiles, in a way Chase imagines cats would smile at their prey if they could. Chase feels like he has said something with double meaning, except, he doesn’t know what the double meaning is supposed to be. “Incredibly so,” Buddy replies. “It’s very gratifying to watch players like yourself flail about as they try to escape me.”
“You must be a loser in real life,” Chase says. “Which is why you feel the need to kill newbie players in a game to feel even a fraction of achievement. You’re sick, Buddy.”
Buddy rolls his eyes. “I’m not the one commenting on people’s real lives based on what they do here.”
“And how would you feel?” Chase asks. “If someone kept killing you like this right on spawn, not even two seconds after you joined?”
Buddy shrugs. “They may try. But if by some stroke of luck they do succeed, good for them, I suppose.”
“Ah, found you, Ch— I mean, StarStruck.” The new voice interrupts Chase’s next words, and he turns to find Deacon walking towards them. “And who is.. GothBuddy?”
Buddy turns his attention to Deacon. A protective feeling comes over Chase and he steps in front of Buddy, blocking Buddy’s view of his cousin.
Buddy blinks, then rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning to spawn camp your little ‘HorsePirate’ friend, my time here is nearly up either way.”
“Oh is it now?” Chase taunts. “I’d have thought you live in the game 24/7, going around killing random players.”
Buddy crosses his hands, looking as though he’s fed up with this conversation. “No need to be so dramatic, now. No one actually gets hurt from me killing them in a game. It’s a game that clearly allows pvp, I can do what I want and no one’s real lives are affected by it. There are much worse things that people worse than me do, with power they possess in real life, affecting real people. Just enjoy the game instead of trying to spread your little righteousness.” With a mocking little scoff, Buddy turns and starts walking away from them. Chase glares at his back as Deacon joins him.
“So uh, who was that guy? Why did he say that, what happened?”
“Just a random jerk, ignore him.” Chase turns to his cousin. He will just put ten miles of distance at minimum between himself and Buddy, he decides. He doesn’t want his mood ruined any more than it already is. He just wants to enjoy this day. “Which way is the nearest town or whatever?”
Deacon opens some map on his screen which Chase has yet to figure out how to do, then points toward the tree line beyond the pond, thankfully the exact opposite direction to Buddy. “That way.”
“Good,” Chase says and starts walking with quick steps.
“Hey Chase, wait!” Deacon calls out behind him.
“I don’t wanna talk about it, Dorkin.”
Deacon runs to catch up to him. “No, that’s not what I’m talking about,” he nudges Chase with a hand at his shoulder, making him turn around, then just stares at him for a long moment, blinking.
“What?”
“Did you.. make yourself taller?”
“No,” Chase replies instantly. “You made yourself shorter.”
Deacon raises a suspicious eyebrow. “Nnnno, I’m pretty very extra sure that I didn’t.”
“OH LOOK OUR FIRST QUEST IS WAITING FOR US!” Chase breaks into a run.
“Wha—hey, wait for me!” Deacon scrambles after him.
‘Why? Do you seriously enjoy killing players who are much smaller than you?’
“Tch. What does he know about being small.”
Nox summons a ring of fire, letting a horde of grotesque creatures burn as they try to reach for him. It’s his last quest for the day.
“I bet he would enjoy it too. Everyone enjoys having power over something. Or someone.” Especially the Star boy’s kind. Always their kind.
His next AoE attack is perhaps more aggressive than necessary. His mana falls below 20%. Not that it matters, as the remaining creatures die with that attack. His quest is marked done.
He better go now, or Vi will most certainly be mad at him for being late.
Clicking on the ‘log off’ option on his screen, he enters a brief moment of dreamless sleep, before waking back up in the real world.
Violet is already towering over his resting body, a disapproving glare on her face as she stands above him with arms crossed. She points a hand to his left, and Nox sighs even as he follows it.
There, to his left, at the corner of the room, rests a large broken wristwatch, its straps removed and its glass greatly fragmented from wherever it took a fall long ago. The hour hand sits at 8 o’clock perfect.
“You’re late,” Vi snaps.
“By a minute,” Nox defends.
“Why must you still use that thing anyway? Aren’t you tired of seeing humans in there?”
“Not if I get to beat them up,” Nox mumbles, removing the little delicate device from his head. How, or why it exists at his scale, Nox has no idea, but he has stopped questioning it. He simply considers it his luck that the human broke his own device in a fit of anger, causing bits and pieces of it to fly into every little crevice of the room.
“You do not need this thing,” Violet reiterates. “You’ve had your time toying around. Now put it back where you found it.”
Nox groans. “This again, Vi?”
“Borrower code, Nox. You don’t—”
“Don’t borrow more than you need, yes, you’ve said that only a dozen times already. But it’s not like the human needs it to make his own device work anymore. He already got his fixed, presumably using new parts. So he’s not going notice it missing either. I don’t get why I need to return it. It’d just be collecting dust forever under that bed.”
Violet has a very unhappy scowl on her face now. “Put. It. Back.”
“No.”
Violet groans. “Ugh, you know what? Fine.”
“Wait. Really?”
“Yes. Keep your little toy. One day this carelessness of yours will lead to worse consequences. And then I’ll tell you I told you so.”
Nox rolls his eyes. She’s acting as if he has willingly shown himself to some human and then handed his life to their giant hands or something. Which he would never, obviously. Despite what Violet might think, he actually has a healthy enough level of self-preservation to stay out of humans’ way, thank you.
The ambient light streaming in through the door — the little circular window of the attic — is suddenly cut off. It catches the siblings’ attention, who walk out of the shelf-room and into the much, much larger open space; the attic of this building. The single circular window that streams outside light into this dark space is now occupied by one large grayish-brown owl, that stares at them with intelligent eyes.
“Perfect. My ride is here,” Violet says, quickly ducking back into their space and emerging again with a satchel on her, and begins making her way off the shelf that holds their little space, using the rope-ladder they have in place.
“Oh.. you’re going to our siblings’?” Nox peers down at her as she continues to climb down with effortless grace.
“Yes, and I have been preparing for the past few hours.” She pauses and looks up at him. “Something you’d be aware of, if you were awake.”
Nox does not appreciate the jab, but does not talk back to her this time.
“Well?” She says with a raised eyebrow, seemingly waiting for an answer to a question he didn’t hear.
He blinks. “What?”
“Fancy accompanying me, then? I’m sure the others can accommodate even if you come without much belongings.”
“Oh.. the answer is still no. You know how I feel about that cat. It’s not going to change.”
“Suit yourself.” Vi continues down to the floor, crosses the floor toward the window wall, then makes her way up another ladder that leads to the window and the loyal owl waiting patiently in her spot.
Nox doesn’t know a lot about training animals, but Violet and Silver do, hailing from a community that specialized in it. Owls and pigeons are very versatile because of their high intelligence and flight capability, especially owls. Their owl, lovingly named Opal, was found as a hatchling whom Violet took under her wing after observing her mother not return to the nest for days. Vi raised and trained her over the years. Opal now lives a mostly independent life, though always returns to them every single night. She has become a reliable way for the siblings to travel around the big town of Sugar Springs, as someone who are far too small to fit in this large world.
Violet now stands by her trusty companion’s side, Opal’s form much bigger than hers, yet not at all intimidating. Despite the sharp beak and deadly claws on display, Nox has known the big girl as nothing but a big softie on the inside.
He can’t say the same about the.. cat.
Somehow, by some stroke of luck and skills, Silver managed to train the big white kitten that belongs to the humans of her house. It has been a year since the arrival of that feline in their household, but Nox still doesn’t trust that devil one bit.
Unfortunately for him, it means that he can no longer visit their siblings’ house with that beast prowling about.
Their siblings still visit him here though, with Violet and Opal’s assistance. Nox smiles at the memory of Silver’s last visit. That day he daringly borrowed one whole piece of freshly-made cheese ball from the cafe below. She too quickly devoured a good half of it before remembering to offer some to them. Both Nox and Violet passed, knowing just how much their sister loves cheese and how little of that stuff is usually accessible to them.
Vi climbs on Opal’s back, though as Opal spreads her wings, Vi makes her pause and glances at Nox again.
“Behave, Nox. Don’t do anything reckless.”
Nox rolls his eyes. “Yes, I’ll be so good while you’re gone.”
“I’m serious, Nox.” A pause. “Don’t die. Or worse.”
Nox’s eyes soften. “I’ll be fine, Vi.”
“You better be.” With that, they take off into the dark night sky, Opal’s wings not making a sound despite their magnificent scale.
Nox watches the empty window wistfully. He’s not particularly fond of this life they live, always hiding, always one mistakes away from a fate possibly worse than death, living off of borrowing bits & pieces discarded by others. Living separately.
But it’s not going to get any better when you are a five-inch tall person that’s perceived as a pest by their much, much taller counterparts.
Exhibit A: the cafe owner’s boyfriend who has started helping out the girl with her business now. Speaking of..
He looks at the watch again. 8:12 pm. The cafe closes at 11 pm. Nox purses his lips. Now is, unfortunately, the best time for a borrowing trip to the owner’s apartment, the floor that lies below him and above the cafe. Owner’s boyfriend, ever since he started living here some two weeks ago, would often stay up till 3 am, making borrowing trips difficult for them. Right now, though, he should be down helping his girlfriend at the cafe. He gets on Violet’s nerves, and for a good reason. He gets on Nox’s nerves too.
He is clever, that human. Far more than his oblivious girlfriend.
Nox suspects that he is beginning to notice things. It’s why Violet has been so on edge lately, they can’t afford to be found out. This place is an excellent source of food and they’d be fools to sell themselves out because of one little mistake.
He wishes they could go live with their siblings, as their house is reportedly great for borrowing, too. But Silver and Vi are firmly against the idea of too many of them living together under the safe roof. After what happened to their home village..
Nox sighs, staring down at the dusty, lonely, abandoned attic.
It pains all the siblings to live apart, but when you are a borrower, you don’t simply get to choose your life. You just have to make do with whatever fate hands you.
Well, fate has now handed him a certain high-tech VR device which, for some reason, is perfectly usable on a borrower as it would be on a human. And he sure does plan to make the most out of it.
For now, he has to gear up for a borrowing trip.