Fission | Ground Zero

C H A P T E R | T H R E E

"Jesus- God Damnit-!"

Ripping her headphones off as an unexpected tap hits her shoulder, Lily's head whips around and sees one of the twins, Michaela, giggling. She stood at eye level with her, having not hit her growth spurt just yet and still a bit behind the other 8th graders. "Oo, you said a bad word, Lil. I should tell Mom."

Huffing, Lily puts her headphones on the desk and quickly types "sister" into the group chat. They usually understood what that meant. "Yeah, well I'm 16 now and won't get in nearly as much trouble," She says, blowing a stray bang from the side of her face, "What do you want?"

The freckles move upward when her little sister smiles, lifting alongside her face and eyes. "Mom says that dinner is done. Might wanna come downstairs now." She gives her a sassy look, head tilted, eyebrow lifted, and lips pursed.

With a groan, she nods and assures her sister that she will be down in a moment. When the girl bounds off and out of the bedroom, her skipping steps trodding down the hallways audibly enough that she couldn't escape the sound without pulling her headphones back into their nestled place on her head.

The two boys were discussing amongst themselves, rattling off insane character ideas and story possibilities.

"Okay, but what if we opened a portal to the Infernal Realm and brought in some imps to do our bidding? We could build a settlement and take over the United States."

"The Infernal Realm doesn't even exist in this world, dumbass. This isn't even D&D, it's homebrew." Chris argues, "How would we even do that anyway, we'd need someone with enough magic to even get us there."

"Yeah, I feel disrespected right now." Lily butts in with a large grin on her face, "But for real, I have to go eat dinner. We can pick this up again tomorrow, mom will kill me if I'm not down there in like, 5 minutes tops."

Chris groans, "What? We just got introduced."

"Yeah, I was excited to go fuck shit up." Devin chuckles, "You know I'm gonna think of every possible way to turn this campaign into chaos, don't you?" There's clicking in the background, his fast typing speed slightly concerning Lily, but only slightly.

"Better watch your step, boy, cos I can easily just–" She snaps her fingers close to the mic, "You know, GM powerplay you. Automatic disadvantage on the next roll where you decide to goon all over my campaign."

"But what if I have proficiency?" He asks, the smirk audible in his tone.

"You think I give a flying-?" A ding from her desktop notifications interrupts her, showing a message from Shay. She could only read one half, displaying an apology for not being there at the time of the first session. "Listen, I gotta go. Talk to you all later."

Before the two can protest, she clicks out of the call and into the separate chat. He had direct-messaged her, as he usually did for matters that didn't pertain to the entire group.

I do apologize for not being able to make it to the first round of play,

but I had to work so I'm sure it's excusable. Hoping we could get around to playing

sometime tonight though, if that is alright with you? Probably once

Wess is off of work, but I won't assume.

She begins to type her response, fingers blazing across the keyboard to try and keep from taking too long. Her mother never got mad about her being late for dinner, but hearing her yell across the house to hurry got on her nerves and she tried to avoid it altogether.

You're fine, I completely understand. Tell Wess to meet us

in the group call in about an hour, mom's calling for dinner.

I already have a plan.

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"So you guys are beginning in a completely different part of the world." Lily explains, "At least, from the other two. Instead of beginning in Manhattan, you'll each begin in Europe. Italy, to be exact." She begins pulling up different character sheets, this time for Wess and Shay, and a blank document to keep notes.

"Why Italy?" Wess asks, "Not sure my character will fit in well there."

"I have my reasons," She says, grabbing her dice and clearing her throat, "Don't worry about that, I can always make it work."

Shay cuts in, "Which part of Italy? This is very important for my character."

"Vincenza, Italy, to be exact. 1926, during the steampunk utopian era for this part of the world. America is still "in the dark ages", quite literally, in comparison to countries like England, Italy, and China."Where you guys have opaline buildings, glass train stations, and blimps powered by steam, Americans live in a Darker Victorian aesthetic, their large cities polluted with smog and crime."

"Ah, so we get it easy and they get it rough. Kinky, I like it. Anything to mess with Dev." Wess laughs, practically rolling around in his chair from the muffled shuffling sounds on the other end of the call. "All jokes aside, though," He clears his throat and coughs lightly, "When can I get a ray gun?"

Lily and Shay both let out a small chuckle, before she responds, confidently, with, "Never. Have fun with your blunderbuss, scrub."

He lets out a cry of disagreement, mimicking the voice of a beloved character by most of the friend group from a show they had watched when they were younger; a muscular, unfit character from a Show that claimed to be Regular, but in fact, was not.

"Do you guys mind your characters being related? Like siblings? I feel like it's fitting since you guys have very similar lines of profession and it was more normal for an entire family to run a business instead of hired employees in this period."

"We could be twins?" Wess suggests.

"Works for me," Shay adds, a distant bark heard from his side of the call.

"Anyway, go ahead and introduce your characters to me." She says, grabbing a dice bag from off of her desk and dumping out a D20 and a D10.

"So," Shay begins, the tone in his voice being that of someone hunched over a desk, elbows on the tabletop, hands folded and serious. "My character is a mortician, who is also a dark mage. She can use the organs and innards of people to draw magic from and –essentially– craft weird items."

"I love it. Wess?"

Wess seems even more serious– even more so hunched over the desk, the smile in his tone practically dripping into the microphone, "I'm Detective Vincent Voss, a vigilante with a need to always search for the truth. I don't go anywhere without my gun, and despite my friendliness I can also be your worst enemy."

"So an edge lord, I got it." She chuckles to his dismay, "Are you guys ready to begin? We only have three or four hours before I've gotta go to bed."

"Yep, I'm pretty sure we're both ready."

"Alright," A grin spreads on her face, her knuckles clenching atop the desk out of pure excitement, "Let's begin."