Bat-sensei’s Special Training! We Love the Academy! (Flickfang, Red Hat, Challenger, Bonjwa&Screech)

Shiketsu Underground, Tunnels to Simulation Facility

There’s a stark atmospheric difference between above and below ground, as much as exterior and interior, day and night. It’s the acoustics, yes, but also the number of things making noise. When Jade is outside during the day, the world is a fuzzy outline of radar images from countless sources. Not fuzzy because it’s hard to see, but because it’s moving so damn much. People walking, birds chirping, cars and busses running two streets over, chitter-chatter in every direction. Alive with different topographical maps playing overtop of each other, updated every second.

Beneath the Shiketsu campus are a series of underground facilities and tunnels, linking the entire greater structure like an ant hive, or a colony weed that’s run wild across someone’s backyard. Being underground, in these tunnels, has an eerie quality to it. Jade would be getting goosebumps if she was alone. The way sounds echo through the solid, contained boundaries makes the place feel starkly immutable. A clear, crisp call and response from every click. But those sounds are few. Less overstimulating, but without that organic quality that makes the world above feel alive and breathing. Crawling inside the hard, hollow bones of a dead giant.

It's a good shiver though, Jade kinda likes it.

Right now, it doesn’t feel so dead and empty. Three students tromp along the tiles behind her, sending out rippling sonar waves with every contact between sole- and cane- and floor. Behind them, sharp claws scrape and skitter, creating sharper sounds at a higher frequency that cuts the air like an omnidirectional knife. “For some of you this will be your first time in the simulation chamber!” Jade narrates as they take the last turn before their destination. She doesn’t mention it, but this is actually only her second time, and the first time was coming down for a test run before this time, so this is the first real time, really. “I’m a huge fan of VR, myself, so I’ve been excited to use it in some lessons.”

“I also enjoy virtual games greatly,” Jae-Seong, accompanied by the scratching footsteps, speaks up. “Very difficult, it is, to find ones with accessibility in mind.”

“I mean,” reaching up to scratch at the top of his head. Hifumi cuts in with the tone of voice that suggests he’s about to say something he’s not sure is politically correct or not. “The whole point of VR is being able to see like you’re there, right, I dunno if it’s meant for…” he struggles to find a nicer way to say ‘you people’ or ‘blind people,’ but it isn’t coming. The insectoid critter at the back of their pack gurgles in irritation at the unintended slight against her master, and Jade opts to rescue Hifumi from the pause.

“You’re not wrong about what spurred the VR game cultural movement, Challenger,” in her teacherly way, Jade twists the stumbling block into a lesson. “For the majority of people it’s the most prominent sense, so it got all the love at first. But as people craved more immersive experiences, the technology expanded in other directions. Sound design became more realistic, then they even found ways to simulate touch. Not very efficient ways, but for big facilities like this we do have some.”

“Do they even have smell-o-vision?” the sophomore asks casually, earning a tittering sound from the alien bug and a snirk from Jade. The delivery really sold it.

“They sure tried,” she laughs.

“And succeeded!” piping up knowledgably as if he’d known it all along, Reiji holds up a hand behind Jade. She knows very well he just looked it up through his mental uplink. “About ten years ago, the Frieda-Hernwald Institute of Technology in Germany released the most cutting-edge hardware and software for taste and smell. It’s still too expensive to mass produce for gaming, though. Even further off than affordable touch-gaming.”

Chuckling, Hifumi leans forward and prods Reiji on the shoulder. “I bet you’re looking forward to the touch-gaming most. Simu-girlfriend is gonna be a top seller for sure.”

Puffing his chest out, Reiji shoots back a little too insistently, “I’ll have you know, I have a girlfriend.”

“Really? Is her name ODA?”

“I- no! It’s- she’s a real girlfriend!”

“Heheh, what’s her name then?”

While boys are being boys, Jade unlocks the door to the simulation engine control room. There’s another door next to it, stairs leading down to the larger simu-gym floor, but for her lesson plan today they’re not going to need the analog elements. Still, she might as well introduce the place before the bickering behind her gets out of hand. Lifting a fist to her mouth, Jade coughs into it.

The two boys stop their arguing. Reiji stands at attention, while Hifumi leans back in a more relaxed posture. Jae and Screech never got involved in the debate in the first place, and whatever inner dialogue might be passing between them is as silent to Jade as to anyone else. She’s not used to being unable to eavesdrop on one of her students.

Either way, their attention is hers’. “Below us,” motioning through the windows into the large gymnasium below, Jade gives the details of the facility she herself received just days before, “Is the simulation gymnasium, or simu-gym. Holographic displays combined with a fully moddable arena floor, walls and ceiling allow for realistic and immersive exercises in any terrain imaginable. Or, at least any terrain programmed into the computers. Which is still a lot!”

From the bored expression contouring his face, Hifumi isn’t unfamiliar with the facility, but Reiji has his eyes glued to the glass, taking it in. Screech is up on her hind legs beside him, serving as her master’s eyes.

“Today though, we will be using these simulation pods,” turning their attention further into the control room, to a narrower hallway on the other side, Jade indicates long rows of enclosed, windowed pods that line the passage. The walls are brassy, covered in machinery and panels, like a bronze-punk retro-futurist echo chamber. “These allow you to experience sight, sound and touch sensations from a simulated scenario, without threat of harm.”

“These I’ve worked with before, even made a prototype myself,” Reiji flexes his fingers, and Jade isn’t sure if he’s fibbing this time. He helped her set up a lot of her prep for this, making sure the mods she chose were compatible and safe for the technology.

“We have Kawano-kun to thank for your lesson today,” she is sure to say aloud. Even if it stokes his ego, the accomplished grin on his face is earned. “Care to help me load up the lesson?” Joining her next to a series of consoles that line the gymnasium window, Reiji boots up the panel nearest to the pod hallway and starts hammering keys.

“Ms. Makura? Or, Makura-sensei?” Jae speaks up again, standing next to Screech, who is fiddling with controls and causing terrain panels to move up and down in the larger chamber. It’s faint to Jade, the muffled sounds coming in through the windows she imagines is a lot like trying to peer through deep water. Muddled impressions of movement and not much else. Playfully, Hifumi tries to reach over and get in on the action, but she nips at his hand and he backs away.

“Either is fine, Jae-kun. What do you need?”

“Will Screech be able to join us?”

Frowning, Jade rubs her chin. “I’m afraid not. The system is designed to interface with the human brain. Whatever… neurology she has, I don’t know how it would react. It could fry her brain.” The critter is all snarls and gurgles of disappointment until that point, which makes her suck back her next groan and pull one final switch, resetting the simu-gym to its default state. Mildly concerning she figured out how to do that on her own.

“Alright, yeah, looks like we’re good to go,” the thought is cut off by Reiji’s announcement. “I don’t mean to brag, but I am that good.”

“Hey, other question with no offense meant, bat-sensei?” Hifumi asks again, looking away from the after-effects of Screech’s antics reverting to normal.

“Shoot.”

“Could you and Jae… see in the simulations?”

Pivoting on her foot, Jade swings from side to side, pressing her lip against her fangs. “Well. You see, when the brain does not have sight to process, it makes room for other things.” She sets a finger against her temple. “Even if we go past my shitty eyes-” she moves past the boyish grins and attempts to comment on their teacher cursing, bowling over them, “- the brain is not made well for understanding how to understand seeing things, if that makes sense?”

The curious sophomore tips his head side to side and sticks out his lip. “Nnot totally, but I think I get the jist.”

Twisting and pulling a knob on the side of the first pod, Jade opens it with a hiss. “Who wants to climb in first?” She barely has the sentence out of her mouth before Hifumi is climbing inside. “Alright! Slide that helmet on your head, and place your limbs in the cushioned safety tubes.”

“Little bit claustrophobic,” the boy comments, despite volunteering to go first. He places what feels like a ridiculous colander covered in wires onto his head and leans back. Like a full-body massage chair, the cushioned leather lining absorbs him. The pod beeps several times before it starts closing on its own, and seals shut.

Fidgeting and jostling feet clue Jade in that Jae is feeling nervous. Screech is whining, nestled up against his leg. Walking past Reiji, she pats the young computer whiz on the shoulder. “Go on ahead.” He, too, doesn’t show any signs of hesitation. Maybe he really has used things like this before. “Jae-kun, are you alright?”

The boy pulls up his sleeve and scratches at his arm. The exterior of his body underneath his clothes is unusual, more solid and reflective of sound than the soft surface of human skin. Much of him is covered in chitin, similarly to his construct. “It is just,” he begins, glancing down at the insectoid, “I worry. As mutants, we could be in danger from the computer as well? To fry our brains?”

“Oh,” realizing her earlier comment about Screech may have come off the wrong way, Jade starts to open her mouth to give a placating statement, then stops. It’s not that he misunderstood. It’s a perfectly reasonable worry to have, not knowing everything that goes on behind the scenes. “Do not worry, Jae-kun. We have your quirk-related medical data on file. There was nothing on file that gave The Doctor cause to think the simu-pods would do you harm.” Folding her hands behind her back, she swivels her ears down towards Screech. “I may have been able to confirm for your friend also, if she was not so allergic to medical exams.”

Snarling, the creature snaps her jaws at the idea.

“If it will make you feel better I can go first?” Jade offers, ignoring Screech’s minor outburst.

After thinking it over, Jae shakes his head. “No. No, I rather would like you to be there awake to pull me out if it goes bad.”

“That makes sense too!”

By the time they come to the third pod, Reiji has already helped himself inside. Jade twists and pulls, starting the opening process, and the thick glasstic surface comes away from the bed of the pod. She reaches out to offer Jae help climbing inside, but Screech shoos her hand away from his with a threatening glare and a poised scythe-limb. “Sorry,” the young Korean student apologizes, handing Jade his cane and sliding in on his own. He looks down nervously as the insides of the machine absorb his limbs. Jade helps him put the helmet on, at least. “This is the coolest and scariest moment of my life.”

Jade grins back down at him, even if he can’t see it. “I know, right? So awesome. See you inside!” Closing the chamber after giving him a few seconds to settle in, Jade leans his cane up next to it. When she finds her own pod she calls out, “Be good, Screech! Fiddle with the wrong controls and you might hurt Jae, remember!” Hoping it’ll be enough for the alien construct to behave. A reluctant gurgling whine answers her before she stuffs her ears into the ridiculous colander and shuts the pod.

Colors splash across Jade’s blurry eyes as the system synchronizes with her nervous system.

The Lobby

The world is black. Ambient music plays in the background, but there’s nothing to bounce off of. This is a virtual space. Sound doesn’t move in waves, it tickles the squiggly little fibers of Jade’s brain. There’s no floor, no walls, and no bodies for it to come into contact with. And yet, Jade can feel a vague presence of a solid ‘floor’ ‘below’ her.

“...nto me!” she emerges into some confused bickering, hearing Hifumi’s voice.

“I am not trying to, I can’t see,” Jae replies.

“Oh, whoops. Thought you were Reiji.”

“No. I can see fine, I’m in the menus right now,” Reiji’s voice cuts in. There’s no sense of location between the voices. They’re all just vaguely ‘right next to and all around’ Jade. For all of them, it’ll be the same. “This virtual lobby isn’t made for sightless play like the game we’re loading into is, sensei, so I had to turn my visual feed back on,” he quickly explains himself before Jade can comment. “Luckily I can access the control terminal from in here thanks to my quirk!”

“I can access the emergency admin controls, but you do you,” Jade states simply, staying still to avoid bumping into anyone else’s avatar.

Hifumi finally asks, “What game is it, anyways?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise! To everyone except for Kawano-kun, at least.”

“I was going to customize my avatar, but I guess there’s no point today. Turning off my visual feed now, we’re about to load in!”

The Dropship

No music. Replaced with the sound of electronics humming and engines thrumming through the metal walls. Everything reverberates, creating a three-dimensional sensation of space. Jade’s quirk doesn’t work here. No ears to pick up the sound. Things are the same for her as for everyone else. But she has more experience.

Hearing the fumbling footsteps and tapping hands on metal surfaces as the boys explore the area, Jade scoots around the place one of them is- Hifumi definitely, he sounds larger. She reaches out and feels for the side of the familiar monitor. “Welcome to the ship, boys!” Someone crashes into the floor, dragging down a metal stand full of spare suits they’d grabbed for purchase. The modded collision physics is as excellent as ever. “I hope you’re ready to make quota!”

“What?“ Hifumi. “Who fell over.”

“Not me,” Reiji answers, from the floor.

“Not me,” Jae answers, from beside Jade.

“Alright! Hush hush, I’m going to give our assignment introduction now.” The boys do quiet down, after Reiji scrambles back to his feet and picks up the suit hanger. At least Jade can confirm he isn’t cheating by turning his visual feed on. “Welcome to Lethal Company 4! For those not familiar with this game, we are underpaid wagies sent by their corporate overlords to scavenger ruined facilities full of horrible horrible monsters on alien planets-“
“Moons actually.”

“-you will need to navigate your environment using only touch and sound!”

“Can we fight the monsters?” Hifumi asks, again.

“I installed a mod that allows you to fistfight the monsters,” Jade begins, when Reiji clears his throat. “… We installed a mod. You can-”

“You can also-”

“Kawano, if you interrupt me again I will dock your extra cedit.”

“Sorry, sensei.”

“You can also fight the monsters with any weapons you find. Like broken stop signs or shovels. But you can only carry four items maximum! And we need to bring back to make quota, or the squid gods will eat us.”

“Yo, this sounds awesome,” a flat hand taps on the wall. “So how do we get to a planet?”

“Moon.”

“We have to use the terminal here by me,” Jade answers, reaching down to touch the keyboard. She feels over the brail dots on the keys. “I’m going to start us out on Assurance.”

Exomoon 220-Assurance

Four bodies stagger their way towards the welcoming sound of ice cream truck music descending nearby. Though the character models are full body envirosuits, the touch-sensitivity programming makes the blowing sand prodding at their skin a tangible sensation. As tangible as the sand, powered by the simu-chamber’s massive graphics and physics engine, shifting under their feet.

“So the monsters,” sand crunches as Jae drops to his knees, feeling around for the radio left by the departing supply drop. Secret buff of playing blind, no need to waste an inventory slot on a flashlight. “Will we feel those too?”

“Oh yes.” Finding her own radio, Jade stores it in her inventory. A blurry, blocky set of four squares appears in the corner of her otherwise black vision, one of the few intact HUD elements.

“Is that safe?”

“It was rated safe on CompanyHub.”

“Ms. Makura I am not sure that safe means what you think it means.” Jade just laughs aloud at his comment, and she can imagine him flushing as he goes quiet.

Air whistles as Hifumi twirls a shovel, followed by a metallic clonk and the sound of someone tumbling down the dunes they just navigated, taking a cascade of sand with him. “Ow!” Reiji calls out. “Watch it.”

“Whoops. I can even hear the air Makura-sensei, the fidelity on this thing is rad, what even are the specs on the sim chamber?”

“That’s the point!” Jade starts trudging towards the entrance by memory alone, allowing the others to follow the sound of her footsteps and voice. Or get lost and fall in a pit somewhere. “While you’re in here, you’re going to need to navigate and fight using your hearing and touch. No smell-o-vision, I’m afraid.” There’s no ambient music, like there usually is outside. Not for the eerier air it creates, but so that they can more easily navigate by sound.

“That’s fine,” further behind her, Reiji’s voice subtly changes in clarity as he crests the hill and the sound reaches Jade more directly. “I’d rather not smell the monster guts. Or the blood. Heh, not that I’m trying to scare you, Jae-kun.”

“Not scared. You get used to monster gut smell.”

“Eh?! Jae-kun what??”

The Facility, Deep Inside

Each footstep echoes through the catwalk below Jade, as she tries to find her way back through the facility to the main entrance. Her inventory is full of soda, apart from the radio in her hands. It’s been a milk run so far, her second trip inside.

The radio crackles alive. “Do things move on the walls?” Jae’s voice asks.

“That’s a spider,” Reiji quickly answers. “Get away from it, it’ll kill you.”

“Ah. Okay.”

“Hang on, where are you? I wanna fight it,” Jade can hear Hifumi’s voice over the radio, and also echoing from down a hallway ahead of her.

“Hey, Challenger. I’m over here!”

“I found sensei,” he calls over the radio again.

“I am by the stairs to the door. Ow!” A metallic clang comes through the radio.

“What happened?” Jade asks, following the sound of Hifumi’s voice and footsteps.

“I stubbed my knee on a railing.”

“That’ll happen,” stopping, Jade switches off her radio and listens, ‘perking up’ her ears. There’s no sound from ahead of her except quiet. “Hifumi-kun?” Only silence replies. “Crap.” If there’s a spider blocking main entrance, they’ll need his shovel to get through. She takes slower footsteps, inching her feet ahead. A burning sensation in her toe confirms one of her guesses, and she jumps back. A flex of her finger turns the radio back on, “Challenger is down, slime ate him.”

“Rip,” Reiji comments.

“I can’t get to his shovel. We’re going to need to dodge past the spider.”

“No proble-AAAA-” a perfectly cut scream breaks off from Reiji’s end of the radio. Jade snirks and holds back from laughing on reflex.

“Still alive. Should be safe here. Spiders cannot open doors right?” Jae’s voice asks.

“Spiders can open doors.”

“Ah. I am going to make a break for the exit.”

“Good plan. I’ll-” there’s a pinching feeling in Jade’s neck, and then other sounds rush in from all over, including Reiji’s shrill complaining as if he was right next to her, accompanied by Hifumi laughing at him.

“-the goddamn ledge!”

“-meet you oh I got Brackened,” Jade finishes her statement. “Well, looks like we will be losing this run. Jae-kun is about to try to jump the spider.”

“Hold on, I’ll make it so we can see while we’re dead,” Reiji says.

Vision comes suddenly rushing in. Still blurry and low resolution. For all the simulation’s capabilities, Jade’s brain just doesn’t have the receptors for a better picture. “Oh man,” Hifumi cackles, “The madman is doing it.”

Winking her eyes until she can see the outline of a humanoid shape in the midst of jumping repeatedly away from a pursuing vaguely spider-shaped blob, Jade is just in time to hear the creak of Jae making it out the door. “He’s doing it! Ganbatte, Jae-kun!”

“We are so back.”

Grumbling, Reiji insists, “I could’ve done it.”

“Dude you tripped and fell in a hole.”

“We’re blind!”

While they argue, Jae hops his way back out into the sandy barrens, then stops and looks around, trying to get his bearings. “Oh no, he’s lost,” Hifumi audibly tenses up, getting invested. “Come on come on, you got it man. Yes! No. Yes!” he rollercoasters between emotions as Jae presumably looks towards, then away from, and then again towards the shuttle. Jade can’t make out the scenery that well out here.

“I guess just me,” Jae says into his radio. “Going to hard carry. Get ready to watch me do it.”

Scoffing, Reiji audibly rolls his eyes, “He’s so going to get dogged.” A set of heavy, booming footsteps immediately prove him wrong. “Oh, wow. That’s garbage luck for a spawn.” The footsteps pick up, getting louder, and Jae starts sprinting while screaming. “He’s so done.”

“Can we fight that?”

“No, we can’t fight that, Tanaka.”

“That’s Tanaka-senpai to you, Little Red. Oh shit-” Metal clangs as Jae grabs onto the ladder and rapidly climbs up. “This is it, this is it!”

“Did anybody tell him about the wallhax?”

“Afraid not, Kawano-kun. Just hope and pray.”

Tense moments pass by even after Jae gets inside the shuttle, fumbling around and tripping over loot littering the floor while the loud stomping sounds continue outside, dark blotches occasionally clipping in through the gunmetal grey of the walls. Finally, his hand finds a lever and pulls.

A chorus of cheers from beyond the grave soon transition back into ‘life’ as the party respawns on the shuttle. “Those were sick moves, Bonjwa!” Hifumi congratulates their MVP.

Celebrations die down eventually, and Jade picks her way through the clutter to the terminal. “Alright. That was good! Let’s go again.”