wanderer » valorant.

THE GIST OF THE MIST.

𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟰.
𝘪𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘬𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘨𝘨.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗡 𝗬𝗢𝗨 awoke, your eyes met the bright sunlight streaming through the window. You didn't remember leaving the curtains open, but you shrugged it off and sluggishly made your way to the door. Whilst you were still wearing the clothes from yesterday, crumbled and messy, you had no other clothes to change to.

Besides that, there was the main issue of your stomach screaming at you. Making your way to the corridor, you found that there was little chatter, and tried to find your way to the kitchen you'd passed yesterday.

Turning left and right and continuing around, you tried to remember which ways Skye brought you in, only to wind up lost in the middle of another long hallway, adorned with rooms with nametags on them. 

The door to the closest one to you, with the tag CYPHER, was slightly open and you could hear small tapping coming from inside. Curious, you stepped closer. Maybe this "Cypher" could help you find the kitchen.

As you neared and passed the threshold of his room, you heard a small beeping, and suddenly your vision shook. Dazed, you fell into the room, stabilizing yourself enough to be able to stand, albeit needing the doorframe as a support. 

The man who'd sat in his chair turned around, and you noted that similar to Omen, he had no notable features.  He had a wide brimmed hat, and a black mask that covered his face. The bright blue glow from his eyes, which you couldn't tell if were real, flickered. 

In his hands was a simple looking circle. It glowed blue, and you soon found yourself lapsed into awkward silence.

"Errr.." you started, and he sighed before placing down the little circle. 

"You're the new agent, correct?" his voice rang out in the room, loud and clear. You nodded your head in agreement, and he held out his hand for you to shake. You took it, and wondered if you should tell him your name.

"You can call me Cypher," he offered up, and you forced yourself to socialize. 

"I'm [name]," you said in reply. "I was looking for the kitchen, but I got lost and I saw your door open so I was wondering if.."

You trailed off, but he seemed to get the gist of it. Cypher stood up, beckoning for you to follow. You obeyed, trailing after him as he turned the corners with confident long strides, evidently familiar with the layout.

"Have they given you the brief overview of what's going on? Or what we do?" he asked without turning around, and you shook your head before realizing he couldn't see you. 

"No," you said, and Cypher hummed before opening a large set of doors, revealing the kitchen. It was empty, to your surprise. You were fully expecting to see Raze or Jett in there, because they seemed like morning people to you. 

"Well, take a seat," he offered, and you did so. Cypher sat down before you with a mug of tea for both of you. You sipped yours, and he let his just sit there. "I'll explain things to you a little bit."

You nodded, inhaling the fresh aroma of the tea. He wasn't touching his tea, presumably because of the mask. Cypher followed your gaze to his mug, before nodding in understanding. "I tend to prefer to keep my mask on," he stated simply. "I'll drink it later."

You nodded, and sipped slowly on your drink to prevent scalding your tongue. 

"To start off, there are Radiants and humans here," he began, and you nodded. You knew what they were, but you kept your mouth shut for respect. "When the first light came, many people began to gain abilities," said Cypher, and you nodded along.

"However, VALORANT protocol, where we are now, was formed out of both humans and Radiants," he said, and you sipped your tea more. "It was discovered that there was a second Rarth; a planet parallel to ours."

"Within that earth, was another organization named Kingdom." he stopped to take a breath, and your eyes caught movement near the door. Jett was sneaking her way in, a bagel held in her hand. You waved at each other, and Cypher nodded his greeting.

Jett sat down beside you, and you motioned for Cypher to continue. "In Kingdom, were clones. Clones that looked just like us, but have the opposite motive."

"They wanted to explode this earth, use the radiante and spikes to explode it until it was no more." you shuddered. That sounded horrible and devastating, and you wondered if the VALORANT protocol, which you were apparently part of now, played some role in stopping it all..

"And us, we need to defuse these spikes, which are essentially bombs, to stop it." Finished Cypher, and Jett nodded along while continuing to stuff her mouth full of bagel. 

"Sooo are there like, teams?" you asked. "Or do you just go and fight your own clone?"

Cypher chuckled and Jett snorted, immediately choking on her bagel before stealing Cypher's untouched tea. He didn't seem to mind. "Hah! fight against our clones! I'd like to see her try," mused Jett, before returning to her food.

Cypher shook his head, before replying. "No, here, we usually send out teams of 5 regardless of enemy size. Sometimes they also have 5, sometimes they have less."

You nodded in understanding, thinking. was there a you clone too? Was there one of your-

"Sny questions?" asked Cypher, and you held up a finger. 

"Just two," you stated, and Cypher nodded, staring at the cup of tea in Jett's hands. She gave him a large grin before finishing up her bagel. "How do you tell if someone's a radiant?"

Cypher folded his hands together on the table. It painted him a patient picture, and you could definitely see him as a patient man. "Well, Radiants have powers," he said. "Like Jett over here. on the other hand, non-Radiants use radiante tech." he gestured towards himself.

You nodded in understanding. Therefore, the only way to know if someone was a Radiant in combat was to know if their clone was one, or to wait and see how they attack. 

Shivering at the thought of fighting one of the agents' clones, you nodded again. "One more question," you said, and Cypher waited.

"Will there be a clone for me too? will I have to fight-" you choked on your words. "Fight her?" Cypher pondered for a moment, seemingly at a loss for words at last. 

"We haven't seen a Radiant looking like you," he stated slowly. "So, I'm not sure.." you thanked him, before stating that you were going to head to the mess hall to see if anyone was there, or if you could meet more agents you hadn't met previously. Something told you that there were quite a few more than you'd met so far.

"Jett, bring [name] to the mess hall," said Cypher. "She's bound to get lost again. I'm going to fix up one of my broken cameras." huffing at the blunt but true statement, you waved Cypher off as he headed to the direction of his room. 

You and Jett stared at each  other for a moment, before she spoke up.

"So, who you wanna meet next?"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━