Cut Yourself Free

Morpheus The Black

Marcus was in disbelief. Who knew the Aiden Pearce had a soft side. "That's insane!" said Marcus. "We need this person on our team. I mean, they know Aiden Pearce, they gotta be good."

"They're pretty clean when it comes to their work. It doesn't seem like a bad idea. I'll keep analyzing ." Josh stopped talking, leaving Marcus to wander around with his jams. However, he stopped when he realized he was at his destination.

"This is the arcade?" said Marcus, adjusting his cap. It was pretty run down for being in such a nice place. But then again, no one goes to arcades anymore. Marcus has a lot of fond memories when it came to arcades, but now wasn't the time for nostalgia. They've finally found her.

"Uh, yeah, did you go to the right coordinates?" replied Josh on the comms. He wasn't actually supposed to answer that question. It was more Marcus being in disbelief.

Marcus entered the arcade and was immediately greeted by the flashing lights of the various arcade cabinets, a dark grey carpet with colorful shapes and a lone shop keeper at a desk in the corner. No one else was in the arcade except for him and a woman standing at the Dance Dance Revolution machine. He made his way over to the DDR machine, hesitantly placing a hand on the bar behind the dance pad. The woman looked up, wearing a mask with the same Foxhead logo as him.

"Are you Eida?" he asked. The woman nodded, taking off her mask and hood. She took out her phone and displayed a question to him.

Are you Retr0 or Hawt Sauce? It asked.

"Retr0." he replied. "So... You're the Vtuber? I'm surprised you aren't talking. I mean, you do it in your streams. But then again, you speak Japanese. Wait, but you typed in English."

I only talk in Japanese when I'm Eida. My real name is Maxim Thurman. Eida's my middle name. Just call me Max. She displayed.

"Right, okay, well, nice to meet you, Max. I'm Marcus Holloway." He held out his hand for her to shake, but she only tapped his palm. Marcus retracted his hand and cleared his throat. "So... You wanna be a part of DedSec?" She nodded, a smile on her face. "We saw some of your videos at the CTOS servers. You're pretty stealthy, but we need to see something a little more flashy. We'll contact you once we have an idea, unless you do something first." 

As Marcus tried to leave, Max tapped his shoulder and motioned him to play the DDR machine with her. "Sure? I guess I can play one game." He wasn't very sure as to why she wanted him to play, but he wasn't opposed to it. He slapped at the DDR machine, and beat Sitara and Wrench multiple times in score. The song Max chose, however, wasn't one normally on the machine. The song she uploaded was Devil Trigger by Casey Edwards. 

"Devil May Cry? You've got some interesting taste." He looked to the female with a wry smile. "I'm gonna warn you, I'm amazing at this game." The confident air in his voice made Max smile happily, and the two of them started their duel.

-----

"Where've you been?" commented Wrench, who was currently working on another bizarre invention. Marcus wiped the sweat off his brow as he made his way downstairs. 

"Busy... Dancing." he huffed as he sat down on the couch. Wrench's mask gave him a suspicious look as he faced Marcus.

"Dancing?"

"Yeah. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's because you seem really out of breath for just 'dancing'." Marcus threw his hands up out of confusion as Wrench laughed at him. Sitara came over, leaning on the couch with an eager smile. 

"So how's the new recruit?" she asked.

"They don't talk, but they're good at what they do from what Josh and I found out. She's worked with the Aiden Pearce!"

"Oh boy." said Sitara, rolling her eyes at Marcus's fangirling.

"She?" said Wrench, now curious about the conversation. "What's her name? Is she cute?"

"Her name is Max, and I think she is. Actually, I asked her if I could take a picture for us to see." He took out his phone and swiped to Max posing next to the DDR machine. She had bobbed bleach blonde hair died black in the front, soft brown eyes looking similar to a cat and a faint scar on her left cheekbone. She was wearing a red hoodie, with white shorts, fishnets and black hightops.

"She's associated with Aiden?" said Sitara, a little confused how someone like her got tangled up with a vigilante like him.

"I thought the same thing, but everyone has a story. I told her we'd contact her again once we had a hack for her to pull off."

"Guys?" said Josh from his corner. "You really need to see this." He walked over and joined them on the couch, connecting what he was watching to the TV. Displayed was news coverage of a CTOS server breach downtown. On top of one of the buildings was a digital billboard sign reading "Can you see me, Ashen One?".

"Holy shit!" said Wrench. "Did she do that?" Josh shrugged before tapping into the security cameras of the facility, seeing guards scrambling to figure out what was wrong. A group of them ran into the control room, only for the door to get locked. A figure, soon identified as Max, jumped down from the ceiling. She looked right at the camera before pointing down at the ground.

"She knows there's people watching. She's taunting the people watching." said Josh, letting out the smallest chuckle at the fact she was taunting CTOS by pulling the most bm move in Dark Souls. 

Max winked at the camera and ran down the hallway, staying out of sight of the security guards and sneaking with ease. Despite the entrance being blocked, she found a way around it by crawling through the vents until she reached the roof. The group watched every bit of it with slight awe and respect for how easily Max pulled out the feat.

"Do you see what I mean? She snuck through that server building like it was nothing!" said Marcus. Sitara nodded her head, thoroughly impressed.

"You know, it needed more explosions, but that sign was definitely flashy." said Wrench, turning to face the other male. "What do you think, Josh?" Josh opened his mouth to reply, only for Wrench to stand up and ignore him. "That's it, we're kidnapping her. Come on, Marcus, let's go."

(Title song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW43V6NZXts)
(Morpehus The Black by Cat Company)