Party Breakers and Decorated Flails

Being shot in VR wasn't a problem at all.

People did so all the time in many 'worlds', but it would still hurt a lot when the configurations were so close to reality as the ones in this place.

It could even cause some mild damage to the user, which was one of the reasons for Amy’s complaints from the other day.

And the fact that she was stuck in this situation was very bothersome.

“These people are weird! Who brings gunners to a party? And why in a VR? This is very dumb and is ruining my encore… And why can I not disconnect?! Stupid party. Stupid gunners. Stupid stupids.”

The now grumpy idol was crawling on the ground to avoid stray bullets while half of the guests were already down, partly due to the crowd they had formed.

Their 'death' was for a good cause though, letting Amy flee with no problem.

Either way, the armed attackers had engaged the guests, but they weren't panicking much anymore for some reason.

Most of them were hidden by now or crawling around like the idol approaching where Lily and her, in Amy’s eyes, the main target were.

“Can you arrest these people, Lily? They destroyed my show!”

“Oh, you’re fine...” Dismissed Lily while focusing on trying to see the gunners by leaning on the corner of their cover.

“Why are you so calm? And why is your reaction to my well-being so weak?!”

“Hello, Ms. Singer.” Richard greeted the newcomer without worry.

“Hmm? Oh, hello, good-looking sir, how are… Wait! Why are you both so calm?!”

Outrage covered Amy’s face, but, like the cop that had thrown him down into cover, the lavish-dressed man was simply waiting for what was to come.

In fact, they both were acting as if nothing wrong was happening to an unusual level.

“This whole chaos should be something from gramps, so…”

“My boss is a very eccentric person for lack of a better word.”

Both people who knew more were indifferent to the whole situation which, if Amy had stopped to look around, wasn’t different from most other guests.

Even the panicking ones were just playing along and looking for something to fight off the invaders instead of panicking for real.

Amy was way too angry for having to crawl and pause her show to think about it though.

“Are you guys sure about it?! We are even locked out of disconnecting right now.”

“He prepared a lot this time… So annoying.”

“This time he didn’t even warn me, so that’s a little abnormal…" The mercenary started but sighed mid-sentence. "Who am I lying to? He never told me anything about these things.”

“Not even telling his security chief… This old man seems to be very troublesome.” The bothered idol said.

“Troublesome isn’t the right word...” Richard tried to defend his boss even if it sounded like an excuse. “He’s my teacher and a man who helped me a lot, so playing along sometimes isn't much.”

“I would like it if he left me out of it. The old man told me there would be an important announcement today, so being stuck here until someone deals with those guys is a pain…”

Lilianna’s words weren’t as inoffensive as the ones from the security officer and her annoyance were obvious, but Richard couldn't say much.

“The important announcement is true and this one can be his last party, so maybe you could play a little too…”

“What did you say?!”

Richard's little explanation with a troubled, and a little sad even, smile brought surprise to the black-haired woman.

The bombshell Richard didn't even notice was a little too much, so she needed confirmation.

“Huh?! You could play…”

“Before that!”

“This one can…” He recounted, finally noticing what the woman was talking about and the fact that he had messed up. “Oh! I wasn’t supposed to tell you that…”

“Tch! So that’s the deal, eh…”

Lily finally left the corner of the counter and plopped her butt on the ground while closing her eyes for a moment.

“Damn. And here I thought that old man was immortal…”

It was somewhat unexpected even for herself but Lilianna was somewhat shaken by the news.

Even fully comprehending the situation took a while for her as it had many implications.

“After going through so much as he did, I’m impressed he was still the same... The president was quite old already when I met him, and he still got me as his pupil, so seeing his current state is a little…”

“I don’t have this kind of good memory from him, but I’m not insensible enough to feel nothing about it... We should deal with this annoyance though. Gramps will stop losing time and talk if we do.”

“You both want to take them down?”

As the heavy talk was reaching a close, the now cheerful voice of the onyx-eyed singer that left by the side for a while broke the mood. Both Lily and Richard looked at her in surprise while a weird metal object, one also painted in pink even, slowly materialized itself in front of her.

“It would be good, but… What is this friend of yours holding?” Richard asked while looking at the spiked ball stuck to a chain Amy had in her hands.

It was a fair reaction, but one Lilianna didn't share.

She was one of the few who could somehow react calmly to Amy’s shenanigans though, so it was a little different.

“Is this a flail, Amy?” Asked the detective with a calm voice;

“Yes! The Amyrator.”

“Why do you have a flail, Amy?”

“It is a terrific tool against rowdy fans.”

“It makes no sense at all...” Lily concluded, finally giving up on explaining the situation.

“What makes no sense are two people who knew this could happen not bringing a weapon.” Noted the idol, with some sense in her words.

“That’s because the server rules prohibit weapons...” Countered the man who knew the ballroom’s configuration like his own house.

“It prohibits firearms. This is a flail, and her name is Amyrator." Amy continued. "It is not a firearm in the least.”

“It actually makes sense.”

A mix of confusion and understanding covered Richard’s face as he was defeated by Amy’s overwhelming argumentation (her thoughts).

As it was though, the bloodthirsty idol turned to her amazed friend.

“Want to say something, Lily?”

“I… I just don’t care anymore. Have fun, Amy.”

Both people with common sense were defeated.

Amy had a white letter to go ham on the ones who had ruined her show and made her crawl, so it was time to smile and charge.

“I will show them what happens when someone dirties my dress…”

“Are you planning to charge those men with a flail, miss?”

“Yes, that is the plan indeed.”

“But…” Richard tried to protest against the idol’s crazy plan, but he was stopped by Lily.

“Don’t bother. Look into those eyes and see if she cares first?”

A maniacal fire was burning on Amy's eyes, even though they were black, and it was ever giving chills to the veteran staying by the side, so he had to retreat.

“That’s… Right. Go on, miss.”

“I am charging in!” Screamed the pink flail user as she jumped away.

Her timing was perfectly matched with the end of the gunmen's mags and their stop to reload when the pink creature started to run towards them.

The surprise made the men stutter in their reload, another perk of making a world so realistic, and it all gave Amy enough time to cut the distance.

She somehow crossed the distance between her and her foes faster than she could be noticed by the eyes of everyone and swung right away.

Without a single soul capable of reacting to her, the pink spiked ball smashed the head of the first man on her way.

His power armor was smashed and the person below it was sent to his afterlife, which also meant back to the lobby.

“One down.”

The initial shock on the attackers’ faces was soon over and they finished the reload of their weapons.

Amy had reached the second of their companions by then though, grabbing him and using the man as a shield at a moment’s notice of the hail of bullets.

The friendly fire took care of the second soldier and Amy took the chance to get her hands on a rifle, forcing the other soldiers to take cover.

“Two down.”

Against their expectations though, the pink girl simply threw the gun at the head of the closest one.

The body of the gunned soldier was the next projectile and the pink flail was the third, each one hitting with enough force to at least faint the gunmen.

“Three, four, and five down.”

And the last man standing, seeing Amy unarmed and unprotected in the middle of the room, tried to fire his gun in a hurry, but nothing happened.

As unexpected as it was, the weapon seemed to have a jammed bullet and was stuck for long enough for the idol to calmly move towards her thrown flail.

She took it and started to walk towards the panicking power armor user wore, in a last attempt, drew his knife, and charged.

He was effortlessly blocked though and a punch hard enough to return his consciousness to the real world finished the job.

“And six down… VR fights are way too easy.”

Back to her usual tones, for voice and eye color, Amy returned to where her companion and her recently acquired friend.

As she approached, they got up and looked around to be sure no more surprises would appear. “How in the hells…?!” Exclaimed Richard in confusion about what had happened.

A confused Richard stood still while hearing the giggling idol that was now trying to recover a working chair from the ruins close to them.

“It is very distasteful, but… It is obvious how I did, is it not?” She talked while approaching the contract soldier and then whispering. “I am cheating, you see?”

“You’re really something else, Amy, but even with your tricks...” Lily interjected while looking at the red stain on the idol's dress.

“I prefer to not say more, but you should increase the security of your server. It is almost as if it was all based on a single system and this one system was not even security-focused...”

Amy talked as if it had nothing to do with her now that she was focused on cleaning her clothes, but both Richard and Lily had their focus on the girl.

One of the in awe of the weaknesses she was pointing out and the other was due to the increasing number of suspicions she had.

“You should tell your personal off if they cannot even stop a common singer from invading them.” Snickered the idol with an infuriating expression.

“You’re not a common singer not here nor at either moon.” Denied the off-duty detective while leaving her line of thought.

Seeing the very known suspicious glare Lily would commonly use whenever Amy gave testimony, the pink and red girl tried to change the subject.

“That is what you say, but… Where is our host? I need a new stage and you both said he would appear after we dealt with the soldiers, so...”

”He should be here. We should need to wait for a… Just one moment, please.”

Richard stopped his explanation before it could start and stepped while talking to someone in the invisible screen only he saw.

His tone suddenly changed after a while though.

“WHAT?!!!” The mercenary basically shouted while rushing back to where Lily and Amy were. “Sorry about it, but I’ll be leaving earlier. We should talk later.”

“What happ…?”

Even before Lily could ask what was happening to the panicked security chief, he vanished, leaving a confused detective and an unbothered idol behind.

“What’s happening here?!”

“Hmmm… I am unsure, but if you wait a few moments…”

“If I wait…? Huh?! Hello?”

Before Lily could react to Amy's phrase, the off-duty officer also received a call, but her expression was very different.

It seemed that her call wasn't much better than whatever Richard had received.

In fact, one could argue that the mysterious voice on the other side brought much worse news.

“I’ll have to leave too. We’re leaving this party right away, Amy.”

“Can I go with you?” Asked the idol as if her friend was going to some amusement park nearby.

“Of course not! It’s a police emergency.”

“More reason for me to go... I never saw a real crime scene.”

Amy’s request was, to be soft on her, simply unacceptable and outrageous on many levels for anyone with an ounce of common sense.

The pink-clothed girl didn’t seem to find so, even if Lily was clearly upset with her words.

“I’m not taking a civilian…”

“Boss has access to a delivery shuttle I could use to take you to where you need to go many minutes faster than a common transport. And I have some very keen investigation skills too.”

“Stay out of it, Amy…”

“I do not think so. You can either take me with you or avoid going at all though. I will sadly have to forcefully impede you from leaving if you do not comply...”

The girl with glowing green eyes had changed her tone for the serious one she rarely used, and the failure to log out on the detective's side gave weight to her words.

“You… What are you trying to do here, Amy?” The detective asked with a dark expression on her face.

“My side-job has some extra objectives sometimes and I sometimes ignore them, but this one is different. There is something in my current assignment that I cannot let pass.”

“Side-job, eh… What are you really, Amy?”

“Just an idol without enough of a following to live by herself and a lack of concrete past to help her.”

The idol’s eyes and words were somewhat much colder than usual and even the smile she gave at the end lacked the energy she usually put on.

It all gave a different weight to her words and the abnormal pressure she was exuding forced Lilianna to concede.

“Tch! I should arrest you for blackmailing me, but it would be useless in the end, so fine... Take me there, but don’t mess up or I’m throwing you in jail.”

“Roger that, officer!”

And with a smile and a salute, both back to her normal act, the connection between the VR chairs and the battlefield ballroom was cut.

A second later, they both were back to the room on El Democrat's back.