Chapter 64 Virtual Reality
She was very confident, feeling as if nothing could break or touch her. She sliced, punched, kicked and beat every beast that came her way. Not even the fire from the fire breathing beasts harmed her body because of the armor she donned. When her teammates were flailing, she rescued them.
It was an easy battle, one that she seemed to be so familiar with but just when she was on the brink of winning, a black and green toad with black liquids popping out of it's skin approached her and squirted the black liquid at her face.
Successfully, she dodged it but as she was about to fight it, she started questioning herself in a panic out of nowhere.
"What is that liquid?"
"Did it touch me anywhere?"
"Am I injured?"
"Am I hallucinating?"
Her mind started spinning and she all these doubts filled her mind. One of her team mates was injured and the voices of doubt increased.
"Maybe we should have fought inside of the mechas. Did I make a mistake by telling my men to fight physically?"
"Why did I make such a decision?"
"Am I losing my mind?"
The more questions that assaulted her mind, the more she panicked. Her vision changed and she was suddenly surrounded by soul eaters and zombies.
"Where did you come from?" she questioned them.
She called for her soul gourd but it would not come, she was weak and powerless. Not even the power punches were helping. Scarlet screamed as they all lunged at her at the same time draining the soul energy out of her until she felt herself becoming as cold as ice. She called Esong's name over and over again as she was losing strength.
When she opened her eyes again, she looked around in panic and realized that they were back on the ground, inside the car. She sat up and touched the car seats, touched Esong's head and chest and then she slapped her own right cheek very hard.
"Hey." Esong grabbed her hand to stop her from slapping herself a second time. "What are you doing?" he asked her.
She sunk into the seat and breathed in and out as two unwelcome tears slipped down her cheeks. Where they came from, she had no idea.
Esong saw the tears and he frowned. He wondered if the simulation had gone to far. He had ended it as soon as she started screaming and calling for him. He had experienced it personally and studied it many times and he wondered which part had frightened her so much to bring tears to her eyes.
Unconsciously, he found himself raising his right hand and wiping the tears away with his thumb.
"Shhh, it was just a virtual reality simulation of one of my battles. You don't need to be so scared, it was not real."
"It was not real." she repeated after him.
She slapped his hand away and drunk some water from a bottle that she had kept in the dashboard. Slowly, she regained her senses.
"What the hell was that? Why did you do to me?"
"Nothing." he replied. "I just sent you into what almost became my last battle back as a mecha warrior after you drugged me five years ago. Those doubts, the questions, the mistakes, the fear that you have experienced, I experienced all that everyday. It was one nightmare after another and I could not even find answers because you were nowhere to be found.
You disappeared after drugging and sleeping with me. I was left struggling with questions about how you had managed to get a drop on me. How I was not able to see through your trickery.
I played the scene over and over in my head, obsessing over it night and day. Some of my friends and members of the family who knew what you had done they laughed as if it was something easily brushed off but not to me. To me, it was a sign of weakness, my mind had betrayed me.
My mind is my sharpest tool, I trust it to lead myself and my men in battle. Every decision and calculation that I make has to be the right one or death follows. In that battle Cotrin a young mecha warrior almost lost his life because I failed to kill that venom spewing toad. You have to understand that for a mecha warrior doubts in the mind lead to death on the battle field, an injury that you may never be able to recover from or being captured and sold into slavery.
I let myself slip for just one second in that bar because I wanted to relax and it changed my whole life."
He looked at her and he corrected himself, "You changed my whole life. After Cotrin, I did not lead my men into another battle for the next six months. I trained my mind like a mad man and just when I was beginning to regain my footing, you showed up again with a child in your arms. You told lies about me to the empire and forced your way into becoming my wife. I could not even take my anger out on you so I channeled it all into eliminating space pirates. Hey, something good came out of it at least." he said the words sarcastically.
Esong finally got the chance to say almost all of the things he had always wanted to say to her.
He was angry when he talked about what he went through and she could not blame him, especially not after she experienced that simulation personally. But at the same time, she was also unwilling to pay so heavily for a crime that was not hers. There had to be a better way.
"Esong.." she started to say.
"We are both damaged people Scarlet, the only difference between us is the fact that you are the one that damaged me." he cut her off, said this with a grim look on her face and then he got out of the car and slammed the door shut.
She would not let him walk away however not like this. So she got out of the car and followed him. She cursed the woman whose body she occupied a thousand times. If she met her soul here and recognized it, she would give it a serious lashing.
"Is that all this is to you then a chance to have your revenge on me? I want to fix this Esong not widen the bridge between us further. You hate me now, and then later I will hate you and the cycle will continue this way for years. We cannot hurt each other anymore, we need to co-exist. I refuse to live like this Esong ."