Against The Current [M]

She was back at their old "gaming house" in Korea, sitting at the fancy computer designated as hers, a black, sleek thing with glowing red LED accents across the PC sitting near her bare knees. Roi doesn't bother wearing her jersey or anything fancy while streaming, especially when the heating in the house always seemed to be intent on baking the team alive, just a t-shirt showing off her arms and alarmingly short blue shorts. Not like the thousands of people tuning to watch her training drills in Overwatch could see her legs in the face-cam.



A sudden burst of loud music plays over her headphones, notifying her of a new subscriber, and Roi stops to read the name before the mechanical voice reads the message sent with it.



"Roi, what are your opinions on the new hero?"



" Thanks for the three-month sub... uh... kaKYOIN69... Uuuuh," Roi grumbles, rubbing at her face, "well, I don't know what to think about her honestly. I played her a little bit, strong but hard to learn. I don't think she'll be very significant in APEX or pro play... yet. Her stealth does not break the meta instantly like people thought."



She ran her character, a cybernetic ninja, dressed in a black uniform showing off his bare right arm, back to a grey hangar. Quickly, she swapped heroes, changing into a younger British woman wearing a paint-stained navy hoodie, with two pistols. She runs a few rounds, zipping around the robots in the training arena, shooting them until they fall to pieces. She repeated the drills, cringing everytime she missed shots, a flicker of shame burning in her stomach.



She glanced at the twitch chat briefly. Most of it is either encouragement, flirting or violent slurs, the latter two are quickly deleted by her moderators, but she picks out a few questions to read.



genjiMainow: do you think REG will crush EnVyUs?



"Mmmmmmm...." she hums, taking a deep breath in, "well, if we practice a lot, grind a ton, we'll be able to beat them, right? If we work hard..."



She felt a hand clap onto her shoulder before she can finish her train of thought, and Roi glanced up to see the muscular frame of their main tank, SKRAA, wearing a white tank and black sweats. His long black hair flowed straight down to his chest, and his square face is stubbly, slowly growing a beard. His face breaks in a wide grin, his dark eyes glimmered with a mischievous light.



"We'll beat their ass!" he crows in his thick Swedish accent.



Roi burst into laughter, and in the distance, she heard Sami cracking up as well. When Roi looked at the monitor again, she watched the chat go wild at the sight of the Swedish man's bare arms, and she felt herself roll her eyes.



"Thank you, SKRAA," she managed to say between giggles, "that's exactly what I was trying not to say."



"You're too way too restrained, hooRANGI!!" he shouted and walked away with a pep in his step.



"Jesus fucking Christ," she groaned, rubbing the bridge of her nose, "SKRAA, love the man, but sometimes he's gotta be tactful..."



She just shakes her head, and with a few clicks of her keyboard, leaves the training facility on her screen. After a few moments, she clicks on the purple option reading "COMPETITIVE" and starts her queue.



As she waits, she lazily clicks the "play" button on her keyboard, leaning back in her leather chair. In her headphones, castanets start to play, and Roi feels herself start to squirm along to the beat as the traditional hip-hop drums and a woman's operatic singing come in. The chat is full of question marks and confused emotes, as Roi begins to sing along in Korean:



"With my ears covered, closing the door of the world..."



...



suddenly everything is different. the gaming house is gone almost in an instant replaced by a large white room. the fluorescent lights are on at high power above her causing her to growl in agony and squint to avoid any more pain. there's a figure in front of her a woman stark naked with white hair in a choppy bun to her chin staring at roi with bright orange-yellow eyes. her gaze is empty her face displaying no sort of emotion and it takes a minute but roi realizes that it's her --!!!roi!!!-- leering over her menacingly. the roi on the ground can only force out grunts as the strange version of her standing opens her mouth to speak...





Roi startles awake, screaming loudly, her body lurching forwards. The first thing she notices is the sickly sweet smell of decomposing organic material, and darkness. It's unseasonably warm for December, and her shirt is wet, clinging against her chest when she shifts slightly.



Her eyes widen at the sensation, and the next thing she notices is the painful stiffness of her legs and the wetness across her upper lip. Subconsciously, Roi's tongue flicks across it, and she tastes that familiar taste of copper. She should freak out, but all she feels is numbness. The world around her is pitch black, and her eyes slowly adjust to the lack of light. After a few minutes, she can make out a pile of shiny trash bags underneath her, two brick walls to her front and back, and a dumpster a few meters away from her side. Probably an alleyway behind some sort of store...



Slowly, she stands up, and almost instantly her knees buckle from disuse. Thankfully, she grabs onto the brick wall in front of her for extra support and manages to right herself. Her phone is still in her right hand, and Roi quickly turns it on, types in her passcode, and calls Sami again.



There are a few painful, anxious minutes of silence, as her call tries to connect before she's met with heavy breathing on the other line.



"Hello?! Roi?!" Sami exclaims, and Roi takes a deep breath in, trying to respond to her situation calmly.



"Hey Sami. Just calling to tell you that I lived," she says in near deadpan, slowly walking down the alleyway, "don't know exactly what happened, but I'm in some alleyway in Toronto I guess. I'll be-"



"They got me too!" Sami shouts over her, and Roi stops in her tracks.



"What?" she exclaims, her eyes wide, and she feels her eyebrows contort in concern.



"I went out to get help, went to go get the police after you hung up on me..." he babbles nervously, his voice quivering, "I... I saw them behind me while I was running! In the black car and shit? They chased me down too, Roi! Shot-shot me and everything!! Now... I'm somewhere dark and cold... Where the fuck..?"



Roi stays frozen in place for several moments, her breaths quick and panicky. Her hands shake around her phone. If they got Sami and her... were they going to get the rest of REG too? An animalistic bolt of rage and fear run down her spine, and her muscles tighten like steel. The urge to fight, to protect, washes over her.



"Roi?"



She takes a deep breath in.



"I'm sorry," she says, her voice shaky, "I think I'm coming to a bad conclusion right now."



"About what?" he asks, his voice sounding small.



"That we're not the last ones on REG they'll take."



"Don't- Don't think like that!" Sami exclaims, his voice distorting somewhat, "We can warn them about it! We have our phones on us!"



Roi makes a hollow noise of agreement, pulling up her hood. Suddenly, she smells something distinct and odd, yet somehow familiar. Instantly, her legs start to move in the direction of the scent, slow, methodical steps. She can hear Sami calling out to her, but she ignores it in favor of chasing whatever she's smelling until she almost runs into a metal door at the end of an alley. Roi claws at the door on instinct, feeling heavy in her grasp, wrenching it open with a loud thump.



The hallway is almost completely pitch black, but after blinking a few times, Roi can make out the figure of a hunching, quivering man in the middle of the hallway. As the door slams behind her, the man turns to face her in a flash, and Roi recognizes the long shaggy black hair, and stubbly, tan triangular face anywhere.



"Sami," she says, raising her hands up to display her innocence, "it's just me. Roi."



"Roi?" he whimpers, squinting at her as he moves closer to her, "why-why are you here?"



As he walks forward into the light, Roi notices that something under his black winter coat is making it bulge outwards in an almost comical fashion. She stares for a few moments, eyes narrowing, before just chalking it up mentally as a bag underneath. He's also hunching over as he walks, usually he towers over Roi, who's notoriously short.



She shrugs, before turning to her phone and hanging up. She places it in her jacket pocket, and adjusts her shirt, trying to prevent it from sticking to her chest.



"They probably put us in the same area, for convenience's sake or whatever."



"But," he says, his thick eyebrows turning upward in confusion, "I live in New York? How the fuck are we in the same area?"



"Do I look like I fuckin' know??" Roi exclaims, throwing her hands up in the air, "All I know, is that I'm fucking baking out there. It's like fucking mid-summer. We ain't in Toronto, that's for sure, bro."



Sami's face manages to display even more confusion, his mouth screwing up, and eyes rolling upwards. He walks past her, and into the alleyway.



"You're right... Goddamnit, it's hot out here," Sami groans, and shucks off his jacket, and Roi's blood turns to ice.



Folding against his back, a large flash of feathers cover the back of his shirt, standing out in the darkness. They're all white, except for the tips, which are a black color. Roi watches in shock as seemingly subconsciously, Sami stretches his wings -- her best friend's got fucking wings! -- out to their full length, four times the size of his arm span. All she can think is "he really is Mercy now..."



"What are you looking at?" Sami asks as he turns around, before smirking, "you like what you see, Miss hooRA-"



"Dude," she says, her eyes wide in incredulity as she walks towards him, pointing to the massive wings on his back, "how the fuck are you not seeing these!?"



Sami squints at her, before turning to look at her finger. His face goes pallid as he stares at his massive wings, flexing them slowly. The feathers towards the ends of them shift slowly, moving up and down, almost like fingers. His eyes are wide open, and his hands are tangling deep in his hair. and his breathing is shallow.



"W-What?" he says, his voice shakier than ever, "W-What the fuck... What the fuck..."



Roi tries to come up with a joke to comfort him, but nothing comes out. She's just staring at him, her mouth agape.



"What did they do to us..." he mutters slowly, looking at his wings as they fold neatly against his back, his face pale and eyes wide, "what did they do to us..."



Roi chokes on her words, and just makes a low pitched groaning noise as she shakes her head quickly. She feels the temptation to take off her sticky jacket, but she refrains. Fear of what sort of horrible genetic modifications they've done to her runs through her veins, and her body is devoid of heat.



"We need to get out of here," she says slowly, "right now."



Sami nods, draping his jacket over his wings, which mostly hides them from view. The two of them wander the narrow alleyway in complete silence, Sami walking stiffly with his head hanging down. His arms hang awkwardly to his sides, fists clenching tight. Roi looks over at him, pity in her heart, and fidgets with her jacket.



"So..." she says, plucking little balls of fuzz from her sleeve, "besides the genetic modification stuff, hows the last two months been?"



"Fine, I guess," Sami replies, focusing intently on staring at the brick wall to his left, "mom's been nagging me about college, even though we made bank last season. No one in my family thinks it's gonna last."



"Still holding out strong, huh?"



"Yeah, don't wanna job if I can make money from REG and streaming," he murmurs, before smiling a little, "but I guess I'm gonna waste my earnings on fuckin' birdseed."



"Well, birds eat more than that. And I think you'll be fine... you're --- we're --- still mostly human, aren't we?"



Sami nods, scratching at his beard. His eyes still have a troubling look in them, as if he's close to tears.



"What's up with your hair, Roi?"



"Wanted a change," she grins, and Sami swears he notices that her canines are a little more pointed, a little sharper, "you like it?"



"You're gonna get memed on soooo hard this season," he laughs, shaking his head, "you look like that Wendy's bitch..."



"No I don't! She has pigtails, asshole! I look cool!" Roi shouts, before fake-crying, holding her hand up to her chest, "My own teammate won't support me... Woe is me...."



Sami scoffs, a grin on his face, and is about to say something before the sudden flash of lights gets their attention. Roi looks up to see a massive street cutting across their path, cars rushing past at high speeds. It smells both of gasoline, piss, and the warm comforting smell of beef or some other meat roasting in some sort of kitchen, and Roi's mouth starts to drool. There are massive posters hanging off of the skyscrapers on the other side of the street, advertising new bands with young men, their hair scruffy and clothes weirdly out of style. Underneath that, there's a line of bright LED signs lit up in different colors, reading off different deals for goods inside in the store, but what gets her attention is that it's all in Korean, little to no English anywhere.



It takes her a few moments to realize where she is, as people pass them by in a flash, but when she does, her face scrunches up in confusion.



"How the fuck are we in Gangnam?"



Sami turns to her with wide eyes, before turning towards the street.



"Don't you remember being here?" Roi asks, her eyes wide, "ZeZe took us on a tour here, when it was almost Halloween?"



"Yeah," he murmurs, his face creasing with stress, "but why are we here?"



"Dunno. Maybe it's some transport service that Coach hired for all of us... To kidnap us and force us to go to Seoul all at the same time..."



"Well then," Sami growls through grit teeth, "I'll have room to sue them. For fucking up my genetics and fusing me with a bird."



Roi smiles sympathetically.



"Well, you'll have an air-tight case against them, we'll go to the cops as soon as we tell Coach Hong," she hums, before turning towards him, "we oughta go to the gaming house to meet everyone though. Did Coach give you the directions?"



"Yep," he says, turning on his phone, "I'll send them to you."



There's a pause between them before her phone vibrates against her hand. She reads the message for a few moments, an address in Cheongdam, before turning back to look at Sami, who blinks at her with wide eyes.



"I think that's by here," Roi says, looking around for any street signs, "should be, at least. Let's-a go."



Sami laughs incredulously but follows closely behind Roi as she meanders down the street. They pass through large crowds of young adults, who always seem to stare intently at them in disbelief. Roi glares back, wondering if they recognize her somehow. Wouldn't they just walk up to her and ask for their autographs?



She shakes her head dismissively and rubs at her hair. Running her fingers through her bright red hair, Roi feels a lump of something furry and warm twitch against her hand and retracts it quickly. A shiver runs up her spine, and she huddles deep into her sweaty jacket, trying not to think too hard about it. Just her mind playing tricks on her...



It turns out that the gaming house is only a few streets down from where they both woke up, a rather large slate grey residential building, air conditioner units sticking out from the pale windows. On its sides, there's a massive McDonalds with a glowing yellow sign very close to the windows, and on the other, a Ministop convenience store, which appears to be closing for the night.



"Wow," Sami hums, looking over at the bustling fast food restaurant, which appears to be full of mostly old people and drunks, "Coach Hong must want to really torture us... Having us on a diet, right next to Mickey D's??"



Roi laughs and walks up to the front doors of the complex. She pulls it open with relative ease, and the two of them slip inside, walking to the lobby. It's not big, a rather small room, with robin's-egg blue walls and white floors, a mahogany desk with no security guard, only an old Dell computer on it. When Roi peeks over the desk to look at it, all she sees is a camera feed of the surrounding grounds. Other than that, there's a massive elevator door at the front, and Roi walks to it, pressing the "up" button.



"This is the least secure apartment complex I've ever seen," Sami snarks, and Roi sniffs in reply.



"Wonder how much REG paid for it," Roi says, picking at her sleeves again, "something tells me it wasn't much..."



"Three bucks and a McGriddle."



Roi laughs loudly before the ding of the elevator interrupts her. The two of them climb into the car, reflective metal covering the walls. Roi hits the button for the fifth floor, and as they wait to arrive, Roi stares solemnly at her reflection on the wall, hands clutching her jacket.



It's better to just get it over with, rip the proverbial band-aid off instead of just not knowing, right? Slowly, she lowers her hood and runs a shaky hand down her clammy face as she stares at the wall.



Poking out of her mop of hair, are two large cat ears, round at the tips. They're mostly black in color, with a large white spot on the back of both of them. As she steps back, her hands shaking against her legs, she watches them move back pressing closer to her skull. Reaching into the back of her pants, she pulls out a long tail, with black stripes across the creamy white fur, which wraps around her left leg in a nervous tic.



"Dude?" Sami asks as she accidentally backs into him, turning around, "What's wro... oh my god."



Roi expects Sami to start laughing, making jokes about her new features suiting her or whatever. Instead, he stares in shock, shaking his head.



"D-Did it feel weird?" he asks, his eyes wide.



"...No?" she says, raising her eyebrow, "You didn't feel your massive wings, did you?"



Sami opens his mouth to speak, an indignant expression on his face, before there's a loud ding, and the elevator doors open up. The two of them step out into their new gaming house, and the two stand still, absorbing their new house.



The walls are a dark blue in color, the shade of blue present in all REG esports teams, with black accents on the tops and bottoms of the walls. Towards the back of the room, there's the familiar teal decal of their wave logo on the wall. Other than that, it looks like any other well-to-do apartment, large black leather sofa against one wall, TV hanging on the other wall, bookcases full of paperback books, their spines peeking out.



However, it looks too perfect, too picturesque. No remotes flung over the place, no empty cans of Monster thrown onto the floor. Nothing to suggest that a certain pro-gamer had even stayed here at all.



"ZeZe?" Roi shouts, looking around the room.



The gaming house is completely silent. No sounds of movement at all.



"Choi Jun-hyo."



No response again, and Roi growls under her breath, tail flicking in agitation.



"Jun-hyo, you better come here," Roi screams in Korean, slamming her fist against the wall, "Sami and I are having a shitty fucking day, and I'm not in the mood for surprises!"



Instead of Jun-hyo's rough voice calling out to them or footsteps heading towards them, loud dubstep music starts to play over the speakers. Roi jumps out of her skin and whips her head around to look at the television. On it, there's a series of gameplay highlights playing from APEX, with pictures of each member in their jerseys in the corner of the screen, with their real name, battletag, and position.



After all the clips play out, the screen goes black for a few moments, and the music cuts out. Suddenly, a woman's loud, dramatic voice comes over the speakers.



"REG Galestrom... One of the world's best Overwatch teams..."



"Eeeh, debatable," Roi says on instinct, waving her hands in a wishy-washy gesture.



"Your mechanical talent at this shooter game has made you well known and revered throughout the esports community..."



Roi glances over at Sami. His jacket is off, exposing his wings resting at his sides, and his face is visibly contorting in a cringe, his lips pulling back to expose his white teeth.



"Together you formed a dream team able to take down BK Stars and Reunited..."



"So?" Sami asks, almost if he expects the television to answer, "stop gassing us up and get to the fucking point. Why did you do this to us?"



"Now... your skills are needed for something greater than APEX. Much greater than the game of Overwatch itself..."



Roi feels like she's losing her mind, that this is somehow a dream she's having as her body slowly dies on the pavement of Oakville. Her tail flicks around in a burst of nervous energy, hitting her legs with each erratic movement, reminding her that this is real, this is reality.



The TV lights up, and Roi feels her blood go cold at the sight of multiple team logos on the screen. There's REG's wave logo, the lion logo of UB REGAL, the red-eyes logo of Excito, the shut-eyes logo of their sister team Somnio, and then the simple grey "N" logo of EnVyUs. She shakes her head softly, her eyes widening in horror, and what the announcer says next only confirms her fears.



"We have been able to acquire the rosters and coaching staffs of four other top-level APEX teams, and have given them enhancements much like the two of you have now, culled from the strongest animals upon our planet, to make them into the strongest fighting force possible."



With a loud thump, Sami falls against the wall, his complexion pale, and his eyes practically popping out of his head. His body is visibly quivering, and Roi feels herself shaking violently as well.



"These five squadrons will be sent back in time to 2007, to fight an evil power at its source, before it can spread its tendrils across high-level governments, taking them over."



There's a pause, and during it, Roi tries to regain her bearings. She runs a hand through her hair, dodging her new ears, and swallows her bile.



"You two, Sami and hooRANGI, are the first members of your squad — the first members of any squadron — to finally arrive in this location, to this time. We welcome you to this base, and hope you find it to your liking! The animals we fused you with, an Egyptian Vulture and a Siberian Tiger respectively, should not give you any trouble, but if they do, feel free to contact us!"



"Burn in hell!" Sami shouts, running towards the television, raising his hand upwards as if to attack the screen, "Fuck you! What the fuck is wrong with you, fusing me with a fucking bird? Do you think I'd believe any of that shit?! Do you think all of us will believe your conspiracy-ass bullshit?!"



The voice continues, unhearing of Sami's insults.



"You two will begin your mission tomorrow, and more of your squad members will arrive in the coming weeks. More information about said mission will be given to you as it comes up."



Massaging the bridge of her nose, Roi sits down on the couch. The screen is black again, and the pro-gamer can see herself in the reflection, tail laying limp across the couch and ears flat against her skull. Her body aches like its made up of rubber bands about to snap. She flexes her free hand into a fist, before releasing it.



"Best of luck to the both of you!"



And with that, the voice stops. The television screen stays still for a few moments before it flickers onto a CNN news story about the cost of the Iraq War, the date in the corner reading "Sunday, May 13th, 2007".



There's a silence between the two teammates, as they both try to wrap their heads around the events prior. Sami's eyes are dull as he watches the television, his arms crossing and his complexion pale. Finally, Roi stands up, brushes off her thighs, and turns to the support player.



"Hey," she says, cracking a sarcastic half-smile, "REG sold us out to whoever these fuckers are... How about we one-up them, and go fucking bananas at McDs?"



Sami looks down at her, and a large smile grows on his face.



"Hell yeah, bro."