Altis Life (Male Reader x Animeverse)

You woke up at two hundred kilometers an hour.

Not slowly. Not gracefully. Not with the half-soft confusion of a normal morning. One second there was blackness pressed against the inside of your skull, and the next there was the violent scream of wind against your helmet, the low mechanical growl of a 125-Z treadspeeder bike under your body, and the bright white curve of your own armored gloves locked around the controls like they had always belonged there.

The first thing you became aware of was motion.

The second was heat.

The third was the fact that if you panicked for even half a second, you were going to launch your five-foot-five ass off a Star Wars-themed police bike and die in a ditch outside Kavala.

Your visor lit up in clean pale overlays the moment you fully came to. Speed. Vehicle status. Shield integrity. Local map. Radio channel. Blue-tinted icons hovering over the road ahead like your helmet had decided you were awake enough to deserve information again. The polarized lenses dimmed the glare of the Mediterranean sun, and the built-in comms gave a soft static hiss against your ears.

You forced yourself not to jerk the handlebars.

“Fuck—”

Your own voice came back at you filtered through the stormtrooper helmet, stripped flat and distorted into something sexless, metallic, and mildly threatening. The modulation erased almost everything human about it. No softness. No obvious age. No clue whether the person inside the armor was a guy or a girl. Just a clean, masked police voice that sounded like it belonged to somebody calmer than you actually were.

Which, to be fair, was useful.

You eased the treadspeeder down from a stupidly aggressive patrol speed to something that wouldn’t get you killed if you blinked wrong. The forward tread bit against the road and gravel shoulder with a nasty grinding grip while the repulsor stabilization kept the back end aloft just enough to make the whole vehicle feel like it was gliding and clawing at the world at the same time.

It was still one of the coolest fucking patrol vehicles you had ever driven.

It was also, at this exact moment, the only thing between you and planting your face into the western edge of Altis.

The road curved along a dry slope outside Kavala, with pale scrub, stone walls, and patches of dusty grass rolling down toward the white buildings of the city. In the distance, the sea flashed like hammered glass. The town itself looked familiar in the way a game map looked familiar after too many hours, except now it no longer felt like a game map. It felt like a place. You could smell hot dust even through the filters. You could feel the pressure of the armor plates at your shoulders and ribs. The undersuit stuck faintly to your skin. Your palms were sweating inside the gloves.

Too real.

Way too fucking real.

Your dispatch channel crackled in your ear.

“Unit Bravo-Two, status check.”

You almost forgot to answer because the sound of another human voice, coming through the built-in comms so matter-of-factly, hit harder than it should have.

You swallowed.

Then training, habit, muscle memory, whatever you wanted to call it, kicked in.

“Bravo-Two, 10-4.” Your distorted voice stayed cold and steady even though your heart was hammering. “Active patrol. West Kavala perimeter. 10-20 moving southbound.”

“Copy, Bravo-Two. Remain available for civil disturbance and theft reports near market.”

“Received.”

The channel clicked quiet.

You stared ahead for a few seconds longer.

Then you laughed once inside the helmet, short and disbelieving, because if you didn’t laugh you were going to start asking bigger questions than you were ready for.

You were in uniform. Full white stormtrooper-style police armor, polished in all the places that mattered and scuffed just enough around the thighs and forearms to look used. Black ribbed undersuit in the joints. F-11D blaster rifle magnet-locked at your side. Utility belt. Holster. Restraints. Tablet interface mounted to your wrist. Everything where it should be.

Everything felt real.

The owner of this server had always been insane about Star Wars shit. Not the shallow kind of insane either. The obsessive, overfunded, lovingly autistic kind. So the police gear looked like First Order hardware fucked a law-enforcement mod pack and somehow the marriage worked. White armor. Masked helmets. Blaster rifles. Treadspeeders. Sirens layered over military audio design. It should have looked ridiculous.

Instead it looked clean as hell.

And normal.

Normal enough that you had spent a stupid number of hours playing Altis Life like this, pulling traffic stops in stormtrooper armor, checking IDs with a tablet while some idiot civilian in shorts tried to explain why there were four kilos of coke in the trunk of his hatchback.

But none of that explained why waking up today felt like waking up inside the server instead of logging into it.

You flexed your fingers on the controls.

The armor moved with you smoothly. Strong. Heavy, but flexible. Your helmet systems were all green. Your visor painted the road with faint range markers. The voice filter made even breathing sound professional.

It was fine.

You were fine.

This had to be some weird immersion event, some insane update, some bugged VR synchronization, some—

Movement on the right side of the road snapped your attention over.

A person.

Female silhouette. Slim. Standing just off the roadside near a low sign half-hidden by scrub and rock. Black blazer. Pencil skirt. Red shirt. Clipboard in hand. Pale face. Small black horns poking through silver-white hair arranged in dramatic curls that should have looked stupid and somehow didn’t. Round glasses. Red eyes with dark circles under them.

And a black tail ending in a pointed arrow-tip moving once behind her.

You braked so hard the treadspeeder hissed and bit into the shoulder.

For a second you just stared.

Then the first coherent thought your brain coughed up was:

No fucking way.

Pandemonica.

From Helltaker.

Standing outside Kavala like she had taken a wrong turn on the way to Hell’s customer service desk and somehow ended up on Altis.

You almost said her name out loud right there, but stopped yourself because there were really only two explanations.

One: you were losing your mind.

Two: some new player had modded the hell out of their skin and decided to roleplay as Pandemonica for reasons known only to them and whatever god watched over internet degenerates.

The second one was obviously more believable.

Obviously.

You rolled the speeder closer and let the vehicle settle with a low mechanical growl. Up close, she looked even more exact. Pale skin. Professional black-and-red office outfit. Gloves. Boots. The tired expression. Even the fucking clipboard.

She turned her head slowly to look at you.

Her gaze moved from your treadbike, to your rifle, to the white armor, to the distorted black visor hiding your face.

“You,” she said.

Her voice was soft and tired, polite in a way that sounded almost formal, but there was something oddly crisp under the exhaustion. “Good morning. Or perhaps not. I’m still determining the standards of this place.”

You sat there for a beat.

Then you lifted a hand from the control bar and pointed at her with one armored finger.

“Okay,” you said through the vocoder. “You are either the most committed cosplayer on the fucking island, or I hit my head harder than I thought.”

She blinked once.

“I don’t know what a cosplayer is.”

You snorted.

“Bullshit.”

“I appreciate your candor.” She adjusted her glasses with two gloved fingers. “But I’m not lying. Would you happen to know where I am?”

The tail behind her flicked once. Not like a costume prop. Not stiff. Not fake. Just one tired, irritated movement.

You stared at it for a second too long.

Modded animation, you told yourself immediately.

Had to be.

This server didn’t care much about skins. The owner loved novelty. If someone wanted to walk around looking like an anime demon secretary while picking peaches, nobody usually gave a shit unless the mod broke hitboxes or gave an unfair silhouette advantage.

Still.

“Altis,” you said. “West side. Outside Kavala.”

She looked around the dusty roadside, the distant city, the glare of the sea, the dry stone, then back at you.

“I see.”

She didn’t sound like she saw at all.

She looked back at the city again with the faintly dead expression of an office worker who had been transferred to a branch location in Hell’s least efficient department.

Then she looked at you again.

“And you are?”

You had to stop yourself from answering with your in-game name automatically, because you knew exactly what the reaction was going to be and still did it anyway.

“Beef.”

Silence.

The wind moved dust over the road.

Pandemonica stared at you through the tinted visor, her face unreadable for a full three seconds. Then she lowered her clipboard a little.

“Excuse me?”

“Beef,” you repeated, trying not to sound defensive through a helmet that made you sound like law enforcement Darth Vader’s shorter cousin. “That’s my in-game name.”

She stared at you longer.

Then, with the driest possible professionalism, she said, “That is unfortunate.”

You barked out a laugh before you could stop yourself.

“Yeah, all right, fuck you too.”

“No offense intended,” she said, though she sounded exactly like she meant some. “It simply sounds less like a proper name and more like an administrative error.”

You leaned an elbow on the control bar of the treadspeeder.

“That’s because it’s funny.”

“It is not.”

“It is to me.”

“It would not be to anyone forced to say it with a straight face in a formal context.”

You looked at her. She looked at you. Her tired eyes, ringed with those permanent-looking dark circles, were somehow still sharp enough to make you feel judged through full armor.

Then she sighed, slouched a fraction, and said, “Do you have a real name?”

That hit a different part of you.

You weren’t eager to give strangers information, especially not when your face, voice, and entire body shape were already buried under white police armor that turned you into a faceless object of state violence. The helmet helped with that. In this getup, nobody knew if you were a guy or a girl. Nobody could tell anything except that you were a cop and probably annoying.

But she had already rejected “Beef” so hard it felt stupid to insist on it.

You hesitated.

Then said, “Y/n.”

Pandemonica nodded at once, as if that solved a clerical issue that had been irritating her on sight.

“Much better,” she said. “I’ll use that.”

Something about the way she said your real name—clean, direct, already decided—sent a weird little pressure through your chest.

You ignored it.

“Right,” you said. “So. Y/n, police officer. You’re obviously new.”

“I am,” she said.

“No bank account?”

“No.”

“No vehicle?”

“No.”

“No gear except the clipboard?”

She looked down at the red clipboard in her gloved hands, as if only just remembering she had it.

“That seems to be correct.”

You tilted your helmet. “No idea how the system works?”

“Not even slightly.”

“You didn’t spawn with a guide?”

“I woke up standing in the middle of a field with a migraine and an extreme dislike for my surroundings.”

“Okay, yeah, that tracks for a new player.”

“It does?”

“Sort of.”

It absolutely did not, but compared to “I’m literally Pandemonica from a different game,” it was close enough to believable that you were willing to work with it.

You looked her over again.

She was taller than you.

Not by much. Two inches, maybe. Five-seven range. But standing on the roadside in those black boots and that severe office outfit, with her curls, glasses, horns, and tail, she somehow managed to look both tired and put-together in a way that was annoyingly effective. Meanwhile you were five-five in full white stormtrooper armor with a rifle and a stupid username.

The contrast was not doing you any favors.

Her gaze traveled over your armor in return, clinical and calm.

“This is police equipment?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“You look like militarized porcelain.”

You stared at her.

Then laughed again.

“That one was actually good.”

“It was accurate.”

You shrugged. The armor creaked softly. “Server owner likes Star Wars.”

“That explains some things.”

“It really does.”

She looked at the bike. “And this vehicle?”

“Patrol treadspeeder.”

“It looks expensive.”

“It is expensive.”

“You are giving very poor reassurance to someone who is currently without currency.”

You tipped your helmet toward the road leading into town.

“Which is why I’m gonna help you.”

Her brows lifted slightly behind the round glasses.

“Will you?”

“Yeah. Easiest route for new players is legal gathering. Apples if we’re staying near Kavala. Maybe peaches if we shift later. No tool requirement. No license requirement. Just pick, carry, sell.”

She went still for a moment, studying you.

“Why?”

You shrugged again. “Because you look lost. Because you’re new. Because if I leave you out here and you wander into the wrong area, some asshole rebel or griefer’s gonna strip your inventory and laugh about it in side chat. Also because it’s boring as shit patrolling west Kavala alone.”

That last part slipped out more honestly than you intended.

Pandemonica’s eyes softened by maybe half a millimeter.

“That,” she said, “is a surprisingly decent answer.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“I’ll try not to.”

You jerked your head toward the back of the bike.

“Get on.”

She looked at the rear seat. Then at her skirt. Then at her tail. Then at the bike again.

There was a long pause.

“This arrangement,” she said carefully, “appears inconvenient.”

You looked over your shoulder at the narrow rear seating area.

“Yeah. Little bit.”

“I was trying to be polite.”

“You’re doing great.”

Pandemonica stepped closer, and the first thing you noticed was how different she felt up close compared to the absurdity of her design. She should have looked like a joke. Instead she looked precise. The black blazer fit close to her body without being flashy. The red shirt under it sharpened her pale skin and white hair. Her black gloves and pencil skirt gave her the kind of office-worker professionalism that made the small horns and pointed tail somehow worse, not better. Less costume. More real.

Which, again, was impossible.

You kept telling yourself that.

She stopped beside the bike, and with you seated on it, the height difference became stupidly obvious. Even armored, even elevated slightly by the seat, you still had the deeply annoying impression that if she stood completely straight and you took the helmet off, she would look down at you just enough to be smug about it.

You hated that thought on instinct.

Pandemonica seemed to notice where your visor tilted and said, very mildly, “You’re shorter than I expected.”

You nearly choked.

“Expected from what?”

“From the vehicle. And the armor. And the general tone.”

“The general tone?”

“Yes. You sound like someone who should be taller.”

You stared at her facelessly.

“That is one of the meanest things anyone has ever said to me while sounding that polite.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I know.”

You muttered a curse, shifted forward, and held the bike steady while she figured out how to mount the rear seat without tangling her tail or flashing half the western coast of Altis. It took a second. The clipboard got awkwardly trapped between her arm and torso. One boot slipped against the footrest. Her tail flicked in irritation.

Eventually she managed it.

The moment her hands landed against the armor at your sides, just lightly for balance, you stiffened before you could stop yourself.

The helmet hid it.

Thank fuck.

“All right,” you said. “Hold on.”

“I am.”

“Good.”

“Your vehicle is unpleasant.”

“You literally just got here.”

“And already I mean it.”

You hit the throttle.

The treadspeeder lunged forward with a savage mechanical growl, and Pandemonica made a quiet, offended sound right behind you before grabbing on harder.

That, if you were honest, made the entire thing worth it.

The road toward Kavala unwound in a mix of asphalt, dust, and sunstruck stone. Wind rushed around your armor. The visor fed you clean route overlays while the bike’s stabilization compensated over rough patches. You kept it fast enough to feel good and slow enough not to throw your new demon passenger into the sea.

Pandemonica held the sides of your armor at first, fingers gripping around the hard white plates just above your hips. After the first sharper turn, she shifted closer with an exhale that was somewhere between irritated and resigned and braced more firmly against you.

“Comfortable?” you asked.

“No.”

“Alive though.”

“For the moment.”

“Great attitude.”

“I’m preserving my strength.”

“You haven’t even picked apples yet.”

“That sentence is making my headache worse, Y/n.”

You snorted and angled the bike toward a route that would skirt the busier part of the city first.

“All right. Beginner tutorial. Pay attention.”

“I have a clipboard,” she said. “I am physically incapable of not paying attention.”

You liked her more every minute.

“Okay. Altis Life basics. This server runs on money, weight, and people being stupid. Legal jobs first. Apples, peaches, mining, trucking, shit like that. Illegal jobs later if you’re dumb or desperate.”

“Or both?”

“Usually both.”

She hummed once behind you.

“You gather raw goods,” you said, “then either sell them raw or process them first depending on what they are. Fruit is easy. You pick, you sell. No equipment. Good starter cash. Save enough for a backpack first, because inventory weight matters. Then maybe a quadbike. Then better clothing or legal tools or whatever route you go.”

“Weight matters how much?”

“A lot. Everything you carry slows you down eventually. Sprint too hard overloaded and your stamina goes to shit. Get caught heavy and you don’t run from anyone. Not police. Not rebels. Not angry civilians. Nobody.”

“I see.”

“Food and water matter too. Not always brutally on casual settings, but this server’s owner liked systems that were fun without being completely miserable. So you still gotta drink, eat, keep your shit topped up.”

“And the police?”

“What about us?”

“What exactly do you do, beyond offering unsolicited agricultural guidance?”

You barked another laugh.

“We handle traffic, robbery calls, theft, contraband, warrants, criminal records, jail, fines, evidence, vehicle stops, public disturbances, smuggling, gang bullshit when command authorizes it. Depends on the shift. Depends how bad the island’s being stupid that day.”

“You say ‘we’ with surprising confidence for someone who woke up disoriented on a speeding machine.”

You paused.

Then said, “Yeah, well. Muscle memory.”

Pandemonica seemed to accept that.

“What happens if I commit a crime?” she asked.

“That depends what crime.”

“Hypothetically.”

“Hypothetically I ticket you, arrest you, or put you in jail.”

“Can you?”

“I’m a cop.”

“You are a small cop in white armor with a strange name.”

“You’re on my bike because you can’t afford a fucking backpack.”

That shut her up for two whole seconds.

Then she said, “Point taken.”

The outskirts of Kavala opened up around you as the city drew nearer. Whitewashed buildings. Market stalls. Sun-baked walls. Players moving in fits and starts. Civilians in mismatched outfits. A couple armored officers near an intersection. One idiot trying to launch a quadbike down a stairway and immediately eating shit.

Normal.

So normal that the demon woman on the back of your police speeder somehow felt less impossible, not more.

You cut through the edge of town rather than the dense center, using your patrol access to avoid congestion, then steered out toward one of the nearby apple gathering spots where new players usually started. Trees spread across a dry orchard patch beyond a low path and rough fencing, branches heavy enough with fruit to be worth the trip without feeling over-designed.

You parked the treadspeeder in partial shade and swung off.

Pandemonica dismounted more carefully than she had mounted, one hand on the bike, one holding the clipboard, tail lifting slightly clear of the seat. Up close, standing on the dirt beside you, the height difference hit again. Two inches didn’t sound like much until you were both upright. Then it was enough.

She looked down at you just a little.

You hated how instantly aware of it you became.

She noticed. Of course she did.

Then, with that same polite tone, she said, “My condolences.”

“For what?”

“You appear to be shorter standing up too.”

You let out a sharp static-filled exhale through the helmet.

“Really?”

“You made it easy.”

“Can you die in a farming tutorial?”

“Presumably.”

“Great. Keep talking.”

Her mouth moved just enough to count as the ghost of a smile.

There were maybe six or seven other players working the orchard. A couple in basic civilian clothes. One shirtless idiot with a crowbar he absolutely didn’t need for apples. Two girls in modded outfits that looked more anime than military. Nobody paid you much mind at first beyond the usual glance people gave the police—especially police in full faceless stormtrooper gear.

Then they noticed who had arrived with you.

Heads turned.

One guy actually stopped mid-harvest and stared.

Pandemonica took in the orchard, the nearby market route marker, the players, the trees, the dusty ground, the distant city. Then she looked back at you.

“What now?”

You stepped toward the nearest tree and reached up.

In armor, reaching overhead was always a little annoying. The plates across your shoulders and upper arms could do it, but you felt the restriction. You grabbed an apple, twisted, pulled, and dropped it into your inventory with the familiar soft system chime.

“Now,” you said, “you pick apples.”

Pandemonica looked at the tree.

Then at you.

Then at the tree again.

“You brought me here,” she said slowly, “to perform manual labor.”

“Congratulations. You’ve understood the economy.”

She shut her eyes for a second like she was praying for strength she no longer had.

Then she opened them again, walked to the next branch, and reached up.

It was subtle, but she had better range than you. Not by a stupid amount—five-seven wasn’t a giant—but enough that she could pluck a slightly higher apple without needing to stretch as hard. It was deeply annoying.

You watched her gather the first one.

The apple vanished into her inventory with a quiet system click.

Pandemonica blinked.

Then looked at her hand.

Then at the branch.

“Interesting.”

“Right?” you said. “Keep going.”

So she did.

And because this server apparently had a sense of humor, Pandemonica turned out to be absurdly efficient at fruit gathering.

Not fast in a wild way. Not clumsy-new either. Efficient. Measured. She moved from branch to branch with the same dead-eyed professionalism you imagined she would use to process damned souls, answer customer complaints, and send internal memos no one wanted to read. Clipboard tucked under one arm now. Black gloves wrapping around apple after apple. Tail adjusting her balance faintly. Boots crunching dry dirt. White hair and black blazer catching sunlight between the trees.

A demon office worker harvesting apples outside Kavala while a stormtrooper cop stood guard with a blaster rifle should have looked like a shitpost.

Instead, because the world was apparently committed to the bit, it looked weirdly right.

You kept one hand near the F-11D at your side and watched the orchard, occasionally helping her optimize pathing.

“Don’t zigzag,” you said. “You lose time. Sweep a row, then turn.”

“Understood.”

“If inventory gets near max weight, we unload.”

“Understood.”

“If anybody bothers you, you tell me.”

“I suspected that part.”

“You’re new. New players get preyed on.”

“By everyone?”

“By enough people.”

Pandemonica pulled another apple from a low branch. “This place is dreadful.”

“Yeah,” you said. “Kind of.”

She glanced at you sideways.

“You say that with affection.”

“Because it’s fun when it’s not being awful.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“It’s realistic.”

“I did not request realism.”

“Tough.”

One of the nearby players—a tall guy in a sleeveless hoodie and cargo shorts—wandered close enough to be irritating. He gave Pandemonica a long, obvious once-over that immediately made your hand settle harder against the rifle grip.

“Yo,” he said. “That a custom skin?”

Pandemonica looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”

The guy grinned. “The demon thing. Looks sick. Workshop?”

“She says she’s not cosplaying,” you said before he could get any dumber.

He looked at you, then at her, then barked a laugh. “No shit? Full roleplay?”

“She’s new,” you said. “Move along.”

He held his hands up. “Relax, officer Beef.”

From the way he said it, he absolutely recognized you from player chatter.

Of course he did.

Pandemonica turned her head toward you just enough that you could feel the incoming judgment.

The guy kept smirking. “Weird-ass name, by the way.”

“Yeah,” you said. “I know. Walk.”

He looked like he wanted to keep pushing it, but the stormtrooper armor plus rifle plus your general unwillingness to entertain his bullshit won out. He backed off with a shrug.

Pandemonica waited until he was far enough away, then said, “Your professional reputation has survived the name.”

“Barely.”

“I’ll continue using Y/n.”

“Yeah. Please do.”

She picked another apple.

Then another.

By the time her inventory started edging toward discomfort, she’d gotten into a rhythm that made even you a little impressed. She was still tired. Still wore exhaustion under her eyes like a second face. But she adapted fast. Asked the right questions. Didn’t whine. Didn’t do stupid newbie shit like sprint in circles or wander off because something shiny appeared on the horizon.

That, more than anything else, made it easy to keep helping her.

When she finally paused, she put one gloved hand against her side and said, “I am beginning to understand the problem of weight.”

“Yeah?”

“My body now feels annoyed.”

“That means we sell.”

You led her back to the bike but made her walk the rest of the way to market rather than ride. Partly because it was close. Partly because teaching the route mattered. Partly because you wanted her to understand how irritating weight became on foot before she got any clever ideas about skipping early purchases.

She kept pace beside you with that same slightly taller, slightly straighter line your brain refused to stop noticing. Even tired, she carried herself like someone whose posture had been trained by office hell and paperwork-related suffering. Meanwhile, you were a compact wall of white armor and black visor, boots heavy on the stone road, rifle clipped at your side. People stepped aside for you automatically. Not for her. For you.

You noticed the moment she noticed that.

“Interesting,” she murmured.

“What?”

“They move.”

“Yeah. Police.”

“No. Not simply because of police. Because of your appearance.”

You glanced at her.

Pandemonica looked ahead at the market crowd parting around you.

“The armor makes you easy to obey before one has decided whether one likes you.”

You let that sit.

Then said, “That’s kind of the point.”

“Is that comforting?”

“Not always.”

“Hm.”

The market itself was noisy in the way only Altis Life markets could be. Players yelling in proximity chat. Engines idling. Civilian vendors. Half-legit deals happening three feet from official stalls. A medic jogging through with a bag. Somebody getting screamed at for trying to park where they shouldn’t. It smelled like heat, fruit, dust, fuel, and cheap coffee.

You took Pandemonica to one of the legal produce sale points and nodded toward the vendor interface.

“Sell everything.”

She frowned at the screen, tapped through the options, and the server chimed as the apples transferred out.

A number flashed.

Not huge money. But enough.

Pandemonica looked at the total. Then at you.

Then back at the screen.

“That was for fruit.”

“Yep.”

“I dislike how quickly this becomes understandable.”

“Addiction to efficient grinding is real.”

“I am not addicted.”

“You picked apples with terrifying professionalism for twenty minutes.”

“I was applying myself.”

“Dangerously.”

She adjusted her glasses. “And now?”

“Now you keep doing that until you can afford better storage. Backpack first. Then maybe a cheap vehicle. Quadbike if you want easy legal mobility. After that, depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Whether you wanna stay legal, get a job, keep gathering, move into trading, start learning licenses, or do something stupid.”

“You keep returning to stupidity.”

“Because the island keeps returning to it.”

She seemed to consider that.

Then, without warning, her gaze dropped slightly, tracking the line of your armor down and back up again.

“You carry yourself like you think you’re taller than you are.”

You stared at her visor-first.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means you move like someone compensating for an issue.”

“There is no issue.”

“There is approximately a two-inch issue.”

You made a noise so offended it came out through the vocoder as a burst of angry static.

Pandemonica didn’t even blink.

“You’re having a wonderful time with this,” you said.

“A small amount,” she admitted.

“Unbelievable.”

“Not at all. It’s quite believable, Y/n.”

There it was again.

Your real name.

Clean. Unbothered. Easy on her tongue.

You hated how much less stupid it sounded when she said it than when the rest of the world did.

You cleared your throat inside the helmet and jerked a thumb toward a nearby stall.

“Coffee.”

Pandemonica went still so fast you noticed.

Then she turned her head.

“Coffee?”

“You look like you’re about to pass out standing up.”

“That is observant.”

“I’m a cop.”

“That is not what I meant.”

“Do you want it or not?”

She looked at the stall like it contained one of the few remaining reasons to tolerate existence.

“Yes,” she said, and for the first time since meeting her, she sounded honestly sincere.

So you bought her one.

Which was how you learned that coffee quality might be the difference between peace and homicide.

Pandemonica took the paper cup in both gloved hands, lifted it, inhaled once, and then drank.

You watched her face.

At first, nothing.

Then her expression changed.

Not dramatically. Not in some stupid anime sparkle way. It sharpened. The tiredness didn’t vanish, exactly, but it narrowed into something harder. More focused. Her eyes seemed redder somehow. The corners of her mouth flattened. Even the sleepy softness around her posture tightened into a cleaner, meaner line.

She lowered the cup.

Silence.

Then she looked at the vendor.

“This,” she said calmly, “is fucking terrible.”

The vendor blinked.

You froze.

Pandemonica set the cup down on the counter with professional care.

“I would like to know,” she continued in the same polite tone, “what drove you to commit this offense against coffee with such confidence.”

The vendor lifted his hands. “Lady, it’s market coffee.”

“Then market standards are beneath contempt.”

You stepped in immediately, putting one armored hand between them.

“All right. Easy.”

Pandemonica looked at you.

There was something deeply wrong with how awake she suddenly looked.

“You gave this to me,” she said.

“I bought it for you.”

“You might as well have handed me a legal complaint.”

The vendor was already getting irritated.

“You buying or bitching, officer?”

“Neither,” you said. “Refund the cup.”

“No refunds.”

Pandemonica smiled.

That was worse than if she had shouted.

“Y/n,” she said, eyes still on the vendor, “I am briefly considering breaking his fingers.”

The market noise seemed to dim around that sentence.

You stared at her.

The vendor laughed nervously. “What the hell is with your friend?”

“She said she’s not cosplaying,” you muttered.

Then, before this got stupider, you looked past the vendor at the little machine setup behind the stall.

“Move.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Move.”

He stared at the armor, the rifle, the hand already hovering near your restraints, and apparently decided arguing with stormtrooper police over coffee had become a losing investment. He stepped aside with an annoyed curse.

You reached over the counter.

The old server had always let you interact with more than people expected. Drink machines. Water points. Food stalls. Repair bays. Z-menu bullshit everywhere. If it existed, somebody had probably made it interactive.

You popped the machine panel, checked the grounds, the water, the heat setting.

Pandemonica watched you with unsettling intensity.

“You know how to make coffee?” she asked.

“I know how to make something better than this radioactive dishwater.”

“That is an extremely low bar.”

“Yeah, well. Shut up and let me clear it.”

You worked fast. Reset the burn setting. Dumped the overcooked trash already in the pot. Started a fresh cycle. Let the machine actually do its job for once. Even through the helmet filters you could smell the difference within a minute.

The vendor looked both offended and slightly ashamed.

Pandemonica stood very still beside you.

When the new cup was ready, you poured it, turned, and held it out.

“Try again.”

She accepted it.

Drank once.

Her eyes half-lidded.

Then opened again.

This time the sharpness remained, but the homicidal edge eased off just enough not to get anybody maimed in a produce market.

Pandemonica exhaled slowly.

“That,” she said, “is acceptable.”

The vendor muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

Pandemonica looked at him.

“You should be grateful,” she said. “You still possess all ten fingers.”

You took her elbow—not roughly, just enough to steer—and moved her away from the stall before customer service from Hell escalated into aggravated assault.

A safe distance later, you let go.

Pandemonica adjusted her glasses with one gloved hand and took another measured sip.

Then she looked at you, properly looked, the way a smart person looked when they were revising an assessment.

“You improved the situation,” she said.

“I usually try.”

“That is inconvenient.”

“For who?”

“For my attempt to remain emotionally indifferent.”

You stared.

She sipped again.

Then, because apparently she had decided that was enough vulnerability for the hour, she added, “Also, you were correct. That vendor was incompetent.”

“There she is.”

“I never left.”

You were about to answer when your dispatch channel cracked alive.

“All units, be advised. Possible theft in progress near west market vehicle row. Civilian reporting bag snatch and runner heading south. Suspect male, dark hoodie, light pants. Bravo units respond.”

You were already turning.

“Bravo-Two responding. 10-76 from produce market. Send last known.”

“Runner passing lower vehicle row toward side street.”

“Copy.”

Pandemonica lowered the coffee slightly. “That sounded urgent.”

“It is.”

You started moving at once, boots hammering stone, armor clicking, crowd parting in front of the white uniform almost on instinct. Pandemonica came after you without needing to be told, one hand holding the clipboard against her side, the other still somehow keeping the coffee upright.

“You’re following?” you asked.

“You were instructive. I’m continuing the lesson.”

“That is absolutely not how police response works.”

“And yet here I am.”

You rounded the market row and saw the movement immediately—a skinny guy in a dark hoodie shoving through pedestrians with a small black pack in hand, one civilian woman screaming after him.

You broke into a run.

Heavy armor changed the sensation of sprinting. It didn’t stop you, but you felt every pound of it in the rise of your breath and the burn beginning in your thighs. The plates stayed tight and flexible. The boots hit hard. Your shorter stride meant you had to push faster to close distance, but training and adrenaline compensated.

“Police!” your helmet barked through external speakers. “Stop!”

The suspect looked back, saw a white-armored stormtrooper cop charging at him, and made the deeply stupid decision to run harder.

“Of course,” you muttered.

He cut down a narrow side lane toward the low parking stretch near the orchard route.

You hit your wrist controls as you ran. Map overlay. Angle prediction. Route intercept.

“Bravo-Two in foot pursuit,” you snapped into radio. “Suspect southbound from west market side lane. Heading vehicle row. Need block on lower road if available.”

“Copy, Bravo-Two.”

The runner vaulted a low barrier.

You didn’t.

Heavy armor and real-world momentum said fuck that. You pivoted around instead, shaving distance through a tighter angle the system map highlighted for you.

Pandemonica, somehow still behind you, said with perfect calm, “He appears to be making poor choices.”

“No shit.”

The suspect burst into the row where civilian vehicles sat clustered badly. If he got a ride, this would get annoying.

You saw your treadspeeder thirty meters off.

That decided it.

“Stay back!” you called to Pandemonica.

Then you cut straight for the bike, unlocked it on approach, and swung on in one practiced movement that made the armor feel built around you. The engine roared alive. The tread bit. The rear lifted.

You gunned it down the row.

The suspect had just reached a quadbike when the white police treadspeeder slid broadside in front of him with a scream of traction and a burst of dust. He stumbled back, bag still in hand, swore, and tried to cut left.

You dismounted before the bike fully settled.

“Don’t,” you said.

He looked from you to the rifle.

Then past you, maybe calculating whether he could squeeze between parked cars.

Pandemonica arrived ten seconds later, somehow still holding the coffee and clipboard, slightly winded but not panicked. Her red eyes moved from the suspect to you, then to the blocked path.

The suspect made his choice.

He lunged.

You moved before he finished deciding.

One armored hand caught his wrist. The other slammed him chest-first against the nearest vehicle hard enough to rattle the frame. The bag dropped. He shouted. You drove his arm up, pinned him, and hauled restraints from your belt in one fast motion.

“Hands where I can see them.”

“Fuck you!”

“Wrong answer.”

You wrenched his free arm behind his back and locked the restraints on with a clean metallic snap.

The whole thing took maybe four seconds.

The suspect cursed nonstop through most of them.

When it was done, you stepped him back from the vehicle, checked the cuffs, retrieved the stolen bag, and keyed your radio.

“Bravo-Two, suspect detained. One in custody. Recovering stolen property. Need ID check and victim contact.”

“Copy, Bravo-Two. Victim en route. Run when ready.”

You pulled the police tablet free and activated it. The suspect kept swearing, shifting, testing the cuffs like all restrained idiots did.

Pandemonica stood a few feet away, watching with a kind of focused quiet that was much more intense than amazement would have been.

You looked up once.

“You all right?”

“I am,” she said.

Then, after a beat: “You became very competent very quickly.”

“I was already competent.”

“You were also teaching me to pick apples.”

“That too.”

“Versatile.”

You snorted and went back to work.

ID first. Database ping. Registration match. Minor prior record. Tickets. Disorderly conduct. One prior petty theft. No outstanding warrant. Not worth a huge scene, but enough to be irritating.

The victim arrived a minute later, furious and breathless, confirmed the bag, confirmed the snatch, and nearly started crying when you handed it back.

That part did something weird to you every time. In the game, it used to be routine. Return item. File offense. Move on. But with the world feeling this real—with the woman’s hands shaking and your armor suddenly feeling less like cosplay and more like an actual shield between people and bad days—it hit differently.

You kept your voice clipped and steady anyway.

Professional.

Faceless.

Safe.

Once the victim was dealt with, you turned back to the suspect.

“You’re getting a theft charge,” you said. “You can take the ticket or do time.”

“Fuck you, man.”

“Wonderful communication. Ticket or jail.”

He spat near your boot.

Pandemonica watched that with sudden interest.

You stared at the spit. Then at him.

Then said, very calmly, “Jail it is.”

He started protesting immediately.

You ignored him, processed the charge, updated the system, and handed him over when another officer arrived to transport.

Only after the vehicle pulled off did you let your shoulders drop a fraction.

The adrenaline bled out. The armor felt heavier again. Your breathing reminded you that weight and sprinting didn’t give a shit how cool the uniform looked.

Pandemonica stepped closer.

Close enough that you had to tilt your visor up a little to keep her in center view.

“You are breathing harder,” she observed.

“Armor’s heavy.”

“You still moved quickly.”

“I had to.”

“You did not seem frightened.”

“I was irritated.”

“That may be worse.”

“Usually.”

She took another sip of coffee.

Then looked at the route the transport vehicle had taken.

“So that is law here.”

“That’s part of it.”

“You did not hurt him more than necessary.”

“No.”

“You could have.”

“Yeah.”

“But didn’t.”

“Yeah.”

Pandemonica’s eyes moved back to your visor.

There was a long enough pause there that you could feel the shape of it inside your helmet.

Then she said, more quietly than before, “That matters.”

You shifted your weight.

The armor clicked softly.

“Why?”

“Because some people enjoy power when it is handed to them,” she said. “You seem to enjoy competence.”

That landed harder than you expected.

You almost made a joke out of it.

Almost.

Instead you said, “Power’s useful. Competence keeps people alive.”

Pandemonica held your gaze a second longer, then looked away first.

The market noise had resumed around you like nothing had happened. Altis was good at that. Chaos flared. Chaos cooled. People went back to selling fruit and getting scammed.

You re-holstered the tablet.

“All right,” you said. “Lesson two.”

“There’s more?”

“There’s always more.”

“What now?”

“You’ve got starter cash. We can either go harvest more and push for backpack money faster, or we can walk you through storage purchases, water, food points, and where not to go if you don’t want to get robbed by the island’s local idiots.”

Pandemonica adjusted the clipboard against her arm.

Then, with perfect seriousness, asked, “Can lesson two occur while seated on the unpleasant vehicle?”

You turned your helmet slowly toward her.

“Thought you hated it.”

“I do.”

“But?”

“But walking is slower, and I am tired.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me.”

“It was not meant kindly.”

“Still counts.”

She sighed the sigh of a woman already regretting the coworker she’d been assigned by fate.

“You’re unbearable, Y/n.”

“And yet you’re still here.”

“Yes,” she said. “That is becoming a concern.”

You got back on the bike first this time and waited while she mounted behind you with slightly less fumbling than before. When she settled in, she did it more naturally, one gloved hand at your side, the other still somehow managing both coffee and clipboard with the kind of demonic office balance that should have come with its own license.

You started the engine.

Before you pulled out, Pandemonica said, right next to your helmet, “By the way.”

“What?”

“If anyone asks, I still maintain I am not cosplaying.”

You barked a laugh.

“Sure.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“That makes one of us delusional.”

“You literally have a tail.”

“And?”

“And that is not helping your argument.”

She went quiet for a beat.

Then asked, “If I were exactly who I say I am, would that trouble you?”

You thought about it.

Really thought about it.

A demon girl from Helltaker sitting on the back of your police treadspeeder in a trapped Altis Life server should have been the kind of sentence that made all reasonable thought collapse in on itself. But the world already felt wrong in too many ways. The armor felt real. The pain felt real. The heat, the coffee, the running, the woman whose stolen bag you’d just returned—all of it felt too solid for “just a game.”

And still your brain rejected the leap.

Because it was insane.

Because believing that meant believing the rules were gone.

Because if characters from other games could just appear here, then anything could.

And anything could get very bad, very fast.

So you said the safest thing.

“I’d say you picked a shitty place to end up.”

Pandemonica was quiet long enough that you wondered if you’d offended her.

Then she said, almost amused, “That is a surprisingly decent answer again.”

“Yeah, well. Don’t make a thing out of it.”

Too late.

You could feel the faint shift of her posture as the bike rolled forward into the sun again. This time when she held your armor, it wasn’t because she had no idea what the vehicle was doing.

It was because she’d decided to stay.

The next hour passed in a blur of movement, explanation, and small absurdities that somehow knitted together into the shape of a beginning.

You showed her where to refill water. Where to buy cheap food. Where medics usually staged. Which roads were relatively safe for fresh spawns and which routes tended to attract opportunistic bastards looking for easy inventory. You explained that legal jobs were boring on purpose and profitable only if you stuck with them long enough to stop being broke. You explained licenses. Vehicle registration. Why nobody with a brain flashed contraband in a town center. Why police got obeyed fast in white armor. Why police got hated for it too.

Pandemonica listened to all of it.

Asked better questions than most players.

Made notes on the red clipboard as if she was onboarding into a new department and intended to file a complaint with upper management later.

At one point, near a fountain where a couple new players were arguing about whether processing fruit first increased sale value, she said, “Your world is remarkably dependent on forms of suffering that would normally qualify as clerical punishment.”

“Welcome to Altis Life.”

“Charming.”

“You’ll survive.”

“That remains to be seen.”

You took her back to the orchard before the market got too crowded again, and the sun had shifted enough by then to throw longer shadows between the trees. She worked a second run with less complaint and more rhythm. You guarded. Occasionally helped. Occasionally watched.

It was hard not to.

Pandemonica was not the sort of woman who filled space by being loud or flirty or obvious. She filled it by being exact. By keeping her blazer neat in a dusty orchard. By looking half-dead and still moving like a person who refused to let the universe catch her incompetent. By saying cruelly funny things in the same voice she used for practical questions. By calling you Y/n as if she had known from the start that “Beef” was never going to survive professional use.

And by being slightly taller than you in a way that was, frankly, bullshit.

The sun dipped lower.

By the time you finally called it, she had enough starter money to feel less helpless and a route in her head solid enough not to get lost the second you weren’t there. That had been the goal.

It should have felt done.

Instead, when you brought the bike around and asked, “So where are you logging off?” the words came out automatic—and stupid.

Because the moment you said them, the silence that followed told you exactly how wrong they sounded.

Pandemonica looked at you over the rim of her glasses.

“I don’t know,” she said.

You frowned.

“No apartment? No spawn housing? No clan buddy? Nothing?”

“No.”

You felt something cold settle low in your stomach.

You opened your mouth to say something dismissive, something like then use the housing menu, something normal, something that kept the world clean and game-shaped.

But before you could, your dispatch channel crackled again, clipped and professional.

“All units, stand by for advisory. Reports increasing of unidentified entrants with no registry match. Repeat, unidentified entrants with no registry match. Exercise caution. Verify ID before escalation. Command believes this may be linked to server instability.”

Your visor stayed on the road ahead.

Your hands stayed on the controls.

The world inside your helmet went very still.

Pandemonica, behind you, said quietly, “That sounds relevant.”

You did not answer immediately.

Because suddenly her tail didn’t feel like a mod.

Her eyes didn’t feel like a skin.

Her clipboard didn’t feel like a joke.

And the weight of her sitting behind you on the police treadspeeder felt like the first moment in your day that had not been part of any routine you knew how to survive.

Finally, you said, very carefully, “Yeah.”

The channel clicked off.

The island kept breathing around you.

Wind. Distant engines. Player voices. Market noise drifting over stone and trees. The sea somewhere beyond everything.

You turned your helmet a fraction.

“Pandemonica.”

“Yes, Y/n?”

“If you’re not bullshitting me,” you said, “then this just got complicated.”

She was quiet for a second.

Then she answered in the same tired, polite voice she had used since the roadside, except now there was something deeper under it. Something more awake.

“I had already gathered that.”

You looked out toward Kavala.

Toward the roads you knew. Toward the laws you understood. Toward the server that was starting to act less like a server and more like a world.

Then you revved the engine.

“Fine,” you said. “You’re staying with me for now.”

Pandemonica blinked.

“Am I?”

“Temporary escort,” you said. “New entrant protection. System education. Witness verification until command stops having a collective stroke.”

“That sounds suspiciously like you made it up on the spot.”

“I’m a cop. That means half my job is making shit sound official.”

She considered that.

Then, to your surprise, she gave one small nod.

“All right.”

“That’s it?”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. More resistance.”

“I am tired,” she said. “You are useful. The island is absurd. Under such conditions, this arrangement is acceptable.”

You snorted.

“Romantic.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Good.”

She shifted behind you and settled in again, closer this time, not for balance alone but because the choice had been made and there was no reason to pretend otherwise.

Your name came softly through the helmet’s side audio as the bike started forward.

“Y/n.”

“Yeah?”

“I still think your in-game name is dreadful.”

You laughed so hard the vocoder turned it into static.

“Yeah,” you said. “I know.”

And with Hell’s customer service representative seated behind you in her black suit and red shirt, red clipboard tucked at her side, silver curls catching the last light of afternoon, while your white stormtrooper armor reflected the road ahead and your compact frame steered a police treadspeeder back toward town, Chapter One of your problem officially began.

You did not know yet that Pandemonica would become the first girl in your life on this island to matter in a way that refused to stay administrative.

You only knew three things for certain.

She wasn’t normal.

This world wasn’t normal either.

And when she said your real name, it already sounded like trouble.