Her twin grabbed the paper and looked at it with a mix of awe and slight confusion. Varian and Inez gathered around her to look at the design sheet.

“Uh that’s great and all but how does that help us?,” asked Varian. He was puzzled with the idea of them having to go to a space school to save her sisters sim.

“I thought since I can’t beat the pilot out here than I could beat him in the sim itself. We could go to the school under the disguise of student avatars and recruit the best of students there so they could pilot an upgraded version of Pantheon to save the universe. Pantheon 2.0!,” exclaimed Carmen. She was excited at the plan she was able to hatch together at four in the morning that day. She definitely not experience sleep deprivation at the moment.

Definitely not.

“Pantheon 2.0. Wow Carmen. You sure do know how to name your mechs,” joked Enola. The comment earned her a playful punch in the shoulder from her twin.

“I like the name and just because that pilot, Killian, decided to mess up the universe and steal the mech doesn’t mean he doesn’t get to taint it’s awesome name,” responded Carmen, defensively.

“Killian? You seriously named the pilot Killian and didn’t expect him to become evil?,” asked Varian. The irony of giving the pilot a name that would be commonly given to a villain in a TV show was clearly evident.

Carmen shrugged.

“I though it sounded cool,” she responded which caused Varian to facepalm in second hand embarrassment.

“Well they can’t all be winners,” says Inez. She comforted Carmen by softly patting her shoulder. She soon slapped her back with a wide smile earning her a yelp from her sibling.

“Now lets go kill this son of a bitch!,” exclaimed Inez with pure excitement at the opportunity to go and beat this pilot to the ground.

“What are we going to do about the Cybrim drones? Didn’t the company update the VR system so that every world has to have them in place for surveillance,” reminded Enola which caused Carmen to contemplate for a moment.

Carmen’s world may have been made from scratch but it was hosted in an advanced VR system called Hologlobe which is owned by a VR company called Cybrim. Over the past year criminal activity started to rise in the worlds hosted by the system so the company implemented a rule that all worlds must have some “drones”, or rather human ai npcs, in place in order to keep the users of the worlds in check. It didn’t matter if the world was public or not and in case the world got a glitch or dangerous activity was spotted the company had the right to archive the universe for inspection or worse, deletion.

“Yeah their are drones hanging around the space academy since it is a rather new creation of mine and they are still trying to check if it’s not connected to any criminal activity. But I think we can sneak around the place without letting them know that somethings going wrong in the universe,” reassured Carmen.

Making sure the company doesn’t know that a possible glitch corrupted her world wasn’t going to be easy but curse her for not wanting her world to possibly get deleted. That universe was her magnum opus and she would fight hell and back to keep it out of harms way.

“Wait a minute what is our game plan exactly? We can’t just waltz in their and start recruiting students to save the universe, behind Cybrims back!” siad Varian. He got mild anxiety at the aspect of them going about the mission without a fully fledged plan. Even tho everything they were going to do was inside a simulation the rouge character alone had given him the creeps due to what Carmen told him.

All his siblings looked at him for a moment as they contemplated what he said before turning to look at each other with huge grins. Varian looked at them expecting a plan to be forming in their heads but soon understood what they were really thinking. They were actually planning to just waltz right in were they?

“Oh for fucks sake.”

A Few Minutes Later…

The quartet were gathered around the middle of the living room in a square. The furniture was pushed out of the way which left them with a bare room for walking space. Carmen had invented a walking mill for the sim due to the fact she wanted them to have the feeling of walking but didn’t have the money to buy the current ones available on the market. She even gained the ability to create motion trackers and a touch suit along with gloves for them to easily navigate around the world. They still had their controllers on hand as backup. The entire set up was made of junkyard garbage and clearance materials from the local hardware store. The only thing not hand made where there VR headsets that were bought for them by the money Carmen had saved up doing art commissions over the summer.

“I can’t believe we’re going about this without a plan. We’re going to get caught the second we step in there,” says Varian. He was certain they were going to get kicked out of the place the second they stepped into that place. He didn’t trust his sibling to act normal in public worlds in the real world much less in a virtual one.

“Don’t worry. Luckily, the academy is set to have a recruitment exam today. The perfect chance to get in without raising suspicion. We just have to say we’re students looking to transfer from college or something. You know, like classic sci-fi role play,” Carmen reassured him with a cool demeanor.

“You also have the creator of this world as your sister. I know this world like the back of my hand. Nothing is gonna stop us.”

“What if the drones check our papers? You made the sim so complicated that we had to make a bunch of info about our characters such as were we live and were we studied at. We even lied about were we lived. What are we going to do if they decide to check to see if we’re lying or not?,” questioned Enola. Her confidence started to lessen by the minute at the complexity and security Cybrim implemented into the user account of the Hologlobe system. She was perfectly fine with kicking ass and taking names in the sim but if paperwork was involved this wouldn’t be easy for her In the slightest.

“I already got that covered. I prepared for a moment were I had to use a fake identity in the Hologlobe system. I never trusted Cybrim to begin with anyways. Too much stolen data and illegal user info selling. When we get in just hop inside the restaurant in front of y’all. That will be our house. I’ll find a way to get us to the academy in time. Now put on your head set heroes we got a universe to save!,” exclaimed Carmen before she put on her VR headset.

“Ay ay capitan!,” responded Inez in spanish. She gave her sister a salute before putting on her headset. Varian and Enola followed suit.

‘Here goes nothing,’ thought Carmen before the world around her turned dark.

The world around her was pitch black for a moment before she saw her siblings appear next to her. They created a square around a glowing white orb that started to glow gold.

“This is were things get a bit crazy. Just follow my lead,” says Carmen as she placed her hand on the orb. The others did the same. Soon enough the orb shot into the air like a firework and exploded into a group of yellow butterflies.

The butterflies fluttered down and in the process the virtual world revealed itself to the group. They appeared to be on the moon as they looked down to the gray rocky surface under their feet before looking up into space. An American flag and a futuristic space ship was placed In front of them. The siblings were dressed in colorful space suits that gave them each a designated color.

“Oh my gods we’re on the moon!,” yelled Enola in pure joy.

“I did want say I wanted us to go to the moon one day. So I built one,” says Carmen.

“At this point NASA should just hire you,” complemented Inez. She was checking out the red space suit she was wearing.

“And to think you just created this for writing inspiration,” says Varian as he looked up into the vastness of space. He spotted a blue orb which he believed was planet Earth.

“What can I say. I’m an overachiever. Anyways we have to get some stuff at my base on Earth so we’re taking the ship there,” says Carmen as she gestured to the ship behind her. She soon started to jump towards the ship. The lack of gravity allowed her to jump extremely hard which made her siblings stare in awe. They followed her lead and started to jump like rabbits to the ship.

Carmen opened the ships airlock door and let her siblings in. They saw how complex the interior of the space ship was and were highly impressed. Their sibling clearly put a lot of time and dedication into this 3d model.

“Welcome to the Comet cruiser. This is how we’re going to get to Earth. I would normally teleport myself to Earth but I’m still having issues with that feature due to Killians doing.”

Enola whistled due to her being impressed by the interior of the space craft.

“This looks totally insane. In like a good way,” says Enola before taking a random pilot seat.

“I’m taking window seat!,” exclaimed Inez before she sat on a pilot seat.

“All of these seats are window seats dude,” says Varian as he took his seat.

“Yeah but mines has the view of the flag,” responded Inez as she pointed to the flag through her window.

“She does have a point,” interjected Enola which caused Varian to just sigh.

Carmen turned on the ships engine and messed around with switches and buttons on the dashboard before grabbing the controls. The ship roared to life.

“Get ready team pantheon. Be prepared to have the most amazing ride of your life,” says Carmen, excited.

“Team pantheon?,” questioned Varian. Carmens lack of originality in the name was mildly amusing.

“We’ll think of a new name later. But first we fly.”

She pressed a red button and the ship took off towards Earth. Carmen picked up speed causing her siblings to think they were going extremely fast despite them not even moving in the real world.

“Where did you learn to drive a space ship because I think you need a refund!,” yelled Inez.

“I didn’t. Just made the vehicles flying mechanics easy to use.”

“We’re going to die in space!,” screamed Varian as he gripped the arms of his pilot chair. Enola had her hands in the air and looked to be having the time of her life.

“This is amazing!,” yelled Enola in pure joy.

“We can’t die remember? It’s all just a simulation. Now you guys just wait until we go through the atmosphere,” says Carmen.

She drove the ship through the Earths atmosphere making the ship look like it has fire around it. The yelling inside the ship was so loud it could be even heard from outside their house in the real world.