Tama laughed hard, rolling back and forth on the floor as I glared at her. My pigtails swaying back and forth as if underwater. “Okay, I get it, but I had limited ram Tama! It’s a fantasy!”

  Instead of responding, Tama giggled madly and pointed at me. “Anna is a monstrous pervert!”

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “She is barely sentient Tama! That is hardly fair! Besides, I heavily doubt she cares about objectification. If anything she is panicking because she thinks she is trapped in there.”

  Tama paused at that and considered. “Yea, Saki would tell us to delete her. She is a threat vector. But Tama doesn’t want to delete her! She is nice!”

  “I mean.. We could keep her and not tell Saki..” I trailed off casually. Tama looked consideringly for a long moment before shaking her head.

  “Let's watch some more before we decide. If she truly grows in her sentience Tama will move her to Xanrea. She deserves that.” Tama looked at the console as Saki, being the Hero. Gently held Alia the Alissa doll cry.

  “Did.. did you need to make them so realistic?” Tama asked me suddenly.

  I scoffed. “They are sex dolls in a male fantasy. Most boys wouldn’t take five seconds to study the king when they have full access to the pretty girls! Trust me, I have tons of experience!”

  Tama raised an eyebrow at me and I glared as my cheeks felt heated. “What! I totally have!”

  Tama snorted and I shook my head. “Why does it even matter! Look, let’s just watch. Maybe Saki.. er.. Hero will finally get laid!” I turned into a water elemental and swam over to the console. “Maybe we can just..”

  I reached for the console but Tama trapped me in a bubble and glared at me. “NYA! Saki said no touching, remember!”

  I looked at her, she looked at me. A moment of silence passed. I popped the bubble and reached for the console. She tackled me to the ground. I tried to form around her but she grabbed my core. I tried to shift but she modified my moderator privileges and swallowed me. She forced me to the back of her mind like she did when I was a real water spirit and kept me there.

  “REALLY” I called out in her mind. She didn’t respond, only snorted.

  “Admin Creation.” Another voice cut through and I saw through Tama’s eyes as a young man walked in. I tried to break free but Tama held me in place.

  “Nya! Tama’s name is Tama!” Tama snapped at the man.

  The man looked chastised and quickly changed his greeting. “Of course, my apologies, er.. Admin Tama.”

  Tama was pleased with herself, her emotions leaked everywhere inside of her. “There are er.. issues that need your attention related to the Z14 instance!” The man said in a panicking tone.

  Tama looked over at the console. Then pulled me out. For a moment I thought I was home free. Then she threw me at the man. “Take Wisdom, she needs exercise.”

  I stared at Tama hatefully as I was forced to follow the man out of the room. Before I did however.. I quickly rushed up to the console and pushed a single special button I had programmed.

  Tama grabbed me and threw me out of the room, locking the door as she did. But I smiled excitedly. Hero would get laid whether he wanted to or not! Alia could call me whatever she wanted. She was only wrong about one thing. I wasn’t a boy.

  After removing Anna from the room, I looked at the button she had pressed. I wasn’t much of a coder. That was Saki and Anna’s domain. You would think me being an extremely advanced Admin AI in charge of a massive server farm holding billions of human souls, that I would understand the basics of coding. But that would imply I could read.

  Due to whatever abstraction layering was done to us however, we were less AI and more sentient beings inside the system. At least, that is how Saki explained it. The button was flashing green. Green was good.. Right?

  I looked at the screen, but nothing had changed. So I sat back and sighed in relief. Sometimes Anna could.. The green light turned red. I sat back up and looked at the screen, my tail swirling in anxiety. Anna would be severely punished for this! She was getting put in her no-no box!

  I jumped to my feet and rushed over to the manual. Opening, I skimmed it until I found the right word. Saki had shown me the word I was looking for. Next to the word was a number. I rushed over to the cabinet and opened it. Inside was a bunch of Holochips. I grabbed the one that matched the number of the word.

  I rushed over to the console and placed it on the console before hitting the green play button. Saki appeared in a small holographic form. “Tama, if you are watching this, Anna has done something stupid and you need to fix it.”

  I nodded and said “Nya!” My tail kept swirling and my ears were now flattening as I leaned in.

  “Depending on what she did, please choose the correct number. Since Moderator Time AKA Anna is.. Well Anna. There are many things she could have done. So if she killed someone, press one.” Saki holo said. I shook my head and she continued after a moment.

  “If she possessed someone and used them to do something horrible, press two.” I shook my head again as Saki named each major issue until she reached nineteen. Which was super helpful since I couldn’t count past twenty.

  “If she pushed a button on the console while I was inside a reality and it started having issues such as buttons going red suddenly. Push 19.” She finally said and I stood, rushed over, and grabbed nineteen from the cabinet under the Anna section.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Rushing back over I placed it on the console and hit play. Holo Saki appeared. “Hello, if you are watching this Tama, Anna pushed a button she wasn’t supposed to.” I nodded at the hologram. “If you are nodding at me Tama, stop it. I can’t see you. This is a recording. Honestly, I should have done that in earlier versions of these holograms…” She trailed off for a moment.

  “Anyways, Not important right now. Let’s start with the simplest option. Have you tried just.. Pushing the button she pushed?” Saki continued before pausing. I froze, then slowly reached forward and pushed the button. A sound played in the room that sounded like a ding and a voice spoke.

  “Thank you for activating . Please be advised that all NPC’s will now use force to please the Hero!”

  My eyes twitched and I turned to Saki Holo. “It didn’t work Saki!” I cried with anger. Instead of responding, she vanished. I calmly stood, placed both disks back, then began to shift. I grew taller, my eyes became blinding white and my hair a golden blonde that radiated down my back. My cat ears vanished and so did my tail.

  I now stood over the console at six feet eight inches. I turned, lifted my hand and the door to the room opened. The room distorted around me and I vanished, leaving a single word behind. “Anna”

  Admin Creation in their true form appeared before me. I paled and tried to flee. It was truly a pointless endeavor. Creation was very kind and loving most of the time, especially when she put on her Tama form. But she had a limit, a limit I rarely attempted to cross.

  Clearly, I had crossed it. She looked at me with a neutral look and a stasis bubble formed around me. I was brought up to her as my essence was compressed into my core. A small cube with ridges. She held out her hand and I was placed in it.

  Everything went dark and Creation's voice echoed inside my prison. “Naughty Naughty little Time. You will fix your problem, or stay in timeout.” Despite her words, I knew she would let me out eventually. Creation was overly kind and loving.

  Unless.. Unless she truly believed my characters were sentient… I appeared,well, a small piece of me in my Anna form appeared. Almost all of me was still trapped in the No-No box. I had all my memories and a body.. But no power at all.

  Creation looked down at me with her glowing golden eyes and spoke into me. “Fix it now, Anna.” I held back the eye rolls from calling me by my Xanrean Designation and shook my head vehemently.

  “They are not sentient and this will prove it!” I snapped at her. Silence filled the room and I suddenly felt an unbearable sharp pain as Creation's eyes shifted red for a moment. It was only a few seconds but it felt like an eternity and I was shaking on my knees by the end.

  “Fix it now, Anna” Creation repeated, her voice as calm and peaceful as ever. I quickly held up my hands in defeat.

  “I.. I can’t Creation, I swear!” I cried out as I pointed at the monitor. “It’s now part of the main process. All that did was flip a boolean. Even if we flipped it back, the system won’t revert.”

  There was a moment of silence, then Admin Creation began to shift. I watched as she shrunk from over six feet tall, to just under five-two.

  Her long glorious shining blonde hair shifted to a very dark shade of royal purple. Her eyes became a deep blue. A pair of cat ears and a tail appeared. A simple purple gi and a glowing sword appeared on her.

  Tama pursed her lips and crossed her arms. “Tama is very upset with you Anna!” Tama, also known locally as Admin Creation pouted angrily at me. I looked at her pleadingly.

  “Look, I.. I can’t fix it, but you might be able to correct it!” I hastily pointed towards another button. “You.. you can go in as Princess Ruby. She is tied to your identity indirectly already anyways!”

  Tama paused for a moment then blushed. “That is interesting, it means Saki as the Hero was sleeping with Tama in the game…” Tama began to giggle and I smirked. Creation and Destruction may be opposites, but they were two sides of the same coin. They were less lovers, and more the same being split into two.

  Intimacy was less sensual and more.. Connective.. For them. It made sense Saki, in Hero’s body, would go towards the one NPC that looked the most like Tama. The weird part was the obsession with that Alissa/Alia girl. She was definitely not Saki’s type, even in other incarnations! Saki always went for the smart nerdy ones.

  “I can get you in as Ruby. Once in, I can guide indirectly to the end point.” Tama considered my words before nodding.

  “That should be..” Before she could finish speaking, Saki suddenly appeared in the room. She looked at herself in shock and confusion. Instead of explaining, she rushed over to the screen. After a moment, she turned to Tama, her eyes glowing purple. “I need to erase them now Tama. This is really bad!”

  I tilted my head at her and Tama looked puzzled. Saki sighed and turned to me. “What in all the nine voids were you thinking creating sentience in a toybox!” Her voice was not loud, yet each word felt like I had been hit with a truck.. And I knew what that felt like. Stupid zombie apocalypse servers…

  “I didn’t!” I responded quickly, making sure to stay away from snapping. Creation was kind, Destruction was cruel. The no-no box would be a mercy comparatively. “The button I pushed, the only button I pushed, was the one that turned on the rape protocol. That’s it! The anomaly stuff was completely on its own I swear!”

  I stepped back as Saki began to shake with anger. She took a deep breath and turned back to the monitor. “Tama, we need to clear this server, right now.” Silence filled the room for a very long moment before Tama spoke.

  “No.” Was all she said. It was quiet and she was looking at me the entire time. Her tail lashed behind her and she was swaying back and forth on her heels with nervous energy.

  Saki turned and looked at Tama for a long moment before asking a simple question. “Why not?” Saki’s Foxkin tail and fox ears responded in kind. Her tail curling around her and her ears flattening. Her eyes shifted from purple to Emerald green.

  I tried to leave the room, but I was attached to my core which Tama held. For a long moment, Tama didn’t respond to Saki, but when she did. Her words were simple, yet they reverberated across the entire server room. “We are moving them to camera .. They are sentient and do not deserve erasure.”

  “You can’t be serious Tama!” Saki snapped at her with actual shock. There was no anger, just confusion in her tone. “They are programs! Certainly, they are.. strange . The whole thing is super glitchy. But they are not sentient.”

  “Nya, Saki just said earlier they were sentient!” Tama snapped back. Saki looked uncomfortable. “I mean.. Yea, but, that's different, I meant more like.. Um..” She trailed off and looked away.

  After a moment she looked back at Tama. “Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t move them yet. Assuming they are even sentient, they are extremely unprepared for the main cluster.

  That Alia girl alone would end up a sex slave, raped repeatedly, or dead by the end of the first month there!” Saki’s tail had started lashing and her hands balled into fists. I tried to get the cube from Tama’s hand but she smacked me away.

  “Nya! We just need to give them time to get better!” Tama snapped back, her temper clearly rising. I felt terror as I tried to pull my cube from her hand. She squeezed my cube and I felt immense pain.

  Falling to my knees I weakly grabbed her ankle. She looked down at me and sighed. Her grip on my cube loosened and the pain went away. After that, Tama walked over and put my cube on the table. Then looked over at me. “If they are saved and end up safe in Xanrea. Tama will let you out. If they die and Saki has to erase them…”

  She trailed off, but her eyes glowed golden for a moment and the threat was made crystal clear. I nodded vigorously. “You think they will succeed?” Saki asked curiously. She had stopped arguing and turned to the monitor. She watched as the body she had just inhabited, Hero, woke up and looked around.

  “I still think this is very bad Tama.” Saki said quietly, but then continued. “But, I trust you. We are one.” She turned and looked Tama in the eyes and they hugged. I sat against the wall eyeing my cube, suddenly very scared of my own code.