<div class="floatright">(http://www.elfpack.com/stuff/blonde-girl.jpg?jpg=y)</div><br/>In response to “Hiya, Lacy, the blond’s cheeks abruptly flared crimson as all that their avatars had shared last night came crashing back to her.  She bit her lower lip and shifted her legs together, unable to help looking away with a shy smile.<br/><em>That’s Billy, and damn it all he must really think I’m a kid now.  <br/>And what will Miss Johnson think when she sees how easily my composure goes down the tube?  <br/>Anyways, Billy confuses me more than anyone else in this group.  When I’m talking to him, I think he should be at a college somewhere chasing girls and learning something when he’s not making us blush.  Instead he’s here, with all his pistols and knives.  Maybe some day he’ll tell me his story.  </em><br/><br/>A waitress came buy and took their drink orders.  As she sauntered away to fill them Smiley rolled up on her segway, then stepped off, melting out of her VR persona.<br/><br/><em>Seeing Smiley’s real form always makes me sad.  She’s a good looking, healthy girl but always puts off the aura that she should be in a wheelchair.  In some ways, she’s just as awkward in the matrix, but she’s not afraid of herself there.  <br/>I’ve been her—some days I still am—scared to death that I’m not good enough, that everything I say will come out idiotic.  We have to learn not to care, she and I.  It’s like learning a foreign language.  Often, you come out sounding idiotic, but that’s how you learn, and your friends don’t care.</em><br/><br/>Lace’s wavering smile grew at the next newcomer.<br/><br/><em>Enter Akiko, stage east, carrying a bright, sunshiny day for all of us.  <br/>And probably a pay hike by the time we’re done.  Akiko is irrefutable proof that a furry fox girl can be just as sexy as a simsense star.  And it’s all real.  Or at least, as real as my magic. <br/>Six years ago, Haley’s Comet put in it’s first appearance over the skies of the sixth world and brought with it mana surges like never before.  I had my best grades ever in wizarding that year, but some people did a lot more.  They changed—just as suddenly and quickly as people golbined out when my grandfather was a kid, Akiko went from a normal girl to a vixen.</em><br/><br/>She nodded to the next girl to settle in at the table.  “Glad to see you too.”<br/><br/><em>That's Princess.  <br/><br/>She and I both come from a less rough and tumble background, but I think she does this for less personal reasons than I.  <br/><br/>The com link on her belt is for show.  It's probably not even on.  She can skate through the matrix as smoothly--and naturally--as I glide through the astral plane.  <br/><br/>That's right, a techomancer.  They were Otaku when I first heard rumors about them.  Their a tad bit better known today, but she's still the only one I've ever met.</em><br/><br/>She glanced at Miss Johnson again.  “Will the big guy be joinng us?  And…” she trailed off and grit her teeth trying not to break into another round of flaming cheeks.<br/>