Pioneer Meet and Greet Live
Elizabeth Warners feels like grinning as she sees the line-up of different Pioneers in front of her. All of whom are originally from the same world. Equeter.
“Welcome one and all to another night of Pioneer Meet and Greet!” Elizabeth exclaims while spreading both of her arms out with a wide smile on her face. “Today I stand here with five of the ten Pioneers originating from the world of Equeter! Give them a round of applause!”
Applause echoes out within the studio for show through sound effects.
Within the studio itself, Elizabeth stands in front of all five Pioneers who are each seated on their own chairs. With screens behind them showcasing their own worlds on them, and a few other images around those showing highlights from their individual broadcasts.
“Each of our beloved Pioneers will give their own self introduction before we get into the interviews, so take it away, Bruce!” Elizabeth says while turning towards the Pioneer on the far left of the five. A man named Bruce Lenings.
The man has a bald head and is wearing something akin to a biker’s jacket with armor similar to a motorcyclist on both under and over the jacket, and a helmet placed on the floor next to him. Meanwhile the world showcased behind him is a very civilized world. Nowhere near the level of technology that the alliance has, but one from back in the time when smartphones were widely used.
“Yo, I’m thrilled to be in my new world! It’s a blast here, I’ll tell you that,” Bruce says with a grin on his face, the man looking kind of like a thug or a gangster to Elizabeth. Even speaking like one. “There’s no need to speak of my life before Pioneering. I’m Bruce Lenings. The greatest Pioneer from planet Equeter!”
Elizabeth holds herself back from saying anything about that for now as a certain deep blue haired girl pops into her head at his words.
“Next up is Ashline Delrov!” Elizabeth says, moving the show on to the second Pioneer amongst them. A young girl who looks too young to be included in the selection but is still legally twenty years old. She has long golden hair and green eyes and is wearing a set of bone armor that rather contrasts her otherwise innocent appearance.
“I-I-I’m A-Ashline D-Delrov,” Ashline says while looking more than a little timid in front of the camera. Almost covering her face with her long hair, making Elizabeth have the camera drone give a bit more focus to the pictures behind her including a world covered largely in volcanos. “P-pleasure to meet you.”
Elizabeth waits for a moment before deciding to move on to the third Pioneer in attendance. A man of thirty years old. The maximum age within the selection range.
He has a gruff beard and looks rather large in build. Meanwhile his armor is a dark crimson, with a sort of demonic feel to it. And the screens behind him show a volcanic world just like Ashline’s screens. Except this one is split more with some water mixed in, making an odd combination.
There are also images of him fighting with just the gauntlets on his arms against large lizard monsters.
“Reginald Vortal,” the man states plainly, his gruff voice echoing through the room as he does so. “Woke up one morning thinking I would be getting my last discount voucher and ended up going to sleep in a hellhole.”
Yeah, he doesn’t look happy about that.
“Really? I think it’s rather fortunate to be picked!” Jack Verol, an idol who doesn’t really need an introduction and the person who happens to be the fourth to be introduced, declares with a smile on his face. “Thanks to this, I can spend even more time with my beloved fans through the broadcast! Don’t you think that’s just wonderful, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth feels her face heating up ever so slightly at the sight of the idol playfully flirting with her, but she quickly snuffs that feeling as she simply smiles back at him without a word.
Letting the final Pioneer pick things up from there as the Pioneer – a woman with long black hair and black eyes – says, “Everyone thinks differently about the matter. It’s just a matter of who you’re asking. So I would appreciate it if you don’t try to force your thoughts on the matter onto other people.”
Jack turns to look at the woman with his well-known ‘perfect smile’ cracking for a brief moment before returning again as he asks, “Forcing my beliefs on others? Now why would you think I’m doing that…?”Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
He hesitates at the end, clearly waiting for the woman’s name. But she doesn’t even look at him. She just gazes at the camera as she says, “My name is Kaitlyn Snow. And I’m here trying to survive. Not to coddle some idol.”
A tense atmosphere fills the set for a brief moment.
That’s not going to work well for her. She just turned his entire fanbase against her, so her offers are going to dry up now.
Elizabeth pushes those thoughts away, deciding they’re not her problem as she saves the show by saying, “Now that we’ve all been introduced, let’s start the group interview!”
The others turn their attention away from the idol currently somehow glaring at the fifth Pioneer of their group with a smile on his face.
“So Jack, how did you feel when you first faced off against one of those jungle felines?” Elizabeth asks just to distract him. And her question works perfectly as he finally turns his attention away from the last Pioneer of the group to answer her question.
Then the interviews progress smoothly for several minutes, with her asking questions to each other Pioneers. Some of which are ones multiple Pioneers answer together and even begin to discuss amongst each other.
“Now for the last question,” Elizabeth states with a wide grin on her face, having anticipated this one question ever since the start of the interview. “How do you all feel about a certain Pioneer who has been topping the rankings every day with her broadcast?”
The moment she finishes her question, the other Pioneers’ expressions take a turn, meanwhile all the screens behind them change to showcase a single woman in various different times throughout the past few days. Some show Aqua as she faces against sharks, others against crabs and delfish, and some even show her casually swimming through the tunnels.
There are a couple screens that showcase her skill, with the massive tentacles wrapping around and crushing a shark or swatting a jellyfish.
And there’s even one screen showing the events outside of the cave system.
But amidst them all, her current broadcast appears showing her making her way back to her little air pocket marking the end of the fifth day of her life as a Pioneer.
“Aqua Fallen, the first person to awaken a Bloodline in three years since Felix Ourovellis, who awakened his family’s Ouroboros Bloodline at the time,” Elizabeth continues embellishing the current favorite Pioneer. “And the very first Pioneer to awaken as a Bloodliner since the early days of the Broadcast System!”
The experienced host makes sure to capture all of their reactions on screen.
There’s the first Pioneer’s reaction, which pretty much comes down to him muttering about how hot Aqua looks. Followed by Ashline who seems lost in the many screens behind her, just enjoying them.
And the third man doesn’t seem to care one way or another, leaving just Jack and Kaitlyn left.
The two whose reaction will likely garner the most attention from the viewers.
“Ah, Miss Fallen, I’ve heard and seen quite a bit about her so far,” Jack says with a smile on his face as he watches the many screens showing her. “I really want to meet with her one day and collab on a song. Her voice would make her an incredible singer. There’s no doubt about that.”
Elizabeth shows a brief amount of surprise at his words before rearranging her expression again just as quickly.
Nothing scandalous at all, and even something that viewers and fans of his own can grasp onto… he’s smart.
Before this interview, Elizabeth didn’t think all that much of Jack. But after seeing him in action personally, her opinion of his professionalism has soared. Even if she isn’t much of a fan of idols in general. Her natural attraction towards his good looks notwithstanding.
She turns her attention towards Kaitlyn, only to surprisingly find her seemingly looking at the girl on screen with some pity in her eyes.
“I feel for the girl,” Kaitlyn eventually says. “I know a friend who was selected a couple decades ago the moment they became of age, so I can’t help but feel some sympathy for her.”
Elizabeth’s brows both rise.
All of them are either neutral or positive towards her?! That’s… unexpected.
Normally the Pioneers from the same planet have a bit of competition between each other. So a lot of them often dislike the most popular Pioneer amongst them.
It’s not often that there isn’t any bad blood towards the one at the top in popularity.
In fact, if Elizabeth had to guess from looking at them, it’s like they’re considering her in another league thanks to her Bloodline. So they subconsciously don’t even see her as a rival but a potential ally.
I can use this.
A wide smile spreads across her face as she begins to talk with the five Pioneers about Aqua Fallen
This interview is going to be explosive in more ways than one.

AquaThe next morning
I let out a yawn while stretching, feeling a little uncomfortable in my armor. Mostly because I’ve been wearing it for days on end without ever taking the entire thing off. With the exception of parts of it once in a while.
After stretching, I go ahead and check my Broadcast System messages once more. Only to for some reason find over double the messages I had when I went to sleep there.
Uh, what’s going on?
I go ahead and open the junk mail, just to see a lot of fans spamming me about potential collabs with some random idol I have no idea who is. And it’s not just the junk mail but even the Business Inquiries took a different turn.
Why am I getting so many offers to sing? Have I ever even sung before in my life?
I don’t think I have…
After looking around my mail a little bit more I find the source of this. That being some idol who is also a Pioneer from the same batch of Pioneers as me who mentioned wanting to sing a song together with me because he thought I would do great as a singer.
Okay then…
I stare at the messages for a little bit longer before eventually just shrugging and deciding to leave this as a future me problem.
After I find a safe place to call home, even if temporarily.
Now back to the grind and the search.