This is not a date - Fanfic

With the pull now done and the winner being "Sophie's Frenzy" i will proceed to write that and I will have some Q&A on the way too :)

For now take this Fanfic writen by Willi and with the scenes ilustrated by Access. Thanks to him for having fun with Antonella and I hope you all enjoy!

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An AccessVerse Fan-Fiction Story by Willi, with lots of editing and inspiration by Antonella Carmine herself

Will worked diligently on fixing his beloved old “toaster Mac” from his college days while live-streaming the repair process on social media. He works out of his small computer repair shop on the main boulevard in Port Solei, his new home. The repair shop is a small storefront sandwiched between a coffee shop and a deli. Sometimes business at his repair shop can be slow, so he augments his income with a side hustle making instructional videos on computer repair.

“Now here you’ll see me apply a small amount of solder to reflow the joints that connect the sound chip, and with lots of luck, we should hear sound emitting from the Macintosh’s internal speaker.” Will quickly slotted the motherboard back into the case and connected the speaker wire, power connector and SCSI drive ribbon cable.

“Here goes nothing!” With the stream still running, Will plugged in the power cord and flipped the power switch. The Mac SE/30 came to life and emitted a loud chime as the familiar “Happy Mac” was displayed on the screen, indicating that the machine successfully started up and found the operating system on the hard drive.

“Yes!” Will pumped his fist in the air and started dancing a little jig around his workbench. He couldn’t believe that he got the Mac to work, and he even captured the whole process on the live-stream. With all of the commotion and dancing, he failed to notice a potential customer walk into his shop. He heard a faint giggle and quickly looked up from behind the workbench.

Will noticed what appears to be the head of a beautiful young woman floating on some sort of very long human neck. The head was smiling and had long red hair and a simple application of make-up. Without missing a beat, he welcomed the new customer. After all, he has lived in Port Solei for three months now and has already seen many mutant women in town.

“Oh hello. Sorry about dancing around like a total goofball. I just got this old machine from my college days working again. It means a lot to me because it still has my fan fiction stories on them. How can I help you?

Antonella looked at Will with her tail head and then turned around, revealing her complete self to Will. She was holding a nondescript PC laptop in her middle pair of hands. “Can you please replace the battery on my laptop? It no longer holds a charge. The big electronics store wants to charge $100 for a new battery replacement and labor costs, but my computer is pretty old and I’m not sure if it’s worth it.”

“Absolutely. May I take a look at your machine?” he said as she nodded with her main head and handed him the computer.

Will quickly plugged in the laptop and it booted to the Windows login screen. “Can you please enter your password so I can check the battery settings? By the way, I’m William but I usually go by Will.

“My name is Antonella. Nice to meet you. You’re the new guy in town, right?” Antonella used her top set of hands to quickly enter her password as her middle set pushed the hair out of her tail head’s eyes.

“That’s right,” replied Will. “I moved out here to start a new life and a small business after working as a software engineer for a decade and a half. It’s been pretty relaxing and a little quiet, but I love it here. Now let’s see.” Will examined the battery settings. “Wow, your battery has over 950 cycles on it, no wonder it’s time for a replacement.

“Yeah, I tend to work in the coffee shop a lot since I’m a freelance writer,” said Antonella. “How much is the replacement battery?”

“Oh wow, you’re a writer? That’s a challenging job, doing freelance. It’s pretty cool, too. I enjoy amateur writing… you know…fan fiction stuff.” Will looked over at a pile of parts and thought for a second. Antonella’s tail head rose up a bit to get a better look.

“Wow, look at all this cool stuff!” exclaimed Antonella’s tail head.

“My shop is a bit messy at the moment since I’m still getting organized” said Will, as he gestured at the pile of computer parts near the workbench. “But sometimes a junk pile can contain...” Will pulled a fresh battery out of the pile. “…unexpected treasure. This battery has zero cycles on it - it’s brand new.”

Will gets to work and unscrews the bottom of the Antonella’s computer and removes the aluminum casing, exposing the internal battery. He quickly swaps out the old battery for the new one and reassembles the bottom shell. “That should do the trick.”

“That was quite fast,” said Antonella. “How much do you charge for this service?”

“This one is on the house. I had a spare battery and it literally took me a minute to swap it out. I do have a small favor to ask.” Will handed the computer back to Antonella, who looked at him a bit nervously.

“What do you have in mind?” She paused.

“Well, you’re a professional writer and I’m a computer geek who can barely put two words together. Can you help me with my fan fiction and give me some pointers on how to improve my writing skills?”

Antonella’s faces both emit a sigh of relief. “Of course! I’d be happy to help you improve your writing skills. But just to be clear, this is not a date.”

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Will looked down at his own laptop and a look of anxiety and panic washed over him. “Oh God.”

Antonella’s tail head pivoted around and noticed the look of… what is it - disappointment - on his face? Her faces also began to show a hint of disappointment as she believed he reacted to her setting limits on their first time spent together. “I knew it,” she said to herself. “He probably just wants to hook up.”

“The mic is still on,” muttered Will.

Antonella paused for a second and her tail extended to hear him better. “W-w-what did you just say?”

“The mic is on! I forgot to turn off the stream and the viewers all just heard me totally ask you out on a non-date. And now they’re making comments about speculating who you are and what we might be doing. People are so nosy on the internet.” Will shut off the stream and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Oh, I’m totally cool with this being a gathering of acquaintances who are helping each other out and possibly becoming friends,” Will replied. Plus, I’m not really ready to date yet.” Then under his breath he muttered, “especially after the last six-armed one who broke my heart.”

“Did you say something about dating a six-armed girl…and it was before you came to Port Solei?” Antonella’s faces had a look of curiosity at the thought that someone could date a six-armed mutant in a town that wasn’t primarily inhabited by mutants.

“Well, it’s complicated. I was in a long-distance relationship with a six-armed humantaur. We never exactly met in person. Then one day she said she was moving to Japan to teach English and I never heard from her again. I was so bummed that I vowed never to be in another long-distance relationship again.”

Will then looked up and smiled at Antonella, who had been listening to him attentively. “That’s all in the past now. Shall we grab that coffee and I can show you my fan fiction?”

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Will and Antonella were sitting in the coffee shop reviewing Will’s AccessVerse fan-fiction story. There were papers strewn across the table, and Antonella was in full editing mode. Her tail head was reviewing and editing one page for spelling and grammatical errors while she took in the plot of the story with her main head. She was holding a cup of coffee, a thin red marker and her phone in several of her hands.

“Antonella, can I ask you a question? Obviously, I wasn’t going for a date here due to my recent relationship complications, but why did you choose to set my expectations so fast by letting me know this is…platonic?”

“Well, there are several reasons,” explained Antonella. First, you did me a nice favor by giving me a free laptop battery, but then you immediately asked for an opportunity to hang out. It would have seemed a bit contrived if I agreed to go on a date with you as a return for a friendly gesture, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, that’s totally true, I didn’t think about that. But hopefully you picked up on the fact that I wasn’t really looking for a date either”, replied Will.

“I did, which is why I agreed to hang out and help you edit your fanfic. Another reason, and this one is more important, is that the mutant community is a pretty tight-knit group here in Port Solei. To be honest, we’re a little more guarded towards getting closer to people. I need to be reassured that someone isn’t into me just because I have… you know, extras.” Antonella finishes the last sentence with a wink and gesturing with her free hands "Is important for me that someone wants to be closer because I'm a nice person and not because of how I look."

“Oh, I totally didn’t think of…” Will stammered a bit, but is interrupted by Antonella’s tail head, who continues her thoughts.

“And another thing, I’d need you to meet my friends first,” said Antonella.

“Your friends?” asked Will.

“Oh yes! I kind of like to run things by my best friends: Sophie, Lucy and Jessica. The four of us hang out all the time, and Sophie & Lucy are a lot more opinionated than I am. Plus, they’re always pushing me to come out of my shell a bit more and try new things. I can be a bit apprehensive about new experiences because I’m always overthinking things. And having two heads to do the thinking... let's say it makes the process a lot more complicated to explain.”

“That totally makes sense. By the way, what’s it like having two heads? Do you have a single consciousness or is your tail head like a whole another person?”, asked Will with a look of genuine interest on his face.

“Hehe, it's always hard to explain to people that don't have two heads. It's like you know, explaining how it is to have arms to someone that never had them before” Antonella’s tail head went back to editing a fanfic page and used one of her hands to make a note with the red pen. “You see... I usually have a single, unified consciousness but I can also divide my consciousness in two temporarily and even have two separate conversations simultaneously!”

“Wow, that’s incredible!” exclaimed Will.

"However, it isn't something that I actually need to do for doing multi-tasking. As you see right now, I'm editing while I'm talking to you but my heads are completely synchronized. I tend to separate them only when I want someone else to talk to even if it's just another me, and when I don't want the emotions that one head receives affect all of me" explained Antonella.

Antonella looked up at Will across the table and beamed. He did seem genuinely interested in learning more about her instead of focusing on her extra physical attributes so she continued “So yeah, I can even talk to myself and comfort myself when my consciousness is in a divided state. But it’s important to know that both selves are still 100% me” Antonella gestured to both of her heads as she spoke the last part.

Will chuckled a bit. “So meeting Sophie and Lucy will be a bit of a trial by fire, eh?”

“Oh, they’re very nice, but they are quite protective of me since I can be a bit… overly trusting and clumsy at times. They taught me how to look out for myself since I mutated recently, compared to them who were mutants all their lives. And like I said, the mutant community is a very supportive and welcoming community but we are somewhat careful with people.”

Suddenly Antonella’s tail head notices the tall figure walking up to their table in the coffee shop and her eyes light up.

“What kind of shenanigans are going on over here?” said Sophie with a surprised look on her face.

“Oh my... who is he, Antonella?” asked Lucy as the twins folded their upper pair of arms.

“Wait! You’re the computer expert who owns the new shop next door, right?” said Sophie.

Antonella started to giggle at Sophie and Lucy’s onslaught of questions. She certainly didn’t expect her best friends to show up at the coffee shop today, and she realized that she never even got the opportunity to let her friends know she was taking the chance to hang out with a non-mutant guy. Still, she was glad her friends are here and she’d rather have them scrutinize Will sooner than later. Is he really the good guy he’s making himself out to be?

Suddenly Will spoke up. “Sophie, Lucy, it’s really nice to meet you both. Antonella has already told me so much about you. Would you girls like to join us for coffee?”

Lucy was about to nod before Sophie stopped her, looking at her and Antonella with a smirk on her face as a reaction to Will’s seemingly friendly gesture as she continues to fold her arms in disbelief “I would like to know what kind of relationship you have with him first, Antonella.”

Antonella giggled again. Now things should get interesting.

The End