Diamond City Monsters
Chapter 1
A New Employee
Tomorrow Hill
On the crest of Tomorrow Hill, a pale young man stood looking up at the shimmering moon, basking in its radiance. He wore a plain white shirt under a black leather jacket with a crescent moon on the back, torn blue jeans, and mid-shin length riding boots. His face was handsome with a sharp nose, ruby red eyes, short black hair in a modern quaff, and a glittering white, fanged smile.
"Selene smiles tonight…" he muttered under his breath. "…her stage is all set… the camera is about to start rolling… it is high time… for me to get a job!" With that, he suddenly turned into a bat and flew off into the night.
The Next Morning
WarioWare Inc.
The young man from the hill walked up to the front doors of the game company, holding a pitch black umbrella over his head. The second he got inside, he closed his umbrella before making a beeline for the elevator. Once inside the elevator, he hit the button for the highest floor, where he assumed the boss's office would be. When the elevator opened again, he could see a door labeled "President's Office" right at the end of the hall. He smiled to himself and strode forward.
Wario looked up sharply upon hearing someone knocking on his office door. "It's unlocked!" he shouted to the other side, staring at the door for a few seconds. "That means you can come in, dummy!"
"How rude…" the pale man thought as he opened the door, cringing when he caught sight of Wario.
"Who the flying mushrooms are you?" Wario asked as he took a massive bite out of a bulb of garlic. The pale man blanched at the sight of the vegetable.
"Uh…" he was starting to have second thoughts about applying here. "My name's Bram… I was hoping I could get a job here…" he slowly took a seat across from Wario, who gave him a good once over with his eyes.
"You're a vampire…" he stated simply. Bram had to physically stop himself from gagging at Wario's garlic breath.
"Yeah…" Bram responded easily. "I am." He reached into his satchel to grab his resume.
"You're hired." Bram stared at Wario in confusion.
"Huh?"
"Are you deaf, bucko?" Wario asked back. "You. Are. Hired."
"But… don't you want to see my…?"
"I don't have any care for worthless formalities," Wario got up and immediately started pushing Bram back into the hallway. "Development room's two floors down, right outside the elevator. Ask one of your coworkers if you have any questions, because I'm not qualified to answer. Any questions? No? Good. Have a rotten day." Wario kept pushing Bram to the hallway, and slammed the door behind him. Bram heaved a sigh of annoyance.
"So… rude." He couldn't help mutter under his breath. He trudged back to the elevator, deciding to check out the development room before leaving.
As soon as the elevator opened on the designated floor, he stepped out and headed straight across the hall to a door labeled "Development Room". Opening it slowly, he noticed that the room was massive, and lined with computers. The only other people he could see in the room were a teenage girl with long red hair, a massive anthropomorphic bulldog, and a small yellow cat with goggles.
"… but seriously, we have to do these company get-togethers more often," the girl was saying to the animal duo.
"I hear you, Mona," the bulldog responded. "The potluck 5-Volt held was really fun, and that dance party you attended must have really got your blood pumping. We should do something with the entire company."
"But what would we do for it?" The cat asked. "Another potluck won't be a good idea given that Ashley, Red and Orbulon brought inedible treats last time… and I really don't want to see Crygor or Mantis's dance moves…" It was at this point that Bram decided to try and join the conversation.
"How does a normal cookout sound?" he asked, taking a seat between the animals and the girl. The girl gave him a critical once over.
"Who are you?"
"Oh, sorry… name's Bram. I'm a new employee here as of thirty seconds ago."
"I'm Mona." The girl introduced herself.
"My name's Dribble," The bulldog said, "and this is my buddy, Spitz."
"Howdy." The cat waved.
"Nice to meet you," Bram replied, bringing his hands together in a director's frame. "But anyway… a company cookout sound good to you three?"
"Uh… what exactly would this cookout entail?" Mona asked hesitantly.
"Oh, nothing much, just everyone cooks various dishes for a panel of judges," Bram replied. He separated his hands and started rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I wonder if my daughter would be willing to judge…"
"You have a daughter?" Spitz inquired, shocked. Bram just gave him an odd look.
"Yeah…" he answered slowly. "I do. Her name's Carol, and she dreams of becoming a world-class chef. Before you ask, she is not a vampire like me. She's human…" he looked away sadly. "…like her mother." Mona, Dribble and Spitz could only stare at him sympathetically. Bram snapped back to a good mood seconds later. "Now, about that cookout…"
"Yeah, yeah it's a good idea!" Mona exclaimed suddenly. "I love it!"
"Me too!" Dribble and Spitz shouted simultaneously.
"Glad you guys like it." Bram replied honestly. "Now that we have that out of the way, what exactly does this job entail, hm?"
"OH!" Mona exclaimed as if suddenly remembering that Bram was a new employee. "Right, we should explain the system to you." She moved Bram's chair so that he was seated in front of one of the PCs in the room. "You use this program here to make microgames, using either premade assets, or assets you make yourself. Oh, and you need a theme to distinguish your games from the rest of ours, so…"
"That's easy…" Bram responded. "My theme will be Cinema."
"Cinema?" Dribble repeated. "As in… the movies?"
"Yeah." Bram replied. He turned back to the computer and was already making a microgame for his set. This first one was based on "The Wizard of Oz", with the objective being to keep Dorothy and her companions on the yellow brick road. Mona and the cabbies were amazed at how quickly Bram picked up the process as he saved his game to the cloud.
"That was easy…" He muttered as he turned back towards his coworkers. "So how much does that one game put in my paycheck?" Mona, Dribble and Spitz simply looked around the room uncomfortably, not making eye contact with Bram. Eventually, Bram's smile morphed into a frown. "We don't get paychecks, do we?" They all shook their heads sadly, and Bram sighed in annoyance. "Carol is going to kill me…"
Meanwhile…
Carol's Condo
In the rather extravagant kitchen of the Condo, a young woman stood at the counter, chopping vegetables for a dish she was about to try her hand at. She wore a loose white apron over a sleeveless blue shirt and black pants going into brown boots, her exposed tan skin decorated gleaming in the light of the sun. She had the astrological symbols for the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars tattooed on her left arm, and the symbols for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto on her right. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and her sharp blue eyes were glued to her cutting board. This was Bram's daughter, Carol.
Suddenly, she heard a crash from the living room, just barely avoiding cutting herself with her knife. She turned to look at the room in question, then up at a clock above her.
"Dad should still be in that interview right now…" she muttered to herself. "Someone is breaking in." With this conclusion in mind, she took her knife, and slowly crept out if the kitchen to the living room. She looked down at the floor to see a faint trail of wet footprints leading upstairs, proceeding to follow them up. She stopped in horror when she realized that the tracks were leading to…
…the attic. Bram kept a lot of dangerous items up there.
Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Carol slowly made her way up the ladder to the attic. She silently looked around the dimly lit room, eventually finding her burglar holding a glowing orb.
"Hey!" she shouted to him. Surprised, the burglar dropped the orb, and it cracked upon impact with the floor. Carol stared at the orb in horror as the burglar hastily grabbed the damaged prize and leaped out the window. Carol rushed over to see the burglar running off into the distance, the cursed orb still in his hands. She cringed as she watched several small, barely visible wisps escaping into the sky.
"Dad is going to kill me…" was all she could say about the situation.