Stepping back and proudly overlooking his work Artemis smiled, listening to the hum as the system ran though it's warm up. With it he could join a war, an apocalypse or even something as simple as a high school without leaving the house, and it would feel like he was actually there. Not to mention when he was done working out the bugs he could use it to keep the kids out of his hair too.
It hadn't been that hard a task but he'd been meaning to make one for a while, the ability to simply be able to work through situations that would be unwise or impossible without it should make for a fun distraction. First things first he had to test it himself so he could start weeding out the issues.
He walked in to it, stepping onto the platform and putting on the headset for Player One. The high school program he'd included for the girls would put the least strain on the system and be the safest at this point, so he chose that from the list and watched as the walls lined with wired and open mechanics disappeared and was replaced with chalkboards and shelves. The room was empty apart from a single table in front of him with a pencil and a two sheets of paper with a list of questions on them.
Right, it needs profile settings filled in.
The first page was simple enough asking for his chosen name, age, gender and things like that. He just filled them in with his real information since he could mess around with the other settings later.
The second page was what let him pick his classes, and he quickly filled that in without thinking. A free class first period, gym second, workshop after lunch and then programming last period. He left the entire second semester empty since he didn't plan to play that long and if he needed to since there were still bugs he could fill it in then.
Time to start working.
Following the instructions that Mockery had given him as to finding where Artemis had been hiding all day, Mortuus poked his head into the relatively small room. The workspace was full of wires and screens, a large machine, with several outlets for hooking something up, in the middle of the room taking up much of the room. Artemis was hooked up to one of the slots, his back to the door.
Mortuus grinned to himself, quickly ducking back out of the room for a split second. He snatched the 'Do Not Disturb' sign off the doorknob, crumpling the paper into a ball and sticking it in the pocket of his dress pants.
He casually walked back into the room, whistling a slight tune, stopping beside Artemis. "Hey, loverboy? You in there?" Mortuus pinched Artemis' cheek, tugging on it. "No? You can't hear me?" His smile broadened. "Sweet…" He walked over to one of the screens, reading the scrolling text. High School Mod: Ver. Beta.Mortuus frowned. "Not exactly something I'd expect from you, Arty-dear." He shrugged. "Hey, a video game's a video game…" He walked over to one of the outlets, quickly figuring out what hooked up to what.
"Let's see what you've got here, Arty…"
He decided to spend his free class exploring the school and seeing how the generation was working, keeping an eye out for any lighting glitches or other graphic bugs. He only paused, glancing around when he felt something pinching and pulling on his cheek. It was odd since no one was around but he just shrugged it off as a glitch.
The school, Osten High, was quite big and he was glad he took the time to get to know the layout before his first class.
The halls were empty most of the way around, but when he reached the gym doors there was a girl in a cheer uniform looking around. She looked oddly familiar, but that could of just been him so he ignored it. Walking up to her with a smile and holding out a hand.
Might as well test the AI programing and responses.
"Hello there, do you mind directing me to the cafetorium? I'm new and haven't quite gotten down the layout."
There was a slight pause, and the cheerleader turned around, facing Artemis.
"Actually…" The girl(?), who looked a lot like Mortuus, drawled slowly, putting her hands on her hips dramatically, still gripping the handles of the pom-poms she was shaking around earlier. "As it turns out, I'm rather new here, too! Maybe we could get to know the school together...?"
Something about seeing Mortuus, or a Mortuus look-alike, in a skirt was...
... down right terrifying and more than a little unnerving.
He would have to remember to set a programming so that something like this didn't happen again. Some of the games that this system was set up for would become quite awkward and possibly very distracting if there was look alikes to people in real life. It even sounded kind of like him, despite looking like a girl.
Still he forced a smile and nodded. "That sounds like a good idea. What class do you have next?"
The Mortuus look-alike smiled at that. "Well, let's see... Gym, I think." She flicked at the skirt she was wearing. "Just got my cheer outfit, but I have to go get my gym outfit. Want to come with me?"
"I have to head there anyways, if this school doesn't have split gym classes it seems we'll be in the same one." He checked the map of the school he'd spawned with for where the office was since he remembered the notice that's where it said he'd get his supplies.
"I'm pretty sure the office is this way, unless I'm reading this map wrong." He said waving for her to follow.
"Lead the way - I have no idea where I'm going…" She shrugged, following Artemis. "I was just given this uniform when I arrived at the gym." They walked in silence for a few moments, and then she awkwardly asked. "So… what's your name? Or shall I just call you Mapboy from now on?"
Nodding he chuckled. "You show up and they immediately draft you onto the cheer team? Must have been pretty good at it in your old school for them to do that."
It was an unlikely scenario, he'd have to add some guide lines to the AI to make the game more realistic. The only time someone would be immediately drafted into anything was if they were a new player who chose a club, but his door was locked so no one should of been able to get in. Apart from Mockery since he had the key, but he wouldn't bother him.
"There's no need to call me Mapboy, just use my name. It's Artemis."
"Hmm, but Mapboy sounds so catchy. But I suppose I'll drop it, since Artemis sounds muchbetter."
"Thanks.. I think…"
That really sounded like Mortuus, he was tempted to pause the game and mess around with the program at that very moment so that the similarity would stop. It was almost creepy. If he paused the game any NPCs would freeze and only the players could mover, but it really wasn't a big enough problem to make it necessary, he was probably just over reacting.
Wait, almost creepy?
Definitely creepy.
"What's wrong?" She asked curiously, tilting her head at him. She was casually swinging the pom-poms at her sides, swishing the skirt she wore playfully.
"Oh, it's nothing. You just kind of remind me of someone I know." He said with a cheery smile, trying to ignore the resemblance.
"Oh yeah?" She chuckled as they neared the office. "Someone I might know?"
"I would hope not." He sighed. "Looks like we're here."
Out side of the office were two sets of floating bundles, and Artemis paused when he saw the two. They were the sets for players so there should only be one, and they had name tags on them too.
"Oh please be a really bad glitch." he muttered under his breath as he grabbed his pile and looked to check the name tag of the other.
Mortuus grabbed the bundle, which dissipated with a dinging noise. He then turned to Artemis, grinning.
Shaking his head Artemis sighed, grabbing his package as it set off a ding. "I'm not even going to question why you're here at this point, but why are you in a skirt."
"My question is why aren't youin a skirt?" Mortuus frowned as he batted at the end of the skirt. "It's supercomfortable, and nobody's seemed to notice the difference." He stopping, a thoughtful look on his face. "Though they probably will when I change into my normal clothes..."
"Because it's unseemly and just…" He tossed his hands in the air. "It's a program so of course they haven't noticed, not to mention you do look an awful lot like a girl in that." Slapping a hand on his forehead he growled. "I mean to say that it looks g- natural with how you act so it would be easy for someone to mistake you as one."
"It looks what?" Mortuus cupped his hand to his ear, still grinning. "What does it look like? I didn't quite catch that, there. Please repeat?"
"You heard me. It looks natural with how you act in it."
"Nope - That's not what I heard. I'm pretty sure it actually started with a 'g'..."
Turning away he began to walk away. "I'm pretty sure you're hearing things. It might be best for you to log off and leave me to the debugging."
"No, no, no - I think we should hear what you were going to say." Mortuus followed along behind Artemis. "Besides, I'm rather enjoying myself here..."
"You heard me, and I'm not repeating myself again." he muttered, glancing down at the map several times to try and find the way back to the gym. "I have no doubt you're enjoying yourself but the system isn't tested enough for multiplayer."
"Mmm, but I wanna hear it..." Mortuus sighed reluctantly, letting it go - For now. "And you mean it wasn'ttested for multiplayer - We're doing that right now, aren't we? Testing it? Might as well hit two birds with one stone."
"I don't want to risk crashing the entire thing." This wasn't just him making excuses , no not at all.
"You can fix it - You've got a big ol' brain in that pretty little head of yours, I know that much." Mortuus was fully aware that Artemis was simply trying work his way out of this, and it highly amused Mortuus.
"It would be more work than it's worth, but I'm guessing you're not willing to listen to me are you?" He said as he rolled his eyes. "Please just stay close. That way it doesn't have to load two different areas yet. I don't know what the effects on us might be if the game crashes. Since it is supposed to let us feel whats going on it might loop on of the many death sequences as far as I know."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa - Deaths?" Mortuus stopped. "This is a frikken' high school. How are we going to die? The bleachers gonna fall on us? Is the football team going to snap our necks?"
"The programming for this map is also used for the Zombie apocalypse game the system is set up for. The programs could merge if it crashes." He paused but grinned. "We could test to see if death is possible on this map though."
Mortuus stared at him for a few moments, lips pursed and brows pinched. Without warning he pulled the elastics out of his hair, flicking them at Artemis for fun, and letting his hair down from the ponytails. "I'm up for it if you are." He grinned back.
"I was joking. I just said you feel what happens I don't want to feel the pain of death yet." He muttered glaring at Mortuus. "And I don't quite want to hurt you in this...At least not yet so please don't try and push it."
"I already have felt the pain of death - Not quite as bad as you may think..." Mortuus shrugged, shaking the shape out of his hair, ruffling it. His hair was a bit longer than it was when he and Artemis first met, yet the green layer never seemed to fade. "But... whatever you say, Arty-dear. What have you got planned for this silly little game?"
Shrugging he stopped in front of the gym doors, leaning against the wall and checking the time. "Nothing really. I chose this version because it's the simplest, the girls wanted a dating sim, and I needed to check the system was working before testing the other games it can do. Though it might be a good idea to play the basics of this game while we're here. I will not be participating on the dating part of it."
"Aww, why not?" Mortuus pouted playfully. "I think it would be fun."
"Well I don't think so. I made all these AIs and am not interested in dating any of 're almost like children to me."
"That's weird." Mortuus agreed slowly. "But, if it's two player, I can safely assume that it doesn't take AI to make a dating game." He grinned evilly.
"This mod wasn't meant for multiplayer." He quickly said he said crossing his arms and turning away to try and hide embarrassed blush. Should never have added that feature. "Shut up, I'm not listening to you."
Mortuus chuckled with a smug laughter, ruffling Artemis' mane of hair. "It's hard notto listen to me, Arty-love."
Rolling his eyes Artemis focused on the slow moving hands of his watch wishing the next class would start sooner. "Give me credit for trying."
"All the credit to you - But you should know that you're failing horribly."
"I don't care, I'm still trying." he huffed. "I'm not willing to give up easily Mortie."
"Try all you want, but there's no fooling me..." Mortuus grinned, slightly surprised by the sudden usage of pet names.
"Are you willing to fast forward to the start of the next class. We need both players to be willing to do so, since it's that or we're stuck out here for the next half an hour doing nothing." He needed something to focus on to stop from going insane, even if it was gym.
"I can think of a thing or two that might help pass the time while annoying the annoying, but..." He winked at Artemis. "Anything for you."
"I don't think I want to know." He muttered under his breath before giving the command to fast forward, the bell ringing and students filling the halls.. "Come on change rooms are this way. We can't afford to be late the first class."
"I'm not sure where yourmind went with that - But I was talking running down the halls and pulling fire alarms." Mortuus hurried along behind Artemis, ignoring the strange looks he was earning for his outfit.
"My mind went no where. I just said I didn't want to know." Pulling a set of gym clothing out of the air he glanced at Mortuus. "Do you know how to open your inventory yet?"
"Not sure…" Mortuus patted his skirt, looking for pockets. He blinked. "Oh - Oh dear…" He hesitated before sticking his hand down his shirt. "I… seem to have a bra. Your computer is a little messed up Arty-love…" He pulled something out of his random bra, frowning slightly. "Hey, a phone!" He beamed at Artemis, shaking the phone revealingly. "I'm assuming this is it…" He started toying with the device.
"Yes, be careful with that since that's where you'll store all the items you get." He didn't question the fact he had a bra. Just making a note to add a male cheer uniform for future games. "Hurry up let's get this over with."
"You don't sound all that excited for Gym…"
"I'm an inventor not an athlete. " He sighed, heading into the changing room. "I spend my time working on robots and mechanics. Not myself."
"I'm a parasite, not an athlete." Mortuus followed along lazily, looking down at the phone. "I'm supposed to spend my time working on world demolition, not tuning the body that isn't really mine."
"And yet you're here spending time with me, thanks Mortie." Ignoring the AIs as he went straight to the shower area.
"Awww, you're welcome, Arty-love." Mortuus purred. "I just love spending time with you."
Holding his arms out, meaning it in a 'why me' fashion, he pulled the curtain shut so he could actually start changing.
"If you wanted a hug, you should just sayso!" Mortuus called loudly - probably too loudly. "And not close the shower curtain!"
"If you want a hug come get it." Artemis started to mutter, immediately regretting it. "No, scratch that. Don't even think about it."
"Don't tempt me, Arty…" Mortuus called as he changed. "But perhaps we'll wait until we're no longer in such a compromising situation. "
"Not even then. No hugs for me." A simple pair of orangy shorts and a white T-shirt didn't take long to get on and he left hoping he could get out without Mortuus. "Hurry up or we'll be late."