The Renegades Run Out of Internet

Chapter 1: Mailbag

Somewhere sandwiched between the states of West Virginia and North Carolina lies the humble abode of Nathan Hamilton, but most of his friends call him Nate. Nate enjoys his spending his weekend gathering his friends, sitting them down on his used but quite comfy couch, and subjecting them to videos from the internet. Whether the video was good or bad, it mattered not to Nate, the prize for such an act was the reaction of him and his friends. Yes, Nate runs a reaction channel on the popular YouTube site, and he does quite a good job all things considering. As for his friends, why they continue to come back we'll never truely know. But none the less they do, especially two usual friends who come along for almost every video. These two friends are Benjamin Tolliver, a young scientist by trade, and Micah Addison Salyer, a man of hair, weapons, and disregard to politics. There are other friends that come in from time to time, but they'll be introduced when the time comes.

For now, it is a late evening on the weekend, and Nate had just cracked a foul joke and is laughing loudly, pointing to Ben who sits on the couch beside him. Ben just stares at Nate with a pursed lip and eyes of hate. Micah as per usual sits on the far side of the couch, legs kicked up with his reptile slippers on, staring at Ben and Nate with raised eyebrows, unsure of how to react to such foulness from his friend. Ben twitches slightly before he turns back to the camera and he swings his hand before him "-And on that bombshell, it's time to end the video, Good night everybody!" he gives a half-hearted wave, still twitching slightly as Nate continues to grin cheesily and wave with Ben for the video's outro. Micah waves with them in silence, cracking a small smile behind his man sweater as Nate reaches down to the mouse next to him and he cuts the video. Nate huffs a sigh of relief and he chuckles a bit "Whoo, man that was something, thanks again guys for coming to watch another batch of videos with me." Ben waves him off a bit dismissively "Yeah, yeah, it was fun despite the headaches." Nate stifles a snicker which earns him another glare from Ben as he finishes saving the video onto his laptop "Alright, so boys, we got some mail in the box, you up for a mailbag episode?" Micah shrugs and nods "sure, I'm sure Ben could use the distraction" Ben huffs as he deflates a bit, pulling out a Rubix cube and he begins to tinker around with it "uh. Yeah, I could go for a mailbag, those are usually cool." Nate smiles lightly and he nods to them "Alright! Let me go ahead and finish up here, edit the videos and I'll meet you guys at the mail table with the stuff." Ben gets up with Micah, pushing aside their mic's. "Alright!" Ben proclaims "See you in a few"

After a good hour or so, Nate joins Ben and Micah at the kitchen table, carrying a small handful of boxes and a few envelopes. "Hey! Sorry, it took me a while, but the videos are edited and are now uploading." He sets the packages down onto the table before his friends, before he goes around and he starts to turn on the cameras they set up. Ben eyes the packages a bit "Oooh, got a few more packages this time around" Micah smirks lightly as he looks over to Ben "You think something in here will top the dragon eggs? Because those were cool" Ben nods as he puts on his headset, eyebrows raised a bit, "Yeah those were pretty awesome, it's going to be hard to top those things" Nate comes around and he sits down beside the two, slipping on his headset "One of these I know has a bit of weight to them, so we might have something pretty cool in there. Anyway, camera's are set up, headsets in and on? Good? Alright let's get this started" He holds his hands together before them, looking to the camera before he claps his hands together once and he lays his arms onto the table "Hey there everyone! Welcome to another mailbag episode, and today we got a few things in the P.O. Box.." Ben checks out the boxes a bit while Nate intro's the video, reading some of the return addresses out of curiosity. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Nate's laptop sitting on the counter, popping up an error message during the recording. Nate didn't seem to notice this yet as he was focused on the camera, picking up one of the envelopes and reading off the name thank the sender. Ben raises an eyebrow before he looks to Nate, interrupting him in the middle of the name "Uh, Nate, recording stopped" He points to the laptop, prompting both Micah and Nate to look over to the laptop. Nate grunts and gets up "ugh, friggin laptop, what's the matter now?" he walks over and he starts to read the error, blinking a bit at it "Huh, it says upload failed." He goes back to the editor and he clicks the upload button again, getting the prompt a few seconds later that the upload failed again. Nate blinks at this "uh. Give me a second guys, video's not uploading." Ben looks to Micah before he gets up and he joins Nate at the laptop, peeking over his shoulder as Nate tries to figure out the issue

After several minutes of trying to figure out the problem, a notification box from his taskbar pops up, making Nate's eyes go wide as he reads the message and he sees what the notification was coming from. He looks back to Ben and Micah, "guys, the internet is not working" Ben furrows his eyebrow "What?" sounding slightly irritated in his voice. Nate looks to Ben frowning a bit "The internet isn't working, let me go check the modem, see what's going on" He heads on into the other room where he keeps his modem, router, and wireless setup, and he starts to check the lights and connections "hmm. Everything seems to be plugged in, though the incoming light is blinking." Micah calls out from the table to Nate "Try unplugging it for like 10 seconds and plugging it back in" Nate reaches around the modem and he unplugs it, waiting a few moments before he plugs it back in. He watches as the modem lights back up, and it starts to go through its bootup sequence. It stops at the incoming connection and it starts to blink again, making Nate sigh lightly "Didn't work dude!" he calls back to Micah, to which he gets the response "did you leave it unplugged for 10 seconds? Normally you keep it unplugged for 10 seconds and then you plug it back in" Nate huffs and he unplugs the modem once more "Yeah I did that! Trying it again though" He starts to count out the ten seconds, plugging it back in after he counts to ten and he gets the same result, failed incoming connection. He frowns slightly as he slowly stands up, staring at the blinking incoming light as his face turns slightly pale "...Guys..." he looks back to the two, both Ben and Micah watching him patiently "..Guys, the internet isn't working at all. There is no incoming connection" The two blink to this, Ben starting to head on over and he looks at the modem "Can't be right, you might've just done something wrong here." Nate shakes his head "no, all connections are good, unplugged it like Micah said, still nothin-" Nate suddenly feels a vibration in his pocket, his phone catching his attention as it goes off. He reaches into his pocket and he pulls it out, reading the caller id "uh, Caleb's calling, you play with that Ben, I'll be right back" He walks on over to the couch as he answers the phone "Hello?"

Caleb Slayer, Micah's brother, is known for his normally stoic expressions from the show, sometimes being called the terminator as an exaggerated joke for his expressions. He usually drops by on occasion to react with the others and at times attempt to try and keep the reaction video's timely. Otherwise, he's known for posting when the reaction starts in the comments of videos he's not in, even when it says it's not him, we know it's him. The call had a bit of static, making Caleb sound a bit distant on the phone "Nate! Hey, Is your internet not working? Because mine stopped a few minutes ago" Nate pauses at this, growing a bit paler in the face "Uh.. no, it's not, Ben's trying to figure out what's wrong with the modem right now" Caleb huffs through the static "Nate, I think it's the ISP, I think CapCost is at it again" Nate shakes a bit to this, slowly lowering his phone as he processes what he just heard. Caleb tries to call out to Nate on the phone "Nate! Nate dude, come on man answer me. Stay with m-" suddenly there was the sound of glass breaking in the background, accompanied by shuffling and shouting as Caleb yells out "Get out of my house CapCost! No! Noooo-" Suddenly the call was cut, Nate watching in horror as his phone displays the end call screen, flashing the call time for a few moments before it goes back to his home screen. Micah watches Nate with wide eyes from the table "uuuuh, Nate? Everything ok?" Nate slowly looks over to Micah, unsure what to say to the man, whether to tell him right out that his brother was just taken by CapCost. Ben puts his hand oonNate's shoulder to get his attention "Nate, you ok dude? You look pale" Nate stammer a bit, slowly regaining his ability to speak as he comes back from being stunned by the situation. "I..It's CapCost.. They're at it again, they took Caleb guys.."