"Aw, no! I died!"
So cried Red when he lost once again to Captain Falcon, who had secured the game-winning kill with a pistol headshot at point blank range. He couldn't believe his opponent didn't get him first.
They were, of course, playing Call of Duty. Badly, in Red's case. "I'm horrible at this," he moaned, leaning back against the sofa and bringing his palms to his face. "How did you do that?"
"You gotta be fast, kid," the Captain said. "Get your foe before he gets you. That bit of advice will get you through everything."
"You would say that," the Pokémon trainer groaned as the living room door opened. "Okay, fifth time's a charm. Let's have another game."
"Can I watch?" asked the smasher that had entered the room. When the gamers looked his way, Olimar just smiled and gave a little wave.
There was plenty of space in the middle of the couch. "Yeah, sure," Red said, shrugging.
The astronaut took his seat as the match began. The trainer smirked, picked up his controller and gripped it tightly. Falcon simply shook his head and smiled, looking forward to being faster than Red.
The two players had spawned on opposite sides of the map. While they walked towards each other, the spectator decided to spark a conversation. "So… we're all locked inside the mansion."
"That we are, Olimar," Captain Falcon stated, not taking his eyes off his half of the screen.
"And this doesn't bother you at all?"
"Why should it?" Red scoffed. "We've got games, food… I never really used the pool or the spARGH!"
While Red was distracted by small talk, his foe had sniped him like a sitting duck. "That doesn't count!" he yelped.
"Do you know how to use cover, Red?" the larger Captain said amusingly. "I can teach you once this match is over."
"Shut up and let me pwn you!"
Olimar sighed as the trainer respawned. The gamers didn't seem to care about their predicament. He was almost envious of them, since they didn't have the weight of reality on their minds. But surely they had to care about something? "You don't even want to know why we're locked in?"
"I can't think about things like that right now," Red yelled. "I'm a bit busy searching for weaknesses in this guy's strategy!"
"I already told you: I'm fast. You're slow." Captain Falcon's game character pulled out his knife.
"Oh no, you didn't!" The current loser of the match knew the sheer power of the Call of Duty knife.
"Well," Olimar stuttered, "what about Pit? He's gone missing."
"We know," Red groaned, trying not to be distracted.
The astronaut sighed in frustration. How could his friends not care about their fellow smasher?
"I wish we could say we miss Pit," Captain Falcon said, as if he read the little man's mind, "but there are thirty-five of us here. We just didn't get to know him that well."
"Plus, his games are awful," the Pokémon trainer said. "His first one was stupidly hard, and his latest gave me cramps after a minute or two." Miraculously, he managed to avoid dying while he said that. But then he got knifed in the back. "Hey!" he spat at his adversary. "You can't kill me when I'm talking! That kill doesn't count!"
"Stop talking, then. Maybe you'll get to see me when I shoot you next time."
"But Pit is a living being!" Olimar said. "He has feelings! You have to feel at least some sympathy for him."
This time, the gamers didn't say a thing. They just kept shooting each other, almost oblivious to their spectator's presence. "But… he… you…" The little astronaut could only stammer as he was shown the total apathy these smashers had for the events around them. Maybe it was just because they were gaming, but either way it was heartbreaking. And infuriating.
"YES!" Red cheered, as an assault rifle knocked his foe to the ground for the first time in the match. "I did it! I finally did it!"
"Good for you," Olimar growled. Yes, growled. The Pokémon trainer was quite surprised. "Meanwhile, someone who has lived under the same roof as us for five years is who knows where and most likely suffering in some way while you play videogames and forget everyone you ever loved!"
That shout made Red's jaw drop; he flinched and his attention was wrenched away from his game as he watched his verbal assailant storm out of the living room. Captain Falcon was also rather surprised by the outburst, but shook himself back to a fogless mind quickly. Meanwhile, his opponent was still staring at the door in shock.
The Captain smirked, and he felt his controller's right trigger. He knew what to do.
"Boom. Headshot."
"Ugh… my head hurts…"
Pit's vision was blurry and he had a feeling that something was trying to break out of his skull. But nothing else hurt at all. Wasn't he bleeding to death just a while ago? How long was he out of it?
From what he could see, he was in a very bright, very blue, very warm and outstandingly wet room. He moved his arm a little, and he heard splashing noises. Droplets of warm water tickled his body and relaxed him. There was only one place he could be.
Still, the angel felt it necessary to double-check his surroundings. He blinked a few times and could just see the walls and ceiling through all the steam. A calm and cool blue hue making the walls glitter like crystals contrasted the warmth of the body of water he was lying in. In front of him was a magnificent statue of the goddess Palutena.
Speaking of the goddess…
Welcome home, Pit.
She did not speak to him with fear or caution, but with kindness and calmness. Pit simply smiled back. After the ordeal he had just gone through, moving was the last thing on his mind.
It's sure been a while since we last talked, hasn't it? You probably want to know why I haven't contacted you.
"Not really…" the angel whispered, just slightly louder than his slow breathing. "I'd much rather like to know what you had to get me out for."
It's… hard to explain. You weren't really living in a mansion for the last five years. You were dreaming that you were, while your body was confined and unconscious.
"It was a dream? But… it felt so real!"
It wasn't a dream, technically. You were actually in some kind of virtual reality. That's what the wires were for. They sent electrical pulses to your nervous system that your brain registered as real objects, sounds and scents. This affected your "dream" and kept things from not being correct in terms of senses.
"You, uh… you kind of lost me at 'electrical pulses." Pit scratched his befuddled head. "But the bit about virtual reality… Why did you need to get me out of there? I was fine."
That's why they call it virtual reality: it's not real. You remember falling off a void, right? That's the edge of the render distance. The most powerful computer in all existence couldn't hope to simulate an entire planet. The supercomputer that powered your virtual reality is as large as a house and it takes eighty-five percent of its power to create the mansion and the ground it sits on. The other fifteen percent kept you and all the other smashers alive.
"What's a render distance?"
Oh! Sorry, Pit. It's been so long since we last talked, I forgot your vocabulary was small.
But as I was saying, it isn't good for someone to be trapped in a bubble for too long. You can't stay in the same place forever and not expect some kind of dent on your sanity, even if thirty-five people keep you company. The smashers need to see their friends face to face before they forget them, like you, for instance. During your first couple of months at the mansion, you were panicking because I wasn't contacting you. But eventually you stopped thinking about me altogether.
"Yeah…" Pit nervously agreed. "I did." He awaited his goddess' next line, but it didn't come for a while. Even the ripples of water fell silent.
…Aren't you going to ask me why I wasn't able to contact you?
"Why?" The angel was just slightly shaken by Palutena's question. "You're here talking to me now; I'm not going to think about the bad times."
I've missed you too, Pit. Now get some rest. Tomorrow we have a very important mission to begin, and you've been through a lot.
Yep. We're getting into the swing of things now!
For those of you who are dedicated to Void enough to read it at this point in time, here's a little secret for you regarding my other two fics: They're going to intertwine! In fact, they intertwine so well that I'm going to merge Slightest Shift into Super Smash Shenanigans and recategorize it as a MLP-SSB crossover! Yep, I'm insane!
