Authors note:
No, there is no Bob, Dot, etc. in this story. Yes, it could be considered a slight SI. No, it is certainly NOT a Mary Sue. I wrote it and I'm fairly happy at what came out of a day's work. You like it, review. You don't like it, review anyway. Flames will be laughed about, constructive criticism is appreciated, and even just writing "COOL STORY DUDE!!!" is okay. I'm flexible.
Oh: I watched my older brother play the game, so it's loosely based off that. If I messed up anything, well, okay. If it really bugs you, tell me.
Peace, Love, and Penguins
Chapter One
Not Unreally
I despise starting in the beginning.
Why, you ask? Nothing is interesting in the beginning. All explanation, boring jabber and no real action.
Middle is fun. Middle you can explain as you go along and still see all the boom-swish-smash action that people like me live for.
So I'll start in the middle.
In System Ceriph.
Where people didn't really like me.
"Not liking me" isn't the official reason they kicked me out. Normally, it's something like "danger to the system" or such. I just cannot sympathize with them – can't they accept a little fun, for Oosi's sake? Although I don't get how being chased through a shooter game and getting my poor bum melted into radioactive goop could be called fun. But that happened after the fact. I mean, it did happen, and that's a fact, but after the other fact that actually got me kicked out.
See, since I was thirteen, two and a half years ago (do the math if you want my age), I've been a traveler. Not completely by choice. I'm not saying I don't love the excitement and chaos each new, different day starts withbut once in a while it'd be nice to have a break.
Well, this system wasn't gonna give me one, and I'll deal.
So, I was in the middle of a group. The group (oh, twenty yelling people) had been quickly organized near the docks so they could find a boat and throw me out of system. It happens a lot, as I mentioned above.
Oh, I'm not viral, if that's what you're thinking. Completely not. I mean, I'm polih, a polymorph, but a sprite, not a virus. Although it could be said that polymorphs have virus-like code, the shapeshifting part anyway, but most polymorphs have a virus master. I don't – I'm du'Polih.. So they really had no reason to throw me out for being "viral."
They could throw me out for accidentally turning into a Shivan Dragon and melting the statue of the system C.C with my fire breath, but
Anyway.
So we were all at the docks and a game decided to pop down from the heavens. Just our luck. Oh, don't worry about me, my icon's formatted to reboot in games. But you could worry about me since I and ten others of the screaming mob got stuck in the game with us, and luckily the system guardian as well.
I don't get along with Guardians. They have this annoying habit that makes them have to be the hero. It's a dramatic thing. You know.
So the game itself didn't look too nasty – sandstone walls, large rooms, looked like a fortress. But when there are just rooms with boxes of items and weapons rotating in mid-airyou're pretty badly screwed, 'cause it's a shooter.
Well, I don't know what the shooter was called, but it called for a "capture the flag" scenario. That's what the Guardian told us as we stood waiting for the game to load up. We were a team, Blue as we rebooted, and we had to capture the enemies' flag three times and bring it back to our base.
And oh-we could get killed. But don't worry, he said, if we get killed we'd be automatically regenerated and brought back to life however many times we died. Unless we lost, and then we'd be nullified. And that just sucks.
The guardian told it to us with a reassuring voice, but I saw something in his eyes. I stepped forward and politely whispered:
"You've played this before?"
He looked at me. I didn't look bad – my magenta headscarf had been replaced by shoulder-length magenta hair. But I did look worried.
"In the Supercomputer."
Figures – this was a decent system, so a game from the Supercomputer could arrive here. I whispered again, "About the regeneration"
"It's called respawning," he muttered, "and it works, yeah, but it hurts like shit."
When the game had started, we spread out, leaving one man to guard base. I got a new weapon quickly. It was big, scary-looking, and had razor circles as ammo. I perked up slightly. Cool!
Anxious to test my new device, I shot it once into a wall. The razor spun as it was shot, and on it's rebound (note to self - shoot weapon down a hall next time!!) neatly sliced into my thigh about an inch. I screamed bloody Oosi and ran down the hall, the razor following me. I managed to run right into one of the User's game sprite allies. He shot at me with the beginning gun, I shot razors at him wildly, missing half of my shots. But the razor blades luckily rebounded and sliced him up one.
One KO for Java! Yay!
So, heightened, I turned around, finding myself in front of a guy with a sniper rifle. And oh shit, he's not my tea-
*bang*
I respawned.
And oh gee, the Guardian was right.
In the word(s) of another Game Sprite: PAIN.
I respawned at a random position in a part of the fortress I didn't recognize. Very unhappy as well – I don't like getting killed, you see. So I decided to go find my base and help guard it. The base was only accessible by a long corridor, had a nice skylight, and I figured the offence always has more casualties than the defense. Right?
So off I went to find a nice gun and to find my base. Entered Red territory for a while.
I did find another Ripper (razor gun) but I shied away from it. Instead, I took another nice big gun, with radioactive goop for ammo, and no rebound.
And I found a base.
My luck, I had stumbled apon the enemies base! And with no guards either. I stood around for a few seconds, and then I figured: Oh, heck, I'll get the flag, haul it to my base, and we'll all be happy-dorey, right?
So I grabbed the flag.
Alarms started screaming at me
Alarms are Bad in shooters.
I started running. Fast.
I did get the flag back. And then got killed three times in sucession by the User in revenge.
I hate this game already.
I got a new gun, a sniper rifle, and patriotically went to guard my base.
One of my allies nearly killed me with a goop gun of his own, mistaking me for the User. Lucky me, he threw me a healing box.
So we waited.
I hate shooter games. I always get myself in trouble in them. I told this to my teammate and he told me that the User in this system normally played a type of puzzle game which took a long time and multiple times saving, quitting, and reloading to play. The bad thing was, the game was impossible to lose. So you had to pray the User wasn't going to win the time you got in. They rebooted as ghosts, not able to do anything.
We chatted. He seemed to begin to like me. I don't normally get that in systems. Being random turns most people off. He appreciated me!
And then the User came in and slaughtered us both.
After a while, the score ended up tied, us two, User side two. One more win, and we'd either be free or nulls. Yay.
Me and Gill guarded our base ruthlessly after our one mishap. They'd only get our flag over our dead bodies, we decided.
The fact that that already happened twice was starting to depress me, however.
So we sat there, with one electrical-type gun and a missile launcher. Frying most of the User's allies who tried to get at us. Chatting just a bit, over the death cries and gnashing of teeth and such. Amazing what you can get used to over time.
The alarms went off occasionally, but most of the time we saw our teammates respawning from the excellent counterattacks of the User. The Guardian most of all, it seemed. He was getting really down. I made a note to cheer him up if we survived.
Me and Gill had managed to give the User a KO once, when he attacked us, but he seriously wounded both of us and we had to run out to find a healing box.
So we waited.
After a while, we finally heard an alarm, and it didn't stop! Maybe this time we really had the flag! We were overjoyed. Just haul that sucker in here, and no more respawning, no more razors, missiles, goop, frying, or bullets! Yay!
We were so overjoyed that when the User dropped in from above us, slaughtering Gill and nearly killing me, it almost didn't hurt so much. I was impressed by my system's dampening powers.
Wounded, I jumped up and followed the User to get the flag back. In my chase I walked into some healing boxes, lucky me, but I ran out of ammo quickly and had to use the basic gun. And he was a good shot, damn it. All I could hope for was that our team could get the flag to base quicker. I had no chance to stop him.
No, I'm not being dramatic. I really didn't. A User crony got a head shot on me again, and as I respawned, the game ended.
No "User Wins", though. And thank Oosi for that.
I still got kicked out though. But at least Gill waved.
And that's the middle of my story.
My name is Java Trinomial, and welcome to my life.