Chapter 2
'I hate English class,' Sam reflected mournfully that afternoon, gazing out the window at the blessed freedom that waited just outside. The sun was shining, the air smelled like warm root beer, and he, for one, was quite disgusted with being stuck in class when he could be outside enjoying nature...or better yet, playing Ultimate Whimsy XII!
"Ultimate Whimsy XII..." Sam murmured happily, his eyes going all wide and shiny, quite unbeknownst to him.
"Hey, Jen," Yolonda Pratchert muttered, nudging her best friend with her elbow. "I think Sam's a little distracted."
Jennifer giggled and blushed slightly, wondering briefly what exactly was on Sam's mind that he found so much more important than the imagery in Marlowe's 'The Tragical Historie of Dr. Faustus.' She blushed even more brightly as she reflected that it was, without a doubt, her.
"Poor Sam's grades have probably dropped at least a letter grade since we started going out," she murmured back to Yoli, who snorted in disbelief.
"Hey, no one who talks to Sydney on a daily basis is failing any class."
"Mmm," Jennifer agreed inarticulately, and Yoli snickered quietly at the slight glaze that had come over her best friend's large blue eyes. Well, those two had each other.
And her? Yoli's eyes grew warm and slightly dreamy as they lit on a familiar rather out-of-control mop of short brown hair, topping a head belonging to a young man currently garbed in the traditional outfit of a Cossack dancer. Maybe she'd finally tell him how she felt if they happened to see each other this weekend...
"Now to discuss the group projects alluded to in our last class. By the way, can anyone explain to me the concept of allusion?" Mrs. Winters, a young, quiet, unassuming woman with a mass of mousy brown hair pulled into as prim a bun as she could manage, a great love of literature, and the capabilities, if not the personality for teaching high school English, asked hopefully. Her expression quickly melted into one of disappointment when the one student paying any degree of attention glanced quickly around the room, came to the conclusion that no one else was going to volunteer, and raised her hand. "Anyone other than Sydney?" Mrs. Winters asked, shooting the girl a grateful smile.
No response.
"Oh, well," the disgruntled teacher sighed. "I guess it doesn't really matter when compared with what TV you might get to watch tonight. Why don't we get right on to discussing the class assignments?"
A roomful of students simply looked back at her, their gazes seeming to go right through her. She sighed again. Time for drastic measures...
"Pop quiz tomorrow!"
With that, Mrs. Avery Winters accomplished in three words what her entire lecture had failed to do: she had captured the attention of every student in the room. Not only that, but she had stirred in them a depth of emotion - and if it was panic, well, what of that? - that she had always been firmly convinced literature SHOULD do, even if one was being forced by the school board to take a course in it. She smiled a placid smile.
"Now that I have your attention, I would like to split you into groups for the project we talked about the other day." Well, I talked about while you stared at me like several young cows staring at the lights of an oncoming train, she didn't add. Aloud, at any rate. "You remember; I was going to split you into groups of five, and you were to each take a portion of the book and discuss what you saw to be the defining characteristic of the section."
A hand shot up.
"Yes, Sam?"
"Can we choose our own groups?" the sandy-haired boy asked pleadingly.
She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Several students didn't, all well able by this time to read their peer's mind. Translation: can I work with Jennifer?
"No. I thought it might be nice to have you work in slightly different groups this time around."
Sam's face fell. 'Ew...' he thought as he picked it up and put it back on with several rather disgusting squishy noises.
"Knock it off, Rhianwen!" he shouted at the ceiling as he fit it into place.
"Oh, fine," a voice emanating from the ceiling, sighed. "You have no sense of humour, Collins!"
"Where have I heard that voice before?" Malcolm mused briefly.
Mrs. Winters smiled uncertainly at this rather odd exchange, deciding rather wisely to get on with the plot.
"But since you'll likely be devastated if you should end up in a group without a...certain someone, Sam, I'll be kind when choosing your group."
"Great!" Sam exclaimed enthusiastically.
"You'll work with Tanker, Sydney, Amp, and Malcolm."
"Just who is this kind to, Mrs. Winters?" Sydney called out, suppressing a pained groan.
"Well, you could at least TRY to hide your reluctance at working with me," Malcolm huffed, crossing his arms and turning away, going through a particularly cheesy bit on internal monologue in which he wondered to himself in the ridiculously overblown language that Rhianwen seems addicted to, why Sydney's reaction hurt his feelings ever so slightly.
"Who's talking about you?" the dark-haired girl asked, completely missing a golden opportunity for a rejoining bit of cheesy internal monologue. This, perhaps, was for the best. "At least YOU might work."
"Hey!" Sam, Tanker exclaimed.
"That's my cue!" Amp exclaimed as he leapt from his seat and launched into his dance.
An hour later, it seemed as though the dance had not ended, as the young man bounced merrily about Sam's basement bedroom-hideaway.
"Why don't we just be straightforward and have a panel discussion about the scene?" Malcolm suggested wearily.
"No way!" Sam exclaimed. "We have to do something fun! Something unique! Something-"
"That you're gonna end up doing zero amount of work on?" Sydney suggested amiably.
"Yeah!" Sam agreed cheerfully, then frowned. "No!"
"We could do a sock puppet show," Amp said thoughtfully.
"No!" Tanker barked "I refuse to put a sock on my hand and make it talk."
"Unless it's a hazing ritual for the football team," Sydney added, flipping absently through her copy of 'The Tragical Historie of Dr. Faustus.'
Sam and Tanker stared at her incredulously.
"What's with you today, Syd?" Tanker finally ventured.
She frowned.
"I...don't know," she admitted. Then she gestured to Malcolm. "It must be his influence."
"Oh, shut up," he grumbled, looking up briefly from his own copy of the required book.
"Yeah, probably," Tanker agreed, scowling at the shorter youth.
"Hey, guys," Sam spoke up, his eyes glittering excitedly. "How about a quick battle or two before we get down to work?"
"Yeah!" Tanker exclaimed, throwing down his book and leaping from his chair to land in front of the game console, followed closely by the sandy-haired boy.
Malcolm, who suddenly became a good deal less interested in his book, watched him very carefully, cackling inwardly with glee and awaiting the miracle.
"Sam! Tanker!" Sydney barked, starting toward Tanker. "No game! We have to work!"
'Oh, no!' Malcolm groaned inwardly. 'Now she's going to get sucked in, too! I knew that Sam and Tanker wouldn't be any aid on this project, but now I'll have to do all the work alone!'
No, that absolutely could not be. Malcolm's laziness for once prompted him into more immediate action. Pushing himself to his feet, Malcolm darted across the room, his goal to shove Sydney out of the way before Tanker could turn on the game system. Unfortunately, she happened to turn just before he could reach her. With a startled yelp at the sight of a Malcolm lunging towards her, she leapt back, knocking into Amp, who had been drawn to the television as the memory of all the pretty colours from the game yesterday flashed through his mind. Amp tripped over Sam, who was crouched next to Tanker, and fell backwards beneath the weight of both Sydney and Malcolm.
"YAAAAAH!" he howled as the three landed on the ever-unfortunate Sam and Tanker, just as Tanker hit the power button.
At this point, a strange thing happened. That is, nothing at all. So, in other words, strange given the universe that all this is occurring within. Or rather, not occurring.
The five teens lay on the lime green carpet, staring dazedly at whatever happened to be before their eyes, pondering what had just happened.
'Hmm...less dramatic than I had expected, this being sucked into video games...' Malcolm reflected, wondering exactly what it was that his head was cradled on that made such a pleasant pillow.
'Damn...after this, no one's gonna be in the mood for video games,' Sam reflected sadly, wondering at the back of his mind who that was with their hand spread out over his butt. He wasn't entirely sure if it would be worse to find that it was Sydney, or anyone else. Certainly, the wrath of Tanker if the owner of this mysterious hand should prove to be Sydney was formidable, but if it were any of the other members of this impromptu doggie pile...well, that just didn't bear thinking about.
'Oww...' Amp reflected, wondering whose shoe that was in his mouth.
'I guess this is what comes of trying to keep the average teenage male from his video game,' Sydney reflected, wondering vaguely exactly who seemed to be using her chest as a pillow. Certainly, the cold, somewhat slimy sensation seeping through her tee shirt, somewhat like hair gel, suggested that it must be Tanker.
'Football...' Tanker reflected mournfully, but then he grinned wickedly as his hand found itself resting on something pleasantly soft. He'd recognize her cute little butt anywhere...
"Hey, is everyone alright?" Sam finally managed weakly.
A murmur of confirmation greeted this inquiry.
"Great. Now, whoever's got their hand on my ass, could you please move it?"
And so it was that a very, very embarrassed Tanker jerked his hand away from his best friend's posterior and realized that perhaps he didn't know his sort-of-maybe-someday-girlfriend as well as he thought.
"Yeah; and while we're at it, can the person with their shoe in my mouth please get it out?" Amp would have loved to say. However, the sneaker shoved into his mouth somewhat muffled any would-be protests from the young man.
Meanwhile, in the digital world...
"Kiki, my child!" Kilokhan barked. "Why are you not wreaking havoc?"
Kiki the Reluctant Virus looked up from the corner, where he was huddled, rocking back and forth and whimpering.
"I wanna go home!" the creature wailed, little tear-jets somehow shooting to the sides.
"Wreak the havoc you were created to wreak, my child!" Kilokhan commanded.
"I don't wanna!" Kiki whimpered.
"Do it!" Kilokhan growled, shaking a menacing fist at Kiki.
"Nooo," Kiki whimpered again, curling up into a tighter ball in his safe, happy little corner.
"NOW!"
"But...but...but..."
"DO IT!"
"Oh...okay," Kiki agreed sadly, climbing to his feet and waddling over to one of the many brightly lit circuit towers.
"Ah...now my plan shall come to fruition, and Servo shall be destroyed!" Kilokhan gloated.
However, it seemed that nothing could be that easy for Kilokhan. Kiki had reached the circuit tower, and swung one arm unenthusiastically at it. His arm bounced weakly off of the brightly coloured plastic.
"The tower's too hard," he explained sheepishly.
Kilokhan would have gritted his teeth, if only he'd had any.
"Then kick it!"
So, Kiki tried, and the results were much the same.
'Ping!' went his tiny claws off of the tower.
"Oh, for the love of..." Kilokhan's angry mutter trailed off as he sent a beam of light shooting from where he resided to destroy the tower that Kiki didn't seem to be able to dent.
Kiki watched in awe as the tower exploded into many brightly coloured pieces.
"Does that mean I don't have to do anything?" he asked slowly.
Back in Sam's basement, Malcolm was reflecting with a roll of his eyes that he had spoken a little too soon, concerning this 'being sucked into video games' being less painful than he had expected. Indeed, as a beam of blue light shot from the Funstation to envelop the pile of teens in severe pain, the main thought echoing through his head was,
'Oh, this is going to hurt...'
And hurt, it did. Not so much the being sucked into the game, but the fact that, when the beam of blue light transported them into this new world, it saw fit to rematerialize them four feet above the ground, which, at that point, happened to be a cobblestone street.
"Ow..." the pile 'o teens whimpered as they bounced painfully to the ground.
Then, as they disentangled themselves from one another, a curious thing happened. One by one, they began to disappear. First, as Tanker finally took his shoe out of Amp's mouth and climbed to his feet, he vanished. Then, from his prone position half on top of Sam and half on the ground, Amp vanished.
"Uh..." Sam began, but was interrupted as Sydney vanished.
He turned to Malcolm.
"Hey, do you think this is supposed to be happening?" he asked, then rolled his eyes in annoyance as Malcolm vanished. "At least that one's no big loss," he reflected philosophically. "Where the heck is this, anyway?"
He climbed stiffly to his feet and looked around, his eyes growing wide with disbelief, as they took in the surroundings, drastically different from the comfortably disorganized basement hideaway that they should have been.
He was standing alone in the middle of a quietly bustling city street of cobblestone, quaint little shops lining it on either side.
"Uh..." he began uncertainly as a voice bellowed from behind him to move.
He leapt aside just in time to keep from being trampled flat by two horses harnessed to a carriage.
"Uh..." he began again as a few very confusing truths finally hit him.
First of all, there was no technology of any kind anywhere to be seen. From what he could see, electricity was a foreign concept, as did indeed seem to be any gadgetry more complex than a pocket watch.
The next observation that sauntered its way through Sam's confused and aching brain was the fact that his clothes were not his own. He was, instead, garbed in a reasonably loose and comfortable pair of trousers of soft leather, and a tunic similar in material. This, he reflected with a philosophical shrug, was nothing to complain about. However, that thing weighing him down from behind was beginning to get a little annoying...
He reached around behind him to find out exactly what it was that was beginning to cause a faint ache between his shoulder blades, and he nearly exclaimed in surprise as his fingers closed around a hilt undeniably belonging to a sword.
"This doesn't seem right," he would have said, had he not been knocked suddenly and soundly from his feet at just that moment.
"Hey, watch it!" he snapped, instantly regretting being so rude. After all, it wasn't this mysterious person's fault that he was in an unfamiliar world with no idea what to do and where to do.
"YOU watch it, Sam," a blessedly familiar voice shot back snippily.
He blinked, peering more closely at the person before him, trying, as he was, to regain her footing.
"Syd?!"
"Right now, I'm not totally sure, but I think it's pretty safe to say," she replied ruefully.
"But...but...how did you GET here?"
"Same way you did, you idiot. I only landed about twenty feet down the road from you. So, what happened, anyway?"
"I don't know, but I'm thinkin' virus," Sam sighed gloomily. "I mean, weird beam of blue light, weird side-effect. That kinda screams 'virus' to me.
Sydney looked decidedly disappointed.
"Oh. I was hoping you'd agree with me that this is all some weird side effect of Mrs. Starkey's Banana Lasagna Surprise."
Sam laughed.
"No, I don't think we'd both be having the same food poisoning delusion."
"Probably not. Hey, do you think there's a reason this place saw fit to steal my clothes and put me in this dress?"
Sam looked, then started back in surprise.
"Whoa! What the hell is THAT?"
"I don't know," she pouted, glaring balefully down at the long dress of some white material, its hem already ripped and dusty, covered by the long cloak of some pale green material, its hem already having met a remarkably similar fate. "I've already tripped over it about seven times - in the last twenty feet."
Sam laughed. Then he frowned.
"Hey, Syd, did you have some sort of weird...stick with you when you landed?"
"Um...yeah. I tripped over it, so I threw it at a squirrel."
"Oh, boy," Sam muttered to himself, the situation becoming remarkably clear in an instant. "I think we'd better go back and get it. It might be important. And hey, I think I can explain what happened to us. You might not like it, but I can explain it."
"Great! Start talking!"
Two minutes later, back in the same place...
"So, what you're trying to say is that we got sucked into your stupid video game via a Mega-Virus monster with the absolute weirdest side-effect ever?" Sydney asked, staring somewhat dazed at the ornate staff in her hand.
"Yup," Sam nodded cheerfully.
"And not only that, we've been...turned into the characters."
"Yup."
"So, you've turned into the hero. Figures," she added under her breath. "And your name is...what again?"
"Rain," Sam replied instantly, frowning in slight hurt when his long-time friend burst immediately into laughter.
"Rain?!" she exclaimed around gasps for air. "Rain?! What's next? Cloud? Squall? Rain! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!"
Sam scowled.
"You wanna hear YOUR name?"
"Sure," she replied uncertainly.
"As of now, you are Princess Yuluku, who goes by the false name of Pointy."
"Pointy," she repeated, accepting this rather sanguinely. "Okay! So, now that we know that these characters were born to really cruel parents, what do we do? Where do you think everyone else will be?"
Sam shrugged.
"Uh...well, I found you by following the plot...sort of. Maybe we should just...play along?"
"What a great idea," she sighed, rubbing her forehead wearily. "Is there anything else we should know about these characters?"
"Well, I'm a dashing swordsman, whose skill is legendary, as is his reputation for being a bit of a badass."
"So, you're the 'bad-boy of the game.'"
"No, that would be the villain," he corrected immediately. "Seikujiroth."
"These names just get stupider and stupider. I wonder who gets to be the villain, anyway," Sydney mused.
A moment of silence as both pondered this. A bird chirped overhead. Then...
"Malcolm," they said in unison.
"And as for you," Sam continued, "Princess Yuluku, or Pointy, as she is more often called, is a somewhat naïve girl who has the ability to summon powerful mythical creatures."
"Okay...does that have anything to do with this stick?" she asked, waving the ornately carved staff at him.
"Yeah; it's your summoner's staff."
"Wonderful. Anything else I should know?"
"Yeah," he replied easily. "Later on, after we meet up with everyone else, you ask Tiffie to teach you to be a master ninja-thief like her."
"Um...okay," she frowned. "So, she had cruel parents, too."
"Oh, and you get kidnapped by the villain."
"Oh! Great!" she exclaimed with sarcastic enthusiasm, glaring at her friend's unconcerned expression.
"Hey, don't worry. If we're right, it's just Malcolm. You could probably beat him just by hitting him with that thing," he snickered, pointing to her staff.
"Or with this," she snickered back, stooping to pick a blade of grass off of her skirt. Then she sighed. "I hope you know what you're doing, Sam."
"Yeah, me, too," Sam agreed cheerfully, tripping over a rock and sprawling painfully over the ground.
"We're doomed," both teens whimpered painfully as they started off through the warm, mild spring afternoon of this completely unfamiliar world.
'I hate English class,' Sam reflected mournfully that afternoon, gazing out the window at the blessed freedom that waited just outside. The sun was shining, the air smelled like warm root beer, and he, for one, was quite disgusted with being stuck in class when he could be outside enjoying nature...or better yet, playing Ultimate Whimsy XII!
"Ultimate Whimsy XII..." Sam murmured happily, his eyes going all wide and shiny, quite unbeknownst to him.
"Hey, Jen," Yolonda Pratchert muttered, nudging her best friend with her elbow. "I think Sam's a little distracted."
Jennifer giggled and blushed slightly, wondering briefly what exactly was on Sam's mind that he found so much more important than the imagery in Marlowe's 'The Tragical Historie of Dr. Faustus.' She blushed even more brightly as she reflected that it was, without a doubt, her.
"Poor Sam's grades have probably dropped at least a letter grade since we started going out," she murmured back to Yoli, who snorted in disbelief.
"Hey, no one who talks to Sydney on a daily basis is failing any class."
"Mmm," Jennifer agreed inarticulately, and Yoli snickered quietly at the slight glaze that had come over her best friend's large blue eyes. Well, those two had each other.
And her? Yoli's eyes grew warm and slightly dreamy as they lit on a familiar rather out-of-control mop of short brown hair, topping a head belonging to a young man currently garbed in the traditional outfit of a Cossack dancer. Maybe she'd finally tell him how she felt if they happened to see each other this weekend...
"Now to discuss the group projects alluded to in our last class. By the way, can anyone explain to me the concept of allusion?" Mrs. Winters, a young, quiet, unassuming woman with a mass of mousy brown hair pulled into as prim a bun as she could manage, a great love of literature, and the capabilities, if not the personality for teaching high school English, asked hopefully. Her expression quickly melted into one of disappointment when the one student paying any degree of attention glanced quickly around the room, came to the conclusion that no one else was going to volunteer, and raised her hand. "Anyone other than Sydney?" Mrs. Winters asked, shooting the girl a grateful smile.
No response.
"Oh, well," the disgruntled teacher sighed. "I guess it doesn't really matter when compared with what TV you might get to watch tonight. Why don't we get right on to discussing the class assignments?"
A roomful of students simply looked back at her, their gazes seeming to go right through her. She sighed again. Time for drastic measures...
"Pop quiz tomorrow!"
With that, Mrs. Avery Winters accomplished in three words what her entire lecture had failed to do: she had captured the attention of every student in the room. Not only that, but she had stirred in them a depth of emotion - and if it was panic, well, what of that? - that she had always been firmly convinced literature SHOULD do, even if one was being forced by the school board to take a course in it. She smiled a placid smile.
"Now that I have your attention, I would like to split you into groups for the project we talked about the other day." Well, I talked about while you stared at me like several young cows staring at the lights of an oncoming train, she didn't add. Aloud, at any rate. "You remember; I was going to split you into groups of five, and you were to each take a portion of the book and discuss what you saw to be the defining characteristic of the section."
A hand shot up.
"Yes, Sam?"
"Can we choose our own groups?" the sandy-haired boy asked pleadingly.
She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Several students didn't, all well able by this time to read their peer's mind. Translation: can I work with Jennifer?
"No. I thought it might be nice to have you work in slightly different groups this time around."
Sam's face fell. 'Ew...' he thought as he picked it up and put it back on with several rather disgusting squishy noises.
"Knock it off, Rhianwen!" he shouted at the ceiling as he fit it into place.
"Oh, fine," a voice emanating from the ceiling, sighed. "You have no sense of humour, Collins!"
"Where have I heard that voice before?" Malcolm mused briefly.
Mrs. Winters smiled uncertainly at this rather odd exchange, deciding rather wisely to get on with the plot.
"But since you'll likely be devastated if you should end up in a group without a...certain someone, Sam, I'll be kind when choosing your group."
"Great!" Sam exclaimed enthusiastically.
"You'll work with Tanker, Sydney, Amp, and Malcolm."
"Just who is this kind to, Mrs. Winters?" Sydney called out, suppressing a pained groan.
"Well, you could at least TRY to hide your reluctance at working with me," Malcolm huffed, crossing his arms and turning away, going through a particularly cheesy bit on internal monologue in which he wondered to himself in the ridiculously overblown language that Rhianwen seems addicted to, why Sydney's reaction hurt his feelings ever so slightly.
"Who's talking about you?" the dark-haired girl asked, completely missing a golden opportunity for a rejoining bit of cheesy internal monologue. This, perhaps, was for the best. "At least YOU might work."
"Hey!" Sam, Tanker exclaimed.
"That's my cue!" Amp exclaimed as he leapt from his seat and launched into his dance.
An hour later, it seemed as though the dance had not ended, as the young man bounced merrily about Sam's basement bedroom-hideaway.
"Why don't we just be straightforward and have a panel discussion about the scene?" Malcolm suggested wearily.
"No way!" Sam exclaimed. "We have to do something fun! Something unique! Something-"
"That you're gonna end up doing zero amount of work on?" Sydney suggested amiably.
"Yeah!" Sam agreed cheerfully, then frowned. "No!"
"We could do a sock puppet show," Amp said thoughtfully.
"No!" Tanker barked "I refuse to put a sock on my hand and make it talk."
"Unless it's a hazing ritual for the football team," Sydney added, flipping absently through her copy of 'The Tragical Historie of Dr. Faustus.'
Sam and Tanker stared at her incredulously.
"What's with you today, Syd?" Tanker finally ventured.
She frowned.
"I...don't know," she admitted. Then she gestured to Malcolm. "It must be his influence."
"Oh, shut up," he grumbled, looking up briefly from his own copy of the required book.
"Yeah, probably," Tanker agreed, scowling at the shorter youth.
"Hey, guys," Sam spoke up, his eyes glittering excitedly. "How about a quick battle or two before we get down to work?"
"Yeah!" Tanker exclaimed, throwing down his book and leaping from his chair to land in front of the game console, followed closely by the sandy-haired boy.
Malcolm, who suddenly became a good deal less interested in his book, watched him very carefully, cackling inwardly with glee and awaiting the miracle.
"Sam! Tanker!" Sydney barked, starting toward Tanker. "No game! We have to work!"
'Oh, no!' Malcolm groaned inwardly. 'Now she's going to get sucked in, too! I knew that Sam and Tanker wouldn't be any aid on this project, but now I'll have to do all the work alone!'
No, that absolutely could not be. Malcolm's laziness for once prompted him into more immediate action. Pushing himself to his feet, Malcolm darted across the room, his goal to shove Sydney out of the way before Tanker could turn on the game system. Unfortunately, she happened to turn just before he could reach her. With a startled yelp at the sight of a Malcolm lunging towards her, she leapt back, knocking into Amp, who had been drawn to the television as the memory of all the pretty colours from the game yesterday flashed through his mind. Amp tripped over Sam, who was crouched next to Tanker, and fell backwards beneath the weight of both Sydney and Malcolm.
"YAAAAAH!" he howled as the three landed on the ever-unfortunate Sam and Tanker, just as Tanker hit the power button.
At this point, a strange thing happened. That is, nothing at all. So, in other words, strange given the universe that all this is occurring within. Or rather, not occurring.
The five teens lay on the lime green carpet, staring dazedly at whatever happened to be before their eyes, pondering what had just happened.
'Hmm...less dramatic than I had expected, this being sucked into video games...' Malcolm reflected, wondering exactly what it was that his head was cradled on that made such a pleasant pillow.
'Damn...after this, no one's gonna be in the mood for video games,' Sam reflected sadly, wondering at the back of his mind who that was with their hand spread out over his butt. He wasn't entirely sure if it would be worse to find that it was Sydney, or anyone else. Certainly, the wrath of Tanker if the owner of this mysterious hand should prove to be Sydney was formidable, but if it were any of the other members of this impromptu doggie pile...well, that just didn't bear thinking about.
'Oww...' Amp reflected, wondering whose shoe that was in his mouth.
'I guess this is what comes of trying to keep the average teenage male from his video game,' Sydney reflected, wondering vaguely exactly who seemed to be using her chest as a pillow. Certainly, the cold, somewhat slimy sensation seeping through her tee shirt, somewhat like hair gel, suggested that it must be Tanker.
'Football...' Tanker reflected mournfully, but then he grinned wickedly as his hand found itself resting on something pleasantly soft. He'd recognize her cute little butt anywhere...
"Hey, is everyone alright?" Sam finally managed weakly.
A murmur of confirmation greeted this inquiry.
"Great. Now, whoever's got their hand on my ass, could you please move it?"
And so it was that a very, very embarrassed Tanker jerked his hand away from his best friend's posterior and realized that perhaps he didn't know his sort-of-maybe-someday-girlfriend as well as he thought.
"Yeah; and while we're at it, can the person with their shoe in my mouth please get it out?" Amp would have loved to say. However, the sneaker shoved into his mouth somewhat muffled any would-be protests from the young man.
Meanwhile, in the digital world...
"Kiki, my child!" Kilokhan barked. "Why are you not wreaking havoc?"
Kiki the Reluctant Virus looked up from the corner, where he was huddled, rocking back and forth and whimpering.
"I wanna go home!" the creature wailed, little tear-jets somehow shooting to the sides.
"Wreak the havoc you were created to wreak, my child!" Kilokhan commanded.
"I don't wanna!" Kiki whimpered.
"Do it!" Kilokhan growled, shaking a menacing fist at Kiki.
"Nooo," Kiki whimpered again, curling up into a tighter ball in his safe, happy little corner.
"NOW!"
"But...but...but..."
"DO IT!"
"Oh...okay," Kiki agreed sadly, climbing to his feet and waddling over to one of the many brightly lit circuit towers.
"Ah...now my plan shall come to fruition, and Servo shall be destroyed!" Kilokhan gloated.
However, it seemed that nothing could be that easy for Kilokhan. Kiki had reached the circuit tower, and swung one arm unenthusiastically at it. His arm bounced weakly off of the brightly coloured plastic.
"The tower's too hard," he explained sheepishly.
Kilokhan would have gritted his teeth, if only he'd had any.
"Then kick it!"
So, Kiki tried, and the results were much the same.
'Ping!' went his tiny claws off of the tower.
"Oh, for the love of..." Kilokhan's angry mutter trailed off as he sent a beam of light shooting from where he resided to destroy the tower that Kiki didn't seem to be able to dent.
Kiki watched in awe as the tower exploded into many brightly coloured pieces.
"Does that mean I don't have to do anything?" he asked slowly.
Back in Sam's basement, Malcolm was reflecting with a roll of his eyes that he had spoken a little too soon, concerning this 'being sucked into video games' being less painful than he had expected. Indeed, as a beam of blue light shot from the Funstation to envelop the pile of teens in severe pain, the main thought echoing through his head was,
'Oh, this is going to hurt...'
And hurt, it did. Not so much the being sucked into the game, but the fact that, when the beam of blue light transported them into this new world, it saw fit to rematerialize them four feet above the ground, which, at that point, happened to be a cobblestone street.
"Ow..." the pile 'o teens whimpered as they bounced painfully to the ground.
Then, as they disentangled themselves from one another, a curious thing happened. One by one, they began to disappear. First, as Tanker finally took his shoe out of Amp's mouth and climbed to his feet, he vanished. Then, from his prone position half on top of Sam and half on the ground, Amp vanished.
"Uh..." Sam began, but was interrupted as Sydney vanished.
He turned to Malcolm.
"Hey, do you think this is supposed to be happening?" he asked, then rolled his eyes in annoyance as Malcolm vanished. "At least that one's no big loss," he reflected philosophically. "Where the heck is this, anyway?"
He climbed stiffly to his feet and looked around, his eyes growing wide with disbelief, as they took in the surroundings, drastically different from the comfortably disorganized basement hideaway that they should have been.
He was standing alone in the middle of a quietly bustling city street of cobblestone, quaint little shops lining it on either side.
"Uh..." he began uncertainly as a voice bellowed from behind him to move.
He leapt aside just in time to keep from being trampled flat by two horses harnessed to a carriage.
"Uh..." he began again as a few very confusing truths finally hit him.
First of all, there was no technology of any kind anywhere to be seen. From what he could see, electricity was a foreign concept, as did indeed seem to be any gadgetry more complex than a pocket watch.
The next observation that sauntered its way through Sam's confused and aching brain was the fact that his clothes were not his own. He was, instead, garbed in a reasonably loose and comfortable pair of trousers of soft leather, and a tunic similar in material. This, he reflected with a philosophical shrug, was nothing to complain about. However, that thing weighing him down from behind was beginning to get a little annoying...
He reached around behind him to find out exactly what it was that was beginning to cause a faint ache between his shoulder blades, and he nearly exclaimed in surprise as his fingers closed around a hilt undeniably belonging to a sword.
"This doesn't seem right," he would have said, had he not been knocked suddenly and soundly from his feet at just that moment.
"Hey, watch it!" he snapped, instantly regretting being so rude. After all, it wasn't this mysterious person's fault that he was in an unfamiliar world with no idea what to do and where to do.
"YOU watch it, Sam," a blessedly familiar voice shot back snippily.
He blinked, peering more closely at the person before him, trying, as he was, to regain her footing.
"Syd?!"
"Right now, I'm not totally sure, but I think it's pretty safe to say," she replied ruefully.
"But...but...how did you GET here?"
"Same way you did, you idiot. I only landed about twenty feet down the road from you. So, what happened, anyway?"
"I don't know, but I'm thinkin' virus," Sam sighed gloomily. "I mean, weird beam of blue light, weird side-effect. That kinda screams 'virus' to me.
Sydney looked decidedly disappointed.
"Oh. I was hoping you'd agree with me that this is all some weird side effect of Mrs. Starkey's Banana Lasagna Surprise."
Sam laughed.
"No, I don't think we'd both be having the same food poisoning delusion."
"Probably not. Hey, do you think there's a reason this place saw fit to steal my clothes and put me in this dress?"
Sam looked, then started back in surprise.
"Whoa! What the hell is THAT?"
"I don't know," she pouted, glaring balefully down at the long dress of some white material, its hem already ripped and dusty, covered by the long cloak of some pale green material, its hem already having met a remarkably similar fate. "I've already tripped over it about seven times - in the last twenty feet."
Sam laughed. Then he frowned.
"Hey, Syd, did you have some sort of weird...stick with you when you landed?"
"Um...yeah. I tripped over it, so I threw it at a squirrel."
"Oh, boy," Sam muttered to himself, the situation becoming remarkably clear in an instant. "I think we'd better go back and get it. It might be important. And hey, I think I can explain what happened to us. You might not like it, but I can explain it."
"Great! Start talking!"
Two minutes later, back in the same place...
"So, what you're trying to say is that we got sucked into your stupid video game via a Mega-Virus monster with the absolute weirdest side-effect ever?" Sydney asked, staring somewhat dazed at the ornate staff in her hand.
"Yup," Sam nodded cheerfully.
"And not only that, we've been...turned into the characters."
"Yup."
"So, you've turned into the hero. Figures," she added under her breath. "And your name is...what again?"
"Rain," Sam replied instantly, frowning in slight hurt when his long-time friend burst immediately into laughter.
"Rain?!" she exclaimed around gasps for air. "Rain?! What's next? Cloud? Squall? Rain! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!"
Sam scowled.
"You wanna hear YOUR name?"
"Sure," she replied uncertainly.
"As of now, you are Princess Yuluku, who goes by the false name of Pointy."
"Pointy," she repeated, accepting this rather sanguinely. "Okay! So, now that we know that these characters were born to really cruel parents, what do we do? Where do you think everyone else will be?"
Sam shrugged.
"Uh...well, I found you by following the plot...sort of. Maybe we should just...play along?"
"What a great idea," she sighed, rubbing her forehead wearily. "Is there anything else we should know about these characters?"
"Well, I'm a dashing swordsman, whose skill is legendary, as is his reputation for being a bit of a badass."
"So, you're the 'bad-boy of the game.'"
"No, that would be the villain," he corrected immediately. "Seikujiroth."
"These names just get stupider and stupider. I wonder who gets to be the villain, anyway," Sydney mused.
A moment of silence as both pondered this. A bird chirped overhead. Then...
"Malcolm," they said in unison.
"And as for you," Sam continued, "Princess Yuluku, or Pointy, as she is more often called, is a somewhat naïve girl who has the ability to summon powerful mythical creatures."
"Okay...does that have anything to do with this stick?" she asked, waving the ornately carved staff at him.
"Yeah; it's your summoner's staff."
"Wonderful. Anything else I should know?"
"Yeah," he replied easily. "Later on, after we meet up with everyone else, you ask Tiffie to teach you to be a master ninja-thief like her."
"Um...okay," she frowned. "So, she had cruel parents, too."
"Oh, and you get kidnapped by the villain."
"Oh! Great!" she exclaimed with sarcastic enthusiasm, glaring at her friend's unconcerned expression.
"Hey, don't worry. If we're right, it's just Malcolm. You could probably beat him just by hitting him with that thing," he snickered, pointing to her staff.
"Or with this," she snickered back, stooping to pick a blade of grass off of her skirt. Then she sighed. "I hope you know what you're doing, Sam."
"Yeah, me, too," Sam agreed cheerfully, tripping over a rock and sprawling painfully over the ground.
"We're doomed," both teens whimpered painfully as they started off through the warm, mild spring afternoon of this completely unfamiliar world.