DISCLAIMER: I could climb the highest mountain, I could fly above a tree; to each their own, the truth be known, I don't own DBZ!
Author Notes: It was a long time
coming, but this chappy needed to be treated with Metamucil to ease the
imagination constipation!
** Is me
thinking!!!** Woohoo!!! Please, read and review!
THE GAMES WE PLAY by
`InSaNe`/Schizophrenic Eggplant
Chapter 2: This Doesn't Happen
Everyday?
Sarah jerked awake as the noisy doorbell chimes fade slowly. Because she was woken so suddenly she is still floating in that world between dreaming and reality.
"I must read too many fanfics… it's corrupting my dreamscape, how dare it just switch to text like that… Grrr…" Then she stopped rubbing her eyes and feeling sorry for herself, and sat up in rapture, gasping.
"But… I remember those eyes!!! Oh Kami, those eyes… I'm so lucky I remember all my dreams like that, I'll never forget that look, I'll have to incorporate that into my fic somehow… and what I have cooked up for that future lemon is far more superior than most of that dream. A bed, honestly, how conventional! But still… I'm gonna have to make note of it in DreamRants.txt."
Pulling a Lobo t-shirt over her head, she got up to see who was at the door. If it was someone with a clipboard, or pimply little humans wanting money for their school stuff, or important-looking suits with briefcases (hey I might've missed a disclaimer somewhere), she would just shut her door again quietly and go back to bed. If it was religious nuts, and she was in the mood, she would open the door – in time to yell "HAIL SATAN!!!" – and then quickly shut it in their faces. No-one was there but through the net curtain screening the bubble-glass-paned front door, she saw a fairly big package lying in the porch on the doormat. There were no humans around, but she could hear the van or whatever it was speed up the street, she had just missed it. Oh well, no bother. She opened the door excitedly, she really enjoyed unexpected things to pop up like this, out of the ordinary, be it packages, letters, …spacepods. And it was Sunday, no post or anything arrives on Sunday. Grinning, she hefted the package inside, and threw it on the bed, biting her lip as she just only noticed the 'Very Fragile' sticker situated on the top. The box was plain white with what looked like random black curves on each edge. It wasn't addressed as such, not even a stamp, just scrawling in a black calligraphy pen on part of the packaging that had more white than black.
'For One who Desires', it read.
"Creepy", she mouthed in amazement. "Cool! Lets see what's in this baby!"
She ripped open the box as carefully as she could. To put it metaphorically, her face became bathed in a light coming from inside the box. An expression of reverence adorned her features, and from some unknown place, that ever annoying 'Haaallelujah! Haaallelujah!! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Halleluuu'—then the ripping sound of a stylus being scraped along a vinyl record.
"Gah… that was bad… BUT THIS IS AWESOME!!!" Inside was a helmet of some sort, some cables, a PCI card to plug into her computer and drivers for the hardware, and a meticulously folded suit made of thin fabric and latticed with intricate circuitry. There were also some pretty hi-tech gloves, made of the same fabric, and networked with something that she guessed would simulate nerves, and hopefully pressure sensors.
"This is TOO good to be true!!!" She rejoiced. Still not believing what she saw, she left her room, waited a minute, and then re-entered. It WAS real, still sitting on the bed and waiting to be used. It called to her, to install it, to try it out.
In a haste, she unplugged her computer, pulled it out from its little home in the desk, and attacked it with a screwdriver. She was used to this, she had built her computer up from scratch and knew about most of the inner workings. One PCI slot was free so she inserted the card into it carefully, then screwed it in, replaced the covering and re-attached the plugs. On the back of her computer were more input/output jacks for the usual audio and video, and two special ones for the suit. Shivering with excitement she switched the computer on and waited for it to boot up. While she waited, she removed her clothing and crammed herself into the skin tight cyber-suit, taking care not to rip the sheer fabric. It felt weird, a little cold, but not unbearable. She chose to wait until the last minute to don the gloves and helmet, and kept them on the bed beside her chair. Once the computer had booted up, it gave her the 'new hardware device' prompt. The description of it was 'CC Classified X Device' - CC? No way, there was no chance it could be… She inserted the CD that just had a plain white face on it, and a title screen appeared.
'Welcome to the Ultimate DBZ experience!' It proclaimed. She clicked on the button that read 'Install Drivers', and waited the few seconds the 1.7 GHz processor took to sort that out. She nearly threw a massive wobbly when she was told to reboot, but she obeyed the almighty computer. Knowing she didn't really need to type any more or do any detailed mouse-clicking, she slipped on the gloves. They had little connectors at the wrists that obviously mated with the ones near the sleeves of the suit. She clicked them in and sorted through the wiring, and found two male jacks that she connected into the suits input and output sockets at the back of the computer, and while she was back there she also hooked up the helmet audio-visual plugs, to save hassle. The CD-ROM whizzed into life and the title screen came back up. She couldn't quell her shaking as she hovered the mouse cursor over 'Begin', and clicked. A little window faded onto the screen, asking her to put the helmet on and stand by. This 'helmet' consisted of a hard skullcap with electrodes on the interior, and a full face covering down to the neck, of the same fabric the suit and gloves were made of. The material was so thin, it didn't restrict breathing. Two eye pieces showed the same image, making it appear 3 dimensional. All she could see right now was 'Please Stand By' in flashing bold red lettering on a black background. Small ear pieces were on the inside of the cloth, and she fastened those into her ears. Now she was fully covered from head to toe in this strange material, ready to be transported to the DBZ realm in full-consciousness.
As if to delay the process further, the standby notice vanished, and was replaced by some more words.
'Initiating Brain Scan' Numbers wound their way up, ascending to 100% after what feels like ages. Her head tingled continuously after 15%.
'Loading sensory data', accompanied by a blue progress bar creeping from one side of her vision to another.
'Loading neural data', and another one wormed its way across, slowly. How many of these were there going to be?
'Loading A/V data'. Those ones didn't take as long. She hoped it doesn't turn out too blocky. Her mind deduced that was all that needed to be loaded up, but she was wrong, the worst was yet to come.
'Loading intro'. And this progress bar wasn't a worm it was more like a snail. It inched (millimetred) its way across her field of vision at a painful rate, almost stalling at around 90%. Sarah almost thought it had crashed, but it counted up one percent ever 30 seconds, and in a five minute eternity it was complete, and what followed was an excitement-inducing black screen of nothingness.. (you know… like before a movie starts..) She got the impression of floating in space as the pressure points neutralised the chair.
Suddenly a deep bass grabbed her brain and squeezed it. It's starting!
The little VDU screens were filled with colour and the earphones filled with pumping industrial/electronic beats as the intro began, and Sarah was flung into a bright world of defined shades. She could hardly contain her glee as she 'flew' above Chikyuu, fast as anything. Landscapes, sea and forest skimmed below her. She would be understating things if she said she was disappointed when it faded out, to show a short scene of people walking down a busy street, some with the heads of tigers, pandas and dogs.
** Yup, it's definitely the DBZ realm ** The angle moved (or did her head) up to the skies, where two round shiny objects dropped towards the ground, and it faded out before they crashed into the buildings. The crunch of distorted guitars launched into her headphones as she felt various jabs at her ribs.
** AWESOME!! And this is just the intro! ** She thought as she was being caught in the middle of a sparring session between Yamcha and Krillin on Kami's lookout. She swore that Krillin yelped as a punch connected before it faded out. At once, the churning guitars ceased, replaced by ambient electronic music in chord progressions produced by gods, as she witnessed, first hand, all the glorious colours of a DBZ sunset over Roshi's island, with steadily swaying palms and the silhouette of Kame House. Waves roared in her ears, in stereophonic sound, as they crashed against the beach. The ambient music became slower, and the tinklings of electronic chimes set above a harmonious mid-range chorus, helped paint the final picture, and if she was in any state to comment, she would have wondered if it was blatant corporate advertising. There, bathed in moonlight, were the grounds of the huge Capsule Corporation complex, complete with its dome-shaped mansion with a balcony. The detail was so precise that she could see the furnishings inside the well-lit house. Then everything faded to black, and the moon was the last thing to disappear as the music died out quietly, leaving her in a dark floating silence.
A crisp, friendly female voice spoke into her earphones.
"Hello, and welcome to 'Universe!' brought to you by Capsule Corporation. If you received this game by mysterious circumstances, you already know what Capsule Corporation is, and what we do. The question is, how did we get it out to you? The answer, in all its simplicity is not what you would think. In fact, by the time this game starts, you won't know of us at all, until you are integrated into the game. To be brief, and I pardon the pun, you're current knowledge of DBZ, which we have found to be quite vast, will be erased temporarily during your 'life' inside the game.
Her body tensed up, and she couldn't believe what she was hearing. How would she be able to—
"Oh don't worry, as you might have figured out by now, the game has scanned your brain, and various clues will be set among the play, whether or not you pick them up may make all the difference; some will produce drastic changes throughout gameplay. Also through scanning your thoughts, we have discovered the type of character you would like to be. Unfortunately, immortal universal denizens are out of the question. However we have created a similar likeness, but unfortunately due to the total lack of challenge, it will be impossible to replicate your choice of character. Do not distress though, your memories of DBZ and the existence of your character will return to you shortly after termination of your gaming session."
That relieved her slightly, but something else niggled at her… surely there must be—
"The rules are thus: Each session spans for 24 hours of time within the game. After those hours are up, you cannot play again for a minimum of two hours your time. This safeguard is included to prevent you from becoming totally addicted and forgetting you have a life outside this gaming universe. You can die by any causes, just like anyone else of your ki level. Because of your chosen race, each time you die, you will come back a little more stronger than before, of course this depends on the nature of your death, your ki-level at the time. Style of death may also be a contributing influence to your ki. Ki points are generalised. As well as being a measure of your power, they count as hit/attack points, and experience points combined. If you learn a new skill, whether it is fighting or life skill, the points increase in specific increments regarding level of skill, and efficiency of learning. You won't know your exact ki level unless you find something or someone, who can detect an exact level. The only way you will know it exists, is that you can feel it. That in itself is not an easy task. There isn't much else to say now, but good luck, and… don't be a hero too soon. Are you ready to continue?"
A million and one thoughts and questions raged through Sarah's brain. And maybe a hint of apprehension? She knew what it was like having her mind messed with…
** But that was with drugs… maybe this time it will be different? I guess I won't know unless I find out. OK, I'm ready as I'll ever be. **
A hypnotic black and white spiral whirled in her vision.
**CHEESE!!! HA! Like that'll work! And they call this hi-tech… Pfft. Round and round it goes! Wooo it's a Zebra Pizza!!! Blah… so boring… but still it spins.. and spins… and spinzzzzz… **
Into a buzzing psuedo-sleep.
******** ************
OK it took me AGES of thinking and various dead-ends and writers block just to finish this chapter… but I REALLY REALLY wanted to do this, so I sat in front of the computer till I could sit no more, then I stood, and thought for a bit, and a few days passed… Then I began getting ideas. I have a good feeling about this fic… anything can happen…. Yes… ANYTHING!!!!