Reboot ½

It was a great day in Mainframe, and the guardian Bob was to thank, but really, it was all Glitch. One a scroll over the park, Bob heard the warning for the User's game. "Warning, incoming game! Warning, incoming game!"

Bob was going to be near it as it happened, so were Dot, Enzo, Frisket, Phong, some unassuming dispensable Binomes, and Mouse.

The first thing they noticed about the game was that they could not move around well and in fact the graphics had no animation.

Enzo struggled with moving, but gave up as his body could only change different poses as he faded in and out of them. Right now he was paused in an angry hands on him pose.

"This animation is on the Dire Straits!" Enzo complained. Bob had already rebooted into a teacher and stood with his back to the black board.

"Money for nothing," Bob announced as he faded to looking at Glitch. "The stats of the game say that the user is gaining money with a cheat. It also appears this is not an amateur attempt of programming a game. This is not good."

"What?" Enzo said.

"Well, not all games are under regulation and sometimes not rated right." Bob explained. "Some games are just for adults, and some games aren't for anyone."

"Hope to get a good reboot," Enzo tapped his icon on his backwards red cap. He dissolved into boy with a yellow leopard patterned bandana around his head and a yellow sweater above green pants. "I think I have a hang of this, let's go!"

"That's a broom closet," Bob mentioned to Enzo who lifted a pan of water that fell on him turning him into a small black pig sitting in a pile of his clothing. "You are Hibiki Ryoga, age 16, rival to Saotome Ranma as he skipped out on a fight with you when you lost your way to the destined position that you chose to settle your score with Ranma for he stole all of your buns at lunch. When you heard that Ranma was training with his father at the Curse Springs in China, you went on another long journey of misdirection until you got there to be attacked at the springs by a Panda and a red head girl. You were caught off guard and could not help but fall into the Curse Spring linked to a tragic story of a black pig that died in that spring. Having finding Ranma again in his unwelcome situation to be promised to many finances, you had fallen in love with Tendo Akane who was promised to Ranma so they could continue their fathers' inheritance of the dojo of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. Ranma and his father are also cursed from falling in a spring. Ranma turns into a red headed girl, the same who pushed you into the pool, even more reason to hate Ranma, and his father turns to a panda. It seems the user is Ranma, and his objective is to be the first in the couple to receive a kiss."

"Slow down," Dot said appearing to get into the room through the window. It instantly vanished to show Dot now with her short dark blue hair, stood in her light blue school uniform with a bulging skirt and a white dress t-shirt. "Why do I always have to end up in games like this?"

With her hands held high, an array of items appeared (hammer, microphone, and more) until it came to a yellow tea pot of boiling water that she put on Enzo. "The curse is made by pouring cold or room temperature water on the victim, but they will change back to their normal state. But, E-Chan will be better."

Enzo then was resorted back to a pig. Just then, Phong came in wearing a hand cloth over his head with a knot over his lips to hide his identity as he carried a sack of female underwear.

"Why is the detail in the animation so go?" Dot wondered and as Phong passed her, he raised his hand and her skirt rose up to show more of her light green leg. "ahh... PERVERT!"

From the junk pile that she used to get the hot and cold water, she picked up the hammer and smashed Phong into her character.

"Dot? How could you," Phong moped in a corner into a pair of pink panties. "Good wasn't I?"

"You were faking it?" Dot asked skeptically towering over him with her arms crossed. A fire started in her eye and the environment flashed with a glimpse of a dangerous inferno. "BECAUSE, if you weren't!"

"Take it easy Dot, I have played this game before, but it is also different from other times as well." Phong mentioned. "Would you explain, Bob."

"Certainly," Bob said, "Glitch has informed me that the user has gotten money for nothing, and this indicates that the user is using a trainer. So, we will have to keep with our character's vices and behavior so as not to promote the User to use this. In reality, main characters are programmed to be very easy for the User to kiss, but to stay true to the show and watch the cut scenes and unfolded story; the User may continue on with this game and hold off his victory for some entertainment. That is how these games are made, to provide an impossible task to not win in some way. It may as well have only one ending and we are going to be unwillingly dragged into situations that the real characters of the show would. This would include how Enzo has lost his sense of direction, but I can't really tell with Phong."

"Of course I'm acting," Phong knocked Bob over the head with his smoking pipe. "I wonder to whom the other sprites in the game have rebooted."

Megabyte sat in his room that was an altar for his two loves: Tendo Akane and the Red Haired User. In his blue kimono, he looked from picture to picture.

"Ah, thou sweet and glowing flower, Akane, you own my heart," he said, "but, Red Haired User, would I get a kiss from you, I may unlock the mysteries of the game called love."