Death: By Video-Game Character
Chapter Two: Star spoiler
Last time, our intrepid (?) hero (?) had been devoured by a Boo, and live on TV at that. Was that his final broadcast?
And no, the following does NOT have a spoiler for any given video-game. It's an inside joke. Forget it.
The camera fizzles to life once more, this time in a very different setting; compared to the quiet dullness of the last "setting," this time we find ourselves looking at a bar, an array of… "interesting"-looking patrons milling about in the background, while in the foreground is…
… GASP! …
… Jace, sitting at the bar, looking slightly the worse for wear with a bandage around his head, but altogether okay. In fact, he's nowhere NEAR as dead as we thought he'd be. Why is that, exactly?
"Well," he says, leaning forward on his crossed arms, "I'm back… and I'm not dead. Not really, anyway. Y'see, while I DID get eaten by a Boo, the funny thing about Boos is… they're ghosts! And being insubstantial really doesn't do much for letting them actually hurt you… at least, not if you are neither a short plumber nor any of his aquaintences. It turns out I just passed out from the shock… and from the mild concussion I received when I fell through the Boo and hit the floor. The carpet did nothing to soften the concrete beneath it."
He gingerly touches the bandage, and winces. "Ow," he remarks.
"And so," he continues, "I'm here, in a bar at the far end of the galaxy. Why? Well, I figured that I picked the safest place ever to hide in the first time, and it got me eaten. The theory, then, would go that since a dive bar at the far end of space is OBVIOUSLY a bad place to be, it would – in my case – be the ACTUALLY safest place to go."
Leaning back a bit on his bar-stool, he grins. "So, I'm thinking I could use a drink before I…" There's a crash off to one side, and his fox-ears twitch as he cranes his neck in that direction. The ruckus continues, and he seems to be trying to look over or through the crowd before turning back to the camera. "Seems like SOME people already had a few drinks too many," he quips, laughing a bit; in the background, someone calls out, "YOU!" The voice seems somewhat slurred, but any further words are drowned in the electric zing of several laser-bolts, crashing into the completely-unaware Jace with accompanying crackles and throwing him – or, apparently, his new corpse – toppling off the barstool.
Into the frame strides Wolf O'Donnell, of Starfox fame, who has apparently mistaken our intrepid star for a certain Starfox himself. O'Donnell, already three sheets to the wind, laughs briefly over the corpse of our unfortunate friend, before seating himself on the barstool and demanding a bourbon chaser. The camera-picture fizzles to itself, then goes black.
TBC