Chapter 5
"Disseminate? But there's only sixteen of us, including Monokuma!" Naegi pointed out.
"Yeah. But there are several anti-social people here." Leon said.
"Seriously?"
"Have you not met Yamada and Fukawa yet?"
"Point taken. So, Leon, where are you going to go?"
"Probably see if I can't get that trapdoor in the Incinerator Room unlocked."
"What?"
"You didn't notice that?"
"No. I mean, I peeked inside the Incinerator Room but I didn't really look around too much in there."
"Well, I'm going to try and do that. And, then, after that, I'm going to the gymnasium again."
"Again?"
"That's where we spent most of our time after we finished exploring the first floor, trying to figure out how Monokuma did what he did."
"I see."
"And you?"
"I'm probably going to go rummage through the desks in the classroom. They're may be something in there."
"Like what?"
"Like something that would tell us how long we were out in between when we got here and now. My guess is these metallic coverings didn't go up in a matter of minutes. So the question is how long were we unconscious? Hours? Days? Weeks?
"I doubt it's weeks since we first arrived here."
"So you say, but there's a psychotic mechanical teddy bear telling us to murder each other."
"So Naegi, what do you plan to do when you get out of here?" Leon asked.
"Leon, you're seriously asking that question. Are you trying to jinx me?" Naegi commented.
"Well, if anybody can overcome that jinx, it would be you. After all, you are the Luckster."
"Fair enough."
"So what are you going to do?"
"First, I'm going to eat all of my favorite foods. I'm going to sleep in my own bed. And then I'm going to marathon the television shows I missed. And then I'm going to burn through my favorite video games."
"Sleep?"
"Yeah, dude. You think we're going to get restful sleep in here?... And that's not anywhere what you meant, was it?"
. Leon chuckled. "Wow, dude."
"Yeah, yeah, very funny. You and your mind."
"Actually, I was thinking you'd end up in the role of Maizono's teddy bear. But okay. If you want to go there, by all means."
"Really, Leon? In this situation?"
"Hey, it's not in my place to dictate the pacing of your 'relationship.'"
. Naegi groaned. What was he going to do about Maizono anyway?
"Leon, what makes you think I'm going to end up as Maizono's 'teddy bear'?"
"Between the two of you, who is more likely to have the luxury mattress?"
"I hate you so much right now."
"What type of mattress would Maizono have anyway?" Leon smirked.
"I hope you realize how WEIRD this sounds out of context."
"Yeah, but it's still generally amusing."
"If you say so."
. Meanwhile, Maizono opened her eyes. She missed her tempurpedic mattress back home. "Today's a new day." Her stomach grumbled. "But first, breakfast." She rolled over and fell out of bed face first. "Ow." She was sure Monokuma was watching, and laughing its ass off on the other end of the cameras. She rolled over and faced the ceiling.
"Maybe, Naegi has already found a way out?" She thought. "Nah. I may like the guy, I may like the guy a lot. But he's not that good." She laid out spread-eagle on the floor and closed her eyes again. "Then again, good ol' Naegi is probably not the male version of a Mary Sue. He may be resistant to being punched, and he may be quick-witted, but that is something he is most decidedly not."
She put on her clothes and walked to the cafeteria. Celeste was there, sipping tea.
"Hello, Celeste."
"Hello, Maizono."
"How long have you been here?"
"I've only been here for about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes."
"I see."
"Have you figured out anything, Celeste?" Maizono asked.
"Not yet, I'm going to go explore the first floor again after I've finished sipping my tea."
"Do you have any place in mind to explore?"
"Not yet. I was thinking I was just going to poke around."
"I see."
"What's your connection to Naegi?" The question appeared to come so suddenly.
"I'm sorry?"
"What. Is. Your. Connection. To. Naegi?"
"I. Went. To. Middle. School. With. Him. Why are you asking?"
"Because I got a look at your face yesterday when Oowada nearly knocked Naegi out. I could seriously see you murdering someone for Naegi's sake. If someone threatened Naegi, I could see you grabbing a knife from the kitchen and stabbing the attacker in the heart."
"Celeste... don't say stuff like that!"
"I'm saying it because I'm curious. Does Naegi really mean that much for you?"
"Celeste?"
"Yes?"
"Do you remember how Monokuma had said "From now on, this school will be your whole world.' and how we need 'to cut ties with the outside world'?"
"I vaguely recall hearing that first sentence. And yeah. Okay."
"There's your answer."
"There's my answer? How intriguing, you are" Celeste paused for a moment. "very deft at avoiding questions."
"It's part of the career."
Celeste chuckled. "It's part of mine as well."
"Those metallic coverings are really an eye-sore." Maizono said, trying to change the topic.
"You could almost call it 'Metallic Madness'". Fujisaki had entered the cafeteria.
"What's 'Metallic Madness'?" Celeste said.
"It's the final level in the SEGA CD game Sonic CD, one of the only decent games for the system." Fujisaki replied.
"You're interested in video games, Fujisaki?" Maizono asked.
"What kinda of a question is that? I am the programmer." Fujisaki replied. "Of course, I would be interested in video games."
"What types of video games are you most interested in?" Celeste asked.
"Platformers." Fujisaki said. "Actually, anything except dating sims, to be honest."
"Why not dating sims?" Maizono asked.
"I don't know. I've just never been able to work around with them." Fujisaki replied.
"Do you have a favorite platformer?" Celeste said.
"Sonic 3 & Knuckles because of its unique properties."
"Why?" Maizono asked. "What unique properties does Sonic 3 & Knuckles have?"
"Well, Sonic 3 was originally released in May of 1994, and Sonic & Knuckles was released in October 1994."
"Sounds like a cheap money-making scheme to me." Celeste said.
"Well, it was more to work around technical limitations." Fujisaki replied. "Sonic & Knuckles contained a cartridge slot that allowed you to insert any SEGA Genesis cartridge released on it, and depending on the cartridge you got new games."
"Really? Such as?"
"Well, if you put Sonic 3 on it, you got Sonic 3 & Knuckles. If you put Sonic the Hedgehog 2, you got the ability to play as Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog 2."
"Let me guess. If you put the original game in you got the ability to play as Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog 1, am I right?" Celeste snarked,
"Actually, no, you got Blue Sphere."
"Blue Sphere? What's that?"
"It's the special stage for Sonic 3 & Knuckles."
"Okay. So what do you have to do, collect Maizono's irises?"
"Hey!" Maizono sounded indignant.
"Well, your irises are almost exact same shade of blue. I'm serious. It's almost scary. But, actually you were supposed to turn the blue spheres into red spheres. Turn all of the blue spheres into red spheres, you get an Emerald. Collect all the rings and you get a perfect. But you automatically use lose if you touch a red sphere. And contrary to the mistake of many newbies and idiots, Knuckles does not collect the red spheres either." Fujisaki commented.
"I see." Celeste said. "And what happens if you didn't have a Sonic cartridge to put onto Sonic & Knuckles?"
"That'd be a ridiculously contrived situation."
"Why so?"
"Sonic 1 came bundled with the SEGA Genesis. Later, Sonic 2 came bundled with the game instead. So the idea of someone owning a SEGA Genesis with Sonic & Knuckles, but not another Sonic cartridge is almost contrived."
"I see. But still what happens if you put on a non-Sonic cartridge anyway?"
"Well that actually depends on the file size."
"What?"
"Yeah, Sonic & Knuckles employed a bit of programming where it read the last 2 MB of the cartridge you put on top."
"Only 2 MB?" Maizono said. "That's tiny."
"It was the 1990s. Anyway, Sonic & Knuckles has the honor of being one of the first cases of backwards compability in video game history, as well as in-game patching."
"In-game patching?" Celeste said.
"Yes. 'Knuckles in Sonic 2 contained some in-game patching. It patched in Knuckles' sprites and button mappings. It added things such as 1-UP boxes in Chemical Plant zone. It also patched some collision data in Casino Night Zone."
"I see."
"Yep. But to answer your original question about what happens if you put a non-Sonic game on Sonic & Knuckles. It depends on how large the cartridge is. If it's over 2 MB, it just runs Sonic & Knuckles. If it's under 2 MB like most cartridges released before Sonic & Knuckles were, then you get some randomly generated Blue Sphere stages, not as much as the full set from Sonic 1, but you get a couple dozen."
"This is all very interesting." Maizono said. "I had no idea that programming could contain so much."
"Yes, indeed, it is. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go get something to eat." Fujisaki got up from the table.
"Mountain Dew and ... nacho-flavored Doritos for brunch?" Celeste said. "That can't be healthy."
"Oh, it isn't." Fujisaki calmly replied. "But it's my comfort food."
Maizono sweat-dropped. Fujisaki was a little bit weird.
"So, Fujisaki, you mentioned Sonic CD?" Maizono asked. "Do you like that game as well?"
"Yeah. It focuses more on platforming and exploration than the typical Sonic speed, but it's still pretty good. It's widely considered a cult-classic along with Knuckles Chaotix for the SEGA 32-X."
"32-X? What's that?" Maizono asked.
"It was one of the multiple add-ons SEGA used for the Genesis/Megadrive. It flopped, hard. Codenamed Project Jupiter, it was meant to compete with the Atari Jaguar. (Hehehe... Jaguar..) Since it was released only months before the SEGA Saturn, so there was no reason for any developer to create games for it.
Looking pensive, with a finger near the mouth, Fujisaki continued. "I suppose if it and the SEGA CD add-on had been released earlier in the Genesis/Megadrive lifespan, it might have worked. "
"How so?" Celeste asked.
"Well, they could have developed 16-bit versions of games that up-scaled to 32 bit of you inserted them into the 32-X add-on. But perhaps the idea would have been enough to attract sales for the system. 32-Bit versions of Sonic the Hedgehog games would have been really good from a marketing standpoint, especially compared to the 16-bit Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World."
"Fujisaki, I have no idea what in the world you're talking about." Maizono admitted. "16-bit. 32-bit, what?"
"Well, in order to create games, you need objects, which were originally called sprites. 16-bit refers to the amount of different colors you could use on objects. 16-bit gave you the ability to use sixteen different colors for the sprites. 32-bit enabled you to have 32 different colors. By the time '64'-bit came around though it was the early stages of 3-D with polygons." Fujisaki continued to ramble on and on about how some franchises suffered with the polygon ceiling.
"You could only have a certain amount of colors so what?" Maizono said.
"You want a direct example of that?" Fujisaki said.
"Sure."
"Knuckles' socks."
"His socks?"
"Yes, his socks. Originally Knuckles the Echidina was supposed to wear green socks in the cut-scenes. But because it messed with the color palette, so they went with yellow socks instead."
"I see."
Fujisaki returned to rambling about polygon consoles.
"The SEGA Saturn used quadrilaterals for its geometrical polygons whereas most systems used triangles."
Maizono looked perplexed.
"Fujisaki, I am not a geometry expert. What's the different between quadrilateral and triangular polygons?"
"Well, quadrilateral polygons allow for smoother surfaces. Triangular polygons allow for more terrain variation in terms of the landscape of levels. Though I suppose you could turn a quadrilateral into a triangular by bringing two corners of the shape extremely close together."
. Maizono put her head on the table. Fujisaki's long-winded talking was too complex for her to understand, and the programmer still wasn't done.
"Well, the Nintendo 64-DD was more of a commercial failure than any of SEGA's add-ons for the Genesis. It only had nine games ever released for the system, and it was released at the end of the Nintendo 64's life-cycle, by which time the next batch of consoles such as the Dreamcast had been slotted to be created."
"The Dreamcast? Who thought that was a good name for a console?" Celeste snarked.
"SEGA."
"Of course."
"The Dreamcast died so young!"
"Uh, Fujisaki, what are you talking about?" Maizono questioned.
"Despite having superior hardware specs and being released the earliest, the Dreamcast lost out to the GameCube, the original Xbox, and the PlayStation. It's been validated nowadays, and is a favorite of the Internet."
"If the Dreamcast had superior specs and was released first, why did it lose out?" Celeste said, twirling her hair. "Seems to me it should have been won."
"Stupid pirate protection." Fujisaki muttered furiously. "And how expensive Shenmue was."
"What?"
"Dreamcast games were so ridiculously easy to pirate, it wasn't funny. And Shenmue was so expensive that in order to make back its' budget, everybody would have had to purchase it twice."
"Seriously? A game had that kind of budget? When? But the pirating thing... Okay. That makes sense."
"The original Shenmue was released in 1999 in Japan and 2000 everywhere else. It got rave and almost near-perfect reviews." The programmer went back to eating Doritos and drinking Mountain Dew. Fujisaki resolved to go on a binge of Dreamcast titles after this was all over.
A little while later, a hooded figure entered the cafeteria. There was a pressing question that needed to be asked...
"Why is Fujisaki eating Doritos and drinking Mountain Dew?"
- AUTHOR'S NOTE: Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 were originally one chapter. But it kept expanding and expanding. So I ended up pulling a Sonic 3 & Knuckles. (Chapter 6 isn't quite finished at the time of posting.) I also had great enjoyment writing for the introverted Fujisaki. And if Asahina can mention Charles Barkley and Shaq and Kirigiri can mention Ellery Queen, it's not out of the question for Fujisaki to know gaming consoles. Long live the Dreamcast!
- AUTHOR NOTE: Please go ahead and leave a review or recommend this to fellow fans. I want to hear the reactions from readers.