Because it worked so well the first time, am I right?
Jaal listened curiously at the sound of shouting coming from behind Liam's closed door. "What is going on in there?" he asked.
Cora sighed, already more than a little frustrated with the loud noise while she tried to work. "The boys got a new video game and they haven't stopped playing it since."
He looked back at the door when everyone inside cheered loudly as whoever was playing accomplished some kind of in-game goal. "Does this one also manipulate you emotionally?" he inquired.
"Hell if I know," she shrugged. "I've never played it."
Jaal moved in close enough for the door to automatically open. A bowl of popcorn leftover from movie night was suddenly flipped over the arm of the couch when Gil, Liam, Scott, and Peebee all jumped and screamed at the same time at a jump scare.
"Aw crap, this game is friggin' hard!" Scott said in annoyance as he passed the controller on. "I keep getting eaten by zombies!"
Peebee smiled when she saw they had visitors. "Hey guys! Why don't you come in and play with us?"
Cora looked at Liam's old, beaten up couch with distaste. "I wouldn't sit on that couch if the alternative were made of fire," she said dismissively before returning to her previous task.
"Jaal! Come play," Liam invited. He scooted over and patted the cushion with one hand to entice him to sit down.
"Well...alright," Jaal nodded. "But only for a little while." The second he sat down, Peebee shoved an energy drink in one hand and Gil passed the controller to the other. "Uh...maybe I should just watch someone else play," he said as he tried to pass the controller back.
"We've all had a turn except for you. Now play!" Peebee insisted.
"Okay, well, uh, what do I do?" he asked.
"Well you want to go through that door," Scott instructed. "Uh no, you push the little stick thing. Okay, now hit the button with the X on it. The other X. No, it's that blue one..."
"...and you just jumped out the window and died," Liam stated as the words You are dead appeared on the screen.
"I do not understand this game," Jaal said while Scott reached over and hit the button for him to restart. "What is the goal? What are you trying to accomplish?"
"Well you're a demon hunter stuck on a derelict space station full of ghosts and zombies and shit, and you're trying to rescue your girlfriend who's been kidnapped by a demon before time runs out and she gets dragged to Hell," Gil explained.
Jaal looked mildly disturbed. "Do all video games utilize cheap emotional manipulation to make you care about the plot?" he asked.
"Well she's kind of a bitch, so the game lets you pick whether you want to actually save her or not," Peebee replied. "And there's three endings but they're all kind of the same and you die in most of them, so after three games and all the amazing story it's kind of a letdown."
"I heard they're planning another sequel though," Liam added. "It's supposed to be the first game developed in the Andromeda system, but it's a completely different team since the old one kind of stayed behind in the Milky Way, and it's not really a direct sequel to the original trilogy, so we'll have to wait and see if it's anything worth playing."
"Oh! The game's back on! Quick, run down that hall!" Scott instructed. "Yeah...you push the sticky thing."
"I'm running. What do I do now?" A loud howl came from the game and everyone started screaming.
"IT FOUND YOU!" Scott shouted. "RUN!"
"GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE! GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!" Gil started screaming frantically while whacking Jaal on the shoulder as though that'll make him move faster.
"What?! What's going on?!" Jaal shouted in confusion. Not knowing what to do, he just started mashing the buttons.
"IT'S GAINING ON YOU!" Peebee shouted as she shoved his other shoulder.
Everyone started screaming at once while Jaal kept shouting "What do I do?! What do I do?!" over and over until another You are dead screen popped up over a lovingly detailed depiction of Jaal's character having his intestines torn out by some kind of mutilated animal looking thing. A simultaneous sigh of disappointment swept through the room.
The door flew open and Cora stood on the other side. "Guys, seriously? What the hell is going on?" she asked.
"Jaal got eaten by a werewolf," Scott replied nonchalantly.
"Well can he maybe get eaten by a werewolf without so much fanfare?" she requested. "Kallo and Suvi just sent me a request to check and see if you guys are alright!"
"Tell Kallo everything's fine and that I replaced the ship's thruster coils with paper clips and Slinkies," Gil requested.
Cora rolled her eyes. "Just keep it down, please?" she requested before leaving.
"So, you want someone else to play now?" Liam asked Jaal.
"No! I want you to show me how to get through that door!" Jaal replied stubbornly.
Scott and Gil both shared a look behind the angaran's back. "We've created a monster," Scott said.
"So tell me how to kill it!" Jaal insisted.
Liam groaned and buried his head under a pillow when the room glowed crimson as the You are dead screen popped up once more. "Don't you think it's time to give the game a break, Jaal?" he asked. "Everyone else is in bed except for you."
Jaal was now sitting on the floor in front of the couch where Liam attempted to sleep for the night. Several empty energy drink cans lay on the floor next to him and he'd since consumed the last of the snacks.
"I am not quitting until I find out the trick to slaying that...uh...what is that thing?"
Liam poked his head out from under the pillow just long enough to see what it was. "That's a wendigo," he replied.
"Yes, as soon as I slay that wendigo!" he replied stubbornly.
Liam gathered up his blanket and pillow and started off for the backseat of the Nomad. "Fine...just don't stay up all night," he yawned.
Finally he could get some sleep without the frustrated sound of muffled screaming coming from Jaal as he tried and failed to be courteous of the fact that he was succumbing to Gamer's Rage while his best friend tried to sleep on the couch behind him. His eyes shot open when he heard something jump up on the front of the vehicle and saw Jaal peering in through the windows.
"HOW DO I KILL THE BIG THREE HEADED THING?!" he shouted to be heard through the thick armor of the Nomad. Liam groaned and leaned over to the dash, hitting a button and watching the radiation shutters cover the Nomad's exterior windows. "BUT I'M STUCK!" he could faintly hear Jaal whining from the other side. Liam rolled over and enjoyed a peaceful sleep for the rest of the night.
Scott and Vetra both shouted in surprise when the door unexpectedly flew open. "Jaal! Seriously?!" Scott said angrily when the angaran just stood there, seemingly oblivious to the intimacy he just interrupted.
"How do you kill the thing?!" he shouted frantically as though his life depended on this. "I can't find Peebee, Liam won't tell me, and Gil just threw a wrench at me when I asked him!"
"Gee, it's almost like some people don't like being disturbed at random in the middle of the night," Scott replied.
Vetra shifted uncomfortably under her partner at their newfound audience. "Uh, Jaal, we're kind of in the middle of something..." she pointed out.
"But this is important!" he insisted.
"Oh my god, go away!" Scott said before throwing a pillow at him. It struck the wall just inches from his face.
"Alright, fine!" Jaal replied, fleeing the room back into the hall.
Scott suddenly realized that Vetra was glaring at him. "I uh...really thought I locked the door that time, Vetra. My bad?"
There was another high pitched shout of surprise from the bathroom next door. "Is Peebee in here?" they could hear Jaal ask.
"Jaal! I'm taking a shower! Go away!" Cora scolded him.
"But it's important!" they heard him shout back.
"He isn't still playing that game is he?" Scott asked with concern.
"Well he drank my entire supply of energy drinks, so he could probably be playing straight through next Tuesday," Liam groaned.
"Huh. Well now I know how he managed to get through a locked door into the bathroom last night," Cora replied. "He probably just vibrated his molecules right through the wall."
Lexi seemed a little more concerned than the rest of them did. "I think maybe I'll go and pay him a visit. That much caffeine and sugar with so little sleep can't be good for his heart."
"Well in that case, you might want this," Liam replied. He reached under the breakfast table and retrieved a huge stick.
"Why do I want that?" she asked.
"You'll see when you get there..."
If Jaal had anymore caffeine at this point, his heartbeats would outmatch a hummingbird's wings. His head turned at the sound of the door unlocking and he hissed like a dying vampire as the light from the hallway shown brightly in his eyes.
"Um, Jaal, I think you need to turn off the game now," Lexi said when she saw the state he was in.
"No! I'm not done!" Jaal shouted back.
"Jaal, give me the controller." She tried to take it from him, causing him to thrash around and swipe at her like an angry badger. "How many energy drinks did you have? He's practically gone feral!" Lexi complained as she fought him for the controller.
"Uh..." Liam looked at the discarded cans all over his floor. "I think about thirty..."
Jaal was flattened on his stomach on the ground, the controller in his outstretched hands in front of him, while Lexi lay across his back and pinned him down. "No! I've almost beaten it! I'm almost...I...almost..." His own protest was interrupted by loud snoring. Liam gave him a poke with the stick and Lexi gently nudged the controller out of his hands, but he was out like a light.
"What just happened?" Liam asked.
"Sugar crash," Lexi explained. "I've seen this before. I call it 'Caffeinated Gamer Syndrome'. He'll probably be out for a while..."
"How long is a while?"
"Hard to say. I've never seen it affect an angaran before," she admitted. "Also his bladder felt a little full when I was trying to hold him down, so you might want to throw some towels down or something."
"Oh. Ew..." Liam replied.
So the game they were playing is pretty much just an amalgamation of Bloodborne, Dead Space, and Shadows of the Damned, just in case you were curious.