Super SBURB Story, Book 1

by tortugaTerran

A Homestuck fan session with a slightly experimental format. Four young humans from a chilly American city begin a video game fated to destroy the planet, while the residents of the game world prepare for their arrival. The story plays out in a mosaic of lore-building vignettes that draw from gaming history.

3. Chapter 2: Worlds in Disharmony

Undercity .pce

untoDeliverance began pestering pastelPerfect at 12:27 PM

UD: Hey, the internet is on the fritz again.
UD: Mind resetting the router for me? :)

PP: np

Nico stops at the base of the stairs and turns around. The router is kept in the utility room in the back corner of the condo's basement. It's not the best place for getting signal throughout the house, but it's the only place the internet provider would let them hook it up due to something about their utility cables. Nico doesn't know the details; that's Brad's thing to deal with. If he gets the biggest bedroom, then he gets the brunt of responsibility for figuring out grown-up stuff like that. It basically makes him the Dad of the house.

Nico looks at the WiFi router, sitting on the top shelf of a rickety wooden tool cabinet next to their washer and dryer. There's an orange light on it, blinking steadily on and off. Nico's never seen that light before, and it creeps him out a little. A normal little red light is also blinking to indicate that there is no signal currently transmitting. Nico toggles the power switch on the back of the Skaianet brand router and waits for it to start back up again. The orange light remains unchanged.

A thick yellow cable leads from the router to a tall plywood panel attached to the cement-brick wall. The board is old and musty, covered in dark, moldy stains. Nico has ignored it for the entire time he's lived here, but now he's curious what's behind it. He's not exactly sure how it's attached, but he gives it a tug. Apparently, it was only wedged in place, because it pops right out, nearly falling over on top of Nico. He manages to slide it to the side.

Behind the board is a hole in the wall roughly the size of a doorway. Inside this hole is part of a sandstone tunnel. Nico peeks in and looks both ways. The tunnel leads into darkness on either end. Nico had heard stories about the Schnellburg Underground, a series of tunnels formerly used by bootleggers during prohibition which had been co-opted by the city for utility lines, but he thought they were only an urban legend. He never would have guessed there was an entrance to it in his own house all this time.

There's a scuffling sound somewhere down the tunnel. Nico's skin begins to crawl. "Hello?" he calls. He gets no answer and only manages to creep himself out even more. He slides the plywood back in front of the hole, then drags a bag of softener salt in front of it to hold it in place. It will probably fall over on Brad next time he comes down here to do some home maintenance stuff, but that's a problem for another time.

pastelPerfect began pestering untoDeliverance at 12:29 PM

PP: schnellburg underground is real

UD: Word?

PP: theres an entrance in our basement
PP: just found it
PP: we gotta check it out

UD: Uh-huh, sure.
UD: After my homework.

PP: ok ill make us some snacks
PP: wifi is back on too

The green light, indicating that the router in is working condition, has lit up now. The orange light has gone from blinking to solid. Nico has no clue what it means. He shrugs and goes upstairs for real this time.

SBURB is installing…
Estimated time remaining: 33 minutes

Scrambled ~ATH

The Dersite attack on Skaia had come suddenly. The jets were scrambled. The Harrier, not so Enigmatic as he took flight alongside a fleet of his comrades, headed into battle, his directive clear, his mind focused. He was still hours away from the revelation that would make him desert the battlefield. He was, as of this moment, still a loyal soldier to the army of Prospit.

The Dersite fleet was far ahead. Their great battleships loomed in the sky, massive machines of war that once would have been at home in the ocean rather than the sky, hanging there in exactly the way that bricks don't. Swarms of miniature Pawnfighters buzzed around them like clouds of deadly flies. Engagement with the enemy was still miles away, so it came as a great surprise when the first Prospitan Pawnfighter was taken out already.

It exploded like a firework, a great burst of red and black that sent golden shrapnel hurtling away in wide arcs described by the trails of black smoke spinning off of them. The Harrier checked his radar panels. Inbound bogies from below? It's a trap, then. Hundreds of Dersite homes on the surface below, built under the Fair Play Act that had allowed the two empires' citizens to share this expansive planet, had been only ruses. Roofs of barns slid away to reveal barrages of missiles at the ready. Another set of them launched, taking out two more Prospitan fighters. The Harrier broke formation, swooping low to get a better look at the artillery on the surface.

Those weren't farmers down below; those Dersites were dressed in military uniforms. Praying that the cosmos would have mercy on him if he was wrong, the Harrier engaged torpedoes. They plummeted, following the parabolic vector displayed in green on the glowing console. The payload struck true – a little red barn lit up in a hellish orange pyre, blowing away a wide swath of the false village around it. He was certain it wasn't hay and corn exploding like that. The Harrier picked up speed, pulling ahead of his clueless comrades to destroy more of the hidden antiaircraft missiles lying in wait. He decided, too, that that watertower looked suspiciously like a disguised refueling station and delivered another round of torpedoes. He'd never seen water look so flammable.

Suddenly, the missiles on the ground weren't the only danger to look out for. Hurtling out of the sky came a cluster of red spots with tails of black smoke, looking alarmingly like the debris from his obliterated comrades. He knew better, though. The Recknoning had begun, and they had been too complacent to predict its arrival. The tiny meteorites shot through the golden hulls of the Pawnfighters, punching through as easily as a hole-punch through paper. The ships wavered for a moment, then burst into flames, their combustible internals compromised.

The Harrier had a few tricks up his sleeve still. Dipping, weaving, rolling, and pivoting through the air like a bat out of Hell – that had been his expertise at the Academy. They called him foolish, said he was being a show-off, but it certainly wasn't to impress anyone now – it was to survive. Checking his tail, it seemed that fewer and fewer of his comrades were following him. It was proving to be a losing battle already.

Ahead, other squadrons of Prospitan Pawnfighters were engaging with the Dersite fleet. Below, the Harrier spotted something more interesting. Meteors struck the ground, destroying the intricate natural pattern of black-and-white checkered stone. But they made a pattern of their own. A circle, centered on a small hill. Was it a hill, or was there something more to it? He doubled back, took a low wide sweep around it to get a good look. There, like a rectangular cave, some kind of entrance.

His impact radar began to beep and he reacted quickly. More missiles sailed past him. Where were they coming from? On the hill, automated Rooket Launchers twisted and took aim again. More missiles shot from their gaping metal mouths. This time, the Harrier went on the offensive. Bright red laser blasts issued forth from the wing-mounted guns and intercepted the missiles, detonating them midair.

Tearing through the cloud of smoke, the Harrier headed for the tiny opening in the side of the hill. It would take precision steering, intense concentration. He eased back on the throttle as much as he dared to outpace the Rooket Launchers' auto-targeting systems. He cleared the opening of the hangar and immediately shifted to the braking thrusters. It was hard to see how much room he had while his eyes adjusted to the dark, but he saw it was a lot more than he expected. He came to a gentle, gliding stop down at the end of a long corridor-like hangar. It was time to see what was so special about this hill.

He emerged from the cockpit of his ship and clambered over the side, dropping onto the metal floor of the subterranean facility. There was only one door at the end of the corridor, and a sign above it bore a name that many would come to know and fear: SKAIANET. Handheld blaster at the ready, he activated the door panel and slipped inside.

There was one large computer terminal in the center of the room.

Current: Meteor_398236
Impact in 2:48 at 39.09348023 x -21.03948178

Next: Meteor_809331
Awaiting signal...

A machine sending signals to meteors, which impacted everywhere but here… This machine had to be responsible for the Reckoning, at least in part. Judging by the size of the impact ring surrounding the facility, there must be hundreds of these things hidden across the planet, all calling meteors to their location to rain down destruction upon the planet of creation.

Following a hunch, the Harrier called up a list of exceptions and printed it out. This might help him get to the bottom of things a little faster. Meantime, there was only one thing left to do: he had to destroy this facility. Stop the computer and you stop the meteors it's responsible for. He ran back to the ship, manually released the torpedo hatch, and gently wiggled one of the warheads out. He placed it at the base of the terminal, popped the detonator open, and did a little re-wiring. He raced back to his ship, backed down the hangar, and was out before the explosion gutted the inside of the facility.

Hardhat .pce

Kato steps away from the excited crowd. He can let Aris and that person who jumped out of a whole-ass window have their very special moment. Standing apart, staring in the opposite direction, Kato looks like the picture of coolguy aloofness behind his dark shades. While he may be incredibly cool, it's not like he's too cool to care. He cares a lot, sometimes.

Right now he cares about the bizarre scene unfolding on the skyline of the next block over. A half-finished building (which he's pretty sure is that new Skaianet bank) is now host to a small squadron of bizarre silhouettes, all of them either too large or too small to be exactly human. They skitter about between the beams, knocking down boards and sawhorses, throwing pipes and power tools, generally making a mess of things.

tuneHarmonic began pestering arousingAntagonism at 12:23 PM

TH: how's that game going?

AA: Still installing, but I've been reading some FAQs in the meantime…
AA: I need a break from work. 0_0

TH: anything interesting?

AA: I'll send you some links.
AA: Actually, though, there's some weird thing about a timer that starts as soon as the game is ready.
AA: We might be screwed if we wait until tonight to play. :/

TH: sounds lame but
TH: i think we're already playing.

AA: Yeah, you're right.
AA: That sounds fucking stupid.
AA: Stop watching anime and go do something.

Kato crosses the streets between his apartment and the construction site. As he approaches the corner of the lot, a huge jackhammer smashes into the sidewalk in front of him. The heavy machinery breaks and so do several large chips of the pavement. Whoever is up there is seriously clownin' right now. This doesn't look good.

Kato closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, centers himself for battle with his ninja concentration techniques. He dashes along the sidewalk, dodging a volley of tools scattered from an open toolbox, a bucket of paint, a cloud of loose screws, all by using a complex network of senses: the sound of the movements on the scaffolds above, the feel of the wind displaced by the falling objects, algebraic calculations to determine the objects' path and range, and the most important sense, that innate sixth sense that every warrior must have to detect the Killer Intent.

He rounds the corner, all detritus averted. The entrance to the lot is up ahead. Just got to adjust these shades quick-

A stray wrench strikes Kato on the head, and he passes out on the sidewalk.

Beagle .pce

acidReaction began pestering tuneHarmonic at 1:07 PM

AR: u there?

AR: hello

AR: something weird is happening here
AR: i might need to come to ur place

Kato doesn't answer his phone because he's unconscious. In his dreams, he relives an event from years ago.

tuneHarmonic began pestering acidReaction at 2:50 PM

TH: mom says we have to get bootsy ready for the vet

AR: great

TH: i'll get the kennel if u get the chair

AR: y do i have to do the hard job

TH: fine, switch

AR: k

Bootsy was a vicious old beagle. Half-blind, half-deaf, and with a chip on his shoulder from the days before he arrived at the rescue shelter, he was not going to do anything they wanted him to without putting up a fight. It turned out they needed both of them to wield chairs, backing the adamant and howling old dog slowly towards the open crate like lion tamers at a circus. His fear of the chair proved greater than the fear of the vet, however. Kato snapped the metal grate shut as soon as Bootsy was inside, narrowly avoiding a sharp little nip from the old dog's teeth.

"Poor guy," Ryui sighed, looking lovingly at the defeated hound. "He's been through a lot."

"Been through a lot of my patience, more like," Kato grumbled.

In spite of Kato's misgivings about the dog, he can't consider Bootsy anything less than a loyal member of the family. He misses that old bastard, if only just a tiny bit. He's got to go spread his ashes someday soon.

It's this conscious thought that eventually pulls Kato out of his concussive stupor and back to the world of the living.

Frogbert ~ATH

The white men arrived in their great rumbling machines and cleared a path through the forest for more of their great rumbling machines to travel down. Frogbert stood on a hilltop, watching them travel on in an endless line. Would they ever stop coming? It didn't seem so. They wanted Frogbert's forest, and so they had taken it. He and the other frogs were helpless to stop them. He gazed across the expanse of muddy shrubland to where his village lay. How much longer would it remain hidden to the invaders? He had to go back and warn them, no matter how dangerous his path seemed.

He stood in a ditch at the edge of the white men's path. Some of their machines were smaller, holding only a few men. Some were enormous, with metal plates like walls attached to the front. Others held boxes of unknown content. They all looked like death machines to Frogbert.

He saw what seemed like a gap and hopped out – no, too risky, he hopped back. The men rode very high in their machines. They would not see tiny Frogbert in front of them before he was squashed flat. If they did see him, maybe they wouldn't stop. It didn't seem like there was much that could or would make them stop.

Frogbert drew in a deep breath and hopped out again. One of the metal-walled machines bore down on him. He ran along its path, hoping to outrun it, but it was gaining. He hopped to the side, but here was another machine headed in the opposite direction. He hadn't noticed them beyond the first row, but there seemed to be just as many of them on this side. There was no time to wonder the purpose of this; he simply moved, hopping from place to place on pure instinct.

Mad with adrenaline, he emerged on the other side, unsure how he survived, and tumbled down the ditch to the muddy edge of a creek. He was nearly home free. There was still another trial before him, but now he was on his home territory. This type of survival is one he is familiar with.

He leapt from log to log as they lazily floated about on the surface of the muddy pool. He spotted what looked like a rock floating along, but he knew better – this was one of the Kappas common to these waters. It wanted Frogbert to land on its head, because the moment he did, it would dive down into the water, dragging him with, and eat him for lunch. This is the reason he normally avoids the water around these swampy parts.

With a few more well-timed hops (a natural specialty of any frog worth his flies), he reached the other bank. He was home free. He rushed through the shrubs and back to his frog village. No one was there. The village was empty, doors hanging open, belongings scattered about the ground. There were footprints in the mud, but they were no frog footprints. The white men were here.

Omukade ~ATH

In the high barrows and low gulleys of a wondrous pink and purple planet, there lived a civilization of newts. Each day, these newts would leave their little wooden villages in the highlands and tromp about in the mucky lowlands, tending to their mushroom farms. The mushrooms glowed brightly with many neon colors and provided food for the whole of each newt village. A newt's mushroom field was its pride and joy.

In one particular village lived a bright young newt, who went by the name of Newton. He loved to look at the mushrooms, compare their different colors and textures and tastes. He frequently wandered out past the edge of the mushroom paddy and explored the wilderness. He knew a great many things about the natural world, but the other newts didn't care. They called him lazy, said that he would rather goof off all day in the woods than help farm all these goddamn mushrooms. They didn't care for the knowledge he possessed, as it didn't seem pertinent to their tiny amphibian brains.

One day, Newton was out beyond the edge of his father's paddy, as usual, when he heard a rustling in the bushes. From the violet foliage rose a horrifying serpentine insect, its emerald green shell glistening in the sun, its red mandibles dripping with venom. It seemed to Newton that one of the grubs he and his fellow newts sometimes ate alongside their mushroom fare had grown to gigantic proportions and come looking for revenge. He turned and ran as fast as he could across the field.

In the tool shed at the other end, there was a bow and arrows that were used to keep pests out of the field. Although, Newton thought, there was no evidence that it would work against a pest of this size. The centipede had taken its time, weaving back and forth to see what Newton would do. Newton fired an arrow. The centipede darted away, but the arrow hit one of its tail segments, piercing the shell. The creature screeched and took off for the bushes.

Newton quickly ran into town and began to shout for help. The other newts all grabbed the sharpest farming implements they owned and raced out to the field to fend off the wild beast. However, the centipede had taken off, and there was no sign of it. The other newts returned home, grumbling that Newton was now wasting their time as well as his own.

The next day, Newton had to prove that the centipede had really been there. He set off into the woods, hoping to find a broken-off leg or a piece of its shell or even a spot of blood. As he was looking, though, the centipede rose from the bushes once again and chased him all the way back to the field! Newton had thought to bring the bow with him this time, but firing an arrow while running away is not a very easy feat. Newton managed to land one more arrow, but the centipede was not slowed.

Newton sprinted back across the field and into the town, shouting for help. The townsfolk quickly gathered, but when they rushed over to the field, the centipede was gone once again. "You're just like the little newt from that story, 'The Newt Who Cried Centipede'," they said.

Newton swore that he was telling the truth, that he would prove it to them. The next morning, Newton got up early, set himself up with the arrows, and waited for the centipede to come to him. As the day went on, Newton grew bored and fell asleep.

Not long after, he was startled awake. The centipede was here, in the field, chomping down on his father's mushrooms! Newton began to fire arrows. The first was a dire hit in its dark underbelly. The centipede began to snake away, but Newton hit it a few more times, firing indiscriminately into bug and mushroom alike. The creature began to screech and writhe as it accordioned up into a zig-zag death rigor. Newton jumped up, cheering. He had done it!

Newton walked proudly into the town and announced that he had slain the beast that had been stalking him for the past two days! The villagers followed him out to the field, grumbling all the time that it was going to be another letdown. When they arrived, the centipede's scrunched-up body was gone.

"You idiot," they shouted at Newton, "that's no dead centipede, that's a pile of giant Gushers!"

Newton was aghast to discover they were right.

"And not only that, boy," said his father, "but you've ruined my mushrooms, as well! You're a disgrace!"

The townsfolk began to boo and jeer at him, throwing rocks at Newton until he ran away from the village crying and never came back.

The End

Paratroops .pce

The order had been given to relocate all available troops to the battlefield. The Obedient Knight did as he was told, the Super King's request left unfulfilled in the face of fresh orders from the Knight's authoritative commander, ones he could not deny no matter how hard he tried to stutter about his previous responsibilities. He loaded into the dropship with his comrades.

It was a short journey to the surface of Skaia, but the ship would never complete it. The Obedient Knight rocked violently against the harness of his rumble seat as a missile tore through the cockpit of the shuttle. Just like in the training videos, he slapped the release button on his harness and removed the parachute from beneath his seat.

In a huddle of fellow soldiers all trying to do the same thing, the Obedient Knight slipped the parachute pack over his shoulders and raced over to the cargo door, which had already been pried open by another soldier. In a great, quivering mob, the soldiers plummeted out of the side of the flaming dropship like Rice Krispies from a cereal box. The Knight's heart pounded a terrified staccato in his chest, but he followed his orders and dove into the open sky.

As he plummeted, spinning aimlessly like a poorly made paper plane, he witnessed the terror of war all around him. The sky was filled with dark clouds like sinister fireworks where Pawnships had been blown to pieces. On the ground below, formerly peaceful farming villages were ablaze with uncontrollable fires, the result of carelessly dropped bombs or collateral hails of flaming shrapnel.

The Knight deployed his parachute, tugging the cord on his backpack. It unfurled with an airy pop, snapping him to an upright position. He glided over a lake, deceptively serene save for the scenes of the aerial battle reflected in its surface. Yanking on the cords of his chute, he guided himself gently to a safe landing on the far bank and discarded his pack.

He glanced back to see how the rest of his platoon was doing, which was not good. Some of them had run out of forward momentum over the lake and were slowly drifting into its watery clutches. The Knight glanced around quickly, spotted an abandoned fishing boat on the shore, and began to row it out.

He approached the center of the lake, where his comrades doggy-paddled for dear life. Unfortunately, swimming was not part of their military training, nor was it part of the lifestyle of the commoners on the thoroughly urbanized planet they called home. He yanked hard, pulling fallen soldiers into the boat with him. He did as much as he could, but it was not enough. He watched the corpses of the drowned soldiers float along the surface, their soggy parachutes splayed out behind them like sheets of golden algae.

Paddling back with the waterlogged rescues crammed into the little wooden dinghy, he saw another Pawnship begin to plummet towards them. He rowed faster.

Dumpy Oaf ~ATH

[I]

Kato awakens with a raging headache. Sleeping on the pavement can do that to you.

"Fuck, what happened?" he mutters to himself. There is a clamor above him. "Oh yeah, the little gremlins or whatever," he thinks. The smell of fire is in the air, and the sky is criss-crossed with strange contrail clouds.

tuneHarmonic began pestering tortugaTerran at 1:19 PM

TH: man wtf is happening today?

TT: Seriously!
TT: Everyone I saw on the way to work was acting suuuper weird.
TT: Is it a full moon or something? lol

TH: let me check

TT: I was joking lol

TH: oh, it's actually a new moon

TT: I keep feeling these tremors, too!
TT: Man, something fucked up is going on.
TT: I swear to god, it's gotta be a zombie apocalypse.

TH: remains to be seen
TH: i don't think these guys are zombies

TT: Huh? What guys?

TH: tell u later

There is a hollow rumbling as an orange plastic barrel comes rolling down a section of collapsed scaffolding. These guys have got to be joking. Time to show them who they're playing with.

Kato hops the next few barrels in a show of trained dexterity, just to stunt on these fools. By the time he reaches the second tier of scaffolds, though, he's done messing around. He accesses his STRIFE SPECIBUS, wields from it his SHITTY MALL KATANA, and cuts the following barrels clean in half. The severed hemispheres roll lopsidedly off the platform and onto the ground below.

He ascends the ladders quicker than his attackers can drop the next set of barrels. Down below, he hears a heavy clang. Black liquid pools onto the dirt ground of the construction lot and the sidewalk beyond, then quickly becomes covered in a barely visible veil of flame. Time to move.

He races across to the next ladder. Atop it, he catches a glimpse of his attacker for the first time. Boggling eyes, buck teeth, and a hulking, stooped figure. Its skin is a strangely fleshy silver, like the Tin Man or those guys who do the dancing robot routine on the street downtown, but covered in brown patches of peeling, crusty flakes like some kind of golem psoriasis. An INDICATOR BOX identifies it as a RUST OAF. An Indicator Box? That weird game must be finished installing.

The Rust Oaf catches a glimpse of Kato, as well. Caught in the act like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar, the Oaf scampers up the next ladder ahead of Kato. Despite, or perhaps because of, its larger-than human stature, it moves much quicker than Kato. It's onto the next level in the blink of an eye. Kato follows without hesitation.

Tentacle Turmoil .pce

Iggy plunged into the water with his ill-gotten gains, leaving the useless white soldiers of the golden fortress to quake with rage and shake their fists uselessly at him. It's a good thing iguanas know how to swim. There's nothing ahead for him but clear blue water, and a warm sandy beach to retire on. The sack of Boondollars tied around his waist could have fed five generations of iguanas (not that those colonizers were going to do anything like that with the money), but now it's all for him.

Colorful tropical fish dart out of the way as he approaches. Good, he thinks, they should be fleeing from the most feared thief of the Igawana Clan! To him, these waters were like his backyard. He grew up fishing in these waters, sunbathing on these rocks, gurgling his people's freestyle lizard chants beneath this warped, ever-roiling pattern of tie-dye teal clouds they call a sky. It was a big culture shock when the white people moved in, but what was even more shocking to him was the dark shape suddenly looming in the water ahead – the intruder in his own backyard.

It was long and moved in a slithery way, like a water snake or a long strand of seaweed. As he got closer, he saw it was a dark grey, with mottled brown spots. It reminded him of an eel, but he had never seen one so big before. It proved itself to be alive when it suddenly lashed out and coiled around a passing fish. The long tendril retreated back toward a rock shelf on the seabed. Iggy was so mesmerized watching it that he didn't notice another one of them drifting up stealthily behind him.

It slapped at him, but he felt the minute shift in the water and rolled out of the way. Something snagged, though. He twisted hard and broke free from its grip, but his nest egg was not so lucky. The sack of Boondollars drifted down to the watery depths as the dark tendril released its grip, disappointed that it hadn't snared any food. Iggy wasn't going to let his prize go without a fight. He still had enough air, and he decided to go for it. Kicking hard, he dove down after the sinking sack.

Following the serpentine appendage down towards the murky rock shelf, Iggy finally caught sight of the creature it belonged to. A horrible flesh-sack with malicious black eyes squeezed its way out from under the rocks, revealing seven other tentacles that slowly unfurled as Iggy drew close, meaning to ensnare him in one of them and make him its next meal. There was no way he would let that happen – there was too much money at stake.

He performed a series of acrobatic (aquabatic?) maneuvers: spiraling, diving, backing suddenly to avoid the quick flick of a tentacle. He weaved through the tentacles, laid out like hunter's snares, knowing that contact from even one of the suction cups could mean a quick and brutal death. Finally, he broke through, leaving the field of sinister sargassum floating above him. The octopus eyed him vengefully as he came to the sandy seabed and retrieved his sack of Boondollars.

Now he had time to think about his next problem: getting back up. The dark tentacles drifted to new positions, blocking out the tropical sunlight filtering down through the water. He kicked his legs and began his ascent.

Dumpy Oaf ~ATH

[II]

On the next floor, machinery suddenly whirrs to life. Kato sees a gaggle of those little ASH GREMLINS quickly scramble away, barely glimpsed around the corners of the machine. A crossroads of conveyor belts starts up in front of him. He hesitates, and the RUST OAF is up and away on a distant ladder.

pastelPerfect began pestering tuneHarmonic at 1:24 PM

PP: hey man bad news
PP: i think my crop went bad :(
PP: i found some weird bugs on it

TH: yeah i got some weird guys bugging me, too

PP: dag yo

TH: you start that game yet?

PP: not really
PP: got it installed but my internets been acting all fucky

TH: damn
TH: kinda feel like i'm the only one playing it and i'm about to get my ass kicked

PP: lol that sucks
PP: anyway about the treeeee

TH: oh yeah, sorry dude, that really sucks
TH: i guess our dreams of sustainability are over
TH: i'm gonna have to call billy and re-up before 4/20
TH: late notice but he should be good for it

PP: :'(

Kato abruptly stashes his phone back in his SYLLADEX as a cream pie flies right past his face. He sees the cheeky gremlin on the conveyor belt about to throw another and realizes it's not cream in those pies – it's mortar. If he gets hit with one of those, forget looking foolish for a moment; his stupid gob will be immortalized in concrete for centuries. Unfortunately for the Gremlins, they don't really stand a chance against him. It takes only another series of dexterous leaps to clear the conveyor belt and the next set of dangerously tilted ladders.

Galaxyman 2 ~ATH

Though there had been a time when the Enigmatic Harrier had done his duty as he was meant to, in half a day's time, his objectives had changed. He had a new duty to fulfill, one that took him to the far edge of the orbital system. His Pawnship, standard issue to pilots of the Prospitan Space Force, was hardly equipped for such a long voyage, but he had no other options. Even considering the damage to the wing from the last encounter with the Ectognaths, those horrible space bugs, he had to press on and pray that his ship would survive the voyage.

His heart began to race when he saw the static in the distance – nothing but a small cloud of flickering shapes from this far away. He knew what it meant, though: another swarm. He firmed his grip around the throttle and remembered his training. In spite of their monstrous wiles, fighting them wasn't too much different from taking down Dersite Pawnships in a chaotic dogfight. His only fear was that this time, he would be doing it alone. No squadmates or wingmen to back him up if he faltered or missed a shot. The fate of his homeworld relied on him.

The Ectognath swarm descended on him, and he began firing madly as before, racing through a cloud of their ashen remains. He pulled a loop-de-loop (less impressive in the directionless void of space than it was above a surface with a definite horizon) and headed back for the ones he missed on his first pass. Then it was back again to face the next cluster.

He had nearly eliminated them all when one of them got too close. This one was too smart to stay right in his firing range, as the last one had. This one looked different, too, less like a slavering beige fly and more like a sinister wasp with stripes of black and red. It clamped down on the top of his ship with its spindly insectile legs, and he could hear it chittering and scraping away against the hull as it tried to break through.

There was a fat chance of that succeeding, the Harrier thought. The Ectognath proved him wrong when the lights on his console suddenly surged, lighting all at once in a random, blinking pattern and then going black.

The ship was no longer under his control. It should keep drifting in the same direction, but the Harrier felt a slight shift in the G-forces. It took him a moment to decipher but suddenly he knew – the Ectognath was pulling the ship in a new direction. It was in charge now.

In the distance, there was a glint of gold against the starry black backdrop. It was a CARE Drone, used to carry supplies and messages between Prospitan outposts on the various planets in this system, and a common sight on the interstellar traffic lanes. There was a bump on the roof above the Harrier, and suddenly the laser blasters flared to life of their own volition. The drone exploded in a flash of white.

The Harrier rattled uselessly on the throttle. He may have been a deserter, but he'd never be a traitor. Lights on the panel began to flash in random bursts, fueled by the Ectognath's strange venom running through the system. The Harrier could take no more. Reaching down to his belt, he removed his service blaster – always handy in case he was separated from his ship in battle. He sucked in a breath of fresh, filtered air and manually released the cockpit hatch. The carefully balanced atmosphere of his life support system rushed out into the cold, loose semi-atmosphere of the Medium as he stood from his chair and spun around to face the hideous demon wasp. Its eyes and face lit up in a hideous neon pink as the blaster fired. In an instant, it was gone, dissolved into more black ash like its swarm-brethren.

The lights on the panel suddenly glowed back to life, the system performing one initiation routine after another. The Harrier pulled himself back into his seat and activated the cockpit's pressure-seal. Cool, filtered air began to waft back in through the air vents. Tentatively, he tugged the throttle and the ship made a jerking motion. It was his again. Time to pay these bugs back for thinking they were in charge here. He spun the ship around (a maneuver that bug could never have pulled off, he thought), and took out the remnants of the swarm.

Dumpy Oaf ~ATH

[III]

The next challenge waiting for Kato is a cargo elevator. He sees it coming back down as he reaches the next floor of the construction site. How thoughtful of the Rust Oaf to send it down for him. It's clearly some kind of trap, so he looks around before getting on. As soon as he does, a hail of unrecognizably twisted mechanisms begins to fall on him. Using all the space the elevator platform allows, he doges each incoming piece. Kato is sure a doctor would strongly advise against getting hit in the head twice by heavy pieces of metal in the span of an hour.

The hail stops, and the elevator reaches its destination. Hanging on a hook, Kato spots a worker's lunchbag. He reaches for it and CAPTCHALOGUES it into his SYLLADEX. This is all getting a bit silly. It's a struggle to get it out of the cumbersome inventory system and see what's inside, but the thermos full of coffee is definitely worth the effort.

arousingAntagonism began pestering tuneHarmonic at 1:32 PM

AA: Uhhh so I got really sucked into this game, lol.
AA: Been reading up on all the mechanics and stuff. There's some weird machinery that you have to get the hang of before you can really start doing anything.
AA: And aside from that, we have to connect to each other before we can start deploying any of it, so...
AA: I see you're online...

TH: yeah i'm not home atm, but i must have left my laptop on
TH: go ahead and connect if it'll let you

AA: Oh! It worked!
AA: He he he he... I can't wait to get to work.
AA: You're gonna be surprised how much more stuff you have when you get home. :B

TH: cool i could really use more stuff

AA: Ew, no you couldn't!
AA: I can see your apartment on this thing and it's filthy!

TH: you can see my apartment?
TH: that's kinda creepy

AA: How does Aris put up with this?

TH: eats out, works in his room
TH: the kitchen is a forsaken domain to us both

AA: I'm going to get rid of some of this crap. I need room for the Cruxtruder.

TH: don't get rid of my good crap

The coffee rejuvenates Kato, even though it's a bit old and probably tainted with someone else's backwash. He's going to need the energy to fight this weird monster once he's finally cornered it. It can't go far now. This building only has so many floors.

Cookin' .pce

Nico stands in the kitchen he shares with his two roommates. The dishes are piled high in the sink, but that's not his concern right now. He's got frozen shrimp tempura in the pan, chicken nuggets in the toaster oven, and vegan sausages in the microwave. He's got to fuel up before he delves into the Schnellburg Underground. In the back of his mind, he vaguely recalls something about a game with his other friends, but it's been pushed back there for a reason! There's no point playing it now, not while Theo's still at work.

He takes the last clean plate out of the cupboard (someone should really do those dishes soon!) and serves up the tray of hot snacks, along with a buffet of dipping sus. Maybe he'll share some with Elan if he hurries up and finishes his homework, but Nico is feeling pretty hungry right now… He might eat the whole thing!

The last thing he needs is a drink to go with his snack, so he grabs that decorative beer stein from the Ren Fest (they're out of normal glasses at the moment) and pours himself some iced tea from the pitcher in the fridge. When he looks up, two of his shrimp tempuras are gone. At least, he swears he had more than that. He puts the pitcher back in the fridge, and when he turns back, he definitely knows that some of his chicken nuggets are gone. Some would think there was a ghost in the house, but Nico knows the true culprit.

pastelPerfect began pestering headChef at 12:56 PM

PP: bro ur damn cat got my snacks!
PP: nooooooo!

HC: not my problem.
HC: i fed him this morning.
HC: plus you know the rule bro… guard ur damn food

PP: i am going to chase him all over the house
PP: it is going to be like an episode of tom & jerry up in here
PP: so dont be surprised if theres a cat-shaped hole in the wall when u get out here

HC: bro stg u better not wait around the corner and then hit cat stevens in the face with a fire shovel
HC: or like trick him into falling into his own mousetrap

PP: i am going to put him in the microwave

HC: wow that's fucked up, u took it too far man

PP: sorry

When Nico peels his eyes up from his phone, Cat Stevens is there on the counter. One of the vegan sausages is stuck to his fangs, but he's making a disgusted face, as if the sausage is emitting a foul odor only he can smell, but it's probably more to do with the fact that it's tofu instead of the meat Cat was expecting. He's been stunned by this, apparently, or else Nico wouldn't have caught him in the act. Now's his chance!

He wields his BRO BEATER from his STRIFE SPECIBUS (must be part of that weird game, seems intuitive enough) and prepares for a showdown with this foul creature. Cat notices, arches his back a little more, and prepares to leap away, but Nico reaches out quickly with the Bro Beater, a short, solid stick for when party dudes get too out of control. The end of the stick clips the sausage as Cat Stevens flies past, sending it twirling high into the air. With acrobatic precision, he clips the sausage again, mid-air, and gets another couple twirls out of it – just enough to send it back onto his plate. Not so different from juggling, he thinks.

The snack plate secured, he hastens off to the front porch with it.

Dumpy Oaf ~ATH

[IV]

Kato looks up at the frame that will eventually become the pointed rooftop spire of this fledgling skyscraper and sees the Rust Oaf at the very top. It's managed to find its way to a narrow platform at the top of everything, far beyond Kato's ability to jump or patience to climb. Tendrils of smoke waft up from below, then are quickly swept away by the winds, much faster up here above the neighboring rooftops. Kato is reminded of the spreading fire that will soon engulf this building anyhow and comes up with a much quicker plan to rid himself of this Oaf.

swiftJustice began pestering tuneHarmonic at 1:44 PM

SJ: Hey, where are you?
SJ: You kinda slipped off while everyone was celebrating!
SJ: We got the fire out… Hope you weren't looking for a hose or something?

TH: no, sorry man
TH: i saw some other problem across the street that needed to be dealt with

SJ: Well, look at you! Solving all sorts of problems today, huh?

TH: i'm always sleuthing out new ones to solve
TH: hey, u wanna see something cool?
TH: look over at that new skaianet bank

SJ: The construction site?
SJ: Oh my god, who is that up there?!
SJ: Is that you?

TH: just watch

Kato removes the last support peg from the steel frames holding up the roof structure. With a deep, metallic groan, the beams give out, releasing the Oaf's platform held high above the rest. The platform slides out of its quickly bending supports and crashes down through the floor below it, the one from which Kato is watching his handiwork unfold. It smashes through this layer, held together so far by only sheets of crappy plywood and whatever cheapo parts those wobbly scaffolds are made of. It smashes through the floor below, too, picking up momentum even as the flooring materials get thicker on the more-completed layers below. Watching the Oaf plummet through the hole of its own making, Kato thinks of the stacked wooden boards he would break with karate chops as part of his training, though this is more like watching a sumo wrestler body-slam the boards into oblivion.

"Burn in Hell, you dumb monster," Kato mutters, watching as the ever-growing pile of debris smashes through the last charred layer, exploding in a shower of sparks as it hits the oily inferno at the bottom. The rest of the building begins to buckle beneath Kato's feet, now robbed of even more of its central support structure.

"Time to get moving," he tells himself, then hops down to the nearest rooftop and heads home.

Snacks .pce

Theo stands at a cash register inside the local Office Despot (Supplies for the Despot in Your Office!). His mind is blank, bored to a point beyond comprehension of the world around him. There's not a thing to do, and this is the hundredth time he's seen Shrek 2 on the demo TV they keep at the front of the store. Yes, it really is the hundredth. He's been keeping count since he started working here.

Not a soul has come in yet during his shift, yet the bosses insist he man his post at all times. This is completely bogus. If the freaks at the gas station were any indication, the world's about to go to shit. Probably a good time to stop caring about this job.

tortugaTerran began pestering arousingAntagonism at 1:42

TT: lol I'm texting you at work!

AA: Uh… Good for you?

TT: haha idk it's just funny to me that I have my phone out at the register because there's like… no one in the store.
TT: Like, at all.
TT: Everyone else who works here went in the back to watch some special report on the news, and of course I'm just stuck here watching the front door.
TT: So I've been just watching these weird contrails in the sky. Can you see them from your place?

AA: Yeah, actually, I was watching them earlier.
AA: I just read that it might be a meteor shower or something.

TT: Cool, maybe we can all like, hang out and watch it together tonight.
TT: Like plan a picnic or something :)

AA: Yeah, a picnic under the stars… That doesn't sound super gay at all. You gonna hold Kato's hand and give him a little kiss?

TT: 0_0

AA: Besides, aren't we going to play that game tonight?

TT: Oh yeah :T

AA: I've been reading about it, btw.
AA: Not to make you feel bad or anything, but I think we started some sort of timer the second we installed the game.
AA: So, like, don't feel bad if you log on and you're way behind because of it.

TT: :(
TT: Well, I guess if I ditch work, I know what I'll do for the rest of the day :P

AA: Good luck, man.
AA: I can't wait to finish stupid college and never have to resort to wage slavery again.

TT: -_-

Screw it, there's no one around, and security cameras be damned! Theo walks out in front of the cash register, where all the snacks are kept on the little "impulse buy" shelf. He grabs them by the handful – candy bars, candy packets, fun-sized bags of chips – and stuffs them into the pockets of his khaki work pants. There's stuff spilling onto the floor; he can't grab it fast enough. He snatches his jacket from the space under the register and walks out the sliding glass doors, tossing his nametag down on the sidewalk.

Meteor Man ~ATH

The beaten, worse-for-wear Pawnship had nearly completed its journey to the edge of the system, the Enigmatic Harrier behind its controls keeping his fingers crossed that his ship would make it to his goal before giving out on him. On his control panel, there was a significantly higher number of red lights than lights of any other color, which was generally not a good sign. Some large shapes loomed into view on his radar, and he glanced up through the viewport. He had finally reached the Veil. The belt of grey asteroids was barely visible from this distance, blending into the spotted darkness behind it, but smaller asteroids, outliers to the belt, hurtled past him as he flew closer.

The radar blinked red – a V-shaped formation of dots was headed his way. He saw them through the window, coming out from behind an asteroid. Derse had its own patrol of Pawnships out here, and the Harrier had arrived at the wrong time. He was afraid this might happen. Since Derse orbited outside this belt, they had turned it into a sort of defensive palisade, and to Prospitan fighters, it was considered enemy territory. The quintent of ships approached him like a giant, rocket-powered arrowhead.

The Harrier boosted the ship forward, a move which worked surprisingly often against the cowardly conscripts of the Dersite Space Force, and began firing, taking out the leader and one ship next to him in a matter of seconds. The remaining three scattered, pulled around on both sides to flank him. He was surrounded. The Harrier decided to try a move he had been saving. His ship was falling apart anyway, so what the heck.

Down below the main console, he fumbled open the release lever hatch, which was only used during repairs. He found the lever for the left wing-mounted gun and pulled. It came loose, swiveling wildly from the one remaining point of contact (wouldn't want to lose it entirely). He performed a quick 360-degree spin, flinging the hanging gun into a rear-facing position. He pulled the trigger, and laser beams erupted from both the front and back of his ship. The Dersites never saw it coming.

He headed along his course again, passing by the meteor that the ships had come from behind. As he glanced over at it, he noticed strange white domes protruding from its surface. Had the ships been behind it, or had they been inside it? It wouldn't be the first secret base the Harrier had discovered today. As he pulled in closer, laser fire erupted from one of the domes. He dodged, fired back at the automated turret, and blew a hole in the side of the domed facility. Lab equipment and dead bodies floated out in a cloud of debris and chemical vapors.

The Harrier got an idea. He orbited the strange asteroid base, searching for the hangar. When he spotted it, he came in quick, just like before, just like he had done a hundred times in the simulations. Once inside, he fired madly, starting deadly plasma fires and creating a scene of chaos. It looked like they weren't expecting to have their secret base discovered today. Too bad for them he had stumbled across it by a stroke of luck.

He hopped out of the Prospitan Pawnfighter, as badly broken up as a cardboard model that's been tossed around a few too many times. He quickly crossed the hangar to a Dersite Pawnship and climbed inside. He was surprised to find the controls were almost exactly the same. He supposed they were, after all, basically the same ship.

As the hangar burned behind him, he took off into the cold emptiness of the Medium. Not long after his departure, the entire meteor facility erupted in flame, spewing red-hot plumes out of all its exploded domes. The Harrier hadn't expected that, but he seemed to be capable of many enigmatic things today. He continued on, re-entering the coordinates he had copied from the hillside facility. Judging by his rough estimation, he wasn't far. He was certain that when he arrived there, he would find another facility just like this one, though what secrets it might hold were beyond his reckoning.