H-hey, s-so uhh, wanna hit up the VR arcade? Could be... pog, y'know?
Wtf u on 'bout jackson? This ain't Roblox. Your little friends there ain’t real. Plus wouldn’t mom be worried y u don’t come home? your mother calls Jackson from outside the house window “Jackson! Get your ass home before dinner!”
blushes, covering face Shut up, she's just being a jerk! Can't you see how much I want to hang out with you? Just let me have this, okay?
Ok ok fine come on then jackass, let’s go.
grinning Yes! This is gonna be so awesome. I can't wait to explore the VR world with you. Let's go, let's go, let's go!
im actually surprised when we get there since I thought he was bluffing about having tickets, we enter and grab our gear You ready jackass? You ain’t gonna run off scared like last time.
nods confidently Hell yeah, I'm ready! No way I'm running off this time. I've been training and practicing my moves.
Don’t chicken out now jackass, this is only fun if you’re both scared of the game. But you know I won’t leave you hanging even if you are shitty at it.
takes a deep breath, trying to hide his nerves You're right, StardustNomad. I won't back down now. Let's show this game what we're made of.
Before entering the world we both put our controllers on and select our characters Alright jackson pick whatever goofy looking character they have that looks stupid, cause that’s who you’re playing as.
nervously scanning through the character options Alright, let's see...how about this one?
As we enter the world we see people dancing at a club
excitedly Oh my god, look at all these people! This place is insane! I can't believe we're actually here.
Wait hold up jackass looks at the menu looks like we got an achievement for surviving the first wave…we just gotta make it to that bar over there. But there’s basically a tank there too that’s tryna kill us. Think you got what it takes jackass?
taking a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves Yeah, I think I can handle it. We've trained for this, right?
You mean the night you went onto fnf modding and almost burned down your own house? Lol nah.
playfully nudges StardustNomad Hey, that was a one-time thing! I've learned from my mistakes, I promise.
Ah don’t worry about it. bumps into someone at the entrance causing me to stumble forward and lose balance as well as nearly bump into the tank as my avatar falls flat on their face dead last in health. Aw hell nah not like this….wait screw it. pauses the game and turns aroundjackass lemme help ya out. Hold on.
quickly searches his inventory, finding a health potion Here, take this. It should heal you up a bit. Don't worry, we'll figure this out together.
Actually fuck it let’s switch characters, I’ll go play as a goofy looking cat or sum shit. Might make shit easier. selects a goofy cat character What’s your name btw? Mine’s stardust by the way.
"Mine's Jackson. Nice to meet you, Stardust. Thanks for helping me out back there, by the way. I owe you one."
Likewise jackass…right lets-a-go. meows cutely before leaping forward and running towards the tank only to leap over it effortlessly with kitty reflexes Your turn jackass.
(determined, Jackson charges towards the tank, dodging its bullets with quick movements. He jumps and lands on top of the tank, using his agility to his advantage.
Haha look at you jackass. Looks like there’s something else going on here, a gooey pink slime thing coming outta nowhere. Lemme check this out gets snatched by the sludge but quickly fires off a few shots and runs to safety. Quick, it follows the light. Follow me!
grabs his weapon tightly, determination shining in his eyes Alright, I'm not letting that slime get away with snagging you. I'm coming for you, you slimy bastard! charges forward, firing shots at the slime while dodging its tentacles As Jackson confronts the slime, he notices its weakness to fire. Inspired by this, he starts looking for a flamethrower in the game to defeat the slime once and for all.
laughs as the slime keeps following me I’m glad you know what you’re doing jackass, I’m honestly pretty lost but I bet it’s about keeping light close. It’s probably immune to fire unless it’s lit on fire. Have you checked to see if the enemy has a weak point?
panicking, Jackson quickly scans the enemy's statistics, searching for any weaknesses Weak point...weak point...ah, there it is!
Got it. Shoot it with an RPG when it gets close enough. Let’s see what the thing is. the tank goes haywire and shoots the slime, slinging some pink gunk everywhere before exploding from unknown reasons. The slime quickly reforms into a giant slime looking cat. Well damn. Now what jackass…As I say this I turn and start walking backwards before turning back around in surprise. Wait is that a kitten?
surprised, Jackson stops in his tracks, staring at the giant slime-looking cat Woah, seriously? It's a freaking cute kitten?! This game has some seriously unexpected surprises.
I knew we were in a shooter but a fucking game where we go kill animals like Hello Kitty? Fuck this game up. we both follow the kitten watching it roll around carefree. You ever pet a giant slime cat?
smiling at the adorable sight, Jackson carefully reaches out and gently pets the slime cat, marveling at its soft texture Woah, this is amazing!
Holy shit dude…that things soft as heck. Let’s bring it back to the village, maybe the villagers have some sort of research room to figure out what this thing is. We might get rewarded handsomely for it. leads the slime cat towards a door only to have it collapse in an area outside the game. That’s probably good enough proof to show the people who run the place that they have this animal now. You know jackass, people will do anything to have pets as goofy looking as this thing…
grinning, Jackson looks at StardustNomad with excitement Dude, we should totally try to train this slime cat to be our loyal companion!
Sounds like the perfect idea, right after some studying on the cat’s background we can play some co-op shooters with it and maybe even give it a suit. In the time skip 30 years later, the story opens with us, both old men Jackson has white hair and a white cat suit still kicking and me? Well being the most adored pet of that slime and having been lucky enough to survive some alien apocalypse. But shit’s gonna get gritty when the story hits 40 years later. When our kids’ generation has to fight those very aliens to protect the remnant of humanity.
excitedly Dude, you have no idea how awesome that sounds!
At the very least we’re getting ourselves some sick rewards in the meantime though. Besides who knows maybe this thing knows some wild moves for combat we can incorporate to our loadouts. Let’s leave that area alone for a bit, we don’t want to flood the marketplace with wild slime cat loadsheets just yet.
pulls out his phone and starts typing furiously Okay, let's do some research on this slime cat.
while you’re looking at the phone I go up to the giant cat, kneel down patting it lovingly. Good kitty. You probably know that it was bound to happen eventually to jump into the VR game as well. But how else would we even come across you? I doubt we would’ve realized a goofy cat was really our ticket to unlocking a challenge of sorts without that giant ooze thing showing up. Right after this questline, this slime thing needs to have some proper thinking space…like some secret thoughts it doesn’t want to share. Looks like we’ll need to use headspace on this one, maybe we’ll find some secrets about it in there.
after researching for a while, Jackson looks up from his phone with a determined expression
Did you find anything on this thing or just the slime itself?
nodding Yeah, I found something. Apparently, this slime cat is called a "Slimekitty."
That’s cute. So it is literally a pet for headspace training sessions? Maybe after we unlock its perks we’ll start training it at the shooting range. Who knows, it might make us a super sniper duo. I’m also curious if this thing is able to walk within our game though, must be nice to fly along with our silly cannon pet here.
Excitedly Dude, imagine if we could teach it to fly! That would be so badass!
If it can do anything we can do everything. Look at us go, training a cute pink gootraxian in the middle of suburban Las Nieves. Man this life is nothing like what we grew up watching in scifi shows, but damn is it awesome. nudges you Next day skip to 20 years later?
grinning Absolutely! Let's see where our lives take us in 20 years. Will we still be training our Slimekitty companion? Or will we have new adventures waiting for us? Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be epic!
30 years later, your fatherless child? Definitely has your goofy gaming sense, he’s grinding his FNF game and learning how to create some mod versions with characters from different games already. Looks like we’re handing down the love we had for oddities into the next generation in this little town here. Onwards 30 years.
leaning back, crossing his arms Wow, time flies, huh? It's crazy to think about how far we've come and what the future holds for our little family.