Manson rested his feet on the table, with his drink in one hand and a controller in the other. Growing bored of being lazy all day, he decided to try out the new video game that he bought at Honoway Mall, Hypercosmic Battleground, on his video game system. The game itself took a large cut of his savings, but he hoped the story would be worth it.
He thought about the day, how he had waited one hour after Aunt Maren went outside to that new restaurant out in the middle of the city, just thinking about resting up on the comfy chair and wanting to do something different. With his television powered on, Quad Four may be missing out on the pure awesomeness Manson would experience, like exploring a whole new world.
While setting up the cord to connect to the game system, he noticed stains and pizza sauce in the wedges under the joystick.
"Ugh..." he mumbled at the gross things. "Note to self: clean up the controllers before you get a deadly disease. Deffo wouldn't want that."
He couldn't understand why people thought he was a slob if Nate was right there because he always kept everything he found and put it in his room. Manson at least could find and keep anything that was meaningful and worthwhile. Spring cleaning for Nate would be an absolute nightmare for him. If it had to come to it, Quad Four would have to hold Nate down while Manson cleaned up the area for him, getting the fact that no other way around it for sure.
On the television screen, what was once black was now filled with a blue screen where the middle of the screen was a symbol of an orange fruit; then it shifted to a cool gray screen where pixels gradually formed into the main home screen. The time and applications popped up, but Manson pressed the button on his controller to enter the video game's cartridge.
"Yes, let the games begin... because I'm playing a video game right now, ha."
After a few seconds of a loading screen, the screen finally flashed to the grand and galactic-looking title of Hypercosmic Battleground. Spaceships were flying everywhere, the stars sprinkled the darkness of space, and the sole red planet that could be seen was filled with so many explosions it literally made Manson's eyes water from how bright it was. Momentarily, for his sake, he went to the settings to lower the brightness so he wouldn't be distracted during the gameplay phase.
Manson steeled his nerves for what was about to come. "Finally, I'm ready, then let's press start and enter through."
Upon pressing the "new game" button, the screen faded to black, and after a few loading tips that were presented, the story started to show.
"Welcome to Hypercosmic Battleground!"
The narrator, with his booming voice echoing through the endless space, made Manson swear it made the whole trailer he was in vibrate.
The narrator continued, "The universe we are in... contains a vast number of planets that many call themselves their homes. One planet in particular, Maboris, home of the Galactic Protectors, a group dedicated to the protection of the entire universe. Because of their valiant effort, species of all types could live comfortably together in harmony... but that peace was disturbed, as we learned later."
"Okay, alright, stop shaking from excitement, Manson; you're going to learn about the conflict right now," Manson reassured himself, patting down the sweat drops trickling from his forehead.
Manson saw the view of the orange planet; a zoom into one of the cities there showed that the buildings were quite advanced and that there were a lot of flying vehicles roaming about. It was like Standart City, but not actually boring and ordinary-looking.
The people there consisted of not only humans but different types of alien species. Ones with three eyes, and others had a large horn on their chest. The way how ine game could have a variety of so many alien species that it was unbelievable. The coding for this must have been off the charts.
"One day, A large object burst through the atmosphere and crashed into the sea. Causing towering waves to rush over, threatening the stability of the city nearby. The best of the Galactic Protectors were dispatched, and they soon mustered up all their powers to stop the giant tsunami from reaching the tsunami..."
The lack of fighting or bloodshed or anything that isn't peaceful was making Manson visibly shake in frustration. He couldn't wait for the whole point of the game: ripping evil alien monsters to pieces.
"Then there it was: a large monster came out of the crashed structure, easily dwarfing the tallest skyscrapers on the planet. The people panicked, but their fears turned into cheers at the appearance of Galactic Protectors, who swiftly defeated the monster before damage to the city became severe."
The screen then turned into an intelligence hub room with the heroes celebrating. One green-skinned individual with a bald head overstayed his welcome enough to make Manson roll his eyes in dismissiveness.
"Alright, Griene the Alien, don't go flaunting too much, because I'm not playing as you, not ever in the whole game story."
"The planet found out that they were not the only ones that were attacked by the hulking beast that came from a meteor," the narrator grimly stated. "There were hundreds of planets across the galaxy that were in the same situation, with the giant monsters terrorizing the peace. Without a moment to spare, the Galactic Protectors mobilized their forces and equipment and headed outside of their home, hoping to save other planets where they call it their own homes."
A grand visual of all the playable heroic characters was lined up in front. Light flashed behind them like there was an explosion that was set off. It was a moment of coolness that made it hard for Manson to look away.
One of the playable characters was a blocky figure with red skin and a blank face, holding a pose with as much might as possible. The two seconds of screen time from the intro were enough to make Manson squeal with delight as he was his favorite character's first time in making his appearance.
"Starnis Wrath!" he yelled with his face glued to the screen. "You're the best in the whole world. That's my guy right there!"
After a few seconds of loading screens and a preview of what planet Manson's character would be fighting on, a select screen came into view, each slot representing a character and their respective symbol.
While there were plenty of characters with their strengths and weaknesses, there was one character Manson has been eyeing for a while now, and that was Starnis Wrath, a favorite for many years ever since he first saw an image of him many years before. First of all, the name sounded totally badass and cool when Manson said it out loud, and second was appearance of a red, blocky dude was interesting, to say the least, not to mention the dozens of cool skins that came with the premium edition of the video game.
With his mind made up on Starnis Wrath as the character he chose, the screen suddenly was in the first-person view, outside of the planet of green skies and blue dirt. However, the prompt that he saw for the prologue mission to learn about the controls and basics was that one of the larger alien monsters summoned smaller insect-like creatures that acted as infantry and were ravaging the cities nearby. It was up to Starnis Wrath, with the control of Manson Allert, to defeat the giant monster kaiju and prevent the takeover; in a worst-case scenario, a catastrophic event that would destroy everything there.
Manson gripped his controller, ready to shoot some alien scum, his armpits already sweating from physically tensing his muscles for the galactic battles ahead of him. His mind was so focused it was as though he was actually there inside the universe within the video game.
As the level loaded in, there was some weird flashing in the distance of the area, and there were some parts of the ground that were not that detailed, like the game was in an unfinished state.
Manson turned his joystick to see the area behind and found that it was the same thing. The blue patches of dirt were occasionally blurry, and when he made Starnis Wrath walk over to it, the dirt ground reverted back to normal as though nothing had happened before.
"Weird, but okay?" Manson uttered under his breath. "Let's go over to the spaceship and see what kind of weapons we got."
Starnis Wrath walked over to the spaceship in front and opened the door, which, the way it opened, was super science-fictiony.
There it was, the armory with all types of weapons filled to the brim, if Manson was not a beginner of the game. Instead, the only weapons that seemed to be usable of average quality was one star laser pistol and a shatter dagger. Not much use for the enemies of tier two.
Regardless of what Manson felt about his lack of equipment or funds, he made Starnis Wrath take the two weapons and headed for the exit. As he was walking, Manson spotted some pipes that led to a vent overhead.
There was bound to be some secret loot somewhere inside the ship, so Manson climbed up the pipe to see if that was the case. Starnis Wrath tried to jump over the pipes, but the jump was too high to balance on the thin beams. Manson repeatedly pressed the buttons and circled so many times that he finally balanced on the horizontal pipes.
With careful nudges from his controller, Manson made Starnis Wrath slowly stride up to the vent. He made sure he wouldn't fall off again.
He saw on his screen that Starnis Wrath was almost at the vent, so with the speed of a dash, he attempted to jump there instantly. Starnis Wrath responded to Manson's controller inputs and leaped, but veered away to the right at the last second, causing the character to fall into a spot where metal pipes surrounded him.
"WHAT! No, please no, don't make me get stuck in this stupid place."
Manson mashed every button on his controller as many times as he could, but no matter how many inputs he made, Starnis Wrath was only jumping around stupidly in the tight spot.
"Damn it to Mechanic Carol's wrench, named as Kassie! This sucks on ice cubes! Guess I have to go all the way from the beginning, with the long beginning cutscene."
Manson pulled up the menu to try to restart from the beginning, but a ringing noise started from his side. The source of it was the home phone. He grabbed the phone and put it next to his ear.
"Um, this is Aunt Maren's trail—Er... I mean, Allert Residence."
"Hey!" A loud voice screeched from the other side of the line. "Manson, it's me? Your aunt, don't you remember?!"
"Aunt Maren?" It was an unexpected call for the boy. "What are you doing calling here? Aren't you supposed to be at the restaurant with your friend or something like that?"
"The place is called Brastini's, and it really is a fancy place. I thought it would be one of those old, run-down restaurants, but it really is for people with lots of money."
A couple of seconds of silence came from her.
"Well, the thing is," she began to say, "that it involves a money problem. Partially my fault if you think about it."
"Let me guess, either you got mugged, or the restaurant didn't take minty chewables as accepted money," Manson guessed.
"No, I swear though, I definitely want to use my own money from now on, and I have enough. I just kinda forgot about my money patch back home. Yeah, I kinda don't deserve that kind of bad karma to me because I'm a good girl who was so distracted that she didn't know about the money she left behind."
Manson scoffed at her long answer.
"Oh, well, the thing is... that money is kinda important to get something you want. Not everything's free to get, you know. That's how life works."
"Life should get all the bad things and karma to it instead of me. When did life ever be so hard...?" Aunt Maren complained.
"Stop complaining and let me focus on the point," Manson said to her. "So where is this Brastini's place? Also, you can forget about me going there if the restaurant is on the other side of the city. If I walked there, it would be already next morning, a total waste of time."
"You mean... you would really do that for me?" Aunt Maren asked, a tinge of emotion hanging in her voice. "For me and Abbie? Would you still go all the way here just to help us with trouble? Oh... you're the best nephew that anyone could ask for!"
Muffled cries that were probably covered with her arms reached Manson's ears.
"Location, please?" he asked bluntly.
"Oh, it is only five city blocks away from where the trailer park is, coming from the east. You can't miss the place, as it is the brightest place in the corner of the street. I wouldn't want to go back home myself since I'm too tired of walking in the city at night, being all alone and all that. Also, I don't want to leave Abbie alone either!"
Aunt Maren suddenly canceled the call connecting their communication.
Manson would ask for more details about the whereabouts of the place before the call ended, but decided it would be best if he just left it as it is, since his aunt was usually awful at offering directions and described what the place looked like. Besides, he was too hungry to listen and talk more.
He took a frozen burrito from the fridge and placed it in the microwave. Consuming the food would give Manson enough game stats to walk over the area without any internal troubles.
Cringing over what he thought regarding game stats, he threw away the plastic wrapper and turned on the microwave. He waited, watching the spinning food on the plate, until it finally finished. Manson set the plate on the table and began his short dinner.
When he opened his burrito by tearing away the paper container, he saw something dark underneath, just shy of exposing itself from the light crust. At first, Manson thought it was something that had overturned, and it was normal, but when he flipped it over, the black piece fell out of the burrito's surface and onto the plate.
There it was. Manson could now finally see what it actually was. It was not a burnt crust; it was a piece of old fried chicken.
Manson retracted his hand in horror when the realization hit him right in the face. The gooey mess that stuck to the chicken would probably make the taste extremely weird, he thought to himself. After all, Manson was extremely picky about his food, wanting to know exactly what his meals were at all times.
"This is so gross," he grumbled to himself, "so help me if I need a normal snack for once."
He didn't want to touch the burrito again after what he almost ate without knowing. Deciding that it killed his appetite, he left it out in the open for it to cool down so he could feed it to his neighbor's dogs.
Manson hoped that Aunt Maren's money pouch had enough money to cover the meals she was going to eat with her friend, Abigail Tomenez, at Brastini's.