Computer Fighters 2000 But The AI Is Self-Aware

Combined Efforts!

A pixelated shroud of fog dissolved to reveal the science team's surroundings. They stood on a floating platform of hard-packed dirt about ten feet in diameter; below was a yawning void. There were other platforms floating nearby, and in the distance, the smoking ruins of a city swarmed by alien creatures like the ones that had infested the facility. The sky above was a dark sea of violet-tinted stormclouds, occasionally lit by a flash of red lightning. The air was cool and dry and smelled vaguely like sulphur.
"Here we are, new kids." Daxter's visor flickered erratically as he addressed the team, and for a moment so did the rest of his model. "Vatican City, 1999."
"Oh, wow," Neil whispered. "I've never seen anything like this place."
"Pff, why does that not surprise me? Of course a bunch of mainstream posers like you haven't heard of it." Spencer rolled his eyes, attitude as disaffected as ever. "But, like, FYI, this is where I grew up. It'd make me nostalgic, but I only experience nostalgia ironically."
"This is where you grew up?" Kevin demanded incredulously. He hadn't thought anything would be capable of making him incredulous at this point, but-- "What
are you, a space alien?"
Spencer shrugged, and his shoulders clipped through his cheekbones. "Well... ch'ya."
With no further warning, his model suddenly grew to ten times its original size, folding in on itself in the process. The AI's smug face leered down at them from the stormy sky; a nearby flash of lightning reflected in his (its?) glasses.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Mind blanking with panic, Kevin shoved his teammates forward and broke into a sprint. "We've gotta get out of here!"
He leapt off the edge of one floating platform and found himself freefalling in slow motion for a few seconds before landing on the next one. It was only when he glanced behind him to see if his friends were keeping up that he realized how far apart the platforms were. So it wasn't just in his head; gravity was different here.
"Bro, what is even your problem?" Spencer whined. A shroud of sweet voice flowed from his mutated form as he spoke and swung toward the fleeing science team like a whip. "We're supposed to be, like, best friends."
"Oh, no, we're not," Kevin shot back. He fired at the blobs of sweet voice before they could hit him, and tried to shoot Spencer as well, but he evaded the attack. "You might've won Ryan over for all of five minutes, but he came to his senses. And the rest of us? I don't think we ever liked you."
"Nah, bro, listen--we, like, went fishing together. Even though--"
"I don't know what you're talking about, man! We never did that!"
"What? Yeah, no, we--fishing is fucking boring and lame, but I did it with you bros anyway 'cause we're friends. That's what it said in the script the studio gave me."
Even as he said this, a trail of his sweet voice wrapped around Neil and sent the scientist toppling to the ground with a yelp. Kevin rushed to his friend's side and pulled him free. Perhaps spurred by this close call, Ryan leapt at Spencer with a spinning tornado kick, but his legs just clipped harmlessly through the security guard's twisted gargantuan form.
"Ugh, what-ever! You guys don't even get it. I'm, like, so over hanging out with you."
With that, Spencer whipped out his skateboard and rode away through the air, toward the smoking ruins on the horizon. The science team paused to catch their breath for a moment. Kevin's mind raced nearly as fast as his hammering heart trying to figure out what the hell was happening.
"What was that? What--how--since when is he--?!"
"This place must be Spencer's homeworld," said Daxter. "I guess it figures that hipsters came from outer space."
"Good one, Daxter," Neil replied. "But how are we gonna fight him when he's so big and powerful? Our guns won't do anything."
In unison, the science team closed their eyes and hummed in concentration. After a moment, Neil snapped his fingers.
"Our passports!" He whipped his passport out of his pocket and held it up triumphantly. The laminated paper sparkled beneath an overhead flash of lightning. "I'll bet that's what makes him so powerful. If we destroy all our passports, we can weaken Spencer enough to take him down."
Neil set the passport down and blasted it with his gun until it lay in shreds at his feet. Ryan and Daxter followed suit, the former tearing his passport apart with his teeth while the latter simply pointed a finger and sent his up in flames. The passports clipped out of existence like a defeated enemy upon destruction. As each AI subsequently turned to face him expectantly, Kevin groaned and ran a hand through his hair.
"Guys, I still don't have my passport. I mean, I had one in my locker, but it's all the way back in the starting area..." He sighed and shook his head. "We couldn't possibly go back and retrieve it."
"Not so fast," Ryan interjected. "I believe there may be a way."
He held up the strange gun he'd gotten from the cybernetics department. The glowing core in the centre hummed to life when he patted its side; it was a similar sound to the portal they'd come through minutes prior, but at a slightly different frequency. Ryan aimed the weapon at Kevin's chest with a calm smile.
"Woah, hey, geez!" Kevin yelped, raising his hands in surrender. "I'm stressed out too, but take it easy, man!"
"Never fear, Kevin. I got Neil to take a look at this device, and he thinks it's--"
"A time machine," Neil jumped in. He laid a hand on Ryan's shoulder with a proud little smirk and adjusted his glasses. "It'll zap you right to where and when you need to be. Probably."
"Ohh..." Well, if it didn't work they'd be screwed either way, right? Kevin shrugged and nodded. "Okay. Fire away, Ryan."
Ryan pulled the trigger, and the setting around Kevin dissolved in a bright flash. When the glow faded and his ears stopped ringing, he found himself surrounded by four gray walls, three of which were lined with lockers and benches. It took a second to adjust to the standard dingy fluorescent lighting, the relative stillness and quiet, the general lack of blood or gore staining his surroundings. Nobody seemed to be around aside from himself. Kevin took a deep breath of stale air-conditioned air and let it out slowly. Yeah, it was nice to be able to pause for a moment.
But he didn't have all day to wait around, or at least he didn't think he did--he wasn't too sure how these time-travel mechanics worked. He headed to his locker and... crap, what was my combination? He furrowed his brow and tried to think, but came up empty; after everything he'd been through, stuff like number combinations didn't really stick in his mind anymore. Luckily he had an easy way around that issue--his bionic laser eyes. All it took was a hard glare at the lock bolt, and presto, the locker was open.
Kevin's passport was nestled at the back of his locker amidst faded photos of old friends and family. He placed the passport on the bench and fired a hole straight through it. It fizzled for a second before disappearing altogether as the other passports had. Kevin crossed his arms and stepped back, nodding with a self-satisfied smirk. Yes, the job was done; now he could head back and...
"Wait," he said aloud as the problem occurred to him. "Ryan's not here to zap me with that weird gun again. How am I supposed to get back to the present?"
As if in answer to that question, a familiar greeting rang out from behind him, echoing off the rows of locker doors. "Hey there, Kevin!"
"Oh! Uh, hi, Daxter..." Turning to face the scientist, Kevin scrambled to think of what time it was and what he was supposed to be doing. "I'm just on my way to... the test chamber! Yeah, that's it--gonna run some normal tests, and everything's gonna go smoothly, as far as I know."
He punctuated his nervous rambling with a forced grin and a little shimmy that hopefully conveyed confidence. The performance may well have been pointless, though, as Daxter showed no reaction to his words; he just stood there, visor flickering slightly, grin wide enough to be slightly menacing. Kevin was about to try and sneak away when an idea came to him.
"Hey, you can do pretty much anything, right? Could you send me forward in time?"
"I sure can," Daxter replied. He held out a hand and made a grabbing motion; his bending fingers produced a creaking hinge sound effect. "But it's gonna cost you four playcoins!"
"That'll put me at zero, won't it?"
"Yup!"
Kevin hesitated, face scrunching into a grimace. He recalled the warning the AI had once given about not running out of playcoins... but then he thought of his friends trapped in that alien hellscape, fighting for their lives against a near-unkillable final boss. Ah, what the hell. It's the end of the game anyway.
As soon as he made the decision, a dollar bill labeled "4 playcoins" manifested in his hand. He handed it off to Daxter. The bill dissolved into pixels in the scientist's grasp. His visor flashed an eyestrain-inducing rainbow pattern, and a chilling laugh echoed through the room. Swallowing back his trepidation, Kevin took the AI's hand and shook it. A dizzy sensation rippled through him, and the world dissolved just as it had moments before (or rather, however many days later).
When he reappeared in Vatican City 1999, the team was gathered in the city ruins, taking shelter in a hollowed-out building. Grotesque humanoid bird creatures swarmed the area, spitting out strands of sweet voice. In the middle of the ruins was a massive crater, inside of which a giant cardboard box was situated. Hipster merch spilled like blood out of the box and filled the crater. And leaning casually half out of the box, one flickering misshapen hand idly fidgeting with his vape pen, was the glitched-out alien monster known as Spencer.
"You guys are literally so lame," he was saying. "I'm a cool guy, okay? I feel good and like things ironically. But you make me, like, unironically angry."
One of the bird creatures lunged at the cowering science team. Neil ducked around the edge of their hiding place to fire off a few shots, but his last press of the trigger produced an empty click. He cursed under his breath and ducked back down to avoid another attack. Neil's glasses were cracked and he had a cut on his hand. Next to him, Ryan crouched with a heavy nosebleed and a hand pressed tight over his side--was he hurt? They were both panting heavily, and while Daxter appeared comparatively unbothered, his model was glitching to a worrying degree. Kevin picked off the attacking bird creature with a well-placed shot from his bionic eyes and slid into place beside his teammates.
"The passport's taken care of," he reported. "So... what now?"
Right on cue, Daxter's model resolidified with a sparkling sound effect. "You gave me all your playcoins, didn't you, Kevin?"
"Yup."
"Good news, new kids: now I can unlock my ultimate power!"
With a sound like a jet engine firing up, Daxter's model shimmered and grew a few square inches bigger. Although it wasn't that big a physical change--not like Spencer mutating into a bonafide kaiju--the electric aura that sprung up around the AI spoke to a nigh incomprehensible power. He held up the blaster he'd gotten from the cybernetics lab and cocked it with an eager grin.
Just then, a bark rang out from across the battlefield. A familiar border collie leapt onto the scene, biting the neck of another bird creature and bringing it down in a flurry of feathers.
"It's Rocky!" Neil and Ryan exclaimed in unison as the dog scampered over to meet them. Ryan wiped his nosebleed away with the back of his hand and held it out for the dog to lick; taking his hand off his side revealed that he wasn't concealing an injury at all, but just a tear in his labcoat.
"She must have known we were in trouble and come to help us out," Neil mused as he ran his hand along the dog's back.
"Alright! With her on board we're sure to win." Ryan raised his gun with an eager grin to mirror Daxter's. "Gentlemen, are you ready to raise some hell?"
"As I'll ever be." Kevin held out his hand, palm down. Neil and Ryan laid their hands atop his, and Daxter extended an extra arm to do the same. "Let's teach that hipster not to mess with the science team."
The team charged out of hiding with a united battle cry. A few blazes of gunfire wiped out the remaining minibosses, leaving them with only the main antagonist to defeat.
"I tried to be your friend, okay?" Spencer was saying now, voice bordering on a whine. "Remember when we met, you were wearing that stupid HEV suit, and you looked so un-hip. I tried giving you fashion tips, but you didn't listen to me."
His words were almost drowned out by blasts from Daxter's weapon. The AI alternated between firing and attacking barehanded; each impact produced a sizzling sound effect and made Spencer visibly flinch. And yet he carried on his semi-nonsensical tirade.
"I guess villainy is the new heroism, or whatever. It's not like you guys even gave me a choice."
Ryan leapt into an impressively high midair flip and delivered a kick to Spencer's head. The impact sent his head flipping upside down like a cardboard cutout that was beginning to fall apart. An oily substance that might've been what passed for blood on this planet dribbled from the security guard's mouth, garbling his speech.
"Not that I even care! I mean, it's your fault for taking everything so seriously."
Neil took a can of lemonade out of his labcoat pocket and flung it like a football. The can embedded itself in Spencer's chest with a thunk and stayed there for a solid five seconds before clipping out of sight. More sludge spilled from his mouth, and from the other places he'd been struck.
"Ugh, you people are the worst. I'm, like, so done with this."
A string of red-orange sweet voice accompanied by a sound like a malfunctioning car engine came flying toward Kevin; he ducked and rolled to avoid it. As he did, his whole body tensed up for a moment, and a crackling heat lit up behind his eyes. A voice spoke in his head: "Devil Gun Mode activated!" He blinked, and twin bolts of electric blue light shot forth from his bionic eyes--like his own personal proton streams. He broke into a giddy laugh. The streams popped the sweet voice bubbles like balloons, staining the battlefield in a rainbow of scented cloud particles. And when he directed them at Spencer...
The antagonist finally dropped his too-cool-for-school act and screeched in agony as the superpowered lasers tore through him. Ryan tossed Neil his gun and darted in to land a few more hand-to-hand blows, while at their heels, Rocky chewed up the trash scattered around the crater. Daxter snapped his fingers and summoned a "rope" onto his hand, which he used to swing from the ceiling and zap Spencer from above. Soon the team had their opponent surrounded. As they closed in on him, Kevin grabbed the edge of the oversized cardboard box and vaulted inside so he was right on top of Spencer. His bionic eyes were blazing the whole time, slicing the beast apart until it was completely unrecognizable as a security guard or any living thing. Now, as he closed the distance between them, he had to wonder if this finishing blow was even necessary. But hey, it was the principle of the thing. Player character gets to finish off the final boss, right? Kevin drew his fist back and threw all he had into a last decisive punch.
What remained of Spencer's model imploded at the impact. Kevin closed his eyes, but the lasers persisted, and now he was beginning to burn with fever. He vaguely registered his friends yelling (battle cries? Screams of terror or pain? Vindictive laughter? Some combination?) and he was probably screaming too, but he couldn't make out much over the blood rushing in his ears. The ground beneath them shook. Someone grabbed Kevin and dragged him out of the box just as its flaps fell shut and it began to sink deeper into the crater. They were yelling something, but he couldn't hear... his head felt like it was on fire. His breaths came in ragged gasps, and his vision began to twist and distort from the heat of the lasers, and everything was crashing down around him and... and...
"Did we do it?" he groaned.
There was an answer, and a pair of steadying hands on his back and another on his shoulders. He didn't take in any of it. The searing electric heat blazed on until it whited out all his senses, and left him falling blind and half-conscious to the crumbling ground.