Skyrise

Fox's Device

Dragonfly

     Dinner was boring, so let's skip straight to the device. Those are always fun!

     "It's right here!" Fox said, dragging the machine into the main room.

     "Do you want some help?" I asked.

     "Nah, lad! I'm good!" He set the machine down with a gasp of relief. "It changes the way people fight. I figured it would be a riot and help people learn more about their souls."

     "I see."

     "All I have to do is fire it up!" He yelled, throwing the switch. It fired up without any issue. And kept firing up. "That's no good." He said. The buttons lit up and started to flash. "That's really no good!" It started to melt. "Oh God, Take cover!!" The device exploded. I think. I don't really know.

     I woke up in a blue hallway with little white balls floating in the air. "Um... Fox...?" I called. "Where are we?" A tiny jingle played before another sound filled the air. A strange orange blob came down the hallway and made a beeline for me! I ran the other way, running through the strange pellets. "Did my score increase?" I asked no one. The orange blob was still following me. I used my hammer to smack a pellet into the blob. It looked confused. I took the chance to run away. I made the turn. "What is this, a maze?! Ooh! A cherry!" I guess I absorbed it? The blob turned a dark blue and started to run from me. "Yay! I'm just gonna hang out here from now on."

     "Dragonfly?! Where are you?!"

     "I'm over here, Fox!! At the cherry!"

     "Ah, here you are. I should've expected you to be a spawn camper. I despise people like you. If we weren't fighting for our lives in a rogue arcade machine, I'd so kick your butt!"

     "Oh. Thanks."

     "Don't mention it. So, next we should be heading to..." The scene morphed until we were flying our own spaceships! "Space Journey! I remember because it's a stupid name!"

     "Pew! Pew pew!!"

     "Are you even listening?!" I wasn't listening. He sighed. "Hey look! The enemies have arrived!" Starships that looked like ours crossed my field of vision.

     "What do we do?!? Do we shoot them?"

     "Nah, we make 'em cookies! Yes, we shoot 'em!" He shouted as he jammed the shoot button. "Hey, lad, you're supposed to avoid enemy fire."

     "Oh crap!" I shouted, trying to veer around.

     "Do a barrel roll!"

     "What the hell is a barrel roll?!" The scene changed again. What now?! I asked myself. I was surrounded by roads that soared around. It looked super futuristic. I was dressed in a metal body suit with two glowing swords. "What?" Fox had a similar costume, but with arm cannons. He looked ecstatic.

     "Now for Runner and Gunner?! This is incredible!"

     "How do you know what to do?!

     "Easy!" He smiled. "It's in my history books!"

     I rolled my eyes. "Nerds."

     "Exactly. Now come on!" He was giddy as he dashed about the stage destroying bad guys with his not-so-bare hands. I struggled to keep up as far as enemy destruction went, but I was exceptionally agile. "That's it!" He called. "Just enjoy it!" I pulled out my sword and killed another robot as Fox called for help. I looked over to see him getting grabbed my a huge armored robot!

     I knocked Fox free and together we finished him off. "Not in my house!" I yelled.

     "Technically, we're in my house." He said.

     Once again, we changed. Ashes flew through the air, clouding my vision. I saw the outlines of destroyed buildings and other parks.  Corpses lined the road. "Where are we?" I asked.

     "At World's End..." He muttered. We both held modern looking guns. A corpse got up and bolted toward me. I gunned it down. "Nice!" Fox said.

     "Why are we here? What happened to this place? When can we fix this? When can we leave?" I asked.

     "Nuclear war tore this place apart. We can't fix it. That's not the point of this place."

     "Then what can we do?"

     "All we can do is survive. Fight this war until it's over. Kill any resistance."

     "This place is pointless. Pointless and sad."

     He was silent until the scene changed once again to a huge blue sky and a pure meadow. "Kaze II, anybody?" He asked. I was silent. "Come on, lad. It's just a game. Snap out of it." A game?!

     "That didn't look like a game."

     "Well..." He sighed. "Dang, man. Nice job lightening the mood. Hey, dude. Go smack that bird with your sword. It'll make you feel better." He nodded to a small bird. I walked over and whacked it. It started attacking me and squawking. Then another walked up. And another. Soon enough I had eight birds attacking me! I noticed I was quickly losing health. I got down to quarter of a heart, then I died. "Holy crap, lad! Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, ARE YOU OKAY?!?" I opened my eyes to see a nervous wreck version of Fox. We stared at each other until I cracked up.

     I couldn't stop laughing! "Oh my God!! Did I seriously just get killed by chickens?! Wow. I'm... I'm just too good." I sat up and pointed to the farmer near the stupid birds. "Hey! You! Yeah, you! Screw yo' chickens!!"

     "Hah. Oh my God, wait. Don't say that!"

     "Why not?"

     "He's your one source of food in this game and now you've made him mad so he won't give you food."

     "Oh wow." I walked up and tried talking to him. "Nope. No food for me! Guess I'm starving to death. Hooray!!" My vision turned white. Blue lines raced towards the sky and we were spat back onto the floor in Fox's house, dying of laughter.

"We survived!"

"Let's do that again!"

"No way, lad. You may not know this, but getting sucked into that thing was scary."

"Yeah. Hey, does that count as a boss fight?"

"Sure. Better than I would've been able to manage. Hey, it's eleven at night. You should really get home, huh lad?"

"I guess. See ya later, Fox!"

"Bye!"