His sister was working late at the library - a perfect opportunity to crash at her place and veg out with his laptop as opposed to doing something as boring as homework back at home with his parents. Or, more specifically, the overbearing Mrs. Rey. For whatever reason, their mother was determined for both children to be Honor Roll achievers - wasn't having one good enough?
Dropping his backpack off on the couch, he kicked off his shoes in the living room before padding his way towards the apartment's guest bedroom, aka his second home away from home. His laptop under his arm, he flipped on the lights and glanced around for where his next throne of conquest would be. The chair and the desk? Nah, he'd been sitting at a desk all day. Floor, using the bed as back support? Hm. No, his back had had enough support for one day.
Shaking his head, he rested the laptop on his nightstand before flopping on the bed. Socked feet kicked the end of the bed as he moved to drag the laptop over onto the bedspread. Flipping up the lid, a few keystrokes unlocked the main screen and a flick of the mouse sent the game screen up, bold bright letters welcoming him.
"Hmm."
Pressing the letter O, he looked to see who on his Friends List was online. Linking up to a few buddies, he soon found himself on the character selection screen. One by one, his companions grabbed their roles.
"Boop." He said quietly, picking the Latin looking woman with purple, half shaved hair. Usually rolling with his favorite, he'd decided that today was the day to try something new. Besides - Sombra probably had the second best visual appeal for him. A tough gal with sassy comments and a knack for hacking things?
It was a shame that girls like that didn't exist in the real world.
A slide of his left hand and he was opening his mic. "I'll get the Mercy."
Darting forward, he slipped behind the protective Reinhardt and the glowing red shield he'd put up. Pushing his mouse, he flew into a side room, determined to lay in wait until the other players on the enemy team were too focused with the oncoming aggression than to realize they were being picked at from behind. Three of them went down, thanks to a group effort on his team's behalf, and just as the Mercy moved in the center to hit her ultimate attack, Alrik hit Q, using his own ultimate to hack into hers and render it useless.
Bingo.
He laughed out loud, not even caring that the Hanzo sniped the kill shot of the healer away from him. As the seconds counted down, the lingering enemy players were taken down, forced to respawn miles away and far too late for them to come salvage a win from the situation.
Tossing his headphones onto the bed, he clicked to opt out after the Victory screen, the blonde teenager intent on scoring himself a victory snack from his sister's pantry in honor of the occasion.
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 10:06 am
Year of the Lose-ter (WC: 642)
When his phone had pinged him, he hadn't thought anything of it. Thanks to all of the memberships he had with various gaming stores and magazines, it wasn't uncommon for Alrik's phone to buzz several times a day with e-mails advertising Hacking Cheats of 2017 or Vote for Your Favorite GAmes!1!!. Some were legit, some were spam, all tended to get on his nerves. His father had suggested that he come up with a fake email account to give the companies when they requested an address in his forms, but it had already been far too late for poor Alrik - the damage was done.
Glancing down at his phone, his eyes widened as he saw it was from Blizzard. He knew there was the potential for a new event with his most recent favorite FPS game, but since Valentine's Day was the closest holiday, he'd shrugged it off. Valentine's was a day for girls who demanded chocolate and flowers from their boyfriends. As far as he was concerned, he'd gotten off the hook by not bothering to find a girlfriend for himself.
As his eyes scanned the email, he could feel the excitement begin to bubble within him. Year of the Rooster? Blizzard had decided to go with a Chinese New Year theme as opposed to lovey dovey red hearts and roses?
Awesome!
He'd sat there, almost ready to burst out from his seat until the final class bell rang. There'd been no stopping by the gas station on the way home for a bag of chips or a Slurpee - no, he'd practically dashed straight home, his backpack bouncing off his back with every hard thud of his foot against the pavement.
Throwing open the front door, he wasted no time in running up the stairs to his bedroom, casting aside his backpack on the way and his mother, who was yelling out something incoherent for his one-track mind to hear. As he clicked his computer on, eyes fell to the troubling icon in the bottom left. He clicked it, opting for the Troubleshoot option, but there was no success.
His internet was tragically dead.
"MA, can you reset the router? The internet's not working!!"
"Quit yelling Alrik, for goodness's sake." An aged blonde Mrs. Rey appeared in the doorway, her face flushed from probably yelling at her son as he ignored her initial greeting. That, or the stair climb upwards to chase after him, "That's what I was trying to tell you, when you got home. Your father managed to mangle the router and is already on his way to exchanging it, right now."
Scooting back in his chair, the teenager made a beeline for his laptop's carrying case. Leave it to his father to screw up the weekend for him. "I'm heading over to Penny's for the aftern---"
"You're not heading anywhere. I got a call from your teacher that you have a history report due on Monday and I want to see this report before you take off for your sister's again. You can't just run away to her place when you aren't getting your way, you know."
Arms folded across her chest meant Business in the Rey household - Alrik already knew it was a lost case. He tried to argue with her over needing the internet to get his facts, to which she'd pointed towards the staircase and the numerous history books his father had collected over the years.
"You can find enough information from those - maybe when he gets home and gets things fixed up, you can go online to find things but you're not leaving this house until that report is done."
Her final word was emphasized by the closing of his bedroom door, leaving a scowling, internet-less Alrik Rey to sulk unhappily in his bedroom for the rest of the evening.
Ghouliboo
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Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2017 1:50 pm
Moment of Truth
(WC: 563)
It had been nearly half an hour since Kari had left him alone at the park's empty playground. His uniform didn't have a watch on it, but he'd noted the time was around eight when he'd arrived, so it was surely approaching the nine o'clock hour as he took a seat on one of the large swings. Dark boots kicked back, sending him off as green eyes watched the empty area from where the Super Senshi had departed from. He half-worried that she'd return with backup, but when nothing had returned with Kari in tow after the first ten minutes, he assumed she'd fled for the night. Probably longer, honestly.
There were other concerns, however, that the teenager was currently facing. The biggest of all, naturally, was the reason as to why he was still lingering in the park and not returning home with the measly little quarter-sized energy ball he'd found after Kari's fleeing. Facing Penny with defeat was one thing, but having royally screwed up her master planning was putting him in a line of fire he wasn't prepared for.
Penny, in all of her loving, sisterly glory, was an understanding person. For the most part. She was still his sister, which opened the door for the rare occasion when they'd find themselves in a sibling spat - and he had a feeling this was going to be the cause of another one.
She'd created the plan so perfectly. So meticulously. It wasn't like any other senshi was gullible enough to fall into clever Stellerite's web, right? Kari was a plump goose on a silver platter when it came to energy draining and he could have sworn he'd heard his sister mention having more plans for the brunette, some that even involved Miss Alkaid.
Miss Alkaid.
A coldness came over him and he paused in his swinging as he thought about upsetting someone so terrifying looking. Was she in on the plot too? Would she also get upset, knowing Epidote had potentially spooked off the girl for good, foiling whatever plot it was that Stella had conceived?
Crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap.
Or what if....
A second chill came over him as he realized that Kari might not have run away at all, but instead run to someone else...like Stella. What would happen if Kari found his sister first and told her that he'd double crossed the plan, that he'd tried to kill her instead of merely sapping her of energy? He really hadn't tried to kill her, but Kari was definitely spooked enough to believe that he had... and when Stella found out that he'd intentionally removed her star seed....
He swallowed hard as he realized what he had to do. He had to meet up with his sister and confess his crime before the senshi would have the opportunity to rat him out for his noobish wipe.
Crap.
Gloves gripped the swing's chains tightly as he slowly rose from his seat. Groveling to his older sister hadn't been on the agenda for the night, but he had a feeling that he'd better admit to his failure before she found out any other way.
Cursing softly to himself, he kicked away at the pebbles and gravel of the playground area before sulking his way back through the park, gritting his teeth the entire way to his sister's apartment.
Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:53 am
April's Fool (WC: 518 )
This was going to be the best April Fool's trick ever.
It was Saturday morning - technically speaking - and he'd set his alarm to wake up him at fifteen past midnight. He'd stayed over at his sister's for the night, which was nothing unusual, but his intentions were far from brotherly as to why he'd bummed the spare bed on March thirty-first.
Creeping around Penelope's apartment, he felt as though his stealth abilities were being put to the test. After all, Penny was just down the hall, either sleeping peacefully or, knowing her, probably up late reading one of her silly novels again. What a nerd.
Finding her laptop had been the easy part. Figuring out her passcode... well, that was slightly more difficult, but not an impossible feat. Penny's strengths lay in her writing skills, not her encryption abilities. After a few trial runs using the things he knew about her - which was pretty much everything - the screen came to life with the desktop view and Alrik bit his lip to prevent himself from cheering his own success. He idly stared at her background, which from the look of it, appeared to be fanart done of one of her stories. He could always change it to something awful, but that would merely give away the fact he'd gotten into her laptop...better stick to the original plan.
Clicking away on the trackpad, he first located her folder full of Work in Progress stories. Here, his crime would be committed. Turquoise eyes scanned over the names of all the files until he settled on one that he felt inspired by. Naught But Bones? We'll see about that.
It didn't take long to reroute the story's file to another part of the desktop. He took special care in renaming it, as well, so that any file search for the name would return with nothing. A hidden folder or two later and the original story was tucked away, safe and sound from its owner's ability to find it.
Now came the fun part.
Cracking his knuckles, he set to work. The main character's flawless appearance was given a few noticeable acne patches, of which the male lead noticed practically off the bat. Adding a beer belly to the male lead, the main character went on for a good page, page and a half about her own personal battle against outward appearances.
Alrik had to pause to continuously google synonyms for basic words - how in the world his sister managed to stay so flowery in her writing all the time was beyond his comprehension.
Tossing in a few sparkles and an inpromptu vampire in the bedroom scene (he did his best not to make too many grossed out faces at that part), the blonde teen renamed the file to Naught But Bones and placed the fakery back in his sister's WIP section.
Closing the laptop, he grinned to himself as he tiptoed back to the spare bedroom. He might not be around when she finally noticed the changes.... but he already knew it was going to be hilarious when she did.
Ghouliboo
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Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:13 am
A Night at the Night Hold (WC: 517 )
It had become abundantly clear that his Negaverse side job had taken a drastic toll on his gaming life. With so many games to keep updated with, it was a wonder how he hadn't fallen behind even further in some of his classic favorites. Afternoons after school usually gave way to literal hours of game time, but now with him going out energy gathering at least three, sometimes four times a week, he was left with only a handful of hours to play his games.... that is, if he skipped out on waiting to do homework until minutes before it was due.
One of his favorites that had been sadly neglected was his World of Warcraft account. He'd already pre-purchased almost an entire year of game time subscription with his hoard of gold, but the account had hardly been put to use after his induction into the Negaverse. And what - now that patch 7.2 was out, how had he managed to not even step foot in the latest raid... and now the next raid was coming out?
Somewhere up above, the Blizzard gods were shaking their heads in disappointment at him.
Logging in seemed almost foreign to him, the teenager clicking in his authenticator numbers and password. The screen flashed in front of him and he clicked on his main - orc warrior. Casters were great and all, but there was nothing quite like being forced into the thick of battle with nothing but your sword and shield to protect you. Or, in his case, two swords - tanking was fun, but they didn't shoot up the meters like a DPS did.
Finding a group wasn't hard, especially right after reset. Others were apparently scrambling for upgrades before the new raid opened as well... eh, at least he wasn't the only one feeling left behind.
There was a momentary pause as he double checked his disorganized bags for a flask and food; he wasn't about to lose a few points just because he forgot to buff up beforehand. Locating the raid's entrance was another task - he'd been there once or twice during a quest chain, but the memory was fuzzy at best. Thank goodness for warlock summonings.
As the raid began, he wracked his brain for the boss notes he'd read months earlier - he knew the basic mechanics (at least he thought) but some things were more tricky than others. Would he remember them? Only time would tell.
Moving to shove a few cheez-its into his mouth, he idly thought to himself that Pen would probably love the way the raid looked, aesthetically speaking. It wasn't bright neon green like the previous one had been - pity, really - but instead looked like it'd come right out of the Elven parts of Lord of the Rings. Bet all the ladies got a kick out of how pretty it was.
Shame he was going to destroy it all. Bosses be darned, he wasn't leaving the raid without at least two new pieces of gear!
Grinning, he wiped the cheese dust onto his jeans and dove into the first fight.
Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 10:16 am
Don't Quit Your Day Job (WC:1525)
E-Mail Header
To: dinnafash @ gmail.com From: MasteRey18 @ gmail.com Subject: Silenter Hill
After spending the afternoon both schooling and getting schooled by Olga Sayle, Alrik had grown to have a better appreciation for the female gamer in general. It was fairly incredible as well that he'd spent a good portion of the evening talking to her about things that weren't video game tactics. It seemed Olga fancied herself a fanfic writer - which Alrik knew all about anyhow, what with his sister making some side flow with her own fic writing.
It was a couple hours after the pair had parted ways that Alrik began thinking about what she'd said. If girls could do it, he certainly could too, right? And it wasn't like he'd never written an essay before - okay, so maybe he hadn't bothered trying too hard on those, but if his own flesh and blood had talent, surely he did too when it came to writing?
There was only one way to find out for sure.
Pacing back in forth around his room, it had taken Alrik Rey all of thirty two minutes (and a half) to come up with the subjects for his own fanfic story. Olga was going to be the recipient of the story first - it would be an honor to her, he was sure, for him to give her the very first, incredible story that he'd written. After taking the time to explain to Penny about the game's history, he'd even let her read his work of art. Maybe he'd even get a knack for this sort of thing and start making money, like his sister did. After all, he knew all about the stories and characters in popular video games... what more did he need?
Settling on the classic video game series Silent Hill, he pulled up his computer chair and set to work. It was even better that he'd picked SH for his theme - most of the characters changed up in every story anyways, so he could make up any of the characters as long as the setting remained the spooky same as it always did. Maybe there'd be some cameo appearances and whatnot...he could always include Pyramid Head or one of the others that had shown up in the movies or the video game. Maybe that red nurse girl? Did she have a name? He might have to start googling things for research purposes, but he'd write out as much as he could first before having to resort to boring tactics like researching.
Cracking his knuckles, he clicked the mouse over towards the body of the email and began to type.
Email Content
It was just another normal day for Alrik Sayle and Olga Rey... or so they thought.
It had started off normal, at least. The two high schoolers had gone to school like normal high schoolers... or so they thought.
Carpooling had been efficient reasoning, especially since the two lived next door to one another. So when Alrik got his porsche out of from his parents' garage, it didn't take long for Olga to appear, backpack in hand.
"Good morning, Alrik!" she said. She was very peppy that morning, like she was most mornings. Her hair looked okay and her outfit was pretty cute.
"Good morning, Olga," he said, but really smoothly because he was a smooth kind of guy. "Are you ready to go to school?"
"Yes!" She said, very peppily.
The two got into his red porsche and he drove off down the street. They were heading the same way to the school like they always took, but today there was some construction going on that neither of them had expected to see.
"Oh, that's no good," peppy Olga said, her peppy attitude becoming crestfallen with sadness. "We will be late for class at this rate!"
Alrik, ever the quick thinker, assured her, "No, I bet we can find a shortcut!"
He was a smooth thinker like that.
They were in luck, because when he turned the car around they spotted a path they had never seen before! It seemed to head in the direction of the high school, which was awesome for both of them. Maybe Alrik would even get a decent parking spot at that rate, he thought.
Only, as they started down the path, it became very clear very fast that it was not as safe looking as they had initially thought it would be. In fact, Olga was quick to point out that the birds that had been once chirping were no longer chirping (they were in a convertible porsche with the top down) and a thick fog was starting to set in around them, which was really weird because it was like seven in the morning and that usually didn't happen in the city where they lived.
"We should probably turn around," Alrik admitted, but then the car suddenly sputtered and stopped. He scowled because it was a very expensive car and it shouldn't be stopping in the middle of the road like that. Not to mention the cost of what it would take to fix a convertible porsche!
"Oh no!" Olga said, now more sad than ever. Alrik tried to pull out his cell phone to call for assistance, but there were no bars or service available.
"I guess we'll just have to find someone to help us," he said and Olga nodded in understanding.
The two high schoolers left their bags in the car and Alrik locked it, even though the top was down but he didn't think anyone would steal backpacks so it was okay. They started walking down the spooky foggy path and it didn't take long to find a strange looking building that was shrouded in even more fog than what was on the street.
"Well, we may as well try!" Olga said, her peppiness slowly restoring itself. Alrik nodded, smoothly, and helped her up the stairs and opened the door for her like a gentleman. The hallway was dark and they both immediately regretted their decision to walk into the building.
Olga turned to run out of the door, but it was no longer there!!! She screamed out of fear and ran into the young man's arms and Alrik hugged her to comfort her, telling her it would be okay and that they would find another way out. He wasn't sure if this was really what they were going to do but he didn't want to frighten her any more than she was already frightened. After all, girls were way more easily scared than boys were.
As they walked down the hallway, though, both heard a strange hiss coming from one of the dark rooms. There was no door on the hinges, so he was unable to close it and keep whatever it was hissing away from them.
Two gold eyes peered at them, followed by a large mouth of sharp looking, raggedy teeth. The monster hissed again as it began to slowly crawl in their direction. It looked sort of like a human but also like a large cat that was really wet and had come out of a sewer.
"Oh, Alrik! I'm SO scared!!" Olga cried out in scared fear as she clung helplessly to the well-endowed, chiseled abbed teenager who probably was far too manly to even be in high school anymore. Alrik allowed her to cling to him as he stood firm where he stood, staring down the absolutely insane looking monster. Somehow the top three buttons of his shirt had come undone and he was now showing off his manly chest as he glared at the monster.
"I don't know what you are," he said to the monster, who continued to creep its way towards the two adults, dripping some sort of weird blood or oil along the floor as it crawled, "But you need to stay away, before I
Reaching over to grab his bottle of water, his wrist jostled the mouse and he heard an audible click. The screen flashed white and the story suddenly disappeared.
"What?"
He stared at the screen for a moment, momentarily confused. Where...? What...? The story had been right there and suddenly it was gone?
The bold number one featured next to the Sent folder alerted him to his error. His grave, horrible, most terribly awful error.
"N-No!"
This couldn't be happening. This was a total noob mistake - Alrik Rey didn't make these kinds of noob mistakes!!!
He continued to click around in the mailbox, but the teenager knew it was all in vain. It was done through google mail, so there wasn't any way to retract it, either, not like he could with some of the Outlook programs that the school used.
His head fell into his hands dramatically as he let out a pained moan. The story had started off so good and now it was broken in half and it'd be spoiled for her because she'd have already read the good parts and he hadn't even made it to the part where Alrik saved the girl and she gave him a dramatic kiss in gratitude.... no, no, it was all utterly ruined now!
What had he done?
[color=white]x[/color]Lucyal
sorry not sorry
Ghouliboo
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Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2017 8:38 am
No Time for Games (WC: 546)
His watch read three in the morning when he finally stumbled into his bedroom, eyes bleary and body exhausted. Alrik knew he should probably crash at his sister's, but his mother would be suspicious, already under the presumption that her son had gone to bed around ten the night prior. Waking up and finding him gone would send more red flags - he'd already made that mistake twice now and wasn't willing to listen to another of his mother's interrogations for performing a repeated offense.
It didn't take long to peel out of his street clothes, sweat clinging to the fabric thanks to the summer heat. Nights were nearly as warm as the days were, making for one hot attempt at patrolling. There wasn't a way to take a shower without waking up his parents, so he'd have to suffer by going to bed smelling like... well, like a teenage boy.
Out of habit, he ambled his way over to the desktop computer, whose screen had slowly collected a thin film of dust across the surface. With how busy the last few weeks had been, there hadn't been nearly enough time to pay attention to his beloved best friend or the video games it held inside of it.
Flipping on the monitor, he swiveled his mouse around to wake the slumbering technology up. A couple clicks and his Steam and Battle.net programs were brought to life, both systems requiring several updates of several games... which only proved to Alrik just how disconnected he'd been from the internet world while he'd focused his attentions on more pressing issues. More real life issues.
Between trying to gather energy and seeds for the Negaverse, there'd been the entirely unexpected presence of Cassadega Bright and her sudden appearance in his humble, young adult world. Her existence alone had consumed his thoughts more than anything else for the past week... well, when he wasn't running around Destiny City as Captain Epidote and trying to be the badass he imagined himself to be in his head.
A private message pinged its way across the screen and his eyes dropped down to the blue font against black background.
[GarbageGoblin: Rey, you there?]
He didn't bother taking a seat, leaning over as he typed away to the faceless name on the screen.
[MastaRey: hey GG, sorry - here now]
A few seconds later and a "..." appeared, implying the other gamer was at his computer and fast at work typing a response back.
[GarbageGoblin: Where've you been?? You've missed the last two raids, dude.]
[MastaRey: Been busy. Getting more action IRL than on a worgen lol]
[GarbageGoblin: lol w/e. wanna do some comp?]
Sighing, the blonde glanced over to the clock at the bottom of the screen. As tempting as it was to release some stress by shooting his cares away at random strangers, his bed was calling him more than the urge to wreck face.
[MastaRey: sorry bro, gonna catch some zzz's. maybe tomorrow?]
There was silence on the other side of the screen. Alrik was ready to flick the monitor off, when the typing resumed.
[GarbageGoblin: w/e. see you then]
Pressing the power button to the monitor, Alrik Rey sighed as he moved to collapse on the bed, falling asleep only minutes later.
Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2017 4:43 pm
Birthday Friend-Boy (WC: 502)
December twenty-first landed on a Thursday, which wasn't particularly a bad thing. In fact, it was probably a fairly good thing, since he'd stopped raiding on a three-night-a-week basis and had most of his evenings cleared up now to either work or energy hunt.
Thankfully this week, he happened to have Thursday off from both things. Well, he was scheduled off from Gamestop but decided to take the evening off from his other job because December twenty-first also happened to fall on the anniversary of Olga Sayle's birthday.
The blonde teenager prided himself on not forgetting (as many boys are apt to do) about the special day, nor did he forget about the promise he made to the girl when she'd come and visited him (inadvertently) at his store only a few weeks prior.
Finding a present for a friend-girl (because saying girl friend sounded weird) was harder than he thought. Jewelry was too much and what sort of a gift card was he supposed to get a girl? Candles? Girls liked candles and soaps, right? But Olga didn't really seem like a candles and soaps kind of gal and even when he'd contemplated stepping inside the Bath & Body Works store near his in the mall, he'd been waaaay too overwhelmed by the symphony of smells to even think about walking in to pick a singular one out. Flowers? Winter? Candy? Trees?
Who even knew what girls liked to smell like????
It only furthered his theory that girls were inherently weird beings to begin with.
Thanks to the ever helpful world of the internet, though, a quick google search and ebay hunt provided him with the necessary means of finding the perfect birthday present for a friend-girl that he enjoyed TV marathoning with. When the package arrived (just the day before her birthday, at that!) a quick transfer from box to bag was in order, jamming all sorts of random tissue paper to make it look halfway resembling that of a presentable birthday present.
Out of all the Outlander items to pick from, he'd chosen a large blanket as his weapon of choice, when it came to presents. He didn't really feel comfortable getting one that had a half naked man draped across it, but found a suitable replacement in the form of one of the crests and the large title Outlander emblazoned below it on a dark green flannel pattern.
Yes, this would be a perfect gift for Miss Sayle.
Remembering where her apartment was ended up being a little more tasking than he'd thought (man, had it really been that long since he'd hung out at her place?) but he managed without too much fuss. He'd worn jeans and decently unwrinkled shirt (he'd ran it through the dryer an extra time, just in case) and even combed back his hair (with his fingers).
Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door, took a step back and grinned as the birthday girl herself opened the door with a smile.
