Tic-Tac-Jack Attack! (Con-Soul side mission - Afternoon)

Sat at home on his sofa-bed, Tomomi opened up his laptop, tilting his head as he read the message. A game? It was... A little suspicious... But most importantly... It was certainly curiosity piquing. Clicking on his track pad, Tomomi opened up his internet browser. The connection was slow, but, typing in his username and password, the display name of XxAnimalLover5DxX coming up on screen with an avatar image of a little penguin.

Time to play a game. A devious and difficult game...

Tic tac toe time.

Immediately after Tomomi completed the concise and oddly innocuous instructions contained within the message, his screen would flood with an absurd amount of jumbled green code, an indecipherable stream of numbers and letters engulfing his entire browser and rushing down the tab while his keyboard and mouse silently shut off. It'd be blatantly obvious to anyone who'd interacted with a computer before that this wasn't normal by any stretch of the imagination; it was a bombastic wave of flair not unlike the kind of hacking you'd see in an outdated mediocre movie or a meme floating around the web, something that had to either a blatant display of supernatural power or an elaborate prank... or perhaps both? Regardless, while the sight might initially prove alarming, things would calm down not soon after as the rapidly moving text slowed to a trickling crawl and control over the keys and cursor returned to the boy. His browser would remain altered though and every tab he opened would load the same black screen, a masked figure slowly fading into sight and waving in his direction, the girl(?) hovering peacefully in a sea of code while the screen automatically began to zoom in on her head.


Most of the random text behind her would disappear and in the vacant space new words would be spelled out, the messages speedily darting in to fill the empty spot. But in spite of their swift arrival, they'd linger for a decent bit before vanishing and being replaced giving Tomomi a fair amount of time to read it over, likely thanks to the fact that the terrorist wasn't actually speaking aloud for him to hear. In the meantime, the rabbit-headed woman would strike a contemplative pose, feigning ignorance and eventually inquiring about a seemingly random question once he finished reading what little she wrote.

While to the normal person, a lack of control over the computer would cause panic and confusion, to Tomomi, it just lead to the assumption that his computer was on the fritz again. As the whole thing became modified however, he found himself tilting his head. A... Bunny? Wait, wait, wait, how did this bunny know what his avatar was? That... Was a bit spooky. Did that mean that the weird thing with his computer just now wasn't the machine just having a funky five minutes? If it wasn't creepy, it would be impressive. Actually, it was kind of both. Creepressive?

Reading the question and having to think on it for a moment, the sudden moving writing proving difficult for the non-english native, who had far too many languages in his head to try memorise them easily. Thankfully it repeated itself enough for him to get the gist of it, and so he moved on to the question. From what he understood, while creepressive, this hacking hacker bunny person was someone that liked a laugh. A laugh, and random humour. Looking back and forth, as if trying to think of something that could be amusing, the boy typed out a reply.

"antartica more like anfartica" he replied, giggling to himself. That was a zinger alright.

Con-Soul would snicker encouragingly and nod in mock-thoughtfulness at the response. Drawing back her hand from a thinker position, she'd fling it behind her in a flourish and vanish with a cartoonish poof, plain white lines appearing around the screen to create a crude but clear gameboard. After this finished her head would pop up from the lower-right corner and a small box of basic information would open up at the very bottom.

Tic-Tac-Jack!:

Selecting one of the squares, Tomomi placed the first counter down on the grid, the Pyro Jack head popping into place. "Right... Game time... Good luck and have fun stranger!"

Smiling as he looked at the screen, Tomomi found himself nodding in agreement at the screen that could not reply to the sentiment as he moved his third piece into place, typing out his reply upon doing so. "its definitely been a fun game stranger person with a bunny avatar and a mystery name. good choice with a classic fun game too."

"definitely! gg con-soul, its been fun and i would happily play another game! thanks for playing!"

As if gravity had suddenly been applied to them, the white lines and the pieces floating in the air would without warning fall down and gracelessly tumble off the screen, the rabbit mask exiting the corner as Con-Soul pushed herself out of it and hovered back into full view. But while she took center stage yet again, this time she'd seem much closer in proximity and the girl would only draw closer and closer as she floated over casually, hovering through the air until her large mascot-head obscured most of the background. A few seconds of nothing would pass before she reached out with her hand and pressed it up against the screen from the inside, the area around it beginning to ripple and distort as if a portal had just opened up between two destinations. Should he stare it for more than a split second, Tomomi would feel almost instinctively compelled to reach out and teach his screen, though it was ultimately his decision; nothing would force him to follow suit.

If he did reach out to it though, his palm would slip through briefly and he'd feel tiny frail fingers interlock with his own, a warmth washing over his hand and coursing through his entire body (which had begun to glow an almost unnoticeable shade of dim orange). It was a pleasant sensation to be sure, a feeling not unlike resting your hand over a fireplace on a cold winter evening, but it wouldn't last long as he felt something slip into his palm and the girl's hand recede along with the rippling gateway it'd conjured. A final message flashed across the screen.


Then everything cut to black. The computer would completely shut down before he could respond, although it'd restart on its own in a second or two. Were Tomomi to look at his palm he'd discover a small red gem and several glass-like shards resting within it... and were he to look at his desktop wallpaper, he'd also discover one last parting gift: a picture of Con-Soul flashing a peace sign and raising her mask just enough to expose a smile.

The sudden oddity that happened with his shoddy laptops screen caused a bit of a surprise to Tomomi at first, but as he reached out to touch the screen, his hand slipped in. His heart raced and pulse increased in shock as his hand went into the screen. This was supernatural stuff, right? He wasn't about to lose his hand, right?

Instead, there wasn't any terrible situation, just a comfort, and the feeling of something in his hands. Withdrawing his hand, Tomomi just watched, reading the final message from this Con-Soul, with a slight smile crossing his face. As the image of the peace sign and smile showed itself, Tomomi looked to his laptops built in web cam, before mimicking the peace sign. As it returned to normal, the boy turned his computer off, having forgotten completely if there was anything else he actually wanted to do on it. Instead, he looked at the hand that went into the computer, opened his fingers to reveal what was now in his hand - a gem, and some glass shards. Not quite understanding what they were possibly used for, the boy decided to put them somewhere safe for now, and find out later. It was certainly the most interesting game of Tic-Tac-Toe he'd ever played, so much so that, walking over to his sofa, the boy sat down, then laid down, then... Fell into a nap.

[Exit]