Page 136: Shot Into Space

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Super Smash Brothers Online. I heard rumors about how great the game was at school... but I never wanted to play. I've heard the stories on the news about people losing their lives over these kind of games. Y'know, never leaving the house, eyes stuck to the PC... freaky stuff. And besides, online games... not really my thing. "Please!!" My friend, Shannon, would beg daily. "It's such a great game! My character is sooo cute! He's a Pokemon Swordsman named Zi-"

"Ugh, Shannon, I've told you, that game sounds boring..." What the hell is a 'Pokemon' anyway.

Her pouting was quite annoying. You'd think she'd realize it doesn't effect me anymore. "Hmph..." She huffed, crossing her arms. "You're lucky it's your birthday or I wouldn't have stopped."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, so lucky." Honestly... up until Shannon showed up today, I had forgotten it was my birthday. No one really celebrated it... not even me.

"Don't take that tone with me!" She paused, her face quickly changing as if she remembered something. "Oh yeah! Happy Birthday!" Quickly, she forced a package into my arms and smiled. "Open, open!" She said with a smile.

With a sigh, I began to tear away the colorful wrapping. After a few seconds of tearing, the gift's true identity made itself known. "You're such an idiot..." I muttered, tossing the copy of Super Smash Brothers Online onto my bed.

She smiled broadly. "You're welcome!" She said, fixing her falling glasses.

"Shannon!" I hear my mom's voice from downstairs call. "You're mom is on the phone! She says you need to get home for dinner!"

Shannon glanced over at my computer's clock. "Ack, it's seven already? I've gotta head home and help Moma finish cooking dinner." She dashed around the room gathering her belongings, her long and curly brown hair seemed to fly everywhere as she ran... what a mess she was making. Sometimes I wonder why she doesn't just leave her things in one place... I watched her put back on her shoes and turn to the open door. "Make sure to play." She said, looking back at me with a smile. "It's free, y'know. See ya! And Happy Birthday!"

"Bye." I said, waving to my friend as she left. With a slam of the door, I was left alone in my room. So much for a happy birthday, I thought to myself. It was just as any other day was... boring. Same shit, special day, I suppose. Sometimes I wished I had something more actiony to do... to keep me busy.

"Y'know, SSBO is full of action." Shannon's earlier words echoed in my mind. "You can fight monsters, earn gold... it's lots of fun. Plus you'll be playing it with other players from around the country and even the world! Its a good way of interacting with humans for a socialphobe like you."

Sighing, I turned back to my computer and loaded up the Internet. Just as the page loaded, I brought my right hand to my forehead and let out an even larger sigh. "GEEZ!" I screamed, reading the current 'Top Headline' in the world. It read: Super Smash Brothers: Online reaches 12 Million Users in just one year and still growing! I don't know why, but I clicked the link and began to read. It spoke of how Super Smash Brothers: Online was the fastest growing MMORPG, whatever that means, since some game called Warlocks of Worldcrack. Or something along those lines.

"What the hell is so cool about this game?" I asked no one, picking up the large box I had tossed onto my bed. I couldn't understand... the box had nothing special on it... it was a plain black box with the words: Super Smash Brothers: Online written in large red letters. Behind the box was some weird insignia which looked like a circle with an L-Shape Cross in it. The back yield just as little information, simply stating it was the: 'Fasting growing MMORPG in the world, and is the second part to a game called 'SS AOTH', another popular MMO which was released over 2 years ago.

"SS AOTH... sounds familiar..." I spoke, turning to the PC. I remembered hearing about that on the news... ah well, whatever, not important. But still... "I can't escape it can I?" I said, laughing to myself. I glanced over the box once again. "...Free, right?... What the hell..." I opened the box and put the CD into the drive.

I watched as the loading screen popped up. 110290 files remaining. Great. While watching the game's percents slowly creep by, I glanced into the box and saw two extra things. A small controller and a wireless head set. Along with these was some instructions. I minimized the loading screen and began to work on the extra add-ons. "Okay... so I have to plug in the controller... here." I said, plugging the controller into a slot in my PC. After recovering from the electric shock, I read on about the head set. "Place on right or left ear and leave mouth piece near mouth..." I installed the headset and smiled at my work. "Hey, this might be kinda fun!" I said, checking back at the loading screen.

120390 files remaining.

...Did it just go up?...

After what felt like days of loading, the software finally finished installing and the screen went black. "Oh..." Glancing at my PC, I began to wonder if my computer could handle the graphics. But just as quickly as my screen went black did the title screen of the game pop up. It read -

SUPER SMASH BROTHERS: ONLINE

Account Name: Password:

During the years of installing, I did manage to create an account name and password. I wrote down my name and password into my journal. Dragon's Return... hey, I like dragons. I quickly typed in my name and password, which brought me to a new screen:

SUPER SMASH BROTHERS: ONLINE

New Character Load Character Forums Official Site Updates

All but the load character channel was clickable. Since I had been to both the official site and forums to make my account name, and I was not yet interested in the updates of a game I haven't played yet, I quickly went to the "New Character" button and waited.

A few seconds passed and it brought me to another new screen, reading "Select Race" at the top. I was currently highlighted of the race, "HUMAN", but saw there were four other races to choose. "Okay, lets see... humans..."

Well, according the game, Humans were the most populous and plentiful of all the game's races. They were innovative and hard working, building two of the five great empires in the game. But they were also subjected to the moral sins of lust, greed and others, making it hard to find a completely moral human.

Needless to say, this was just back story and I wasn't too interested in that. According to the stats, however, it stated that humans were 'Jack of All Trades, Masters of None.'... which meant they could perform all of the jobs successfully. However, they will always be second best to any other race. In my life, I had always enjoyed being challenged... and after reading that, I was nearly sold on choosing a human. To strive in the game to become the best, even if it seems out of reach... yeah, that's my kind of game.

But I still had to check out the other races, just to make sure I wanted human. They went as followed:

Hylian: Beautiful and intelligent, they excelled at swordsmanship. I wasn't too fond of their armor or their ears... Pokemon: Magical monsters who are second only to humans in population, the excelled at magic. I'm not a spell caster type of person. Beasts: Animal-like creatures who hail from the jungle. Apparently they're good at being rangers, which made no sense. Gerudos: An all female race that hails from a part of desert in Hyrule... best at being a fighter, it seems. I don't really know... I was too distracted by the nose on the chosen avatar to represent the race.

All in all, I was sold from moment one on humans. Next screen, easy one... select gender. Male. Clicking next brought me to a screen reading, "Select Class". There were four classes I could pick from:

Swordsman: Warriors who use swords. Best 'tanks' in the game. Mage: Magical users who can control all of the elements of nature. Ranger: Using a quiver and bow, you can knock targets off at a distant. Fighter: No weapons required, just you're own bare fists.

According to the page, each class gets at least two advance classes, when you can choose to specialize in a different area of you're chosen profession. It also said something about a subclass and advance classes... I really didn't care, I chose Swordsman.

"Select Allegiance?" I muttered, reading the top of the screen. The next page asked me to choose a 'home town' for were my character can hail from. Apparently, when you reach that server, you can get special armor and items from that town. I read over the five servers and quickly made my choice.

Mushroom Kingdom: A 'melting pot' of all the races, who are all in the minority when compared to the Toad race. Hyrule: A beautiful and magical area where the Hylian's rule. Kanto: A busy and bustling city where the Pokemon reside... which also made no sense. Kongo Jungle: An Island off the cost of the main land where the Beasts are said to crawl out from. Pherae: The "new" kingdom of humans, built in the shadows of a nameless castle and the ruins of the Old Kingdom.

I clicked Pherae and checked the level needed to enter the server. "Five? All right." I quickly clicked next and it brought me to the final screen. "Select appearance." I echoed, looking at the computer. It took a few seconds to sink in, but when it did, it hit like a ton of bricks. There were a lot of fucking buttons.

"Eye color, hair color, face tone, height weight, eye position... What the..." I was in shock when I saw you could even choose at the rate you wanted your character to blink. "Hell no! I don't have the time to do all this." But then I noticed in the corner of the screen a button reading: Random. The description said it would randomly choose a character's avatar for you.

I'm not too sure what happened after that... but my screen began to flash red, green and black. An eerie sound came onto the speakers, which sounded like static. At the same time, I could have sworn I heard someone talking... all of this was kinda freaky... but I thought it was part of the game. That was, until I noticed it was slowing down my other programs on the computer and causing the screen to flash weird error messages. Then, my screen went black...

But from there it gets weirder still. Just as it couldn't get worse... my lights began flickering. Scared, I jumped from my chair just as my lights began to flicker on and off. I could smell the slight sent of smoke rising from my PC and I could have sworn my desk began to shake. "Aaaah!" I screamed, backing away from the computer. "Wha- What the hell is going on!?" Is this normal when a computer doesn't have the power needed to play a game?!

The static grew louder and louder, as did the mysterious deep voice, until it gave one last burst, filling the entire room with ear-piercing noise. Screaming, I fell onto the floor just as my light bulbs burst, bring my room into complete darkness. I sat on the floor, afraid to move from my spot. I was breathing heavily, like I had just run a mile for track at school. "Wow... that was intense..." I muttered through pants.

Just as I began to regain my composure, my computer screen flickered back on. Shocked, I looked over at the screen, which was still on the character appearance selection screen. "What the..." My character had visibly changed from a near naked man to a slender man in light blue armor, with dark blue hair and a tiara place gently upon it. He wore a blue cape, and held a long sword at his side. Beneath him, in the box labeled: TYPE NAME it read, MARTH.