Work Text:
Pär was reading one of his favorite books two minutes ago, but that came to a halt the moment he heard Joakim shout, although the sound was muffled because of the distance between each other, to Pär it sounded like the boy had hurt himself,
So, his first instinct was to rush off to where he was and see what had happened,
“Oh no, no, no, no!” he heard Joakim exclaim, he sounded desperate over something,
Whatever it was, Pär hoped that it wasn’t anything serious, as he continued to make his way over he heard Joakim scream again,
“No, no, no!!” followed by another yelp,
Pär quickened his pace and when he did, he saw Joakim sitting down on the couch in front of the T.V., the gaming console was plugged in and turned on as the younger male played his video game,
He stood and watched as Joakim yelped in fear as he desperately tried to outmaneuver a giant robot that seemed to make the screen shake, stutter, and glitch whenever it came within touching distance,
The character that Joakim was playing as momentarily fell from a platform that collapsed under its feet, making them land on the floor,
The sound of the robot steadily approaching Joakim’s position could be heard as Joakim quickly started curing under his breath,
“shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit-!” he whispered, slowly yet steadily he made his way around the robot as stealthily as he could,
Eventually, he reached the same platform he was on before but looked over to his right at a pressure valve that was near,
“Does this open a door?” Joakim thought out loud as he pressed the interaction button on the item, as his character turned the valve it popped off and the pipes could be heard hissing loudly as they settled, the robot was now re-alerted to his position,
Its footsteps could be heard approaching,
“Not again, not again, not again!” Joakim seemed to mentally kick himself as he made his character quickly walk off in a different direction, further left from the platform, and found a set of stairs that he had previously overlooked,
he walked on them and they guided him to an upper level where he flipped on a switch, a sliding door could be heard hissing further above him as it opened, as well as the robot’s footsteps,
That makes Joakim panic as he hurried himself up to where he heard the noise of the sliding door opening,
As he ascended the stairs, behind him the robot could be heard making an alerting sound as it spotted Joakim,
The poor boy let out another scream of fear as he now forced his character to run instead of sneaking off to the destination,
As he ascended the stairs, he entered the area where the sliding door had revealed itself,
In this new area, he found a lever to his left, he ran to it and pulled it down, there was a sound of the sliding door shutting behind him as well as the creature angrily roaring in annoyance,
Joakim stood there in silent shock as he watched the now closed door, he listened for the creature as it seemed to quickly lose interest in him and walk away,
Now in safety, Joakim gave a sigh as he placed a hand over his rapidly beating heart,
Pär accidentally bumped into something behind him that made a loud sound which frightened Joakim as he let out a terrified scream, if the boy could’ve he probably would’ve jumped ten feet in the air like a cat,
Joakim turned around, half expecting a threat of some kind of threat to greet him, but when he unexpectedly saw Pär he scared himself again, letting out a frightened yelp in surprise,
Pär suppressed a snort of laughter as he watched Joakim try to recover from three consecutive scares,
“Y-You ok?” Pär slightly chuckled,
Joakim, after finally composing himself nodded, “Y-Yeah…” he gave a weak nod and small smile,
“I heard you scream…” Pär noted, he watched as Joakim sheepishly grin,
“Ah, sorry about that… the game spooked me…”
“I can see that…”
Joakim stayed silent for a moment, “…Do you want to watch me play?” he asked him, curious to know if his friend would stay with him,
Pär didn’t have to think twice about his decision as he nodded, “Yeah, why not…” he spoke as he made his way over to sit next to him, being the eldest immortal in the group he wasn’t too sure how to navigate technology all that well, but watching? That he could do,
And something inside of Pär told him that he would have a lot of fun watching Joakim play this game…
[GAME PLAYED – SOMA,
GENRE: STORY DRIVEN HORROR GAME,
ENCOUNTER: FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH ENEMY NAMED ‘FLESHER’, https://youtu.be/IfkpxJmSk_E?t=2439]
- - - - - -
Tommy groaned in annoyance when he saw his current position drop from third to fourth at the top left screen, he watched as the player ahead of him got the advantaged and moved further ahead of him,
“Oh, fuck off…” he growled as he forced the car he was driving into ‘nitro mode’, which was essentially a state in which the car would use specially collected canteens of oil that gave it a temporary speed boost,
As Tommy rounded a curve he made his car drift, effectively making him lose some traction but still allow him to maintain control over his vehicle as he exited his turn,
It took him less than a few seconds to react as he released the button from drifting to acceleration, the car’s wheels made a wheezing noise as they burned rubber,
Tommy sped off ahead of all of the other drivers, taking first place position all to himself,
As he neared the end of the race, just a mere fifty meters to the finish line he was suddenly caught off guard by another driver who overtook him last minute, making Tommy finish in second place as opposed to the first-place prize that he was clearly aiming for,
The game ended with the ending screen flashing in front of him, it displayed his gaming name, his car, what position and time he finished in,
He glanced at first place and noted how the person beat him by two seconds,
“Holy shit…” he groaned as he pressed his back against the couch, he gave a heavy sigh as the game flashed one of the tasks that he had to beat in order to continue the story mode of the game,
‘TASK FAILED, FINISH IN FIRST PLACE TO PROCEED!’
Tommy rubbed at his face, he had been trying to beat this level for over thirty minutes now and it felt nearly hopeless,
“What’re you doing?” came a voice behind him,
Tommy turned around and was greeted with Joakim who stared at him curiously, “Hey baby bro!” he exclaimed, flashing the younger male a wide smile,
Joakim flushed lightly at the nickname, he returned the smile before his gaze once again wandered over to the T.V. screen, “Racing game?” he asked,
Tommy nodded, “Mhm… want to come and watch?” he offered, Joakim nodded and sat down next to him, as Joakim looked on at the screen ahead he noticed how Tommy had failed one of his tasks in the game,
“Oh, you need to get first place to continue?”
“Yup”
“Can I help?”
Tommy raised an eyebrow, “But you don’t play racing games…?”
Joakim rolled his eyes, “I know but I just want to try it out… please?” he gave him his best puppy dog eyes, and Tommy found himself melting at his gaze,
Wordlessly, Tommy handed him the controller, Joakim fist-bumped the air in victory,
He pressed the retry button and the level once again started, the high-octane racing music blared through the speakers as the countdown started…
3…
2…
1…!
And the vehicles were off!
Joakim found himself at first slightly lagging behind all the others, but once he got a hang of the controls he quickly sped up,
He overtook every driver he came across up until he was at the second-place position out of ten, the first-place driver was roughly fifty feet ahead of him and a turn was quickly approaching,
Joakim made sure to collect all of the special gas tanks that popped up along the race, these of which will enable to grant him a temporary speed boost,
As the bend came up, Joakim suddenly overtook the other driver, both cars drifting throughout the twist in the road and just as the exit was nearing, with one hundred meters till the finish line, he gunned it,
Joakim pressed the button for the speed boost and he was launched forward at such incredible speeds that he flew through the finish line, completely overtaking the first-place driver and giving himself first place,
Tommy sat there in complete silence, his mouth slack jaw as he watched the finishing screen pop up,
‘CONGRATULATIONS YOU WIN! PROCEED TO NEXT LEVEL?’
Joakim proudly beamed with a large smile on his face, “Oh cool! I won! Wasn’t that awesome, Tommy?” he turned to ask his best friend who sat next to him, upon seeing him just staring at the screen in silent awe, he was about to ask him something until Tommy turned to face him,
He didn’t say anything and instead frowned at Joakim, he looked… angry?
Joakim nervously smiled, “U-Uh… wh-what’s wrong Tommy?” he asked, worried he did something wrong,
Suddenly, Tommy pounced on Joakim, throwing them down onto the large couch with a loud thud and a yelp of surprise from the other,
“What the hell?!” Tommy cried out,
“What?!”
“HOW???” Tommy exclaimed as he watched Joakim stare at him like he didn’t know what he was talking about, “How did you do it?!” he asked him,
Joakim quickly found himself laughing hard at Tommy’s question,
“No! Don’t laugh!” Tommy exclaimed as he kept Joakim pinned down,
But Joakim wouldn’t relent, instead, he roared with laughter, so hard that tears were streaming down his cheeks, he had beat Tommy at getting first place in a mission that he had been struggling with for over thirty minutes and he didn’t even realize it,
Hannes quickly appeared from around the corner and looked at Tommy who was on top of Joakim, keeping the laughing man pinned, “Get off of him, Tommy…” he warned,
Tommy huffed and got off of Joakim who only chuckled as he handed him his controller back,
Hannes frowned, “What are you two doing anyway? Tickling each other?” he asked,
“No-!“
“-Yes!”
Tommy threw a pillow at Joakim’s face, which made the other only laugh harder,
The corners of Hannes’ mouth were pulled up into a half-smile, his gaze wandered over to the T.V., “Oh cool! Can I join too?” he asked,
“-Yes!” Joakim exclaimed, before Tommy could reply, he flashed him a smile and Tommy rolled his eyes at him,
Hannes walked over to the two of them and as he sat down, he picked up the other controller,
Tommy raised an eyebrow, “I thought you didn’t know how to play video games?” he asked,
Hannes gave him a frown, “Look, sure I’m old but I’m not too old…” he explained
Tommy gave him a cheeky smile, “Whatever you say, old man…”
Hannes grinned, “Oh… it’s on…!” he exclaimed as he pressed the ‘CONTINUE’ button, effectively starting yet another game of racing…
[GAME PLAYED – ASPHALT NINE,
GENRE: RACING GAME, https://youtu.be/6w_wqzocNpQ?t=312]
- - - - - -
Chris made his character approach the short smiling skeleton who wore a blue jacket, he pressed the interaction key and a speech bubble popped up,
‘*good job on solving it so quickly…
‘*you didn’t even need my help…
‘*which is great, ‘cause i love doing absolutely nothing.’
The conversation finished and Chris cracked a small smile, “Sure thing man…” he quietly answered as he walked off to the right-hand side of the screen, moving over to the next area of the map,
Upon arriving, he was greeted by the shorter smiling skeleton and its taller eccentric younger brother, as well as several grey colored tiles in front of his character,
“What’s going on here…?” he asked aloud to no one in particular,
‘HEY!
‘IT’S THE HUMAN!
“Hey Paps!” He happily exclaimed to the pixelated skeleton,
‘YOU’RE GONNA LOVE THIS PUZZLE!
“Will I?” Chris questioned to himself
‘IT WAS MADE BY THE GREAT DR.ALPHYS!
‘YOU SEE THESE TILES!?
‘ONCE I THROW THIS SWITCH…
‘THEY WILL BEGIN TO CHANGE COLOR!
‘EACH COLOR HAS A DIFFERENT FUNCTION!
‘RED TILES ARE IMPASSABLE!
‘YOU CANNOT WALK ON THEM!
‘YELLOW TILES ARE ELECTRIC!
‘THEY WILL ELECTROCUTE YOU!
‘GREEN TILES ARE ALARM TILES!
‘IF YOU STEP ON THEM…
‘YOU WILL HAVE TO FIGHT A MONSTER!
‘ORANGE TILES ARE ORANGE-SCENTED.
‘THEY WILL MAKE YOU SMELL DELICIOUS
‘BLUE TILES ARE WATER TILES.
‘SWIM THROUGH IF YOU LIKE, BUT…
‘IF YOU SMELL LIKE ORANGES!
‘THE PIRAHNAS WILL BITE YOU.
‘ALSO, IF A BLUE TILE IS NEXT TO A,
‘YELLOW TILE, THE WATER WILL ALSO ZAP YOU!
‘PURPLE TILES ARE SLIPPERY!
‘YOU WILL SLIDE TO THE NEXT TILE!
‘HOWEVER, THE SLIPPERY SOAP…
‘SMELLS LIKE LEMONS!!
‘WHICH PIRAHNAS DO NOT LIKE!
‘PURPLE AND BLUE ARE OK!
‘FINALLY, PINK TILES.
‘THEY DON’T DO ANYTHING.
‘STEP ON THEM ALL YOU LIKE.
‘HOW WAS THAT!? UNDERSTAND???’
The screen then flickered to a prompt, “*(Understand the explanation?)” his choices consisted of: “Of course” and “No”,
Chris sat there for a moment in silence, he looked on at the prompt and tried to recall everything the skeleton had just explained,
He could recall about half of it, so he nervously pressed the ‘of course’ prompt,
“Uh… y-yeah… s-sure…” he said, wondering how he was going to complete this puzzle or if he was going to have to ask Hannes, who sat next to him for assistance,
‘GREAT!! THEN THERE’S ONE LAST THING…
“…Oh god…” Chris groaned inwardly,
Hannes snorted, “Damn this puzzle’s going to be a bitch to finish-“
“-Don’t jinx it!” Chris exclaimed
‘THIS PUZZLE…
‘IS ENTIRELY RANDOM!!!!!!
‘WHEN I PULL THIS SWITCH, IT WILL MAKE A PUZZLE…
THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!
‘NOT EVEN I WILL KNOW THE SOLUTION!
‘NYEH HEH HEH! GET READY…!
And so, the skeleton turned around and flipped a switch on the machine next to it, which made the once grey tiled floor flash all the various set of colors that were mentioned earlier,
Chris and Hannes watched in both horror and amazement as the tiles rapidly flashed and changed colors,
Until eventually the flashing of colors stopped and settled on two colors only,
Two wide bands of red were at the top and bottom on the tiled floor, with a large line of pink in the center, this meant that Chris could safely traverse without any issues,
They watched in silence as neither skeleton said anything to Chris,
Suddenly, the much taller skeleton begun spinning in place as he quickly left the scene,
Both Hannes and Chris cracked a smile and begun to laugh as they watched the skeleton leave the area,
They were free to pass at their leisure and instantly clear the puzzle,
“Well…” Hannes chuckled, “That was easy…”
Chris sighed happily, “Thank god…” and he made his character walk forward all the way to the other side where they walked past the much smaller smiling skeleton and onto the next area…
[GAME PLAYED – UNDERTALE
GENRE: STORY DRIVEN ADVENTURE GAME,
https://youtu.be/ncr8pWRpqo8]
- - - - - -
Hannes squinted at the screen as he planned out his next move in his head,
Joakim sat off to the side of him, he was quietly watching Hannes play, he noticed how two groups of soldiers were about to get potentially decimated by a German tank,
“You should probably move them away…” He suggested,
Hannes noted that idea as he scanned the rest of the battlefield, the screen was frozen in pause mode as he was given time to decide to move on with his next turn in the military strategy game,
“Goddamn it…” Hannes sighed as he made his move, he made the group of soldiers move away from the tank and have a different tank approach the invading enemy from a flank position,
he un-paused the game and watched as one of the groups of soldiers safely made it away while the other was killed,
However, the tank that he sent out to do a flank attack had successfully defeated the enemy tank and began engaging approaching enemies that Hannes had not spotted,
“Oh, thank god…” he said as he analyzed the screen, he had two panzers and one small group of soldiers left to defeat,
“Ooo! Your so close!” Joakim cheered,
“Yes! Hopefully, after this we can strengthen the base too…” Hannes replied,
Pär frowned, “And you might also want to repair the base’s extremities for security, like the fences and turrets…”
Hannes nodded, he made sure to mentally jot that down before the next round started,
Soon enough the two panzers and lone group of soldiers were defeated,
Joakim gave a happy cheer as he high-fived Hannes, “Nice!”
Hannes gave a smile and turned back to the T.V., the game had given as much unlimited time as he needed to fix up his base and reinstate more troops before the next game began,
As Hannes fixed things up on this side of the map, the game suddenly switched him to a different scenario,
“-Wh-What?” Hannes called out and watched as the game placed him in front of a building that a band of soldiers was trying to seize, it appears that this scenario gave him limited resources to work with so Hannes would have to think even harder before making a move,
“Oh, this is hard…” Pär called out,
“Damn…” Joakim replied,
Hannes only quietly hummed as he checked his ‘inventory’, what he had on him was twenty-four soldiers, half of which were infantry and the other were a variable of special forces, some hand grenades, two were snipers, and so on,
Hannes quickly thought of where each one should move to, he kept snipers on higher ground, soldiers with grenades or Molotov’s assisted infantry, and the rest guarded the inside as a last resort,
Hannes hovered over the un-pause button, he eyed it nervously,
“You got this, don’t worry” Joakim reassured him,
Pär gave a silent thumb up as he was curious to see what would happen when he un-paused it,
When Hannes pressed the button to unfreeze the screen he watched on in silent horror as to what would occur,
One of his two snipers were quickly taken out but the other would not relent, it took out the other side’s own snipers and a few of the soldiers who held grenades,
Joakim silently cheered the digital soldiers on as he watched on, the screen was put on silent as it had sound effects of gunshots and explosions that Joakim would otherwise not enjoy hearing but he did enjoy watching what was happening as the whole game took place from a bird’s eye view and never up close,
Eventually, the game ended with Hannes winning the round by just a smidge, he had ten soldiers left after the ensuing chaos ended,
“That was close!” Joakim noted,
“Too close…” Pär replied and Hannes sighed, “Yeah… you two want to keep going?” he turned to ask them and watched on as they nodded…
[GAME PLAYED – COMPANY OF HEROES 2: ARDENNES ASSAULT
GENRE: STORY DRIVEN STRATEGY GAME,
https://youtu.be/_Fo5dmiiCm0?t=316]