Chapter Text
Dark laughter billows through the air like waves rippling across an open sea. It shakes the marble ruins of a once-glorious throne room, now reduced to rubble and dust. Silk tapestries torn to shreds, the throne toppled on its side, stony debris littering the floor— it’s the end of this kingdom’s peaceful reign.
In the center of it all, hovering in victory above the destruction, is the final foe. His skin is as blue as the depths of an ocean trench and slimy as if he'd crawled out of one. Slithering tentacles take the place of hair, flowing down his spine and onto the ground in a cascade that seems almost endless. And perhaps the most offensive detail of them all: a simple crown of gold and emeralds sitting lopsided on his head in a careless show of arrogance. The crown of The Cold Southern Wind. The crown of King Philza.
The man (if one can even call him that) leans back in insulting leisure, a cruel grin carved across his face as he lets out another wave of laughter. “Well, if it isn’t my old friend, the Boar! Come to attend my coronation, have you? How thoughtful.” His voice is practically overflowing with smug triumph, dripping from his lips and splashing against the scuffed marble floor at the hero’s feet.
From his earthly perch, the Boar glares underneath a hog-skull mask at the floating man. “That crown is not yours to claim, Squid Lord.”
“Squid Lord? That’s the bad guy’s name?”
“Shut up! You’re ruining the dramatic tension!”
Squid Lord throws his head to the sky in amusement. “Ha! I see no other king here to claim it! Philza has been defeated, the armies of the Antarctic Empire scattered across the barren wasteland! There is no one left to save your precious kingdom.”
“Don’t be so certain,” the Boar says. He opens his palm and from it releases a burst of light. The light bends and warps in the air like a banner caught amidst a storm before solidifying in his hand as a wicked double-edged blade. He raises the tip of it to point at Squid Lord. “I still stand before you.”
“Since when can he do that? I thought he was a potato farmer.”
“An impressive trick,” Squid Lord admits, then his lips curl into a sneer. “Though no amount of paltry conjurations can hide the fact that you are nothing but a mere potato farmer!”
The Boar slashes his weapon down to his side. “Perhaps. But that was long ago, before I answered the call of Lady Death to serve at her side. As they say, the greatest heroes often come from the humblest of origins.”
Squid Lord lifts his hand and summons his own weapon, a three-pronged trident dripping with salt water and seaweed. “And it is to the humblest of graves that I shall send you! Prepare to meet your end, hero!”
As he thrusts the trident into the air, sapphire lightning arcing from its points, a new sound sweeps across the devastation. Cackling, demonic and deranged in its cadence, rises in a slow crescendo from beyond the broken walls. It’s not long before the source reveals itself: an army of cephalopodic creatures not unlike the Squid Lord himself, miniature in size but large in number. Thousands— tens of thousands— maybe millions—it’s impossible to tell.
And so the battle begins! The Boar is quick to arms, taking up an offensive position with his blade outstretched. He slices through the first wave of enemies with practiced ease, each move precisely calculated in his mind within a fraction of a second. Then comes the second wave. This round requires a touch of strategy as the army divides into neat sections and advances. Still, they are no match for the Boar. He adapts to their tactics as clay is molded by the potter and falls into a pattern. Dodge the initial attack, return with an assault of his own, and wait for the next victim to approach. Dodge, return, wait; dodge, return, wait; until there is no one left.
Now, the third wave. The Boar reaffirms his footing and grips the hilt of his sword with determined resolve. He knows that the first two troops were nothing more than practice, a teaser for what is yet to come. This is when the real fight commences.
Where the other rounds had clear structures and methods of progression, this one lacks all order. The enemies swarm together in tight packs, allowing no room for error as they descend upon him. Sight soon becomes a fleeting privilege in this unforgiving hell.
It’s a dance of sorts to navigate the horde and come away unscathed; unfortunately, dancing is not something the Boar is known for. He weaves between flailing limbs and weapons, grunting as enemy blades chip away at his health. In an attempt to recreate his earlier success, he repeats the pattern. Dodge, return, wait; dodge, return, wait; until—
A lucky shot catches him on the heel by a hair’s width. He freezes, limbs locking, as he registers the blow. With bated breath, the world watches the so-called unstoppable hero fall to his knees. He holds himself up with shaky palms and sputters out a resentful chuckle. “Philza,” he mutters haltingly. “I’m sorry, friend. For I have… failed you…”
The strength trickles from his muscles and the Boar collapses, vanquished, on the ground. From the heavens calls a deep and firm voice:
GAME OVER!
“Fuck’s sake, man!” Tommy flops against the couch and lets the controller slip uselessly from his fingers— defeated, much like the pixelated image of the Boar on the screen. “It barely even clipped him!” He shoots a glare toward the smug little squid bastard who cost him his win.
Techno snorts from where he lounges across the cushions, hands folded neatly behind a mess of pink hair. “L.”
“Don’t L me!” Tommy snaps. “It’s a hard fight!”
“Bro, just win. Have you tried that yet?”
Tommy rolls his eyes so hard that his head is forced to follow the motion. “Oh, just win, Tommy, have you tried that? Have you tried that yet? Shut the fuck up. Have you tried getting some bitches?”
His brother checks the non-existent watch on his wrist and hums. “No, don’t really have time for that. Too busy.”
“Too busy doing what?”
“Watching you get destroyed at video games. How many times have you tried this fight?”
Tommy folds his arms across his chest and looks away to avoid Techno’s probing stare. “Like a hundred,” he mumbles.
The corner of Techno’s lips creeps up his face in an amused smirk. “And you still haven’t beaten it? Not even once?”
“It’s hard!”
Techno cups his hands around the sides of his mouth and shouts, “Cringe. Ow!” The last part comes when Tommy puts the ‘throw’ in ‘throw pillow’ and chucks one at his brother. It collides with his nose and thuds onto the carpet.
Retrieving his Swap controller from the floor, Tommy turns his attention back to the screen. He selects the bold ‘PLAY AGAIN’ button and respawns at a checkpoint outside of the ruined castle. As he guides the Boar through a crumbling doorway, Techno rises from the couch and crosses in front of him. “Where are you going?” Tommy asks.
“Upstairs.”
“Upstairs?” he repeats in a more whining tone. “Don’t you want to watch?”
Techno’s face scrunches in mock consideration. “Watch you lose again? Sounds kinda boring.”
Even though he knows Techno is just being his usual brand of sarcastic and dismissive, that still stings a bit in Tommy’s chest. He scoffs and pauses the game. “Well, what are you going to do?”
“Read.”
“Read?” Tommy gapes at him. “How is reading more interesting than a boss battle?”
“I mean, it’s not really,” Techno admits. “But I have to have, like, ten quotes for my English essay, so…”
“That’s so dumb,” Tommy grumbles. “It’s summer, you shouldn’t have to do work.”
Techno shrugs. “College. It’s whatever. I’d really rather not fail the class before it starts.”
“What are you reading?”
“The Princess Bride.”
Tommy grimaces. “Ew.”
“It’s good, actually. I’m sure it’s got a better storyline than—” Techno grabs the cartridge’s case and turns it over in his hands, “Blood of the Boar.”
A pained and dramatic gasp escapes Tommy’s throat. “Blood of the Boar is the greatest story to be released in the past ten years! It’s got the best plot out of any adventure RPG and complex characters and— and— and nuance!”
“Dude, this game makes no sense.” Techno points to a gritty drawing of the characters on the cover. “The bad guy is a flying squid. If his whole thing is the ocean, why can he fly?”
“Because it’s a metaphor, dumbass! He started on the bottom of the ocean floor, the lowest point on Earth, and now that he’s reached the top he can fly! But as a sea creature, he doesn’t belong there, and he’s destined to return to the bottom where he came from!”
Techno doesn’t seem all that impressed. “I think you’re reaching, bro.” He tosses the case onto the couch next to Tommy and starts up the staircase. “Don’t bother me unless someone’s bleeding out,” he calls over his shoulder.
Before he can make it too far, Tommy jumps up from his seat. “Wait!” Techno stops, hanging off of the banister. A look that says ‘ What now?’ is painted on his face. “Please stay and watch, just one more time! What do I have to do to get you to hang out with me?”
“It’s not my choice, Tommy,” Techno replies. “Take it up with the dean.”
“Well, the dean isn’t here right now! He’s off doing hard drugs with the president, or whatever deans do.”
Techno shakes his head with a chuckle. “Start by killing that squid guy, then come talk to me.”
A pout draws itself across Tommy's face as he watches his brother continue upstairs. For a moment, he hopes Techno will come back, pop his head above the banister, and say, ‘Just kidding, I’m actually dropping out! Now we can play whatever you want all day!’ Then Techno's door slams shut and smashes those hopes between its squeaky hinges.
Sitting on the couch with a huff, Tommy unpauses the screen and skips the cutscene. It’s not like he needs to see it again. He can probably recite it word for word in his sleep. The boss music (which he can also sing perfectly) swells from the speakers and the fight begins anew. His thumbs smashing against the controller adds new percussion, keeping him in rhythm as his mind wanders.
“Stupid Techno,” he mutters under his breath. “With his fuckin’ English essay and princess books and sarcasm— oh, this game doesn’t make any sense, I don’t understand what good writing is, mimimimimi—”
As he grumbles, his practiced motions grow clumsy. A rogue squid catches him off-guard and the Boar is taken down in the first round.
GAME OVER!
Tommy groans. He slumps down in a dramatic show of his patheticness into a pile on the floor. This is it. This is how he's going to spend the rest of the summer: flopped with his cheek pressed to rough carpet, completely and utterly alone, still unable to beat his favorite stupid fucking video game after a million tries. Techno will still be upstairs, reading his dumb kissing book (or whatever it’s about), blissfully unaware of the fact that his brother is dying— no, dead. He’s dead.
He’s a decaying, lifeless corpse and he’s dead. The rest of the family will come home to find Tommy lying on the floor, killed by loneliness and impossible-to-win boss fights. They’ll all cry over his untimely demise and curse whatever gods allowed this to happen and grieve for the rest of their lives.
Except Techno. Techno will still be reading.
Tommy is so busy wallowing in his own pity that he misses the front door opening and closing. Shoes clack on the hallway’s hardwood floor, followed by a voice calling, “I’m home! Anyone here?”
The footsteps come closer when no one replies, growing muffled as they cross onto carpet. An upside-down face appears above Tommy. “You good, king?” Wilbur asks, brown hair falling in front of his eyes.
“No,” Tommy grunts. “I’m dead.”
His brother glances at the TV screen. “Trying to beat Blood of the Boar again?”
“Yep.”
“Not going well?”
“Nope.”
Wilbur extends a hand. “Take a break, have lunch with me. There’s leftover pizza in the fridge.”
Privately, Tommy thinks that no amount of cold pizza could cure him of his shame. But he still takes Wilbur’s hand and lets himself be pulled to his feet.
While Wilbur discards his guitar case against the couch, Tommy trudges to the kitchen table, dragging his socks. “How was band practice?” he asks as he plops into a chair.
“Absolute hell.” Wilbur digs through the refrigerator and pulls out a cardboard pizza box, a few slices left from last night. “We’re never doing morning practice again. It took two hours for anyone to be awake enough to remember how the songs go.” He takes a seat next to Tommy, setting the cardboard container on the table. “Where is everyone?”
Tommy grabs a cold slice for himself. “Dad’s out on a job with Squid Kid. They’re checking on a construction site or something. Mum’s getting ready to go swimming with her friends. And Techno—” He scowls. “Techno’s being a little shit.”
Wilbur raises an eyebrow as he chews. “Little shit, huh?”
“He’s in his room reading some book called The Princess Bitch.”
“The Princess Bride?”
“Whatever. The point is, he chose to read instead of spending time with me. Me.” He tears off another bite and talks with his mouth full. “His charming and awesome and extremely talented little brother. Me. The brightest goddamn ray of sunshine of this household. Can you believe that?”
Wilbur shrugs. “He’s got school work.”
“So?”
His brother gives him a look, one that Tommy has seen on several people’s faces over his many, many eighteen years. It’s part eyeroll, part sigh, and part laugh. He likes to call it the Oh, Tommy Look, because it’s usually followed by the person saying, “Oh, Tommy.”
This time, though, Wilbur doesn’t say the line. He says, “If you want to hang out with Techno, why don’t you ask if he needs help with his essay? Or read the book with him?”
Tommy’s face contorts in visceral disgust. He sticks out his tongue and grabs his throat in an overexaggerated gagging motion, bending at the waist and hacking for good measure. “Oh god,” he chokes. “Fuck. Wilbur, I’m dying.”
Wilbur chews his pizza and watches with a deadpan expression. “No, you’re not.”
“I am. I’m on my way to heaven.”
“Oh. Well in that case, have a safe trip. Tell the angels I said hi.”
Tommy nods with the seriousness of a preacher delivering a eulogy. “I will. They’re all going to flock around me like birds and ask to be my girlfriends and then I’ll have a thousand angel wives, and you’ll still be here on Earth eating pizza and coming up with the worst ideas in the history of mankind.”
A hurt expression crosses Wilbur’s face as he swallows. “It’s not a bad idea.”
“You’re right, it’s a terrible idea,” Tommy corrects. “Reading is boring. I’m trying to force Techno to stop reading and hang out with me instead.”
“Okay, how are you going to force Techno to spend time with you?”
Tommy slams a hand down on the table and leans forward. “First, we kidnap the dean’s children and hold them for ransom. Then, we’ll send him a video of them in our basement and demand—”
“One,” Wilbur interrupts, “The dean is a woman. Two, she doesn’t have children. Three, we don’t have a basement. Next.”
“Well…” Tommy squints his eyes as he thinks. He had kind of been banking on the ransom plan. “He said I could talk to him if I beat the game.”
His brother frowns. “Was he being serious, or Techno-serious?”
“Wilbur,” Tommy says. “Are you implying that our beloved sibling Techno was not being sincere when he told me I could not talk to him until I defeat this boss? That’s absurd. You’re absurd.”
Wilbur flicks a crumb at him, wearing a lite version of the Oh, Tommy Look. “I just think it would be so much easier if you helped him with his work, or asked him to take a break or something.”
Tommy hums and drums his fingers on the table. “I think I’m going to look up strategies online. Maybe I’m doing something wrong and I don’t even know it.”
“Or you can try to beat a game instead of talking to each other,” Wilbur sighs around his pizza. “Yeah, that works too, I guess. How long have you had it?
“Techno got it for me for my fourteenth birthday.”
“Wasn’t that almost three years ago?” A telling silence stretches between them. Tommy shoves another slice in his mouth. Wilbur lets out a long breath. “Okay, have you considered cheating?”
At that, Tommy’s pizza falls into the box from his mouth. “Cheating?” he gasps. “How dare you suggest something like that to me! I would never cheat. Never.” He lifts his chin in a prideful gesture. “Tommy Trusty wins every competition fair and square. I don’t need to cheat.”
“You’ve cheated at everything we’ve ever played. You cheated during Go Fish once.”
“I plead the fourth.”
“The fifth,” Wilbur corrects. “Listen, if you’re so desperate to hang out with Techno, and you won’t talk to him like a normal person, and you can’t win the game, maybe you should just cheat.”
Tommy turns the option over in his head. It’s not anything he’s particularly opposed to, despite his declaration of never needing to stoop so low. And he is pretty good at it. Plus, it would give him a chance to impress Techno. “Maybe I should,” he decides. “I mean, technically it is a strategy I haven’t been using.”
“There you go! Problem solved, I think.” Wilbur pushes his chair back and takes the now-empty pizza box as he stands. “You have fun beating your game. I’m going to get a shower.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tommy says, already opening a new browser tab on his phone. “Thanks.” He ducks his head as his brother ruffles his hair before heading upstairs.
“Don’t break the Swap,” Wilbur calls.
“No promises!”
With eager keystrokes, Tommy types his query into the search bar (in an incognito tab, of course, so that the universe can’t see him cheating): blood of the boar hacks. The first few results seem promising until he finds out they’re only good for giving him extra health during boss battles. Another website advertises the answers to the various puzzles scattered throughout the game.
Better armor, rarer weapons, secret character skins— all things that would normally be appealing to him, but at the moment are completely useless. “Is it really too much to ask to find a game-breaking hack that will instantly defeat the final boss?” he pleads to no one in particular. “Surely the gaming gods would take pity on a poor soul trying to impress his brother?”
Alas, his prayers go unanswered as he reaches the end of the search results and comes away empty-handed. Muttering blasphemy against the gods that he’d just made up, Tommy tries a different search: blood of the boar cheat code. When that proves unsuccessful, he types in botb cheats, botb final boss, botb how to kill squid lord, botb for the lvoe of god let me beat this sutpid fucking sqiud.
An ad for a plush toy of Squid Lord pops up. The gaming gods mock him.
Tommy has almost accepted that his life will be relegated to endlessly fighting the same boss battle over and over without Techno’s condescending presence to accompany him when the title of a weblink catches his eye. “This game-breaking hack will instantly defeat the final boss of Blood of the Boar,” he reads. “Perfect! Coincidentally phrased, but perfect!”
Clicking the link takes him to a blogging website that looks like it had been abandoned in the Y2K craze. He ignores the majority of the post and skips right to the good part. It’s difficult to read with the site’s obnoxiously colorful background, but he powers through. “When fighting against Squid Lord’s minions in King Philza’s castle, wait for the second wave of enemies to approach and input this sequence through the controls: jump, jump, crouch, crouch, dodge left, dodge right, parry, triple slash. This will automatically kill all enemies and take you to the final cutscene.”
A small tear forms into a bead in the corner of Tommy’s eye. “God is real,” he whispers. He jots down the sequence into the notes app on his phone and closes the incognito tab. The code won’t be hard to follow, but Tommy thinks he should have it memorized just in case. After all, Techno can’t see him using a glitch, he’d make fun of him again.
To avoid accidentally activating the code before he’s ready, Tommy makes sure the Swap is turned off and disconnects the controller. He gets comfortable on the couch, mouthing the sequence to himself while he practices it on the dead buttons. It only takes him a few tries to memorize the pattern. For a pro-gamer like him, a code as easy as this is child’s play. Techno, who is significantly worse at video games than Tommy, will never suspect a thing. He’ll be so amazed, so astonished, astounded even, at Tommy’s sheer skill that he’ll burn his boring English book and devote the rest of the summer to his cool and talented brother.
“Oh, Techno!” Tommy shouts up the stairs. “I require your presence!”
“What do you want?” Techno’s muffled voice replies. “Are you bleeding out?”
“Profusely! Mum’s carpet is ruined! Hurry, or I’ll stain the couch, too!”
Heavy footsteps tell Tommy that Techno is on his way before his mildly-annoyed face peeks out from the top of the stairs. “You don’t look like you’re bleeding.”
“It’s internal.”
“Your blood is supposed to be internal, Tommy.”
Tommy folds his hands, widens his eyes, and puffs out his lips in an innocent-yet-pitifully-begging expression. “Techno, my dearest and oldest and most monotone sibling—”
“What.”
“I have done as you requested and am about to beat Blood of the Boar.”
Techno lifts an eyebrow. “Really?” Tommy nods. “Well, congratulations.”
They stare at each other, both waiting but neither sure what for. “Are you going to come watch?” Tommy asks.
“Why would I do that?”
Tommy unclasps his hands and drops his puppy eyes. “Because you said you would!”
Techno looks off into the distance as if trying to remember something. “Did I? I don’t think I said that.”
“That’s so— You’re—” Tommy breaks off with a groan. “Look, can you please come down and watch? You said if I finish the game, you’d hang out with me. So I’ll win the fight, you and I will go out for lunch and ice cream and maybe visit a shop on the beach, and then you can come home to write your dumb essay.” He sends up a quick request to the gaming gods as he says it.
He thinks that maybe he should get into religion because miraculously, Techno starts down the stairs. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, wearing the ‘Oh, Tommy’ Look. “As long as it doesn’t take too long. I still have nine more quotes to go.”
Tommy has to stop himself from praising his made-up-but-possibly-real gods right then and there. He plugs in his controller to the Swap and boots up the final battle as Techno sits on the couch’s arm. Clearly, he doesn’t plan on being here for more than a few minutes.
Not wasting a single second, Tommy guides the Boar into the castle ruins and skips Squid Lord’s monologue. His thumbs twitch in anticipation as the first wave of enemies races across the screen. This phase is the easiest of the battle, but even as much as Tommy’s practiced it, he has to repeat the strategy in his head to ensure he won’t fuck it up early. Dodge, return, wait; dodge, return, wait; and his sword cuts through the last squid minion.
Tommy cracks his knuckles in preparation for the second wave. His thumbs ghost the sequence over the buttons and joystick twice for good measure. Then, the next phase hits him.
The moment the first squid is within range, Tommy unleashes the code. Jump, jump, crouch, crouch, dodge left, dodge right, parry, triple slash—
The screen goes dark.
The game crashed.
Tommy is left staring at his own pathetic reflection in the black glass, bright yellow letters flashing ‘GAME OVER’ on the back of his eyelids. The controller slips from his hands to the carpet. He doesn’t make a move to pick it up. Why should he? He isn’t worthy to hold it. Its plastic surface is too holy for his impure hands.
Techno grimaces. “Yikes. So much for winning.”
Tommy does not respond. There is no reason to. He is a fool and anything that would come out of his mouth would be foolish in the eyes of the gaming gods, the made-up gods that he failed by falling for a scam on a website from the 90’s.
“What did you do?” Techno asks. “Did it turn off or something? Please tell me you didn’t break the Swap. How am I supposed to destroy Wilbur in cart racing now?” He leans down to presumably grab the controller and try to turn on the console.
Whatever he was going to do, he doesn’t do it, because the instant that his skin makes contact with the plastic, the TV erupts in white. Not only does the screen itself turn white, but the light seeps out from the frame in a snowy, shapeless blob. It extends across the living room and envelops Techno in its glow, swallowing him whole. Tommy yelps and pushes himself into the couch cushions, but the light ignores him. It retracts into the screen where it came from and the TV goes dark once more.
The controller falls from the air where Techno had been holding it. Techno is gone.
Heart threatening to jump from his chest, Tommy stares at the TV. “What the fuck,” he breathes. Then, with nervous laughter, “What the fuck.”
He crawls off of the couch to his feet. “Techno?” he asks. “Are you, um… Where are you?”
His toe brushes against the controller and he jumps, prepared to scramble away from the people-eating light. But nothing happens. “Okay, gaming gods,” he says with a trembling voice. “I’m sorry I tried to cheat. Can I have Techno back now? Please?”
Evidently, God is real, because as soon as the words have left his lips, the TV blasts with swirling colors and white light. He ducks behind the couch, pressing his spine on the fabric and screwing his eyes shut. He mutters every kind of curse he can think of, revoking his faith in the gaming gods and wondering why oh why did he ever invent such horrible creatures?
The glow dies. All is quiet. Tommy peers out above the couch, lifting his head so only the top half of his face shows. His eyes go wide.
The gaming gods did not give Techno back. But there is someone standing in his living room.
Taller than any man Tommy has ever seen, clad in solid iron armor with impossibly small details etched into the metal, a wicked double-edged blade hanging from his hip, red fabric cascading down his shoulders and pooling on the floor, pink locks tied with loose ribbon, a mask made from the skull of a hog obscuring the features of his face.
It’s him.
The Boar.