Chapter Text
A young man stands in his room. It just so happens that today, the 22nd of September, is this young man’s 16th birthday! Though it was sixteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given—
Wait, something’s weird. Why are you narrating your own life in the third person?
Your name is Lloyd Garmadon. You know that.
And you’re not standing. Currently, you’re lying awake in your bed, staring at the high ceiling above you. It is 8 AM, much earlier than you would like to be up on a Sunday, but your own anticipation woke you long before your sister’s good morning knock on the door would.
You look around your room. Your walls are decorated with SCI-FI POSTERS from a few years ago, back when you were really into that sort of thing. There is also a collection of COMIC BOOKS and GRAPHIC NOVELS on your bookshelf. Since you grew out of your childish interests, you’ve tried to search for more MATURE PASTIMES. This search has proven difficult, only yielding a few short, self-taught lessons in TINKERING and CODING taught by one of your many VIRTUAL PALS.
Speaking of your pals, as if on cue, your phone buzzes on your nightstand. What any of them are doing up this early is beyond you. Your friends are odd, this was a fact you accepted a long time ago. You enter your passcode: 0922.
LuminescentBang [LB] started yapping at GlaringElm [GE] at 08:03
LB: Lloyyyyyyyyyyyd
LB: hey
LB: heyyyyy
GE: Mornin
LB: Happy birthday!
LB: didya get my gift?
GE: I just woke up
LB: oh fr?
GE: Yeah its like 8 in the morning
GE: No sane person needs to be up this early
LB: so how come you are then? Huh?
GE: …
GE: Cuz Im waiting for the mail to come in
LB: That’s what I thought!
LB: This is gonna be a great birthday
LB: Luna got her copy, right?
GE: As far as I know
GE: Her gf stopped by yesterday to drop it off
GE: Cant believe this game only runs physical copies
LB: oh trust me, once we play it you’re gonna be wondering how they fit all of this on only /one/ cd
GE: Sure
GE: Youre sure everyones on board? Were bringing in a ton of people
LB: of COURSE i’m sure!
LB: MT made sure FP and AW were onboard, i got RD
LB: then it sorta trickled down
LB: but we’ve got the main crew!
LB: besides, a sburb game only really needs 2 players to work
LB: it’s just more likely to succeed if you have multiple
GE: Yeah you still havent been clear on exactly what “success” means
LB: no spoilers!
GE: Says the guy who spoiled the ENTIRE game for himself
LB: not the /entire/ game
LB: me n MT just looked into the basics
LB: it’s got a steep learning curve, someone’s gotta know how it all works!
LB: tbh, i’m not sure i know what success means either
LB: but the guide i found gives a lot of tips about it
LB: so i’m inclined to trust it
GE: If you say so
GE: When do you think were gonna log on?
LB: as soon as you have your game!
LB: speaking of which
LB: when’s it supposed to get there?
GE: Mail normally shows up closer to nine
LB: that’s so /long/
LB: ah dang, gotta jet
LB: mom’s calling me for breakfast
GE: alright
GE: ill let you know once the game comes in
LB: you better! and expect messages from the others once they’re up
LuminescentBang [LB] ceased yapping at GlaringElm [GE] at 08:16
You stare at the dark screen for a bit. The rest of your friends won’t be up until later and you don’t particularly want to continue staring at your ceiling. You decide the best course of action is to get up early. Maybe you can catch the mailman when he gets here.
You leave your room. The smell of BREAKFAST FOODS greets you upon your arrival in the short hallway that connects all rooms on the second floor of your abode. You’re unsure if this means your guardian or your sister is up, but given the scent of burnt bacon wafting over everything else, you’re inclined to believe its the former. You make your way through the hall and halfway down the stairs, then peek over the railing.
No sign of life in the kitchen, save for a sink full of dirty dishes, the remnants of smoke only visible due to their shadowing the overhead light, and a plate of charred food. You make your way into the kitchen, waving away the hazy air, and sit at the island that serves as your dining table more often than not.
The plate consists not only of blackened slices of bacon, but also two crisped sunny-side up eggs and two ashy pancakes. The proteins have been arranged into a smiley face. You return the gesture. Your guardian is not much of a cook, but you appreciate that she took the time to do this for you. You understand cooking is a very difficult task for her.
You decide to sit on the retro-looking stool closest to your plate. The furniture in your home is a mismatch of various aesthetics and eras, not unlike the outside of a secondhand store. Your fridge, for example, is a dainty pastel green with a chrome cylinder handle, and right next to it is a hot pink cabinet with a white wooden surface. The stove is gas, but the microwave above has more settings than you know what to do with—and not just in the normal way that microwaves have nonsense settings. Even your plates and cups constitute a menagerie. In one cabinet, you know, the Fritz Donnegan commemorative anniversary plate you won in a competition sits underneath a stack of clean, modernist ones, which themselves sit beneath the colorful, plastic, butterknife-marred ones you and your sister used as children.
You pick up your fork and take a bite of your birthday breakfast.
…
BLEH!
It’s awful. It’s horrid. It tastes so bad you almost wonder if your guardian cut strips off a charcoal block and sprayed bacon fat on them.
You resist the overwhelming urge to spit the chunk out and instead choke it down, feeling the gritty texture slide down your throat. This breakfast is a gift and you are not about to be an ungrateful slime about it.
With a clear plate (well, clear enough. You wonder to yourself if the bits of charcoal refusing to be scraped up by your fork will ever come off), you check the time once more.
It is now 8:29 AM. 31 more minutes until your package arrives.
Ugh, stupid semi-realistic passage of time.
You decide to go to your living room. It is, in fact, very well-lived in. There’s hardly a surface that isn’t covered in either the WEIRD KNICK-KNACKS your sister continuously brings home or CHERISHED CHILDHOOD ITEMS your guardian refuses to let you part with. One of which is a ukulele themed after the beloved animated series BESTIES—about a group of six friends who owned small businesses by day and fought an evil biker gang at night—stowed away in a corner between the wall and entertainment center.
You pick up the instrument, examining the cute pastel characters on the front. Their dead eyes stare back at you, the wide black pupils faded gray from sun exposure. You position it to play and…
You strum the top string, then the next, then all at once. Soon you are playing a killer ukulele cover of a Top 10 Radio Hits Mashup. Rainbows fly out of the little hole thing on the front. Fairies weep, unicorns sing, the power of the universe is in your hands now. All contained within this tiny wooden instrument. Light radiates off of you, your mortal form unable to contain the raw power of your musical prowess. Who needs a grand adventure when you can belt out the coolest uke riffs ever?!
… This is a lie. You actually break the first string as soon as you pluck it. You try the next one, but it’s woefully out of tune, sounding more like a dying alleycat than anything resembling music. You realize you never actually learned how to play ukulele as a child. The only reason this one is here is because you liked the cartoon.
Quietly and with an amount of embarrassment more than zero, you place the ukulele back in its rightful place. You throw an old baby blanket laying out over it for good measure. No one must know.
Is there anything else you could do? The pile of plastic swords laying next to an overfilled bookcase is tempting, but a one-man sword fight is not the type of thing you should be doing at sixteen. Video games are an option, but really, a half hour gaming session? No self-respecting gamer puts such limits upon themself. The mere idea disgusts you.
With your other options ruled out, you decide to check the time again. As you’re checking, you receive another message, this one from your sister.
WishfulAbyss [WA] started yammering at GlaringElm [GE] at 8:31
WA: Lloyd!!! Happy birthday!!!!!!
GE: hey thanks
GE: where are you? Ive been wandering around all morning and havent seen you
WA: Nowhere :) just went to pick up some stuff for ur bday today!
GE: oh thanks
GE: hopefully its candy
GE: all Ive eaten is a very… interesting breakfast
WA: XDDD I saw!!! She was up SUPER early cooking it
WA: I don’t think she fully gets how to use the stove XD
GE: she does not
WA: So what’re u up to now? Getting everything settled w LB and them?
GE: settled as it can be without the game
WA: what do u mean??
WA: it came this morning
GE: ? mail doesnt come til 9
WA: idk it came early today! I saw it when i was leaving
WA: i put it in the kitchen, figured youd see it when you got up and get everything together while i was out
GE: i didnt see it
GE: you dont think
WA: if she was cooking… DX
WA: she mightve picked it up
GE: shit
WA: Sorry dude!! Didnt realize shed get territorial over it or smth
GE: its cool
GE: ill just go get it
WA: hopefully shes cooperative XDD
WA: Good luck! XP
WishfulAbyss [WA] ceased yammering at GlaringElm [GE] at 08:40
Your nose wrinkles a little at the outdated emoticon she uses to end her sentence. Despite being the one going to college soon, she’s always been deeply, deeply immature. When you stopped watching Fritz Donnegan ages ago, she would still invite you to watch the weekly episodes and new movies with her. When you would decline, because you’d long since outgrown such childish interests, she would instead go and watch them on her own. On her own! A show meant for babies! Okay, maybe the audience was closer to 10 and up, but still! Practically babies!
At least her interest in games wasn’t as juvenile. When you mentioned Sburb to her she jumped on immediately, saying she’d heard “super interesting things about the integration!” She also roped her girlfriend, Ivy, into it, the beginning of the mega party you and your friends now had going that required a spreadsheet to keep track of. Luckily, it wasn’t you in charge of keeping track of that. You’re the birthday boy. You ain’t gotta do shit.
Unfortunately, it does seem you now have one task. She’s got your game, huh? You glance once more at the pile of plastic swords. There’s one with a retractable blade and a cool looking dragon printed on the handle, a favorite of yours when you were young. You equip it.
Looks like it’s strifing time.