Neogenesis

[Fiori]

"PATRICK! Dinner's ready!"

A bedroom door slowly creaked open, the creature within peering out of the darkness. Its eyes squinted, adjusting to the sudden change in lighting, before slowly emerging from its den. It wasn't often that it left the comfort of its lair, doing so only to feed or relieve itself, though whenever possible it preferred to do the former by itself.

Alas, that day it was forced to venture far from its comfort zone, slowly making its way downstairs through the clean yet imperfect walls of its home. Or, more accurately, its meatspace avatar's home.

The avatar entered the dining hall, its body taking the guise of an unassuming ghoul of a boy. Dark sunken eyes hidden behind thick-rimmed glasses, a messy bowl cut atop his dome, and a frame that left much to be desired. He was wearing the same pajama pants he always wore, along with a grey t-shirt that he'd been meaning to change for almost a week now.

His family weren't interesting enough to describe in much detail, all going about their daily buisness. Talking over each other at the dinner table, an empty chair with a bowl of pho ready for him. He walked to the table and sat down, quickly scarfing down his meal so that he could escape this meatspace hellscape as quickly as possible. He didn't feel comfortable about remaining outside of reality for too long.

His parents tried to engage in conversation, to which he nodded and offered quick answers. He was too busy planning strategies in his head to take on board what they were saying, his mind razor focused on the task ahead of him.

After slurping down the last of his noodles, he'd check his phone before swiftly leaving the table, not even acknowledging the sarcastic comment his sister made at his expense. Back upstairs to his domain he quickly fled, shutting the door behind him and securing it with a door bolt, not wanting to be disturbed once tonight's buisness had begun.

His bedroom wasn't much to write home about. Piles of clothes and comics laying everywhere, the walls bare, the bed simple. His meatself didn't need much extravagance, the most notable addition to his bedroom being the premium cybergaming chair that dominated it, one that he clambered back onto to slot himself into place. Beside it was his CRD helmet, one of the more recent models, with top-of-the-line graphics that offered greater immersion than any other on the market. Anything less simply wouldn't do.

Taking a quick glug of water from a nearby bottle, he lifted the CRD helmet and put it on, settling in with a deep breath as he booted it up.

Patrick Nguyen then closed his eyes.


V-Raptor opened them.

Vee's lips curled into a cheeky smirk, stepping forth with a confident swagger. His real-self was nothing like his meatspace avatar, standing tall and ready for action. Wraparound sunglasses, sculpted platinum hair, well-defined muscles. He wore his usual esports attire, most notable of course being his custom-designed red leather jacket, complete with an animated omega-symbol on its back. Had to remain on brand for the squad, after all.

Speaking of whom, he raised his fingers to just behind his ear, pressing down to give them a ring. 

"I'm in" he says, sauntering around to inspect his surroundings. It was a fairly typical CyberTag lobby, designed to look like a futuristic barracks complete with comfy sofas, a pool table, an actual pool and a large flatscreen tv. The screen right now displayed the name of their lobby, one space for his team already filled, the rest still open as his teammates all got themselves ready.

In the middle of the screen was the name of the new King of the Hill map they were going to be trying out that evening: CT_KotH_OlympusMons.

"Game's all set, jack in whenever y'all are ready."

[Deblod100]

(Kenton Zinn AKA Spookr8ma continued and going to the side from Hey you lil' piss baby, you think you're so fucking cool? Huh?)

Here's the REAL gamer grind. You play a FPS game. You play the multiplayer, usually the story mode with the celebrity voiced characters and the "America is awesome" morals and theme. Then the next FPS game in the series comes out. You scrap what you're doing in the other game and focus on the new game, not caring that the previous game servers are still up.

Rinse and repeat, consume product.

Materializing from many pixels and matrix rain, the avatar of Spookr8ma showed up, sitting at one of the sofas. A plasma laser assault rifle being welded one handed with the neon green gun skin in Kenton's possession.

V-Raptor still looked like a sigma male as always. The badasses always wear sunglasses. Too bad, it never appealed to Kenton.

"Where we dropping?" Spookr8ma casually said to V-Raptor.

There's a chance that Kenton might see Angel, unless he spilled soda on his rig or helmet as everyone likes the call the latter for simple terms.

[Fiori]

Vee was flipping through the playlists as he waited for his teammates to log in, trying to figure out what tunes he ought to put on for the squad. Some dubstep? Bit of the ole electro-funk? Maybe go oldschool with some drum and bass? In the end, he settled on an old favourite: Synthwave.

He wasn't normally one for nostalgia. Nostalgia in his mind was a disease, an infliction that stunted innovation, resulting in a hyper-fixation with the past over the future. It was because of nostalgia that people were porting fossilware like Doom to CR, that you still had braindead dinosaurs declaring Goldeneye 64 to be the pinnacle of FPS gaming. Hell, there were plenty of deadheads out there still playing Colored Warfare, when Virtual Mayhem was clearly the superior title.

Still, despite all that, even someone as aggressively progressive as Vee had a soft spot for some retraux synthesizer tracks.

He fired a fingergun at Spooks the moment he dropped in, before whipping out a remote to switch the screen over to a 3D layout of their upcoming arena. "Olympus Mons, new king of the hill map that dropped this morning..."

It was a pretty straightforward map from the look of things: Two small bases where each team started out, positioned on opposite ends of a long rectangular industrial yard, in the middle of which stood a tall futuristic tower with chest-high battlements.

"Capture point is at the top of that tower, and far as I can tell the only way to reach it is by fighting your way up from the very bottom..." he began, rubbing his chin and raising his brow. "Capture point itself doesn't seem to offer much cover, and sightlines look preeeeeeeetty gnarly, so this map's gonna be a sniper's wet dream... That said, making your way up that tower is gonna involve a lot of hectic close-quarters fighting."

Clicking his tongue, Vee sauntered his way over towards a large cabinet. "Gonna have to think carefully about the team's loadout..." he adds, thumping the cabinet like the Fonz in order to open it up, revealing a treasure trove of high-tech weaponry. All appropriately cartoonish, of course, in order to appease the censors. Wouldn't want anything too mature-looking in today's oversensitive gaming market.

"So... Can either rock the semi-automatic railgun, take advantage of those sightlines... OR, can go all-in with an automatic plasma shotgun, maybe throw in some telewarp grenades for a bit of the ole Death from Above."

He grabs the two weapons, turning to Kenton to show them both off with a smirk. "What do you think? Railgun, or plasma shottie?"

[Deblod100]

There he was. The man. The my-

Actually no. V-Raptor wasn't a myth nor a legend. He was just.. V-Raptor.

Kenton was faithful, yes. He was faithful to the Omega Squad, but to him, he thought Vee was starting to let the power get to his head. Not that he was power-hungry, it was that he wanted to get ahead of the game. There were only CR e-sports amateurs at a young age, like the Omega Squad, but Kenton knew that Vee wanted to be at the top of the list, any way he could.

Vee got up the new king of the hill map that came out from a free DLC. The rest of the DLC was paying for some new cosmetic skins. So someone's going to be paying 20 dollars for the color blue. The thing is that this new Mars map pack looked too generic. Even some of the armor looked rather bland, especially for a Mars themed expansion pack.

It wasn't until Kenton was checking the 3D layout of the map was when he made a realization.

"Hey on.. Vee, isn't this layout from the Vesuvius map back at CyberTag 4?" Actually, it might be the same map, being a little fan favorite. The plasma laser assault rifle pixelized into thin air from Kenton's hands. "Hang me the shottie and those grenades. I usually go playing scout, so me and someone can clear the way, then hold out while the rest regroups." Kenton said, getting out the couch to have a feel of the large cartoonish shotgun that looked ripped from Fortnite. The telewrap grenades weren't actual grenades. The point is that you throw the grenade somewhere. When the grenade "goes off", you end up teleporting to where they did so. Good for aerial attacks, which Kenton did before. Since he was also familiar with the map, if this was indeed a reskin, then he got himself a good practice run.

[MurderWeasel]

Adaptability was key. Stagnation was death. Progress was inevitable. This was the explanation offered by the new arrival for why her screen name changed constantly.

Today, she was R3GUL0R. It was likely nobody would ask why, and all but guaranteed they wouldn't get it if they did.

She looked typical—distinct from normal—slim and slick, red glasses catching the light of the room as soon as she loaded in. She wore a well-fitted shirt, skinny jeans, and her favorite hooded jacket, all uncannily neat. She was also a couple inches shorter than normal right now. Most people stuck to their physical measurements in CR, and most of the ones who didn't picked an idealized image and always used that, because it was easier to get used to something when it was consistent—avoiding dysmorphia, she thought was what the teachers said. This was not a problem for R3GUL0R, who adjusted her parameters for tactical advantage. Today that meant shorter, for the smaller hitbox.

She didn't say anything to her friends, just nodded in greeting and then fell into her typical place leaning against a wall, right leg bent so her shoe pressed against it. She looked between the others, with a faint smile.

CyberTag was well and good. She enjoyed the activity, and she was good at it—facts which went hand in hand. Still, no matter how much she practiced, it always took her a couple seconds to mentally recalibrate when returning to so-called typical human senses. She'd known about the new map, but had been working on a personal project, and time had gotten away from her as it tended to.

But still, she was third here. Vee arriving first was the norm, and there was no shame in tailing another by seconds. She'd give it a few minutes to see if anyone else showed before really getting into the preparations. No point doing all the exposition twice, after all.

[Fiori]

"Wait, for real?"

Vee leant his railgun up against the gun cabinet, wandering over towards the screen as he made some quick hand gestures in the air. A projection of a menu screen popped up with a large search bar, Vee quickly typing some keywords into a projected keyboard to bring up some images of the aforementioned Vesuvius map. The results were... Interesting.

"Huh, well I be damned..." he said, briefly taking off his glasses as he squinted his eyes. "They DID just copy over the layout. Lazy sumbitches..." he chuckles, before tossing Kenton the shottie along with the grenades he had on hand, staring at the screen some more with a wide grin.

"You know what this means, right?" he continues, turning back to give the newly arrived Xtra a knowing nod, before aiming a pair of double fingerguns at Kenton. "Ladder of Destin-eeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Vee was referring - of course -  to the infamous Ladder of Destiny tactic from Vesuvius, where skilled players used various bits of geometry poking up from the tower to climb their way up to the second story, avoiding some of the map's nastier chokepoints in the process. Veteran players knew to expect it, with tactics and measures put in place to address its use in the overall meta, but there were still plenty of newbies who kept getting caught out by it.

"Right, in that case, gotta go with the railgun and my duelies..." he said as he swaggered back towards the cabinet, whipping out a pair of laserpistols and giving them a spin. "And, I think tonight I'm gonna dust off my lil booties" he added, a wide smirk on his face as he picked up a datapad and clicked a couple buttons. His feet suddenly became enveloped by showy particle effects, his leather trainers replaced with a pair of antigrav double-jump boots, shiny and chrome with a nice blue glow underneath.

"Yo Xtra, want me to grab ya anything whilst the cabinet's open?"

[KamiKaze]

An Avatar didn’t show up, but if someone looked at the list of members in the lobby they would see the name ‘Hareraiser’. Nothing happened for a second, but then a small grey circular loading icon appeared in the middle of the room. It flitted towards the group, making rolling sounds on the floor.

“Hey gang, sorry, I was getting ready,” said a girl’s voice coming from the icon.

Then, the icon was replaced by a t-posing model, followed by a normal, functional Avatar. It was a teenage girl with long curly black-and-blue hair and rabbit accessories.

Winter “Hareraiser” Castillo did some research into the map before she joined, and… was this really just a Vesuvius reskin? Really? Well, at least it was some familiar shit, but still! She guessed that you cut a few corners if you release a game every year.

That meant that their strategy was probably going to be a Tower of Destiny thing. Winter’s typical default strategy as a player was to focus on speed, as being a quick moving object was enough to make people waste bullets. Being a fast mover helped when you’re being sniped at. It wasn’t as much good for sniping, though, which you know people are gonna try just by looking at this map. There was a good height advantage here, in that you'd have the high ground, as the meme goes. The issue here would be bottom coverage. Heh, bottom. Not as many places to hide, though.

And well, her outfit wasn’t just for aesthetics! The nice thing about her favorite color scheme is that black and blue blended into the background a bit in dim lighting, which was good for darker maps and just dark corners in general. Olympus Mons wasn’t too dark by the look of things, but the tower did have a few chokepoints you could exploit. Winter’s outfit today was simple: black tank top, black drawstring gym shorts, navy blue-and-black letterman jacket, blue socks, and, of course, her roller shoes. Also of course, the black sunglasses she was tugging off her face right now with a grin. And hey, she was going to wear armor too anyway, so that would cover things a bit more.

[Deblod100]

Looks like the rest of the crew was showing up. R3 was there. She was the real wildcard of the group. There's Arch, but he didn't show up. Kenton couldn't recall the reason on why Angel didn't have his rig available. Could be busy with schoolwork, or he has to deal with some family or personal stuff.

Then, there's the Hareraiser. She knew more on CR modding than Kenton did. Especially after that stunt with the Fugu Fish incident. Nothing harmful, but Kenton knew that no one was going to get the reference to some random obscure game that was made in 2000. She should've made a Total Distortion reference instead.

Kenton nodded to R3 and Hareraiser, as Vee explained the whole Ladder of Destiny strategy piece to him. Kenton did it a couple of times, but only for the one map of Vesuvius. This is going to be the same, since the new Olympus Mons is just a reskin.

After catching his shottie and holstering it, a datapad manifested into Kenton's hands, where he was getting his build ready. A couple of buttons pressed and Kenton's shoes were given a different series of particle effects. Made to look like electricity floating around the feet, like you're fast as lightning. Speedsters, as the build describes it. In better terms, a speed build made for players who wanted to go out into the action and scout ahead for other players that would follow behind.

"Need to get the speed up, so we can get a hold on the hill. The first people there gets the advantage to start preparing defense." Kenton explained to Vee, cocking his shotgun. His kid-friendly shotgun that only fired plasma shells. No actual buckshot. Nonsense! The game would be flagged as an ego-shooter if they had real ammunition in a CR video game.

[MurderWeasel]

"Sniper," the girl in the red glasses said, with an appreciative nod to Vee.

She was surveying the map, considering possibilities. On the one hand, one could never underestimate the laziness of developers. On the other, that sword cut both ways.

"Tower's worth trying," she said, "but not a lock. Remember, it wasn't intended, so there's no saying if it got preserved. Engine changes or new textures might break it, and if we're all in on that, then we'll lose time changing gears."

R3GUL0R took games seriously—a little too seriously, some would say, not least of all her sister, who could still barely wrap her head around the idea that people might have fun with any sort of team activity that didn't involve a ball or stick of some description, or that such contests of skill might be worth trying to actually win. Practice was part of the game, and was thus also worth taking seriously. This was even—no, especially—true for situations like this.

The Squad was good. They could dunk a lot of the lesser member of the local scene fairly casually. When someone did pose a challenge to them, it was noteworthy. But that was because they put in the time and worked together. Today would be a lesson in adaptability. It was a new map, of which they had theoretical but not practical knowledge. Their old tactics might work, or might abruptly fail. They might have the whole group here later, or they might not. They couldn't be complacent, or they ran the risk of an upset at the hands of whatever opposition they were pitted against, also an unknown.

These were the sorts of challenges that made her come alive.

Her outline flickered, distorting and bending light as she engaged adaptive camouflage gear. Unlike most of the others, she didn't do this by gesturing or typing; accessibility settings did wonders if you knew how they worked and practiced using them, even if you weren't their intended demographic.

[Ahab9]

(Amy Cassady continued from Technical Difficulties)

As she started logging in, she found herself glad that cutthroat company managements and their quality constraints didn't screw over her evening plans. There was a first time for everything, she supposed.

It took a while, but eventually her Avatar appeared, spawning right on the top of the pool table. She wore her usual ensemble, an hoodie without sleeves and cargo pants, but for today she added a black shirt covering her arms and black boots instead of sneakers.

"Hey guys, what did I miss?" She greeted the team as she hopped down and then casually walked to the almost-whole team, as Ángel was still missing.

So, the Omega Squad. Hardcore gamers and CR modders. The A-team, the Ghostbusters (or maybe the Gamebusters?), the three musketeers (but actually four, because math was a rare commodity back then); they were this and more.

She also didn't belong; not fully at least.

There's actually a pretty short story of how she joined. She was sixteen, she barely started modding (and made a great total of two maps) and her self-doubts were rolling inside her like a rollercoaster. So, she had to look in the mirror and ask herself a really hard question:

How in hell was she going to know if her stuff was actually good?

The answer came in the leather-clad form of V-Raptor, in the digital flesh and swag. They have a pretty sweet arrangements: she became a member (kinda, because she actually didn't participate in the e-Sports) and brought them the maps, they tried them and give her a review, curbing her own apprehension on the ground.

She now had a way to differentiate the good from the bad, and she needed it, and they all could play and fuck around and do whatever. It helped that she shared (most of) her interests with them. Too bad her actual gaming skills were, uh...

She wouldn't say bad, but they certainly weren't on par with the others. Still, she could try out the new map with them, despite the fact that she'd likely have the worst score.

[Fiori]

Vee nodded at Xtra, tossing over her sniper of choice as the team slowly assembled.

No Angel yet, no surprises there. He always tended to be a little late, probably making some last minute adjustments to his avatar again. Vee tended to go for simple but stylish himself, granted there was only so much you can do to jazz up the default looks in Cybertag. If there was one thing about the game he wasn't a big fan of, it was the graphics. It was all too cartoony, like something out of a Pixar knock-off. Almost made Cybertag feel like a baby game for babies, were it not for the ace gameplay.

He was well aware of the reasoning behind that decision, what with all the restrictions placed upon CR devs. Vee didn't care much for the whole ego-shooter controversy thing. Whenever there's a new big scary disruptive tech on the rise, you get the same mix of luddites and media watchdogs trying to put restrictions on it. It happened to cinema with the Hays Code, it happened to gaming with the Mortal Kombat controversy, and now it's happening again with ego shooters. They were on the cusp of a gaming renaissance, and once more creativity was getting stifled by oversensitive moral guardians.

Of course, he'd never actually tried an ego-shooter before. Didn't need that shit on his rap sheet, what with his budding esports career and all. But he was certain that the risks were blown out of proportion. In a decade from now, people will be looking back and laughing about how stupid it was to get so worked up over nothing.

Still, Angel or not, it was time to get ready.

"Aaaaaalroight lads..." he said in a faux cockney accent, slapping his hands together before turning to his teammates. "Kenton, Hare, Amy - I want you all to gun for the objective. Hit 'em hard and fast, try to claim it before the the other team have a chance of getting settled.

He then turned back to Xtra, pointing a fingergun her way. "X, find yourself a sweet spot somewhere and start popping heads. Keep an eye out for priority targets, you see anyone with a mage loadout, GEEK the fucker."

"As for me?" Vee asked aloud, with a wide smirk. "Gonna use my booties to see if Tower of Destiny is still viable. If it is, that's how we get in if we ever lose the point. If not... Well, I guess we'd have no choice but to play fair, like God intended."

"Any questions?"

[Deblod100]

Oh, there was Amy now. She showed up. Kenton saw her more of an underdog, but she made up to it by having knowledge when it came to CR modding. Kenton knew some mods himself, but he never used them a lot, unless they were for technical or graphical improvements.

"You hadn't missed much, Amy. Arch still hasn't shown up. He might be caught up with school or shit." Kenton suggested on explaining Arch's absence. Vee then got everyone's attention with some lousy and cocky accent. Kenton was assigned to be of objective duty with Hare and Amy. R3 was going to be camping out for some sniper headshots, while Vee was going to perform the Tower of Destiny himself. It can't just be Vee who does it. Kenton can pull off the Tower of Destiny too with the loadout he has.

When Vee asked for any questions, Kenton shook his head. He did this shit many times. He can adapt and defy.

[MurderWeasel]

"Negative," came the reply when Vee asked if there were any questions.

Sniper was basic, more or less the same gameplan every time. Set up in a good spot, take potshots to KO the unwary, exert pressure to control the movements and opportunities of the more cautious, duel anyone else playing the same game, and make sure that by the time anyone actually managed to struggle their way to your position, you were no longer there. R3GUL0R was good at it, especially that last part; she had a knack for knowing how long she could press her luck before relocating, and for mind-gaming others.

They were getting ready to drop, so she gave the sniper a look-over, testing the heft, the feel, the scope. You could never tell when a patch would come through and suddenly your zoom would be reduce to 90% efficacy, without mention in the version notes. Currently, though, all seemed in order. It was, of course, a shame it was such a brightly-colored, cartoonish weapon. Ego shooter concerns be damned, the coloration made it stand out much more than was optimal for a stealth-based class.

Amy was here, so it was definitely just a practice game. There was nothing wrong with Amy. The girl's ambition was admirable, though her coding ambitions were largely conventional; really, Vee was the one most on the proper transhumanist wavelength, and even then he didn't always understand things. This was but a stepping stone to the future, one that would in time feel as quaint as cave paintings.

She focused herself, finding her center and stillness. Part of why she made such a good sniper was that she remembered that, at least in CR, breathing was technically optional.

[NoLife42069]

"I got one..."

A familiar yet ephemeral, it echoed for a moment before ArchUriel slowly came into view.

His eyes were closed and he was wearing an outfit like he would for school. The biggest differences were the moth antennae on his head twitched and moved, the mandibles on his face, and the futuristic boots he had on.

"Were you really just going to go into the game without me?" As he said that he opened his eyes. Golden light came out of them as six wings spread out from his back, the four were feathery while one pair was more insectoid.

"Apologies for being late, I was programming and lost track of time...We are playing on the new map released correct? The one they stole from TF2?"

Arch's wings retracted and hugged his back as he stretched his neck, his mandibles occasionally biting. "Since I came late I'll take any position we are missing, especially since it appears the sniper has been taken." Arch walked over to Hare and smiled as he patted her on the back. "Ah, sorry. Hello squad how is everyone this evening?" The golden glow of his eyes dimmed somewhat.

[KamiKaze]

“You got it!”

Winter did a faux-saluting motion. She quickly flicked through the options before choosing light Speedster armor and the matching boots. All in her colors, of course. Like Xtra, she too tended to take advantage of the accessibility, you work with whatever you have. And, well, sometimes it was tempting to shell out, but sometimes also the best stuff was the free stuff you got from gameplay. They weren’t going to try to sell her on a gun that’s only blue again.

But she was totally up for going offensive and straight for the goal. Again, speed was her armor a lot of the time, so she was going to scout ahead with Amy and Kenton.

Hm. Amy was here, right? She wasn’t exactly… the best. She didn’t want to carry her again, but eh. Sometimes, people gotta learn somehow. Maybe Amy will.

Oh, and Arch was here, like a moth to the flame. Hah.

She waved.

“Yeah, the TF2 map that became Vesuvius, then… this. The plagiarism rabbit hole goes deep.”

Winter made a face when she realized she accidentally made a joke. She pushed it aside. Eh, she already made a mental moth joke.