SOTF Mini

((Kenton Zinn continued from The Amazing Digital Death Game))

Spookr8ma peeked his head at the entrance of the bridge, checking to see if there were anyone there. No one. It was clear.

"Go in first. You got the gun." Spooks said to Hare, allowing her to take the lead, before they ventured onto the bridge. Kenton kept his and Hare's 6 o'clock guarded. Sure, he had a machete, but he wanted to prove that he was a vicious bastard, just like when he was in CyberTag. It was all just like a video game. He was taking the custom loadout that had the most risks, but a heavier payout.

Had Kenton really paid attention to what the original school looked like, he would've noticed that the railings near the glass were gone. In the middle of the bridge, Kenton was taking a look around at his surroundings, looking through the windows, until he saw some people down at the school yard.

"Wait." Kenton had Hare halt, when he saw two familiar people below them. There was a chance that the duo down there could see Spooks and Hare.

"Look down there. It's Xtra and Vee." Kenton pointed through the window to the schoolyard below, where both Xtra and Vee were messing around with the ground in the digital outside. He was pulling out his yellow walkie-talkie to try to signal where they were currently are. "Let me test out the walkie-talkies quick. We should be safe up here, but keep the gun out, just in case."

Kenton pressed the button on his walkie-talkie to get in contact with Vee.

"This is Spooks, over. I can see you two touching the fake grass. You see the two of us at the bridge?" Kenton radioed the message to see if Vee and Xtra would react. A reaction would be nice to prove that communications with the group was stable so far.

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Sometimes you have to ask questions. Questions like ‘why an ahegao gun?’ ‘why Portal?’ ‘why anything?’

And now: ‘why are there Cheez-its?’

Seriously. Some bags were hanging precariously on the roof, only to fall to the bridges or ground below. Sometimes actual little Cheez-It crackers would fall from the roof or, somehow, off the top bridge like orange snowflakes. A few cracked under her feet as she rolled ahead of Kenton, Aheglock pointed upward. She could only imagine what the top bridge or roof was like. Winter did not expect it to be cloudy with a chance of Cheez-It. Cheez-Its weren’t even that good, give her Pirate’s Booty from Trader Joe’s any day. Though, it did give her a fun mod idea. Have, like, a gun, an Airzooka, but one that fires shitty snack food. Hell, it doesn’t just have to be for CyberTag. It’d be fun to screw around with. And then they can enjoy the shitty snack food that is made shittier because taste is one of those things that are hard to replicate in CR.

Though… her mouth always watered at the thought of those dragon burgers everyone had once. Yeah, a bit of tweaking magic, and boom, delicious. Whoever came up with it was probably a wizard in real life. So it wasn’t that hard, but it was… y’know. Tricky.

Anyways, getting distracted, and she was probably hungry since like, only a few things in her bag looked edible.

… How are they making sure people aren’t starving in Meatspace?

She guessed that they could send people to the hospital for medical reasons, maybe insert an IV in. Her eyes narrowed at the thought of her fragile Meatspace body– the one with plain brown hair, plain brown eyes, and no bunny-like features– just withering away and shitting itself inside a hospital bed.

Just another thing to be angry about. Thanks, Zeph. As if she wasn’t already pissed about the murder, the spying on her and potentially the twins, the death game, the lying about being a teenager, the just-being-a-fucking-weirdo element…

But yeah, she looked. And nodded. And kept the Aheglock up and primed.

Kenton waited for a response. Then, he got one from Xtra. The two of them at the schoolyard could see both Kenton and Zinn.

"Read you loud and clear," Kenton heard from his yellow walkie talkie, who explained that the pair below can see them. Kenton gave a little wave, when he saw that Xtra waved back.

"Right. We're currently traveling on the 2nd floor bridge, there is no visual of anyone else besides-"

crunch

Kenton stopped and looked down. He was starting to notice the little details that he overlooked, when he scoped out the glass bridge for Hare. He had stepped on something orange. He raised his shoe and looked at the orange coating that was sticking to the grooves of his sneakers. It wasn't until he noticed something that where he saw the roof nearby. Some bags of... Cheez-Its (?) were falling from the roof. Some from the roof and possibly falling onto the bridge above them. A stray Cheez-It managed to get through a crack on the top of the 2nd floor bridge. Most likely because of how the bridge is adjusted.

"Are you and Vee able to see what's happening at the rooftop and the bridge above us? There seems to be some sort of spill. I'm unable to confirm the situation, but since we still have communication with you guys, we shouldn't have any other issues with getting to the anime club, over."

Kenton did it right this time.

"Hard to tell from down here, I'm afraid. What kinda spill are we talking about here, Spooks?" said Vee.

Winter fished out her own walkie talkie with her free hand, a bemused frown on her face. It took her more than a few beats to figure out how to get the walkie talkie out, how to juggle with her gun, and how to switch it on. It was... embarassingly long. But she had to introject.

"It looks like someone fired a weirdass gun that sprayed Cheez-Its everywhere! Like, Cheez-its falling from the roof, falling from the cracks, literally everywhere. It's a fucking Cheez-it party! I swear, why Cheez-its? Why not better food? So yeah, watch out for shitty orange crackers, I guess," she barked into the walkie-talkie at Vee. "... Over."

Maybe the Cheez-it maniac needed to be warned for. Imagine dying by Cheez-it.

Hare also radioed in for a group conversation with her own walkie talkie. She was voicing her own theory that these Cheez-Its that had end up everywhere from the roof to possibly above the bridges could have came from some sort of gun. Spooks looked down at the portal gun he had. He also considered the Aheglock that Hare also was holding onto.

Kenton didn't consider Cheez-Its to be lethal. Maybe to his rig, but he rather not eat next to his headset with crap that gave out orange crumbs or stains. All of this was another sign of Zeph's juvenile god-complex behavior. Vee's warning was simple in expecting the unexpected. Since the Omega Squad ended up here, they were already experiencing things that weren't like the usual CyberTag or modded Cyber Driving Simulator. Kenton looked through the windows of the bridge again. He noticed that Xtra and Vee were talking to each other, but it was likely they were discussing on how to keep their guard up.

Kenton got out his walkie-talkie again. "We're going to head off west. No sign of anyone up here, over." Kenton said to Vee and Xtra.

Spooks turned to Hare quick, making sure that both sides of the bridge were covered. "We should still keep our guard up. Best case scenario is that everyone else is trying to hide this out." Kenton told Hare. He flashed a glance, trying to see on if anyone was on the roof. He was unable from his angle. The problem also was that Angel and Amy were still M.I.A. Kenton knew Angel wouldn't just hide away.

A beat, then Vee responded:

“Rooooger that... Well, like I said earlier, expect the unexpected. Who knows what else Zeph's done to spice things up around here... Over.”

Fucking Zeph.

Hmm. Maybe Winter was hungry for things that weren’t shitty-ass cheese crackers, because she was thinking of a gun that lobbed those Little Debbie snack cakes at people. Hell, maybe once this was over she could make a ‘Sorry for Zeph’ cake and share it with the rest of the Squad or something. She could even go the extra mile and have them share this cake in Meatspace. Just figure out everyone’s preferences for cake (Winter liked carrot, yes she knew the joke people would make, but it goes great with cream cheese frosting), and then they’d all meet up and snack and go ‘hey, remember the time Zeph decided to go full Junko Enoshima and also turned out to be some ephebo Luddite weirdo?’

…

Maybe not. The only times she made a cake that wasn’t those Betty Crocker mixes was in CyberChef, and she was the sort of person who had to scrap work on a mod because it was apparently so close to becoming a borderline ego shooter even though those weren’t realistic body parts. And… uh…

She couldn’t help but think of the near-corpse probably laying somewhere in a hospital bed, or maybe at home, decaying away while still alive. It wasn’t her, she didn’t like being seen like that, especially in that sort of context. Winter was Hareraiser, she was cool, she did a lot of things. If she met up in Meatspace, well… would they appreciate her even if she wasn’t a bunnygirl? If she tripped over her words more often? If she didn’t have as much to say, if she wasn’t as cool? Probably not. She couldn’t face someone like Vee like that, so it’d have to be in CR. It made things easier. Showed how cool she really was.

Anyways! Needed to stop with those depressing thoughts NOW!

After Kenton threw in his piece, Vee again responded, and Winter heard:

“Roger that, we'll complete our sweep and move out momentarily… Remember to exercise caution. Don't want either of you taking any unnecessary risks, got it? Over..."

Winter frowned. She was being cautious! Just… Cheez-its were startling. Did people have so little faith in her that… urgh. Fine. Caution, then. She wasn’t going to be a dumbass, there were probably other dumbasses running around. Who in her class would be a dumbass…? She tried to think.

“Got that, over,” she said, forcing on a smile.

She looked back at Kenton.

“Yeah, I think folks are hiding out, and not doing stupid things like… dunno… kill each other for reasons.”

God, who had a grudge against who, again? Drama happened all the time, and she couldn’t keep track sometimes.

“Anyways, let’s head out.”

Kenton listened to how people weren't going to do anything stupid in trying to kill each other for "reasons". There was already a big "reason" in a 4 day deadline. In terms of time management, it wasn't Kenton's strong suit. He already learnt the hard way when he used up all of his precious spring break time on CR, before realizing that school was tomorrow on the day he snapped out of it.

Kenton could go for something. Not something savory, but something simple and sweet. It felt almost like a shared thought, though Kenton didn't know of this.

He imagined a cake. A cake for a god whom birthday was in 2 days.

He could go for some actual cake. Something that was real food where he can have some physical taste on his tongue.

"Remind me to have one of the rations in my bag. I could go for dinner." Kenton asked Hare. Spooks checked both sides of the bridges again to make sure no one was going to flank them, before he had Hare lead again.

((Kenton Zinn continued elsewhere))

“Sure thing. Just, ah, know that the rations are basically shitty cafeteria food. The churros look good, at least.”

Churros were hard to mess up. They were churros, you had to be a hell-heathen to do something horrible to them. Not cake, but maybe a good replacement for them for the time being. Was there such a thing as a churro cake? Maybe in one of the servers that played around with taste, like the place that served the dragon burgers. Nah, she was certain there was such a thing as churro cake. She’d make it, whether in that blue moon Meatspace meeting or, better yet, she’d code it, either way.

Winter looked behind and in front of her as well, before leading the way.

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