Rick
May 10, 1994. 7:41 p.m. My room. Finally got my paws on a copy of Super Street Fighter 2. Took my dad long enough to buy it for me… What took him so long this time? They’re usually so quick with the purchasing. Ugh. Whatever. I am playing it now and that’s all that matters… I finally get to oggle Cammy’s butt. Awooga wozwza wowza. I cannot wait to meet her. What should I have her sign? Wha-
“Yo, bro!” Angela taps my back. “Can I play too?”
“Bwagh!” I nearly poop myself and fall backwards. “Geez! Angela… You can’t… You cannot spook me like that.” Darnit darnit darnit! She made me lose my train of thought… Now I’ll never get it back. I’ll get her back for this.
“Sorry, dude.” She sits down next to me and picks up the second controller. “Can I play?”
“Please!” I pat her head like the doggie she is. “It’s more funnily wunnily with another person. Lets’a go!” I return to the character select screen and choose Cammy once more.
“Let’s rock.” Angela picks Blanka and we wait for the match to load.
“Why did you choose Green Blanka?”
“Because Blanka’s cool.” Angela jumps in at me.
I pause the match. “No. No. You have to choose Chun-li or Cammy.”
“Why?” Angela’s face looks all weird.
“Because they’re girls and you’re a girl. Girls have to play characters.”
Angela tilts her head and her eyes narrow. “Then why are you playing Cammy?”
“It’s different for boys.”
“No it isn’t. Unpause.”
“Angela!” I raise my voice. “You have to pick a girl character! It isn’t right!”
“If you beat me, I’ll pick Chun. How’s that?”
“Fine… If that is what it takes to set your head straight.” I unpause the match and fight her. I can’t land a single hit on her. She’s doing all these moves that I’ve never seen Blanka do. “What the!? Stop cheating!”
“I’m not cheating.” Angela laughs at me like a demon. “I’m just using his special moves.”
Cammy goes down without me being able to touch Angela once. “Heh… Beginner’s luck. Rematch me.”
“Sure.” Angela keeps smiling.
I try jumping in and she blocks me. I try blocking, she grabs me. I try kicking, but she swipes at me. I try getting close to her, but she covers Blanka in electricity. Twenty seconds pass and I lose again.
“Good game, bro.” Angela snickers.
“I was fighting at a handicap…”
“What do you mean? Aren’t you a Cammy main?”
“Yes, but the female characters are weaker than the male characters. You were cheating by using a male character.”
Angela starts laughing. I do not understand. Was there a joke? Did she remember something funny? I swear… she’s so weird sometimes… I feel bad for her. “Fine.” Angela shrugs and returns us to the character select screen. “I’ll play whoever you want me to.”
“You play Cammy! She’s hard. I’ll pick Ken.”
“Alright, buddy.” Angela does what I say for once and we begin fighting again.
I begin the match with a hadoken but it doesn’t come out and she just starts hitting me again. “AAAW COME ON!!!” I keep trying to make the hadoken work, but it never does! By the time I finally get one to come out, Angela has beaten me again.
“Good game.” Angela snickers. “Still want another one?”
“You got lucky! Round 3!”
“If you insist.” Angela starts the next match. Beats me again. Next match. Beats me again. She keeps beating me over and over and over and over and over.
“STOP!” I try to break my controller in half, then give up, and throw it at the screen. “STOP CHEATING!!! LET ME WIN!!!”
“Dude… I’m not cheating. You just suck.”
“I DO NOT! I’M THE BEST STREET FIGHTER PLAYER! YOU’RE DOING A BUNCH OF ILLEGAL MOVES!”
“Nooooo I’m using the special moves the guide told me about.” Angela starts covering her ears. “Shut up. You’re gonna wake up mom.”
“NO! YOU SHUT UP! STOP CHEATING! STOP CHEATING! STOP CHEATING! STOP CHEATING! STOP CHEATING! STOP CHEATING! STOP CHEATING! STOP CHEATING! STOP CHEATING! STOP CHEATING! STOP CHEATING! STOP CHEATING!” My limbs start flailing and I punch, kick, and headbutt the floor. I’d beat Angela to a pulp like she deserves if my body would listen to me for once. I keep crying and yelling.
“Ssh! Hey!” Angela whispers and nudges me in the side. “Shut up!”
Papa kicks my door open looking all funny. Really really really funny. His eyes look super duper unfocused and his shirts all wetty. “SHUT UP! WHAT’S GOING ON!?”
I can’t speak. I can’t think. I’m too mad. I’m too sad. “A-A-A-A-An…”
Papa locks eyes with Angela. “What the hell did you do to Rick!?”
Angela’s smug, ugly grin goes poof in an instant… Good. Good. Feel the pain I felt. “I just played a game and he lost!” She stands up and backs away from Papa.
“STOP LYING AND GO TO BED!” Papa punches Angela right in the kissa!
She spins a little then falls to the ground.
Papa turns to the SNES, yanks it out of the wall, and throws it aside before looking to me. He picks me up and lays me to bed. “Whatever she said to you… Don’t believe it… Don’t think about it…” His speech gets more and more slurred by the second. He sounds like me! “Just… don’t listen to anyone… You’re God's gift to us… You’re… you’re gonna do great.” He slumps over and falls asleep on me.
Angela starts crying and crawling out of my room. She’s saying something, but I can’t hear anything under all her annoying crying.
“T-that’s r-right!” I shake my fist at her with gooey snot and unmanly tears rolling down my gorgeous cheeks. “You g-got what you deserved!”
Vivian
November 27th, 2007. 11:42 a.m. So we’re walking in a city called Station Square. It’s a 1:1 recreation of one of the hub worlds in a game called Sonic Adventure. It’s actually super impressive. The cars have the same routing, the skybox is the same crusty jpeg, and the npcs are all here too and even share the same dialogue. Oh. Wait. Never mind. The further we get in, the more it begins to change. There’s giant televisions plastered on the sides of buildings and every building is either a strip club, fast food joint, or a shopping mall. There’s ads everywhere. Ads on the tvs. Ads on the benches. Ads on the cars. Ads on the roads. You can’t see the asphalt. It’s all advertisements. There’s not even any variety in the advertisements either. They’re all either about Axe body spray, fast food, video games, Legos, or have messages like ‘Rickichu is Watching’. All the graphic design is piss poor too. It looks like something I’d draw when I was bored in first grade. They’re all drawn in crayon. The font and letter size is inconsistent. Burger is spelled as “Burgee” consistently. Revisions exist for a reason, Rick. Come on.
The disgusting amount of ads wasn’t the only assault on the senses. Music kept blaring from different speakers. Speakers in the trees. Speakers on the cars. Speakers on some of the npcs. Each one was playing the Station Square theme, but all at different pitches, speeds, and volumes. If this continues any longer, I will break something.
Though that’s not even the worst part… the worst part… was the anthros. Imagine a city full of a bunch of three foot tall anthropomorphic hedgehogs with huge eyeballs designed by a looney toons fan with a crippling porn addiction. All the female hedgehogs have enormous titties, are dressed like what a ten year old thinks a stripper dresses like, and all walk with a massively exaggerated sway in the hips. At least the male hedgehogs don’t have their dicks out. That’s the one solace I have right now. This is gross. This is beyond disgusting. I can’t stop cackling. This is the worst. It’s the best.
“So… Angela. Any idea where your bro is?” I walk around a couple of hedgehogs that are just walking with their hands down their pants. My head already hurts. I’m so happy I came here. My stomach is churning, I regret everything I see, and my face hurts from smiling.
“Well…” Angela unfolds a piece of paper from her pocket and looks at it. “If his map is still up to date, the city hall should be six miles West of here. There should be a bus station nearby to take us there.”
“What? Where’d you get a map?” I lean over her shoulder and take a look at the map. It’s drawn only in black pencil and resembles a 2D timeline more than a proper map. No legend. No scale. No perspective. From left to right, it reads:
“RICKVILLE MALL AND RICKVILLE PARK - ¼ MILE
SUBDIVISION AREAS - 2 MILES
TARGET / MINI-MARTS & MAL-WART / MINI-MARTS - ¼ MILE
RICKVILLE CITY - 10 MILES DIAMETER
JUNGLE / MOUNTAIN AREA - ¼ MILE”
“Took it from his room.” Angela stuffs the map back in her pocket. “He had fifty copies of these just lying around.”
“Weird.”
“We’re just getting started, Viv.” Angela groans. “How are you holding up?”
“I am immensely entertained.” I smile wide.
“Good.” Angela turns to Sejong and Josh. “How’re you two holding up?”
Sejong is taking pictures of everything he can with a big dumb grin on his face.
Josh is just keeping his eyes focused on Angela. He looks like my dad when he took me to my first anime convention. “Let’s just hurry up, alright. This whole place is unsexy.”
We continue walking for about ten minutes until we finally approach a bus stop. Just as we stand by it, all the TVs on the buildings change at once to a news channel. The newscaster is this weird purple cat looking thing that looks as if Mewtwo and the Grimace had a stillbirth. It’s sitting with his arms folded looking dead into the camera like a four-year-old desperately trying to be taken seriously. The background of the news set has a plethora of compressed pictures and gifs of Rick speeding by. Oh… Oh no… Okay… Look. Stereotypes are bad. Don’t judge groups of people because of stereotypes, but walking, living stereotypes do exist and Rick is one of them. He looks exactly how you think a ‘fat man-child’ would look like.
“Angela…” Sejong looks up at the screen dumbfounded and snaps another picture with his phone. “How is he your brother? He’s so pale.”
“Mom’s white, dad’s black.”
“Oh yeah…” Sejong muses. “That is how genetics work.”
“Attention citizens of Rickville.” the purple stillbirth starts speaking. “It is another beautiful, perfect day in our wonderful city thanks to the hard work of our Mayor: Rick Cobb. Well, today would be perfect if I didn’t catch a couple of homos doing hanky-panky in their house!” the thing starts screeching and running its hands through its hair. “I mean, come on! We told them being a homo’s illegal, but they still did it! How rude is that?! AAAAH!” The thing slams on the desk and takes some deep breaths before regaining a sliver of composure. “In order to combat the rainbow menace to our society, I will now be monitoring every home within Rickville to ensure that no citizen is being gay. As an additional precaution, I have created a vaccine against homosexuality. By using Rick’s blood, I have created a vaccine to cure homoseuxuality. Starting today, all water in Rickville will be polymerized with our mayor’s blood to keep our city safe. Good day. Praise be to God-Jesus, the Bear, and Rick!”
The TVs turn back to their normal obnoxious advertisements and the hedgehogs around us begin to cheer and pray.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Josh’s face falls into his hands and he starts laugh-crying again.
Sejong laughs quietly and starts clapping like a sick seal.
Meanwhile, I just stare up at the screen with my mouth wide open. My cheeks hurt from smiling so much. I feel like I’m in a Lovecraft novel. This must be what insanity feels like.
“Viv…” Angela nudges my shoulder. She’s the only one that’s not laughing. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I look back at her and start chuckling. “Why ask?”
“You’re not offended by that at all?”
“Angela, how am I supposed to take that seriously? How am I supposed to take any of this seriously? I legit can’t tell if this is a parody.”
“Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “Feel free to leave at any time if you feel unsafe.”
“Angela… to make a vaccine, you need a sample of the disease.” I resume laughing. My abs feel like jelly. I’m going to have such a rockin’ six-pack by the end of this.
“Oh Jesus Christ, that’s right…” Angela rubs her temple and starts laughing with me.
In the midst of our laughing fit, the bus arrives and picks us up. There’s a poorly drawn naked pink hedgehog on the side. Her tits look like she got rock implants and her vagina goes up to her belly button. My stomach feels like it’s going to burst. This place is the gift that just keeps on giving isn’t it…
As we get in, a green hedgehog in the driver’s seat stops us and points to a little money box. “It’s two C quarters per person.”
“The hell’s a C quart-” Josh speaks up, but Angela stops him.
Angela reaches into her backpack and pulls out four cans of Coke. “Will this do?”
“That’ll do plenty.” The hedgehog eats a can and burps. “Alrighty o’ good chaps, get in, but you.” It points to Josh. “Men sit in the back.”
“Alright.” Josh cackles and follows us.
We all sit in the back. Me and Angela sit in one row. Josh and Sejong sit just behind us.
“So…” Sejong pokes Angela in the back of the head. “There’s a currency system here?”
“Mmmhm.” Angela exhales through her nose. “There’s only two coins. R quarters and C quarters. Ten C quarters make one R quarter.”
“What?” Josh stops laughing. “That’s… That’s not what quarter means.”
“I. Know.” Angela says through clenched teeth.
Angela
November 27th, 2007. 12:09 p.m. Rickville City Hall. After a ten minute bus ride, we get off the bus and arrive at the steps of the City Hall. Just outside, we see a bunch of topless female hedgehogs holding up ‘We Demand the Vote’ signs and yelling suffragette slogans.
Josh speaks up, “Ang-”
“I. Know. Just. Roll. With. It.” I march up the steps of the Hall only to be stopped by two robots with chrome plungers and spiky egg beaters for arms.
One of them raises their hands. “Halt. Who dares to disturb the Mayor? Do you have an appointment?”
“My name’s Angela Cobb.”
“A-Angela-sama!” The two robots bow before me. “Please forgive us, oh noble Cherokee Princess!”
“You’re part Cherokee?” Viv turns to me.
“Nope.”
Viv, Sejong, and Josh resume cackling. Their laughter might be the only thing that gets me through this.
“Are these three your retainers?” one of the robots continues.
“Yes.” I put my hands on my hips and make up some bs native hand sign. “Now bring me to my brother or I shall curse both of you.”
“Right away, ma’am. Please come with us.” The robot whistles and the massive front doors unlock.
“Come on.” I motion for my team to follow me. Us four and the robots run into the Hall.
The inside doesn’t look like a City Hall at all. Looks more like the Palace of Versailles. Each room is more ornate than the last. Gemstones, gaudy gold, and extravagant portraits of Rick line each room and hallway. Some portraits have him on a horse looking as goofy as ever. Others have him surrounded naked by a bunch of hedgehogs and human women who have a bad case of Same Face Syndrome. There’s even some portraits of him in a military uniform retrieving gold from a bunch of people with big noses… Jesus Christ, that’s new.
After five minutes of running down a hallway, we arrive at a set of massive doors that seem to stretch upward forever. They look like they shouldn’t be able to fit in the building, but they do. The robots pound on the door and the doors swing open. We run inside to see a recreation of the Oval Office. Well… recreation’s way too generous. The office looks like it belongs to a Supreme Leader instead of a President. Rick’s face is imposed front and center on the carpeting. Statues of a bunch of hedgehog ‘do not steal’ ocs line the perimeter of the room. The shelves are littered with My Little Pony figures and comic books.
In front of us, there’s a big, multicolored desk made of legos with the bitch bastard right behind it. He’s sitting in a beanbag playing on his DS while two anorexic looking women stroke his chest dressed in some kind of Roman Legion armor that looks right out of a discount halloween store. Come on, bruh. You have the power to create a virtual reality, but you don’t have the power to make armor look good? What’s wrong with you?
“Who dares disturb the- my-” he looks up from his DS. “Aaah, dear sister!” he gets up and stretches out his arms. “I’m so so so so happy that you have finally arrived at- the town- city hall. Did you find me any boyfriend-free girls?”
“No, Rick.” I shake my head and whisper to Viv, Sejong, and Josh. “Watch my back. I dunno what he’s planning.” then turn back to Rick. “I’m just here to ask a few questions.”
“Damnit, Angela!” he stomps his foot and screeches. “Just help my Love Quest already! Rickville needs an heir!”
“Rick.” My face and heart are stone cold.
“W-well… for now, I suppose you can ask a few questions, but PROMISE you’ll help me get the girl in my Love Quest later.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I roll my eyes. “Did you kill mom?”
Rick looks around the room and starts crying. “W-what!? Mom’s dead!? Who killed her!?”
“You, asshole!” I point. “She was found dead with half her face melted off from electrocution! Who else could it have been?!”
“It wasn’t me! I may have killed a bunch of other people, but I would never kill mama.” he takes off his glasses and wipes his tears with his shirt. Even blows his nose into it.
“So you did kill people. How many?” I cross my arms.
“Bout a baker’s dozen, but they deserved it! They were all slanderous trolls who kept spreading false information about the nature of my person. They gave me, mom, and dad so much stress! And they kept stealing my Rickichu copyright and left negative comments on my comics. They had to be stopped!”
“Rick… You can’t kill people because they made fun of you. That’s not how it works.”
“Why not? They don’t care about me or Rickichu, why should I care any smidgeon or pigeon about their lives?”
“Because killing innocent people is bad, you dickhead! Where were you when mom died, huh?”
“Uh… Uh… I didn’t know she was dead… Last time I saw her, she was yelling at me about getting an employment. I just ran into my computer and starting making Rickville instead. If her and I just live in Rickville, then neither of us will need jobs or money. We can just live in here and be a family again… You can join us in our reign, Angela. Acknow- awaken to your Cherokee heritage and unlock your nature electric powers!”
“For the last goddamned time, NEITHER OF US ARE CHEROKEE! Stop saying that!”
“Stop YELLING AT ME!” Chris starts crying and screeching incoherently. He stomps his foot and starts showing us his teeth like a threatened mutt. “If you get me any more stressed, I’ll rip out your neck, smack you over the head with it, then flatten you with a rolling pin! Di, Angela, Di! Just like how Sideshow Bob said to Bart!”
“Christ…” Josh rubs his temple and searches his pocket. “Kid, calm down. We don’t wanna hurt you. What’s wrong with you, you got Aspergers or something?”
Rick chomps his teeth together and scratches the air in front of us. “How dare you compare me to those slow-in-the-minds! Aspergers is nothing at all like autism. I have stated this fact over and over again to people who tell me otherwise. I feel very sick and tired of hearing that false rumor that the two are anything to full similar.” Rick sounds like he’s rehearsing a script at this point. “Aspergers are scum… they DARE try and take the shine and limelight away from us autistic people, not only with their ‘social flaws’ and such possibly similar traits to autism, but to SHUN us autistics by being BETTER communicatively and mentally than us. I’m nothing like them. I am a high functioning autistic male who suffers from acute loneliness and noviophobia!”
“Oh my god…” Vivian resumes chuckling and keels over. “I’m sorry… aaw it just keeps going...”
“C’mon, Vivian…” Sejong tries to not laugh. “You gotta get up.”
“The hell’s noviophobia?” Josh asks, still fishing around in his pocket.
“I’m glad you asked.” A bright smile flashes across his oily face. “Noviophobia is the fear of pretty, 18-23 year old white girls already having boyfriends. It’s a real phobia that afflicts hundreds of lonely men across America.”
“Alright, kid.” Josh takes a cig out of his pocket and begins lighting it. “Just come with us. We’ll get you some help. We’ll even buy you a nice lego set if you behave.”
“I won’t be institutionalized! I’m not going to get shocked and manhandled!” Rick howls upon seeing Josh smoke. “Smoking! Is! Illegal! You are violating our sacred anti-icky laws! Ladies!” he smacks the women’s boney butts. “Apprehend them!”
The women pull cartoonishly large cannons from under Rick’s desk and aim them at us.
“Angie.” Josh holds my hand.
“Right. Everyone grab me.”
Rick starts beating his chest. “Don’t you run away, you nig-”
Sejong and Vivian grab my other arm and I zap us out of the office and out of Rickville.
After swirling and twisting around through data for five minutes, we plop back out into our dorm room couch.
Josh
November 27th, 2007. 12:33 p.m. Dorm room. After taking a few minutes to catch our breath, get the laughter out, and eat some snacks, we hold a little progress meeting around the laptop. Angela and I are sitting on one couch. Vivian and Sejong are taking the other. Vivian’s just been giggling to herself and shaking her head. Sejong’s been doodling Rickville in his notebook. Angela’s been hunched over grumbling to herself since we got back.
“So… Angela.” I rub my neck. “I get why you said you didn’t have a brother now. Haha…”
Angela sighs and leans back into the sofa. “Yep. Welcome to my life. Good news is that we have a confession for the other murders… Didn’t expect him to just throw that out there.”
“Yeah…” Vivian rubs her eye. “What is actually up with your brother if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Oh boy… you asked a very, very long question. I’ll give you the condensed version.” Angela takes a deep breath. “So first off, my mom had him when she was 48. Asking for trouble already. Received a ‘high-functioning’ autism diagnosis when he was five, didn’t talk until he was six. Despite every recommendation from every doctor and teacher that gave two craps, parents refused any attempts to put him into special ed, bought him whatever toy he could read the name of to encourage him to speak, paid off middle school teachers to barely pass him in every class, paid girls in high school to hang out with him, bought him everything he ever wanted, never encouraged him to try and improve as a person, gave him unrestricted internet access, dad twisted some arms and bribed the right people at city hall to get Rick disability checks, pampered and sheltered him from any form of criticism, change, or difficulty even as he went off to college. He’s five years into a two year program and still hasn’t gotten the degree. I’m sure there’s a bunch of other stuff that happened over the past few years that I don’t know about.” Angela takes a deep breath. “Any more questions?”
Vivian coughs and shakes her head.
“Yeah.” I put out my cig and stuff it back in the box. “What are we gonna do with him?”
Angela shakes her head. “The bounty says dead or alive. Whatever gets this over with quicker.”
Sejong gulps. “Really? We might be killing him?”
“Didn’t say that.” Angela looks back at Sejong. “Wouldn’t mind it though. It’d be the nicest thing anyone ever does for him.”
“Just…” Sejong rubs the back of his neck. “high-functioning or not, killing autistic people just doesn’t sit right with me.”
“Aw don’t worry about that.” Angela shakes her head. “I’m autistic too, so it's an even-playing field.”
“Wait. Pardon?” Sejong furrows his brow. “You’re autistic?”
“Yeup.” Angela leans back into the sofa. She seems almost proud. “Couldn’t tell?”
“Huh… I did not know that. You don’t seem-” Sejong’s and Angela’s eyes both pop wide open.
“Don’t seem like what?” Angela has this… disgusting, crooked, awful, beautiful grin on right now.
“Oh, you know… you just don’t… appear like them.” Sejong looks like he just took a big dump in his pants.
“What do autistic people look like, Sejong?” Angela’s gross grin only grows wider.
“I misspoke.” Sejong’s sweating bullets. “I am going to quit while I am behind. I am sorry.” Sejong sinks back into the sofa and even manages to melt in between the couch cushions a little bit to avoid looking at Angela.
“He killed a dozen people and there’s nothing stopping him from killing more.” Angela’s eyes look unfamiliar. “He’s not completely insane. He’s lied. He’s cheated. He understands the concepts of right and wrong. He just doesn’t care about anything but himself. If it wasn’t for the law, I would’ve mercy killed his ass a decade ago.”
“Angela…” Sejong sounds ready to cry. “You don’t mean that.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to live with him. You don’t know what it’s like to watch him live through life avoiding all consequences. You don’t know what it’s like to be ignored and abused while he gets all the food and toys. My parents dying is the best thing to happen to Virginia since emancipation. They’ve been nothing but a nuisance to Ruckersville ever since they moved in.”
“Then let’s be better than his parents.” Sejong continues speaking under the couch cushions. “Let’s get him the help he needs.”
“No amount of help can ever fix that bastard.” Angela shakes her head. “Trust me. He’s too far gone.”
“How about this?” I plop my hand on Angela and pry Sejong out of the cushions. “Whoever apprehends him first gets to do what they want with him. Deal?”
“Sounds good to me.” Angela smiles a little bit.
“What?” Sejong escapes my grip and recoils back into his seat. “Josh, you’re okay with just letting her kill a disabled person?”
“This is a family matter.” I stretch my arms above my head. “Ain’t really my place to comment.”
“What about you, Vivian?” Sejong turns to her. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”
Vivian just looks at us still flabbergasted. “I don’t want him to die because he’s a comedy gold mine. I want him to stay alive as long as possible just to see what kind of crap he does next.”
“Thank… you?” Sejong tilts his head.
“Buuuut” Vivian shrugs. “Twelve homicides is twelve homicides. Kinda hard to justify keeping him alive just for the lulz.”