Rick
November 15, 2005. EB Games parking lot. Okay… Okay… Rick. Calm down. Calm down. You’re a bigger man than this. It is no time to be doing the pussying out. You can do this. You’ve got all the sacred relics: Your Rickichu medallion, your highschool amethyst ring, and your mother’s pepper spray. I run my thumb over the spray’s button. I feel so powerful… yet so feminine just by holding it. No chickening now. If you don’t defend Shadow’s name, no one will. I eat a chicken nugget I stored in my mom’s car’s cupholder, and march out into the EB Games. I step inside and am greeted by one of the employees.
“Hello, sir.” he gives me one of them fake, disgusting smiles. I bet he kisses gay cops with that filthy mouth… “Welcome to EB Games. How can I help you?”
I lock eyes with a cardboard cutout of Shadow the Hedgehog in the corner of the store, shove the employee aside, and march over to it. If I stare hard enough at it, maybe I can make it explode. It’s so hideous… Why is Shadow so evil looking? Why does he have a gun? Shadow and Black Rickichu don’t need to use guns! They’re the ultimate life forms!
“Sir.” The employee catches up to me. “If you do that again, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Can I help you with anything?”
“You dork!” I kick the cut-out and manage to get my foot caught in it. “You’re not the real Shadow! You’re a fake hedgehog!” I pull my foot backward to draw the despicable cut-out towards me and start wailing on the dastardly depiction. “Die! Die! Die!” I keep punching it, but the horrible false idol won’t fall.
“Sir…” The employee grabs my shoulder. “Please leave before I call the police.”
“Don’t you dare touch me!” I slap his hand off me and brandish my sacred pepper spray. “Begone, foul monster!” I slam the button down and I get a face full of pepper spray. “AIYEEEEEEE!” I feel my mighty legs buckle and I fall onto the cut-out and feel my head bonk against the floor. My hands attempt to shield my eyes and rub the pepper spray out. “AIEYEYEYEY!!! WHY IS IT SO SPICY!? THIS ISN’T DELICIOUS AT ALL!” The tears won’t stop. I’m so pathetic. I can’t even protect Shadow…
“Alright…” The employee pulls out his cellphone. “Time to call the ambulance. Again.”
Josh
November 27th, 2007. 7:46 p.m. Rickville Suburbs. For some reason, all the buses here stop running at 7:30 p.m. Guess Rick’s bed time was at seven. Just been following behind Angela for the past twenty minutes on the road. The school’s surrounded by some small houses, several knock off fast food joints, and stores dedicated to just selling trading cards. Looks like a normal, peaceful suburban neighborhood. If I was six… I’d love this place. I don’t think I’d ever wanna leave. Sejong yawns. Vivian’s just taking in the scenery and occasionally looking at the moon. Angela’s looking at the street signs and leading us accordingly.
“So… Angie. Any idea where we’re headed next?” I ask.
“I was considering the Church, but that’s gonna be a while away without a bus.”
“Well can’t we just jack a car or something?” I yawn.
“Cars don’t work the same way here. Trust me. I tried and I got a migraine just by trying to figure out how they work.”
“Damn.”
“Quit whining. We’re almost there.” She turns right onto a quiet suburban cul-de-sac. Lawns all look perfectly trimmed and all the houses look identical. Devoid of any personality or wear and tear. “Welcome to my hell.” Angela stops in front of a large, two-story white house, turns around, and smiles like a passive-aggressive hotel lobbyist. “Enjoy your stay.”
“This… is your house?” Sejong looks up at it.
“A pretty faithful recreation of it. Why ask?”
“Nothing… it just looks… normal?”
“What were you expecting?”
“Some Silent Hill crap.” Vivian rests her hands above her head.
“Oh, we’ll get to that.” Angela kicks open the front door and shows us inside. “Right this way lady and gentlemen, abandon all hope ye who enter.”
The four of us walk in and… Christ. Jesus. Christ. It looks, smells, and feels like someone took a dump in a sock and left it marinating in mountain dew for a year. The hell is wrong with this family? Why would you transfer your hoarding habit into a recreation? Come on! I’ve been in drug houses and prison cells less embarrassing than this. I think this is a living room? It’s hard to tell with the mountains of trash, but there’s a tv on and I can just barely make out a part of a sofa. Hope nothing’s decomposing down there...
“Are you sure the trial’s in here?” I hold my nose and feel some nacho cheese rise into the back of my throat. Burns like hell.
“I’m about 83.33%; repeating of course, sure.” Angela starts kicking down the piles of junk, grabs a folding chair off the ground, and starts beating the crap out of the tv. Sparks fly. Angela knocks the tv off the stand and continues beating and kicking the poor thing.
“You alright there?” Viv asks.
“No! I! Always! Hated! This! TV!” She gets five more kicks in and the pile of trash bags atop the sofa starts to shift about.
“What in God-Jesus’s name are you trolls doing?” Long black ears sprout up from the garbage bags. Two emaciated Mickey Mouse looking hands erupt from the garbage and chuck all the bags onto the floor. The totally legally distinct Black Rickichu lies on the couch wearing high school basketball shorts and a small white t-shirt that has ‘Want Woman’ written in sharpie across the chest. He had a half-drank liter bottle of cola in his hand and a RcDonalds bag sitting beside him. Streaks of red fur lined his large head. He looks like an edgier version of a much more successful character. He rubs his eyes and squints at us. “Oooh… you’re the false Cherokeean prophets, huh?” His voice sounds tired. Defeated even. He’s the first Rickichu to use his indoor voice. Even sounds like his balls properly dropped.
“Yeah yeah.” Angela waggled the chair in front of him. “Just hand over your diamond and we’ll leave you alone.”
“Can’t give it to you unless you beat the trial.” Black Rickichu takes four deep gulps from his soda bottle and burps. “Them’s the rules.”
“I don’t care about the rules.” Angela extends her hand. “Diamond. Now.”
“No. No. Listen to me.” Black Rickichu rubs his temple. “The diamond doesn’t exist until you do the trial. Seriously. If I had the diamond, I’d give it to you.”
Angela squints her eyes. “Why?”
“Because I want ya’ll to leave me alone.” Black slinks into his chair. “Now I can lead you to the trial if you like.”
“Get up. Now.” Angela pokes his bloated belly with a chair leg.
“Alright alright I’m goin…” Black gets up from the chair and starts wading through the sea of garbage. “Don’t take any of my junk… I need it.”
“Just shut up and lead us.”
“Fine fine…” Black sighs. He leads us out of the living room, takes a left, goes up the stairs, makes a right, and stops in front of a pristine looking door. It’s easily the cleanest thing in this entire hell house. It’s literally glowing and has sparkles flying off of it. Also has some homemade Rickichu and Reginachu posters on it. There are huge watermarks in the center of them drawn in black paint that say, “All variations of the Rickichu and Reginachu characters ARE original characters and belong to Rick Cobb. 2007. Copyrighted. Trademarked. All rights reserved. I WILL sue if you steal my ocs.”
Black turns the door knob and opens the door. The inside of the room is completely pitch black. It’s like he opened the door to a black hole or something. “Welp. Here’s the trial. Get in.”
“What’s inside?” Vivian peeks inside.
“Nothing.” Black sighs. “It’s just a dark room. There’s nothing in there. I promise.”
“Why should we believe you?” Sejong asks.
“Because Father made me True and Honest. I am incapable of lying.” Black rolls his eyes like a spoiled teenager. “Just get in. I need to go buy a new TV now.”
“What’s the trial?” Angela keeps her eyes glued to the hedgehog.
“Just stay inside the room for five hours. If anyone sleeps, the clock’s reset. Think you idiots can manage that?”
“Sounds easy.” Vivian walks in the room and jumps about a little. She turns back to face us. “Come in. Floor’s sturdy and doesn’t seem to drop off anywhere.”
Angela stares daggers at Black. She’s so cute when she’s mad. “If anything in there hurts us, I’m killing you.”
“Promise?” Black’s smiling, but his eyes really are begging to be put down.
Angela sighs, chucks the chair away, and heads into the room. “Sejong. Josh. Get in.”
We follow her into the darkness.
“Good luck or whatever.” Black waves us goodbye and locks the door behind us.
The place really is pitch black. Doesn’t matter if my eyes are open or closed, everything looks the same. There’s no echo, so the place doesn’t seem really big. At least the stench is gone… somehow. The only thing visible is the glowing door behind us. It’s pitch white, but doesn’t emit any light beyond itself. It’s impossible, but so’s everything else in this realm it seems...
“So.” I sit down and pat my legs. “Angela, where are you? Come over here.”
“Gotchu.” I hear Angela’s footsteps grow closer. “Whoa! DAMNIT!”
A foot strikes my knee and I hear a body fall next to me.
“You alright?” I grope around the darkness to see who it is. My hand reaches some denim. I give it a good squeeze. Yeup. That’s definitely Angela’s ass. “You alright there?”
“I am now~” Angela backs her butt up against me.
This is going to be a fun five hours.
Vivian
November 27th, 2007. 8:24 p.m. Pitch black room. I’m just sitting in pitch darkness in a circle with my friends. Well, at least I hope we’re sitting in a circle. I have no method of actually confirming this. I do not enjoy existing in a place without stimuli. I think I will say something. “Yo, Angela.”
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“Yes?”
“Any idea what this trial is based on?”
“Hmm…” Angela’s voice cracks through two octaves as if someone had pinched her. “Let me think… darkness. Dark room…” I think I hear her facepalm, but I’m not sure. “Christ…”
“You remember?”
“Unfortunately…” Angela’s sigh slowly morphs into a cackle. “So when I was like five and Rick was eight, our parents used to leave us with a babysitter when they went out drinking.”
“Oh no… did you guys have an abusive babysitter?”
“Oh hell no. She was rad. Used to bring us Sailor Moon VHS tapes and would order us pizza. Even let us stay up super late. I think her name was Ruby. Anyway, one time while she’s babysitting us, Rick went into his room to get something and closed the door behind him. He couldn’t get out the rest of the night.”
“Did he lock himself in? Did he forget how to turn a doorknob?”
“I… don’t know…” Angela sighs. “The door was working fine and there isn’t even a lock on it. He just tried opening it for five minutes, convinced himself that Ruby locked him in, then spent the rest of the night crying for mom to help him. I don’t know if he was having some kind of motor issue. I don’t know if something got stuck under the door and jammed it.”
“That… That’s… how does that even happen?”
“Again, no idea, but my parents came home at like three a.m. drunk off their asses. Fired Ruby and chased her out of the house for ‘traumatizing’ Rick and spent the rest of the weekend coddling him and buying him toys to beg him for forgiveness.”
“That sucks… did you get any toys?”
“Pfft. Nah. They ran out of money.”
“I see… What happened after that?”
“Rick didn’t talk for two years and blamed Ruby for giving him autism.”
“I… don’t think that’s how autism works.”
“Try telling him that.” Angela sounds annoyed.
“Right. Sorry.”
“No biggie. You good, you good.” Angela sounds much less annoyed. “How’s bout we change the subject? Vivi, anything been bugging you?”
“Eh? What makes you ask that?”
“Dunno. You just seem kind of out of it ever since we got in here. Is this place too weird for you?”
“You kidding me? Cringe sustains me.” I kiss my fingers like an Italian chef.
“Well, is there anything bugging you then? Is the scar getting you down?”
“Nah. I love this thing.” I run my fingers along my face. Feels just as scaly and rad as ever. “I... just… Yuko’s been acting weird.”
“Oooooooh.” Sejong, Angela, and Josh all ‘ooooooooh’ in unison. I hear some legs shuffle around and some fingers get cracked. “Now this is what I’ve been waiting for.” Josh finally speaks up. “Let it all out. No judging here. What’s said in the room stays in the room.”
“Thanks guys.” I take a deep breath and collect my thoughts. “Ever since Thanksgiving break, she just seems kinda more distant? I don’t think she’s mad or anything. She just seems uncomfortable around me?”
“Well what’re you doing with her in public?” Josh asks. “You groping titties?”
“Oh hell no. Mostly just holding hands under tables. Maybe the occasional thigh touch.”
“What happened at Thanksgiving? Did any family members give you trouble?”
“Oh, no. No.” I shake my head. “She introduced herself as a friend to my family. I’m not upset by that at all. I get it, but during most of the party she barely said anything to anyone. Even had to excuse herself to the bathroom.”
“Dude, you know Yuko’s not exactly the most friendly to strangers.”
“I know, but… I dunno. I thought she’d be a little different around my family.”
“What happened in the bathroom?”
“She was saying something about how she isn’t comfortable around family parties and was even asking me why I liked her. Sounded like she thought I was just using her.”
“Are you?” Josh sounds ready to maim something.
“Hell no. I’m not smart enough to use anyone.”
Josh lets out a hearty chuckle. “The hell you aren’t. Answer me this then, why do you like Yuko?”
“She makes me laugh, her smile’s super cute, pretty good teammate in the field. Doesn’t snore. Plus just… I get really giddy thinking about her. I wish you could see my dumb smile right now.”
Josh chuckles. “Aaaah yeah. That’s how you know it’s real. I’ll take your word on that.”
“Plus we’ve only been dating for a month. I’m not rushing anything or taking anything too seriously.”
“That’s smart.” Josh continues. “Want some of my advice?”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
I feel like my heart just launched out my back. “What do you mean?”
“Please don’t tell her I said this, but I don’t think Yuko’s cut out for a long-term relationship.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Dude…” Josh sighs. “I’ve been around a lot of women like that before. She’s got a lot of baggage that she needs to sort out herself. You can’t help her through it.”
“But I want to help her. If Yuko’s suffering, it’s my job to make her happy.”
“Viv. Listen. I don’t care how giddy you feel when you think about her. It’s not your job to fix your partner. Granted, relationships are about making each other better, but there’s a line you gotta draw. If she’s not ready, she’s not ready. You can’t force anything. Got it?”
“Bu-”
“Vivian.” Angela interrupts. “Trust us. We know what we’re talking about.”
I take a deep breath and look down. “Fair enough. You two certainly seem like you got things figured out.”
“Eh?” Angela ‘ehs’. “What do you mean? We’re not a couple.”
“Angela, Josh is groping your titties right now.”
The two fall silent for a good, long, awkward while. I’d pay anything to see their faces.
“How did you know…?” Josh asks.
“Because you just told me.”
A gross, amazing sound erupts from Angela. It sounds like a chihuahua getting shot out of a cannon. She sounds like she’s laughing, but I’m not sure. “Wait. Josh. Keep massaging. I didn’t tell you to stop.”
“No… It’s weird now.” Josh whines.
“Ah, come on.” Angela pleads. “They can’t see nothing.”
“Yeah I don’t mind.” I lie down on the floor. “Hell, I wouldn’t mind even if I could see.”
“See?” Angela asks as I hear the sound of flesh clapping. “What about you, Sejong? Do you mind?”
“Eh?” Sejong yawns. “Oh… no… I don’t really care. Thank you for asking though…”
“You didn’t fall asleep, did you?” I ask. “You sound super tired.”
“No… no… I’ve been awake this whole time, I assure you… I’ve just been incredibly relaxed.”
“Why?” Angela asks.
“Because I don’t have to worry about appearances. I can just let everything hang out.”
Josh
November 27th, 2007. 10:47 p.m. Still in the pitch black room. Still barely awake. Angela still has my hand firmly gripped on her titty. Things are going alright. If I didn’t have the team with me, I’m sure I would’ve knocked out by now. Vivian’s been able to keep the conversation constant throughout our time here. Angela’s been the most talkative I’ve ever seen her. Sejong’s been quiet. Real, real quiet. Every time we check to see if he’s awake, he responds, so I can’t get mad.
“WAIT!” Angela yells and murders the conversation she was having. “WHAT’S OUR TEAM NAME?”
“Angie… it’s Familia.” I poke her boob. “How’d you forget?”
“No no.” Angie shakes her head against my shoulder. “It’s only Familia when it’s me, you, Sejong, and Janelle. Vivian’s filling in for Janelle, so we need a new name.”
“Do we really?”
“Yes.” Vivian and Angela respond in unison.
“How about…” Angela scratches her head. “Familia: Mild.”
“Why mild?” Vivian asks.
“Because we don’t have our firestarter.”
“Nah. Don’t like that.”
“Oh come on. It’s a good name. Right, Josh?”
“You tried.” I pat Angela’s head.
“How about Another Familia?” Vivian suggests.
“Hmmm… don’t like that.” Angela shrugs.
“Why?”
“Dunno. Just doesn’t sit right with me.”
“Okay then how about we get away from the Familia name brand?”
“Oh! I got it!” Angela gets a little too loud again. “How about VAJS?”
Vivian and I blurt out laughing. “Vags… You really going to name us Vags?”
“Oh. Lol. Whoops. How about JAVS? It’s an acronym of all our first names.”
“It’s also the acronym for Japanese Adult Videos.” I add.
Vivian continues laughing.
“Oh yeah… it is that…” Angela runs her fingertips along my arm. “On second thought, let’s not go with that. Could lead to some marketing problems down the line in case this team variant ever gets an action figure line.” she continues humming. “Damnit. This is hard. I can’t think of anything.”
“How about we get back to this later?” I suggest. “No point in getting frustrated right now.”
“Then what do you suggest we talk about?” Angela rests her head back into my chest and yawns.
“Oh no you don’t.” I bop her on the head. “No sleeping.”
“I’m… not…” she yawns again. “Just… resting my eyes.”
“Actually… I have an idea.” Vivian speaks up. “What if I told you this city reminds me of something I did as a kid?”
“YOU WHAT!?” Angela shoots awake and yells in my ear. Again.
“Relax, relax.” Vivian calms down from her laughing fit. “I wasn’t anything nearly this cringey when I was a kid. I just had a big notebook where I wrote down what my ideal planet would be. Like if I was god and ruled over a planet as a God-queen, what would it be like?”
“Oh…” Angela also calms down. “That… doesn’t sound too bad. Please don’t let it be too bad.”
“Relax. It’s not a weird sex thing. It was just an exercise in worldbuilding with some wish-fulfillment thrown in there.”
“Do you still have the notebook?” I ask.
“Nah. I haven’t seen it in like a decade. I either lost it or threw it in the trash to try and be mature or something. Regretted it the next day, but the trash man already came by.”
“Aw that sucks.” Angela rests her hand over mine. “How many pages was the notebook?”
“I think… five hundred?” Vivian cracks her knuckles. “Must’ve had like three-fifty of the pages filled up.”
“Holy crap. What’d you write about? How’d you even find time to write that much?”
“I had to do something in school.” Vivian yawns. “I wrote it like an encyclopedia. Every plant, animal, city, location, food, and holiday was detailed.”
“That’s pretty cool.” I admit. “What was the planet called?”
“Okay hear me out…” Vivian starts chuckling under her breath. “I never wound up thinking of a final title, so I just called it Better Earth the whole time.”
“You know what? That’s actually pretty good.” I rest my chin atop Angela’s head.
“What kind of holidays did you have?” Angela asks.
“Let’s see here… there’s Video Game Appreciation day. It’s a federal holiday where everyone just plays video games and fighting game tournaments get held on national television. The Dog Festival where there’s a bunch of dog themed parades, festivities, and all commercially available dog-related items are discounted. The Tournament Month where everyone on the planet enters into various tournaments. Some are based around puzzle solving, others are based around speedrunning games, others are just straight up fighting tournaments.”
“Bruh that sounds way better than this dump. Sign me the hell up.”
“What about crime and the economy?” I ask. “How do those work?”
“Dude, I was like seven when I wrote that.” Vivian chuckles. “I didn’t even know how to spell economy. Plus, why would I bring crime into an idealized fantasy planet?”
“Fair.” Crap, now I’m yawning. “I was just curious. What about you? Did you have a certain role in this planet or were you just another citizen?”
“I was Vivian the Eternal. Creator of the planet, goddess of livestock and farming, and overall cool dude. Even lived in a huge palace that was the size of a city. Had a maze room, giant theatre room, personal playground, arcade, a recreation of my house inside the mansion, kart-racing room, a giant room that’s just a giant trampoline.” Vivian goes on and on and on describing a bunch of rooms that I don’t care about or just plain forgot about. “Yeah… I had a lot of fun designing the palace. Oh, one more thing. It could also fly and turn into a giant robot to fend off any asteroids from hitting the planet.”
“Okay…” Angela nods. “That’s actually pretty rad.”
“Hehe. Thank you.” Vivian sounds happy. “I also had an entourage of all the cute girls in my school follow me around and play with me. It was the best.”
“That does sound like a good time.” I run my fingers through Angela’s hair. “Your planet sounds a hell of a lot better than this dump.”
“I appreciate it.” Vivian sounds like she too is doing some weird sex thing, stretching, or that’s just how she yawns. If that’s how she yawns, that is the horniest sounding yawn I’ve ever heard.
Some more time passes and the door opens. “Trial completed.” Rick’s disembodied voice booms, light pours into the room, and we all immediately get to our feet and book it. Sejong looks a little… gelatinous when the door first opens. His face morphs and swirls about. The eyes and mouth weren’t quite in their right places and - never mind. The more I think about it, the worse I feel. We rush down the hallway, down the stairs, and back into the living room where Black Rickichu was. Black’s stretched out on the sofa looking as limp as a wet quesadilla. His shirt’s stained with soda, there’s still some fry salt on his mouth, and some of the insects have begun to buzz around him. He isn’t breathing or making any noise. Not even moving. I can see him smiling. His eyes are closed, his body reeks of oil and b.o., but he’s smiling. It’s the best damn smile I’ve seen in this hellpit of a world.
The rest of us keep our distance, but Angela walks up and yawns. “Yo. Dude. Wake up. We beat your dumb challenge.” She bops him on the head and a Black Diamond phases out of his stomach and floats above him. “Sweet.” Angela takes the diamond, stuffs it into her bag, and begins heading out without looking back. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. I need a shower…”
We exit the world and Vivian retreats back to her dorm. I get all the nerd stank off me and jump into bed. I need to take a day off… This is too much.