The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
FM was standing in a simple square room, with four braziers, one in each corner, all burning different colours. These weren’t normal flames however, as they did not give off coloured light, and the room remained smokeless, with a white light seeming to emanate from the walls and floor, with no shadows forming. In the middle of the room were two pedestals, about four feet apart. On top of them was a box. In it was FM’s father. FM turned as the guard stopped, bowing.
“Master.” Said Sniper, raising his head, looking into FM’s cold, hard eyes.
“You have your mission? You are ready to leave?”
“Yes Master.”
“Good.” FM turned back to look at the coffin, licking his fingers and rubbings his eyebrows again as he spoke. “This is just the first part my friend. I will have my revenge, I do not know when, but I will/”
“Yes Master.” There was an edge of concern in Snipers voice.
“What is wrong, my friend?”
“I do not know, Master. I think I am worrying with no reason.”
“Ah. You are concerned about the book, yes?” Sniper lowered his eyes. “Do not fear. I will find the book. MY magic grows with each passing month, soon I will have the power needed to find the book. Then, when it is mine, I will have unimaginable power!” FM felt a shiver run up his spine as he closed his eyes, imagining the power he would wield. He looked at Sniper. “You have your orders.”
“Yes Master Meister.”
“Go. Be swift, and do not fail me.” Sniper turned and left the room.
FM turned back to the coffin. As he walked around it, his fingers traced the inscription carved into the stone. He knew them all, word for word, but their feel comforted him. They were instructions on how to travel the underworld.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Wrath exploded through Meka’s mind. He screamed “No!” in a murderous rage as he leapt off the rock. With both hands he brought the sword up while still in mid-air. When he hit the ground he recoiled, swinging it around from behind in an arc. The sword whistled with its speed. The man had turned as Meka hit the ground. Seeing Meka coming, he brought his own sword up defensively, with lightning speed.
Meka watched as if in a dream as his sword come around. Every ounce of his strength went into trying to make the sword go truer, go faster. Be deadlier. The magic raged with his need. Meka looked from the mans sword, hard into the steel blue eyes. Mekas sword followed the track of his eyes, he heard himself still screaming. The man held his sword straight up, to deflect the blow.
Everything else around the man dissolved in Mekas vision. His anger, the magic, was unleashed like never before. No power on earth could deny him the mans blood.
He finished his arc, the sword coming round at eye height to the side of the mans head. It shattered through the mans sword, and exploded through his chainmail hood, bits of molten twisted metal flying off into the undergrowth. The sword continued its journey, making contact with the mans skull, and continuing through, out the other side of his head.
Bits of bone blood and brain flew up into the air as the early morning air was filled with a cloud of red mist. Steaks of blood covered Meka, dripped down his body, dribbled off his sword as he slowly lowered the point to the ground.
The mans body crumpled slowly to the ground, blood pumping out over the ground, mixing with the puddles already there. Meka could feel the cold mist help cool his body.
“Meka!” Meka awoke, a sheen of sweat over his whole body. “Meka, my brother, are you alright?” asked Grix.
“It was that dream.”
“Again?” Meka nodded in reply.
“Come on, get up, we have to meet the others soon.”
“Who?”
“You know, the others from the village. Dan2K1, Venombyte and Ant.”
“What about er-no, and YH?”
“They said they had something to do. They will meet us later.” Grix helped his brother to sit up.
“Ok, give me a few minutes." Grix nodded and left the room. Meka put his head in his hands as he thought about the dream.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Master Meister?” FM looked around.
“Yes?”
“I have some bad news Lord, about Sniper.”
“He hasn’t dies again has he?”
“Yes Lord, he fell off his horse.”
“How did that kill him?”
“Into the moat.”
“He can swim.”
“Yes Lord, but as he tried to climb out, he must have pulled the lever, the one you ordered put in?”
“I vaguely remember.”
“That let the piranhas in.”
“Ah. I should have expected something like this. He has a whole bloody palace to have his accidents in. I put all that sponge about so he wouldn’t hurt himself, and yet he falls into the piranha moat. Amazing. Nevermind, he will be back by now. Tell him to continue with his task. Tell him to be more careful next time.”
What was wrong with taking the fight into the afterlife anyway?
EXPLOSION AT ENGINEERING PLANT. ONE SURVIVOR
Tradegy stuck the Microsoft Engineering Plant yesterday as an explosion rocked the very foundations of the Earth, killing over two thousand people. Police believe the explosion to be due to a gas leak, and foul play has been ruled out.
There is, however, one nameless sole survivor. He was bought to hospital, after being found under rubble where the plant once stood; which he immedietly left, after telling a nurse that "this is gay".
Who is this remarkable creature? Will we ever hear from again in the future?
Our hearts go out to the friends and family of those involved, and especially to those that died. A mass burial will be held on Tuesday, and as a mark of respect, ten small industrial estates will be blown up at ten o'clock the same day. We can only place our feelings with those left without fathers, husbands and wives, and send our love to those who must feel so lonely at this moment.
On a completly unrelated note, the looking for love ads is now taking up pages 22 through 55, and we have an extended page 3 section, which ends at page 21. Just our way of helping the long nights go past.
Still, it would be nice if he could think of one.
Well, lateral thinking was needed then.
Should he start in the future, or the past. Before things went wrong, or after?
After, obviously. Otherwise nobody would know what was going to go wrong, would they?
Okay, so when was after. A day, A week, a month?
Make it a year. There's no way their quest would go on for that long, so a year into the future would be certain to get him to the right sort of time.
Right then, whereabouts in that time should he go?
Anywhere where he could find out how things went wrong. Somewhere where he could find out about the past.
A museum? A library? A news archive?
--------------------------------------
Four hours er-no had been scanning the headlines, and he'd found zip. Nothing. Nowt. Nothing about Bill Gates rising from the dead, nothing about floating islands.
Until he'd found this one.
"EXPLOSION AT ENGINEERING PLANT. ONE SURVIVOR"
It had to be sniper. Had to be.
er-no tweaked the tardis into life, and set off...
"Manhattan Island..." FM said as they all rushed for the door, careful to let Sniper go first this time.
And rightly so. The door was locked, and Sniper broke his nose.
And as Sniper tried to bring his hand up to his face instinctively, he forgot he was still holding onto the handle, and bought his face down to the door handle instead very fast, and managed to knock himself out.
---------
"Welcome to limbo, Strafex." Was the last thing Strafex ever heard.
He was stuck in a white room. It had four walls, a ceiling and a floor. No doors. No windows. It was light enough to see all walls though.
And that was the last anyone ever heard of him. Ever. He did try to write some more stories, but a lack of a pen, paper, or imagination slowed him.
We can go back to the mortal world late but lets keep it up in the clouds for now.
Then the screen went blank.
"OK. He passed the quarantine test." Said the Angel as he released Grix from the tank of water.
"Good!" muttered a slightly irate Meka
"Why do we have to go through this anyway before going to heaven."
The Angel looked passively, clearly having had answered this to every soul floating through here.
"Listen, if a place where you get what you want, the human mind can be very dangerous, especially with the sick imagination many people have nowdays."
He said sternly "Every soul going to heaven must be checked to make sure it can control itself."
Grix woke up. He saw everyone as Angels again.
"Don't tell me, another dream..."
"Your mind was quarantined remember?"
"So this dream kicks off where the last one left off?"
"You could say that. We're off to heaven now, try not to wake up before you get there..."
They burst out laughing. For poor Grix, it wasn't so funny. He didn't realise they'd seen his dream on a screen.
The Angel pointed in a direction.
"That way to heaven."
After while they reached a building. There was loud music inside. It looked and sounded like a nightclub.
Strafex led the way. "This is heavens entrance. Hey St Peter!" he said to the bouncer.
"Hello. Names?"
they gave their names.
"Sorry guys, you're not on the list."
"WHAT?"
"You're not on here."
"I've already been in! I only came out to quickly help save the world."
"Sorry. No name, no game."
A voice came from behind.
"They're with me."
Peter's face lit up!
"Sniper dude! You're back. Best death yet mate, everyone loves you in there."
They followed Sniper in.
"you should've told me you were Snipers friend!"
"We had no idea he was so popular" FM called back
"How come?"
"Well, we always look down on the Earth but can't go down" sad Peter excitedly. "But Sniper sneaks down and pulls of massive stunts like killing himself in comical ways!"
They blankly followed Sniper in.
Hundreds of girls all flocked around him like he was a pop star.
Grix caught up with him.
"So all these deaths... they were publicity stunts?"
"Yeah!" Sniper snorted "What? Did you think I was some clumsy clutz or something?"
They left the disco out the back do and went down the cloud corridors to the games room.
"Ok, so what do we play first?"
"Goldeneye"
"Halo"
"Lets use FM's halo as a frisby!"
"NO. The Xbox game halo!"
"I prefer Monkey Ball"
"Hmm. Why don't we play Flight Simulator" said a strange voice. They turned around and saw the Overlord, standing and grinning.
"Don't look so surprised! You were the ones who killed me off remember!"
"How did you get past Peter though?!?"
"Simple. Al this time I was hiding in Snipers coat pocket!"
Sniper looked thoughtful
"I did wonder where you'd gone when we died in that Sun..."
"Yes." laughed the Overlord "Who needs to rule the world when you can take over the heavens. i must thank you gentlement for you assistance in my cloud domination plan but now I must go and finish it. Farewell friends!"
And with a deep laugh he disappeared.
"Out of the frying pan, into the fire!" muttered Grix "You and your plans Strafex!"
"Calm down" said Sniper "We can still stop him..."
"But how?"
"I have an idea..." said Ant.
They tried to shake him but his eyes just glazed over again and he fell back in the chair.
"So much for playing Goldeneye!" said Sniper, miffed at not being able to beat the others at his favorite multiplayer. "I only banged into him lightly as we went through the door to his house..."
"and knocked him into the stair post, then continued to walk over him...no wonder he's out cold." pointed out YH.
"wait" said pb, "I think he's coming around..."
"eh? Why are we not angels?" said Grix as he opened his eyes to see the others staring down at him. It was probably more shocking that finding out he wasn't dead after all. "Where's Bill?"
"Grix, you were unconcious. Bill Gates isn't here, he never was. The thing is, we turned on the TV and it said they were exhuming his coffin." replied FM.
"ok....hang on, Bill Gates didn't really have much of a body left for a coffin..." Grix said, springing back up out of the seat and instantly regretting it as he felt his head throb. "Where did you say they were taking the coffin, FM?"
"Manhattan Island..." FM said as they all rushed for the door, careful to let Sniper go first this time.
Grix looked sheepish, "Well, he is sort of expendable... compared to us anyway..."
They all stared at him.
Venombyte had a better idea.
"Get YH to stand next to Sniper. When Strafex chases Bill out of YH, he will go into Sniper. After that, if we stop him from escaping, Sniper can do the rest!"
"If we can kill Sniper," Grix blurted "Why can't we kill YH?"
They shushed him quick before Sniper heard.
"We're not going to kill Sniper."
"We'd never do such a thing!"
"It's just seeing as he'll kill himself anyway, why not send Bill with him?"
They all agreed. They charged Your Honour (still controlled by Bill) and pushed him into the corner where Sniper was standing.
Strafex went in and shooed the overlord out who dashed into Sniper. They all then got some earplugs and put them in Snipers ears and nostrils.
The overlords Spirit was trapped in Sniper.
Sniper laughed (with Bills voice)
"YOU THINK THAT I CAN'T TAKE OVER THE WORLD IN SNIPER?
JUST WATCH ME!"
He ran out the door and triped over as he went flying straight into some sheep.
They atacked him, ramming him sky high.
A helicopter went past and sliced off his legs.
Cursing as he fell, the overlord began to realise why they'd trapped him in.
He landed with a thud.
He was still alive though. He'd survived!
He put his head back and rested it on a stone.
It started beeping. He looked round to see it was a mine.
He shielded his face with his right arm.
He quickly found himself flying with only head and a left arm still on his body. This time he landed in water, a little pool outside a factory.
It turned out to be very acidic as his skin burned off.
He pulled himself out onto a machine.
It started moving up and he fell off onto something which also started rumbling.
It was a rocket. He got blown into space.
His flesh quickly expanded and popped with the lack of air pressure.
An enraged skeleton clung on to the rockets engine, as it disattatched itself and went into the sun.
The overlord had been destroyed.
They all sighed with relief.
"Great" Said Strafex "Who wants to join me in the land of free games?"
Everyone shouted "ME!" at once.
"Okay!"
He pulled out a grenade. There was an explosion.
They were all floating in the air, upwards into the clouds.
Grix, looked up at his halo.
"Dan, when we said the land of free games... the afterlife wasn't quite what we had in mind..."
"Damn."