.................................................................. .##...##...####...#####....####....####...##...##..######...####.. .##...##..##..##..##..##..##......##..##..###.###..##......##..... .##.#.##..######..#####...##.###..######..##.#.##..####.....####.. .#######..##..##..##..##..##..##..##..##..##...##..##..........##. ..##.##...##..##..##..##...####...##..##..##...##..######...####.. .................................................................. A Shockwave[xpow] fictional production

Note to Readers

Hopefully this will be entertaining and not offensive. Most of you know that I'm very serious about my faith, so it's not my intention to spite anyone's religious beliefs through this. It's just intended to be a bit of comic relief.

Much of the humor comes from happenings on my forum; my apologies to those who are not part of that community, because you probably won't understand some of the jokes. Also, Johnny_Vegas has been begging me to include him in my next story, so, umm, here you go Johnny... :-)

Shockwave[xpow]

Intermission

It was hot.

Rising to his feet slowly, as if awakening from a disturbing dream, Rapser wondered where in the world this was.

The room was tiny, claustrophic, with red walls that looked as if splattered with blood. Eerie silence enveloped the place, save for the rhythmic "click click" of mouse and keyboard. Several people sat in front of tightly clustered computers, their eyes glued to the screen, faces expressionless. There was no discernable source of light, yet the room itself seemed to glow, basking the whole place in the same disheartening color that painted the walls.

"Whoever designed this place should go to hell," were the first words out of Rapser's mouth.

"El oh el, maybe his hell would be to design rooms for eternity," chuckled one of the occupants. The other took his attention off of his computer and exclaimed, "Roff el!" Rapser didn't understand that.

"Uhh, who are you all and where am I?" Rapser shouted.

One of the figures swivelled his chair toward the confused one. "Well, I'll answer your first question at least. My name is Johnny Vegas", he introduced himself.

"Johnny Vegas? That's kind an odd name."

"Yeah yeah, and this one over here is Mark4." Johnny thumbed at a ragged looking man sitting next to him. A few strange figures decked in crimson robes knelt by his side, frantically rubbing small figurines that bore his resemblence, their attention fixed on him with adulation.

"Uhh, right, Mark4, nice..."

"Yeah, just try not to talk to him too much, though," Johnny Vegas said in hushed tones.

"Why not?" Rapser whispered back. Mark4 looked harmless enough.

"I'll tell you why not," Mark4 muttered without even turning his head.

"The great one, the master of all things Starcraft speaketh!" "He will impart to us great wisdom!" "His ranking rises evermore in the ladder." chimed three of the revelers in succession.

"See?" hissed another of the occupants.

"Hey, that's cool, you have your own fan club!" exclaimed Rapser. "What's wrong with that?"

"It gets irritating after a while," spat Mark4. "Nay, our blessings are to please!" "We will forever shower you in loyal praise!" "Not a single defamation would be our utterance!" "Hail to the great Mark4, king of Starcraft!"

"Umm, right. Mark4. And you're 'Johnny Vegas'? Did your mothers hate you or something?"

Johnny chuckled, almost patronizingly. Rapser didn't like the sound of the laugh. "No, those aren't our real names, they're our handles. See, after being here for... a while... you kinda forget your real name, you only remember what people call you. So what's yours, son?"

"Ehh, people call me 'Rapser', because I'm always getting the rap for everything wrong that goes on in ops. Get it: 'Rap', 'Rapser'?"

Johnny coughed up a fake laugh. "Sure, yeah o.k. And you know your real name?"

"It's -" Rapser stopped short. "Uhh, I, uhh, don't... remember..."

Johnny smiled broadly. "See? But don't worry, it's all good," he assured in a tone one would use when talking to a confused child. "I'm sure it'll come back to you sometime." The last word seemed to linger on his lips sarcastically.

"Anyway," he continued, "First things first. Have a seat! You need your entertainment, then we'll have eternity to make small talk."

Johnny motioned toward the empty desk next to him. On it was the same computer, the same keyboard and mouse, that every other person in the cramped room had. So much for variety. Flickering on the screen were the words -

"STARCRAFT!" exclaimed Rapser, noticing for the first time. "Hey, this is that awesome game I found on Tolaris!"

Rapser eagerly took his seat and started rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "You know, this game is just incredible, I dream of playing it all day and night if only Rea would let me."

"Oh, you can play for a long long time here," Mark4 said. "Yes, the Great One will teach you." "Someday you will be worthy to play with him!" "He broke 1600 in ladder last century!"

"Uhh, 'last century'?" Rapser interjected. "You've been playing this game for that long?"

"Oh, he's been at it for much longer than that," another person said. This one looked Asian.

Rapser just scratched his head. "Then he must be a heckuva lot older than he looks."

"Oh yes," the new conversationalist replied. "We're all ancient. I stopped counting how long I've been here after the third millenium."

"Whatever, you've been here more than three thousand years?" exclaimed Rapser in disbelief. "Excuse me if I don't believe you."

"Oh yes, and all this time we're just stuck in front of this Starcraft screen," he sighed. "My name's Shockwave, by the way. Nice to meet you, Rapser, hope we get along, because we're stuck here together for a long long time."

"Umm, you can't leave or anything? You don't get out eventually?"

"Well, that depends on how you look at things," Shockwave began. "Some people believe that the time we're only here is temporary, as sorta a punishment, that maybe oh in a million years or so we'll be sent to a better place. But personally, I see no justification for that claim. I'm the same now as I was a thousand years ago, there's therefore no rationale for me to be treated any differently from before. I'm not here to be punished, because that can wear off. I'm just here because of my own nature."

"Shut up with the pagan theology," spat a kid sitting nearby. "You know I disagree with everything you say that's not Starcraft."

Shockwave just dismissed him with a wave of the hand. "That's Sp|ne, you'll get used to him. He's in here for tormenting some poor 12-year-old kid on the internet."

"GAY!"

"Huh? Where did that come from?" exclaimed Rapser, whipping his head around. It was another gamer behind him.

"Ah, that's Bob_the_Newt," Shockwave explained. "Apparently, all he can say is 'gay', although sometimes they let him type stuff on the screen."

"That's kinda odd," mused Rapser. "Does he like making comments about peoples' sexual orientation?"

"No. I think it's his curse," Shockwave corrected. "You say something too much in one life, and you're stuck with it in another, you know how it goes."

"Hey Bob, what do you think of that?" Johnny called out.

"GAY!"

Shockwave and Johnny broke out in an uproar of laughter. Rapser just hunched his shoulders in discomfort.

"So let me see if I got this figured out," Rapser interjected through the clamor. "You guys just sit here for thousands of years and do... what?"

"We play Starcraft, you idiot," grunted Mark4. "He plays like no other!" "None can defeat him!" "He is a hero to behold!" "Can I observe next game?"

"Oh," said Rapser. "Hey, but wait, Shockwave, you don't have Starcraft on your screen. It's just a bunch of text."

"Yeah, Shockwave sucks at Starcraft. I can beat him in my sleep, just like I could beat Mark4 if I tried," announced some kid in the back.

"Umm, that's just Gizmoid," Shockwave sighed. "Ignore him, he thinks he's the best, but he hasn't won a game since he got here. But he's right: I do suck at Starcraft. Actually, I don't play at all. I just write about it."

"You write about Starcraft? Isn't that kinda lame?" said Rapser.

"I think so," said Mark4. "And I." "As do I." "Me too." "Absolutely."

"Yeah, that's the irony." Shockwave explained. "I know every possible conceivable thing about this game, but I can't play it worth a grain of salt. It's sorta like morality - you might know everything about how to live a good life, and may try your best, but in the end you'll fail compared even to your own standards and be condemned for that."

"More stupid theology," muttered Sp|ne.

"GAY!"

"Yeah, anyway, it's kinda sad," Shockwave explained. "I just post on forums all day - Blizzard's forum, Tao-of-gaming, my own, you name it. Everyone thinks I must be an awesome player, some people on the forum think I must be the best one there, but nobody's actually ever played me."

"Uh huh, I think I get it," Rapser managed.

"Yeah, see look here: http://www.battle.net/forums/starcraft-strategy/posts/ii/190848.shtml." Shockwave fingered toward a line of text on the screen. "Some idiot still thinks that to stop a zergling rush, you should build a ton of bunkers with one marine per bunker. I'll respond to that and put him in his place."

"Umm, yeah, you do that, Shockwave," Rapser rolled his eyes. "So the rest of you guys must be really good at this game by now, huh?"

"Well, yeah they are, but it doesn't really affect game outcome all that much, it really depends on what race you get," Shockwave said.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that if you get Zerg you win, Terran you lose, and Toss you win or lose depending on your opponent's race. Of course, in equal race matchups, it's even, but those are boring beyond belief to play."

"You mean the game's not balanced across all races?" Rapser was incredulous.

"It's FINE!" spat a new voice vehemently. It was a frazzled looking man, peering unblinking at the screen, sweat trickling down his forehead. "There is no game imbalance, every race is perfectly playable, we only improve certain units once in a while to increase 'playability'."

"What's his problem?" exclaimed Rapser.

"Umm, ignore him," Shockwave sighed. "That's PatN, he's from Blizzard, the company that actually made this game. He's stuck here playing Terran against other races 1on1, they tell him that he's free to go if he wins just one single game, but that was almost a million years ago."

"Poor guy," mused Rapser. "But hey, we might as well play a game, right? No sense wasting time talking."

"Sure," said Mark4. "Why don't we make one on 'Greed'?" "Ah, Mark4 rules on 'greed'!" "He rules on everything!'" "He even beat [9]NTT!"

"Uh, 'greed'?" exclaimed Rapser in disbelief. "Isn't that one of those settings that nobody ever plays on?"

"Look, kid," offered Shockwave. "When you play a game for a million years, you start getting sick of the standard settings. Mark4 even started playing BGH about a century ago, but don't tell anyone."

Suddenly and without warning, a blinding flash of light erupted in the center of the room. A majestic figure garbed in shimmering white robes materialized in the midst of a chorus of smoke and radiance. Rapser rubbed his eyes and stared toward the apparition. Then, recognition dawned on him.

"Rock!" Rapser exclaimed. "Is that you? What are you doing here?"

Rock turned toward his colleague. "Hey Rapser, just visiting! How's it going, bud? Man, it's hot down here, turn up the AC already!"

"Err, it's going o.k., I think... I'm stuck here with all these weirdos playing Starcraft."

Rock's expression perked. "Really? That's all we do up there too!"

"Must be a living hell," said Gizmoid. "I should go up there and show you all who's boss."

"No, it's not, actually. It's beautiful! The game is sooo awesome. I mean, there's basketball and volleyball and TV and PSX19234 and beaches and fast cars there, but everyone just chooses to play Starcraft all the time."

"Must be a pain when you get Terran, though," said PatN, still furiously clicking away as a dozen of his tanks got dwebbed and psi stormed.

"No, it's actually GREAT playing Terran," exclaimed Rock. "In fact, every race is great, the game is so completely balanced, there's so much depth in the strategy, and -"

"Uh, you guys must not be playing with the same Starcraft we are," said Shockwave.

"Well, let's see, it wasn't great when we first got up there, but now we're on patch 1.5100536," Rock offered. "It's awesome, the programmers up there are soooo quick in responding to our comments about how to improve the game, and each patch just makes it better and better. I can't wait to try my new dark archon tech rush! What about you, guys?"

"Mmm, we've been stuck on patch 1.07 for the last eternity or so," Shockwave moaned. "It's totally ludicrous - corsairs beat almost everything in the air, Terran early game cloak detection sucks as does their mobility, reavers suffer from AI bugs where they'll sometimes fire from 7 range instead of 8, valks are plain worthless and in addition are prone to sprite overload where they won't fire at all, carrier/corsair/dweb combos are completely abusive, and -"

"Shockwave will go on for forever if you let him," Mark4 interrupted quickly. "Yes, enough of Shockwave!" "Must we hear more?" "Grace us instead with thy superior words, O great one."

"Hey, say, Rock," Shockwave perked up, "Do you think you could convince your buds up there to send us down your version of Starcraft?"

Rock rubbed his chin and seemed to throw the idea around in his head. "Sorry," he said finally, "They said something about how 'All hell would break loose' if that happen -"

"Gay!"

Rock gave Bob_the_Newt a disturbed glance, and continued, "happened. Anyway, I gotta go now, I met this lady up there and I can tell that she likes me, I should get back to her."

"Wow, you're not clueless any-"

There was a brief flash, and Rock vanished into thin air, leaving the rest of the room's occupants staring at the smoke that was left behind. Soon, though, Mark4 resumed playing his game, Shockwave started furiously typing, PatN unpaused and lost his entire wraith fleet to a few corsairs. Only Johnny Vegas remained motionless.

"So what did I do to deserve this punishment?" Rapser asked nobody in particular.

Johnny Vegas just threw his head back and laughed, and it reverberated oddly through the room.

"What?" exclaimed Rapser. "Tell me!"

As if in response, Johnny rose from his seat and slammed his hand on Rapser's shoulder. As Rapser winced in shock, Johnny's visage slowly sank, deepened, became cracked and red. Giant charcoal wings woke and stretched from his back, the fingers on Rapser's shoulder grew sickening black claws, a pair of fangs sprouted from Johnny's crooked grin.

"You, my dear boy, killed Rock by playing your little game of Starcraft," the Johnny-turned-demon cackled. With that, he started shaking Rapser violently by the shoulder. The chair rattled, Rapser felt his stomach churning. "And for that, you will suffer the ETERNITY that you so rightfully deserve!"

"GAY!"

"No, I swear, I didn't mean to do it!" managed Rapser, his head whipping back and forth as the demon continued to shake him. "I'll never play Starcraft again. I swear. Never! Never!"

"Ah, but you will play Starcraft forever," roared the demon. "Because you KILLED Rock. You KILL Rock, you KILL Rock, you KILLED, you KILLED... you killed... you killed... I kill you..."

"Wake up, you moron, before I KILL you!" screamed Rea, shaking Rapser.

Rapser shot up in a start. "No, no, I swear, I'll never play again!" he exclaimed.

Rea backed off and stared at him quizzically. "Play what again?" she said slowly.

Rapser gave her a confused look, then gazed around the room as if absorbing it for the first time. "Umm, nothing, nevermind..."

Rea crossed her arms in contempt. "Well, then, if it's NOTHING, then get your butt to ops so we can finish this satellite, or there'll be hell to pay."