The Unlucky Hitman

Busch was a hitman. A professional one. His latest target lived in New York City, and Busch was hunting him.

His target stepped through the revolving doors of the bank. Busch followed discreetly after him. He pulled the briefcase straps over his shoulder. Inside was a Mcmillan Tac-50 suppressed sniper rifle.

The target was a regular enough man named Billy Masters, but he had unknowingly trespassed on the territory of the Ibn Fulan gang. Busch was sent after Masters to send a message to the other gangs that the Fulans were not to be trifled with.

Billy Masters took the 264^th Avenue street. It was 1:30 PM, which was a bad time for a hitman to be trailing his hit, because there was so many people. Busch plunged into the crowd of people. Out of nowhere, an elbow smashed into his face. Blinded, Busch doubled over. A fist flew out and smacked him in the stomach, pushing him backwards. Busch cursed New Yorkers and their flailing limbs as they walked. He stumbled backwards, ripping through safety tape that he hadn’t noticed. He windmilled his arms for a full second, then fell backwards into wet concrete that they had been using to repair sidewalks. He splashed around in the gray paste, covering himself in it, and stumbled into the street.

A manhole cover was slightly upended. Busch was still recovering his senses when he tripped over it. He flew into the street, where the traffic light had just turned green. A taxi cab braked just in time, but it still hit Busch, who flew over the hood. He got up, holding his ribs, cursed, and ran after his target.

Bruised and battered, Busch set up his sniper on a balcony across from where he knew Billy Masters frequented. He was watching through his scope as Masters crossed the street when he felt a wet splatter on top of his head. It was warm and runny, and it trickled through his hair. He took his finger off the trigger and rubbed his hair. He looked up angrily at a pigeon that flew away. Unfortunately, distracted by the bird, he looked straight into the path of a falling brick that the pigeon had dislodged.

Andris Becomes a Bully

Andris walked into the wrestling ring. His coach, Mr. Wimbledon, handed him a water bottle and a rag to wipe the nervous sweat from his forehead. “You got this, Andris! You gotta believe in yourself! We all believe in you!” Andris looked down modestly. “Eeeh! I don’t deserve this praise!”

Across the ring, the huge, hulking beast, three time champion that was known as Wringnoceras snorted steam from his nostrils. Andris flinched in fear, then flexed his bird chest muscles. “Don’t worry, Mr. Wimbledon, I won’t let you down! I’m going to pound that world champion title out of Wringnoceras!”

He turned to Wringnoceras. “Sorry!”

The referee held up the two flags. “Let’s get ready to rumble!”

The Wringnoceras stamped his giant feet and flew straight at Andris. Andris bobbed and weaved, and jabbed a couple of times at the Wringnoceras, muttering “Sorry!” with each blow.

The Wringnoceras shot to the other side of the ring and bounced off of the ropes, turning and bellowing straight towards Andris. Andris sustained a heavy blow to his chest and sat down hard on the ring floor. It was lucky that he fell to the floor, too, because it was followed by another heavy swing from his opponent that passed straight over his head. A blast of wind followed after. Andris gasped for air, filling his lungs with air. “Sorry for hitting your fist with my stomach! I’m sorry!” He stood up. The Wringnoceras blinked in confusion. No one had ever gotten up from one of his blows without being timed out first.

Andris’s training for the championship had clutched up! People always expected his flimsy bones to break after the first punch, but they were actually flexible more than any other human’s bones. This often led people to think that they had broken the bones, but in reality, Andris’s bones snapped back to normal after the punch was over.

The Wringnoceras bellowed in fury and swung his huge, muscled arms towards Andris, trying to clinch grab him.

Andris obliged. “Awww, a hug!” The Wringnoceras snorted and bellowed in anger, trying to snap Andris’s bones with a bear hug, but Andris was simply too flexible. If you looked closely, you could actually see his bones flexing and bending.

The Wringnoceras flung Andris away in frustration and Andris fell to the floor. Andris’s opponent turn and jumped onto the ropes, the entire ring creaking and buckling. The ropes sagged, then the Wringnoceras jumped off the rings and flew straight at Andris, executing a very illegal move called “Elbow to the face.”

Andris ducked. Something had changed. His face darkened. The Wringnoceras thudded to the other side of the ring and struggled up. Andris’s eyes sparkled. “Breaking the rules? Being mean?”

Andris swung back his fist, and in that instant, the Wringnoceras knew his boxing career, and probably his life, was over.

The Wringnoceras exploded backwards with a force that cracked the floor where Andris was standing. He flew up, up, out of the ring, and through the roof of the boxing stadium. The audience was silent with shock. In the air, you could still see the Wringnoceras flying, then in the distant Boston Harbor, there was a huge splash that frightened some fish and rocked some small boats.

Andris shook his fist, which was smoking. “Oops, sorry!”

The referee, still shocked, grabbed Andris’s hand, which was still smoking hot, and raised it up into the air. “OUR NEW CHAMPION!”

Andris looked down modestly. “Eeh!”

Artymiss

Once upon a time in the bustling city of Dublin, there lived a peculiar boy named Artymiss Fowl. Artymiss was the epitome of eccentricity, with a wealth beyond imagination but a mind as dull as a butter knife. Despite his vast fortune, his intelligence quotient fell somewhere between a goldfish and a garden gnome. Artymiss had, as any wealthy family had, a bodyguard. His bodyguard’s name was Buttlah. Buttlah was a man built like a mountain, from his craggy face to the black pressed suit that he wore. He had an IQ of approximately 248. His sole and only purpose was to protect the intellectual and physical well being of his principal, Artymiss. Unknown to the world, Artymiss and Buttlah, or mostly Buttlah, were criminal masterminds. Artymiss liked people to think that he was the one behind the elaborate and well-executed schemes that often scored them ten figures, but really, Buttlah was the mastermind behind them. Artymiss cackled deviously, rubbing his stubby, worn down fingers together. He sat in his diaper, which he wore every day, and his mouth was caked in Cheerio dust. Drool dripped down his chin and his eyes rolled in his head. Buttlah looked back once or twice, worriedly. His charge was being too quiet. Usually Artymiss was loudly burbling his nonsensical thoughts in the Bentley Continental. Buttlah spied Artymiss, but he hadn’t moved from his luxury car seat. Buttlah wiped the sweat from his bald brow. Artymiss had escaped a couple of times from his car seat, and it had been a nightmare.

Artymiss spoke up, his Irish accent warbling his words. “I have a plan, Buttlah!” Buttlah rolled his eyes. Usually Artymiss’s plans ended up with himself getting arrested and ending up in a containment facility, with Buttlah being called to bust him out.

“Hey Buttlah, where is the nearest union? I heard they had more money than banks. I have formulated a plan to infiltrate the economy and flood the stock market with a virus!”

Buttlah rolled his eyes again. As usual, Artymiss needed his help so that the plan would actually work.

Buttlah pulled the Continental up to the Unite the Union. It was a large concrete building that had several security cameras around the perimeter. Armed guards were patrolling inside the building. Buttlah could see them through the glass windows. The security was too thick and the time was too short, so Buttlah deployed his ultimate plan. “Artymiss,” he said, “The bank stole your Cheerios.”

Artymiss’s pupils dilated. He mustered his last gusts of brainpower and unbuckled his seat belt. While running on the fumes of this momentary genius, he also opened the Bentley’s door. He ran out of the Continental and straight into the building. Buttlah saw through the window Artymiss unbuckling his omnipresent diaper, and he averted his eyes. No human being deserved the humiliation that these security guards had coming. He heard a couple of splats, then the yelling that had been originating from the building went silent.

Buttlah creaked out of the car, took the duffel bag from the glove compartment in the Bentley, and followed Artymiss into the building.

Aquarium

There is a skull in the fish tank. This suggests that perhaps, the small aquatic creatures within are not what they seem. The plecostomus, or the suckerfish’s favorite place is inside of the skull.

The hornwort and water grass inside gets caught inside the filter because the suckerfish rips up the dirt and the grass to get to the substrate, which it seems to have a fishy affinity for. How do I stop him from ruining the aquatic growth? Does he need to be fed different types of food?

The other fish used to be small enough to seem to be only a single eye, now they have grown. Luckily, they do not have the same tastes as the plecostomus, or the tank would be ravaged by now.

What are good feeding habits for the fish, and what other water life could be added to the tank to make the ecosystem healthier? There used to be snails that came with a wooden log, but they have disappeared. Does this mean something?

MrSabbage Loses for the First Time

MrSabbage woke up and rubbed his crusty eyes with his hands. He looked at the clock, which read 2:30 AM. It was approximately an hour and a half past midnight. MrSabbage hopped out of bed. It was prime time for Fortnite.

He logged in. All the other pros, including his best friend Mongrel, were already on. MrSabbage joined Mongrel’s party. “Good night Mongrel, what’s up?” Over the microphone, there was a faint crackling, keys loudly pressed on the keyboard, then a yipping sound as Mongrel greeted his friend. They loaded into an Arena 50v2, which was MrSabbage and Mongrel’s favorite mode to play in. They played a couple of matches, each of them getting more than 40 kills and a Victory Royale, then MrSabbage said goodbye to Mongrel. It was time for MrSabbage to start streaming.

MrSabbage groaned, rolling his neck, and slicked back his hair with an expensive pair of headphones. They were 8d zero latency, and MrSabbage’s favorite brand, Rockat.

MrSabbage sighed boredly as he started the stream. His eyes flashed with pictures of a boring day of boxing people ahead of him. His 600,000 arena points were obviously a little bit too easy for him. He needed harder lobbies. But what MrSabbage didn’t know that there was another player lurking on the EU servers that would find him.

MrSabbage loaded into a solo game and landed at Tinted Towers, the most occupied drop spot of the season. He was trying to look for even more skilled players, also called a challenge, so he looked for the most player-overrun places. He grabbed a green shotgun and eliminated a players, gaining 50 shield. Pretty soon, MrSabbage had killed half the players. He chuckled entertainedly as he full boxed a player then placed a bounce pad beneath the player he had boxed. “Oh, it’s a jumping party?” He placed a jump pad in his own box and jumped along until he got bored and quickly shotgunned him. Suddenly, MrSabbage felt a disturbance in the server of Fortnite. His keys instinctively boxed himself for protection, and his eyes slightly widened. His chat started going crazy.

“MRSABBAGE SCARED?” “OMG WUT WAS THAT!”

MrSabbage began to sweat as he heard a motorbike approaching. There was a quick silence, and then a ferocious sound that blurred together because it was so fast began approaching his box. “What is this editing?” MrSabbage edited quickly to peek out of the box so see what was happening, and was instantly prefired. “Oh my,” MrSabbage grunted and boxed up again. “He just read me like a book!”

Suddenly, the player began pickaxing MrSabbage’s wall. “Oh no,” MrSabbage said, but really, he was smiling. Finally he had found a worthy opponent. Quickly and efficiently, the player took MrSabbage’s wall. MrSabbage glanced upwards at the ping and latency indicator at the top right. He was at completely 0 ping. That meant the player that was attacking him was at negative ping. MrSabbage felt an unfamiliar feeling. It was fear. It only took a couple of milliseconds for MrSabbage to process this, but that was all that the player needed. He Mongraal classiced MrSabbage, then pickaxed him. “Oh no!” MrSabbage laughed and threw up his arms. He ended the stream.

Friday in 1941

Blily gasped as he clicked on the newest YouTube video by MoahsMoah, the newest and coolest YouTuber currently. Just then, his brothers Matterial and Clipedim walked into the room. Blily quickly and efficiently closed the Fortnite video tab and whirled around in his chair innocently. It was Thursday, the day before Friday, so the three brothers were casually wasting their time away to warm up for Fortnite, which, because the only day they could play it was Friday, was mildly infuriating.

Blily opened his cracked and dehydrated mouth. “Hey brothers, tomorrow is Friday!” The brothers silently spun around in a quiet celebration. The words “Tomorrow is Friday!” were always something to rejoice at. Blily opened his Firefox tab again and began downloading PC Tweaks, even though his RTX 4090 ti and AMD Threadripper was more than enough to handle large FPS in the thousands.

Their father walked into the room. Blily casually finished tweaking his registry, which was very dangerous to mess around with on a computer, and turned around. Their father was an ingenious inventor, and lately he had been working on something top-secret. The brothers were not very eager to see it, since tomorrow was Friday and they had to preserve anything pertaining to performance in Fortnite, but now they listened interestedly. “You know, Tomorrow is Friday,” their father began. The three brothers got up, raised their hands, and spun around in a circle in solemn celebration.

“But, what would you do if every day was Friday?” Their father finished the sentence. Blily’s eyes grew shiny as he imagined all the possibilities that it would offer to his life. “But you had to spend every day in 1941.” Blily looked suspiciously out the corner of his eyes at his brothers, who were doing the exact same thing. He instantly jumped on his computer and searched “When Fortnite was released.”

The release date on google was 2011. Blily’s brain clattered and whirred as he tried to process the math equation, but eventually he grew tired and thought of them as damage numbers in Fortnite. Instantly, his brain supplied an answer. “No fortnite?” Blily’s brothers blanched. Their father shuffled his feet nervously. “Well, the thing is-“ Blily fell to the ground, his calcium-deficient knees clacking against the tile. “No! Don’t say it!”

“I accidentally activated the time machine I’ve been working on.” “Noooo!” Blily grasped at the air like he was choking someone. “Why?” Blily ran outside, which he hadn’t done in precisely 16 weeks, or 16 Fortnite days. The sun grazed his skin and he winced, holding up a hand to protect his face. Then he realized that the hand he was shielding his face from radioactive gamma rays was his Fortnite hand, and he quickly retracted it.

“Why? WHY??” Blily saw a couple of horse-drawn carriages clopping past the street.

He collapsed to the ground and slammed his fists against the dirt.

“Why?”

Artymiss fowall begins

Artymiss Fowall The Second clasped his hands behind his back and looked over the horizon at the landscape of Ireland. The craggy cliffs towards a turquoise, unpolluted ocean was breathtaking. Artymiss rolled his eyes nonsensically and blew a mouthful of cheerios towards the expensive tailored window. “It’s a butterfly!” Fowall Manor was especially quiet that day, as Amarine and Joe Fowall, Artymiss’s disappointed parents, had left for a business trip with Buttlah, their bodyguard and basically everything else, watched over their young son, Artymiss. Artymiss dug another handful of cheerios out of his bowl and crammed them into his foul, crusty mouth. “Buttlah!” he called.

The manservant came rushing up the stairs, his mountainous and muscle-covered body filling the doorway. His trademark Hand Cannon was drawn, ready to apprehend any intruders. “What is it, Artymiss?”

Artymiss cackled and pointed to the countless empty boxes of Cheerios flooding the floor. “I ran out! I need more Cheerios!”

Buttlah blanched, the blood rushing into his toes. His soldier sense began tingling. This was a horrible time for Artymiss to run out of his favorite cereal. Buttlah asked, slightly desperately, “Can’t you eat something else for once, Artymiss?” The criminal mastermind, who was aged 11 and a quarter, grew very silent. Buttlah quickly ushered him into the family’s Bentley Continental. This was no time for negotiating. Buttlah buckled Artymiss into his car seat and started the engine. The car purred to life, and Buttlah winced. He was from a part of Russia that used mainly old 1930s era trains for mobility, and his urbanite mind cringed at the thought of driving private transportation. “Don’t worry, Artymiss, I have a plan!”

Even the Fowall family’s immense wealth was not enough to satisfy the need of Artymiss’s culinary yearnings. As Buttlah turned off the highway, he turned to his charge, who was rubbing his hands together, plotting. You see, the Fowall family was very well known in Ireland, especially in the criminal underworld, in the case of Artymiss and Buttlah. Their plots had a legendary success rate, but as such, were not led by Artymiss, who liked to thing that he could lead such an elaborate plan. Instead, they were orchestrated by Buttlah, who, along with his muscles, had a combined IQ of 305.

“You ready, Arty?” Artymiss hopped out of his car seat. “Absolutely, Buttlah! Let’s get this over with!”

Artymiss ran into the store, dragging behind a large shopping cart. The Publix cashier watched suspiciously for a couple of seconds, but then shrugged her shoulder and turned back to her game of Fortnite.

The security guard was watching YouTube videos on his phone when he saw Artymiss racing past with a large cart full to the brim with Cheerio boxes. “Hey, kid, you planning to pay for all of those?”

Artymiss turned to him. There was a sharpness and intelligence in his eyes that were, of course, accomplished by acting. “My needs are hardly the same level of attention as you require for your menial tasks,” he dictated, clearly and frankly. The guard blinked, then drew his taser. Buttlah watched in horror from the rendezvous point, the delivery truck in the back with an open drawbridge and filled with Cheerios idling. This was going wrong, very quickly. “Arty!” he hissed into Artymiss’s earpiece. “You are only supposed to be a distraction!”

Artymiss heard Buttlah’s voice in his earpiece. “Hey, Buttlah!” he exclaimed loudly. “How are you doing? I was only supposed to be a distraction for his crime?” The intelligent act that Artymiss was putting on instantly dissolved. “Hey security guy!” Artymiss turned to him, his Irish accent flooding through the disguise. “We’re gonna criminalize this store! Is that okay with you?”

The guard blinked, and what he thought was a joke quickly showed itself to be untrue. “Okay, kid, hands up, don’t move!” he barked.

Buttlah smacked his hand against his forehead, groaning. Even his intelligence sometimes didn’t account for the fact that Artymiss was a loose thread.

Buttlah clicked a button on his phone, and instantly, the car alarms in the parking lot all erupted at once, the windshields shattering. The guard spun around. “What the?” Buttlah rushed into the store, his arms reaching out and grabbing Artymiss and shielding him from any harm. He was still Artymiss’s bodyguard. Buttlah buckled Artymiss into his seat faster than he could had believed, and stomped on the gas pedal.

“Hardly sufficient, Buttlah,” Artymiss commented as he looked in the back, filled with Cheerios. “This is only good for a month or so!”

Buttlah sighed, and raced back up the road towards Fowall Manor. It would have to do. Behind them, sirens erupted.

I’ll STILL be able to clap you in a 1v1!

Andris cackled as he got out of the taxi. He was in Moskot, the capital of crime of the world, but also the place where he could obtain the best gaming PC in the world. Andris closed his laptop, which he was playing Fortnite on, and hopped out of the back seat, opening the trunk and tugging out the suitcase, which was filled with 10,000 dollars in Moskot Krubles. Andris had even tossed a few extra Vbuck cards in there to make the guy he was buying the PC from feel better about himself.Andris tossed a couple of coins into the front seat of the taxi, which was certainly not enough to pay for the 250 miles the cab driver had ferried him, and struggled through the snow to the dark alley that his contact had suggested to rendezvous at.As Andris dragged his bags and equipment to the dark alley, there was suddenly a crunching of snow behind him. “Interpol, put your hands up into the air.”Andris cursed. He had should have known that any website suggesting “Free Vbucks now, online 100% free” would not be free from monitoring by the police. But it was too late to drop the shady transaction! Andris swung his laptop around, clunking the police officer on the head. The man let out a surprised groan as the dielectric grease from Andris’s laptop cooler splattered into his eyes, hiding his gaze from Andris. Andris ducked low, but tripped and fell into the snow. All those hours spent inside, not exercising, while he was playing Fortnite had not helped him athletically. The Interpol agent cleared the dielectric grease from his eyes, jumped on Andris, and handcuffed him. “You have the right to remain silent.” The police officer didn’t have to say it. Andris was quiet, angry at having been scuffed out of a gaming computer. Andris stumbled to his feet and allowed himself to be led into the agent’s car. Luckily, he still had his laptop, so he was able to boot it up and play a couple of matches while he was led in for questioning.The interrogator slammed both hands onto the table. “What were you hoping to achieve there, son? Have a shady deal with the most dangerous country in the world? This could be considered treason, you know!”Andris glared back at the police officer, analyzing. “Look who’s talking!” he said in a scratchy voice. “I bet you don’t even have liquid AIO!” The interrogator reeled back and his face flushed. This suspect had gotten the full picture of him just from a glance. He actually didn’t have AIO. The interrogator pressed a button in his pocket and walked out of the room. He was finished. It was time to upgrade his computer.As Andris was led to the courtroom, people stared at him and whispered. Was this the inhuman, heartless person who had risked their country to get a gaming computer with zero delay? Andris stood at the defendant’s table. There was no lawyer for him. No one would risk their lawyerly status to defend such a criminal.The judge asked Andris a few questions, but it was all really for procedure. They all knew he was guilty, even Andris.The judge slammed his gavel down. “Jury, stand and announce your verdict!” The people in the stands slowly rose, and recited their unanimous opinion. “Guilty, your honor, for treason of his home country and illegal trading of performance parts.”This was when Andris broke. As the police officers led him away to the state penitentiary, he shook his head and hands furiously. “No matter what you say!” he shouted. One of the police officers tried to restrain him, but he broke free. “No matter what you say, even if I’m a criminal, I’ll still be able to clap you in a 1v1!”The judge reeled back in surprise. Andris wrenched free of the stunned guards, who, frozen by the shock of this latest development, didn’t even try to stop the criminal as he busted out of the courthouse window and fled. Andris smiled. It was time to complete the deal he had been sent to prison for.

“It’s for Editing!”

Matt cackled as he logged on to Newegg. “Check the Newegg shopping cart!” he said to his brother. Aesthetic rolled his crusty eyes. Every time Matt  suggested, innocently, to check the shopping cart of some online store or another, there would be another ludicrously expensive upgrade to Sully’s computer, or, as he liked to put it, “upgrades for the whole family.” He had already the newest RTX 4090 installed in his computer, the Ryzen Threadripper  64-core processor, 3TB of memory, and a nine-petabyte SSD, along with some liquid AIO.

Aesthetic clicked away from his Fortnite 1v1 match and checked the Newegg shopping cart, just to humor Matt. His eyes bulged out. “7,000 dollars for a monitor?” Matt rubbed his fingers together. “Not just any monitor, the Samsung Gx7 0.02 ms, 5k, 1,000HZ gaming monitor!”

Just then their father walked into the room. “What’s all this fuss about?” Aesthetic jumped and Matt’s cackle stopped. Just for a second. “Hey, you know, my computer is very bottlenecked right now with my RTX 4090 competing against my Ryzen Threadripper,” Matt said slyly, his pupils craftily darting around the room. Their father shook his head. Matt was spouting mumbo jumbo again. Matt started back up again. “I need a new monitor for editing!” You see, Matt helped run a YouTube Channel by the name of Mattiplier. “It will more than fit into the YouTube budget!”  

Their father stared at Matt, who’s computer all the YouTube money suspiciously disappeared into to upgrade. “Don’t you think it’s time one of your poor brothers or sisters got an upgrade?” Aesthetic looked down sadly at his 1964 Maxwell architecture computer, which could barely run his namesake, Aesthetic 1v1’s, at 2 fps.  

Matt changed tactics on a hairpin. “Yes, yes, I think it’s time Aesthetic got a new computer.” Aesthetic perked up. He could hardly believe this. “I’ll just swap monitors with him once he gets the Samsung Gx7!”

Aesthetic slunk out of the room. That was another one of Matt’s plans. He would buy a new computer part under the guise of “Providing other people with upgraded computers”, but the computer part was suspiciously only compatible with his computer and not the one he bought. The parts would suspiciously disappear overnight. Into Matt’s computer.

Their father rubbed his chin. “Perhaps you are learning to be more generous with your money! Sure, go ahead and put it into the budget for this month!”

Matt cackled, his face instantly turning to his computer. He had already entered the Samsung Gx7 0.02ms, 5k, 1,000HZ gaming monitor into the spreadsheet, the only change being changing the “Gaming” to “editing”. “It’s for editing!” Matt explained to his father.

In his room, Aesthetic was miserable. His last computer upgrade had been since before he was born.

Then his elf-like ears, specially adapted to convert audio signals into his visualized sound effects, perked up.

He had a plan.

Aesthetic rubbed his fingers together, steam rushing off of his forehead as the old air conditioner in the room that Matt had swapped out for a new, technologicalliy advanced air conditioner in HIS room rumbled.

It was 9:18 pm. Matt and everyone else in the family were asleep. Aesthetic was not. He hopped out of bed, dressed in totally black clothes. You could not take a precaution, even in the pitch-black night of Bromestead.

Aesthetic crept out of his room, making sure the door across the hallway, Matt’s room, was locked, and crept into the computer room.

Matt’s computer was lit up like a festival, nearly silent, its hulking menace reflecting lights off of its case. Aesthetic’s 1964 computer sat buzzing and creaking in the corner.

With the precision of a surgeon, Aesthetic opened Matt’s case and lifted out the RTX 4090, the Ryzen Threadripper, the NXZT AIO cooler, and the gaming memory installed. Then he carefully replaced it with his computer’s hardware. Luckily, the gaming case that Matt had got was not a glass case. Aesthetic bolted the cases back together, cackled very quietly, very briefly, and jumped back into bed.

IT was Friday.

As Matt and Aesthetic  and their brother, Higrond, completed their chores and cashed in their extra hours, a  festive mood rose among the brothers. Matt was rubbing his fingers together, anticipating a brand-new game with his brand-new monitor, which had arrived just that morning. Aesthetic was sulking on his computer, staring at the Samsung Gx7, which, briefly, for a couple of milliseconds, had been his, they all logged onto Fortnite and clicked Solos.

A hair-raising scream rose from Matt. “What’s wrong?” The brothers whipped around to look at matt. He had, as a daily ritual, opened the Task Manager to monitor performance on his computer. He was clutching his throat in fear. “B-but,” He pointed his clawed finger at the terrible statistic in the corner, details.

On his screen, in bright yellow letters, NBivia GFore Fermi G 250 was showing. The model made in 1964. He frantically clicked to processor. It, too, was a 1964 edition. Ryzen 1 0.4. His last hope, his memory, 4 gb. Finally, he heard the groaning like a percolating coffee maker. “An HDD!” He fell to the ground in despair, clutching his face. Then his face turned suspicious, and he cast glances through the corner of his eyes at his brothers. “Open task manager!” Aesthetic glumly obliged. “RTX 4090?” “Ryzen Threadripper?” “AIO Dielectric Cooling?” “3TB of memory?!?!” Matt stared sadly, with betrayal in his gaze, at his brother, who had finally had enough. “It’s Friday!”

E-Sports!

Dubbledeit grinned as he got off the bus. He was especially happy because yesterday, he had found out there was an esports organization at his school.He stared at the huge, hulking building, shielding his red eyes, which were specially adapted with a filter strength of 5, for the best view distance. Drool dripped from his gnashing teeth and he scuttled forwards, into the cool air conditioned building. That was more his biome. He slithered up to the reception desk, where the secretary was, unsurprisingly, playing Apex Legends. Dubbledeit spat at the inferior game. The secretary looked up. “Hello, welcome to the Wove  Esports MAC Complex! We are sponsored by Alloy gaming gear, so we always have the best equipment! How can I help you?” Dubbledeit grinned, gnashing his teeth together. “I want to join!” His voice trailed off as he saw in the nearest RGB-lit dark room, Alienware PCs. The secretary pushed a form towards him. “Everyone wants to, kid. But you have to get parental permission to sign the form!” Gnashing his fangs, foiled, Dubbledeit retreated, clutching the form, and slunk back to the bus.15 minutes later, Dubbledeit was seated at the dinner table. “Say, Father, I have decided to join a n after-school activity!” His father and mother smiled. It had been 17 and a half years since Dubbledeit had left the dark, musty basement with the cables snaking down to his computer. Some extracurricular activities would be good for his socializing. “Is it outside?” His mother asked, glancing at Dubbledeit’s nearly transparent skin.Dubbledeit hissed, and slid the form towards them. His father read it quickly, and grinned. “Sports! But what’s the e  for?” Dubbledeit pushed back his chair and glanced shiftily around, blinking rapidly. “He… eh… You see, it stands for extra exertion!”  His father pushed up his reading glasses, and pulled out his iPhone 14, beginning to search up the organization so he could see what it was about. His pencil was hovering over the paper, ready to sign it. Dubbledeit cackled nervously. “Uhh… No need to research it!” As his dad hit “Search” on the phone, his enthusiasm dropped. But too late. His hand had already signed the paper. Dubbledeit cackled, and danced out of the house, clutching the form. He was wearing his signature purple hoodie, which hadn’t been taken off since 2005 which was when he was born. “Goodbye, mother! Goodbye, father! I am leaving!”He ran the couple of miles back to the Wove Esports and handed the form to the secretary, who was now playing Fortnite and looked very annoyed to have been interrupted for trivial things such as this.“Congratulations! You are now a part of Wove Esports. Which computer would you like me to check out for you?”Dubbledeit clacked his teeth together in excitement. His new home! He scuttled to the nearest computer, flashing with RGB lights, and set down his sleeping bag, his emergency food rations, and ping reduction, and hopped into the chair.