Colin's posts

"Oh! Goodie, you're awake!" she heard a familiar... but unnervingly different voice say.

"I was wondering how long before that enhanced adrenaline kicked in." they said further.

She looked around, and saw a man to her left... one that looked... a lot like her cousin, Lindsay. But it looked like he'd let himself go. Stopped working out. Stopped caring about his hair, attire... his looks overall.

And he was wearing a disturbing smile.

"I must say, that experiment had some VERY unintended twists and turns." he went on, looking at the screens.

"I had no idea that that would actually manifest into TIME mana particles." he admitted.

"Got it!" Emerald responded.

Ilias' smile disappeared when she mentioned the second part, but he nodding.

"...maybe I should." he said.

"I... I don't think I could handle sleeping in that bed alone." he admitted. "Odds are I wouldn't sleep, and be thinking... not nice thoughts." he lamented.

"At least here, it'd be a different bed, which should help, oddly enough." he commented further.

"I'd need to grab a few things from home, though." he then said.

Ilias just laughed a little.

"Heh, sure thing." he said.

"I'll remember that." he told her.

"Yo! Ilias!" Emerald then called out. "Want something to drink?" he asked.

"Some pineapple juice would be great!" Ilias called back.

"How 'bout you, Rylie?" Emerald asked further.

"Yes, I was paid well." Emerald confirmed.

"...almost made up for the pain and humiliation..." he mumbled.

Ilias raised an eyebrow in confusion, but Emerald shot a glare in response.

"Long story." he said.

"One I do NOT want to get into." he stressed.

"I'm grabbing something more to drink." he then said further, getting up and leaving the room.

"..." Ilias was silent for a moment, before looking towards Rylie.

"Teared up and lost it, huh?" he whispered with a smirk.

Emerald laughed as well.

"I just wanted to try ALL the spice this world had to offer." he told Ilias.

"WantED? HAD?" he asked, wondering about the past tense of it.

"...well, I have my own limits, too." Emerald said sheepishly. "It seems that there are things that are too hot for me to handle." he continued.

"That... makes sense, yes." Ilias responded. "Given that your upbringing and world had no spices or very little, your body wouldn't have been able to become accustomed to them, or build up a tolerance, or anything like that." he reasoned.

"Yeah, that would have been great to know before I decided a Ghost Pepper was a good idea..." Emerald grumbled.

Ilias paused for a moment as he heard that.

"...good to know." he said.

"That situation hasn't come up as of yet, but... it's good to know." he told them.

"Yeeeeah..." Emerald muttered.

"Violet and Jake can have... nasty reactions." he said.

"Life-threatening?" Ilias asked, concerned now.

"If it's hot enough." Emerald responded. "I don't know about Jake in specific, but Violet tends to start to have trouble breathing when heat/spice reaches about 100,000 Scoville." he said. "So by the time it's a Habanero." he clarified.

"When you go past Jalapeno, she'll complain of minor stomach problems afterwards, which get worse the hotter it goes." he finished.

"Oh, cool." Ilias responded.

"Sounds good." he told them.

Emerald then smiled a little, and relaxed in his chair.

"Been a while since we got from there." he commented to Rylie.

"Seems like this is a fortunate choice that Ilias made." he chuckled.

Ilias accepted the phone, and was silent for a momet, before putting in his order. He then passed it to Emerald, who looked at the phone, and sighed quietly.

'Uh-huh, no way THAT'S enough for you, Ilias...' he thought. 'She said it wasn't an issue.' he thought further, before he upgraded Ilias' order to have more substance to it.

He then placed his own order, and handing it back to Rylie.

Once he did, he sent a text to her.

I added more to Ilias' order. What he had before would NOT have been enough. He's FAR too nice at times. it read.

"Feelin' better?" he then asked Ilias.

"Much." Ilias confirmed.

Ilias then paused for a moment.

"Ah, well... hm." he muttered.

"Right, there's the place that's about a half-hour drive from here, I think." he said. "Pretty sure they do those amazing glazed ribs." he commented.

"But if that'd be too much of a strain on the budget or whatever, then a burger's fine." he insisted. "I know ribs aren't exactly the cheapest meal to spring on someone." he said further.

"Hmm." Emerald mumbled.

"Yeah, I echo that." he said.

Ilias glared at her slightly when she mentioned that what he did wasn't skill. However, before he could say anything Emerald spoke up, clearing his throat loudly. Rather overtly loudly, too.

"Food would be great!" he declared.

"Ilias! You're the guest! You have any preferences?" he asked Ilias.

"...I'm feeling carnivorous." Ilias responded. "So either steak, or hamburger, or perhaps ribs." he said.

"I'd be fine with ribs, too." Emerald agreed.

Ilias just rolled his eyes.

"I'm just using quirks in the hardware that the company made themselves and licensed, and put out for sale." he told her. "Kinda like what speed-runners do to shave those seconds or microseconds off their end times." he said.

"Would it work on any other controller or platform?" Emerald asked.

"Probably not." Ilias responded. "Other controllers are wired a little differently, buttons have those small differences, that sort of thing." he told him. "I learned it from Leo." he added.

"Does it work with other games?" Emerald asked further.

"Depends on the game." Ilias said. "Racers and platformers, sure. Brawlers, fighters, and RPGs? Nah." he went on.

Again, the one that had been playing smirked.

"See... that's your problem." he said.

"You had her decode the GAME. The SOFTWARE." he told her.

"The trick's in the hardware?" the second male asked.

"Specifically, some button timing and inputs." the first one responded, before picking up the controller that Rylie had thrown down. He then showed her a couple of things, having her watch his hand movements closely.

"That causes a few frame skips ahead, causing you to jut out that little bit in front of other racers." he explained. "And hitting this button as soon as you land off a ramp stops the drag for that second or two, allowing you to 'hit the ground running', so to speak." he added.

"Doing this consistently can really give you a lead, and allow for more forgiveness when making mistakes."

Hal watched her go, and sighed when she left.

"...Kiah..." he muttered.

"Please let this be nothing. I don't want to have to share any bad news with the family." he said further, shaking his head.

---

The one she'd been playing just smirked slightly.

"Well... ah..." he said, pausing to think about it.

"There's a long and lengthy technical explanation, or there's a short one that's... funny, but not helpful at all." he told her.

"What's the second one?" another make asked, taking a sip of soda.

"I learned how to 'git gud'." the first one stated.

"I concur." Hal responded.

"The fact that this happened so suddenly, without warning is... well, it's concerning, to understate it." he commented. "I don't think anything like this has ever happened to her before..." he went on, before pausing.

"Wait... twice, I think." he then said.

"And both were due to overworking, but we could all see it coming a mile away." he lamented. "Sadly, she was being so stubborn, that we just had to wait for her to collapse from exhaustion." he went on, sounding unimpressed.

"Thankfully, after that second time, she seemed to learn her lesson." he then said further.

"Regardless, I am going to check the records of the R&D department, and see if anything they've been recently working on can lead to a clue of sorts." he told her.