Declutter | Light Bulb Inc: Initialization
Foreword
Hello! It's another short story for the collection, Declutter! Light Bulb Inc. - as I have explained numerous times on the blog here - was the club that my cousin, my brother and myself created when we were all small children. Originally directionless, my brother and myself decided that LBI should be a kind of online gaming police force. We would be a gamer's best defense against cheaters and hackers and, to immortalize our little club forever, I decided to create a short story based on those adventures. I did initially write this from the point of view of a little kid explaining what happened in a video game to his parent. Hopefully I capture some of the childhood innocence or, at the very least, made a fun read!
Light Bulb Inc: Initialization
My brother took his attention away from the open highway in front of us to peek over at the inventory screen that floated in front of my face. "You good?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. I broke my gaze from the blue screen and made eye contact with him.
"I just like to be sure, alright!" I said, overplaying my outrage. My brother's appearance mirrored my own. He wore the same concrete colored armor but was kitted out with a M16 assault rifle and a M1911 handgun. He had a smoke grenade and a frag grenade strapped to his chest. My eyes fell to our clan's insignia sewn into the side of his arm: a light bulb with the words "Light Bulb Inc." inscribed where the filament would be.
"I don't know what you are worried about, Sticks," he went on, diverting his gaze back to the road. We were sat inside a red, retro Camaro. Of course, it was geared up to survive the warzone that we were currently traversing. Bulletproof tires, obsidian fused steel for the body, and indestructible windows were all that stood between us and the hail of gunfire we could hear in the distance. "This is the fourth AimBot we've been sent to take out this week alone."
"I know but still..." I shouted before falling quiet. "It's still just the two of us. Shouldn't we at least consider taking on some new recruits?"
"I've considered it. I just don't want to bring someone on just to have them flake on us."
"Chibi didn't flake, you know that."
"Then why isn't he sitting right here with us?"
"He's studying in Japan! C'mon, Spy. You aren't being fair."
"It wasn't fair that he left us!" he shouted, gesturing with his right hand. I diverted my gaze to the outside world. I hated conflict and this is the third time we've repeated this particular one. "Look-" Spy Guy said, a bit more calmly. "We'll talk about it offline. We're almost at the invisible wall."
"Okie-dokie," I sighed, steeling my nerves. "Whose team are we joining?"
"Valor, as usual," he chuckled, glad to be helping out his preferred team. "The AimBot is on Raven's team. Game mode is sabotage. Valor is defending the second objective."
"Let's go make some noise," I added, raising a fist that my brother bumped. Our vehicle arrived on the outskirts of the arena. A futuristic looking city skyline met our gaze. In the center of the city was a huge tower. A helicopter was circling the building, firing into the structure at the defending team.
In Sabotage, there are two teams. The attacking team, in this case Raven, needed to storm the building and detonate six objectives. At the start of the match, two objectives spawn on the ground floor. The objectives resembled a small computer kiosk. The attacking team needed to destroy both objectives before the next floor would open up, allowing them to attack objectives three and four. The final two objectives were on the roof of the building. The defending team, in this case Valor, needed to prevent Raven from destroying all of the objectives. In order for them to win, they must rack up one hundred kills before two of the objectives are taken. Once Raven advances, their pool of lives resets back to one hundred.
At the moment, Valor was defending objective four and only managed to obtain twenty kills. They were getting beat pretty badly. "Any guesses where the AimBot might be?" I ask, looking over at Spy Guy as we surveyed the battlefield.
"My guess would be in the chopper," he said, taking a knee and aiming through the ACOG scope on his rifle. "You know how these guys are - they always use a sniper." He took aim at the helicopter, trying to see if anyone was riding as a passenger and fit the description. Meanwhile, I pulled up the leaderboard for this match. A cyan menu appeared before me and displayed the names of every player in the match.
"TheLastSidewinder, he's on Raven and has a K/D of forty to three. Gotta be him," I informed before collapsing the menu. I equipped my M1 and took aim at the helicopter, trying to line up my reticle so that the player's name would appear above their head.
"Yep. He's in the helicopter," Spy Guy informed, spotting the red name above a passenger's head. As he predicted, he was aiming into the building with a sniper rifle.
"Cool, let me change my kit," I said, crouching to a knee and pulling up my loadout.
"I hate you so much," my brother laughed. I looked over at him, confused. "You spent all that time in the car worrying about your loadout and now you're changing it."
"Would you rather we not bring an RPG?" I shot back with a chuckle.
"We don't really need it," Spy Guy said with a determined and cocky smile.
"You gonna kill a chopper with an M16?"
"Sure will. Watch the professional take it out."
"Oh, I'd like to see this. Let's spawn in," I said before standing up. Helicopters won't take a lot of damage, if any, from anything other than an explosive. His only hope would be to kill the pilot and the hacker, causing the helicopter to crash. Absolutely possible, but extremely difficult, especially when the hacker is using an AimBot. My brother and I both raised our left arms, looking at a watch on our left wrist. A menu floated above the watch's face, allowing us to pick which team to join. We both selected Valor and a flash of white surrounded us. We were both temporarily blinded before we stood inside Valor's spawn point.
We stood inside an office recreation room. There was a couch against one wall, a table in the middle and various vending machines with nondescript goodies inside. The spawn point was the only place we could appear in without threat of being killed by the enemy. Our appearance was altered as we materialized. Gone was the concrete color armor and in its place was the green armor Valor was known for. Though our appearance was different, we were still benefiting from the Dragon Skin protection.
"Let's go, Sticks," Spy Guy announced, tapping me on the shoulder. "Give me cover while I take out the big, bad chopper."
"Sure thing, fearless leader," I chuckled, shouldering my M1.
We rushed towards a set of double doors that led out into a long hallway. If we headed to the right, we could enter a stairwell that only Valor players could access. This would take us either up to the roof to defend or disarm the objectives or down to where we could push back the enemy advance. We chose to head up towards the roof so that Spy Guy would be able to get a vantage point on the enemy. The sound of footsteps echoed out as a storm of muffled gunfire sounded outside. We ran past a few players taking cover inside the stairwell. A few brave souls were rushing through the open door, only to be instantly sniped by the AimBot.
"Pop smoke?" I suggested while we took cover at the door. A few more Valor players tried to go out onto the roof but also did not get very far. Before Spy Guy could answer me, a loud blaring sound began to call out. It was the telltale sign that the objectives were armed and would soon detonate.
"Sticks, throw out a flash bang. I'll pop smoke and take out the Aimbot. You need to disarm the objective," my brother ordered. I nodded my head and took a deep breath. I reached over to my vest and ripped off the flash grenade. I tossed the light bomb out onto the roof and turned my head away. A second later, Spy Guy threw out his smoke grenade. Two explosions rang out; one carrying a blinding light that would throw off the opposition's aim and another that produced a thick, black smoke.
Spy Guy ran out first, opening fire in the direction of the helicopter. I was only a second behind him and sprinted towards a makeshift square of plywood that surrounded the objective. I spotted three Raven soldiers, each still recovering from the flash bang I tossed. I lifted my M1 and was easily able to secure three kills. The first two were headshots that instantly took out my opponents. The third Raven player, realizing his teammates were just killed, went prone to hide from my shots. I was able to crouch down next the plywood square and moved to get an angle on the final enemy. By this time, he had already recovered from the flash bang, and was able to get a few rounds off on me. I was able to secure a final headshot, with 11% of my health remaining. I went prone, throwing myself on the ground next to the beeping kiosk and went about disarming it.
Meanwhile, Spy Guy's blind fire shot out towards the helicopter. At first, his rounds harmlessly bounced against the tough armor, taking off only a few hit points. The hacker fired off his sniper rifle, his aim perfect and his one shot, one kill was guaranteed. And yet he still missed. With the nature of hackers, the only real way to be able to counter them was by running a few cheats of our own. The scripts that we ran were never designed to completely over power the hacker. To still be on the righteous side of this endless war, we only utilized cheats that would even the playing field. Spy Guy's personal favorite was "Action Command". He was able to enter a kind of bullet time, where a simply input or combination of inputs would allow him to either block an enemy attack or dodge it completely. In this instance, Spy Guy almost effortlessly ducked and dodged every shot that the AimBot fired.
Spy Guy had emptied an entire magazine into the side of the helicopter and only managed to drop it by about ten hit points. Obviously, this approach would never bring the vehicle down. Instead, Spy Guy flanked the war machine. He ran to the farthest edge of the rooftop as he could, attempting to find the angle he needed to take out the pilot. By this time, I had finished disarming the objective and our heroic actions gave enough hope to the remaining Valor players. They started to storm the roof, providing me with the necessary back up to keep the objective defended.
The pilot flew the helicopter away from the building for a moment, knowing just what Spy Guy was up to. He attempted to fly directly at my brother, hoping that the miniguns he had on the side of his vehicle would be enough to take out the annoying pest. A few rockets flew out from some of the Valor players that were providing me back up. The pilot managed to dodge a few but decided to ultimately retreat, lowering his vehicle down the side of the building. This gave Spy Guy the opening he needed. With a deep breath, he leapt off the building and had begun to free fall after the helicopter. Using his Action Commands to keep himself from being chopped up by the blades, Spy Guy managed to line up the shot he needed. While free falling outside the open helicopter door, he fired a burst of bullets from his M16 and killed the pilot.
Fearing for his safety, and unsure of why his AimBot was not killing the mad man before him, the hacker abandoned the helicopter. He leapt through the opposite door of Spy Guy and parachuted down to the street. Spy Guy, not one to let an opportunity to steal an enemy vehicle pass him up, entered the helicopter and took the controls. Expertly, he brought the war machine out of a nose dive and back up to the rooftop.
"One helicopter naturalized," he called out over comms. I chuckled.
"That's capturing, not killing," I called out. I heard him scoff before he lowered the helicopter enough for me to hop in.
"Whatever. Let's go bring the hammer down on the hacker," I boarded the helicopter, with a few Valor players following me in. Spy Guy took off down towards the streets, the hacker still pinged on his mini map. It looked like he was stopped in an alley way, no doubt checking his script. Spy Guy brought us down to the street and we left the helicopter. The few Valor players that hopped in with us took the chopper back up, looking for more Raven players to attack. The two of us entered the alley way. The hacker spotted us and fired off a few blind rounds. Spy Guy dodged the bullets effortlessly while I produced an energy shield called "Starman." Starman was my defensive script of choice and it essentially made me invulnerable to any all damage. The hacker ran out of ammo and grabbed his knife, desperate to fight us off.
"It's over," Spy Guy called out. I nodded my head and drew my revolver. The gun was loaded with six bullets that would permanently ban any player it hits. "Bring the hammer down, Sticks." I aimed the weapon and pulled the trigger without hesitation, causing the hacker's avatar to disintegrate and kicking him from the lobby.
"I really need to come up with some cool lines like that," I said after a few seconds of silence.
"What?" Spy Guy asked with a smirk.
"You said, "Bring the hammer down, Sticks." That's a cool line. Like "You're terminated", ya know?"
"Whatever," he laughed. "You can think up some one liners back at base."
"You don't wanna help Valor secure the victory?" I asked, checking the scoreboard. They still needed thirty kills before they would win.
"Nah, I got work in the morning..." Spy Guy said before he reloaded his M16. "Although, with the two of us, thirty kills shouldn't take too long."
"If you can keep up," I joked, breaking into a sprint towards the building with the objectives. Spy Guy ran after me, not more than a few steps behind. As was typical, this last game turned into seven more games. We considered it a victory lap after once again purging the virtual world of another hacker.
Backword
So what do you folks think? I'd love to hear your thoughts, as always, in the comment section below! Also consider signing up for our mailing list! There is a sign up forum in the side bar on the homepage of this blog OR you can send an email to radgollgamers.business@gmail.com! Signing up will allow you to be notified whenever the blog is updated, a video is posted to Youtube, or when I go live on Twitch! You can also follow my Twitter @BradicalTweets or Instagram @BradicalPics to also receive updates! I appreciate all of you reading and I can't what to write again for you soon!
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