exhibiting absolute spigots [John and Dave]

[John Egbert]

After a tiring fight against more Shale Imps, Airtime's retired to the headquarters to relax by himself without worrying about his Dad or Nanna shoving some sort of baked good in his face. It felt nice to not be stuck at home after a win, for once. Maybe he'd even get to meet some of the cooler heroes who fought in the town, for once. (Airtime would especially like to meet the Spanner. Before he realized he had powers, he really wanted to be the Spanner.)

For now, Airtime took up a seat at a small table in the corner of a computer lab. Each table was equipped with four laptops, one for each corner - probably donated by some rich hero in the past, no doubt. He inserted his Sburb game disc - he'd have to re-install it on this computer, but he could still pick up where he and his friends left off in-game from his username.

Airtime half-heartedly watched the spirograph on the load screen spin, waiting for the game to finally install.

What did 'jerry-building reflectors' even mean, anyway?

[Dave Strider]

It only took a few appearances on a popular news broadcasting station for the larger web of heroes to notice the new boy wonder and his friends, two chicks and one sexyfine motherfucker, fighting crime by the wayside. It only took another six to eight weeks for the aforementioned sexyfine motherfucker to receive his keycard into the Heroic Headquarters. And it only took another three weeks for Dave to get over the fact that the morons in charge actually named the place the "Heroic Headquarters," like come on. A cool guy like Dave couldn't be seen at the goddamn "Heroic Headquarters"; it'd wreck his image.

Dave got over it when his friends told him about some of the insane loot they found at the headquarters -- gadgets and shit.

The so-called Knight of Time now found himself meandering the halls of the Headquarters, pinging his way into rooms with his keycard, wondering if the building was always so empty. He had snagged some apple juice earlier from the snack bar in the basement; he took swigs of the sweet elixir as he walked around in his pajamas. There were some impressive digs, he had to admit. Huge rooms dedicated for keeping track of the city. Closets filled with weapons and junk. Bedrooms for those heroes that got sick of living with their families and needed some respite from that mundane civilian shit. Neat.

Soon enough, Dave pinged a sliding door open to reveal a familiar face staring at a monitor in a computer lab, the box for SBURB sitting on the desk. Of course. Dave immediately concocted a plan in his head. He activated his powers, froze time, walked over to the table where his buddy was sitting, sat down next to him, intending to make it seem like he'd been sitting there all along. And to scare the shit out of Airtime.

Dave started time up again and said, "Hey, dude. Score any two-dimensional chicks yet?"

[[ooc: pls don't hate me admins i am just writing in character]]

[John Egbert]

[[guanita you are such a sugoi dave i can't handle you]]

Airtime's dozing off, his eyelids drooping. He's been staring at the SBURB loading screen for a good fifteen minutes now, and he still hasn't figured out what half these commands the game was loading meant. He wasn't even sure that most of the items the game was loading even existed in-game. He knew - he'd read through last month's issue of Game Bro, which included a very helpful tutorial for players in the Heir class.

Airtime nearly lept a foot out of his seat when he heard a voice coming from the direction of the laptop to his right. Was someone even sitting there? How did they get there in the first place without him even noticing? Airtime prided himself on his keen sense of attention to detail (or at least, he thought he did). No one snuck up on the Windy Thing.

He turned to his right, pushing his hood up so he could see a little better. Oh, it was just Dave in his - no, no, get it right, Airtime. When the costumes are on, heroes refer to eachother by their super hero names. That's how it worked on TV, right? Keeping appearances. That had to be how it worked in real life, too. It was just t-m0ney$ sitting net to him, probably ready to log into SBURB with him.

"hey, t-m0ney$!* no, not yet, haha. i'm still waiting for the game to load. when did you even get here?" he wondered. "i didnt see you fighting with me today."

* Airtime pronounces this 't-m-zero-ney-dollar sign'.

[Dave Strider]

[[ uguuu you flatter me u////u ]]

After spending most of his life practicing his stone-cold apathetic face, Dave managed not to burst out laughing at the sight of his friend springing like a fucking jack-in-the-box out of his seat. He laughed internally and planned to blog about it later, though. Oh, John. What a card. The Joker, even, given his buddy's propensity for shitty pranks. Hehe. But nobody could beat Dave (except maybe his bro) when it came to pranks. Time powers had their perks.

Dave rested his head on his hand, elbow propped up on the table, as he watched Airtime pull himself together. He'd have to abuse his powers more often; this was totally worth it. He wondered if other superheroes got into stupid prank wars, too. ... Probably. All that shit about using powers for good was probably just a bluff for the media. Most likely. Being good all the time was boring as hell.

"Just now," Dave said, "And yeah, I was busy working on the latest SBaHJ page. I run a tight ship, you know, and being the captain ain't a piece of cake."

He polished off his apple juice and tossed the bottle into the trash can. "Also, bro? It's t-m0ney$.* Man, I thought we were tight enough to avoid gross mispronounciation. I'm hurt."

Turning around to emphasize his exaggeration of emotion, Dave booted up the computer next to his buddy's and popped in the disc of his own copy of Sburb Beta, trying to remember where he'd left off in the game. Laying the smacketh downeth on a couple of suckers, probably. Or maybe alchemitizing the illest weaponry. He'd find out soon enough.

*t-m0ney$ pronounces t-m0ney$ as t-m0ney$ (tee-munny).

[John Egbert]

John could tell Dave was laughing on the inside - he'd known the guy long enough to figure out what each of his individual pokerfaces meant. He grinned - at least somebody got a laugh out of him - and gently slapped Dave on the shoulder. "stop laughing at me, dude. you really scared me there!"

"i know, i know," john said, rolling his eyes. "you're just like that deadmau5* guy. constantly spelling your own name with letters that don't even make sense. is this some kind of sick dj thing or something that i don't know about?"

Finally, SBURB started up. John remembered where his party was - they were in the Land of Heat and Clockwork, exploring the area and trying not to fall into pits of lava. It was a shame, John thought, that none of them could sprout wings and fly. He'd seen a few players do that, though they all played as trolls. John never really saw the appeal in doing that. Troll players tended to take the game way too seriously sometimes - there was definitely a common theme there. "hey, do we have enough grist to make me a new hammer? i think it might be helpful."

*Airtime pronounces this 'deadmowfive'.

[Dave Strider]

" .... deadmow -- Aw, dude. Dude. Have I taught you nothing? Man, you know, forget it. You'd probably forget as soon as I told you," Dave scoffed and rolled his eyes in return, "And for the record, deadmau5 copied t-m0ney$. Just sayin'."

SBURB was still downloading on Dave's computer, sped up just slightly with his time powers. Didn't want to break the thing. He tapped the desk, trying to remember how much grist he'd gathered, as he watched John start playing. Frankly, Dave hadn't even remembered that they were in LOHAC, much less how many baddies he'd beaten up. Or what weapon he had equipped. Or what sexyfine piece of attire he was wearing -- probably the black one. Or maybe the red one? He shook his head slightly, trying to sort out his thoughts.

"Didn't you just make a new hammer, bro? Zillyhoo or something?" Dave mused distractedly, until his game started up. He logged in and re-checked his stats, inventory, and hella stylish wardrobe, before whipping out a sword and dealing some major damage to the enemies in the area. "What exactly were we doing here again?"

[John Egbert]

"no, i wouldn't. i have a memory like an elephant, for your information," John said, although he knew for a fact that he didn't. "didn't deadmau5 come before t-m0ney$ though? i think that guy's been making music for a long time, dave...you guys aren't even in the same genre." Offhandedly, John wondered if deadmau5 could rap. Nobody could rap like Dave could rap.

John's using his avatar onscreen to run around to different clickable items - boxes and chests, opening them up to try and collect more grist. Dave was right - he did just alchemize the Warhammer of Zillyhoo, but he saw the outline of a new hammer that he hadn't unlocked yet just after the Zillyhoo one, and he was determined. The Pop-O-Matic Vrillysomething or other???

That thing looked fucking ridiculous and he needed to have one. It would send his Prankster's Gambit skyrocketing - how many people would see someone carrying a crazy, colorful thing like that and expect it to do as much damage as he hoped it would? "yeah, i did," he said, finally responding, "but the next one up's supposed to be great. it has this weird pop feature like in the game sorry. i really want it." He flashed Dave a toothy grin and laughed, his shoulders shaking.

"i don't remember, to be honest." John tried to think back to the last time they had logged in. "something about a scratch?"

[Dave Strider]

[[ ooc: Oh, man. I'm really sorry that I'm replying to this so late. School started last week and real life punched me in the face for a while. I should be free to reply more now, though! ]]

Dave rolled his eyes as if to say "please" in the most sarcastic way possible. Obviously, his buddy had forgotten about the mystical wonders of creating some crazy ass time paradoxes. Not that Dave had actually gone back in time to screw around with making dubstep and inspiring dead-mow-five into doing anything. But John didn't have to know that Dave was merely pulling the metaphorical wool over his eyes. Dave decided to ride out the pranking train for just a little while longer.

Suddenly, a bunch of baddies appeared out of nowhere and started harassing Dave's avatar. He clicked his tongue and began an elaborate combination of button mashing, timing his attacks with the enemies' weak spots and feints. Focusing on slaying the shit out of the imps, he snorted lightly and gave a wry smile at Airtime's description of the new hammer, neither giving or denying his approval. Upgrading weapons generally had pretty slick monetary returns in the long run, but depleting all that grist for something that wasn't critical might be regretted later on. Dave didn't really give much of a shit, but maybe his other teammates did.

Finally, Dave's avatar was allowed to progress in the game. He opened up the menu and turned towards Airtime. "Scratch, eh? Hm. Think I remember Rose and me chatting it up about that. Wonder when she wants to start ripping out some sweet tunes on the Beat Mesa."

He paused for a second, "Oh, and. If you want to make the pop-whatever doohickey thingamajig motherfucker, ask Rose and Jade. I don't really give a shit, but we share grist or whatever."

[John Egbert]

[[ooc: hey no worries!!! school's starting for me on wednesday and i'm in the process of moving to a new house so i know the feels. hugs you!!]]

John figured Dave had some sort of deadpan, sarcastic response to make at him. He always did - and they were always so creative. But if there was one thing John knew, it was that you should never dish it if you can't take it. John prepared himself to make a witty comeback by opening his mouth to begin and raising a finger in the air.

Unfortunately, it ended in him holding that pose awkwardly for quite some time, as Dave's fake-exasperated response never came. He saw the group of baddies come to attack their party, and John rolled his eyes, beginning to type a few special commands out on the keyboard - his avatar began to use its wind powers in conjunction with his hammer to do a sort of Crash Bandicoot-esque spin attack at the enemies. "really? caulk liches again? is that all this planet's got? well, except for those little crocodile guys. they're adorable."

John did like the crocodiles, but he did have a special place in his heart for Casey, his avatar's salamander-familiar. He loved every pixel of Casey. He even bought her a cute rabbit stuffed animal in-game and sang a beautiful power ballad at her on-screen representation when he equipped her with it. (He was on-call with Jade at the time; she made a wonderful pretend electric guitar when she really put her mind to it.) He wondered where Casey went off to - last he saw of her, she was on the Land of Light and Rain with Rose someplace.

"oh, you guys have already been to the beat mesa? no fair, man. i just got that patch the other day, i havent even gotten to check it out." John pouted from behind his computer screen as he checked on their grist count. They definitely had enough build grist, but they were pretty low on Cobalt and Diamond. Damn. And those were two drops that didn't happen very often. He'd have to go back to the Land of Wind and Shade and see if there was a Typheus ghost for him to defeat again.