[ti]private[/ti]Sands of Time

Orion needed him. He could sense it even before he put on the helmet. Big Bee logged in as fast as humanly possible, maybe even faster! The Worldscreen scanned his eyes and face and neural signal and suddenly he was in the overworld. He stood on a concrete beach.

His UI pinged. It was from Orion. He smiled. It felt good to be needed. And to be right! He tapped out a quick reply.

Big Bee: An egg? Ain't no thang I'm OMW!
Big Bee: Be there in 3-4 minutes (loading times permitting)
Big Bee changed their name to Giant Hornet
Giant Hornet: What do you think? Cool name or should I switch back?

Leaving Orion something to ponder while he waited, Bee (Hornet?) brought up the world map. A dark orb blossomed on his screen, expanding until it was a whole, floating globe. Area outlines sang in bright colors, and pulsing spots of light shower where his friends were.

There was a bright crimson spot in the middle of the Dune District.

He tapped the nearest fast travel point an there was a pause, then a flicker of color, and then a rush of hot air. His feet crunched on the sand and he looked around. No Orion. He's be nearby though, obviously. He could feel it. To help him feel the exact direction of his bro he brought up the minimap as a semi-transparent overlay, and sent out Maverick, his Rufflet.

"Buzz the tower, Mav!"

"Huh?"

"I said look for Orion!"

"Who?"

"I said fly up high and try to find some guy wearing a bandana and holding an egg."

"What?!"

Big Bee returned Rufflet and started walking towards the red spot on his minimap.

"Well you see," Big Bee said, breathing hard as he climbed up the sand dune towards Orion, "Coke Classic only worked so well because people hated New Coke. Okay, when I put it like that I see what you're saying. But I still think I'm onto something."

He reached the top of the hill and slumped down. "So, what I guess I'm saying is that you hating the name is a good sign. I gotta get people yearning for that taste of Classic Bee." He nodded, then opened his UI.

Giant Hornet changed their name to New Bee
New Bee: Is this anything?
New Bee: Do you hate this more of less than Giant Hornet?

"I'm not kidding dude. Until I find the worst possible name and parade it around for at least a few hours I can't switch back. I want people to be happy to see the old name again, not think I'm indecisive or bad at market research."

There was a burst of jungle color as Tropic Thunder his Tropius appeared on the sands. The banaosaur waved its fronds, fanning up a weak sandstorm around Bee. "Whoa! Keep it light and loose, man. I'm trying to escape the desert, not eat it."

"Sorry," said Tropius, slumping a little.

"No sweat, guy. You just don't know your own strength. We'll get you used to using those wings delicately, I promise. That's the New Bee guarantee."

He turned back to Orion. "Or should it be the Classic Bee guarantee? I don't want people to prefer the New Bee."

"What the hell man! That's illegal!" Big Bee said, laughing as he tried to scold Orion. "How would you like it if-" he stopped, eyes gleaming, and then he opened his UI as fast as possible, tying like crazy.

New Bee changed their name to Cayge_match
(Server)Cayge_match: I hate punching
(Server)Cayge_match: babdannas are lame now.
(Server)Cayge_match: WTB: secondhand fedora
(Server)Cayge_match: C0D13 did nothing wrong

With the japery out of the way, Bee offered to carry one of the eggs as they explored the graffiti. It was everywhere. On chunks of broken wall, on stretches of blasted stone. Every hard surface seemed to have all or part of a scrawl on it. Time is wasting

"What about this? Do you think it's plot or trash?" Bee looked around at some of the other chunks. There were names, some repeating, and numbers too. "'Time is wasting'...Time until what? Until the end of the world? Until the World Event? The only thing in this area related to time is the Broken Sundial. Do you think it's a reference to that?"

He looked around for more time related hints. 54.0194°N 0.5789°W "What do you reckon this is about?"

Not content with having Orion dual-wielding unborn Pokemon and him only single-wielding, Bee pulled out his own egg. It had a soft, gentle black shell studded with a million stars. "Hyperion, meet your...cousin? I have no idea. God sibling? That sounds pretty cool but is a bit misleading. Whatever. Meet...oh..I don't have a name yet. Not sure if it's a boy or a girl. Anyway you two will be fast friends, I can tell." The eggs looked happy in his arms, but that may have just been wishful thinking.

Bee bounced the two eggs gently as he and Orion walked through the maze of cryptic hints. "Yeah, another Lentimas mention. Never forget. 11/11. Sounds like a disaster on that date. But what? And also why? And also also when? 11/11 is at least geographically unambiguous, but what year. Did they even use the same calendar when they wrote this? Was it like 'on the eleventh day of our eleven day year'." He shook his head, unable to decipher the wild implications of having an annual calendar that was less than a fortnight long.

"Oh! Here's another one!" Lentimas lives on is our hearts "Well...that one is pretty unambiguous, right? Something doesn't need to live on in your heart if it still lives on in the world, does it..." He peeked around the side of the ruins and saw another stretch of wall plastered in weathered graffiti. someone help me "Some of these are pretty relatable."

"That's what the world is, right? It's Disney without all the PG-13 filtering. Real life has infinite beauty, but it also has melancholy, occasional violence, and words that a kid doesn't understand," Bee mused. "It's just a thin slice of the human experience. In the same way that a dystopian pulls out a lot of the softness in the world, or how Family Guy imagines a world without comedy."

The hum of Orion's earrings were a clear signal that darkness was afoot. Bee handed back Hyperion and kissed his own egg goodnight before slipping it back into his inventory. Unlike Orion he wasn't all fists and fury on a personal basis, so he sent out Jaws, his hyper-muscular Snubbull. "Keep a lookout little guy, okay?"

"You got it, baws."

"!!"

"What is is, baws?"

"Oh I just don't think you've ever talked before." He looked down at the jacked Snubbull, who was grinding on fist into the palm on his other hand. He was also chewing a toothpick. "Yeah...I definitely would have remembered that accent."

"Ay yo sometimes I don't talk a lot," Jaws said, and then went silent.

"Fair enough. Okay guys let's see what's around here."

The trio searched for threats, but the world didn't seem to have any forthcoming. The shambling zombies and snapping jaws of Mistra seemed leagues away as they paradoxically searched for an evil ambush under the blasting heat of the Ostellian sun.

After a few sweaty minutes Big Bee gave up, and took out his frustration on a chunk of broken wall. He kicked the rock with all his might, and it tumbled down a sand dune, coming to a rest beside Jaws, who was resting at the bottom.

"There's nothing here Orion. I mean I'm not doubting Cygnus or anything, but those earrings might be a bit too sensitive. Could they have been picking up radio waves or something? Were you thinking about Mistra when they went off?"

"Ay yo boss!"

"Yeah?"

"This here rock wants a woird with ya."

"...What?"

Jaws climbed back up the dune and dropped the rock at Bee's feet. There was graffiti on one face. YOU KICKED ME

Big Bee frowned. The graffiti shifted. YOU HURT ME

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't know, uh, I didn't know you were on a rock."

I AM NOT A ROCK
I AM HISTORY

The piece of rock was small, and even a few scrawled words of graffiti were all it could manage to hold at a time.

YOU HURT TIME
HAPPY?

"No! I told you no! I'm sorry. Can I heal you or something?"

YOU CAN SUFFER
PERISH IN TIME

Ichor dripped from the rock, tangling around Big Bee's arm and binding him to the chunk of ruin. He tried to hurl it, but it was like he was bonded to the stone. "Orion! Help me get this this off!" he shouted.

The sands around them shook, like a beast shaking off slumber, and the ground rose. Sand flowed away from the rising foundations of a long, curved ruin. No an arc. A great boat of stone and jade, once buried beneath the sand but now buoyed back into the light by malice.

The craft floated on top of the shifting dunes, and with the rumble and roar of a thousand trapped souls in the galley, it drifted Northward.

The ichor burned like injected motor oil. The rising arc shifted and Bee slammed backwards into the jade gunnel. The boat was heading North, and they were leaving Orion behind on the shifting sands. "Ah! Shit! ORION!!!"

There was no guarantee of help on this one, so Bee immediately went to work trying to minimize damage.

"Jaws!"

"Ay yo boss, no needs ta shout. Aym right here."

Bee's arm shook, his muscles clenching and jumping as the ichor tore away at his body layer by layer. "Bite this rock off my arm."

Jaws inspected the ruin fragment. It had grown several dark tentacles and the text read. DO NOT INTERFERE

"It says nots to interfere."

"I know! Because he's trying to infect me! Or poison me! Or eat me from the inside or something. Just get it off."

"I aints no docta, boss."

"I'm not asking for you to take out my appendix! Just pull the rock off!"

"Yo ima need a second opinion before I go removin' anything. I aint no amputater."

Something in Big Bee's arm crunched, and the ruin shifted with a sound like wet gravel. Big Bee grit his teeth against the surge of fresh pain.

"You know what? Fine. I'll sort it out!" He braced himself against the side of the boat and raised his arm.

"Ay yo boss, that may not be a great move, ya see-"

Bee smashed his arm down against the stone deck to try and shatter his assailant, but the fragment of ruin shifted. Arm met stony deck in a striking impression of a skateboarding accident, leaving Bee with about 20% less arm-skin than before. He cradled his shaking arm as the ichor slipped into his dripping arteries.

Orion jumped over the side.

"-ya buddy is almost here."

Bee's arm throbbed with phenomenal pain. It felt like he was having a wrist-to-elbow heart attack. It felt like he's just had every drop of blood in his arm sucked out and replaced with Monster Energy. It felt like his super jacked, superhuman best friend had just some full Smackdown on him and what was left of him was Raw as hell.

The stone tablet clung to his arm, its shadowy tendrils cutting into his flesh. He could feel something cold creeping through his veins, invading the arteries and making its home in his wounded body. "It's inside me! Infecting me or something!" he shouted to Orion, frantic. "Get it out!"

"Ay yo boss, that's a real humdinger ya got there."

"So help me! Bite it off or something!"

"What I look like, a doctor?"

Another bolt hit the side of the craft and it listed drunkenly. Bee grabbed onto the gunnel with his good arm. The ship creaked dangerously as it tilted back to level. "Let's go!" he said, preparing to leap over the side. It was a long way down, and he gulped, feeling the danger in his dry throat. No flying in UNOVR. No goddamn flying in UNOVR! Well maybe they could do the next best thing!

He opened his UI one-handed and equipped Aviator. "Equip Aviator!" he called to Orion, as he swung one leg over the side. "Once we get close to to the ground we can double jump!"

Another bolt hit the underside of the ship and it bucked wildly. A deep, troubling groan marked the breaking of the ship, and a resonant crunch split the air just a second before the whole ship snapped in half across the middle. "Watcha waitin for boss!?" Grandbull said, rushing him.

"A better option," Bee said, cradling his ruined arm. But with the ground breaking apart below him and no other way out, he grit his teeth and jumped.