"Fuckin Deal."

The oath was sealed, the bumps of fists signaled a pact forged between pals.  An immutable oath that set Orion's heart alight with passion, or was that the start of his organs failing from the sheer heat?  He couldn't quite tell.  He finished the last of his blue drink, his lips now stained with the tone of sorrow, but his skin alight with passion.  Or was that a third degree burn across his body.

Again, he couldn't quite tell, which was...probably concerning.

But the boys had melted away their sorrow, the walls between them, and bonded together.  What had started as a trek to try and hatch Moltres had the two hatching instead into men, forged together like alloys stronger to face the future.  For once, the future looked bright and full of life and love, and not so much sorrow and sadness.  He would learn to live a life free of guilt, one that honored the sacrifice of the those who came before him, and paved the way for those to come after him.

"Hell yeah man, you let me know if I gotta like, drop a decapitated horse head in your bosses bed to get you those vaycay days.  Shit even if you don't I should swing by anyways, I owe Abby an IRL smooch."  Pressing his hand to the button, Orion set aside the empty dregs of his second blue drink and smirked a smurfy smirk at his buddy.

"Anyways, hurry up and melt will you?  I might actually log out half boiled at this rate."

Temp: 270
HP: 308
Gk1tm|ln1-270

"Got it, no head for you."

Orion let the words hang for but a moment, before a cheeky grin split his red face like an overcooked hotdog and a cackling guffaw boomed through the silence.  They'd been in here for what felt like an eternity, the sun long crept below the horizon as the stars were clearly out in full force.  A curious eye would spy a small series of white flashes and dots in the distance of the woods as a group of young men and women continued to flit about the dark forest engaging in merriment and revelry.  Unseen and unheard the next patio down, a young couple held each other in their arms for the first time, eyes locked on each other as the professed their profound feelings, hearts beating as one.  

Orion melted into the hot tub, mirroring his homie as he let out a deep sigh.

"Shit dog, do you think the other bases have sickass hottubs?  I don't think the fuckers at Creed are hottubin, and Cygnus doesn't seem like type of motherfucker to indulge in something like this."  He frowned.  "Mad sad that we can't like, nab a guest pass for the homies who are missing out.  I think Blue would LOVE this place, and Two?  Pretty sure I can see her soaking up here with some like, fancy ass martini or something in her hand yaknow?  I think I'm gonna try and make a sickass like...crash pad for everyone out in O town, watcha thinkin big dog?  We find a sick ass high rise, give that hoe a good ole extreme home makeover, make something like this that EVERYONE can chill at, ya know?"

Temp: 250
Hp: 184
y1ZedWpu1-250

"Cygnus seems like way too much a stick in the mud to actually like, turn his super sonic hottub on and use it.  Plus isn't there base like some wagons or some shit?  Apparently my ass isn't nerdy enough to go hang so..."  Orion shrugged, not offended he wasn't allowed to sit with the chessclub despite his [Tangent=HE'S TOTALLY NOT SALTY]TOP MARKS AT THE SCHOOL EVENT.[/tangent] "None of them have a view like this though.  Plus who said I wanted to make a SECRET base?"  He asked raising a brow.  "When I was little my mom used to run a community center in southside.  She taught cooking classes with my Uncle Joe, and like...Tio Gio ran karate courses for the lil kiddos.  It was this beautiful, public little place where everyone got together and played basketball...latchkey kids would go there after school and do their homework...the point isn't the spa bit, though like, shits still mad sick not gonna lie.  The point is having something that EVERYONE can contribute and maintain, to give us all a sense of purpose despite our disparate affiliations.  Something to unite us, not divide us.  Or is that like...lame or something?  Cause if being a pillar of the community is lame call me the lamest motherfucker in all of lamesville."

The heat was making his head start to boil, any longer and he might actually be in some real trouble.  But he grit his teeth and bit his lip, the pain keeping his swimming vision afloat.  A soft crack sounded, but he didn't really have time to register what exactly it was yet.  He just kept his attention focused on Bee.  "I think at least one of those things is true, though you might need to consult your primary care physician on that first one if true, pulmonary gigantism is a huge deal and it killed like...this dude I know called Big Mike, well I didn't know him but I knew of him.  Big burly biker dude that used to hang out with both of my uncles back in the day.  And so fucking help me," he raised an accusatory finger at Bee.

"If I find out you went sniffin for trauma just to have another one of these cool chats I'm gonna give your fucking brain trauma with my fucking fist you nerd."

Temp: 250
HP:140
n9Kyl7ve1-250

"I swear to god you need to pass out already." Orion hissed, practically chomping on his lips till it drew blood in order to stay awake.  "And like, isn't a train just a really fancy wagon if you think about it flipways?  Like the engine is just a really strong metal horse and the various cabins are just..."  his vision swam, and several warning messages began to flash through his UI.  Any other time he'd be hearing flutes right about now, traditionally of the shitty variety and typically playing some awful out of date meme song like "My Heart will go on" or "Wake me up inside" or whatever the devs felt like torturing him with.  

Sometimes he wondered if one of the programmers either really liked him, or hated his fucking guts, he could never decide.

"And yeah, comin together n makin the world beautiful dude...its something I think everyone has a moral obligation to do.  Like..."  his face drooped, and for a moment he face planted into the scalding water.  A jolt of pain sent him alert and up out of the water.  "We all share the world and it's resources, and live and die together man.  We have a duty to make sure we leave a bright future for our kids n grandkids, and their grandkids, and then after that we evolve past the need to biological progeny and instead reproduce via mitosis, but you get the point."

Crack.

Again Orion didn't have any time to register the noise he was circling the drain in terms of HP, and things were not looking super Bueno for him.  "Seriously dude, you gotta like, tell the fuckin writers room to take a chill pill for a sec fuck me, Im gonna subtract the therapy bill from the Za tab and send yall the difference.  And I gotta tell you, my therapist is EXPENSIVE, gramps splurges on mental health for a the family ever since the..." he drooped again, catching himself.  "Black Val-en-tiiiiiiii-"

Splish.    

This time, Orion didn't get back up, his body floated there for a couple of seconds before fizzling out into a blast of white zeroes and ones.  

Crack.

Temp: 250
HP:-19
Pl8MxQY81-250

Orion's consciousness spun back to life after a moment of a blackscreen, the cool kiss of oblivion a gentle caress compared to the hellish dips into non existence his own job oft plunged him into.  Like Achilles dipped into the river stix, the game held him by what he could only describe as his minds ankle, gently bringing him from the darkness.  The first sense that returned was smell, the soft scent of chlorophyll flooding his nose.  Then was taste, the lingering remnants of blue smoothie tickled his tastebuds as the tap-danced across his reawakening nerves.  Then sound piled onto the sensory bandwagon, a soft song of wind and swaying branches joining the party.  The touch returned, the gentle numbness that had taken his body fading away as if he was paradoxically thawing after his extreme boiling.  No pain lingered thankfully, this game did an excellent job of not chasing you with phantoms of your past digital life when you awoke, a gentle kindness afforded by the developers, or perhaps it was the power of the shrine and the benevolence of the world.  At what point did the authorial intent of a developer trump the will of such a sentient world, Orion found himself wondering.  Did the shrines heal people because it was a convenient plot point to allow players to sustain itself?  Was the love of the protectors of this land simply ludonarritive resonance?  The story and the gameplay aligning to accentuate each other?   Lastly, but not leastly his eyes opened, and the world crystalized into view, his eyes staring face first at a sea of gently waving blades of grass.

"Fuck me."  

Orion's words left his lips as a soft hiss, not more than three feet away he saw the silhouette of a loading player beginning to form from the ether.  A blurr of static and crackle similar to distorted dialup heralded his homie, who must have fainted not seconds after him.  Or perhaps it was before, who could tell?  Maybe it was a draw, they could totally call it a draw.  With a grunt, his fingers clenched into a ball as he pushed off the ground, his knees bending as rose to a kneeling position and stretched.  What a relaxing dip in the tub, all things considered, a good way to clear off the weight on his chest and work on hatching...

His eyes blinked for a moment, and his UI opened, his egg grayed out.  

"OH FUCK, HELIOS!"  

Panic filled his veins as Orion bolted to his feet and slammed the fast travel button back to R2's base, typing out a quick message to Bee as he did traversed the stream of metadata that whisked his consciousness from A to B.  "YO, LEFT BABY BIRD IN THE TUB, MEET TOPSIDE?  ROUND THREE ON ME."

...

With a pant Orion tossed open the door to the roof, his body slick with sweat as he gasped for air.  Somewhere downstairs Chadwick clicked a stopwatch, glanced at the time, and then began the long arduous process of rearranging the leaderboard for base ascent speedruns.  The fighter's eyes flicked across the balcony scanning the egg only to find fragments of ivory shell, his eyes widened in a mix of dread and fear before a soft chirp brought his eyes up to the edge of the tub.
"Wasaaaaaaah."  The legendary chick warbled, floating softly in the water, wings spread wide as it draped itself along the wall, half submerged into the water.  It seemed to paradoxically revel in the extreme heat of the water.  

"Holy shit."

"Wasaaaah dooooood" The bird warbled again, kicking his little feetsies as his wings gave a tentative flap, pulling his ass from the water before he'd become chicken newborn soup.  His little steppies seemed much to sure for such an infantile creature, but the little legendary strut his stuff closing the gap between him and uncle Bee, nuzzling his fiery little head into the palm of his uncle.

Orion took a few steps, sidling up to Bee and watching as his brother and babe, beaming grin on his lips.  

"Talk about a legendary night dude."  He places one hand on his friends shoulders, and the other hand would stroke the newborn bird.  "New starts all around it would seem, and just like...how the sun sets on nights like tonight...it rises in the morning.  Eh Helios?"  

"Heeeeeelios!"  The bird crooned like a rooster at dawn.  "Sunrise!"

It reared back away from their hands, and with a few flaps of its shaking wings, he managed to flutter onto Orions shoulders clumsily.  The sheer strength of his instinct and his drive absorbed from his two role models and the determination they'd just formed.  Nuzzling again into Orion, the bird would warble.  "Blue?"

"Whatcha say Bud, you ready for round three?  I gotta say, Kate really nailed this."