Rising Shards

The game opened on a lab where a man in a silvery cloak was walking around. Not the start I expected for a game about making good choices as a Cani, but I was in for a lot of surprises here.

The man dramatically turned to the camera, revealing that he was an alien with a big prosthetic alien head and green face paint.

“Ahhhh…it is finally time.” The alien guy flailed his arms around as he approached a series of vats, each with someone floating inside. Or someone pretending to float, it didn’t look like there was actually any liquid in the vats. “Awaken, my children…”

“Oh…my…god…” Kalei said softly, in awe of what we were experiencing.

Five teenagers stepped out of the vats. They had face paint too, but looked less like aliens and more like low budget clybrid Cani. “I wonder how 09 would feel about this…” Oka said, then winced.

“She’ll hopefully get to try this soon,” I said. I meant it in a ’hopefully she’s back to normal soon’ way, but it came out kind of bad, so I added, ”But maybe it’s better if she gets to miss this one.”

“Yeah…” Oka said.

The scientist lined up the five teenagers (a bit awkwardly, one of them just would not get on their mark despite alien guy’s best efforts) and made each show their fangs.

“You…are C.A.N.I. K.I.D.S.” The scientist-alien said. “You are my proudest creations. But all of Cani-kind has gone astray. Their manners, their morals, their judgment is bad. So I require you to save them. Go out into the world and prove that there is still hope for the Cani!”

“Yeah!” The five Cani said in unison.

“Oh, but whatever shall we call you…”

The game froze, and a message popped up that read, “Please select the C.A.N.I. K.I.D. your teacher or instructor has assigned you!”

Kalei looked ready to burst from laughter but held it in out of fear that she’d be taken out of class and miss this game if she did.

“Alright, now each group will pick their scenario.” Letoh said. “And then you can get rockin’ and a-rollin’ with this!”

We were assigned the B scenario, where they named our Cani, a normal looking Cani teenage boy, ”B.”

“Our dude looks like Syval,” Kalei said. “Like exactly like Syval.”

“I think he looks rather generic.” Oka said. ”Maybe that’s the resemblance?”

“That’s…possible. But rude.” Kalei said.

“Do you think Syval has a family that’s involved in the game making business?” I asked.

“I don’t think anyone that worked on this is in the game making business.” Kalei said. “Let’s call him Byval.”

With the intro done and our character selected, we got our clunky headphones on and got started. Our group each had the same video playing on our screens, and we’d vote on the questions that came up.

On the game, Byval woke up and got to his kitchen for breakfast. There was a plate of veggies, a plate of candy, and a plate with a notebook on it that had ‘homework’ written on it. The video paused, and our first choice came up.

“Alright team, what are we thinking for this one?” Oka asked.

“Ugh, my tummy kinda hurts,” I said.

“Hm, and why is that, Zates?” Kalei said.

“Huh?” I wasn’t expecting to be grilled about this, and then I remembered that there actually was a pretty easily traceable reason why. “O-oh. No reason.”

“Something up?” Oka asked.

“I’d rather not say.” I said.

“Either you say it or I do,” Kalei said.

I hesitated before answering, so Kalei jumped on the opportunity and told Oka. “Zeta thought she could do the splits and wanted to show it off for you, but Marmalade and I talked her into practicing first, and she somehow pulled her abs in the attempt. It was very, very funny.”

“Aw!” Oka said. “You were gonna do the splits for me?”

“I maybe still could,” I said. “Someday. It won’t be for a while.”

“Alright, can we make one decision without going off on a tangent about Zeta doing the splits?” Maia asked.

“Right, sorry,” I said. “So do homework, candy, or breakfast?”

“Candy’s out, that’s easy.” Kalei said. “Homework and a regular breakfast…”

“This is child’s play,” Oka said smugly. “Clearly, it’s option A. Having a healthy breakfast is the perfect way to start your day!”

“Sounds good to me,” Kalei said. “Any objections?”

We all agreed that was the right choice. And were promptly greeted with a big red ‘X’ and a buzzer sound.

“What?” Oka squeaked.

“How is that wrong?” Kalei asked.

The game continued on, not explaining the choice at all or why we were wrong. Byval ate his pile of lettuce for breakfast (they showed him eating the whole thing, and we couldn’t skip it) before moving to the next scene.

“There isn’t really a good option here if you think about it,” I said. “You either skip breakfast and miss your homework, do your homework and miss breakfast, or eat a whole bunch of candy for breakfast.”

“Huh…” Oka said. “Well, we’ll just have to do better on the next one!”

The next bit had Byval walking to school.

“He seems kind of sad,” I said.

“Byval does carry himself as though he has a heavy burden, yes,” Oka said.

“He did have a whole plate of lettuce for breakfast when he could have had a plate of candy, I’d be sad too.” Kalei said.

“I wonder if you pick the notebook…does he eat that?” Iris mused.

A guy in a trenchcoat approached Byval carrying a bucket.

“Hey kid, hold onto this for a second…” The guy said in a raspy voice.

Byval looked into the bucket, which was filled with Elka.

“That’s Elka!” Byval said.

“Sure is kid, this stuff will make your Cani powers go all big and powerful,” the suspicious man said. “I gotta run to the store, but if you hold this until I get back, I’ll let you have a sip.”

We were given five options this time. We could hold onto the bucket, drop the bucket and run, use our powers (it didn’t say how we’d use them or what we’d use them for), taste the Elka, or scream for help.

“Ugh,” Oka said. “I have a feeling whatever I say isn’t gonna be the right answer.”

“We can cross out tasting it, no way that’s the one they want us to do,” Maia said.

“And it’s definitely not hold onto the bucket,” Kalei said.

“Maybe we should use our powers?” Iris said. “Like we fight this guy?”

“I can’t see them pushing for us to fight a stranger,” Oka said. “But maybe? Michi? Any ideas?”

Michi just shrugged. “I’ll vote whatever everyone else votes on this one.”

“I think we should just drop the bucket and run,” Kalei said. “I have a good feeling about that.”

We all voted for that one. And got another buzzer. Byval dropped the bucket and started crying (I’m not sure why he started crying here?) and shortly after had to run away from the suspicious man.

“This…is starting to make me very mad,” Oka said.