#program: comedy

[forthedancingandthethriving]

Cosmos coughs as she leans against the wall, digging her claws into it. Her lungs burned and felt full of smoke, and, quite frankly, they probably were.

The recording today was absolute hell. (As if acting her backstory wasn't bad enough.) Simply put, it was about Cosmos returning to her old home to find old belongings, only to nearly be caught by Radiant.

There was a gentle knock.

"Cosmos?"

"Are you in there?"

Comedy and Tragedy. What were they doing here?

.. screw it, Cosmos couldn't bring herself to be even remotely annoyed. She pushes herself off of the wall, stumbles towards the door, and yanks it open. The twins stood there, Comedy holding some water bottles and Tragedy holding a few rags and a small bucket of water.

"What-" Cosmos coughs, turning her head away briefly. "What do you want?"

"Uh.. we brought you water," Comedy says as she holds up the water bottles.

"And.. some stuff to clean yourself with since Jayin wouldn't let you." Tragedy glances down at the rags and bucket she held.

The Star Nova flicks her tail, minor irritation building up. She didn't need them to baby her. She was fine, she was a functioning adult-

As if to contradict her, she coughs, and some smoke comes out of her mouth. With a wheezing sigh and a flick of her hand, she pulls electricity from the air and uses it to pull the items inside. She sets them on her desk before looking down at them. "Thanks."

"Are you-"

"Now get-" She coughs a few times. "Get lost."

She steps back and slams the door shut in their faces, making the duo jump back. They look at each other before looking down and scurrying off. It was better not to he caught with Cosmos anyway. The last time Jayin caught them.. they preferred to stick to their brothers' sides for a while.

"Stupid Quartet.." Cosmos hisses inside of her room, shaking her body. "Thinking you can just.." She coughs violently before trailing off.

She shakes her head before glaring at the mirror on her vanity.

Stupid Mr. L. Stupid Jayin. She grits her teeth, electricity sparking around her.

"Thinking you can just waltz into my life.." She chokes out, smoke coming out of her mouth in bursts. "And just.. use me like a content farm!"

"I'm a person!" Cosmos hisses, gripping her mirror.

At least, she's pretty sure she is.

She stares at her reflection before exhaling slowly, and grabbing one of the water bottles.

What'd she give to raze this company to the ground..

[forthedancingandthethriving]

New ocs time;

Blitz & Chroma: Firewalls built and made by a company that doesn't want their secrets getting out somehow became sentient. Extremely mistreated by the CEO and others who use them, oftentimes leading them to be withdrawn. But the manipulation and abuse stems from the moment their code was written down, so they're extremely intense about their jobs. It can actually be scary. They're both currently at the main building of the company, continuing to run security checks every minute.

Comedy & Tradgey: Assistants to Sparks and Chroma respectively, meant to aid in toning down their intense nature's. This didn't work, as the duo also suffer the same treatment as the other two, and are therefore also quite intense. Currently searching the wide web for some specific copies of some games because the CEO of the company took interest in them.

[forthedancingandthethriving]

A head peeks into four universes, followed by a body.

Heat radiates from their bodies, even if for two it's not as intense. They float around, keeping themselves quiet.

Each one finds their target soon enough.

Hands shaking, each one loads a bullet into a chamber.

"It won't take effect immediately," the voice of the director rings in their mind as they each close the chamber. "It'll slowly make them forgetful until by the time they realize it's far too late."

One peeks around a wall.

One hides hides in the shadow of a pillar.

One hides behind a tree.

One ducks behind some bushes.

"It'll feel like a simple bug bite to them. There's no need to worry."

Each hand raises the gun, hand shaking a bit.

"So just aim.."

To the one behind a wall, she's shaking the most.

"And fire."

Four triggers are pulled, but something goes arwy with the first.

Something cuts through the air following it, cutting the bullet in two. Her eyes behind her mask widen.

But all the bullets hit their mark, and they leave.

○●○

"Son of a.." Juliano mutters, pressing a hand to the back of his neck before moving it away. Mosquitoes in winter?

○●○

Nimbus jolts with a low hiss and quickly turns her head to look at her tail. She frowns softly, flicking it. It felt as though a bug had bitten it.

○●○

"Ow!" Irene grumbles, pressing a hand to her shoulder. She quickly looks at it and tilts her head. Did she.. imagine that?

○●○

Tulip grunts softly in pain and looks down at her chest. She bites her lip and turns her head back towards the wall towards the entrance of her shop.

Nothing was there.

As she glances towards the window, she sees a flash of something green. Quickly getting up, she rushes over to it and opens it, peeking her head put.

All she sees it the wisp of a green cloak, clearly made of coat from the faint numbers imprinted, before there's the familiar sound of a portal opening and closing.

"The hell..?" Tulip tilts her head.

As she turns and shuts the window, exiting the shop, another portal opens. Beside the cut half of the bullet, a coal-black hand reaches out and grabs it. The bullet is turned over before the hand retreats into the portal, which once more closes.

[forthedancingandthethriving]

I was having thoughts and.. Jayin probably has shock collars or something of the equivalent on Chroma, Blitz, Tragedy, and Comedy. Because now that she has them out and searching for the keys to the games SMG4 has, who's to say they won't just run away?

So, she has some shock collars coded for them. Any time they think about running away or attempt to, it shocks them. Bad.

.. so what I'm saying is, if Jayin got her hands on Tartarus and Olympus, she'd probably make those collars worse.

[forthedancingandthethriving]

Keys were attached to each copy of the game sent out. The games were online only, meaning it was easy enough. Just saying it was for copies of games and that was all.

How farther could that be from the truth.

Alyssa was fired after her firewalls, and their little 'mascots' were seen coming to life. She had tried hiding them from the company and tried hiding what a deal they had on their hands.

She had tried to be nice, really. Alyssa was such an old friend. Her old friend could keep her job, but she surrendered the firewalls and their mascots to the company.

Alyssa said no, and so she was fired. Placed under an indefinite NDA. Left destiute.

And she never spoke to Alyssa again. It wasn't too sad to see her go, even if she left her old friend with nothing.

The director was willing to do whatever it took to have her company succeed. She did not spend her teen years making a game so incredibly popular just to have no rogue employee try and wash it all away.

When she then acquired the firewalls, she gave them names. Chroma, Blaze, Comedy, and Tragedy. Such wonderful things they were, and far too easy to manipulate.

Some words, some threats, and they were following her orders.

It was one day when three keys caught her eye when she was reading a report. They were.. altered. All of them start with the letter A, with there being a J, N, and T to each respectively. Though the A-J one seemed.. corrupted, almost.

She looked into it, and surprise, surprise, it was a YouTuber that was on her radar for a while. SMG4 was his name, and she could tell almost immediately.

Those creations were alive. They weren't just models.

Some more poking, and she noticed him in line for pre-order to part two of their latest game, Winding Rest.

Interesting..

But something clicked for the director. Why shouldn't she have these little versions of her games? They were her protagonists, her world, her everything. She deserved to have them.

So she'd sent those four on a hunt. She didn't care how long it would take.

But she'd let SMG4 have some more fun with her creations. After all, it was far too amusing.

○●○

"Director Jayin?"

There's a soft knock on her door. A black haired, green eyed woman turns her head from the window she was looking out. She was dressed nicely, wearing a white blouse, grey work pants, white socks and black dress shoes.

"Come on." She says.

An intern pops her head in. "Uhm.. it was found out why the A-J key was corrupted. Apparently, something happened to the game, and now it's pretty hard to access the world. But it's hard to tell if that's actually what happened.. since we only have that code.."

The director hums. "Keep looking then."

The intern nods and backs out, closing the door behind her.

Director Jayin leans back in her chair before she smiles. She glances at her computer, where on the screen, a box showing four folders were present.

"It's no wonder you four are also alive.. Alyssa did work on you all.." Jayin clicks her tongue. "Shame I had to let her go."

With that, she closes the window and resumes work, responding to critical emails. Another intern had poked her head somewhere she shouldn't have, and now Jayin had to 'warn' her in.. special ways.

It was mostly just to make sure the government didn't come down on her ass. Jayin did not need that. Thank you very much.

Director Jayin allows herself to smile a bit, however. She knew she couldn't have each copy of the games have protagonists as real as the ones SMG4 had. But who was to say that she couldn't take back what was her's Alyssa's, and simply.. improve?

That's all it was. She'd do whatever it took to have her company on top.

[forthedancingandthethriving]

"Oh, noooo.." a voice whines.

Two young looking girls kneel on a pure white floor, looking one defeated and one upset.

One wore a comedy mask, which was split down the middle, the left side being white, and the right side being black. Her sweater was a gradient of white to black with a matching skirt, with white and black striped knee-high socks, white dress shoes, and white gloves. Her hair was white with black streaks.

Beside her knelt a girl of similar appearance, but she wore a tradgey mask, and all of her colors swapped places. Her hair, though, was black with white streaks.

"What's wrong?"

Two men walked into the space, both with heavy bags under their eyes.

One man wore a blue jacket with a yellow shirt underneath, blue jeans and white shoes. He wore neon blue headphones around his neck, which had yellow accents. His hair was a bright yellow, with blue accents, and small squares dotted his cheeks as freckles matching his blue eyes.

The other man wan wore a red hoodie, with an orange shirt underneath. He also wore blue jeans, but with brown shoes. His hair was red as well, with yellow accents matching his eyes. He had mistached freckles, some of which were red and orange, but most yellow.

"Comedy, what's wrong?" One of the men kneel in front of the girl with a comedy mask.

"Blitz!" Comedy sighs. "We.. Tradgey and I still can't find.."

"It's alright." Blitz holds up a hand.

Chroma kneels in front of the other girl. "Are you okay, Tradgey?"

"My arms hurt.." Tragedy looks down.

The living room sized space was their comfort, their true home away from home. Away from the abrasive and hurtful employees, who didn't want to cherish or nurture them. Who only saw them as things to be used.

"It'll be okay." Blitz assures them both as he pulls Comedy into a hug. "We'll break free soon."

He wasn't sure if it was true.

The company wasn't kind. Even with their games doing so well, they didn't care to try and help out their employees. Through legal loopholes, they always figured something out.

So the two pull their little sisters close.

Another restless night, who would've guessed?