That same morning, another student's house
Kai felt groggy, as if he were waking up from a bad dream. Where was he? What was he doing? Last he checked, he'd been a Demonic Centaur in the Demon King's army. A Hero-Type Demonic Centaur, to be specific. Then, all of a sudden, he was pulled into that empty gray expanse and told the Story had come to an end. Apparently, one of the human-side's Heroes had killed the King, and that was a hidden condition to end it early. He had laughed at the irony -- someone had betrayed the King, probably not even knowing it was an end condition? Hilarious.
Following that, he'd been given his second chance to choose a Boon. The time before, he'd chosen the ability to determine his own species. It had just sounded way too cool to resist. In his opinion, had even been worth it -- seriously, being a Demonic Centaur had been so epic.
This time, however, since he couldn't choose his role again, he'd chosen something a little different: the PAD Chat App. His instincts as a popular musician (and tech-loving fool) had screamed at him that such a weird option had to be there for a reason. And, like with the previous Boon, his spur-of-the-moment attitude had led him to select it without even properly thinking through the other options.
So, where was he, and what was the situation of this Story? He couldn't see anything, but… yes, he could feel a heartbeat. He could feel blood flowing, muscles in a relaxed state, and a chest rising and falling slowly, as if in deep sleep. He tried to summon the Role/Goal board to see what was going on.
(A/N ~ this is the exact same as Alesha's in chap 179 except for parasite stage)
*****
ASSIGNED ROLE: Alien Parasite (stage: mature larva)
ASSIGNED GOALS:
► Take over the human host's body without being exposed to the Supernatural Forces, who are desperately searching for Alien Parasites in order to eliminate them!
► Adapt, survive, and thrive!
► Reveal your status as a Player/Participant to the Patrons of the Storytelling Games, who are watching streams of events on this world in search of Participants, without alerting the inhabitants of this Earth that you are not a native of their world. Time limit: one week.
NOTE: If you are unable to expose yourself as a Participant to the Patrons, you will remain in this world (in your assigned role) even after the time limit has passed -- expelled from the Games and therefore disqualified from being returned using Zorhellian's power.
PS: If you haven't put it together yet, yes, this is a real world you are in, and you are a part of this real world's events. Did you really think a Chaos Demon as magnificent as Zorhellian Fa Qinfeerus would conduct such an important Game in anything less than the most extravagant fashion possible?
*****
After acquainting himself with the conditions, as well as the unfortunate and unpleasant reality that he was now a parasite in another human's body (poor soul), Kai pulled up the PAD Chat App. Luckily, it came quite naturally.
This is what came up in his mind's eye:
⊿⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
CHATS:
⚜ Possible Participants ~ Help Wanted
⚜ Patron Scoreboard
⚜ Storytelling Games Miscellaneous
⚜ Help Board
◹⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
Seeing that he could navigate between the various chats, Kai felt that his instincts had been right and he'd stumbled across a cheat code. Would he be able to post comments himself? If he could, then he would be directly able to tell the Patrons his identity, and he'd be able to escape this Story easier than the others before it.
... Not that he knew his human host's identity yet. Ah, whatever.
Excited, he opened the Possible Participants chat.
⊿⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
…
▻ColmSaysStayHandsome: Kendra Littings at this address is exhibiting strange behavior. Looking for volunteers to help surveil her for the next hour.
▻▻Forest_Liquor_Enthusiast1: I'll help
▻▻NoRe$pawnSuckas!: Ditto
▻IHeartChz: jeez, yall tak this too serously. its only day 2
▻▻\\Silas-the-King//: Boo! @admin, ban this guy!
▻[@IHeartChz this is your first warning. Please desist.]
▻▻IHeartChz: why am i the one in troble?? ididnt do anything
▻▻▻[@IHeartChz this is your final warning. Please desist.]
▻▻▻▻IHeartChz: **** u
▻[@IHeartChz has been banned from chat for 24 hours.]
▻Fairy.Queen.001: Looking for participant candidates. My friends and I are tag-teaming. Reply with individuals plz
▻▻OrangeChicken: the teacher of this class
▻▻HumansAreXXXXed: Elifhe Dupont, having coffee here (XXXX I hate her stupid-aXX complex name!! But she seems infected)
▻▻SheOfTheCleverScale: this human
▻▻GiveMeALoli: Lenny Brown, currently here
▻▻MukbangL0ver: Selena Cadieux, just got hurt at this daycare
▻▻5thElementIsLove: the police officer here, I think his name was Jun-Ho
▻▻ColmSaysStayHandsome: Kendra Littings here
▻▻APyromaniac: Viktor Maeve, a waiter here
▻▻[@DeceptiveOldCoot is typing…]
◹⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
Unfortunately, when Kai looked for a way to comment himself, he didn't see one… however, he could up-vote and down-vote comments. So, methodically, he began reacting to every single comment, in the hopes that one of the Patrons would be able to see who he was that way.
It wasn't long after this that Kai noticed the body he was parasitizing begin to stir.
--
Tanner rolled over, hitting the snooze button on his phone's alarm. He could afford to hit it two, maybe three times today, right? Wait…
Pawing at his phone and unplugging the charger, he grabbed it and checked the date. "Man," he grumbled. Today was a morning Varsity run.
[Woah, this kid's in Varsity? Not bad!] A rich male voice said in his mind.
"... Huh?" Tanner said, his brain short-circuiting. Was he still half-asleep or something?
[Ah crap, can he hear me?? Shize, that's not good…]
"What the frick?" Tanner sat up straight, fully awake now. "Who are you? What do you want?"
[Ah, hey kid! Just your friendly neighborhood… parasite, I guess? Wait! That came out wrong!]
"Parasite?" Ah, okay. He was definitely just hearing things. Maybe he should get himself checked out.
[Wait!!] The voice insisted, sounding panicked. [Anything but that!! Kid, they'll kill you too if they find me! Or at least I think they will; shoot, do they have a way to remove parasites? I really hope they don't, or I won't survive this Story -- ow, ow ow!! What the? Was that a Penalty? HEY! That hurt!]
Confused but also somewhat amused by the voice's antics, Tanner let it continue while he simply sat and listened.
[Jeez, I'm not even talking about the whole Story thing -- hey! … Wait, kid, can you hear my thoughts too?]
"Yeah," Tanner answered, humoring the voice.
The man's voice sighed, then grumbled, [Well that explains it then. Shize, then how am I supposed to use the ▦▧▤ ▨▩▤▧ ▧▤▦ without incurring Penalties? Ow… Do I have to wait until he's asleep? No, wait, more importantly, how am I supposed to let them know I'm here without so much as thinking about forbidden topics?!?]
"I have no clue what you're talking about, who or what even are you? And why are you talking in my mind?" Tanner asked.
And what was that strange buzzing where words should have been? He thought.
[... Well, I suppose I can try to introduce myself. My name is Kai and I guess you could call me an alien. I used to be the lead singer of the popular band DqOL, but now I'm somewhat of an interstellar vagabond, I guess?]
"How'd that happen?"
[It's a long story. I'll just summarize and tell you that for the next week or so, I'll have to kinda leech off of you in order to survive. I'm not the kind of parasite that'll kill you. At least, I don't think I am.]
"You don't think? That's not very encouraging."
[Hey, I'm making this -- I mean, figuring this out as I go, okay? I don't properly know what kind of parasite I am either!]
"How do you not know something that important, dude? You're hiding things. Should I just go to the doctor, then?" Tanner threatened. The voice seemed eager to avoid a checkup, so perhaps this threat would be effective. He needed answers. If anything was wrong with his body, as a member of the Varsity team, he needed to find out as soon as possible. His team depended on him.
Right then, his second alarm went off, the one telling him he needed to leave in 5 minutes.
"Seriously? Agh, well you said your name was Kai, right?" Tanner asked as he got up, changing into his cross country uniform in a hurry. "This isn't over. Just don't do anything strange to me before we talk again, alright? Or I'll go straight to the doctor and tell them about you."
[Sure thing, kid. I'm rather partial to "not dying" so don't worry about it.]