Prince and Slime is the third chapter of Lissa's Game High fanfic Pixels and Polygons. It can be read below.
Prince and Slime[]
Of course, this being the first (real) day of school, a homeroom visit was essential.
After fourth hour, students were organized alphabetically by surname and sent to many various rooms. Simon, part of the ‘no surname through D’ category, was sent off to Quoteology, which was to be his homeroom as well. Brilliant. He followed the mob of other such students down the winding halls and into the Quoteology room, taking a seat.
But then he saw the teacher, puzzling over papers, and he frowned slightly. Of course his homeroom couldn’t have one of the normal ones. He couldn’t have homeroom with, say, Mr. Threepwood. That’d just be nice.
When everyone was in desks, the teacher hopped out of his. He shuffled to the front of the room with the attendance list. “Ah, hello there!” He said brightly, “Welcome to homeroom! I’m Dr. Shrunk, PhD, MMD, ICU, QRSTUV…” He chuckled to himself, but then glanced up and around the room, where nobody shared his humor. “Nothin’? Nothin’.” He didn’t let this bother him for long, soon going back to the list. “Okay, then...I’ll take attendance, so when I call your name, say ‘here’. Okay? Georgia.”
Simon took this time to tune out and take a few more glances at the Quoteology teacher. He was rather short, looking very disheveled and scatterbrained, in a white dress shirt and a reddish vest. This was, of course, glossing over the fact that he wasn’t human at all. He stood on two legs and he talked fine--Even had something of a mustache--But he wasn’t human. Rather, he was a sort of humanoid...Salamander...Thing. Simon frowned slightly, trying to make head or tail of this animal before him. Salamanders weren’t generally pink and had frilly things on the side of their head. He wasn’t claiming to be any sort of biologist, but this was fact. “What are you…?” He found himself murmuring, craning an eyebrow.
His homeland had flying yellow monkeys that could become bells that could then change animals into objects, and he was confused by this.
“Simon...Oh, haha, I’m going to butcher this. Centi-fol-eee-a? Centi--That’s, heh, that’s one hundred folias, right there.”
“Centifolia.” He corrected, deadpan, then gave a slight nod to draw attention to himself. “Here.”
Dr. Shrunk gave a nod back, marking down a pronunciation guide in the margins of the paper. He went back to calling names, and Simon went back to zoning out and puzzling over what sort of animal this teacher was, only stopping his thought when a flicked paper football landed on the back of his hand. He glanced up, seeing a slime girl folding another one quickly. She saw him looking at her and smiled sheepishly. ‘Whoopsies.’ A small text box adjacent to her head displayed (certainly an unconventional way of communicating) then she made a gesture to the blond in front of him, ‘I was aiming for him.’
“S’alright.” He whispered back, and she went back to folding her paper football. Having very little better to do, he watched her fold up the football and then aim it, flicking it at the blond. He took a glance at her, and she waved with a big smile. He turned back with a little ‘hmmph’ noise. She frowned, and began folding another paper football, hoping this one would go over better. Simon’s eyes went away and began wandering around the class, reading the famous quotes plastered on the walls (“What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets.”), going over the heads of his fellow no-surname-though-D students, and generally not paying attention to anything. Eventually the teacher got through the last ‘D’ name and set the attendance list down, going back to his homeroom class. “Alright!” The salamander announced briskly, “Now, I’m supposed to go over rules, dress codes and how-d’you-dos...So! Uh, everyone from M-rated games have to dress at least E10+, okay? However L.O.G. assigns your parent’s wardrobe doesn’t mean you can wear the same thing. I mean, the kids of funny animal protagonists wouldn’t be wearing pants! Y’see why we can’t have that! Ehe, now…” He glanced up, seeing Simon raising his hand. Already? He rose an eyebrow (if salamanders had eyebrows) and blinked. “Uh, yes, you’re...You’re one hundred folias, right?”
“Centifolia.” He corrected, then went on, “I...You see, for the sake of some more obscure games, like my own, could you possibly explain this ‘L.O.G.’? It’s...It’s honestly a bit confusing.”
Dr. Shrunk blinked again, now very much confused. “You don’t…” He looked around the rest of the class. “Does anyone else not know who L.O.G. is?” A few more hands went up, including the blond in front of him. The teacher jumped back in overblown shock. “WOAH! That many!?” He regained his composure, quickly turning around and grabbing a blue dry-erase marker. “Uh, okay, everyone else can tune out for a bit.” He assured the rest as he stood on tip-toes and began drawing. When he was finished, he capped the marker with flourish and made a little ‘ta-da’ gesture at his art.
It was wobbly and choppy--Hardly fine art--But it got the job done. It showed a strange being with the head of a computer screen, screen displaying what appeared to be a game of Pong, but the paddles also made up it’s eyes. A speaker at the bottom of the screen was a mouth, and draping down was a cloak with a poofy collar.
“Okay, this is The Lord of Games--Or L.O.G., for short.” Dr. Shrunk smiled. “He made every single video game ever, and everyone in it! He’s the reason my wife keeps asking, ‘Shrunk, why don’t you have an actual job’, and I always say, ‘if L.O.G. wanted me to pay the bills, he wouldn’t have made me a comedian!’ But she didn’t take that as an answer and here we are. L.O.G. created this school and every single staff member--Even all of you!” Everyone seemed pretty surprised by this notion, but Shrunk’s eyes were gleaming in excitement. “Cool, huh? He made every single level in every single world and all the successful games and all the ones that tanked! From The Legend of Zelda to Shaq Fu, we have L.O.G. to thank.”
There was a pause as everyone took in the majesty that was L.O.G., or perhaps contemplated their existence and the inner workings of the universe, one of the two. Shrunk grinned at their silence and grabbed the eraser, wiping the image of L.O.G. off the whiteboard. “Alright, that explains that! Everyone who tuned out, well, tune back in--Or I’ll have to make like when I had that old TV and wrap tinfoil on your antennas.” The oddity of this statement caused everyone who had begun daydreaming to look back at the salamander, perplexed. He gave a nod. “Well, now that that’s out of the way…”
He began reading off the rules and regulations, stopping every now and then to chuckle and tell a bland joke or some vaguely funny anecdote. Simon most certainly wasn’t listening to that. His mind was on other things--Namely L.O.G., since you cannot just bring up the grand creator of this universe and not go on to contemplate it. Could he control how well a game sold? If so, why didn’t he make Zack and Wiki a smash hit, and therefor made him more popular? He puzzled over this for a while until another paper football landed on the back of his hand. He looked over, glaring at the slime girl, but this time it seemed intentional. She was pointing to her text box. ‘Make him look at me!’ it snapped at him through slightly larger text than usual. Craning an eyebrow, the slime nodded at him, a determined look on her face. Simon’s eyebrow lowered and he turned back to the front, tapping the blond in front of him on the shoulder.
“It’s GG, isn’t it.” He said, perfectly deadpan.
“If that’s the slime girl…”
The blond sighed, turning around slightly, just enough to see the slime girl (GG?) wave with a large grin. ‘Hey Takashi!’ her display showed.
The blond’s (Takashi?) eyelids lowered. “Hello, GG…”
‘Isn’t it great we have homeroom together? Then I can ask you all about Marl Kingdom! It’s really an RPG, you’re not kidding?’
“I wouldn’t lie about that.”
‘Plus fifteen honesty points! Is it really cool? I bet it’s really cool because all RPGs are cool! A bad RPG is like an oxymoron, and you know...’ The text in GG’s display began scrolling by so fast neither Simon nor Takashi could keep up with it. Takashi turned, mouthing ‘help me’ to Simon, then pantomimed slitting his throat to accurately describe how he felt at this very moment.
Simon tapped a knuckle on his desk, and GG looked over, blinking, the text box’s text stopping dead. “So,” He said nonchalantly, “You like RPGs, yes?”
‘No duh.’
“I only ask because I happened to overhear the Weaponology teacher is from an RPG as well. I thought you mind have wanted to know…”
Her eyes lit up brightly. ‘Really!?’ the box displayed, and she turned to her other side, looking to a meek-looking boy with black hair and presumably asking him if this was the truth.
Takashi exhaled a light sigh of relief. “...Thanks. Uh, Simon, right?”
He nodded. “Simon Centifolia, son of Captain Rose of the Rose Rock.”
“Oh! Um, it’s Takashi. No surname or anything, just Takashi. Son of Marjoly, evil queen.”
“Never heard of her.”
“Never heard of Captain Rose.”
“Zack and Wiki. You?”
“Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure. Well, and a few sequels and cameos.”
Simon hummed in approval. “Just as obscure as me, huh?”
Takashi chuckled. “Seems like it.” Then he quickly turned around, hushing up as Shrunk wound down his last anecdote, so he wouldn’t be caught talking.
“And those are the rules!” Shrunk grinned, setting the list on his desk. “Of course, there’s one more thing everyone knows but the official rules don’t mention, which is: Licensed games never count. Ever. If it didn’t begin as a game originally, like, it’s based on a movie or something, it doesn’t count.” He paused, reevaluating the truth of this. “Well, okay, sometimes they count. They count as far as weapons are concerned--And, um--I guess Pokemon started as a card game, huh? But--But Pokemon counts. Okay, what I’m getting at here is, licensed games sometimes count. They count when it’s convenient. But not usually.” There were a few aside glances, since nobody quite knew from this description when--Or if--Licensed games counted. The salamander offered no further explanation for this perplexing thing. “So this took the place of fourth hour. After this, it’s lunchtime, and you get to live with the joy of not attending fourth hour! Unless your fourth hour was Quoteology, in which case--You sort of were there! Hooray!” He applauded his students with a smile, then looked to the clock. “...We still have ten minutes? These classes are to long...Uh, feel free to kill time for a bit until lunch, then!”
Those words were music to everyone’s ears. Everyone turned to people around them and proceeded to jabber away, some getting up to see friends from across the room. Takashi kept a careful eye on GG for a moment or two, seeing if she’d get up and start chatting with him, but she seemed content with talking the ear off of that black-haired boy. He exhaled slowly and spun around to Simon. “So,” He said, “A pirate, yeah?”
He nodded. “But of course! The Rose Rock is the best pirate crew to ever sail the seas. Elegance, intelligence, craft, cunning...It’s all there.”
“I didn’t think pirates were usually so pretentious.”
Simon huffed, crossing his arms. “Yeah, I’m getting that a lot.”
“...No offence, of course. I’m only saying ‘cause I room with a pirate and she’s not nearly as...Well, to be frank, clean as you.” Simon saw Takashi’s eyes pan over his mostly white clothing, every article perfectly spotless. “So it’s a bit...Jarring, you know?”
A slight pause. “A...A female pirate, you say?” Simon said, blinking slowly. “She wouldn’t happen to have auburn hair, would she? Pretty tan, wears sandals?”
“You know Honey?”
“She’s in my Game Combat class first hour.”
“Condolences. She’s what you think of when you think of pirates.” He paused, then quickly backed up, “N-no offence, of course.”
He gave a shrug. “None taken.” He took a glance at the clock, then back to Takashi. “So, an RPG, huh? I don’t know many RPGs, not really my thing...What’s it like?”
Takashi paused, pulling at the latch securing his cape around his neck. The blond was rather pale, like Simon himself; wearing a magenta shirt and purple pants and...Platform boots? Unconventional, but it looked evil-overlord enough. “Well…” He hesitated. “It’s nice. It really is. I mean, it’s no Final Fantasy, but Japan likes it fine. There’s mana and music and...I’ll take you someday.”
Simon smiled. “I might just enjoy that.” He remarked, but at the sound of something shifting, he looked over. GG was there, leaning forward slightly, smiling as she listened to Takashi talk. She flinched when she saw them both staring at her, and she quickly glanced away, whistling in mock innocence. Takashi rolled his eyes. “...She found me in the hall.” He explained flatly, “Uh, she’s from a Kirby game, I think? She has a cousin over in Dragon’s Quest, I guess. Anyway, she’s completely into RPGs, and once she found out I was from one she refuses to let me go. Can’t get over it. It’s not really that great…”
‘It’s absolutely fantastic!’ her text display flashed, and she grinned wide. ‘Also I don’t know anyone from Dragon’s Quest, or else you wouldn’t be so special to me! You’re the absolute greatest you need to take me to Marl Kingdom plus ten pleading points for meeeeeee...’
The evil prince pantomimed slitting his throat once more, and Simon couldn’t hold back a chuckle. He had a feeling he’d get along just swimmingly with this guy.
Besides, RPGs always had some gold.
[]
First Chapter: We Begin by Entering
Previous Chapter: How Appropriate, You Fight like a Cow
Next Chapter: The Perilous Princess Predicament