Pets Side Story: Beginnings
#1 of Billy versus Snakeman Fan Writting
A story I wrote... well over a year ago. It concerns the free to play browser game Billy versus Snakeman, more specifically the (at the time) newly released Pet content as first experienced from the eyes of my character Ryan Galen as he was at the time. Things have changed recently for Ryan, and those changes will be reflected in BvS eventually. Written out in story form of course.
Spot is copy right of the creator of Billy versus Snakeman, Al McMasters
Ryan Galen is copy right of his player, me
Egyptian is copy right of his player... who can only really be identified by his character
And no, I don't believe Egyptian is actually furry, but he hasn't expressed any displeasure at my depicting him as a giant bipedal squirrel. After all, he does have a pretty decent motivational poster of a squirrel as his avatar picture in game.
Young ninja often misjudge the relationship we have with our allies. The newb belief is that allies are our allies because they are allies. Flawed logic, but in a world of giant monsters and even bigger pigeons we tend to hold onto any logic we can stuff into a loot sack. The truth is that since they are our allies we in return must be their ally; like friendship, allegiance is a two way street. Nothing teaches a new genin this lesson faster than Meatballs suddenly pounding on the door wanting to go kunai shopping.
Now the thing with allies is that there are more of us then there are of them... a lot more. And if they valued the full scope of our ability then some poor KaijuKage out there would be monopolized to death by all of them. Thankfully they appear to only value our ability to haul about huge piles of swag. (An essential ability in a profession that generates mountains of loot.) Since they don't need one of us over another the work load gets split fairly evenly. Just do what you're asked when asked and soon you'll be back to saving the world from half priced juice at happy hour.
The point of all this is that even a nobody like me is occasionally called to serve his time. And in the long run I have no problem with the system; if allowed to volunteer I'd probably contribute more than my fair share. It's the small details that bother me. Why do they always come at the crack of dayroll? How do they find me no matter where I am? And is my tail really just that inviting of a target that they have to drag me by it every single time?
"Of all people I would assume you would know better. These are delicate instruments important for keeping our balance. How would you feel if I hauled you around by your tail?" There was no response from the canine; a six foot bipedal cat being dragged by a one foot quadruped dog. If I didn't already make a point to have a misrepresentive public image, I'd have been mortified.
"Listen, let go and I'll willingly trudge along. There will just be a delay of ten seconds while I pull some pants on, and then I'm all yours" Still no response. It wasn't often that Spot came knocking down my door (I really need to get that thing reinforced), but normally when he does he's a little more informative with what he needs done. The silent treatment worried me.
I allowed a suitably elongated moment to pass as I contemplated what could provoke the change in behavior. Eventually, having grown desperate, I hit him with my best feint. "You know this is actually pretty impressive for a dog your size. Have you been working out?" That at least provoked a snicker. Still his lips, and jaw, didn't loosen.
Minutes passed like hours before he finally let go. Sitting up sluggishly, I looked around to find myself in a park. Short grass turf, plenty of shrubs and trees, and a lot of unattended animals. A whole lot of unattended animals; meet ark quotas of small animals three times over.
"So what exactly are we hereHEY!" I shouted to the retreating canine tail. Spot barked a short response without looking back. I stared for a moment, slightly dumbfounded. "...wait right here? What am I, Olmek!"
Sighing, I stood up and looked around again. Just a bunch of little quadruped animals running around, burying bones, climbing trees, collecting medicinal herbs, hiding under bushes and... I back tracked my train of thought one item. There was a dog gathering plants from what I recognized as a patch of medicinal herb; I watched him gather up a decent bundle and then head off to another dog in front of a box of squeaky toys and get some pet treats in exchange.
The herb dog ran off someplace else, and a cat with a pair of goggles ran up in his place. The squeaky toy dog ruffled through the box of squeaky toys and pulled one out. The dog then barked instructions at the goggle cat, and the cat ran off under a bush, hid under the bush for a little bit, and then ran back to squeaky toy dog who then gave it some treats.
There were more pets in line for the squeaky dog, but I kept my attention on the goggle cat as it ran off to a large spinning wheel. The wheel came to a stop, there was a clamor from all other pets gathered around the wheel, and then the goggle cat and other pets put large sums of pet treats on various marked off sections of the wheel. The wheel spun up again. The silence from the pets around the wheel somehow overpowered the rest of the park noise.
Finally the tension broke when the wheel came to stop on a marked off section with a single treat on it. The animals erupted in a chorus of baw I won't justify by translating, but one stunned animal stood out in the crowd. A single bowtied squirrel just stood there slack jawed, before breaking its own silence with a frantic chittering of pure joy. A dog in a silly hat walked up and handed the bowtie squirrel a trophy as a pair of cats in feather headdresses walked up and flanked the squirrel on either side.
Before I could follow the bowtie squirrel somewhere else, something hit me in the back of the head. Turning around, I discovered the offending party was a badger in a cardboard box. Without so much as an apology, the box badger flipped the box over and charged back into a battle royal of cardboard boxes running into each other. Eventually the box badger got tired of this and stepped off to the side to watch a scoreboard being kept up to date by a team of little yippy dogs.
It was here, staring at the board of rapidly changing numbers, that it suddenly hit me. I was in a park full of animals in costume. Animals earning and competing for massive piles of treats. Animals who somehow managed to carry around several times their own body weight in these treats. Animals who risked it all for nothing more than trophies, prestige, and even more treats. It suddenly so clear...
...that I was still wearing nothing but my bedtime boxers.
"Chant!" I called out as I invoked my covenant with the swag, summoning my Awesome Pants to my outstretched hands. Pulling them on, I zipped up the front and secured the latch above my tail. Finally decent I allowed my eyes to wander again. They eventually came to rest on puppy with an oversized head and shaggy fur loincloth. He was still quadruped, some of these costumes were just sillier than others.
The cave puppy was talking to another dog with a headband who looked kind of familiar. Headband dog was giving the puppy a quest to search for a bunch of useless junk. Cave puppy listened attentively before running all over the park. He appeared to have it in the bag up until the last bowling pin. Spotting it under a bush I pointed it out to him. He grabbed it, turned in the quest in time, and otherwise didn't give me a second look.
Headband dog then sent the cave puppy to get a rare treat from a game I hadn't noticed yet. Cave puppy ran off to compete in the game, and out of lack of other things to do I followed him. We reached the game, a rather overly complicated game of shells. Silly hat dog showed up again to run the game, and eventually cave puppy got the shiny treat. By the time we reach headband dog again I noticed silly hat dog was gone... though his hat was behind those bushes over there.
In any case, headband dog accepted the treat, handed cave puppy a piece of paper, and then pointed to me. I was taken aback for a moment. This was the first time since Spot dropped me off that the four legged beasts had taken notice of me. Walking up to me, cave puppy held up the piece of paper expectantly. I accepted it.
"...pet license?" I looked back from reading the paper, but cave puppy had run off and headband dog was dealing with a penguin in a bowler hat. I shrugged and followed cave puppy around for a little bit, giving him a hand as needed. Eventually I realized Spot wasn't coming back and took my leave of the whole silly affair.
On my way back to Bombflower I ran across Spot again, with yet another tail in his mouth. The canine shot me the look before spotting the pet license in my hands. Satisfied, he continued dragging his new 'recruit' to the playing field. Passing his latest victim, I had a word with my fellow ninja. "Hey Egyptian. Nice bedsheets." The six foot bipedal squirrel gave a humph, muttering something about coffee.
The next morning I awoke to the familiar sensation of being dragged across open countryside... by my tail of course. The surprising part was a repetition of the sensation of teeth across my tail. "OK, if I'm going to become a daily for you we need towhatthe..."
Rather than Spot I saw the Cave Puppy from the previous day. Thinking this over, I said the one thing that needed to be said at a moment like this. "Chant." Covenant invoked, the Pet License I received yesterday appeared in my hand. Examining it for fine print, I raised an eyebrow before dismissing the Pet License with a sigh.
"This year just got a bit longer." I swear, I could almost feel the little cave pup grinning as he dragged me along.