The convention was today and I couldn't be more excited. Me and my friend have been waiting forever it would seem. I decided to make my own cosplay for the convention while my friend just decided to wear his regular clothes. The cosplay I made was based off the game Blinx the time sweeper which was a character I created on the second game. I named him Jasper.
Jasper is a simple black and white anthropomorphic cat who works at the facility known as the Time Factory. His job is to fix glitches and corruptions in time that are found. If left unchecked, temporal glitches can manifest themselves into malevolent time monsters which then roam freely among the dimension, distorting everything in which they come into contact with. His job is to go in and destroy these glitches or else the world becomes unstable. Which happens to be pretty much it Josh now get out of my room, I need to get dressed into my cosplay, so we can head out toward the convention.
When we got there it was pretty damn crowded with all sorts of people outside waiting to get in while others simply took pictures of cos-players hanging around outside. We came to a halt across the street and got out of the car about ready to head toward the entrance when my mom stopped us. She informed us that she would be back here around 6:30 to pick us back up. We both gave her a nod and headed out toward the long line to enter the building.
It felt like hours we waited in line while the crusaded sun made it that much more unbearable with its ray of light beating upon us. Finally after the painful voyage of standing in line we made it inside and I have to say that I was pretty surprised with how many gaming studios that we're here even the entrance was damn impressive with the statues they had lining the room, but the conker statue from live and reloaded took my breath away. Still had another 3 or so months before it came out though. After the breath taking scenery we decided to head over to the merchandise floor to browse around before we made our way over to the gaming floor since most of what we wanted to checkout happened a hour or so later.
Having browsed the vendors stock selection for a while I was unable to find a single sweeper vacuum to go along with my cosplay, but on the off hand I did take a couple of photos with people which turned out to be quite fun. The last row of vendors we're all that was left for me to checkout; hopefully having what I was looking for then I would join up with my friend to get some grub. About half way through the vendors I spotted a women cos-playing as Madam Charmaine and the selection she had was damn impressive with all sorts of in game prop items displayed beautifully. Making my way over to check her selection was at the moment in time my eyes made contact with the sole item I was looking for "The Sweeper TS-2000," tucked in a black case seemed to be waiting for the right person to purchase it and for some unknown reason I got this spine chilling feel of the sweeper calling for me.
When I got there the atmosphere seemed to have became heavy and for some ironic reason there was no one else here except myself. It seemed like people didn't know this place existed, but all I wanted was to get "The Sweeper TS-2000," and be on my way to get some food with Josh. So I just cut to the chase before my stomach decided to eat itself.
"Pretty neat cosplay you got there, Madam Charmaine from Voodoo Vince right?" I spoke when trying to engage in small talk.
"You would be correct Time Sweeper, I'm quite surprised that you even knew of the character. Fan of the game I would presume...?" The vendor spoke.
"Nah, pretty much in between about the game since the difficulty of it all and the funky controls. Still enjoyable nonetheless." I answered back.
"Yes I would agree with you on that. Now what is it that brought you by to my humble stall time sweeper." The vendor's eye glimmered with having yet another victim.
"Well I couldn't resist passing up on checking out your impressive weapon props and that "Sweeper TS-2000," you've got displayed behind you. So I had to have a look at it and possible purchase said item if I have the cash on hand." I said eyeing the Sweeper.
"Ah Yes, I thought that would be the case since your cosplay is pretty splendid, but it was missing the iconic Sweeper to finalize your character. So would you like to have a closer look to inspect the prop before purchasing it." This person seems to fit the bill, but I have to make sure that he is actually the one before I sell it because I still have a quota to fulfill.
After being handed over the Sweeper by the vendor I felt this slight warmth coming from the prop and this strange since of wholeness like having a piece missing to the puzzle. "I quickly asked for the price of the prop with burning passion of needing to have this badly."
"Well time sweeper seeing as you having such a splendid cosplay and knowing the character I dressed up as I'll let you have it for a solid 250 dollars. Now before you question why I'm asking so little for it is because I am just about ready to pack up my stall and I would hate it to be stored away gathering dust. So it would be better if you take it with you." That seemed to have done the trick and the quota for this convention is fulfilled. Time to move on to another.
I pulled 250 dollars from my wallet and handed it the vendor before heading off to meet my friend Josh with my new Sweeper TS-2000 slang across my back also giving the vendor a small wave. About a couple minutes later I arrived at the food court seeing my friend in the distance waiting for me to arrive it would seem, so I was about to wave to get his attention until my back started to feel warm all of a sudden seconds later the warmth started to become hotter to the point I started to sweat. My friend seemed to have finally noticed me about 10 feet out about ready to make a snide remark before seeing my appearance of looking like a sick dog.
I collapsed onto the ground trying with all my strength to lift my hands towards my back to get the sweeper off, but no matter what it felt like it was glued on my back. Then out of nowhere a sudden light consumed my vision. The last thing I could remember was my friend running toward me before unconsciousness took over.
What felt like forever I finally awakened from my unconsciousness and I regretted doing so since I was free falling in the sky with the ground slowly getting closer and closer each second. I was flinging my arms around while screaming a girly high pitch scream. My mind kept repeating"It's Game Over Man, Game Over," I quickly shut my eyes bracing for my doom of being splattered on the ground like a pancake, but nothing came instead when I opened my eyes the time space around me seemed frozen and I was merely being suspended 5 feet from the ground wondering what the heck was going on, that's when the Sweeper slang across my back spoke monotony counting down while adding a word for me to do which was "jump."
Doing a double jump in the air I landed firmly on the ground freaking confused as hell while the space time slowly started to collapse before time resumed. I started to shake my head from the time crap and decided to give my surroundings a look around hoping to see anything familiar, but instead I seen miles of grassy hills, mountains in the distance, and a bright blue sky. Well shit I have no f'ing clue where here is and the air is by far the cleanest I've breathed so I'd guess I'm nowhere near civilization.
Done with my observation I was about ready to do a check on my inventory before I could I saw black and white fur covering my arms while my clothes seemed different then the ones I wore instead I was now wearing my cosplay clothes with no signs of where my previous clothing were and turning my head to the side to look behind me I seen a actual tail swaying back and forth. I was at this point reaching my breaking point for what little sanity I had I mean like come on: I'm in the middle of nowhere, I have a freaking real Sweeper from the game that can stop time, and now I have to deal with walking around as a anthropomorphic cat. What more is there for me to deal with!!!
I exhaled a long breath before I could hyperventilate. Ok, Your a anthropomorphic cat now so learn to bare with it because we ain't going to learn anything by losing your head or finding answers, Now what we need to do is find some sort of help to hopefully learn where we are or finding civilization. Whatever comes first I told myself while dusting myself off before pulling out a monster to take a drink. This could have been worse for all I knew.
I started to head toward the mountains hoping I'd run into someplace along the way. While walking for awhile my mind started to get bored so I decided to un-sling the TS-2000 and began to inspect the vacuum curious of how it saved my life and the artificial monotone voice which told me to jump, along with being able to stop the flow of time. Hmm, Now what secrets do you hold vacuum right before I could investigate further the voice sparked to life.
Chapter 2: First Encounter
"Time disturbance 9 klick's due south from our position. If you hurry Jasper you can make it within and hour or so depending on terrain."
Wait, what? Hello? Nothing else was said from the AI, but it said there was a time disturbance 5.6 miles south from here. If I could remember anything from the game a time disturbance had to be a time monster or boss. Well I didn't feel like getting anywhere near those creatures it was my only lead up to this point, so I strapped down my messenger bag along with my sweeper and started running toward the direction I was given. Hopefully it's not something to crazy.
Running for a good forty-five minutes I was quite surprised about keeping pace since back in my original body I would have just been able to run a mile and tire out mostly since I was an indoor more than a outdoor person so my fitness lacked from just sitting about luckily though my body burned calories pretty quickly anyways time to get back on track. My sweeper started to inform me when we started approaching our destination.
Crossing over the last steep hill I seen the town/city towering the coast. I stood there admiring the view before making my way down ever so near until I made it towards the outskirts which quickly turned out to be rather un-normal since I couldn’t hear any noises populating the city. I unstrapped my sweeper from my back preparing for the worst since my sweeper said there was a time disturbance here. When I was about to continue forward my sweeper spouted rerouting coordinance then addressed me to put on my goggles.
Shrugging my shoulders I decided to listen to the AI and put on the goggles to be met with a heads up display outlying my route to what I could only assume was the boss along with the sweepers time control uses and the inventory for the sweeper. Hm, well that's rather handy. At least now I don’t have to guess or look at the device to now what I have left though it’s rather reasonable since I highly doubt that a time sweeper would have enough time to check while in combat.
Walking through the small city which I learned was called Vanhoover from the small establishments, newspapers, and tourists. I also found out that the inhabitants here are small multi-colored ponies with horn, wings, and normal ones that had neither making me come to a conclusion that I was nowhere near home or possibly even on the same planet for all I know. Sigh, whatever now's not the time because right now it’s finding a way in helping these ponies from this time disturbance that’s stopped the flow of time upon this city. Since who else is going to get rid of these time monsters or answer my questions?
Nothing so far, but it’s only a matter of time if the sweepers gauge is anything to go by plus the further I travel into the city the more of the inhabitants I encounter frozen doing daily activities. I was then caught off guard when a spiker shot through a window aiming itself directly at me. Barely with enough time to react I quickly dodged right with the spikes grazing my face and then a trash can impacted my back making me smack toward the gravel. Grunting from the pain I did a ninety degree turn to see the dust herder firing off again being a bench this time. Reacting hastily I rolled to the side completely avoiding the bench that made a sickening smack telling me if that hit me I was out for the count.
I quickly did a kick up just in time before the spiker shot pass where I laid at before then sprinted toward the sweeper vacuum in the distance while having to dodge debris from the dust herder. Closing the gap I was almost in reach of the sweeper before a octoballoon blocked my path and fired off a steel ball directed to me face with no time at all I decided to use my momentum and did a barrel roll underneath the ball and octoballoon while at the same time grabbing my sweeper. The sweeper in hand I used slow-mo jumped out of the barrel roll then quickly vacuumed up a lamp post before time resumed and fired off at the octoballoon.
The lamb post impacted the octoballoon then the creature fell to the ground disappearing then time crystals took its place. I finally landed in time to vacuum up the debris coming from the dust herder and skid to the side dodging the spiker then activating time pause to get a direct hit on it from traveling to fast for me to hit in normal time. Done with the spiker I started to charge the dust herder while having to avoid its debris firing off rapidly getting in a couple of good hits I vacuumed up the steel ball from before readying to line up a shot at the dust keeper.
My eyes widened when a bench hurdling toward me with little room to do anything. So I had no choice, but to use slow-mo. Jumping on the bench I used it as a stepping stone to jump over the nonsense and spin around before firing off the steel ball at the dust keeper.
I seen the fear of defeat written on its face before all to quickly it fired off a bomb right when it was defeated. I knew this was its last resort to end me and I was in a tight position since I had no time uses left. Putting my arms in front to shield me. I'm was screwed. The explosion sent me flying into a building knocking the wind out of me after that I was falling toward the ground then everything went blink.
I started to groan from the pounding in my head. How I’m I even alive? Even though that should have killed me...Oh that’s totally not normal. Lifting my paw up I seen it was transparent while my clothes were bleached white. After my examination I looked around my environment to see that I’m in some sort of room with the signature time factory cloak.
When Lost in thought it would appear that another presence made their way in since I was suddenly brought back from another addressing me. Looking in the direction I seen a rather sharp looking cat with a professional aura seeping off them. The cat made a gesture after getting my attention then motioned for me to follow them. With no other place to go I just followed them aimlessly.
We’ve been walking down a windy hall with no end in sight until this cat walked toward a wall then pulled out a key ring with like trillions of keys apparent then they nodded with a key before sticking it into the wall to be greeted with a door appearing out of thin air. At this point I was like f it I don’t care I already have so much crap not making any sense, so a cat like butler with a trillion of keys is just another to add to the bs list. This is my life, then I started blowing raspberries.
When entering the door I was met with another room though this room had a sweeper and colorful pad connected to some sort of device in the corner. When walking over to the sweeper I was able to make out the sweeper to be my own. Picking it up a note was on the back. Looking at the note it said that whenever I was ready I could stand on the pad then be zapped back to my body with only two more lives remaining and if I would like to do some upgrades or shopping I can go over to the terminal.
I hummed to myself with understanding or something along those lines since this was a first for me… like dying and yet here they are saying you have extra lives so go head die, but if you run out then that's your problem. See what fate awaits you in the abyss. I shaked my head to stop my thoughts and started to head over to the upgrade station where I upped the capacity, suction power, then to finish it off some more control uses. Afterward I changed my scrubs to something more streamline before heading over to the pad.
I was instantly transported back and the first thing to happen was coughing up a storm along with blood. It would seem you don’t have the liberty to be without your wounds instead they wanted you to deal with it that’s just great. I slowly picked myself up from the floor and used the sweeper for support. Looking around the area it was devoid of life once again. The time crystals glittered in the distance making me vacuum them up before heading off to my destination for once another dance with fate. Oh this is going to be just great…while throwing my arms up.
Only this time it will be with a f'ing boss. I'm once again screwed. If any case these ponies do need help in freeing them and me being a time sweeper it was my obligation to do that very unwanted responsibility. Isn't just swell to be a hero!!!
