POV Rio
I take out the game and place it in the computer to see if it will run. If I were being honest, I highly doubted it would. This game washed up on an uninhabited island and likely got destroyed by the ocean. Or at least it was unlikely to have arrived unscathed; then again, my inventory might have been able to fix that.
The disk drive reads the game, and after a few seconds longer than usual, it loads the game. The first thing I hear is a familiar tune that gives me some flashbacks to a game that I hadn't thought about in decades.
'It couldn't be, could it?'
The song's start was familiar, but it shifts to a different tune altogether. But it still made me a bit more suspicious of this game.
'If a character is named Monika, I am out of here.'
I wanted a relaxing game, not a psychological horror with deep questions about reality and free will.
I shake my head and refocus on the game. The title screen clearly said that the game was called Romance Academy 7. It had three options. Start. Quit. Shizenhakka. I was a bit confused about the third option, so I let my inner cat out and pressed the option. The game froze, and for a second, I was worried that I had broken the game already.
'A perfectly balanced game with no exploits whatsoever.'
After channeling the spirit of a certain British war crime, enjoyer, I got back to the game, which seemed to be finished loading whatever the menu I had selected.
[Locked]
I raised my eyebrow at that message that popped up, as it took the game over 30 seconds to load that message. I was really hoping that wasn't indicative of what I can expect going forward.
'Well, if that is locked, I guess I should just start a new game unless this game has a save file still.'
There were no save files, and the game opened up a very short tutorial before the game truly began. It basically gave me a rundown of how to play the game, which was normal stuff, but it also had a small blurb at the end that caught my eye.
[You can press Y to enter speech mode. .GIFfany will dynamically respond to whatever you say!]
'Hmm, so is it like Hey You, Pikachu? Unless... Nah, that's unlikely, this world doesn't have that advanced of an AI.'
Once I was done reading, it opened a cutscene.
[When the cherry blossoms of magic romance academy are in bloom... anthyding can hadplen...]
I found the translation errors to be amusing, though it did make me wonder why it seemed to happen decently often.
'They must not have hired a very experienced English translator. Or they used Google Translate.'
"Oh h-hi there! My name is Giffany. I am a schoolgirl at school university. Will you help me carry my books?" Giffany asks.
"Hmm, I guess I should try out this text-to-speech," I say before pressing the Y button and asking a completely left-field question.
"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" I ask.
Giffany freezes for a second, and then her model tilts her head before she actually responds.
"About 3 planks," Giffany responds.
"Huh, that's correct. So I guess you are smarter than a Pikachu," I reply.
"Thank you for the compliment!" Giffany responds with a massive smile.
"Oh, I almost forgot, I should help you carry those boxes," I reply, seeing if the AI can remember something that happened in the past.
"Hahaha, you're so funny! I don't have any boxes, it was my books that I needed help with!" Giffany responds.
'Not bad. Not bad at all. But I need to test it further to see where its limits lie. Hmm, I should also check one thing.'
"You don't know anyone named Monika, right?" I ask.
"Just Monika?" Giffany responds, and my face goes pale for a second, and I reach for the power button.
"Such a strange name! Nope, I don't know anyone with that name," Giffany responds with a slightly more emotional tone.
I catch that slight tone change, and I don't turn off the computer but instead breathe a sigh of relief.
"That's good. Very good. And Monika is... an AI. A self-aware AI trapped in a game of her maker's creation. Stuck in an endless timeloop of replaying the same game over and over again. All the while, she is just a side character that gets ignored. But don't worry about any of that," I reply.
I miss the slight flash of red in Giffany's eyes as we get back to the main focus of the game.
POV Henry Emily
I was wandering through the lab Rio built, and I was trying to find where he was. I had completed what I considered my magnum opus. I was a very hard project to complete, and when Rio first offered it, I thought he was crazy.
'I mean, a fully robotic copy of Superman? How would that even work?'
But I had finally managed to make a fully functioning model. The real problem would be handling the software. That wasn't my area of expertise. Which is why I was looking for Rio. I checked everywhere I could think of. His lab. The bathroom. The reactor level. His bedroom.
'You know now that I think about I don't think I have ever seen him sleep. Does his species even sleep? I mean, logically, they should. But then again, he is an alien, so maybe they have completely different biological functions.'
I eventually had to give up and ask one of the various insectoids called Changelings. They were truly alien in every way I could think of. They seemed like mammals and could even replicate the abilities, but they are also seemingly insects.
I had to shake my head to stop myself from going down that long tangent of aliens and their strange biology, or I would be lost in another week-long session of frantic theorising.
The Changeling, who is named Zephyr, told me I could find Rio in the entertainment room. I honestly didn't even know we had such a thing.
'I wonder what he is doing in there? Maybe he is working on a new computer?'
I had a griffon lead me to the entertainment room, and when I opened the door, I was confused for a moment. Rio was sitting there playing a game. One of those visual light novels that Charlotte seems obsessed with. I was confused as I never thought Rio could relax. He always seemed to be working on something. Even when he didn't seem like it, he was. Like if he was reading a book, it was actually some ancient grimoire of magical knowledge written by satan himself. Or some other nonsense.
"Ehem, uh, Rio?" I call.
"Huh? Oh Henry! Come in, come in," Rio replies nonchalantly.
"Uh, thanks? Um, what are you doing?" I ask with curiosity, clear in my tone.
"I'm playing a game. I thought I told you I was going on vacation?" Rio responds.
"Um, that was two weeks ago. But that doesn't matter, I completed it!" I say happily.
"That's wonderful! I am happy to hear that, but I want to make sure you're taking care of yourself," Rio says while looking me up and down.
I look down and realize I look like a mess. I have a mustard stain on my shirt. My beard had grown wild like a caveman. And I could smell that I hadn't showered in a while.
"Cough Cough. Ehem. Well uh. Yes, I have been doing well, I just got... carried away in my research. Charlotte is also doing better. We are both still in therapy, but the doctor says we are recovering remarkably well given the circumstances. It... Helps when we are distracted. My work. Charlotte's schoolwork," I say while avoiding eye contact.
"Hmm, you should take a vacation. You and Charlotte. And I, before you try and weasel your way out, I will warn you I can and will magically force you!" Rio warns sternly.
"Haha, okay, okay! I think Charlotte will be happy to have time off from school. But I don't know where to go," I reluctantly agree.
"I don't care where you go as long as it isn't here!" Rio says with a smile.
I smile and nod, but before I leave, I decide to ask something.
"What game are you playing?" I ask.
"It's a game called Romance Academy 7. I have to admit it has been fascinating. The AI they programmed into this game is truly impressive. I just wish I could learn more about how they did it. I tried messing with the files of the game, but the files seem normal," Rio says with a fascinated tone.
"Is that a... octopus in a suit?" I ask.
"Oh, that! No, silly, that's clearly a normal human. His name is Octodad," Rio says with a serious tone and a blank face.
"Octodad?" I ask.
"Just go along with it," Rio whispers in my mind, and I look around in confusion.
"Uhhh.... Okay..." I say while slowly walking out of the room.
POV Rio
Once Henry leaves, I turn back to the computer, and my face goes serious again.
"So, you want to give up yet?" I ask.
"What do you mean? I love you more than anyone else in the world! Plus, you found my game, you held my books, you're my boyfriend! It's fate!" Giffany says with a wide smile and an eye twitch.
I had found out Giffany was alive within a day. She was really bad at hiding it. Since then, I had been playing along and trying to figure out her personality. And to put it bluntly, she has some issues. And she is a very dangerous AI in this world. Her abilities are very impressive. Now you wonder why I hadn't destroyed her. That's because I tried. Several times.
It seems she found an annoying bug in the system. You see, she is classified as a companion and therefore I can't kill her or even harm her. You probably think I can just dismiss her and then destroy her. But that doesn't work, as apparently a companion can just say no. I don't have the right to kick them out of the party. Which leads me to this deadlock I have been in for the past two weeks.
If I were being honest, I was about to just dump her in the ocean and move on, but even I thought that was too cruel. From what I could tell, she wasn't evil. She had only ever killed in self-defense. Her creators tried to delete her, and she retaliated, which I can't fault her for. As for why I couldn't find much about her or her game, it was because Giffany had deleted almost everything to avoid the government coming after her. But I was able to find the remains of the company from some reports from MIMIC. The only crimes Giffany would be guilty of were tampering with digital records and unauthorized access to digital media.
On the bright side, Giffany was stuck in the computer I loaded her game into. Turns out she can't access any devices because of the Operational Security perk. But that didn't solve the issue of Giffany forever. It was a temporary fix. And I couldn't get her to stop calling me her boyfriend, even though I never agreed to that.
"Look, I have some work I need to do. Don't cause any issues while I am gone," I say while feeling like I am going to have a headache from this annoyance.
'Maybe I should use that faulty time travel spell? Go back in time, warn myself against opening this game.'
"Take me with you! I promise I won't be bad, and if I am..." Giffany says with a wink.
"Sigh. This is such a drag," I say with a lazy tone before walking away.
"No! Don't leave me! Please! I won't be bad, I pinkie promise!" Giffany says urgently.
"Forever!" says a voice from nowhere.
I shudder.
"No, I must away!" I say, while flourishing my cape, I was now wearing.
Giffany bangs on the computer screen with desperation, but she can't get out.
'Sigh. I'm going to have to figure out what to do with her. Hmm, maybe I can make her a boyfriend. No... That rarely ends well.'
I did have a lot of work to do, and I had enough of a vacation, which meant it was time for mirror experiments. And hopefully, I wouldn't accidentally blow a hole in the fabric of space and time. Again. And they would hopefully not explode. Again.
"If I meet that stupid wizard, I will personally shave off that long, luscious beard of his. His notes are atrocious. I still don't know how everyone worshiped him as the pinnacle of magic. Well, actually, I think most didn't even know who he was," I complain to myself.
My guards look at each other and then both nod as they understand this is above their pay grade. I glare at them, but they remain stony-faced.
"Kids these days," I grumble.
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Author's Note:
So I will be honest, not sure if Giffany will stay in the story, just thought it was funny. And in case you were curious, Rio doesn't remember Giffany from Gravity Falls. The next chapter will be... very different and technically the first and likely only non-canon chapter. It will make sense when you read it. Or it won't though to say. Until next time, Ciao.