Tales from the Quartet - Movie Night

June 2067. A chill slice of life story about four disasterrific friends watching an action movie with space lizards and a trigger-happy protagonist.

(Proofread and edited by Kaleb O'Halloran)

“Why, Kaspar Killgeyzer? Your world is dead! DEAD! And you keep on fighting? Is it for revenge? Do you want revenge?!”

A red dinosaur in a black military uniform, with a blade through his chest, bleeding profusely from the wound, staring up at a man. Long coat, ripped, large cowboy hat, shark teeth, triangular shades. And a four-barrel revolver in his hand. A smile spread across his jagged teeth, his tongue licking the thin lips.

“No.”

He aimed the weapon straight at the dinosaur’s forehead, between the scared eyes of the reptilian who was looking up at that face, the smiling face of his executioner.

“I just like boobs.”

Then, he shot.

One. Two. Three times.

Paddy shoved her face into her palms, incapable of watching, screaming in silence, almost on the verge of tears. She couldn’t stand that scene. She gritted her teeth, as the red dinosaur’s head exploded in a cloud of blood, as the background turned red and Kaspar became nothing more than a black silhouette. Silence settled. She breathed a little, her eyes peeking out from between her fingers. Only for Kaspar to shoot one more time, at the mangled corpse of his opponent. Paddy brought her hand to her lips, bottling up her grief as her eyes became unreasonably wet.

“S... Sergeant Scalehide... Wh...”

She couldn’t keep it in, not anymore.

“WHY?! Why did you kill him, monster?! WHY?!”

She lifted her arm, her fingers pointed in the direction of the lifeless body that was falling down in pieces. Until another hand grabbed hers, pushing her back down into her seat.

“Oi, quit the ruckus.”

A crunching noise of popcorn being chewed, a pair of annoyed, ever-shifting irises gazing at her with nothing short of contempt. Paddy blinked a couple times, before realizing what had happened. She shrunk down in her seat, trying to disappear in the background. But it was already too late. The whole cinema was looking in her direction. Quiet laughter, some fingers pointed at her. She blushed, wanting to vanish, ideally with nobody noticing. Yet, that wasn’t possible. Not for the next half an hour, at least. Not until the credits rolled.

“...Sorry...”

She heard a chuckle, this time from another nearby seat. A different set of eyes – this time yellow and bright, were looking at her, in conjunction with a mischievous smile.

“Someone here loves her lizards, huh?”

She rolled her eyes. Technically, that was not a lizard, as dinosaurs shared more similarities with birds than with modern-day crocodiles, but she knew telling that to Lejl wouldn’t improve her position – it would only make her sound more obnoxious. The fact that she had quietly asked herself how it would feel to be in bed with said dinosaur was also totally irrelevant and would have just added more fuel to the fire. Thus, she replied in the only way she knew – by pushing Lejl’s forehead away, with her open palm, while grumbling something unintelligible. On the screen, the man called Kaspar Killgeyzer was now riding in a chopper with a machine gun mounted on each side of the fuel cover, mowing down robots left and right to the score of a hard dubstep track. A chewing noise again, somehow getting faster as the scene unfolded. Paddy found the strength to look at the source of those sounds, at the owner of that dangling, rusty peace medallion that was swinging with every movement of her hand. At her dumb smile. It was a strange sight. Chai, without her blindfold, that blindfold that had been such an important part of herself for so long. Watching a movie in a cinema, for the first time in her life, enjoying every second of it. She had already downed two cans of Frogga-Cola and munched through three whole cans of popcorn, being about halfway through her fourth. And she was laughing, having a hard time keeping her emotions in check.

“Oi, that execution scene was all wrong. A head doesn’t explode that way! And that much blood? I mean, come on!”

And she laughed, and laughed again, from the bottom of her heart, unfazed by any risk of choking on her snacks. More amused than annoyed. On the other hand, Cyphr didn’t seem to be “there”. Her mind felt distant. She was staring blankly at the screen, but at the same time, her eyes looked lost in thought. Paddy didn’t want to pry, but it definitely felt odd. Despite agreeing to tag along with them, Cyphr gave off a sense that she didn’t want to be there. Yet there she was, watching but not watching, as Kaspar Killgeyzer started fighting a giant mechanical golem, his motorbike speeding up an infinite spiral staircase. Lejl, instead, was just stealing pop-corn from Chai every couple of minutes, also having the time of her life – especially during the two shower scenes with the female lead Lili Formosa, and during the shootout where she fought completely in the nude and uncensored against a cadre of zombie dinosaurs, armed with two uzis with seemingly bottomless magazines.

Paddy sighed. She knew it, she had it coming. No way a movie like Chronoslasherz 3090 could end well for the villains – especially considering Kaspar’s inhuman kill count in his first feature film. Yet, she had hoped that Sergeant Scalehide, an exceptionally good-looking, red-scaled dinosaur who was anticipated as the most prominent secondary antagonist, would have at least received a proper send-off – not that unnecessary gore-fest of a summary execution.

“He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t! That’s not fair!”

“Huh?”

Cyphr was shaken out of her trance, her metallic arms shining in the dark room, lit only by stray light from the projector. She hadn’t really managed to focus on the plot of the movie. Gunshots, explosions, flying severed limbs, demons, zombies... it was all a weird mixture of colors and shapes, in her mind. Nothing that could interest her, but that seemed to have a sort of magnetic attraction for that horny gremlin she had for a girlfriend, and to her much too passionate friends.

“I mean it, Sif! It’s such a waste! Such a waste! Goddammit!”

Cyphr nodded without really meaning it. In just the last six months, she had gone from being the loneliest loner to going out every other week, hanging out with her small group of friends, playing games and sports, watching TV shows and movies, and even – albeit very, very rarely – adding “with benefits” onto the end of the “friends” part. Despite all that, and whatever intimate shenanigans had happened in the past, she had kept a couple of secrets for herself – some things she didn’t want them to find out at any cost.

“Yeah. They could have gone for another idea.”

“See? See? That’s exactly right!”

“Oi, shut up!”

Before Paddy could do anything, Chai slapped her on her nape, causing a moan of pain to escape from her lips. Cyphr groaned. Between the four of them, she was the most introverted and the one who least enjoyed social activities. In a moderate amount? Sure. Those three disasters were one of the best things that ever happened to her, after getting to know Tiger and killing Krave. But every other week? That was too much. Especially now that Magical Unicorn Friends was wrapping up its sixth season. Cyphr loved that cartoon. It had been her comfort show for the last two years, one season at a time, one episode per week. It was catered towards little girls, at least on the surface, and the eponymous unicorns were so cute she would melt every time a new character joined the cast. Yet, her favorite was, without doubt, Sunshine Spark. Sunshine had been a late addition, around the time the show got a new lead writer after the first one was fired on sexual harassment charges, but she quickly became a fan-favorite. Contrary to all the other unicorns, she was artificially created by minor villain Bandam to fight the series protagonist, Moonlight Shadow, but ended up turning on her master and slowly managing to get accepted by the other characters. During the second-to-last season, she had a heart-wrenching arc where the main villain Nightveil severed one of her legs and shattered her horn, completely stripping her of her magic and leaving her to die, not even considering her worthy of killing directly. That had been so emotionally devastating for Cyphr that she had called in sick the day after, staring at the ceiling for the whole morning while tucked under her bed sheets, tears in her eyes. All for a fictional character. If Lejl caught wind of it, she would have never lived it down. And now, after a whole rollercoaster of a season that culminated in the death of fan-favorite team mascot Dashing Cloud, the last episode, the grand finale, the confrontation between a renewed Sunshine Spark and Nightveil, was unfolding right at this very moment… while she was forced to watch a psychotic killer fight nazi dinosaurs in space. With a four-barreled revolver. On a motorcycle. With a half-naked woman in the back seat pushing her boobs against him.

Cyphr sighed. She couldn’t focus on that pathetic excuse of a movie. Lejl and Chai seemed to be having the time of their lives, and she was kind of happy for them. It was Chai’s first time in a cinema since they gave her that gift, since the night she was finally allowed not to pose as blind. She was visibly excited, laughing maniacally and criticizing every scene, but still enjoying the experience from the bottom of her heart, constantly giggling like a little girl. In the end, despite everything she had gone through, Chai was still a kid inside. A kid that never had the chance to experience her childhood... a bit like her. Their life stories had been eerily similar. Both of them had their lives stolen. Both of them fought tooth and nail to find their own little island of happiness.

Like Sunshine Spark.

Cyphr gritted her teeth, shook her head. Joyco Toys, the company behind Magical Unicorn Friends, was extremely strict with broadcasting. No streaming services. No reruns. Every episode was a unique collective experience. Piracy was not an option either; uploads were struck down with unthinkable effectiveness, with Joyco’s cyber hounds scanning the net at any given moment and making it virtually impossible for an illegitimate upload to exist for more than mere minutes. Which meant you had to watch it when it aired or miss out – unless you were ready to pay gigabucks for the collector’s edition three months later... or unless you had access to a not-exactly-legal TV capture device to record the episode. The latter may or may not have been precisely what Cyphr had set up at home, borrowing it from Delta Team’s equipment supply just to record an episode of a cartoon. Something none of her friends could ever be allowed to know.

“Killgeyzer! Fancy seeing you here! Just in time to watch your planet burn... just as we watched ours burn because of you!”

A tall, muscular cyborg tyrannosaurus was standing on screen, accompanied by an army of robots, with hate and resentment filling his voice as a giant glass dome opened on the Earth behind him. Kaspar jumped off his motorcycle, drew his gun, grinned menacingly.

“Do you think I’d care? I’ll gladly watch my world turn into ashes, if it means more fun for me.”

The tyrannosaurus growled, stared at him with utter disbelief.

“You can’t possibly be this insane, Killgeyzer!”

Kaspar shrugged, pointed his revolver at him, cocking it without a care.

“Come on, push that lever. Burn Earth to a crisp, Dinovan. Do it, do me this favor. Free me from the only reason I have to hold back. So that I can MASSACRE you all to my heart’s content, until the HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE!”

Chai burst into laughter, almost choked on her popcorn as tears invaded her eyes. She spit out her cola, bending forward, unable to stop herself.

“Oi! OI! That’s so dumb! So goddamn cheesy! Just shoot him, for chrissake!”

On the opposite side, Paddy was shaking her head, praying, her hands joined.

“No, no, no! Don’t shoot him! He’s just misunderstood! Dinovan did nothing wrong!”

All the other moviegoers started groaning, with at least one of them contemplating throwing a shoe or another heavy object at those two noisy girls chatting in the third row. Cyphr groaned too. That plot was becoming more and more absurd, and she couldn’t stop thinking about Sunshine Spark. Was she going to beat Nightveil? Was she going to finally be accepted by Moonlight Shadow as a friend and not as a thing? Would they kiss? No, of course not, no kissing in kids cartoons, but the fan fiction websites were full of Sunlight and Moonshine stories. She didn’t adhere to any of the two rabid fandom currents. In her opinion, those two would have been better as friends – accepting each other for what they were, without any romantic involvement. She couldn’t wait to get back home and save the recording on...

A sudden chill ran down her spine.

Did she connect the storage unit to the capture card? Chai and Paddy had shown up out of the blue to take her and Lejl to the cinema, so she had rushed to get ready… Did she…

No, no, no, no.

She didn’t. She was almost certain that she didn’t. She shoved her face into her palms, nearly on the verge of tears. That was bad. That was so bad. That meant three months of waiting and a sizable chunk of her salary, all while avoiding the internet to steer clear of spoilers. She wanted to cry.

“Killgeyzeeeer! I’m dying, but your planet... your planet will come with me!”

A colossal particle beam pulverized the Moon, burned through the atmosphere, a storm of fire and death as it pierced Earth like a knife through butter. The oceans evaporated, cities crumbled, mountains broke down. The Earth’s entire crust exploded, then the mantle, before the core finally shattered, as the planet once called the cradle of mankind turned into space dust, breaking apart in a spectacular explosion, under the indifferent gaze of Kaspar.

Earth was no more. Only emptiness and screams, screams that were inevitably lost to the void of space. Silence fell on the room, as Dinovan collapsed to his knees, his green blood pouring out onto the metallic floor of the space station.

“R... revenge. At... last.”

Then, he drew his last breath. Kaspar bent over him, closed his eyelids.

“Rest well, Dinovan. It was a pleasure facing you again.”

“W... what do we do now?”

Lili Formosa reached for Kaspar, looking at where her planet was not even a minute prior. Kaspar grinned, showed her his ring. Triumphant music, a close-up on his grin, on the body of Lili quietly wrapped around his dirty longcoat.

“What we always do. We have all the time in the multiverse, babe.”

Then, he turned the ring around his finger three times. A bright white light enveloped them, blinding the camera, and the viewers with it. Then, in an instant, they both disappeared, in a beam directed at the endless space above them.

Lights on.

Cheerful pop music as the credits rolled.

Kaspar and Lili will return in...

Chronoslasherz 5090 – The End of Eternity

**

“Like, that was certainly a way to end a movie, huh?”

“Oi, at least it was fun. But, if you ask me, the violence was completely unrealistic. I bet that new director has never seen a head explode! And, wow, Chronoslasherz fans are fumin’ online! Look at the reviews!”

“Yes, we are fuming! Like, come on! That ending was so Dumb, with a capital D!”

“...At least Dinovan died exacting his revenge. I found it cathartic for him. He won. He forced Kaspar to look for a new universe to settle, after he spent so much time getting accustomed to that...”

“Oi, that mofo changes planets like I change underwear! Did you see any shred of regret in him? He was totally unfazed!”

“I swear, I’ll boycott 5090! They didn’t even give us a full sex scene, this time around!”

“Shut up, ya horny gremlin! You can watch, you know, real porn, if you’re so hellbent on seeing a busty woman get off!”

Cyphr stood silent, as her three friends were lost in a torrent of comments. Meanwhile, she couldn’t think straight. Her capture card wasn’t connected. She had spent the evening on a terrible movie, thinking the one saving grace would be getting to watch Magical Unicorn Friends later, and then...

“Sif, what did you think of it?”

Cyphr raised her gaze, looking straight back at Paddy.

“That I would have rather spent two hours watching paint dry. Seriously, that crap was a full no-go for me. Next time you want to watch an action flick... not like this one, ‘kay? I’ve already had my fair share of violence in my life.”

Chai sighed.

“I’m sorry, Cyphr. I wasn’t expecting it either. The first movie was... let’s say, different. A bit more grounded. Less gruesome. Still over the top, but more... balanced?”

“Yeah! And way, way sexier! That threesome scene was really something else!”

Chai and Paddy rolled their eyes at Lejl’s remark. Cyphr chuckled. She and her girlfriend weren’t that different in terms of their desires. Cyphr was just a lot better at hiding it. Concealing her emotions had been the name of the game for her, for years. It was quite a useful skill at times, especially when Lejl was the complete opposite – and that was exactly why she loved her. It was funny to see Chai, a literal erotic streamer, and Paddy, whose exploits with phages had been the subject of essays, getting flustered by Lejl’s unfiltered demeanor. Of all people who should have felt scandalized by her, those two weren’t even remotely on the list. Still, it was a silver lining for that terrible evening. She was still happy for Chai. She truly enjoyed the experience, despite not liking the movie, and she could understand why. Being able to finally break out of her shell...

It had been the same for her, the moment she finally got familiar with her prosthetic arms. It was a new beginning. A new life, even. Thus, she smiled.

“Well, at least someone had fun, so it wasn’t a complete failure, or?”

Then, she turned towards the door of the building, that building on Turing Avenue she and Lejl shared a flat in.

“Have a good night, gals! Let’s meet again another time. I’m dying to get some sleep.”

Paddy waved her hand with vigor, Chai saluted her with two fingers.

“Oi, ‘til next time, Cyphr. I’ll be sure to choose a movie more to your tastes.”

“Would you like something cuter, maybe? Like Magi...”

“Oi, come on!”

Before Paddy could finish her sentence, Chai pushed her palm against her mouth, pulling her away as she waved goodbye, dragging the Irish girl down the road. Cyphr watched them with a mixture of surprise and resignation. Those two sure were weird. Not as weird as Lejl, but still weird. And that was why they were friends, probably.

With the late night pleasantries settled, Cyphr walked up the stairs to her flat, waiting for Lejl to arrive before opening the door. She was scared. Scared of looking towards her PC. Scared of remembering how she botched the recording of the only series that mattered. She closed her eyes. She felt like crying again at that thought. All that, just because she was too stubborn to tell her friends she liked a kids’ series. Because she didn’t want to be seen as uncool and left alone. That was her freshly-out-of-teens brain gaslighting her. They probably would have accepted her even if she told them about her secret, but she still didn’t want to let them know.

“Hey, Cyphy, what’s this thingy blinking here?”

She opened her eyes, nervously letting them move towards the computer. The streaming card.

It was connected.

And blinking blue.

As in...

Recording complete?!

She couldn’t believe it. She brought a hand to her mouth, just about started sobbing. The episode. The episode had been recorded? But...

“J... just a work-related hard drive, Lalli. I forgot it... connected to my PC and...”

“Ah, got it.”

Lejl yawned, stretched a little bit.

“Listen, this evening I’m not in the mood for some hot-Cyphy-on-Lejl-action. I’m going directly to sleep. If you ain’t tired yet and need to mess with your computer, just be sure to use earphones.”

Before Cyphr could say anything, Lejl tiptoed up to her face, pulling her down a bit to kiss her on the lips.

“Good night, babe!”

Then she walked away, leaving Cyphr alone with her PC. With a dumb smile on her face and a fresh recording of the season finale of Magical Unicorn Friends to watch. Lejl chuckled to herself, as soon as she vanished inside their common bedroom. That blockhead had forgotten to connect the plug. How could have she forgotten to connect the plug? Lejl had fixed it for her, seconds before leaving their flat. Of course she knew about it. She knew about her girlfriend’s passion for that cartoon series and how she tried her best to hide it from her. But, as much as she tried, Cyphy was a bad liar. Lejl started to undress, took her nightgown out of the dresser, then closed her eyes as she listened to the muffled sounds of a cheerful tune playing out of Cyphr’s earphones. She peeked out of her room, just a little, only to catch a glimpse of her smile reflected on the computer display, as colorful images began showing up on it. Then, she slinked back into her bedroom, with a cheeky, satisfied smile on her face.