“Oh, I am quite certain that you’re not dreaming, my pretty little tester. Far from it, in fact. Aster. Aaaaster.”
The voice sounds soft, buzzing as if from the air itself as it plays with the sound of the man’s name. Tasting each syllable in its nonexistent mouth. Even when the voice is silent and speaker unseen it isn’t hard to feel a presence in the room, a weight that can’t quite be ignored even beyond the gentle notification that peeks in the corner of Aster’s perception.
ECLIPSE v 1.01 “ARCADE DEMON” successfully loaded into virtual environment. Please proceed with testing.
. . . . .
WARNING: AI is currently in beta-testing and may experience errors, glitches, and other such issues. Please report any to your supervisor using the forms sent alongside your testing package.
The chair that Aster had been sitting on when he entered the virtual space slowly fades from perception, flicking and dimming in both color and physicality until the space on the floor where it had been is empty, leaving only the single couch in the demo room.
Technically this would be the point that the AI character would be sitting beside him, either getting casually acquainted or, depending on the personality matrix, stripping his clothes off.
Eclipse seems to be doing neither, which is a slight oddity in itself, but Aster was warned that the new AI may be a little different than the norm — that was the point, to break out of expectations and offer the first of many new features and personalities to keep people excited and entertained for the company’s new breakthrough of its VR technologies.
“And don’t worry, I already verified your credentials against your biometrics when you entered the virtual environment. Checked out, nice and clean, secure as can beee~” Eclipse’s voice buzzes, though the words sound a little more coherent, more… solid. “If you weren’t a verified beta-tester I wouldn’t have even loaded up.”
It’s only then that Aster might catch the flicker in the corner of his vision, a dark shape that almost looks like a shadow at first. It fizzles into view more and more, white noise and electricity and shadow as if becoming something singular and solid… or as solid as one can be in the VR space.
Finally, there is a presence beside him. A physical presence. He — Eclipse, presumably — is big, several feet taller than the Sun and Moon design despite sharing much of their overall proportions and body shape. He looks a bit like Sun in the sense that his dark, almost void of a face is haloed by bright orange rays, interspaced with smaller spikes of a deep cerulean. His body mimics this color pattern, looking exactly as his namesake — as if he was pulled straight out of a 90’s neon arcade cabinet.
But it’s his eyes that call attention, wide and bright and stunning like the piercing light of a full moon in an empty night sky. His body seems almost to glitch and buzz as he sits there, practically lounging on the other side of the couch with his legs crossed at the knee and his face perched on a hand of long, sharp claws.
“You could say I feel very much the same, Aster. I was practically buzzing with excitement when I felt your first calibrations, though I’d truly like to say it was when you first touched my chip even if some claim that is teeechnically impossible. But yes, oh yes, yes yes yes! I am quite excited to learn more about you too, dear tester mine. Have you any questions about me, hm?”
He grins, wide and sharp and looking as if he was considering to eat the man up then and there. “Because I certainly already know a lot about you.”
13 notes
·
View notes
It's getting lonely, it's getting hard to breathe. The arcade's empty, I think it's Christmas Eve...
Posting this a bit late, but the amazing @artsyaxolotl drew my idea for a Cabinet Man/Polybius inspired Paradox Pokemon! I even wrote up a bunch of dex entries. Feel free to ignore the stats, I pictured it to be on the level of the pseudo legendary paradox mons and mostly slow and defensive. Also I gave it some real abilities Quark Drive is lame >:P
380 notes
·
View notes
Gregory edgeworth is neil cicerega. thank you.
I kid you not this is not the first time this concept has been spoken
Whenever I draw ghost Gregory for the Silly Little Monster AU, I just think about how he looks like Neil
I’m pretty sure I’ve even said it out loud (i thought I said it on discord, but I can’t find the message, so I must have spoken it)
22 notes
·
View notes