Chapter Text
As izuku faded out this time the headache disappeared and with it his dreamlike state.
In the absence of the fog in in his head (or at least where he felt his head not sure he still had one at the moment) the memories of the server room, the madman, and the gunshot all came to the forefront of his mind.
That’s right i should be dead or am dead, guess the afterlife does have starcraft after all. (even if it is traumatizing)
Looking out around him he sees a skybox that resembles a 3d mock-up of his starcraft background only instead of menus he sees hard-light structures.
Okay so definitely not dreaming, i can read labels, id tags, and directories off of those without waking and i doubt the after life has human program design as it’s basis.
Curious, he floats over to a 3d rig of a zealot.
Something’s not right about this, the game doesn't need this high of a fidelity for something so small and why is it all tech and no biologicals?
Reaching out he touches the psi blade emitter only for it to disassemble into it’s components that hover as if presenting themselves to him
This is no rig. It’s a fully to scale 3D blueprint. These components don’t make sense. Nowhere in the game does it need to go fully in depth into a fake technology… Crystal core? What kind of crystal?
Tapping on the core he sees the process of shaping the crystal and upon additional curiosity he witnesses how these crystals are created
Okay this is where science breaks down. In order to create a Khaydarin crystal, open a specific portal, reach in and drag out a crystal seed which is then grown into the desired size by holding that portal open, the rate at which is controlled by the size of the portal and therefore limited by energy input….
How did I understand all that? It makes no sense except I feel as if I’m only remembering what I already know..
If only I had someone with actual know-how to tell me this is all bullshit or not.
Unable to trust the world around him’s scientific accuracy he searches for something more readily useful in understanding just where he was. Casting his gaze about, several things caught his eye. These were three, a technologically clad viewing platform seemingly ripped straight from a stadium, a closed floating door that he could see both sides of, and what izuku could only guess was an access terminal with countless monitors that opened and closed randomly.
Okay non-euclidean physics, possible structural theft, and a non tech savvy person’s living hell all present and accounted for….
Where did that top box come from?
Entering the structure, skybox fading to black, Izuku notices that where the box would normally face a playing field, a battleground was displayed.
Wait a minute this is a game in progress. Is that dust_to_dust getting his rear end served on a silver platter by alt41? dust must’ve really pissed off his roommate?parent?mentor? (whatever they are to each other) At least he’s lost the skytoss habit, but going straight to zerg is quite the learning curve.
Amused Izuku watches as the game drags on as ZvZ matches tend to when both players favor macro over micro. Alt41 seems to have pulled back every time he almost wins and lets dust rebuild.
Knowing alt41, he could be toying with dust, teaching him, or doing one by claiming to do the other.
After watching a half hour of dust getting the metaphorical snot beat out of him, Izuku moves on, unable to witness the slaughter any longer. Investigating the platform he finds the purpose of which (extremely obvious in hindsight) is to spectate games, review replays, and automatically record and convert memories into a third person viewable context? Now desperate for answers Izuku tries to load up his memories of the server room only to face an error output:
‘Access denied’
WHY!?!
‘automatic process to safeguard user’s sanity’
Just perfect, not only does that rule out insanity as an explanation but also implies that it’s still possible because steps are being taken to prevent it. That is unless I'm hallucinating this whole mess.
Taking a deep breath to calm his thoughts, Izuku tries to puzzle out his predicament.
Okay think, how would I have access to nonsensical blueprints that somehow make sense, live view of starcraft matches that I know can’t be made up (dust_to_dust playing zerg is like pigs flying in my book), and can interact with everything via thought?
Realizing that he's close, Izuku rushes to the terminal hoping for more clues. Upon reaching it he recognizes the type of data being shown on the monitors even if he can’t understand most of it
a server readout? capacity… load… average latency… services? Starcraft server host… docker(what even is that?)… unknown?
Why would there be an unknown program in a server that hasn’t been changed since the 2020’s?
Knowing it's probably a very dumb idea to poke into unknown software (viruses are no joke) he selects it. A drop down menu forms showing three separate runtimes: local_user, simulation, and schematics. Relaxing now without any rogue programs starting, Izuku selects the local_user runtime and beholds one name.
Midoriya, Izuku
He shivers, feeling as though he was being watched, every fiber of his being off-put. Quickly exiting the local_user portion of the unknown service the feeling fades, and dawning horror replaces it.
I’ve been converted to a program! and what’s more I'll be discovered with a cursory glance at the dialogue. Any technician worth their salary is going to delete a foreign program immediately!
He frantically pulls up the maintenance logs and the date
1 month ago, 3 months ago, there’s still time. Okay calm down, where am I? and how can I leave?
Accessing the location (Tokyo of course where else would be the one remaining starcraft server in japan?) and outbound connections Izuku rapidly reaches the end of his limited knowledge of internet protocol.
Speedrunning the five stages of grief Izuku comes to accept that he’s going to need help and he has no idea how to get it until the hand of fate itself delivers the answer to all his immediate problems:
babymaker: WHERE IN THE ABSOLUTE #$%& WERE YOU I SPENT ALL DAY IN THAT #$%^$%#$ TRASH HEAP WAITING AND YOU HAVE THE GUTS TO COME BACK ONLINE WITHOUT EVEN ACKNOWLEDGING IT YOU ABSOLUTE #$%@#$# #$%#$@# @#$%#@#