fictober 03: i've waited for this.

"fuck yes!”

piper glanced up from the gardening magazine he’d bought during their temporary stay on coruscant at the exclamation from down the hall. when nothing further came, his attention returned to an article about weather hardy plants that swiftly adapted to various harsh environments. a loud crash grabbed his attention again, and he sighed and dog-eared the page before getting up.

“if you guys are sneaking into the candy again, i’m not protecting you from ghost. you know xe’s got a massive sweet tooth-” piper cut himself off as he rounded the corner to find sox and tripshot with their heads poked around the corner, and honeydew with a hand over their mouths.

“shh!” honeydew whispered and jerked his head to motion for the captain to come over. quietly, piper joined them by the door and glanced into the room that had long since become their rec-room of sorts. inside, on the old couch they’d somehow acquired, ghost was laying with his legs over the back of the couch and his head almost touching the floor.

pup and scatter were squished together on the couch, watching the screen intently as the brightly dressed adventurer dodged spear-shaped lasers with ease, dashing in to lay a flurry of strikes before backflipping out again. a bowl haloed by spilled snacks lay on the floor, and piper assumed that was the crash.

“what’s going on?” piper whispered, not entirely sure why honeydew had the troublesome two with their mouths covered, let alone how he’d managed to keep them from licking his hand to get him to release them.

“you remember that game tabbi bought forever ago? well, pup and scatter started playing it, and they beat it, and there’s this whole thing about beating the game as fast as possible-” “holy shit!”

honeydew whipped his head around in time to see the final blow land on the beast and collapse onto its side. sox and tripshot squirmed free and shouted as they rushed into the room, and piper felt even more confused.

“so.. ghost beat it?”

“piper, not only did he beat it, but he beat the posted galactic record!” honeydew replied, before entering the room himself. piper stood by the door, still feeling utterly confused as the group inside the room celebrated. ghost stayed on the couch, seemingly not at all impressed at his apparent feat of some kind, instead choosing to start the game up again.

“you guys are too loud, scram. piper, you can come sit.” ghost finally spoke up, pausing the game to reset the clock in the bottom corner of the screen. surprisingly, the group listened, and soon the only people left in the room were ghost (still upside down on the couch) and piper (sitting the regular way).

“soo.. you just play it fast?”

“yeah.”

“and you uhh… have a galactic record?”

“several.’

“seve- since when?” piper pulled his attention from the game to ghost, who’s attention stayed on the screen.

“couple months at least. that one that i just beat was one of my older records, actually.”

“they didn’t mention that.”

“oh. they don’t know. i haven’t told anyone.”

piper squinted at ghost, then at the screen and timer, and then back to ghost. most of the 881st had hobbies- sox and tripshot liked to create art, piper himself enjoyed a bit of gardening, and hotwire was into mechanics. but as far as ghost went, they all just thought he liked to just… sit there. drink caff. stop the chaos from getting too out of control.

“i’ve waited for this, actually. i haven’t been subtle about the gaming, i mean i have the records posted online under the tag ‘ghostgamer881’ so.. not very top secret here.”

“oh my god, you aren’t joking.” piper realized, and ghost exited the game in response, pulling up a site that showed galactic game records and entered his account.

sundrop canyon: homestead hub completion 3hours 32minutes 29seconds

entry2 completion 0hours 41minutes 13seconds

digmake all trophies 0hours 55minutes 38seconds

monstercatch clearglass 3hours 4minutes 1second

“you… really weren’t joking. so- so what game is this?” piper asked as ghost closed the tab and restarted the game.

“history of zelor: desolate gasp. i’m doing all loth-cat treasure crates and straight to the boss run this time.”

“w.. what does that even mean?”