Out with the old, in with the new as they say, and this ViViD level is no different. Ever progressive and ever mindful, CERES has decided in their war against the evil carbon footprint to give citizens both new and old a lesson in healthy living. To show this, they've created a level all about... recycling, or as close to recycling as a company like CERES can get. (Which isn't very close at all, honestly.)
This, of course, means that when you're dumped in to today's ViViD level, the first thing that will hit you is the stench. It's vile and rancid and the type of stench that makes a person want to give up smelling altogether, and when you finally open your eyes, you'll see why. There's trash everywhere. The buildings are decrepit and crumbling, the cars are broken down and rusted, and overall, it looks like the apocalypse rolled right on through. Which is weird because this is definitely not a post-apocalyptic game. Yet wandering around this pathetic excuse for a ViViD level will just reveal more of the same -- it's a total wasteland.
And if you look up, you will see a billboard.
RECYCLING AND YOU: HOW NOT TO BE A DIRTY WASTE OF SPACE
You'll only have a moment to be offended by the sign before, amongst the piles of trash and rubble, there's another, smaller pile of trash and rubble. The only difference is this one can talk.
 Welcome to The Dumpster Dive, my cool cats and sweet kittens. A brand new ViViD level, created and innovated to you by CERES's very creative and innovative technicians. We're all here to help you learn to Reuse, Reduce and Recycle, givin' you kids some tools to help you lessen your impact on the planet. After all, we're all here together on this great planet of Tellus. Wouldn't want to ruin it, right? Ha ha!
Happy Trash Day to Cerealians one and all!
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PHASE I [ 6 00 ] So, you're here.
You're probably sitting in a pile of trash because, well, everywhere is a pile of trash. You're in a landscape of trashiness and there's no escape. Your only option is to give in to the sweet, sweet pull of the garbage. The buildings are crumbling, the sidewalks are a mess of bottles (but no bottle caps), rubble, and empty chip bags, and you're stuck in this... trash. This garbage. This hellhole.
Wasn't recycling supposed to be clean?
It probably takes a rat skittering over your foot to get you going but like any good game, the protagonist needs to move. If you're going to find out anything in this trash heap, you'll need to explore a bit. See if you can find someone else! Or something else. Maybe someone more experienced with ViViD can help you figure out how to log out. Even if logging out doesn't seem to be working right now. You should be careful too because one wrong step might cause the pile of trash you're standing on give way and send you into the sewers below.
Which means there are rats, there are bugs, the ground is unsteady and... yep. It's starting to rain.
Good luck.
PHASE II [ 800 ] And then come the... trash drones.
They zero in on any living thing in this ViViD level -- if you’re moving, if you’re breathing, if you have some sort of a pulse, they’ll be there. And they’ll grab you and take you away. No matter how many you shoot down, more and more and more will come, never stopping until you're swarmed completely by them. They have to get you! You're garbage, you're garbage, you're garbage! You're garbage!
And so, you're snatched up.
Don’t worry, though. After a short flight (wave hello to your fellow drone-napped neighbor!), you'll arrive at three huge trash chutes with three equally huge signs above them. GARBAGE, RECYCLING, and COMPOST hang above the chutes and the drones pause just momentarily before announcing one of these options in a robotic voice. You've been sorted and without any preamble, the drone will dump you in whichever one it decides.
Hopefully you don’t end up in the compost. Gross.
Of course, once you down there, there's plenty to poke around in (or not much if you're still not into the whole trash thing). It's piles and piles and piles of trash as far as the eye can see! Again! If you're especially clever, you may be able to use the trash to build a way out of the chute. The very, very long chute. Maybe there's someone around that can help you? And better do so quick, who knows what CERES has deemed to be "recycling" this time.
PHASE III [ 1125 ] CERES's standards continue to shine on again, because after some time, those chutes will finally start working. So if you've been separated from a friend through any of this ordeal, don't worry about it. You're all gonna end up in the same place anyway.
Which is the incinerator, of course! (Wait, that’s not how recycling works.)
The ground beneath you shifts, enough to knock over whatever flimsy excuse for an escape plan you have, and suddenly all of the trash, compost or recycling will be dumped down into an underground furnace -- along with everyone stuck there, of course. Bit by bit, everything moves ever closer towards that red hot furnace and it’s clear that everything's going to be dumped straight into the fire and burned. Say your farewells. Make nice with your neighbor. Finalize your will because --
Oh. It stopped.
Looks like it jammed.
It doesn't remain jammed for long because CERES is, if anything, highly efficient. So it starts up again. But then stops again. And then starts again. And then stops again. This may be a glitch in the level, actually.
So, you're still getting ever closer to fiery death, but... slowly. Very slowly. In fact, you could probably walk away from said fiery death faster than you're going towards it. It's like they can't even program a near death experience right!
PHASE IV [ 1125 ] Maybe you avoided the incinerator. Maybe you ended up in a different part of the level altogether. Maybe you just got lost. Either way, now you’re stuck with the age-old hobby of enthusiasts and the exceptionally desperate alike.
Dumpster diving.
And CERES wouldn't send you down there without an incentive, you know. If you look, it seems like there might be something valuable, something incredibly important and just for you. A shiny item that you’ve always wanted right from home and it’s right there in your grasp, something precious that you could never get in Cerealia. How it came to be there, nestled between an empty carton of eggs and a half-eaten cheeseburger, no one knows, but you'll be filled with the inescapable, all-consuming urge to go get it. Just jump right into that dumpster and get it.
The more you resist the urge, the more it'll hurt. (As in, physically hurt actually. The feeling will be comparable to your fingernails slowly being plucked out.)
This is ViViD though and the moment you hit the trash, the spell breaks. You'll see that your most precious thing, whatever it was, was never actually there. Instead, you seem to have actually grabbed something else and whatever it is, you can't let go of it. Be it an empty bottle of bacon soda or a bicycle tire with a giant hole in it, it's attached to your hand now and no matter what you do, you can't get it off.
Hopefully whatever you grabbed wasn't too big because it looks like you're not getting rid of it. Not till you beat the level.
BONUS [ why o'clock ] The odd thing about being stuck in a trash wasteland is that you can go for ages without seeing another person. Ages. Of course, CERES doesn't like that very much since ViViD games should be co-operative! Player with player! Player against player! Players who shouldn't be playing at all. That's the type of play CERES supports.
Which means the longer you go without seeing another person, the more you might feel an itch. It gets under your skin, making you feel dizzier and dizzier, and shorter and shorter of breath until -- you pass out. Vision going dark, breathing cutting out, and down you go into the trash and whatever this ViViD level has planned next.
It won't take long. You'll wake up feeling slightly confined and there will be a moving body next to you. It seems as if you've finally, finally found someone -- and they're really, really close. In fact, maybe a little too close? When you open your eyes, you'll see that the two of you may be bound together in a way that might be familiar to some.
But instead of a shirt, it's just a garbage bag. A really, really strong garbage bag that can't be broken out of no matter how strong you happen to be. No laser eyes, no super powers, nothing will separate you from this person other than, well, getting along.
There really is only one question you have to ask yourself now. Just one.
What the hell does this have to do with recycling?
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Sol Badguy | Guilty Gear
[What is this bullshit.
No, seriously, what the hell is up with all this. Sol's eyes snap open as he immediately sits up and recoils from the smell, growling and grumbling all the while. He regards the talking pile of garbage with a glare fit enough to drop a Behemoth-class Gear while it delivers its little flavortext-spiel. Bad enough he's sitting in literal garbage, he doesn't need a lecture -
Wait a minute.]
Level ...?!
[Granted, it's been a very long time (nearly a hundred years, give or take a couple decades) since he's heard that specific context. Considering that magic had overtaken technology for the most part (mostly out of fear for something or another making things worse, it's complicated and he really doesn't feel like getting into details. Lazy assholes ftw.]
You've got to be fucking kidding me.
[His brows furrow before he starts reaching around, rummaging through the trash piles around him before -
Aha!
Before he pulls out what probably looks to most people to be an oversized Zippo with a cutting edge. He gets to his feet, rolling his eyes as the talking pile of garbage seems to continue on -
And slams the weapoin into ... what he could only assume was actual solid ground beneath his feet, causing a stream of fire to erupt and setting the talking pile of trash to burn.
Clearly he's more of a fan of immolation.
Sol then starts off, glancing up as the first few drops of rain start hitting his face. The rain would offset the fire a bit, but it would also make the stench of the garbage worse. Not exactly what he was hoping would happen.]
phase ii-a.
[After a bit of wandering, the sound of something that was flying through the sky-]
Shit.
[Yeah, he's familiar with what a drone is, so this doesn't come as a complete shock, but still. Sol grits his teeth and starts to set up what can only be assumed to be countermeasures, though that mostly consists of blasting drones out of the sky with more streams of fire or the occasional flaming uppercut.
(what a scrub - can't even cancel them into each other properly)
Eventually, however, one manages to sneak past the barrage of fire and explosions (well, more like grab him in mid-air during a Volcanic Viper), though it does have trouble of holding on at first, and gets punched several times for its troubles.
Just when it seems that he's about to break free, though - another swoops in for the assist.]
Piece of shit robots - get off!
[This might take a while.]
phase ii-b.
[Y'know, at least there's some small victories that can be taken away from all this. Sure, Sol had eventually been grabbed by a drone, but judging from the pile of scrap metal that had accumulated on the ground and an overpowering small of burnt circuits and wires, at least he didn't go down without a fight?
It's then that the drone lets go -
Right into the Recycling chute. He's not sure what to make of that.
There's an unceremonious thud as he sticks his weapon into the chute on the way down, followed by a loud screech as metal scrapes against metal, using the thing as a brake.
And now he's stuck about midway down the chute.]
Fucking fantastic.
[Granted, that it's not garbage or compost, at least, but it's still a colossal pain in the ass and if someone else ended up going down this particular chute ...
That might not end well.]
bonus.
[Sol's never been much of a social creature, and honestly he was usually okay with not being around people. didn't help that most that he was around were loud, obnoxious, and annoying.
And those were the ones he liked (not that he'd admit it).
So this dizzying, itching feeling, this yearning for someone else's company through this wasteland was nothing short of baffling.
In true Sol style, when things start to get dark, he's cursing under his breath before falling face-first into the nearest pile of garbage.
Classy.
When he wakes up, though - he can hardly move. Apologies to the poor soul stuck with him - you're attached to a 6' long-haired asshole who's built like a brick shithouse - though at least he's naturally warm because fire magic affinity?
Now noticing that he's not exactly alone in this predicament, he glares over his shoulder at them before he speaks:]
Hey - what the hell is going on here?
[This whole "getting along" thing might take a while.]
wildcard.
[figured something else out you want to do? feel free to drop it in!]
ii-a
So the wizard calls down the lightning, quite literally, bolt after bolt after bolt to fry any drone that gets too close. This also has the advantage of taking out some of the ones bothering Sol.
ur welcome ]
no subject
To be honest, though, after seeing that lightning come crashing down, there's a small, unintentional flare of irritation that sparks in Sol's mind - mostly due to a certain now-King who specialized in lightning magic. Still, this sort of attack isn't like what he knows Ky to pull, and he definitely didn't hear anyone chastising him for this, that, and the other thing.
It was rather refreshing, actually.
Once he finally saw how provided the (unintentional?) assist, he gives a small not before punching through another drone, his arm up to the elbow coated in flames.
Baby steps, kids. If this had been even a few weeks earlier, he wouldn't have even acknowledged that Laxus had even helped him out.
He cracks his neck as another drone attempts to swoop in, and he rushes forward with a boost of surprising speed for his size, jumping over the other's head to come crashing down on top of the drone with the business end of Junkyard Dog. Even if the cutting edge hadn't been sharpened for a bit, at least the sheer weight put behind the swing should do the trick.]
We're even. [Way to say "thanks", you big jerk.]
no subject
Wasn't lookin' to help, but it worked out.