Jake, incredibly excited and a little bit terrified, turned to Mike. "May I... can I try too?"
Mike paused, considering. "You're not exactly great at those games, are you?" He pondered for a moment before his eyes lit up with a mischievous glint. "But, hey, having a complete noob on the show might actually bring in some clicks. Let's do it!"
"So, what kind of game should we go for?" Mike asked after booting up his social media channels, already buzzing with excitement for the upcoming spectacle.
After discussing several options, Mike had a revelation. "How about a fighting game? I can use the character setup and level the playing field a bit. You know, make you more buff and such."
"Wouldn't it hurt to get beaten up?" responded Jake, understandably concerned, to which Mike replied, "Yeah, sure, but pain is very abstract when you're in a game. You'll see. It's nowhere near as bad as really getting beaten up."
As the clock ticked closer to the live stream's set time, Mike clicked into performance mode, adopting his old-fashioned Captain Mikester persona. "Ladies and Gentlemen. Captain Mikester here with a special presentation. We’ve got my flat-mate Jake here who's about to try his hand at 'Terminal Combat’. So let's give a warm welcome to Jake, the noob!"
Mike gestured Jake towards the platform and asked the eager crowd, "Shall we digitize him?"
The process was quick and seemingly effortless. Jake felt a wash of lightness envelop him and then nothing. Moments later he found himself in a wildly different environment; a pixel-art world compiled of flat, overlapping layers. Now, Jake saw himself in his game avatar.
Suddenly, Mike announced, out of nowhere, "A character customization screen, you know what that means." The chat rapidly began suggesting alterations, the popular choice being to give Jake a bust. As Mike selected the option, Jake saw a pair of pixelated breasts materialize on his game avatar.
"Hey!" Jake protested, his voice drowned out by the thrill of the ongoing stream. A particularly hefty donation came in next, Mike thanked the user as their suggestion turned Jake into a cyborg-fox hybrid in the game. Robotic limbs replaced his human ones, and his skin transformed into a pelt of red and white fur. His new fox head sat above a gender-ambiguous body, and a fox tail swayed from side to side. His expression of outrage, however, translated nicely into the pixel-art.
With a theatrical flourish, Mike leaped onto the digitization platform, his form swirled and disappeared, materializing moments later in the pixelated ring opposite Jake. As a digitized announcer's voice echoed, "Fight!", Mike taunted, "Let's see what you've got!"
Jake felt a momentary surge of panic. He had no clue what he was doing. Seizing the moment of indecision, Mike landed a calculated punch on Jake's chin, sending his game avatar sprightly tumbling backward. Jake quickly realized something unbelievable – it didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. It felt more like an annoying setback, a numerical disadvantage in the statistics defining his in-game life.
Shaking off whatever hesitation lingered, Jake surged forward, his virtual, cybernetic fist smacking into Mike with a resounding impact that sent the latter spiraling. Mike quickly regained his stance, rushing toward Jake with a defensive punch. The simulated cybernetic armor seemed to absorb most of the impact, yet the feedback was oddly satisfying.
After some further exchange of punches, kicks and a few misses, Mike finally managed to land a winning uppercut, finishing the pixelated round off. Bowing out of respect to Jake, Mike rapidly turned back into his real-world self, materializing back onto the actual platform. The chat erupted with praise, criticism, and wild shouts of delight. And somewhere amidst the virtual crowd, Jake was left grappling with the otherworldly experience of his first digital combat.