“Bippety bopcha, what's new in gacha, and I do mean gacha for once. SirSuccess here after tiptoeing my way through a minefield of spinoffs. Bombs were going off left and right, I've got my helmet on, and the worst part is that they didn't have one in my size. It's hard work, but it's all worth it when I reach the other side and find a nice, warm Like waiting for me. You didn't have to do that! And a subscribe, too? You're too much.

“If you want to figure out the general theme of a big chunk of the next several months of videos on this channel, all you need is a calendar and maybe a thermometer. That's right, it's almost summer, and that means summer, if you know what I mean, which I'm sure you do if this is the kind of content you use the internet for. If it isn't, here's a quick tutorial: the Like button is right below . . . I can't double-dip this early in the video! I'll gain weight. So first up is Commandment of Hero, which has never disappointed so far in my depraved opinion. In my gameplay opinion, it's been decent, but we're deep in the Eclipse era now, so I'm not sure how relevant summer is these days with all those Floods it usually has.

“But back to optimism and the pounding surf. The last time I got my fortune told, none of it came true the way I wanted. That means, if I do the fortune-telling myself, I'll be right about everything. We got a new Quircy before with no Zimley, so she's locked in. Is what I would say, except that I think they're holding that for next year's brides. Now hold on while I look in my crystal ball, turn over these cards, yeah, it's becoming clearer, clearer, R, Rhizi? No, Rylweadh! Summer Rylie, and Marileanna, and Sibyl. That's the lineup, and if I'm right, don't even think about trying to discover the secrets of my powers. If I'm wrong, I'll be selling all my secrets at a low price, so get your couch change ready! If you didn't spend it all on the gacha, that is.”

Summer! The favorite season for officers scorned by Ersatz Struggle till DLC season came around, and after being spurned a second time then, Halloween. Then DLC season 2.

“It will have at least two sets of downloadable content, won't it, Dosellian Urapta? Lie to me if you have to!” The Tinni Ilx clinging to his coat slowed Dosellian Urapta on his way to the dining hall by no amount whatsoever owing to the lack of a separate Magic stat, which meant big Warper Attack numbers. For the same reason, the grip of Medic Tinni Ilx stayed adamant-hard during all the time that Dosellian looked for Skaya, found her, and requested that she handle the question, laden with financial import as it was.

His words, spoken at a normal, respectful sort of volume, bounced off the dense wall of discussion around Skaya's charts. Officers who had forgotten to argue about predictions because of spinoff-related activities crammed it in at the last second like bots sent to meet a social media campaign goal before it fails. A few, more concerned with winning than wrangling, chased Lynissia around the room in an effort to copy off her prediction list, which she insisted on holding close to her fuzzy costume to prevent that exact skullduggery. As for the hopefuls, Smidgen's fake tan seemed unlikely to trick the developers into picking a beach hydra, but True Beryllia's had potential. Attempts to hold a beach volleyball game as an exhibition for the participants only attracted characters from other games who swarmed the place and stole the spotlight. Subsequent proposals to impose temporary travel restrictions failed.

The hubbub bubbed all the hubbier before the stream, since unlike recent spinoff announcements, the entire officerbase intended to preserve the traditional reverent silence. One among them, however, proposed a tweak to the established protocol. “I want your attention, and I'll have it as soon as I show you this promotional photo of the supersized screen that's being erected as we speak in the plaza and makes the old one look like something people used to watch Bob Hope TV specials. This is a joint venture among me, AGN, and mumble mumble.”

“Wruden Calx! Mumbling is an action, not something you say!” When mumbling expert Youl Sandshaker raised her voice, even Wruden Calx listened. Not that he had a reputation for not listening to people. The opposite, what with all those surveys and focus groups.

“If it's a matter of either improve or be left behind, it's my policy to do the first.” Saying that, Wruden mumbled for a couple sentences, which satisfied Youl well enough to settle the issue.

Cadmos, whose attention Wruden had even before he passed around the photo, spoke. “I know we talked about this, but I had the impression the screen wouldn't be ready by summer.”

“Underpromise, overdeliver. I left out the conjunction because we're short on time. There's just enough for you to inspect the plaza yourself to make sure it's up to specifications.”

“I'll do it from here, with my mind.” Cadmos pressed his index fingers against his head and closed his eyes. “Nn. Nnnnnn. A message is coming to me from beyond! It says, 'There's no way Wruden Calx would say it's ready if it isn't.' OK, ladies and gentlemen, let's change venues to the plaza! Together.”

“That last word was unnecessary and kind of unnerving, but all right,” the crowd responded. High spirits reigned as the officers made the trip, assured they would experience novelty even if denied an alt. Some such as Kullervo held back a bit or rushed ahead to avoid satisfying the conditions of Cadmos's togetherness fetish, though nothing could be done about it when they all piled in the high-speed shuttle bound for the data renewal facility.

The workhorses of Construction, led by Holy Legend Army's very own Turpin because Eten had requested time off to attend the summer stream premier, finished the project no more than 4.86 minutes before the shuttle arrived and disgorged its rollicking cargo. The job would have been formidable enough had it stopped at the special screen, which extended nearly as high as Freegate's walls when set on the ground. But no. Wruden Calx demanded the screen be slanted to overlook the plaza, thereby adding an element of danger to watching the boring old news. Would the supporting structure fail and drop the deadly weight on the onlookers' soft heads? Was the time of the gods at an end, for soon viewers would worship the high-resolution faces above instead of the old pantheon? Neck pain was also a possibility.

Nor did the setup stop at that. Custom-made machines at the plaza corners shot geysers of chemicals that blocked out the sun. Take that, screen glare! To make the artificial night something more than simple darkness, Construction poured a glow-in-the-dark substance between the plaza tiles so that greens and oranges highlighted the scene most uncannily from below. The officers discovered the various elements of the presentation bit by bit as they approached. Wruden Calx insisted they stay on the road proper and walk only so quickly as a Rare heading toward a necessary task if they wanted the full experience.

He also flashed conspicuous hand gestures at Hot Air Hank and at Metatron, who happened to be in CoH enjoying the consistently high-quality food products of a Greek-themed food franchise based in Convergence/Divergence, but conspicuous hand gestures came out every summer. The existing summer officers in particular had a special gesture ready for everyone, though only a few chose to deploy it before they could be joined in that privilege by the new queens and princess of the beach. That is, provided the pattern of one SR and two URs persisted.

Wruden Calx waited for the last officer who did not begin his career as the hardest-working miner on the line and rise to become owner of several mining operations in the country of Ganlond to pass through the anti-chemical jets. As he turned to enter behind, humming and swinging his signature pick, he saw something that caused him more worry than a troupe of lawyers hired by someone with whom he had done business.

The shuttle had left and returned already. From it disembarked an assemblage of persons far larger than even Commandment of Hero's extravagant population could muster. Suppose you lived in Ten Thousand Years. A good life perhaps, a fulfilling one of offering joy and materials to players uncountable in number without a subscription to a reliable industry sales estimate service. All very satisfactory, but where was your summer event? Probably in two or three weeks, so why not check out CoH's and rate the appeal of the new swimsuit officers right in front of their faces? Tourists from across the cluster who shared some or all of that sentiment swarmed in. Dinosaur Rumble never even held summer events, which caused tears of pity to flow when outsiders heard of it.

Soaked in sweat, Wruden Calx dashed in and pulled aside Hot Air Hank to have a few words. “See those?” He wrenched Hank's head around toward the proper direction, ignoring the popping sounds. “Will the Frame Vacuum Minis you put along this route handle that kind of traffic?”

Hank scratched his chin. “Well now, I don't see as why they shouldn't. They'll fill up fast, since the bags on 'em hold but a few poor frames no one'd notice as we agreed. That's the limit to their mischief, theoretically.”

“Good, good. They'll turn off automatically, then. Save on the power bill.”

“Er, it's not quite so, but near enough to catch a cold from it. Y'see, I put 'Vacuum' in the name just by way of aiding the public in grasping the concept. What really goes on is that the temporal potentiality is depressed within the containment chamber by means of a series of turbo buttons taken off old computers that we run a current through so's that . . . it'll work out, most like.”

No explanation could be more to Wruden Calx's liking than one which started by exhibiting the speaker's competence and ended with the answer he wanted. “That's settled then. As for the cameras, Mr. Metatron hired me to set them up, not to provide maintenance and servicing. We don't have anything else to worry about.” He snapped Hot Air Hank's grizzled head into place and accompanied him back to a prime position under the megascreen, chortling as he imagined the reaction when all those harvested frames would bloat the numbers of every Ersatz Struggle entrant other than Marileanna and, by agreement with Hank, Gradis P. Dorenz.