Rift Apart (Patreon)

Pre-ordering the PlayStation 5 was one of the hardest things Alex had ever done. Who knew that fighting with scalpers and bots would be so hard? The tigress had to sneak away at work to refresh the website over and over as hands on her wristwatch crept closer and closer to 11 AM; the time when the floodgates keeping everyone from entering the order page was scheduled to open.

Once the clock struck 11, the dreaded time when McDonald’s stopped serving breakfast, Alex sped through the ordering process, entered her delivery address and credit card information, and chewed on a claw as the spinning wheel above the words “Processing Payment” spun like a hamster wheel with the most energetic of hamsters inside it. When the symbol disappeared and the website went blank for a moment, Alex almost screamed, thinking that the website pooped out on her, but after a few seconds of very violently stomping her foot against the floor of the breakroom, the page turned into a green checkmark and an order confirmation was delivered into her inbox with a satisfying ding.

The tigress pumped her fist into the air and silently celebrated. She hopped up and down, almost bumping into the coffee machine that she was standing beside. After a few jumps, she stopped, looked at her phone again to make sure she read it right and then squealed out loud as she struggled to contain her excitement.

The tigress had never sweat so much from standing in one place before; beads of sweat ran down her forehead, face, and even her back. Her hands got clammy, too, which made keeping her phone in her hand a lot harder. But now it was done; her PS5 was secured. She let out a sigh, slipped her phone back into her pocket, and wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans. She then went back to work, although she was incredibly unfocused, her mind thinking about the things she could do and the games she could play with her shiny new router-shaped gaming console set to arrive at her doorstep the next day.

She got very little work done that day, luckily, she was pretty good at making herself look like she was good at her job. How else was she able to keep an office job with her only prior experience being in a waitressing position?

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The honeymoon phase with her PS5 was amazing; the new games that came with it like Spider-Man Miles Morales, Demon Souls Remake, and Sackboy were fun, the DualSense controller fascinated her to no end, and just owning one during the launch period felt like a flex on everyone else who had trouble securing one against scalpers, bots, and a worldwide chip shortage caused by you-know-what. (Cough cough.) But it’s called a “honeymoon phase” for a reason; the excitement over her new console eventually died down after a few months as she finished all the games that there were to play. Eventually, her beloved marvel of Japanese technology sat on her IKEA TV shelf, collecting dust alongside its fellow Japanese friend that met a similar fate after she was done with Animal Crossing; her Nintendo Switch.

That was until June 2021.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart was the PS5 game that the tigress found herself hyped about most. Having been a long-time fan of the game since the first installment back on the PlayStation 2, her excitement was part nostalgia, part hype caused by all the cute fan art of the new Lombax character being introduced with the sequel. And while for the most part, Alex refrained from pre-ordering games, she couldn’t help herself. With her pre-order locked in, she waited a whole 11 days into June before the mailman dropped the parcel at her door early in the morning.

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Alex had a recurring weekday alarm set for her to wake up at 8 AM that she forgot to turn off after she put in her sick leave late last night. Normally, she would have complained, days off were meant for sleeping in after all, but with it being a game launch day, she was more than happy to roll out of her bed, grab her phone, and check the tracking number on her game.

‘Delivered’ was plastered at the very top of her delivery tracking app, which had the sleepy and bed-headed tigress excited. A jolt of energy shot through her veins out of nowhere. She quickly grabbed her sweater from its cute pile on the floor and zoomed through her apartment toward her front door, where she opened up her door to find a cute little box right on the floor as she pulled it inward. She picked it up and ran back into her apartment. She slammed the door a little too hard behind her that some of her keys that hung on the wall got knocked to the floor. She turned over her shoulder to very quickly investigate the source of the sound, but when she saw it was something so inconsequential, she continued running her way to her bedroom where her TV and PS5 were waiting for her.

Alex ripped open the parcel as soon as she entered her bedroom. Using her immense tiger strength, she tore the cardboard apart from its tight packing tape seals without any trouble. She dumped the contents of the box onto her bed and out of it came a disc copy of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, along with what made her extra comfortable with pre-ordering the game in the age of bad games left and right; a Rivet plushie.

The plushie was adorable and was what made the box she received much larger than what she would have expected. It was big. Alex picked up the plushie before even giving any attention to the game disc. She took the plushie out of its plastic wrapping, brought it up to her face for a closer look, then gave it a big sniff. She closed her eyes, let out a huge sigh, wiggled her nose, and smiled. “Mmm, made in China.” She cooed as she set the plushie down and turned her attention to the game disc laying face-down on the bed. She picked it up and took a moment to read the text on the box, before she sliced through the plastic seal with a claw, popped open the case, and slid the disc into her PS5.

After grabbing one of the seven controllers she had (don’t ask), the tigress hopped onto the bed, sat the Rivet plushie up so it was sitting next to her, and waited for the game to boot up. She could barely contain her excitement as the game loaded up to the start screen within a matter of seconds. Her feet thumped against her carpeted floor as she mashed her finger on the X button to start the game. She couldn’t wait to get started.

But before she could, she was presented with a prompt to pick the difficulty. Easy, Normal, or Hard. With a scoff and a shrug of her shoulders, she highlighted “Hard” and pressed X with confidence spread across her face. She was a seasoned gamer, having played games like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege, League of Legends, and even CS:GO, how hard could hard mode on a game like Ratchet & Clank be?

Right?

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“You have to be FUCKING kidding me. I HAD him RIGHT FUCKING THERE. What do you MEAN I can’t use A WALL as COVER? It’s a FUCKING WALL!” the tigress was mad. She had died to the same enemy for what was probably the twelfth time in a row, now. Whenever she thought she had memorized the AI enemy’s patterns, the moment she respawned, she discovered that the enemy switched to an entirely different tactic that had her dying again, again, and again. Her hands were sweaty, the controller in her hand slippery, and her tail was all fuzzed up as it flickered and swayed behind her to show her dissatisfaction. She was on the verge of throwing her controller across the room multiple times, but luckily the price tag of the DualSense popped into her head every time she got ready to flick her wrist and stopped her just in the nick of time.

She sat in her gamer pose; leaning forward slightly with her back slouched as she tried again to beat the big angry robot. But no matter what tactics, strategies, or weapons she used, she always died. It was starting to feel like she was trapped in a loop like Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow. She got close to killing the boss a few times, but while the boss’s health bar was down to about 15%, Alex’s was one hit away from being unalive.

And guess who had pitch-perfect aim?

Not Alex.

The tiger couldn’t compete with aim-bot level of accuracy, and with just one hit to her cute little Lombax, she rag-dolled and was presented with the shameful death screen again. Alex’s brows furrowed and she narrowed her eyes slightly as she gripped her controller so tight that the plastic on it creaked like the wood floor in every house in every horror movie when the protagonist has to be quiet. She squeezed her controller so hard that her fingers started to hurt, and she let the controller fall to the floor as she let out a very frustrated and almost feral grunt.

“FUCK!”

The tigress stood up from the bed and paced around the room, grumbling angrily to herself. There was an obvious and easy solution to this problem; she could just head into the settings menu and adjust the difficulty. She considered it as she dragged her feet through her shag carpet, building up static electricity throughout her body and causing the fur on her legs to stand up ever so slightly. But dropping down a difficulty level was for noobs, and she was no noob. After about a minute of angry pacing and mulling over strategies, she walked back to her bed and grabbed the controller, just to drop it as a small spark appeared between her fingers and the controller.

ZAP!

“Ow!” the tigress jerked her hand away as the statically charged fur on her finger zapped her. She popped her finger into her mouth to ease the sting from the zap. She then pulled her finger out of her mouth and used it to point at the controller as she scolded it. “Don’t give me MORE reasons to want to throw you.” She grumbled.

---

It was time for the tigress to try again. She got comfy on her stomach and perched herself up with her elbows. She moved her Rivet plushie off to the side and left it leaning against her thigh as she played. She took in deep breaths to realign her focus, and once she was ready, she respawned and fought the boss again.

She continued to die, over and over again. The more she died, the angrier she got, and the angrier she got, the tenser she became. “C’mon! That’s BULLSHIT.” She grumbled. She kicked her legs like a child having a tantrum. But after another deep breath, she tried again.

Alex did her best to utilize rifts and portals to try and trick the giant enemy robot that she was fighting with Rivet and she was so focused on doing it that she blinked as little as possible, so that she wouldn’t get jumped by any surprise attacks. She mashed every button possible on the controller, and this time, she got a bit closer to defeating the boss, but alas, died as her health was just one hit away from zero. She grumbled and groaned again, this time burying her face into the mattress as she did so. Her angry groaning was so intense and strenuous that it caused her butthole to clench and her pussy to wink as her body tensed up and trembled with the rage of a thousand gamers.

After a few muffled screams and whines into the mattress, she pulled her face back out, pushed herself up with her elbows, and pulled her legs around to sit on her knees. Once again, for what was probably her hundredth time, she respawned. This time, she started with deep breaths in and out and tried to think of calming thoughts; the ocean, a light breeze, or anything that would help her beat this boss with a bit more ease.

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Minutes turned into hours and the hands on the clock on Alex’s wall made laps faster than Usain Bolt. She was getting closer, dying with the boss’s health bar being lower every time. This was it, this was the home stretch, just a bit more effort and she could continue with the game. She had been stuck on it for a lot longer than she would ever admit to ANYONE; longer than the three hours she spent walking around Night City over encumbered slower than a SNAIL. She could lose her gamer credentials from this; she wasn’t going to let that happen. After dying again, she set her controller down, shook her hands free of all the sweat on them, and sighed. Her hands weren’t the only place where she had gotten sweaty either, her entire body had a thin film of sweat over it, and there were even a couple of droplets that rolled through her fur and dripped off of her pussy and onto the bed.

The tiger had snacks and drinks and even brought her phone charger over to charge it once she had some downtime. But damn, that controller was difficult to put down, especially once she was just a hair away from WINNING.

With furrowed brows, the angriest look on her face, she fought the boss again.

“C’mon… C’mon… This is it; I can FEEL it…”

The clickity clacking of the controller buttons was loud, only being dwarfed by the loud sounds of the game being blasted through the TV’s speakers. Alex threw everything that little Lombax had at the big robot and watched as its health bar slowly depleted. 90%. 80%. 50%. 20%. 10%.

She said nothing as she focused all of her brain cells on this one task. She gritted her teeth, held her breath, and slowly started to rise on her knees the more the boss’s health bar lessened.

5%.

3%.

1%.

Alex pressed down on the adaptive trigger one last time to fire one last shot with her gun.

‘KABOOM.’

“FUCK YES! FUCK YOU, YOU ROBOT BASTARD!!!!!” Alex let out a cheer as the boss robot fell to the ground and a cutscene indicating that she had won started to play. She let go of her controller, let out a heavy sigh, and dropped back down onto her knees on the bed. She started to laugh and cackle at herself as she felt the massive weight finally get lifted off of her chest.

She missed the first few seconds of the cutscene as she caught her breath, but once her breathing slowed and normalized again, she was able to pay attention. That’s when the unthinkable happened.

The power went out.

Her lights, air conditioning, TV, and PS5 all shut off in an instant. The tigress was left wide-eyed as she stared at her reflection on the black TV screen. She was too in shock to say anything, and the shock would last a few more seconds before she realized what had happened.

“No, no, no, no, NO, NO!!!!” the tigress screamed as she mashed the buttons on her controller as if it would bring the power back on somehow. She continued to mash the buttons on her controller for a few seconds before she gave up. Defeated, the tigress flopped onto her bed, kicking her spicy chips and empty drink containers onto the floor in the process. She stared at the ceiling, angry at the power grid and how unreliable it was, and could only hope that the autosave triggered after she passed the boss fight. After a few seconds of staring at the ceiling, the lights in her room flickered back on, and she was greeted by a familiar voice.

“You know you can’t just put in a fake sick day when you don’t work at an office anymore, right?” the voice was feminine, if slightly raspy. There was an aura of passive-aggressiveness to her voice, too, one that Alex recognized as unintentional, yet effective.

The tigress pouted and turned to look at the doorway to her bedroom where she saw a raccoon standing. Dressed in a blue pantsuit, holding a tablet in her hand and a phone in the other, was Logan, her manager.

“If that didn’t autosave, I am firing you,” Alex said with a grumble as she gave her a sarcastic snarl.

“What? Are you blaming the unreliable power grid on me?” Logan raised a brow at the tigress. And shook her head. She then pushed herself from the doorway and made her way to Alex’s bed to pull her up.

With a grumble and just a little bit of resistance, Alex got up onto her feet. She continued to stare at Logan with annoyance and suspicion. Logan was unbothered by this and once she pulled Alex up onto her feet, she gave her a pat on the back, “Get dressed. We’re already way behind schedule. Bagels are waiting for you in the car. Get dressed quick and they’ll still be hot.” The raccoon said with a smile as she headed out the door.

Alex watched her leave with fury still in her eyes. And once the raccoon was out of sight and earshot, she mocked her with her tongue sticking out of her mouth and an exaggerated angry expression.

“GeT dReSSeD. WE’rE aLrEaDy wAy BeHiNd sChEdUlE.”

“Bagel’s getting cold!” the raccoon shouted from the hallway, to which Alex grumbled.

“ALRIGHT!!! GOSH!”

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Art by Red3Engine