As soon as he got into the groove, Scott's mind cleared as it sharpened to a razor's edge. His reflexes had naturally dulled slightly as he grew older, as much as it pained him to admit it, he wasn't tournament material anymore. While his synapses didn't react quite as fast as they used to, he had many, many years of Third Strike under his belt. Almost every frame of animation was committed to his memory and running Dudley was second nature. All he had to do was slowly and steadily push his opponent into a corner then his rote memorized combos would juggle his opponent into oblivion. Back in the day he'd get nervous while playing, the sheer desire to win, the fear of losing would cause him to make mistakes. Playing a character that required cool, clinical precision tempered his nerves. 

He'd cleared his way to the top of many a cabinet when he travelled the country. Ever since he first picked it up so many years ago he'd often fall into a mood where he [I] had [/I] to play Third Strike. Such a lust for combos had gotten him into the tournament scene, he never made it big, but he did learn one very, very important skill. 

Each animation of any videogame is composed of frames, individual panes that portray everything in the game world from hits, to movement, etcetera, most fighting games, Third Strike included, run at sixty frames per second. That is sixty individual frames of animation and data in a second, in Third Strike there exsists a system called parries. If a player throws his stick forward during the last ten frames of his opponent's attack animation, all damage will be negated and the character who parried will recover faster than his opponent, allowing him to launch into a combo of his own. In other words, Scott learned how to completely negate attacks a tenth of a second before they hit. Its not foolproof, and it requires a fair amount of prediction, but Scott's muscle memory allowed him to do it without thinking. A well timed parry can completely turn the tide in a fight, he'd seen some of the most insane comebacks through them, and his ability to pull them off was certainly a source of pride. 

His mastery of Third Strike did affect his performance in other games, however, and as the years went by live opponents became rarer and rarer. Of course he could still go to EVO and other conventions, but it wasn't enough, he wanted to play Third Strike [I] all [/I] the time. Other games such as [I] Blazblue [/I] and [I] Persona 4 Arena [/I] he'd tried to get into, but the huge array of subsystems turned him off. Other titles such as [I] Mortal Kombat [/I] felt too restrictive with their combos. He did try out an interesting title called [I] Skullgirls [/I] in a couple other arcades, and he did take a liking to it. In the back of his head he decided to look for it in this arcade later, for now he had a ladder to destroy. 

Speaking of which, his last opponent, the empowered and ridculously colored final boss of the arcade mode Gill, was already in the corner. The AI behind him foolishly decided to make a desperate attack, prompting a parry into one final Corckscrew Blow to finish him off. I he familiar fanfare played and he inputted the initals "SAW" next to his score at the top of the board. He stifled a yawn as he stretched his shoulders, standing hunched over an arcade cabinet for a good while left his joints surprisingly stiff, he twisted around partly to get his body moving again, and partly to see if the eyes he felt boring into his back were real or phantoms. 

Sure enough, they were real. He caught the gaze of the girl who'd demolished Delta 3 next to him, another girl was talking to her about something, probably a challenge. He was tempted to watch their match, hell he was tempted to challenge the girl himself, she was pretty damn good. He didn't want to intrude in their conversation, so he instead just flashed a smile and another thumb's up before stepping away from the cabinet, silently debating on what he'd do next before finally just figuring he'd stay put. He loved watching skilled players, and was looking forward to seeing her Third Strike game later. After all he had a ton of time to kill until tonight, when he'd finally get to open his bar.

Today was a good day