[IC] The Gamer Squad: An Ode to the Retro and New Generation (Now with 80% less Glitches!)

[EpicNukeGuy]

Ren Young Ming

Ren wasn't really a ladies man, but he sat down next to Jihyo. She was the only non-male person he knew well in the room. "Hey, Ji-" Suddenly, the lights flickered, and shut off. "Huh? Who turned off the lights?"

Dylan said
"Damn it! The power's out again.. Fucking shoddy electricity.." Dylan muttered before he pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight. "Sorry about this guys, I had no idea that was gonna happen... Anybody bring a portable game system we can all try out?"

"Nah... I don't use them. I have my phone, though." Ren sighed. There was no storm or anything outside, so maybe a malfunction in the power room, or whatever apartment dwellers used for power, caused the power outage. "I can't see squat... Damn, I wish I had a laptop." Ren stood up from his seat, and walked towards the direction of the light Dylan was holding. When Ren looked closer, though, an odd light was flashing behind Dylan. Ren squinted. The vague shape of a machine was illuminated by sunlight through a window. "Hey Dylan... how about we use that generator over there? Looks like you were prepared for this, 'cause I didn't see this when I came in..."

[Card Captor]

"Well. I did bring my computer. I have a lot of games on steam downloaded on it" Tommy said "although with only one computer, that doesn't leave us with much options. Although, we could all play a game of civ 5 together. We would only have one nation...but at least it's something"

"Civ 5?" Jason asked "what's that?"

"Civilization 5" Tommy answered him "haven't you heard of it before?"

"Nope. It doesn't sound like my kind of game if it can be played the way you're suggesting"

[Rin]

Alexis Taylor

"Meh, sounds like you can have fun all by yourself, Dylan, since you took out all of the fun stuff." Alexis... Was not a fan of tournament play Smash Bros., to put it lightly. "Besides, I suck as Fox so there's no point in me playing."

At least she didn't have to complain about the Xbone, seeing how one of the new arrivals covered that for her. As Serena sat down next to her, she thought for a moment about how weird their friendship really was. She was so deadpan and understated, and Alexis... Was not. In any way, shape or form. Still, for some reason they seemed to get along really well, or at least Alexis was too fervent and Serena was too nonplussed for either of them to really fight with each other.

"Hey, Serena!" She said, wrapping an arm around the smaller girl's shoulders. "Sooo... What're you playing this ti-"

And then the lights went out.

"...Truly, this is a sign from the great gods of gaming that tourney play is blasphemy! No Fox only, No Final Destination, No... No-no items... Um..." Losing track of what she was actually saying, Alexis took a quick glug of coke. "So, uh... Who's up for some Pokemon then? My Electivire's hungry for blood and ready to rumble! ALL SHALL FEAR THE GOD OF THUNDER!"

[VitaVitaAR]

Anna was about to point out that she... admittedly didn't actually know enough about Smash Bros(sure, she had played it, but... not like that. Her knowledge was more focused on a lot of different games) to play it like that, when... the power went out. Suddenly cast into darkness and very confused, Anna backed up awkwardly and looked around. It was hard to see where anyone or anything was, and she really didn't want to go tripping over something.

"Um... what... just happened? Did... did the circuits break or... or..." that was what happened to cause this kind of thing, right? Anna... kind of didn't really know, she had to be honest about that...

... And then Alexis mentioned Pokemon very loudly. Anna could definitely get behind that, at least! ... Though at the same time she did hope the power came back on soon...

"Um... I'm up for Pokemon, um..."

---

"I like the smash balls," came the deadpan response from Serena. She didn't look up from her game, still sending Kirby about to defeat enemies and navigate the level to the best of her ability. Given that this was certainly not the first time that she had played Super Star Ultra, the best of her ability was very easily getting through the level. Still, she did not want to pause, or look away. And she did enjoy the smash balls, it spiced up playing the game a lot. She didn't see any need to elaborate on that point at all. And still, she kept playing, not once looking up from her DS.

She felt Alexis's arm around her shoulders... and continued to look concertedly at her DS. She didn't mind Alexis's arm around her at all, and so there was no reason to look up and protest. No, she was quite comfortable with this, and with continuing to play Super Star Ultra. She also didn't mind speaking with her friend...

... And then the power went out. The light from Serena's DS illuminated her face.

"... Super Star Ultra," she replied, to Alexis's question, without looking away from her DS. After all, this didn't interfere with playing her game, so why should she stop now? Pokemon sounded nice, too, once she got to a good point to stop... "... And no-one will beat my Mawile."

[Dingo]

Loch entered the room leisurely from the kitchen, eating a sandwich.
"Hey… So you know the power's out, right? I closed the fridge to make sure your food kept." No one could say for certain when Loch had arrived, just that he was suddenly… there. He had a tendency to do that, though. He also had a tendency to be eating whenever you saw him, although no one could ever find an explanation to where the food had come from.

"If I'd have known you were wanting handhelds, I would have brought my Advance with me, but other than that, all I got is these…" Reaching into his pocket, Loch pulled lout several N64 cartridges, a black one reading 'Turok 2' as well as several grey ones, 'Turok: Rage Wars' and 'Turok 3'. It was hardly a surpass to anyone who knew him that he'd brought them, they were his multiplayer games of choice. Plunking himself down on the floor, Loch continued to eat his sandwich whilst listening to the others.
"I have Pokemon Leaf Green and all that, just not with me. Plus I can't find my link cable or any of that stuff, unless we wanted to watch someone make a Nuzlocke Run." Loch thought for a moment, "Hey, Dylan! Don't you have an external battery pack we could use to power stuff? It could at least get us through the blackout?"

[Ollumhammersong]

At first Alexander felt like speaking up. But then as more and more people burst through the door he decided the best thing to do right now was drink a beer and enjoy the show. If there was one thing that could be classified as the most amusing thing to watch in the world. It was not sports, or television or the lastest Hollywood hit. It was nerds talking to one-another and debating with eachother over game choices. And like hell he was going to put a stop to this level of quality entertainment. The people gathered in this room right now were..... Interesting to say the least. Their conversations even more so. He slowly made his way to his own bag of Nintendo 64 games. He was about to pull out his own collection and start tossing down various multiplayer games he acquired through his lifetime. Anything from Mario kart to 007 Golden eye and everything inbetween. But when the group seemed to decide on Smash brothers he shrugged and pushed it all back into his bag. He could think of worse games. And he rather enjoyed the lack of effort it took to paly that game. A good choice to open up with at a party. He was about to reach for one of the controllers when the screen turned black and the overhead lights went dark. "Well then." was all he said as he looked up and around for broken bulbs or any sort of cause for the power failure.
He didn't bring his laptop with him and wasn't everly keen on the small screens of the Gameboy and its many offshoots. "I can't say I brought anything more than my Nintendo." He didn't think the idea of a room full of nerds passing around and sharing the same handheld system while in the dark was going to be quite as exciting of a party. But with no better alternative he supposed it would have to do. He sighed and pinched the brigde of his nose and walked back over to the snack table while everyone else started started crowding around the Gameboys. "When we figure out what's going on and what we're all doing exactly, Someone tell me." he said casually and reached for a slice of pizza and a second beer.

[Fabricant451]

Jihyo had been rolling her eyes as soon as Dylan began his opening ceremony speech, but prior to that she had nodded at the new and late arrivals, wondering just how many people Dylan had invited and whether or not everyone would have to tip in for the electrical bill that was sure to skyrocket following this gathering. Jihyo was not going to tip in, not for this.

"Fucking hell when are we going to play a real game, not this Smash Brothers shit? Dyl, just because you make the rules like a fighting game tournament doesn't make it a fighting game. I mean, I'll still play, but under massive fucking protest. And don't anyone even think about picking Snake. Only I get to stare at his well toned ass in that muscle suit."

Jihyo popped open a bottle of water and took a sip, right as Ren took a seat next to her. Good kid, Ren, as far as art majors went. He wasn't one of those weird types that took photos at abstract angles and of coat hangers and made up some bullshit explanation on how it's a political statement against the two party system, so he had that going for him.

But then the lights went out. Which solved Jihyo's Smash Brothers concern, but then raised yet another.

"Oh my god if everyone starts whipping out Pokemon I swear I'm fucking out. I'm a fucking math major and even I think the way that game uses numbers is bullshit. But sure, go ahead and drain the battery on your handhelds and laptops, I'm sure you'll have no problem plugging in the charger in the outlet...oh, wait, power's out. Might wanna work on that before we decide to just play Pokemon in the dark. I'd rather play Civilization with Jason, and I hate Civilization."

It's not that Jihyo was actually angry, though she was quite serious about her leaving if Pokemon became the main event all of a sudden, it was just that she was very particular about her choice of games. And Smash Brothers was not something she was particularly fond of, though with the lights out that seemed to be the least of her worries.

[Psyga315]

Elliot signed and headed to get an energy drink himself. He sipped it and felt a little jumpy the instant it went down his esophagus.

"Man that's a kick!" He said. Just then-

"I... HAVE ARRIVED!" A girl burst into the room and shouted at the top of her lungs, scaring the shit out of Elliot as he fell to the ground.

"JESUS MAN! KNOCK NEXT TIME!" Elliot shouted before gaining his composure and getting up. By now, the only music filling the room outside of Pokemon Emerald and Weird Al telling people to eat it was some weird voice going "Waywaywaywayowowwaywaywaywayowowowow". "Oh God, why didn't Alexis' entry make me deaf?" Elliot wondered.

One more game, then I'm done.

Elliot didn't really knew everyone all that well. He has met some of them when passing through the college, but that was it. Seeing the others being familiar with each other made him feel something. "Do I really want to leave? If I was to make friends with someone, how would I be able to leave them when I'm doing my job?" Fortunately, his mantra saved him.

One more game, then I'm done.

The weird voice stopped, allowing Elliot to relax.

Darren said "There is literally like no multiplayer games"

That is until someone talked about Xbox One. He got up and looked to Darren. "Well, they have Killer Instinct, Ghosts, and soon, Titanfall... I'm just waiting for the new Halo game and boom. Sold customer." Elliot said to him. A few more people entered the room. A shrinking violet, a snarky girl, and someone who seemed to be French. Elliot responded to her question, unaware of the reference to Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters.

"Ça va bien, merci et toi?" Elliot asked Rachel. Just then, Dylan came on and announced the rules for Brawl. Elliot smiled as he laid down the basic rules, such as disabling items and choosing from tiered characters. It was almost like the different kinds of matches in Halo if someone tweaked them and customized the rules.

That's when the power went out.

"Well that was fun. Who's for Chinese?" Elliot said, giving out a reference of his own. Despite his liking for the metagame of Brawl, he couldn't help but giggle at Alexis' joke about the blasphemy... even if she did scare the shit out of him. Jihyo's ranting about Pokemon and Smash Brothers made him sigh a bit. He took a swig of the five-hour energy drink. It was gonna be a loooooooooong night.

[Shoryu]

Nathan

Nathan immediately closed his laptop upon hearing the magic word "Brawl! I am IN! I don't play it much anymore, it's only fun with friends now... I'd play guilty gear too, even that one that kinda rips off Dynasty warrior." All at once his attention locked on the TV and the soon to be booting up of another of his favorite games

Then the power went out

He huffed indignantly and settled back into his former position and opened his laptop "I wish, but without power the router doesn't work either, right? no internet, so no internet games, Or I'd try and drag you all into DFO." He switched to another game that he could distract himself, Dungeon defenders. "The sucky thing is I can't charge my laptop either, good thing I brought extra batteries!... and I hear that plugging a laptop in when a generator is powering things is 'unhealthy' for it... something about cycling power surges or some such."

---

Kenneth

He sniggered from his place on the floor and threw Alexis a little smirk "Hey, just becaue it's cliche doesn't mean it wouldn't be more exciting... It certainly has a lot more shock value to it, even if you lack the eyebrows to make the whole room freeze in horror and contemplate... are those real?"

He quickly switched focus to the Xbone jokes "Hey, I'm sure he didn't dive in the dumpster to get it... The Dumpster coughed it up and begged him to take it away, even the dumpster was afraid of being caught up in Microsoft's newest surveilance and control scheme."

And when the power went out... it didn't affect him seemingly, he just shrugged and went back to his DS... wondering if perhaps Tyler would recognize the sound of the DS Castlevania's music playing amongst the other sounds. "welp, that sucks, good thing I just got a new battery too, this'll last 2 days on a full charge, hahah, and pokemon sucks, they just keep reselling you the same thing at full price beacuse they added a few new abilities and graphics."

[Rin]

Alexis Taylor

"Hah, that's what you think!" Alexis laughed, suddenly pulling Serena closer to her. "But I have found that few things can stand against a hyperactive electric yeti with flaming fists of fury! And, uh... And I guess that's it since I never had the patience to EV train anything else. But still! Flaming fists of fury!"

At Jihyo's complaints, all she could really do was shrug. "Well, all else fails we can always dig out Twister or something, eheh~" It would've seemed like an innocent suggestion, were it not for the perverted laugh and the glimmer in her eye as she said it. Of course she was joking, but someone who didn't know her well might have taken her implied intention to be serious. Luckily, she was amongst friends who did know her better than that.

"You'd be up for that, right Anna~?" she giggled as she saw the shorter girl quietly state that she'd like to play Pokemon. "Come on, we could get to know each other a bit... Closer, eheh~" Anna was so much fun to tease, really. Even if it was far too easy to do so.

And it was at that moment that Alexis finally noticed that Rachel was in the room, too. Things were a bit hectic when she arrived, so she'd missed her. Probably for the best, as then she'd be spending the next hour trying to figure out the perfect response to her Enter quote. Instead, she decided to make a reference that would be lost on almost everyone else and would make her look like even more of a raving lunatic than she'd seemed to be already.

"Hey! Hey, Rachel! Hey!" She took a deep breath, and... "IIIIIIIMAAAAAAGIIIIIINAAAAATIIIIOOON!"

...Which Serena probably got the brunt of, due to being right next to her. And then Elliot made his own reference, which... Alexis actually got, but decided to take it seriously anyways.

"Hells yes I'm for Chinese!" she yelled, pumping a fist into the air enthusiastically. "But only if they do mapo tofu. I would honestly kill a man right now for some good mapo tofu."

[Crossfire]

David let all of the "Xbone" ribbing and jokes wash over him. He was used to it by now, and even laughed along with a few of him as he fetched himself a beer. He slapped Elliot on the back when he jumped to defend the XB1 "Atta boy Elliot! Maybe we can sneak in a few rounds of K.I. later. Speaking of which, we really should've had a few extra TV's set up in here, to keep the few of us who aren't part of the PC Master Race or don't have any handhelds on hand busy while tourney matches are goin on"

Dave shut up before he could get any response because that's when their host and fearless leader, Dylan stepped forward to announce SSB Brawl as the first game....... but then the power just shit itself and died.

"Damn" David said, as he took a sip from the bottle.

"Well that was fun. Who's for Chinese?" Elliot said.

"I refuse to play your Chinese food mind games!" David responded in his best Ashton Kutcher impression. He folded over his arms and thought for a moment as most of the others went back to their DS's, Gameboys or computers "Ok, first, someone should check if its a city grid blackout or just a tripped breaker up here. We wouldn't be able to run a gas-powered generator up here because of the fumes, if we even have one, but we could pop it out onto the fire scape, run the cables through to the power bars. Then just balance out the loads on each separate circuit we'd have to run. Assuming the power is not knocked out city-wide, I could drive over to a hardware or electronics shop, pick us up some gear to splice up into a generator"

[VitaVitaAR]

Anna

This was all a bit too much for Anna. All this yelling and everything... all she could really do was fall silent and listen and try not to bump into anything. And there was a lot to bump into in this room. People, objects, furniture... all of it was far too easy for her to run into if she moved and really, she just stood immobilized in the dark. It would be really bad to just go running into someone or falling over or something and she really didn't want to do that at all! But... her eyes were at least adjusting to the darkness now, so she could at least see somewhat.

And then... and then she heard Alexis... Alexis saying...

"Wh-wh-wh-whaaaa...?"

The girl's cheeks flushed intensely red as the implications sunk in. That... that was way too embarrassing! Twister would be way way way too embarrassing! It was just too much to handle!

"D-d-don't say things l-like that! I... I..."

Anna stepped back... tripped...

And fell.

"W-waaah!"

She landed on her rear, hard.

"O-ow..."

---

Serena

Serena did not react even as Alexis pulled her closer, still maintaining her odd little expression as she played her game. She had already progressed quite far, amidst all the ranting and suggestions and complaining. She really could care less until the power was back on and she could play other games with her friends. She simply played her game, navigating Kirby through levels as expertly as anyone who had done so many runs of the game. She took note of Alexis' perverted comments, and decided to speak up at this point, with one simple word.

"Pervert."

And that was that. She returned to playing her game.

... At least until Alexis blasted her ears out with yelling so loud. For a moment, the tiny black-haired girl's eyes were wide in shock and her ears were sharply ringing from the noise so close to her ears... And she winced.

... Before driving an elbow into Alexis's side.

That had really hurt.

[Tachi]

Rachel froze up for a moment when Elliot responded to her reference. She wasn't sure what she expected, since she was fairly sure most of the people present weren't tokusatsu fans, but she definitely hadn't been prepared for the reply she'd gotten. Honestly, Rachel only had a semester of French under her belt, and that had been back in elementary school. For a few moments, she stood there umming and uhhing, trying to come up with a decent response.

...And then the power went out. That was annoying. Well, at least she had stuff she could play until it came back on. At the mention of Pokemon, she reached into her bag to withdraw her 3DS. She was pretty sure her dinosaurs, Godzilla-esque monsters and giant squid would have something to say about Alexis's claims. Before she opened her mouth to say anything to that effect though, the blonde called out to her, before yelling a very loud reference to the latest sentai, ToQGer. Rachel smiled and pondered for a moment. It was kind of difficult to react to, so...she decided to do what any sane person would do in the situation. Continue the chain of obscure references that would fly over almost everyone else's heads.

The brunette grinned and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose before flipping her DS open. "Your yeti versus my squid, what do you say? Let's make a show of it!"

Moments later, she saw Anna trip and fall. She winced slightly before making her way over to the fallen girl, careful to avoid anything she might trip over in the darkened room. She held a hand out to help Anna up. "Um, are you okay?"

[Psyga315]

Elliot's train of thought was derailed by Alexis' shouting of Imagination. His mind began to search through his memories to see if he was able to catch the reference, though while Rachel's mind went to Tokkyuger, Elliot thought Alexis was talking about the Lego Movie. Gotta watch that at some point., he thought. Then she told him she wants Chinese as well.

"Alright, I'll go call General Tso's and see if they have any good tofu." Elliot said. He was prepared for when someone would take his comment seriously or play with his reference. He whipped out his phone, but before he dialed it, he got popped on the back by David.

"Sure! You're on!" Elliot said to David. FPSes were more his thing, and for a fast paced game like Killer Instinct, his floor would be mopped in an instant, but he didn't care. He'd have fun. He tried to get back to his phone, but he noticed that it fell out of his hands.

"Ack! Where did it go?" Elliot asked, going onto the ground and trying to look for it. He found his phone... right as Anna tripped and fell on it. He was confident that the phone was as durable as a cockroach in a Twinkie, though he was certain he heard a little "crack" in there somewhere. "...Eeep." He muttered.

[EpicNukeGuy]

"Wait! Don't order without adding crispy beef!" Ren then saw Elliot drop his phone, and a "crack" was heard through the surprisingly quiet room. "Oh, screw it, dude. It's probably broken..." Ren sat back down at his seat next to Jihyo, and opened Steam at the computer. When it opened, the "on sale" window popped up. Ren grinned, and proclaimed that XCOM was on sale. "Is anyone up for multiplayer?" Ren asked. "At least until Elliot get his phone running, and the Chinese comes?"

[Card Captor]

"Blagh" Jason grimaced "I hate Chinese food" he complained. "Why do we even need that crap? We've still got pizza. Shouldn't that be good enough?" he said. "My uncle told about how all the Chinese food places are working with the Chinese government to overthrow America from the inside...then again, he was seriously baked at the time..."

"Y-your uncle does drugs!?" Tommy blurted out in surprise

"Well he didn't know they were meth brownies. In fact, none of us found out until a few days later. Turns out he accidentally interfered with a drug smuggling operation. He didn't get arrested because as it turns out, it's not against the law to do illegal drugs if you don't know they're drugs. Boy, that was a funny family reunion"

[VitaVitaAR]

"U-um..."

Anna slowly took Rachel's hand, pulling herself back to her feet. What had she even tripped on...? It was hard to tell when it was so dark, and she was still really embarrassed... And... she thought she might have landed on something... looking around, she thought she caught a glimpse of... of... something... was it a phone? And... she heard something about being broken... was that the crack she had heard? It had kind of hurt what she had fallen on them, but... awkwardly, Anna rubbed her backside, frowning. "W-wait, um... those... a-aren't those made to withstand... I didn't fall th-that hard, I..."

She... couldn't have broken it, right? Anna was pretty light, too... even for her relatively short height(though Serena was by far the tiniest person there). "I-I... um... I'm sorry..."

[Psyga315]

Elliot got his phone and inspected it...

It survived the fall, though thanks in part to it being a cockroach-like phone and Anna being light as a feather. There was the sound of the crack though, which caused Elliot to inspect it further. That's when he noticed it. Tilting the phone in a certain angle reveals that the phone's screen suffered a hairline crack, but other than that, it not only worked normally, but the damage was not visible to the untrained naked eye. Elliot sighed in relief.

"It's okay. My phone's good." Elliot said. Jason said his piece and did a double take when he mentioned about his uncle doing drugs, though it was more because of that Chinese conspiracy than anything. Then Jason explained about the meth brownies. Elliot got a chuckle out of it. Ren mentioned that XCOM was for sale and if he's up for multiplayer. Unfortunately, he didn't bring his computer with him. XBOX Live was his method of multiplayer.

"Yeah... Maybe I should do pizza instead. I'm probably gonna stick out of the mutliplay for a bit." Elliot said to Jason. He turned to Anna. "Are you okay?" He asked her.