"Avoid responsibility no more!"
"Who are you and what did you do with the Suki?" Roche was a busy girl. Between her relationship, managing both the track club and detention club, and figuring out how to contend with the looming threat of both Ashbringer and the GEMS was enough to leave anyone feeling drained. When she did have a moment to herself, it was often squandered thinking about how to handle all the other problems she had on her plate. At present, she was laying on her bed looking at the ceiling.
There was a knock on her apartment door. One would forgive Roche for acting with caution. There was no telling who it could be, and yet it wouldn’t do to leave the thing unanswered. Fortunately, her door did come with a door viewer. Likely a holdover from whoever lived here last. When Roche looked through it, she could see Suki’s distorted eye with just enough other details to know it was her.
Swallowing a sigh of resignation that her home was growing increasingly frequented by others, Roche wasted no time in opening the door. Though she’d slept like the dead following the Giga Miseria’s fall, it was only a drop in the bucket compared to what she’d lost in her worrying and the building signs of fatigue only sharpened the look she sent at Suki.
"I half expected you to forget this place. Come on in." Beckoning Suki to follow after she came to a well used coffee maker, the smell of brew heavy in the air and it was clear at a glance that it wasn’t the first pot she’d had brewing that morning. She poured out two mugs and favored Suki with a glance over the rim.
"You tired of running away, or is this about Michi?"The delinquent hadn’t stepped past the threshold of the door. While Suki was the one to knock, seemingly of her own volition, her brow was stitched together.
"Avoiding you isn’t the same as running away." She eyed the cup of coffee.
"And I don’t plan on staying long." Her preferred method of caffeine acquisition was from soft drinks anyway.
"Why would I talk to you about me-chi?""Suki, you’re…Whatever." Roche sagged, deciding she’d drink both if Suki was going to stand in the doorway. And seeing as she was rather distracted on that dream lunch of their’s, Roche wasn't going to offer up anything else damning.
"Forget it.""Yea, let’s do that." Suki placed her hands on her hips.
"I wish I could flush all of that out of my head, but some things can’t be drunk away.""Look, I promise I won’t touch you or raise my voice. Don’t have much of a voice to shout with anyhow, so tell me what you’re here for. There’s a dozen things I can point to so narrow it down for me.""Well it’s funny you should mention that. Not touching me that is." She sighed.
"I think out of everyone in this club, I like you the least. Hopefully that’s not too surprising." Her face softened.
"But if we’re going to function as a team, the entire detention club. We all need to learn to work together. That means that you and I need to, you know, move past what happened. And I’m willing to make an effort to do that, but it’s not free." She pretended to hold a giant cannon and fired it.
"You need to help someone else extend me the olive branch. Especially since it was at least seventy percent your fault."The rule keeper gave a slow blink past her half drained mug, enraptured by the audacity of the girl in her doorway.
"Let’s not quibble on fault here. You aren’t my least favorite in the club, to be clear. Now, whose skirt are you trying to get under that you think you need my help?"Suki sighed, rubbed the back of her head, and placed a closed fist on the frame of the door.
"Yea, this was kind of a stupid idea." She stepped out of the doorway and made her way down the hall.
"Damn it- Hold on!" Roche bit out, nearly vaulting her counter to hasten after Suki. Bare feet slapped against the hall as she reached out and grasped Suki’s shoulder to halt her flight.
"You seem to love dishing out the teasing but can’t take a word of it back. Fine, I’m sorry for being snide. Tell me what you want, Suki." Her hand lingered for a moment longer before withdrawing to her side, the tanned girl’s expression conflicted out in the open halls.
Suki looked at her shoulder, then to Roche, before turning around to face her.
"You uh, kinda just did what you said you weren’t gunna do." If Suki's delivery hadn’t been so deadpan, Roche might have suspected she was joking. But despite her eccentricities, it seemed like she was trying to be serious.
"Anyway, it’s fine. I thought it was obvious, but I’m talking about Nyxia. She told me to give you what for and ever since she’s had it out for me. Meanwhile the two of you get along swimmingly." She rubbed her chin.
"I was thinking we could go to the arcade together, you know, as an outing. Not a date, I don’t think any of us are interested in dating each other." She stressed that point.
"But uh, yea, thought the three of us could go to the arcade. There’s a game or two I’d like to play again, and Sunshine doesn’t have the reflexes for fighters. Think you could try to get Nix on board?"Having the decency to be abashed at so quickly going back on her word, Roche leaned against the wall and made a show of considering Suki’s request. The animosity Nyxia had was rather potent, and Suki had herself to blame considering the public fondling she gave Earthshaker before Nyxia’s own eyes.
"I can do it, though we’ll have to stay transformed. She’s not gonna be able to enjoy the arcade near as well in a wheelchair." Not strictly a lie, but Roche didn’t think Norika would be willing even with Roche vouching for her.
"She’d probably get a kick out of anything with light guns, but if it’s all of us she’d at least try the fighters."Her brows furrowed, snowy hair crinkling with her words.
"Is that all you want to bury whatever this is between us?""We need to be stronger." Suki folded her arms.
"And things will work out better for us if we all work together. If you can manage that, then yea, I’m willing to leave the past in the past."That…was a mature outlook coming from Suki. Roche would almost think she was charmed by someone if not for the rather obvious source of personal growth.
"Yeah, we will be. I hope Tsubomi knows how lucky she is to have you in her corner." With everything happening to their club’s resident pharmaceutical provider, it was no wonder Suki had a fire lit under her to improve.
"I’ll get Nyxia on board, though we might need to find an arcade after hours.""The one Sunshine and I go to is open crazy late, so that shouldn’t be a problem." She shoved her hands into her pockets.
"Give me a ring when you’ve made some progress."This time Roche let her depart in peace, already turning back to her open apartment.
"Sure, won’t be long."
Suki is my favorite person in the whole world!
Waddaya mean you could tell Nyxia didn’t write this?
-Nyxia Torrentia, Neon Tempest of the Ultraviolet Rainbow
After a long day came the start of a Magical Girl’s work shift, the sun since set at her back as Earthshaker perched on the sill of Norika’s window and tapped gingerly on the glass.
She’d texted ahead and gave a time, not wanting to impose on the girl at her most vulnerable. Her face tensed, one arm curling over a tender rib as her skin carrier lingering bruises from their battle, Kicking my own ass certainly worked wonders, but damn if it isn’t slow to heal.
After a moment, Earthshaker would notice a subtle sign of movement in the darkened room, followed by a flash of teal light. A moment after that, and Nyxia was standing in front of the window.
"Thanks for not knocking too loudly," she told the Rule Keeper as she opened the window.
"This thing just got replaced yesterday, and my parents would really start to get suspicious if it was shattered twice in less than a month." As it was, the story of possible burglars causing the first break-in had only been so easily accepted thanks to the servant staff having been knocked unconscious as well, although the fact that nothing had actually been stolen was as perplexing as it was relieving.
"I probably shouldn’t have been so reckless," the Neon Tempest conceded with a frown.
"But I also couldn’t waste time with all those damn shadow monkeys everywhere… You know those fuckers actually invaded my house?""I’d take a vow of silence if it let me dodge your family." Earthshaker said softly, slipping into the familiar room, still wary even if no one could see or hear them. The carpets were plush and the floor solid, leaving them secure unless they started rearranging furniture.
"They came here? What was Black Gate playing at…" The reasoning eluded her, yet it was clear Black Gate’s actions brought the club together intentionally, and if she hadn’t done so then the battle with the Giga Miseria would have cost her more then aches and bruises.
"They were all over the whole damn city," Nyxia clarified.
"And they weren’t alone. There was also a… a magical boy fighting them," she added.
"And I think he might be my new tutor, who’s also a junior fucking detective, or some shit…" Grunting as she slid that onto the back burner, the Rule Keeper crossed her arms to the Neon Tempest with her full attention.
"Nyxia, I’m going to ask you for a favor. If anything happens or you aren’t comfortable we can call it off, but it would mean a lot if you did this." Her chest swelled, drawing in a breath to steady herself.
"Would you go to the arcade with me and Oros?"Nyxia’s eyes widened, then narrowed.
"Why? So she can perv on the two of us?" she asked skeptically.
Wincing in the face of Nyxia’s response, Roche exhaled softly.
"Look, you got a terrible first impression of her, but I was also a complete bitch to start with. I’m not asking you to forget everything she’s done and said, but she…she genuinely cares for everyone in the club, and she wants to make things up to you. So, just the three of us, enjoying some late night arcade games. Worst case? She thrashes us at King of Fighters and we blow off steam stomping Miseria."Nyxia was silent for a moment before sighing.
"Fine… I guess I can give her a second chance," the Neon Tempest relented.
"But if she tries to fuck with me, she’s gonna fucking regret it.""She won’t. She really does want a second chance for you to get to know her. All I ask is you give her a chance and not let any….unease between me and her color your perceptions. The both of us are burying the hatchet, so to speak." Roche relented, hoping Nyxia would maintain her disinterest and not dig too deep into that.
…
…
…
The old arcade was partially closed late at night. Some of the older games were in locked up parts of the establishment, but the wonderful part about vending machines and arcade cabinets was that they didn’t need to be manned to function. You could drop by at the dead of night, have a soda, and play games until morning. Hibusa town may have been cursed, but it still managed a small town atmosphere. There was a camera set up to keep everyone honest with no other people around. Suki doubted the cameras even worked.
Suki didn’t have a lot of clothes, but today she was as dressed to the nines as she could possibly be. She was wearing her favorite clothes along with a tall, well-used jacket. It satisfied the requirements for the ten foot rule, but closer inspection would reveal it was fraying at the edges and had some patchwork done under the armpits. But Suki liked it because it was black with a plaid lining. Her hand was systematically reaching into her pocket for hundred yen notes to feed into an arcade machine. With each note that went in, the machine would rumble, flash some lights, and spit out an arcade token to play games. That was another thing Suki liked about this place; it was cheap.
After stocking up, she stepped outside and waited for the others to show up. Her heels bounced on the pavement as she hummed a tune to herself.
Earthshaker blinked from a rooftop across the street, peering down to see Suki wasn’t transformed, chain smoking, or looking like she was fresh out of bed. She hadn’t doubted Suki’s intention, perse, but she hadn’t expected her to put forth more effort than she did for a date.
Yet what caused her to look back at Nyxia with some worry was that it was Suki, and not Oros the Joyful.
"Would you be up for doing this as Norika?" Roche asked, stepping lightly off the ledge and alighting softly on the opposite sidewalk to Suki, her magical state fading to show she’d deigned to wear jeans and a puffer jacket to brace against the evening’s chill.
"I hope that’s your idea of a joke," Nyxia hissed as she landed beside Roche.
"I don’t even want that sick freak to know my real name, let alone what I actually look like. Besides," she added with an annoyed scowl as she aggressively pointed her thumb at where Suki was standing.
"I can barely move around without needing a cane or wheelchair when I’m like that. There’s no way in hell I’d leave myself so vulnerable with her nearby. I’m already gonna have nightmares just thinking about what kinda fucked up shit she’d try to pull…"Not perfect but the city already had enough ghost stories. Two girls at an arcade with a ghostly third player was hardly noteworthy.
"She wouldn’t do anything, and I wouldn’t let anyone else touch the wheelchair, but this is good too. Just means you can kick our butts at DDR."Crossing over with a glance for late night traffic, she greeted Suki with a raised hand.
"Yo. Hope you weren’t waiting long?""Nope!" Suki looked between Roche and Nyxia. First moving her entire body to look at them both, then shifting her eyes side to side.
"So! The arcade here uses tokens. I uh, I bought a few in advance." She held out two little pouches.
"There’s uh, if you keep ‘em in little bags, they’re harder to lose if you don’t have pockets, or your pockets have holes in them. So uh, here’s yours." She held one out for Roche and lowered it into her hand.
"And uh, this one, is, yours." Suki waited patiently for Nyxia to reach out her hand, at which point she very slowly held out her token bag. She handled it with the amount of care one would a cherished heirloom or an unstable compound. Then she dropped the bag from several inches up.
For a moment, Nyxia just stared at the bag in her hand, then, forcing herself to look back up at Suki’s distinctly unappealing visage she said,
"Thanks…" in an emotionless deadpan.
"Okay! That should keep us going for a while!" Suki turned around to enter the arcade.
"So what does everyone like to play?""Something violent," Nyxia replied, still in that same flat deadpan she’d used to voice her appreciation for the coin bag.
"Perfect, I think I can see Time Crisis 2 inside." Roche swept in, gingerly guiding Nyxia inside with a hand on her shoulder as the other palmed her bag appreciatively. It was violent, flashy, involved a weapon in hand, and most importantly, was 2 player.
"We’ve got enough coins for enough retries. You two can start and we can rotate out as people run out of lives."Suki had opened her mouth to voice what she wanted to play, but her mouth just kind of hung open as Roche ushered Nyxia in front of the machine. As she took in the machine, her mouth closed slowly.
"I haven’t even played Time Crisis One, I hope I understand the plot." That was a funny joke, of course. Time Crisis 2 was a game Suki had played before. Suki had played lots of light gun games, as Tsubomi enjoyed playing them because they let her practice her aim. Something that made Time Crisis 2 different from a lot of light gun games was the cover mechanic. There was a peddle that the player could press with their foot to take cover. This was important to dodge rockets, but also worked to reload your weapon. Despite its age, there was also a lot of attention to detail. Both players had different screens, and they didn’t always show the same thing. Sometimes bosses would drift between the players, or fire on one player while leaving an opening for the other. But the reason why Suki liked it was because of how over the top it was. Especially the voice acting.
Though this game would be a lot different than the others she played because of who Suki was playing with. The cabinet for Time Crisis 2 was about as wide as two normal game cabinets shoved together. It was riveting because she never thought she’d get to stand this close to Nyxia. It was also harrowing, as the giant mega obliterator couldn’t exactly be folded up and put away. That, and Suki knew that Nyxia wouldn’t hesitate to use it. She hadn’t planned on touching Nyxia of course, but an accidental elbow or shoulder rub wasn’t impossible at this range.
Suki reached for her light gun, but hesitated.
"Did you want to be player one or two? Player one gets a blue gun." And a red cabinet. The colors were reversed for player two.
"I don’t really care," Nyxia replied with a dismissive shrug. In truth, she’d never had much practice with light gun games, but she figured her skill with her precious Omega Obliterator, coupled with the superhuman reflexes of her magical girl form, would more than make up for her inexperience. And it would
certainly allow her to perform better than a walking disaster area like the untransformed Suki.
"Which one would you prefer?""You want me to pick!?" Her voice almost squeaked. She placed a hand on her chest and looked between the two guns.
"I think I’ll be player two. Red’s my color." Suki drew out the red gun and examined it. Then, without looking, she chucked a token into the machine.
"Do you guys play many arcade games?"Nyxia rolled her eyes in response to Suki’s enthusiasm.
"Not really," she replied in a disinterested tone.
"Killing Miseria is a lot more enjoyable than any video game.""I don’t usually have the time or money for them. There usually better with groups, anyhow." Roche chipped in, hovering to the side, one eye on the screen as the other kept track of the two playing.
"Considering how open this place is at the dead of night, we could try bringing more of the club along."Hanging out like that definitely felt like Light Girl behavior, but they did have Hizuki now so it could fly with the others.
"It could get in the way of miseria hunting though…" For dark magical girls, the night was the time to hunt. The only reason Suki had offered to play at this hour was because Roche made it sound like it worked better for Nyxia.
"So uh, what have you guys been doing for fun then?" The first group of enemies started to show up.
"I mean, you guys can’t just hunt miseria all the time, right?""What’s wrong with just hunting Miseria?" Nyxia inquired pointedly as she blasted several enemies in quick succession before ducking to reload, her aim and timing impeccable.
"There’s nothing more satisfying than watching things that should never exist to begin with die screaming.""Fun and I have a distant relationship, but I’ve been working on my cooking. And Nyxia has a….good book collection." The Rule Keeper winced, thinking that the game may have been too easy for Nyxia to properly enjoy, but if nothing else she wasn’t being reserved with her words.
Though she’d be damned before suggesting a shared cooking lesson after Suki’s attempt tried to kill the club.
"It’s not really possible to?" Suki took her time reloading. Games like this were made for human reflexes, and there really wasn’t much for Suki to shoot with Nyxia around.
"I mean sure, now there might be miseria out, but they don’t come out earlier in the morning, or mid day, or even in the evening. Ya kinda need something to offset your time, right?" Normally Suki wouldn’t take her eyes off the screen, but with so few targets, it was relatively safe to look at Nyxia.
"So what do you do when there’s nothing to kill?""I try to endure my shitty life while I wait until there is something," Nyxia bit back, her mouth twisted into an annoyed scowl.
"Killing Miseria is the only thing I live for." There was also, of course, the reason
why she killed them, but the Neon Tempest wasn’t about to tell
Suki, of all people, something as deeply personal as
that. The delinquent stared at Nyxia a moment longer, blinked, and then returned her eyes to her own screen in time to shoot a hidden enemy.
"A good book collection, you say?" Suki pivoted the conversation back to Roche, but still gave Nyxia glances on occasion.
…
…
…
In just over forty minutes, NeoDyne Industries’s evil plan had been thwarted. Time Crisis’s later levels were too hectic to talk much, which was further discouraged by Nyxia’s sour attitude and Suki’s unwillingness to prod her much more than she already had.
"I guess that was kinda fun," Nyxia conceded as she placed her gun back in its "holster."
"I don’t think I’ve ever won with such a low score." Suki was good at Time Crisis 2, but even she needed to use credits to get through the harder levels. She doubted she’d be able to beat Nyxia’s score as herself. That was probably going to top the leaderboards for a while.
"Sorry you didn’t get to play Roche! Nyxia was way too good at killing everything, heh!" She sighed.
"Um, so since Roche didn’t get to play anything, and we finished faster than I thought we would…" She pivoted to Roche.
"Did you wanna play a match of Gearmantic Hearts with me? Then we can go hunt some miseria or something."Even Roche was impressed with them clearing the game in one run, the accomplishment lost on Nyxia in her ire. Pushing off the cabinet she nodded at Suki’s suggestion, sliding in a coin as she took the stick in hand.
"Can’t say I’ll put up much of a challenge but I’ll give it my best."Taking the Omega Obliterator from where it rested against the side of her T.C. 2 cabinet, Nyxia moved to stand near Gearmantic Hearts so she could watch the virtual duel unfold, fervently hoping that it wouldn’t devolve into a kissing contest like the
last time she’d seen Roche challenge Suki.
"If you haven’t played before, you can just pick Penny Pinnacle. She’s really pretty and equally overpowered, heh!" A staple for most fighting game protagonists. Suki grabbed a joystick.
"I’m gunna use Tsubotica!" The Moonoid Maiden was the game’s villain. She graced Suki’s side of the screen with a fine kimono, wearing her signature bunny mask. It was metallic and cold, even by the standards of a game where all the characters were robots. She hovered above the ground while her envoy, two moon rabbits and a saucer, floated to her sides and above her head respectively. She seemed to sit in the air, producing a fan and a pipe in the process. Tsubotica threw one leg over the other and proceeded to fan herself, occasionally taking a puff from her pipe. It was almost as if she was waiting for her opponent to arrive.
"I walked among those mortals unseen. Now I see all, illuminated by the moon from which I rule upon." The vileness spoke.
Suki’s eyes were locked on the screen, and a silly smile crossed her face.
"Aren’t the main antagonists the broken ones?" "Maybe in the past, but most modern fighting games have boss versions of characters that you can’t normally play as." Tsubotica was like most villain characters in that she was known for being the hardest to play. A zoning character that performed her best at mid to long range in a game all about closing distances and comboing your opponent into oblivion. Her rabbits were notoriously hard to manage, and didn’t produce much damage. Most of her summons were designed to create openings for her ’Gold Gift’ special that charged up a special meter for her true strongest attack. Of course, damage wasn’t everything. A skilled Tsubotica player could lock down their opponent in moon rabbits and saucers without a need to deal big damage. Suki just really liked the aesthetic of a noble moon queen who used cute bunnies to fight for her.
"She’s not bad, but Penny has a reputation for being pretty OP. Closest thing I can offer that feels like a handicap, heh!" Unfamiliar with the roster, she deferred to Suki’s better judgement and chose the clear Protagonist choice. Even if the bright pink color scheme reminded her of a GEM, an alternate scheme splashed purple paint over the mecha maiden that was far more pleasing to the eye.
"Alright, which stage is Final Destination? Let’s keep it simple.""The stages are really just window dressing. There’s no meaningful difference between them." But that didn’t mean that Suki didn’t have a preference. She slapped the arcade stick a few times until the Witch’s Tower was highlighted. It had to be a late game stage. It was dark out with a moon silhouetting a tower.
"Alright! I can’t remember the last time I played!"…
Marrywell’s Academy of Engineering was a scientific marvel. Technology had advanced to the point that it was comparable to magic. Steam, electricity, water, fire, and many other sources of energy could be used to power any kind of automaton that one could think of. The magic-like technological advancements of the Academy of Engineering were such that the pinnacle of the structure was called the Witch’s Tower. There was only one path in; a brick walkway that was narrow enough to constitute as a battleground for a two dimensional fight in a 3D space.
Tsubotica was near the tower. With an effortless flourish, she drew her pipe and took a single puff. Or maybe she was simply venting exhaust? The golden machine in an iron mask and silken robes looked over her shoulder. She had been followed. With princess-like grace, she spun in the air and faced her pursuer.
"It seems I’ve been followed." She stashed her pipe and drew her fan, which she immediately started to fan herself with.
"If it isn’t the little droid that could, the last pebble at the end of the path." The fan closed.
"I suppose you mean to stop me?""Like I could do anything less!" Penny Pinnacle boldly declared, coming upon the walkway and casting a finger towards the smoking machine.
"Your senseless cruelty will come to an end today!" As though at an unseen que the staring match between them was shattered with an explosive call to action, Penny Pinnacle flipping forward before crashing down in a diving kick.
In a flash, a moon rabbit dove in front of Tsubotica and raised its wooden mallet. Its little paws quivered as Penny’s thrusters triggered, holding the two in a deadlock.
"Senseless cruelty?" The princess laughed darkly.
"Where I to have met a soul as noble as yours when I first visited this sunless land I may have abandoned my plans entirely." With a snap of her fingers, a second rabbit dove out of the darkness. Penny kicked off the first rabbit and delivered a midair roundhouse to the second.
"But the cause of my crimes now stands before us." Tsubotica pointed at the tower.
"Merlin’s daughter must perish for both moon and earth to prosper. Have at you!""I fricking love that monologue!" Suki chirped.
But the opening banter sequence had run its course, and now it was time for the fight to commence.
Tsubotica hopped into the air and pointed her fan at Penny.
"By the glow of the moon!" Two moon rabbits charged onto the bridge. One had a wooden mallet like before, and the other had a bucket. Before Tsubotica floated down to the bridge again, she swiped her fan upwards, and the bucket rabbit dove into the air, threatening to give Penny a helmet without any holes.
"Darn, is it too late for a mirror match?" Roche quipped.
Suki giggled.
"You’d never win!"Penny jerked into motion, swaying back and forth before zipping forward into a slide as the bucket rabbit sailed overhead. Her arachnid like limbs plunged backwards, bladed tips striking heavily at the rabbit while she sprung off the ground to launch another kick at the mallet rabbit.
The range on Penny Pinnacle’s multiple limbs was insane. She nearly cleared the play area between her two attacks. The bucket rabbit was reduced to its base elements, and the mallet rabbit tumbled past Tsubotica’s feet. Though the moon princess never stopped moving, and with another wave of her fan, a saucer flew overhead. It fired a golden tractor beam at Penny, briefly suspending her in the air.
"Truce?"Tsubotica hurled a golden insect at Penny, which harmlessly bounced off of Penny and knocked her out of the tractor beam. Though the golden gift gauge filled to the first mark. With a snap of the princesses fingers, more moon rabbits arrived.
This time however, they arrived from both sides of the bridge. A bucket rabbit charged Penny from behind, while a mallet bunny spun its way down the bridge with its mallet threatening to hit anyone in its path. And the saucer hadn’t left either. The golden light beneath it sputtered as it powered up for another attack. The cowardly Tsubotica was reaching into her robes for another trinket.
"No deal, you playboy reject." The Heroine scowled at the unwanted gift, falling from the saucer’s grip but keenly aware the terrain was not in her favor. She kicked off the ground, rising over the passage of an airborne mallet and letting her limbs stretch wide, the blades curling into the hull of the saucer.
Then she lurched forward, grabbing and hurling it at the cowardly moon princess.
When the saucer struck her it detonated, throwing her back some distance. Tsubotica planted her feet on the ground and skidded to a halt before hovering again. Her mask’s perfectly smooth surface was cracked, and it broke away enough to reveal one of the princess’s sapphire eyes.
"So you have some skill, or is it just luck?" She pointed at Penny, and another duo of moon rabbits showed up. This time they were wielding a stone bowl and the other had a pestle that it held like a club. Meanwhile, the first pair of moon rabbits had teamed up. The hammer rabbit now had a bucket on its head and was swinging wildly while the other pointed at Penny and squeaked out commands only its kin could understand.
"Afraid yours has run out?" Penny landed easily, tossing her white hair with a negligent flick of her hand in the face of the rabbits doubling in number. Her eyes narrowed as her head tilted back, looking down her nose at the foreign princess bereft of a full mask.
"You only made it this far because you hadn’t met me."There was a flash as steam erupted from the mechanized maiden’s body, energy bleeding from the seams as her bladed limbs snapped forward, joined together at a single point that aimed to sweep the bridge before her. Penny’s Super flashed, dashing forward as she swept up the order shouting bunny and kept dashing to sweep up Tsubotica before laying into both with a blistering fast combo.
While some of the moon rabbits fell from the bridge in pieces, Tsubotica opened her fan and allowed Penny to smash into her. The attack sent her soaring backwards, above a saucer that scooted under her feet and tripped up the multi appendaged heroine. While she was still in the air, the saucer’s tractorbeam saved the two rabbits from Penny’s combo while the moonoid maiden bounced another golden gift off of her opponent’s head. This time a golden lollipop.
"Tell me how we really feel."Tsubotica and her bunny henchmen were not about to give Penny a chance to retaliate. The mallet rabbit walloped Penny away, but they had traveled so far that they were at the other end of the bridge. She collided with the witch’s tower directly above the doorway. Tsubotica rose up to greet her, and stabbed the pink-but-now-actually-purple robot in the chest with her pipe before stomping her into the side of the tower. On her descent she threw yet another gift; a golden ring.
The golden gift gage was full.
The super bar was filled.
And the combo wasn’t over.
"Let me show you what my friends are capable of!"An avalanche of moon rabbits fell from the sky and pelted the witch’s tower. Some of them smashed into Penny, either with their weapons or their metallic bodies. They left cracks on the tower wherever they struck, but none of them managed to land on the bridge. Once the bunny storm had expired, it looked like Penny might actually land. But Tsubotica pulled back her arm, and the fine silken garments that covered it were ripped free as golden baubles, gears, and
syringes oozing black tar popped out of her arm.
"Be my concubine!"She thrust her arm, or the grievous contraption it had turned into, towards Penny. She was bathed into the corrosive, mind altering goop it spat out. But her HP bar… was still above twenty percent.
"Ah, what resistance." Her arm reverted back to its original shape, but her silken robes did not.
"I thought for sure that would have been the end of you." She adjusted her mask.
"Well then! Rabbits, atta-""Concubine? What the hell…" Roche said under their breath.
Suki didn’t take her eyes off the screen.
"She gets a little weird when you max out Golden Gift."Was Penny busted for surviving that combo, or was Tsubotica unbalanced for nearly KOing her in seconds? The heroine was kicking up to her feet, black sludge clinging to her as she adopted a haggard, low health state.
"Disgusting." Penny grunted out, trying to fight her way back into range of Taubotica, knowing they were going to have to battle through the rabbits this time. Yet they had all the distance and the numbers were against her, even as her limbs shredded the first mecha rabbit she came upon.
But rather than using her ruined limbs, Penny activated her copy cat protocol. It rained moon rabbits again, but this time it did so on Tsubotica and her henchmen. The saucer fell out of the sky, the two moon rabbits were no match for a snow storm of them, and Tsubotica couldn’t get her fan up in time to block the incoming flurry. All it took was a few good shots to knock off her mask. When it did, it became apparent that Tsubotica wasn’t a golden android, but a cyborg with golden parts. Once the rain off moon rabbits subsided, the wicked princess collapsed.
Penny had won the fight.
"I uh, wasn’t expecting you to know how to do that.." Suki giggled.
Roche’s hands were slick as she released the stick, not expecting the match to be that intense.
"Sometimes button mashing pays off. But wow Suki, you really had my number there." "I thought I was out of practice."It was obviously a matter of OP character balancing, but it was still a win. Feeling chipper for it, she looked back to Nyxia with a grin.
"How are you holding up?""Fine," Nyxia replied nonchalantly.
"I see Penny’s still as busted as ever, but you did really well for your first time playing her," she added with a grin, pleased to see Suki defeated yet again.
"It was quite the treat to watch, wasn’t it, baby?" the Neon Tempest inquired as she gently caressed her beloved death ray. While she’d never particularly cared for Penny Pinnacle, she absolutely
despised Tsubotica, so it was extremely satisfying to see Roche crush the Moonoid Maiden, and the fact Suki was the one playing her was the icing on the proverbial cake.
Not that Suki seemed particularly bothered by it. She took a step away from the cabinet and stretched her arms over her head before turning to face everyone with a smile. Though a realization hit her.
"Oh, do you play?" She set her hands on her hips.
"Did you want to play a round with Roche, or would you rather hunt some Miseria?""I’m good with whatever you want." While Roche and Suki had their fun, it hadn’t slipped her notice that Nyxia had yet to do the same. Or loosen any of that tension she had around the Club’s resident romantic.
"Well, I think I already said I’d rather kill Miseria than play games," Nyxia replied.
"But if ya wanna get some more experience with Gearmantic Hearts, I don’t particularly mind," she told her partner.
"I mean, as far as games go, it is one of my favorites." the Neon Tempest added, her mouth curling into a small smirk.
The Rule Keeper glanced at Suki before matching Nyxia’s smirk with one of her own.
"A few more rounds won’t hurt. Same as Time Crisis, the beaten player swaps out."Roche could only hope Suki got a round in before the call of the Miseria drew them into the hunt.
Upon stepping up to the controls, Nyxia suddenly realized that she was now presented with a small problem. Although her paranoia still wasn’t anywhere near the level of her conspiracy board-keeping partner, her encounters with Finn had led her to be far more thoughtful of her actions and how they might link her two forms together. Of course, he could have simply seen her transform back when the shadow monkeys invaded her home, but she fervently hoped he had been too busy dealing with said monkeys to notice. Thus, choosing her favorite fighter, Xolys, was not an option, and while she could have chosen one of her typical alternatives, Sixshooter Synthia or the energy SMG wielding Necroid 99, the Neon Tempest decided to go with a much more unorthodox option. Gearmantic Hearts had a secret character, one she could feign complete ignorance of as Norika, and it was
that character Nyxia ultimately selected.
Rapidly toggling the joystick in a carefully choreographed series of movements, while simultaneously pressing a precise pattern of buttons, the Neon Tempest caused the character selection screen to split apart, revealing her chosen fighter: Botizar Hopperdink, the Techno Toad. The chrome-bodied anthropomorphic amphibian sported a glowing, neon teal mohawk and wielded a jagged-edged key-tar, itself seemingly made of pulsating purple neon tubes.
"They won’t last long when they hear my songs!" Botizar’s heavily auto-tuned voice croaked as he was selected.
"So, ready to get started?" Nyxia inquired with an eager grin.
The Rule Keeper blinked, wondering why Nyxia hadn’t dragged them to the game in the first place if she wasn’t so adept as to know the secret character. One that seemed awfully influential on her Magical Girl form.
"Alright, let’s do this." Naturally she got creamed.
…
…
…
For as baffled as she had seemed, Roche had attempted to play Tsubotica in the very next game and discovered how difficult such a character was to play. Suki for her part rotated through most of the characters and wasn’t taking anything too seriously. She seemed just as happy to win or lose.
"You’re gunna have to pick someone and get gud with ‘em, Roach! Then we can have a proper friend tournament or something." Suki wore a nervous smile.
"I guess we should start hunting miseria now, huh?" she looked between her two club mates.
There was no shock to finding a character who fought entirely through minions and projectiles was harsher to grasp then someone with an omnidirectional grapple, but fun was had all around.
"I’ll need to get more practice in before we get something like that up and running." Roche answered with a chuckle, pleased to find that the game was compelling enough to let the three unwind. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d stood side by side with Suki outside of mortal peril for so long.
Still, they’d tried Roche and Suki’s ideas. It was only fair they tried Nyxia’s next. Earthshaker stepped away from the consoles, pulling down her hood to keep her affable expression bare to see.
"Alright Nyxia, pick a direction and we’ll follow.""Gotta admit, that was actually kinda fun," Nyxia conceded once the three had begun leaping across the rooftops.
"But how’s this for a game: whoever kills the most of these fuckers wins!" she added, vaporizing a Miseria with a twisting neon beam as soon as it floated up from an alleyway.
"You got a head start, but I think I can catch up!" Suki dove between two buildings, and a geyser of miseria fragments erupted from the alleyway.
"Don’t think you’ve got the edge in this game!" Roche pivoted down an alley, shield raised as she rushed forward like a rampaging bull. Her body burning brighter as Miseria were crushed, layer by layer against the hidebound frame.
Nyxia grinned as she lined up a shot on a bubbling cluster of amorphous Miseria. Despite her earlier doubts, the trip to the arcade had been far more enjoyable than she’d thought it would be. Plus, in a happily unexpected turn of events, Suki had actually been somewhat tolerable. Maybe, just maybe, the Neon Tempest’s relationships with her various non-Roche club mates would eventually improve in the same way as her relationship with the Rule Keeper had. Only time would tell…
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