♫ ♪ -- Prime Time of Our Lives -- ♪ ♫

[EmmaliaChan]

This RolePlay was inspired by many things; from Mirror's Edge to studies regarding what future technology may be like, and heavily inspired by both Durarara!! and Daft Punk. It's also both an experiment and a challenge for both of us to improve our ability to improvise. If you read along, I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to message me about what you think of the RolePlay if you become a reader.

2117. Where the past predicted hovercars, they instead got global warming's drastic temperature changes that led to technology focusing more on weather and climate control. No robots, either – at least, none that were commercially available to the public, though it was something believed to be in the works. The world was more unified than ever, with a single global currency that marked a commemoration of all of the countries coming together to find a solution to the climate crisis in 2088. Nearly everything ran on natural and renewable energy (geothermal, wind, solar, etc.), and a handful of very small countries had become entirely self-sufficient because of it. Medicine had advanced to the point where a single shot could instantly heal wounds, and inhaled chemicals could rapidly heal broken bones like new.

Communication was far different, as well. The internet was still extremely popular – perhaps even more so – and more efficient communications technology had been developed. Specifically, thought transmission technology that allowed a person to wirelessly send thoughts (in the form of electronic pulses) from their brain to another person's through the internet. It was safe and un-hackable, just as everything else was. Firewalls had become impenetrable from constant fixing and monitoring and updating, as well as constantly changing salted encryptions, making peoples’ information nuclear-bunker secure. Phones were all but obsolete due to internet calling being readily available and widely used. Professional and longer personal conversations were typically performed in this fashion, rather than via direct transmissions.

Environments had changed, though. Anywhere that had been desert just a hundred years before was now a barren, uninhabitable, untamable wasteland where nothing but the most resilient creatures could live. Big cities were even bigger than before, and most of the housing market was gone, replaced by condos and small flats in far larger buildings. The job market was up, but most available work was menial labor, tech-related, or the same sorts of stuffy cubicle jobs people would've pictured a century prior. Other than that, entertainment jobs were few and far between, with CGI animation having reached levels of realism enough that real actors and actresses were no longer needed. Most songs were either made of synthesized instruments and voices, or were simply distortions of sampled sounds. Exotic dancers were still semi-popular, as well as sports, but in a world of 13 billion it was very difficult to land a spot on a team or in a club. There was always someone harder, better, faster, or stronger.

The problem with living in a worldwide Utopia was that not everyone saw eye to eye when it came to equality and peace. More than ever, there were people who hated others, even in a world where there were so many reasons to get along. Though it seemed like a contradiction, it will always be in human nature to want what others have, and there's no way to please everyone at once. Crime rates were at an all-time high - the expansive population didn't help matters, either. Gang activity was rampant, drug dealers were on every corner, and law enforcement was spread far too thin to stop it, mostly because officers got very low pay (especially if it was taken into account how dangerous it was to be a policeman) compared to even the most boring and repetitive of other jobs.

Because people were even more hostile, nearly everything was now monitored: internet activity, phone calls, cameras recorded most of the main streets, searches were done on packages that were delivered - yes, packages were still widely used, as attempts to create teleporters were thus far unsuccessful - and jails were much larger and more restrictive than before. There was even talk of a special jail being created in space to lock up life-sentence prisoners where they couldn't bother anyone, but it wasn't confirmed and had been repeatedly denied by government officials. Not that this meant anything. What this meant, however, was that there were always people trying to find ways to get around it, such as signal jammers for the cameras, having hand-written notes and packages delivered by special parkour-powered runners, and using public domain computers for less-than-honest activities.

Most cities followed all of these same general patterns. Here, in the bustling and sleepless city dubbed Ackrow, things were no different. The sleek, black elevated-metro that loomed over the streets surrounding the city was always crammed full in the mornings and always nearly empty at night, as if the inhabitants never went home and never slept, instead merely restarting their day from wherever they ended it. The buildings reached for the sky, most with at least five lights on at any given time. It was never completely dark, even when the moon was hidden behind thick clouds; the bright neon signs and lights on nearly every building made most streets visible as day - though alleyways were a different story entirely. It was impossible to see the stars from most places in the city because of these bright lights, and the impressive height of the buildings meant that the moon was typically blocked unless it was directly overhead.

But every city had its quirks.

Ackrow had a secret hiding in its darkest alleyways, on the rooftops of its massive buildings, zooming down the streets so fast its appearance was doubtful, and sometimes even on top of that ever-popular Metro train - Mysterious humanoids that were occasionally passed off as merely urban legends (and any sightings accompanied by film or photographs were quickly deemed fake), strange people that no one had ever interacted with directly. Most everyone believed them to be robots, but a few thought they were just wannabe vigilantes with too much time on their hands. A handful even thought them to be an extension of the police force. The only thing known for sure, should they be real, was that they seemed to be highly skilled acrobats and deft in varying forms of martial arts, as most sightings had been of them giving criminals or small gangs a hard time - a hard time dealt out by their fists. There was never any personal interaction with the leather-suited, helmet-wearing recluses, but a few had claimed to be helped in some way by them – though, always at night. They were never seen in the daytime. Their supposed assistances were always small things – being protected from a mugger, suddenly having an umbrella dropped beside them from above just before it rained, or sometimes simply escorted home along dangerous streets by a strange figure they could see quietly trailing them on the rooftops. Whatever they were, if they truly existed at all, they kept quiet.

But besides that, Ackrow was pretty normal. The many bars dotting the brightly lit streets of the bustling city still retained good business. Dance clubs and theaters were still popular, and virtual-reality game arcades did extremely well. The slums of the city were interspersed with many homeless citizens, but there were several groups that attempted to take care of them. People still spent small fortunes on their appearance (hair, makeup, clothing, and so on) and for memberships to physical fitness centers. After a stressful day - or night - of working, most people wanted to be entertained, and they expected to be entertained well, and as such most all places were open 24/7. People were mostly the same. They were still cruel and kind. They were still selfish and selfless. They were still greedy and giving. They were still judgmental and open minded. Massive interracial breeding made ethnicities less distinct, but the human race was just as diverse as they were before, only now with fancier toys.

But today was a beautiful day, hardly one to think about the faults of the human species. The sun was setting and leaving the mysterious city shrouded in an orange tint, and not a cloud was in the sky - of course, this was only because the county decided that today would be a beautiful day, but it was appreciated by all nonetheless, regardless of whether or not it was natural or artificial. Soon enough the night would come and bring tons of rowdy citizens with it, and most looked forward to this happening. Everything looked better in the dark.

[NoiselessKnife]

In this world of advances and evolution something had, sadly, not changed, and that was… school, dreaded and inevitable school, school in all its names from elementary to university passing by college and that today was a day that was assigned as a day of school took away all the day’s beauty and replaced it with a dull and graying mantle, invisible for any adult around, except, of course, the teachers. One would think that the big ass brainy guys would have already designed a chip that could be placed in the human head just to fill the brain with all knowledge known by mankind until that moment, but it seemed that porn was too interesting for those nerds as to do anything about that yet.

Or so our first character in this amazing story thought while she walked, or better said, trudged to college, Neith, as was her name, Abrafo being her last name was having an every morning personal crisis right now, today she became 22, so all the things she had been doing illegally such as drinking, fighting and smoking went to a state of legal now and that made things so very much… boring, it would not seem like it to any person of the past but living in this Utopy was not the funniest thing in the galaxy, after two or three days of excesses and luxury one came to notice that you still had to work or study, or both, overall if your mommy and daddy were still paying for your food and other things, among them your education. So after that everything became a boring routine, just like in every big city.

For someone who looked for great emotions this city wasn’t exactly the best paradise, too much surveillance had kept our girl out of drugs while the constant messages of her parents to her brain about wanting to know if she was ok had prevented her from distracting from it via the Arcades. She had found some decent entertainment, but everyday it seemed less attractive. Overall at mornings when she had to wake up way too early as to disguise the aftermath of said entertainment via a long time of applying the expensive make up her mom usually sent to her over dark bags earned in endless videogame playing or in bruises earned in kicking someone’s butt over any minimal thing at the sophisticated bars she went to.

Like in most cities in other times college was often a reason or an excuse for kids to get out of their parents’ home and live another life in a rented apartment that was, more often than not, messy and dirty, this was Neith’s case, with the exception that her dad’s money allowed her to hire some of those maids every week or so as to have her apartment clean should her mom, in a shopping craze, visit Ackrow and her, probably dragging her poor father with her.

So, today was not the best day ever, she had woken up way too early to cover a black eye given by a stupid gamer girl who had dared to call her a Noob and then had to do her homework in a rush just to have someone knocking on the door as she put it on her data-transporter, seeing one of those parkourists delivery kids was strange, overall since right after she had to sign like 10 pages of data just to get a minimal ID, her own “grown up to do as I fucking want” ID, finally, the strange feeling of having the age for one of those had distracted her quite a bit, making her sip onto her, now rotten, milk and then have to spit it out immediately before storming off to get her backpack. It was in the metro where she remembered she had forgotten her homework, and backpack.

After running back and avoiding 5 dealers once over again, those guys just didn’t get a “no” for answer, Neith Abrafo managed to get to college in one piece. She had missed the first class but that was ok, it was a boring class anyway.

After 6 hours of listening to boring teachers and dealing with idiotic classmates, of which she was nearly sure she had slept 1, our girl recovered her freedom and the day seemed much more bright, even if by then the weather had changed to a more gray one with possibility of raining. It didn’t matter, where she was going there would be no rain. You see gaming was now considered a much open hobby, no longer related to loners or nerds, but still, as people could still think on gamers like nerds filled with pimples many had this hobby as a complete secret and our blonde girl was one of them, never should it be known to the world that she gamed every time she could, she had consoles and games in her apartment but kept them secret, not even the maid knew about them, and often played online from other places. Where she was going was one of the most secret gaming places around, the place known as Nemesis, a gaming place disguised as a bar, just under a real bar and just above a club, ones that were often visited by those gamers who wanted to shake off the feeling of defeat or who wanted to celebrate yet another victory.

[EmmaliaChan]

By the time the young woman finished her classes, the sky had become dark; the gloomy threat of rain loomed overhead as she walked, but she was close enough to her destination that the faint, almost inaudible rumble of thunder went unnoticed. Whereas she was contented to continue forward, a lot of people with nowhere to be quickly headed inside their homes. Most people disliked the loud sound of thunder, also being frightened by the dreadful flashes of light that often preceded the claps in the sky, and liked to be safely inside and as far away from it as possible when storms hit. The reason behind this was that heavy rain wasn't often needed, and it was highly uncommon for the weather stations to allow for a severe enough storm to cause thunder and lightning, thus making many unused to the light and sound of a true thunderstorm.

Though the Nemesis wasn't fancy by any means, the place was well-decorated enough. A cushy black carpet with grey flecks lined a large portion of the place, except in front of the bar, which was instead floored with clean white tiles. The walls were a matte silver, and wherever there weren't posters there were large screens and machines and wires hooked up everywhere. While it was a small and independent place, they could still afford the best of the best, and everything was very up-to-date.

The small building was unusually crowded; it appeared some sort of party was going on, and drinks were being passed from person to person quite frequently, much to the dismay of the owner. It was a rule of the place that if you had a drink, you stayed at the bar until you finished it, and kept it far away from the gaming machines, especially the virtual reality simulators. "You brats better not spill one drop of anything on the machines!" The fuming man shouted, his actions only causing the rowdy players to laugh him off. Well, they were paying customers and were spending a small fortune -- running them off would do him more harm than good, at this rate, so he left them be, instead taking a back seat and merely keeping a close eye on them.

At the center of attention, or so it seemed, was one particular male at a virtual reality machine, which was, as is typical, made up of a small disc on the floor, with two adjustable branches reaching up and attaching to a ring around his waist, as well as large goggles that allowed him to see into the game, ones that turned the in-game camera whenever he turned his head. On the large screen above them on the wall, they could see what he was doing; when he ran, his character ran, and at the moment he was dodging fireballs being thrown at him by the mouth of a large dragon. Waving the joystick he gripped tightly in his real hand, he used his virtual sword to deflect one of the beast's impressive magical flames.

The crowd grew larger as he battled the game's final boss, a level which few people had the skill to make it to, and even fewer held the title of having won and beaten. In fact, it was such a difficult game, that beside the machine was a wall with a (rather small) list of players who'd managed to succeed. Obviously this guy was attempting to get his own spot, but only time would tell if that wish would come to fruition; though the boy was doing well, the boss's difficulty increased exponentially during its second phase.

The few females in the arcade-slash-bar seemed disinterested, however, instead playing a dance game that relied very much on coordination and the ability to mimic what they saw on-screen. A few other boys were playing on a different virtual reality machine, a multiplayer, tag-team fighting game, and others still had made their way to solo games. At the bar were a few lonely folk sipping beer and chowing down on pretzels and finger sandwiches as they watched the rowdy bunch get way too into the game. The bartender, Confiar, caught a glimpse of Nieth coming in the door and shot her a smile. Though she was a tough girl with a rugged personality, he liked her. "Well, if it isn't the birthday girl!" He said heartily, pouring her the first legal drink he'd ever give her. He knew full well how old she was before, but played stupid. Usually it was really obvious that the girl could, in fact, use a drink to take the edge off of her day. "This one's on the house, a little present from me to you." The man said, handing her the glass.

Back in, say, the twenty-first century, it would be impressive for someone who was, in all fairness, a complete stranger to know a person's birthday. However, his arcade ran on a type of 'membership', which was essentially something people signed up for and then received a small card that they used to access the machines. The reason for this was to store game credits, high scores, and information about the frequency of the games they played in order to track their favorites. Occasionally he'd give out free plays and bonuses to people who seemed really dedicated to a particular game, sometimes things that were exclusive to his arcade that he'd programmed in himself. It also stored the information they gave when they registered, however, and he had encouraged her (as well as most all of his customers) to 'at least be honest about the date', even if she lied about the year as most people did. "I gave you a bit of a freebie, too, in one of the games. I'll leave you to figure out what it is, though." His wink denoted that it was her favorite, but it was obvious he wasn't going to be giving any more information than that. Birthday surprises were always fun, anyway, weren't they?

[NoiselessKnife]

Thunder, lighting, it reminded our protagonist of an old song she had heard a long time ago, she wondered how common those things were by then, either way, it was better this way, less people on the street, less dealers stalking her, less parkourists nearly running over her, yes, she preferred this gloomy threat than the shinny special and beautiful day from before, not to mention that it meant that there was a chance that that… that idiot, lame excuse of a girl who had dared to call her “Noob” would not be in the place, which made it all feel better despite the annoying school day and boring lectures.

The place was amazing to arrive at, well, yes, Neith had been to more fancy places before, overall when accompanying her mom, but this place had something many others didn’t; privacy, with so many shared things among the nations some beliefs had been shared too, sadly not all of them were nice or true but nevertheless they were adapted by society quite quickly, among them was the statement that “gamers” were either pimple filled nerds or lazy ass punks who did badly in school and had no social life. So, in order not to stain her precious perfect record she had preferred to hide this particular habit from, well, from every freaking one, and for that she made sure to not to have any gossiping friends, not that she was a loner, no, of course not, loners were badly seen, she was a popular, smart and beautiful girl who had several boys and girls following her lead, and who made sure none of them ever followed here. That’s what her parents saw, that’s what the world saw, and it gave her a good life, so why not to let them live on that little lie forever?

The scent of cheap food, alcohol and brand new plastic and cooler systems was all over the place, but she didn’t mind, it was nearly a home for her, the first part of the “bar” was boring, looking like any other bar, but the second part was the fun one, she walked straight to the first part this time, she had had a rough, well, not rough, a BORING day and she wanted a drink. When Confiar, such a strange name for the guy, “trust” in Spanish, welcomed her the girl offered him a smile, she was used to smiling, smiles meant a lot where she came from, here she could be who she really was, tough and ready to jump to defend her rights, but there she had a record to uphold, and knowing all the smiles that could be used was a must, this was one rare for her to use, a tired one that pretty much said ‘Shut up and serve me a cold one.”

While sitting in the dark chair she eyed the virtual reality machine, she had tried that one several times and her name was yet to be in that list, she often told herself that she didn’t like that game all that much but it was mostly her hurt pride aching due to the strange feeling of imperfection. However Confiar’s voice called her attention and gave her pride a rest of that strange and ugly, very ugly feeling.

First things first, she took a long gulp of the glass but then made a face.

“You know something, Confiar?” She said while letting the glass down. “Growing up sucks” Bringing a hand to her head in mock despair. “Even this beer tastes now so…so legal, so boring” She sighed and put her elbows over the bar table, something that, secretly, she enjoyed a lot, since she had been forbidden to do it ever since she could even do it. “What about you? You’re older than me, everything must taste legal to you by now, what do you do to have some real fun?” She asked while winking at him, well, he was married, even if at the beginning she thought he was… well, you know, but either way there was never any real “danger” in half flirting with him.

When he spoke again she chuckled. “Apart of pranking girls who just got of age, let me guess, the “Next evolution” one, right?” She said while having another sip, it was a massive RPG where you could be practically anything you wanted and evolved from that, she had so many hours spent in that game that it was practically her second life, she had been everything from a highschooler to a fly, literally a freaking fly, a fly that had stopped a way by getting into the nose of the emissary’s horse, it was an amazing game, it had years the knowledge of Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls and Persona games in it, decisions, freedom, limitless space and social links, all in one, best game in the planet.

With another sip she grinned at Confiar. “I’ll go open my present then, big guy, you get me some nuggets while I am at it? By the way, machine three, you know” She said while putting her glass down, she didn’t like to carry it to a game, if anything because she got WAY into the game as to care for things as a glass, nearby there were some pseudo-virtual gaming cubicles, her usual one was the number three, three, for a strange reason, was her lucky number. Getting there she started the system and selected the loading files, she’d play a while, then eat, then play until she couldn’t do so anymore.

Or so WAS her plan.

[EmmaliaChan]

The cheerful bartender with the honest face laughed as the girl made a face at her drink. Leave it to Nieth to find 'legal' boring! She was a responsible girl, though, no matter how irresponsible her less-than-legal habits had been. At least now he didn't have to worry about losing his alcohol license for selling to a minor... But he was excellent at reading people, it came with the territory. He could tell immediately when he met her that she wasn't another raucous child looking to get drunk and drive her car into someone else's. "Just wait until you have to face up to adult responsibilities. That 'legal taste' will be the least of the things you hate." He teased, eyebrows furrowed slightly upward in an amused look.

"Me, though, I really just love a beer however you serve it. Legal, illegal, watered down or strong enough to knock out an elephant." Though Confiar was no drunkard, the man could certainly toss back drinks with the best of them, and he thoroughly enjoyed it, too. With a little twist of the wedding band on his finger - which he was very fond of fidgeting with - he began preparing her requested nuggets. Giving her a mock glare, he smirked and waved her off dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, the usual cubicle. I'm not serving you at the machines, though, birthday or not. Should take about fifteen minutes, I'll get you when they're ready." He knew she'd likely keep her hands clean so as not to get her favorite cubicle all grubby and greasy, but he still had a reputation to uphold of being strict with his store's rules! Even so, after having yelled at the others, it would be bad form to allow her to break the rules so blatantly in front of them.

A burst of loud laughter erupted from the gathered group; teasing mumbles could be heard about the player's 'nice dance moves'. The group of girls playing their dancing game shot them a vicious glare over their shoulders, but merely shook their heads in disapproval and continued with their business without a fuss. But not all gamer girls were so dismissive.

Through the door barged everyone's favorite killjoy, Alexis Vant. Both slender and short in stature, she wasn't a particularly impressive or intimidating girl. However, her perpetual frown, set firmly in her angular face and framed by her platinum blonde bob-cut, and the evil stare that anyone she didn't like (and sometimes people she did) received was enough to make her a controversial person to be around. Predicting the scene she would undoubtedly cause, Confiar rolled his hazelnut-colored eyes and set back to work cleaning glasses and preparing food. He couldn't rightfully toss her out without good reasoning behind the action.

At first she minded her business, going over to one of the empty cubicles of the same game Nieth was playing; number two, to be precise. The curtain covering the cubicle meant that she wasn't readily visible, but Confiar could swear he saw the girl's black aura emanating from the stall. Not long later, he went over to number three and called in, "Food's done, come get it or it'll get cold." Then heading back over to his spot behind the bar, he served a few customers who'd flocked over to get their fill of cheap booze.

For some reason he was getting a bad vibe about Alexis's sudden appearance and her immediate marching to his favorite customer's favorite game, but he'd known the blonde troublemaker to play it somewhat often, so he had no reason to be overly suspicious of her. Just the same, he was on full alert, even if his attention was slightly divided by the rowdy group of teenagers that only seemed to grow bigger.

[NoiselessKnife]

Neith had said nothing but the bartender words had weighed on her like a thousand bricks, adult responsibilities, she hated to have to think about them, work, and, thanks to her family, marriage, children , more things to have to run smoothly and perfectly, oh, future was a dreadful time to think about, distant future that was, the close future of nuggets, beer and videogames was her comfort zone, she knew that said future would come later to bite her in the behind, just as College had done, she just hoped that it turned to be like college, a boring deal but with a lot of new found freedom. Even if t was unlikely and… well, after seeing Alien and Species, some very, very, very old movies that had been remade not that long ago she had never seen pregnancy as something nice and cheerful again, not that she remember a time when she had seen it as that.

The blonde rolled her eyes at his comment. “C’mon” She said giving him a wide grin, she cursed a bit her education, she always had to think in what smile she was giving, this one was another strange one for her, slightly seductive, with a dash of mischief, reached her eyes, meaning that her eyes illuminated when doing this, there was something there, something alike trust and something saying ‘I’ll play like if I wanted to do it’ and she was gone with that.

Once in her cubicle she started the console and began to organize the things around her, the glasses, the headset, and then she just waited and waited, bad thing about the future, commercials while your game was loading, everything goes well with the new Coke now dietetic, try the new manly man scent, everything is better in your Junes, now bigger than ever! It was tiring so when Confiar fetched her to tell her that food was ready, with a sigh she got up, eating while the game loaded was a thousand times better than seeing the commercials and the black screen that reflected her face in between them.

She stirred and got up, going to the bar once more. “Ah, Confiar, I’ve been playing that game since I could get access to it five years ago, now the info takes so much to load that I can eat your cheap food while waiting, I am not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse” She joked while she got a bit of ketchup. “The most difficult thing is to decide what to be” While saying this she began to write letters over her nuggets.

An “S”.

“I had a serial killer once, sadly he was caught, should I try it again?”

A “H”

“Maybe I should re-live high school, you don’t know how cool high school is until you face the dull college”

A “V”

“They say that the new expansion has the dinosaurs in it, I’ve always wanted to try that but was stuck with my fly”

A “T”

“Or maybe I should try something with horror…”

She kept doing that on all the twelve nuggets, she was spacey today, resting her head on her arm, comfortably resting this one over the bar, then with a flick of her hand she made the plate spin and looked at the clock, three minutes had passed by now, she began to eat the nuggets without seeing them, the last nugget standing would make up her mind.

The flavor was right, she had to give that much credit to Confiar, he made the best nuggets in the city and the beer, well, it was cold enough, yeah, this place was a paradise for her, saw to her real needs and vices in the best way.
Soon her nuggets were gone, the last one standing was the S one, she grinned and devoured her last victim with a satisfied sigh.

“Ok then, see ya in a few hours, Confiar, got to give it to you, you still do the best cheap food around” She joked with him and went to her cubicle once more, dusting her jacket off and then shrugging it off, letting it rest her shoulder she got in and smiled.

“Time to game” Neith smiled and entered her name. A present box appeared, making her raise her eyebrows in surprised. “Mmm, so Ol’ Confiar wasn’t joking, let’s see”

She opened it and the box exploded, and the scenario selection screen came up, she grinned and put “2000” as the year, then selected a character, after nearly 20 minutes personalizing him she entered the scenario, as soon as she had done that the screen changed into that of “Level up”

“What the…?” She grinned, she had 5 packages of level up it seems, each for one scenario, which was …formidable, it saved her many days of playing, three levels per package. “Thanks, man” The blonde youngster grinned and began to play, after a few moments she had her victim pinpointed, now she had to work on the how she would start this, meanwhile she let her character train a bit in the shooting range, with the extra level up she had the chance to begin as a sniper, she had a good idea as to not to get caught this time, an ice bullet would confuse the police quite much.

[EmmaliaChan]

Having waited for the girl to arrive before serving her food (a pretty girl like her was prime bait to have some type of drug slipped into her food, and he feared his attention might be spread too thin already to catch the culprit), he set it down in front of her at the bar once she sat, knowingly placing the ketchup beside her as well, already having been familiar with her eating habits.

"A blessing, naturally." The older man quipped as he served another customer, taking the man's money before handing him his drink. He wasn't really arrogant, and truthfully wasn't so sure of the food's taste quality compared to other places, but he knew full well the girl liked the food; Nieth simply wasn't the type to return - let alone be a regular customer - if she wasn't happy with the food at a place! It was more likely that she'd refuse to pay and move on. Permanently.

Idly listening to her while she thought out loud, Confiar knew full well she didn't expect answers to her mumblings. It seemed the young woman was the type who more easily sorted her thoughts when she voiced them, then settled on things without the help or advice of another person. He had to admit, it was kind of adorable the way she drew letters on the nuggets. It was such a childlike thing, playing with her food as she was, and it seemed so out of place when being done by the rough-and-tough college student; she truly was entertaining to watch.

Before long she'd finished her food, and the man he'd served earlier, who had been trying to work up his nerve this entire time, was frowning at his missed chance to talk to Nieth. Confiar smirked. At least the guy seemed to know he wouldn't have gotten anywhere with her, anyway. Again he fidgeted with the gold band on his ring finger, shifting it up and then down before continuing with his work of cleaning up the girl's dish and wiping down the counters.

A loud set of 'awwww's and laughter rumbled from the gang of youngsters surrounding one of the virtual reality machines. It seemed the boy who had been trying for a win had finally lost his battle against the final boss. Four hours of play, all for nothing! Yet again the game had foiled a hopeful gamer, tossing their hopes down the toilet and flushing them into the sewers as the last level put them in their place. It wasn't surprising, though -- the boy simply didn't have the coordination or intelligence required to win against such a difficult AI system.

Meanwhile, miss Alexis Vant was booting up one of her character files. Sticking a device into the machine (which had been designed mostly by a friend, even if she'd be the one taking the credit for it if she got caught), it soon put in a cheat to bring her to the highest possible level. After that, she found the server Nieth was on and quickly joined it. Her character was an army woman, equipped with a large RPG missile -- a weapon of mass destruction only obtainable if the character was at the highest rank, which she'd cheated hers up to. Quickly locating her nemesis on the overworld map, the scheming blonde made her way to the shooting range where Nieth was training, and began waiting outside for her...

It wasn't possible to see her level or what she had equipped, but it was easy to guess that Nieth would assume she was still far lower ranked. Even if the other girl checked the map and noticed her outside, she'd come out totally unaware of the giant explosive in the gun she was carrying that would destroy not only her, but probably a large portion of the building she was in, as well. The very moment she saw the other girl exit, her finger would squeeze the virtual trigger.

[NoiselessKnife]

Neith wouldn’t have been surprised by how much Confiar knew about her, in fact she’d be offended in a way if he didn’t, after all her habits were kind of always the same, same kind of games (RPGs, Horror ones and strategy), same food (Nuggets or pizza), same talks (About games or about how boring school was, well, mainly, at times they had gotten more personal in a way of being down or getting information of one another), so yeah, she wouldn’t be surprised about how much he knew her…

…still if she knew he was thinking of her as an adorable child she would have most likely punched him on the shoulder, or thrown nuggets at him… nah, better punch him on the shoulder, Neith liked her nuggets way too much as to waste them like that, and he was right, in all he thought, not that she would know, of course, but he was right, she loved the food here and was not expecting any answer to her questioning. Something that she had never stopped to think was about how he waited for her to arrive, she always thought it was just a friendly gesture, which showed how unaware she could be of her surroundings; she was still young after all.

Right before she got in she heard the “awwww’s” and had to snicker to herself, feeling a bit of joy over another gamer being unable to beat what she had not even tried to beat, hey, it wasn’t as if she wanted to make a show out of losing, that would be too much for her poor pride, not to mention that she didn’t want to give Confiar trouble… again by hitting any other gamer who mocked her for losing, no sir, she preferred cubicles to showing off her gaming, except in tetris though, she was one of the best of the best in that millenarian game.

Time passed and she kept practicing until her level went to what she wanted, perfect now she only had to sneak the weapon out and she’d be done with that… or so she was thinking until she saw a familiar name near her training place… oh this was rich, she had just come to game but the girl known as Vantastic111 appeared like a very low level character. A wide grin appeared in Neith’s face, this one showing malice, as well as and the will and want to do something very, very evil.

Sneaking the PSG1 was not difficult, such a bored place had even more bored people and her character had the looks of a nerdy nerd with no ill will, she had designed him like that, with a soft chuckle she went to the roof and waited until making sure no one was there, then she lied down in the typical sniper position and targeted the girl who had dared to call her a noob, well, now they would see who was a nood, she had entered her turf and that was the most dangerous thing to do with a gamer such like her.

Once the army woman’s ugly face (just as ugly as Alexi’s, Neith thought) was in the middle of the scope’s cross our blonde girl took a deep breath, her finger tightening on the trigger, soon it would all be over for the girl…

[EmmaliaChan]

The troublemaking blonde certainly didn't expect Nieth to find a vantage point to snipe her from, and thus she'd been focusing solely on the front door, waiting for the other girl to exit. Sometimes she underestimated the other girl's intelligence. Nieth's aim was pretty accurate, and her enemy never saw the bullet coming...

But Alexis still had her cheat-machine connected. Though the bullet hit its mark, and a headshot is usually an insta-kill, she didn't even take damage, thanks to her handy-dandy device. Despite not taking damage, she did notice when the bullet hit, and looked to see where it had come from, spying the other girl on the roof quite quickly.

Raising the virtual gun so it was pointed at the roof, Alexis pulled the trigger and allowed the little missile to fly. Loading the weapon up again, she fired off another for good measure, wanting to make sure the roof was entirely decimated so that Nieth would surely be dead. Then she continued to fire more, 'for good measure', since her device also allowed her infinite ammo. Oh, she knew she'd likely be banned from the arcade, but truthfully, putting Nieth in her place (though, doing so by cheating wasn't particularly impressive) was all she cared about right then.

Before long the entire building had crumbled, and there were policemen shooting at her, but just as the PSG1's bullets had passed through her so did the ones from their 10mm pistols. She wasn't sure what happened to the sniper, whether she'd somehow managed to survive or, more believably, her corpse had been buried beneath the rubble of what used to be the shooting range. Only time would tell, Alexis thought to herself, but it seemed like the latter was the only plausible outcome.

[NoiselessKnife]

Neith nearly leapt off her seat and did a victory dance when her bullet trespassed her victims cranium, now for the annoying part, to have to hide and erase tracks and start anew with a more practical style, that would be a bit hard but worth it, oh yes, yes, YES, ding dong, Alexis is gone! See who that witch calls a noob next time, oh this was rich, rich, rich! She’d celebrate tonight with a…

… wait a second! Why wasn’t that witch down yet? She had SEEN the bullet go straight to the witch’s head and into the wall, it had even done a small hole in it, WHY WASN’T SHE DYING! WHAT WAS SHE WAITING TO DIE?!? AN INVITATION?

The girl turned around and Neith felt a chill very alike that all those old gamers had felt when a red zombie turned to them and they had no bullets left, she scrambled for her rifle and aimed, trying to shoot again while the girl got something out… A RPG… all gamers know that feeling, from the first ones that faced a Tyrant in the now very old Resident Evil games to the ones like her that were seeing with their own eyes how a seemly superpowered enemy was about to have their fun with them. She shot once, more out of shock than anything and again, nothing happened; the bullet went through the girl and into the wall.

The next was a blur, her eyes only saw bright colors for several minutes and she had to take off her headset as the explosion was way too much to take, even once she had done that the noise still came out of them as a serie of explosions keep coming once and over, still in shock our young heroin looked at the screen and saw how the entire building she had been in came down, her character was dead by now, having started his painful death when the explosion came, having been left badly burnt and without limbs.

She looked at the screen again, now only seeing the “YOU ARE DEAD” red bloody letters and the map that showed how her nemesis was now being surrounded by the police, for one reason or another she waited a second to see if that bloody bitch was taken out, but as nothing happened she couldn’t help but feel her temper rise, slamming the headset down she stormed out of the cubicle.

“WHAT THE HELL!!” She yelled at the top of her lungs, trying to see the girl somewhere, not caring much for appearances, nor education, or anything more than having her fist up in the girl’s face. “COME OUT YOU DAMMED WITCH!!! ALEXIS WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!”