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One thing Dusty liked about his Guardian- she was about as hands-off as it was possible to be. When Dusty'd asked to spend the day downtown, Arrien had agreed, citing a need to check in with some friends of hers in that area. She'd even shelled out for a taxi, and once they were on the sidewalk, it had taken no more than ten seconds for her Guardian to lay out the rules of the outing. Here's five bucks, get yourself lunch, stay out of trouble, meet you at 2 by the park- and that was it! Freedom in a new environment, no supervision!

Dusty had meant to spend the entire visit doing business, taking stock of the setup street peddlers had in hopeful preparation that the business he and Caoimhe would take off. But predictably enough, he'd gotten sidetracked quickly enough by the excitement of the urban settings after only an hour or two.
First, it was window-shopping. Staring enviously at a snappy leather jacket of one store, he'd measure it up and grumble at the price tag, then wander off toward a display of jewelery across the street. Eventually, however, he realized that the only other people that really seemed to be indulging in the same activity were, well... rather effeminate. Which was enough to break him of the passion, instantly and forever, and he sulked onward to find something more worthy of his attentions.

There was a little open-air pizzeria/video arcade set on the intersection of two streets, with loud signs and bright cartoon posters dominating the whole of the corner. It was just starting to approach noon by the time Dusty had meandered his way there, drawn in by the flashing lights and scent of cheap, greasy food.

He hadn't really caught sight of the place's name on the way in, but as he poked around a row of shoot-the-terrorist and zombie-invasion games, he was pretty sure it had to be something along the lines of absolute nirvana. Cashing in the five for change, Dusty wore a satisfied grin as he jingled around the change and struggled with the decision of where to begin.

Quick enough, the deerkitten was drawn over to an arm-wrestling game that was in plain view from the street. Test Your Strength! the machine proclaimed in loud, bright stenciling- Can You Handle the Champ?!

"Hell yeah, I can!" Dusty muttered with a grin. Pumping a couple coins through the machine's hungering slot, the Arthurian Fa'e confidently toggled the controls to select "Hard" mode, then triggered the game to start. Smirking confidently as the machine blared a shoddy recording of a crowd's cheering and displayed a hulking, ugly, pixelated man's face. The graphic sneered demeaningly, and the speakers punched out a grating noise that was probably supposed to be a growl, but make more of a staticy gargle. A few multicolored lights flashed along the top of the machine, more annoying than impressive.

Get Ready! The screen was warning him, displaying a graphic to instruct him to take grip of the arm sticking out of the machine. Hardly intimidated by the machine's special effects, Dusty leaned in to rest his elbow on the pad and take a grip on the plastic hand, smirking with confidence as he watched the busy graphics of the blob-crowd in a slightly entertained, detached manner. Get Set...

FIGHT!!!!!!

Dusty swung his weight forward, eagerly pressing up against the arm- but it was pushing back, and a lot harder than the deerkitten had anticipated. Grunting already and trying to shift for a better grip, Dusty seemed panicked to realize that his arm was being forced backward toward the table- even repositioning his footing didn't seem to help the inexorable progression of the battle, as the mechanical arm slowly made centimeter by centimeter of progress against the deerkitten's struggles. "Ow ow ow ow ow!" Dusty began to complain, but refused to let loose from the arm's grip- no way he was losing to a machine, while the crowd was starting to boo and heckle and there was a goddamn smirk on that computerized b*****d's face, no way...!

Dusty was reaching the end of his rope with this machine. No longer caring about a fair battle, the young Fa'e had taken to engaging the opponent with both hands, throwing the full of his strength against it. The gears whirred and seemed to slow momentarily. Sensing potential weakness, Dusty gritted his teeth and tried pulling it harder- but his grip was slipping, and the machine was still gaining ground, and dammit dammit dammit--

And just when he thought it couldn't get worse, there was a voice. Taking a wild glance back, Dusty saw enough to ascertain that there was someone there, someone considerably bigger than he was. The fur along his back ruffled, and his tail lashed of its own accord. There was only one thing worse than having a witness to his approaching defeat- and that would have been no treat at all for the poor child's ego-, and that was to have a heckler!

"YEAH, well, I don't like IT much, either!--" And there went the grip of his left hand. The sudden loss of anchoring rattled his balance, with one hoof scraping the ground- too late to recover, crud crud, only got a couple inches!--

The back of his palm pressed against the padded surface. The speakers cut in with an obnoxious imitation of a laugh, while the arm returned to a neutral "ready" position. "Awww, dammit! You made me lose!" Dusty exclaimed instantly, quick to cast blame. Taking a step back from the machine, he cast a sour look in the direction of the hulkish teen. "Don'tcha know better than to distract people?"

Completely beyond his perception, the game was signaling a second round, about to begin.

Not... very good at....

"Hey!" Dusty complained of Amitai's observation, a look of annoyance flashing over his face. He was not about to let his reputation be besmirched by some dirt clod happening by! Even if aforementioned chunk of earth was... really, really big....

Abruptly reconsidering his position (after all, he didn't bring his sword along with him today; a mistake he vowed not to repeat!), the deerkitten quickly thought up a new approach. "'S called Wrestling Champ," he informed Amitai in an ungracious, but not completely hostile, manner of voice. "You're supposed t'make the arm go back to win. But the machine cheats!" Crossing his arms insistently, he began to explain, "I totally had it, but--"

Just then, the bejeweled Fa'e flicked his ears back, catching the sound of whirring from the machine. Whirling around, he saw the arm begin to descend again, discovering at last that there was more than one round to the game. "Cripes!" Panicked, he grabbed for the hand again, trying futilely to wrestle it back. Dammit, that wasn't fair, he didn't want to lose twice!

Dusty was left to stare, baffled, at the simple ease with which Amitai had performed what the deerkitten had begun to be convinced was sheerly impossible. His own hands were still wrapped around the machine's palm, a bit too disbelieving at the round's end to disengage just yet. A small amount of suspect whispered: is he tryin' to embarrass me or something?, but such concerns were easily dismissed in the face of the audio hurrahs. Even more quickly set aside as the game began to reset the arm for round three.

"It's not winnin' 'til it's two out of three!" Dusty claimed with sudden passion, begging with his left hand for Amitai to stay. "C'mon! Maybe 'tween you an' me, we can get a high score!" Any prior slight or insult was easily dismissed, along with the supposition that Amitai was probably more than capable of beating this game without the young Fa'e's help. It was Dusty's quarter, after all, so he could hardly stand aside for the decisive round!

"YEAAAAAH!" Jumping and pumping his fist, Dusty didn't make any small show of his joy over the triumph. It didn't seem to matter much to the child that he hadn't single-handedly defeated the machine; a win was a win, by whatever means, and he was fully prepared to gloat about it!

Beaming from ear to ear and reveling in the sound of the cheers (which, he was willing to overlook, were no less canned than for their lesser win), Dusty settled down long enough to watch the scoring total up and and top ten list skim over the screen, revealing....

"... Ninth place?" He read, sounding vaguely disappointed. The drawn-out first round had hit their score, enough the near-instant wins of the second two weren't enough to land them higher up on the list. "Aww, gyp!" Complain though he might, Dusty didn't waste any time in scooting past Amitai to take command of the controls, punching in a skillful 'D' and '+'. "'Ey, what's your name?"

"It's- well, just a sec," the deerkitten replied absently, sticking a capital 'A' at the end of the initials and tapping the start button in rapid impatience to confirm. A satisfactory sort of a zap noise locked in the initials; there on the screen, D+A, for all of time! (Or until someone knocked them out of their rightful place, or else the game were reset, or any number of tragic bugs stole away the victory, etc.)

Quite pleased nevertheless with the sight as the top ten list scrolled by once more, Dusty chortled to himself and broke away from the game at last. Cheerfully, he answered Amitai's question. "It's Dusty," he informed the teen, making eye contact and sticking out his hand in greeting as he'd been told to do by his Guardian countless times. "I live in western Barton. How about you?"

Watching his hand disappear entirely in Amitai's mammoth grip, Dusty grew quickly unsettled, reclaiming possession of his hand the instant it was released. It wasn't really a normal feeling for him to be overshadowed and intimidated. That wasn't to say, he hadn't used tactics like that himself, of course! It was just... being on the other end and, more pointedly, feeling an uncomfortable pit in his stomach....

Amitai didn't seem to be doing it on purpose, though. The guy was just big, strong, and hulking. And even if he were trying, Dusty'd be damned before he'd let on it was working! So he kept a passive, remotely friendly expression, even if the tip of his tail was stirring the air.

"You lived at Fa'e HQ?" The term was clearly familiar to the child, who broke into a smile. "Hey, cool! I know a buncha people-" well, two, anyway- "that've lived there, too. Like uhm, Mik did."

"Anyway- my house's not too far from here. Not a fun walk, but I could do it if I had to."