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Mareike leaned over a long blue table. Her wings spread behind her and all three eyes focused on a small green disk headed her way. At the last possible second her right arm shot out and sent the disk skimming across the table back to her opponent. This was a serious game of air hockey, or perhaps not serious so much as intense. The thistle haired girl was working off some pent up frustration while wasting Nickles money in the process.

Not that Mareike was one to turn down any chance at friendly competition. Hench why she'd come to the arcade, a mostly non physical place where she could focus on winning games, beating others and remain impartial to the other people aroudn her most of the time. The air hockey match had been due to the jerk's boasting that no one could beat him. This was proving to be nearly true as the score stood 4-6 in his favour. Mareike had speed on her side but he seemed to know all the right angels to bounce the disk off the walls and her own pommel.

It only took a few minutes more before the disk had ricocheted of Mareike's pommel into the wall and then into her goal making her opponent the winner. While the boy boasted about his victory to the few people watching Mareike slunk off searching for something new to play.

Amidst the flashing lights and all the noise Mareike found first not a game to distract her but a person. Edging closer carefully until she was sure she'd found the right person Mareike grinned. It was the weird girl from the art store , Ebony.

The Maroon skinned girl walked to stand beside the other, one eye on the screen displaying the track and current racing positions. "looks like you need more practise." She teased, her voice light and lacking any of it's natural sarcasm.

Mareike resisted the urge to laugh when Ebony crashed into the wall. The girl hadn't had much of a chance of winning to begin with but that pretty much clinched the loss for her. A small part of the older girl felt a bit bad for causing the incident.

" I"m good, didn't break any figureines though someone should break Nickle's becuase he managed to paint the wreath and make it look bad." Really how he's screwed up such a small object she'd never know. Even penny agreed the green on it had been too dark and the berries he'd tried to add looked like red mold splotches. Her father had simply shrugged and said it looked good to him and that was what counted.

A few feet away a pair of girls stepped off the DDR machines as the last notes of music faded away and their scores went up. Mareike's looked thoughtful for a moment and then grinned " Wanna play" she pointed " I'll pay." It wouldn't hurt to treat the other kid to a game, besides Mareike wanted to see if Ebony's heritage had given her any physical attributes that might help in such a game

"You watch the lights on the screen and step ok the right same arrow by your feet when they get to the top" the older girl explained and pointed as they walked. So when the left arrow reaches the bar at the top and goes into the left arrow shaped spot you have to hit the left arrow square on the ground with your feet. If two arrows hit the bar at the same time you have to jump and touch them both." Mareike didn't think she needed to cover the freeze move since they shouldn't be seeing any.

Maroon skinned girl was ok at the game, her enhanced speed allowed her to keep up with a lot of the high beats per minute rated songs but she still needed to work on her foot eye co-ordination. Moving came naturally during tennis it was like walking or running, with DDR Mareike had to focus on moving each leg and where it was going at least until she'd played a few songs and found her rhythem.

Claiming the two machines the girl tucked her wings to her back , they were of no use during this game, and looked down at Ebony " any more questions before we start?" Is this what it would be like having a sibling? Just playing games and explaining things.

Mareike nodded and put in the coins that allowed them both to play. Carefully she selected easy difficulty and the song entitled beatdrop. It had a lot of steps even in the easier mode so Ebony could get used to stepping often and not having to wait in between steams like in some songs which through off your internal rhythem.

The screens lit up and dancers appeared on the screens representing each of them. Musical began to play and arrows slowly scrolled towards the top of the screen.

Main eyes focus on the screen, Mareike allowed her golden eyes to look left and see what was going on there. " Not bad, oh and even though the dancers are doing it don't put your feet back in the middles after eahc step just leave them where they are. It's gets too hard to play if you waste time putting them back in the middle when you play harder levels." Mareike had never understood why the game gave you bad advice like that when every player she'd ever talked to told you putting your feet back in the middle was pointless." Oh and if you lose too many points when you're play the crowd boos at you" she warned. The maroon skinned girl had found that aspect of the game very annoying she she was first struggling to learn it.

It was weird teaching someone else something, until recently she'd been too small and young to really know anything others didn't. It felt sort of nice though.

Mareike nodded " Sure." I can even go through the song list and let you hear bits of each one." She offered. It wasn't like she had any idea of what Ebony would consider catchy.

The song came to a close and the girl's respective scores popped up on the screen. Mareike paid less attention to her points than the amounts of awesome greats and goods she'd gotten. She still seemed to be ending up a bit too soon on some of her steps..

When the song choice list came back she began to scroll through it waiting for approval from the girl beside her.

Mareike listened to the short demo again then nodded she hadn't played this song yet and it sounded fun. The cheery music began to play and once again Mareike directed her focus on getting a good score. Using her golden eye to watch her feet while her orange eyes watch the screen. Although her damned new boobs were making looking at her feet a pain. Not completely obscuring them but still making them harder to see.