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 Posted: Thu May 12, 2011 8:59 am
-It was a normal weekday afternoon at Electric Dreams. On weekends the two story arcade was bustling and busy. It wasn't uncommon to have to wait in a tiny line for the more popular games.. and laser tag games filled and ran almost constantly every 25 minutes. As the biggest arcade in a town full of highschools and colleges the store had plenty of business, but weekdays had always been a little bit slower.
A handful of people were scattered around the arcade, playing games and eating. Most were regulars but a few new faces peered up from behind side scrollers and fighters. It was light enough now that Corey had left the concession stand for the time being, running a rag along empty games in his daily routine of dusting and cleaning. The music was a constant thrum mixed with the sounds of games in the background, the lights bright and blinking. Before the day was over he was going to have to tinker with the Street Fighter game, having had complaints that it was eating the occassional quarter. But it was something to be left to when he actually wanted to think. For now he was just bopping along to a familar tune, mindlessly cleaning.-
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 2:59 am
Louisa hadn't ever really been into arcades and games but then she had changed a lot and well first time for everything right? She had seen enough people walking in and out and there was no reason why she couldn't just see what the fuss was about right? Granted she wasn't about to spend a fortune in it but she could look around yeah?
She let out a soft sigh as she headed in, partly wondering why she was even there. She didn't try to play anything just wandered about, looking at each game wondering what was what. She looked confused that much was obvious and possibly even out of place. She wasn't as self-conscious as she use to be, otherwise she wouldn't have even been in there at that moment.
She looked strangely at one game and then shook her head. Nope she did not understand this in the slightest. She had found herself next to one game machine thing and she found herself staring at it. Nope she did not understand this and nope she wasn't sure she should be here. Her hand reached for her pocket of her jeans and played with the coins in it. Would it hurt to give it a go?
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 6:54 am
-He'd noticed her atleast vaguely when she stepped into the arcade, offering her a bright but silent smile of greeting as he went on about his business. His dusting rag ran smoothly along until he suddenly paused, frowning as he scrubbed scrubbed scrubbed at a sticky stubborn spot on one of the skeeball lanes. Someone had likely gotten a little exhuberant with their playing, the telltale brown signs of dried and speckled soda. A spray bottle of mild cleaning liquid was pulled from his belt like a gunslinger at a showdown, the offending spot nailed with the foamy liquid before the rag and his palm where upon it again, rubbing in fierce circles until it was gone. Stain defeated, bottle reholstered, Corey popped up in celebration, listening to some silent monolouge to himself about 'the crowd going wild'!
He saw her again, pausing at a game.. and then going to the next her expression not looking excited but perhaps maybe... confused? Lost? He didn't linger long, bracing the distance between them as curiousity got the better of him.-
"Hey there!" -He piped up pleasantly as his arm settled on the side of the machine she was currently in front of, House of the Dead. his smile about a mile wide- "You looking for something in particular?" -This was why some of his employees suggested he be forced to wear a nametag too. Because he TOTALLY didn't look like some creeper trying to hit on underaged girls now right? Well maybe the cleaning supplies helped.-
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 8:02 am
She turned quite suddenly and blushed a little. Had she really looked that lost that someone had come over to her. Oh dear.
"Erm in all honestly I haven't ever been to an arcade before and don't really know where to start." Honesty was good yeah? She probably looked really stupid now but what was there to do about it, she couldn't blag this as she really had no idea what she was talking about.
"You work here?" She was pretty sure he did but wanted to check. She was also somewhat glad she wasn't in her school uniform, she never really wanted to be seen as a school girl after all she was so nearly 18! She was counting down the days!
"I am Louisa by the way." Names are always good to start with...
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 8:56 am
-For a brief moment Corey looked absolutely wide eyed mortified at the admission.. no he WAS mortified! If a 10 year old had said it he might have regarded it with pity and the assumption that the child was sorely coddled by their parents.. but a girl clearly past puberty? What kind of a world was this where such an atrocity could happen!?
The look was gone as quickly as it had come, replaced by a look of determination.- "Oh you need to play something and play it now then!"
"I'm Corey, Louisa, nice to meet ya. Don't just work here, I own the place" -The introduction was swept through perhaps a little quicker then it might usually have been, his hand clapping on her shoulder almost like a coach of some sort.-
"What kind of things do you like? We've got games where you shoot, dance, play instruments, fight, shoot basketballs, gamble, plain old luck and guessing." -His words were quick and exicted, miming some of the words as he said them. It didn't really seem like she had an option except for choose.-
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 12:34 pm
Louisa didn't see the look and it was possibly a good thing that she didn't. She was slightly amused at his enthusiasm though if only because he did seem eager to get her playing.
"Thanks Corey and wow... you own all this?" She was impressed at that, though the whole introduction was rushed and he was listing different types of games.
"Uh... I don't know to be honest. I haven't really been into gaming much." She of course played the Sims on the computer but then what teenage girl hadn't played Sims?
"Maybe you could just show me some games and we can see how it goes?" Made the most sense to her at that time. She was rather competitive there was no doubt about that as he would surely see but at the moment she had to find a game she could play and enjoy before trying to beat the dude who owned the whole arcade!
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 3:08 pm
"Yes I do. It took me over five years of saving and scrapping..." -It was an impassioned speech he gave often, but one likely for another time. There were more important things at the moment, so the thought seemed to wash away as a mere side thought as he turned her back to the game she'd originally been standing in front of.-
"We'll start with this one then. A good old classic, and who doesn't love mowing down some zombies!"
-Settling in beside her he lifted one of the guns tethered to the machine, motioning for her to do the same.- "The important points are to shoot zombies before they hit you. Try not to shoot regular people because you loose points... annnnnd fire off screen to refill your weapon."
-One coin slipped in, and then two. Corey paying for someone else's game!? It was like pictures of bigfoot. Something that NEVER happened. But then again.. how often did you get a chance to take someone's arcade virginity? The snippets of story scrolled across the screen and with a blaze of music and computerized screens zombies began to lurch out of the background of a stone mansion, heading towards the screen.
Baptism by fire.-
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 11:02 pm
Louisa smiled as Corey came to stand next to her and picked up one of the guns. She did the same looking at it as if it were some strange out of space object.
"Okay..." She wasn't sure she knew what he meant but they would just shoot yes? Fighting, that was something she was getting increasingly better at - shooting? Maybe not so much.
As the zombies started appearing on the screen she just shot at them, finding actually it was very easy to get into. She noticed when there was a civilian and managed to dodge shooting them. The massacre of zombies was something special... something...that the BMC should learn from. Either way she wasn't a senshi at the moment she was a regular teenage girl shooting the hell out of all these stupid zombies!
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2011 8:20 am
Zombie slaughter was a special bond. A bond that could unite masses of people, because really.. who couldn't help but love being able to shoot the s**t out of something inherently bad and evil without worry. Sure that movie had come out a few years before, Land of the Dead, where they tried to give the zombies feelings and human qualities, but everyone knew that was a crock. Zombies were gruesome and bad. And there was nothing like mowing down some to send a coursing of adreneline and triumph through your body.
Maybe for halloween he'd see if he couldn't set up something in the laser tag arena with zombies? It was a thought filed away in the back of his mind, set aside to pick at and develop more later.
Corey was a fairly loud player. He whooped and hollered as he barely managed to miss hits. He cackled as he hit a fairly impressive streak of one shot kills and blew up a tank of gas sending a slew of zombies to a firey death. As they reached the first mini boss, he nudged her shoulder lightly with his arm. "Aim for the eyes.. the EYES!"
This game was a fairly hard one to beat without feeding the machine, so it was unlikely they'd make it entirely to the end, but it hardly mattered. She was doing GREAT in fact for her first game.
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Posted: Thu May 26, 2011 7:45 am
Okay so Louisa had found an all new passion for killing zombies and it was probably a good thing she didn't earn much in the way of money or it was more then possible she would be here for a long time yet. Then again she had just found something rather awesome.
As he told her about the eyes it meant the minute the boss came up she was shooting.
"Die b***h die..." Okay so she was getting into it a little too much now but then she wasn't making as much noise as Corey was and it wouldn't last much longer before the game demanded more money that in all honesty she didn't have much of.
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 12:36 pm
Corey grinned, fully amused and thrilled by the girl's obvious enjoyment. It was probably because he kept glancing back at her that he ended up dying so soon, his three health gone. His side of the screen flashed with a warning, giving him 20 seconds to insert more coins if he wanted to continue, but he stayed back, contented in just watching her. "All on your own now"
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 8:37 am
Part of her panicked when he stopped playing, like when your little and your favourite cuddly toy is taken away from you. She managed to gain control though and carry on shooting though she felt slightly pressured now. He hadn't been watching her before but now he was.
She carried on shooting until she couldn't shoot anymore... she died, quite spectacularly as she ran out of bullets and got mobbed by zombies.
"Woops didn't refill quick enough..." She looked at Corey and smiled sheepishly. She had died on purpose, there was only so much of someone watching her play that she could handle but she didn't let on. After all she did enjoy it!
"I am guessing you spend a lot of time playing on these?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 9:37 am
His hands clapped together loudly twice when she'd finally died, and Louisa was greeted with a stupidly wide grin of 'yayyyyy' when she turned to him finally. Almost before she could speak his hand lightly slipped around her arm, attempting to lead her off again. "You should totally try this one next. It's a classic!"
Her question gained a sharp nod and a laugh. "I've been playing videogames since I was knee high to a grasshopper. But owning this place is nice, all the quarters are mine so it doesn't cost me anything to feed the machines on slow afternoons." He winked a little at that, like it was a secret or something, before finally stopping them in front of a game that was entirely different from the last.
It didn't have a screen.. or a gun. No. Instead a lane stretched in front of them with some holes at the end. When a coin was inserted a set of solid wooden balls clinked out and Corey picked one up, motioning a bowling position mildly before he held out the ball for her.
"Skeeball, an old carnival favorite. Simple, competitive, AND you get tickets so you can get prizes over at the concession stand. Aim for the middle smallest hole"
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 2:24 am
She let herself be led finding this all a little odd. This was so weird to her but she found herself enjoying being led and shown how to play games. In fact she was already planning on coming back to track Corey down and beat him some more!
"What? It has to go in the hole?" Confused was something... she looked at the lane and then took the ball holding it in front of her as it was a bomb about to go off or something similar.
"erm..." She looked at the ball some more and then the lane and then at Corey who she suddenly couldn't help wonder if he ever stopped smiling but then he had his dream so why would he? She shook her head and walked over to the lane. She wasn't exactly great at bowling so she closed her eyes and threw the ball.
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Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 2:09 pm
"Technically there are holes everywhere, though the very bottom if you miss completely gives you no points. Try to aim for the bullseye. The different rings are worth 50, 25, 10, and 5."
The ball hit the lane with a soft tap, rolling smoothly up the lane. When it hit the gap it jumped up, but there wasn't enough umph to send it very far. The ball landed in the furthest out loop of the bullseye, sliding back and forth a couple times before the ball disappeared into a small hole. An electric scoreboard switched from 000 to 005. Four more balls remained in the side pocket awaiting her throw.
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