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 Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 8:54 pm
Lights flashed around the room as parents loaded their kids down with tokens in the hopes that the distraction would give them a little "me" time. Jack himself carted a heavy plastic bucket with about $40 worth of tokens inside, Duncan's personal form of babysitting. The restaurant arcade hybrid sported a bright purple elephant as its mascot by the name of Snorfle, and as far as Jack was concerned if the thing got close enough to him he had permission to whack it over the head with that bucket. Setting the bucket down he hauled himself up onto a stool and put a few tokens into a bright yellow machine that read boldly, "Whack-a-Mole". That sounded fun. And it had a mallet, double fun.
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 9:20 pm
Oh no. Not good.
Gloha's eyes frantically scanned the room, making sure to carefully examine each area before switching to a different one. Megan was missing. She'd set the girl down for less than a second to pay for the pizza, and somehow, in the instant, Megan had been able to wander away. Kids were very talented like that, Gloha had noticed. She ran around the flashing room, not sure where to start. With such a small child, it was hard to tell what would happen. "Megan!" she called without any hope that she would actually answer. So far, Megan was pretty out of it. She ran her hand throguh her hair. What am I going to do?
Megan, meanwhile, was having the time of her life. She loved the flashing colors of this beautiful room, even if it was a bit crowded for her taste. When Gloha had set her down, she'd crawled away, drawn to one of the brightly colored screens. After that, completely unconcerned that she'd lost Gloha, she'd wandered around searching for something interesting to stare at. Finally, she can upon a huge bucket sitting, and peered inside. There, she found many round glittering things. Giggling, she stuck one of her hands in and pulled out a few of the pretty things.
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 9:43 pm
Not having noticed the jingling noise Jack continued with his game until he ran out of credits. Gotta put more coins in. Still clutching the mallet he reached down into his bucket but found, instead of cold coins, a warm little hand. What the hell? He looked down with his face scrunched up, swatting at the hand. "What's your problem?" he yelled at the kid, attempting to wrench the mallet free enough to swing at her. Stopped by the rope holding it to the machine he let it go and turned both hands to the task of getting his tokens back from her. "These're mine. Getcher own!"
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 9:57 pm
Megan watched with wide eyes as the boy, who she hadn't noticed standing there before, slapped her hand away and then flew into a small rage. She'd never met such an angry person. When he let go of the rope and then tried to take the tokens back, she gave a little cry and clutched them to her chest, unwilling to give them back. "Mine!" she cried, "Mine!"
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:00 pm
Jack huffed, this kid was dumb. "No," he corrected her, "They're mine." He got down on his knees so he was at a better level with her, frowning as he attempted to pluck them one at a time from her grasp. This didn't seem to be working, but he'd have people yelling at him again if he hit her. Maybe he'd be better off to try something else.
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:13 pm
Megan, despite him being stronger, kept a determined grip on the tokens. "Nu," she sobbed, "Mine!" Maybe if he had asked in a nicer way, and hadn't scared her so much, she would have immediately given up the tokens without any sort of a struggle, but as it was, she was going to keep those things if it killed her. Tears were now on the verge of running down her face and she was desperately trying not to cry. Why did he have to be so selfish? He must have had thousands more in his bucket. He could do without three or four!
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:23 pm
Jack let go of the girl's arms for a moment, cringing a bit at her protesting. Why couldn't she just give them up. It wasn't like she was big enough to play any of the games herself. Well, if she was going to be a villain he'd just have to bargain. "How about..." He said, rummaging into his pockets, "How about this?" When he opened his hand he revealed a bright orange marble flecked with white. It glinted in the colored light, sending a ray across the tokens in her clutches. "An' I'll show you how to play some games too." Well, she was kind of entertaining after all.
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:31 pm
Megan sat up and stared in awe at what he was offering her.
She looked up at him with wide eyes and reached out slowly, unsure whether or not he was going to snatch it away from her. When he didn't pull away, she took the marble and clutched it in her hand, finally returning the tokens to their bucket and then staring up at his face once again. Her tears had dried, and she giggled happily. It was quite a wonderful trade to her, though she couldn't quite understand why he would give up the wonderful little orange and white ball for some flat disks. It was all very strange to her, but she was fine with it.
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:43 pm
When the girl finally complied he couldn't help but smile. Oh crap. Was he smiling? As soon as he realized he forced a frown, and took hold of the bucket. He got to his feet and offered a hand to her. "You wanna play Skeeball?" he asked, keeping a bit of a gruff tone to his voice. He didn't want her to think they were friends, he just needed something more entertaining than sitting there by himself. Plus, it'd be funny to see her try and throw the balls.
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:57 pm
Megan took hold of his hand and shakily stood up, using his hand to try to support her little legs. She nodded to his question, though she had no clue what Skeeball was or how exactly you played it. She just felt that it would be a good idea to nod and go along with it. When he wasn't yelling or trying to beat her with a hammer, he really wasn't a half-bad person. Megan almost liked him.
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 11:01 pm
"So where's your family?" He asked curiously, half tugging her as he pushed his way through the crowd to a row of dog themed skeeball machines. He got a little stepping stool from beside them, as they were just a bit too high for him to reach on his own. His bucket now rested beside the machine and ten credits flashed on the screens to two machines.
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Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:19 pm
Megan looked up at him, tilting her head sideways. She didn't answer, since she wasn't really sure what he was asking. And even if she had known, it wouldn't have mattered. She had no idea where Gloha had gotten to. So, she just followed him to the skeeball machines and stared in wonder at the things. They were huge! She looked back at him again, and then at the machines, wondering if this was the mysterious skeeball he'd been talking about.
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 9:47 am
After taking a step off the stool onto the side of the machine, Jack offered her a hand up. "You wanna play, yeah?" he asked, gesturing to the side rail of the other machine. It was a little high even then, but he had learned before that you could throw just fine sideways from the rail.
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 10:38 am
“Yea,” giggled Megan, trying to imitate what he had said. Although, she was still pretty clueless about just what he was trying to do, the flashing lights captivated her. She cautiously, took hold of his hand, letting him pull her up.
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Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:12 pm
"Kay," Jack said matter-of-factly, "Hit the start button when you're ready, and it'll give you the balls, the just start throwing them." He stepped on his own button, picking up one of the bright yellow balls to demonstrate. When he threw his he hit a twenty-five point marker, causing the whole thing to light up. "An that's how you know you got points," he explained.
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