~Games Galore!~

[Guest]

Slipping off of the vehicle that had delivered him to Aerugo was his primary concern. After that, it was a great big adventure! Of course, he had no idea where he was... Or what he was doing... And everything was so... So FOREIGN here! He had no idea what anyone was talking about! So confusing... But he was having a bit of good fortune shining down on him; a few people thought he was a hobo child, so they tossed some funky lookin' money at him. Maybe he could buy some food! So he trounced into the nearest food-ish shop he could find, and as luck had it, it was an arcade! All kids loved games, and Kean was no exception. Ah, the endless hours of glorious fun, playing on his solar powered gameboy, leading Pacman to ultimate victory... Those were the days. He wondered if his RV was still in East, still in that broken-down junkyard. Maybe it was still okay, and he could play there again. Maybe he could even bring it to Drachma, so he could live there again! Anywho, he stepped up to the counter and pointed to the selection of foods behind the register guy. A snack thingy! Perfect for an arcade! And thankfully, the foods had pictures with them. He pointed out a slushie and a cookie, and handed the man some of the foreign money. Smiling, he nodded his thanks and walked over to a game thingy. Sipping his slushie, he watched curiously as a little girl seemed to be trolling some poor game-whiz at Mortal Kombat. Except everything was in Aerugese!! Why did EVERYTHING is Aerugo have to be in Aerugese!? Anywho, as soon as their match ended and the 40 year old walked off, in shame, Kean stepped up to the taller girl in front of the game. Pointing at the game with his cookie-hand, then at himself, he smiled. "Can I play?" Setting his cookie and slushie down on his side of the arcade game, he left her little choice...

[NIN]

NIN was playing as Kung Lao as the fight drew on. This stinky 40 year old man was playing Goro, the stupid 4 armed man who could only jump as a special move. Her stark white hair glowed in the neon-lit gaming arcade where the lights and sounds made up a world of kill or be killed. The girl who was killing the man's reputation wore sunglasses in the already dark-lit room and was wearing of all things: a bunny backpack and a orange sundress. Her tiny fingers could barely hold the console so she placed it on her lap and tapped on it like a keyboard. The man saw, at some point she was checking her e-mails white she did a 3rd level fatality move on him. As soon as that round was over, he had reserved himself to corner her, too bad her character could teleport! With a swish of the x button, she sent Goro flying into the sea of lava where his body would be melted down along with the other orange pixels.

NIN jumped up off of the stool and pulled another lollipop from her bag as she began to dance. Suddenly a boy came up and started talking to her and sat down. She paused and then picked up her Iphone. "I have an app for that." she said sweetly as she looked up the words he said on her hand-held. Oo...Drachman. With a flutter of text and swiping of the touch screen she pulled up an app that she could speak into and translate into whatever language possible. She spoke a few sentences into the phone and pressed a button. The phone spoke out: " I suppose you want to play? If you want to talk you can use this. Winner gets pizza." The mechanical voice spoke the words of a true 5 year old as they went back to the main screen to choose their characters. NIN chose Kung Lao again, suspecting this would be another battle to the death.

[Guest]

Kean looked curiously at the device in her hands. Why, it almost looked like that gameboy he used to have! Except it was smaller, and thinner. And it could talk!? He blinked at first, but then grinned. "Okay!" Taking a sip of his slushie, he picked up his console, and picked Liu Kang. Of course, he had never played this game before, so he had no idea if it was a good choice or not. But he was a fast learner~ In a moment or two, the game had begun. Quickly Kean began tapping buttons, and watching the girl as she played, to see which buttons did what. As he played, he was going with a nice power-hit & run tactic, intending to wear down her character, while keeping his out of harm. He did indeed want that pizza! Hmm... Now that he thought about it, pizza really would be good about now. Taking a slurp of slushie and biting off a piece of cookie, he played on as he pondered what toppings he'd like. "I think when I win, I want gravy and peanuts on my pizza. What about you?" Yeah. I DARE ANYONE OVER THE AGE OF TWELVE TO SAY THAT WITH A STRAIGHT FACE! But of course, Kean was barely eleven. And based on the logic that for a good part of his life, he scavenged dumpster junk, pizza with gravy and peanuts was rather interesting to him. If he liked pizza, and he liked peanuts, and he liked gravy, why not? But first, before even sampling such wonderful, delicious foods, he had to win.

[NIN]

NIN didn't care whether or not he couldn't understand her as long as she won. As she picked Lui Kang she knew his main attributes: Teleportation, blade hat, air kick, and what she liked to call: B*tch kick. Even though he was very slow he was good against aerial attacks. Even though they were playing with a wii, she was using the PS2 linkage which was different from the original stick version that you swung around and it screamed at you. Her hands were a blur as she stared stone-like at the screen. As the boy's character tried for a long term wear-down she found a good solution to that. Whenever he tried to run off she would toss her character's blade hat and hit him in the spine, or she would just teleport and repeatedly combo-kick him in the face until he attacked again. She had played this game for 4 months now and knew every glitch in the book. As all of that went down, she tried to get the boy's character towards the large spikes at the edges of the platform.



As she went in for the final kill, she took off her sunglasses. Her blood red irises illuminated off of the screen, making her pale smile all the more eerie as she pressed the triangle button for a final kick. Soon the boy was talking about pizza something. She pressed the record and translate button and nodded. " I want cheese and gumdrop pizza with sweet and sour sauce." She mumbled into the contraption. She had tried that once when they had merged with the rest of her meal at some point. It was quite a good mixture.

Though it was all for naught when the manager pulled a shadow so long it blocked the screen from view. Apparently from the sounds the TV was making, both of their characters had died. She looked up with those red droplets and smiled nervously. " Anything wrong?" The man's eyes almost faltered at her cuteness. " That man said you used a glitch in the game to win." The man seemed a bit confused that such a young child even knew of such a cheat. NIN smiled and said in the sweetest voice she could. " Sorry sir, but I'm 5. What's a cheat?" Though her reaction to the main board of Armageddon music caused her to press a few buttons to back-switch it to the main event. Counting as a cheat.

A moment later both kids were out on the curb, banned from the building for two days. Nin put her sunglasses back on and said to the boy. " Sorry for involving you...want to get that pizza? Half and half?" She said half of it in Drachman and the other half she didn't know how to say in the machine. She was getting the hang of the language but her accent was horrible. She wanted to taste that weird combination of peanuts and and gravy on a pizza.

WC: 504

[Guest]

Kean tapped button after button, and thought he was getting the hang of it, until the manager came up. He said some angry words in some angry language, and Kean was confused as he grabbed his slushie and cookie and he and the girl apparently got kicked out. Well, he wasn't sad, or mad about getting kicked out. Just confused. Gosh, if he ever learned another language., he was learning Aerugese! Speaking of languages, the girl said something in Drachman, which surprised Kean a tad, but not much. So she went from talking with the gameboy-thing to actually talking? Neat. Weird, but neat. Oh, right, she was talking to him!

"Oh, it's fine!~ And that pizza does sound good about now..." Glancing at his cookie, he pondered taking another bite, but then decided to first break off the un-bitten-off-off half, and handing it to the girl, smiling, before taking a bite of the half he now had. "My name's Kean, by the way." miling still, he started off one way, but... he stopped. Where was a pizza place...?

[NIN]

NIN was a bit disappointed that she couldn't pull off her innocence as well as she used to. Maybe because it wasn't there anymore. Suddenly she saw a piece of a cookie near her line of vision. She looked up and mirrored the smile on the other boy, taking the cookie. Listening to the Drachman now, she was able to say a few clear words now. "Mine...NIN." She grabbed his hand and began to run down the street, eating the cookie with the other. " Down street."
Her white hair flowed against the current as they both ran down the block, taking a left to a tiny pizza place. She opened the door and a bell went off above. " Minta-san! I brought a friend here, he hasn't been to your shop yet. Can you believe that?" Her red eyes sparkled towards a large asian man with a grey goatee and skin like cured leather. He turned around and grinned. " To tell you the truth, many people haven't been to my shop. Now what do you want?" She relayed the orders from both Kean and herself to make the pizza half and half.
The leathery man set down a pitcher of milk. NIN frowned at the milk and looked up at the man. She had asked for soda but she knew he would never give any to a 5 year old. Instead of making a bit deal, she turned to Kean. " Pizza will be...soon. Pour please?" She raised her hand up, showing how tiny they were, not really made to pour half a gallon of milk, let alone the ability to pick it up.

[Guest]

As the girl accepted her half of his cookie, Kean smiled. "NIN, huh? That's a good name. Wanna be friends?" Grinning like a happy doggie, Kean allowed himself to be pulled down the street by the little girl called NIN, who happened to be a tad taller than he. As he was dragged down the street, he finished off his slushie, which he hadn't offered to share because he'd learned good manners. And it was usually not good manners to drink after someone, so he'd just get NIN something at the pizza place to drink, with his new silly Aerugese money. Speaking about silly Aerugese things, NIN spoke some words to the guy and he spoke words to her, and gave her some milk. As the two sat down, NIN asked Kean to pour a glass for her. Smiling sheepishly, he grinned and held up his own hands, a bit smaller than hers. "I guess we need someone else to help... They should invent tiny pitchers of milk for people with tiny hands! That would be cool..."

[NIN]

NIN smiled to herself. She hadn't replied to his question but she assumed he knew. No one would turn down a friend, would they? Her heart glowed inside, eating away the burning hatred towards the world. She had believed that every person in the world had a good and bad side...and that bad side always showed but her. Somehow with this kid she was wrong in that theory. Though, she had only known him for a few minutes. Yet, it was as if she had known him always. Maybe this is what "fun" was like.

As he was talking in his Drachman that she could catch snippets of. She put away the cell phone and turned to dear Minta-san. " Pour please." The man's narrow eyes looked down at her, creating even more folds in his skin. He smiled ruggedly as he took the pitcher and poured two glasses of milk halfway so his tiny guests could hold them. During that time the pizza was finally finished and he presented the odd food to both of them. Making sure he didn't react to how happy they were to the odd combination.

She turned to him as she swiped a straw that was next to the chopsticks and sipped her milk. " How long are you staying in Aerage?" She had a hard time pronouncing the name of her home land in this foreign tongue. Her questioning eyes glowed deep apple red in the lamplight, having her face look almost unreal.

[Guest]

Kean smiled pleasantly, even though NIN hadn't formally accepted his request for friendship. Everybody knew that if they noted that they accepted, that was great, but if they refused friendship, they weren't good friends at all anyways. But of course, so long as they didn't NOT accept friendship, it counted as the former. So in a silent, no-words-needed type of way, she had accepted his friendship.

Smiling still as the guy came back, and more silly words were spoken in that silly language in this silly place. How silly! And then they were poured half-glasses of milk, which Kean drank a few sips of, until pizza arrived. His eyes in amazement at the glorious pizzas, he took a slice of each, setting one aside as his second victim, and taking a bite of the gravy and pineapple pizza. His conclusion; the food... OF KINGS! As he tasted the cheese-gumdrop-sweet'n'sour, he found that it was EVEN BETTER. Taking a third slice of Sweet and Sour piazza, he heard NIN ask a question. "Um... Probably just a day. I think Hei might be looking for me... Hey, if he comes here and gets me, so we can go back to Drachma, do you wanna come too? Just for a visit?" Grinning ear to ear, he hoped she'd say yes!~

[NIN]

Nin munched on the food with no real appeal towards either one. She paused at the two slices of different pizza and then slapped them together like sandwiches. Eating them with a little more gusto than before. The pineapple tingled her throat, making her emit a sweet giggle. Things like this made her more happy that she loved the simple things. Like a new friend, a new toy and the taste of funny-looking pizza.

The sweet taste of milk engulfed her throat as the taste of the food mellowed to a memory on her tongue. Her new found friend asked if she was able to go to Drachma. She stared at the milk, now swirling with pieces of pizza in it. What would the outside world look like? She hadn't been anywhere but Tokyo and Kyoto... all of them with horrible memories of fighting, hatred and flowers. Maybe there were different flowers in Drachma. Oh well...

She looked back up from her trance and stared straight in her new found friend's eyes. " Will they have nice flowers there? If they do, I'll go. " She finished her pizza and placed Aerugese money on the table for Minta-san to pick up. " In the meantime... we need to get to my house before the police make their rounds. They pick up stray children and bring them to the police offices late at night." She straightened her black coat and then pulled at her orange dress underneath so the cute white frills would show under. She loved that color: orange.

[Guest]

Enjoying his milk and pizza, the only thing Kean liked more was talking to his new friend. Would she be considered his BEST friend? Hmm... It was hard to beat hei... Impossible, actually. Well, Hei was more of a BEST BEST friend anyhow. So yeah, NIN was his new BEST friend! So as he enjoyed yummy food, he listened to her talk. Flowers in Drachma, eh? He'd never really thought about it... "Hmm... Flowers, huh? Uhh... I guess we have some pretty flowers. Most of them are inside houses though, cus there's a whole bunch of snow everywhere and flowers don't like snow." At the mentioning of police officers that take away small children, Kean's eyes widened. He didn't want to get picked up by police guys! To be honest, the police would be likely to skip over him, if he showed them his ID, which stated he was a high-ranking Drachman soldier, but he was ELEVEN. He had no idea how the legal system worked, or how politics happened! All he knew was, "Oh, well let's get moving then! I don't wanna get took by the police! Lead the way, NIN~"

[NIN]

NIN's eyes lit up like a sparkler in a dark room. She pulled out a fist full of paper yen and tossed it on the tip jar. " Could you box this up Minta-san?" While the man was boxing up the rest of the pizza, NIN hopped off of the stool and took something out of her bunny backpack. It was a spare cell phone and a stuffed toy. " The cell phone has...G...P...S.. and the toy has money and snack just in case you get hungry or bored."

After it was all boxed up, she had the "minta-san" place the box in her bunny backpack. "Lets go to my fort!" she called back and shot out of the restaurant and into the city. The lights above showed even more brighter now that the night was in full swing. There were billboards soaring above like cliffs upon an irish drop. Flashing lights of adds, music, and news never stopped and probably never will. As she continued to run, those lights had gotten fewer and far between. The area they were walking into were abandoned mills. Each one crashing silently with out a soul to see. Suddenly NIN turned left into a small crevice only big enough for children.

She turned on her cell phone so she could see the emergency fire escape. The fire escape was rusting and the plaster and stone that had held it together was halfway off it's hinges. Anyone above 70 pounds could easily snap it off with their weight. NIN hopped onto the bars and started climbing up. The darkness only penetrated by her cell phone with a hello kitty background.

[Guest]

Kean watched as his friend withdrew a phone and a toy from her bag and explained what each one was. Snaaaaaaacks? Kean liked snacks! Though he was kinda full from the pizza... Ah well, if it came to it, he'd take a candy bar to the teeth for NIN! That would be cool... If like... The police came and found them... But they were made of candy. That would be awesome. Oh well~ Their plan was to NOT get found by the police! As NIN decided to go to the city, Kean dartd off after her, waving to her Minta-san guy. "Fort fort fort fort fort, fort fort fort fort fort, fort fort fooooort!~" As they carried on running, he sang the word 'fort' to the tune of Ride of the Valkyries until they reached their destination. Watching NIN creep in and find a fire escape, he watched as he climbed it. After she reached the top, he scurried up behind her, not even rattling the bars with his lithe form and weight. Glancing around at the top of the ladder thing, he looked around in the cell phone light, checking out his surroundings...

[NIN]

Just as the metal ladder was about to scuff her small hands, she finally reached the top. The entire place had a low light about it due to the far-off street lamps. Their orange tint giving the place an even more run-down feel to it. She walked towards the middle of the old mill roof and shined her cell phone light over what looked like a pile of trash. If you looked closer, that trash was comprised of different pieces of metal scraps and what looked like street and stop signs. " I took them from the street and nailed them together. It's not pretty but it's better on the inside."

She switched automatically from Drachman to Arguese due to the lack of words she knew to comprise that sentence. She crawled into the door which was made up of what looked like a chunk of a round dog door. She then jumped into what looked like a hole that had been eroded by time and turned on a large switch. The light burst open and the light bulbs looked like they were spliced from the mainframe of the building. " Unlike Creta, electricity isn't controlled as well. When you use electricity in Creta, you have to pay for it in groupings. When a building is wasting away in Aurugo, then the electricity that goes through it is paid by the government. So it's easy to get it from old buildings that from other houses."

She felt really grown up as she talked, hopping onto the pillows that was scattered everywhere. She then pulled down a collapsible shelf filled with games and a 24'' TV. " I have Super Smash Bros."

[Shula Brighton]

{BUMP}

[Guest]

As Kean darted up the ladder, following behind NIN, he finally reached the top, and glanced at the raggedy looking thing-place. It was nailed together from scrap metal, looked rather unsafe to enter, and held a general feel of being built in less than thirty minutes by a big fat drunk guy, on some kind of pills. In essence? KEAN SAW NOTHING WRONG WITH IT!~ As she said normal, human-sounding words, followed by some more weird ones, Kean followed her into the clubhouse, where it was HOLYCRAPIT'SNICEINHERE. "That TV! It makes my old one look tiny..." Quite ignoring the talk of electricity, he was frozen in AWE, glancing around the hut-like building to lookit all the neato-rooney stuff she had. But one phrase, and one phrase alone, snapped him IMMEDIATELY back to the real world; Super. Smash. Bros. Dat game were kinda like Pac-man. Almost. Okay, not really. But it WAAAAAAS a game he'd once played, and one he LIIIIIIIIKED. So he moved to sit next to NIN and grinned. "Okay! Let's play that one!~"

[NIN]

"Alright!" NIN sat on a cushion and listed off all of the characters to play off of. "I'm going to beat you with....pikachu!!!" She clicked a button and the screen showed a yellow mouse with pointy ears. NIN waited for Kean to choose his character and then she chose the battle ground. It was the ever-changing Luigi's Haunted house.

NIN looked at Kean and then back at the screen as the number blared out in Aruguese. " San! Ni! Ichi!" The game was now at a start.

She knew that they would have a good time with the game, eat the rest of the pizza and have a nice sleep in her warm little fort. Though, what about tomorrow? It would be fun going to Drachma. She might need to take a few things and get her passport in order...but that would be for tomorrow. Tonight, it was just her against Kean in a fight to the fake death.

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