The Unexpected Curtain (Vice)

[Ayakura Alisa]

I never had any time to watch television or actually relax when I was too busy studying or being trained by mother... So of course the next best thing was to play video games. I mean, nobody would ever think I played video games, but there are some I do play in order to test my reflexes. And where better to do so than the local arcade? Jack Bros. Arcade was a pretty colorful place when all's said and done, and there was a massive selection of games and attractions there, it could be easily comparable to the amusement lands back in Japan. I wonder if Japan still exists, now that I think about it. I needed some time to unwind after all the revelation that has occurred in the past couple of days, so I think a trip to the arcade is in good order. I usually played the vertical shoot'em ups... Though a good deal of the ones here at the arcade were bullet hell, so they were really hard at first, but I had played them since I was young, so practicing them gave me skills that newer players wouldn't necessarily have unless they had prior experience or they were prodigies. Now, there was one I attempted to keep my high score at, because I actually enjoyed playing for score. I had been perfecting my routes and strategies over the years. Now, time to see if I could maintain my personal best, or beat it.

I sat down at the arcade cabinet which had the game simply titled D.F.K, subtitled with 'Arcade Label'. This game had two major loops - the first loop is a simple run through five stages, each with bosses of increasing difficulty. New players to D.F.K will have a good challenge with this loop. The second loop can be reached by finishing the first loop without using a single continue. That is, you don't lose all your lives and continue. However, the second loop has two major difficulties. One is Regular, and the other is 'Reverse.' Now, regular is what most skilled players will reach. But the top level of players will be able to reach 'Reverse' by only using a specific number of bombs, and not losing a single life. For the past couple of years I have been attempting to keep a high score in the 2-ALL (that is to say, finishing the game on the second loop) category for the 'Reverse' loop. As I sat down, there was some chatter as I put in some credits which I had from last week.

The game began as soon as I pressed the Fire button.

The first loop for me was basically piss easy - I hadn't needed to use a single bomb at all and I hadn't died once... The bullet patterns weren't necessarily simplistic and seemed pretty difficult at first glance, but there were tricks. New players, take note of these safe spots. Anyway, the difficulty ramped up significantly during the 'Reverse' loop. Lots of popcorn enemies with suicide bullets - bullets that appeared when you shot at them and popped them. This was only the first stage of the loop... But it was not until the third stage that I had lost my first life. At this point, my score was probably at 1.2 billion. I hadn't actually checked yet. Lots of boss milking was available throughout the run. But, damn, if this run wasn't actually tiring... I continued to make my way through this game.

I wondered if anyone was watching. My tapping was pretty loud.

[Vice Ysal]

Pain.

Pain was all he knew.

That and being an overly dramatic person. It was currently 7 in the morning, and he it was more or less his 'nothing to do' day. Well, less of nothing to do and more of his day off than anything else. The black haired youth groaned in exasperation as the sun decided to rear its ugly head into his life in order to inflict an unending chain of discomfort. It was who knows how far from the Earth and somehow, someway, still managed to snipe him in his should be shut down condominium room. Deciding that it was more or less going to be difficult to get back to sleep, what with the inconsiderate ball of hot air telling him to wake up, Vice groggily sat up on his bed. His black hair was sticking in the most surreal angles, and the crust around his eyes made it difficult to keep his eyes open without rubbing them off first. A small yawn escaped his lips before he threw over the bed sheets off of himself and stood up with a stretch. Hearing the satisfying pop and crackle of his bones back into place, the black haired civilian then decided to start his morning routine. With actions born from continuous practice and diligent focus, the messy stack that had been his bed had then been rearranged and fixed to the point of looking brand new in the span of a few minutes. It wasn't a new record by any means, but it didn't longer than usual either.

Nodding to himself for the job well done, the young man proceeded to do the essentials for everyone of his age. Shower, shampoo, rinse, and brush his teeth. The last one had been particularly bad if only for the bleeding gums that came from his accidentally brushing too hard. Next came the gargling and floss, and the range of health products to make sure that everything was as perfect as Vice wanted to be. Soon enough, the young man had found himself on the road towards the arcade to try and see if some of the shooter games were available. Dressed in his usual attire, a pair of black slim pants and a tight black shirt. On his hands were his black gloves, fingerless this time around, and a pair of sneakers to protect his feet. The chain that attached his wallet to him was securely fastened unto his belt, and the smart phone that currently occupied his attention was fully charged. His red eyes squinted as he looked on forward, the blazing sun still doing it's job of annoying him to no end. Maybe one of these days he'll be able to find a place that had light but certainly not as oppressive as the star above his head. That, by virtue of his disdain of sunlight, would immediately become his new favourite place regardless of whatever the hell he was going to find hiding in there.

Hah, as if he'd ever find a place like that.

Soon enough, the ceiling and air conditioning of the arcade greeted his weary self from the transit of his home. He wasn't actually weary mind you, just an expression to further express how much he hated sunlight. The young man's luck however could not hold out indefinitely and as he made his way towards the same machine he had been using for quite a while, he spotted that it was currently occupied. A small shrug of his shoulders escaped him as he turned around to head around the rather noisy arcade. Polluted with noise as it were however, there was that incessant tapping that seemed to get louder the farther he went along this particular direction. Along the distance, a group of people were slowly giving words of awe and surprise. Having nothing else to do, at least until the shooter game became free for use, Vice then decided to mosey on over and watch just what the hell has gotten this many people's attention.

[Ayakura Alisa]

Stage... four now, was it? I think I was down to about three lives left in stock, out of... Well, I started with three, but I got about four extends throughout the course of this run. Three of those extends came from score, and the last one was given by a boss. Since there aren't any hidden extends in this game (something that I felt added a bit too much to the difficulty, personally, given how brutal Reverse loop is) you had to be extra careful not to screw up on a serious score run. 1.6B right now. I don't remember my last record. Anyway, I made my score handle SHK (It was Shiki without the vowels. Named after my grandma.) so of course anyone who was familiar with "SHK scores" may or may not be shocked that I was playing here. But I didn't care too much about the imminent fame in the gaming world that may arise from getting a high score in this game. I just wanted to challenge myself. D.F.K was pretty brutal after all.

Anyway, I reached the boss. I had several bombs in stock waiting to be used in case I needed it. First pattern was a washing machine bullet pattern. The bullets were fast but there was significant slowdown at some point, which I knew was intentional - no slowdown would make this first pattern almost impossible to break past without using a bomb, since the first phase took a lot of damage. Next up, homing curvy lasers and bubble bullets popping out from all sides. Gotta be careful, it's like a pseudo Q-E-D pattern. I call it as such because it's the same pattern from another game, where the bullet pattern was titled "Q-E-D." However, where in that other game the bullets are small ones arranged in a circle, this one had huge bubble bullets. The hitbox for each bubble bullet was in the center, so it was possible to graze each large bullet while evading the curvy lasers. God, I hated curvy lasers. Anyway, there was another barrage of bullets after that, and then we hit the last phase. Last phase of this boss was pretty crazy. Let's not speak of it, I think I burned about two bombs on that one.

Alright, last stage. Trivial enough. Actually I'm pretty sure stage four on the Reverse loop is harder. Anyway, this is where the real challenge begins - I know for sure because I've broken the 1.2B score pre-requisite, I'm eligible to face the true last boss - commonly abbreviated as TLB. This was a common occurrence by now, but since I'm hearing whispers and murmurs, this must be the first time most people here have even seen anyone get this far. Do people here not like shmups or something? Anyway, the boss itself. Two forms. The first form is the same regardless of if you face the TLB or not. It's easy and not worth talking about. Now, the boss, she transforms into a giant mechanical angel thing as the TLB. She's very difficult, and sometimes you may need to suicide to reduce rank or to get more bombs. I had about three lives again, so I think I was alright. Anyway, the first few phases involve using previous boss attacks, only magnifying the bullet density and slightly increasing the speed.

Also, she flies around a lot making it hard to hit her, and if she charges into you, you will die, so you must be careful not to stay close to her, even though shotgunning her does the most damage. Anyway, I knew what I was doing. In fact, shotgunning her also yields the highest score since you do more damage, and a lot of score in this game is derived from dealing boss damage. Some people believe it's possible to milk the TLB, but I don't think so - it's not practical. Next phase after she uses her boss attack ripoffs was to use... cheetoh curvy lasers. Again. And on top of that, she summons familiars which create lasers in a grid pattern, limiting your movement, so you have to be very careful. I have to kill the familiars. What I do is burn a bomb, then use the bullet cancel time in order to destroy the familiars on both sides of the screen. That settles it, after the grid is cleared this form is actually a breather.

Last phase. It's the return of the washing machine. Except the TLB has two familiars to the sides that also do it. Some people have tried to do this without using a bomb. I think it's impossible and not worth losing several lives just to show off. I burn a bomb and kill one familiar. Once one is down, the difficulty is significantly reduced. I sure don't hope I make this look easy, because this is hard as everloving hell. Anyway, I have to burn another bomb, so I can kill the second one. This boosts my score majorly, but it also pisses off the TLB, who throws in copious amounts of cheetoh lasers on top of the washing machine bullet pattern. God. I have no more bombs and still three lives, so I suicide, reducing rank and regaining bomb stock. This makes the bullets significantly slower. I power through by shotgunning the boss and using bombs to grant invulnerability frames and to clear the field of bullets, which grant extra points. Eventually, the TLB dies.

I check my score.

PLAYER 1
2,177,399,101

Well, that's something. After the ending screen, I'm asked to input my 3-letter initials.

SHK

Well, that does it. I barely beat my previous score...

#2::2,133,987,111 - SHK

I stretch my arms and crack my knuckles.

[Vice Ysal]

The only thing Vice would really notice at the game was that it could be enough to cause spasms with how flashy the battle engine was. For the most part, the economics graduate had no idea what the point of the game was. It seemed to be the whole dodging, and shooting, and repeat process or something from what he could see. Even if he was a good bit taller than everyone else around him, the view he had managed to get wasn't exactly something he could enjoy on the premise of not understanding whatever the hell the girl was doing. It looked impressive though, and his eyes followed around the pathways and the twitches of the player's fingers on the game board made available. Apparently jerky motions were what allowed people to survive this kind of insane competition, so smooth turning of may or may not help out unless one knew how to play. It was useless information to charcoal haired male, but seeing as there was nothing else to do but to train his reaction speed via watching, he filed it nonetheless. His eyes narrowed down when a couple of seemingly impossible mazes popped up on the screen but somehow, some way, the girl managed to pass through them enough…at least until the score screen popped up.

Well, that was pretty much all it took for Vice to man the hell up and make his way towards the centre of the crowd. Sure the people around would be pretty pissed at the interruption of something they were all enjoying but as usual, the graduate could give less than two shits about what they felt. Finally entering the space reserved for the player and the player alone, the graduate slowly stretched out his arm and good naturedly tapped the girl's shoulder in order to get her attention. At this action alone, he had already received a multitude of glares that all told him to not do it lest he gain more of their ire. Vice just smirked at them before continuing with the distraction.

"Miss?"

He called out, voice as smooth as could be and a pleasant smile on his face that usually made women more amicable whenever he had to ask them something.

"If it won't be too much of a problem, I wanted to inquire as to how you played the game as you did."

[Ayakura Alisa]

Someone tapped my shoulder and judging from the multitude of angry faces I was seeing when I turned my face away from the screen I could tell they didn't approve of it. Oh, whatever, it's not like he wants to ask me out or anything. The crowd around me seemed to mellow out a bit once it was clear I was okay with it. Well, I suppose it's story time. I turned around and leaned against the arcade cabinet casually. "Hey. So you're asking how I managed to get these scores? Actually, a lot of it is practice. I have been playing at these arcade cabinets since I moved here. I think I was pretty young..." I stretched again. "When I first started playing at D.F.K, I kept dying on the first loop. But I kept credit feeding, because as we all know, practice makes perfect. I learned the tricks from other players. Talked with them. Learned. Practiced some more. It's a simple affair. It's like rote learning."

"...Just ignore the fact I've been doing this for years, and you'll be fine! New players are always welcome." I nodded and stood up. "Well, it's getting stuffy here. Would you like a shot? I fed some credits in."

[Vice Ysal]

It was a small blessing to know that the woman had at least been the responsible kind. She didn't immediately lash out at the younger male which already placed her at a higher ranking than most of the people that had crowded around them. Though Vice did note that most of the men who had been glaring at him mellowed out a bit, a few of the more hard core fans still kept their not so venomous looks at him. They could glare all they want, Vice mused, they weren't the one talking with their supposed super star anyway. Turning to face the girl fully, the same amicable smile on his face as ever, Vice was just about to answer when two kids who had been in the crowd pushed through the ring of people with the kind of exuberance only children could ever posses. They stumbled a bit, but managed to gain their bearings enough to grab on the pant leg of the woman with glittering stars in their eyes.

"That was really cool miss!"

The younger girl said, her voice high and full of joy that you couldn't just say no to it.

"Yeah yeah! Hey Miss, you think you can teach us how to play?!"

The other boy said, his fists clenched into fists as he pumped them towards the sky, the mightiest grin plastered on his face.

Looking down at them from his spot, Vice had to suppress a small chuckle from the turn of events as he took a small step backwards to give the excited duo their own time with their super star for the day.

"Ah, miss? I'd prefer if you'd teach the kids. They seem really intent on playing."

The small crinkle of his eyes simply added to the effect that he was trying to give in order to convince the gamer to do so. He turned half way, his left hand thumbing towards the shooting area. A non-verbal signal that he'd be there when the gamer finally finished tutoring the kids if she decided to.

"I'll be waiting for you over there. miss. That is, if you're still interested after giving the kids a lesson."

And with that did the black haired youth make his way towards the shooter games while purposely shoving the hardcore fans away with his shoulder if they tried to block his path. Kids were kids, and he couldn't fault them for being what they were. These older people around him though, they should know better than to be complete jerks to people they don't even know. One guy was even about to try and start something but had been stopped with an irritated glare from Vice's red eyes.

People. Ugh.

[Ayakura Alisa]

Two children ran up to me asking me to teach them. Oh well, I wasn't exactly enthused about it but I only suppose it felt right for me to help them out. Incidentally there was a D.F.K two-player mode available, so I urged them to take the seat and boot it up. Okay, so they're children, so their new movements are going to be very twitchy and it's going to be very quick for them to die if they're not careful. First, I taught them that sometimes waving the control stick around randomly was not the smartest idea. "You need to be careful when you move it. If you move it just a little bit, like this..." I took one of their hands and inched it slowly to save them from getting hit by a stray bullet. "You can easily get past those. And, tapping the 'Fire' button is faster than holding it down. A lot of it comes from practice. Watch carefully how the colored stuff moves. They're bad so you want them to fly past you easily." I pointed at the screen. The midboss of the first stage introduced new players that 'streaming' was the best way to get past his simplistic patterns. "Here, you need to make sure that you only move a very tiny bit away from those things, since the enemy's big thing is always pointing at you. That way, you will be sure never to die."

...This was going to be quite a while. Anyway, I had basically handwalked them through the first three stages, giving them tips on how to move the control stick properly. A lot of it was based on experiencing the bullet patterns and figuring out how to avoid them. After a while, I watched them literally destroy the fourth stage. See, it wasn't that difficult once you got the ropes down! They seemed pretty happy with themselves, so I said goodbye to them and told them to have fun playing. The guy from earlier had moved to the shooting area. I guess he liked guns. I wasn't very good with a gun, I preferred to use my fists. And my knife, I guess.

Seeing the guy at the shooting area, I hailed him. "So I guess you prefer literal shooting than the games I play, huh."

[Vice Ysal]

It didn't take all that long to hear the squeals of fright, excitement, and overall mirth from the game that he had just left. Kids were so impressionable sometimes that it wasn't even funny at times. Still, that was them and he was what he was. Older and with a lot more experience with things, suffice to say he was moderately happy with where he currently was in life. In that regard though, his fingers had gotten all twitchy after watching the girl play the game, and it was just a pretty small thing but his eyes lit up at the extra shooting machine that had been freed up just then. With a small pep to his step, moving faster than his normal pace, the young man swiped a card along the rim of the machine and inserted his credits. He reacquainted himself with the realistic weight and grip of the gun in his hand before aiming at the screen. His foot was placed on the step board just in front of him that acted as his 'fight or flight' button. His stance was relaxed, yet tight at the same time. His eyes lowered down the sight of the barrel of his toy gun as his right hand held it tightly. His body was side ways, the free hand placed on an invisible holster, and he was about to pull the trigger when the woman from before had called for him.

Removing himself from his stance, the young man relaxed down and manually added the gentleness behind his eyes once more.

"Ah, just a hobby of mine from my younger days. My grandpa and old man did have a thing for firearms and such so I guess it runs in the family."

Fishing out the card from his pocket and tossing it towards the girl, Vice nodded towards the side of the game machine.

"C'mon, my treat."

The young man offered with a small grin as he went back to his stance and aimed at the co-op play.

"It's been a while since I last played with someone else."

[Ayakura Alisa]

I used his card to enter a credit into the machine. I would accept his offer, he seemed to want to play. I wasn't very good at this though. I took the light gun to the side of the guy and held it in my right hand, cupping my left hand under the butt of the handle. I still remembered trigger discipline, but I'm not sure when that was. I think it was mother who taught me about firearms, but she also told me that firearms were bad weapons because they were too loud. Apparently she had forgotten about silencers. Then again, she did mention that silencers could be bulky and add weight to the weapon. Anyway, I prepared myself to play this shooting game. It had been literally years since I last touched a game like this.

"Heh, you sure? I'm not especially good at these sorts of games. Well, let's go!"

[Vice Ysal]

"Just grin and bear it. Practice makes perfect, right?"

Repeating the girl's words from earlier, Vice then raised his gun and shot at the co-op option. Both screens shattered into pixelised shards before reforming to give them the view of some fictional army surplus store. There was a mission objective from the top but it was pretty much the same for every stage and barely ever changed so Vice ignored it in favour of keeping an eye out for any of the virtual enemies to pop out. A flash of movement on the upper right of the screen caught his eye as the colour yellow began to form. Half a second had yet to pass and the enemy had already fallen down with the number -1500- rising from the dead body. More and more people came out, bringing out their own guns and knives to the fight to try and injure the players but the expert release and hold on the foot button often saved Vice's health from getting hit.

"You doing okay there, Miss?"

Vice asked through the noise of virtual bullet fire. The noise was not realistic in the least but it did add to the feel of actually being in a shoot out with what were supposedly a terrorist cell that had taken over the surplus store. The black haired male was getting sucked into the game again, the power he could exert over reality, even if it was a virtual one, was euphoric. Being able to prove his superiority was something he had unknowingly taken pleasure in and seeing his score rack up without even a single hit was a euphoric experience. More and more targets came out, their bodies just a big red dot in Vice's eyes as he kept shooting. Some of the enemies even had armour on which ended up making them tougher to kill than the rest of the mobs with them. Armour, pfft, like that'd save people from the hail of bullets coming from Vice's gun.

"We're almost to the half way point of the stage. Don't look out the screen, ayt?"

[Ayakura Alisa]

So many numbers on the screen. I don't think I could keep up to this guy. Hmm! The bad guys were of a specific color, if I remember correctly. Also, the enemies with guns didn't actually ever hit you that much, it was the knife guys who were more dangerous. Using the foot button was a good way to save your own butt as well, which I had to copiously use. However, my aim was not so good, and I found myself having to reload more often. My accuracy was significantly worse than the chap next to me, which almost looked like he was carrying me through this game. Not to mention his score was significantly higher than mine, and it was barely at the half-way mark. I hadn't been hit once either, but anything I tried to blast, the guy got before I did. Hmm. Was I too slow on the mark? Or did he have actual fire-arm experience? Anyway, I tried my best to keep up, but it was a bit hard.

"Yeah, gotcha. Do you own a real gun or something, mate? You're a good shot."

[Vice Ysal]

"Hm? Yeah I do. I used to practice at the actual firing range whenever my Dad was in town."

The tidbit of information escaped his lips without much thought as his attention had still been drawn to the game in front of him. It was usually bad manners to take a peek at your co-op's screen and it was something that not a lot of people was happy about. Good thing though was that Vice didn't really care all that much about how the girl was faring. He was playing this for the sake of playing, and not making a new friend but since the girl seemed to at least be cordial about their little interaction, he thought he'd slow down a bit and allow the girl to get a few points in. Timing it, Vice let go of the foot button in order to save himself from a nasty attack that would have shaved off quite a bit of his health before proceeding to rub at his eyes as if something had gotten into it.

"Tch. They don't clean this place enough."

The young man snorted, his right eye opening and closing as he tried to regain his vision after rubbing. It became a bit red and teary enough that the young man had to take out a handkerchief to help him clean it out. Of course, there was nothing there in reality but it should've served the purpose of the girl getting in a few of the targets to rack up her own points even if it was considerably slower than had he taken care of it. Blinking out the dust and trying his best to go back to his stance, the young man had to change stances and used his left hand to hold the gun this time so that his left eye, which wasn't supposed to be hurt, focused in on the screen. Placing his foot back unto the pedal, Vice then entered the fray once more.

"Good job getting us to the MidBoss. The guy has a mini gun, and usually sweeps from our left to the right while throwing a couple of explosives so make sure to look out for those."

[Ayakura Alisa]

So he knew how to use a gun, that is why he was so good at this game. Well, the mechanics are similar but not exactly the same, yet proficiency with a firearm proved to be very useful in this exchange. However, something to into his eye and I swore he was trying to let me actually DO something. What a sweetheart. As he was doing that, I quickly gunned down the enemies scoring me some points and helping us get to the mini-boss of this stage. The guy warned me had a minigun and that he usually threw explosives as he strafed, but this was stuff I already knew. I've played this before. I just didn't get far enough to finish it alone. Being able to shoot the correct point to trigger the damage detection was the key, as well as correctly using the foot button to avoid getting hit by the mini-gun, which could tear chunks into your health due to how the attack itself worked. It was a series of bursts, where each burst dealt a small amount of damage. However, mini-guns have a high rate of fire, so there will be many bursts. Being too reckless could result in you getting shot too many times and thus being dangerously close to losing your health.

On top of that, he also threw bombs, so being hit by the mini-gun - which, mind, can potentially stun-lock you - might result in you getting blown up by an explosive, which will definitely kill you if you get caught by both.

So don't do that.

"Yeah, I've got it. I didn't finish this game before but I did get past the first couple of levels."

[Vice Ysal]

By now, there had been a small amount of people that had began to crowd around the duo of sharpshooters. Still, they were just background chatter when things actually got serious. The thing with the game was that the mini bosses were often enough as hard if not harder than the actual bosses themselves. Vice didn't know why exactly, probably some kind of marketing strategy to get more people to play the game but really, it wasn't like he lost to this guy often enough to be a problem. Shifting his stance, a big difference from his one handed pose, Vice raised his free hand and placed it on the butt of the gun and his body began to crouch down just a bit. The bullets were then coming in, a hail of virtual lead trying to turn him into a pincushion. He dodged all of them but the perk of mid bosses was that dodging didn't exactly mean getting out unscathed or anything like that. There was actually the annoying chip damage so that was something they both had to look out for.

A few bursts finished and with efficiency much scarier than before, Vice came out of hiding and with a speed that didn't work out in real life, emptied his clip at the opponent. The bullets all met their mark and with a quick hop off the pedal, Vice was safely behind cover once more.

"Freaking chip damage. Gotta hate that chip damage."

His voice was tinged with excitement, now noticeable as compared to before as the amped difficulty of the game became his source of entertainment. The exchange of lead continued on further, and repeated itself to the point that you could lose yourself into the battle without noticing or forget that you were under a time limit if you played too safe. With only 30 seconds left into the clock, the duo had to finish this as fast as they could lest they get a moderate amount of their health shaved off as a penalty for not finishing on time.

"C'mon, we've got 25 seconds left. Half a stage left till we can clear the level."

[Ayakura Alisa]

Lots of shooting. The guy next to me was getting pumped. Well, to be honest, so was I. These kind of games had a penchant for exciting me even if I wasn't incredibly good at it. I tensed and braced myself to try and make my aim get better. I notice the timer, we don't have too much time. Yeah, these games had a thing where you were given a time limit. Certain goons, when shot, actually gave you a tiny bonus to the timer, giving you slightly more time to clear, but I don't remember there being any of those in this stage. "Okay, I read you," I said simply. "Let's get going..." I was starting to become more aggressive, shooting as many of the enemies as I possibly could. My accuracy started to suffer a little again but hopefully it was not too bad. 25 seconds? Yeah, I think we can manage it. Just keep blasting those baddies. I completely ignored anyone that might have been watching. I was concentrated more on this, because I didn't want to disappoint him. I was also probably older. I wonder if he could tell, or if he knew.