Trope: Beat Them at Their Own Game

Time: Between Pilot Chapter and First Chapter, Four Months after K and Vice Met in 21st Century

Characters: K and Vice; From K's Point of View

"You're going to die," Vice whispers maliciously. "I'm going to track you down, K, and you're going to die."

I pause the X-box game and look at him. He is getting too into this game for my comfort zone. I had only bought it to amuse him, but this was slowly evolving into death threats.

Vice frowns at the split screen then turns to glare at me. "Why'd you pause it? I was about to shoot a grenade at you!"

"Vice, we are on the same team in this game. When you kept killing me, it was annoying. Now, it is just becoming creepy. Please stop." I try not to boss him around. What idiot would try to command a robot who can make his hands turn into guns? I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight though if I listen to him any longer, so I turn back to the game and make my character jump out of the way of the grenade Vice had shot at me.

I am deeply relieved when he doesn't start the whispering again, but it still doesn't stop him from killing my player every five minutes. (There is another tense moment when Vice starts torturing my character, but lucky he gets the faint sense that this falls into the category of whispering about my death and stops.)

After two more hours of playing, we hit the end of the game. Our characters stand still, looking around with automatic rifles pointed forward. It's a desert. There isn't any shrubs or any rocks nearby, yet the game map has a red area in front of us, marked where the enemy would be.

"I'm switching to heat goggles," I say. My side of the screen goes black for a moment, and then the area underneath us is lit up, revealing a hundred foot long worm pointed directly at us.

"Son of a-" Vice says but the worm launching at us stops him. We both dodge out of the way of it and end up on either side. The monster proceeds to veer back and forth, trying to eat either of us before disappearing underground.

"What do we do?" he shouts.

The sand fills into the hole the worm made, and the music goes back to an ominous piano playing. "Someone has to go in and cut its inwards!" I shout back.

"You do it!" Vice shouts.

"No, you!" I shout back and then pause the game. "Rock-paper-scissors."

After a quick match of rock-paper-scissors, Vice is elected to go in.

Vice gives a single curse before hitting 'Play' and making his character jump through the monster's mouth.

"Alright, K! Combined fire!" Vice commands.

I watch the worm start to digest Vice's character even as he slashes it with a large sword. All the times Vice killed me while laughing start coming back to me. Revenge is a dish better served cold.

"No," I say setting my game controller to the side and picking up the popcorn bag we have for snacks. "I'm going to watch you be eaten."

Vice stares at me with a blank face for a second before fury flares up. On screen Vice's character turns to bones as the worm's stomach acid burns him.

"I win," I say before my fear-tightened throat closes and I start choking on my popcorn. As I try to cough the kennel back up, Vice rolls his eyes at me.

"You're lucky that something besides me is choking you." He goes to the main menu and presses 'New Game'. "Now, let's play again."