In Which Their Lives Become a Game
"A-A-A-B-X-Z-Y-B! A-A-A-B-X-Z-Y-B! A-A-A-B-X-Z-Y-B!"
Tai stiffened, clenching his fingers into a fist.
"A-A-A-B-X-Z-Y-B! A-A-A-B-X-Z-Y-B! A-A-A-B-X-Z-Y-B!"
Tai let out a strained sigh and closed his eyes.
"A-A-A-B-X-Z-Y-B! A-A-A-B-X-Z-Y-B! A-A-A-B-X-Z-Y-B!"
His eyes snapped open.
"DAISUKE! If you do not stop that this INSTANT, I will murder you where you stand!" he yelled, looking at the boy next to him.
Daisuke looked confused.
"But I'm not standing, I'm sitting."
Tai fell back into the cushions of the couch and groaned in annoyance. Daisuke did not seem overly concerned by this, and continued moving his fingers around in the same pattern as before, this time refraining from speaking.
Tai turned his head and watched this.
"Why are you doing that, anyway?"
Daisuke looked scandalized, stopping to turn his full attention onto Tai.
"That is the button combo for my character's signature move, Taichi! A-A-A-B-X-Z-Y-B! Dual Strike! Fiery Depths and Icy Heights, strike my enemies right on sight!" Daisuke chanted, standing up and pointing into the distance as he said it.
Tai shook his head, laughing mercilessly. Daisuke looked put out.
"Well," he explained to Tai, "It looks a lot cooler on the video game because at that time two knives of raging fire and ice would be flying toward my nemesis."
Tai nodded in agreement, and said, "But that still doesn't explain why you are practicing the button moves when the game is turned off."
"Well, the competition is in two weeks, isn't it? If the three of us want to win that money, we have to be on our A-game. Don't you think that it's good to practice whenever I have the chance then?"
Tai was surprised at the depth of thought that went into it, so he smiled at his friend and allowed him to continue his button moves. He didn't have long to do so, however, because Hikari walked into the door a few seconds later.
"I'm sorry I'm late! I had to stay behind to finish a project for history and I hurried over as fast as I could. Forgive me?" she asked, smiling sweetly.
Tai smirked, knowing that he could never be mad at Kari for something so trivial, and, that without looking over at him, that Daisuke had a look of pure adoration on his face.
"It wasn't a problem at all, Kari."
She smiled and bounced over to them, settling between the two boys on the couch and picking up her controller. Tai turned the TV on and pushed the button on the video game console, and so began their afternoon, so much like the ones before it.
It was all Koushiro's fault. He had to get that internship with M-T Electronic Entertainment, which of course had him working on the same thing everyone else was working on: the insanely popular videogame series, Tokyo Princess. This would have been fine except the fact that Kari had a huge obsession with the series, and this in turn led to her 'visiting' Koushiro quite frequently at his job.
Kari, being as adorable and pretty as she is, did not go unnoticed by the overworked, socially-deprived computer programmers, and it didn't surprise anyone when she told them that the workers were going to slip something into the game, a special surprise just for her.
Turns out it was a surprise for everyone.
"Koushiro, why am I in a screenshot of a videogame?" Tai demanded, as he turned away from the computer where the sneak preview of Tokyo Princess: Book of Legends was on the screen.
Koushiro looked nervous, but didn't deny it. Because without a doubt, it was Daisuke, Hikari and Tai in computer animated pixels, gathered around the main character, the Tokyo Princess.
"To be fair, your and Daisuke's hair is shorter in the game, and Hikari's is longer. Not to mention you are wearing costumes that fit the games environment and all. Plus, I mean, we're all in it; Sora, Yamato and the others included."
That promptly shut up Yamato, who had been laughing unrelentingly at Tai. Everyone else stopped what they had been doing and turned their attention to Koushiro. Sighing, he went over the computer and pulled up pictures of minor characters in the game.
Sure enough, everyone was there. From Sora as a queen to Miyako as a village girl (she was disgruntled at first, but said as long as she could marry the hot royal guardsman, i.e. Ken, she didn't care) all of the friends were in there.
"How did this happen?" Jyou asked, confused.
"Well, they obviously wanted to use Kari's image because she was perfect for the female supporting character, and when they saw pictures of Tai and Daisuke, they decided it would be perfect because you all looked a like and the supporting characters are supposed to be like that as well. Then they saw that group picture we took last summer?" Koushiro said, and everyone nodded, remembering the one with Sora, Miyako and Hikari in the front and the rest of the boys gathered around them at their favorite part of the park in front of the fountain.
Koushiro continued, "And they decided it would funny to include everyone, since we were all 'good looking kids'. And so this happened. Except they changed something on everyone so that your appearance was different enough so that you couldn't sue them."
And so the group of friends was pushed into their 15 minutes of fame at school, where Kari and Daisuke became the stars of their homeroom, and Tai was pounced on by every knowledgeable gamer on the university campus. Kari seemed super pleased.
"I think it's wonderful! This is the first time on of the Tokyo Princess games have been released as a multiplayer! We are literally the first characters ever to fight beside the Princess! And when we enter the TTP:BoLT a few months from now, we can even dress up like our char-"
"Kari, what is the TTp-b-…uh, thing, you're talking about?" Tai asked her.
"Tokyo's Tokyo Princess: Book of Legends Tournament!" Kari and Daisuke exclaimed at once, high-fiving each other.
Tai shook his head. "Nope. I'm not going to spend months playing a video game just for kicks."
"But Taichi!" Kari exclaimed, "There is a $12,000 cash prize!"
Tai didn't put up an argument after that.
"So why exactly do they call her the 'Tokyo Princess'?" Sora asked as she flipped through the instruction booklet. Yamato had come home and was lying in a battered armchair, watching them play the game, and Sora had come to drop off the textbook she had borrowed from Tai, and decided to stay a while because of the rainstorm outside.
"What do you mean?" Yamato asked, flipping his gaze to her.
"I mean, the game isn't even set in Japan. Its some mystical kingdom or whatever," Sora explained, waving at the screen for emphasis.
"Actually, its lots of different worlds, because the Princess and her nemesis the Shadow Warrior keep getting transported," Kari explained knowledgably.
"Still, that doesn't explain why they chose 'Tokyo Princess'. I mean, Tokyo never had a princess! It's absurd. She's not even wearing clothes remotely influenced by Japanese culture!"
Which was true, Tai noted, as he looked at the screen. The Princess wore a long shift that ended right before her knees, and sleeves that slipped just past her fingertips. It was pink and all around girly with flowers embroidered in gold at the hem of the shirt. She had white leggings, and a leather belt and boots. A completely unremarkable costume, but that wasn't why the Princess was so popular.
"Sora, the Tokyo Princess has to be the hottest video game character ever. I mean, she's beautiful, can kill her enemies with her magic stick-thing, and still manages to be light hearted and kind," Daisuke explained, earning a grin from Kari.
"Her weapon is called a jo or gun, depending on what culture you associate it with," Hikari told him, and he nodded. Sora just shook her head and let the subject drop.
Yamato looked to Tai. "Have you fixed the game yet so that four people can play?"
Tai sighed. "No, I even had Koushiro look at it. For some reason, it just won't let anyone control the Princess. It's weird, because we've tried other discs, and it still does it. We don't want to erase our game data, so we're just leaving it. The computer actually does a really good job of controlling itself."
Everyone fell quiet as the game went on. They were at the final dungeon, and Kari kept making them save at every possible moment.
"The power could go out any second! The rain is coming down really hard out there!"
Sora had nodded off in her chair, and Yamato was in the kitchen preparing them dinner. The game had gotten a lot harder, since at the beginning of the level, the Princess had been captured by the Shadow Warrior. Without the fourth player, all of the enemies were a lot harder to beat.
Tai hit pause when Yamato called for them, and after waking Sora up, they all gathered around the table.
"So, Taichi, Yamato. Have you guys found a new roommate yet?" Sora asked while serving herself some rice.
"No, we figure that since we went through Jyou, Koushiro and that weird kid who talked on the phone non-stop, that we should give up for a while. That's a lot of roommates for a year and a half period." Yamato explained.
"They all complained we were too loud and lazy. Since that isn't going to change any time soon…" Tai trailed off, and shrugged his shoulders.
"Maybe when we all graduate you can find someone! Daisuke and Ken are graduating this year with me. And isn't Takeru graduating too?" Kari asked Yamato, who nodded.
"Yeah they could all work. Daisuke practically lives here already," Tai joked, poking him in the arm with his finger. Daisuke stuck out his tongue, which resulted in him spitting food everywhere because his mouth was full.
"Nice," Sora said, grinning at Yamato, who had gotten a lot of it on his shirt.
"I think I'll wait for Iori if I'm going to take anyone," Yamato huffed.
"But that's years from now! I'll have found somewhere else to live by then!" Daisuke exclaimed.
"Exactly," Yamato muttered darkly, scrubbing at his shirt some more.
Dinner was overall uneventful after that, and soon they were playing the video game again with a passion, anxious for the final battle.
"It's really coming down hard out there," Sora remarked, looking out the window by their fire escape.
"Okay guys, this is it! Let's open the door!" Hikari exclaimed at the same time, hitting the A button on her controller. The dungeon door swung open, and the screen went completely white.
Then, a split second later, the screen went completely black as the sky out side went white with lightning. Sora yelped in surprise and stumbled back towards Tai and the others.
Seconds later, everything was dark. The electricity had gone out.
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Daisuke yelled, falling to his knees. "We were there!"
"But we saved, so its all good, right? I mean, everything is fine now," Kari reassured him, when suddenly the sky lit up again. Three times in a row it flashed and then darkened once more.
"This is the freakiest lightning I've ever seen," Yamato said, peering cautiously out the window by his chair.
"I know, because-" Tai started, when one last, large bolt hit and kept the sky bright for several moments.
Everything was dark again.
"-Where is the thunder?" Tai finished.
Everyone looked to each other when a large bang made everyone jolt in surprise.
The only problem was that it wasn't thunder. Something had just fallen, from what sounded like a high height, onto the fire escape landing out side the window.
Cautiously, everyone got up and started to creep toward the window.
AN- Guess who's baaaaaaaaaaaaaack?
Me!
Okay, so here's the deal, my dear readers. I've decided to go along and write this story. It will be my last full-length fic here, as well as the final part of my "When weird sh-t happens to Taichi" Trilogy. Oh, yeah, this is gonna get weird, you can count on that!
Hopefully this will be the best one yet, since I've learned a lot since writing "What Women Want" and "Wish". I am already proud that no part of the title contains a 'W'.
I haven't decided on any pairings, since they aren't really crucial to the story line, so feel free to suggest your favorites if you'd like.
I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, and if you paid attention or know my writing well at all, you should know what (or who?) just fell into their lives!
I heart you all!
Starlilly