You can do this.
Come on, faster!
Damn it!
C'mon.
Don't let up!
C'mon!
C'mon! Almost…
"I got yo- OH COME ON! DAMN IT!"
"Uuuugh!" The buff gi-wearing tiger grunted sharply as he flew through the air and crashed on the other side of the pixelated screen. His adversary, a scantily clad curvy impala femme fatale, gracefully twisted through in the air and landed neatly, striking a very suggestive victory pose, grinning madly as their theme music played for what had to be the hundredth time tonight.
"YOU LOSE!" Flashed in his face on the digitized screen while a "Continue?" option began counting down.
San, aggravated, bashed his head against the hard arcade cabinet. Just opposite him, Priscilla, still clothed in her royal blue cocktail attire, cackled fiendishly and pumped her arms at yet another win.
"Can we go play another game now, Pris-chan?" The blonde llama glumly asked. "I don't think Zuu Dueler is for me."
"You want to give up now?" The vixen asked. "Come on, just one more game."
Earlier that night - Yen Safari Video Arcade - Not too far from the Back Alley Market
The crowded and noisy arcade plaza Priscilla had dragged him to was a much more enticing place than the V.I.P lounge back at the arena. In some ways, it felt like the heated and congested marketplace he was all too familiar with but in another way, it was more radiant and approachable for him like the Meteor festival at the park last week. Beasts of all kinds littered the expansive hall.
The place was so welcoming. A combination of a wonderful inviting smell that hit their nostrils as soon as they entered and also a tantalizing aroma of food, fried and greasy cuisine that the both of them could eat, carnivore or herbivore, it all amazed the humble llama.
Kyuu should see this, he thought. She'd enjoy it for sure, particularly the cheesy delight that was the pizza he shared with Priscilla's entourage. He hadn't tasted anything so tasty in ages, then the best came when they hit the noisy arcade. The grand selection of loud and flashy arcade games was almost like a sensory overload for the poor herbivore.
He was so enamored with the arcade that Priscilla had to physically shake him loose from his childlike amazement. The other foxes in Priscilla's entourage shook their heads at the herbivore's slack-jawed antics, before venturing off to enjoy themselves.
Lùn and Fa in particular flocked to the air hockey table, while Loba, the big husky wox, quickly got in line for a VR boxing style game. Only the Tibetan fox, Ferro, stayed put, the serious-faced fox with her cold and neutral face remained silent, her muzzle buried into her cellphone while she trailed the two casually from a distance as they had fun.
From racing games to side scrollers the wide variety of electronic games San and Priscilla had the pleasure of enjoying were easily a breath of fresh air for the underprivileged herbivore, the most fun he had in a long time. Which, if one were to consider fitness and weapon training and perhaps the card games, he and Kyuu would play from time to time as entertainment wasn't saying much.
Exercise and their little games killed time, yes, but a lot of the entertainment in their activities lost its luster once he figured out all of Kyuu's tells, though watching her blow up whenever she lost were still highlights for him. But the arcade was a whole other level.
In fact, the last time he'd even had fun like this was when they had a real roof over their heads up at the Big Bear Cat hospital. Under their guardian and master Gouhin, they had some sense of normalcy in their lives.
That whiff of pleasant nostalgia soon vanished as soon they got stuck playing Priscilla's favorite game, Zuu Dueler, a fighting game. Everything fun about their outing seemed to grind to a halt as it became clear they were locked in a one-sided contest where the fox completely dominated him for half an hour.
To say the least, the fighting game had a very high skill ceiling, something even he couldn't catch up with, at least not enough to where he could enjoy himself like the other games.
It was grossly unfair, she knew all the combos and moves, when to block, and all the special moves. Meanwhile, he barely knew how to move his character around and throw a punch or kick with the simple yet frustrating controls. It was akin to a wasp picking on a wounded spider.
He hadn't played fighting games like this in years, really his only experience being the Play Safari 2 gaming system of their guardian's son, Chuan, and to top it off, he hardly got to play that particular game. Kyuu and Chuan would hog it most of the time and he'd just have to watch.
"Seriously, can we play something else now?" The lanky herbivore wearily requested.
"Oh come on!" She groaned, strolling out from around the two-sided arcade cabinet and rested on his shoulder. He found her slender feminine frame to be surprisingly heavy as she almost caused his knees to buckle just from supporting her weight.
"Is it too much to, uh, ask that we play a game I can win for once?" He asked, straining to stay stable. She noticed his struggling and let up, leaning against the Zuu Dueler cabinet instead, with her arms crossed.
"Aw, you're tired of losing, huh?" She teased, making fun of him in a cutesy voice. "It is a bit one-sided I imagine."
"A bit? Completely, more like. I lost count how many times I've seen that stupid impala in her skimpy outfit celebrate."
"What? You don't like Mei-fon? Isn't she easy on the eyes?" The fox purred, her tail wagging swiftly behind her as she sauntered sensually in front of him. "I can switch to R. Gilda if you want. She has even skimpier costumes. Hehehe! Or maybe someone with more clothes? Is the sex appeal distracting you too much?"
Red embarrassment streaked across his long snout as he quickly rebuffed her claim. "No that's not it all! It's just the controls, I don't wanna play this game anymore is all, I want to play something that wins some tickets."
"Oh, alright." The arctic vixen mocked, playfully poking him on the nose. "You know it's funny, with all that fancy kung-fu stuff I've seen you pull out your butt, one would think you'd be a master at fighting games." She mocked, chopping and kicking the air trying to mimic his martial arts.
The shaggy camelid flashed her a jaded look. "That's supposed to be a joke right?"
"Ooh, now I like this look!" She amusingly commented, grinning like a demoness. "You look so serious."
"Because I am." He expressed with an insulted scowl. "This is just some fantasy stuff. Nothing like the real thing, a real fighter has to hone their body, practice, spar. Become one with themselves. Rinse repeat. It takes discipline." He asserted with the surprising reverence of a wisened master. "There's more to it than just some random button mashing."
"Ooh, wise words from the tall fluffy warrior monk!" The vixen grinned, bestowing onto him a mocking bow. "You'll have to excuse this ignorant fox's unenlightenment. Hehehe."
San's gaze narrowed at her sarcasm, stepping out to the forefront, a tinge of ego urging him to prove a point. "I'm not a monk...and I'll show you."
"Show me?" She asked, trying desperately to break into a terrible fit of giggles. She looked around to the busy room surrounding them. "Right, here?"
"Yeah." He said, adamantly. "Right here."
"Well then, let's see it." She beckoned, waiting patiently.
The llama backed up, making sure the coast was clear, loosened his jacket, limbered up, and took up a neutral stance just like he was taught.
Priscilla's tail zipped behind her, wagging like crazy with excitement as the herbivore began his little stunt with a quick set of clean fast high kicks before ending it with an expertly done 540 spin kick that drew the attention of a few beasts nearby, earning him a few claps and cheers from the impressed animals who thought him possibly a house performer. A bit embarrassed, the blonde fleeced herbivore promptly straightened back up, awkwardly smiling with his head down.
The smug fox smirked as she politely clapped for the herbivore herself. "Bravo. Very impressive." She said, being honest. "Glad to see it's not just Flopsy with the wicked kung-fu."
"That took me months to get down." The lanky llama boasted, brushing his loose hair from his eyes. "That's hard work and dedication for you. Not some button mashing."
"Hmph, I see what you're trying to do." The brown vixen said, arching her brow and pointing. "Well, you want to know how long it took me to get good at Zuu Dueler? Months. Hard work and dedication." She sassily echoed him much to his visible dismay.
"They're not the same." He attested.
"Yes, they are." She barked. "Both take time to learn, Watame-kun. Yours is just more physical." She reasoned. "That's how all things work, you proud moron."
"Still wanna play another game," he grumbled.
She shook her head at him, disappointed. "Look, if you wanna play another game, fine. Just don't insult me by saying that my favorite game is just a bunch of random button mashing when it's not. If that were the case, you wouldn't be whining right now trying to make yourself seem so cool with your circus stunts."
San twisted his mouth frustrated and hung his head low, feeling like a real jackass. Suddenly a detached-sounding feminine voice spoke at his six o'clock.
"Onēsan."
They both looked and saw the visually stoic and undecipherable sandy-furred vixen, Ferro, standing there holding her purse in hand.
Her abrupt interjection nearly startled San, who had completely forgotten she had been tailing not too far behind them the whole time.
"If I may," she politely requested. "I would like to take my leave for the night. My date just arrived." She said, thumbing behind her to a tall gorgeous looking Maned wolf in a pink sweater tank and jeans waving and screaming out the Tibetan's name, "Ferry-saaan! Over here!"
Priscilla grinned and hugged her underling, "Aw, you're still seeing Collette!" She squealed.
The sand fox's muzzle reddened. "We saw each other the other day and decided to try it again. Maybe it'll stick, who knows."
"That's wonderful." The Arctic fox said, rubbing Ferro on the back. "Go ahead. Give her my love, will you?"
"Thank you, Onēsan. I will." The quiet vixen said exerting her best attempts at a smile on the unmolded clay sculpture she called a face, giving Priscilla a curt bow before running over to hug the taller fox-like canine over by the cafe.
"Now where were we?" Pris asked, returning her attention to him.
"Trying to find another game." The llama answered, spirits starting to lift a bit. "How about that game we played briefly where we hurled the little balls into the circle holes over there. That seemed nice and relaxing. Fun."
"More skee-ball?" She looked in that direction and saw a whole crowd of animals around it. "That looks pretty crowded right now."
"Yeah, but you get a lot of tickets, and I, uh, I wanna get you something tonight."
"Get me something?" She inquired, very flattered. "You don't have to get me anything Watāme-kun, you should get yourself something."
"No, no I really want to get you something." He insisted. "The very least I could do, after all you've done, at the least for tonight." Something had caught his eye by the prize counter and he wanted to surprise her with it.
"Suit yourself, but Skee-ball looks like it's out for a while." She said, her predator focus at work as she scanned the concourse for other skill-based games. Her orange eyes landed on a vacant shooting gallery game not too far from them. Deadeye Roundup.
"How about that?" She pointed. "It's a shooting game and you get your precious little tickets."
San pensively stroked his chin, mulling it over for a bit. The incident in the alleyway was still fresh on his mind. He was unsure if he even wanted to touch a gun again… at least so soon.
"Well?" She asked, gently tugging at his arm. The canid's vivid orange eyes began to melt through his uneasiness and warmed him up to the idea. Plus a cursory glimpse of the game looked friendly to him.
"Eh, sure. Why not?"
"You'll love it!" She insisted, dragging him through the mass of animals to a large but old-looking arcade booth with a pixelated CRT screen.
The game's premise from what he could determine was to use one of the tethered bright-colored plastic light guns to hit the target on the screen. The small target would only stay on-screen for a brief period before vanishing. If one scored a hit, the target would light up and a bell-like sound would ding. The highest score would yield a large number of tickets judging from the illustrations of animals holding rope's lengths of red tickets on the booth's panel.
Of course, he let Priscilla go first just to be sure, the somewhat proud vixen swaggered forth with cocky fervor as she took aim and began knocking off the fast-dropping circular targets as soon as they appeared. It was almost simple for the femme fatale.
Just like at the range, the fox was a regular pistoleer as she took out almost all of her targets, almost. To her frustration, the light gun failed to read a lot of her shots.
"Stupid plastic piece of junk!" she cursed, shaking the light gun vigorously. "I fucking made that shot fucking piece of crap!"
Eventually, her round was over and to her utter disgust, she had only made a 60% tally and was only rewarded a measly 25 tickets.
"Cheap, rigged bullshit!" The indignant canid yelped and swore, her restraint slipped considerably as her aggressive carnivore traits betrayed her outwardly ladylike facade as she began yanking at the tether connecting the gun to the cabinet.
"Hey! No need to get mad," The llama stated, trying to suffocate his uncontrollable snickering at her hypocrisy. "I'm sure after a few more months you'll get good at it. Right?"
The irony was not lost on the vixen who could already see the amusement in the llama's face.
"Shut it!" The canid lashed out at him. She forcefully shoved the lightgun hard into the herbivore's soft hands. "This game has always been a broken piece of junk." She said kicking the booth. "Even when we were younger. Uuuggghhh!"
San couldn't contain his laughter anymore, cracking up at the sharp tooth's tantrum. "AHAHAHA! Sucks don't it! Well, now you know how I felt playing Zuu Dueler. And you say you've played this before?"
"Yes! I! Have!" She screamed, stamping the panel even harder. "Raira and I used to play on this all the time and would you believe it's still broken?! GRRRR!" The tense vixen turned her frustration on one of the barstools next, nearly shaking the red cushion loose from its support in her tantrum.
San slowly approached her with hands raised, looking around them. "Alright calm down, Pris-chan. You're the one causing a scene now…" He tried to whisper. "It's just a game."
Once again curious eyes began to land on the two of them, and San was doing his best to remain composed next to his canid companion. As long as he remained calm everything might seem fine.
"A game that's making me look bad…" She growled at the video game.
"I mean you are doing that yourself…" He stated. "Priscilla-chan, just c-calm down." He stifled his chuckle as he patted her on the shoulder with his soft fluff. "They are staring at us."
"Oh, fuck them!" She grumbled, dismissing his concern. A high-pitched growl came from her throat and her fangs clattered together. "They probably know this shit is broken too!"
"Yes, but we don't need to get the police involved." He said, inching in, whispering in her ear.
The vixen swiveled her head around and saw the worried faces looking in their vicinity. "Uh...Shit...right." She said, trying to relax her face. "Right...I'm going to get wrinkles like this."
"I think I'll take my turn now." He said taking up position at the barrier.
"Eh, sure." She slid in another coin and took up a place on the very stool she had been vandalizing moments earlier, the stool creaked as her weight bore down on it.
He assumed a ready stance at hi-ready just like she had shown him and waited for the game to start.
The buzzer sounded and the targets began dropping in rapid succession. Initially jolted by the suddenness, San quickly caught on to the speed by the third target. The cheap plastic lightgun had no recoil, only a simple click whenever he pulled the trigger, allowing him to move it effortlessly to the next target as soon as he saw it.
By the end of the game, he had earned a higher percentage of 85% displaying on the digitized tally screen. A long roll of tickets shot out of the dispenser much to his delight.
His date on the other hand was less than thrilled. She had a jealous frown on her visage, accompanied by a high-pitched bark.
"You're just lucky it decided to work after I kicked the crap out of it." She said, hot-tempered.
"My turn now." She jerked the lightgun free from his hand eager to try again.
Jeez, Kyuu, the camelid thought at her rude abruptness that reminded him too much of his shorter leporid companion.
The fox slipped in another coin, and started viciously pulling the trigger on each target, her pupils contracted and her teeth were bared as she jerked the pistol at the target to ensure the shot registered. It seemed to work as by the end of the round she nearly matched his tally at 80%.
"That's much better." She declared, exhaling rapidly, content with her handiwork before handing him back the pistol and collecting her stream of tickets. "You just got to be rough with it, you know. I'm now remembering Raira showing me back when we were kids."
"So you two used to play this a lot?" He asked, curious.
"Oh all the time," she answered, feeling nostalgic. The game buzzer sounded, and she turned around to chat with him. "We used to come on the weekends whenever we could. See because the patrons at this brothel my aunt owned not far from here and the older girls used to slip us loose change after we cleaned the rooms now and then and we'd just come down here and spend It all away."
"You worked in a brothel as a kid?" He asked, taken aback. "Jeez. I mean my childhood was screwed up, but that's a whole other screwed up."
"Inexpensive labor, my aunt called it. It's honestly not as bad as it sounds, me and Rai were both love children."
San cocked his head at her. "So love children?" His brow raised as he reacted to the connotations invoked by that unfamiliar title, she quickly cut him off at the pass, however.
"And yes, that sounds even more fucked up, but I'll explain." She said pinching her snout. "It was just something they called us accidents, like both our moms were working girls and well sometimes johns get too carried away and then boom nine months later, you'll have a love child. "
"Oh, well...that makes sense."
"I knew what you were thinking with terms like love, child, and brothel. My aunt wasn't that fucked up." She clarified. "Us kids used to live in the basement while our mothers worked upstairs."
"Basements, that's more relatable than you think. Ahaha." He joked. She smiled slightly, before continuing.
"Well, my aunt made sure to send us to school and to keep us busy, she had us clean the rooms and run errands. When we got older we were offered a place in the Inarigumi which by then was more of the organization we are today. Me and Rai'-chan both decided to follow in our mother's footsteps and started as workers and then we moved up. She became a gunner I started taking a more executive role. A little bit of nepotism helped too."
"Nepo-" San, stumbled with the word.
Priscilla just sighed. "My aunt gave me opportunities because we're related."
"Ah, I see. I trust that didn't make you very popular."
"You'd be right. The older girls didn't like it so much because they were skipped over for me, but Raira was there for me. She always had my back. Rai' was one of the few pure kids that didn't pick on me for being a halfbreed when we were younger. I think we really hit it off cuz during the summer we both had dark fur so in practice we could swap fashionable dresses as we could color coordinate better." She laughed, the happiness in her voice started producing warmth in his heart. The more she went on, the less interested he became in the game in front of him.
"It's like we were a pair of boats sailing the sea together. Lashed together for so long, but I guess the ropes that bound us together started to unravel you know?"
"Hey, um...were you two ever...you know? Like us?" He asked, inquisitive.
She looked over at him, smiled then nodded. "Mhmm." Her smile started to fade. "We got real close working under my aunt. But I think that's where it happened. See as my aunt started preparing me to take my mother's role, I think the unraveling started. She started to hang around more of the other girls and I started to dive more into the clan business. Then one day I caught her with a Suitireto girl, that's when I knew it was over."
"Wow."
"I mean, I can't blame her. It was kinda my fault, I didn't have time for her like that anymore and she had needs too, in fact, I didn't even feel that betrayed at the time… because it felt like an opportunity for me to put all my effort into taking on my mother's legacy. We're still friends though and she's more than ready to crack skulls for me whenever I ask, but as I said, we drifted apart."
San began to think of his roommate back at the tower. Were they fated to do the same? They couldn't keep doing the same thing forever.
The two beasts chatted and played for a good while, both having various degrees of success at the gallery before each both had a tumbleweed's worth of tickets between the two of them. They were practically just playing recreationally at this point, the annoying glitches in the system didn't even bother the two any longer.
"So yes, it's all very stressful." She continued while he landed the last target.
The buzzer sounded again, and a short stream of tickets shot out for him to collect. He had done lousy that game, a negligible 30% flashed on the display, truth be told he didn't care anymore. He had plenty of tickets and he was just so wrapped up in her conversation, he was just fascinated by the dichotomy between his life and hers.
"You know I got my gambling parlor, the arena of course you know about that, I got a few of my other holdings, some activities, and then there is the monthly meeting or turf dispute. Boy those can be a pain." She said, shaking her head.
San's ear twitched at the casual mention of the turf disputes. He knew all too well what she meant, those meetings that the black market gangs have every month. Sometimes they were just the gangs coming together and burning their bloody scent to see who held the most influence, others were forceful showings of strength and numbers.
Sometimes tensions got high and actual battles could break out, he and Kyuu recalled witnessing a particularly brutal battle between a low-level jackal gang and the Shishigumi a few years earlier that made the streets an absolute warzone for about a few days.
The fight ended and the jackal leader was left lying dead in the street with his throat torn out, a message to any and all other up-and-comers: that the Kings of Beasts run the north end of the market.
As he glanced over to the brooding vixen, her muzzle resting in the palm of her hand, he had to wonder about the acts of violence she and her kind committed for her faction's cause. Not that he was any better, it's just something that gave him pause.
The fox's eyes pursued him, noticing both his unease and inattentiveness, inching in a bit closer wearing a naughty grin. "Am I distracting you, Watāme-kun?" She slyly asked, bumping into his shoulder.
"Is something wrong?" She asked.
San creased his eyes as he tried to focus, paying her no mind and returning his attention to firing on the targets. "No…" He said, just as the bell for another target hit went off. "Like you said….gun must be busted."
Sounded like a lie, which was just an open invitation for her to prod, a sign of weakness. Her opportunistic carnivore instincts pressed her to go in for the kill while he was vulnerable.
"How about we go have some more fun elsewhere, huh?"
"Yeah, but I'm having fun." He insisted.
"Fun?" She shook her head. "Surely you have more than enough tickets by now right?"
"Yeah, but…" He started to sputter.
"Pfft, come on you're bored I can tell. I can call the girls and we could head down to my Uncle Janco's place and really fling some lead downrange. Put a real gun in your hands." She said, stretching out alongside him with a loud obvious yawn, causing her bountiful bosoms to noticeably shift in her blue silk gown in front of him. She wasn't wearing a bra.
This is going too fast...
"Or even better, we can check into a hotel...fire off another kind of gun." She purred, her hands venturing down to his privates. He could feel the air her brushtail was blowing onto him with her fast-paced wagging. "How does that trouble you?" She asked.
The llama audibly gulped as his heart started to flutter. He was caught firmly in her clutches, but he wasn't sure he even wanted to escape. "Hotel, you say?"
"Oh, I knew you were going to like the sound of that! You horny little virgin." She squealed, scratching her sharp talon under his chin, her other hand gripped and squeezed his nethers and his face became flush. "You know...you aren't the only one who thought to come prepared this time too," she said, pulling a connected three-pack of pink condom wrappers from her handbag.
"Ahaha," the llama nervously chuckled.
She leaned into his face, her alluring orange eyes began to shrink to that of a predator. "So where do you want to go or do you want to just stand here, petrified like prey? Hehehe."
"Hotel," he blurted out. "Hotel sounds nice! Uh, but first I'm going to go get your prize."
"M-my prize?" She said, letting go. "You're still on about that silly reward thing?"
"You'll see," he said, running off towards the prize station. Not long after he left, the llama came around the corner hefting a large item over his shoulder.
"Now, I know it's not exactly like me..." He stated, "...but I think you'll like this." He was holding up a large plush tawny-furred alpaca stuffed animal. "So, you'll have something to remember me by. I hope you like it."
The vixen blushed as she took the stuffed animal in her arms and hugged it tightly. She buried her muzzle deep into the softness. "Aw, he's almost as fluffy as you are! I think you might have some competition now."
"Ahaha. That's why I wanted to play for so long, it took like 350 tickets. The guy had to count them for me just to be sure."
"350? You got any more tickets left?" She asked, looking at her own long roll of tickets.
"Yeah, like... thirty."
"I got an idea too." She said, snatching his ticket leftovers from his hand and running off towards the prize station. What she brought back put a big smile on his face as well.