Music Choices: DA DA DANCE, Pa Pa Ya! and Megitsune By BABYMETAL
Author's Notes: Beware the Rust Bucket Beowolf
Eclipse
Chapter 60
The Hunter's Moon
Part III
At the Rust Bucket, there is a wildly famous assortment of games and entertainment centers to choose from. Ancient retro first person co-op shooters, potentially ill advised carnival games, several games you needed aura to play, and virtual reality headsets several decades old.
The Rust Bucket is actually recognized as an official museum, because the owners were lovingly dedicated to collecting every game that had ever come through Vale or most of the other Kingdoms. Because of this policy of collecting and preserving historical gaming items, the Rust Bucket had games that were legitimately notorious in nature.
Games that your average casual did not, and should not, attempt.
Not just the axe throwing rig or the red Dust based whack-a-Grimm, no. The Rust Bucket had games that were so rare and so infamous? That whenever they were attempted, they instantly drew a crowd; sometimes the whole arcade might come to watch whatever fool or fools were attempting one of the legendary games.
And that night? One such game was attempted.
Most of the Dancing games were considered family friendly.
A few were labeled for ages thirteen and up.
Only one was labeled "A", and it was reserved behind a Hard Light force-field for people who had active aura - and a parent's permission if they were underage.
It was called Dust Dance Insanity.
Like DANCEDANCEDANCE! 1 and 2, it was a rhythm game, based on the gaming rigs originally developed and made popular in Vacuo. Unlike that series, you had to have an active aura to be allowed to use it, otherwise you might actually, literally die. You also had to sign a billion jillion wavers before you were allowed to play, and the monitors were allowed to pull the plug at any point due to safety concerns.
Because unlike those other games? The entire stage was alive with wildly fluctuating Dust crystals, glyphs and weaponry reacting to the music, level difficulty and the motions of the players. That's what the players were dancing on and around, and if they misstepped? Depending on the color of the glyph, they'd get an ugly surprise. Like a gout of fire up the keister, or an electric shock; or a gravity glyph pulling them down to the floor. This was on top of the fact that the stadium also moved and reshaped itself in time to the music, like the Vytal Tournament arena on speed.
Typically, only the most dedicated of the dancing game circuit attempted it, with players coming all the way in from Vacuo, Mistral and even Atlas. It was their Mt. Utuqaq, eternal and towering, inviting only the most fearless, and mad, to climb her.
Due to that prerequisite nature, DDI often drew curious Hunters and those in training; but to be frank, they often didn't do well at it, good reflexes or no. They always underestimated how hard it was and often got wiped out in the first few rounds.
The reigning champ for the last year or so had been a little girl named Lisa. Most people had learned not to challenge Lisa at Dust Dance Insanity; few seemed capable of beating her high score, and none had succeeded in holding onto the title before she took it back.
The lights flickered in the arcade as DDI's rig was powered up, though none of the other games lost power. This was the universal signal that shit was about to get serious, and half of the regulars paused; if they weren't engaged in something super critical themselves, then they began to move towards the miniature stadium where DDI was housed.
"Yoooo, is Lisa here?" one person asked their significantly taller friend, a beanpole of a girl who could see over most of the crowds. She squinted, trying to spot the infamous llama ears near the waiting area. The girl shook her head sadly.
"Not in the queue. Just this Signal looking reject - wait, no. I recognize that guy," Beanpole nodded slowly, pulling out some chapstick from her chest pocket. "He's got the high-scores on Grimm Attack and Pulse Anthem."
"Psh, Grimm Attack?" the shorter one muttered disdainfully. "Oh my Dust. Beacon kids are soooo predictable. Ooooh, I wanna be a Hunter! I can totally handle a stupid dancing game! Bet he lasts like five seconds."
Beanpole applied the chapstick thoughtfully, still eying the que before popping her lips loudly.
"It's gonna be co-op," she grinned, looking down at her friend. They tugged at their yellow hoodie strings incredulously as they looked up at her, their dreads tossing with the dramatic motion.
"Noooo?"
"Yea. Pink sparkle girl. Seen her too, she can actually get it at Minefestation though. She and this other chick were working it earlier-"
The shorter friend moaned aloud, still unimpressed.
"Those are all first person shooters! Not the same skill-set at alllll!"
Beanpole shrugged lankily.
"Nope. Beacon-heads gonna Beacon, ya know?" she sighed, putting away her chapstick.
"I'll say."
The crowd continued to mutter and gossip with various levels of intrigue, while the two potential dancers stretched in the holding bay. While many were skeptical, the pair seemed to be taking it seriously at least, which was a good sign.
Security guards and emergency response healers took up their places around the stadium, in the event something went wrong or someone tried to mess with the dancers. Which was a super big no-no. People who got caught trying to use their Semblances on players were banned for life, from every arcade and gaming establishment in Vale; as well as potentially prosecuted for attempted murder, which was a big deal too, but not as emotionally devastating.
That and the security team all had their own Semblances, handpicked for spotting cheaters or people trying to mess with players participating in dangerous games; most of them also worked security for the Vytal Festival whenever it came to town, and every other serious tournament that came to Vale.
You really didn't want to piss them off.
"PLAYERS! TAKE YOUR POSITIONS!"
The two friends leaned in as the Hard-Light field fluctuated, and the challengers strode out onto the arena floor. Colorful trails of light followed their feet, and once the barrier resealed, pulsing lights began to fluctuate and skitter around the entire arena. DDI's selection screen hovered over their heads, and after a moment of consideration, the players selected their songs and difficulty level.
"CO-OP SELECTED! LEVEL 9!"
"Are they serious?" the short one asked aloud, gaping a little. The rest of the crowd was jeering and muttering at this. "They're, like, totally gonna die."
"The monitors won't let em die, Val," Beanpole waved. "Probably."
"Yeaaa okaaay," Val drew out skeptically. They weren't the only skeptic; most of the regulars were already taking bets over whose aura would redline first, and who would require hospitalization.
Because the challengers to Lisa's throne had selected the hardest level, and the hardest three songs on the roster. The technical skill, dexterity and overall insanity required to complete those songs without getting totally pulverized by the game wasn't something you just lucked into; it took lots of training and no small amount of talent.
There were currently two professional players in the world that could pull off a perfect score and come out unscathed. Lisa was one, and even she really struggled with it; and that was for single players, which was a totally different animal from co-op.
In fact, in the total history of DDI in Vale, there was only one co-op team who had scored perfectly on the hardest levels, and they had held their spot at the top for the past twenty years. Their names still appeared at the top of the leaderboard, like a permanent feature; there were people who had grown up coming to the Rust Bucket who had originally thought they were the creators of the game, and not just players who had achieved the impossible.
The game would wish the players some variation of 'good game' at the start and end of co-op sessions in their names; the pair were actually considered infamous amongst the older generations and especially the faunus gaming community.
"FEN AND KERIDWEN ROSE WISH YOU 'GOOD LUCK ' !"
An animation tossed up a peace sign before the timer appeared, flashing wildly colored numbers over the heads of the players. The crowd started counting down with it.
"READY? LET'S GO!"
Then the music started.
And the players exploded into rapid motion.
The arena floor was already moving, and Dust glyphs gyrating and orbiting the players menacingly as they moved in concert, following their individual routine; overhead, their steps were illuminated in wildfire light and speed, a barrage of arrows that were genuinely hard to follow along with. The first song wasn't even the fastest in the lineup, and was frankly their warmup.
"Woa, hey, they're not bad," Beanpole observed, watching
"I...yeaaaa? They're keeping up at least?" Val admitted, their tone caught between grudging respect and surprise. "Deff not getting smeared."
Pink sparkle girl and orange suspenders guy were not messing around apparently. So far, between the two of them, they'd only miss-stepped twice, and avoided the firebolts that shot skywards to explode against the Hard-Light barrier above them.
The glyphs suddenly spun an ice blue across the barrier overhead and began raining ice spears down on top of them; if either player missed a step here, they would get a glacial spike to the head. Snow and ice shards exploded across the arena, reflecting and distorting the wild, rainbow madness through the air. The crowd whooped encouragingly as neither the guy or girl misstepped.
Happy animations projected across the barrier.
"NICE MOVES!"
The pair didn't get a break though, as the arena started to move once again, tiles raising up individually like pillars; it had shifted into a light up obstacle course that they would have to dance across.
Pink Sparkles went right, and Orange Suspenders went left - weaving, jumping, ducking; Dust glyphs activated all around them, glowing amber. Bolts of electricity chased after them in time to the beat. Neither stumbled, though Orange Suspenders' aura lit up a few times, deflecting electric bolts; it was clear that he wasn't as fast as his co-player, but he was keeping up with her.
The obstacle dance course glittered and shook as the players successfully completed a portion of the first song. Suddenly, blades made of Red Dust blurred out of the floor and swung out from the standing pillars in frantic rhythm with the beat. The pair scooted together, locked palms and started to dance in concert, following the directions on screen as they dodged razor sharp, cauterizing death from every angle.
The crowd lost their collective shit.
"WOW! INSANE!"
The players danced in tandem, both of them grinning wildly the entire time; in that moment they looked less like a couple of dorky Hunters in training and more like crazed elemental demons, dancing recklessly across the bridge between life and death. It was obvious they were having a blast, and the crowd fed on their energy, chanting along with the song encouragingly.
The Red Dust blades hummed out of the floor like buzz saws, cutting along violent lines of motion, outlining where the pair had to dance and creating bright patterns across the flashing dance-floor. Pink-Sparkles took a half second too long with a pivot and took a blade to the back of her thigh, slashing across her aura; she took it like a champ though and the force didn't trip her up as she and her dance partner pushed to complete the last portions of the first song.
They weren't going for perfect, but at this rate they might still score the highest any co-op team had on Level 9 in two decades. It was a historic moment, and it was happening on a school night; everyone there was going to have total bragging rights with their friends.
"Noooo wayyyyy," Val was grinning, unable to help themselves. "Anais, tell me you're getting this?"
'Beanpole', or Anais, nodded, having been filming on her scroll the entire time, as had half the crowd.
Overhead, the ice spires returned, along with the spinning blades and gouts of fire. The pair spun and dodged together, taking minimal damage. Anais, for whatever reason, glanced down at where one of the security-bros was standing; and then redirected her scroll's camera to him.
The guy was shaking, his hands over his ears, as if he was trying to tune out the cacophony of noise around him; but his eyes were wild with confusion and fear. Fascinated, Anais zoomed in. The security-bro suddenly stiffened, pivoted, and began shoving his way through the crowd, beelining for the safety monitor's station.
As the same time this was going down, a dark shape was approaching several other security people clustered by the barrier. Anais recognized her after a moment, as the other girl who had been dominating Minefestation with Pink that night. Eyeliner looked even more serious than she typically did, which was saying a lot. The goth started talking quickly with the security, pointing over towards the monitor station where the freaked out guy was heading.
The security bros looked skeptical at first, before one of them frowned, cocking her head as if listening to something. Then she took off towards the monitor station, speaking rapidly into her headset as she moved.
"Shit's getting serious," Anais observed, filming as much as she could. Considering she was taller than everyone around her, she had a perfect angle to film.
"Yooo, I'll sayyy. This next song is gonna be sooo serious-"
"No, I think someone's trying to screw with them? I think someone's using their Semblance on security, for real."
"Noooo, let me see!" Val pleaded up at her. "Please, I'm so tiny! I never get to see anything cool!"
Anais rolled her yes, before giving her friend a boost up on her shoulders. Val scanned with crowd with her as she pointed out the guy moving in on the monitors.
"He was shaking and freaking a second ago, it looked like Semblance tampering," Anais continued, before pointing out Eyeliner and the other people responding. "And she's Pink's friend from Minefestation. I think she's looking out for her because she ran up to security with a quickness."
Val stared, their purple eyes wide as they watched the security-bro reach the monitor station, use his card to get inside; and then sucker-punch the safety guy right in the back of the head, knocking him out cold in an instant.
"Yooooo! No waaaayyy!" Val shouted, drawing attention to the scene.
Some of the crowd next to the monitoring station watch this play out as well, and the energy in the room started to swing from jubilation towards fear; the rogue security-bro started messing with the controls, apparently trying to sabotage the dancers - or being ordered to sabotage the dancers by an unknown source.
As the calvary charged into the monitoring station, and began to physically wrestle their possessed comrade to the ground, Eyeliner was working with the rest of the security team to try to flush out the saboteur. However, before they could pinpoint their location, things escalated.
The first saboteur stopped fighting to free himself, and another person on the security team flailed wildly, before he transformed into a veritable goliath with quartz-like skin; he spun back towards the Hard-light barrier, and blitzed the shimmering wall with furious, spiked punches.
He tore through the barrier like tissue paper, shattering it as he jumped onto the spinning death floor heedlessly. Blades and glyphs bombarded his crystalline form, scraping sparks off his limbs and screeching up a storm as they tried to carve through him, his aura remaining listless; at least until the emergency cut-off for the game was triggered. Then, he launched himself at the players, like a razor sharp marionette.
People in the audience started to shout and run for cover, those with aura and Semblances engaging abilities to protect their friends and family from debris and danger, or to get clear of the fight about to break out. Val didn't have active aura, and Anais didn't know her Semblance. Staying near a free for all Semblance brawl, especially one potentially involving Hunters, would be dangerous and likely have lots of collateral damage.
"We should get out of here, Val-" Anais started, turning towards the staircase down from the stands.
"What, no waaay! Ana, for real, listen," Val ducked down to stare into her face, still riding on her shoulders. "We have to film this."
Anais's copper eyes widened, her afro trembling as she shook her head no.
"No? Actually, we really don't?" she insisted, staring at the fight below.
The security guy was apologizing loudly as he swung at the players, who were staying out of his grasp currently; suddenly he was ripping chunks out of the dance floor, and throwing fistfuls of it at the pair. The chunks were sparking, often full of Dust, and some of them were exploding on impact.
"Ok! You get somewhere safe! But I gotta see this! I'm sorry!" Val apologized, hopping down from her shoulders and running towards the explosions, their scroll raised as high as they could.
"Wha- VAL!? DUDE, GET BACK HERE!" Anais shouted after them, eyes wide.
Anais, well aware that she did not have a Semblance and very little aura training, knew that if she chased after her goofball friend, there was a good chance she would get hurt; however, after a second's hesitation, she followed, still filming.
Below her, the stage had turned into the wildest brawl she'd ever seen. Pink, Orange and now Eyeliner were working with the rest of the security team to try to subdue Rock-Candyman, who was making a huge mess of the arena and surrounding stadium, as he was forced to try to squish the Hunters in training and blow up portions of the barricade. Considering none of the Hunters actually had their weapons, and could not summon their infamous lockers this far underground, he was definitely keeping them on their toes.
Next to her, Val had climbed up into the gap of the shattered barrier, holding their scroll up as high as they could as they filmed the fight. It was getting pretty ugly, as Rock-Candy was practically invulnerable in this form and no one actually wanted to hurt him to begin with, as he was not in control of himself; he kept shouting apologies, especially whenever he clobbered one of his buddies, most of the other security bros having joined the Hunters on the wrecked dance floor.
Suddenly, a noise behind her caught her attention, and Anais turned. A big guy with a shaved head, who looked like yet another Beacon dweeb if that outfit was anything to go off of, had his hand locked onto someone's shoulder; a middle aged guy who looked like he worked there as a janitor or something. Big guy's hand was coated in aura at the moment, and looked like it was siphoning aura off of Janitor as well, whose rust red eyes were livid with anger that chilled Anais to her stomach.
They made eye contact. Janitor's eyes flicked to her hands and saw that she was filming him.
"Uh oh," Anais muttered to herself, taking a step back.
Janitor suddenly whipped around and sank his very sharp teeth into Baldy's hand, actually getting past the aura reflex and breaking skin, while pulling some kind of twisting maneuver that allowed him to break out of the bigger guy's grapple; before sprinting full tilt towards her.
"Shit," she cursed, realizing her back was to the barrier. There was nowhere to go, and then he was right there while Bald guy shouted a warning, chasing after him.
Janitor shoved her viciously into the barrier, snatched the phone from her hand, and then knocked her over into her friend; who promptly lost balance and fell into the chaotic arena.
"WOA-," Val yelped in shock, before they smacked the floor.
"VAL!" Anais called again, her heart still thundering in her chest as she pushed herself back up on her feet.
"Hold on, I got em!" Baldy yelled, rushing past and jumping into the chaotic arena.
Chunks of floor were still flinging this way and that, being knocked out of the air by the security team and Eyebrows, who had gotten her hands on one of the security guys Dust rifles, and Pink, whose Semblance apparently let her make a bunch of clones; said clones were whooping and cackling eagerly as they kicked and redirected the debris back at Rock-candy with wild, cheerful abandon.
Anais peaked over the ledge, trying to catch sight of her friend without getting her clock cleaned by debris or a wild shot; when suddenly, Val's very surprised face was practically being shoved into her arms. She grabbed onto them automatically, and the pair flopped over onto the floor behind the active barrier.
"AH!" "Woa!"
"Sorry about that! You should get out of here, it's not safe!" Baldy called from the trashed dance floor, already running towards the others. "Sigyn, Natty, push him this way! Rein, quick fucking around and do it already!"
"ON IT, BOSSMAN!" "Moving!" "I'MREALLYSORRY-" "Working on it!"
Anais, taking that as her cue, picked her friend up piggy back style and headed for the closest exit, her steeplechase training from junior year kicking in as she jumped and dodged around obstacles she could hear shouting from emergency responders and random people, extremely faint sirens overhead and explosions from the Dust riddled debris.
"Wait, Ana, wait!" Val pled, trying to look behind them.
"NO! We are leaving! Your parents are gonna kill you - and me with you - if they find out about this!" Anais replied, hurrying. "And you owe me a new scroll, you jerk!"
"Whaaat, what happened to it?"
"The freaky-ass janitor-guy stole it!"
"The who?!" Val called over the ruckus.
And then? The overhead lights went out; and everyone who was left in the Rust Bucket started screaming.
"Shit!" Anais cursed, halting in the dark. She couldn't see a thing, and people were definitely panicking all around her. Because the lights in the ESC? Do not go out. Ever. Or they weren't supposed to anyways.
Her heart was in her throat, and she hadn't been this scared in a long, long time. If ever.
Then? She heard a noise nearby, a few feet to her left. It sounded like a growl. Not noise from a game or a speaker, or even a person; it was like an animal, low to the ground, and it made her blood freeze and her stomach drop below her knees.
A sharp instinct screamed to life in the back of her mind, electrifying her entire body with dreadful awareness; a sensation she'd never truly encountered before in her seventeen years living safely behind the walls of a Kingdom.
Her eyes were starting to adjust, and Anais could see the black silhouettes of games and a few emergency lights in the distance. But to her left?
Two glowing eyes. A visible shadow that was neither human nor faunus, blacker than the pitch surrounding it, immense and hairy; it's form was all wrong, hunched like it was on all fours, but it's torso was pushed upwards like it wanted to stand up on two legs.
GRIMM! RUN!
"Holy shit, is that a Beowolf?!" Val exclaimed in shock, and that phrase instantly triggered her flight response.
Anais was off like a shot, dodging around the equipment, flying over the carpet with her high tops.
Behind her she could hear the beast snarl, but she wasn't about to look back to see if it was giving chase.
Then, just as suddenly as they'd cut out, the lights kicked back on. Val turned to look back behind them. The shadow was gone, as if it had never been there at all and it had been a trick of their collective fear; and so too, were the four Hunters. They'd disappeared into the dark, much to the confusion of the besieged and bewildered security guys, whose friend was lying drained on the dance floor, as if he had just flat run out of aura and passed out.
Most witnesses would never get a good answer as to what exactly the hell happened that night. Mainly since nearly all scroll footage of the event seemed to mysteriously disappear for anyone who used the ESC's wireless services; and the police seemed particularly uninterested in investigating properly, writing the whole thing off as a "Beacon problem" since no one was severely hurt and they were busy enough that night.
However, the infamy of that night at the Rust Bucket would carry on for a very long time, eye witness accounts feeding the rumors that would twist, eventually, into legend. Years from now, people would claim that the Rust Bucket was haunted by a ghostly Beowolf; one that might possess you or your friends and make you do terrible, murderous things. Especially if you tried to play DDI in co-op and unseat the eternal reigning champs.