Lincoln tapped his foot on the ground as he stared at the large building for children like himself.
"Time to try this world's arcade I guess. One of them at least," he said, stepping inside.
Only waiting in a small line for a minute, he paid for a card with a decent amount of credits from the people at the front and continued onto the next area where all of the machines sat. In this arcade, there were three floors filled with games to play. An arcade like this would be something he could only have dreamed of going to on Earth. It was noisy, kids running around all over the place playing on the colorful machines, like any normal one would, with their parents around as well.
As he tried and played many games, something started to occur to him. Even with his heightened senses being dulled down, they were good enough that he was still doing very well in many skilled-based games, like the shooting ones.
He wouldn't lose. Usually, he got bored and moved on to the next free arcade machine, which he would play until he got bored again. The most fun games were the puzzles, where he got the most enjoyment that day, racking his brain to find the solution and beat the level. The games he lost the most in? The luck-based games.
He even came across a boxing arcade machine, and he was sure that if he tried it out, he'd break it. Something he didn't want to do and ruin the fun for others, so he ignored it, as well as the other few physical machines.
The hoops game was fun, but he was also good at that, and the racing games were always his least favorite since he was sure they were rigged, so you always lost. Either the computer players were cheating, or he sucked. Either way, it was still his least favorite.
Then he came across it.
It was almost exactly like the machine back in Royal Woods, the Dance Battle machine, a set of two made by a company in Japan. Unlike on Earth, this one was made by Evan Medy's company, and he wondered how much work the man put into it, if at all. Knowing his dance moves personally, maybe he did work on it himself.
Two kids were playing on it at the moment, a boy and a girl. He waited patiently, and a few minutes went by until they gave up playing.
He went up to the machine, tracing a finger across it like it was a brand-new car. He looked down over the four buttons where your feet were supposed to land. He remembered fondly how much he used to enjoy this.
He scanned his card and chose the highest difficulty song. Just then, someone else scanned their card to his right, stopping the song from playing for a moment.
It was another kid around his age, a light-skinned girl with a brown ponytail. She looked at him with bored eyes through her square glasses, her hands in her navy-blue jacket pockets.
"Let's go." She said simply.
The song started, and the game began. Both of them hit the right directions on the floor. It was slow at first, but it started to pick up speed.
The two of them had no trouble at the beginning. Lincoln started to realize why he used to enjoy this game so much. It was exhilarating.
He noticed something in the corner of his eye. The girl's feet were glowing pink, drawing lines below as they moved to step in directions. He looked back to the screen to not mess up. He knew she was using energy.
By the time the song was at the last quarter, a small crowd of kids had gathered behind them, cheering them on.
Lincoln wondered how the girl was holding up because he felt fine. The notes didn't seem to catch up to him soon, which saddened him a little. It wasn't as challenging as it was before. But that didn't take away from the fun.
Both of them had perfect scores, but not for much longer, as when the music sped up one final time, the girl messed up a few notes and lost some points. Lincoln heard some "ooo"s behind them. It was either to remind her of the mistake or because they simply felt bad for her—typical kid stuff.
Soon the song ended, and Lincoln had a perfect score, though he wasn't as thrilled as he thought. Still, it was fun nonetheless.
The girl stared at their scores for a moment before saying, "You're good." Taking one hand out of her pocket, she offered it to him. "Mandie."
"Lincoln." He said, taking her hand and shaking it. They heard some claps behind them and turned to the crowd of kids, smiling at each other shortly after.
"Never seen you around here before. You have a dance machine like this where you're from?" Mandie asked.
"I do." Lincoln sighed. "It was my favorite."
Suddenly, a gush of laughter came from somewhere. It sounded like another girl.
Towering over the two of them, the dark-skinned girl wore a red jacket and jeans with long black hair.
"The Queen of Dance Fight losing? This is a dream come true," she said with a dirty smirk.
"Who's that?" Lincoln asked.
Mandie grit her teeth. She didn't seem to hear the question from the boy. "Say it to my face, Amanda!"
Amanda frowned and grabbed her by the collar of her jacket with one hand, "Nice work losing to some random kid, loser!"
Lincoln grabbed her wrist tight, making her loosen her grip on Mandie. Amanda looked at him in shock.
Lincoln frowned at her. "If you want to change this into a physical fight—" he said, his frown slowly turning into a smirk filled with pride. "—I have no problems with that."
She yanked her wrist away from him and rubbed it. Scoffing, she walked off. He must've squeezed hard enough to make her realize he was something out of her league. That, or she thought he was crazy.
The other kids looked at Lincoln in awe, though some looked a little frightened. They couldn't believe he had blown off Amanda like that.
"Uh..." Mandie said, rubbing her collar and clearing her throat. "Thank you."
"No problem." Lincoln said, staring at Amanda as she walked away. "Bullies can be the worst. I was there once." He looked her way and gave her a friendly smile. "Let's play again some time."
Mandie smiled back and said, "I'm looking forward to it."